₦airaland Forum

i already got a mac anyhow, thinking of getting the intel ibook when it comes out but will definitely not run winblow$ on it. I dont run winblow$ now and never will.

aint nobody giving any laptop to a sphincter for repairs mennnn!!!!!

@ chxta, I see you also use Nvu.

By the way, since I discovered www.pandora.com, I hardly use amarok or xmms again to play mp3s. Pandora.com is a free online music streaming service. Frankly, I cannot stand gnome cos there is so much hand holding, I prefer KDE cos I can change practically any part of the desktop and I can really get the OS to work the way I want. THough I have both gnome and kde, I hardly boot into gnome .It seems though Ubuntu is quite rock solid compared to Kubuntu which has some bugs, so in my opinion, its better to install Ubuntu first and then install KDE on top of it.

My desktop running (K)Ubuntu Dapper Drake flight 4 with KDE 3.5.1. I normally install Ubuntu and then I use Synaptic to install kdebase and other Kde elements and voila Kubuntu.

Emm, am sure on a laptop, the power supply is on the logic/mother board? If that is fried, you need a new motherboard. What is the make and model of your laptop?

THe thinkpad 600e has a history of not reporting the proper sound card to the Linux kernel. As such, it is always a very big headache getting sound to work with the Cirrus logic soundcard which comes with this laptop. I have tried Mepis, Kanotix, Suse, Ubuntu,Knoppix and various other distros on it and the result is always the same. No sound.

I just reinstalled Ubuntu Dapper drake flight 5 on it and the steps below are how I got the sound working.

Step 1 is to add the modules reported to the blacklist so that it will not be loaded when the system starts up. To do this, add the modules

snd-cs46xx
cs46xx

to the file /etc/hotplug/blacklist. Open this file by running a terminal and typing "sudo gedit /etc/hotplug/blacklist"

Step 2 is to add some lines to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base. Open a terminal and type "sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base".
once the file is open, add the following lines to the bottom.Make sure it is saved just as the lines are below.

alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias snd-card-0 snd-cs4236
options snd-cs4236 isapnp=0 cport=0x538 port=0x530 sb_port=0x220 fm_port=0x388 irq=5 dma1=1 dma2=0
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

options snd cards_limit=1

Step 3, open the /etc/modules file and add the line

snd-cs4236

Close all the text files and reboot your system. Sound should work now.


As a follow up, it seems if I do not pass "acpi=off pnpbios=off" to the kernel when starting, my wireless card does not work. In some cases, this also affects the sound. If after the steps above sound does not work, ou might try passing this command to the kernel when booting. If sound works, you need to make this change to the /boot/grub/menu.lst

niggy do you have the actual web addresses . my search on kde-look didnt turn up anything

Niggy:
I made too great discovery on linux desktop theming i wish to share;
firstly, i downloaded the source package for the crystal (0.99) dekorator theme and compiled it. wow! i was tripped. It 's the best theme i've ever used. try it out. i ll paste my screen shot tomorrow.
Again, to windows love, you can enjoy your favorite windows fonts on linux, by importing them to linux. How? it's easy. Go to your KDE control panel, system adminsration, font intaller. Then specify the directory of the windows fonts. the linux font installer automatically import your windows fonts into linux and make them usable on the fly! I ve mstruefont, georgia fonts imported to my fedora this way.
L8a boys!

i love fedora

hey niggy, mind posting the website fot the crystlal theme, i would love to give it a try. In case there is anybody trying to get sound working on a thinkpad 600e, I will post a step by step how to shortly. In 3 little steps, you will have sound working on your thinkpad 600e.

If the adapter has a problem, then most likely the battery will not be holding any charge. First step is to get another adaptter to test it with. If it powers on with another adapter, then all you need to get is a replacement.

If however, it does not power up with another adapter, might be your motherboard is fried?

Seun:
When I hibernate my PC using Xp it takes less than 1 minute to boot up.

For comparison, when I put my Imac to sleep, it takes less than 10 seconds to come back up. When I run Mepis on my IBM laptop, closing the screen puts it in suspend and as soon as I open it up, its back up, yahoo messenger logs back in, everything is sweet and dandy, in less than 30 seconds.

My Imac is 400MHZ,300+MB RAM; TP 570 is 366 MHZ, 192 MB RAM so this are no superfast machines here.

As Seun said, you can't use an underpowered computer for a media center and 512 MB just does not cut it. If you want to use this machine, I'd suggest sticking with Linux, there are various flavours which are media centric.

Am looking at the Netcom services page and all I can say is, this is highway robbery.

In the UK, I have broadband of 512Kbps which I can increase to 2Mbps whenever I need it at £17.99 per month and I DO NOT have any download limits.

For someone to pay N6000(about £24) for a 100 kbps line with 1GB download limits is sheer armed robbery. In fact, for a linux user like me, by the time I download two 700MB .iso files to burn into CDs, I have already gone past my limit.

The fact that Nigerians do not have a choice does not mean people should be taking advantage of us.

Sheer open faced armed robbery.

And could someone tell me what kind of modem or router is given out? Does it work with Mac OS or Linux or is it only windblows?

how on earth will he order something online from Bariga? You might as well wait for the new Vista home edition which will come out supposedly by end of the year.

In any case, what do you want to do with M$ Media center that you can't do now?

pie1ect:
Coming from Someone whose "Club" lost 3-nil to the "European Giants" Middlesbrough.

lol,

Do you understand the basic workings of a database engine? If yes, hope dey, if not, this one pass even fire brigade approach. Holla me on yahoo messenger and we can talk properly

Go girl. Remember, you are a strong, beautiful black woman and aint no man on GOd's earth who can take you for a ride. Be strong. Better you cry now rather than have a lifetime of crying.

@foksybaby, if you put yourself in the gutter, people will pour shit all over you. If you do not have enough self esteem to know that this guy is not good enough for you, then aint nothing nobody can say.

For you to be having doubts is more than enough for you to know that you deserve more than this. Life is too short and I sincerely belive that a man that causes you heartaches b4 you marry him, will continue after you marry him.

Women make a tragic mistake in thinking that a man will change after marraige but my dear, it aint true.

Remember if you marry him, tomorrow, you have no right to complain if he treats you like dirt. He has already told you his mind. My advice, find a man who will love you and treat you like the smart, intelligent, black woman you are.

Excel is a spreadsheet basically for working with numbers but for large amount of data, you need a database engine such as Access. Access is better than excel in that it works ased on the principle of keeping data in just one place at a time.

Like Seun said, you cant learn access in two days, you still need to know the rudiments of how a database engine works. Access gives a gui(graphical user interface) to a sql database engine. You can actually go behind the gui and run your queries in mysql as well.

If you need to learn access in details holla, i'd be glad to help,but dont expect any miracles.

If the problem is on the logic board , if you have a PCMIA slot not in use, then get a PCMIA card with usb ports on it. Cheaper way of getting USB rather than buying a new motherboard.

papermoon:
TONISAFE
you can try aquagem dental clinic,its in FABAC centre,on ligali ayorinde,they are very very good,and anytime im in naija i use them cus when it comes to teeth problems,,,i lead the pack.its quite easy to find if you get to ligali ayorinde,just ask for FABAC centre,its like a close of medical facilities.the dental clinic is part of the VICTORIA ISLAND MEDICAL CENTRE.i wish i had an address,but its one of those places i just know without having a detailed address.
but i hope you sort your tooth out fast dearie, i can imagine the pain you will be going through.

in the mean time you can buy antibiotics to calm you down.try ampiclux with tylenol or very strong pain reliever that will give yu some relief.
pele,

Didnt have a good experience with them though maybe i was just unlucky

Nice, but hey if you like the Mac OSX interface so much why not use the real thing?

Gridlock:
I havent used either of them before, but i have knoppix. Got it the hard way (2 days and 2 nights of downloading over the in-slow-net connection @ home). But i could burn a copy for you on CD The PMs on this site don't work holla @ me via my yahoo messenger [check ma profile].

Oh, just to make you green with envy, I can download a full 700MB .iso file in less than an hour on my 2MB broadband connection. I try out so much distros that way. Last weekend ,I went thru Ubuntu Dapper drake, Mepis 3.4.3, PC linux OS, Kanotix 2005-04 to name but a few. Now if only postage was not so terrible to Naija, I woulda burnt whatever you want and popped it into the post for you.

Anyhow, let me know what you want, I might see someone coming over to Naija and give the person the Cds

Niggy wassup? Been a while. DO u ever use wireless networking?Need to sort something out on my laptop. Holla at me on yahoo messenger man.

Dont try LUTH or GENERAL HOSPITAL ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, go to SCHUBBS in Apapa unfortunately I cant remember the address but while I was inNigeria, man ,I frequent dentists oh and I can say categorically, that was the only place where I felt in good hands. Its close to the post office or something in Apapa, If i get more info will holla

Apple had to change to intel processors for one critical reason, their major supplier IBM was not giving them good enough service. The G5 processor has been in desktops for quite some time but its too fast to go into a laptop hence no G5 laptops , the ibook and powermac were stuck on the G4 so in order to ensure they stay up to par with intel PC's they had to go with a company for whom processors is the main business.

I do not agree that Apple hardware is not as good as PCs. Hell, my new(5 year old) G3 Imac is something else, I especially love when it goes to sleep. It goes to sleep in less than asecond, tap any key on the KB and its fully awake again, all this in a desktop computer, try thaton a winblows laptop. I especially love the way the power button glows when its sleeping, it dims itself and then glows wonderful piece of design.

Am going to get an Ibook but want to wait for the intel ones to come out. Worthy investment if you ask me.

For me, all the software I run are open source, openoffice,evolution,mozilla,opera,firefox,Gaim,Kopete,NVU, so it really does not matter to me which platform I am working on, MAC OS or Linux. Windows, sorry not my cup of tea.

Further to the above, the NDIC is supposed to protect the depositors funds. Each Bank pays % of their deposit to the NDIC as insurance premium annually yet the NDIC only protects depositors to the amount of N25,000 or is it N50,000 am not sure which is right.

If a Bank fails, the NDIC is supposed to be in a position to reimburse the depositors in which way, people will have a faith in the system

markesh:
I've been away for a long time, so I have not really followed the whole consolidation thing. But to argue from the other side, it looks to me like it makes sense to consolidate the banks in an enviroment that is as financially unstable as nigeria.

A bank makes money with investment. A bank takes your money and puts it to use by investing it locally. If a bank makes a bad investment, it needs to be able to still have enough money to repay everyone who has money in the bank.

Let me construct a hypthetical situation for you:

Imagine you put your N25.000 in a bank where people have put in an amount of maybe 300 Million Naira. Imagine that 100 Million of that money is tied up in investment that cannot easily be liquidated, for example farmland. From it's previous business, it is maybe 50 million in profit, meaning that it has perhaps 100 Million cash stored somewhere, 100 Million in hard assets and 100 Million in investment that can easily be liquidated.

In Newswatch, an article appears that claims that the chairman of the bank has embezzled 10 million Naira and fled the country.

Everyone immediately tries to withdraw their money, because they are afraid. In a week, the bank has 70 million withdrawn. It knows that it cannot pay everyone else, so it locks its doors, and prevents people from pulling money. Everyone gets afraid, the traders cannot pull money anymore, and they are afraid that they will never see their money again.

You know how nigerians are - as soon as the bank allows people to pull money, everyone will remove their money, and the bank will collapse. It cannot even liqidate its assets at a good price because it is owing money, so it will not be able to repay everyone.

You will be one of the unlucky ones, and your money will disappear.

It is easy for me to speak this way as I of course do not have that problem, but I believe that from an economical point of view, the bank consolidation makes sense.

Am sorry but I do not agree with your analogy. No bank in this world can survive a run( i.e all its customers coming in to demand their deposits at the same time).

Let me now explain to you why I say so. Banking is basically a form of intermediation, i.e it follows the rule of demand and supply, collect money from a depoitor like you and me, give out this money at an interest rate to a creditor as a loan. Now, if a bank collects money say N25,000 from you for 90 days at say interest rate of 15%, the bank will now go ahead and give it out to a business man as a form of overdraft for 60 days at say 17% interest. The bank makes its money from the spread of 2% between the two rates.

Now if the bank has collected over say N300million in deposits, this money is not sitting in the vault., it has gone out in to generating credit. Now imagine if all the depositors come at the same time to get their money out, the bak cannot give them simply because the money has been loaned out.

This is a simplistic view of course but that is the basic business of banking.

Now as to how easy it is to open accounts, we need to remember that we have a system that does not work. Because of the money laundering Act, NDLEA demands that all banks verify the authenticity of each potential customer. Agreed the banks carry it to the extreme but fact is in a system where you cannot verify addresses, cannot verify ID's what do you expect them to do?

In the Uk, its almost the same thing, some Banks will ask for your great grandmother b4 they open an account for you especially when they see a Green passport. Only difference here is that, once you have the correct papers you will open an account without making any deposit.

Apart from the issue raised, what about the number of people who have been forced to join the already stretched unemployment market?

onanugaola:
@Gridlock

Can be my linux tutorial teacher for free.
I am ready and will to learn.

If you really wanna learn it, get SimplyMepis or Ubuntu. I would recommend those to any newbie. Simplymepis comes as a Live CD so it will not install on your PC and you will still be able to see wassup with Linux.

Visit www.distrowatch.com for news about anything linux.

@ Niggy are using the preview of Opera 9? It has an inbuilt Bittorrent client. Open source is so great, I use the same software on my Mac and on my linux laptop. Wonderful. Openoffice works wonderfully on Mac OS X but you will need to install X11 b4 you can run it.

Talking about installing and removing programs, Linux has to go the way of Mac. So easy. Windows will never get to this level. Its all about making life easier for the user.

In mac you just drag the programs icon to a folder and to delete it, drag the icon to the trashcan as easy as that.

Gridlock:
If u don't know sh*t about computers i advice u to stay away from linux - it will make you tear your hair out.

Most people i have met always look for a little blue "e" to access web pages, a start menu, "My computer", and solitaire. on any computer. And when they don't find it, hell breaks loose. Besides, i have not had really fun experience with running linux on anything less than a 256MB 1.0 GHz P3/P4 (which most people DONT have, anyway).

But i'm so hookd i sometimes type "clear", "tracert", "ifconfig eth0" and "su" in a windows command prompt.

Am sure you will agre with me that one of the best points of Linux is that it flies on old computers on which windows would groan. I have run Mepis, Suse, Knoppix, Kanotix, Ubuntu,Kubuntu etc on various hardware ranging from a 233 MHZ Dell Cp. I am currently running Mepis/Suse/(K)ubuntu on a 366 MHZ IBM thinkpad and it just flies.

Try running Win 98 on any of this hardware not to talk of win XP. Having said that, I just got an Imac a couple of weeks back and boy oh boy is the Mac OS to die for. A lot of the stuff in Gnome are actually copied from there. It is just sublime.

By the way Seun could you enable .tiff in the attachment list? I would like to post my Mac's desktop but seems I can only save it in .tiff which nairaland does not accept.

and I dont have time to know about my computer, all I want is just switch it on and it works....

In simple terms, am not a geek and I find Linux much more user friendly than BSD

I got me a slot loading Imac G3 last week. Specs are 400MHZ, 288 MB ram. This is my first time of using a mac and I can tell you, it aint going to be the last. Its running OSX and I was lucky to get it with the Mac OS CD. I tried reinstalling it and it was a breeze. I see that a lot of the features in Linux come from the mac OS.

Apart from the design, its really easy to use and really a breeze. Am going to be saving up so as to get an Apple note book specifically the Ibook Dual USB G3.

I find that this machines tend to hold their value compared to a PC and since I can run Suse or (K)ubuntu on the mac platform, there is no need for me to hold on to my 4 laptops and so those will be going on ebay or sold off at a sunday market.

Having said that, they are still too expensive for the average Nigerian to buy.