Today was difficult due to a bad bout of insomnia last night. For whatever reason, I just couldn't seem to sleep no matter how much I lay there in bed. My mind raced in spite of grogginess, revolving predominately around my soon-to-be-arriving toy.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I'm excited about my new phone. Over the last three years having a proper smartphone has become essential to me. I use it as my music, device, my podcast system, often my IM client, and almost my GPS device. It's the modern Tricorder.

It's also an escape. Working for a tech company, I spend a huge amount of time in front of a monitor. For many years I couldn't imagine that coming home to spend more time in front of another monitor would have been a problem. "The trick," I told people, "was not to see the monitor, but to see through the monitor." The last year, however, that trick has become less and less effective. 

For whatever reason, that's less a problem with a smartphone. I can still maintain a social online presence without feeling the constant need to be productive. It's easier for me to lay on a bed, belly down, reading a book with a blackberry or an android device nearby without becoming tangled up in the notion that every, single, moment, must, be, productive.

The first social network I joined was LiveJournal back in 2001. At the time, I thought of it purely as an online journaling system. I didn't understand how the friending mechanism worked, nor the deceptive name applied to the feature (something that has thankfully been replaced with "following" on other sites). I often wrote entries there expecting no one to ever read them. It often felt like writing letters to no one in particular, then casting them upon the will of the four winds to whomever would find them.

The anonymity emboldened me. I wrote about things that were actually on my mind, instead of bottling them up as I had been raised. Frustration, fear, worry, depression, quixotism, fascination, and humor. Many say that the internet is where people put on masks; to me, it was the first place I was able to take mine off.

Things changed of course. LiveJournal became all the rage, creating a sprawling online community of people. I continued to write, but often with growing apprehension. I slowly began closing the loop and locking things down. No longer was it a wide open vista, but a room. The door was often open and the windows could be easily seen through, but there was a clearer separation between the Internet at large, and my little section.

Events occurred that forced me to close those openings completely. The windows were shuttered, the door was closed and locked. Little did I realize that the supply of fresh air was now also depleting. I ventured out rarely, and often only to lock things down all the more. Bars were installed. Boards nailed to the wall, cartoon-fashion.

Social networking often works the best for outgoing and open individuals that feel they have little to hide, or no one worth hiding from. My pessimism can't help but see that attitude as naive.

Today, the social networking scene has exploded across the entire world. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Identi.ca, and the new contender, Google Buzz. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of information one is required to read every day in order to say current. And lately, I often feel much like this:

Please note that many of the apps below are available through Blackberry App World. Please download that first as it will also check for software updates!

Essentials

• Blackberry App World
  Application store/Update manager
  http://www.blackberry.com/appworld
  
  
• Opera Mini Beta 5
  Web Browser
  http://www.opera.com/mini/next/
  
  
• Viigo
  News/RSS/Social Networking/Flight Tools/Weather
  http://www.getviigo.com
  
  
• Google Maps
  Maps, directions, GPS
  http://m.google.com/maps
  
  
• Pandora
  Online Radio
  http://www.pandora.com/blackberry

Instant Messaging

• Beejive IM
  Most solid, paid IM app for the BB. $9.99.
  http://www.beejive.com/blackberry/
  
  
• Nimbuzz
  Free, offers Skype Chat support.
  http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/4288

Music Stores

• 7 Digital
  DRM free, downloads right on your BB over Wifi.
  http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/3310

Podcasting

• Podtrapper
  30 day trial, $9.99 paid
  http://ota.versatilemonkey.com/

Social Networking

• Facebook
  http://www.blackberry.com/facebook
  
  
• Ubertwitter
  Twitter client, free
  http://www.ubertwitter.com/

Web Browsers

• Bolt Browser -- http://boltbrowser.com/home.html

I've been investigating switching my desktop distribution from Kubuntu to something more...seriously maintained. I love debian, and consider it one of the best distros out there, but Ubuntu's KDE variant is downright pathetic.

When I first started using Kubuntu, it was back in version 7.10 on Rei. After more than a year enduring Gentoo's progressively more disruptive effect on day to day use, I gave up and switched. At first, I was thrilled. The system worked with little problem, wireless configuration was dead-simple. I felt I finally found the desktop OS for me.

Then KDE 4 happened.

First of all, let me clear the air. KDE 4 does have problems, it also has a lot of potential. Plasma is a much more modern and versatile base on which to build the future of the platform. Changing that fundemental base, however, is not without it's problems. The 4.0 release wasn't even feature complete. I personally did not switch from 3.5 until 4.3 came out; call me shallow, but I couldn't live until the panel could auto-hide. As a programmer, and a IT professional, I knew that what KDE was attempting was ambitious. It wouldn't happen overnight and certainly not without user feedback. They couldn't sit on the code until it was "perfect", they needed to turn it out to users just so they could debug the thing properly. 

In short, KDE 4.0 = Plasma 1.0. Can anyone say "Early adopters beware?"

So how does this bare on my current dilemma? Distros have been slow on the uptake for KDE 4.0 for good reason (see above). Many remained on 3.5 offering the option to use Plasma as the standard desktop. Today, OpenSUSE is a shining example of what a proper KDE 4.x distro can look like. 

So why am I not using OpenSUSE? My reasons aren't terribly logical. One of my first Linux desktops ran Mandrake (now Mandriva), and package management was a damn nightmare. I didn't want to scour the internet like a Windows user looking for wayward pieces of software. It's not even a sensible strategy for a Linux system as the available applications are fewer, and installation is more complex due to library dependencies. When I was introduced to Debian, I was in package management heaven. Just login as root, type apt-get and it downloads and updates everything you need.  I've tried RPM based distros several times since 2000, but the situation hasn't improved as much as I had hoped. To date, Red Hat, SuSE, Mandriva just feel wrong to me.

If not OpenSuSE or Kubuntu, then what? I wanted to stick within the Debian ecosphere if at all possible, but I quickly found that impossible. There just doesn't seem to be a solid KDE 4.x, Debian-based distribution. Maybe a year from now Project Timelord will bear fruit and I can come back to my beloved Debian. For now, it looks like I have to go elsewhere.

But where? After some research online and a few helpful suggestions online, I've been pointed to Arch. The way they frame their Raison d'être is certainly enticing. Their installation method isn't as intimidating as Gentoo was in 2005, but it certainly isn't for the faint of heart. If the forum chatter is to believed, however, it's KDE credentials are best-of-breed.

Not having the time this weekend to do a full install, I decided to cheat a little and give The Chakra Project a spin. Chakra is an Arch-based LiveCD focusing on easy of use and considerable polish. Booting into it on my Dell Studio XPS 13, I felt I had come home. The system feels responsive, stable, and a far sight better than Kubuntu ever hoped to attain. 

Not everything is perfect, however. Even when booting with the non-free drivers enabled, my Wifi and sound failed to initialize. This unfortunately, stopped me from going any further than a LiveCD excursion today. Given my only other option is Windows Vista on my present system, I did not want to trash my current Linux installation no matter how flaky it is. Later when I have the wherewithal, I'll bother to slice off 20gb of space on my partition table and triple-boot the system. 

Until then, I won't know for sure if there even is the perfect KDE 4.x distro. 

Catch Croc, Thom and I duke it out on the topic of the XOrg implementation on the OSNews Podcast.

I can't help but chuckle a bit each time I'm referred to as "the Linux chick" in the podcast comments. I found it so humorous that I decided to take a look at acquiring a domain name themed around it. Alas, they've all been bought up by parking services. I can, at least, create a channel for it...

I have been meaning to set aside time to work on deninet for several weeks now. Unfortunately, by the time I get to the weekend I find myself collapsing like a run-down wind-up toy. Despite my ambitions, it's clear that I need the rest.

What really got me thinking yesterday was the results of several web searches on blogging tips. One article in particle was about ten things you should consider prior to starting a blog. The more I looked at the list, the more I began to realize how many I no longer met. Needless to say, I found this a bit disheartening. Then I began to wonder, Did I ever meet those criteria?

I have been maintaining an online writing presence for many years now. Years before the term "blogging" was even invented. Why is it that I was so much more successful in keeping regular updates compared to now? For most of that time, I was a college student. I had more down time, but no less stress (just different stresses compared to now). I was somewhat less inhibited about writing. I wrote more often and was less concerned about crafting each and every sentence.

What really is wrong with the site is not that it doesn't have a purpose, or the features are undeveloped, or any of that. It's simply that it's not updated enough. Regular updates make up for all the other problems.