I signed up for a GMAT preparation course that starts tomorrow. It was all very quick. I called for details yesterday morning, and they had a course which was just about to start with two available seats, so I took one.

There will be a lot of classes, and a lot of homework, and then the test. Obviously, this means I will be very busy for the next couple of months, which means I will probably not have much time to blog, despite having a few ideas lying around.

On the up side, I will have more time to listen to music on the way to classes. This might mean I will have more to write about whenever I’m procrastinating.

I’m writing this using my newly installed Ubunto.

The WD My Book was tested with Ubunto loaded from CD, and once it was proved to be working, E. helped me install. There’s still a lot of playing around and installations to do, but I’m on my way there…

In continuation to my previous post about the WD My Book, I would like to share the response I received from WD today:

Dear Dana,

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support.

Western Digital technical support only provides jumper configuration and physical installation support for hard drives used in systems running the Linux/Unix operating systems. For setup questions beyond physical installation of your Western Digital hard drive, you would have to contact the vendor of your Linux/Unix operating system.

Sincerely,

This is the same response I found when searching through their FAQ, so I would safely say they didn’t do anything other than copying/pasting from their own bank of replies, and didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know already.

So, the current options I have are to test the drive either on E’s or Biking Geek’s computers, or try the option of running it from CD that Veggie Vampire suggested. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve been blogging for five years today… would you believe it?!

Well, some times I post more than others, and recently not as much, but I think of my readers all the time. Keep coming back and enjoy the show!

* The title is a quote of Groucho Marx

Following E’s recent excitement about his Kubunto Linux, and considering the increasing age and therefore slowness of my computer, I have been considering to take a similar direction.

The plan is to create a dual-boot on my desktop, so I will get to keep my old Windows partition for specific applications and as a backup, and install the latest version of Ubunto Linux on the other one. In order to execute this scheme, I will need to clear up some space on my hard-drive, something which should probably be done anyway. In order to kill two birds with one stone (is there a vegetarian alternative to this idiom?), I decided to buy an external hard drive which will serve for general backup, as well as a useful storage option. I checked at a nearby store and found a WD My Book. However, no one could tell if it will work with Ubunto. The assistant at the shop was very helpful and tried the WD website, as well as calling the importer and distributor beyond their working hours. The result was a special permission to return the product in an open box if my test fails.

I will probably test the drive at E’s this weekend. Meanwhile I posted the question on WD’s support site and so far only received the automated acknowledgement. I’ll keep you posted (after all, I have a feeling there will be a few Google hits from other people with the same question in mind).

A lot has been said already, both here and in other places, but here is a very good article I finally got around to reading yesterday.

According to Haoneg, today is Blog Action Day. (Actually, Haoneg says 15th October, but the Blog Action Day site says it’s today. Maybe there’s a time difference thing).

Well, a lot of better people have written about our Earth already. There isn’t much more that I can add, only that we have only one, so we might as well take good care of it. For a start, tomorrow I will walk to work rather than take the car, and I’ll try to do it as often as I can. It might even help me lose a few more centimetres from my waistline. I will keep recycling bottles, and recycle more paper. Next time I go shopping for light bulbs, I will buy more environmentally friendly ones. I’m not perfect, but I’ll try to do my little bit.

I need some refreshing rain. It’s mid-October already! Come on!

Since it was announced every music news site was busy writing about Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows. Mostly, it was about the way it was distributed and less about the music. With some reports about more bands planning to go the same way and issue their albums for download on their own, there were some who mourned the record companies.

I wouldn’t be that sad, though. I think it’s about time the record companies will go the way of the dodo, it is only natural. Technology these days allows artists to record, distribute, publish and do everything needed by themselves. Who needs big marketing funds when there are media like mysapce? Isn’t it time the artists will receive the full 100% of the profit, rather than letting the record companies make money on their back? I think it is.

P.S. before the question is asked, I chose to pay £6 for the album. This is more or less the price that I am happy to pay for a CD without thinking too much about it when I shop on MusicaNeto.

P.P.S. It is still too early to give my opinion on In Rainbows. So far, I listened to it twice, and I like what I hear.

P.P.P.S. You can purchase a download copy of In Rainbows and decide how much to pay for it right here.

We came back from Canada on the day after Rosh Hashana, which means we managed to skip most of the annoying family gatherings, but stepped right into the holidays season. A sort of a soft landing, I guess.

Today is the last day of the holidays, and no more breaks are expected until April. Time to stop daydreaming and get back to work.

Following our holiday, E. and I are considering our future, and it may include Canada as well, but it’s too early for statements. E. already wrote about some of the options we are considering. All these options require hard work from both of us, we still need to decide where we want to go and what we want to do there. We also need to take some exams, like TOFEL and maybe also GRE or GMAT.

I have a feeling that we have a very interesting and challenging year ahead of us.