I want to thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you find what you are looking for and what you read helps make your life better.
If you came only browsing, I hope you found something worth your time. I hope in the next year, you are still here, and still finding something worth your time,
Here are two lists of where readers of this blog are logging in from. If where you live is not listed, let me know and I will add your country too!
Thank you, and my best for your New Year!
I traded laptops last week, trading my newest i3 laptop for an older Centrino laptop. I bought my laptop with this intention, as I really do not need that much horse power for what I do, and another family member can make better use of it.
The best part of the trading is the new ‘old’ laptop sent me down the Linux trail. Because it is an older laptop, the Linux distro it can reasonably run is a little more restricted. A lighter desktop is fine with me as I have come to appreciate function over form.
Why have any processor gobbling cycle time to fill a desktop with monitors and gadgets is not the best use of resources imo. I prefer a less resource hungry desktop for the most part. I am guessing I am an average user, and once I load up a web browser, the web browser looks and acts the same under a lean Linux Distro as it does running in big name distributions.
Lubuntu, PCLinuxOS LXDE, Puppy Linux, Salix OS, Zenwalk, and VectorLinux, all found there way to my download directory. These distributions are known to be both fast and light; any or all of these distros and their close cousins are a good fit for older hardware.
I found a whopping 486 megabytes of usable ram and a sixty gigabyte hard drive on my ‘new’ laptop. I left Windows XP on half the hard drive and formatted the other half to have some fun with.
What I found is Puppy Linux is the very powerful in terms of doing things. Puppy crams an awful lot of system tools into one small package. I use Puppy often to recover files from broken or virus infested Windows computers. Puppy works flawlessly every time I slide the cd in a computer. I have yet to find a situation where Puppy Linux can’t do whatever I need it to do.
Doing whatever I need Puppy Linux to do includes installing Grub if it is over written or otherwise made inoperable. Puppy Linux is small, needing less than one gigabyte of hard drive space if you choose to install Puppy Linux to a hard drive. If you want to load a spreadsheet off of a Windows Hard drive, Puppy Linux can do it with the included spreadsheet. Same for text or document editing. Puppy Linux is one very impressive lightweight Linux Distribution.
Lubuntu and PCLinuxOS with LXDE desktop are practically twins, with PCLinuxOS edging out Lubuntu with some additional bling installed by default. Adding the same few programs to Lubuntu levels the playing field. I thought PCLinuxOS was a tad snappier, but I am fond of PCLinuxOS, so my observations may be skewed. Either distribution has all the software anyone wanting to use the LXDE desktop is likely to want or need. They both are fast, easy on resources, and accept my desktop tinkering with ease.
Salix OS walks a very close walk to Slackware, and as such Salix OS is a very solid distribution. Salix OS like all Slack distros is not the queen of eye candy distros, not that the others are either. The repository is full of software and Salix OS will meet the needs of anyone wanting a fast, solid, light weight distro with Slackware compatibility.
VectorLinux is also sports a LXDE desktop. VectorLinux is the prettiest to look at right from install. VL is fast, and comes with a large amount of programs installed. I think VectorLinux edges out Puppy when it comes to how many programs can be placed on one CD. VectorLinux uses Lilo for the boot loader. For whatever reason, Lilo and I do not think alike.
I installed grub a few times, overwriting Lilo, and VectorLinux refused to load, presenting me with a kernel panic error, except in one attempt when everything loaded and worked as it should. I am sure I caused the problems, though I could not manage to find what I was doing wrong.
I wanted VectorLinux to work for me, as VectorLinux is an easy to manage, slice and dice distribution. VectorLinux has been reported as something not quite Linux by writers more adept than myself. For my needs and abilities VectorLinux has never been a disappointment or led me to a dead end. I downloaded VectorLinux 7, Alpha 4, and it gives a choice of either Lilo or Grub for a boot loader. I hope the final version does the same. Lilo is great of you dual boot, if you want more, you have to make it happen.
Zenwalk is another favorite distro of mine. Though Zenwalk has also been accused of deviating from the straight and narrow of ‘real’ Linux, I find it easy to use. Zenwalk has more than enough packages in the repository to keep most users happy. If there is any downside to Zenwalk, it is Zenwalk walks a pretty close path to Slackware, and Slackware is not intended to be exciting in its looks. Zenwalk improves Slackware’s looks a lot in the looks department, and is a very good choice.
When it came to memory usage, Puppy and VectorLinux reported the most free ram when checked. With the exception of Zenwalk which uses XFCE desktop and needs more memory, all the distros left me with more than enough ram to do everything I would want to do. Zenwalk used a little over half my available ram, which I am sure would still allow me to do everything I would want to do. Zenwalk with XFCE is a quick nimble desktop and distro.
The Linux winner for my desktop was arrived at in an unlikely manner. Puppy garned a slice of my hard drive because it is such an amazing little distro and such a small foot print. As much as I wanted VectorLinux on my laptop, I could not get VectorLinux to multi boot with more than Windows.
What tipped the scales is I made arrangements to recover files and remove virus infection from a Desktop running Windows. The desktop was reduced to unusable by virus and other Windows ailments. While I was removing viruses, the owner thought the Linux desktop was pretty, and noticed his computer was suddenly as fast or faster as it was when new.
He asked if I could install ‘That Linux thing’ for him on his Desktop. I explained the options for install, and he chose to delete Windows completely and learn how to use Linux. I installed PCLinuxOS LXDE on his desktop, installed Gnome Games, and a few other programs. I spent about thirty minutes explaining how Linux works and what he needed to do to keep it running and install programs.
The next day he called me asking how to use a specific program. I had never used that program, and that is what decided the Linux would be on my Laptop for the near future. I installed PCLinuxOS LXDE myself, installed the program and called him back with a solution. Puppy was already on my hard drive by this time.
Then one day we suddenly have a need to improve our spiritual self.
We start out in our Mothers body growing from a tiny piece of flesh waiting to being born in what will be our vehicle for this life. We grow into childhood, teenage years, adulthood, old age, and eventually we die, unless our life is cut short by an accident or other cause. It is an automatic process, and whether we want it to happen or not, whether we appreciate it happening, or hate the fact we get older, it happens. This is our physical body as it conforms to the concept of time, and the wear and tear we place on our physical self.
Our non-physical self, no matter what you choose to call it, and please call it whatever you are comfortable calling this part of you, does not have a need to change with the years. Almost all of us have certain behaviors we use that we learned and used as toddlers. If a behavior works, why bother changing it? So we do not change certain behaviors because they have worked – more or less – since we were toddlers.
Then comes a day when for some nagging yet vague reason, we start out on our journey of spiritual growth. We want to become more than we are. At first with the help of books and copying successful behaviors, we find we are very successful. In fact, we find it amazing how much easier life has become since we started out on our path.
We are not satisfied of course, because it has been pretty easy up until this moment. If it is this easy getting here, why stop now? That is how I felt, and I bet this is how you feel if you want to grow even more. Next, we go out and find books, articles, and people who use all these jumbled words I mentioned in part one. We try our best at doing what we understand those words and phrases to mean, but nothing really happens.
We do not seem to be making progress, and our development, growth, path, whatever you choose to call it, grinds to a halt. “What in the heck are they talking about and why isn’t it working for me?”, you find yourself asking in your head, in a hundred different ways.
If you want to further personal growth, you can not grow much further only reading books, listening to someone talk, or sitting at your computer. You may not be able to grow because of the life style you have, or the career you are in. You may not be able to grow because of how you choose to live your life. You may not be ready to hear the truth. Truth and direction does not arrive until you are ready.
If you want to change and grow beyond where you are now, it is not easy. Here is a start of what you need to do. You must to develop real and true empathy and compassion for all people. Step out of the center of the circle, and know there is no circle with you in the center.
Find a way to care for people around you. Help them in and with their struggles, but let them do the struggling. Know you are in each and every person, and they are in you. You need to drop, “me” from your thinking and your speech. Learn, know, and believe that you are part of everything and everything is part of you.
Until you can do these things, you may as well go back to what you were doing before you came to the spot on the path you are now on. There is no other way of finding and understanding what all those words and ideas mean otherwise.
This is why a few people have found their way, while so many remain stuck. This is how your new spiritual growth, path, journey, whatever you choose to name it will progress. None of us may ever make it as far as we want to go along our path, though we all need to keep growing. My best to you on your path.
If you are walking a path either spiritual or a personal development quest of any type, you are most likely frustrated by the glib, off hand way the your most important question is treated.
It seems most writers or speakers who stake a claim of expertise in the process of Spiritual Development or Personal Development either choose to gloss over what you really need to know or do not really know themselves and of course can’t tell you, what you want to know.
If this were a site for profit I may be doing the same thing. It may be that is how for pay authors and web sites make their living. In some cases I think the person behind the scenes really may not know how to go about giving you what you need to move ahead in your journey. The write out some some easy picking fruit and leave the hard to explain fruit hanging on the branch.
Sooner or later in this type of endeavor everyone hits a point where the next step you want to accomplish is improving your spiritual self. It may not be understood as such, Raising your spiritual self is written so many different ways, sometimes it is hard to tell what the writer means. Some writers write, “Increase your awareness”, and let it go at that. Other writers write about, “Increasing your vibrations”, raising your energy frequency or something else as vague. What the heck is vibrational frequency anyway? Still others write or talk about your Third Eye, Chakras, Kundalini Rising, etc; the terms go on and on.
I may be too narrow in my thinking about all the terms that are used to describe different ways of doing the same thing. Maybe they are speaking to a different audience who understand exactly what they need to do and how to do it. Words and thought that are understood by the smallest child in some places leave adults in other parts of the world feeling of helpless.
So what is all this jumbled talk about awareness, kundal-who, frequency changing and the rest? It is really quite simple to understand, and a lot harder to actually undertake because misunderstanding follows closely on the heels of a new idea.
These terms all mean the same thing. They only represent different ideas or thoughts of the same thing. What you want to do is change your spiritual or inner self. I bet you are saying, I know that, what a waste of my time to read all this only to be told what I already know.
The key is learning and growth is understanding what do you change yourself to, and how you do it. Everything else is so many letters and words flowing into the galaxy of written words. Most the Authors and Writers, and perhaps Speakers, are most likely all talking about the same thing, only they are using different words and ideas to attempt to explain the ‘same thing’.
Life is a process. Our physical life for much of our life is forged for the first twenty-five years or so of our life. Our spiritual life on the other hand marches to a different drummer, and ignores time. For most of us we manage our physical world fairly well. Then one day we suddenly have a need to improve our spiritual self.
It is no secret some of us are working at jobs we dislike. We are working for a paycheck because job satisfaction is sorely lacking. Bills have to be payed, our home has to be maintained, and life has to be managed. It may not be the greatest job in the world, but it happens to be the only job we have at the moment.
How great it would be if one day soon we discovered that we worked our way right out of our job and into a better one! Suddenly spending most of each week at a job would be more exciting than the agony of collecting a paycheck. If only it would happen.
It can and does happen every day to people like you and me. Every day someone wakes up and heads off to work to find that they no longer have to do the job that gets a paycheck. Instead they have been moved or promoted into a job that has some meaning, and feels good walking out the door after the day is done.
The most important part of improving any work situation is creating and following a plan for your working future. Creating a plan to move from point A to point B at work keeps out work distraction and tracks how well the plan is working. Update and modify the plan as needed.
In general do work you are supposed to be doing, and any extra work that is important to your Boss when you have free time, and skip the rest. One of the biggest stumbling blocks holding people back from being selected for raises or promotion is not doing work which is important to your Boss. Your Boss not only signs off on your time card every week and manages your performance, your Boss also has influence on your working future.
Your Boss generally expects you to accomplish a specific list of tasks and some general tasks too. These primary tasks should be the focus of a day at work. Doing your best can have a big payoff. Performing a task that is not important to your Boss while neglecting primary responsibility leaves a lasting impression with your Boss, and it is negative.
Become an expert at your job if possible. In most cases there is always more to learn about your job. If you are not an expert on your job, ask your coworkers about those things you do not know about your job. Dig down into the details. Most people like to show off how much they know, so finding a willing audience is a breath of fresh air for them.
Look for smarter, better, or faster ways to accomplish tasks. As the workday progresses, imagine other ways of doing the work. Whether any ideas really are faster or better, is not as important as the process of thinking about how the work is done and can be done better.
As technology changes there is are always possibilities of identifying new ways of doing the same old task. If the new way makes the task faster or better capture it, and discuss it with your Boss when the opportunity is there. All it takes is one second in a workday for a flash of insight to help you step out of the crowd and into the limelight.
Manage your relationship with your Boss. Perception is important to your Boss. Your Boss may only have a general idea about what kind of worker you are. Make sure the perception your Boss has of you is as polished as it can be. Show up for work a few minutes early and stay a few minutes late. Talk with the people on other shifts. Speaking with people who do the same work at a different time, may know something worth knowing.
A few minutes a day invested in making friends across shifts can have unexpected benefits. If nothing else, more people get to know your name, and may share important information with you, as you share information with them.
Just as you should leave your work at work, leave your personal life at the door too. It is much better to keep conversation general, and keep your personal life personal. All of your Coworkers have conversations with your Boss too. Once something personal is shared, there is no way to recall something that should not have been said.
No matter the result of any calendar period, making and following a work plan, lay the foundation for the future. Skills are honed, knowledge is gained, and new skills are developed that may help in landing a new job at a different company. Nothing is wasted at work except time. Make the most of work time, and let that time create new options for your working future.
When I was a young man and wanted to give money, I gave to my Church. I felt good giving money. The reasons I gave were varied and are kind of funny to me now. Sometimes the Church would make sure I was aware a particular need during the service.
Other times I gave money because I felt as if I had been wasting my life recently, and donating money was a sort of equalizer. This thought arrived in the famous church tradition of ‘Paying for Salvation’. Here is how the idea was introduced to me.
Pirates on the high seas get old. After some years Pirating was hard work and mortality was setting in. Successful Pirates would suddenly find God (as if God was lost) and build a church atoning for their sins. In their minds and/or the greed based thinking of the Church, money to build one church equaled one ticket to heaven.
I too thought it was my obligation to give money to the Church. After all the building needed maintenance and the leaders needed clothing and feeding. For a couple of years we both were happy. I felt like I was doing my part, and whatever church I was attending had a few extra dollars in the coffers.
I listened to a Minister talk one Sunday morning about his trip to another city the day before. I don’t remember much of the story, but I do remember him talking about the steak dinner he ate while there. The few dollars I was going to give were not enough to pay for his coffee and the slice of pie he had for desert.
I don’t remember the point of his talk that day, but I remember his meal story. After that I made it a point to give money to people or causes where I knew I could make a difference. Giving money for Toys at Christmas or providing Thanksgiving meals for poor families felt good. My few dollars would make a tangible difference.
As the years went by, same as always, the need swelled. In the same small town needy families had grown from a few hundred during the holidays to several times that number all year. Suddenly my piddling few dollars did not seem to go very far.
I know now, without a doubt, poor people are a fact of life and the label “Poor” resides on a sliding scale rather than a balanced scale. There are poor people where you live, whether you live in an oil rich city or in the middle of the desert. I also learned something else about giving along the way.
Money is and always has been just a thing. There is nothing ‘giving’ about money. Whether you or I throw a few dollars at our favorite cause has little effect on the cause itself. No matter what the cause, if it is about people, there is never enough money to it to fix it.
If any cause has more than enough money in a given year, one of two things will happen. Either the standards of the cause will slide allowing more people to be included, or management will spend more. Either way the money is used up, and more is needed.
There is a better solution than dropping money on a collection plate, box, or sending a check to your favorite charity. Donate your time! Donating your time is the highest level of making a difference. Let those who are wealthy, or corporations donate money. If you want to know if you are really making a difference, donate your time.
Each of us has the ability to make more money if we give some away. We can take on a second job, work overtime, sell a possession, or do without. The most valuable item we have in our life is our time. There is no time bank that balances our time account. Giving your time to something you believe in is far more valuable than any amount of money you can give.
The wealthiest people in the world know this and they donate their time. They also donate large sums of money, but it is their time which really makes the difference. If you want to make a difference in your community, donate your time. I guarantee once you get over the idea that you really are not doing much, your thinking will change.
Instead of giving a few dollars and only having a fuzzy idea of where and how your money is being used, giving your time lets you see how you are making a difference by the impact you are making. Because it is your time that you will never get back, you will be more particular about how you donate it. People you help will appreciate you more than they will appreciate a few faceless dollars too.