Ubuntu to Mac OS

Most people, I am for one feel uncomfortable about Linux cause it seems foreign and hard to use at the first glance. With Ubuntu what i liked was the ability to re-design the desktop to be Mac like which I am familiar with due to my school using them.

What i wasn't impressed with Ubuntu or maybe Linux is that compared to Macs there is a lot of scripting and such, I tried to install on application and couldn't do it user friendly, you have to enter a few paragraphs of code into the terminal and then it still did not work and i still haven't got it installed yet.

So if you a beginner and you don't mind spending money Mac OS may be easier, if not some patience may pull you through and get you using the Mac like interface free alternative but for me at the moment Vista may be a smaller learning curve (yet to get Vista)

Partition Magic (Gparted)

I've talked about Partition Magic before and it did seem to work quiet efficiently but recently i have had to partition my hard drive to fit Ubuntu (a Linux distribution), I had had create a partition for Linux it self and a swap file for it too. I also tried to rearrange my swap file partition for Windows.

The result was it took a very very long time, maybe even up to 6 hours if I remembered right. A reason for this too was because i had shrunk and then grew my partition when changing my mind and forgot that it was recorded in the "to do" tasks list which made it re-size and then contradict the operations. But still it takes about 2 to 3 hours to work on 150Gb hard drive which some people may say is outrageous and decide to use an alternative software but I think that if it the long wait can ensure a safer partition then I would stick with this software but because i have not tried any faster partition alternative software I can not say if the faster partition times are due to better programming or as a result of checking less and hence increasing risk level of losing data.

What was of concern to me was that there was a thunderstorm and hail warning in my area of the time of partitioning and I knew that if I were to stop the software with 2 hours to do it would screw up my hard drive fore sure and if a surge or back out happened it would have the same effect so I just hoped very hard that there was still electricity until it was done.
My suggestion for those attempting to partition a hard drive using this software would be to use a UPS to ensure power in the case of lightning (UPS won't last 6 hours in most of the models I've seen and you can't simple save and resume after power is back up) so alternatively i would have a look at the weather and ensure a fine day ahead. This still doesn't solve the problem if you had a black out due to excessive energy consumption in summer or winter due to heating and cooling demands and a PSU would still not save you (I think) so really a faster partitioning software may be worth your investment of time if you wish to partition large hard drives or many (for what ever reason you have so many) or simple just connect up a bike with electricity generating functions and power your PC the healthy way.

In summary, back up your data before trying to partition and have a Windows install CD near-by for the worst of situations.

My first computer mod

I posted about cooling my computer more with an extra cooling fan i had lying around. I've done it, the computer seems to be a bit more louder but now that I've closed up my case and bay covers it seems to be ignorable but a noisy computer is much better than a non-working one i guess.
I opened up the front cover of the tower first (didn't know i could do that) and not really surprising, there was groups of cotton ball like balls of dust from two years of operations. I also found that there is a place for my fan at the front of the computer on the bottom and that fan is ducted to the bottom of the tower. The problem i had with that idea was that there was a secondary hard disk in the way, i could work around it but didn't want to fiddle around with that in the future when it comes to cleaning time so i decided to use 2 5.5" bays to hold the fan. I could screw the fans to the metal plate that was there at the front but because the fan would be too close to the holes in the metal plates which it made it loud, i decided to place the fan a bit further back, there was no design for that so there was no holes but i managed to work-around this limitation by using ordinary string and string it trough the holes in the fan and the hold on the side of that bay which are used to screw CD drives in place, i did this on both sides to hold the fan in place in case if i need to move or shake my tower. I hope this design will bring me better cleaning procedures, more efficient cooling and better noise control. You'll hear me whine in future posts if my deign doesn't meet it's perfect intention.

On a different note, I have done something i though was very risky and dangerous. I re-sized my hard disk partitions so i can create a section of my disk to be dedicated to Spooling, Cache of browsers and virtual memory or swap file. These types of files are usually temporary and cause lots of fragmentation (wiki this word if you don't understand) if i can partition this type of data to a certain PHYSICAL area of the disk it can make defraging hard disk easier because the fragmentation is located in one place of the disk rather than all over the disk. Less fragmentation and especially less fragmentation all over the disk will cause faster and healthier hard disk operations which is important on the operating system (OS) disk (i.e. hard drive where Windows is installed) as programs and the OS performance will be affected by time lags of having to seach all over the disk for the other parts of a file stored on the disk.
I used Pmagic 1.8 as a bootable CD by downloading the ISO, the software was one of the best Linux based live CDs, previously when i tested out Linux operating systems it had bad loading times and response times but this software was fast and had excellent image and graphics, way beyond my expectations for a bootable program.
It was also fairly simple to use, which is really good for me as i am new to Linux and their graphical user interfaces. This program allows to you shrink the size of an existing hard drive and use that extra free space as a new partition. I have only used it once so i do recommend it but i also even strongly recommend that you back up ALL your data first ( i used an external hard drive ~ 1:1 size worth my computer but only backed up data, i.e. excluded OS and programs installed) as i can't say that nothing bad will or can happen to your case of using this software, what i also did before using the software was defraged my disks (with AusLogics Disk Defrag, which i am still trailing but so far provided faster results than Windows but lacked features like what files are defragmented and analysing if the disk needs to defrag but why do you need it? just use Windows defrag and then to actually defrag the disk use AusLogics)

After partiting my hard disks i decided to rename my partitoned disks, they use to be called 128, 74 and Gec Soft because the disls were 74GB, 128GB and Gec Soft data disk but now as i have partitioned as new disk the disk is no longer 128GB so i decided to rename all my disks to be more meaningful and now they are Win OS, Data Disk, Achieve and Vram (or virtual RAM as this new partition is intended for RAM or temporary data)

I am a clean freak inside and outside of my computer so now it is really eye sore, a dam Vram disk is showing in "My Computer" and cause i am impulsive and clumsy i know i will click on it so many times and waste time as i am use to Gec Soft disk being the last disk in the list of hard drives. A quick Google search and surely the use of Tweak UI from Microsoft's power tools can help me tweak the computer to hide the nasty icon that i won't need as the data in there should be written by software and deleted automatically when it is not needed or when the program closes.

By the way I use Google instead of Yahoo! because i dislike their business methods and social values, Google search "Yahoo communist" or along those lines to read about their law suits with revealing democratic activities on the net to the government of China which caused democratic fighters and freedom of speech practice-ees to be locked up in jail for 10+ years which i personally think is too much, not even a thief would be locked of for 10 years and they are actually doing damage to the community (not that they should be locked up in the first place). Anyway that's another chapter in this book.

Chow

EDIT:
Cool, Tweak UI can also get rid of MSN's stupid sharing folder in My Computer which is annoying cause i only send single files and don't need sharing folders, the program also allows me to remove Saved Files on this computer from My Computer "menu" (it is not actually deleted only the shortcut in my computer is removed) which is alos good because i didn't like Gecsoft's documents (shortcut to my documents) and all the other users documents showing in my computer. It kinds looks hollow now but i guess it is neater.

Set Out

This is how I am planning to set out my posts:

Info: Help and discussion on how i will operate my blog

Event: Means an event or scenario in my life

Idea: Something i have done with technology that you could try too

View: My view point on things, corporate tactics of sales of technology, false advertising, predictions on technology, tricky conditions, warranties and promises etc.

Tips: Tips for software, hardware and general computer usage

Tutorial: This tag means my post will have some directions and instructions that you could try to follow to do something i have done, computer mod, problem solving etc. (most likely in basic detail)

Review: I am going to post personal reviews about Internet services, software and technology that I have used and what I think about them

Links: Useful websites or interesting sties i have come across

Resources: This is most likely going to be the same as "Link:" but if this label is on a post it means that the link goes to a site that provides a service or good (such as software) and will be more likely useful to developers such as web masters.

Misc: I am just going to use this label to cover my random posts