[d] enclosed in brackets chaotic perfectionist for hire

Wow, I hadn't realized how long it's been since I posted... anything.

I've been around though, don't worry. Of course, I only have a half-dozen readers, so I'm not too worried - I talk to most of them on a regular basis. Here's what I've been working on lately:

Ubuntu
I have a desktop and laptop running Xubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04), and another desktop running Ubuntu Hardy Heron Server. The more I use Ubuntu, the more I like it. It just seems like there's a lot more that I can do with less work... compared to Windows. This isn't going to turn into a review, but check it out - you can run it as a Live CD (no install needed), or even install it like a program in Windows.

del.icio.us
If you check out my del.icio.us page, you can see what I've been bookmarking. I've added something at the end of this post to show the last fivepages I've bookmarked.

dropcase.com
It's time for another upgrade, and I'm making the move into version 6.2 of Drupal. I'm a little lacking in the updates category, but nothing serious... it's more a matter of getting more functionality and usability in place. I also want to do a total redesign, but I'm not sure where to start.

aStore
So I decided to play around with Amazon's aStore, just to see how it works. Don't worry, I'm not trying to push anything (although I won't stop anyone from getting something either), I just want to know what people think of it in general. Does anyone else use affiliate links for Amazon? I'm still not sure how I feel about them.

Knitting
Yes, knitting. There are two projects to start on: first, I'm getting ready to embark on the road to socks. I've been reading up on them and trying to find a pattern, and I think I'm going to go toe-up this time, so I can get a feel for how much yarn I need. Project #2 is a muffler for my wife. She got me some really nice yarn for it, and I want to make sure to do it justice...

Everything Else
Yes, very vague, but true... and if you'd like to know, feel free to ask. Between work and home with two kids and three cats (and my wonderful wife, of course), I wonder how I have time to get anything started, much less completed...

In working on a couple of web design projects, I've needed to test out what the site looks like on various browsers, on different operating systems, all with different versions. Designers would have a much easier time if browsers worked more like TVs - you don't see a different looking show on a Sony than a Panasonic TV.

Unfortunately, some of the older browsers *cough-IE-cough* were really bad about rendering pages, and people coded for them because they were the most popular. In these cases it's old and outdated code that looks bad on modern browsers, but is in there to help the people who haven't upgraded since Windows 95 and IE3. blech.

Fortunately, there are ways to test these designs out, even if you aren't on Windows, or a Mac, or Linux. On the last project I did, The design looked great on Firefox, IE7, Opera, and Seamonkey. What I didn't know at the time was that it looked atrocious on IE6. I'm working on a new site for someone (more details soon), and finally got the theme together. He went to look at it while he was home and it came out... wrong. Again, I didn't know what it looked like, and couldn't fix it as is.

When it happened the first time, I half-looked for a way to check browser compatibility. At the time, I didn't find something to use, and stopped looking once I had fixed the issue. This time, I needed something... and I (re)found Browsershots.org. Yes, they've (he's?) been around for a while, and many people use them, but I hadn't realized how useful it is.

Now I know that the pngfix for IE 5.5-6 is what's breaking it in those two browsers, and I can work on fixing them. I'll post some screen shots soon, but in the meantime, go visit the site and check it out.

Here's what I have running in VMware now:

• FreeBSD 6.2
• Xubuntu 7.04
• Mint 3.1
• SAM linux
• Haiku (formerly BeOS)
• Astaro Security Gateway 7.0004

In the case of the last one, it's not really an OS, but it runs as a VMware appliance, and you can get to the Web control panel through your main OS browser. Check it out in any case

There are two others I started looking at today:

• Elive Gem; and
• Vector Linux

I'll eventually narrow it down to one or two, but I feel like I can get a better feel for these distros if I have a chance to play with them.

Sean suggested that I have a problem with this OS list like I do with CMS "testing" (which never seems to be done). Yeah, well... I can stop whenever I want. heh.

While I'm at work, I'm using Windows on my two systems, with Windows servers. Although they do what they need to (for the most part), I like Linux (and Unix).

I have a desktop running Xubuntu Edgy that bridges the two networks, but I can't really play with it when I'm not in the office. Technically, I could VPN into work and connect to it through SSH/PuTTY, but it's not the same.

There were a couple of options. I could:

1. Install Xubuntu freshly over Windows (after backing all the data up first, of course)
2. Do the dual-boot thing (no thank you)
3. Install VMware Server and install whatever OS I want

In case you didn't read the title, I went with option three (thanks to Sean for suggesting it, by the way). The VMware install was pretty straightforward and easy to do, and I was up and running in no time.

As of right now, I have Xubuntu 7.04 (Feisty), FreeBSD 6.2-STABLE, and SAM linux (Ubuntu-based). I'm trying to get Mint Linux, but I'm having a hard time downloading the .iso for it (although I have a CD, I don't have a way to get it onto my system)...

Anyone else using VMware? Where do you use it, and what do you have on it?