mike the mountain

One of the pleasures of a fresh new computer (or hard drive at least) is the blank slate, just waiting to be filled with your own personal mix of “colourful” applications.

As I said previously, I managed to melt the HD of my work laptop, so I got a brand new drive, fully loaded with the standard corporate suite (and explicit instructions to not install ANYTHING else…). So of course the first thing I do is go out and get the real apps that any true digital warrior needs to be productive.

Yes I realize that this post is most likely grounds for termination (if it were true), but hey, do I really want to work in a job without any flexibility for technological diversions? Besides, I end up using most of these to honestly help me with my job, just in ways that are a little outside the box.

Obviously being a corporate computer in a very restrictive corporate environment, there are many limitations to what I can actually use (almost nothing that needs to access the internet other than a browser… no P2P, no chatting (except Skype for some reason), no widgets or gadgets that need to be connected online).

Anyway, after doing the standard updating of drivers, patches, and updates, here’s the list of programs I grabbed, along with whatever options/extensions/add ons:

• Azureus
• Foxit Reader
• GIMP
• Google Desktop
• Google Earth
• iTunes
• jEdit
• Picasa
• Skype
• VLC
• WinDirStat
• Firefox
  • Adblock Plus
  • BugMeNot
  • Download Statusbar
  • Fasterfox
  • FlashGot
  • Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
  • FoxyTunes
  • GButts
  • Greasemonkey
  • IE Tab
  • PDF Download
  • Tab Mix Plus
  • Tiny Menu
• Powertoys
  • Alt-Tab Replacement
  • HTML Slide Show Wizard
  • Image Resizer
  • Open Command Window Here
  • Power Calculator
  • TweakUI
  • Virtual Desktop Manager

None of these cost a dime… it’s a great world isn’t it? So what’s on your list?

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I’m exhausted.

Been a crazy couple weeks. Back-to-back out of town conferences, then coming home to a completely b0rked work laptop. Total mess, couldn’t even get past the “do you want to boot into Safe Mode” screen. Not so much a work concern, I was sure they could replace the stock system fairly quickly, it was more recovering my files that I was anxious about. Nothing too incriminating, just a lot of project work that I didn’t want to redo.

Fortunately, I had purchased a monster backup drive a couple months ago, and did a complete back up of my docs, e-mails, bookmarks, etc.. Still, don’t want to lose those last few months worth of work. You know, this is the perfect time to give my old buddy Tux a try…

Linux. Ubuntu, specifically. Love it.

Burned a Live CD off my Mac, crossed my fingers and gave it a shot. Loaded up like magic. Looks pretty slick too! Pretty intuitive layout, no big surprises. Had to look up some command-line 101 to figure out how to mount my NTFS drives, and was a tad dismayed to find I could only access them on a read-only basis. I had hoped to delete a few of my personal docs before sending the computer off to the techies, but no luck (remember, I was running it off the CD, so I couldn’t install any additional drivers or other software).

So be it, my external drive was detected automatically, so I was able to copy everything over that I wanted to keep. And, since our tech support took it’s sweet-arse time getting to me, I had a few days to play around with Ubuntu. I’m impressed. I think I may even give it a dual-boot shot on my mac, since poor Susie’s been really acting her age lately (might be time for a full wipe-reinstall… yes it still does happen on Apples, once in a while).

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