EasyLinuxGuide Blog

Ok, so maybe I picked the wrong version of the ’spelling’ picture for this blog, but surely this one is preferable to a bee.

For anyone that cares to improve or concur, I am doing a quick spelling lesson for everyone. I am not sure if it is my heightened awareness of spelling blunders or if the general inadequacy is as apparent as it seems. Anyway, believe it or not, the following basic spelling errors / improper usage of words are very common mistakes. Yes, I notice this on official documentation, not just internet colloquial speak. I will state that I am far from perfect in grammar and spelling, but c’mon, these are things that a 3rd grader should know. I am going to use the most basic examples for each situation so that it is easier to understand. I know that throwing official dictionary rules and jargon may not be very effective.

Then and Than:
Then - used to relate to time. IE - “I went shopping and then decided to get something to eat.”
Than - used to compare something IE - “My spelling abilities are better than yours.”

Your and You’re:
You’re - contraction of ‘You are’. IE - “You’re funny”. Keep in mind, if you can substitute You Are for your usage of You’re, then you have it right.
Your - indicating possession IE - “Your inability to spell basic words is not flattering.”

Their, There and They’re:
Their - indicating possession IE - “The party is at their house.”
There - usually pertaining to a place. IE - “The party is over there.”
They’re - contraction of ‘they are. IE - “They’re going to the party.”

The expression “a lot”. This is two words! Use a space.

When people intend to use have as a contraction but it ends up being a separate word somehow:

Could’ve somehow turns into Could of?
Should’ve somehow turns into Should of?
Would’ve somehow turns into Would of?

You get the idea.

Regardless. How much more regardless can something be? I’ve seen enough of “irregardless.” If you use the term “irregardless”, why not go all out and say (hyphens used for effect) anti-mis-un-dis-ir-regardless? I can’t imagine anything getting any more regardless than that.

I will add more examples as I think of them. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all write as accurately as third graders?

UFC 80 ended up being an interesting event. There were some upsets and some predictable victories as well.  I didn’t do very well on my picks this time, going 5/9. Of course there are always reasons for how the fights ended up and I learned a couple of lessons.

The main event was between BJ Penn and Joe Stevenson. When I first heard about this fight, I honestly did not know who to pick. I really wanted to wait and see what BJ’s attitude would be in terms of training for it. In the past, he had been a bit lazy with his training and if came off as underestimating Joe, then it would be a really tough call. BJ had plenty of interviews where he stated he was taking his career seriously and wanted to leave a legacy behind. He seemed to have a fire in him that had not been seen before. This is why I picked BJ to win. I didn’t expect he would win in the way he did which was basically because of a glancing elbow he landed to Joe’s face  causing excessive bleeding and clearly had a huge impact on the fight’s outcome. BJ landed this elbow cleanly and deliberately which in a mounted position. Although the cut did not officially end due to a cut, it did have a huge effect on the match. This occurrence happens in MMA and is expected. After all, it was BJ’s efforts that put him into a position to accomplish this. Unlike the fight between Couture and Gonzaga which was an incidental broken nose to Gonzaga in a previous UFC pay per view, Joe was cut as a deliberate blow in battle.
Following the fight, BJ was interviewed by Joe Rogan where he uttered “Sean Sherk - you’re dead!” Ironically Sherk had been a guest commentator on the title fight and said nothing negative about BJ the entire time. Sherk entered the octagon and asserted that BJ would have to beat him before he could call himself the champion. BJ came back into the octagon and shook Sean’s hand in a respectful way and said that it would be a good fight. This future matchup should be fantastic.

A heavyweight rematch between Gabriel Gonzaga and Fabricio Werdum ended up being a bit of a surprise. Gonzaga issued several devastating leg kicks to Werdum from the start which caused Werdum to collapse to the ground on a few occasions. One would think with this type of an advantage from the outset, that it would just be a matter of time before Gonzaga finished the job. Werdum managed to turn the tables on Gonzaga and became aggressive until the fight was finished in the second round by Werdum. Gonzaga didn’t look nearly as fresh in the second round which led to questions about this conditioning.

Probably the most disappointing performance was that given by Kendall Grove who was clearly overwhelmed by Jorge Rivera who is several years the elder of Grove. I had gone against Grove the last couple of events and this had proved correct, however; with news of him rededicating himself to training and laying off his marijuana drug habit, I thought the outcome would be different. I should have went with Rivera which is what I originally wanted to do, but I thought I would give the supposed former pothead a chance as there should have been a real sense of urgency for Grove in this fight, but instead he looked weak and got beat down easily.

I bet Jason Lambert is very disappointed after losing to Wilson Gouveia. Lambert was dominating Gouveia until he left himself open and took a shot on the chin that knocked him out. It was mentioned during the broadcast that even Dana White was saying that Lambert was too strong for Gouveia. Suddenly, the fight was over and Lambert had no idea what had happened. I had picked Lambert who really should have one, but got sloppy. He will learn from this mistake though.

Marcus Davis continued his winning streak by defeating Jess Liaudun  by knockout. Davis is an exciting fighter to watch and he just opened himself up to more fierce competition. It will be interesting to see who his next opponent will be. I had picked Davis.

In similar fashion, Alessio Sakara defeated James Lee which helps get Sakara back into the winning column after his loss to Houston Alexander.

Antoni Hardonk got back into the win column as well by defating Colin Robinson easily with a brutal kick and a connecting punch that sent Robinson to the ground. Hardonk still has a lot of climbing to do to get into title contention as this is his first win since being easily disposed of by Frank Mir in his last fight. I picked Colin Robinson although I didn’t know much about him.

Paul Kelly and Paul Taylor in my opinion should get the fight of the night. These gentlemen were true sportsmen and exemplified the respect of the arts to each other and once the opening bell rang, unleashed a flurry of punches that may be unmatched in any other UFC bout.  Paul Kelly ended up winning, but this reminded me somewhat of Griffin vs Bonnar part 1. Only one fighter got a win from this, but neither left as a loser in a proper fan’s mind. I had picked Kelly.

Sam Stout won a decision over Per Eklund. Apparently Sam’s “hands of steel” could not put away Eklund. I picked Stout.

This was not a great PPV, but entertaining enough. Part of the incentive for the UFC is to bring in hometown guys like Paul Taylor, Paul Kelly, Colin Robinson and Marcus Davis (well, Davis is now in Maine but is constantly flashing his Irish descent). While most were entertaining, I am not sure that Colin Robinson put on his best performance. It will be interesting to see the line up for the UFC PPV coming to Canada in April.

As much as I like using Firefox, there was something that always bothered me. Firefox by default limits your bookmarks toolbar to only one row. For those who don’t really use this feature it is not a big deal, but I always use this and could never find a solution to the one row limitation… until recently. I will give credit where credit is due and cite this site where I found the solution. I haven’t found a proper extension for this function but it certainly would be nice to just have this built into Firefox as an option. Perhaps in a later version of Firefox 3 it can be implemented. In case the site is unreachable or eventually goes down, here are the steps recommended: (his steps are for a Windows machine, I will add some Linux notes further down)

Note - this method does not work with Firefox 3 unfortunately. I will do a new post if I find a method that will work for Firefox 3. The following instructions are for Firefox 2 only.

*************** Windows Instructions ***************

1. Close Firefox
2. Browse to c:\documents and settings\”Your Username”\Application Data\Mozilla\”Something”.Default User(Mine was zmmuzhth.Default User)\chrome
3. Open up the userChrome-example.css file and copy and paste this at the very bottom of the document:

/* Multi-row bookmarks toolbar */
#bookmarks-ptf {display:block}
#bookmarks-ptf toolbarseparator {display:inline}

4. Rename userChrome-example.css to userChrome.css

Once this is done, you should be able to see more of your bookmark toolbar items.

For myself, I had to navigate to a different directory as I use Linux. Here are the slightly modified instructions:

****************** Linux Instructions *****************

1. Close Firefox (optional)
2. Browse to /home/”Your Username”/.mozilla/firefox/”Something”.Default User/chrome/
3. Open up the userChrome-example.css file and copy and paste this at the very bottom of the document:

/* Multi-row bookmarks toolbar */
#bookmarks-ptf {display:block}
#bookmarks-ptf toolbarseparator {display:inline}

4. Save userChrome-example.css under the filename userChrome.css
5. If you didn’t close Firefox in step 1, you may need to restart it to see the effects.

Once this is done, you should be able to add more bookmarks to your toolbar and more rows should appear as needed.