New Website Design

Well, I updated the design of my personal website about 2 months or so ago, and this last weekend, changed it again so that it fits in with the design of my blog! Now when you go to my personal website, I feel there is a more "professional" look and feel. Feel free to comment on it, via this blog, or if you want Blogroll me via the link underneath my blogroll, and add me to your blogroll!

If you like reading my blog, and want an easier way to read it, you can add it to your My Yahoo! page if you have or to your RSS news feed reader - simply use the URL of the feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/jonzosrantings

Finally I am thinking of renaming this blog to "Watch Out - Weirdo About" instead of "Jonzo's Rantings" Let me know your views, by leaving a comment!

Easy as pie

Thunderbird - Reclaim Your Inbox

Well I downloaded Thunderbird - and it was so easy to install. All I had to do was unzip the download file into a folder of my choice, and when I clicked on the Thunderbird file expecting to run the program I was simply asked if I wished to import any data from another e-mail client, and Thunderbird loaded!

Firefox - the browser reloaded

Firefox - Rediscover the web

Wow - I just downloaded FireFox 1.0 web browser for Linux, and it was a doddle to install. I've been told that unless that unless the software was in RPM format it would be a pain to install. I would download an rpm file and get SuSE Linux to install it for me, as that is very easy. However the FireFox download was easy to install, I just had to click on the install file and up popped a Windows like install routine. Once I had told it where to install it and what to install, all I had to do was run the menu editor so I could add it to my KDE menu, and my quick launch icons on the start bar and I was away!

Congratulations to Mozilla for making an easy install process! I wish more developers of Linux packages would do the same, cause as a newbie to Penguin Power (Linux) I find it very hard to install programs as it is so complicated, and there is no guarantee that the install process will work, perhaps because files needed by that software are not installed etc. This is exactly what a Windows programmer (new to Linux) recently wrote to a Linux magazine - he said that he expected Linux software to run "out of the box" with an easy install process

Now I'm off to download Thunderbird 0.8 I hope that is as easy as FireFox!

I hate some of my work colleagues

Some of the people I work with at work I don't particularly like, because even though they are getting the same rate of pay as me, think they are above me. I sometimes work on the cigarette Kiosk at the place I work, and one of my so called colleagues I work with on this Kiosk thinks that because I work on Checkouts, I am beneath him in the hierarchy tree, even though I am not. An example of this is that a few weeks ago I was working with him on the kiosk, and one of our bosses came to us and asked for one of us to go and take another colleague off of the checkout she was working on so she could go for her break, now rather than the two of us decide jointly which one of us was going to that checkout, he basically made it plain that I was going, and there was to be no argument, even though the boss had made it quite clear that we should decide between ourselves who should go , in other words because I worked on a checkout and he was primarily working on the kiosk. I had to go, no argument.

I believe that if a boss ask his employees to decide between them who should do as asked, it should be a joint decision, not one employee making that decision without involving the other, especially when both employees are on the same "hierarchy level" .

The way I would run this kiosk is different, I would ensure that all staff who work on there as there primary job role, are made aware of the fact that they are not "better" than checkout staff and that if they are working with someone from checkouts, and a boss asks for one of them to go to checkouts, they agree together who will go! I would also ensure that all trained kiosk staff, get at least 1hr a week on the kiosk

Penguin Powered DVD

As you know, I have put SuSE Linux 9.1 on my PC. However out of the box it cannot play a DVD. The reasons for this, according to SuSE is copyright - apparently they dont want people to be able to "pirate" a DVD. I think this is totally stupid, after all a Windows PC can play a DVD, allbeit with playback software. I thought therefore, I should be able to find DVD playback software on the internet for Linux. Suprisingly I couldnt. It was only through reading an article in a Linux newsgroup that I was able to find out how to play DVD's in Linux, and this nessiciated downloading 4 software programs!!.

I think if I install an operating system, and have a DVD drive in my PC, I should be able to watch a DVD movie if I want to, and not get told that I cant because of copyright reasons, after all I am an average joe, and am not really interested in pirating a DVD.

Now I have DVD playback working in Linux, it is far better than within Windows, as there is no sound or picture jerkiness!