“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison

Just like everyone else in the world, I’m “celebrating” the end of the year by reflecting on the ups and downs of the past twelve months. Unlike everyone else, however, I’m not sugarcoating anything — in the realm my own life, 2007 was a failure of catastrophic proportions. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Projects:

• Dream Machine

Of the five projects on which I made any headway this year, the Dream Machine was probably the most successful… though that’s not a major feat given the competition. Beyond my original prediction that the project would take two weeks (it took six), I’ve also failed to attempt any sort of virtualization. Nowadays, I pretty much just stick with OS X. The laptop runs beautifully, but I’m simply not using it to its full potential. Lesson learned — Tweaking doesn’t need a purpose; it’s fun for its own sake. I’m itching to try out the latest versions of Ubuntu and Fedora, though…

• Fitness

Though the Fitness project admittedly wasn’t the extent of my focus on health (more on that in a moment), it’s safe to say that I bombed it. I didn’t exactly get off to a “running” start (get it?), and I eventually got bored and stopped recording my progress. In the weeks following, I noticed a slowdown in improvement (and even some slight deterioration), to the point where I eventually decided that it wasn’t worth my time and I would have to re-work the project. Lesson learned — Health isn’t a project that can be tackled half-heartedly.

• Polyphasic Sleep

This project was a failure only in the sense that I didn’t achieve what I set out to achieve — two hours of sleep, every night, for an indefinite period of time. I did, however, master such feats as napping around the clock (for varying lengths, averaging about 90 minutes), waking up drenched, and making my roommates think that I escaped from an asylum. Lesson learned — People have no idea what to do about others who don’t share their sleep habits.

• Resolutions 2007

Last year, I claimed that I would score 20 “productive” hours (whatever that means) each and every day. No, I wasn’t under the influence or playing a prank. In some aspects, I’ve achieved that, but what I’ve truly failed at doing is documenting my time or using any form of accountability. I definitely feel better about myself in this regard than I did a year ago, but I don’t really have anything to show for it. Lesson learned — When it comes to productivity, choose quality over quantity.

• Write, Write, Write!

Write, Write, Write! was never an “all-year” project, but it’s worth mentioning. I wasn’t at all frequent or consistent with publishing (especially during this fall); not usually for a lack of writing material, but for a (perceived ;)) lack of time. I wish to carve out a certain amount of time every day for Don’tASQ instead of waiting until I have “a free minute.” Lesson learned — A great thing about writing is that it can be done any hour of the day.

Areas of Focus:

• Finance

Despite having worked a full-time job for seven months (instead of taking classes), I’m arguably not much better off financially now than I was last year. However, there’s no question that I’ve learned a lot about finance from all of the little things — savvy co-workers and roommates studying business, and even the process of finding the right credit card. Lesson learned — Debt in America is bad news!

• Fitness

In addition to the Fitness project (briefly reviewed above), I’ve made some serious attempts to change my diet. While I’ve had a bit of success, my biggest problem is, once again, not documenting that progress. Lesson learned — Fitness and Finance are mutually exclusive (healthy food can be expensive!)

• Relationships

Compared to a year ago, when I lived alone, this year has been incredible from a social standpoint (living with several good friends). Hermitization is on the decline and procrastination is on the rise! On the romantic side, I decided earlier in the fall that the timing wasn’t right to pursue any romantic relationship; surprisingly enough, I’m glad I made this choice, and it’s actually been kind of a stress relief. Lesson learned — Okay, so maybe not everything in 2007 failed.

Happy New Year! 2008 will be your best one yet!

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Last weekend, I brought the project that has consumed my life for the past six weeks to a loose ending by successfully installing KDE on the Linux OS.

English translation: It went from a text interface to a pretty-looking “icon” one.

There is still more work to be done, and there may be for awhile, but probably nothing worth writing about — and more importantly, nothing that will consume massive amounts of my time. The purpose of this project was not to describe the system I was configuring in gory detail, but to create a guide for those who would want to do such a thing themselves. I’ve finally written that guide.

It’s difficult to “dumb down” a highly in-depth technical project like this one, but I’m more than willing to answer any questions you may have.

I’d prefer to avoid writing constant updates about projects which are personal rather than global in nature (by “personal” I mean those which only directly involve me — currently, all of them). Don’tASQ is not about me but about us, and it’s important for readers to understand where that focus lies. Nevertheless, I also feel it’s important to keep you informed when I virtually disappear for a month without warning. In this roll-up, I address the status of all current and a couple of near-future projects — not to explain where I have been (though that will be answered), but to give you an idea of where we will be going. (more…)

Since my shiny new Macbook Pro arrived on Tuesday, I’ve performed roughly two installations of Windows XP, one installation of Windows Vista, two installations of Ubuntu Linux, and four installations of OS X (one of which is running right now). … And this is the easy part — I haven’t even tried to compile LFS yet.

If any of the above was confusing to you, try reading the introductory post about this project. If you’re still confused in a “what the heck is Ubuntu Linux” way, you may want to skip the rest of the post. The next one will include the beginning of a step-by-step guide to setting up a quad-boot Macbook, in language catered to the technically inept.

Things that don’t work:

• rEFIt’s EFI shell. For some reason, it continually freezes for me even on a vanilla OS X installation.
• Windows XP without Boot Camp. The first several attempts failed for various reasons, but using the Boot Camp Assistant (despite having the understanding that it wasn’t required) seemed to solve them. I’d still like to avoid using Boot Camp if possible.
• OS X 10.4.10. My installation DVD’s contain 10.4.9, which is a solid, stable release — very fortunate based on the number of times I’ve had to reinstall it. However, the one time I dared to update to 10.4.10, several bizarre things started to occur, not the least of which nearly prevented me from being able to repartition the drive! Obviously, I can’t completely narrow down the issue to the 10.4.10 patch, but I’ve heard of enough problems that I’m going to hold off on it for awhile.
• The Ubuntu GUI. I admittedly haven’t put much effort into fixing Ubuntu, since I won’t be keeping it on the “final” version of the system. However, I was a bit surprised by the inability to even start GDM.

Otherwise, I’ve been extremely happy with the new laptop. Contrary to my original anticipations, OS X is very fast, slick and intuitive to use. It’s only taken me a couple of days to get used to the interface, despite hating the fact that I’m limited to a one-button touchpad. (I think an external mouse is in the works…) Linux and Windows have also been very quick to install and run, and I’ve been able to get three of the four OS’s concurrently installed (albeit not necessarily running). Next time, I’ll write a more organized update with some step-by-step instructions. Stay tuned!

Okay, technophiles, this is the project you’ve been waiting for. If you could conjure up your perfect “Dream Machine” computer (your only limitations being that you must use components that actually exist), what would it look like? Most tech-savvy people I know would think of a monstrous, top-of-the-line gaming PC, complete with a 40″ LCD (maybe even twin-screen), wireless Surround Sound speakers, and about 20TB (roughly 20,000 gigabytes) in disk space.

I, however, have other ideas…

This Dream Machine will be:

• Portable (in other words, a laptop)
• Powerful (with higher-end specs)
• Flexible (hardware and software incompatibilities should be nonexistent)

The requirements are straightforward, but my standards are high. In a nutshell, I want this laptop to be able to handle anything and everything that I might throw at it from now through the foreseeable future — and to do it quickly and easily. In an ideal world, I would be able to buy this computer and not even need to make a project out of the whole thing. Not that I won’t enjoy this, of course. Unfortunately, no vendor exists which sells a universally flexible laptop (I’ll go into more details on that later), so I’m going to have to build one… however, not in the case-modding, massive desktop-constructing sense; my definition of “build” might correspond with anyone else’s definition of “organize.”

The Laptop:

• 15″ Macbook Pro
• Quad-boot:
• OS 10.4 “Tiger”
• LFS, a “roll-your-own” distribution of Linux
• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Virtualization:
• Windows-on-Mac
• Windows-on-Linux
• Mac-on-Linux
• Linux-on-Mac
• (For security, stability, and sanity reasons, I’ve chosen not to do any “X-on-Windows” virtualization)

The Project:

• Target completion time — Two weeks
• As tech-dummy friendly as possible! (I will need feedback on this!)
• … I’m serious. What good is a fantastic project if nobody else understands it?

Premonitions of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers):

• Why a Macbook?
• In the end, I made this decision primarily because of OS X. Yes, I am aware of the OSX86 Project (a project to make OS X run on non-Apple hardware). I really wanted a strong “base system” in the event that something goes wrong and I need to reformat the hard drive (which will happen at least once during this project). The Mac hardware/software combination is the only one which provides this; Linux is known to have questionable driver support when it comes to laptops, and Windows… well, let’s face it — I just really don’t like Windows. With the Macbook, if I need to revert back to a 100% working laptop, all I need to do is format and reinstall OS X.
• Why quad-boot? What on Earth are you going to do with four operating systems!?
• OS X: Media of all sorts (image/video editing, etc.), website work, daily use
• Linux: Daily use, schoolwork (mostly technical assignments), pretty much everything
• Windows XP: MS Office (OpenOffice is nice, but sometimes just doesn’t cut it), non-Vista-compatible software
• Windows Vista: … Games.
• How is all of this going to change the world? It sounds more like a “fun project” for Scott.
• “Fun project,” huh? Well, let’s be honest… that’s a big part of it. However, I’m hoping that a new computer, especially with OS X, will allow me to add some different types of media to the site. The Linux desktop on which I’ve been working, being three years old and also the same computer on which this site is hosted(!), is somewhat limiting in terms of how much power is at my disposal. I love writing, and I’m sure you all (occasionally) love reading it, but there are larger steps to be taken on this path…

I placed the order yesterday. The project will officially commence once the laptop hits my doorstep. Until then, may your world-changing efforts go well and may your Windows laptops survive another week.