Jumping Back In…

*I am rewriting this from Windows Live Writer because Linux decided to eat my post*

With work and life being crazy I’ve missed out on a lot of what I really enjoy, Technology. So I set myself a goal to jump right in. I gave myself a week to do it all, just to make it more fun and stressing.

I started by deciding that I was going to dual-boot my laptop so that I could ultimately use Linux full time but have the fall back of Windows when I just had to have it. I told myself I wouldn’t use Ubuntu so that I could challenge myself during my week of techno lust boot camp. I wanted to try something new so I decided to go Unix with BSD. I looked over my options and decided that I wanted to use PCBSD and away I went. After my successful install I came to find out that I didn’t have touchpad support nor USB to use a mouse. I trolled forums and got all the help I could from the official IRC channel and had to decide that I had to pick another distro,but not Ubuntu!

I decided to try Mandriva. I used Mandriva as my primary OS for years but walked away with the introduction of KDE4. I knew that I liked the Mandriva OS and how it worked and I decided that I would just have to get used to using KDE4 because Gnome was just ugly in Mandriva.  I installed my new OS perfectly and found that everything worked well. With only having a few problems here and there I was confident that I could use it as my primary OS for the week.

With my laptop dual booted and me using my alternative OS it was time to move to the next step….The dreaded micro-blogging.

I refuse to use Facebook for reasons of personal privacy so I used Google+ and Twitter. I posted daily blurbs about what I was thinking about things on both platforms. The first few days I had to remind I myself that I had to post something. Around Wednesday I was tweeting and plusing like a pro. I’ve written before that I care more for a real blog rather than a tweet but I guess I have to give a little to get a little.

Two goals down I guess I needed to come up with more…. I did.

With everything going well I decided I should take on a few more goals to make it not as easy. I had a reading list set up every morning and I watched weekly episodes of various tech shows around the internet to stay up to date with the tech world. I used Lifehacker to learn something and try new apps everyday.  I also started planning for a Vlog and podcast. I researched everyday and began brainstorming with friends. Expect more of that to come.

 

I think I did pretty well in my self inflicted boot camp and feel better about my technology intake. I plan on setting up weekly plans to post at least 3 days a week and upload media as well. I hope your still hanging on and hoping I bring life to this blog.

 

Keep on believing people. I’m trying to make it back.

The Geek Friendship

I kind of want to continue the theme of my last post. Bare with me people. I have a lot to say….

 

  The most essential thing of being a geek is what you “geek out” about. There are so many sub-genera's in the geek culture that, though we are alienated already we further alienate ourselves. The only thing that helps this isolation from the mainstream is the people we meet that share our interests. Our friends.

I have always been lucky to have a core group of friends that were all brought together for the love of the geek life. I met most of my friends when I was around fifteen years old. I, like many people that age, was trying to hide the fact that I was a geek. When I met these people I was finally able to geek out without the fear of judgment.

I wanted to get into D&D, I had friends that wanted to do it. I wanted to learn programming, I had a friend that was already learning. I was never alone in pursuing the geek things that made me happy. It is a feeling that to this day I cannot explain.

I am a firm believer that geeks have better friendships for the reasons I’ve already listed. We are a culture that is already isolated for being on the fringe, and its always amazing to find those people that share your pains and joys. Even when those pains and joys are about a new OS or the newest remaster of Star Wars. Hell people are even making money giving geeks a place to come to meet other people just like them.

When I fell out of tech for the short while I lost friends as well. I know I will never lose these people forever because they are so much a part of my life, but what do you talk about when your not talking about the one thing that makes your life? This post is dedicated to all my friends that have pushed me through the years. the ones that wouldn’t let me give up after I tried installing linux for the fifth time or when I couldn’t learn a programming language. Friendship isn’t always forever, but when you’re a geek it is.

 

This is for all the geeks….and your friends.

 So I started out with a post idea about netbooks and how other blogs are talking like they are a thing of the past and that got me thinking about so much more.
 
   Even though I am hardly a blogger and I keep this blog for pure entertainment I always do a little research before I post. So while I dug out the netbook, blew the dust off and booted up I felt something. I felt like I've been missing something for awhile and the short and sweet of it is technology.

  At the beginnning of the year I started working for a company doing web design. The company did race prep for Ferrari. While I was working for the company I fell in love with the excitement of racing and have stayed with it for the past year. I left that company for another to be closer to the racing and further away from the technology that I began missing. I became a drone. I only used computers to check email and do work related tasks. In short I began hating it.

  Over the summer I drifted further and further away from doing what I love to working a job that I dislike more and more because it takes me away from tech. Sure, I've done some traveling and I've seen and learned some great things but I can't be happy without being totally immersed in the tech world.

 All it took was an article about breathing life into a netbook for me to realize that I have so much more to offer in the tech world than I do in the race world. I love blogs, youtube, how-to's, hacks, tweaks, everything geek! I know the readers of Modern Geekery (all 2 of us) have heard this before but I'm back baby. I'm feeling refreshed just typing this post on my little Acer Aspire One. I can't wait to see where tech takes me again and I hope your ready for the journey.

Is Micro-Blogging Killing Blogging?

This has been a question I have been pondering for months now. Are blogs dying because the bloggers have nothing to say once they finally get off the mobile device and sit down in front of their computer, assuming that they are still using a computer? With services live Gowalla,Foursquare,Twitter,and all the social networks having a mobile app, what is really left? 

I find myself being guilty of falling into the micro-blogging trends. Throughout the day I check Twitter feeds,Facebook posts,Foursquare check-ins, and keep looking for the next cool micro-blogging app. I also check for my favorite blogs and news outlets which gives me faith that blogging isn’t dead.

If we can find that happy medium between micro and standard blogging I think that things will progress to something even greater. I’m glad I can see what my friends are having for breakfast, where they checked in last night and what they “Liked” throughout the day but I still want thoughts and opinions in more than 150 characters. Blogging,podcasts,and vlogs are still very popular but it seems that I hear more about “Follow me here and  there” than I am hearing news and opinions.

So what I hope for in the future is that after you let us know what underwear you decided to wear, the doughnuts you ate, and the band you liked that you’ll sit down and let me know something worth reading.

(04:59:52 PM) TheGreatCasey: so, uhhhhh, you leaving now or what?
17:00
(05:00:09 PM) Ford: not quite yet.
(05:00:15 PM) TheGreatCasey: damnit!!!!
(05:00:20 PM) Ford: the earliest i could possibly leave is like 5
(05:00:27 PM) TheGreatCasey: its 5 now
(05:00:55 PM) TheGreatCasey: It is in fact exactly 5Pm
(05:01:11 PM) Ford: LOL my computer clock was set to GMT -9 instead of GMT -5
(05:01:14 PM) Ford: hahahaha
(05:01:19 PM) Ford: it was reading out at 2
(05:01:33 PM) TheGreatCasey: lol, you've been behind all day!!!!!
(05:01:42 PM) TheGreatCasey: that is so fucking epic it hurts
(05:01:52 PM) Ford: =P

New Things, Old Feelings

So heres the deal.

I started this blog almost 2 years ago. I was starting a new chapter in my life and I thought it would be worth blogging about it. I had this grand vision that hundreds if not thousands of people would be visiting the blog to see what Casey was doing that week. I was an idiot. I became very sullen when I would visit my blog and see that I was the only one visiting. Two years ago I thought that with the social network trend booming that I could be the next big blogger, and over the past two years I have walked further and further away from the trend that excites me so much. Lately I have been thinking about all the things I want to be and the things I want to do. I still want to be that blogger that people have to check everyday but I am willing to hold out. I've decided that it's time to take this to the next level. From here on out I will be doing a lot of multimedia projects for the blog. I want to incorporate pictures, videos, and any thing else I can think of. So Modern Geekery is going the distance. Who cares if no one reads the blog or watches the videos? Atleast I will have the blog to look at down the road to see what I was doing.

Thanks for the read,

Casey

Greetings from California

Hey everybody,

Well this post is being composed from a hotel room in Whittier,California. A friend and I have been talking about making a trip to California for a good while now and finally made the decision to come out. We flew out of Atlanta last night and got to LAX around mid afternoon. After a problem w/ the rental car company we finally got on the road and grabbed some lunch at Pacos Tacos. We made our way to Whittier to visit my travel buddy's family and find a place to stay. Once we got settled and took a much needed nap we just figured we would hang w/ the family. So our first night we had some really awesome local pizza and a few Blue Moons. Today Yosemite area is the game plan but w/ 9 days and being in a central location anything is possible. I'll be sure to keep the blog updated w/ everything that we do.

Later,

Casey

Exploring the *NIX World

As the title implies I have been on an adventure. As a guy who has been into computers for a long time sometimes you get tired of things working so well. Last week my I noticed my netbook slowing down so I figured it was time for a backup and reinstall. I backed up all my data, made a bootable USB (got to have it for the netbook installs) and got read for a quick job. At some point between downloading a new iso and installing I got a bright idea. I figured I would look around for something new. I've had my netbook for a little over a year and the first thing I did was install Ubuntu. At the time it was the smartest thing to do. I was never a fan of Ubuntu but I knew it would work on my netbook.

Lately I've been getting tired of Ubuntu and thought it was time to try a few other things I had been looking at. So over one week's time I have tried; PCLinuxOS,Kubuntu,Mint,OpenSuSe,OpenSolaris,Mandriva,and a few other experimental OS's I found.

After seven days of testing everything under the sun I realized that I was happy with Ubuntu and decided to give it one more try. After the install and update. I started using the netbook as usal. I noticed better performance, response, and speed. Just as I had assumed in the beginning it was just time to do a fresh install.

So after one week of torturing myself I will tell everyone to just reinstall. Don't think of reasons to hate your OS to justify finding something new. If it works, let it work!

Casey

New Year

Greetings All,

It's a new year and with that like everyone else I have "resolutions". I've been thinking about doing a lot of things and the new year is a good excuse to try to start. I've started working on a Linux distro with a few friends so that has kinda forced me to learn to code. I've been reading a lot about C and basic OS architecture.

I've also gotten into the beginning stages of putting together a podcast. I'm starting my second quarter Thursday and I guess the new schedule will determine how much of this new stuff I get to do. I'm still trying to blog as much as possible. I'm doing this,Twitter,and Facebook. I've slipped on all of these things. I will also make that a resolution.

Happy 2010,

Casey

Want to Change Things up?

Hey Everybody that's not reading this blog,
I started this blog to document the goings on while I started going back to school. I figured that it would be this thing where something new happened everyday. It's not. Yes, I'm still in school and doing pretty well, but there is not enough to blog about more than once every three months. I want to keep this blog going and eventually turn into something more so I have made this decision.

Modern Geekery will keep going and it will be more of my thoughts about what ever I feel needs to be expressed. I'm not talking online journal but just what I think of news,reviews,products,new tech, etc.etc. I hope this goes better than trying to document sitting in class everyday. I will still be updating the process of my returning to school but there is so much more out there for me to add my two cents to.

Wow! So Busy!!

Greetings all,

I know I promised the big First Day post but I never knew how busy it would keep me! I thought that two days a week would provide so much home work. I have three classes and they all require about three to six hours of reading and home work. I will say I enjoy going to school more than I expected.

I guess going to high school you feel obligated to wake up and go to school and do the work just to keep your parents off your back and count down the days till you can leave for the last time. College has been a totally different story. I didn't do to well on the ASSET test so I have a high school math class and I even enjoy that because I'm learning a few things I never picked up back then.

I've been thinking a lot lately and I might take a writing class and look into maybe doing some tech writing for a site like arstechnica or engadget. Not saying I could do it but it sounds like something I would love to do.

So to wrap this up, the past three weeks of school have been a blast. Once again I will try to make time to post something useful here.

First Day Jitters

Well, I think I've got everything sorted out for tomorrow. I've got all my books ordered and shipped. Got a few notebooks and pencils, laptop, and a fancy back pack to put it all in. After the entire summer being spent getting my GED and finding a school that would accept the GED, getting my financial aid,and just all around worrying about everything, this is a good day. I've got the first day jitters just like I did when I was younger. "What if the kids don't like me mommy?"
I think its gonna be all good and smooth sailing for awhile. I guess I'll have to update tomorrow after school. Pretty cool that I get to say "after school" again.

It is Official

Ok people it is now official, I have received my financial aid letter and I register for classes tomorrow. Let me tell you how relieved I am. Now starts the search for books. Being that I live in North Georgia and go to a small tech school (for now) it's harder than you think to find these books. They say that you can find all the books on their online store but that is not true. Some of the classes I have to take aren't even listed on the site. What I have found I opted to look on chegg.com and bigwords.com and found that I can get by with spending about $175 instead of the estimated $500+ they say. So today has been devoted to finding the classes I'm taking and finding the books ISBN to see how much I'm going to save (yeah I said it). If anyone is reading this yet please reply. I'm hoping to make this site something useful in the future and I would love feed back and ideas. I hope to soon get my own domain and try my hand at designing the page from scratch. Check out my twitter and facebook as well its all on the side pain. Thanks for reading.

Sorry For The Delay

Ok, I know as a new blogger I should be posting everyday but I've had so much going on the past week. On the upside, I finally got everything turned in for my financial aid. I go for registration Thursday morning but I'm still kinda worried that I wont get the financial aid before the 16th. If that happens I'm gonna have to drop a good many classes till next semester when I can reapply for the aid. Like I said this week has been super crazy, birthdays,school stuff,broken sink, a lot has happened. I don't have much to say but I felt real stupid for not posting in over a week when I said I was gonna post almost every day. I've been working on keeping this and the Twitter up so bare with me until I get posting and tweeting into my daily schedule.

On The Fence

Well people I've hit my first snag. I had updated that I had received the formal acceptance letter and registration post card. I started going through all the paper work that came with the letter and I came across something really awesome(sarcasm). I have had a real problem with not receiving mail on time. I was looking at the financial aid info and the cut off date was two weeks ago and if you have not received a letter summarizing your financial aid be prepared to pay tuition on the day of registration. I filled out all the paper work and I know that I am more than eligible for the HOPE Grant. Monday morning will be spent talking with the financial aid office to see what I can do. I don't have the $690 for the first quarter and thats got me worried, I hope I can keep with the plan of going to school and have a reason to keep this blog going. I'll update more after I get more info Monday morning.

Waiting Game

Well people, class registration is, as I have found out, a huge waiting game. I know I have been accepted because I had to go to the registration office to bring copies of things I had already turned in. When I got there I had already been accepted. To register for classes you have to have your formal acceptance letter and the post card with your reg. time. I have yet to receive a formal letter or a post card. I never realized all the red tape that you have to put up with!

update: Class registration will be Sept. 10, I guess complaining on the internet got the universal wheels moving.

First Post

Hello and welcome to my blog. I got the idea for this because I thought it might help and maybe inspire people in my situation. I always said I was going to go back to school one day but once I did it I didn't realize how hard it would be. From the GED to getting accepted to a college to registering for classes to financial aid. I'm far from an expert but you just might learn something. I know I will. So with that I'll give you a little introduction and a welcome to Modern Geekery.

When I was 17 I dropped out of school thinking that I would be okay without any type of education. People do it every day, right? I worked alot of different jobs but my passion has always been computers. I finally landed what I thought would be a decent job for awhile and started to settle, but as a dreamer I always thought I would move on to bigger and better things. I was laid off in February of 09' and began my journey into higher education. I completed my GED and graduated with excellent scores. I thought I could get in to any college. I was wrong. I finally got into a school and now my adventure has began.

This will be the place that I post my day to day goings on from high school drop out to, hopefully, college graduate.