Firefox Speedup on Linux

Here is a neat little trick that I found at TomBuntu to increase the speed of reads and writes to the cache for Firefox under Linux. There are many other tips relating to SSD drives but I found this one could be used with any system.

"Firefox puts its cache in your home partition. By moving this cache in RAM you can speed up Firefox and reduce disk writes. Complete the previous tweak to mount /tmp in RAM, and you can put the cache there as well.

Open about:config in Firefox. Right click in an open area and create a new string value called browser.cache.disk.parent_directory. Set the value to /tmp."

Found at TomBuntu

Pumpkin Pie mouse pad

With the upcoming Thanksgiving season just around the corner. I was inspired to create a new product in my line of Pumpkin Pi series. Not only that but Zazzle has a sale going on until November 24, 2008. Simply enter the code ZAZZLEPAYPAL to receive 10% discount.

Pumpkin Pi, 3.14159265358979323846264338327950... by woehler
on Zazzle.com

Asus eee PC 1000 and Ubuntu

Is I mentioned earlier in my review of the "Asus eee PC 1000 " I attempted to install the Ubuntu eee distro on my Asus eee PC 1000. I really like how it is organized, better than the Xandros distro, but it had some issues with the webcam, wireless network, and bluetooth. The latter two which I needed to be able to operate in my classroom. To limit my downtime and provide a backup in case of hard drive issues I ordered a 16GB Extreme III SDHC by Sandisk from Newegg. It came in the mail last night and I was able to install Ubuntu-eee with only a few bumps. To my delight most of the issues that I was having with the previous install were automatically fixed by running the system update. The wireless now works as well as my Wacom Bluetooth tablet. A small issue remains with the tablet to increase the resolution when I'm drawing with it and to get X to recognize the eraser and other buttons and such.

This appears to be a great solutions since Ubuntu is a truly open source distro that I can update on my own instead of waiting on Asus or Xandros.

After adding the following list of software I believe that the eee PC is definitely a viable solution for the technically savvy teacher.

• xournal
• audacity
• Inkscape
• KFig
• VLC
• MPlayer with the ASF pluggin
• Celestia
• KStars
• Virtual Box for those proprietary windows apps.
  
• FreeMind

Review of the Asus eee PC 1000

I am always looking at ways to use technology to improve the way that I teach. I decided to venture into the realm of netbooks. The combination of price tag and battery life was very attractive, but the amount of storage seemed rather limited. Then I found the Asus eee PC 1000. It has a total storage space of 40GB, an 8GB system drive and 32GB data drive. This seemed like a reasonable amount of space. I could store enough videos to show in class along with working my current projects for class.

As usual my initial reaction when I got it from NewEgg was this is cool. I liked the size and the battery life. The first day I turned it on with wifi and used it from 7:15am to 1:00pm before it started saying that I needed to charge the battery. That seems reasonable since I teach from 8 to 3. Since it was running Linux I was not sure how it would deal with a couple of things on my needs list. Here's my checklist of things that it needed it to do to help me teach more effectively:

• Play streaming videos such as from Discovery Education/United Streaming, youtube, etc....
  
• Streaming works ok but buffering needs to be fine tuned. It seems to worked best if I save it as an asf and play it using the media player.
  
• Journal/Writing software similiar to OneNote & Evernote.
• Jarnal works.
• Xournal works but make sure you have the latest version.
  
• Wacom Bluetooth writing tablet.
• This worked but not initially. I'll post more about this later but it appears to be working now.
• Surf the web wirelessly & securely.
  
• Works like a charm. Xandros wireless configuration is pretty intuitive.
• Transfer images and videos from my phone to the computer.
• Works but the video's do not appear to have sound.
• This works great for when you want to save what you have on the board but you didn't have time to setup the writing tablet or your smartboard/computer was not working.
  

Initially I was having issues with some of the software system updates. Things just didn't seem to be working such as the "Download programs" link, maintaining the connection with my tablet, and I didn't care for the user interface very much. So I decided to install the Ubuntu-eee distro, more about that later. Most things worked with Ubuntu but I was having issues getting the wireless working and I needed this in class now so I decided to put Xandros back on. I'm sure that I will re-install Ubuntu when I have more time, since I really liked it's speed and user interface better. Interesting enough the install from the CD seems to work better than the install that came on it. Most importantly the "Downloads Link" works now and my wacom bluetooth tablet appears to be working just fine now. Also the chinese software didn't install by default which is good and a few of the other apps available now. It only works in the mouse mode but I may be able to fix that.

As I was looking at the specs before I purchased the eee pc 1000 I noticed that the wired network port was only 10/100 which was disappointing since I have a HP 1800 Gigabit switch at home, but to my pleasant surprise it is actually a gigabit network adapter. I don't know why they don't advertise it as such.

In conclusion I would highly recommend the Asus eee PC 1000 40G. The biggest frustration is the right shift key is split, it is half the size it should be and the up arrow gets bumped a lot. The battery life is great along with the wireless reception.

5 Free Holiday Cards

Zazzle has a promotional going on starting October 6. You can 5 greeting cards for free by entering the code 5FREECARDS check out these great cards. You can even place your Christmas picture on the inside of the cards if you want.

create & buy custom products at Zazzle