Well, this is going to be the last one for a while as I have changed my ISP's billing plan to three hours a month, believe it or not. Recently I've been on the 'Net between 6-10 hours a day. Oh, well - I'll just have to keep track of the latest happenings in the computing world via e-mail. It's not too hard, but it's not like having a 24-7 T-1 connection.
This is not too bad, as I may get more intimate with my UN*X operating systems (remember that I just ordered UnixWare and have Red Hat Linux 5.0), and will probably take up weight training again, start studying more, and go out more frequently (yes, I have a life - I just postponed it for Linux).
Well, I've managed to spread some misinformation around so don't believe everything you see on my site. I would make an errata page, but I'm too lazy. As a rule of thumb, at least three quarters of the information here is either truthful or aimed towards the truth.
The site now is much more a mess than ever with a disgusting and unsightly mix of Windows and Linux info and links. Apologies. If you look hard enough you'll see where I started to shift my interest to a real operating system.
On a more personal matter, I just took my biology test (my first test in science in college), and I think I did well enough (somewhere between an F to a low A, I think). I was also accepted to Millikin University for the fall. This has brought a big sigh of relief for me as, if I had to stay at my community college, I would have had to take all elective credits in the fall. This would have been a bad thing. Not only would I not be challenged [much], but I would have wasted a good bit of time and money since my plans involve transferring to a private university.
I also started working out again. Putting together a routine after almost two years is like putting together a puzzle except the pieces keep changing size and shape. I'll post my workout on my next update. You can e-mail me if you can't wait till then.
The teaching at my community college is quite exceptional (that's probably why it's considered one of the best, if not the best, in the country). It's very easy to see that [all] my professors Really CareTM about the subject matter. They have a passion for it. Not only does this make class interesting, but it also makes it nearly impossible not to learn. I still have to read and study a lot, but I haven't found class time to be a waste of time unlike other places I have studied. I must note that I have only tenured faculty teaching me at present, but I have found the part-time faculty to be quite exceptional as well. Adjunct faculty or first-year profs., however, should be avoided in general.
My biology book sucks. It has all the info but is poorly written. I wouldn't be able to pass the course just by reading it (I should be able to - that's the college standard). It was definitely written by scientists and not by scholars (like the distinction?). Gee, the writers of this book should learn a lot more about technical writing (like I'm one to speak).
Competing for women here sucks. Sure the girls here are prettier, and there are more of them than at the school I previously attended, but there's definitely more competition.
They use Windows 95 in the computer labs. A friend and I went in there, and I realized almost immediately that the two computers we were using needed to be rebooted because Windows 95 had killed the TCP IP stack. Ha, ha, ha... it's almost amusing - if you're not actually trying to do work. Man would I hate to be one of the system administrators...
Otherwise, I've found the education here to be superior, I've made quite a few friends already, and I have Linux at home.
My interest in software is in its climax... what's next? Can you say programming? I can't... at least not yet.
BeOS for Intel is coming! I'm thinking late February or early March. It's only for Pentiums [for now] with 16 MB RAM or higher. I think it requires 150 MB disk space. This preview release will probably be downloadable from the 'Net (meaning free) or available on CD from $10 to $50. I've looked at the FAQ and it appears that it will support most popular hardware (my PC, for example, is BeOS-ready) and will also allow dual-booting (or in my case - quad-booting - I like looking forward to being able to choose between BeOS, TurboLinux, SCO UnixWare, and, err, Windows NT).
My UnixWare CD's should be here soon. Strange, but I don't think UnixWare supports my video card (S3 Virge). Linux does though :-). My next update will have information on how my installation went and how slow UnixWare is compared to Linux on a Pentium 166 with 32 MB SDRAM.
I'll be ordering TurboLinux 1.2 once it finally comes out. It will definitely replace Red Hat Linux 5.0 at least until glibc becomes the standard [in a few months]. Wait, glibc is an installable component of TurboLinux - it's just optional. I just have to figure out where KDE fits into this, as TurboLinux defaults to X on startup with the classy NextStep interface. I need a libc 5.4 based distribution for StarOffice 3.1.
I'm looking for Solaris x86 2.5 or higher. If you have it or know someone who has it and are willing to part with it, please contact me. Also, if you need a Windows 95 upgrade CD, First Aid 95 (on CD with printed manual), and or WinDelete 3.0 (on floppies and CD - which also includes Office Central, VirusScan, and some benchmarking utility), I have these items but have no further need of them.
FreeDOS boots on DOSEmu. Programs that have been proven to run on FreeDOS include Doom and WordPerfect 5.1. We're almost on our way to having a completely free system... I figure Debian 2.0 or higher, with beta or final versions of GNOME (instead of KDE), Wine (instead of WABI), DOSEmu, and FreeDOS (instead of OpenDOS) and... you know where I'm getting at: the ultimate [free] system that makes any version of Windows look like DOS (wait, it already looks like DOS ;-). Of course, Linux 3.0 would be nice too and an Alpha processor or two mind you.
Ooooh, just another way to spend my money, or maybe not...
Wine works quite well considering it's alpha. It even does something WABI does not and will not: run 32-bit Windows programs [including Opera]. I don't have many 16-bit programs, but reportedly Wine works even better with these. I can't tell you for sure. If Wine isn't in beta by May, then I'll probably get WABI. Hopefully Caldera will reduce WABI's price of $99 by then. WABI is, in fact, a dead product to run another dead product, and is or will be obsolete with the ongoing development of Wine.
This is awesome! They finally fixed KPanel to work with Red Hat Linux 5.0! It's finally almost useable. Well, it may be for others, but not for me, yet. By May it should be in beta 5 or higher, so by that time it will probably be useable for me too. It just means I won't have to spend $100 on CDE. Then again, I may be fixed on AfterStep on TurboLinux or Motif on UnixWare (at any given time I will have Windows NT, TurboLinux, and/or UnixWare installed - I am anticipating the need for Netware support - yes, I still want to go back to Valpo).
Copyright © 1997 Mark Santos. All rights reserved.