Defenestrated! {My new desktop}

I've finally done it! Made a rather large and semi-permanent lifestyle change. Something which many people who may have known me in the past would be outraged with, insofar as to the fact that I could be so hypocritical to have done it. However, it is done, and I am happy. Much happier than I thought I'd be. The fact is, I'm typing this from within Linux. Linux, which isn't Windows. Which is now completely installed on my machine.

Linux!

The grande open-source Microsoft-challenging beacon of nerdy goodness. I owe a lot of my early knowledge of this system to a guy called Ben, who was my on-and-off mortal enemy back in high school. He was, shall we say, a big Linux advocate. I, shall we say, was not. But, if there was one thing that did break up the constant arguing over whether the ball was in or out and whether the thing-with-a-thing was a rule or a trick*, it was the tales he would tell of the faroff land called "Linux."

*"It's not a rule, it's a trick!"
- Ben, that guy

For the uninformed, Linux (or GNU/Linux as it is correctly called) is a complete free open-source alternative to Microsoft. Not only is it a full UNIX-based operating system, but a free replacement for just about everything else, including Microsoft Office and just about any other application you could want. (Unfortunately for me: there's no .NET framework; Visual Studio .NET is about the last Microsoft product I truly need. Oh, and DirectX for games.)

Let's just say that after all these years of wondering, I've finally been inspired by the Software Engineering subject 252, which taught us all about UNIX shell scripts and makefiles and the like. It really is a cool platform to work with, especially for programming. (Which is kinda ironically unfortunate since I suspect I'll be doing most of my private-use programming with Visual Studio, in Windows!)

Unfortunately, it's known for being fiendishly difficult to set up, particularly if you wish to keep your existing Windows installation. So, with the help of Tim, Adric and Matthew "Tuxxee", I got onto what looks to be one of the best distributions, Kubuntu, (a derivative of Ubuntu which in turn is a derivative of Debian) and played with its LiveCD for a week. Then, after my last exam Wednesday, I came home and spent two days partitioning and formatting my hard drive, and installing it!

And I'm glad to say I've emerged unscathed. The only negative thing is that of course my Windows system is missing a 10GB hard drive (and for some reason Windows 98 also thinks my Linux swap drive is an actual drive and shows it in My Computer but doesn't let me open it - stupid Windows). But I'm having way more fun in Linux, and I've spent the rest of these few days configuring all that can be configured, making shell scripts and aliases, downloading new software using the mostly-brilliant package manager Synaptic, and making nice icons for things with the GIMP. I'm in nerd paradise ;)

Here's my new KDE desktop:


So, it really is quite cool. Thanks to all the aforementioned people for your help. Woo freedom!

"Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had." (source)
- Linus Torvalds

* By the way, I've titled this post "defenestrated" on the advice of a few guys who, while they acknowledge that it actually means "to have been thrown out of a window", choose to take its literal translation as "de-Windowed". ;)

MSN - The Missing Link

OK okok ... this is BIZZARRE... I'm here to report an incredibly STRANGE *bug* (bug?) in MSN Messenger.

It was discovered when my buddy Tim tried to send me this link over MSN:
http://archive.scripting.com/2005/06/11#peopleWithErasers

5 minutes later after the conversation stopped dead because he thought i was not replying to his link and I didn't see it, I realised that he had sent a link and he realised that I had not received it. Odd, we thought. He tried sending it again and again. Then finally had to describe the URL to me.

Then I tried to send it back to him and he couldn't see it either. Was it the #? What was it about this specific URL which meant it wasn't coming through.

Ten minutes later, after some rigorous testing, we thought we had it all worked out. Twenty minutes later after even more rigorous testing we got it.
MSN Messenger will not send or receive any messages containing linkified URLs which contain the exact string ".scr". (Yes, pretty simple thing, but it took a long time to narrow it down to that ;))

Now that's pretty wierd. It does make more sense than our original hypothesis which was that it blocked all links to "scripting.com". A ".scr" file in Windows is a screensaver! Tim pointed out that screensavers are actually programs, and that if you rename an exe file to .scr, it will still execute. So possibly, downloading scr files can be tricky for noobies.

But strange that it blocks ALL links containing ".scr" and not just those that end with it. Anyway, a night well spent ;)

Special thanks to Tim and Andrew for helping research and test this (bloglinks to the right).

"Yoink dot adios, backslash losers!"
- Snake (The Simpsons)

Reach...

So long, and thanks for all the fish

I've been searching for A VERY LONG TIME for the lyrics to this song.

If you haven't seen the film, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" yet, best to pop away now...


But I found on a blog a link to the official site which has the song, illustrated, with SUBTITLES! As you can hear, it's very hard to hear at points, which is why so many people have been searching for the lyrics.

Link to the official site with subtitles.
Page with a download of the full video clip.

And here's the full lyrics:

So long, and thanks for all the fish
So sad that it should come to this
We tried to warn you all, but oh dear
You may not share our intellect
Which might explain your disrespect
For all the natural wonders that grow around you

So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish

The world's about to be destroyed
There's no point getting all annoyed
Lie back and let the planet dissolve (around you)
Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet
Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish

If I had just one last wish
I would like a tasty fish
If we could just change one thing
We would all have learnt to sing

Come one and all
Man and mammal
Side by side in life's great gene pool

...

So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, so long, so long, so long,
So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish

Enjoy!

"The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Spangled Banner", but in fact the message was this: So long, and thanks for all the fish".
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy