New blogging tool

I wrote out a rather long and detailed post using a new tool, KBlogger, but due to the fact that it's beta software, I couldn't use it to upload the post. When I quit and restarted the program, I lost the text that I'd copied. So, thanks to KBlogger's bugs and my forgetting to put the text in a file or something, you will never know exactly what I'd written. Trying again this time, and I'm copying the text into a file just in case this upload bombs.
[EDIT] Looks like it worked, since I'm adding this text at the Blogger web interface.

It wasn't much, just a statement that Blogger was broken for me for a while but now is letting me in again, and mentioning that my main Gmail address has been inaccessible pretty often in the last few months, and that mail clients often lose the connection to the server. However, my secondary Gmail address NEVER has any problems. C'mon Google, I know these are free services you're providing, but get it in gear.

Also, I'd mentioned that I've returned to the land of KDE after spending months using Gnome. With the release of KDE 4.1 beta 2, I think the KDE4 series is finally feature-full and useable. 4.0 really was a joke end-user-wise; it really was just a development preview. But I'm liking the 4.1 beta. Slick look, all the old KDE apps I used to use, etc.

The pieces are falling into place

I've arranged for next year's apartment. A studio (one room) two and a half blocks from campus, pretty cheap. My parents have suggested that they sell me the family's spare car. All I need to do now is obtain a job for next semester (and possibly over summer break) and I'll be done... except for Purdue, who wants more documents than ever before for financial aid purposes.

Life's been pretty empty and boring lately. Going to class, wasting time on the Internet, etc. Got Sam's Xbox hooked up to my new server, a Duron 1.2 GHz I got from a friend, and the framerate's a lot better, good enough to play Halo and Halo 2 for hours at a time.

I miss you, Fable

Wow, can't believe it's been two weeks since my desktop died. Last night, I couldn't take it anymore -- I HAD to play Fable RIGHT NOW. I tried to put a TV tuner card in my server to hook my brother's Xbox into, but... there was already one there. I do not remember putting it there. But it is there.

Anyways, it works, sort of. Video is choppy, but what do I expect from a 333 Mhz PII? It's playable through the choppiness, though if I hook up one of Matt's large 1680x1050 20" screens, it'll probably be worse.

Computer's Dead

My desktop is dead. Died right in the middle of a Fable session, too. Blank screen, no keyboard LEDs, won't boot. Yes, I've tried removing add-on cards, swapping RAM, etc. Dead. And I don't have money for a new one, and I don't want to put money into repairing this one, so my laptop's my only computer now, ignoring my PII fileserver.

Digital Slimfast

Today I did some housecleaning: reduced my local wallpaper collection from 922.1 MB down to 409.8 MB. I also added a bunch of new wallpapers, all made by the artist Taner at Gnome-Look.org. I'm currently using the result of a joint effort between him and TheRob: the Slickness application theme by TheRob with a bundled wallpaper made by Taner for that theme.

Remote Control

Today I decided to try out a little utility called x2x. What it does, essentially, is it allows the control of two X displays with one keyboard and mouse. A little script later, I'm using my laptop's keyboard and touchpad to control my desktop. It's nice, since I'm using one of Matt's large 20" widescreens on my desktop. If I bump up the font sizes, this could work very nicely for watching movies or playing games from afar. Whenever I get around to setting up a Media Center PC, I'll do this same sort of thing: keep no input devices attached to the MCPC, but instead control it from a laptop. Or, while I'm dreaming, from a smartphone, since I don't have the cash for either a Media Center or a smartphone.

Today's fish is: Trout a la creme

Oh noes, more food. I promise that this is not a cooking blog. Nevertheless, I've found I love grilled salmon. As long as I don't do something stupid like put teriyaki sauce on it while it's cooking and so burn the sauce. Also, sardines are good on crackers with mustard, and anchovies are good on pizza. Fish is obviously not brain food: I stuff myself with it and seriously, look at me :P

My desktop keeps being mostly dead. Its latest problem is a worrying noise like a fan is brushing against something. I'd open it up and rearrange stuff, but I've been too lazy. I almost can't wait for it to fail completely so I can have more justification to build a new one. I'm thinking of building a nearly-exclusively-Asus-based machine, just because I've seen a lot of Asus's motherboards and graphics cards, and I'm impressed with their quality. Their cases, both barebone and empty, aren't too bad-looking, either. Yes, I love tweaking and customizing, and yet those silver-and-black iMacs are so tempting... want. Dell's all-in-one XPS machine would be attractive if it were more customizable, but it's almost Jobsian in its stylish looks and lack of options.

Laptop's being great, except for a worrying occasional loud click from the hard drive. I think this weekend I'll try to gather the time to back up all my 1.2 kilolocats and other files, and organize them on my server that currently holds at least three separate backup sessions.