endperform.org

What am I talking about? See this post on the official Google blog.

I had a long diatribe here, but I broke a promise to myself that I wouldn’t get too darn political on this blog, so therefore, I edited it.

I added a new Lifestream page, which just aggregates various feeds from other sites I use (del.icio.us, last.fm, Twitter, etc). Check it out here.

Update: I’m thinking the plugin I’m using for the lifestream isn’t as cool as I had hoped. I think I may potentially set something else up. Needless to say, I’ve taken the page down for now.

I’ve talked a couple of times before about /home, and how important I feel it is to have it as a separate partition. After this week, I wanted to reiterate my stance on this, and here’s why. A coworker wanted to install a different distribution without needing to wipe out the contents of home. Unfortunately for him, he did not have /home as a separate partition, so he had to opt for backing up somewhere beforehand. A few hours later, he came back asking for a hand in setting up a separate home partition. If you’re someone like me that sometimes likes to change the distribution you’re using, or if you rather do a fresh install of the latest Ubuntu, a separate /home directory is the way to go. You can leave all of your documents and files there, install the fresh OS and be ready to go, no need a backup before you start. Now, that doesn’t mean don’t keep a backup of your data somewhere. You should always have a backup somewhere, and I plan to update my Unison HOWTO soon.

Separate /home is also nice when you’re dealing with a multi-drive system and you don’t have a RAID set up. In my old box, I had a pair of 250GB drives, and they were partitioned as such:

Drive 1
100GB - Windows
150GB - Linux (/, /swap)

Drive 2
250GB - Linux (/home, ext3)

Now in this case, if I were to ever upgrade drive 2, it would just entail creating the /home partition and copying the contents, no reinstall of the entire OS would be needed, which is always nice.

There used to be a time when I would rush out to the store and pick up a game on release day. Heck, when Halo 2 was released, I was standing in line at midnight outside of the local Gamestop just to get a copy. In this day and age, though, with console games hovering at 60.00 per copy, it makes it a bit more difficult to go right out and buy the game on release day. Add to this the fact that games will drop in price after they’ve been on the market for a while, and it almost doesn’t make sense to go out now and spend the money when you can get it cheaper later.

Back before I moved and I was single, I spent a lot of time online with my original Xbox, and later the 360. A 50 dollar per year Xbox live subscription and same day release games tend to put a dent in the finances. Since I don’t really play games online that much anymore (save for the occasional PC game), it really doesn’t make sense to go out on the same day and get them. So, what am I missing out on by waiting? Not much, really. OK, so I haven’t played the latest and greatest game yet, but I’ll get there. Waiting allows me to read real-world reviews of the games and then determine if it’s right for me. Additionally, I can also download demos of games (even on the consoles) and try them out that way.

For example, we only recently picked up Bioshock. The 39.99 price tag was a bit better to digest than 59.99, and we still get the same great gameplay. Sure, I may not have it when someone else does, but I also didn’t pay almost twice as much for it. Now, that’s not to say there aren’t some games I just can’t wait on (I’m looking at you, Guitar Hero 3), but the majority I can wait for. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, maybe it’s because I have a family now, or maybe I’m just getting more frugal, but regardless, I’m saving money on my gaming habit.

I was going to go into a long, detailed retelling of the trip, but opted to go the short and sweet route. The drive to PA was uneventful, save for the heavy-duty rain we hit while leaving Georgia. We got into town around 1:30 or so, and decided to go see my family. The week was filled with a couple of events, notably lunch and subsequently dinner with old co-workers, and Sunday was Emma’s first birthday. She made out with a lot of stuff, and of course ended up wearing a lot of icing (although I think wore almost as much). Emma seemed to be OK with everything as long as mommy and daddy were within reach. She still has some ’stranger’ problems, but I think with more exposure and some time, she’ll outgrow them. The family absolutely loves our daughter, and it’s great. She’s officially a year old now, and I still can’t believe it. Time flies, as they say.

We also took in the PA Ren Faire, and unfortunately it was a hot and humid day. That made things pretty miserable, and the price of admission didn’t help either. All told, we dropped around 80 to 100 bucks between the gate fee and food. I think they’re going to price themselves out of business, as I didn’t really feel that it was worth the 28.95 per adult we paid to get in. *sighs* I was pretty let-down, as I was excited for it and had told Beth good things about it. It’s not to say that the day was a total waste, though.

The family was also happy to see us as well. I’m glad my family has taken so well to Bethany. She really does make me happy and they see that. There was some family-related drama while we were up which took away a bit of our enjoyment, but all in all it was a decent visit. I did realize that Georgia has been solidified in my mind as home. PA has changed a lot since I was last up, and some of the changes make me sad. The trip back was uneventful as well. Emma had a new car seat to adjust to, so she was a little cranky about that, but once we got home, things reverted back to normal.