So the Top 12 13 is set.  It’s time to get down to business.  A few items to take care of before we can get to having some fun:

1. Sign-up for the pool, sign your friends up for the pool, sign everyone you know up for the pool.  Hell, I don’t care if you sign-up people you  don’t know.  Send them here, and make sure they do it.  Hold a gun to their head.  I don’t care, just get them in.
2. I received a threatening email last night about the scoring system.  It’s the same as last year…deal with it.  Lowest points wins.  Very simple: (your rank – actual finish) squared.  You’re rewarded for accuracy, and get screwed for making bad picks.  Tie breaker is the total number of votes for the Finale show.  I don’t think last year’s winner had any problems with the scoring system.
3. The Sign-up and Pick deadline will be 1 hour before the show next week.  I believe the show is on Tuesday at 8pm, Eastern time.  SO, for those of you that can’t/won’t do math, you must have your picks in by 7pm, Eastern time, on Tuesday, March 10.

For those of you still reading, if you’ve already signed up for the pool, please make your picks here.  If you haven’t signed up, go here, then here.  Or just use the links on the right side of the page.

If you need to do some research on the contestants, check out http://www.americanidol.com or just go to youtube and search for something like “American Idol”

**UPDATE** I realize I neglected to share what the payouts would be this year.  Well, there were two good reasons for that.  1) I hadn’t figured it out when I first made this post, and 2) I just assumed that either me or my new wife (send gifts) would win, so the payout wouldn’t matter.  However, in the rare situation where this isn’t the case, the payouts will be as follows:

1st Place = 80%

2nd Place = 15%

Dead last = 5%

Dear Friends, Enemies, Family, Co-workers, Mistresses, etc,

Today, with the first showing of the final 36, I’m launching the 2009 American Idol Pool.

You’ll notice a lot has changed since May when America crowned David Archuletta Cook as the 2008 American Idol. George W Bush Barack Obama is  President. I’m still not married I got married (please send gifts if you haven’t already – www.elyssaandlee.com). The stock market is roaring sucks.  And Finally, The Idol Pool has a new website (www.leesidolpool.com)…I think it’s awesome.

We’re getting all high-tech this year.  You’ll be able to sign-up for the pool online.  You’ll be able to cast your picks online.  And, continuing what was moderately successful last year, I’ll be posting to this blog on a weekly basis, if not more.  Who knows, we may even have some guest bloggers participate.

So, without further delay, please click here or at the top right of the page where it says “Sign up for the 2009 Idol Pool Here!!” and get your ass involved.  Tell everyone and anyone you know who might want to be in the pool.  Just send them to the blog to signup.

The latest version of Mint known as Elyssa is out and very nice it is too. I’ve been running it as my prefered O/S for a couple of weeks now and it is proving solid and reliable. It was very easy to set up my NVIDIA card and my Wireless device. There are thousands of Free (as in Freedom as well as in Beer) programs available to download with the built in package manager and I was informed of all the updates that were available for me including security, usability, new features etc.

All in all a very nice Linux distribution.

Linux Mint Logo - new version available from www.jazzyjeph.co.uk

La ruse d’Elyssa

(Suite Didon). Soudain, l’amiral de fortune crie : «  barre à gauche! » et fonce sur une terre grise et verte à la fois. La baie est accueillante et le calme précaire. Nous sommes en Terre d’Afrique à Ifriqiya. Avertis par ses messagers, Larbas, le jeune et beau Roi de Tunisie, attendait avec impatience la mystérieuse passagère de cette embarcation phénicienne. Le voyage de Didon commence!

LE VOYAGE DE DIDON

Grande Voyageuse devant l’Eternel elle demeure pleine de mystères ! On la croyait brune, très brune. Elle est bien blanche. On la croyait porter des cheveux courts. Elle les porte bien longs et en douces tresses brunes. On la croyait maigrichonne. Elle est d’allure sportive, musclée et dotée d’un regard aussi langoureux qu’assassin…2823 années se sont déjà écoulées et la légende de Didon est toujours aussi poignante et aussi mystérieuse. La dame de Tyr parcourt, avec ce Blog voyageur, un autre voyage. Une page de vie.

A Tyr, Pygmalion succède à son père Mutto Roi de Phénicie. Il monte sur le trône du père et pour éloigner sa princesse de sœur Elyssa et avoir le pouvoir absolu, il assassinera son mari Sicharbas.

Adulée, courtisée et aimée Elyssa assiste horrifiée à la mort de son époux et à la prise du trône paternel  par son frère. Une nuit blanche, sous le ciel libanais éclairé d’une pleine lune pousse Elyssa et sa sœur Anna à prendre une rapide décision ! Toute de noir vêtue elle défait sa lourde tresse, avale d’un trait un jus amer et tonifiant et se déploie langoureusement devant sa glace. Effrayée par la dureté de son propre regard elle est réconfortée dans sa décision. Le calme de sa sœur et de ses six servantes sont un geste d’acquiescement au silencieux et assourdissant programme ! Personne n’en parle. Tout le monde devine le dessein de la Princesse déesse !

Plus de trente hommes sont déjà au port de Tyr. Le ciel est déjà zébré d’une première rayure jaune.

L’astre solaire pousse les flots sans peine et pointe à l’horizon

Tout va vite. Très vite ! Elyssa est à bord du bateau avec toute sa petite cour. Anne la sœur fidèle ne peut retenir un flot de larmes face à l’image du père-roi Mutto et du frère sanguinaire Pygmalion. Le devoir du sang et l’honneur de la famille la poussent à épouser sans réfléchir le dessein d’Elyssa. L’exode. Le long Voyage !

Au mois d’avril, la grande Bleue, cette « Mare Nostrum » dite Mer Méditerranée fait également honneur à la belle Elyssa et maîtrise l’ardeur de ses vagues. L’embarcation prend le large, sans tangage ni roulis. 24 heures de paix et de sérénité passent bien vite. Seul le bruit du silence égrené par le clapotis des vagues et le grincement des rames meublent l’horizon…les jours passent aussi vite que les nuits et la tête d’Elyssa échafaude plan sur plan.

Soudain, l’amiral de fortune crie haut et fort: «  barre à gauche !» et fonce sur une terre grise et verte à la fois.

Quid de cette terre ?

(à suivre)

]]> http://lacasadetux.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/lanzada-linux-mint-elyssa-xfce-comunity-edition/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:33:16 +0000 Administrador http://lacasadetux.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/lanzada-linux-mint-elyssa-xfce-comunity-edition/

Esto es lo que pone literalmente en el Blog de Clem Anunciando el lanzamiento de la versión de Linux Mint 5 Elyssa XFCE CE.

La podemos bajar desde aquí

En la búsqueda de una distribución que fuera liviana, rápida y con las ventajas de Ubuntu, decidí probar Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Xfce y debo decir que estoy impresionado. Es extremadamente rápido y con la vetaja de que acepta los repositorios para Ubuntu, lo cual me permitió instalar la aplicación que he querido desde hace tiempo: Boxee. Otras ventajas es que trae Flash incorporado, Codecs Multimedia y muchos programas que son útiles y los cuales suelo instalar después de instalar Ubuntu, así que me ahorré ese tiempo de estar buscándolos e instalándolos. Saqué uno screenshots mientras lo instalaba y los voy a poner para que vean el proceso de instalación.

Ten en cuenta que escogí instalarlo en modo Manual ya que cuento con una partición de OpenSuse.

Ahora para añadir la entrada de Linux Mint al grub de OpenSuse es otra historia que contaré más tarde.

Mientras tanto descárgalo y pruébalo: Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Xfce.

Mint 5 actually works for me now…just not on the machine I wanted it to.  I had posted before about installing and using Mint 5 on my laptop test machine.  Shall we just say that failed?  This time around though, it is fantastic.

What I Liked

I’m a fan of Ubuntu to start with and being that Mint 5 is Hardy Heron underneath and minty goodness on top, its getting a slightly biased boost.  The minty goodness is definitely aesthestics.  There are several wallpapers included for standard and wide screen displays.  I went for the steampunk style.  The themes included weren’t anything special but a dark one called peppermint somewhat complimented the steampunk wallpaper.

EnvyNG is included to take care of installing ATI and Nvidia drivers.  Before running this, absolutely nothing was readable.  Installing the proper Nvidia driver did the trick and is now functional.  So I opened EnvyNG, chose Nvida (which includes automatic hardware detection), and let it work magic.  That said, EnvyNG is not unique to Mint and I could install it in Mint.  However, I wouldn’t do that.  Its a nice touch to include it and make it easier on the user (and I love easy).

Compiz works fantastic.  Given that I have an integrated Nvidia 6150, it works well.  On top of that, I was still able to play Urban Terror better than Vista handled it.  The FPS was higher and the settings were better in Mint.

Like Ubuntu, I plugged in my Canon Pixma iP4300 and it worked.  It just worked.  Plug and Play.  Eat that Microsoft.

My wifi worked.  Once again, plug and play.  (I’ll get the full wifi card specs in the machine spec page later)

Software selection in Mint is as standard as they come…Firefox, GIMP, et cetera.  I do like Transmission for quick and simply bit torrent.  A lot of proprietary codecs are included as well.  Installing software is a bit odd though.  Synaptic is available though I don’t suggest it for first time users adding applications.  MintInstaller, aka the Software Portal, allows users to add software as they please but it opens up the browser in order to actually do it.  Adding software from Mint’s site causes you to download a .mint file which starts the process.  I do like that GetDeb.net and Apt are included in the Software Portal menu.

What I Abhorred

I can’t say there’s much.  Mint just works.  I still don’t know about the application menu layout.  I’ve found several distros using this and its just odd at first.  I like that once its set, I can quickly open my regular apps from the Favorites menu.

The Software Portal needs work.  I understand the need for it.  It allows for screenshots and user reviews.  Now I would like to see some.  The selection of software is still minimalistic compared to Ubuntu.  I realize I can still install all that same software but why isn’t it listed in the Software Portal?

MintUpdate is still a bit contentious with me.  There can be newer kernels available but on a break-your-system basis.

Finale

I like Mint better straight out than Ubuntu.  The setup was easier and it just seems more polished.  I don’t understand somethings Mint does.  However, I would have no problem handing Mint 5 over to a new user and expect them to figure it relatively quick.

Update

Mint 5 is still handling nice on the desktop outside of a graphics issue with Urban Terror.  I did reinstall it on my laptop with success so yay!

I think I got the hang of it. I have not created a separate /boot partition yet. I installed Linux Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” on my second target partition. The first of the five available partitions is currently being occupied by Linux Mint 5 “Elyssa”. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Grub and practicing on it on Mint 5’s menu.lst. It now has all the OS of my 2 machines – Sempron Desktop and Sony Vaio laptop. So as long as I’m using Grub, I think I’ll be fine. I’m now rethinking that separate /boot partition. It looks like my current setup is fine. I can wipe out my Ubuntu 8.04 practice installation and put Mandriva One or OpenSUSE 11.0 KDE4 over it.

On another note, I’ve been able to successfully boot my Western Digital Scorpio drive containing all of this between the 2 computers mentioned above. All I needed was to edit the menu.lst and use /dev/sdb5 when on the laptop and sdc5 when on the desktop. Then boot into recovery, fix X and boot the normal way. It’ll ask for the proprietary video drivers again since the former has ATI and the latter Nvidia. One more reboot and all is set.

BIOS reads the USB drive as first while the OS thinks it’s last. The BIOS part is true for both machines that’s why I didn’t have to edit that part. All seems well at multi-booting, Grub menu editing and switching machines. Everything I’ve tried works including wireless. Now I just have to finish the downloads.

A drum-roll and cheers to Linux Mint 5 Elyssa, the only OS that (as of this moment:P) matters. Maintaining this blog has never been as pleasant as from behind the good, “old” GNOME interface running the mintified Firefox 3.

Best Extraction Site Ever

IMPORTANT SECURITY UPDATE:Update mintAssistant to 2.5 and relaunch it from the mintMenu if you chose not to set a root password. See here for details. The bug is so serious that the ISO is being was rebuilt; I suggest waiting about three days (15 June) before downloading if you haven’t already done so. The new iso has been released. You can find it here.

The wonderful team over at Linux Mint has just released their fifth version (release notes, download) of the operating system, codename Elyssa, presenting yet another stable and elegant system. I’ve installed and used every version of Linux Mint since Celena (3.1), and have lurked around the forums for a while. I decided to write a review for this version as this will mark the first release for Long Term Support; I hate updating my system every six months, so I plan to make this version my main operating system for the next three years.

I’m lucky to have blindly bought a computer that is very compatible with Linux. Wireless and Compiz work automagically, even from the Live CD environment.

I decided to do a sort of mix between reviewing for Mint newcomers and for those who have used Mint in the past. This review is not intended for newcomers to Linux, however they are encouraged to download Linux Mint and see how they like it. Linux newbies (and Linux Mint newbies!) can download the user guide to see the system and its features.

Installation
This has been covered over and over; the installer has not changed for quite a number of releases, so please see a different review if you wish to have a step-by-step guide . A few thoughts, though:

Choosing your timezone: Doing this sucks. You move your mouse over the map to select a city, and oops, you’re now in Australia. You’re careful to maneuver your pointer to eastern USA, and shoot, you’ve moved too far and are now in Hawaii. It’s faster for me just to choose a city from the drop down menu. Also: I had the entire Live CD freeze up on me (with the exception of the mouse) during this step while trying to listen to one of my songs. As a result, I had to restart my computer. Hopefully the cause of this was MPlayer and not the installer. This incident is one example of why you probably shouldn’t do ANYTHING while the system is installing. Don’t take any chances.

Using the manual partition scheme: This was the first time I’ve had to manually set my mount points, as I just recently moved /home to its own partition. (By the way, if you’re looking to do this, Linux Mint has an excellent tutorial on the wiki.) Manually setting this was fairly easy; I chose my 10 GB empty partition to be formatted as ext3 and mounted at / , and I chose my 120 GB partition to be mounted at /home. Simple as can be (for those who know about a little about partitions, anyway).

Booting
I didn’t time how long it took to boot, but thinking back, I believe this is one of the fastest boot times I’ve ever had in Linux Mint. And the boot screen looks delicious! It’s slightly different from version four (Daryna), but it looks cleaner and [therefore?] more professional. The default artwork is consistent; consistency is a quality that I hold very high.

Upon logging in for the first time, you are greeted with the mintAssistant, which asks you if you want to enable a root account (NOT recommended), and if you want fortunes to appear in the terminal. The fortune app is a great feature to enable; humor is always a good thing . In this release, the fortunes are read to you by various animals! Hit the “Show an Example” button to see. Unfortunately it might not be an accurate representation; the example box does not display with a fixed width font. The animal might appear squished.

The Desktop
As will be posted in many reviews, this is the default desktop for Elyssa:

The default theme, which has stayed similar since version three, does its job as a default: it’s sterile and unobtrusive, yet it has an edge. However, it’s not quite snazzy enough for my tastes. Not shown in the screenshot are the default icons that come on the desktop, which include “Computer”, “Home”, and any mounted harddrives you have. They can be removed through a program called mintDesktop, which I will discuss later in this review. One of the less important but still noteworthy features of this release is the quality artwork that comes with Elyssa. It’s absolutely stunning. The Mint Art Team has done wonders. This is how my desktop looks, and how it will stay

There really is something for everyone when it comes to the themes present in this release. All wallpapers come in standard and widescreen forms.

Mint Tools
One of the strongest highlights about Linux Mint is the tools they have developed. The mintMenu is the most useful and efficient menu system I have ever encountered. It’s similar to KDE’s Tasty menu, but more competent. It allows you to quickly search for installed applications by name, title, or description (hitting enter after filtering calls Tracker to search for that item); it allows you to create a custom “Favorites” menu for even quicker access to commonly used apps; and in this release, it allows you to uninstall applications directly from a menu! Just right click -> Uninstall. Also with a right click, you can choose to have the program launch when you log in. By right clicking the menu button itself and choosing “Preferences”, you can customize the menu to your taste. Options include showing your recent documents, opting to click the application sections instead of hovering to reveal them, and changing the text shown in the menu. One complaint I have with the menu is that it doesn’t automatically update when you install a new application. You have to right click the menu button and select “Reload Plugins”. In fact, if the menu gives you any problems, this is usually the solution. Another complaint: the Edit Menu option sends you to GNOME’s menu editor (alacarte), which thoroughly sucks. Moving an entry to another menu duplicates it, and then leaves the original still checked! On my wish list: the ability to drag a menu item to a different section, and to remove and add items to a section, from within mintMenu. Also on that list is the ability to change what hitting enter does after filtering the results; this is possible to change from gconf-editor but not from the preferences dialog. And my last compliant (sorry): If any of the “Computer”, “Home Folder”, or “Networks” buttons receive focus, I can’t start typing an application name without clicking on the “Filter” text box.

Another integral tool to Linux Mint is the mintUpdate. This program adds to the stability of the system, as it puts classifications on the updates and by default disallows those which might harm your system (updates to X11, the kernel, etc.). Classifications range from 1 to 5, with 1 being the safest and 5 being “dangerous”. For descriptions of the various levels, click the Preferences button in mintUpdate. A few notes: after you first turn on your system, mintUpdate will “refresh”, but it needs to be running as root to actually see if there are updates (open it and it will ask for a password). From the preferences, you can set how often it refreshes. One thing that annoys me is the icon used for when Synaptic or apt is running: a broken lock. It worries me because I’d expect that icon if my dependencies were broken, something which has happened twice in my experience with Linux (both my fault). Maybe just an X over the lock would be better? Just a suggestion….

Subtle tweaks to the desktop are manipulated through mintDesktop. You can display which icons to show/hide (Computer, Home, Network, Trash, Mounted Volumes), choose the [annoying] “spatial mode” for the file browser, enable GNOME’s new composite engine (it’s okay, certainly not as good as Compiz), and restore splash screens to GIMP and OpenOffice (which are usually overwritten if they receive upstream updates).

I’m not using Synaptic to install applications anymore. mintInstall is integrated with the Linux Mint software portal, and allows you to get a tiny .mint file which contains instructions for installing the application. Among the applications available in the portal are Google Earth, Open Arena, and Skype. Searching for applications on the portal can be done either from the web interface or from mintInstall. Searching the popular GetDeb.net from within mintInsall is also possible, as well as apt itself. One thing that usually needs clarification: the .mint file IS NOT another package manager. It uses the apt protocol to install applications. Some complaints: no error was produced when attempting to install “somerandomapp” in the APT tab, and clicking “Search” gave me a window with an empty text box. However, the ability to search, show, and install applications from apt is a great feature of mintInstall. Another thing that nags me is that when installing an application, it will ask if you want to install using the Default or Local repositories. In my mind, Default == Local. Not so, however; “default” means the repository defined in the .mint file, and “local” means your own sources.list file. Maybe the label “mintInstall’s Repositories” or “Application.mint’s Repositories” instead of “Default Repositories” would suit better?

Linux Mint comes with its own solution to backing up your Home folder with mintBackup. You can choose which files/folders to exclude from the backup, as well as which hidden files/folders to include. To restore, simply double click on the backup file. You can choose to overwrite existing data. On one of my attempts I received errors on both the backup and the recovery, but both were successful. Upon double clicking the .backup file, the contents are unpacked to /tmp, so I suggest making sure there’s enough room (or not. Remember, I have a 45GB /home folder, and /tmp only has 7GB of free space). The file seems to be a simple tar archive. My one complaint: There isn’t a progress bar for backup or recovery. A minor issue, but it would be nice .

One last tool that isn’t mentioned in many of the reviews that I’ve read is mintUpload. Right-clicking a file and selecting “Upload” will allow you to upload any file which is under 10MB to Linux Mint’s server. Select the Default upload service, choose your file, click upload, and you’ll receive a link to your file which will be kept on the server for two days. It beats using Rapidshare for quickly sharing a file … It is also integrated with mint-space, a web hosting service provided by Linux Mint (Note: the Linux Mint Store seems to be closed, so I’m not sure if the ability to purchase an account on mint-space.com is possible at this time).

Included Software
Most of the software present in Linux Mint is standard in major distributions: Firefox web browser, GIMP image processor, Pidgin IM client, OpenOffice office suit, Tomboy note taking application, XChat IRC client. EnvyNG is provided for those who need to install drivers for their graphics card. Like Ubuntu, Linux Mint included the Transmission BitTorrent client (I’ll most likely install KTorrent) and the Brasero disc burner. Thunderbird is used in Linux Mint for email. Tracker is there for searching files, but I will probably end up using Google Desktop. I’ve never had any luck with Tracker, or even Beagle. PPPOE was added.

Gnome-Do was also included in Elyssa. It’s a nifty little application (start it up with Super+Space), but it takes some getting used to. Play around with it to see what I mean. It seems super-efficient once learned.

I was disappointed when I saw the beta/RC of Firefox 3 was included instead of the more stable version 2. This was a decision made by both Linux Mint and Ubuntu. The Linux Mint team has fixed Firefox from crashing when Flash does, however I was not able to get Flash to work again by simply refreshing the page; I had to restart Firefox. Linux Mint 5 uses Firefox RC1 with Flash 10. I really like bleeding edge software, but for goodness sake, it’s supposed to be an LTS release! Yeah, I understand version 2 of Firefox probably isn’t going to be supported up to three years from now, but it would have shown seriousness by the distributions to be stable.

Another disappointing decision made in this release was the replacement of Amarok with Rhythmbox. Rhytmbox pales in comparison to Amarok’s abilities. Changing the ID3 tags is a hassle in Rhtymbox (you have to do it through a dialog box), there are no Global Shortcuts (sorry, you have to stop what you’re doing if you want to change the song), there aren’t nearly the amount of features present in Rhythmbox as there are in Amarok, and being able to see only fifteen songs at a time in my 5000+ song collection is annoying (I saw no option to change the font size). I suppose I’m ranting because I’ve used Amarok for so long. All is well though; removing Rhythmbox with mintMenu and installing Amarok with mintInstall is fairly simple

Other Notes
The terminal got a boost of color. Users see their name in green, while root shows up as red. Using grep highlights the results in red. This is a very cool feature which spices up one of the blander things about Linux (this as well as the fortune application). I’m going to steal this screenshot from the release notes because I’m lazy and don’t want to open up GIMP to blur out my name :

Don’t forget you can print to a PDF! Ubuntu came with this feature, but Linux Mint kept its own implementation which they’ve included in the OS for a few releases. This definitely comes in handy when you want to save web pages, but don’t want all those files hanging around (the html, all of the pictures, javascripts…).

You can now open a folder as root from within the Nautilus file browser through the context menu. Doing so will open the radically different XFE file browser to ensure you know that you’re browsing as root. A very nice feature, I must say.

Conclusion
Linux Mint 5 Elyssa is the best release I’ve seen to date and is something that I would feel comfortable running for the next three years. It feels very stable (apart from Firefox 3 and the hiccup from mintAssistant), and it’s definitely a distribution I could recommend to the young and old alike. It’s polished, consistent, and well thought out. I’d like to thank the people who run the distribution for their hard work and continued efforts to make the best desktop OS yet!

.

.

NOTE: I wrote a lot of this review while under the second release candidate of Elyssa. Please correct me if I am wrong on any of these points. As always, comments are welcome.

UPDATE: I was stupid and didn’t include a download link! You can find the download here.

UPDATE 2: A reader suggests that Linux Mint cannot dist-upgrade. It can, but it’s not recommended. See the upgrade instruction section of the release notes.

UPDATE 3: See this thread on the LM forums for someone’s experience doing a dist-upgrade.

UPDATE 4: The lead developer, Clem, responded to this review.

UPDATE 5: Fixed the download link

8 Giugno 2008 : Rilasciata la quinta versione di Linux Mint nome in codice Elyssa.

Le novità in questa versione non sono poche , oltre al consueto aggiornamento di tutto il parco software(dal desktop gnome al kernel) troviamo tra le altre: Gnome-Do installato di default , la possibilità di disinstallare o mettere in autostart al login le applicazioni direttamente dal mint menu , configuratore del menu con una gui molto intuitiva(non come prima che bisognava usare gconf-editor) software portal arricchito tantissimo (conta quasi cinquecento applicazioni pronte ad essere installate)
mintbackup che spiego con un immagine:

ottimo davvero

Poi envyng , ccsm .. insomma davvero tanto.

Ovviamente nella main edition ci si ritrova codec proprietari,flash player,java tutto pronto all’uso.

Per avere una visione completa delle novità ci sono le note di rilascio:

http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_elyssa.php

La pagina di download :
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Infine il software portal di Elyssa:
http://www.linuxmint.com/software/?sec=categories&release=3