Recently, I performed the usual clean install of Windows XP onto my wife's computer and thought to myself, "Why should I continue to subject her computer to repeated security issues and system instability?".

Windows XP, in its own right, is not completely bad, the problem is more so with its gaping wound of a web browser, Internet Explorer.

In short, Internet Explorer with all of its conveniences is a like an open-sore to the Internet. Currently, the usual remedy for most IE users is to load up their system with tons of third-party applications. When you add up the pop-blockers, spyware blockers, virus protection, and various other third-party apps you've got quite an extensive amount of CPU and memory usage on your hands.

Imagine if we used this approach in our daily lives. "Instead of exercising and eating right, I'm going to pump myself full of drugs to accomplish the same result but at a greater expense to my pocketbook and my health." Err.. Wait, a minute, I know people that do exactly this... Anyway, you get the idea... ;-)

With this in mind, Mozilla is definitely the right way to go. For the past two years it has incorporated built-in features that Microsoft still has yet to implement into Internet Explorer.

- Built-in pop-up blocking.
- Tabbed browsing.
- Junk mail labeling feature. (Instead of wasting time deleting junk mail you can label it for which Mozilla Mail will remember and apply to future spam.)
- Full compliancy with web standards.

Most of all, Mozilla is secure, stable, and FREE!

Since moving to Mozilla, her machine has been virtually maintenance free. No spyware, no pop-up's, no repeated junk mail, no system-degradation, and no unnecessary memory or CPU usage.

Instead of continually repairing the problem one should take preventive measures to avoid what is causing the problem in the first place. This is why Mozilla saves!

http://mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/

Well, it's official, Michelle took her first steps on Thursday, June 25th, 2004 at approximately 11am.

Josie called me up at work to share the news. Michelle had surprised mom by walking, an entire four feet, from her bedroom doorway to our bathroom doorway. ;-)

When I arrived home from work, she managed to pull off a few more steps before bedtime. It was an amazing sight to behold and was especially wonderful because it was clear to Michelle that she was achieving a major milestone.

She was quite proud of herself and so were we!

Here's a nice and handy bash script I use to backup my Powerbook to my Linux server...

#!/bin/bash

export bkup="Now rsyncing"
export buSrc='/Users/emillan'
export buDest='/Volumes/emillan/backup/nanobook'
export nbDir='/Users/emillan/Documents/Backup/nanoBook'

dir[1]="/Documents/Personal"
dest[1]="/Documents"
dir[2]="/Documents/Reference"
dest[2]="/Documents"
dir[3]="/Documents/Backup"
dest[3]="/Documents"
dir[4]="/Pictures"
dest[4]=""
dir[5]="/Music"
dest[5]=""
dir[6]="/Sites"
dest[6]=""
dir[7]="/Library/Mail"
dest[7]="/Library"

clear;
echo -e "************************************************\r";
echo -e "** Now creating archives on 'nanoBook'... **\r";
echo -e "************************************************";

#Creation of tars
echo -e "\nNow archiving '/etc'...";
tar -czf $nbDir/etc.tar.gz /private/etc;
echo -e "\nNow archiving 'home items'...";
tar -czf $nbDir/home.tar.gz ~/.bashrc ~/.bash_profile ~/.ssh ~/.vimrc ~/.cvspass;
echo -e "\nNow archiving 'Library/Application Support'...";
tar -czf $nbDir/application_support.tar.gz ~/Library/Application*;
echo -e "\nNow archiving 'Library/Preferences'...";
tar -czf $nbDir/preferences.tar.gz ~/Library/Preferences;
echo -e "\nNow archiving 'Library/Calendars'...";
tar -czf $nbDir/calendars.tar.gz ~/Library/Calendars;

echo -e "\n************************************************\r";
echo -e "** Now backing up 'nanoBook' to 'nanotron'... **\r";
echo -e "************************************************";

#Copy to Nanotron
for ((a=1; a < 8; a++))
do
echo -e "\n$bkup '${dir[a]}'...";
rsync -aL --delete "$buSrc${dir[a]}" "$buDest${dest[a]}";
done

echo -e "\n*********************************\r";
echo -e "** Backup process is complete. **\r";
echo -e "*********************************\n";

If you own an pre-generation 3 iPod or even an early model of the gen3 here's a handy little tip for you.

When I first received my 40 gb iPod it wasn't long before I was ripping my entire CD collection onto it. CD collection, how quaint! ;-)

Over the course of 2 months, I ran into 4 or 5 disk related errors that would result in the occasionally long start-up-scan process.

I did the obligatory Googling on the matter but found no helpful information. Around this time, the new OS X 'Panther' was released and with it, a new "journaling" file system. Having used the Ext3 journaling filing system on Linux, I was well aware of its "self-healing" advantages.

With this, I figured, what the hell, let's use OS X's 'Disk Utility' app to convert my iPod's filing system to the new "journaled" type. After backing up the contents of my iPod with PodWorks, I was ready to start the conversion process.

Sure enough, enabling Journaling on my iPod did the trick. Since then, over 8 months later, I have yet to encounter a single disk error or startup-scan on my iPod.

:-)

Well, it's finally out.. Fedora Core 2!

All in all, I am very pleased with this latest release. As with prior Redhat and Fedora releases, it hosts a wide variety of client and server side utilities and applications.

Fedora Core 2 sports the latest versions of Gnome 2.6 and KDE 3.2, both of which are excellent desktop environments. I won't dwell too much on the typically religious desktop environment debate. Simply put, I like simplicity in a desktop and that's why I prefer Gnome.

Fedora's installation was quick and smooth. In as little as 30 minutes, I had configured my partitions, set-up my network, and installed the necessary packages to get my system ready for action.

Overall, I highly recommend Fedora Core 2 as an all-purpose get-down-to-business distro. I've tried other distros and I continue to be impressed with Fedora's cohesiveness and completeness as both a desktop and server solution.

Pros: installation, hardware detection, OpenOffice, Gnome and Nautilus speed improvements, K3b, Yum package manager.

Cons: Lack of native MP3 support and a default video player.

My beautiful Michelle recently celebrated her first birthday!

A party was held in honor of this special occasion complete with games, a piñata, a bouncer, family, friends, cake and ice cream. The whole works! Most of all, Josie put together an amazing cake with a detachable cake-bear for Michelle to enjoy all to herself! Needless to say, Michelle had a blast!

This past year has been an incredible one thanks to her. Pictures of her ongoing adventures can be viewed at:

http://millan.info/michelle/

As a teenager, I frequented many of the local bulletin board services. Most of the time it was to download files and sometimes share my thoughts with others about music and general geek related topics.

Over ten years later, I don't think much has changed in this regard. We'll see... ;-)

and BTW, welcome!