Archive for the ‘Web Site Updates’ Category

Installing Kubuntu on the Acer Aspire is really rather easy, but it will take a while.  I had installed an additional 1GB of RAM on my Aspire One, but this should work with the 512MB RAM defaults.  Kubuntu is nothing more than another version of Ubuntu.  I like it because it's a little easier to manipulate some of the settings than Gnome desktop and it has a more familiar looking desktop.  This guide is for the Acer Aspire One mini notebook, but should work on just about anything computer that would run Kubuntu.  Full story

Ultra Portable Notebooks In the last few years, the ultra portable notebook market has really taken off.  The ultra portable notebooks rest firmly somewhere between a PDA and a full size (full power) notebook we all know and love.  Until very recently, the Ultra portable notebooks have been little more than glorified PDAs with a computing power on par with high end cellphones.   Combined with small screens, low power and micro storage , the ultra portable 'sub notebook' wasn't ready for the mainstream and was the realm of the micro Linux tech communities and people who built their own computers.  Thanks to some recent additions to the sub notebook market, the new ultra portables are ready for the masses. One of the greatest features of these ultra portable notebooks (sub notebooks) is the SSD (Solid State Drive).  Not only are SSDs much lighter than their spinning cousins, SSD drives aren't prone to failure from shock like standard platter hard drives.  There are no moving parts in a SSD, so those little bumps aren't going to scratch and damage the solid state drive like the standard hard drive.  Solid state drives also use about 5% of the power of the standard HDD and this means a big boost in battery life. The problem with the SSD is the cost, these things are expensive and because of the limitations, most ultraportables have store capacities as low as 2GB. The real attraction to the ultra portable notebook market is the ultra portability.  You've seen pictures on the net, but until you have one in your hands, you won't believe how small they really are.  I mean small!  These are smaller than most books and will fit easily into a purse.  How's that for portability! Full story

Wake boarding in a parking lot Hostel Board Company sponsored a wake boarding contest in a parking lot. It was a lot of fun and the contestants were really good. Check out Hostel Board Company to see the whole stroy and pictures from the event. Full story

When you're ready for an online shopping cart, there are a lot of questions you need to ask yourself. What cart will work best for my situation? What about Visa's PABP and PCI compliance? Credit card gateways, PHP, ASP, custom carts or out of the box; which one do I need? Should you host your shopping cart or do you want to have your cart hosted? Perpetual license or a one time fee? And that's just the beginning. In this series, I will try and broach some of the pros and cons of various shopping cart and various ecommerce solutions. We will begin with ZenCart. Zen Cart is a really nice online shopping cart. Out of the box, it works. It's basic, but it does work. There's a beauty to its simplicity, thus Zen. Out of the box, you get basic image handling, easy to use and create templates and built in credit card processing gateways. You also have the ability to add a lot of features that would cost thousands extra for most pay shopping carts, but with Zen Cart, most every extension and contribution that add functionality to your cart are free. $0 is a very attractive price for a piece of such powerful software, but there's a cost. ZenCart management is not for the faint of heart. ZenCart requires a fairly high level of knowledge to really have a good shopping cart. Full story

After a lot of work,  another site is up and running. Built on ASP.net this site can do it all. Since this was my first forray into non open source software, I was a bit worried, but the features were nothing short of amazing. After much struggle with my open source mindset, I dove into uncharted waters. Full story