Corfy's Corner My little corner of the web.

When I first heard about a website that offers hundreds of thousands of music tracks for free, with the only catch being that it doesn’t have anyone I’ve heard of, I was a bit skeptical.

Not about the free songs. I’ve spent enough time with free software to know that sometimes people are more interested in sharing than in getting money.

I was skeptical that I would find anything I like.

I thought I’d kick off my “Fish Friday” features with a friendly word of warning.

If your first fish is a goldfish, you are probably doing it wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. I like goldfish. They are colorful, hardy, and playful.

But they are a lousy fish to start with, mainly because “common knowledge” on how to keep a goldfish is absolutely, completely and totally wrong, and is guaranteed to end up with premature death of the fish.

Today was the official release of Ubuntu Linux 12.04 Precise Pangolin.

Ubuntu is just one of literally hundreds of Linux distributions, but since its release in 2004, it has been one of the most popular.

Ubuntu Linux is an operating system that is an alternative to Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OSX. It comes pre-installed with a powerful office suite (LibreOffice), web browser (Firefox), email program (Thunderbird), music player and organizer (Rhythmbox), internet chat program (Empathy), and photo organizer (Shotwell), among many other things.

Yesterday, Google unveiled a new service called Google Drive. I thought it might be a good idea to answer some questions about it, because I know some are probably wondering.

What is Google Drive?
Google Drive is the latest in a rather competitive field of “cloud-based” storage. Basically, the “cloud” refers to any computer that you have information stored on that you (or your company) don’t actually own.

One TV show I’ve recently gotten to enjoy is Eureka, a show currently airing on the SyFy channel (my apologies if you don’t get cable/satellite/etc.).

I’m a bit of a late-comer when it comes to this show. The fifth (and final) season started airing last week. And they show the last two episodes before the current episode, so you still have time to jump in at the beginning of the season, which is the main reason I’m writing about this one now.

I’ll kick off my “Music Monday” with a post about something that isn’t music.

Rob Paulsen is a voice actor who, among many other things, has done the voices of Yakko, Pinky and Dr. Scratchansniff from Animaniacs ("Hello, Nurse!" "NARF"), Raphael from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Carl from Jimmy Neutron, Mark Chang from Fairly Odd Parents, and “Mr. Opportunity” from the Honda commercials. He got his start in The Smurfs, and has been working steadily ever since. In short, if you have watched any cartoons over the last 30 years, you have probably heard Rob’s voice somewhere.

I took a look at my blog and realized it has been more than an entire year since I last posted.

That is unacceptable. I either need to blog more, or I need to give up on the blog.

I'd rather blog more often.

So starting today, I'm going to do my best to do just that. And I'm going to do my best to blog every day.

I was recently asked why Linux (or, if you prefer, GNU/Linux) isn't more popular compared to Windows. I gave a quick answer of "Marketing." Microsoft has very deep pockets, and they have a lot of money to spend on marketing. But... that isn't the whole picture.

It always amazes me how long (and how many steps) it takes to install Windows on a computer compared to a Linux distribution like Ubuntu.

I recently had to wipe a harddrive clean and reinstall everything on one of the laptops at work (thanks to a Windows registry error that kept me from booting the computer at all into Windows... even so-called "Safe Mode"). But because I've had problems with this laptop before, I decided it would be prudent to also install Linux on the laptop, that way the user would have something to work with if Windows craps out again.

I didn't exactly sit down with a stopwatch during this process, but I know about when I started and about when I ended, so I have a pretty good idea how long it took, and I've done it enough times that I know what steps I went through.