Category Archives: News

Memory, Thou Art My Enemy!

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Two years ago I bought my future (now current) wife a laptop. Now, it wasn’t nothing big, I just wanted her to have a laptop that she could experiment with, as well as the laptop that she worked on from day to day so I got her a cheap-ish refurbished HP laptop.

The day she got it, I helped her install Linux on it and helped her get started with using Linux. However, she did not have the best of luck with it. For starters, she went into Linux trying to use it the same way she used her Macbook. Despite my reminders that Linux doesn’t work the same as Mac OS/X, she only found frustration.

This set a kind of odd precedent for her and me regarding the function of this laptop. One that resulted in her saying that Linux sucked, and me saying that she was doing something wrong. In my defense, when I used her computer, I never had these problems, so I literally could never duplicate the problems she was having.

Until tonight.

Typically, I don’t have problems installing Linux, particularly Arch Linux, on anything, however, tonight the laptop seemed to insist on fighting me every step of the way. After two failed installs, I finally got the installation to complete, but I was unable to get it to boot.

This led me to trying to troubleshoot hardware, so I started with the BIOS to see what diagnostics it offered. The disk test succeeded, but I was getting an odd failure when testing memory. So, after removing one stick of memory, I rebooted, and voila, everything work.

The moral of the story folks: listen to your spouse. Especially, if they are complaining about their crappy performing desktop.

New Year, New Blog, New Post!

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Seeing as how I’m moving most of my professional style blog posts to my SEO site, I figured the new year was as good a reason as any to start the blog over again. Starting today I’m going to commit myself to a weekly post, covering the things I’m interested in: Linux, KDE, and the three P’s (Python, Philosophy, & Punk Music); without venturing into the things I work in: SEO, SEM, Online Marketing, Web Design, User Interface & Experience (all of these will be covered over at KZen SEO).

Continuing with the new year theme, I wanted to share some resolutions I have for this year.

Name Change

For years I have wanted to change my last name, and this year I will finally finish it. In just a few months, I will share my last name with my stepfather.

I Will, For Once, Work For Myself

Not that I have anything against corporations, but for far too long I have worked for companies whose greatest interest is in improving their bottom line. That said, I think this year I will finally establish my own personal consulting firm (hence KZen SEO), perhaps covering a range of services from SEO and SEM to areas that further engage my passions such as implementation of Linux as a computing platform for small businesses and non-profit organizations.

A Thought a Week, Every Week

Being the introvert that I am, I will start sharing my views on many of the thoughts that zoom through my INTP head all the time. Granted, this will be the scatter brained thoughts that can only classify as random, but maybe they’ll start to make sense in time.

Certifications and Education

For a long time I have gotten by using the knowledge that a life in jobs ranging from fry cook to robotics developer without much to show for it. Seeing as I really want to improve my lot in life, I will begin pursuing the education and certifications that actually prove to myself, as well as everyone else, that I actually do know what I’m talking about. On the horizon is my LPIC-1 and LPIC-2, but more will be added as time goes on. Particularly, I want to increase my knowledge and authority with Python.

Write and Release, a Backup Application

I’ve always been disappointed with backup solutions on pretty much every platform I’ve ever used. Some are pretty good, but are missing out on features I feel are critical; some have the features I want, but an abysmal interface; and the rest are the abominations that appear in b-rated horror movies.