Manjaro To The Rescue

I've been using Manjaro for a while now, Firstly on an almost dead chrome book which is most decidedly dead now and now it's on a Dell Optiplex 390 which is starting to show its age, but still a fairly fast machine considering the parts. Its certainly not state-of-the-art but I can surf the web, play some games on it, try to write my book, yeah, not at too fast a pace, but not the computer's fault.

Manjaro is not the OS I would recommend to anyone wanting to use a Linux OS but it was the only one that recognized my old chrome book's sound chip and as it is fairly light weight, running mostly the XFCE desktop manager with some Gnome thrown in for good measure. My setup is pretty sleek, using my MSI Monitor with built in USB ports, I can use one keyboard, mouse, printer and sound system for both computers, all I have to do is plug the main USB plug into which ever computer I want to use and this gives me access to all my peripherals. I do have the Dell on HDMI and my Win computer on DP but it works well and keeps the clutter on my desk to a minimum.

In any case, I want to use Manjaro on a more permanent basis as I find Linux more robust than Windows, in spite of what people believe, its just as prone to being hacked as Windows but I use it to try and be a bit more versatile. Besides there is nothing wrong with learning a new skill regardless of age. On that note, I have a fairly simple Canon printer that still defies my attempts at getting it to work with my spouse's Chrome book, but today, it took all of five minutes to get it working on my Manjaro computer.

I used to use Linux almost exclusively when I was still working online but now I need my Games on Windows fix to keep me sane, so I probably won't switch completely over to Linux but the idea is tempting. OK, kiddies, enough for now, later!

Microsoft, Please Stop!

 For the third time in a row this month, Microsoft has tried forcing 365 down my throat. Its software I don't need or want so please stop trying to trick me into trying it out with your "optimize windows for your device" crap. I was using a spread sheet a month ago but the need is gone and now the only software I am using for writing is Jarte. I was using Libre Office but it has the same issue that Office has. Constantly reminding me as soon as I make a spelling mistake to correct it. Stop The F**k Right Now!

I hate it when I get on a roll and the creative juices are flowing and I just want to get crap down before I lose it. Oh no, you made a spelling mistake oops there's another one, wait you need to correct that. O.M.G. Just stop already, I'll check it later, those mistakes aren't going any where and when I do finally run a check, I am sure I'll find them.

Well, Microsoft, you've pushed me to where I removed Windows 10 Pro off my "Too old for Windows 11" computer and installed Manjaro. The benefits were immediate. Firstly, my computer now boots in seconds instead of minutes. And all the Microsoft nags for Edge and 365 are gone. Same with linking my phone to my PC. My cell phone isn't for day to day use and I have no desire to link it. It's for EMERGENCIES, not for hiding crap from other people or playing games or whatever. It's for if my landline goes down due to a power failure or a network failure and that's it. Why the hell would I want to link it to a device that will probably be down when I use my cell phone?

Anyways, anything I used to do in Windows 10, I can now do in Manjaro, and much faster so thank you MS for pointing me in the right direction.

Hurray For YouTube!

 For the third day in a row, cable TV on Rogers sucks. Tonight I have my mom and my wife freaking out because none of the channels are working on TV. Great. I still have internet so I thought, hey what about YouTube? My mom doesn't care much about movies, "Too much drama!" she claims, but she likes documentaries about animals and weird places, so I figured, YouTube. I found a documentary about Australia and she is happy, hurray! Later, I will go to Netflix and find a movie there but for now I have my games to keep me happy, and my wife has a bunch of online games she enjoys playing. Yeah, this is probably going to open a can of worms, no doubt I will get requests for more and more documentaries but hey, whatever floats her boat.

Rogers Ignite in Canada

 No doubt you have heard about the Canadian Internet going down on Friday, June 8th, 2022. If you live in Canada, you were undoubtedly affected by this either by the fact you had no internet, land line or cable TV, or all your shopping had to be done by paying cash. God forbid if someone in your family suffered a medical emergency and discovered that 911 services were down. No doubt you heard the CEO bragging to the media that almost 100 percent of services have been restored. Well let me tell you this. If that A.H. thinks the internet has been fixed, he's on better drugs than what I could afford.

Cable TV is absolute crap, with drop outs, channels not being available, sound and video issues and other problems. The internet is no better, many sites are unreachable Those that are available take forever to load, reminding me of a time when dial up was state-of-the-art. About the only service that seems to be working is the phone but I haven't been on it long enough to say for sure.

MR. Rogers CEO, if you think all is good in Lala land, you better give your head a shake. I am sure that come Monday and maybe sooner if possible, many people will be dropping Rogers Ignite and switching to Bell, even if satellite is the only internet and TV option available. If this is your idea of being fixed 100% then you are the only one with that view. I tried logging onto the community website tonight and it's not working, no doubt due to the overload of people complaining.

Just posting here to say I am not pleased or impressed with the service, yeah you had some poor unfortunates slaving away into the wee wee hours as my services were unavailable at 3:00 am but up at 7:00 am. Whatever the cause of this outage, my spouse's chrome book no longer could get online even though she could connect to WiFi. Turns out that due to this outage, the machine reset the DNS server in an attempt to get online and I finally located the issue four and a half hours later. Well, you go on believing and telling everyone that the problem is one hundred percent fixed.