Help the Hodges part 2

The Ebay Auction to Help the Hodges is still in full swing!  Please take  a moment to bid on some terrific cartoon and animation art and help the Hodges.

Help The Hodges

As many of you know, I'm a cartoonist.  I belong to a group called the National Cartoonists Society.  It's made up of cartoonists/artists from all areas of this terrific art field.  And sometimes, the NCS sends out an "all hands on deck" to help our fellow cartoonists. 

Well, that call has gone out and I'd like to share with my blog readers the email I just received.

The NCS Foundation is excited to announce our first major fund raising effort through the use of eBay which launches this coming Thursday, January 21.  Many of you, along with our colleagues outside of the NCS, have donated 160 pieces of amazing artwork in a concentrated effort to Help the Hodges.

Tim Hodge is an animation artist having worked on storyboards for Disney and directing Veggie Tales projects. His teenage son Matthew, an A student and a drummer in his Tennessee high school championship marching band, was in an accident involving his car and a train in August of 2009, and has been in a state of a coma ever since. Tim's insurance refused to cover Matthew's long-term recovery, and the financial strain has only added to the emotional strain that the family has been experiencing.

Several NCS members have partnered with the NCSF to make this event happen, but we need YOUR HELP to make it a success.  We need the word to get out!  If you have a blog, or you frequent chat rooms on the web, please put in a good word that this event is taking place.  And please come bid on items, too!

The line-up of artists is incredible! Here are just a few of the over 100 names you'll see in our auctions:

Drew Struzan
Patrick McDonnell
Mort Walker
Nick Parks
Tim Sale
Mike Mignola
Stan Lee
Stephen Silver
Don Bluth
Peter de Sevè
Glen Keane
Bil Keane
Dan Piraro
Gary Kelley
Marc Davis
Frank Thomas
Walt Kelly
Paul Coker, Jr.
Jim Borgman
Charles Schulz

To see the items for sale, we have set up a special website where everything is being posted. New items continue to be added daily.  Also, please feel free to use any of the images from our special website to promote this event, along with the graphic that we are attaching that represents Matthew's love for his marching band drums.

http://www.HelpTheHodges.com

Thank you,
The NCS Foundation








To all my blog readers, please take a moment to visit the site, bid on an item on January 21st, and help a family in need.

New System Update

I ordered that USB/eSATA back up drive from linpc.us.  It's pictured above.

The folks at linpc.us are partitioning this 1TB drive as FAT32 on one side and a portion of the drive to be formatted for Linux EXT3.

The reason is, FAT32 cannot read a single file larger than 4 gigabytes.  I have a single file that is 9 gigabytes in size on my current system.  I need to move this file from my existing system to the new system.  FAT32 cannot handle this.  But, EXT3 can!

Once again, another great reason to Get Linux!

Motherboards, SATA, eSATA, and USB

I spoke with Eric Keeler of LinPC.us today. LinPC.us is the online computer company that is building my new PXLinuxOS computer system.

Eric recommended that I go with an ASUS motherboard. Not only does it have extra USB 2.0 ports, but it also has an external SATA port.

eSATA has extremely fast data transfer rates.

However, eSATA requires it's own power source. this is not a poblem as the eSATA drive is not going to be a mobile drive. I stil have an old 80 gig USB 2.0 drive with its own power source stil conected tomyucurrent compuer.

So, for my purposes, I'll be purchasing a new external hard drive that supports both USB 2.0 and eSATA (like the one on sale at amazon.com above).

I'll move files from my current system using the USB interface and plug it into eSATA on the new system.

Once I have all files transferred to the new system, I'll keep the external eSATA drive plugged in for backup.

And of course, PCLinuxOS fully supports the SATA standard.

Get Linux.

My New Linux Box! Ordered!

Yesterday, my company, georgetoon.com, sent a purchase order for a brand new PCLinuxOS computer system! It's a rack system (similar to what I currently run) with space for five swappable hard drives. The case is pictured above.

My system will come with three Hard drives and two DVD burners. I'll also be running an AMD Phenom Quad core processor with 4 gigs of RAM.

PCLinuxOS running KDE 4 is going to be the main OS. I'll also have three other desktop environments installed, Gnome, LXDE, and XFCE.

I plan on running Windows XP via VirtualBox (for Quickbooks). Surprisingly, WinXP runs faster in VirtualBox than on it does on a real hard drive. I guess this is due to not needing all the added apps for anti-virus, etc. which constantly run in the background.

I'll have more information as the delivery date draws near.


Get Linux!

A New Year And A New System.

A blogger reader named Gary, in the first post of 2010, asked, " Are you using the KDE version?"

He was referring to the desktop environment I use when running PCLinuxOS.

Yes, I'm currently using KDE 3.5. But, the folks at KDE have rolled out version 4. 

PCLinuxOS is a "rolling distro." Each new update improves the OS and gives you new functionality and security. PCLinuxOS has evolved and moved all its repositories to support KDE 4.

I can easily update my current system to  KDE 4.  It's not difficult.  But I really like and enjoy using KDE 3.5.  Plus I have cartoon panels, strips, etc. that still need to be backed up.  once I get all my critical data and art safely backed up, I may upgrade the system to KDE4.

However, for now, I chose to point my current install at a frozen repository supporting KDE 3.5 for both my desktop and laptop systems.

The good news is, I'm in the process of purchasing a new PCLinuxOS computer system. This new system will be running KDE 4.0.

BTW, my laptop is running PCLinuxOS with KDE 3.5, Gnome, LXDE, XFCE, and E17 desktop environments.

So, yes, my main Linux Desktop environment is KDE 3.5.  I run KDE 3.5 on my main desktop system and laptop system.

I'll soon to be running KDE 4 on a brand new system!  (More later when the system is ordered, built, and delivered.)

Get Linux!  (I am. Again.)

Happy New Year!

2010 has arrived!  Make it the best year ever!  Download and install Linux to your desktop or laptop computer!  I recommend PCLinuxOS.  It's complete, stable, has a terrific group of users on its forum, and is totally free!


Make 2010 the year you said goodbye to Windows' viruses, spam, trojans, spyware,  pop-ups, and headaches!

Get Linux!