My god, I haven’t updated this blog in a month and a half. I guess that just goes to show that I’m just not your “traditional blogger“. Still, I’ll try and update a little more often from now on.

College isn’t going so well. When I first started on the course I realised how pathetic it was and my peers and I all wondered who was going to drop out first. Quite a few of us did leave by the end of the first year but sadly I was never amongst them. Now I have a lot of work to do to get into University and I find the work demeaning. My father and my grandmother (the latter of whom I live with) have been breathing down my neck about college work and, furthermore, my gran has been trying to be a complete control freak over my life. As such I’ve taken to keep some space between them and myself.

As for this entry’s title, it is based on two things I have learnt related to computing today.

1. Never buy a piece of hardware based on reviews or recommendations.

Chances are that the version you buy, despite being named the same, is a different product indeed. Such is the case with my Safecom SBTC-1100 bluetooth dongle. Despite having numerous pro-Linux reviews and receiving a personal recommendation from a friend the device doesn’t work with the Linux kernel. Why? It seems the company changed a chip inside it rendering this product useless until such a date that support is added. As an Ubuntu user this means my device will be useless until, at the earliest, Ubuntu 8.10 - six months from now

2. APT is always going to be faster than YUM!

APT, used in Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu, is and always will be faster than YUM, the Fedora package manager. This is because of a difference in the way they handle dependencies. APT requires dependencies as other packages whilst YUM depends on specific files and libraries. (source)

It seems that a collaboration of Internet Service Providers in the UK (BT, Talk Talk, Virgin Media and Tiscali) have started selling your web browsing details to an advertising company with an untrustworthy background.

This is a clear violation of privacy rights. Do your bit to help fight it by signing this petition. Don’t underestimate the value of each and every one of your signatures.

Today, I decided to take a bit of a look at astrological signs. I’ve been working on a plot outline for a project and I needed to decide on a character’s birth date for it. I figured, why not use a birth date that relates to an astrological sign that matches that character’s personality?

After a bit of research I figured that I might as well take a look at my myself. According to astrology I’m a Virgo with ascendant Leo so my best matches for relationships are Libra (the best), Aquarius and other Virgos. Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces, Taurus, Leo, Gemini and Sagittarius all look like no-goes with Leo on the absolute bottom (coincidentally my ex’s sign… or is it a coincidence?).

I would like to wish a Happy New Year to all of my readers (yes, all five of them). It’s 1AM here now and the mobile networks are still struggling to cope. I’m completely unable to text friends!

With the New Year comes a tradition to set yourself some New Year Resolutions and, for once, I’m going to oblige and do just that. In fact, I’ve decided to set myself four resolutions.

This year I will… (more…)