Rainy Day Ramblings

I don't know if it's the dreary, rainy day here on the Cape or Day 6 kicking in (I hope not), but it's 3:30 PM and I still don't feel like I've fully woken up yet. We did get out for a walk at the mall this morning, running through a thunderstorm to get inside, and I got my half hour at Barnes and Noble while Nancy finished her walk. I found a book on Ubuntu Linux, my new favorite operating system. I learned a lot about the development of this wonderful free software. It derives from Unix, which was developed at Bell Labs, I think in the 60's, and the X operating system, an early windowing system developed at MIT and used long before Microsoft even dreamed of windows (I remember working with X on computers at RPI in the 80's when I was teaching at Siena, where we were still typing obscure commands into MS-DOS to get anything done). Of course I didn't buy the book, which was extremely technical, lots of command line stuff which made my eyes glaze over. Linux is more widely used for large, shared systems than by individuals on a single computer so far, and this book was written both for people like me and for system administrators and programmers. Thus the high geek quotient. But thanks to Ubuntu Linux, I now love my laptop, the same laptop that I was ready to throw away just a while ago. And I really don't need a manual - it's a very easy, intuitive system to work with. And there is an amazing amount of good, free software from Ubuntu. This morning I downloaded a photo processing application that has many of the capabilities of Photoshop, free of course. Learning how to use it is going to be a job, a project for another rainy day. So, if you're running a PC and you're frustrated with Windows, I highly recommend trying Linux.

We're heading to Lenox this Friday, after my follow up at Beth Israel. Jill and Normunds are coming up for the weekend and Pete and Melissa and the kids will join us Sunday through Tuesday. Then it's time to start repairing the damage to the house and generally getting the place in shape. We'll spend Easter with my extended family at my sister's in New Jersey and then head back to Lenox and the Cape.