Last January, I passed the General Class written test with flying colors. I also failed the CW test miserably. In June, I failed it again, and I have one month to take it one last time or else I have to retake the written class test over again. I’m not looking forward to that at all. So, I’m putting my nose to the grindstone and I will pass the test next time.

Last Friday and Saturday, I volunteered with an organization called the Kramden Institute to refurbish PC’s for underprivledged children in Durham, NC. Here is the website of the Geekathon, including one of my wife and me.

First of all, I want to say thanks to the staff of Hamblog.com for the reintroduction of their fine website.

I went to the Cary, NC Hamfest this morning. This is the same hamfest where I passed the Technician class license exam last year. That means that I have been a licensed ham for one year now. Hooray!

I was mostly broke today, so I didn’t pick up anything tremendous. I just scrounged around, looking for connectors and doodads that I didn’t want to buy are Radio Shack. I did pick up a nice 1:1 balun for $1. It looks to be in good condition and is cased inside PVC. I also picked up some cheap 300ohm twinlead. 100′ for $2!

Windows Longhorn 5203 Screenshots

Here are a few free screenshots of the new Windows version that is due out next year. It will be called, “Longhorn”.

I see a lot of “eye candy” here i.e. a lot of fancy graphics. The problem is that it will require equally fancy hardware to support it, not to mention the cost of the OS itself.

This is Fedora Core 4: http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/363_or/1.png http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/362_or/1.png

This is Knoppix 3.9 http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots//Knoppix-Live-GNULinux_2.jpg

There’s been a lot of talk going on in the news about identity theft. I understand that this is a terrible crime that can leave a person penniless and in dire financial straits. The main culprit, of course, is the internet. The news reports are full of “Beware of this” and “Beware of that”. My beef, and this is probably something inherent in TV that I have long been immune to is that important information like this is given 30 seconds to 2 minutes on the nightly news. That is not enough time to educate anyone about the dangers of almost anything. The only thing it can do is spread fear, and that is no way to combat a problem.

I was thinking about this last night. Why does’t any of the main Linux distrobutions contains a Windows conversion package? It would basically make the first CD of a multi-CD installation a live CD. That live CD would contains software that would back up the user’s files in Windows. If the person has a CD Burner, they would then be given the option of burning those use files to a CDR. Then the software would continue with the installation. That way, even if the person screwed up their HDD with the partitions, then would not have lost all of their settings.

Warning! INCREDIBLY POLITICALLY INCORRECT MATERIAL AHEAD!

I’m currently trying to pass my General Class Amateur Radio exam, and I found the following book online. As you may be able to tell, it was written several years ago. When I read this book, I get the image of an older gruff gentleman telling me the best way that he knows how to learn Morse Code. He really doesn’t give a damn for my new-fangled ways of doing things, but he sincerely wants me to learn. Here’s the introduction: