General recap of the last while.

Ugh, It's been months since my last blog post so this one maybe a bit long and disorganised.

I was on Linux Mint 13 Mate for quite a few months and so would have no complaints over the stability or functionality. It's quite snappy and responsive in it's Mate guise, I've talked about it at length either here or on itchyhippo.com so I won't go into much details about that now.

By the way, as a little aside, I've not heard sight nor sound from Andrew from Itchyhippo in months (could be part of the reason why I haven't posted here much, as I've not really thought about writing for either, it just hasn't occurred to me much). To those who wonder if I know him in real life or if we've met, well sorry to disappoint but it's a no on both counts. I was one of his subscribers on youtube because I thought it was refreshing to hear an Irish voice doing tech tutorials and linux distro reviews, and when he asked did anyone want to write for his site I applied, directed him towards here to give him an idea of my writing style and luckily enough was accepted. He's a nice down to earth bloke but I've not met him, no, haha.

Anyway back to what semblance of a track I have laid out for this blog post, ah yes! Linux Mint! well I must confess that I am back to Windows 7, not because of a specific programme that I have to use (though I may have to do that when I go back to college, did I mention that in the past? well if I didn't I've applied to DIT to do a 4 year course in Computer Science and I've been accepted), no it was in part inertia and other parts trying unsuccessfully to flash a new rom to my newly acquired Galaxy s2.

What else have I been up to? well as you know I've been kind of dabbling in photography on and off this past while and I thought I'd put a bit more structure around the pursuit. So I had a look at meetup.com to see if there are any regular photo meetups in Dublin. Turns out there are a few, so I settled on one called "Dublin photo walk" and the results of my first meetup with them I posted here a few weeks ago for your viewing pleasure.

A few nights ago I saw the new American Pie movie and although I'm nowhere near the age of the characters portrayed in said film, it kinna made me feel sentimental about my youth and also made me think about a few of the girls who I probably could/should have dated but due to my deftness in matters of the heart at the time being similar to a camel in ice skates, I messed up more then one chance with them. I'd love to meet up over lunch with a couple of the more special ones sometime and maybe assure them that I'm not the dick they probably think I am (or more accurately am no longer, I hope) even if they're seeing someone and we depart as friends I'd at least like to chat with them and catch up. It also made me think when our reunion would be. Let me think, we're class of '05 and the first one would maybe be the 10 year? that would place it at 2015, barely 3 years away! Bloody hell does that make me feel old! It'd be nice to catch a few beers with some of the lads (though I've not really lost touch with some of them), and also the girls! not just the one's who I wouldn't considered dating back then but also just in general to see where they are in their life. I know some have married and had kids (boy does that really make me feel old).

Until next time (whenever that may be) I bid you adieu.

Dublin Photo Walk 22/06/2012

Bless me father for I have sinned, It's been a month since my last blog post

So what have I been up to? surprisingly not a lot hence the lack of posts. I'm on the dole so no interesting anecdotes from a daily grind of a job. The odd social weekly meetup with friends and the semi- regular skeptics/atheist's in the pub has permeated the dullness of being at home a lot and not spending much. I got away with the 401 being in my account last month (just about). That was cutting it very fine.

My birthday was a few days ago on Saturday. I turned 26 and I don't really feel that age. I don't know if it part of me is afraid I'll lose the childhood freedoms of going on a weekly bender with friends, but then again I can't really afford to and even if I did only one of my friends seems to be going out every week! and he's a few months older then me! On the birthday note my Mom has re-engaged her continued battle to get me to take up driving lessons by offering to make a "contribution" towards lessons which I think is her way of saying she'll pay for them as I she know's I'm in no position to pay for them myself, she also provided the very tempting alternative of money to spend as I wish. I'm not opposed to the idea of driving, I like cars. I like watching car related tv shows like Top Gear, Fifth Gear and Drive on you tube but at this moment in life with me possibly facing 4 more years in 3rd level doing Computer Science in September I'm thinking I'd rather have the money and save for a laptop with portability and a decent battery life. My current 2-3 year old one is fine on specs (core i5, 4gb ram) and especially as I'm currently running Linux on it, but at 15.6" it's a tad big for lugging to and from college and the battery life is terrible (2-3 hours when new and now I'm lucky to get an hour). So I'm faced with getting lessons now that I mightn't really use for the next for years as I certainly can't see myself being able to afford fees and the purchase and upkeep up of a car (even a 10 year old, solid as a rock, honda civic). So for me a new laptop would be a better investment. I am going into IT after all and it would be used for the course project work.

Bit of an update in general

Ok in my last post (a few weeks ago at this stage) I said I was liking 12.04 in general but didn't really have the best of luck with the AMD graphics drivers, well I remember trying out Xubuntu (ubuntu with XFCE interface) a few years ago and ended up liking the lightweight nature of it alot. It's a more light weight UI and running environment then the likes of Unity and Gnome 3 but since it's still ubuntu 12.04 it gets all the updates that the Ubuntu team release. I must say I like that I can install all the same programmes that I would normally but the desktop environment never really gets in the way with effects and eye candy. Don't get me wrong the eye candy has it's appeal (I have eyes that can be candied :P) but I've found out that I like responsiveness and multitasking more. Sure there's the argument that my specs (core i5, 4gb ram) are overkill for Xubuntu and other lightweight distros, but it just means it's all the more responsive.

As for my adventures with LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) well I did indeed install it in virtual box, and although I am quite taken by the nostalgia trip that is Mate and the retro/modern Cinnamon and was sorely tempted to switch over and may still yet (so sue me, I do this sometimes before I settle) but the idea of reinstalling all my apps, themes, music etc is holding me back and as I've said I'm quite happy with xubuntu for the time being at least. Mate has finally matured to be 90% of what I remember gnome 2 to be (not bad for a 1.2 release) and Cinnamon is quite compelling also.

As for my long leave of absence well my parents left me to my own devices for two weeks and between social nights in Dublin city (of which there were at least 3 if not 4) and being lazy and ordering pizza a few too many times then I should have I ended up just about getting away with it. I've a few accounts and 400 is supposed to go into a savings account on the same day every month (it's automatic there's no flex in it) and anyway I've about 401 in my current account now and won't get more till Tuesday (yep that's how fine I've cut it). I can "borrow" 50 from that savings account till Tuesday to tide me over the weekend. It was a close call but it looks like I might get away with it. Well my parents don't check my account balances, as long as I have an X amount of savings by September (college fees) I should be ok and between my two savings accounts I'll be on track as long as that 400 a month never gets interrupted.

My OS transitions at the moment, Why I am a serial Distro hopper.

Ok I was back on Windows 7 for about a month. I don't hate Windows 7 and am not bashing it, I totally see it's uses and it's appeal but It also has it's bad points just like any OS (the anti virus prompts for one though I recommend Avast free). But anyway 12.04 beta 1 caught my eye and I thought I'd take the plunge and wipe/install. I've been using it for a while now and first impressions were I liked the core but it was rough around the edges (beta so I'm forgiving of that). Updates seem to be coming in every other day, these include major kernel updates (3.0 to 3.2) and an update to beta 2. Stability fine, it seems to have settled down and the updates helped a lot. It's very quick and snappy and is quite an improvement from what I remember of 11.10, the final build will be quite a release if these betas are anything to go by.

The AMD GPU drivers on the other hand have been hit or miss and mostly miss. I have got artifacts and a few glitches, so I tried to install the latest drivers off their website and after a few system updates and a reboot (over a few days) it switched to unity 2D and there was nothing I seemed to do that worked. The worst was booting to a white screen when I tried to uninstall and transition to the default drivers. Luckily I still had the dvd with the iso image on it so I wiped and re-installed and this time ignored the extra drivers and went with the out if the box x.org drivers. This seemed to be fine for a while (a week or so) but today after updates this too has reverted to unity 2D without warning (again after a reboot). Now don't get me wrong unity 2D is perfectly usable and functional but I can't help feeling that if my laptop can handle the extras (which it does easily) then I should be getting them.

Anyway, today while on reddit I saw that Linux Mint Debian Edition has just been released with update 4 and I thought I'd torrent the iso (this is legal they provide the links on their site) and check it out. This introduces Cinnamon 1.4, Mate 1.2 and a whole rake of other changes. Now I have used Cinnamon in the past on Mint 12 (by installing it manually) and liked it a lot. I like the idea of a rolling release like LMDE but will prob get itchy feet after a while and switch up when either 12.04 final comes out or Mint 13. I have in the past preferred the Ubuntu based Mint distros rather then the straight Debian editions but we shall see with this release. I'll have a poke around with it in Virtual Box but am unsure as of yet if I will replace 12.04 with it.

I will post an update on my thoughts soon and am considering doing an ItchyHippo review on LMDE update 4 (though this isn't written in stone and would prob take longer). I am downloading both the Gnome and XFCE 64bit versions at the moment and will share my thoughts on both and which one I prefer.

Photos of Malahide Marina in the sun

It's been an interesting week

Well, it's been an interesting week. Uncles came up for the Ireland vs Scotland rugby match on Saturday. A ticket I was told was set aside for me and my dad I was told on the Thursday before. But then another uncle put his name in the pot and of course I had to voluntarily give up my ticket so the brothers could have a night of it. We were in the pub before they got the Dart to Lansdowne Road and it was suggested that I'd walk home and watch the match there. I didn't of course, I stayed in the pub to watch the welsh and then the Irish match and then they came back and found me propped up against the bar chatting to the bar men. They then stayed for a few more, as though I was bad I wasn't as bad as I should've been after the amount of pints I had (I'm guessing 8-9 at this stage). I'd say it was well over 10 if not 15 by the time be were ready for the chipper and the walk home! As you can well imagine the following morning/afternoon was fun! I had awoken a few times with trips to the loo and desperate cotton mouth during the night. Anyways, they all departed bar one that day (following the match) and we went out with the remaining uncle to dine out on the Sunday night.


During the week was pretty uneventful but I had applied to write tech related articles for Itchyhippo.com. It's not paid (nor would I expect it to be as the guy is maintaining it when he gets a spare moment with study and work). But I was rattling a few ideas as to what to write for my first post over the weekend and during the week. I eventually did settle on a few things and wrote the bones of it on Wednesday. Thurday I did the proof reading a refinements with sentence structure, grammar, spelling etc. (something I don't always do here haha) and today it's up for the world to see!


Last night I went to an Atheists in the Pub meeting to which I'm a semi-regular visitor (depending on money and the timing). Which was good to catch up with a few of the regulars and mouth off at the catholic conservatives who appeared on the RTE's Frontline along with Michael Nugent (Chairperson) and Jane Donnelly (Education Officer) of Atheist Ireland. Both were at the social gathering and laughs were had all 'round. I'm also a Semi regular attendee at the Dublin Skeptics in the Pub and their other social events and organised meetings/lectures as well as a listener to their podcast the skeprecauns (as you can tell if you've read my past blog posts). I find it good to have these brief sojourns outside my usual social circles as it's not only expanding my social circle but it means I can discuss subject that I mightn't if I was amongst some of my friends as I don't always know their comfort level with all subjects of conversation.