Results matching “10”

Ok, following up on the last post, I found something called HSAs which I have not hear about before.  This is not surprising because up until I started my current job, I had never heard about a flex savings plan/account -- this has a lot to do with my lack of hospitalizaiton.  Unlike the flex plan, an HSA rolls over each year and works like a savings account/IRA.  Essentially, you open up an HSA and put money into it, either pre-tax or as a tax deduction.  You spend this money on medical related expenses, also tax free.  The account can earn 1-2%, tax-free.  An individual can put in up to $2850/year or a family can put in $5,650/year.    Again, this is untaxed money.  If you are putting the money in from your net pay, you can deduct that amount from your taxes.  If your employer or retirement/investment account puts this money in pre-taxes, you are never taxed.  You can then spend it on medical expenses such as doctor visits, band-aids, or lasik eye surgery without paying taxes on it.

Now, the really interesting part that has someone like me excited is that health insurance providers provide special rates for people with HSAs.  Essentially, you pay a higher deductible for lower rates.  For someone that is healthy, this is very exciting.  You put your pre-tax money into an HSA and then pay a lower fixed monthly payment.  For example, I can get a plan with $1250 deductible, $15 doctor's visit, and 0% copay otherwise for $75/month.    Now, that $1250 deductible is pretty scary until you realize it's $104/month for the first year ($179/month for the first year), and once you get it built up, it's there until you use it, earning 1% interest.  If you put more into your account, you can use those savings for things like co-pay and prescriptions ($5 generic).    From the same company with $0 deductible, $20 doctor visit, and $15/generic prescription would cost me $139/month.    The HSA would save me $64/month ($768/year).  If I was smart and put $139/month into my HSA for the first year, I would have $768 + interest in my HSA, unless I've used some of it to pay deductibles/copays.

So until you get your HSA built up, you're taking a gamble that you won't need to get work done and pay a deductible.  This is a relativley safe gamble in that you can probably work out a billing arrangement with the medical facility if you do end up needing their services.    Once your HSA is built up however, you can add to it at  a much slower rate or even stop contributing once you get to double your deductible or double your maximum out of pocket expenses.  Essentially, you can decide how much to put into the HSA based on your comfort level with meeting medical expenses below the deductible.

For further research, I did a quick search on HSA Insider to see what a 63-year woman would have to pay.  A $0 deductible, $20 co-pay (plus $15 generic prescriptions) would be $613.57/month.  An HSA compatible plan has a worse deductible in this case.  The cheapest plan is $224.10/month, but with a $3,750 deductible ($15 office visit/$10 prescriptions ).  The next best plan (ignoring all the co-insurance ones and those that don't cover doctor's visits) is $316.58/month with a $1250 deductible ($15 office visit/$5 prescriptions).

Again, I just discovered these today and this is rough math, but my initial impression is that an HSA definitely saves you money in the long run and, depending on your medical expenses, could save you money in the short run.  The thing that could hurt is if you get hit with a high medical bill (like an extended hospital stay) in your first year of using an HSA (before you get your account built up).  It will of course, be cheaper than no insurance and an extended hospital visit, which could be between $1000 and $5000/night.

Another advantage is that money in your HSA can be used to pay for the deductible, medical supplies, and even uncovered procedures (like lasik).  Also, in times of financial hardship, you can make withdraws from your HSA as well to cover basic living expenses (there may be tax restrictions on this).

As a final note, tt seems I pay $68/month (no deductible) through my employer-sponsored program.  I couldn't find a plan that really beats that.  There was a $60 plan with a $2500 deductible and  $51 plan with a $5000 deductible.   $5000/$17 = 294 months or 24 years.   $2500/$8 = 312months or 26 years.

I have found someone more frugal than me.  Granted, I don't consider myself that frugal -- I spend a lot of money on computer/tech related stuff and I have some monthly bills (Internet/server rental) I could probably get rid of or reduce drastically.  But this guy Jacob is really out there.

He comments about Bicycle riders on the freeway, which is illegal in most states due to a minimum speed rule.  However, during rush hour/traffic jams, most cars travel well below the mimimum speed.  Set the mimimum speed to 15 and watch the cyclists pass the cars getting ticketed.

He challenges you to wear something out.  Other than jeans and cars, I haven't really worn anything out.  I have good t-shirts from '97 that still look pretty fresh.  We often end up replacing things that still work.

He discusses living on $6000 a year or $500/month.  I do not see how he can find health insurance for $75/month, no matter how healthy you are.  I've priced health insurance many times over the last several years and find it to be 3x that amount.  I can only assume that his employer is shouldering the bulk of the health insurance costs.  But since this is a retirement article, you need to look at personal insurance prices. However, I have lived without health insurance for a couple years and have lived with some pretty low earnings.   In 2006, my worst business year ever, I made $20,000 and spent around $17,000 in business expenses, giving me about $3000 for personal.  Granted, that year, things my business bought also happened to help me out.  However, I wasn't buying clothes or heat and I ate dirt cheap or for free (at other people's houses).

If I decided to go extreme in 2006 (but keeping the house), my budget would be like this:

mortgage = $6000  / $500
utilities = $900 / $75
transport = $900 / $75
food = $600 / $50
total = $8400 / $700

Of course, you'll notice I left health insurace out.  Assuming I could get good personal health insurance for $250/month, I would need an additional $3000/year.  Of course, I could go back to an efficiency apartment over a garage and bring my rent/mortgage down to $200 like I did in 2001.  Recently, I refinanced to pay off some business debt I had incurred (advertising that just didn't pan out) and my mortgage is now just under $800, so (not counting the health insurance) I would have to bump the mortgage up to $9600/$800 and the total to $12,000/year or $1000/month.  Now, my transportation is up somewhat since I'm working in another state than I live, but in reality that's only another $25/month or $300/year.  So, without spending on the wedding, I should in theory be able to get by on $12,300/year.  With mimimum wage at 6.55, I should be able to make $13,100 working 2000 hours a year and (as I am below poverty) not pay any taxes.   If I made mimimum wage, I should be able to do that localy and bike to work while cutting down on my travel expenses.  Having a wife adds to our combined expenses, which are offset by our combined income, but we rise above poverty and get taxed more -- too much math, but I wager it still works out in our fiscal favor.

Taking those figures into early retirement, you can eliminate most of your travel, or you might have the house paid off.  However, going by $12,300/year...  we can find out the mimimum amount needed to retire.  On high/stable end, you would need $301,000 earning 4% to pull $13,000/year.  At 6%, you would only need $201,000 to earn the same amount.  Keep in mind, you would need the first year or two's worth of expenses on top of that as you wait for your interest/dividend payments to come in.

Imagine if the house was paid off (which I plan to do in 4 years on a much higher budget) and you reduced that $9600 to the $1800 of taxes/insurance (which are now included in the mortgage).   Suddenly, the yearly budget drops to $3,900/year.  The minimum retirement amount drops to $65,000 @ 6% and $98,000 @ 4%.

So at these figures, anything over $301,000 with a mortgage or anything over $98,000 with the morgage paid off is extra money to spend, gift, or reinvest.

All of that being said, I don't think I could voluntarily do it.  Now that I've been making solid money for over a year now, there is a sort of addiction that comes with it.  Like I said above, I dropped $3,000 on a car, something I wouldn' t have even considered before.  Most of my cars have been under $1000 and I once worked out that the average cost of my cars + repairs cost me under $500/year.  Since I got this car, I've put around $1500 into it, something I wouldn't have even considered before -- if I was facing a potential $1000 repair bill (the transmission), I would be shopping for a different car.

I'm also still carrying premium business class Internet service with static ips.  This is a holdover from my business and runs around $120/month.  I'm powering several servers and have a virtual server.  Except for the virtual server (which holds web hosting accounts), I am not making any money on these.  I could get by with a cheaper Internet connection  (say $60/month) and I mainly use the servers for experimentation.  The servers and Internet make it an expensive hobby, but it is a hobby I take pleasure in.

Also, I like eating out fairly regularly, which I have been working against.  I get irritated at a pack of lunch meat costing $3, with a block of cheese costing $2.50.  However, I also think a $5 footlong from Subway is cheap.  In reality, I could probably make 10 such subs for about $10.

Anyways, Early Retirement Extreme focuses on doing more with less (cutting costs) along with some good investing advice.  It is definitely worth reading.

I rarely venture out into politics, but recently I've just been annoyed at the number of things that are just being done wrong. For the longest time, I'd chock these things up as a symptom of Hanlon's Razor, but recently I've been wondering if something more was at play.

Anyways, today m favorite candidate (who is no longer directly in the race) recently held a conference and put out a statement I'd like to point out here. I quote the relevant parts below, but it's worth reading the message itself to get the full effect.

Quote One:

The system we have today allows a President to be elected by as little as 32% of the American people, with half of those merely voting for the “lesser of two evils”. Therefore, as little as 16% actually vote for a president. No wonder when things go wrong, anger explodes. A recent poll shows that 60% of the American people are not happy with the two major candidates this year.

----

The two parties and their candidates have no real disagreements on foreign policy, monetary policy, privacy issues, or the welfare state. They both are willing to abuse the Rule of Law and ignore constitutional restraint on Executive Powers. Neither major party champions free markets and private-property ownership.

Just for example, the current approval rating for President Bush has a 64% disapproval rating, giving him only a 32% approval rating (with 4% unsure). That means that despite a 64% disapproval, he would stand a good chance of getting re-elected if a 3rd term was allowed.

Quote Two:

This system is driven by the conviction that only a major party candidate can win. Voters become convinced that any other vote is a “wasted” vote. It’s time for that conclusion to be challenged and to recognize that the only way not to waste one’s vote is to reject the two establishment candidates and join the majority, once called silent, and allow the voices of the people to be heard.

And finally, my favorite, part, the action plan:

Since a principled non-voter sends a message, we must count them and recognize the message they are sending as well. The non-voters need to hold their own “election” by starting a “League of Non-voters” and explain their principled reasons for opting out of this charade of the presidential elective process. They just might get a bigger membership than anyone would guess.

Write-in votes should not be discouraged, but the electoral officials must be held accountable and make sure the votes are counted. But one must not be naïve and believe that under today’s circumstances one has a chance of accomplishing much by a write-in campaign.

The strongest message can be sent by rejecting the two-party system, which in reality is a one-party system with no possible chance for the changes to occur which are necessary to solve our economic and foreign policy problems. This can be accomplished by voting for one of the non-establishment principled candidates - Baldwin, Barr, McKinney, Nader, and possibly others. (listed alphabetically)

Yes, these individuals do have strong philosophic disagreements on various issues, but they all stand for challenging the status quo - those special interest who control our federal government. And because of this, on the big issues of war, civil liberties, deficits, and the Federal Reserve they have much in common. People will waste their vote in voting for the lesser of two evils. That can’t be stopped overnight, but for us to have an impact we must maximize the total votes of those rejecting the two major candidates.

For me, though, my advice - for what it’s worth - is to vote! Reject the two candidates who demand perpetuation of the status quo and pick one of the alternatives that you have the greatest affinity to, based on the other issues.

A huge vote for those running on principle will be a lot more valuable by sending a message that we’ve had enough and want real change than wasting one’s vote on a supposed lesser of two evils.

I haven't picked out who I will vote for yet, but I am now convinced it won't be for Obama of McCain.

Link 1: Ron Paul's Statement

Link 2: We Agree

For only 5 days into May, it's been fairly eventful.

Robin is graduating this month -- the pinning ceremony was on the 2nd and her graduation is on the 10th.  Of course, before she even got to go to her pinning ceremony, I had a few questions for her.  The first question (both chronologically and in order of importance) was "Does it fit?" (it did) and the second question was "Do you want to be my wife?" (to which the answer was "Of Course!").

We're still working on the small details like dates and locations, as well as the big ones like what to put on the gift registry.  We'll try and keep people updated.

Probably the biggest thing going on this month is that I moved the countertop that was in the front room (my primary workshop area), de-constructed it, and re-assembled it in the new workshop area (the former junk room).  Over the next couple months, I plan on moving the living room from the upstairs to this newly emptied area, creating both a tv room/den and a living room area.

I was in Anne Arundel County on Friday and Saturday.

On Monday, I get a missed call from Hanover, MD on the cell phone.  I call it back later in the day thinking it's either a friend or family  or a family member in the area.  A "Jim" answers the phone and has no clue who I am or that he called my number.

So that was kid of odd getting a random, wrong number, from a place I was just at two days ago.

Today, I check my voicemail from the shop, and a 410 # --- the same 410 phone number.  This time, it's a James Trucker (name changed, but not the Jim I called back) wondering if I'm hiring.

So now it seems someone from that area tried my shop for a job and also knew my cell phone number (which isn't exactly posted on the business website).  Granted, my cell phone number *is* posted on here under my resume -- but the two sites don't link to each other (and my full name isn't on the business website).  With some strong research, you can find that I own my consulting firm and find this site from that name (and then my cell) from that fact, but a typical cold calling job applicant probably wouldn't try to cold call the owner on his cell right off the bat.

The best I can figure is that a business card of mine slipped out and if flitting about the area, but I don't see how (as the only time I took my wallet out was to pay a toll).

I'm not hiring (I'm a one man show here), but I might call the guy back again from the shop phone just out of curiosity.

I've been relatively busy recently. Obviously, there is work, which takes up about half of my week. But I've also been working on a few projects -- not related to computers.

My house has 22 windows: 12 downstairs, 10 upstairs, All but 9 of these windows are older single pane. Six of them face the neighbor's house -- 4 feet away. For the downstairs, I've slated 6 windows for removal. Over the last few weekends I've been boarding them over on the outside -- not the typical "hurricane safety" boarding up, but precisely cutting the OSB to size and attaching it to the outside of the window frame. The outside is boraded up and now needs painted to match the exterior. My plans keep changing as I go along. On the inside, I have insulated and framed three of the windows. I've now permanently "en-framed" my air conditioner into the house (the air conditioner can be changed out if needed). I've worked out a nice way of covering the air conditioner in the winter without tape/plastic -- it involves paneling, specially threaded bolts set into the framing, Styrofoam, and wing-nuts. I've also worked out a way to setup some shelving in the window's cavity.

I've also been helping my parents re-arrange their entire house. Ideally, they will have a living room, a tv/kids room, and a family room. We've moved furniture, cleared out the "back room" (to make way for the family room), put down tile in the laundry room, and started the process of replacing the floor in the bathroom.

The bathroom is a real treat. The underlying floor is concrete. Atop this, 1x1 ceramic tiles set in thin-crete -- that's all good. Then, someone covered the 1x1 tiles with more thin-crete. Atop this, they glued down a carpet -- that's not so good. Pulling the carpet up broke up the thin crete and the 1x1 tiles. So today I was out there with floor leveler and trowels creating a new, level floor for us to lay tile down onto. I knew this would take a long time and it did. Tomorrow I'll be finishing up by laying tile and installing the new toilet. Dad is planning to start laying tile down in the morning around the toilet area -- maybe he'll get into a groove and just keep going. :} Nah.. the toilet will probably take longer than the toilet as it is completely unassembled.

Robin has finished up the semester today. Classes were canceled yesterday due to a minor ice maelstrom sweeping through the area, so her tests were stacked up for today. Not sure how things went, but assuming she passed, then she only has one more semester to complete before she graduates in May. If things work out, we should be able to celebrate in Tel Aviv on our way to Jerusalem.

At least, that's the goal. I'll need to save up some vacation between now and then, and the trip will cost upwards of $5000, but assuming those goals are met and no major enemies attack from the North, we should be able to make the trip. This will be my first International flight under my own direction, and it will be Robin's first flight anywhere. Why waste that on something passe' like Europe or Hawaii when we can go swimming in the Dead Sea?

When I was a young kid, I was interested in electronics.  When I got into my early teens, I got into computers.  Before I could drive, I had an idea that I wanted to start a business dealing with computers.  I was so cool.. I thought I could write programs in QBASIC and sell them.  I never did that, but I did start my business.  First it was a sideline, and things were good.  Eventually, I felt confident in it and stepped out on my own.  I did ok, but couldn't make a real success of it.  As the years dragged on, my money ran out and I was finding it hard for my business to survive, much less thrive.  A lot of this was my own doing.  I had some great plans on how to make things more profitable.   One plan was to offer classes to people.  Work up a lesson plan, teach two classes a day of 10 people each.  Each person pays $65 for the class and you've got $1300 for the week (which was approximately $260 a day for 2 hours each day, assuming 1 hour classes).   Another thing I needed and planned on doing was to aggressively market some form of managed service to some of the larger local businesses.  With just 2 or 3 sustainable contracts, the same number of big companies can keep a smaller company afloat, leaving room for expansion.

I figured these things out a long time ago.  Yet I have accomplished neither.  Why?  I'll get back to that question in a bit.

Around the beginning of the year, I began to desperately seek a solution that would ensure that the shop's bills would be paid and I could still support my customers.  I did this out of a sense of responsibility.  I had some bills -- mostly advertising in nature -- that I was behind on and didn't see any clear path of ever getting them paid properly.  I wrote about this before.  One thing I've learned is that I like being responsible and being able to have my bills paid.  I don't really care about having a lot of money, but I despise being in debt.  I let it gnaw at me.  If I have to tell someone that I can't give them the money I owe them, it depresses me.  It means I'm not responsible, and that's exactly what happened.  I shirked my responsibility to make good on my word.  I could argue that one has to take risks in business, and spending money you don't have on advertising for money you may get is a common risk, but I remain unconvinced.  I had decided to devote myself entirely to fixing my situation.

After nearly 8 months of searching, I found the ideal contract position.  It consolidated hours into 3 or 4 nights each week, providing me with 4 or 5 days of availability each week.  The pay was more than adequate, and beyond all my expectations, provided me with opportunities to learn skills that could directly benefit my business.  It also gave me time to think.

Now that I'm more relaxed and on track to repaying my debts, I've been reflecting on why I failed in business.  Why did I fail to accomplish something I've been desiring for over a decade?  Well the truth is that what I thought I wanted and what I really want are two different things.  See.. running a business comes with a lot of things I was never really interested in.  What I have learned that I really want is the freedom to run my own business.

What does that mean?  It means I have a great set of skills and services to offer people.  I do a good job because I like doing what I do.  I would like to be able to offer my skills and services to people and take a sense of satisfaction in making something work. But.. I don't want to be bogged down with a constant struggle to bring in new customers, to perform work I'm not interested in doing, and to generally.. run a business.  I had the most fun with my business when it was something that I could pick and choose the jobs I wanted to pursue.  When it became my lifeline, I ended up working for the business and stopped enjoying it.

I've never really been concerned with money (except where the lack of it creates debt, which I am concerned with), so making a profitable business has never been enough of a priority.  I dislike sounding and acting like a salesperson, so I've avoided "salemanish tendencies".  I've always figured people would trust a true computer technician over a salesperson any day.  I was right, but apparently not right enough to generate income.  Sales and making money shouldn't (and aren't) the most important part of running a business, but they are among the top concerns of running a successful business.  Which means that I am not that concerned about actually running a successful business.

I want the freedom to have and run a business.  I want to have a business where I enjoy the work I do.  I want to have a business that doesn't require me to be a salesperson.   I want to have a business that doesn't require me to take on work I don't want just to make a profit.

For me, that's where I am right now.  I have a few customers I can support with the time available to me.  I get work referred to me -- no sales.  I can say no to a potential customer if I feel I won't enjoy doing the work.  When I do take on work, I know I will do a good job at it and will put my best effort forward.  While I'll make sure that I can make a profit on each customer's work, I don't have to worry if my profit will pay my bills.  It took me a long time, a lot of false starts, and a lot of lost money to realize what I want, and know I know that have what I have always wanted.

(Yes, there are other things I want in life that are more important: A closer relationship with God, a family some day, and my friends.  This post isn't concerned directly with these things, but is influenced by them.)

I like to splurge on something once each year, typically a gadget.

• In 2000 I bought a Toshiba 1605 laptop.  I bought while on leave and took it with me to MCT and MOS training.  That laptop was pretty good at the time with 32MB of RAM that I upgraded to 196MB.  It had an 8GB hard drive running Windows 98.  It also had a built in modem that worked fairly well.


• In 2001  I bought a Sony MVC CD1000 Camera.  I had been working at Pennswoods for quite a while and I had no bills to speak of.  Money was no problem for me.   I also started up my business, signing a 5-year lease on a commercial building.  The next month, 9/11 happened and I was told to prepare for deployment.


• In 2002 I bought a Kyocera QCP 6035 smart phone.  During this year I also took a trip to Washington state for vacation.  This was a good phone.  It sometimes froze on me when I opened the flip, but it generally worked really well. It allowed me to combine my palm pilot and cell phone in one device, and I was all for that.


• In 2003 I upgraded to a Kyocera 7135 smart phone.  This was my favorite phone of all time.  Palm OS, clam-shell design.  What's not to love?  Apparently it can no longer be activated in the US because it does not have a tracking GPS built into it.  I was deployed at the beginning of the year and left the 6035 with my parents.  When I returned, I read reviews on the 7135 and got it within a month of my return.  If I could have this phone now (activated of course), I would still think of it as the better phone even though it lacks bluetooth support.  I have not come across a phone that I felt I would enjoy more (inside or outside my price range).


• In 2004 I was flat broke and bought Ramen noodles.  This was between deployments, between jobs, and I had serious car troubles.  It was a dismal time for me.  I spent each evening at a different house, moving from couch to couch.


• In 2005 I purchased an HP dv1000 laptop.  I tricked it out with a whopping 512MB of ram, 80GB hard drive, and extended battery (lasts 3+ hours).  I should also point out that during the summer of 2005, I was again broke. My business was my sole source of income and not doing as much as I wanted it to. However, everyone else I knew was broke, and we all enjoyed that summer playing pool, eating at Dennys, and taking road trips to Western PA, Eastern Maryland, and Southern Virginia.  I don't know how we afforded any of it.


• In 2006 I purchased a house.  Not exactly a gadget, but I believe it will outlast all of my other gadgets.  Business was doing a lot better for me during this summer.  Up until winter came, things were truly looking up.


• This year, the year of 2007, I purchased a xv6700.  This is a Windows PPC 6700.  It comes with 64MB of ram, has bluetooth, wifi, is evdo capable, and will take mini-SD cards.  It has a touch screen and a slide out keyboard that works really well.  This device is more of a computer than a phone, and in that regard works very well.  The phone side of it leaves a bit to be desired.  There seems to be a slight delay between when you press a key and when it updates the screen, which is a bit distracting when placing a call or entering your pin.  Otherwise, this is an amazing gadget.  The phone portion is vastly improved if you use a bluetooth headset.  Plantronic Voyager 550 is the one I got and unlike those earpieces that you corkscrew into your ear, I barely notice that I'm wearing the headset.  I linked to a video review that I would highly recommend watching even if you're not in the market for such a phone/ppc.  There are reasons I chose a phone that is more of a computer than a phone, and I will go into that next.

As you may have read, I am working for "the man", a big corporate entity in Virginia.  My main business has become a sideline endeavor for the foreseeable future.  I still have customers I support, and I'll still do a lot of the same stuff.  But, I'm not taking calls constantly for the business and not using my phone that much as a phone.  I'm shifting to work I can do remotely such as server administration, scripting, and device configuration.  Most of this can be done via web and email.  With an email/web/ssh capable mobile device, I can even handle some emergency tasks from just about anywhere.
On another note, not splurge related, I have finally been placed on Night One.  This is a wonderful shift that is basically 3-4 (alternating) nights each week.  I will always work Sunday night, Monday Night, and Tuesday night.  Every other week, I will work Wendesday night as well.  The shifts go from 6pm till 6am.  Once I am done at either Tuesday or Wednesday morning, I am off to do my own thing until the following Sunday night.  The long shifts sound horrible, but I much prefer the shorter work week (even though I might go home to do even more work, of a different kind).

A few months ago, I was asked to be an usher at a wedding. For some reason, I decided "why not?". I should have thought more about who was making the request.

I actually do have varying degrees of dress clothes. I have my military dress uniforms. I have "business casual" clothes. I also recently purchased a formal suit to wear the last year's Marine Corp Ball. However, none of these will work in this wedding's bridal party. So, I got measured for the official tux outfit.

A few days ago, I was told the news that the tux rental would be approximately $100. A one day rental of a piece of clothing is $100?!?. That's about what my suit cost. I looked on nextag in disbelief. Most tuxedos range from cheap ($70), with most being around $140, and a few expensive ones actually ring in at $500. There is one tux by a brad name of "Collezioni" that runs $700. I figure that if a tux gets around 20 uses out of it in its lifespan (it should get a lot more, I would imagine), you can rent it at 1/10th the price and double your money. So, taking the most expensive tux I can find ($700 Collezioni), it would be $70. At 1/9th, it's $77. At 1/8th, it's $87.50. Finally, at 1/7th, it becomes $100.

All of this is completely pointless though because I'm stuckg for "the privilege of wearing" some overpriced garments. I guess it's another lesson learned (don't get involved with people that are overly concerned about image and name brands) -- I just would prefer it if these lessons didn't cost so much.
Of course, I am to be best man at my evil twin's wedding next year. However, I feel on much safer ground in that arrangement (should it truly transpire) than I do with the events surrounding this coming June.

I have an HP dv1000 Pavilion laptop. Back in '05/'06, I had this setup with Mepis Linux, dual-booting with Windows XP. Now the thing about this laptop is that it has a Broadcom wireless card (BCM43xx). With Mepis, I used ndsiwrapper to get the card working. However, the screen resolution was never very good, media files would play weird (codes at the time were a bit off, I think), and sometimes when switching wireless networks, the entire system would freeze. Wireless support was all command-line based (iwlist eht1 scanning) and didn't support WPA encryption. Because of this and my highly mobile workstyle, I eventually switched back to Windows XP.

A year has passed and I've been itching to get back to having a linux powered laptop again. My computer still had a "weird" partitioning scheme left over from various installs of linux/windows/data recovery/whatever. Plus, Windows was long overdue for a reinstall. It was time to try Linux again.

First, I made a backup of my data partition to an external hard drive. The interesting thing I did as well was to use VMWare's converter program to convert my Windows XP install to a VMWare machine, effectively backing up the entire OS into one small directory (or, more accurately, one 13GB file). I was able to run my laptop's OS and applications on another computer before I even attempted a single installation. Very impressive.
I decided to start with Sabayon Linux. I had tried this recently as a Live Dvd on a tower system and was truly impressed with the options available with it. Sabayon is gentoo based, and gentoo has always been on the "bleeding edge" with hardware support compared to other distributions. Sabayon also comes pre-installed with Beryl, the nicest windows manager I've seen on any OS yet.

The way it works with the live DVD is that you boot up into a fully functional version of the operating system with all the bells and whistles. I played a few movie files without any lag. The wifi worked, it just couldn't do WPA, but it was working. I read an article about having to install WPA_supplicant to get WPA to work. I tried this, but was unable to on the live dvd. Otherwise, I was satisfied and went to install. The install took around 3 hours, which was mind boggling to me. However, I was able to browse the Internet, chat online, and send email while the install was going on, so I didn't mind.

Once the installed system was running, it was a bit faster than the dvd version, but still seemed kind of slow. My laptop is 2.0ghz with 512MB of ram, so I was somewhat dissapointed. I was able to install VMWare player and access my Windows XP install off of the external hard drive (this was extremely slow, but manageable). I could even mount the vmdk file as a partition and copy files off of if. It didn't take me too long to setup Firefox, Thunderbird, and gaim with my profiles from Windows XP. Btw, that is a sweet feature of those three programs (and similiar OSS cross-platform applications). The configuration, extensions, bookmarks, and everything is saved in "profile directories" that can be copied from computer to computer, operating system to operating system. I didn't even loose my cookies while switching Operating Systems.

Now for the bad news. I installed WPA_Supplicant. I read several hundred guides to getting WPA to work. I couldn't connect to my private WPA network. Half the time, it wouldn't connect to the unencrypted network. It just didn't work. Then, while using the system, I noticed something. Beryl was crashing. At first, I could no longer minimize windows. Then, I couldn't move them. My taskbar would dissapear. Usually, logging out, then logging back in would fix this. The first two times, I didn't think much about it. However, it soon became an annoying trend. The applications would work fine, but the window could no longer be resized, moved, or closed. If I tried it without Beryl, things would be fine. All things considered, I was getting fustrated with this distribution. Maybe I could have gotten the wireless working. Maybe, I could have found a patch with Beryl to get it stable. Maybe I could run without Beryl. But I wanted to use an installation that "just works".

Earlier, I had booted up with Kubuntu. Ubuntu variants are vey popular now. They're based off of Debian (just like Mepis is), which has a wonderful package system. Kubuntu is just like Ubuntu, only with a KDE Window Manager instead.  Kubuntu had deteched my "QuickPlay" keys which have the play, fast forward, and volume controls on them.  Nothing else I had used had done that (even Windows requires you to install the HP QuickPlay drivers) "out of the box".  I went into this knowing I would have to do a few extra steps to get the wireless working.  I was a bit apprehensive since Ubuntu uses entirely "free" components, which means you have to add your own codecs to play media files like MP3s. While in the livecd, I was again impressed.  It had the resolution working better than Sabayon did (I hae a widescreen laptop).  The sound worked, the buttons worked, things ran faster.  There was no Beryl, but I figured I would ignore this for now (just how stable is Beryl anyways?) and soldier on.  I read the the newer version of the kernel used the BCM43xx module instead of the ndiswrapper I had used so long ago.  There were sites and apps to setup Ubuntu with all the "non-free" essentials that I would want.  I began the install.

Again, because it was a live CD, I was able to browse, chat, and email while installing.  This installation only took about an hour to do.  Once I was back up, I mounted my USB drive, copied my data over to my home partition, mounted the virtual machine file, and copied my mozilla/gaim profile directories over.  Within an hour, I was back up in business running "my" Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim.  I also use KeePass to keep track of my passwords, and this is also cross-platform compatible.  My advice to anyone thinking of switching operating systems: start using the cross-platform apps.  When it comes time to switch, you'll be able to take your customizations with you.

I read more sites on getting the wireless part working.  I downloaded some files, got bcm43xx working.  I could now scan the wifi networks around me (from the console).  Eventually, I found "K Network Manager" which I must admit, is a wonderful little utility.  It puts one icon in your system tray.  If you click on it, it shows the wired and wireless networks available.  With wpa_supplicant installed, you can click on a wpa enabled network and it asks you for the key.  And it worked the first time.  I was impressed.  After a day's labor, I was able to disconnect the network cable on my desk.

After a few days, I started running into problems.  The network manager (or probably the underlying wpa_supplicant) would loose the connection to my AP.  Sometimes, it wouldn't be able to connect to any access point, encrypted or not.  Sometimes, it wouldn't detect a single wireless network.

Also, dual-monitor support was lacking.  I wen through the config screens to extend my desktop onto my second monitor (did that with both Kubuntu and Sabayon).  First, you have to restart X.  In Kubuntu, this option is disabled, and you end up restarting the computer (yes, there's probably a nice kill command to do it, but I figured I'd go all the way).  Then it doesn't work.  In Windows, you can just check "extend desktop onto this monitor" and hit Apply.  You might have to fiddle with the resolution afterwards, but Windows XP understands extended monitors. Xorg/KDE does not (who handles that part?).

So, last night, I went ahead and switched back to Windows XP.  The reinstall took about an hour.  I have the Driver recovery cd, so I ran that and got all the drivers working in one go.  Today I went and installed SP2, followed by the AutoPatcher updates.  That took about three hours to get it back up to "current".  And... everything works, just as it had before.

So.. if I had gotten a PCMCIAA card with a better chipset (Intel/Prism) I would most likely have had a better wireless experience. I know it's really Broadcom's fault for not working with Linux. With a desktop, I can pretty much swap out hardware to suit and not care.  With a laptop though, anything I add decreases my battery life, puts a breakable object hanging out the side (wether PCMCIAA or USB), and adds one more thing to remember to grab.  I am more productive in Linux when everything works, but for my laptop and countless others, the "barely there" support makes me fight my computer more than work on it.   Recently, Dell has been asking their customers what they want, and over 100k people responded with "Linux compatible".  If Dell puts out a Linux compatible notebook, then my next laptop will most likely come from them.  Until then, I'll be running Windows XP.  I'll end up setting up a computer to keep up with the Windows Vista clients I have to support, and I do have an in-shop Linux desktop.  But my personal desktop will be Windows XP for probably another year.