Nothing is more complicated and less fun than trying to debug a Windows 7 home network. There are about a dozen different places to look for things, and if something doesn't work, there could be multiple reasons. I've spent an entire day debugging a home network with a stubborn Windows 7 box. In the end, after much googling, I discovered a nasty secret. Linux and Macs cannot join a Windows 7 Homegroup.
I tote a USB stick from my Windows 7 box to my Linux box whenever I need to transfer a couple of files, despite the fact I have a home network, which used to work fine when the box had Windows XP.
Windows only gets worse with each new version, losing functionality along the way; devolution, rather than evolution. Microsoft adds new restrictions and limitations that are intended to enhance its profits, and only a few bells and whistles to entice the end users to shell out another hundred dollars.
I look forward to the day when I can dispense with Windows altogether, but I need it for the moment to run ACDSee and Call Clerk. One day my network will work well again, because every machine on it will be running Linux, and the many problems created by Microsoft will be only a memory.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Deathrace
I watched a disturbing movie, Deathrace, about a dystopia set in the U.S.A. of the near future, in which, like today, there are few or no good jobs, and those jobs that are available tend to be temporary, ill-paid, and without benefits of any kind. The numerous and well-armed police are given a free hand to beat the hell out of workers, because workers are considered expendable, along with the rest of the have-nots. Prisons are run by private corporations, as is the case today in many states, and these corporations are in it to make a profit at all costs. The movie seemed realistic, and I wondered whether it was a crystal ball into our future.
The plot sickens: a worker is sent to jail for murdering his wife, although actually an undercover agent murdered his wife in order to frame him for the murder. Why was he framed? Because he is a good driver. Once in prison, he competes in a reality show called Deathrace, where convicts race against each other in armored cars fitted with machine guns and exotic weapons, which is reminiscent of the gladiators of Ancient Rome.
Midway through, I paused the movie to put up dishes and dropped a wine glass, which shattered. I don't usually drop things. At that point, I realized the movie had ceased to entertain and that I didn't care to watch the rest. There were no interesting characters, and despite the thought-provoking plot, the writing was uninspiring. No one in the movie uttered anything memorable.
My kind of movie is any of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I watched The Hobbit in order to recover. The next day, I watched The Fellowship of the Ring and found my favorite scenes, the romantic ones concerning Arwen, who chose a mortal life, and they brought tears to my eyes once again. Surely there will always be good people in the world. I think good has powerful benefits, some evident and some subtle. Otherwise, good would not have endured the ages. Evil is destructive not only of others but of self, whereas good is regenerative and nurturing of all.
It may be that the economy is screwed up, and many of our politicians and other officials either don't give a damn or don't have a clue what to do about it. I think America is on the road to being second-rate, and China is going to be the new fascist power to rival the old Axis Powers. All that is pretty clear. One doesn't need a crystal ball. I've heard plenty of ordinary people express similar opinions. The powers-that-be up in Washington are still acting as though nothing has changed, strutting about the world like we're still the sheriff. The leaders are due some rue from the clue canoe. That will come about in due course. Usually, America gets a wake-up call like Pearl Harbor or 1929 before it wakes up. I don't know what disaster is going to make the big changes yet, but I do have a vague feeling that things are not heading in the right direction, and that something bad may occur. I felt more confident in the 1990's, never doubting the country's future for a second, but in those days I could open a paper and read page after page of job openings in the computer technology field, my field. Nowadays I open up the paper and read page after page of foreclosures, bankruptcies and public auctions.
The future is shrouded in mist, far away, offering brief glimpses only. I do think that the world is a better place than a hundred years ago. Today I think so many politicians are wrongheaded, stodgy, hidebound by tradition and unwilling to take any risks, even for love of country, but I wonder whether that has not always been the case. Corruption has always been rife, perhaps even more so in the past than now. It may be that the economy is worse, and our standard of living is declining rather than increasing, but there is a lot of room for standards to fall, because our expectations were high in the clouds. After all, poverty has been the fate of most people in the world ever since the world began. Why should Americans be an exception? The fate of our country or ourselves does not necessarily bear that much relation with the fate of mankind. The world got on before America assumed the sheriff's role, and it will get on long after we place our badge on the shelf.
I should not like to be living in Taiwan, which will be the first lamb sacrificed to the Chinese lion.
The plot sickens: a worker is sent to jail for murdering his wife, although actually an undercover agent murdered his wife in order to frame him for the murder. Why was he framed? Because he is a good driver. Once in prison, he competes in a reality show called Deathrace, where convicts race against each other in armored cars fitted with machine guns and exotic weapons, which is reminiscent of the gladiators of Ancient Rome.
Midway through, I paused the movie to put up dishes and dropped a wine glass, which shattered. I don't usually drop things. At that point, I realized the movie had ceased to entertain and that I didn't care to watch the rest. There were no interesting characters, and despite the thought-provoking plot, the writing was uninspiring. No one in the movie uttered anything memorable.
My kind of movie is any of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I watched The Hobbit in order to recover. The next day, I watched The Fellowship of the Ring and found my favorite scenes, the romantic ones concerning Arwen, who chose a mortal life, and they brought tears to my eyes once again. Surely there will always be good people in the world. I think good has powerful benefits, some evident and some subtle. Otherwise, good would not have endured the ages. Evil is destructive not only of others but of self, whereas good is regenerative and nurturing of all.
It may be that the economy is screwed up, and many of our politicians and other officials either don't give a damn or don't have a clue what to do about it. I think America is on the road to being second-rate, and China is going to be the new fascist power to rival the old Axis Powers. All that is pretty clear. One doesn't need a crystal ball. I've heard plenty of ordinary people express similar opinions. The powers-that-be up in Washington are still acting as though nothing has changed, strutting about the world like we're still the sheriff. The leaders are due some rue from the clue canoe. That will come about in due course. Usually, America gets a wake-up call like Pearl Harbor or 1929 before it wakes up. I don't know what disaster is going to make the big changes yet, but I do have a vague feeling that things are not heading in the right direction, and that something bad may occur. I felt more confident in the 1990's, never doubting the country's future for a second, but in those days I could open a paper and read page after page of job openings in the computer technology field, my field. Nowadays I open up the paper and read page after page of foreclosures, bankruptcies and public auctions.
The future is shrouded in mist, far away, offering brief glimpses only. I do think that the world is a better place than a hundred years ago. Today I think so many politicians are wrongheaded, stodgy, hidebound by tradition and unwilling to take any risks, even for love of country, but I wonder whether that has not always been the case. Corruption has always been rife, perhaps even more so in the past than now. It may be that the economy is worse, and our standard of living is declining rather than increasing, but there is a lot of room for standards to fall, because our expectations were high in the clouds. After all, poverty has been the fate of most people in the world ever since the world began. Why should Americans be an exception? The fate of our country or ourselves does not necessarily bear that much relation with the fate of mankind. The world got on before America assumed the sheriff's role, and it will get on long after we place our badge on the shelf.
I should not like to be living in Taiwan, which will be the first lamb sacrificed to the Chinese lion.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
What are Referrer-Spammers?
When one visits a site, it is customary, although by no means mandatory, for one's browser to inform the site of the linking site. This data is placed in the referer-string and gets recorded in the site's server log. Site owners regard the referrer-string as one of the more useful bits of information, because they like to know who is sending them traffic. They may view the referrers in the site log or by viewing their site stats. Some site owners actually post a list of referring sites as an ill-conceived method of rewarding helpful behavior. I do not recommend doing so.
No verification of the referrer-string can be performed, because only the visitor and his ISP really knows where on the Internet he came from. A referrer-spammer, typically a bot, inserts an incorrect link into the referrer-string in order to promote a site and tempt site-owners to click on the link. Once a site-owner clicks on such a link, he may expose his computer to a malware infection, and at any rate, his IP address and geographical location may be compromised. No reputable site would ever resort to referrer-spam in order to generate traffic. Only scum do that. When I detect referrer-spammers in my log, I add their IP address to my blacklist.
The day has long since passed when a webmaster trusted in hit counts as a reliable measure of popularity or readership. Hit counts are fun and offer a rough measure, but the number must be taken with a grain of salt. The lion's share of hits for less popular sites are bogus, but even popular sites receive plenty of bots. A site owner may trust in comments, shares, and link-backs as a firmer indicator of human traffic.
However, even some comments are the work of bots promoting sites, products, or people. During the election season, I receive my share of bots passing through posting a defense of a politician I may mention. When I blog about a brand-name, I may receive a comment defending the brand. I can sometimes detect bots when their comments do not strictly jibe with the content of my blog post. A bot may be triggered into dropping a canned comment by one or more keywords being detected in a blog post.
Looking over a site log can be a real eye-opener. The log reveals just how many bots there are out in the wild--comment spammers, old-fashioned email harvesters, referrer-spammers, content-scrapers, search engines of no good reputation, and bots probing for security weaknesses. If you are an English writer like me and you notice much traffic from Russia or China or some other far-flung place in the world, I wager you are seeing just a bunch of bots and nothing more.
No verification of the referrer-string can be performed, because only the visitor and his ISP really knows where on the Internet he came from. A referrer-spammer, typically a bot, inserts an incorrect link into the referrer-string in order to promote a site and tempt site-owners to click on the link. Once a site-owner clicks on such a link, he may expose his computer to a malware infection, and at any rate, his IP address and geographical location may be compromised. No reputable site would ever resort to referrer-spam in order to generate traffic. Only scum do that. When I detect referrer-spammers in my log, I add their IP address to my blacklist.
The day has long since passed when a webmaster trusted in hit counts as a reliable measure of popularity or readership. Hit counts are fun and offer a rough measure, but the number must be taken with a grain of salt. The lion's share of hits for less popular sites are bogus, but even popular sites receive plenty of bots. A site owner may trust in comments, shares, and link-backs as a firmer indicator of human traffic.
However, even some comments are the work of bots promoting sites, products, or people. During the election season, I receive my share of bots passing through posting a defense of a politician I may mention. When I blog about a brand-name, I may receive a comment defending the brand. I can sometimes detect bots when their comments do not strictly jibe with the content of my blog post. A bot may be triggered into dropping a canned comment by one or more keywords being detected in a blog post.
Looking over a site log can be a real eye-opener. The log reveals just how many bots there are out in the wild--comment spammers, old-fashioned email harvesters, referrer-spammers, content-scrapers, search engines of no good reputation, and bots probing for security weaknesses. If you are an English writer like me and you notice much traffic from Russia or China or some other far-flung place in the world, I wager you are seeing just a bunch of bots and nothing more.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Phantoms of the Internet
Beware of anyone met online, because you have not met them; they are ideas only, phantoms. There are many on the Internet that pretend to be that which they are not, and their motives are as varied as human nature allows. Some are criminals, some are jealous, some are lustful, some are curious, and some are misguided undercover agents.
The agent I dealt with last week also had a profile on Amazon, Google and several other online venues. Her online profiles were elaborate and indistinguishable from that of any other ordinary person. Governments around the world employ personnel that craft convincing and highly detailed online identities. Facebook isn't the only online site crawling with agents, but it's probably the top one. "She" had an impressive cover. Let's continue with the feminine pronoun, though I think she was really a he. She had many friends, each with elaborate and believable Facebook profiles, and her own profile was believable as well. Clearly her online activity constituted a full-time job. Her friends and relatives had blogs of their own with many posts and comments on their posts.
My point is this. It is not possible to determine the legitimacy of an online persona by examining their Facebook profile, friends, forum postings, or email messages. An online acquaintance remains a mystery. One must remind oneself of that cardinal rule at all times. One does not know another's gender, age, name or location. One knows nothing about them at all, not even what can be twigged by their style of writing, for even style and grammar are subject to manipulation. Even an IP address may be spoofed like all other technical information. None of the stats on any online profile may be trusted, and of course anything someone writes is subject to being a lie, along with the manner in which they write it.
Many people in the world have no ethical problem with lying, or even if they do, they evaluate lying as being the lesser evil. Thus, each new evil that they commit afterward may also be evaluated in the same light, as a lesser evil. Such a slippery slope, my dear, and where does the fall end?
The agent I dealt with last week also had a profile on Amazon, Google and several other online venues. Her online profiles were elaborate and indistinguishable from that of any other ordinary person. Governments around the world employ personnel that craft convincing and highly detailed online identities. Facebook isn't the only online site crawling with agents, but it's probably the top one. "She" had an impressive cover. Let's continue with the feminine pronoun, though I think she was really a he. She had many friends, each with elaborate and believable Facebook profiles, and her own profile was believable as well. Clearly her online activity constituted a full-time job. Her friends and relatives had blogs of their own with many posts and comments on their posts.
My point is this. It is not possible to determine the legitimacy of an online persona by examining their Facebook profile, friends, forum postings, or email messages. An online acquaintance remains a mystery. One must remind oneself of that cardinal rule at all times. One does not know another's gender, age, name or location. One knows nothing about them at all, not even what can be twigged by their style of writing, for even style and grammar are subject to manipulation. Even an IP address may be spoofed like all other technical information. None of the stats on any online profile may be trusted, and of course anything someone writes is subject to being a lie, along with the manner in which they write it.
Many people in the world have no ethical problem with lying, or even if they do, they evaluate lying as being the lesser evil. Thus, each new evil that they commit afterward may also be evaluated in the same light, as a lesser evil. Such a slippery slope, my dear, and where does the fall end?
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Mounting a USB DVD / CDROM in Ubuntu / Linux Mint
I had difficulty this morning mounting a USB DVD-ROM in Linux Mint and spent over an hour googling for the answer. Ah, but Google is a crutch for a lazy mind. I entered scores of commands at the terminal, mainly variations of:
Now what could be the problem? Is Windows easier than Linux in this particular case? Did the evil manufacturer collude with Microsoft to leave millions of Linux users in the lurch? These scenarios and more floated through my fevered mind. I even resorted to editing /etc/fstab, although once I loaded it in my text editor, I didn't really know what to put in there. I also tried rebooting. At last, I decided to test my hypothesis that the USB DVD player would only work in Windows. I plugged it into my Windows computer. Nothing happened. Windows did not recognize the drive either. That meant that the drive was bad, and I needed to throw it in the garbage unless. . . unless . . . that was when I noticed something at the end of the USB cable. Apparently this drive, for a mysterious reason, has not one, but two USB connectors, and I had been using the connector at the end of the cable, which offered more length and seemed the logical choice. However, the drive only works and is only recognized if the very first USB connector is plugged into the computer. Once I tried the first connector, the drive worked in both Linux Mint and Windows without any difficulty. This was not a Linux/Windows problem at all, but a situation where the manufacturer chose a poor design in defiance of logic. I have never seen a USB device with two connectors. The second USB connector exists only as a practical joke on the end user. When I tried to visit the product page at the manufacturer's web page, I was told that the page no longer existed, which is typical, as manufacturers abandon kludges almost as soon as their sales begin to drop, in order to dodge customer complaints.
Moral of the story: Beware the hydra.
sudo mount /dev/cdromWhich returned an error:
mount: can't find /dev/cdrom in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtabAnd when I tried to mount /dev/cdrom /mnt, I got something to the effect of "no medium found".
Now what could be the problem? Is Windows easier than Linux in this particular case? Did the evil manufacturer collude with Microsoft to leave millions of Linux users in the lurch? These scenarios and more floated through my fevered mind. I even resorted to editing /etc/fstab, although once I loaded it in my text editor, I didn't really know what to put in there. I also tried rebooting. At last, I decided to test my hypothesis that the USB DVD player would only work in Windows. I plugged it into my Windows computer. Nothing happened. Windows did not recognize the drive either. That meant that the drive was bad, and I needed to throw it in the garbage unless. . . unless . . . that was when I noticed something at the end of the USB cable. Apparently this drive, for a mysterious reason, has not one, but two USB connectors, and I had been using the connector at the end of the cable, which offered more length and seemed the logical choice. However, the drive only works and is only recognized if the very first USB connector is plugged into the computer. Once I tried the first connector, the drive worked in both Linux Mint and Windows without any difficulty. This was not a Linux/Windows problem at all, but a situation where the manufacturer chose a poor design in defiance of logic. I have never seen a USB device with two connectors. The second USB connector exists only as a practical joke on the end user. When I tried to visit the product page at the manufacturer's web page, I was told that the page no longer existed, which is typical, as manufacturers abandon kludges almost as soon as their sales begin to drop, in order to dodge customer complaints.
Moral of the story: Beware the hydra.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
The Jester
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup's latest class, the Jester, available in the trunk version, seems made for me. One of my favorite player combinations in the game has for a long time been the Mummy Necromancer that worships Nemelex Xobeh. The developers have cut it close with the Jester, who worships NX from the beginning and is equipped with one of my favorite weapons, the powerful if unpredictable quarterstaff of chaos, which I usually have peeled from the dead body of Crazed Yluf.
I have desired just such a class for ages and am certain it will be my favorite class of all. Mummies have long needed such a class, because they are so weak, having a poor aptitude at every skill. Only through the power of Xobeh can a Mummy hope to win the Orb.
I do not understand the connection with Xom, but perhaps the crazed god is intended to counterbalance some of the power the Jester has in the beginning. A quarterstaff of chaos is a surprising, powerful choice for a provisioning weapon, and NX is no weakling either, providing strong powers in his decks of cards. Such a weapon as the quarterstaff of chaos could be taken to the end game, despite its sometimes nasty random effects. I think the developers are going to have to weaken the weapon in order to restore balance. Perhaps a +0 quarterstaff of chaos would be more to the point.
On a different subject, I would just like to note that my Linux Mint operating system polls the Dungeon Crawl Debian repository. When a new trunk update is released by the developers, my operating system notifies me, and all I have to do is make a mouse click, enter my password, and it is downloaded and installed automatically! Contrast the ease with which a Linux user like me receives trunk updates to the method that Windows users must employ. I even made the Windows method easier by coding a batch file that installs the program faster than the Installer, but even that was more work than the Linux method. My point is that Linux is easier to use than Windows and better as a gaming PC, if one can refrain from using the latest graphical 3D shoot 'em ups.
Turn-based strategy games are the way to go in my opinion, and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup represents the best of the best. Being turn-based is critical for me, because I need to be able to handle frequent interruptions from the phone and from customers. I would not play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup if it were realtime. I like the Tiles version and I like the fact that the game pauses after every turn.
I have desired just such a class for ages and am certain it will be my favorite class of all. Mummies have long needed such a class, because they are so weak, having a poor aptitude at every skill. Only through the power of Xobeh can a Mummy hope to win the Orb.
I do not understand the connection with Xom, but perhaps the crazed god is intended to counterbalance some of the power the Jester has in the beginning. A quarterstaff of chaos is a surprising, powerful choice for a provisioning weapon, and NX is no weakling either, providing strong powers in his decks of cards. Such a weapon as the quarterstaff of chaos could be taken to the end game, despite its sometimes nasty random effects. I think the developers are going to have to weaken the weapon in order to restore balance. Perhaps a +0 quarterstaff of chaos would be more to the point.
On a different subject, I would just like to note that my Linux Mint operating system polls the Dungeon Crawl Debian repository. When a new trunk update is released by the developers, my operating system notifies me, and all I have to do is make a mouse click, enter my password, and it is downloaded and installed automatically! Contrast the ease with which a Linux user like me receives trunk updates to the method that Windows users must employ. I even made the Windows method easier by coding a batch file that installs the program faster than the Installer, but even that was more work than the Linux method. My point is that Linux is easier to use than Windows and better as a gaming PC, if one can refrain from using the latest graphical 3D shoot 'em ups.
Turn-based strategy games are the way to go in my opinion, and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup represents the best of the best. Being turn-based is critical for me, because I need to be able to handle frequent interruptions from the phone and from customers. I would not play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup if it were realtime. I like the Tiles version and I like the fact that the game pauses after every turn.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Warning: You Are Being Watched
There is one growth industry in our crumbling empire that generates new employment opportunities and hardly ever downsizes. No, I'm not talking about manufacturing. What a laugh. Manufacturing in the U.S. is almost an oxymoron these days, which distresses me, because manufacturing is what really won the Second World War, as any history buff knows. I fear for our nation's future with our manufacturing outsourced to China. The growth industry is not our nation's military, as our wars seem to be winding down rather than expanding under the foreign policy of President Obama. I am not referring to the education "industry," although many people are going back to school, even with the poor financial returns available on an education investment. The one growth industry that really stands out in the U.S. is the prison industry.
The United States is ranked #1 in the entire world when it comes to the number of people in prison, and no small number of people are paid to put them there and care for them once they are there. This has been true for decades due to the illegality of popular drugs such as cannabis, which is less harmful than alcohol, but carries severe penalties for those found to be in possession of small quantities. The Drug War provides a livelihood for people on both sides of the law. One deplores the cartels, but they would disappear if drugs became legal, as they were for thousands of years prior to the 1930s. Nobody had a problem with drugs until the government made it a problem.
In the Drug War and other law enforcement campaigns, the government employs (I like that word, since the Drug War generates so much employment in modern America) lies and intimidation to weasel its way into peoples' lives.
The usual game goes down like this. An agent pretends to be somebody's friend and then, once a naive individual places trust in that agent, a trap is sprung ensnaring that poor soul in a felony carrying the threat of significant penalties. As a computer programmer, I am reminded of phishing scams and viruses. They are all one, agents and computer viruses, employing social engineering to deceive, manipulate and harm.
"Don't worry, Mr. or Mrs. No-Account Nobody! We don't want to crucify you. We actually want to crucify someone else, and you can help us do so. Oh, and by the way, it would be in your best interest."
Yes: betray your friends and abandon your ethics in the interest of self-preservation. The Drug War is a game, you see, it is not a crusade, and ethics has nothing to do with it. The players are merely players seeking to win. Right or wrong does not necessarily enter into the equation.
If the poor soul wishes to redeem herself and not lose custody of her children or face a lengthy prison sentence or lose all her worldly possessions, then she must prove useful, enlisting as an undercover agent in order to ensnare others in the drug trade, often at some risk to herself. Disgrace, humiliation, debasement, and dishonesty are the prices that such souls must pay in exchange for leniency in their sentencing.
Now, I was tested quite recently by an undercover agent who contacted me via Amazon, responding to one of my reviews. After an initial back-and-forth exchange of messages, she invited me to extend our acquaintance over to Facebook.
On the Internet, undercover agents prefer to pose as women, due to the universal truth that human beings do often place more trust in their mothers than their fathers. In the past, I have been approached more than once by agents due to my online activities of speaking out about political and controversial matters. The government is in the business of profiling individuals and speculating upon them. Those in power are sometimes motivated by the desire to dominate and control others, and principles such as freedom of speech don't appeal to their way of thinking.
Now I will let my reader in on a little secret. I am not a naive individual, although I may play one online. I am not sure how I attracted the attention of an agency, but my blog contains posts on controversial subjects. Whatever the motive, an agent glanced at my blog, concluded that marijuana was my weakness, my femme fatale, and employed a honeypot strategy.
I was offered free marijuana of the very best variety straight from a small organic grow operation in Mendocino County in California. All I had to do was say the words, "Please send me some marijuana," and a special delivery would arrive in the mail, accompanied, no doubt, by several squad cars.
I called her on her game, which at first I found amusing, but she stuck to her story and wouldn't confess to it, but just kept wading deeper into falsehoods. Nobody likes dealing with a liar, and I'm no exception, so I un-friended her / him on Facebook. I suspect the agent was male, a college-educated middle-class boy in his late twenties or early thirties not knowing too much about the world. He was well-trained by his agency and probably would have nailed someone else. Every message, he kept elaborating upon his proposal to mail me a package of marijuana, which I do believe is a federal offense that might even justify an open-ended seach warrant, which presents a huge hassle, having so many cops rummage through the home all day long on a fishing expedition--and I resent the entrapment. I think the trigger may have been something on my blog about a powerful official. It is not exceptional for officials to call in favors from law enforcement agencies.
Although some government employees may not comprehend or believe in the principles of the United States of America, I do, and I think that free speech is important, and sometimes may even be the duty of a human being, to say what is thought to be so, not for material, but for spiritual, for timeless reasons. I will not be intimidated, although I expect the latest will not be the last attempt at entrapment, whether the next lure proves to be sex, drugs, money, or something else. Not many people are acquainted with the phrase, amor fati, which has such a good ring that one prefers the Latin.
In terms of temptations, a job might actually hook me. I don't know. Like many Americans in today's economy, I'd love to get a good new job. A good job is the one thing I want most in this world. But I would not accept any job where I had to lie to people in order to make my living.
The United States is ranked #1 in the entire world when it comes to the number of people in prison, and no small number of people are paid to put them there and care for them once they are there. This has been true for decades due to the illegality of popular drugs such as cannabis, which is less harmful than alcohol, but carries severe penalties for those found to be in possession of small quantities. The Drug War provides a livelihood for people on both sides of the law. One deplores the cartels, but they would disappear if drugs became legal, as they were for thousands of years prior to the 1930s. Nobody had a problem with drugs until the government made it a problem.
In the Drug War and other law enforcement campaigns, the government employs (I like that word, since the Drug War generates so much employment in modern America) lies and intimidation to weasel its way into peoples' lives.
The usual game goes down like this. An agent pretends to be somebody's friend and then, once a naive individual places trust in that agent, a trap is sprung ensnaring that poor soul in a felony carrying the threat of significant penalties. As a computer programmer, I am reminded of phishing scams and viruses. They are all one, agents and computer viruses, employing social engineering to deceive, manipulate and harm.
"Don't worry, Mr. or Mrs. No-Account Nobody! We don't want to crucify you. We actually want to crucify someone else, and you can help us do so. Oh, and by the way, it would be in your best interest."
Yes: betray your friends and abandon your ethics in the interest of self-preservation. The Drug War is a game, you see, it is not a crusade, and ethics has nothing to do with it. The players are merely players seeking to win. Right or wrong does not necessarily enter into the equation.
If the poor soul wishes to redeem herself and not lose custody of her children or face a lengthy prison sentence or lose all her worldly possessions, then she must prove useful, enlisting as an undercover agent in order to ensnare others in the drug trade, often at some risk to herself. Disgrace, humiliation, debasement, and dishonesty are the prices that such souls must pay in exchange for leniency in their sentencing.
Now, I was tested quite recently by an undercover agent who contacted me via Amazon, responding to one of my reviews. After an initial back-and-forth exchange of messages, she invited me to extend our acquaintance over to Facebook.
On the Internet, undercover agents prefer to pose as women, due to the universal truth that human beings do often place more trust in their mothers than their fathers. In the past, I have been approached more than once by agents due to my online activities of speaking out about political and controversial matters. The government is in the business of profiling individuals and speculating upon them. Those in power are sometimes motivated by the desire to dominate and control others, and principles such as freedom of speech don't appeal to their way of thinking.
Now I will let my reader in on a little secret. I am not a naive individual, although I may play one online. I am not sure how I attracted the attention of an agency, but my blog contains posts on controversial subjects. Whatever the motive, an agent glanced at my blog, concluded that marijuana was my weakness, my femme fatale, and employed a honeypot strategy.
I was offered free marijuana of the very best variety straight from a small organic grow operation in Mendocino County in California. All I had to do was say the words, "Please send me some marijuana," and a special delivery would arrive in the mail, accompanied, no doubt, by several squad cars.
I called her on her game, which at first I found amusing, but she stuck to her story and wouldn't confess to it, but just kept wading deeper into falsehoods. Nobody likes dealing with a liar, and I'm no exception, so I un-friended her / him on Facebook. I suspect the agent was male, a college-educated middle-class boy in his late twenties or early thirties not knowing too much about the world. He was well-trained by his agency and probably would have nailed someone else. Every message, he kept elaborating upon his proposal to mail me a package of marijuana, which I do believe is a federal offense that might even justify an open-ended seach warrant, which presents a huge hassle, having so many cops rummage through the home all day long on a fishing expedition--and I resent the entrapment. I think the trigger may have been something on my blog about a powerful official. It is not exceptional for officials to call in favors from law enforcement agencies.
Although some government employees may not comprehend or believe in the principles of the United States of America, I do, and I think that free speech is important, and sometimes may even be the duty of a human being, to say what is thought to be so, not for material, but for spiritual, for timeless reasons. I will not be intimidated, although I expect the latest will not be the last attempt at entrapment, whether the next lure proves to be sex, drugs, money, or something else. Not many people are acquainted with the phrase, amor fati, which has such a good ring that one prefers the Latin.
In terms of temptations, a job might actually hook me. I don't know. Like many Americans in today's economy, I'd love to get a good new job. A good job is the one thing I want most in this world. But I would not accept any job where I had to lie to people in order to make my living.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
How to Update to Ktorrent 4.3.1 in Linux Mint Nadia KDE
Ktorrent's download page gives good though incomplete instructions for installing the latest version of Ktorrent, which has not and I think never will hit Linux Mint 14's or Ubuntu's 12.10 repository. I believe the Ubuntu folks may be reserving Ktorrent 4.3.1 for Ubuntu Raring, for whatever reason, but I didn't let that keep me from trying out the latest version of Ktorrent, which seems to have some worthwhile new features and bug fixes. I sometimes observe unusual delays with my torrents, so I thought it might be helpful to update to the latest version just to reduce the possibility of a bug.
First, I visited Ubuntu's documentation for compiling software here and performed only the first step, which is
Then I loaded Synaptic Package Manager and installed all of the following packages and their dependencies:
Next, I followed the instructions on Ktorrent's download page. Note that the above satisfies all prerequisites (qt, kde, libgmp, qca2 and others left unmentioned) for compiling.
I am now using Ktorrent 4.3.1 with KDE 4.9.5 on Linux Mint Nadia. My configuration file was preserved intact during the upgrade. So far, Ktorrent 4.3.1 works well, although I had to get used to the new tab design, which I think may be better, as it may save a few clicks on occasion.
Why did Canonical not release this new version of Ktorrent to users of earlier and current versions of Ubuntu? By neglecting to backport new versions of software, Canonical provides incentives for users to upgrade to their latest version, 13.04 Raring, which is fast approaching its release date.
First, I visited Ubuntu's documentation for compiling software here and performed only the first step, which is
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Then I loaded Synaptic Package Manager and installed all of the following packages and their dependencies:
The above is quite a long list. Installing consumes about a gigabyte or so in free space, if memory serves me correctly. I let one of the larger downloads run overnight while I was asleep. I discovered these prerequisites through trial-and-error. Whenever the compile failed, or in some cases even if it succeeded, I noted the compiler's complaints and tried to satisfy them through Synaptic Package Manager. It is okay to recompile as many times as one desires until the not-found errors are eliminated.cmakelibqt4-devkdelibs5-devlibgmp-devlibqca2-devlibgcrypt4-devlibboost-devdoxygenlibtag1-devkdepimlibs5-devkde-workspace-dev
Next, I followed the instructions on Ktorrent's download page. Note that the above satisfies all prerequisites (qt, kde, libgmp, qca2 and others left unmentioned) for compiling.
I am now using Ktorrent 4.3.1 with KDE 4.9.5 on Linux Mint Nadia. My configuration file was preserved intact during the upgrade. So far, Ktorrent 4.3.1 works well, although I had to get used to the new tab design, which I think may be better, as it may save a few clicks on occasion.
Update
Ktorrent 4.3.1 is, if anything, faster than the earlier version, and I like the new tab feature. I think I improved performance by disabling DHT and reducing the number of network connections to about 45 or so. In the case of network connections, more is not necessarily better. I also use the uBitTorrent protocol exclusively, not allowing TCP connections, because uBitTorrent protocol plays better with other users on the network. I have not noticed any detrimental impact from excluding TCP connections. I don't know for sure whether my ISP frowns upon torrenting, but I don't want to find out. All my connections require encryption, and I often use KDE's proxy, though not always, because I'm not 100% confident in the proxy being up all the time.Why did Canonical not release this new version of Ktorrent to users of earlier and current versions of Ubuntu? By neglecting to backport new versions of software, Canonical provides incentives for users to upgrade to their latest version, 13.04 Raring, which is fast approaching its release date.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Linux Kernel 3.8 Upgrade Breaks S/PDIF Optical Sound
After researching online, I found this little snippet that explains why my S/PDIF connection is dead silent after upgrading the Linux kernel from 3.5 to 3.8.2. It seems the developers sacrificed S/PDIF audio output to please HDMI users, who are more numerous. I guess you can't please everyone, as the song says. The best alternative I've found is to stop upgrading the kernel at 3.7.10--that's the cliff, after which S/PDIF goes silent. For my part, I'll just hold off on upgrading my htpc until there is a fix that satisfies both S/PDIF and HDMI. Apparently 3.8 isn't quite the thing for my htpc. A silent htpc is about as useful as a rock.
My htpc does not use HDMI, but the motherboard has an HDMI connection. Linux kernel 3.8.x disables S/PDIF. I removed 3.8.x and installed 3.7.10, and it is working fine with S/PDIF.
My htpc does not use HDMI, but the motherboard has an HDMI connection. Linux kernel 3.8.x disables S/PDIF. I removed 3.8.x and installed 3.7.10, and it is working fine with S/PDIF.
Jonesin' for Linux Mint 15
I am seriously jonesin' for the next version of Linux Mint KDE. It's going to be tough for me, I tell you, because I'm going to watch Ubuntu 13.04 be released...yawn...then Linux Mint 15 Mate and Cinnamon...okay, that's nice, but not quite the thing for me...and only about a month later, maybe in the Fall, will Linux Mint 15 KDE roll out. That's the ticket right there. That will be the time to upgrade everything. I hope the long wait is worth it. I'm looking forward to the latest version of KDE.
I had to pass on Open Suse 12.3, because it's just too problematic. I don't think the end user should need a Ph.D. to set up a printer. To me, printing is an elementary function of the operating system. Printing should never, ever be any kind of issue. I also believe that a Linux distribution should access the network from the word "Go." The user should not be required to do anything to set the network up, especially in the case of simple wired networks where there is no wi-fi password to deal with. As far as repositories go, the dvd must cease to be a repository once the OS is installed. These are the three primary reasons that I am opting for an older version of Linux Mint KDE over OpenSuse 12.3 KDE. There are other rough edges with OpenSuse, little things that require the user to learn how to cope with OpenSuse, when the user should instead be focused upon getting things done. An operating system should be unobtrusive and elementary to understand.
I had to pass on Open Suse 12.3, because it's just too problematic. I don't think the end user should need a Ph.D. to set up a printer. To me, printing is an elementary function of the operating system. Printing should never, ever be any kind of issue. I also believe that a Linux distribution should access the network from the word "Go." The user should not be required to do anything to set the network up, especially in the case of simple wired networks where there is no wi-fi password to deal with. As far as repositories go, the dvd must cease to be a repository once the OS is installed. These are the three primary reasons that I am opting for an older version of Linux Mint KDE over OpenSuse 12.3 KDE. There are other rough edges with OpenSuse, little things that require the user to learn how to cope with OpenSuse, when the user should instead be focused upon getting things done. An operating system should be unobtrusive and elementary to understand.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Intuit's TurboTax Spyware
Intuit TurboTax won't let me file taxes online. Chris Pederick's user-agent switcher won't work to bypass the "system requirements" check, either. There's only one reason I know for a web site to require the use of a specific operating system, and that is that they want to load spyware onto the user's PC. So that makes me wonder what kind of spyware Intuit Turbotax is deploying and for what reason?
I hate to switch to a different product, but I'm leaving Intuit alone this year. They seem to be resorting to desperate measures in this economy. I can't say I'm terribly surprised, as I used to get unsolicited phone calls from Intuit on a regular basis--they'd call every week, punctual, usually around dinner-time, trying to sell me Quicken or some other product I don't care about. Thank goodness I run Call Clerk now to intercept annoying calls from clueless companies such as Intuit that have no idea how to treat a customer.
I hate to switch to a different product, but I'm leaving Intuit alone this year. They seem to be resorting to desperate measures in this economy. I can't say I'm terribly surprised, as I used to get unsolicited phone calls from Intuit on a regular basis--they'd call every week, punctual, usually around dinner-time, trying to sell me Quicken or some other product I don't care about. Thank goodness I run Call Clerk now to intercept annoying calls from clueless companies such as Intuit that have no idea how to treat a customer.
Turn Your Computer into a Fortress
I often hear of users having sorry experiences with Windows. Slow-downs, malware, bloatware, viruses, anti-viruses, and lots of money and time down the drain seem to be the order of the day. It does not have to be this way. There is a better solution. I would estimate that at least half of all computer users today are using their computer for one task that does not demand much of the operating system at all--internet surfing. Yes, occasionally, the typical user might also wish to edit a spreadsheet, write a document, or play multimedia files. Linux can do all of these things quite well. Linux does not require much in the way of hardware, either. A computer built in 2008 will serve admirably. Only two gigs of RAM, you say? That is not a problem. Why not buy a used computer for $100 or less? Linux runs Firefox or Chrome like a champ, and all the add-ons that are used on Firefox in Windows can also be used on Firefox in Linux. One caveat--there may or may not be an issue where Flash is concerned. One's experience with youtube may vary depending on the computer hardware. However, Chrome has no difficulty at all running Flash in Linux, because Chrome's flash decoder is native rather than suffering from a dependency upon Adobe.
If I were designing a laptop or desktop for the casual Internet user, I would install the latest version of 64-bit Linux Mint KDE with Firefox as the internet browser and the NoScript add-on for security. Some people hate NoScript, because it is annoying by design, disabling all scripts until the user manually approves a site. Thus, clicking on a link no longer can result automatically in infection, because the user must first approve the scripts that are to run. However, the first time one visits Ebay, Amazon, et al, one must approve of the scripts being run before using the sites as one is accustomed.
A fortress against malware is presented by Linux Mint KDE with the firewall enabled to deny incoming connections, Firefox as the browser, and the NoScript Add-on installed. This set-up is also fast to boot, easy to install, and free. There are further refinements that can be made, given experience and the knowledge that comes with it, but the basic setup is easy to understand.
If I were designing a laptop or desktop for the casual Internet user, I would install the latest version of 64-bit Linux Mint KDE with Firefox as the internet browser and the NoScript add-on for security. Some people hate NoScript, because it is annoying by design, disabling all scripts until the user manually approves a site. Thus, clicking on a link no longer can result automatically in infection, because the user must first approve the scripts that are to run. However, the first time one visits Ebay, Amazon, et al, one must approve of the scripts being run before using the sites as one is accustomed.
A fortress against malware is presented by Linux Mint KDE with the firewall enabled to deny incoming connections, Firefox as the browser, and the NoScript Add-on installed. This set-up is also fast to boot, easy to install, and free. There are further refinements that can be made, given experience and the knowledge that comes with it, but the basic setup is easy to understand.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
I Prefer Linux Mint 14 to Open Suse 12.3
In Open Suse 12.3, I spent an hour trying to configure my network printer, got confused by the complicated, convoluted and delay-prone print management dialogs, did not succeed in setting up my printer, and wound up deleting Open Suse from my hard drive. I thought version 12.3 was supposed to bring improvements to print management. What gives?
In Linux Mint 14, which is several months older than Open Suse 12.3, I spent less than a minute configuring my network printer. Perhaps there was a grammatical mistake in the printer dialog, and perhaps the first time I clicked on "Print test page," it didn't print, but who cares--I sure don't--because after one minute and very few mouse clicks, everything just worked.
Linux Mint compares favorably against Windows 7, too. In Windows, the printer did not install automatically. I had to do what I have always done in Windows -- visit the manufacturer's web site, download the drivers, and install them. I had to do the same to configure my modem and install the video driver. Windows takes at least twenty hours to fully configure and install all of the software packages. Linux Mint takes about twenty minutes, tops, although twenty minutes would definitely be the worst case scenario. The point is Linux Mint saves the end user a lot of time and trouble, whereas Microsoft could not give a flipping flapjack about the end user.
Linux Mint is the only operating system that I would feel comfortable recommending to my technologically less sophisticated friends. I know from experience that the end user will not encounter any "gotchas" during the installation and that they will be able to perform the basic tasks one expects from an OS, such as printing. I cannot recommend Windows because it is time-consuming to set up and configure all of the various hardware drivers and software packages, and once they are set up, Windows adds new obstacles by restricting the user from installing the OS on more than one device, which is a very severe restriction, because a simple change of hardware will invalidate a Windows installation. In addition, Windows remains a security hazard due to the way that its software is distributed. There are far too many compromised Windows systems in the wild. I much prefer the Linux method of keeping software on repositories, where educated geeks monitor what is there and keep out malware.
In Linux Mint 14, which is several months older than Open Suse 12.3, I spent less than a minute configuring my network printer. Perhaps there was a grammatical mistake in the printer dialog, and perhaps the first time I clicked on "Print test page," it didn't print, but who cares--I sure don't--because after one minute and very few mouse clicks, everything just worked.
Linux Mint compares favorably against Windows 7, too. In Windows, the printer did not install automatically. I had to do what I have always done in Windows -- visit the manufacturer's web site, download the drivers, and install them. I had to do the same to configure my modem and install the video driver. Windows takes at least twenty hours to fully configure and install all of the software packages. Linux Mint takes about twenty minutes, tops, although twenty minutes would definitely be the worst case scenario. The point is Linux Mint saves the end user a lot of time and trouble, whereas Microsoft could not give a flipping flapjack about the end user.
Linux Mint is the only operating system that I would feel comfortable recommending to my technologically less sophisticated friends. I know from experience that the end user will not encounter any "gotchas" during the installation and that they will be able to perform the basic tasks one expects from an OS, such as printing. I cannot recommend Windows because it is time-consuming to set up and configure all of the various hardware drivers and software packages, and once they are set up, Windows adds new obstacles by restricting the user from installing the OS on more than one device, which is a very severe restriction, because a simple change of hardware will invalidate a Windows installation. In addition, Windows remains a security hazard due to the way that its software is distributed. There are far too many compromised Windows systems in the wild. I much prefer the Linux method of keeping software on repositories, where educated geeks monitor what is there and keep out malware.
Lost Girl
Lost Girl, a supernatural show about a succubus, is a blatant rip-off of True Blood--so blatant indeed that I became bored by the lack of new ideas. The show is nothing but a collection of cliches. I thought it might be interesting due to the introduction of a seldom-portrayed supernatural being, a succubus, but that was not the case. The pilot and sequel were marred by frontloading of the plot--lengthy speeches informing the audience of tedious details that we do not need to know. This succubus is no demon, but actually a full-blooded Fey, you see, with a biology of her own, and there is a population of Fey existing undetected alongside humans, and they have their own society. Sound familiar? Why of course, this is a pale imitation of True Blood. The actors are always explaining the plot to the audience in order to eliminate any false impression, even the most unlikely, that any imaginative person might entertain. At the end of the second episode, to eliminate any speculation that the two women might be lovers, the writer had the younger one utter a non sequitor to the effect that she only did men. Well, that's nice to know, as it gives me one more reason not to tune in for episode three.
The Hobbit
The Hobbit was a better movie than any other fantasy or sci-fi movie I've seen lately. The critics were too hard on it by far, for instance by taking issue with the meager source material, Tolkien's thin book, being used as the basis for not one, but three movies (two are yet to come). I take the opposite view, that the three Lord of the Rings movies were too fast-paced. Each of Tolkien's LOTR books should have formed the basis of three separate movies, for a total of nine instead of the three--a strategic blunder that I am sure is regretted now that the producers realize how much money can be made through the Tolkien franchise. Tolkien was a great writer, and his works lend themselves well to the medium of film. How about another ten films based upon The Silmarillion?
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Little Issues in Open Suse 12.3
In the end, I just couldn't resist OpenSuse 12.3 because it is so freaking beautiful. I just love the wallpaper. That's my rationale for overwriting Linux Mint 14 with OpenSuse 12.3. End of story.
Almost.
Easy Download & Install
Here's what I liked about OpenSuse 12.3--I downloaded it via torrent. That's nice, because it meant that my copy was downloaded verified and without errors, and I didn't have to do an MD5 checksum on a downloaded .ISO. I also like the idea of helping out by uploading some data to others. The torrent for OpenSuse is well-seeded, by the way.
I also like that OpenSuse released a new version ahead of the *buntu family of distros, because that meant I could sample the new KDE and the new kernel without much effort.
OpenSuse did not install the first time I tried it. There was an error, but the medium I used was cheap Rosewill garbage. Rosewill is not known for quality when it comes to DVDs and CDs, so I was not willing to blame OpenSuse for the error. Instead, I clicked on the OpenSuse option to verify the disk, and thirty minutes later OpenSuse determined that the medium was indeed bad. I burned another disk, this time a Verbatim dvd, and my install proceeded without a hitch. The Rosewill dvd now rests at the bottom of my garbage can. I haven't had any Verbatim dvds turn up bad.
Teething Pains
There were a couple of issues with OpenSuse 12.3. In the first place, my wired network was not detected even after reboot. Linux Mint detected it at once, but OpenSuse did not. I had to go into the network configuration and manually set the network to DHCP + zeroconf. DHCP alone would not work. That is a surprising bug for a modern Linux distro, because all the other distros I've tried have detected my network immediately. I don't have anything complicated over here, just plain old wired ethernet leading to a humdrum run-of-the-mill router.
I noticed Amarok was listed twice under the multimedia category in the Applications menu. I know now that one entry occupies a designated slot for "Recording" and one entry occupies a designated slot for "Audio Player," but still, that seemed buggy. I was able to delete the entry for "Recording" to eliminate the apparent duplicate.
I found that I could not uninstall Amarok by right-clicking on it in the Application menu--received an error for my trouble. Instead, I had to go into YAST to uninstall it. Not a big deal, but I don't think the right-click should offer to uninstall, if uninstall won't work.
VLC was not offered on OpenSuse's repositories, but I found VLC on the web and setting up another repository for VLC was fairly painless, after an initial trial-and-error. The instructions for adding a repository are not exactly clear, which led to the failure of my first attempt. Installing VLC took about twenty minutes in all due to the many downloads needed. I should mention that in Linux Mint, VLC is installed from the get-go, saving the end user time. I do not think there is any video player in the Linux world that handles all video and audio formats as well as VLC at this time.
Another issue in OpenSuse 12.3 is that the OS does not remove the install DVD from the repository list by default. That means the user will get an error anytime he opens up the software updater, unless the DVD is still in the drive. I had to go in to the repository editor and delete the dvd from the list of repositories. I suppose that this is by design, to save bandwidth on downloading things that happen to already exist on the dvd. However, the dvd does not get updated and will not have the latest versions, so I wonder how useful it really is to keep the dvd as a repository. In my opinion, the dvd should be removed from the repository list at the end of the installation process.
Another thing I've noticed just typing this blog post in is that a line disappeared on its own from my screen. I have no idea why. A line in the above paragraph simply became invisible until I highlighted it with my mouse, and then it reappeared. That was strange, but it could be a Firefox problem or any number of other things. This problem has continued throughout my post, with lines disappearing seemingly at random. The space occupied by the lines is still there, and the text in the lines is not erased, and I can make the text reappear by highlighting it with my mouse, but it is strange to see them blink in and out like that.
Summary
I intend to continue using OpenSuse 12.3 at least for a while to get a good feel for it and see whether I like it better than Linux Mint after all. So far, I don't feel that OpenSuse has saved me time or effort in comparison to Linux Mint, but I do like the wallpaper much better and certainly an updated version of KDE is nothing to sneeze at. I am interested in the one-click install capability, which OpenSuse has but Linux Mint does not.
Tips & Tricks to Using OpenSuse 12.3
I've decided to use this post as a catch-all journal for my ongoing observations about OpenSuse 12.3. There are many of what I regard as peculiarities, eccentricities, yet it is also true that what is an eccentricity to one fellow will be a reasoned design decision to another. It is also true that every Ubuntu distro in existence has left me cold, and I found numerous eccentricities in them as well. So far, my favorite distro of all remains Linux Mint, and of the various desktop flavors, Linux Mint KDE may be the best--but it does not have the best wallpaper. OpenSuse 12.3 has the best wallpaper. I think that somebody who really understood design worked on that wallpaper.
Military Time, Please
Oddly, OpenSuse places a maze before the user when it comes to changing the format of the time at the lower right of the desktop. There are many dead-ends in this maze, but only one valid GUI path to changing from the AM / PM relic to military, twenty-four time--the time format that computer programmers and scientists use to get work done. After quite a bit of poking around, I found the trick. Right-click on the time, choose "Digital Clock Settings," select Appearance, and then click on the wrench icon, followed by the Date & Time tab. Then you can change the time format to HH:MM:SS. I have had to do this on every Linux distro I've ever installed. I also like for the day of the week, followed by the alphabetic month, one- or two- digit day, and four-digit year to reside below the HH:MM, but this was much easier to accomplish and does not bear explaining.
A New Kernel for OpenSuse 12.3?
One of the first things I did after installing OpenSuse 12.3 was to upgrade the kernel to 3.8.3. Upgrading the kernel is much easier in OpenSuse 12.3 than in a Ubuntu or Linux Mint distro. One simply goes to http://software.opensuse.org/123/en, types in kernel, and then a page with various kernel flavors opens. The number of choices seems bewildering, but I chose kernel-desktop for my desktop, which seemed logical enough. The default version is 3.7.10, but one can click on "Show Other Versions," followed by "Show Unstable Packages," which will pop-up a warning message. Continue, and there are several kernel versions available for one-click installation.
In following through this procedure once again, I did not see kernel 3.8.2 available for OpenSuse 12.3, let alone 3.8.3, which is what I have installed right now. I do not know the explanation for that. Perhaps problems were detected in these kernels, and they were taken down overnight by the admins. Another possibility is that I may have chosen a different branch of the kernel packages. I don't remember. At any rate this information may be helpful to those OpenSuse users that want to try out the latest and greatest Linux kernel.
Update
I sold something on Ebay today, and had to print out postage. OpenSuse wanted to print to a file, which might be useful if the post office accepted postage via email, but alas, the post office is an old-fashioned outfit.
At first, I tried something called Print Management and was presented with what looked like a web page for CUPS. The "Add Printer" option triggered a pop-up asking for my username and password. When I entered these, they were rejected, and all future attempts to add a printer were rejected as well. I don't know why, as I had entered the correct admin name and password for my system. By searching online, I discovered that YAST was required to set up a printer.
I tried the YAST printer utility, but encountered greater complexity than I thought possible for a printer. There were options that I had never heard of with jargon bandied about. The menus seemed complex, and I was not sure which option to choose. I tried to setup a network printer, but OpenSuse could not find my printer on the network, even though Linux Mint and Windows had no difficulty in doing so. Experimenting was punished by lengthy, unexplained delays, sometimes of several minutes, and canceling an ill-chosen option was not always possible, so that more and more time was lost. Eventually I set up my OKI printer only to discover, alas, that it was set up not on the network where it resides but on my parallel port, which is not in use and never will be in use. I did not see any option for removing the non-existent printer, either; it remained there, defiant, ready to accept test pages. Little or no explanation was available for any of the menu options; the set-up "Wizard" must be a fellow of few words. Apparently, I am supposed to already know such terms as "IPP." I spent an hour trying to get OpenSuse to find my network printer, to no avail. The documentation on opensuse.org did not work, and the various dialogs for print management and the lengthy unexplained delays associated with them did not inspire confidence.
Of note, I still have lines of text blinking in and out on my screen as I type this blog post. Lines disappear, only to reappear at random.
Also interesting is that earlier today, I attempted to copy files from a Windows drive to the OpenSuse drive, and after half an hour the GUI was still churning its wheels, with 0 bytes copied. I am not sure what it was doing, and possibly it was not sure either.
I decided this afternoon that I am going to reinstall Linux Mint KDE, because the printing problem in OpenSuse caused dismay. I don't want to have to take a crash course in CUPS or learn a lot of jargon in order to print. Disappearing text was also a concern--I don't want to have lines of text play leprechaun tricks on me. I think I have a greater appreciation now for what Ubuntu brings to the table. It far less likely I will leave the Ubuntu family of distros anytime in the foreseeable future.
Almost.
Easy Download & Install
Here's what I liked about OpenSuse 12.3--I downloaded it via torrent. That's nice, because it meant that my copy was downloaded verified and without errors, and I didn't have to do an MD5 checksum on a downloaded .ISO. I also like the idea of helping out by uploading some data to others. The torrent for OpenSuse is well-seeded, by the way.
I also like that OpenSuse released a new version ahead of the *buntu family of distros, because that meant I could sample the new KDE and the new kernel without much effort.
OpenSuse did not install the first time I tried it. There was an error, but the medium I used was cheap Rosewill garbage. Rosewill is not known for quality when it comes to DVDs and CDs, so I was not willing to blame OpenSuse for the error. Instead, I clicked on the OpenSuse option to verify the disk, and thirty minutes later OpenSuse determined that the medium was indeed bad. I burned another disk, this time a Verbatim dvd, and my install proceeded without a hitch. The Rosewill dvd now rests at the bottom of my garbage can. I haven't had any Verbatim dvds turn up bad.
Teething Pains
There were a couple of issues with OpenSuse 12.3. In the first place, my wired network was not detected even after reboot. Linux Mint detected it at once, but OpenSuse did not. I had to go into the network configuration and manually set the network to DHCP + zeroconf. DHCP alone would not work. That is a surprising bug for a modern Linux distro, because all the other distros I've tried have detected my network immediately. I don't have anything complicated over here, just plain old wired ethernet leading to a humdrum run-of-the-mill router.
I noticed Amarok was listed twice under the multimedia category in the Applications menu. I know now that one entry occupies a designated slot for "Recording" and one entry occupies a designated slot for "Audio Player," but still, that seemed buggy. I was able to delete the entry for "Recording" to eliminate the apparent duplicate.
I found that I could not uninstall Amarok by right-clicking on it in the Application menu--received an error for my trouble. Instead, I had to go into YAST to uninstall it. Not a big deal, but I don't think the right-click should offer to uninstall, if uninstall won't work.
VLC was not offered on OpenSuse's repositories, but I found VLC on the web and setting up another repository for VLC was fairly painless, after an initial trial-and-error. The instructions for adding a repository are not exactly clear, which led to the failure of my first attempt. Installing VLC took about twenty minutes in all due to the many downloads needed. I should mention that in Linux Mint, VLC is installed from the get-go, saving the end user time. I do not think there is any video player in the Linux world that handles all video and audio formats as well as VLC at this time.
Another issue in OpenSuse 12.3 is that the OS does not remove the install DVD from the repository list by default. That means the user will get an error anytime he opens up the software updater, unless the DVD is still in the drive. I had to go in to the repository editor and delete the dvd from the list of repositories. I suppose that this is by design, to save bandwidth on downloading things that happen to already exist on the dvd. However, the dvd does not get updated and will not have the latest versions, so I wonder how useful it really is to keep the dvd as a repository. In my opinion, the dvd should be removed from the repository list at the end of the installation process.
Another thing I've noticed just typing this blog post in is that a line disappeared on its own from my screen. I have no idea why. A line in the above paragraph simply became invisible until I highlighted it with my mouse, and then it reappeared. That was strange, but it could be a Firefox problem or any number of other things. This problem has continued throughout my post, with lines disappearing seemingly at random. The space occupied by the lines is still there, and the text in the lines is not erased, and I can make the text reappear by highlighting it with my mouse, but it is strange to see them blink in and out like that.
Summary
I intend to continue using OpenSuse 12.3 at least for a while to get a good feel for it and see whether I like it better than Linux Mint after all. So far, I don't feel that OpenSuse has saved me time or effort in comparison to Linux Mint, but I do like the wallpaper much better and certainly an updated version of KDE is nothing to sneeze at. I am interested in the one-click install capability, which OpenSuse has but Linux Mint does not.
Tips & Tricks to Using OpenSuse 12.3
I've decided to use this post as a catch-all journal for my ongoing observations about OpenSuse 12.3. There are many of what I regard as peculiarities, eccentricities, yet it is also true that what is an eccentricity to one fellow will be a reasoned design decision to another. It is also true that every Ubuntu distro in existence has left me cold, and I found numerous eccentricities in them as well. So far, my favorite distro of all remains Linux Mint, and of the various desktop flavors, Linux Mint KDE may be the best--but it does not have the best wallpaper. OpenSuse 12.3 has the best wallpaper. I think that somebody who really understood design worked on that wallpaper.
Military Time, Please
Oddly, OpenSuse places a maze before the user when it comes to changing the format of the time at the lower right of the desktop. There are many dead-ends in this maze, but only one valid GUI path to changing from the AM / PM relic to military, twenty-four time--the time format that computer programmers and scientists use to get work done. After quite a bit of poking around, I found the trick. Right-click on the time, choose "Digital Clock Settings," select Appearance, and then click on the wrench icon, followed by the Date & Time tab. Then you can change the time format to HH:MM:SS. I have had to do this on every Linux distro I've ever installed. I also like for the day of the week, followed by the alphabetic month, one- or two- digit day, and four-digit year to reside below the HH:MM, but this was much easier to accomplish and does not bear explaining.
A New Kernel for OpenSuse 12.3?
One of the first things I did after installing OpenSuse 12.3 was to upgrade the kernel to 3.8.3. Upgrading the kernel is much easier in OpenSuse 12.3 than in a Ubuntu or Linux Mint distro. One simply goes to http://software.opensuse.org/123/en, types in kernel, and then a page with various kernel flavors opens. The number of choices seems bewildering, but I chose kernel-desktop for my desktop, which seemed logical enough. The default version is 3.7.10, but one can click on "Show Other Versions," followed by "Show Unstable Packages," which will pop-up a warning message. Continue, and there are several kernel versions available for one-click installation.
In following through this procedure once again, I did not see kernel 3.8.2 available for OpenSuse 12.3, let alone 3.8.3, which is what I have installed right now. I do not know the explanation for that. Perhaps problems were detected in these kernels, and they were taken down overnight by the admins. Another possibility is that I may have chosen a different branch of the kernel packages. I don't remember. At any rate this information may be helpful to those OpenSuse users that want to try out the latest and greatest Linux kernel.
Update
I sold something on Ebay today, and had to print out postage. OpenSuse wanted to print to a file, which might be useful if the post office accepted postage via email, but alas, the post office is an old-fashioned outfit.
At first, I tried something called Print Management and was presented with what looked like a web page for CUPS. The "Add Printer" option triggered a pop-up asking for my username and password. When I entered these, they were rejected, and all future attempts to add a printer were rejected as well. I don't know why, as I had entered the correct admin name and password for my system. By searching online, I discovered that YAST was required to set up a printer.
I tried the YAST printer utility, but encountered greater complexity than I thought possible for a printer. There were options that I had never heard of with jargon bandied about. The menus seemed complex, and I was not sure which option to choose. I tried to setup a network printer, but OpenSuse could not find my printer on the network, even though Linux Mint and Windows had no difficulty in doing so. Experimenting was punished by lengthy, unexplained delays, sometimes of several minutes, and canceling an ill-chosen option was not always possible, so that more and more time was lost. Eventually I set up my OKI printer only to discover, alas, that it was set up not on the network where it resides but on my parallel port, which is not in use and never will be in use. I did not see any option for removing the non-existent printer, either; it remained there, defiant, ready to accept test pages. Little or no explanation was available for any of the menu options; the set-up "Wizard" must be a fellow of few words. Apparently, I am supposed to already know such terms as "IPP." I spent an hour trying to get OpenSuse to find my network printer, to no avail. The documentation on opensuse.org did not work, and the various dialogs for print management and the lengthy unexplained delays associated with them did not inspire confidence.
Of note, I still have lines of text blinking in and out on my screen as I type this blog post. Lines disappear, only to reappear at random.
Also interesting is that earlier today, I attempted to copy files from a Windows drive to the OpenSuse drive, and after half an hour the GUI was still churning its wheels, with 0 bytes copied. I am not sure what it was doing, and possibly it was not sure either.
I decided this afternoon that I am going to reinstall Linux Mint KDE, because the printing problem in OpenSuse caused dismay. I don't want to have to take a crash course in CUPS or learn a lot of jargon in order to print. Disappearing text was also a concern--I don't want to have lines of text play leprechaun tricks on me. I think I have a greater appreciation now for what Ubuntu brings to the table. It far less likely I will leave the Ubuntu family of distros anytime in the foreseeable future.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
On the Fence About OpenSuse 12.3
I've been scouring the net of late for reviews of OpenSuse 12.3, reading every stray article I can get my hands on. I've been rather disappointed by the lack of comparative analysis in all the reviews. It seems that most reviewers are fixated upon the new kernel and new version of KDE--elements that will also be present in the next versions of Ubuntu, Linux Mint and all the other distros, although their releases will have more recent versions, so patience may offer a slight reward. I am most curious about whether OpenSuse presents any advantage over Linux Mint or Ubuntu. If the answer is no, then why should I jump ship for OpenSuse? One thing I will say, however, is that I really like the default wallpaper of OpenSuse 12.3. I think it is the best wallpaper I have ever seen on any operating system in my life. Is that enough for me to give OpenSuse a try? Not quite, but it helps. I'm surely glad that at least one distro grasps the virtue of a dark background, so friendly to the human eye.
Batch Mode is Unknown to File Managers
When will Thunar, Dolphin, Window Explorer, et al, learn how to copy files in batch mode? Copying files in batch mode would require about an afternoon's worth of programming, at the most, but would avoid fragmentation and speed up the copy. Right now, I am waiting on Dolphin to finish copying six groups of files, which it is attempting to do all at once, which is the worst possible method. That means the overall copy takes more time to complete and disk fragmentation will be the inevitable result.
Pirated Software
Back in the day, I used to be a high level pirate, capable of cracking copy protection, although in those days cracking copy protection was often just a matter of using a hex editor on a 5.25" or 3.5" diskette to find the hidden sectors and tamper with them or revising a hidden BASIC program. I don't know whether many people even remember 5.25" diskettes these days. At one time, I traded software with people around the world, but since PirateBay wasn't around back then, let alone the Internet, or even BBSes, we used to use the good old-fashioned postal system to ship our disks, sometimes vast packages of thirty or forty disks at a time with everything conceivable. I do believe that many of us were collecting simply for the nerdy joy of collecting and then being able to make gifts to others and receive their thank-yous, praise and attention. We were actually using maybe .001%, at most, of what we shared. I don't think I ever played more than a handful of the thousands of games I acquired, and most disks simply collected dust in their plastic boxes.
Back in the day, pirates forged personal relationships and often knew one another to a certain extent. I knew a guy that programmed in assembler and made his own game, but also cracked software by disassembling code. He was hardcore and extremely talented. He confessed that there wasn't much money to be made in programming things, and surely he was right. I programmed games myself, although I only used BASIC to do so. My skills were pretty good as far as BASIC goes, but BASIC never went very far; it was slow by comparison to assembler and not capable of doing very much in terms of graphics at that time. From a thousand hours of programming, I probably made $50, from which one can deduce my hourly wage of $0.20, which I understand is the norm in China. In piracy, there was no money to be made, only glory to be had, and that glory wasn't worth two nickels rubbed together, unless one sold pirated software and that was close to impossible--that would bring the heat down faster than anything. Identity theft and viruses had not been fully developed in my day. But all that has changed.
Nowadays we have the Internet, Pirate Bay, and tons of money to be made by licit and illicit means, and new actors such as state spy agencies, organized crime and multinational corporations, many of them eager to exploit computers, whether personal or commercial. Many such actors are motivated by greed, fear, the urge to dominate and control, and hate. I tell you what it is, I'm wondering what motivates Pirate Bay and its group of hackers to offer the Windows Operating System to everyone. It seems to me that the temptation to implant some kind of malware must be tremendous, and the motives as various as human nature allows. Profit stands out as an obvious motive, but there are also reasons that state agencies might want to spread altered copies of Windows. A copy may not even have a virus at all--it may be "clean" as judged by any antivirus--but it may have a certain vulnerability introduced deep within its inner workings that can then be exploited by a web page or software application. How is all of that to be detected and by whom? Who is watching the chickens? No one. People are placing all their faith in a stupid antivirus that merely detects the most obvious and stupid malware programs that were written by idiots. What about the viruses that were crafted by cunning hackers? I can see a motive for a corporation to release a pirate version of Windows that doesn't work well with their competitor's hardware or software. Perhaps a virus only activates for certain regions of the world; perhaps people living in Israel get a different experience from the pirated software than people living in, say, China. Perhaps a virus only activates when it detects that there is no antivirus present. I find it difficult to accept that the Pirate Bay would exist as a charity to distribute Microsoft's products to poor people when there is a legitimate alternative to Windows to be found in Linux, which is open source.
That Linux is open source means its code can be examined and reviewed by academics and others. The userbase includes a high percentage of experts who know what they are about. I feel more confident placing some of my trust in Linux than I do in a pirated copy of Windows. I just keep wondering, what is the motive for this pirate outfit to give me a free copy of Windows? What do they get in return? I think they must be getting something in return, in order to pay their legal bills, server bills, salaries and miscellaneous operating expenses, but it is not clear what form their remuneration takes. Who would donate to PirateBay out of the goodness of their heart? The answer is no one. So PirateBay has to find a way to pay the bills. Many downloaders seem unconcerned and do not think this is worth worrying about, but many people are also the victims of identity theft, like some acquaintances I know, and there are many compromised machines in the wild. I can think of a million reasons why someone would want to release an altered version of Windows, and not many reasons at all that someone would go to the pains of releasing a cracked version on a regular basis to defeat Microsoft's constant updates and seed their upload with sufficient bandwidth to disseminate throughout the world. Come now, would they not feel the slightest temptation to make a tiny alteration that would result in profit for them--compensation, in their view, for their hard work and dedication? Or would they choose to work for nothing, out of some sense of idealism? Even if profit were not a motive, perhaps they might feel a duty to plant some code that would benefit one group or one region while harming another. Maybe they don't like America, and they put something in that is going to harm Americans, or only harm Americans on the Fourth of July, or only harm one in ten of the Americans that download their malware-infested OS. Maybe they place a backdoor in their releases to enable access on an as-needed basis. I don't think it is really possible to evaluate the safety of pirated copies based upon a few comments by under-informed individuals who like to LOL and LMFAO. Most of the comments on PirateBay seem worthless to me and I do not think PirateBay has made a serious effort to cultivate trust. Too much is left mysterious and vague, and in shadows lurks a threat.
Back in the day, pirates forged personal relationships and often knew one another to a certain extent. I knew a guy that programmed in assembler and made his own game, but also cracked software by disassembling code. He was hardcore and extremely talented. He confessed that there wasn't much money to be made in programming things, and surely he was right. I programmed games myself, although I only used BASIC to do so. My skills were pretty good as far as BASIC goes, but BASIC never went very far; it was slow by comparison to assembler and not capable of doing very much in terms of graphics at that time. From a thousand hours of programming, I probably made $50, from which one can deduce my hourly wage of $0.20, which I understand is the norm in China. In piracy, there was no money to be made, only glory to be had, and that glory wasn't worth two nickels rubbed together, unless one sold pirated software and that was close to impossible--that would bring the heat down faster than anything. Identity theft and viruses had not been fully developed in my day. But all that has changed.
Nowadays we have the Internet, Pirate Bay, and tons of money to be made by licit and illicit means, and new actors such as state spy agencies, organized crime and multinational corporations, many of them eager to exploit computers, whether personal or commercial. Many such actors are motivated by greed, fear, the urge to dominate and control, and hate. I tell you what it is, I'm wondering what motivates Pirate Bay and its group of hackers to offer the Windows Operating System to everyone. It seems to me that the temptation to implant some kind of malware must be tremendous, and the motives as various as human nature allows. Profit stands out as an obvious motive, but there are also reasons that state agencies might want to spread altered copies of Windows. A copy may not even have a virus at all--it may be "clean" as judged by any antivirus--but it may have a certain vulnerability introduced deep within its inner workings that can then be exploited by a web page or software application. How is all of that to be detected and by whom? Who is watching the chickens? No one. People are placing all their faith in a stupid antivirus that merely detects the most obvious and stupid malware programs that were written by idiots. What about the viruses that were crafted by cunning hackers? I can see a motive for a corporation to release a pirate version of Windows that doesn't work well with their competitor's hardware or software. Perhaps a virus only activates for certain regions of the world; perhaps people living in Israel get a different experience from the pirated software than people living in, say, China. Perhaps a virus only activates when it detects that there is no antivirus present. I find it difficult to accept that the Pirate Bay would exist as a charity to distribute Microsoft's products to poor people when there is a legitimate alternative to Windows to be found in Linux, which is open source.
That Linux is open source means its code can be examined and reviewed by academics and others. The userbase includes a high percentage of experts who know what they are about. I feel more confident placing some of my trust in Linux than I do in a pirated copy of Windows. I just keep wondering, what is the motive for this pirate outfit to give me a free copy of Windows? What do they get in return? I think they must be getting something in return, in order to pay their legal bills, server bills, salaries and miscellaneous operating expenses, but it is not clear what form their remuneration takes. Who would donate to PirateBay out of the goodness of their heart? The answer is no one. So PirateBay has to find a way to pay the bills. Many downloaders seem unconcerned and do not think this is worth worrying about, but many people are also the victims of identity theft, like some acquaintances I know, and there are many compromised machines in the wild. I can think of a million reasons why someone would want to release an altered version of Windows, and not many reasons at all that someone would go to the pains of releasing a cracked version on a regular basis to defeat Microsoft's constant updates and seed their upload with sufficient bandwidth to disseminate throughout the world. Come now, would they not feel the slightest temptation to make a tiny alteration that would result in profit for them--compensation, in their view, for their hard work and dedication? Or would they choose to work for nothing, out of some sense of idealism? Even if profit were not a motive, perhaps they might feel a duty to plant some code that would benefit one group or one region while harming another. Maybe they don't like America, and they put something in that is going to harm Americans, or only harm Americans on the Fourth of July, or only harm one in ten of the Americans that download their malware-infested OS. Maybe they place a backdoor in their releases to enable access on an as-needed basis. I don't think it is really possible to evaluate the safety of pirated copies based upon a few comments by under-informed individuals who like to LOL and LMFAO. Most of the comments on PirateBay seem worthless to me and I do not think PirateBay has made a serious effort to cultivate trust. Too much is left mysterious and vague, and in shadows lurks a threat.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Upgrade Linux Mint Nadia to Linux Kernel 3.8.2 (or 3.8.3)
Note that this is an experiment, to be read and followed with caution.
Look at the kernel packages for Ubuntu here. I am going to list the steps I intend to take for upgrading my kernel on a 64-bit Linux Mint system. I assume that if one has a 32-bit system, one would replace the identifier "amd64" with "i386", below.
Based upon the comment by Tom C. here, it seems prudent to remove VirtualBox, which I don't believe I use anyway.
Next begins the task of upgrading the kernel. I have read that proprietary drivers may encounter problems following a kernel upgrade, but I don't believe I am using any on the particular machine I have in mind for this experiment.
Note: the specific commands to upgrade to the next kernel version, 3.8.3, may be found at the end of this post.
As you can see, just a few minor changes to the filenames are required to install a different kernel version. I added this section because I used it and may use it again in the future.
Look at the kernel packages for Ubuntu here. I am going to list the steps I intend to take for upgrading my kernel on a 64-bit Linux Mint system. I assume that if one has a 32-bit system, one would replace the identifier "amd64" with "i386", below.
Based upon the comment by Tom C. here, it seems prudent to remove VirtualBox, which I don't believe I use anyway.
sudo apt-get purge virtualbox virtualbox-guest-utilsI did so and rebooted and all was well.
Next begins the task of upgrading the kernel. I have read that proprietary drivers may encounter problems following a kernel upgrade, but I don't believe I am using any on the particular machine I have in mind for this experiment.
Note: the specific commands to upgrade to the next kernel version, 3.8.3, may be found at the end of this post.
cd /tmpReboot. Assuming the system now boots. . . open a terminal and enter
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-headers-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-headers-3.8.2-030802_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_all.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-image-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.2-raring/linux-image-extra-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.2-030802_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-extra-3.8.2-030802-generic_3.8.2-030802.201303031906_amd64.deb
uname -rto verify the kernel has been upgraded. I will now follow the above steps and see what happens. I feel ambivalent about the risk. If my OS is borked, then I will simply install the latest version of OpenSuse, 12.3, which was released today, by the way.
Post Scriptum.
After rebooting, all was well. I opened a terminal and typed uname -r and found that the kernel was now 3.8.2. I am using Firefox and Ktorrent without any issues so far. . . however, I do notice that the font on my blog looks correct for the first time in a long time. I don't know why a kernel upgrade would change that, but I'm not complaining.
Post Post Scriptum.
I had good fortune with the kernel upgrade on Linux Mint Nadia KDE. It may be my imagination but I believe Ktorrent is downloading and uploading faster after the kernel upgrade, but I change so many settings on the fly in Ktorrent that I don't know whether to trust my hunch.
I had bad luck upgrading the kernel on Linux Mint Nadia XFCE, in which my system was rendered completely silent. I believe the problem concerned not XFCE but rather the optical S/PDIF audio output of my htpc system. Linux support for optical S/PDIF has always presented difficulty, because I always have had to edit configuration files to get the sound working right. After the kernel upgrade, I did not know how to get the sound configured and did not feel like researching it all over again, so I opened up Synaptic and completely removed all the files associated with the new kernel. Then I rebooted and found myself back at kernel 3.5, with sound working again.
One has to weigh the advantages of a new kernel--minor, insignificant--with the disadvantages--no sound?!
03/18/2013 Update: Upgrading to Linux kernel version 3.8.3
To upgrade to Linux Mint to kernel version 3.8.3. . .As you can see, just a few minor changes to the filenames are required to install a different kernel version. I added this section because I used it and may use it again in the future.
cd /tmp
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-headers-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-headers-3.8.3-030803_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_all.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-image-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.8.3-raring/linux-image-extra-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.3-030803_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-image-extra-3.8.3-030803-generic_3.8.3-030803.201303141650_amd64.deb
03/21/2013 Update: Upgrading to Linux kernel version 3.8.4... Or Not?!
Kernel versions are being released faster than I can keep up with them. I've decided to wait until the last update or EOL of kernel 3.8 and then install that to tide me over until the next version of Linux Mint is released, probably sometime in May 2013.
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