LPH - December 29

[TRN]

Bluefish
I started to use Bluefish a little bit more. After getting tidy to work, the program became more useful to me. It seems to work out to do the initial layout and text in Composer, open the saved file in bluefish and clean up the code.

Server Update
A new .htaccess was added to the root directory today in an attempt to get this site crawled by google and other search engines. This also alllows access to the files in a new way.

http://192.197.108.174/article1666.html is the bluefish article. The Members_List.html is the module for listing the members. I tried to get postnuke to convert everything but most of the sideblocks failed to do the rewrite. PHPBB2 completely collapsed.

Domain Transfer
I finally received the email for the domain transfer. Interestingly it stated that it would take up to 5 days. Gesh. Do I have to run around to all of the computers and update them myself? :-)

A Mac
Yes, I stared at a Mac the other day and wondered why the fonts looked so nice and crisp. I realize that many people are saying that Red Hat 8.0.92 does a nice job on the fonts but there really isn't any comparison. The Mac OS font clarity is very striking. Maybe some developers can take a look at the fonts and figure out how to get some clear text at high resolutions.

New Computers
Both EMH and Birdie received new computers for Christmas. Birdie has her machine all set up and is deciding which distribution to install. EMH is definitely going with Xandros.

Xandros
I played a bit more with Xandros and have not been able to delete internet connections that I made as practice. This will take a bit of searching the web. It may be easier to remove them by editing a text file directly.

Wish List
I've been forced to return to Windows ME on a system in order to test the website. Too many people are using IE. The png files are not being rendered correctly. It was easier to just put the hd back onto a system and start messing with the files directly. I gave up on the menu penguins images. They are now .gif files. The problem is the transparency. I can flatten the image and make them white - but that is not solving the problem.

While setting up the Windows machine again I realized that MS Office would have to reactivated. Unfortunately I did can't find the CDs. Despite having activated the programs last year, MS Activation support said they could not help me without the CDs. Typical. I filed a complaint and the woman said that I was only allowed one sentence. :lol: Yeah - right !

Anywho, after using Windows IE for a bit tonight, I realize why Mozilla is more efficient. I really can't stand opening up new windows ... where are the tabs?

But there is one advantage Windows has over Linux -- Netscape radio is working in the background. Multimedia is one weakness for Linux. It's better than a year ago but no where near it's potential (or competitors). I want to be able to surf the web, listen to the radio, and even watch a few CNN news clips. Maybe someday soon. But first - let's fix those nasty fonts.

[TRN]

The transfer to register.com is now complete. I'm inserting in the new name server today and then it is only a matter of time to propogate.

Umm... almost. Not quite so fast. There was an error in adding the ns. I've contacted support and hopefully they'll be able to get it resolved via email.

:roll:

[TRN]

OK. OK.

I put the wrong date. Most the days and nights blur anywy ... so, my sister is helping clean up the images today. She's back trying to fix the theme header too. We'll see how far she gets?

[TRN]

journals.tuxreports.com
The subdomain journals.tuxreports.com is working. KHD is helping out by putting MT onto to the site. We'll try to get something together for LPH, EMH, and SMH journals. Maybe we can get Birdie to chronicle her fun a little bit more by offering her space in a journal. We'll call it a diary :D

Images
I realize that the faithful are using Mozilla, Opera, or something kind to GNU/Linux. However, the number of people hitting the site with ie 5.5 is high. Quite bluntly - the site looks horrible under IE. The transparency png files just don't work. Therefore, I'm going to try to replace some images with .gif files and give it a rest. I just hate thinking someone comes to this site from their place of work and puking on their keyboard. Maybe i should put up a banner that says, "No puking aloud."

Libranet 2.7
Here is a shameless plug - just in case you feel like reading something shameless and overt. I'm finding that the best distribution is one that allows me to grab new software, play with it, and remove it if I don't like it. Unfortunately, none of the RPM based distributions have all of the features that I love. Mandrake is great for putting out great wizards. Red Hat has wonderful fonts (sort of ... better than others), Lycoris is the best desktop OS with their choices of multimedia, and Xandros is really good for the notebook because it had everything I needed - Evolution and OpenOffice.org. But Libranet -- wow -- there just isn't anything like it in it's class when it comes to my work machine. Yeah. You've heard it all before. Apt-get and dpkg are fantastic. I love using Synaptic. It's just a nice system. Enough with the plug.

A Wish
First, fonts need work. Second, multimedia needs to be improved so that it is easily integrated into the surfing experience... Third, it's time for me to integrate my palm with the Linux desktop.

First of all ( I think ) to understand Mac osx 10.2 ( jaguar ) ( guessing thats what you where looking at ) you have to see and know about its architecture :

http://developer.apple.com/macosx/architecture/index.html

Now to go back to the subject of fonts and because you understand that a billion USD worth company with more then 20 year mainstream as a bit of advance against an opensource OS wich existed 12 years ago but got mainstream 4 year ago ( 1999 ) and is not really targetting fonts yet might be at a disadvantage with the creator of all thing fonts of today.

Here are some direct apple link worth reading too about font :

http://developer.apple.com/fonts/Links/index.html

http://developer.apple.com/fonts/

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/font.html

http://www.myfonts.com/foundry/apple/

http://www.fontreserve.com/

http://www.apple.com/creative/designprint/ronrick/

http://www.apple.com/creative/designprint/

This show that they have dedicated team working on fonts equipped with tools and who have been working on this for about 10 years

This link show that Fonts are not a small industry

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Fonts/

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Fonts/Foundries/

and this link show you that for only one good set of fonts :

http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/detail.asp?sid=5ATU1GP05SH98K729PRKPMQMUXRB16T9&pid=203767

you could have to pay 32$ USD

All this to say : yes Apple as better fonts they have a 100 billion ( and more ) industry behind it. But they got beat by Microsoft and Microsoft is scared of : Linux
Eventually Linux company will realise that there is money to be made there
and will start making Fonts and targetting them more.

Until then you could do what Indians student did :

http://linux-delhi.org/ (Click on "Winners of inter-school font contest" link)

[TRN]

Thank you for the wonderful links. They are filled with great knowledge.

One of the reasons that I love using a GNU/Linux system is the efficiency of the desktop. Last night, while trying to get the journals subdomain working, there were several programs open and I was easily moving between them as well as copying & transfering information between three machines. gFTP was uploading, Sylpheed was downloading, KWrite was open to edit some cgi files, Phoenix had 3 windows with 20 site tabs open in each, and several Konsoles were open for ssh. The only thing that I didn't have open was OOo, which is usually open. Oh - I forgot that Composer was open while I was taking notes on the test system installing Yoper.

All of this was done with little previous setup effort. If you aren't amazed then you didn't use GNU/Linux systems even 2 years ago. It's pure joy to work efficiently.

In contrast, the only thing operating on the Windows ME box is the two IE windows, MSN messenger and Netscape radio. If a fourth window is opened then the screen redraws become garbaged. I've also had to reboot the system three times in the previous 24 hours (My Linux boxes aren't turned off unless I'm moving the desknote to work with me).

A glimpse
http://journals.tuxreports.com/lph is online but not ready for prime time. You may check the link but you'll find it is rather empty :-)

5 Million Hits
Yes, over five million hits were registered on this server in the month of December. And that was before the domain name was transfered. Phew. Thank you. Happy Holidays.