printers help...

This is a post about printers (thanks again Scott for all the great suggestions).  But there's several different printers out there some new, some old and some that are still ahead of their times.  But there's several things you want to look for while in the market for buying a printer, like for example do you want it to be network enabled or just plug n play.  But for my personal setup, I'd have to get a network enabled printer, because there will be more then one computer on it; so a network enabled one is a must for me (like this one HP Lasterjet Pro Laser Printer P1102W ).   Which I use newegg quite a bit for a lot of my tech toys (haha), but keep in mind there's such a thing as over kill; I do a lot of printing so that one I just showed you, has been to do a lot.  But if you're just going to do some printing, you may want to invest in a lower scale one.  Because the one I showed you, prints 19 pages a minute, which is fast for color printing and in such high detail.  So my first suggestion is to take stock in what you will need it for and what you will be doing it for, if you're just going to print off a few papers; you would be better off just going with a lower scale printer.  But here are things to keep in mind while buying a printer.

1. How many pages can it bring
2. Picture quality 
3. Network enabled and or plug n play
4. Cost of ink for your new printer

Keep those things in mind, an chances are you will go home with a printer you will be happy with cheers for now folks.

Pandora verses Spotify

Steaming media has a strong foundation nowadays, but as far as streaming music Pandora and Spotify are two of the leaders.  An I've had both services both free and pay versions of both as well.  To start off with Pandora, is one of the best streaming music in my humble opinion; because you've got a much broader selection of music as spoken word (like comedy routines as well as music).  But Spotify has more independent artist and the ability to download song directly to your device.  But each has its cons as well,Spotify is more expensive for less selection, but Pandora doesn't have the ability to save songs to your device and less indie music.  Also if you got devices like chromecast, Pandora and Spotify both can be streamed to your HDTV,.  So that being said get listening and turn it up loud.

SteamOS: game on....

This post is a post that I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate, steamos is a dedicated operating system; games and only games.  An one of the good things is it can run as a server environment too and I know that there's a lot of people who want a dedicated server environment to play all the games they love to play.  An since steam opened up their platform to other operating systems was a huge leap, especially for nix admins like me.  But they've went a step further by creating a operating system dedicated to just games and that can also run a server environment, so it can handle multiple users and from different locations as well.  So if you're a hard core gamer, give it a look and if you're technically inclined turn it into a server and have lan parties.  Enjoy folks!

http://repo.steampowered.com/download/

BSD license vs GPL

There's still a lot of debate for IT folks about open source licenses are better depending on which camp you're in.  But to clarify the differences here are the two following links on both...

http://www.linfo.org/bsdlicense.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

Enjoy

Alternate firmware

Well once again I was looking at what to post on this blog, so a friend suggested I post about how I flashing a router with alternative firmware (thanks Scott).  I had been given a router and I usually put a linux based firmware, if at all possible.  Well I did some digging around on some of my favorite sites for doing that, so one of the sites I was looking at was http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index and those are one of the best sites for loading alternative firmware on routers.  But in this post we'll be using the router I was given to make this as easy as possible.  Which will be cisco valet m10 router....

1.  Download the appropriate firmware for the appropriate router. 

2.  I reset the router to its original factory settings by getting some to press down the reset button in the back of the routers. The username is empty and the password is admin

3.  I clicked on my browser (any browser will do). 

4.  I typed in 198.168.1.1 which is the IP to all cisco and linksys routers.

5.  Which when the router has been reset,  no security will be present so once you put in the IP to the router it'll take you to menu that's present on the router. 

6.  Look for the section that says upgrade update in it

7.  Click on the browse button and select the firmware where ever it may be stored at. 

8.  Then click on the update button below it. 

9.  Once finished you'll still be in your newly updated with the new firmware

10  next make a name for your router

11.  Then create a new username and password for your router

12.  Once you've done that you'll have a lot more to play with in the new operating system also known as firmware.  

Thank you for your time and feel free to contact me at anytime and I'll try to answer questions in a timely fashion.  Also if you found this blog post helpful please consider a small donation....

Open-source dvr OS

I was recently asked about how to record with a dvr ( digital video recorder ) on any television provider we want or if we decide to change providers.  The operating system you will need is mythbuntu and with some specialized hardware and this operating system you'll be able to record any TV show or movie that you want, that comes on the provider of your choosing.  The good think about mythbuntu is it's highly customizable and works with almost ever cable and sattalite provider out and the list of providers is growing.  Now you'll need some special hardware like a rf antenna and so on for this to come to be check out the site for further information

http://www.mythbuntu.org/downloads

http://www.mythbuntu.org/

Enjoy...

Debating about operating systems

I was part of a interesting debate about operating systems and a lot of interesting points were made.  Like for example I use a mix of Linux and bsd and yes Solaris as well.  All three based around the original Unix and all three are a great deal more stable then a lot of production operating systems, but the point I'm trying to make being is we've got freedom of speech and choice, which grated Unix or a Unix like environment have a lot of superiority over a lot of operating systems, but still for whatever reason you like a particular purpose or reason; you still have the right to choose which operating system.....   enjoy