Disqus - Latest Comments for andycowl

Re: how to create perfect tables in WordPress - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:15:53 -0000

Yes - unless more recent versions of WordPress have added table support in the WYSIWYG editor.

Re: Spotlight On Ubuntu: Why I Love Karmic Koala

davidmarsden — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:18:56 -0000

Not sure I understand the X is better than Y bit.

Yes, my copy of 7 is for, er, evaluation purposes only (crap, now I have to blog about that, too? Actually, it's a big improvement on Vista, lol). I do have a Vista Home Premium license that came with my new PC when I got that a couple of years ago. Vista HP, as I think is pretty well documented all over teh interwebz is a dog, though. Don't see why I should shell out again. (If you want an invite to http://www.xtremespeeds.net/ DM me). My wife uses Ubuntu on her laptop and even though she has the dual-boot option of Vista, she is literally too terrified of it to use it.

As I'm able to work from home one or two weekdays (not to mention evenings and weekends) I do need to use Windows as our accountant uses VT (http://www.vtsoftware.co.uk/tranplus/index.htm) - doesn't work under WINE. Also, I wanted to use the Picasa Movie Maker feature to make my old band's YouTube video (which didn't work - the audio kept stuttering), so I made it without sound and then edited it and added the music track using the fantastic, free and open source software that is LiVES (http://lives.sourceforge.net/).

The great advantages of running any Windows OS in a VM is that you don't need any firewall, etc, so you do get amazing speed, plus, of course, you don't need to reboot. And it looks pretty, cool, too :-)

Re: Spotlight On Ubuntu: Why I Love Karmic Koala

davidmarsden — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:12:24 -0000

Boot time isn't much of an issue for me as I leave my home PC on all the time unless I'm away, of course.

At work my Ubuntu system boots up pretty quickly, but so do the Windows machines. The iMac we have is easily the quickest, though!

Re: Spotlight On Ubuntu: Why I Love Karmic Koala

andycowl — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:25:30 -0000

Oh yeah and another thing. I am a great one for checking out the competition. Unless you do I don't see how you can assert X is better than Y but I genuinely surprised to see you running Windows 7 in a VM.

Did you shell out good money for that ? Did you acquire it from a dubious source (just for evaluation purposes you understand) Do you have other Windows dependent folk in your household ? What ?

Re: Spotlight On Ubuntu: Why I Love Karmic Koala

andycowl — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:37:57 -0000

I always like to hear people's personal experiences of how, what, why and when they chose Linux (or any software for that reason) or maybe why they didn't.

On Windows, I also got sucked into shelling out good money for commercial anti-virus packages (and subsequent annual updates) by the fear, uncertainty and doubt and eventually ditched Norton Internet Security after I realised it was killing my machine.

I have to say after a couple of weeks running Mint 7 (but longer using Linux servers), the first thing that struck me was that everything worked - out of the box. My Wireless card, my printer, my wireless mouse, my scanner - everything. No need to hunt down for that driver CD. No need to find the Canon driver from the Web site. It just worked.

Secondly, the sheer wealth of high quality free software available on Linux is genuinely staggering.

Also, it is so easy to find and install the software compared to Windows. It literally is a one-lcik operation. That is a much underrated feature IMHO.

The only (very slight) disappointment is the boot time (and I know Karmic has supposed to have attacked this area so I await Mint 8 with interest). My 5 year old PC starts up and renders the desktop in about the same time as Windows XP. In fact, when I recently re-installed XP clean, Windows was probably quicker. That surprised me.

Re: 25 reasons you should use Disqus - Digging in a Habari sandpit

andycowl — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:47:57 -0000

What is say is all very true. So true in fact, you wonder why Disqus can't implement those heuristics into their anti-spam measures. If a spammer leaves identical comments on N different blogs within the last N hours then clearly that is spam.

Re: Why I Left Habari

andycowl — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:19:48 -0000

Trevor - thanks for posting your candid views of why you left Habari. Very interesting.

I think the comparisons with Wordpress are slightly unfair. Automattic is a company with paid, full-time employees whereas Habari is a community of volunteers although I take your point about the dearth of people developing plugins and themes.

I think the issue of locating plugins and then struggling to locate the right version of the plugin for your version of Habari is a serious one and one which is alientating potential Habari users.

Thanks for the pointer to Scanty - looks interesting.

Andy

Re: death of a Kirby salesman - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:28:20 -0000

I guess the Kirby 5200 Deluxe would fit the bill for 'something heavy'.

Killed by your own Kirby. Hoist by your own petard. Or something.

Re: dyslexic graffiti - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:30:53 -0000

Eat up your greens, David. There'll be no pudding for you until all those those peas have been eaten up. Open wide now - here comes the Choo Choo.

Re: Yak shaving - Blog in isolation

michaeltwofish — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:20:37 -0000

I think I first heard it from Tim Bray. One day, I'd really like to find a yak to shave.

Re: how I ditched Windows and embraced Gloria - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:40:01 -0000

I'll be posting more about my day to day experiences with Mint. After all, the courtship and first date is one thing but there's simply no substitute for living with someone for a whole week.

I was pleasantly surprised about how much of Mint just worked out of the box. I guess the only installation steps that might intimidate newcomers is 'Partition Disks' but you get that if you are installing Windows.

Thanks for being the freedom loving angel perched on my left shoulder responsible for these voices in my head :-)

Re: Yak shaving - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:41:49 -0000

Yes. Yak shaving comes into all facets of life. I will be eternally grateful to Michael for introducing me to the term.

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

chedlee — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:34:03 -0000

Both. FB2K is the feed for Icecast. Would be good if I could get on demand streaming working then I could put the DVDs I have ripped on there with the music and have a proper media server. I am thinking of building a linux box to do just that but I couldn't just ditch windows I am afraid. I have tried many times in the past but there is always something that pulls you back.

Good luck with yours.

Re: Bag of Spoons

andycowl — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:26:50 -0000

Steve - meet Jonathan

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:57:34 -0000

With FB2K or Icecast ? Remember - you don't actually need a reason to play with technology - it's just fun.

For example, yesterday I spontaneously decided to ditch Windows and am now running Linux on my home PC. This means all that hard work with Foobar wil be for nothing. But still, it was fun :-)

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:03:50 -0000

Steve. No direct experience but this Foobar component might be useful.

I have also heard good reports about Icecast.

Let us know how it works out.

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

rpcutts — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:36:38 -0000

Yea dev is dead in the water (It worked with my iPod no probs). But I love it as it is, the poor neglected thing.

My only critique of foobar is for novice users it can be hard for then to get it how they want it too look. I only ever used to play the odd file and playlist. I could never get it set up how I wanted it to behave. I think I'm in a minority of 1 on that though since it can be tweaked so much, there are so many setups you can download and so many plugins. I always recommend it to people as long as they are comfortable with computers.

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:26:18 -0000

I have played with Songbird in the past but didn't really take to it and I also saw similar comments that recent releases are turning SB into a true iTunes clones (slow and bloated) but it was on my list of potential candidates.

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:24:43 -0000

In my non-existent 'Cons' section, I should have stated that Foobar is Windows only and for all freedom lovers out there it is closed source.

I've just had a look at Musikcube which looks good but active development appears to have halted in December 2006 which is a slight concern and it isn't clear whether there is any iPod support.

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

davidmarsden — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:48:44 -0000

Does she use webmail? Gmail can import all her email, if so, then download into TB. Even if it was just a temporary account to do the transfer. Then also she has a Picasaweb account for her photos.

Re: how I ditched iTunes and started living with Foobar 2000 - Blog in isolation

andycowl — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:33:18 -0000

Yes. I've run Ubuntu on both work and home PC's and considered migrating permanently but I'd have to move my wife's email out of Outlook Express (via Thunderbird) and photos etc but yeah, I am keen to run Linux at home.

As for work, if I had the time to build a Virtual environment for the necessary Windows stuff (Siebel Tools) that would also be possible.

Re: Create a Lifestream in Less than a Minute with Ident Engine

andycowl — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:49:28 -0000

Habari Watch

Re: Create a Lifestream in Less than a Minute with Ident Engine

krynsky — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:39:20 -0000

What's the link to your Habari blog?

Re: Create a Lifestream in Less than a Minute with Ident Engine

andycowl — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:16:52 -0000

Installed the plugin on my Habari blog and I really like it.

You can see at a glance whether a commenter is on identi.ca/FriendFeed/Twitter etc.

Re: Create a Lifestream in Less than a Minute with Ident Engine

krynsky — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:04:09 -0000

Very cool. Thanks for the info Andy.