You have installed some linux version. Let’s assume it is Ubuntu. Unfortunately, you have a router setup that needs you to connect to it with WPA. No WPA connection means no internet. No problem, there are many tutorials available to make your life easier. Or do they?

Let me carefully state the initial condition again: you have no internet access and you want to set it up. You find yourself a second computer where you open your browser and search the internet hoping to find a fix for your problem. You will not be disappointed. Many sites offer a solution. Since you have Ubuntu, you might as well choose the search result from the Community Ubuntu Documentation. It offers an easy solution (since this is a rant I will pretend I’m too pissed off to go find the exact resource, whereas I’m just too lazy) :

sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome

I don’t doubt this solution works great when you are connected to the internet ALREADY. For the beginner, or the one who is not interested in learning about the system but just wants to connect to the internet, this is a dead trail.

I bought an iDREAM bluetooth device some days ago. Something that you plug into your USB port and *POOF* you have bluetooth capabilities on your computer (which I didn’t have). I don’t know what the correct name is for that. Anyway, here is a screenshot of a similar product since I didn’t find any of mine.

It is wrapped in plastic with cardboard inside it. The way to open it is to cut through the plastic and get the thing out. So I took a pair of scissors and started cutting. Damn, that was tougher than I thought; I didn’t manage to get through it. So I looked more closely at the cut already made and saw that there was a small CD inside it: I had been cutting through this CD! WTF? Nowhere could I see that hidden inside the cardboard there was a CD. Why do they make this invisible?

Now I have to say I was very lucky. I only cut the side of the CD, but I could see that it had been written only in the middle. Fortunately I didn’t cut too far and I still can use the CD. It isn’t flat anymore though, but it works. Next time I’ll cut right next to the edges instead of going for the smallest cut possible to get the thing out.

Why does everyone these days feel the need to give every release of their software some codename. I can understand that for the case of operating systems for example. A new big release (not just an update) asks for a new name, if not alone for marketing purposes. But today I stopped by the Joomla website and they seemed to have released version 1.0.8. This version has been given the codename “Sunshade”. Why in the world is this necessary? Version 1.0.8 doesn’t sound like it’s the next great version, doesn’t it? Why can’t they just let is simply be 1.0.8?

Note that the version of this post is 0.2.5b. Also known as “butterfly”.