There was something really apt about Barak Obama winning the presidency on the date that those of us in the UK celebrate the stopping of an attempt to blow up parliment.
I believe that Guy Fawkes probably had the best intentions at heart - he wanted to change England for the better, but he went about it in the wrong way. Blowing something up has rarely achieved anything positive, although people are welcome to argue the case with me if they wish.
America has a new, black president. This is undoubtedly a good - nay great thing. My hope is that President Obama turns out to be the man we all believe him to be. Of course he will have to make some of the most difficult decisions any person could be asked to make and there will be disappointments, but if he stays true to his ideals... well, maybe we will see some real change. I don't think there has been this much of a buzz surrounding a president since John F. Kennedy, although that was before my time so admittedly that's conjecture but President Obama has already brought hope into the lives of millions of people both in his own country and abroad. Now that's power.
In other news:
I am still loving Linux, although I can't get onto my external hard drive with all my files on it at present, but that has been caused by Windows and the more I use Linux, the more I realise how utterly shite Windows is. Don't get me wrong, it has some great features and for ease of use... well it's ok. Most people know how to use it because that's what they have gotten used to.
Just in case anyone is interested, here are a few reasons to consider Linux but I'm spoilering it for those who really can't be arsed;
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
- It's free.
Yep free. I know you got Windows with your PC, but you realise you paid for it right? OEM prices sure, but you paid for it. Linux is 100% free - gratis, kostenloss, whatever.
- All the programs you need are pretty much bundled with it and guess what? They're free too!
You need a web browser? How about Firefox 3? You need Microsoft Office though right? Nope - Open Office comes with a presentation module, spreadsheet module and word processor AND it reads M$ Office files and can save in those formats, as well as writing PDF's. Just writing PDF's on Windows usually means buying Adobe Acrobat. Plus there are applications for email, video editing, music creation, web development, graphics, games... pretty much everything. All free.
- It's more secure.
Unlike Windows, nothing can run using admin rights without you putting in your password, so nothing gets onto your PC without your knowing about it. Vista tried to copy this by asking if you really wanted to do what you just did every time you did just about anything and only succeeded in making it more annoying to use.
Plus, there are very few viruses for Unix based operating systems and because it's open source, patches get applied very quickly. I don't need any antivirus or antispyware software and even a firewall isn't obligatory because Unix doesn't open ports unless it needs them. I have a firewall on my router as normal, so a desktop one isn't really necessary.
Many web servers run Linux because of it's security features - if you're opening up your computer to the world, you might want to lock a few things down and limit access. It's like letting the public into your hall to read your collection of Heat magazines, but locking your other doors and windows (oh the irony!)
- It's more stable
Unix is used around the world for business and mission-critical computers. NASA use Unix. It doesn't fall over. No more blue screens of death. Unlike Windows, there is no registry that clogs up the longer you use it until one day it takes an hour just to log in. You'll probably never need to defrag a Linux box either.
- It has a massive community around it - and a lot of people involved love to help out.
Sure there are plenty of places online to get Windows help but there's something about open source software - the people WANT to help. They love giving things away, whether it's their software or their time. That kind of thing gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling... like a teddy bear on fire.
OK, bad analogy but remember that time when someone did something nice for you and they didn't even expect anything back? It's like that.
But you have questions;
- Doesn't it look kind of... crap?
Actually no, the Ubuntu distibution of Linux is actually pretty nice looking and has graphical effects that might not beat Vista, but certainly rival XP.
- But you need to learn command line stuff right? You don't just click on stuff with a mouse.
You could quite easily use Linux without ever using the terminal window to type commands. It has a GUI (graphical user interface) similar in many ways to Windows. You could quite happily click around all day long.
I use the command line in windows almost every day anyway and that can be helpful when troubleshooting problems. The Unix command line is even more powerful, but will take a little learning.
If you wanted to learn some command line stuff to help you out, there is the aforementioned community to help you and most of the time you could just copy and paste what people told you and instantly forget it afterwards if you liked.
- But it's not really as friendly as Windows is it? You've had problems with your external hard drive...
Yeah I have but you know what? Those problems were caused by Windows not using the hardware properly. I've been availing myself of some help and I have a few more things to try and besides, are you telling me you've never had a problem with software or hardware not working in Windows? If that were true I'd be out of a job! Also I plugged my Nokia N95 in via USB and that worked straight away without a hitch, just like my sound card, graphics card and all other hardware. It even put an icon on the desktop while it was plugged in.
- But there are other programs I use that I can't get on Linux!
Yeah that was my argument for a long time. Photoshop is still a concern because I use that a lot, but I'm going to give the GIMP (an open source Linux version of Photoshop,) a try. There's also a hacked version called GIMPShop which has been made to look and feel more like PS. My other concern was 3D software. I used to do a lot of modelling in 3D and 3DS Max is Windows only. Well, there's Blender, which is free and Maya if I want to buy a professional solution. I was thinking about all the cool little apps I used to download, but most of them have some version on Linux for free and some of the essential free apps were security related and I don't need them any more. I've downloaded and installed Bluefish, which is for creating web pages and I'm trying that out tonight.
- OK, I'm curious to see more. I'm not saying I'll switch, but there's no harm in looking. Where do I go?
Damn skippy. Well, there are several distributions on the market, including Fedora and Unbuntu, amongst others. I use Ubuntu, which is the most popular Linux distribution at present. For info on that, go to the Ubuntu home page.
Sunday we went to see An Axe play:
The calm before the storm.
Full flow.
"But I don't like posing for pic... oh ok then!" 
I swear I can't take her anywhere!
Monday night we went to the worst pub quiz ever with Kristoph and theknives. The woman reading out the questions obviously didn't write them as she was borderline retarded and not only had a 'five minute' (read 10 minute plus) break between rounds, she left about 4 minutes between questions! Just long enough for the cheaters in the crowd to ring friends or text 118 (Or if they had a WiFi phone, use Google.).
In some ways I didn't blame them though as the questions were ridiculous. General knowledge my arse. We had one round on mountains for fuck's sake and half of those questions didn't actually have mountains in them! (Name the highest point in the Peak District? Well whatever it is, it's not a fucking MOUNTAIN is it?) Other favourites were a round on nicknames, (Who was known as the 'Animated Meringue?' - Vanessa Feltz apparently. ) and other bafflingly inappropriate questions. We even fucked up the literature round it was that bad. We weren't the only ones either, a guy asked us if we thought it was really hard too on his way out the door for a fag.
So we muttered and drew pictures of each other on napkins and wrote passive-aggresive notes and left them on the table in the hope she would see them when she collected the answer sheets.
Pinks drew a picture of her arse at mt request so I drew a picture of my arse as viewed from behind while bending over which grossed everyone else at the table out, (win!) and Kris took the opportunity to push a pen into my sphincter:
That's the last time I let him tear into my anus I can tell you.
Last night we went to a friend's house for Bonfire night and there was a bbq (we took veggie stuff and were sneered at, yay!) and fireworks and sparklers:
Have you ever seen a grown man so happy to have a sparkler? My mate Seb is spesh. 
But enough about me, what have you been up to you little tykes?
I'm sure this hurdle is the first of many!
We're having a big meeting with Social Services, her college and God knows who else on Tuesday so hopefully I'll get a lot more insight and support from those people as they've had dealings with her for years.
I've told her straight today, they are her rats and she needs to look after them; they rely on her. Of course I won't see them starve but I'm also not going to get into a habit of doing it all for her!
xx