This will do nicely in my Livingroom

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And I quote:

Maingear’s new Axess HD Gamer brings hardcore PC gaming into your living room with a Core i7 processor, up to 12GB of DDR3 memory, 2x NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT cards in SLI, a Phantom Lapboard and robust media center capabilities. More specifically, the Axess HD can include a Blu-ray drive, 8-channel HD audio, WIndows Vista Home Premium and up to 4TB of hard drive storage or, if you choose, dual 160GB SSDs. Connections include: DVI-D, VGA, HDMI and component out, dual gigabit ethernet, eight USB 2.0 ports, two 6-pin FireWire ports and eSATA. There is also the option of adding a TV Tuner (no CableCARD). Granted, the Axcess is highly configurable, and if you get this thing completely loaded it will cost you over $6,000

All I would change is replacing that Windows bit with Linux :)

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Who is correct — Google or WolframAlpha

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I just checked what the Rand/Pound exchange rate is and Googled for it.  My Google show WolframAlpha next to it and they were different.

Click for bigger image.

Google had R13.14 to the Pound and WolframAlpha had R13.08 to the Pound.  So who is correct?

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WordPress 2.8 RSS problem – caused by rouge plugin

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In my previous post on WP 2.8 I mentioned the RSS Fatal error problem.  I have found the cause of the problem and it is a plugin I use for the Lifestream page I have.  The plugin in question is SimpleLife – the version I am using is 1.3 which seem to be the latest.  The one on the WordPress.org site shows version 1.2 and the maintainers site gives a 404 error. 

I have disabled the plugin and now the RSS feed on the Admin Dashboard is working fine with no Fatal Error.  This has broken my Lifestream page.  Will go and find a similar plugin to populate the Lifestream page.

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Gift from Google – Adwords

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I received this R1000.00 Adwords gift from Google and since I have never checked Google’s Ad stuff out I decided to give it a try.

Also decided to try their Adsense thingy, that is why you see ads to the right and if you get this via a feed, at the bottom.  Maybe, just maybe, somebody click on it and I will get a cent coming my way in a couple for year when it is big enough for Google to make a payment.

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WordPress upgrade to version 2.8

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I have 3 blogs and upgrading them was a mixed bag this time around.  On my blog at http://www.mariusb.net/blog/, I used the automatic WordPress upgrade and that went flawless.  With my second blog at http://www.marius.za.net/blog/, I used the upgrade with the CPANEL of the hosting company and again the upgrade went as expected. I use both these blogs as testing ground and not my main blog.  So having upgraded both those, I ventured into upgrading this one. 

It was problems from the start.  The first problem I ran into was:
Download failed.: name lookup timed out
This was something to do with curl and following http://wordpress.org/support/topic/225535 (at the bottom) and installing the Core Control Plugin and following the directions, I managed to get the ZIP file downloaded. 

The next problem I ran into was something about the ZIP file that cannot be UNZIPed.  I could not find a resolution for this so went the route of manually upgrading my blog.  This went as expected and my blog seem to be working.  If you do find things that does not work as it should be then please let me know.  With all the issues, I do not know whether I trust the upgrade.

On the outside everything looks good but in the admin part I get the following when it tries to retrieve feeds for the DASHBOARD:
Fatal error: Please call SimplePie_Cache::create() instead of the constructor in /home/mariusb/public_html/blog/wp-includes/class-feed.php on line 13
I have not managed to find a solution for this.  Suggestion will be appreciated.

Having done lots of WP installs and upgrades, I must say that this one is the most problematic and error prone. I am sure an update will come out soon, so my suggestion is that you do not upgrade just yet.

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Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty – muted sound on login solved.

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I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty on a Lenovo T60 and since the beginning sound was muted after login.  The drum roll happen at the GDM login screen but no login sound.  Yesterday I eventually found a solution for it.

The solution was comment out line 372 in /etc/init.d/alsa-utils.  The line in question was ‘mute_and_zero_levels “$TARGET_CARD” || EXITSTATUS=1′. Just this small change has solved the issue for me. 

Now to be honest, I have no idea what the purpose of this line is and whether any other issues might crop up by commenting out this line.  Well, sofar I have found no regressions by commenting out the line.

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Mom, I still want to play.

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After the wet weather we had in Cape Town over the last week or so, it was a glorious sunny day today.  A mother and her son was making use of the sun in the veld just outside my place.  One could see that the little boy only started to walk a while ago since he fell down every couple of steps.

He enjoyed his time so much, when it came time to go home, he was not a happy chappy and had to be carried home crying.

More photos can be found here.

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Quiet

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I have not blogged in a while but am still alive (well, I am breathing :) )

Firstly I do not have much to say at the moment.  Am going through some things and have to make some decisions which can go any direction depending on the day.

At work I have started on a new journey, it is a area that is totally new to me and a whole new learning experience.  Almost starting from zero at the age of 50, who would have believed.  Currently the job involves being on the phone most of the day with people in US and India and they being a couple of time-zones apart, is a real challenge.

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