Comments for Alex McLean http://yaxu.org Making music with text Sat, 05 May 2012 11:10:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Comment on New old laptop by BigBen http://yaxu.org/new-old-laptop/comment-page-1/#comment-123484 BigBen Sat, 05 May 2012 11:10:29 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?p=790#comment-123484 ...belatedly.... Great idea and a grand post, Alex. Well-chosen components. Agree with you regarding the dumb 'widescreen' trend. It's not so dumb for the makers, because the measurement (eg 15") is on the diagonal, and the wider they go the smaller the area of screen - ultimately you get a 15" wide screen that is 1 pixel high. We have an early Acer Aspire One that was treated to a fat battery (14 hours), upgraded WiFi (BIG difference) and an enlarged SSD as well as a more appropriate flavour of Linux. It was purchased used for £85 with Ubuntu Netbook, which is pretty good c/w Windows. but Bodhi Linux uses significantly less RAM and runs noticeably faster. Our fave for rebuilds has been the Itronix GoBook 250, a rugged laptop which used to be available for around £30 - with a P3 CPU and 128/256MB RAM it badly needs a light weight OS, and Bodhi has worked best of the large selection we've tried. The 10-year-old GoBook has proven to be 4-year-old-boy-proof with its water resistant keyboard and casing - which is solid aluminium and built to last. The batteries are (at long last) dying off, and it's pretty hard to crack them open and rebuild them. All the best, Ben …belatedly….
Great idea and a grand post, Alex. Well-chosen components.
Agree with you regarding the dumb ‘widescreen’ trend. It’s not so dumb for the makers, because the measurement (eg 15″) is on the diagonal, and the wider they go the smaller the area of screen – ultimately you get a 15″ wide screen that is 1 pixel high.
We have an early Acer Aspire One that was treated to a fat battery (14 hours), upgraded WiFi (BIG difference) and an enlarged SSD as well as a more appropriate flavour of Linux.
It was purchased used for £85 with Ubuntu Netbook, which is pretty good c/w Windows. but Bodhi Linux uses significantly less RAM and runs noticeably faster.

Our fave for rebuilds has been the Itronix GoBook 250, a rugged laptop which used to be available for around £30 – with a P3 CPU and 128/256MB RAM it badly needs a light weight OS, and Bodhi has worked best of the large selection we’ve tried.
The 10-year-old GoBook has proven to be 4-year-old-boy-proof with its water resistant keyboard and casing – which is solid aluminium and built to last. The batteries are (at long last) dying off, and it’s pretty hard to crack them open and rebuild them.

All the best, Ben

]]> Comment on We have no idea what we are doing: exclusion in free software culture by jag http://yaxu.org/exclusion-in-free-software-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-118605 jag Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:26:44 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?p=982#comment-118605 thanks well said whatever a programmer wants to say can be heard from their code. thanks well said

whatever a programmer wants to say can be heard from their code.

]]> Comment on Tidal and Texture by Duncan http://yaxu.org/tidal/comment-page-1/#comment-115568 Duncan Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:33:41 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?page_id=469#comment-115568 p.s. Thanks for putting the netclock and tidal emacs stuff up, I'll take a look back on Debian tomorrow. Cheers, :D p.s. Thanks for putting the netclock and tidal emacs stuff up, I’ll take a look back on Debian tomorrow. Cheers, :D

]]> Comment on Tidal and Texture by Duncan http://yaxu.org/tidal/comment-page-1/#comment-115565 Duncan Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:17:45 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?page_id=469#comment-115565 Hiya, I've gone back to trying OSX after Linux turned into a combinatorial explosion of sound configuration complexity! Also, turned out Haskell was only messed up on Lion because someone had submitted some broken stuff to the repository. Tidal installs fine, but I don't think datadirt is going to work though... Hiya, I’ve gone back to trying OSX after Linux turned into a combinatorial explosion of sound configuration complexity! Also, turned out Haskell was only messed up on Lion because someone had submitted some broken stuff to the repository. Tidal installs fine, but I don’t think datadirt is going to work though…

]]> Comment on Tidal and Texture by Alex http://yaxu.org/tidal/comment-page-1/#comment-115228 Alex Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:18:33 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?page_id=469#comment-115228 Yes I'm using Debian, it looks like the haskell platform works on a mac: http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html I still need to fix darcs.slab.org, sorry.. I'm a bad free software citizen :/ Yes I’m using Debian, it looks like the haskell platform works on a mac: http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html

I still need to fix darcs.slab.org, sorry.. I’m a bad free software citizen :/

]]> Comment on Tidal and Texture by Duncan http://yaxu.org/tidal/comment-page-1/#comment-115187 Duncan Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:02:19 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?page_id=469#comment-115187 Great, thanks :) - BTW, what do you run this on? I started installing on OSX Lion, but Haskell itself seems all messed up for that. I see datadirt has a Debian binary, probably I should go with that? Great, thanks :) – BTW, what do you run this on? I started installing on OSX Lion, but Haskell itself seems all messed up for that. I see datadirt has a Debian binary, probably I should go with that?

]]> Comment on Tidal and Texture by Alex http://yaxu.org/tidal/comment-page-1/#comment-115183 Alex Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:52:31 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?page_id=469#comment-115183 Oops, fixed.. Oops, fixed..

]]> Comment on Tidal and Texture by Duncan http://yaxu.org/tidal/comment-page-1/#comment-115179 Duncan Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:26:37 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?page_id=469#comment-115179 Step 1: 403 Forbidden for datadirt :( Step 1: 403 Forbidden for datadirt :(

]]> Comment on Tidal and Texture by Duncan http://yaxu.org/tidal/comment-page-1/#comment-115178 Duncan Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:22:39 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?page_id=469#comment-115178 This work is really great, I'm going to try installing it right now! This work is really great, I’m going to try installing it right now!

]]> Comment on We have no idea what we are doing: exclusion in free software culture by Thoughts on engaging women in tech communities… « http://yaxu.org/exclusion-in-free-software-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-114525 Thoughts on engaging women in tech communities… « Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:08:18 +0000 http://yaxu.org/?p=982#comment-114525 [...] http://yaxu.org/exclusion-in-free-software-culture/ [...] [...] http://yaxu.org/exclusion-in-free-software-culture/ [...]

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