Google Drive just made its public debut, so I'm testing something totally different: SpiderOak.

You can file SpiderOak under, "everything's encrypted, unlike Dropbox and Google Drive they can't see ANYTHING you do, more geeky and more powerful."

I've been meaning to try SpiderOak for years. Today I downloaded and installed the client software on my Debian Squeeze laptop, and right now I'm backing up the exact same files I have in Dropbox.

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You know what I'm doing? Using the Epiphany Web browser that ships with GNOME. In my case, that's GNOME 2.30.2 in Debian Squeeze.

Why? I've been having trouble with one of my most-used web-delivered apps in Firefox and Google Chrome.

So I decided to try Epiphany.

Sure it's slower than Chrome. But it compares well with Firefox. And I've solved a few lazy-developer issues (i.e. things that work well in some browsers but not so well in others).

I'll continue testing this over-the-web app with Epiphany. I hope it does more things well. If not, I'll go back to Firefox and Chrome. But if it does, I'll have some nice time ahead of me running Epiphany until GNOME 2.x bites the dust (which could be a very long time in my Debian installation).

One thing I'll be looking at is how Epiphany performs over time. Most browsers bog down in terms of memory usage and processes as the session continues. Both Chrome and Firefox can try one's patience in this regard.

I can't imagine that the Epiphany browser, known by some as the generic app name Web, will be anywhere near the same in GNOME 3. I could be wrong. It could be a whole lot better.

People are always talking about how long they've had a particular Debian installation, some upgrading the same box through many subsequent releases.

On the desktop anyway, restless, tinkerish people such as myself have a habit of blowing out their OSes for one reason or another -- usually extensive modification/experimentation that breaks things. Others can't go more than a month without either distro-hopping to the next new release.

Since Linux distributions and BSD project releases and the thousands of software packages that are available in affiliated repositories don't cost anything, there's no incentive to hold onto an installation for years and years like with Microsoft Windows or Mac OS.

I think those with proprietary OSes hold onto their installations more to preserve their stash of pirated applications than the system software itself, which usually can be reinstalled easily from the discs that came with the computer. But that's another matter for another day.

In my case, the reasons for keeping this particular Debian laptop running uninterrupted include maintaining productivity (which I want) and not messing with stability (which Debian Stable has) coupled with my current lack of taste for distro-hopping and repeating the work involved in setting up things the way I like them.

I've been careful with this particular Debian Squeeze installation on my Lenovo G555 laptop, and it's been running pretty much every day since late November 2010. And it's now April 2012.

That's a long, long time for me. I thought I "broke" the system today during some OwnCloud client testing, but it turns out I just clicked something I don't normally click in Gthumb, making it impossible to shrink images while preserving their aspect ratio.

But I figured out what went wrong, Gthumb is working again, and this Debian Squeeze install continues to run.

Not that I'd swear off fixing what I could if I had unlimited funds, but I don't. So I fix things.

A few weeks ago I did the latest rebuild of the hot-water valve in the shower. It goes more than any other as it is a Price-Pfister valve with a rubber washer, gets a lot of use and is very close to the water source and hence gets more pressure despite the new pressure-reducing valve we had installed (by Philip the plumber; I know my limits, or at least I think I do).

The valve seat was OK, and the valve stem was replaced (by me) the last time I rebuilt the faucet. Despite the pressure-reducing valve, a whole lot of pressure builds up in the system when the water is off for any length of time. I might need one of those little tanks above the hot-water heater that helps even out the pressure. Or something else. I'm open to suggestion.

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Life is easier when I use Firefox. But lately it's been very crashy in Debian Squeeze. It often just freezes, and I have to wait, let it freeze some more and then finally kill it.

Thus I've been using Google Chrome more and more. It supposedly eats more memory over time, but it's much, much faster, doesn't bog down so early in my session, and pretty much just works.

That's what I need: A browser that doesn't slow down to nothing. I'd like that browser to be Firefox (aka Iceweasel in the Debian world). But now that browser is Google Chrome (and could very well be Chromium when I move to Debian Wheezy).

I've been distro-hopping/shopping lately, and last night it was time for Crunchbang Linux, a Debian-based distribution that uses a very nice implementation of the Openbox window manager.

Crunchbang is appropriately minimal but with its Debian underpinnings can be just about anything you want.

I used the 64-bit Backports (aka "bpo") image of Crunchbang Statler because the Lenovo G555 likes a newer-than-2.6.32 kernel.

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I'm not saying GNOME 3 won't allow me to do what I just did, only that it would be a crime for it not to.

By that I mean using System - Preferences - Monitors to spread my session across two monitors of different resolutions. It's easy (and sweet)!

Why am I using two monitors in the first place? The LCD power inverter (the thing that gets hot at the bottom of the laptop screen) in my Lenovo G555 is not-so-slowly dying, and until the part warms up, I have no backlight on the laptop, so a second screen is nice to have (though I probably should be mirroring them so I'll always have the menu available).

Of course if the backlight never turns on due to the LCD power inverter dying and then said inverter never warms up because the screen is dark, you quickly get into a situation where the screen just plain doesn't work.

I've ordered a new LCD inverter and will attempt to install it when the part arrives.

But for now I'm happy to say that using multiple monitors in GNOME 2 is pretty cool.

In an unrelated matter, I'm testing Crunchbang, using Gigolo to edit this file via SFTP. Very sweet!