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

Music and computers

I know a lot of musicians, who are also tech savvy and would like to record guitar (I mostly know guitarist) to there a computer.  An I found a great way to do that.  http://www.musicrepo.com/record-guitar-on-computer and I found this site, where all you need to do is get a guitar to computer adapter.  An the hardware, but with all the available software you can use, you're off and running. 

All about hard drives

An something I would like to talk about in this post, like the title says all about hard drives.  First I'd like to start off with is what is a hard drive?  A hard drive is basically a box that keeps all your information in your computer, long term permanent storage.  Hard drives fall under two categories, classic hard drives and solid state drives.  Classic hard drives are mechanical which means they've got moving parts, an speeds and sizes vary.  Like for example, some can put information on it at 6 gigs a second,  while others have rates at around 180 gigs a second in classic hard drives.  Also in classic hard drives some are as 500 gigabytes and some are as big as 6 terabytes (6000 gigabytes).  Now onto solid state drives, they're hard drives with no moving parts with means that they're faster and with rates anywhere from 300 to 500 gigabytes a second.  Which both solid state drives and classic hard drives both have the pros and cons, one is space classic hard drives have more space (the average is around 6 terabytes), but aren't and don't wear out as quickly;  but solid state drives are faster and average around 2 terabytes of space.  Any more questions please feel free to ask!

Open source vs proprietary

An as I was thinking about what to post o n my tech blog', a dear friend suggested I explain the difference between open source and proprietary (thanks Travis).  To start off proprietary and open source are copyright protected,  but with open source a lot of the intellectual property rights have been sacrificed,  because in general we just want to get the software to work; by letting everyone use the software and contribute fixes.   An as well as other ways to help, like in distributing the software and with that you've also got freedom of choice of who and where you get that help.   Which is why tech support is so much better,  but with proprietary software you're at the mercy of one company which is why tech support is usually so bad.  Also to talk about games, since most people who use windows to play games, but steam, the gaming company, it's similar to gamefly, but they recently opened up their software to play on Linux operating systems and even went as far as developing a complete operating system, that just plays games.  The name of the operating system is called steamos, not big shock right (haha)?  But whether you use a proprietary operating system like windows or Mac, or open source operating system like Linux or BSD,  but it's all about freedom of choice.  

Lists of a few proprietary operating systems and open source:  
Linux Mint
Ubuntu
Pc bsd
Solaris
Microsoft windows
Apple Macintosh

Suggestions needed for topics

Well I'm asking anybody who reads this for suggestions or questions that you may have.  Because I want this blog to be community driven and to help people that may have any questions.  Thank you.....

Original Unix

I recently found a site, that has obsolete operating systems, I found a gem on there; that I've not seen in a long time.  An it was a version of the original Unix, an it's from AT&T; an they made Unix.  Now brief note, AT&T created Unix in 1970, now the one I got was released in 1981.  Which maybe since I'm one of the original Unix admins from days of old (yes I'm showing my age).  But I actually started out on Unix variants, like Solaris and FreeBSD; in fact I still use those environments.  An along side Linux; which Linux; Solaris and BSD, were all based around the original Unix.  A bit of history tonight folks; tata loveys lol

Original digital gangsters

The ones that have been doing IT for awhile, know that cyber-security is a very important resource.  Especially for systems administers, but it seems like the ones that get it; are one's running a Unix like environment.  But whether you run windows, mac, or BSD and Linux environments; cyber security is becoming evermore needed and important.  An the importance, is more important then I can put into words; an a lot of it can be done by themselves mostly. 

debian vs trueos server environments

These operating systems, are some of the best server environments, both are rock solid and have been battle tested.  Something else I like about them both is, security is above and beyond great.  An both are a Unix like environment; an both are very secure.  An both are based are Unix, but trueos has more Unix code in it and debian has less Unix code; but still some. 

A dream home theater

I'm not going to be talking a lot of tech; about my dream home theater.  An to start I've always loved the moving going experience; an just watching movies and a local theater.  But I've got some thing's on my amazon wishlist; a nostalgic popcorn maker and hotdog maker.  Also special lighting and seating, thing's that will give that movie theater feel; as well as posters and other decorations too.  But to video and audio quality are so important.  Maybe one day when I'm rich. 

Biometrics

Biometrics is a branch of computers, uses some sort of biological authentication. There are three kinds, first is finger print, an that's the most common.  The most common is fingerprint authentication, but others include retina and voice recognition; an there's even full facial recognition.  The latest iphone has fingerprint recognition; is a huge advance in smart phones. 

Media server

On a mission to build a NAS box that double as a media server, I'm looking for some gently used hardware; because the whole setup is relatively low power an I'm wanting to be able to be stuffed in a closet after I'm done.  When I've finally found some old hardware I'm going to increase the ram and hard drive space.  The ram will be depending on the hardware limitations.  But the hard drive will be two six terabyte hard drives which will equal twelve terabytes.  So will be more then plenty of hard drive space, .sn the operating system I'll be using is FreeNAS; which is a enterprise grade NAS operating system.  That's based on FreeBSD, which has been around for a long time and is also based on the original Unix kernel.  Much like all BSD's, an Solaris and some of Linux.  An Linux got it's inspiration from the old Solaris operating system.  But what I like about FreeNAS is; it's low power; an easily customizable.  But there's out there that you may prefer more so get out there; so get out there an start playing and like distrowatch says "put the fun back into computing"

PCBSD and Linux Mint OS's

In the fore mentioned title, I've used a lot of nix environments, but these two nix environments are my favorite desktop environments.  First let's start with PCBSD, it's more of a traditional Unix environment.  An it has a long history with Unix, with Unix started to being developed in 1969; being completed in 1970.  The BSD forks were developed in the 1980's at ERL which stands for electronics research lab in caltech Berkeley!  In fact BSD stands for Berkeley software distribution.   Now onto Linux Mint, after Linus Torvalds had created the Linux kernel a wide and varied versions of the Linux kernel was developed to many different forms the best one in my book is Linux Mint.  It has the power of ubuntu beside it but with a very clean and polished graphical user interface.  But more importantly it has the Linux kernel behind it.  So I encourage people to try both to see what they prefer.  Because this is about freedom of choice; freedom of speech.  An last but not least individual freedoms..

Tech movies

This isn't a post on how to do anything; but I'd thought it would be fun to see, if you have any favorite tech movies!  An speaking for myself I'd have to say two that come to mind right off the top of my head are war games and revolution os!  Anybody else have any favorite tech movies?  I'd like to hear it, maybe get turned on to something new..

Teamviewer

Teamviewer is a great little application, that can run on a wide variety of operating systems and devices. It's a remote desktop viewer program, you basically run it on your and someone else's computer and either you or someone else has control of the computer. To some that may be scary, but for tech support and other IT professionals, it's a very valuable program. So if you're looking into a program that can help you or with someone else; give teamviewer a shot…

https://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/