I swear sometimes my favourite part of having a website is looking at all the keywords people use to get here from search engines. Here’s a list of the most recent as typed into either google.com or yahoo.com, linked to the page they pointed to in the search results.

1. all going to laugh at you
2. november 23rd news montreal
3. barbeque galleries
4. clevage
5. maji yabai
6. canada sovereignty
7. araby review
8. recipe maclaren’s imperial cheddar
9. final theory
10. the existence of god harun yahya
11. aragorn’s riddle
12. jason and the golden fleece/should
13. legolas’s song, tolkien
14. misuro imoto
15. i hate organic food
16. arthur gordon pym ending
17. character frank poole in 3001
18. fuyu no sonata lyrics
19. girl named matthew
20. a separate peace movie

I was surprised only six point to this blog. Much more popular, at nine hits, is the compendium. I guess that makes sense, since if I put something up there it generally means it has a lot more thought put into it. Considering only one page is pointed to twice, that list makes up an interesting picture of Booberfish.com.

But my favourite? Number 4. Even if it is a misspelling. Thanks, Sabrina.

A few weeks ago I had to replace the hard drive in my laptop, which is what lead to this whole switching to Linux business in the first place. One of the first thing I noticed when looking at the drive I exhumed from the bowels of my computer was this message:

I know gremlins are generally to blame for hardware glitches like I had, but I never realised that they actualy came prepackaged with the computer in the first place. Or maybe it was for the little people inside the computer who make it run. Either way, all I need is one of those tiny star-shaped screwdrivers to open it up and see what’s living inside.

Linux is absolutely fantastic. It can do anything Windows can, usually much better, and more. Except one.

I have yet to get a Flash movie to play correctly.

Any other file format, from Microsoft Office files to Quicktime movies, is no problem. If the format exists there’s generally an open source, or at least free, program to read it. OpenOffice.org replaces Microsoft Office. Change your DVD player’s region without thinking twice with okle. Mplayer can play just about any video format you care to name.

Except Flash.

It appears even the Macromedia Flash Plugin can’t play Flash. Not without crashing Firefox anyway.

The GPL Flash Player can’t play Flash.

A program called swf-player which promises to be able to play Flash can’t play Flash.

A shell script I found that converts Flash movies to MPGs and plays them that way can’t play Flash.

The short story is that my computer can’t play Flash. I guess it’s just as well, since the only thing Flash is used for is ads and YouTube. Ok, with exam season coming up, I guess it’s just as well that I don’t have it…

There are many advantages and disadvantages to switching to from Windows to a Linux operating system like Kubuntu. One the one hand you have to be willing to jump in and figure out how to use the command line, install strange and incomprehensible packages, Google stranger error messages in an effort to solve them, and more. One the other, this same problem of having all the innards of your computer easily poked and proded at means you can customize every nook and cranny of it.

Most people know controls like CTRL-C, CTRL-V, CTRL-ALT-DEL, etc. Maybe even ALT-TAB and CTRL-BACKSPACE. Those are good things. But what if I wanted “paste” to be CTRL-P instead? Sure it would confuse anybody else who used my computer, but on Kubuntu it can done. You can change every built in keyboard shortcut, and create your own to do other things. “Paste” is still CTRL-V, but now I can open Firefox with CTRL-SHIFT-F, I can open a dictionary with CTRL-SHIFT-D, and I can stop, play, change tracks, and more in my iTunes clone (Amarok) using my WINDOW key, no matter what other program I’m using at the same time. Finally, I’m getting some use out of my WINDOW key!

What can I say, I’m just a big geek for keyboard shortcuts.

The bad part about having a blog is that often I’ll be sitting with friends and start to tell a story when one of them interrupts and says, “I read this on your web page”! So effectively I never have anything new to talk about.

And the opposite is true too. If something interesting happens to me in the morning, but the time I get around to a computer in the evening I’ve already run into a few friends and told them the story, leaving me nothing new to write about on the blog.

I used to make a point to write an entry every day just for the sake of writing. I often did that even when it wasn’t published on the internet, although never consistently for long periods of time.

It’d be nice to run into Sophia again.

My new hard drive has arrived, I installed it myself, and I now have a completely functioning dual boot system. At least, I assume it’s fully functional. I haven’t gone back to Windows since I installed Kubuntu (Linux for humans with the K desktop environment).

In theory, with a real functioning computer, I’ll now be able to restore my backed up files, upload those photo galleries I’ve been procrastinating about, and actually get some work done.

Or, I’ll just use the fact that my DVD player is now free to be a big lazyface and watch a movie or something fantastic like that. Woot.

Note: Bertha is the default name for any old semi-functioning anything, like computers and washing machines. Maybe now that my laptop works I’ll have to rename her.

Well, at least I’ve figured out how to set my screen resolution in Linux. I may be using it for a lot longer than I bargained for.

Tux is my new best friend.

Did I fix my computer? No. It’s still broken. But I’ve narrowed down what’s broken about it — Windows.

Yes, I tried using the Windows Recovery Console, which is like a mini little DOS thing that runs off the CD-ROM. “That’s great,” I thought, “My CD-ROM works. What can I do with that?”

Then I remembered — KNOPPIX!

Knoppix is a Linux operating system that runs completely from the CD-ROM. I’m using it now on my laptop. I can access the internet, make some files (like the screeshot above), and I think I might even be able to back up my files. I wonder if I can get Knoppix to recognize an external hard drive… then I can just ignore forever that my laptop is broken and live off the CD-ROM drive.

It’s kind of like, once you figure out how to plug a toaster into the cigarette lighter, you can live out of your station wagon.

Windows be damned. I’m a Knoppix man now.

At least for a few days.

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

This is not what I like to see when starting up my computer. I’ve run across this bastard blue screen of death and its cousins before.

UNKNOWN HARD ERROR

YOU NEED A NEW COMPUTER

NOBODY LIKES YOU

Now I’m a pretty competent guy when it comes to computer repair — the worst software problems can always be fixed with enough help from the internet and the odd call to tech support. All too often people say “just reformat, you’ll be fine”. If a tech support person says that I hang up and go back to Google, because the solution is never “just reformat”. (”My house is dirty, buy me a new one.”)

Despite this, last time this happened it ended with me sending my computer back to HP for repairs, which of course took weeks, but at the very least was under warranty. Now, four years later, I doubt I’ll be so lucky. Of course, this being the second time this same computer has died, I’ll probably never buy an HP Compaq Presario again.

What I really should have bought, three years ago after the first time this happened especially, was an external hard drive. Some things are backed up in New Brunswick, but my summer work, this semester’s school work, and months of photos only exist on that little file system trapped inside my oversized paperweight.

I’m coming for you, little TXTs and XLSs and MWSs and JPGs! I’m still trying to rescue you!

Ever have one of those days when you feel you want to update your website/blog/journal/whatever, but you just can’t (be bothered to) think of anything substantial enough to really make it worthwhile?

I figured I should try to capitalize on that today, so I did a little programming and created MINIBLOG. Check it out at the top of the sidebar. It’s basically just a way for me to update the blog without actually updating the blog, and requiring only a sentence to do it. It also works for those times when I feel like sharing something but there’s no way to stretch it out into a real blog entry.

Also it was just a fun thing to program. That’s reason enough for me.