Kc216 "Garage Sale".
Aug 12In Kc0016 we help you make money by selling of your oldstuff online. How to sell, what to sell, where to sell and most importantly : To who to sell to. Aside from a snippet of music we also have a stand up comedy routine from Eddie Izzard. Those of you prune and sensitive to a little badmouthing .. be advised !
Shownotes.
- Timestamp
- Introduction : Broadband in Belgium.
- Music : Burning House Remix by Michael Seliekie.
- Part 1 : What and where to sell.
- Comedy : Eddy Izzards encore on Computers.
- Part 2 : How to sell.
- Signoff
Related Posts
Jeff Dunham and AchMed.
Aug 11
You might have seen this one a few times over, but I giggled all day long just thinking about this clip.
Related Posts
Htop is like Top to Da Bling.
Aug 11One of the cool things in Linux is that you hardly any hardware to interact with it. No fancy GUI, no hardcore processor etc … If you just run in command line mode only you can run linux on a slow machine or interact with machines over a slow connection. Putty and the terminal are your friends. But in order to see "what your machine is doing" you need to have a good look at the processes that are running, how much memory its using and so forth. On the mac there is the "ACTIVITY MONITOR" giving you spiffy graphs and an easy way to kill off unwanted processes while keeping an eye on your memory and processor usage. On the Windows side there is the TASK MANANGER (CTRL-ALT-DELETE or right click on your task bar and select ‘task manager’. Also here , spiffy graphs and right-click-kill options.
But what if you are using a linux machine with a command line interface only ? you could use the TOP command. it gives you a nice overview of the processes that are running. Yet, aside from impressing noobies using this fancy scrolling application, there is no real practical use for TOP. Top is like the the 999 dollar Iphone app : you can impress a noob but you can’t really do anything with it.
Today I stumbled across HTOP, kinda like TOP on Bling. The functionality is the same (it lets you take a look at what your linux machine is running) BUT its a lot nicer to work with. Top lets you organize, kill and ‘nice’ the processes you want using your cursor and some function keys (Sweet !) Instead of boring numbers it gives you this cool bar that swoops up and down. It has the ease of use of a desktop application but the bandwith and processor footprint of some sweet command-line app only. HTOP is like Top to Da Bling !
|
|
Related Posts
Connectivity : ubiquitous
Aug 11
It doesn’t happen a lot, but from time to time it does. I have some time to kill and quickly flip out my laptop to write up a little post. A quick scan of the wifi-area makes me realise that … damn.. this is a wifi-free zone.
So there you are. A computer full of stuff but no way to connect to the net. It used to be the most normal thing in the world, but it is becoming more and more annoying for me. The cost of wifi has dropped and so has the cost of UMTS 3G access to the net. Walking by the local Telco’s providers shop I got the heads up on their new "internet connection" plan that is available in Belgium these days. 15 euro’s a month for 15 hours of 3G connectivity. As a bonus they throw in the UMTS usb modem for about 75 euro’s. Not a bad deal if you think about the fact that this type of modem is compatible with UBUNTU linux, so I could hook it up to my EEEpc. Ok, its still expensive if you think about it, but I am seriously thinking about the pro’s versus the cons.
If I close my eyes and think about the implications of the contract, I see myself as a person with the possibility to a complete and total ability to connect to the internet no matter WHERE I was or WHAT computer I would be using. (the usb modem would work on my mac, my pc and my EEEpc running Linux) With the little box in my pocked I would no longer have to depend on open wifi or the use of someone elses wifi connection. 3G connectivity is not available everywhere in the country here (most places allow only GPRS connection speeds) but it would be enough to do the trick. (Email, Irc, little bit of surfing etc etc). Most people look for options to connect their cellphones to the net, but I still don’t believe in that option. It was nice being able to access my emails on my cellphone (surely when I had the treo that was awesome) but for the rest .. the net is just too damn bigg to browse on a Cellphone. If i have to pay to hook something up to the net over the 3G network, i’m paying to hook up a computer, that at least will enable me to experience the net through a propper interface.
So dreaming of checking mail, chatting over IRC, Skyping, making blogposts, uploading pictures etc … I also need to consider the downside. What if you have the ability to connect to the net no matter where you are. How does that change the way you live your everyday life.
First of all there are the upsides to this story. I could blog from anywhere, chat with everyone no matter where I was , Settle betts in a bar using Wikipedia (lol) or fire up a remote download back home using a telnet interface. But … I would also be tempted to access the net whenever I felt like it. (and all the distractions an online connection brings). Its a little like the Cellphone question a few years ago. Do i get a phone or don’t I ? Do I want to be reachable everywhere or not. But hey .. we learned to live with that, I’ll mananage 3G anywhere too.
As for the time limit i’m a little miffed :(. 15 hours a month is about half an hour a day. Taking a good look at the life I lead, this lifestyle doesn’t put me away from an IP for very long … but it are these pesky moments when you WANT to use the net and you can’t that sometimes count.
So i’ll probably go for it. The dreamy moments of being able to update my Facebook profile while sitting in the middle of a sunny forest is just too damn geeky to pass up. It will also give some extra powers to my EEEpc as the ultimately connectable and portable computer in my arsenal.
Online "anywhere" is one more step in the evolutionary ladder of my online life.. Can’t wait for the next one : Connected everywhere .. all the time.. (and the problems THAT will bring)
Related Posts
I've got old friends in new places.
Aug 11
You know these stupid questionnaires .. about how the average
"Computer Geek" might know 15 people on the other side of the world but
does not know what his or hers next door neighbour looks like ? You
might call me one of those yeah. Well, both of us really. Our cellphone
hardly rings with friends calling up to chat with us, we don’t get a
lot of text messages … Any form of "local communication" like for
example a phone call, a written letter or "somebody dropping by" is
quite scarce at "Casa del Knightwise 2.0".
But we don’t fit the profile of being "social outcasts" or hermits..
We interact heavily with other people .. but not always in our own
timezone. Other people have friends in the local Football club, or take
their dog to "puppy school" where the can meet with people from the
area. We don’t really do those kinds of things. Yeah sure, Plenty of
Emails coming in, plenty of communication going on .. but not with
people on this part of the planet. Most of our contacts are people from
abroad and people we know online.
But that has kind of changed the last few weeks. Tinkering around
with my Facebook profile I decided to punch up some names from old
friends and relatives that I have know. And what do you know: Facebook
profiles started to pop up all over the place. Before I damn well knew
what was going on I was getting befriended by people whom I’ve know for
years but had lost touch with. Former girlfriends that now live far far
away .. Former co-workers.. old friends … and some of them even speak
DUTCH ! ! It was a strange clash of worlds in all. My online profile
and handle ‘Knightwise’ is well known in the virtual communities I’m a
part of. Most of you won’t even KNOW my real name. And for me .. thats
just fine. But now I was hooking up with people that know me from "the
real world’ and they have NO IDEA who the hell "Knight Wise" is. Only
thanks to my face on the picture did they make out who I was.
So as most hip cyber-people agree that Facebook is so "last year"
I am (for once) sticking around , building a little community of people
I know from real life. I even get to write back and forth in Dutch.
Some people who are on my Facebook profile are even in the region where
I could ring them up for a BBQ. What an awesome idea .. So call me
lame.. Call me noob .. but I like my Facebook buddies. The ones that
reside in the real world and those that are my virtual co-citizens.
They both make my Facebook profile a bridge between both worlds.. Good
friends in both places !
