I picked up Bawls G33K B33R at our unfriendly neighborhood Tiger Direct yesterday, and I have to say that I was pleasently surprised. G33K B33R is not the worst root beer out there. I would say that it is not quite as fulfilling as A&W from the tap with lots of head, but it is much better than the root beer from Jones Soda or even Barq’s. I enojeyed it except for the price at $2/bottle and the fact that I have to go across town to find a bottle. Definately worth a try if you’re not a penny pincher like me and you enjoy a cold root beer.
Heathstuff
t’s no secret that one of my hobbies is ham radio. I’ve got a few projects lying around that I would like to see working. Today while looking for information on refurbishing a Heathkit SB-101 transceiver, I found a website called Heathstuff with lots of useful information related to Heathkit radios. The link is here: http://www.kiyoinc.com/heathstuff.html
Sadly, the pages have not been updated since February 2004. The owner, AH6GI, has a lot of good information here, and I hope it helps you out.
How to Write a Review of a Linux Distro
I’ve lost my key. Can you pass me that banana?
Patrick White from the Globe and Mail has an interesting article on a section of the hacker community that even I wasn’t aware of. Amatuer lockpicking, a sort of offline cousin to computer hacking, is gaining interest in the hacker community and is even showcased at the annual Defcon conference. See the entire article here here. HT to lewrockwell.com
Other Links:
Portable Apps
Portableapps.com is an exciting website for geeks on the go. Some of the best open source apps for Windows have been shrunkand encapsulated to work on your portable flash drive. Everything from The Gimp to VLC (with DVD and DIVX codecs) are available for free. If you’re like me, your workplace doesn’t like people installing outside software on company machines, but with the software from Portable Apps, you can install the software on a thumb drive, and your settings will save to a file on the thumb drive, not to the Windows registry.
A little Linux Geek humor
(from xkcd.com)
My new project?
AM/FM RADIO KIT - ELECTRONICS COURSE
Modular instruction and construction.
Training Course of 52 pages is divided up into 9 lessons: Audio Amplifier, AM Detector, AM IF, AM Amplifier, AM Mixer & Oscillator, FM Detector, 1st FM IF, 2nd FM IF, FM RF Stages. “Superheterodyne” receiver of standard AM(amplitude modulation) and FM (frequency modulated) broadcast frequencies. Includes stand. Req. 9V battery (not included)
Product Code EL-AMFM108K $34.95
From elenco
Ideas and Projects for QRP
Damn Small Linux
I’ve been interested in Damn Small Linux for a while. The frugal intallation’s ability to load the entire OS into RAM is awesome. The ability to mount different add-on programs to the OS (ala OSX) and have a very up to date OS is another. It doesn leave a bit to be desired, but overall, it is a very good Linux for slower hardware. I’m currently running the standard HDD installation on the 866mhz P3 with 256megs or Ram. It is fast and reliable. I do have a few complaints though.
PC’s and more PC’s
Two weeks ago, I picked up a “grab bag” of computer parts from a guy on Craig’s List. It contained two PC’s and a box of miscellaneous stuff. I also picked up a computer from beside the dumpster on my way to work. It appears to be a Pentium 3. There was no hard drive in it, but it does have a DVD-Rom drive and a cdrw drive in it, so that’s a big plus, not to mention 384 megs of ram.