How-To: Make KDE Elementary

This post has been a long time coming. Unfortunately, I got quite busy near the end of this past semester, so I could neither publish this nor put a respin ISO file out there (which is originally what I wanted to do, but once again I quickly got too busy).Configuring PanelsBasically, the reason for me writing is because most similar tutorials have focused on GNOME and Xfce as the base DEs. I haven't seen any using KDE as the base DE, which is a shame...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 May 22

There was one post that got a couple comments this past week, so I'll repost both of those.2011 Summer: First Day at NISTReader somethingquarky responded, "Science! And, beer!"Commenter Znurre said, "My vacation is starting June 13. I don't really have any plans other than taking it easy. This will be the first free days for me since I started working after graduating about one year ago :)"Thanks to those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I will have at least one review as well as a related article out. Remember, if you...

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Movie Review: The King's Speech

Last night, I got to watch The King's Speech with my family. The plot is basically about how King George V (or "Bertie" to his family and speech therapist) of the United Kingdom struggles with his stutter (or "stammer" for those of you across the pond) and seeks the help of a speech therapist named Lionel Logue, and about how that relationship evolves and how the therapy ultimately culminates in an important wartime speech.I think Colin Firth did a great job acting as Bertie, and he really makes the daily struggle believable. Personally, though,...

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2011 Summer: First Day at NIST

My summer break started last Thursday, and this summer I'm working at NIST again. Today was my first day, and it was alright; it wasn't great only because orientation took the entire day, and it was kind of boring. That aside, I finally found out what I'm working on: I will be measuring the efficiencies and color qualities of various commercial LEDs (and hopefully progress from there). This is also my first paid internship, so that's also exciting.To readers: has your summer started yet? What are your plans for the summ...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 May 15

Unfortunately, last week there was no "Featured Comments" article because (1) I couldn't post that much due to final exam-related business and (2) all the comments on my article about Mozilla got deleted in the Blogger service outage. Once again, I apologize for that. This past week, nothing of that sort happened, so I will repost a handful of comments from this past week's posts.Practical Alternatives to Skype (For Me)Reader tracyanne said, "There's Brosix, a proprietary VOIP application, and there is Jitsi a LGPL licensed VOIP client, both are...

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Review: Zenwalk 7.0

Main Screen + Right-Click Main Xfce MenuA few months ago, Zenwalk 7.0 was released for the world to see. However, I usually do these reviews with live media, so I waited for Zenwalk 7.0 "Live" to be released. That happened a few weeks ago, and when that happened, I immediately downloaded it, hoping to review it soon after. However, I got busy soon after that, so I haven't been able to really look at it until recently.So what is Zenwalk? It's a distribution...

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Revisited: SimplyMEPIS 11.0

Before I start, there are two things I would like to say. The first is that this was meant to be posted in the middle of last week. However, that got thrown off with the Blogger outage, and after that I got really busy with studying for finals, and yesterday I was traveling back home from college, so today is the earliest that I've been able to post this at my leisure. The second is that I meant to write reviews of Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" based...

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Done with 2nd Semester!

Today is my last day of my second semester at MIT, and that also marks the completion of my freshman year in college. Woohoo! I can finally relax for a few days. Finally.Of course, that's only going to be for a few days, because next Monday I start my internship at NIST, and that'll be for 10-12 weeks. I'm excited about that too.This semester was definitely harder than last semester, which is why I'm so much happier that I'm done with it now. Part of that is because the classes I took this semester were harder than the ones I took last semester....

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Practical Alternatives to Skype (For Me)

(Before I start, I'd like to apologize for the lack of a "Featured Comments" post this week. I saw that there were comments on my article about Mozilla and the DHS, but I didn't have time to thoroughly read and respond to them immediately; by the time I did have time again, Blogger had temporarily shut down, and all the comments got erased. Once again, I apologize to all those who commented on that article and to those who wanted to read it but couldn't because of Blogger issues.)Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Microsoft has...

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Mozilla: It Has a Spinal Cord

I know I'm a little late with this news, but that's because I was kind of busy earlier in the week. Anyway, the news (Nate Anderson, Ars Technica) is that the US government (specifically, the Department of Homeland Security) tried to force Mozilla to remove an add-on for Firefox called MAFIAAFire. The DHS a few months ago seized tens of thousands of website domains without a warrant and without due process; only a few (countable on two hands) of those were truly harmful in any way, while the vast majority of those sites were perfectly legal. MAFIAAFire,...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 May 1

There were a few posts that got a lot of comments this past week, so I'll only be able to post a handful of those.Linux Mint: Two Years, Going SteadyReader jai ho said, "i was fed up with virus and later anti virus in windows (both almost broke my computer).. that time i have read about the new release of ubuntu in local newspaper..that time i had a slow connection..so i searched google about ubuntu..then somehow i found linux mint..the reason...

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Review: SimplyMEPIS 11.0

Yesterday, the MEPIS developers released SimplyMEPIS 11.0, a year after the release of SimplyMEPIS 8.5, which I have reviewed before. (I went back and read that review and had a pretty good laugh at how short and shallow it was. Please feel free to do the same. That said, if you feel like doing the same at this review, please explain why in the comments.) In that review, I liked that it included many codecs and useful programs out-of-the-box along with the MEPIS tools, which were basically the Linux Mint tools before Linux Mint existed. I didn't...

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Movie Review: Chak De! India

This evening, in my dormitory hall's multipurpose room, a visiting scholar who lives on the same floor as me showed us the movie Chak De! India (and had great Indian food catered from a restaurant as well).The premise of the movie is basically that the former Indian field hockey captain who was disgraced and branded a traitor after a Hockey World Cup (he shook hands with the Pakistani captain, but due to deep mistrust in each country of the other, Indian media outlets took this to mean that he purposefully threw away the match, which people believed...

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Nearing the End of Second Semester

My second semester at MIT is nearing its close. I have turned in my last final problem sets of the semester (mostly — one remains to be seen), and I've finished all my exams, including the last exam (there is no exam for that class during the week of final exams) for my probability & statistics class. I've mentioned that class before, and since then, it's only gotten harder, so I'm glad to be done with it now.I'm excited that I have less than two weeks until summer starts! This summer I'm interning at NIST again, so that'll be exciting....

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Linux Mint: Two Years, Going Steady

Two years ago to the day was the first time I installed Linux on my computer. Sure, I had seen other people use it and had used it on other people's computers (though not so frequently), but I had never before put an OS other than Microsoft Windows on my own computer until that day. I had talked to a friend of mine about it before because I was planning to do it for a while; I thought of installing Ubuntu, but he suggested Linux Mint, as it would...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 April 24

There was just one post that got one comment this past week, but that was because I couldn't really write anything this past week until yesterday evening.Review: Edubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal"An anonymous reader said, "Gnome 2 is part of tge standard ubuntu as well. Called ubuntu classic from gdm screen"Thanks to that reader for reading and commenting on that post. This coming week, I hope to be less busy so that I can actually post the reviews of [U/Ku/Xu/Lu]buntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal". Once again, the reason why I've held off on doing the reviews...

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