qptech blog

New Lappy

2007-09-16T03:30:00.000-05:00

My old laptop "Kate" is starting to show her age. Other than making a lot of noise with the massive cooling fans running all the time, she overheats and dies a lot.

So, I got a new one. I spent 2 hours researching current technology to see what's available, what I want, and what is the best balance of price and features. I came up with a list of 5 or 6 current models of various brands that I would settle for.

I wanted to get it now. I travel a lot and if I had one shipped somewhere, it might be many weeks before I could get it in my hands. I did most of my research on Office Depot's website. They seemed to have a pretty good selection and pretty good prices. So I located a local store and drove there.

The first Office Depot only carried one of the models that was on my list (even though they all were available on the store's website), but they were out of stock on that one. They checked their computer and found one at another store in the area. I got directions and drove there. When I got there, they were out as well. But right next door was Circuit City. I hate that place, but I'm desperate for a new lappy.

Circuit City managed to validate my opinion of the store yet again. They were busy, but I caught one of the sales associates and pointed out the laptop I wanted to buy. I'm not buying a $15 mouse here, I'm buying a $1200 laptop, but I never saw that associate again. Then I was ignored for about 2 hours while half a dozen employees passed through - obviously already engrossed in some serious business. So I played with the laptops. I may as well have been invisible, so I went ahead and had at the machines. I changed settings, added user accounts, opened and closed lids, turned over machines (none too gently mind you), fiddled with switches and covers, and rebooted a couple machines. I didn't have any live CDs on me or I could have booted linux on all the machines in the section (I booted the Knoppix live cd on a machine at Bestbuy once - in copy-to-ram mode so's I could take the cd with me and leave the machine in the linux environment).

Finally, I got another associate to notice me and pointed out the lappy I wanted. They were out of stock. I pointed out my second, and only other choice. And they were out of stock. No, they couldn't sell the display models. So I walked out of the store.

Before the guy checked on the availability of the first machine, he was already into his spiel to convince me to buy the $450 extended warranty and their software pack. I was like, "No." He was like, "You need anti-virus." I said, "I already got it." He wanted to be sure I could handle the install. I said I could. He wanted to be sure I could handle the install on Windows Vista. I said I could. Then I mentioned that I was interested in Adobe Lightroom if they carried that. He didn't know. And that's about the time he figured out they didn't actually have any laptops in stock.

Bestbuy was just across the street (yes. Office Depot and Circuit City on one side of the street and Bestbuy on the other. I parked at Office Depot and didn't have to get back in the car to check the other stores). Bestbuy had a better selection and more competent sales associates. I was ignored for a while there as well, but it gave me a chance to check out the new MacBooks which I would be interested in if they weren't a bit overpriced - and the speakers seemed to be pretty crappy (except on the pro model). But I got all 3 display models playing the same song in iTunes with pretty good sync and all at full volume. I was a bit rougher with the notebook PCs here than at CCity and eventually got a sales associate to actually try to sell something - hm, they really must have been busy because you usually can't walk past a Bestbuy without being accosted by a sales associate trying to sell you something. So I pointed out my first choice. It happened to be in the "Business Center" section of the store. The guy was like, "I don't know if I can sell you that, you may have to buy it through the business center - but I'll check." He checked - with the assistance of another associate and they eventually managed to decipher the labels on the box to determine that they did have it in stock and could sell it to me after all. They weren't too pushy with the service plan which is pretty strange for BBuy. After CCity, I was all prepared with "I definitely do not need the extended warranty as I intend to void the warranty as soon as I get this puppy home!", but I didn't have to use it because they weren't too pushy.

I ended up with an HP Compaq 6510b (I like how HP acquired Compaq and now uses the name as a model name). Core 2 Duo T7100 with 2 gigg-a-ram. I already swapped out the 160 GB hdd with the 250 gigger that I had in an external enclosure (I was sure to get a lappy with SATA for this purpose). Before the brain transplant, I cleaned out all the pre-installed software except for the fingerprint scanner stuff (dang is that thing surprisingly awesome). The HP fingerprint software doesn't look as cool as what was on the Sony Vaio at CCity, which I investigated thoroughly. I read some description that said the fingerprint scanner could double as a scroll-wheel-type-thing, but the HP software does not have this feature. Though it does show a pretty cool graphic of your fingerprint as you scan it during the setup - it actually shows a picture of the fingerprint it just scanned rather than a generic fingerprint image - which I thought was pretty cool.

I did manage to derail the DVD drive tray within 20 minutes of ownership. No worries though - I got it back together.

I have Gentoo Linux installing on the 250 gig Hdd right now. It should be finished in a couple of days.

2007-09-08T18:53:00.000-05:00

I had to edit some kernel source to get my camera to work. It wasn't much. There's a bug in Nikon's camera firmware. It didn't make any difference in older kernels, but the recent ones handle usb storage or scsi emulation or something a bit differently so Nikon's bug is preventing the device from working properly. I searched bug reports and everything to find a solution. Most of the Nikon SLRs use the same guts, so the problem exists in all of them. The D50, D100, D70, D70s, D200, etc are all already handled properly in the kernel, but not the D40. It was a simple fix. I just had to copy the code from one of the other camera's section and change the product ID to that of the D40 along with the name and all that.

Now to compile and see if it worked.

I should probably submit a formal bug report somewhere, but that's too much work.

EVIL cameras

2007-02-11T02:36:00.000-06:00

If you want a digital camera that takes interchangeable lenses, your only option is DSLR. But perhaps not for long. Apparently several manufacturers are looking into developing Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens (EVIL) cameras. They will have no mirror or optical viewfinder. They will have an electronic viewfinder like SLR-type consumer point and shoot cameras, but lens mounts like SLRs. I have to assume that the lens mounts will be compatible with current SLR systems, though it is possible that manufacturers would design special mounts for these cameras.

"Please make accommodations for my stupidity"

2007-02-06T19:55:00.000-06:00

I was hangin out on day last week and heard a knock at the door. I was like "WTF?" 'cause nobody ever knocks on our door and I was not expecting anyone. So I answer it. It's the lady who just moved into the house across the street.

"Is that your car?" she asks.
"Yes, that is my car?" I ask.
"Would you mind moving it? We just moved in across the street and my husband almost hit [your car] backing out of our driveway."

My car is along the street on the opposite side of the road from their driveway. Granted, the street is a bit narrow, but there is legal parking on both sides of the street.

But I am now parking elsewhere because I really don't want them to hit my car when they are backing their Canyonero.

nope

2006-12-22T11:47:00.000-06:00

nah, it's not too easy to implement in blogger - they do not allow javascript in the posts. It may be possible to do something with scripts entirely outside the posts, but I'll just give up now. I may play with it a little later when I'm bored or something. It still may be possible to do what I'm intending without too much trouble.

blog tiddly

2006-12-21T20:40:00.001-06:00

I looked at the tiddlywiki source and concluded that, for my purposes, it would be easier to start from scratch.

tiddlywiki

2006-12-21T20:00:00.000-06:00

Tiddlywiki is a non-linear microcontent browsing/editing system. It is possible to implement such a system in a single html file using html, css, and javascript with no dependence on server side scripts or non-standard browser features.

I am going to attempt to incorporate a similar, but simpler system into my craziness blog. Until now, I have not altered the craziness template except to add links in the sidebar.

Mozilla will always be better

2006-12-16T00:46:00.000-06:00

I was using Mozilla when it wasn't even a blip on the radar screen of browsers. Before there was a stand alone browser project. And when the stand alone browser came out - initially called Phoenix - I started using it.

Mozilla has always been better than IE - except that at first, a lot of web pages still used "features" of IE that didn't work out as intended in Mozilla - because Mozilla tries to follow W3C standards.

Tabs were great when they first appeared - now IE has them too (or at least you can get them in IE somehow - I don't know 'cause I don't use IE). MS always copies their ideas from others - they never come up with anything innovative themselves.

Mozilla will always be ahead - it's open source so ideas come from all over the place and it's always improving. People write all kinds of extensions and ideas from the really good ones can be incorporated directly into the browser. A long time ago, I used a tab browsing plug in that added a few features to the tab capability - now I don't have to because the most useful features are now standard.

I think I used tabs in IE once and it sucked. Even when the steal features from someone else's software they always mess it up.

MS will always be copying ideas from others and Mozilla will always be innovating.

back to debian

2006-12-01T22:58:00.000-06:00

I've been using gentoo for a while now, but I've decided to switch back to Debian for my desktop. I've made the transition and it's running beautifully. I'm also using the gnome desktop environment, which I haven't used for a long time. it's all right.

I might switch my laptop over too.

Debian is the best. Gentoo's pretty good too.

Camera Rant

2006-11-07T19:38:00.000-06:00

My freakin camera can't seem to save photographs in the RAW format.

So not only does the camera's minimal white balance support suck - auto and 3 or 4 presets, no manual. But it has no RAW format to allow me to forgo in camera white balance processing. I guess I'll just have to make do with the presets - auto is useless in any moderately tricky situations - as you can see from the car seat chair pictures on (one of) my other blog(s).

It's ok - I'll get over it. The camera is capable of taking decent photos.

But due to this and some other "features" of the Kodak's I've had, I will not be buying another Kodak unless they really get with the program¹.

^{1. Note to Kodak: Easy share and a minimum of manual features is great for the average casual photographer who just wants to get some pics of the kids to send to grandma without dealing with the technical stuff. Real Photographers know how to get images from a camera card, organize their files with a real file manager, edit, print, and email photos. And I'm sure that very few real photographers use the bloated and annoying Easy Share software for this. They are not impressed with marketing garbage like "easy share" and "color science". I for one will not buy another camera with an easy share button - or one that comes with a li-ion battery, but no charger and requires the easy share dock for charging - or one that can not save in RAW format.}

Get Things Done

2006-11-04T16:41:00.000-06:00

Check this out. It's pretty amazing considering that all the code is contained in a single html file. Just save the page to your hard drive (I suggest in My Documents or somewhere similar), load it from this saved copy, and start using it. You can delete all the predefined "Tiddlers" and there are a lot of helpful Tiddlers in there to show you how to use it. You'll also have to remove deleted tiddlers from the MainMenu Tiddler and DefaltTiddlers Tiddler so they won't show up there.

I'm using it now - I'm not sure if it'll really help me with my organization problems, but it can't hurt.

My crazy brain and virtual sticky notes.

2006-10-25T18:24:00.000-05:00

I come up with great ideas all the time - at least they seem pretty good at the time. But later, when I'm trying to do something with the idea, I can't recall it. I've seen virtual sticky note programs before - you probably have - there are hundreds of them. It's a pretty simple concept and programming such a utility is not at all technically challenging.

But never before have I found such a thing to be very useful. All they serve to do is clutter up the desktop, so I'd hide them. Then forget to show them again until long after the notes have become irrelevant. So I never really used them.

But one of the desktop managers that I'm using, Xfce, includes a notepad utility (at least in the default gentoo install). So I played with it a bit, but it was mostly the same as before.

Then one night, I had finished reading/writing email for the day, closed out my chat sessions, and written my blog posts. Then I got another Idea for a blog post. Knowing that I would completely forget it the next time I would sit down to write a post, and not wanting to log back into blogger and take the time to draw the idea out into a full post, I opened a sticky note and jotted down the idea. Then I forgot about it and went to bed. A few days later, I was surprised to find the note again. It persisted through multiple log-ins and reboots. I still have not composed that post, but that is because data related to the post has become unusable - new data must be gathered before that post can be written.

But now I have 4 notes related to blog posts and other endeavours. Will I get them done? Who knows, but at least with the notes, I won't completely forget what I had been thinking.

laptop sync

2006-10-16T23:41:00.000-05:00

I wanted to be able to sync files on my desktop with my laptop. The files are accessable on the laptop over the network, but I want to have a local copy on the laptop for when I am away from my LAN and stuff.

I'm sure there's software out there to do this - probably even open source stuff with nice graphical interfaces and all. But I just wrote a simple shell script¹ to do it.

The script looks for a file named .sourcedir in the current directory and reads it to figure out the source directory. The current directory is the destination. The script then copies the subdirectories from the source to the destination skipping existing files that haven't changed - so there is no wasted traffic. And it only copies directories that already exist in the destination directory. So if I have 3 directories in the source: movies, reading, and camera; and I want to sync reading and camera, but not movies because it's too freaking huge, I'd make the empty directories camera and reading - all sub directories of these would be created and filled. But movies would be skipped over entirely.

It's simple and it's not perfect, but it works.

_{1. I like the command prompt and writing shell scripts - it's actually faster when you get used to it and if you can type decently fast - more flexible too}

Kfw Efjbyaps Iajylg.... New Keyboard Layout (Brand-Spankin' New)

2006-10-09T00:13:00.000-05:00

Why use a keyboard layout other than good, old QWERTY?

Because, QWERTY sucks.

the Colemak layout is designed to reduce repetitive strain and fatigue and to allow faster typing speeds by making the most used keys the most accessible. It's supposed to be a bit better than the Dvorak layout - follow the link to read more. It also remaps the capslock key to backspace so you don't have to reach so far for it (the backspace key is backspace too).

I've started learning it (I'm typing this with Colemak), but I'm still pretty slow with it. I've set up my laptop to use it by default, so I expect to learn it pretty fast.

No, you don't need to get a new keyboard, just install the keymap - available for all the popular operating systems. I'm going to switch the keys around on my laptop to match the keymap.

Colemak is in the running for the CAPSoff Million Dollar Keyboard competition - they basically want to do away with the capslock key. Most of the submissions are just variations of the standard QWERTY keyboard with the capslock key replaced by some other commonly used key (like cntrl).

And here's a cool keyboard that uses little LCD's inside the keys for custom layouts and games and stuff. I don't think it's available yet, but it looks pretty cool.

Why should I use your software?

2006-10-06T21:10:00.000-05:00

I've been into the open source software scene for several years now. The degree of documentation for open source projects ranges from almost none to very thorough. The best documented ones have well designed and helpful web pages with complete descriptions, screen shots, and clear documentation. Some have good web pages and pretty good documentation, but some features aren't covered well. Some have almost no documentation available.

I've installed, configured, and played with many open source projects. And one thing that's missing from the web pages, even of the very well documented ones, is a clear paragraph telling why I should choose their software over some other open source option. They have a paragraph describing what it is and does - if rather vaguely, but almost never do I see a comparison to a similar project. I think this could be quite helpful because there are a lot of open source projects which provide the same or similar functionality. And the only method that I've found to decide which to use is to try them all and see which one works best in my situation.

A big example is GNOME or KDE - both provide a Graphical Desktop Environment as well as common applications, but how is a newcomer to decide between them unless he tries them both.

I have found that GNOME has pretty vague documentation about the various applications that are associated with it.

I guess I like KDE a little better than GNOME, but I don't use either. I use Xfce on my desktop and fvwm-crystal on my laptop - I might switch to fvwm-crystal for the desktop too. I like it, but it's not like most Desktop Environments - it takes some getting used to. xfce is more "normal".

Ok, I've wandered a bit from the intended topic:
Open Source Developers - Tell me why I should choose your software over some other open source project with the same or similar functionality.

Web Page Design

2006-09-30T00:31:00.000-05:00

The HTML Hell Page - read it before you design your next webpage - especially watch those stupid Microsoft "smart quotes"

The Virtues of the Command Prompt

2006-09-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

I've always been a fan of the command prompt - even before I got into linux and knew nothing what so ever about *nix or the Bourne Again Shell. (I'm not going to bother creating links for any of this stuff - you know how to use google)

Maybe it's because I was introduced to computers back when MS-DOS was still king of the PC and Windows was just his court jester or something (sorry - the analogy is failing me here). I dabbled with batch file "programming" (if you can call it that), but the documentation that was included at that time didn't get into very advanced topics. The internet wasn't available to me then, but I learned a little from reading the install scripts that came with various games (I was like "Wow, I didn't know you could do that in a batch file" (the term "script" was foreign to me at the time))

Now-a-days the MS command prompt is pretty much useless. I suppose that professional System Administrators might use it now and then for some administration task. When I was still a MS drone I'd use it occasionally to launch some program or diagnose some network issue or something - but scripting or doing any real work was really not possible - I've heard that MS is creating a new command line interface for Vista that's supposed to be more like unix without actually being unix - it sounds pretty craptacular. (If MS wants an operating system that is unix, they should just make their own flavor (it wouldn't be that hard, they'd just have to buy out some company that already develops some proprietary flavor) and stop half-ass copying ideas from real unices)

Now I use linux (I'm currently running gentoo on both of my computers - and I've been thinking of setting up some old junk with it too). I quickly warmed up to the *nix command line environment and I prefer it over whatever gui tools might be available. And I just realized one of the reasons for this - I pretty much thought that it was just my nerdish nature, but a few practical benefits have been discovered.

Scripting is awesome - you can write pretty elaborate applications in nothing more than bash scripts - I guess that it's sometimes used to prototype C applications.

But even without scripting, I'd still use the command prompt a lot - My preferred text editor is nano inside a terminal emulator - the only disadvantage to this is that you can't paste things from the window manager's clipboard. And I do all my system maintenance from the command line.

This (System Maintenance) is how it occurred to me that the command line is superior. There are gui tools available for portage (the gentoo system management system), but I doubt they'd be as flexible as the command line tools.

Say you want to perform some routine system maintenance - update all the packages on the system and install some new ones. In gentoo you have to run emerge --sync to update the portage snapshot and emerge -u world to update all packages currently installed on the system then emerge <1st> [<2nd>] - all of these steps take a while to perform and usually involve downloading a bunch of stuff from the internet. The portage system is one reason that I like gentoo. So with the gui tools - I'd have to open the portage gui, start the sync and when that's done start the update and when that's done start the other packages. So sure, you don't have to remember any complicated text commands, but you have to wait for each step to complete to start the next.

On the command line, I just use the following single command to do it all
emerge --sync && emerge -u world && emerge somepackage
those &&'s tell bash to wait for the previous command to complete successfully before executing the next - if one command fails, then the whole chain will terminate and you'll have to find out what went wrong - which will be pretty easy since the output of the failed command along with some hopefully useful error messages will be right there on the terminal above the awaiting command promp.

As far as remembering all those complicated commands - well, they're really not all that complicated and the names are usually pretty intuitive. I don't find it any harder to remember commands than to remember where to find some windows system setting buried in the control panel or some other place. When using windows, I usually find it easier to hit Win+R to get the run dialog and type the command corresponding to the program I want to run (calc or notepad). It's faster and easier than digging through 3 or 4 layers of the start menu to find the stinking shortcut - that is assuming that I don't have a desktop or quick launch icon setup for it - which few people do for calc or notepad (or cmd).

Stupid ISP

2006-09-16T23:18:00.000-05:00

My ISP runs my connection through a router on their end - so I can't get any kind of port forwarding to work at all - it's a real pain. This means that it's not possible to make my ftp server accessible over the Internet - among other things (Bit torrent, etc)

nfs

2006-09-16T23:06:00.000-05:00

My desktop is using my big hdd to host the operating system because my other hdd crashed (read all about it in an earlier post). So all my music and junk is on the desktop and I can't stick the drive back into the usb enclosure without killing the desktop. This makes it a bit difficult to listen to my music and stuff on my laptop. I installed an ftp server on the laptop so that I could do file transfers - this is a pain though because it requires that I transfer any files I want to access from the laptop onto the laptop's hdd. I did this for a while, but it gets old. So I installed the nfs server on my desktop - now I can mount the desktop directories on the laptop and access them as if they were local directories with read/write access. It's sweet. My transfer rates are pretty consistent at about 3 Mb/s. It should be faster, but the wireless router is a piece of crap and my link quality is only 51/94 even though the router is in the next room. I could run some cat5 to the laptop to get a better transfer rate if such is ever required. 3 Mb/s is fast enough to watch a high quality dvd rip though, so I'm fine with it.

Wireless sucks

2006-09-12T21:57:00.000-05:00

Wireless ethernet pretty much sucks - it's a pain in the but to get it working properly - the connection software all sucks and the hardware mostly sucks.

Plain old wired ethernet is a breeze to setup and it always works unless someone unplugs the cable or cuts it with a shovel or something. It's fast and it always works (unless you happen to have some really crappy hardware).

If 802.11(b/g) weren't so stinking convenient when it IS working, I wouldn't bother.

Internet from the gas company? and More evidence that Micro$oft just plain sucks

2006-09-11T18:08:00.000-05:00

Some people somewhere may soon be able to connect to the internet through their gas pipes - probably not me or you.

Microsoft sucks (already knew that - but here's some more evidence). A recent patch from MS introduces a bug which causes data corruption in compressed files - since WinXP seems to default to file compression in some cases (I keep seeing all those blue filenames on other people's computers and I doubt that these people even know what compression is, let alone know how to enable it - though the OS may trick them into it somehow) well this means that a lot of people are going to loose a lot of data. I'm not sure if this is an update or something you have to choose to install, but I suspect update - aren't you glad that all the people who are always calling you for computer help have automatic updates enabled.

setback

2006-09-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess I shouldn't have used the crashed harddrive - it's unreliable - it crashed again - reiserfs doesn't seem to be very tolerant of a bad drive.

So I'm reinstalling linux on suzie again. It wouldn't be so bad if I was using an easy to install distro like Ubuntu, but I'm using Gentoo, which compiles everything from source - it takes a while, but it's worth it. Just make sure that the harddrive is good first.

AMD64 reincarnated

2006-09-09T23:41:00.000-05:00

My amd64 box, suzie, has been raised from it's ashes - actually, there was never anything wrong with it, I just stopped using it and took the HD's out to use in my external enclosure. One of the HD's crashed and I'm using this as the primary master in the new setup. I reformatted it and it seems to be working fine. I did get some I/O errors when running resize_reiserfs on the root partition - but that was before I had anything installed on it. Other than that, I've had no I/O errors so far.

I'm running linux - native 64 bit binaries of course, with 32 bit "emulation" support. The 32 bit capabilities are nice because some software (Openoffice for instance) won't compile to 64 bit.

I'm running xfce4 for the desktop environment (my laptop, kate, is using fluxbox) - no I can't stand all those all-in-one-trying-to-be-the-ms-windows-environment-but-better desktop environments (all two of them that is)

I'm planning to do an mencoder speed test - suzie vs. kate with the same video. It's not very objective - kate's a 32 bit P4 laptop, suzie's a 64 bit Athlon desktop - suzie is a year older - suzie has 1Gb ram, kate has 768Mb ram. I'm betting that suzie's faster.

I'll publish the results here when I'm done.

Know your digital media rights

2006-06-18T12:22:00.000-05:00

follow the link and watch the short film - it's all about the mpaa/riaa taking your legal rights to movies and music.

This is a real thing going on now and they are using some pretty evil methods.

MSN worm

2006-06-15T17:05:00.000-05:00

read the article and consider this: MSN Messenger is developed by the same company that is claiming that their newest operating system is the most secure piece of software ever developed. Hmm.

New profile photo

2006-06-09T23:08:00.000-05:00

I'm updating my profile photo - this post is just to get the thing onto the server.

ubuntu, mplayer/mencoder, and ripperX

2006-06-08T00:14:00.000-05:00

ubuntu is pretty cool. It's by far the best desktop linux distro for the average guy. You gotta jump some hoops to get it to do things like rip cds and dvds, but you can get it. I had to fix some of my dvd ripping scripts, but it's all working now.

mplayer is by far the best video player available for any platform. I use it's twin mencoder for all my ripping - the resulting videos won't play well in anything but mplayer - I suppose that I could learn how to make it create media player friendly files, but I have no motivation to do so. I save some time on the encoding by just copying the audio stream directly from the dvd instead of re-encoding it. I could save a few megabytes if I did re-encode it, but not enough to make it worth the effort. And this is one of the main reasons that they don't play well with media player - it doesn't like to find dvd audio streams in avi files for some reason and won't play them correctly - even though it can handle the exact same streams when found on a dvd. Another thing is aspect ratio - mencoder can encode the aspect into the file, but only mplayer can read it properly. Also, if the ratio is wrong then it's possible to correct it without modifying the video file at all - just create a file specific config file for the video - if it's in the same directory as the video file then it will be parsed by mplayer and you can set the correct aspect ratio and all kinds of other stuff - volume amplification, etc.

ripperX is a cheap little cd ripper that I found for linux - it's actually just a front end for a number of other programs that handle the actual ripping and encoding and junk. It's not fancy or pretty, but it's my new favorite ripper - it has all the features that I like in a ripper and none of the annoyances of other rippers - configuration is simple and straight forward, it handles cddb lookups, the interface is simple, and it gives you a nice little pop-up window when ripping is finished (this might be considered an annoying "feature", but I'm sure it's possible to turn it off - like if I'm watching a movie or something while ripping and don't want this junk popping up). I was bummed when cdex wasn't available for linux, but ripperX is at least as good.

Re-invent email?

2006-06-02T15:06:00.000-05:00

Follow the link to the slashdot post which has a link to the original article.

The problem with email is that people are stupid and people are assholes.

Trying to fix this by changing the technology won't work.

The nice thing about email is that anyone can send a message to anyone else and all they need to know is the email address. Sure, this allows spam and all sorts of malicious emails, but it only takes a little bit of sense to combat these things (Dumbass, don't open an .exe attachment!)

Any sort of protocol level forced encryption, authentication, etc will only make email more of a pain in the ass. These things are available on top of the email protocol and there's no reason they couldn't be used without messing with the basic protocols or generic email capability.

The best way to prevent spam and other junk is to keep your email address out of spammer's hands. Don't give it out to the illegal/porn sites you're visiting every night, don't fall for the free crap scams where they "need" your email address, etc. Don't leave it on fast-food comment cards or other junk like that.

fixed firefox in ubuntu

2006-05-28T16:19:00.000-05:00

IPV6 was the problem. This doesn't work here yet. Firefox was trying to use IP version 6 instead of 4 (the one that everyone still uses). IPv6 is awesome, sure - but it doesn't work yet. So I just diabled it in firefox and now it works fine. I might still have some issues with other software trying to use it, so I may have to disable it system wide.

Anyhow, I've now found my new favorite operating system. Gentoo is still awesome, but Ubuntu is much easier to install and stuff.

ubuntu evaluation

2006-05-28T13:10:00.000-05:00

Ubuntu is pretty cool. It's a nice setup. There are a few annoyances though. Overall it's a pretty good distro - it's easy to add software and it's all setup nicely.

I'm having some problems with the internet connection. I'm using the builtin wireless network card in my laptop to connect to a wireless router connected to a DSL modem. No security on the wireless connection. It works fine under windows. It seems to work fine in ubuntu - I can download software updates and new applications through ubuntu's builtin package management system. I can ping websites. the links2 text browser works fine. Gnome's browser, galleon (which is based on mozilla), works fine. Mozilla firefox refuses to load any web pages. It's really weird because I can't seem to find anything wrong. It think it may be some configuration thing with how firefox was compiled or something. Galleon uses firefox and galleon works, but firefox doesn't. it's retarted. So, I'm just using galleon - it's pretty much the same as firefox anyway.

ubuntu

2006-05-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

I'm now running ubuntu linux on my laptop. It seems to be working pretty well so far. The wireless networking setup was a breeze.

Stupid Hotel network

2006-04-14T21:31:00.000-05:00

I'm connected to a hotel network - wired rather than wireless (which is a bit rare these days) The network does not seem to work at all when I have Zone Alarm running - I shut it down, and it works great - but totally exposed to all the crazies out there in the wild.

con

2006-03-19T23:53:00.000-06:00

Try to make a file (or directory) named con - you can't do it (if you're using some version of Microsoft Windows). This is a relic of MS-DOS still present in Windows XP. "con" is short for console and directs input/output to the console rather than a to a file.

enter copy con at the command prompt. (If you don't know how to get to the command prompt, hit start->run and enter cmd ) You'll get a cursor on a blank line. Now start typing. Enter whatever you'd like. Notice the strange results. This is very similar to the unix "cat" command. hit CTRL+C to get back to the prompt.

Now enter copy con newfile.txt at the command prompt. Whatever you type will be output to newfile.txt instead of echo'd back to the screen. Type CTRL+Z then hit ENTER to stop input. Now open newfile.txt to see what you've created.

If you are very familiar with the linux command line, then you can stop reading now as the following will all seem very basic.

This is all very basic stuff for linux command line use - but it's much more intuitive in linux. In win/dos if you hit cntrl+c to end input, the OS will throw away everything you've written and say that 0 files were copied - in linux ctrl+c will end input, but the file will be created. also in linux the command would be cat > newfile.txt - cat is much more functional than copy - especially when paired with other command line tools. "cat" is short for "concatenate" as it was originally intended to concatenate two or more files cat file1 file2 > newfile will do just that - newfile will contain the contents of file2 tacked to the end of the contents of file1. It is also commonly used to list short text files cat anyfile will display the contents of "anyfile" on the screen. cat file1 file2 will display the contents of both files on the screen (you could specify as many files as you'd like - you aren't limited to 2).

Of course cat is not the best tool for displaying files. more will stop at the end of each screenfull to allow you to read a screen at a time - cat will just keep going as if you could read it as fast as it can output it. of course there is an even better tool than more - it is called less. less not only waits for you to read each screenfull, it allows you to scroll backwards and read something from a previous screen.

If any of this sounds new and exciting to you, then you need to get a copy of linux and start playing with it - maybe on some old piece-of-junk computer you've got sitting in a closet somewhere - linux will fit and run nicely on it if you find the right distribution. Don't even install a GUI the first time you install it. Just install the very basic packages and play around with the command prompt - it'll help of you have another computer nearby connected to the internet so that you can go to the linux documentation project website and read up. I suggest the Linux User's Guide (LUG) - which is quite outdated, but still very relevant because the command line and unix filesystem basics remain rather constant. It's not that complicated or hard to learn. Think of how hard it must seem to a kindegardener learning to read - he may want to give up and just look at the pictures, but reading really isn't that hard and it's definitely worth the initial effort.

desktop shortcut to resart the DNS client

2006-03-19T16:20:00.000-06:00

I described the problem and solution in an earlier post. The next step of course is to make a desktop shortcut to take care of everything instead of manually restarting the service from the computer management tool. So I made a batch file to do it. Here are the contents

net stop dnscache
net start dnscache

That's it, it works. Now whenever I sit down to a stale windows session in which the dhcp client is probably not functioning properly, I can just hit the icon on my desktop to restart it. It doesn't even matter if the dhcp client does happen to be working - there's no harm in restarting it.

I had to edit this post because when I first wrote it, I mistakenly said that it was the DHCP client (I wrote it in a rush or something) and had dhcp instead of dnscache in the batch file listing. Now it's right.

I hate Apple too.

2006-03-17T22:10:00.000-06:00

Stupid Quicktime. I gotta download their player because some idiots out there post videos only in Quiktime format. That's not a problem. I don't mind letting a few megabytes of storage go to another video player. But the stupid thing tries to take over my computer. You can't just get the Quicktime player anymore. You gotta get the iTunes client which includes the Quicktime player. I don't want iTunes. I don't plan to ever buy anything from iTunes. I don't have an iPod. I don't want music in their proprietary media format. I don't want the iTunes client. Then the stupid Quicktime plugin sets itself as the default for just about every type of file I might try to view in my web browser - not just videos, not just media files - all sorts of stuff. It wanted to make itself the default player for everything, but fortunately warned me and gave me the option to alter this durring installation. Why does nearly every piece of software do this - assume that you want to use it for every type of file that it could possibly open. I don't want Photoshop (or some other editor) to be the default application for jpeg files when it takes 10 minutes to load while the windows image viewer (which does suck, but it's what I use anyway) usually loads in less than a second and only occationally takes 10 minutes to load (these times are of course exagerated (only slightly)).

Firefox has this neat feature where it can automatically download a file and open it with a real application - hey that's a great idea, why don't we play mp3's in winamp instead of some stupid plugin. I just gotta make it enque the songs instead of playing them immediately.

Windows XP's "DNS Client" service is a POS

2006-03-17T21:31:00.000-06:00

I've been having this problem with my laptop for quite some time now. I'd had it for a few weeks before I'd noticed the problem, so it may have been caused by a windows update or something.

Every time the computer goes into hibernation and back out and perhaps when it's been on for quite a while (overnight) without hibernating, the stupid internet connection stops working.

At first I thought it was related to my wireless network card because that's what I was using when it first happened, but now I'm not sure that the wireless card has anything to do with it.

The quick solution (and the only thing that seemed to work) was to reboot the machine. There was no problem with the internet connection itself - the wireless icon in the system tray shows a good connection and activity, whenever trying to access a web page, it would show a small amount of traffic, but the browser would fail to find the page. Renewing the connection obviously did no good. I thought that it might be some bug with Zone Alarm whereby it wouldn't let any traffic through. Disabling Zone Alarm did no good. I could access other computers on the network as well as the wireless router configuration - but getting out into the wild proved impossible without reboot.

Just now, I soved it. It was obviously some problem with windows itself, not the browser, not the firewall, etc. So I opened up the Services section of the Computer Management tool and started restarting internet related services one by one. I pretty much started at the top of the list and began working my way down with every service that has anything to do with internet. I only had to restart two however - the first one is not important because it didn't do any good. The second one happened to be the DNS Client and I thought "yeah, if it's anything it's probably this. I didn't know any popular web site IP's off the top of my head, so I hadn't tried connecting to any IP directly, but it would explain why windows networking and accessing the router by IP address would work and nothing else (some other internet services would work as well, but now that I think of it, they also would have been using IPs rather than URLs). I restartd the service, switched to firefox which I'd already had open in the background, hit the home button, and the page loaded in about 0.3 seconds. A-Ha! it was the DNS client. I don't have to reboot to resolve this issue anymore. So then I cruised over to blogger.com and started writing this post.

Stupid Microsoft.

I-Swarm Microbots

2006-02-25T23:03:00.000-06:00

This is the future. It'll allow for more intricate and complicated mechanical design (for cars, aircraft, everything) because engineers will not need to allow for human access for repair and maintenance. The microbots will be able to get into smaller areas and such. Anyone who's ever worked on an engine knows how hard it is to access all the bolts and stuff. It'll also allow designs that just aren't possible or practical to build otherwise. Microbot welders could get into the engine and weld things together instead of bolting. A huge team of microbots could assemble very intricate machines that would otherwise be impossible to build.

A new logo for craziness

2006-01-22T18:24:00.000-06:00

it's just the old logo, but the colors are inverted.

It's time you were introduced to Linux

2006-01-12T22:12:00.000-06:00

Follow the link. Read the linux intro.

The Advancement of *nix

2006-01-02T20:57:00.000-06:00

*nix refers to any Unix-like system - a UNIX derivative or clone. I am specifically referring to the state of open source Unices including GNU/Linux. I am mainly referring to GNU/Linux1, but these days, many open source Unices share a lot of code and so develop in parallel.

Anyhow, This rate of development is fairly rapid. It seems that the capabilities of the GNU/Linux Desktop are advancing much faster than their proprietary counterparts (You know, like the OS that nearly everyone uses). Linux has been usable as a Desktop system for more than a few years now, complete with Internet browsing, word processing, spreadsheeting, desktop publishing, photo editing, etc. And with many options for specific applications in any of these areas. You can even get MS Office (and a lot of other Windows apps) to run in linux with the help of CrossOver Office from Codeweavers. And most of the MS Office open source alternatives, like Open Office, are compatible with MS Office Documents.

I would not be surprised if, eventually, Linux were to become the dominant operating system. Windows would shrivel up and blow away. The bigger Linux gets, the more developers it wins over, the more support it gets from hardware manufacturers, the faster it develops - the faster it grows. Unix is a superior design from a security and stability point of view, Linux is an open source *nix, there's no reason not to use it and develop it.

Look at the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Firefox is gaining popularity fast - without Television ads, web pop-ups/banners/etc - with basically no advertising except word of mouth. Today it seems that 15%-20%2 of web surfers use Firefox as their primary browser. It used to be that I'd occationally run into a page that didn't display properly in Firefox, but these days it has not been a problem at all. Three or Four years ago, Firefox was nearly unheard of. I think that this same thing will happen with Open Office, the gimp, and many other open source applications. When people start to realize that they're using more open source than proprietary software, maybe they'll realize that this stuff runs just as well if not better in Linux.

Games seem to be a big reason for a lot of people to hang on to Windows. This is starting to change as well. Game developers are starting to include Linux ports/installers (Unreal Tournament 2004). They still don't run quite as well in Linux as in Windows, but this is because of a lack of, or poor support for accelerated graphics drivers in linux. As the developers turn to linux, the performance and compatability will get better.

My advice to hardware developers and 3rd party software developers would be to start supporting linux or get left behind.

1. If you take a look at the *nix link on the first word of the post and look at the *nix history diagram, you'll notice that GNU/Linux is the only system that is not derived from an existing Unix codebase - it is written entirely from scratch

2. These statistics are not really reliable, but they are an approximation of what I found out after some quick research. It's really a pretty hard thing to track, web browser usage.

Color Depth

2006-01-01T01:59:00.000-06:00

If you're running Windows, you probably run your desktop with a color depth of 32 bits. This 32 bit designation is a bit misleading. Only 24 bits are actually used for color, though for one reason or other, the OS may allocate 32 bits per pixel. If so, 8 of these bits are not used, but allocating a full 4 bytes per pixel may provide some sort of advantage regarding memory performance (it's about alignment or something), though at my resolution of 1280x800, that's nearly a full megabyte of wasted memory.

In 24bit and the so called 32bit modes, one byte is designated for each of the three colors - red, green, and blue. This gives 256 possible values for each color (0-255) and all of the colors that your computer displays are some combination of these 3 colors. This is simple stuff here, it's what I learned in elementary school art class about primary colors along with a little elementary math - only the actual colors are the inverse of what we learned about in art class and the reason for this is the topic for another post that I'm probably not going to write - do a google search if you really care to know.

The point is that there is effectively no difference between 24bit and 32bit color modes.

But my (partially) automatically generated xorg.conf file had an entry for 32 bit color mode in the server section - this is rather uncommon as 24bit mode is usually the max. I know that there is no difference, but I changed the config to default to 32 bit mode instead of 24. And this change caused an unexpected problem which you can read about in my Gentoo Tweaking post (which I wrote before this one, but you'll probably be reading this one first). So I switched the config back to 24 bit mode and everything works just fine.

You can stop reading now unless you're not sure that there is no difference between 32 and 24 bit color modes.

There really is no difference, they each designate 1 byte (8 bits) to each of the primary colors (8x3=24). I think that Windows just calls them both 32bit mode and makes no distinction - or just wastes the 1 Mb or so in unused bytes.

Now, 16 bit mode is a bit interesting. You still have 3 primary colors, no simple way around that, but 3 does not divide evenly into 16. Some cards/drivers handle this by using 5 bits for red, 5 bits for blue, and 6 bits for green (huh? - yup). Some others handle it by using 5 bits for each with 1 bit for padding.

So, I just use 24 bit mode - it works great.

Tweaking the Gentoo setup on my laptop

2006-01-01T01:27:00.000-06:00

I got gentoo linux all setup on my laptop now. I'm running KDE for my desktop environment, Mozilla Firefox for my web browser, Open Office for word processor/spreadsheet/etc; I got wireless networking working (maybe the most difficult part), I got my touchpad working (though it needs some tweaking as it moves very slow while the usb mouse moves normally), I got all sorts of media players installed and the flash player for firefox, sound works, my GUI runs at the LCD's native resolution of 1280x800, I got some True Type fonts installed, everything's up and running beautifully.

The touchpad was simple - I just needed to change one setting in the system BIOS so that linux could detect it (some driver conflict or something)

The wireless networking was not so simple - There are many options when it comes to wireless networking drivers and software. And there are a lot of inconsistencies between different wireless cards. Add to that the increased complexity of wireless configuration options (WEP, WPA, preferred AP's, DHCP, etc) and it's a big mess. In linux, you can not only setup an ad-hoc network, you can setup the computer to act as a regular Access Point, assuming the card supports it, this just adds a bit more complexity.

I had to read two different guides on wireless networking, each with a completely different tool and configuration setup, in order to arrive at some blend of the two that works on my setup. I got it working first from the command line with a few settings in gentoo's distribution specific wireless configuration file. Then I tried to get it to start automatically at boot. It didn't work the first time. Then I couldn't get it working from the command line either. On top of that, after I rebooted to see if it would work automatically, Xorg (very crucial for the GUI) didn't want to run either. So I played around in the wireless config file some more. The GUI thing was puzzling me because I didn't remember making any changes to that configuration. In fact, I discovered, I had changed something the night before and hadn't thought anything of it - I also hadn't rebooted until I went to test the wireless setup, so the change did not manifest itself until the inopportune moment. It turned out to be rather trivial - I had changed the display depth to a value that, as it turns out, is not supported by my card/driver combination (This is worthy of a separate post. I'll probably write it right away, you'll probably have read it by the time you read this.)

So I got the wireless working from the command line again, crossed my fingers, and rebooted. It worked. I'm not sure which of the configuration changes that I made caused it to work - I'll have to play with that a bit more sometime. If I ever have to connect to a WPA network, I'll definitely have to make some changes. WEP works just fine, though the only way that I know of to specify a WEP key is to edit the wireless config file. I'm sure there's some command line way to do it. Yes, there are GUI tools available for that sort of thing, but they would be useless before the GUI is loaded, the setup I got now will be connected as soon as linux gets to the console login (No, I do not have the GUI load automatically at boot, changing this is a trivial matter - one command).

Still Compiling

2005-12-29T17:11:00.000-06:00

Well, I got some GUI up, but I'm still compiling some applications (Mozilla Firefox, Open Office, and mplayer). I could have had it all done yesterday, but I'm trying to get the latest versions of these things, which means that there are some broken dependencies, so I gotta sort those out and recompile some other stuff. It seems to be going smoothly now though.

I'm writing this from a simple GUI running the Konqueror web browser. I got KDE installed Though I'm not using it yet because this is my first attempt at running X and I just wanted to make sure that it works right before loading KDE. X seems to be working right, I got it running at my laptop LCD's native resolution of 1280x800 (wxga) using the open source ATI Radeon drivers. I'm using a USB mouse right now, and I should have the touchpad working on the next reboot. The mouse scroll wheel works. I got some truetype fonts installed. Everything's looking pretty good.

Time to reboot and start KDE

Re-linux the laptop

2005-12-27T23:29:00.000-06:00

I played with Underground Desktop for a while - it's a good little distro, but I decided that it's not for me. I'd recommend it to anyone with fairly standard hardware (desktop pc and wired internet connection) and little or no previous linux experience.

Underground has a nice graphical installer that walks you through all the steps required to install. It's a little more complicated than installing Windows (well, if you ignore all the stupid stuff you have to go through to install windows - like activation and the stupid first time tour junk). The extra complication is necessitated by the greater flexibility of the operating system - GNU/Linux is not just for home/desktop computers - it can be used in embedded devices like cell phones, PDAs, network routers, or pretty much anything with a processor that requires software and an operating system (these things do all have operating systems, it's just that we don't usually think about it - and we shouldn't have to. I bet you'll be thinking about it if your PDA is running Windows CE and crashing all the time). So most linux distributions don't assume too much - if you're installing a distro like Underground Desktop, it's assumed that you're going to be using it as a desktop operating system, so they make a few assumptions - that you'll want a Graphical User Interface, for example. But lots of things are left up to the user to determine - like disk partitioning, perhaps package (software) selection.

However, I've been using gentoo linux on my desktop(current and previous) for quite a while now and decided that it has a few features that I'd like to have on my laptop as well. The reason I didn't install it in the first place is the need for an internet connection to install (you can get a basic setup without it, but it's not much) and the need for wireless networking on my laptop. Of course you gan get wireless working in gentoo, but I thought that maybe the more standardized distros would have the wireless networking setup a no-brainer. KNOPPIX has wireless networking setup so that it just works, but Underground is not quite to that point - too bad KNOPPIX isn't quite suitable for everyday use.

Gentoo is just about the most flexible of all the distros that I've tried - most of the packaged ones like Fedora, SUSE, Slackware, Underground, etc have a set collection of pre-installed software (Desktop Environment, Web Browser, etc)(and, of course, a mechanism to install anything else after the OS is installed). Gentoo has a very basic base setup - it doesn't even install a GUI (you gotta choose one and install it yourself). Gentoo doesn't even choose simple things like system logger or cron daemon for you - these are things that you don't ever think about (or know about) if you're just using a packaged distro in GUI mode - a real Unix hacker will know about them (and they're about the only ones who'd really care). Gentoo makes software installation/updating pretty easy (if you're comfortable with a command line), and everything is compiled from source - so it take a while, but it's more customizable.

Oh yeah, that's another reason I was going with Underground instead of Gentoo - Gentoo takes forever to install - I'm still installing it in fact. I don't even have a GUI installed. I'm writing this post from a console based web browser (links). It looks kinda funny. It's all text and no graphics. Page navigations is a bit funny. But Gentoo does give you a really nice system once it's all installed (if you know what you're doing).

On my last desktop, I didn't want to install one of the standard Desktop Environments like KDE or Gnome because the hardware was a bit out-dated and those things are kind-of resource intensive, so I installed a fast little Environment known as xfce4. It was sweet at the time, lightweight and fast, but it also looked pretty good and had some nice features. I don't use it anymore because my hardware these days can easily run KDE (though I turn off all the fancy animated menus and junk).

Well, that's about enough for this post - my pre-gui install updates are still compiling (I'm updating the base install to the most current before installing the gui).

Web browsing with Links is fun, you should try it - I think there's a windows version.

Oh, I am in console mode, but I'm not running at 80x25. I've compiled the kernel with svga support and it's running at somethingx50. I don't know the exact resolution but I got 50 lines. It's probably more than 160 characters wide because I got a widescreen lcd on my laptop. whatever it's running at, it's a 1 to 1 pixel ratio from the console font to my laptop's native resolution (1280x800) - which is nice because running a console at 80x25 looks funny because it doesn't map evenly onto the native resolution so there are a few pixel rows that are wider and it gives a strange fuzzy look to the letters. They're nice and crisp now though.

A little hard drive corruption

2005-12-22T19:59:00.000-06:00

So I resized my partition and it crashed half-way through. I recovered it and did not notice any problems right away - windows booted after running scandisk which did some repairs. Windows seemed to be running normally and everything. I didn't notice any data corruption (I do have a backup just in case).

Then I tried to use my map software. It was totally messed up. The GPS part works fine. It shows where you are, shows the roads, and everything. But it can't find a city if you type it into the route start/stop bars. You can move the map around and find the city, then set it as your start or stop. It also can't seem to find any restaurants or anything.

Alright, this must be caused by some data corruption because it happened right after resizing the partition. That's easy, I got a backup. The problem is that I backed it up to a ReiserFS partition (which is greek to windows). And linux can't reliably write to a (piece of crap Microsoft) ntfs partition. That's not really a problem though because I have a flash drive that's fat32 which both can read and write. But there's another problem. The flash drive is 1 Gb. The map data is 1.6 Gb. I could do it in a few steps, but there's a better way. Instead of using the flash drive, I got rfstool which lets you read a reiserfs partition from windows (It's pretty crude - you can't browse it like a regular windows file system - all access is through a command line tool, but it works) And it worked - the map sofware seems to be working correctly now.

New colorization method

2005-12-18T21:26:00.000-06:00

Software in development to colorize photos and movies. It looks pretty cool. They have some samples that have been colored, but I don't think there is any demo or anything to download.

Linux on the laptop

2005-12-14T21:08:00.000-06:00

I finally installed linux(a probably outdated underground desktop distro) on my laptop.

It was a bit tricky because I didn't want to reinstall Windows (I need Windows for my GPS software), but the windows partition is taking up the entire harddrive.

So I had to resize the windows filesystem, then repartition the harddrive to allow space for the linux partition, then install linux to the freed space.

I resized the windows(ntfs) filesystem with the ntfsresize tool in the open source ntfstools package. This is a bit dangerous (I first backed it up of course) because if the system crashes (and mine did - I left it sitting on the bed and it overheated and shut off because it couldn't get airflow through the fans on the bottom) it's possible to destroy the filesystem. Thankfully, it wasn't damaged much, so I could repair it and continue with the resizing operation.

Now the filesystem is smaller, but the underlying partition still takes up the entire drive. So now I have to change this, and at the same time create the linux partitions (a second one for swap). This is done with the linux fdisk program. It's very simple, but you gotta make sure that the new ntfs partition starts at the exact same place and is large enough for the filesystem.

I was crossing my fingers when I first booted to Windows after doing all this - it ran scandisk without any problems (ntfsresize sets the flag to run scandisk). Then booted and everything was fine.

Then I installed linux - piece of cake with the Underground Desktop install disk. The only problem is that it's just a basic setup. I gotta download updates and several applications. I'm not worried about getting this all done in a hurry. Just getting linux installed without destroying the existing windows installation was the tricky part. The rest will probably take a while since I'm working some long hours and don't have much time to play around with it.

Boron instead of Hydrogen

2005-12-04T21:15:00.000-06:00

Hydrogen, because it does not occur naturally in large quantities, is not really an energy source, but simply an energy carrier. It takes energy to produce hydrogen; the energy drawn from the hydrogen, because of inefficiencies is less than that required to produce it. So the source of the energy used to produce the hydrogen is very significant. If the source involves the burning of hydrocarbons, it is no more environmentally friendly than conventional gasoline burning cars - except that the release of dangerous substances may be better controlled and the design of hydrogen burning cars may be simplified (no catalytic converter for example). Only when produced by nuclear power, solar power, or another environmentally friendly alternative can the use of hydrogen as an automotive fuel be more environmentally friendly.

This article proposes the use of Boron as an energy carrier. It's a very large article, but here are a few key points.

-Boron is not combustible under normal conditions, so it is much safer than hydrocarbons or hydrogen which can ignite in an accident or from a leak.

-Boron carries a rather large amount of energy by weight.

-The byproducts of boron combustion are solids which can be collected and transformed back into boron.

Read the article.

A car that makes it's own fuel?

2005-12-04T20:33:00.000-06:00

You may have read about the Israeli company that's developing a car that produces hydrogen from water and (aluminum or magnesium).

The article claims that the car's performance will be equivalent to that of a conventional gasoline burning car. This seems hard for me to believe. The article states that the metal coil required for equivalent range would weigh some 200 lbs. What about the water? Unless the system does not emit the water produced from burning and instead recycles it through the "metal-steam combustor" to again split off the hydrogen, I figure they need about 38 gallons of water to provide the range of a 15 gallon gas tank. If they do recycle the water, the same hydrogen atoms will be used over and over again - combined with oxygen being drawn from the air. In this case the size of the required water reserve is insignificant and the car will actually gain weight as it oxidizes the metal, effectively combining it with the oxygen drawn from the air.

Also there must be some method for initializing the metal-steam combustor. The system requires intense heat to oxidize the metal. This heat is apparently produced by the burning of the hydrogen. There must be some fuel reserve to get the system up to the necessary temperature to oxidize the metal. There could be some kind of hydrogen holding tank which is refilled during oxidation, but it seems that the size of such reserve must be fairly large to allow the system to reach the proper temperature. Also, if the car is shut off before the reserve has refilled, it would be possible to deplete the reserve to the point that the car can't run long enough to begin the oxidation. The other possibility is an electric heater that is powered by a battery which is recharged by an alternator. I am assuming that the metal-steam combustor is very small so that the mass of the combustor could be heated by the electric heater rather rapidly and with relatively low drain on the battery. Perhaps it would be roughly equivalent to the drain required to start a conventional engine. In this case, there may still need to be a hydrogen reserve, but it wouldn't need to be very large.

The main problem that I have with this approach is the efficiency of the oxidation process. How much energy is required to cause the metal to oxidize (with steam alone) at a rate that will produce enough hydrogen to run the whole system and power the car. If it takes more energy to oxidize the metal than is obtained from the burning of the hydrogen obtained from the oxidation, then the system is impossible. It seems, to me, like a fancy perpetual motion scheme.

I could be wrong - I need to do some research on oxidation.

There is very little information (on the internet) about the company Engineuity R&D LTD, the technology they are developing, or the state of the development.

A problem with Hibernation

2005-11-28T19:19:00.000-06:00

I like the Hibernate feature on my laptop (they all have it). It loads the contents of memory onto the hard drive before shutting down so that the next time you power up, the data is copied back into memory and you resume exactly where you left off - no need for all the OS and all the other programs to reload. It's much faster than doing a full boot.

It's similar to the Suspend feature, except that suspend doesn't fully power down, just shuts down most of the hardware and keeps power supplied to the memory so that it doesn't need to be copied to the hard drive (RAM is volatile memory which means that when it looses power, the contents are lost - so stuff has to be written to the hard drive if you don't want to loose it when powering down). The problem with suspend is that it is still running the battery down, if at a much slower rate. A laptop can be left in hibernate mode for weeks without running the battery down at all.

I set my power button to initiate hibernation mode instead of shutting down. I like this setup because it's easy for the power button to get hit accidentally - especially with little kids running around. If it goes into hibernation, nothing will be lost (like if I'm working in a spreadsheet or image editor or something).

And my laptop automatically powers up when the lid is opened if it's in hibernation.

The only problem with this is that [most popular operating system] sucks and needs a fresh reboot every now and then. This isn't much of a problem as far as hibernation is concerned though, since it's a simple matter to do a full reboot from the shutdown menu at any time.

Though a problem does arise, I found out, if you add some RAM while in hibernation. This is no problem from a hardware perspective because the laptop is fully powered down. You could even pull the battery if necessary. Increasing the RAM size, however, is an action not anticipated by the folks who designed the hibernation feature of [the popular operating system]. When I rebooted the system and it began the restore from hibernation procedure (copying the contents from the hard drive back to the memory), it reached the end of the progress meter and promptly locked up. I had to reboot and it gave me a menu to choose whether to try to resume from hibernation or to do a full boot. I tried the hibernation restore again, and it locked up again. At this point, I felt a small spark of panic ("Oh no, maybe I really messed it up"), but then I did a full reboot and everything was fine - it was correctly reporting the memory size, and I haven't had any memory related problems since.

A change in RAM size is simply not a possibility that is anticipated by the OS.

Save the "Net"

2005-11-17T21:42:00.000-06:00

Here's a good article for everyone who likes the internet the way it is - a free and open environment for business and culture.

Don't let it be taken over by money/power hungry corporations

Without a doubt, the best screen saver

2005-11-02T22:40:00.000-06:00

Forget about Flying toasters and the matrix green screen saver.

As you know, I've been using Linux for quite some time now. Xscreensaver is the standard screen saver application for many Linux systems. Xscreensaver includes a lot of cool screen savers, but none compares to IFS.

IFS is a screen saver based on IFS fractals - a method of generating the fractals fern, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle, and others. (here's a nice page showing the correlation between the Sierpinski triangle and Pascal's triangle).

The IFS screen saver displays a colorful ifs image which then explodes in brilliance, the pixel components spinning and drawing back together into a completely different ifs image which then explodes and forms into a new one. It looks very cool, especially if you have ever played with (or written) any ifs fractal generating programs and know the math and algorithms behind it. Even if you haven't, it's very spectacular.

There may be similar screen savers out there, but the Xscreensaver IFS is the most impressive screen saver I have ever seen. It's like a mathematical fireworks display.

Xscreensaver is not available for Windows. Don't even think about it. It's only for Unix operating systems. (ah, Mac OS X is Unix based. I believe that it is available for Mac - with a few limitations) See the disclaimer on the Xscreensaver webpage.

Xscreensaver also has the best Matrix (like the movie) screen saver that I've ever seen.

So if you want to see it, get rid of that Microsoft crap and get a real operating system.

Palindrome primes code

2005-10-31T19:59:00.000-06:00

Here's the code. I wrote this while just playing around with python and I never intended it for use in any serious project, so don't critisize the code too much.

This is the code that generates and tests palindromes, printing them if they're prime:


def palinprimes(size=5):
 print
 linelen=0
 len2=size/2
 len1=len2+size%2
 fdigs="1379"
 odigs="0123456789"
 omax = len(odigs)
 for fn in range(len(fdigs)):
  fstr = fdigs[fn]
  odone=False
  ocount=[0]*(len1-1)
  while not odone:
   ostr=""
   if len1 > 1:
    for on in ocount:
     ostr = ostr + odigs[on]
    index=len(ocount)-1
    ocount[index] = ocount[index]+1
    while ocount[index] >= omax:
     ocount[index]=0
     index = index -1
     if index < 0:
      odone = True
      break
     ocount[index] = ocount[index]+1 
   else:
    odone = True
   numstr=fstr+ostr
   for index in range(len1-len2,len1):
    numstr = numstr + numstr[len1-index-1]
   if primes.primetest(long(numstr)):
    linelen=linelen+len(numstr)+1
    if linelen>80:
     print
     linelen=len(numstr)+1
    print numstr,

The one parameter that this function takes (defualts to 5) sets the size (in digits) of palindromes to test. It will test all the palindromes of that size. I don't make any guarantees that my function will generate every palindrome, or that it will correctly find the ones that are prime. But I am quite certain that it does both.

Here is the code to test the prime numbers - it's my entire prime test module including 4 functions (not all of which are required for the palindrome function, but I include them here anyway.)



from math import sqrt
primelist=[2,3,5,7]

def addprime(min=1):
 candidate=primelist[-1]
 if min==1:
  min=primelist[-1]+2
 while min >= primelist[-1]:
  primefound=0
  while primefound==0 :
   isprime=1
   candidate=candidate+2
   index=0
   while isprime == 1 and primelist[index] ** 2 <= candidate :
    if candidate % primelist[index] == 0:
     isprime = 0
    index = index + 1
   if isprime == 1:
    primefound = 1
    primelist.append(candidate)


def listprimes(start,end):
 if primelist[-1] ** 2 < end:
  print "Expanding test list"
  addprime(int(sqrt(end)))
 print
 linelen=0
 num = start
 if num%2 == 0:
  num = num + 1
 while num <= end:
  isprime=1
  index=0
  while isprime == 1 and primelist[index] ** 2 <= num:
   if num % primelist[index] == 0:
    isprime = 0
   index = index+1
  if isprime == 1:
   pstr=str(num)
   linelen = linelen + len(pstr) + 1
   if linelen > 80:
    print
    linelen=len(pstr) + 1
   print pstr,
  num = num + 2

def primetest(num):
 if num < primelist[-1]:
  return primelist.count(num) > 0
 
 if primelist[-1] ** 2 < num:
  addprime(int(sqrt(num)))
 for x in primelist:
  if num % x == 0:
   return False
 return True

def primesofdigits(maxdigits=5):
 addprime(int("9"*maxdigits))
 rlist=[]
 digits=1
 index=0
 count=0
 while digits <= maxdigits and index < len(primelist):
  if len(str(primelist[index])) == digits:
   count = count + 1
  else:
   rlist.append(count)
   count = 1
   digits = digits + 1
  index = index + 1
 return rlist

This is my python code, you should be able to copy it into a file named "primes.py" and import it into the python interpreter (import primes). If you have any problems with the code here and can't make any sense of it, just email me (If you have my email address). Or make your request in a comment and I'll see what I can do for you.

This blog layout is not good for code listing, so make of it what you can.

I had the palindrome function in another module, but you should be able to add it to the primes.py module and call it as primes.palinprimes(5) You may have to change "primes.primetest(long(numstr))" to "primetest(long(numstr))" but it should work as is.

forget SMB

2005-10-31T19:24:00.000-06:00

having trouble networking your windows machines? or maybe a linux machine to a windows machine using Samba? Forget it!

SMB doesn't work anymore. It's bloated with different versions in each version of windows. You can't even network two Windows XP machines running the same version without bashing your head against the wall. It's a pain in the neck.

Just run an anonymous FTP server. Linux, Windows, it doesn't matter. You can connect to it from any computer, you can run it on any computer.

There are many, many ftp clients out there (you can just use windows explorer in a pinch).

There are also many ftp servers to choose from. I am currently using proftp. It works, I don't have any complaints. It's free (open source). Configuration may be a bit tricky, but once the server is setup, connecting to it is foolproof.

For configuration, look for some howto's on the internet or something (I didn't find any very good ones, but I figured out enough on my own (and with the proftp man pages) to get it working)

If you are running an ftp server that is visible on the internet, you will want to read about the security concerns that are involved with running such a setup. (it's probably safer than using any of those peer-to-peer networks out there).

Next time: run your own http server.

Prime Palindromes

2005-09-14T17:49:00.000-05:00

I was playing with an old prime number listing algorithm that I discovered back in Highschool. It's pretty simple and isn't going to find any undiscovered primes or anything like that. But playing with it, I decided to list off all the palindromes that are prime within a certain range (say, less than 10 digits).

In a very short time, I realized that there are no prime number palindromes with an even number of digits except for 11. I was puzzled for a while though because this seemed rather odd. I played with it for a while and soon discovered that this is because all even digit palindromes are divisible by 11. It's kind of odd, but it's true. I even tested all the 10, 12, and 14 digit palindromes - usually my algorithm would take quite a while to test this many numbers, but because they're all divisible by 11 (rather early in the list of primes), the algorithm stops there and moves on to the next candidate. It takes just a second or two to test all the 14 digit palindromes when testing a 14 digit prime my take a second itself.

I'll post the code here if anyone's interested

Macromedia sucks

2005-09-10T04:32:00.000-05:00

Macromedia does not support the open source community very well... They also don't seem to support recent advancements in micro processor technology very well either.

Macromedia makes a flashplayer for linux - but that's about as far as their support of open source seems to go.

And their linux flashplayer doesn't even work if you're running an AMD Athlon 64 processor in a 64 bit environment - they don't seem to support 64 bit processors at all.

This isn't a problem for windows users because windows doesn't take advantage of the 64 bit mode of the Athlon 64. So if you're running windows, the Athlon 64 may as well be just another 32 bit processor.

There's an open source flash player that compiles fine in a 64 bit environment, but it doesn't support flash versions 5, 6, or 7.

So stop using flash for your animations, look into animated SVG's or something instead.

Colonize Mars

2005-09-07T16:56:00.000-05:00

The company 4Frontiers plans to colonize and mine mars by 2025.

Link to the Wired article.

That Steve Balmer, He's a really nice guy

2005-09-06T21:01:00.000-05:00

Yeah, right. I hate Microsoft and everything they are/produce.

follow the link to a nice Slashdot article about how nice a guy Balmer is.

MusicBrainz

2005-09-05T22:43:00.000-05:00

Ever wish there was something like the CDDB for MP3's. Well, if you know what I'm talking about, then you probably do wish there was something.

Well, now there is. It's called MusicBrainz. It uses TRM's (acustic fingerprints) to identify any music file and label it.

I haven't tried it yet, but I will soon and I'll let you know.

Oh, that madman music manager - that's only for linux.

The musicbrainz client that I'll probably try is called "qmbtagger". there's a windows based client on the musicbrainz site and one for mac os x as well

Linux Lasts longer

2005-08-31T18:25:00.000-05:00

A fresh MS Windows install (without the latest patches) can be compromized in only a few hours, while linux can withstand hacker attacks for months "right out of the box"

follow the link for the article

Five reasons not to use linux

2005-08-31T18:16:00.000-05:00

Follow the link for a good Linux vs. Windows article.

Unix programming

2005-08-11T23:26:00.000-05:00

Refer to my post "A little light reading" in my personal blog. I am reading Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment.

This is probably the best programming book I've ever read. It is completely changing the way I think about computer programming and logic.

This is not a book to teach C programming, it assumes that the reader is familiar with C syntax and such. It introduces the Unix Environment (with quite a steep learning curve at first). And covers every aspect of the Unix system. It might be quite a difficult read without some working knowledge of Unix.

UNIX is not just an operating system. It is a complete philosophy of software design - far superior (in my opinion) to any other.

UNIX code is highly portable across many different hardware architectures and OS implimentations. It supports heavy code re-use through dynamic linking. It supports very efficient inter-process communication and process spawning. It is intuitive and uncluttered

UNIX is the future.

madman

2005-08-01T13:09:00.000-05:00

Follow the link to the madman, "the one music manager to rule them all"

I haven't tried it yet, but Intend to. It looks pretty good.

Why Gentoo

2005-07-26T20:43:00.000-05:00

There is no shortage of linux distributions to choose from, so why do I prefer Gentoo Linux?

My linux experience started with a RedHat 5 cd that someone gave me. I managed to get it installed on some old PC I had. I was installed, I managed to log in, and sat staring at the command prompt with absolutely no idea what to do next or what this system was capable of. I tried a few DOS commands (I learned to use a computer in the DOS/Win3.x days), realized that this was a totally different animal, and finally figured a few things out. I don't remember exaclty what I got it to do, but I don't think I had any GUI. I did figure out the shutdown command and I didn't wait too long before installing Windows 98 back onto the drive.

A while later, I read the Linux User's Guide, a bunch of other linux documentation on the internet, and bought the Debian GNU/Linux Bible. So I got Debian installed and running on an old pc from the Good Will. I learned a lot with this setup, but didn't have the resources/interrest to push it to the limit - I didn't run any server software, it wasn't networked to anything, dial-up internet only.

Then I tried a bunch of other big-name distros - Redhat, Suse, Slackware, etc. I didn't find one that I really liked and when I would find something I liked in one, it wouldn't be in the others - also the setup/configuration procedures varied quite a bit from one to the other.

One day I stumbled upon the linux-from-scratch webpage and was mystified. I did it. I installed linux on my computer entirely from scratch - everything was compiled from the source code. This means that everything is custom-tailored to my system and needs. I liked the idea and eventually had a nice GUI and everything. But without a nice package management system, installing and updating sofware was a bit of a pain - broken dependencies and all.

Then I found Gentoo - Gentoo compiles everything from source just like LFS and it has a very nice package management system that installs new software from source and updates existing software. It was amazing. It takes a bit longer to install stuff because it has to be compiled from the source, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It also supports Athlon64, so when I built my Athlon64 system, I compiled everything from source to 64-bit code. My operating system runs natively at 64 bit, which Windows XP is unable to do. Up to now, I've been dual-booting linux and Windows XP in the same box, but the Athlon64 is a pure linux box. I only use Windows junk when I'm working on someone else's computer.

Some new (to me) linux distros

2005-07-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

I've been looking at a few linux distributions that I'd like to try out. I really like Gentoo for my primary desktop installation, and KNOPPIX is really great - I can't wait to try out the Knoppix 4.0 DVD when it's finally available for download.

However, I've been reading about a few other distro's that look like they could be pretty usefull.

DSL - Damn Small Linux: It's another liveCD linux with a few advantages over knoppix for some uses - it's smaller, can fit on a USB flash drive, it's easier to customize, etc.

Puppy Linux - It's a lot like DSL. It's supposed to offer a lot of software in a very small space (under 64Mb)

GeeXboX - This is a very small liveCD designed for the sole purpose of media playback (Divx,etc).

Underground Desktop - This is a Desktop distribution based on Debian, but with a nice graphical installer - may be good for the curious newcomer to unix/linux.

I haven't used any of these distros yet, but I'm downloading them to try out. I'll post my reviews of each as I use them.

Linux Rocks

2005-07-23T22:51:00.000-05:00

Linux Rocks. I miss it. I'm using Bob's Laptop with Windows XP and I really miss my linux machine.

Reading ReiserFS in Windows

2005-07-23T21:07:00.000-05:00

I left my PC in MN, but I did bring one of the harddrives to WA. It has lots of entertaining data on it, but there is a problem. The harddrive is formatted with a reiserFS file system which I use for most of my linux partitions - it has a number of advantages over most conventional filesystems.

MS Windows takes one look at the rieserFS partition and says "I don't know what that is - it's greek to me." (Windows only recognizes 2 types of filesystems - FAT32/16 and NTFS - both designed by Microsoft - big surprise there -- They have never shown any effort to support any other type of filesystem)

I found some software called rfstool to allow you to copy stuff from a reiserfs partition in windows. It pretty much just lets you list the contents and copy files one by one (also directories recursively). You can't access a file directly from reiserfs - it would be nice, but I haven't found a tool to do that yet.

Away from my box

2005-07-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

While I'm in Tacoma, I will be away from my Athlon64 box because I didn't want to pack it on the plane. I will probably bring it with me on the next part of my vacation to Desert Lake, Ontario because we're driving and stopping at my place in Minnesota on the way.

Update on my Athlon64

2005-06-28T21:19:00.000-05:00

I have a fully usable, 100% Microsoft free operating system now running on my Athlon 64. This processor has never had a single line of Microsoft code run through it. And though the harddrives have been used as storage in a Windows Machine, they have never had a Windows operating system installed on them.

The System can do everything I need it to. In fact, many tasks are much easier and/or faster with open source software than with the proprietary windows-based junk.

I get get pictures from my Kodak CX4310 digital camera with gphoto2, edit photos with the gimp, watch dvds with mplayer, encode to divx with mencoder, burn cds/dvds with cdrtools and the K3b burning frontend, browse the web with Mozilla Firefox, create documents with Koffice, and much more.

Though most games are a hassle to get running under linux, I have installed Unreal Tournament 2004 - which includes a linux installer. It runs perfectly.

transfering photos from my camera is very easy - I wrote a script to handle creating a new directory, transfering the pics from the camera, and renaming them to my liking.

I never have any trouble with spyware or viruses. My computer always boots up quickly and runs right all the time - this hasn't always been the case as it's possible to really mess up a linux system if you don't know what you're doing - I've usually been able to figure it out though - I've installed and played with many different linux distributions - it's the best way to learn.

Mac on Intel and Open Source in Norway

2005-06-28T21:04:00.000-05:00

Apple is planning to begin using intel-based hardware in new Macintosh computers.

The Norwegian government announced that it will begin using open source data formats exclusively.

Both of these things are bad for Microsoft (which is good for the rest of us). Mac on intel is just one less reason to not use a Mac. Apple is also much more friendly with the open source community which is good for them and good for us. And the Norwegian proposal to use only open formats is one more victory for the open source community and very bad for Microsoft with all of their closed, propietary formats.

I predict that Microsoft's evil reign over the world of desktop computing is nearing its end. People are getting fed up with virus/spyware hassles, broken software, extravagant anti-piracy schemes, overpriced and under-developed software, etc.

Open source software is getting better every day. Linux is a real operating system, fully compliant with Unix specifications and infinitely flexible. It's free to hobbyists for everything from embedded devices to large servers.

I have been Microsoft free for over a year and recommend it to everyone.

No Tech Post

2005-05-07T19:58:00.000-05:00

There's no tech post, 'cause I haven't had time to tinker with my PC for a while and haven't much kept up on the latest news. But, uh, read the latest edition of CPU magazine and check out slashdot for some cool happenings in the tech world.

New Athlon 64

2005-03-15T01:03:00.000-06:00

Don't you love impulse buying. I was in CompUSA because a friend wanted a laptop, so as I was wandering the store, those little impulse buys started filling my cart.

I got:
1. An Asus A8N-SLI motherboard (very nice - with PCI-x, SATA, Athlon 64 socket 939, Dual Gigabit LAN, and more)
2. An Athlon 64 3200+ socket 939
3. 2 sticks 512 Mb DDR 400
4. A Super Lanboy case - all aluminum with case window and screw tray - front usb and audio connectors - includes carrying straps.
5. Antec TruePower 430w power supply (the nicest PS I've ever owned).
6. PCI Geforce FX 5500 dual vga - I don't care about gaming performance, but I do want multi-head capabilities.

I already had one 120 Gb harddrive, one 160 Gb harddrive, and a dual layer dvd burner to complete the system.

Now I just have to install linux on the thing.

5 days

2005-03-03T17:57:00.000-06:00

Uptime: 5 days, 20 hours, 36 minutes. I just haven't bothered to shut down for a while.

This PIII 550 is pretty slow for Divx encoding.

Cyrix hotplate

2005-02-22T21:02:00.000-06:00

Follow the link to find instructions on building your own hotplate from some old Cyrix processors.

Geek Poetry

2005-02-18T20:12:00.000-06:00

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/724a/

Geek poetry on a T-Shirt... it's kinda funny if you're a geek. It may not make much sense to you if you're not a geek.

Uptime update

2005-02-15T21:21:00.000-06:00

Sorry, I'm not leaving my linux box on 24/7 anymore because it's kinda loud and keeps people up at night - or something.

Anyways, linux rocks.

Skype

2005-02-01T18:17:00.000-06:00

Skype is a free telephony, chat, file transfer program. It works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It can only call other Skype users, but there's a pay service to allow calls to any telephone.

Linux Uptime: 5 days, 3 hours, 14 minutes

3 days

2005-01-30T22:06:00.000-06:00

uptime: 3 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes

ftp server

2005-01-30T21:28:00.000-06:00

I setup an ftp server on my linux machine today. It was easy. I wanted to be able to transfer files from Tim's Windows box to my Linux box, but it's a pain to try to connect to a windows SMB network using linux - it is possible, but not easy. SMB is not a standardized protocol, it changes with every version and update to windows and is pretty poorly designed in the first place.

With the ftp server running on my linux machine, I can use any ftp client on the network to connect to the machine, log in with my user account and access my home directory - read and write access. I can setup anonymous login and all kinds of other neat stuff.

I am only running it to allow transfers on my local network, not through the internet, so my router blocks ftp connections.

I may set it up for public access in the near future though.

linux uptime

2005-01-29T19:30:00.000-06:00

Uptime: 2 days, 1 hour, 42 minutes

Linux is great. Use it, learn it, love it.

Whoops

2005-01-27T18:17:00.000-06:00

I forgot that I was going to keep track of my uptime. I shut it down lastnight when I went to bed, but I'll keep track starting now.

Current uptime: 29 minutes

qiv

2005-01-24T21:18:00.000-06:00

I was a fan of the ACDSee image viewer back when I was an MS Slave. ACDSee was pretty awesome compared to some of the alternative image viewers - MS's picture and fax viewer just sucks in comparison. ACDSee can do full screen, auto resizing, slideshow, folder thumbnail view with preview pane, it included a simple, but useful editor. And it was pretty fast.

I spent quite some time looking for a nice image viewer for linux with similar features to ACDSee. I don't care about the editing feature because I have other tools for that, but I at least wanted something that could do a slideshow of a directory and allow you to scroll forward and backward through all the images in a directory.

My mistake was that I was looking for a GUI based package with an ACDSee look and feel. There are a few, but they are a bit lacking in features and interface.

I had looked at qiv a bit, but dismissed it because it doesn't have any GUI to speak of. It's made to be used from the command line and displays the images in a simple window (or fullscreen).

When I did decide to give it a try, I knew that I'd found my new favorite image viewer. Yes, it's started from the command line and has a million option switches, but I wrote two bash aliases in my .bashrc file - one to interactively view a set of images fullscreen, and another to start a fullscreen slideshow. I prefer to use an xterm rather than a GUI file manager, so it's natural for me to start the command from within an xterm - I usually have a few open just for such purposes.

Don't fear the Command Line Interface (CLI). If you learn to comfortably use a CLI, you will find that you can actually do things faster than you can with a GUI. You need to learn to type of course, but when you get used to a CLI, the mouse seems slow and barbaric by comparison. I do like GUI's - they're pretty and they let you view graphical web pages, videos, images, have multiple windows open at a time, etc. But it is certainly counterproductive to rely entirely (or nearly so) on the GUI. In Windows, you can't do much of anything without the GUI and it's very limiting.

Unix CLI tools are designed for scripting... You don't have to type a million commands with a million options every time you want to do something. If it's something that you might do often, then you can write a script to do it. Then you start the script with a much simpler command and it does all the work for you. Or if it's as simple as setting a few options, you can create an alias with those options, making the command much simpler.

CLI commands can be started from a GUI as well - you can make a launcher on your Desktop or Window Manager's menu or set your file manager to launch the command for certain file types, etc.

Now I think that qiv is actually better than ACDSee. It doesn't have any GUI overhead, it can be controlled interactively from the keyboard to do just about anything that ACDSee could do (but it doesn't have a thumbnail view). And it can be started with specific options from the command line and incorporated into scripts. And it's fast.

Learn to use the CLI and keyboard shortcuts - they're much faster than stumbling around with the mouse. When you become comfortable with these, you will realize that you don't need the GUI for everything anymore.

In order to become comfortable with the CLI, you have to use Linux or another Unix. If you try to use the Windows XP command line (cmd), you will not experience the power of CLI - it's just not there. Windows is designed to be a strictly GUI environment and the CLI isn't good for much other than System Administration - and not much good for that either. Unix was designed from the beginning for efficient CLI usage and it's only improved with time.

There's been a lot of drive to create Windows-like GUI software and "look and feel" for linux so that non-Unix people will accept it. Instead, people should learn to use the CLI and to understand more of what's going on when they're using a computer (A lot of people don't know the difference between system memory and hard drive storage). Commercial GUI software tends to assume that the user is stupid and doesn't have a clue - well, if that's the only kind of software a person is exposed to, then that person will, effectively, be stupid and not have a clue about computers.

Ah, enough ranting. Commercial software sucks. Go with Open Source.

More fun with Linux networking

2005-01-24T20:44:00.000-06:00

Broke my network again. Fixed it by editing one configuration file (two lines). I accidentally replaced my net config file durring an update - my fault, not the update software's. It would have been fine if I had a dhcp client installed, but I don't 'cause I don't like using dhcp. I'm static all the way, baby!

Messed up my xorg.conf file and had to fix it as well. Just one line and I knew which one right away from reading the output from the failed startx command.

I also broke some libraries required for qiv and mplayer. Fixed them - it took a bit longer because I had actually unintsalled them and had to recompile.

The only reason I found config errors is because I rebooted after trying to fix the libraries. It didn't do me any good to reboot and I didn't have to reboot to fix it. It must be some residual instict from the old days with Windows. My uptime was like 3 days and I could be going on 4 if I hadn't needlessly rebooted.

I'm going to keep track of my uptime and post it here every once in a while.

current uptime: 3 hours, 53 minutes.

Aaaah, that annoying bell

2005-01-18T21:40:00.000-06:00

my linux pc sounds the bell to indicate alerts durring software compiling, but this is very annoying - the thing's beeping all the time because the setup is brand new and I'm still installing all kinds of stuff (nearly all compiled from source). It's been annoying my roommates as well.

My first instinct was to perform a speakerectomy, but while preping the patient for surgery, I realized that the speaker was soldered to the motherboard - the operation would require tools that I don't have at the moment if the patient was to have a good chance of survival.

So, I had to fall back on software therapy using escape sequences. The treatment seems to be working, but will require a reset to each virtual terminal to become permanent.

Kodak CX4310 on Linux

2005-01-18T19:35:00.000-06:00

I use Linux. It rocks. I just setup a new computer and want to use it to get the photos from my digital camera. I know that this is possible and not too difficult because I've done it before (gphoto2 and gtkam). I got all the software setup and my camera plugged in, but it still didn't work. I found the problem within 2 minutes of reading the gphoto manual - you can't have any usb camera drivers loaded in th kernel - you must let gphoto handle the drivers itself. Ah Ha, I had compiled with Kodak DC2xx drivers because I thought I might need them. I just have to recompile my kernel without it and then it'll work. Then I can email my photos to people.

Built a new computer

2005-01-16T19:10:00.000-06:00

Used Pentium 550 system: $155 at a used computer store
Old 14" monitor: $7 at a local Thrift Store
Old Keyboard: $5 at same Thrift Store
Not using MS Windows: Priceless

Gentoo linux: free and compiled from source code

Gentoo takes a while to install because everything is compiled locally. But it's a pretty good linux distribution - it's pretty easy to manage and everything.

GNU-Darwin

2004-12-23T21:32:00.000-06:00

When Apple decided to make OS X a Unix clone, they wanted to make the underlying Unix system open source. The GNU-Darwin project is a combination of Apple's unix and the GNU operating system (also used by Linux) - and there is a PC port as well.

Dillo web browser

2004-12-23T21:28:00.000-06:00

small, light weight web browser. open source of course. Don't think that there's a Windows port.

techie fiction update.

2004-12-20T20:29:00.000-06:00

Uhm, not like humanoid robots or anthropomorphized robots - just ordinary autonomous mining machines. I want to get it very technically accurate though, so I gotta do some heavy research first.

Techie Fiction

2004-12-20T20:25:00.000-06:00

I want to start a fiction blog - a techie fiction blog. I think it'll probably be about deep-space mining robots.

The Art Of Unix Programming

2004-12-20T20:10:00.000-06:00

The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond is a very good book to learn about the Unix design in general as well as programming for Unix. (here Unix includes all flavors of Unix - notably Linux).

It discusses design issues of Unix and other Operating Systems.

It's a good book for anyone who thinks that MS Windows is a piece of junk and wants to know why. This book shows specific points where the design of Windows falls short(in reguards to security and reliability) and why it can't be fixed without breaking backwards compatability.

It discusses open-source software design and how it encourages better, more reliable software.

In general, Unix is awesome and everyone should scrap WinDoze in favor of Linux.

It just keeps getting worse.

2004-12-05T18:29:00.000-06:00

I remember back when most people could use Microsoft Windows without any major problems for years at a stretch. Now it seems that everyone is dealing with serious problems most of the time. They also seem to have a lot to do with Norton Antivirus.

I like to blame Microsoft for most of the problem. It may also partly be Symantec's fault, but they're trying to write security software for a piece of junk operating system so they can't be blamed too much.

Another factor is the huge increase in viruses, spyware, and the like. But this can also be attributed to Microsoft's lame software. They just make it way to easy for people to maliciously exploit the operating system.

got a new(to me) pentium

2004-10-28T03:33:00.000-05:00

yes, that's "pentium", not "Pentium 4" or even "Pentium 3". It's a 200 Mhz P1. 32 Mb RAM. No Harddrive.

I plan to stick a 8 gig HD in there and maybe use it for a router or something. Or just play some old DOS games on it. I'll need to get the DOS drivers for the integrated audio though - which means that I'll have to figure out what the audio chipset is and all that.

I already have all the dos games setup on a 400mb HD that I picked up a while ago. I'd setup a 100Mhz Pentium with a bunch of old games and given it to my brother. I put 2 hd's in there a 500 and a 400, but all the games don't come close to filling the 500, so I copied them all over to the 400 and kept it.

I stuck the 400 in a non-outdated computer and burned all the games along with dosbox to a cd for playing on faster computers. It works pretty well. A lot of the stuff will even run directly from the cd - no need to copy it to the hd first.

While setting up the hd's with all the games and trying to copy large directories in DOS on a 100Mhz Pentium (and probably ATA-33 HD), I was reminded that MS-DOS really is a piece of junk operating system. Much of my command line work has been in linux lately, so I really miss some of the features which DOS is lacking of - like the ability to recursively copy several directories without typing a seperate command for each one or instead writing a very long "for ... in ... do ..." command and wanting to kill the fool who came up with the syntax (for copy, xcopy, and for/in/do)

And what is with dos's copy command.... it can't handle recursive copies at all. Is the operating system so poorly designed that they have to have a seperate program (xcopy is a seperate executable) just to offer recursive copying? And if you think the copy command is bad, just take a look at the move command - what a worthless piece of junk that is. It's barely more functional than rename - I think it may be just another alias for rename in fact.

I'll have to see if DOSEmu can handle soundblaster emulation very well.

Here is some junk I discovered

2004-10-13T23:52:00.000-05:00

A bunch of random junk.

QuickTime and RealPlayer Alternatives: Don't use those annoying players anymore. Get some alternatives from this site.

Mplayer: This is an opensource media player which will play any format video, but probably isn't as user friendly as the above ones. It's open source. If you don't like the windows version from mplayerhq.hu, then you can just do a google search for other windows builds of it. There are some with nice GUI's.

1-4a Rename: an intelligent file renaming program. Fix all those bad/inconsistent mp3 filenames - And other filetypes as well (jpg's, etc)

HooverDesk: A windows desktop replacement - there are alternatives to the MS Windows look and feel.

RegSeeker: A nice windows registry editor/checker/etc. From the HoverDesk People - also with other freeware on the same page.

Adobe Reader Speed-Up: Tired of waiting for Acrobat Reader to load - this'll speed things up.

None of these things are open source as far as I know, but they're all usefull and free little programs. Most of them are found in the October '04 issue of PC World

Programming again?

2004-08-27T13:53:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking of getting into programming again (C,C++, and that stuff).

But I still don't own a computer. John's giving me some old parts though. I can probably scrounge one up.

BitTorrent

2004-08-27T13:44:00.000-05:00

BitTorrent is a file distribution system similar to peer-to-peer systems (like Kazaa and eDonkey), but which requires a specific provider for a file (like FTP/HTTP). It distributes the bandwidth across the network. Everyone downloading is also uploading to someone else. The main server distributes different parts of the file to everyone so that they can then share the different parts with each other rather than getting it all from the main server.

Basically, you can download stuff really fast and you can share large files without killing your bandwidth.

There's no search client or central server. It doesn't allow any kind of file sharing more than a regular http server would.

Gmail invitations

2004-08-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

I have some Gmail invitations available if anyone wants one, let me know.

It's worth it just for the web interface (much better than Yahoo's) and the text-only context relevant advertisements (gotta have ads for a free service you know.)

Some LiveCD links.

2004-08-13T00:31:00.000-05:00

PCLinuxOS - just another linux liveCD
Flonix - fits on a usb drive or mini cd
Morphix - just another linux liveCD
Feather Linux - fits on a 64Mb usb thumb
Damn Small Linux - another business card linux
The Perfect Desktop - Gnome+Debian wiki
Gnoppix - Gnome Knoppix
dyne:bolic - looks like a pretty good one

KNOPPIX

2004-08-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

This is one of the best linux live CD's I've ever seen - In fact, I'm using it to post this right now.

A live CD is a cd-rom which contains a complete operating system and other software. It runs from the CD and doesn't require a harddrive. It's nice because you can get a familiar environment on any computer anywhere.

KNOPPIX runs well on every computer I've ever tried it on. It detects all the important hardware (video card, ethernet, etc). Connects the the internet using DHCP if you have an ethernet connected Cable modem, DSL modem, or any other broadband connection on a network using DHCP.

I haven't tried printing from KNOPPIX, but I believe that it will detect and use most printers.

It has a lot of software (about 1700 Mb compressed to fit onto a single CD-Rom). There's the web browser Mozilla, the Desktop Publisher Scribus (can make PDF's), The GIMP (kinda like Photoshop). It uses the KDE desktop environment (with lots of eye candy - truely transparent menus and mouse cursor). I'm using version 3.3 which is kinda old (3.4 is available now), but it's very stable and capable of everything I need it to do (uh, browse the web... I don't need a computer, why don't I just get a web enabled cell phone or something - oh yeah, it takes forever to type on those little numerical pads - not good for blog posting)

slashdot

2004-08-09T22:28:00.000-05:00

Slashdot is news for nerds. It's a lot of computer related stuff, and other stuff that nerds might find interresting.