A waste of bits and bandwidth

Brian decided to start using his laptop again but it was in a bad way. With this in mind, I told him that he should consider using Linux. No virus worries, pretty slick and easy to use. He was open to the idea so I began researching what would be involved in putting it on his Inspiron 6400.

I found a HOWTO and prepared myself for a long night of hacking. I burned 9.04 to a disk, rebooted and settled in for a long night.

30 minutes later Vista was banished and I started poking around to see what was working. “Hey wireless is up, all these buttons are working and so is the track pad!” much to my astonishment, everything was working. Ok, there is one button but nothing serious.

I did my updates, installed a bunch of software and signed him up for some new accounts. Within 90 minutes I was done. Everything. All that was left to do was to turn over the keys.

I’ve been an Ubuntu user since 6.10 but I was stunned at how easy it was. I knew it was quick to install but I had no idea that the driver support was so advanced. Ubuntu never ceases to amaze me.

Do you ever get the feeling that some businesses don’t watch their competition too closely? Last weekend we wanted to rent a car. National, my normal rental place, wanted $78 a day. “Hmmm… why so expensive?” On the Easter long weekend, we paid ~$40 a day so I checked out a few others rental sites.

Avis was in the $50 range and Budget was around $43. Guess who I rented from even though it was inconvenient? I’m not sure how National figures they can charge so much more when their competition aren’t.

In any event, we had a nice day trip in our deluxe Hyundai Elantra Touring. Brunch in Horseshoe Bay and then off to Whistler. Being in Whistler on the long weekend was like being on a college campus. To be fair it’s not the place to go when you don’t have any plans apart from wandering the village. After an hour of walking around and a pair of ice creams, we were wondering why we came. At least the drive was nice…

The car was really nice even though it was the base model. Tons of air bags, lots of room and ver comfortable. The only negative was that it was a bit gutless. Not so much gutless; the problem is that it comes with a retarded confused transmission. It doesn’t downshift when it should, so I do it and then it won’t upshift after the lower gear is no longer required. Odd. In the city it seemed to be fine.

Once we were home, the inevitable conversation started up about us buying a car, this time initiated by Mihwa. We have this conversation from time to time. One of us brings it up and the other vetoes. This is followed in the coming weeks by the same conversation but with the roles reversed. So far, no car.

Do you like buses? This guy does…

No take down notice to date. Perhaps her people are having trouble getting a hold of my people. Meh, whatever…

Typical TopGear humour.