AUTHOR: Scott G DATE: 2:02:00 AM ----- BODY:

Done messing with Linux.. XP does what I need it to..

It's been a tremendous amount of time since I wrote in this. It was hard to do it through Linux, because it messed up the blogger page. I guess I haven't had much to complain about lately. We're thinking about getting a house. We know nothing about buying a house and it may be farther off than I'd like it to be. I have a feeling I'm in over my head with all that's involved. I know I'll get it figured out, but not right when our lease is up in July. The simplistic way of looking at it is that we're paying $525 for rent and it may be possible to have a house and pay the same per month for it. Which sounds better? Raising a child in a second floor, one bedroom apartment or a 3 bedroom home? Paying every month for a place you can't change or make improvements to or owning your own home and doing what you want to it? I like the home idea and we did get a good sign that started all of this. The guy who works at the property management that found us this apartment said to come see them when our lease was up, that they're selling houses with no money down. This is big, because the money down at 3% is sometimes $1800+ that we certainly don't have. All the houses under $100,000 seem to be a "handyman's dream" and I'm not a handyman. We want a home we can move into without having to repair it to make it liveable. We've just begun to look, who knows what will happen? As far as the title goes, I'm done with Linux for now. Well, not completely but I'm not going to be messing around with it as much. I've discovered what others already have: Linux is not the ideal desktop OS. I think it's more or less for "nerds" who know everything about the guts and practically build it themselves. I wanted to make Linux my Windows replacement and even Distributions that try hard to do it just can't. It's a chore to do simple things like IRC or to get menus to work as you'd like. I'm sure there are ways to do everything I want to do, but I don't have the patience for it anymore. Not to mention the resources available for it are few and far between. You can buy a 3-4 inch thick book written by some nerd who knows all of it and assumes you know more than you do. Also you could look it up on the almighty internet. You won't find the specific piece of information on a web page, so you could look for a live chat. Well.. good luck getting help from these people. Most of them are nerds with severe attitudes who don't want to help, and there are some friendly people who would help if they could. They just don't seem to know exactly what you're trying to find out. So with an extreme lack of support for the desktop Linux user, and a lack of easily installed feature rich software.. it takes a back seat. On the other hand Windows XP Pro is what I need. I just couldn't see it. I went anti-establishment for a while even though it did what I wanted. If I want to stream some audio, keep an IM client open, and browse the web all while my e-mail's getting checked.. I can do it in XP. I monitor my connection with DU Meter while serving mp3s on Kazaa-lite and doing the things I've mentioned. If I want to post to this, I can without problems. If I ever get inspired enough to work on Garrand.ORG, I can. I can work with images, do java speed tests, or trace to sites that are giving me trouble. The best part about it is that it does exactly what it's supposed to do. That's all I ever wanted. Aside from the computer, life is going fine. My marriage has been sailing along fine. She doesn't get mad at me when I pick on her as much, but I've changed my attitude regarding that as well. I joke around with her a lot, it's part of me. A part I can't turn off. They're not disguised jokes or harsh ones, and I always say I'm only teasing. So given all of this, if she starts to take offense or get upset I take a real approach and tell her she has no reason to be upset and I don't dwell on it. I've found that if I don't get upset, she won't either. I play it cool and shrug it off and so does she. No one gets upset and that's how I like it. I'm learning to be less sensitive. It's a long term process I'm sure. Ok.. I'm done writing in this for now, I'll try to post more. I won't make promises I can't keep to myself, but I'll make an effort instead. Until next time... --------