Some days ago Amber, my loyal Pangolin from System 76, stopped working, apparently due to some power supply issue.

The System 76 guys were very kind, they helped me to discard the problem via email and offered me to repair it at not cost, honoring the warranty, but I was in Lima and couldn't ship it on time.

I'm enjoying World of Warcraft more and more lately. I recently started to play it with my Beatriz, I bought an account just for her, and it really kicks ass. Now we have to convince Yesenia to install it on her lappy for the whole family to be shouting for the Horde! all day.

It's a little hard finding time to play but I'm already planning my early retirement, super early, and dedicate my days to writing, making music and playing World of Warcraft.

What really amazes me is how after so many years, WoW was released on November 2004, a game keeps attracting so many users, a little more than ten millions as I write this post.

I'm still exploring Azeroth as the bad ass Zuska in Kalecgos so if you're around let me know.

By the way, if any of you, who's not playing it yet, want to give World of Warcraft a ten day trial just let me know to send you an invitation.

Some days ago I started using Hulu, the new video star online, but, like many, I found the restriction imposed to users outside the United States, I live in Peru, rather annoying.

I started looking for solutions and found a few which I tested during one week. In this article I'll tell you about each and will guide you on setting up the one I think is the most convenient: your own VPN setup running on Ubuntu.

Your Options To Get Hulu Outside The US

Google quickly told me that using a virtual private network (VPN) with a server in the US would fit the bill for this problem. My connection would go thru the VPN and Hulu will see me as coming from a US based IP.

Hotspot Shield is perhaps the most known free VPN application for doing this these days, I tried it and it worked. Quite easy setup and I was using Hulu in just a couple of minutes.

The bad news? Hotspot Shield has a bandwidth limit per month, some say it's 10 Gb., shows ads and does not work in Linux. I really hate having to boot a Windows box just for using one application (World of Warcraft and iTunes are very special exceptions).

So, Hotspot Shield is option 1.

After a little more searching I found two paid services that offered Linux support: HotSpotVPN (afiliado) and WiTopia (both affiliate links). I tried HotSpotVPN, US$ 8.88 for one month of service, in Windows XP and it worked as advertised but they never replied to my email asking for instructions on setting up my Ubuntu laptop.

WiTopia has a US$ 39.99 per year plan, that's a really good price, but I didn't have enough funds in Paypal at the time and couldn't try. However I've read really good feedback about it.

That's option 2.

But a VPN is not good only for accessing limited-to-US-residents services like Hulu or Pandora (yeah, I missed that one too), it's much more. We'll learn about it while we review option 3: building our own VPN setup.

Ok, so let's see how to install OpenVPN on Ubuntu Gutsy.

I never imagined how wonderful was taking pictures, even of the silliest objects around, until Toma, my Canon Digital Rebel XTi, arrived a few weeks ago.

What I got with my Olympus D-320 or Beatriz's Canon Powershot A460 (a great point and shoot camera by the way) were nice memories, with a Canon Digital Rebel I get real photographs.

I'm not a professional or pretend to be one. It's just plain fun discovering so many things thru the viewfinder: a couple of toys doing nasty things, a rock to block the door, a misteryous flower at night and even a lonely metal bar at some gas station.

Digital photography is a fascinating field, no doubt about it. I still have a million things to learn and quite a bunch of functions to master on the Rebel.

The lens I got with my kit (EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6) are more than enough for now but I'm sure that I'll start looking for new options as I learn and I'll spend more in the new hobbie as well.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with Toma, my Digital Rebel. Now I can tell, for sure, there's a big world of difference between a regular digital camera and a real SLR.

I've spent almost two years running a VPS with JaguarPC (affiliate link) and now it's time to move my stuff and change my hosting provider, and this time I'm going the colocation way.

Some weeks ago I told you I had ordered our first Asus Eee PC. Today I'm glad to announce that the little toy is already at home. And even if I had named it Silfen, Beatriz decided to change that to Samantha.

I haven't had much time to play with it but I can tell you that the Eee PC is smaller than it looks on pics, works wonderfully and I really like it. A complete analysis is on its way.

Take a look at more pictures of our new Eee PC.

2007 is almost over and in recent months several new gizmos have arrived. To repeat something I did some time ago in the discussion forum here are the names of our toys at home:

• Desktop 1, a Pentium 4 HT: Woodcarver
• Desktop 2, an old Pentium 4, soon to be upgraded: Flenser
• Laptop System76 Pangolin: Amber
• Laptop Dell Vostro 1000, Yesenia's: Lucy
• Nokia N800: Ozzie
• iPod 5G, 30 Gb: Manny
• Digital Rebel XTi: Toma
• Server 1, AMD Dual Opteron: Alpha
• Asus Eee PC, coming soon, it's for Beatriz: Silfen
• Palm Z22, long time friend for reading ebooks at night: Myo
• Palm TX, Yesenia's: Clare

Some days ago some friends and I were talking about World of Warcraft in Twitter and decided to use the same realm to enjoy the massacre... er.. I mean the fun, together. Our always geek and good friend Slayer_X suggested Kalecgos, a place where there's a good population of Spanish speaking players, and I decided to start a new life, as a part of the Horde, of course.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to continue my quests with good 'ol Bartor in Baelgun but guess the change is worth it if I can find some familiar faces around Azeroth.

Now I'm Zuska, a good looking Warlock eager to crush some ugly Alliance skulls. And yeah, that three in my pic is my poor level, I had to start somewhere, didn't I?

Ok, invitation's done. I'm looking forward to meeting you in World of Warcraft, Kalecgos. If you're from the Horde I'm sure we'll enjoy some really kick ass raids, however, if you're some Alliance scumbag, I wish to cause you lots of pain real soon.

My good pal Manolo Guerrero, aka Manoloweb, has made us a very special gift to those of us who participated on the recent Exponet events in Guatemala: an avatar.

But not any avatar, a custom one created by Kemie Guaida, a great designer that I've been following for a long time.

Thanks a lot Manolo and Kemie! I'm so happy of finally having my own mini Jesus Alexis.

I'm a weak, very weak, man. I couldn't resist the avalanche of so many good reviews or the fear of the already reduced stock of Asus Eee PC at Amazon completely vanishing, a la Kindle, until 2008.

So, I've ordered my first Asus Eee 4G Galaxy a few hours ago. It's the black model with 512 Mb. RAM, upgradable, unlike the Surf ones, and solid state disk of 4 Gb.

I'm counting the seconds (days actually) until this new family member arrives but it already has a name: Silfen. By the way, a very special prize for the guy or gal who can tell where that name comes from.

Now, watch out for the review when the new toy is here.