Proper Snow

Compared to the last time we had some snow, that pails into insignificance when compared to this latest flurry. This time the Gods have been much kinder/harsher (depending on how old you are) and we have had a good five or six inches of the stuff here in Brum. I'm still of the age (maybe only mentally) where I enjoy the snow most of the time - as long as I don't want to use the car that is - but it makes me think that perhaps I shouldn't any more. I haven't seen a single status on facebook that is even remotely celebrating the snow and the majority of them are actively complaining about the stuff. It's not like in February of last year where the damn stuff stuck around for several weeks (and was mainly ice by the end of it) and I've only just had it today so I really can't see the problem. Perhaps in a few days where it is preventing me from doing things I might change my mind but for now, I am celebrating the rare weather.

A couple of other things to cover in this post and amazingly they are not both TV related - alright, one of them is but that was to be expected. The non-TV item on the agenda is Linux, more specifically - Ubuntu. I installed this on my laptop a few weeks ago and it has sped the thing up a great deal and almost breathed a new lease of life into it. The problem however, was that even the latest release still required me to go delving into the terminal, typing in commands that I didn't really understand in order to get it working properly. I've just about got it sussed now I think and actually, it's not too bad. I can use pretty much all of the basic programs that I need to although I do miss Windows Live Messenger, aMSN is a good substitute however and I can live with that if it means only waiting three minutes to load the computer rather than ten. The strange thing however is that I cannot use the iPlayer. In windows it consumes pretty much 100% of the CPU but it still plays as long as there is nothing else going on in the background. In Linux however, I cannot get it to play without jittering and stumbling every other second, making it unwatchable. It's a bit disappointing really because thanks to Adobe Air, I am able to install the software - along with Tweetdeck - and should have no problems. I always assumed that Linux was faster and more efficient at managing the available resources but apparently not.

More so, if it continues to require users to delve into the terminal in order to get the little things to work properly like the wireless or the sound then they are still alienating 95% of the population who frankly wouldn't have a clue as to where to start. The reason I brought the whole subject up however was that I attempted to install it on my Mum's laptop as she had been complaining that it was very slow. I thought it might take a while but it should work just as mine did in the end and should boost the speed a bit. I decided to go for the Kubuntu version using the KDE rather than GNOME so that she could keep the look and feel of windows and hopefully make it easier to use. Well that was the first mistake because once I'd got the thing installed, I couldn't find any of the settings I'd used in the GNOME variant to configure it properly. Not only that but installing it on the recovery partition on the hard disk messed up the master file table and Grub2 failed to recognise that Vista even existed. That caused the first round of panicking because I'd have been very unpopular if I'd have accidentally got rid of Vista in the process. Thankfully it was still there and I managed to get access to it with the Vista boot disk. Second time lucky I thought and so I went to install Ubuntu instead. Better this time although, Grub2 still didn't recognise Vista and I couldn't mount the NTFS drive because of the master file table error. On top of that it refused to allow the wireless connection to work. Even after trying both of the available proprietary drivers it still couldn't find a connection. That was the final straw, computers these days are pretty useless without an internet connection so I gave in and set about tidying up the existing Vista problems.

Thankfully, that went a bit better and I've managed to get the load time down from about fifteen minutes to about seven. Last on the list for today is Heroes. The Christmas break is over and two episodes were broadcast last night in America - sadly the BBC hasn't even begun to screen this series yet and the 'Coming Soon' trailers have only just started to run. If they are trying to discourage file sharing and streaming then they need to tackle these sorts of problems first and we'd have no need! Anyway, a little bit disappointing because - well, not much actually happened. An hour and a half later and we just have a little bit more of the story line rather than any actual development. Samuel has found a guy that can bring life to plants by using the deaf lady - whose power it turns out is that she can call people like a siren - and he has made some grass in the desert. We still don't know what his plan is and whilst Sylar is back, he couldn't kill Samuel and has now gone on some sort of quest - inspired by the magic ink tattoo that showed Claire's face. My suspicions are that Samuel is using Sylar to get Claire back because he 'needs' her for part of his plan. Hopefully the rest of the series won't be as dull. I think they have lost their way at the moment, as Lost did in the middle seasons, with no end date they just drag out one story line for far too long.