Fun with VirtualBox – Kubuntu Natty and Windows 7

My main computer is my work laptop which run Windows 7 however I try to help out as much as I can with Kubuntu and the Kubuntu project.  I have ran into various problems with things I need to do for running Kubuntu naitively and have posted here several times about applications I miss when I’m running Kubuntu.  (If someone knows how to connect Kontact w/ Exchange 2010 please comment here)

I recently asked on Quora wondering if VirtualBox had a mode like VMWare Fusion on Mac with Unity Mode.  I discovered Seamless Mode in VirtualBox and running my Kubuntu Natty VM.  So here is the screenshot

 

Book Review: The Imperial Cruise

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=aconstech-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&asins=0316014001

 

I have a habit of finishing a book on a plane and not having anything to read except for whatever I pick up in the local Hudson News or whatever the airport bookstore is called and the last flight I picked up “The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War” by James Bradley.  I had previously read “Flags of Our Fathers” and enjoyed it, but was extremely disappointed by this book.

I should have read some of the reviews on the Amazon page, but didn’t for some reason this time. 

The book tells the story of President Theodore Roosevelt sending a cruise to Japan and how it laid the seeds for World War II and Japan’s Imperial Ambition. Sounds pretty interesting right?  All a subject I knew nothing about and hoped to learn something interesting.

Problem with the book is that it becomes a complete revision of all American history blaming Aryan philosophy and White Supremacy as the reason behind the founding of our country, expansion out West, and everything else involved in world history.

Look I understand our founding fathers were not the heroes and as squeaky clean as our history books or history books have made them.  However I doubt all of their motivations were based on white supremacy and an Aryan philosophy.  It’s interesting this is the first time in all the history books on our founding fathers, American history, World War II, etc I’ve read (and I have a decent amount of books) this has never been mentioned.

 

Stay away from this book, it’s not worth finishing…. I didn’t

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 43,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 47 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 397 posts. There were 67 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 6mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was May 12th with 992 views. The most popular post that day was What is missing from Ubuntu?: Manageability.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were en.wikipedia.org, planet.ubuntu.com, Google Reader, tuxmachines.org, and google.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for ubuntu one windows client, evolution exchange 2007, kubuntu server, live mesh linux, and ubuntu one windows.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

What is missing from Ubuntu?: Manageability May 2010
2 comments

2

Ubuntu One, Live Mesh, and Dropbox: A Comparison May 2009
10 comments

3

Configure Evolution to to access MS Exchange 2007 May 2010
3 comments

4

Introduction to Altiris Deployment Solution 7.1 February 2010
3 comments

5

Frustrations w/ OpenSuSE and enabling SSH access October 2007
2 comments

Help support a local business that supports Ubuntu

As the year end approaches my wife and I clean out our closets and pile up all the clothes we no longer where or no longer fits us and donate it to charity (something we should do more frequently but don’t for some reason.)  This year we brought our clothes to Worldwide Christian Thrift Store.  The reason for picking them was simple, they are local, less then .5 mile away from us.

One of the interesting things is right in front they have a selection of refurbished computers for sale provided by CompRENW who recycles computers.  The interesting part is each computer is sold with Ubuntu as the operating system of choice.

A note is prominently displayed talking about Ubuntu and what it means:

The note explains what Ubuntu is and how it is different from Windows.  The version they are putting on the machines is Ubuntu 10.10.

If you are in the Grand Rapids MI area feel free to stop buy and purchase a computer running Ubuntu.

Travel stats for 2011

I travel a lot for my job and just wanted to post my travel stats for 2011.

This is the second year flying Continental and I hit Gold on their frequent flyer program.  Also for the 4th year in a row I renewed my platinum status w/ Marriott.

 

• Flight segments on Continental:  68
• Lifetime flight miles: 60,635 (only 2nd year flying Continental
• Flew completely on Regional Jets, either Embrarer or Bombardier Dash Turbojets
• Flight segments on Delta: 1 (due to a cancelation of a Continental flight which was rebooked on)
• Marriott Nights:  95