Trey’s Blog|brain spillage!

When my new hard drive arrived, I had just attended the SuSE Linux Enterprise Roadshow and thought the latest release of SuSE looked amazing.  I decided to give installing SuSE a try and to my surprise, I got caught up on something simple.  I made it all the way through the install to the point of video configuration and SuSE couldn’t identify the LCD model being used by my Sony PCG-R505DL.  I tried the basic LCD and Sony, but no joy with either.  Why SuSE can’t choose a basic driver to use when Ubuntu has no issue with this, is beyond me.  Anyway, I gave up after an hour of trial and error with different configuration tests.

In the next few months, I’ll be trying this distro out on what is my Windows XP box being decommissioned.  I think the hardware on that machine should be easy to identify and should perform very very well with SLED (SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop).

Anyone who spends anytime surfing the Net is bound to run across an article with speculation around what Apple will release next, but at some point I think the rumors and fakery images tend to skew our expectations leaving us disappointed when we don’t get what we’ve wanted. A perfect example of this is the rumor surrounding a new widescreen iPod. We’ve been through two different product releases and still no widescreen iPod. Does this mean it won’t ever happen? Not necessarily, but what I really want to know is did Apple ever plan on producing a widescreen version of the world’s favorite digital media player, or will they just produce one now to make the people happy? (Chicken or the Egg) At what point do you listen to the people and give them what they want because they’ve asked repeatedly? On the other hand, I think Apple has done a good job so far giving the people what they didn’t know they wanted. I was listening to MacCast, a Mac-centric podcast, and he mentioned that he tries to not put too much stock in the rumors to prevent from setting expectations higher than Apple product development can achieve. Are we, as a geek society, so hooked on these gadgets that we really get upset when a company doesn’t release what we think would be the next big thing?

On the flipside, I’d like to say that while I enjoy a good bit of progress in the world of computing, I find it unsettling that Apple releases new versions of their computers at least once per year. If anyone ever tries to get the best available at any given time, their purchase will only be the best available for another 9 months MAX. I’ve run into this with my Mac Mini where I bought the best available at the time and upgraded my RAM to the maximum allowed (2GB) and now, not even 6 months later, a newer faster processor is now available. Apple has also done this with the new set of iPods, but this time they’ve actually done a major disservice to their customers. They’ve released the new more featureful models at a lower price than the previously better models. In other words, those who bought the best 2 months ago have just had their model depreciate by $100 overnight. Is this the price we pay for style? Don’t get me wrong, I have an iPod and I think it is a great little device, but when I bought mine, I went with the last year’s model at the time just so I wouldn’t feel so bad when the newer new models came out.

I’m not sure where I was going with this post, so it may have been just a brain dump. Getting these thoughts out of my head should make room for more important things.

I feel like I’m the last one on the bandwagon of Tivo or DVRs in general. Everyone I talk to in my everyday life, assuming they even watch TV, has a DVR of some kind. With all of the gadgets that I have, they always assumed I would have one as well. Anyway, the time has come and my wife mentioned how her work schedule wasn’t going to allow her to watch her favorite shows this season. I saw this as a good opportunity to surprise her with a Tivo.

I went ahead and went for the best deal possible which was $30 for a dual tuner Series2 Tivo with prepaid subscription. No rebates were necessary so the deal was immediate. It was quite a hit to take all at once, but it will be hassle free for the next three years and by then TVs might come with built-in DVRs… or not.

On the coolness side, which is what you all are looking for, I was able to use my hardly utilized wireless USB adapter from my OmniFi unit (the D-Link DWL-120R) to connect my Tivo to the Internet and it worked like a charm. In fact, within about 10 minutes, I had my entire iTunes Library and iPhoto Library shared across my house to the Tivo. Very nice.

For those who are wondering why I’ve waited so long to purchase a DVR, I’m still in the mindset that when I miss a show, it is very likely that that same evening or the next day, I’ll be able to download it via BitTorrent in better quality than my basic cable can provide. When I watch my shows ontime, I’m enjoying them on my HDTV with Over-The-Air antenna which has no DVR options at the moment. My wife on the otherhand, was the major deciding factor, because I always knew I could get by with my current methods, but she wanted something easier… something she could control. Enter Tivo.

I’m fully aware of the ‘No kid left behind’ campaign by the Bush Administration, but I do not like that fact that this implies that ‘no kid will get ahead.’ I’ve heard from many sources, mostly from school teachers and administrators, that around the second grade, most kids learning levels/skills will level off. Perhaps what they mean is that the children who are behind should be caught up by then, by what this also means is that the children who are excelling will be unchallenged until the rest of the herd catches up. Is this all they have to offer our kids who excel? I know many parents, like myself, may suffer from pride in our children, but it wasn’t until I heard the goals to be reached by the end of Kindergarten that I got worried. They mentioned children should know certain basic site words, be able to count to 100, and other such tasks. My daughter can do these things already, so this tells me that for the next 9 months, she’ll be relearning her ABCs, coloring pictures, and learning to count. She is not the only one in her class who is showing these signs of boredom. My wife and I know of at least one other student who is already capable of completing the tasks set as the goal for the year. Since she is in Kindergarten, my daughter must wait until Spring to be tested for the gifted and talented program, whatever it is called now, but that is not necessarily what I’m looking for in educating her. I’d presonally like to not label her while challenging her.

My daughter’s birthday falls only four days after the enrollment cutoff date of September 2. Because of this, she had to wait a year to be enrolled in Kindergarten. We felt she was more than ready and the Principal of the school would not allow us to enroll her earlier than her birthdate would allow. Here we are a year later and she is showing signs of first grade readiness. While other kids are learning how to write their names, she is reading and writing stories. This puts me in a position I didn’t want to be in because I’m not in favor of having children skip grades unless it is absolutely necessary. I simply wanted her to start Kindergarten when she was ready one year ago.  When I was young the cutoff date actually came closer to the start of school date, so it made a little moer sense, but I would also venture to guess that kids who showed signs of readiness were not told to wait their turn.
Challenge our kids!

I’d love hear feedback on this. If I’m wrong, please provide me the proof so I can learn to be right.