The latest from KNOPPIX and my upcoming House Sale

I noticed yesterday on Distrowatch that a new KNOPPIX (Release 6.0) came out yesterday so I thought I would take a look at it. I hadn't really used KNOPPIX much for a few years since it has lost its novelty of being the premiere Linux LiveCD back in 2004 or 2005. Since that time, just about everything comes out as a LiveCD or has a LiveCD version, and KNOPPIX truly has not done much to keep itself ahead of the pack. The new version uses LXDE as its window manager and incorporates ADRIANE to help the visually impaired and novice users. I was not so interested in ADRIANE, but I thought I would see what they did with LXDE and how that would run on an old 866MHZ PIII (Dell Dimension 4100) I just happened to have in my office. It seems to boot up fairly well and LXDE does respond pretty well on the old PIII system, but I was wondering why I couldn't just run LXDE on Ubuntu. I poked about on Google and found PUD which is an Ubuntu based distro running LXDE made to run small and fast. So I downloaded that ISO and tried it out on the same ancient Dell and it worked as well as KNOPPIX, and it even recognized and used the Davicom ethernet card properly (unlike KNOPPIX). So in reality, the problem with KNOPPIX now is not that it is any less useful than it was 5 years ago, but that there are just so many other linux distros out that you can use in its place.

Tomorrow we sign the contract to put our house on the market. Another house down our street went up for sale two weeks ago and already has an offer on it. I know because I went to the open house on Sunday and talked to the Coldwell Banker Gundaker realtor there, Hannah Locks, who does a lot of business in our neighborhood. We probably would have used her if we were not already long time friends with another CBG realtor, Mary Cella, who will be our listing agent. So if anybody walked through Hannah's listing last weekend on 11493 Patty Ann (in the 63146 zip code of unincorporated West County) and was sad that you did get to purchase that house, you will soon be in luck to purchase another home in the Cambridge Subdivision in the Pattonville School District. The ranch home on Patty Ann was nice, but ours is not too shabby either, and we will be pricing it lower than 11493 Patty Ann was priced. And we are definitely priced lower than the two story home for sale on our street. Somebody come on over and buy our house! Note for first time homeowners: the State of Missouri will actually advance you $6,750 to buy our house (well, you do have to pay it back eventually.) Why are they not advertising this program more?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trying out the L'Ecole Culinaire Presentation Room restaurant

Image
We had been seeing the ads for the restaurant at L'Ecole Culinaire and since we live so close by we thought we would try it out. We had always enjoyed dining out at cooking or hotel schools like the CHIC in Chicago and the Statler at Cornell where we went to college. Since we still love to go out and eat here in St. Louis , we ventured over to their restaurant on the first day they were open for lunch. The first thing we noticed is that they do not have much parking! They really need to let patrons know where they are supposed to park. The restaurant itself is small but very well attended. There was one fellow who kept straightening all the centerpieces and place settings on the tables, and we always saw one or two student workers milling about. The lunch menu was small and the choices did not appear overly "gourmet". The special of the day was a bison burger stuffed with cheese, and other choices picked by my group included a club sandwich, a "margherita" pi...
Read more

BMI & BMR Calculator (Body Mass Index and Basal Metabolic Rate)

Image
My wife has been researching type 2 diabetes and recently checked a book out of the library which included a body mass index (BMI) chart much like the one pictured here. Whereas it is fairly easy to follow, I, of course, think it must be converted to an online calculator! However, when I checked the Internet, there were already a billion of them so I had to make one that was different. So my lovely BMI BMR calculator accepts either inches or centimeters for your height and pounds or kilograms for your weight and calculates not only your BMI, but also your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which determines how many calories you should consume! So I made a spiffy "all in one" healthy body indicator calculator which not only determines how underweight or overweight you are, but also tells you how many calories you should consume to maintain or improve your ideal weight. 
Read more

Not all Frosted Window Films are the same!

Image
We live in an older home with a lot of issues and one of them concerns our back door to our patio from our sunroom. The door has double paned glass on it, but unfortunately the seal has broken so you can see moisture collect inside of it. We decided the easiest way to "remedy" the problem was to cover the window with some "frosted" film so we did not have to see the moisture condensing between the panes. But the question was, what film? There are a bunch of them available so we had to select something to try on the door. The first place we tried was our nearby Lowe's store which had a bunch of Gila brand film. We selected what seemed like the typical adhesive based door sized  film that cost about $25 after tax. We thought it could not be that hard to put up and look nice on our door. So one day my wife ran out and purchased it at Lowe's and we commenced to install it on our door window. We made our own soapy water solution and followed the directions...
Read more