Meet Major Kira.

Dec 31

Meet the newest addition to the
Knightwise.com family.
We adopted a new little kitten called Keira.
Keeping in line with the "Star Trek DS9" naming convention for our
pets. (Our dog is called Neelix) we have converted the name to .. KIRA
( As in "Major Kira ") Somehow her personality matches that of the major
as she is serving in a foreign environment, but still kicks ass.
(Neelix has had a run in with her claws). But the rest of the time she
is super-sweet.


In this picture you see her, clearly assimilated
by the Borg and boasting two bright green eyes. After the shot was
taken she tried to assimilate the camera and has turned the shoebox
into a small borg cube. It took 2 Galaxy class starships and a RactaJino to calm her down. Some cat !

 

 

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Overpowered Laptops and constant connectivity.

Dec 28

Its Sunday afternoon here at the KnightsCastle, and as we mellow down and chill out on the couch, I’ve plopped myself down at the kitchen table with my Macbook Pro. I’m not in my fortress of solitude ( see KW006 ) because that room is currently occupied by Nyana’s baby sister who has come down for a few days to study for her exams. Yep ! We have a guest for the holidays, a lodger, an exchange-student from not so far away. In short : We have company.

As a result I have gladly vacated my office, together with its powerful 24 inch Imac and have gone mobile just using my macbook pro to do the stuff one needs to do.  And to be very honest : I think it works great ! Don’t assume Mac-Fanboy-ism. Just common sense and use of existing technology.

 

desktop

 

As I’m typing away I’m watching some classic Dr Who ( "The death of the Daleks" ), updating a virtual ubuntu machine, chatting away on Google Talk and visiting several websites (not to mention I’m in the process of downloading an episode of another TV show ) And all of that on this one little machine. This is one of these instances where processor power and the addition of 4 gigs of ram does make a difference. Most laptops sold on the market these days are sort of like this configuration. And looking at the general use they get, they are monstrously overpowered. ( You need a sluggish  overblinged OS like Vista to at least use up some of these superfluous processor cycles). 

And just think about it. Up until a few years ago laptops where "underpowered alternatives" to desktop computers. These days most laptops are equally powerful and per formant. Zdnet even reported that laptop sales are outgrowing desktop sales this year and expect an even larger decrease in desktop sales for the coming year. So the question is : Is the desktop dead ? Is the next generation of the mobile road warrior going to be the "road warrior with the portable super-powered workstation like laptop ? " Is the next pixar movie going to be edited and rendered on a laptop while the owner is having coffee at starbucks ?  Certainly its going to be an interesting year. The ultra portable desktops are gaining in popularity (also concidering their low price point) UMTS coverage and the sales of UMTS modems for laptops is on the rise.

Are we growing towards a world where the average joe has constant connectivity to the internet, carying around a pretty powerful laptop and being able to do .. well, what actually ? Mobile journalism ? Web 2.0 presence ? Is this new evolution, combining connectivity, portability and affordability going to be a pivot point for citizens of the web ? Who knows.

Meanwhile its time to move on with the things I still need to do and enjo some quality laptop-time.

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My Brother in Dakar

Dec 24

Some people do not dream. Others DO dream. Most of us don’t persue or dreams. We put things off until ‘later’ and nag and complain when we are old. So when your dream is to ride your bike to Dakar .. you can daydream about it until you are blue in the face. OR you can just go and DO IT. And that is what my own brother is going to do. Come Friday this guy is going to join up with a Caravan and drive into the big adventure. You can track the event on line and follow his progress here .So i wish him all the luck and Gods speed on this awesome adventure. Having just watched the entire series of ‘the long way down ‘ I can only imagine what its going to be like. Awesome ! These are journeys that change you forever. Where the destination does not matter, where the treasure lies in the journey that gets you there. These are epic journeys that fill you with sights and impressions so exquisite .. you will be a different and better person when you return. Some people put their dreams off until later. This guy grabs them by the handlebar.

 

 

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At least Scrooge was Honest.

Dec 22

This is not going to be one of these posts where I need to start of with an apology and stuff like that. Reason I have not been blogging away eagerly has to do with the holiday season. This time of year reeks havoc with my "general order of events" and tends to drain away quite a lot of my energy and perkiness about existence in general.

Brake it down in a few words ?  I’m a grumpy man when the holiday season comes around. I thought I would get over it but I don’t. I don"t like all this Christmas shit. I never have and probably never will. The day I’ll bust out of my house on Christmas morning in my pijama’s shouting ‘merry Christmas everyone" will hopefully never arrive. I hereby warn the three ghosts of Christmas to save their energy and keep the frack away from me.

My peeve with this time of year ? The "holiday spirit" whatever that may be. A feeling of warm fuzziness that makes you feel joy and peace towards fellow men, and makes you a better person kind of shit. What it actually turns into is this mass hysteria that seems to invade peoples minds where they discard any sense of style, decorate their house with lights, put on a silly Santa hat and go shopping like there is no tomorrow.

So never mind the fact that the Christians celebrate the time their lord was born. Who gives a frack. Its all about father ‘coca cola’ Christmas and the feast of overspending. Like mad we are dashing out to buy Christmas presents for people who have everything, take the crap and shove the crap in a box. Next we HAVE to have Christmas dinner with the family (also a punishment by itself) where exchange boxes of crap with other idiots and end up with stuff all of us don’t really want. Who wins ? The stores do !

Next up its time to over-eat on turkey and what have you and complain afterwards we have eaten to much. So by the time this stressfull feast is over and we are still wretching on some kind of horrible turkey stuffing, its time to get stressed about new year. Cause new year needs to be special .. who is gonna invite who ? It has to be expensive etc etc..

By the time this hysterical behavior has finally ended we are well into the new year and are patching up our credit card debts thinking what the frack came over us. Good riddens I say.

My point ? That I am amazed at how people ride this commercially driven wave like their is no tomorrow. Every year we look at " a Christmas carol " and smile when cold hearted Scrooge is blessed by Tiny Tim. While in truth we are sitting in our recliners, belly full of food as other tiny Tims continue to wait for the real Scrooge.

So for Christmas I wish everybody to have an attack of their conscience.

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KWTV208 : "Install your own Ubuntu Server"

Dec 03

In this screencast i’ll show you how easy it is to install your very own Ubuntu Linux server in under 10 Minutes. Download your copy of the ISO from www.ubuntu.com , burn it and boot it .. And we will take your hand. Partition your drive, choose encrypted home folders, install your own webserver and SSH server. Its all in our first part of a longer series to use a Ubuntu server and let its technology .. work for you.

Shownotes

 

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