Gretchen

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-09-14T23:13:00

2004-09-15T04:13:14Z

I have a Samba share working! It was really simple! It's actually really interesting how many things in Linux I've fought with, let be for a while and then when I look at them again, they are completely easy. All I had to do was install swat, enable it, which in Debian is in /etc/inetd.conf. Everywhere I looked online said it was in /etc/xinetd (or something) but I didn't have that on my computer. Then I had to make sure that my settings were okay, for some reason password encryption was off, that gave me a big headache for a while. Once that was fixed though, it was no problem to set up a share

Test post from Palm

2004-08-17T03:53:16Z

Have I mentioned what a geek I am? Now to get my wireless keyboard working.

Palm Zire

2004-08-16T18:46:19Z

So, I found out that by telling Audible.com I'd subscribe for a year, they would give me $100 off a Zire. I did it and purchased the Zire 31. (Original one resold on ebay) I love this thing. It understands my hand written notes...the calendar is simple and easy to use and it SYNCS. It syncs no problem with outlook at work. There are problems syncing it with Linux. For some reason, linux doesn't want to see it as a device and when it does, kpilot won't see that device. I think it needs a little more work on my part and I'm not ready to do that yet...

Went shopping this weekend and found JEANS that FIT. I was elated. New shoes also on the way from Zappos.com and I picked up a few new shirts. :D:D

Also, I updated to the 2.6 kernel. I had to find a new driver as NVIDIA doesn't support 2.6 yet, but it was fairly easy to find and recompile. However, it doesn't stay, I have to redo it every time I restart. I'm not sure why but since I barely ever restart I'm not going to sweat about it right now...

Zire

2004-08-10T04:35:10Z

On Friday I bought a Zire off of ebay. I don't need a Zire, I have my Zaurus....(are we noticing a pattern here?)...but there are so many programs for it. So far the best looks to be Life Balance. I'm also excited about syncing with both Linux and Outlook (work).
Then again, I'm worried that I'm a bit too excited about this. It's not going to be the answer to all my organizational problems. I want it to be, and I have grand plans to keep all my data in it. I never stay organized like that though...well we'll see how that Life Balance program works out. It could be at least a stepping stone to my being perfectly organized.

Old Laptop

2004-08-08T04:46:32Z

I have my little laptop up and running again. It's the cutest little thing, an IBM Thinkpad 701c with the butterfly keyboard. It's also ancient, they stopped making them in 1996, and I bought mine in 2000. I've messed around with it quite a lot, and finally last winter got a working debian install on it. I don't remember how now and stupidly didn't take good notes so I won't be reinstalling any time soon.
It's a 486 processor with 40MB of RAM (maxed out) and an upgraded hard drive of 4GB. They originally came with a max hard drive of about 800MB. I can't do much multitasking with it, but I love it for my in bed laptop because it's a sub-notebook so very little and light and plus it just so darn cute.

Not another horse

2004-08-08T04:41:52Z

Today we went home and visited my in-laws. Nice people. Sweet people. Horse people. Now I don't mind horses, and I'm glad that they have a hobby that they can share and enjoy. However, I don't *get* horses. To me riding around the countryside would be utter bordem. I am not a fan of nature - ok nature is good outside of the window. Riding in a ring for prizes is even more unfathomable to me. Why put all that work into it when it's not good for anything but show? Again, I'm sure that they think it's tons of fun and that's ok with me.
However, because of this non-understanding of horses I can only talk about them for so long. I can visit with someone excited about horses for about an hour. I can extend that for a while longer by switching the majority of my answers to "wow" or "really?" Also insert plenty of smiling an nodding. However, when you visit someone for several hours and the conversation only occasionally drifts away from horses I get bored out of my freaking mind. I was just zoned out completely by the time we left.
In good news, I had a nice juicy visit with my step-grandmother-in-law, another recent addition to the family. She understands that I'm having a hard time adjusting to a family that is always on the move, doesn't understand special, and makes decisions in a snap. She also understands that my mother-in-law isn't the warmest person on the face of the plant and we can discuss (ok, gossip a bit) why and how to make things better. Best of all nothing gets taken the wrong way and I don't have to worry about it biting me later.

Dipping in my toes

2004-07-25T03:18:28Z

I'm feeling very brave. I'm downloading sources from cvs. KDE sources. I *really* want KDE 3.3. Seems like it's for a silly reason...I want my Zaurus to sync. I had kitchensync compiled, but it broke with KDE 3.2. I didn't think much about it, but since I've started the managing part of my job I've been obcessed with organization. So, I'm carefully following this guide and praying. The way it's laid out it *shouldn't* mess up my existing install (the way I did when I installed 3.2 ahead of time and got myself tangled in dependencies.)

there aren't any configure files in any of the stuff I've downloaded. The doc I'm following says there should be. There is a configure.in.in and I'm supposed to do something with autoconf

Yea for kde-women!!
make -f Makefile.cvs

However, the doc there makes me a bit nervous because it's not all in the home directory of the user I'm setting it up for...however, if I wanted my main user to switch to it, I could more easily with the kde-women doc.

My apologies, the makefile thing was in the first doc too.

Neuros is wonderful

2004-07-21T21:02:55Z

I love my Neuros!!
It is so easy to play my audio books now! There are five preset buttons
on the Neuros that can be set to basically bookmark anything. I'm
guessing most people use them to set favorite radio stations, but I'm
using one to bookmark my spot in my book. It's saved me a lot of
headache. All I have to do is remember to set it every now and then.
(http://www.neurosaudio.com)

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-07-01T21:35:00

2004-07-02T02:36:53Z

Neuros order in...the bundle I want is on back order, so it will be a couple weeks before it ships.

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-06-23T22:33:00

2004-06-24T04:02:18Z

Today my want is the Neuros. It has ogg support (any player that doesn't is instantly dropped from consideration) It comes optionally in what they call a bundle. A small flash player with a hard drive 'backpack'. Personally I think that's a great idea. You can just take the flash player on active events, but keep the GB's handy. Plus you can upgrade that backpack if you so choose. Also included is a built in FM transmitter for playing audio in your car or at home on your radio if you wish. You can record to mp3 or wav. Since it has a FM tuner, you can record radio programs. One feature that I think is absolutely wonderful is the ability to record a bit (at least 30 seconds) of a song, and next time you sync, it will look it up for you and get the name and artist of the song. It's a little bigger than an iPod but for all the extra features you get, that cost extra on an iPod, and the fact that it's cheaper overall, it's got the iPod beat hands down. Only problem now is I want the 256MB flash part, and that's not for sale yet. However it's promised soon so I'm trying to be patient and wait.
It's at http://www.neurosaudio.com.

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-06-22T22:31:00

2004-06-23T03:31:48Z

I'm a big fan of Audible.com. I love audio books. It goes back to my mom who used to get them from the library and we'd listen in the car or while cleaning, or while she sewed, or...well you get the picture. Now I love hearing a story. It can make any thing that is monotonous go faster. I can even do housework if I have a story to listen to.
Also, ever since I've had depression, I can't fall asleep without a story on. It distracts me from all the worries of the day that will occasionally overwhelm me and I'll pick something unsuspenseful enough that I can still fall asleep it it.

Anyway, I love Audible, but since I don't have an AudibleReady player, I do some, twiddling, to get files that work on my Zaurus. Since Audible files aren't in CD quality to begin with, anything that modifies them too much results in a loss of quality. Most of the time I can handle that, but every so often that little buzz just gets to me. Here's what I've tried...
* aa to wav, split to wav, encode to ogg - that's what I've been doing..
* aa to wav split to flac - fairly good sound quality, but huge files
* aa to flac, - again sound good, but huge files
* aa split to flac, encode to ogg - this I think is my 'new best'

The other problem is for some reason my Zaurus doesn't want to play flac even with the xmms-flac plugin installed. I'll need to do some more research on that. I've also considered just buying an mp3 player that will play audible files, but they are expensive and none are 'perfect' yet. (The Rio Karma comes very close, but reports of bad hard drives and worse customer service are scaring me.)

I also did some sample listening on Audible.com and I think it really comes down to how good of quality the audiobook has to start with. Some are crystal clear, even after I encode them, while others are filled with fuzz. I'd recommend listening to the sample before you order any book from them. They don't play samples in lower quality, if it's not clear on the sample, it's not going to be clear for the whole book.

Anyway that's what I've been doing with my time.

Testing a new client

2004-06-16T22:39:17Z

Testing a new client

First day on the phones last day of training

2004-02-07T04:34:52Z

Today was the last day of the two weeks training. We actually had to
answer phone calls. It was terrible. Since it was our first time on
the phones we partnered up. I'm all in favor of the concept of
'teamwork' as a whole, but I hate working with someone else. I want to
take the credit and the blame. I don't want to take the blame for
anyone else's screw up. That's why today was terrible. The guy I was
with practically froze up on the phone. A completely normal query
turned into a very irate customer before he was done. He didn't explain
policies and he told people we could do things we couldn't. Now he
doesn't seem like a bad guy but that was truely sad. It also drove me
up the wall to have to sit there and listen to the shredding of that
customer relationship. I didn't feel I could jump in on it. I really
wanted to.
Other than that, the calls went great for me. I didn't get anyone who
was really irate. It was some simple payment questions and a couple
transfers. I'm not nearly so nervous about them though. Now that I've
heard a couple calls and how bad they can get I'm sure I can handle
whatever they throw at me. Most of the stuff people let get out of hand
is their own fault.
As geeky as it sounds I'm looking forward to this job. It's problem
solving and while it's not as varied as my computer job, it's still
problem solving. Actually I'm looking forward to doing an amazing job
at this job because I'm sure I can out Customer Service most of the
people there. Yes, I know how stuck up that sounds, but it gives me the
confidence to do a good job. I am looking forward to the warm fuzzy
feeling I get from helping people.
It all comes down to wanting people to like me even if it is just 'that
really nice girl who helped me with my order'. On the flip side I have
to make sure I don't let it get to me when people don't like me.

jumping for joy

2004-02-03T20:03:56Z

I'm logged into my home computer from work via a java applet. I've been trying to get this to work for ages. Have to be quiet though. Damn training. If I could I'd do cartwheels down the hall.

Mornings need caffine

2004-02-03T15:58:07Z

In the interest of getting to training class before it started today I
bypassed buying my usual bottle of pop. By 10:00am my stomach is turning
from all the sugar anyway. I have managed not to nod off but it's
tempting. So, I remember hearing about caffinated water before and I
decide to so a little research. Right now my top pick is Water Joe. However, I don't
know how many stores near her carry it. Actually I doubt many stores here
carry it because it's a Wisconsion based product. I'm going to go check
at lunch. If not I can order it online.

New Everything

2004-02-02T21:59:23Z

The new job:
Today is the start of my second week of training as a Customer Service
Representative for a large online store. (must check policies to see if I
can name the place) So far so good, the training is getting a bit boring
since I pick things up so fast. On the good side, the seating has been
rearranged and I was placed next to a girl who is 'having trouble' since
I'm doing so well in the class. Sucky part is we do shift bids to find
out when we're supposed to work and we don't get those until Tue or Wed
which cuts it a little close if you have anything to arrange by Monday.
(not that I do, I'm just complaining cause I don't know next weeks
schedule.)

The new car:
Wonderful little thing. Sat outside when it was -20 overnight and still
started. It doens't have a block heater so it wasn't even plugged in.
However, eight hours in -30 weather did knock her out and I had to get a
jump. Now I get the garage until I get autostart and a block heater put
in (Saturday) The cons are the tires. Don't they have snow in Colorado?
Wouldn't it be wise to at least have all weather tires on it? Nope, these
are normal standard highway tires. Put those on top of the layer of
packed snow my town thinks is normal to have all winter long and you go
nowhere fast. Sometimes you slide around corners when you're going at a
reasonable rate of speed. It takes me forever to get 'up' onto a street
and I have to wait till there is no traffic for a long time before I dare
pull out. We're going to see if the dealer will let us swap tires. Since
SO has a block heater and auto start (which he can set to run if the block
gets to cold) his car has been sitting outside. He tries to leave it
plugged in most of the time, but since there is one plugin for about five
apartments people are constantly unplugging each other. Anyway it sat for
one night without starting or being plugged in and now the damn thing
won't start. We've jumped it, charged the battery, plugged it in for
hours, sprayed stuff in the engine and it still won't start. It will turn
over and fire on a couple cylindars, but as soon as you let off the key
she dies. He is very upset. He always brags about his car and now his
car is breaking down.

List of accomplishments

2004-01-11T05:43:18Z

List of things I've gotten done over vacation:
1. Dual monitors - thanks to dear SO who got me the good video card for
Christmas, and Nvidia for making a linux driver avalible.
2. Built my 3.0GHz computer with 800Mhz Front Side Bus - Now the fastest
computer in my apartment building. :D :D
3. Got Linux to work with Hyperthreading - Actually that was just a matter of
picking the right kernel to install
4. Compiled a kernel module so my sound would work. That's always been very
intimidating for me since every time I've messed with the kernel my computer
has ended up not wanting to boot.
5. Upgraded my Zaurus to OpenZaurus 3.3.5
6. Started actually programming things for fun. Something I've wanted to do
but always got frustrated by. Now I'm just doing php but I'm making programs
I can use and it's great.
7. Installed Apache/PHP and MySQL on my Zaurus so I program, and test it
wherever.
8. Compiled KitchenSync (alpha version) so I can sync my Zaurus with my Linux
Calendar, Address Book, and ToDo. That was actually a bit of a headache. It
took me most of a day cause the problems were stupid little things right in
front of my face that I couldn't see.

The hardest thing is explaining to my mother why this all is so cool.

My family history - online

2003-11-15T05:24:27Z

So, tonight SO went to bed early and I of course am not tired at all so
I get on the computer and Google myself. Then I google my dad but I
can't find any that are really him. I'm in the middle of trying a
couple different searches when I find a family history site of my
grandpa's second cousin. Now I'm not completely into the whole family
history thing, but it's fun to read up on now and then.

This page was full of pictures, each labeled with names and descriptions
of how people were related. It even had a picture from our family
reunion this summer of Grandpa and all his siblings as well as their
husbands or wives. Not often you come across a picture of your grandpa
on the internet. Also, it had a picture of a house that belonged to my
great uncle. I used to live on the same piece of land as that house,
and since it's torn down now it was great to see, brought back a lot of
memories.

In another picture was a cousin a few generations back that looked
exactly like my dad. It was the exact same shaped head and the same
smile. Almost the same hairstyle too because when you don't have too
much hair to work with there is only so much you can do with it. :-)

Anyway, it makes you stop and think. There is really a lot of
information out there! Imagine what the internet will be for historians
in a hundred years. All these records of first hand information on
culture and on important events. Maybe my great-great-grandkids will
read this.

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2003-11-14T21:24:00

2003-11-15T03:25:24Z

According to Google my dad is a member of the communist party

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2003-11-05T18:13:00

2003-11-06T04:13:09Z

Rule No 1 for Employee good will: Pay them!

If you can't pay them, and you are late paying them, at least have the
courtesy to tell them why you can't pay them. Especially when they ask
you to your face if they could please get their money. "No." as an
answer to that question makes them seriously doubt their loyalty and
choice of employer.

Beta of new homepage: www.gretchenann.com
Still lots of work to be done yet though...

RTFI (I for Internet)

2003-11-04T17:51:54Z

When I "learned linux" I researched EVERYTHING. I looked it all up on
the internet, and tried everything before posting a question. Because
of this, I have little respect for anyone not willing to research
things.

This means: I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL LINUX TUTOR!!! I'm glad you're
interested but I don't have time to explain Linux from scratch. We're
talking at least a weekend project to just install , and you'll never
remember if I just tell you. I'm glad to help if you've started
looking, but don't you dare expect me to do everything!

website is back up

2003-11-04T01:47:08Z

www.gretchenann.com

My website is back up! This time I compiled php and apache from source
instead of being lazy and apting it. Now to learn php.

WooHoo posting by e-mail

2003-11-03T19:03:22Z

Here is a test of posting by e-mail. Hopefully now I'll start posting
more often.

A command line client for LiveJournal

2003-09-12T16:56:25Z

So far so good with clive. It's simple and it does what it needs to do.

Right now I decided to research how to configure bash. The first thing after PATH was the PS1 variable. You can change your prompt! To anything, even forturn if you want to. It sometimes seems with Linux the possibilities are endless!

This is a test of clive

2003-09-12T16:53:06Z

This is line 2 of a test of clive

Gretchen

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-09-14T23:13:00

Test post from Palm

Palm Zire

Zire

Old Laptop

Not another horse

Dipping in my toes

Neuros is wonderful

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-07-01T21:35:00

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-06-23T22:33:00

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2004-06-22T22:31:00

Testing a new client

First day on the phones last day of training

*jumping for joy*

Mornings need caffine

New Everything

List of accomplishments

My family history - online

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2003-11-14T21:24:00

h3lpd3skgirl @ 2003-11-05T18:13:00

RTFI (I for Internet)

website is back up

WooHoo posting by e-mail

A command line client for LiveJournal

This is a test of clive

jumping for joy