Anthony Hook » uncategorized

Blue Ayes and her TV debut

anthony — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:00:06 +0000

Well, it looks like Blue Ayes has made a TV spot for Channel 12 thanks to Muskie Matt and The Chiggers. Off they went to Lake Superior for a fun day of fishing.

Check out Admiral Becky’s article about the trip and also the video is online.

Woe’s for Windows

anthony — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:48:21 +0000

So, I’m back in the Service Center for a few days because the regular employee is on vacation. I use exclusively Ubuntu Linux on my laptop.

All of the computers that come in run some version of Windows or occasionally a Mac. I have seen them range from Windows 3.1 to Vista with everything inbetween. Some of the things are hardware related; most things are Windows with spyware/virus/malware causing the oh-so-infamous my-computer-is-running-really-slow syndrome.

Sometimes the fix is data backup with a clean wipe and reload. Sometimes they don’t have their Office CD or license key or whatever and don’t want it reloaded so you have to scan and try to manually get rid of what they have.

Once you have the OS installed, that’s half the battle. Next comes drivers. Chipset, graphics card, audio, video, network, modem, etc. Now, before you enter the internets (yes, with an s. Why? Why not.), you have to make sure they have some sort of antivirus or antispyware that’s installed, running all the time to make sure something doesn’t slip in, and automatically updating or you’re in the same boat as before. Once those are installed comes Windows Updates.

This particular computer went as follows:

2 Updates.
Restart.
1 Update.
Restart.
118 Updates (some of these required babysitting [clicking "Okay" or "I accept" to any license agreements so it didn't finish automatically]).
…an hour later: Restart.
Service Pack 3 (again, needed babysitting).
Restart.
2 Updates.
Restart.
Yes, Norton, always allow Internet Explorer (shudder) to connect to the internet.

And finally: restore the customer’s data.

Now, stay off Limewire, adult sites, and MySpace. You should be okay. Off you go.

Man, do I appreciate Linux.

School’s Out for the Summer!

anthony — Sat, 17 May 2008 17:41:46 +0000

So, I took a video on the way home yesterday. I realize it’s probably really stupid, but I was quite bored, had a long day (3 finals plus moving out!) and I will argue that I was bordering temporary insanity. Have no fear, I made it home okay. I had rain the entire time in front of me and sunshine/sunset behind me the ENTIRE way. I followed the tail-end of the storm. Not cool.

Long drive home (mp4)

Surprise Sunrise

anthony — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:58:33 +0000

So the alarm goes off at 5:15 this morning. Mind you, I don’t have classes on Thursday. Brittany gets up, starts the coffee, hands me a blindfold and the camera. She told me that she had some sort of surprise for me and that it might be early in the morning, but today was the day. We get to the Suburban, and I put my blindfold on. It’s a pink bandanna with some sweet skull-and-crossbones.

We were off – to wherever she was taking me. I found the spot where my coffee sat in the cupholder so I knew where that was. Important things first, you know. We get there and I fumbled my way up some steps.

We got there and I was allowed to take my bandanna off. I found ourselves in the Gazebo near the cliff at Enger tower just in time for the sunrise.

We took a lot of neat pictures (I’ll put them online later) and got to see a boat come into port.

It was a very cool surprise and it will be a hard one to follow up.

Mind the step!

anthony — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:17:41 +0000

From Free Software Magazine:

Amen.