My New Toy

It's been pretty hectic around here since Christmas. I spent a lot of time with Jason since then because he left for New York yesterday. I know it's only been 48 hours since the last time I was with him, but I really really miss him. It's going to be a long four months, but I'll make it through because I love Jason and I know he loves me too. I can't wait for him to come home so I can wrap my arms around him and give him a great big kiss.

I still haven't moved out, but I am still considering it. I know occasionally drives his dad's van and I think I could talk him into helping me if I need. I'll give it some time and if things get worse around here, I'll leave.

Jason gave me a laptop, which was really generous of him. The first thing I did, naturally, was install Ubuntu. It runs really well, but I can't get the PCMCIA Wifi card to work. It uses Realtek's RTL8185 chipset, which there is an official driver for, but it's a bitch to compile and has issues working with Debian (and Debian based) distrobutions. I also tried using NDISwrapper, which allows you to use a Windows compatible driver for the card and emulate the Windows functionality using a few obscure APIs. That didn't work, and I don't know why because I'm not terribly familiar with the software. There's an unofficial, open source driver, which also didn't work. Basically if I don't get this card to work I can just buy a new card based on the Linux friendly chipset.

I also installed Windows so I can play games. That went pretty well too, eventually. Let's just say Microsoft's piracy countermeasures hurt legitimate users too. I am having a problem with static in the audio though. I know it's a software issue because it works just fine under Ubuntu, and I think it worked before I updated the audio driver from Dell's site. I tried to do a driver rollback, but it didn't give me the option, so I uninstalled the device, but it repeatedly kept returning. But I can access my network and the Internet, so I'm happy.

I also wanted to make a ghost image of my OS partitions so I won't have to reinstall and reconfigure Windows and (unlikely) Linux when I decide I need a fresh start. The problem is that none of the programs I looked at eliminate the free space from the copy, so I'll need 15 GB of free space just to back up my less than 3 gig Windows installation. I'm pretty sure the new version of Norton Ghost has this feature, but I don't have the $60 to shell out. But I really do want to back up the installation of Windows before the performance starts degrading. Hmph.

I've been trying to write over the past few days. I really need to get going on Rich Magazine and Ubuntu Beginnings (I started that one a LONG time ago). I don't know why, but I just don't feel motivated to do anything right now. It could be because I was preocupied with a new computer to play around with and Jason's leaving, but I don't know. I'm also in the middle of writing several movie scripts and a few shorts. You'd think now that I can leave my room and still use a computer I'd get more done, but I'm really not. I know! It could be because my mom's been home and she makes me nervous.

That's about it. Have a good week everyone.