iDude.org

This is a dark day for the right to life.

Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer have successfully murdered Terri Schindler-Schiavo, unfortunately before the President and his brother could do what they should have done. They could’ve done anything they wanted. The president himself could’ve walked into that room with his own doctors and re-inserted the tube.

NO ONE could’ve stopped him. NO ONE. I don’t understand why he didn’t take action. They have nothing to lose, both W and Jeb cannot run again for their offices, Jeb doesn’t even want to run for president.

So why didn’t they do anything? That’s a good question that I personally do not have a specific answer for.

But I agree with what Jerry Doyle just said on the radio. The parties have let us down and I no longer consider myself a republican. I am now Independent and will join the first third party I agree with that starts getting defectors from the Big 2 like the Constitution Party…

Bye-Bye to the republican party!

I’m now Dude #1301 on the Mike Church show. I didn’t expect to get on the air, but while I was on hold waiting for the screener to confirm my Dude #, Mike called me onto the air. Just talked about the Jesse Jackson/Terri Schiavo stuff. I suggested Mike to give Jesse an honorary Dude # if he can pull this off and save Terri. Unforunately I think it’s a little too late.

Godspeed!

(Check out the Mike Church show on Sirius Talk Right 142 from 6-10pm!)

I have been a Linux user on and off for years, but only recently in the last 2 years have I been serious about it. Linspire (when it was Lindows), resparked my interest in Linux. I became an insider and started downloading the betas and testing them. I had a lot of trouble at first getting everything to work. I knew that Linspire, at the time, was new in the game, but I kept downloading the latest builds and trying them.

Eventually it started working well as drivers got better and better. I was addicted. I love the latest Linspire 5.0, but I am not quite to the point yet where I can install it or other flavors of Linux fulltime. There are still some pieces of software on Windows that I need to do my daily work.

That is the point of this post.

Linux, if it really wants to break Microsoft’s monopoly, has to get more of the top software writers to create full featured Linux versions of their software. I know some companies cannot justify the expense to port stuff to an OS that has only a 5-7% market share, but if they do, I think it will benefit them in the long run. Also, once Linux does take a larger market share, they’ll be noted for their committment to the Linux community.

The above statement includes gaming companies, like iD Software and Blizzard. One reason I stay in Windows is to play World of Warcraft when I find the time.

I have currently used up all my machines with server software for client websites. Once I get another spare machine that I can dedicate to Linux then I’m going to start working my way over to it.

I program now in ASP and use MS Access for smaller websites, but I have started translating simple sites over to PHP and MySQL. Actually once I learn MySQL and PHP really well, developmentally, I will be done with ASP, IIS and MS Database software. I can’t wait!

So, bascially, what I am saying in this article. Linux needs to tailor their OS more to consumers to start to get them familiar with the OS. Remember… CEOs, CTOs, etc. are comsumers too, and if they see an viable alternative to Microsoft that will save their companies millions of dollars a year, I’m sure they’ll be likely to look into it.

I know a lot of the things I’ve mentioned are already being done. I hope Linux is successful long-term and the only way to do it is to keep getting the word out there… Tell people about it. Install it on your kid’s computers, your elder’s computer. My grandpa-in-law loves Linspire, even though his printer manufacturer doesn’t support Linux.

Get the word out there. If you’ve never played with Linux, go get a spare machine or spare hard drive and install Linux on it. Check out Distrowatch to read about all the different brands and for download links.

I don’t like Jesse Jackson in all ways, but I actually have to give him a little credit for showing up at the hospice in Florida (Finally). I think he saw this tragedy as an opportunity to appeal to the conservative base that is supporting Terri Schindler-Schiavo. Just lets hope he can get this taken care of before it’s too late.

A bunch of Terri Schindler-Schiavo links…Some are older, but there is some amazing information here.  There has to be something bigger going on.  With the evidence presented on this page.  It proves that Terri is not a veg! But the judges don’t seem to care.

I haven’t posted much about this situation.  If you are one that agrees with Michael Schiavo and the people on his side saying she is in a PVS or Brain Dead… Watch these!

The Video Clips Of Terri They Tried to Censor (VIDEO)

Jeb Bush Files For Custody Of Terri Schiavo
This Year’s Holy Week Atrocity: Kill Terri Schiavo
I Thirst - Terri Nears Death
US Supreme Court Orders Terri Put To Death
Open Letter to America On Terri Schiavo’s Plight
Klayman And Keyes Ask Jeb Bush To ‘Pardon’ Terri
Greer Ignored 30-Count DCF Charges Against Mike
Terri’s Parents Appeal To Supreme Court
FL Law Agent Investigation Of Mike Schiavo Blocked
Schiavo Judge Greer Axes Last-Minute ‘Rescue’
Dr. William Cheshire’s Stunning Affidavit About Terri(pdf)
Highlights - Gov. Bush Press Conference
Kids Arrested For Trying To Bring Water To Terri
Full US Appeals Court Denies Terri Again
U.S. Court Rejects Appeal Over Schiavo’s Feeding Tube
Feds Exhaust Options For Terri - Bush
Terri’s Fate - Are We Humans Terrific Or What!?
Terri Hospice Nurse Appalled At What Is Being Done

(Links pulled from RENSE)

I ended up settling on Ubuntu for my web server. I went back to the Warty 4.10 which is working great for this purpose so far. I had some problems getting Apache, MySQL, and PHP4 installed and communicating with each other.

I opened Synaptic, and searched for Apache and didn’t find a whole lot. Searched for MySQL and only found a few things. Then “PHP4-MySQL” to give PHP4 access to MySQL and couldn’t find it.

Then it sparked. I didn’t check the boxes to open up the “universe” repositories. Once I did that, it added like 12,000 additional packages.

I found everything I needed and got it all installed and migrated within 2 hours. Not bad for a guy who has only seriously been setting up linux servers for a week. I had experience way back in the mid 90’s with early RedHat versions, but most of the time spent back then was for compiling kernels and TRYING to get X running with a decent desktop manager… I usually got so frustrated with the XServer, I just reinstalled windows.

So, I am going to see how this Linux works for a while and keep an eye on the memory and speed as my site gets more popular and gets more hits.

I downloaded last night MEPIS 3.3 Linux (1 CD, 685mb). 2 words:
Very Impressive

The install was not without some bugs though.

The way it looks like MEPIS works is, you run the LiveCD version and once in there, you can install the OS in the GUI (KDE). I really liked this method, you do all the partitioning and everything from a window while the OS is running from the CD. It installs the bootloader (GRUB) and you set the root password, regular user, and some other things. Once finished, you reboot and it runs from your harddrive.

Even the network settings from the LiveCD were carried over to the full install, and that’s where my bug starts. During the bootup, I noticed that the network did not start, it actually failed. First thing that came to mind was that it was set to DHCP and it couldn’t contact my router to get a lease. I never have figured it out yet, but what I had to do was…

Once into the OS, I opened the network settings, which were a little hard to find because MEPIS seperates things out a little (will post screenshots later), and what I did was switch from a static IP to DHCP, stop and restart the NIC, it grabbed an IP and worked fine, then I switched back to the static I assigned it and it worked fine. After rebooting though the same thing happened.

Soooo… I am going to reinstall the OS and not change ANYTHING in the LiveCD mode. Let it take all the defaults, then see what happens.

(UPDATE: The network issue: Although the ETH0 device seemed to fail during boot, by the time I got into the OS, the static IP assigned seemed to be working. I will continue to look into this, but I think it’s ok for now)

Overall though, I really liked all the packages that came preinstalled. Synaptics Package Manager is Great, K3B, XMMS (w/ MP3 support), Real Player, Firefox 1.0, KMail and other KDE utilities were used.

But the main thing I noticed was the application loading speed. Other Linux builds I run seem to lag when opening applications, even if they were just open a second before, but MEPIS was lightning fast. This system (256mb RAM) even had nowhere the memory of my normal test machine (1024mb) and the processors are the same. The main program I test for loadtime is OpenOffice, on most Linii (plural) I run, OO takes anywhere from 5-10 seconds to load for the first time, On MEPIS, it was at least twice as quick.

The fonts were nice and smooth, not too big, not too small…

Just tonight I downloaded and installed Fedora Core 4 Test 1. To me it was pretty much the same as Core 3 except it seemed to take a bit longer to install with my standard options.

It also seemed to take a while to boot. May have been a DHCP delay due to the multiple NIC cards I use in my install machine. Not all the NICs where plugged in.

Overall the GUI looked about the same. After getting through the sluggish boot up, logging in and getting to the Desktop (took a while as well), I SSH’ed into the machine and ran ‘top’ and the processor load was up around 7.50… The offending processes were ‘gdm-binary’ (GNOME Desktop Manager) & ’syslogd’ (SysLog Daemon)… Both taking up around 50% of the CPU time.

I killed ’syslogd’ and of course didn’t kill ‘gdm-binary’ as I needed it to use the GUI interface.

I don’t know why ‘gdm-binary’ was taking up all those resources, but the only thing I could think of was it was secretly running a distributed client of some kind (RC5, SETI, etc.), since it was running fairly nicely once I completely got to the desktop.

More on this OS as it matures…

 COMING NEXT: SimplyMEPIS 3.3

Linspire 5.0 (Five-0) recently was released and I have long been awaiting it, so I downloaded the torrent and fired it up.

Some people in the past have complained about downloading/burning/checksum problems, but I had no problems.

The biggest issue was finding a machine to clear off to install it. I am running low on extra machines, but had a spare machine from a client swap. I fired it up and blew a fuse… See the “Server Update” post below. That was a pain. Now I did have a server that was running MySQL under Windows 2003 Server… It was only a DB Server, so I used it.

Popped in the CD, started the install, partitioned the disk (chose the new ReiserFS4 format), answered the few questions, went for a smoke break, bio break, and got a drink and by the time I got back, it was done. The CD was ejected and that was it. No errors whatsoever. This surprised me immensely as I have had major problems with the Betas leading up to this release. For me, the problems seem to have been all resolved.

I went ahead and installed CNR Apache, PHP4, and MySQL and a few other utilities and took a few hours to configure everything. I had never setup a multi-domain Apache server, but it wasn’t too hard at all. PHP was effortless, just had to uncomment the .PHP extension and it worked. MySQL was a bit of a pain. The Win32 MySQL export format wasn’t recognized by the older MySQL distribution that CNR installs. Instead of wasting time on it, I just started over… The Win32 MySQL was pretty much empty anyway.

I installed sshd, ftpd and put up this blog you are reading now as well as my buddy MattBlog.net and it’s working fine.

For database management, I installed PHP-MySQL Admin and secured it using .htaccess …

Overall, the first time setting up my own personal Linux webserver, was simple. There were/are a few quirks, but I think they can be worked out.
—————
From a consumer aspect, I think this release has much potential although the GUI could be solidified a little more. I did experience a few browser/email client glitches. They would just shutdown for no reason. Didn’t take the time to debug it yet.

The install was simple and elegant. Almost as “smooth” as the MacOSX. But simplicity is key for end-users. After successfully installing it on this machine, I cleaned off my laptop, handed a disk to my 12yr old nephew and told him to do it. He’s not OS savvy, but he still got it installed fine within minutes and was surfing the web.

The software selection is amazing. I am not going to go into much detail here. Go here for the detailed improvements and new features.

Looking forward to 5.0 to get better and better as subsequent 5.x versions come out.

So what do you all think about this Terri Schiavo (Search) stuff?

I personally understand both sides of it… The husband claims she said a long time ago that she told him she would not want to live if something like this happened to her. If my wife told me the same, I would honor her wishes… BUT, only if the rest of the family didn’t have any doubt she could recover.

The parents have been there for her, all the are asking is simply Michael Schiavo divorce their daughter and turn custody over to them. The reasons he doesn’t do this are speculative, but the main factor I think is playing a part is the money from the lawsuits.

If the wife stays alive and he divorces her, the parents get the $$ to take care of her… If she dies while he is still married, he keeps the money. People have killed others for MUCH less. I think that’s the only reason he is fighting for her demise.

Then these rich guys come forward and offer him millions to let her parents take over (them getting the $$), but he turns them down. If he takes it, then everyone will know he’s in it for the money. I bet he’s kicking himself now…

He already has another family, a new girlfriend and two kids… He could care less about whether her parents take custodianship of Terri.

My opinion, (and they’re like assholes, everyone has one), is that this guy is a scumbag only in this for the money. Plan and simple. That’s all. I think everyone is blowing this out of proportion.