Apr
29
Last nite I downloaded the business card CD edition of the Debian stable net-install CD. I love having an excuse to use those business card CDs!
What I like about this (and wonder why Ubuntu doesn’t offer a net-install CD) is 1) its super light. Anything small enough for a business card CD is impressive to me. I’ve got DSL in my planner as well. 2) When I can download the packages via mirrors.xmission.com and Utopia I get everything VERY fast. I think my average download was ~12Mbps. Gotta love in-network Utopia downloads.
For any of you familiar with both Debian and Ubuntu. Is there any drastic differences in the two that I should know? I’m really familiar with Ubuntu and, so far, they seem similar enough. I’m just curious if there are areas where Ubuntu really forked off.
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Apr
28
Darwin Award?
Filed Under Randomness | Leave a Comment
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Darwin Awards. People who show us why ’survival of the fittest’ is as true as its ever been. Well, I propose we put one together for the PC world. I’m drawing a blank on appropriate names, but I nominate myself for this first prize.
My Desktop has been randomly locking up lately & I haven’t been sure why. I was suspicious that it had something to do with testing Dapper Beta, but my two other machines running Dapper have no such problems. I noticed today that the case was pretty warm so I thought I’d look into the heat.
Well, moron-that-I-am, I realized that when I replaced the fan on the heat sink I put it in upside down! The fan has been sucking air off of the heatsink instead of what it should be doing. Hmm, I wonder why its been getting warm?
I’m glad that it hasn’t done any permanent damage (none that I’m aware of).
At this point I’ve reversed the fan, drilled some holes in the case & I’m going to mount a large fan in the panel. This thing is going to more closely resemble a wind tunnel than a PC when I’m done but it sure wont be locking up!
Apr
28
For those that do coding regularly and have any need to collaborate you should check out Pastebin. It’s a sweet little code-collaboration app based on .php that allows you to paste snippets of code to share with others.
The cool thing about this pastebin (there are a few variations) is that this allows for syntax highlighting depending on the type of code. Whether its php, ruby or bash (and MANY more) this’ll allow you to highlight correctly.
The only thing I found lacking in this pastebin is file attachment function. I understand the developer not wanting to include that on his public app–his storage and bandwidth would go thru the roof–but it would be a nice option on a private pastebin.
I’m going to play around with it, try to add the attachment function, fail, and complain about it in my next post. 
Apr
28
Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 Beta 2
Filed Under Development | Leave a Comment
The Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu teams are proud to present a second Beta release of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Edubuntu 6.06 LTS, codenamed “Dapper Drake”. This release corrects some serious flaws in the installer present on the Desktop CD in the first Beta release. Although thetext-mode install CD also forms part of this release, it has not been modified since Beta 1.
An updated Xubuntu release is also in preparation and will be announced shortly.
Downloads:
(Ubuntu)
http://releases.ubuntu.com
http://releases.ubuntu.com
Please download using Bittorrent if possible.
To upgrade from Ubuntu 5.10 to Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Beta 2, follow these
instructions:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com
The final version of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS is expected to be released in June. At
that time, we will mail pressed Desktop CDs free of charge.
Changes from 6.06 LTS Beta 1
—————————-
* If the Desktop CD installer crashes, a signal handling issue in Beta
1 meant that it was possible for its subprocesses to run wild, which
was reported to damage partition tables in some cases (#40464). This
has been corrected.
* A number of crashes in the Desktop CD installer have been fixed,
including a keyboard selector crash when a country without a default
keyboard was chosen (#40658), a Kubuntu crash on entering a
non-ASCII name (#40666), a language selector crash when choosing
certain languages (#41132), and a Kubuntu crash in partitioning for
certain languages (#41621). If the installer still crashes, it will
now try to provide useful information that we can use to fix the
problem, so please use this release in preference to any earlier
one.
* Atheros wireless network cards are now usable after installation
“,1] ); //–>http://releases.ubuntu.com/6.06/ (Ubuntu)
http://releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/6.06/ (Kubuntu)
http://releases.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/6.06/ (Edubuntu)
The final version of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS is expected to be released in June. At that time, we will mail pressed Desktop CDs free of charge.
If anyone is sharing the .torrents remember to update to this release.
Apr
28
Update: Wireless is working
Filed Under Development | Leave a Comment
So I didn’t get to bed until past 1:00am last nite but I did get wireless working in Dapper Beta 2.
I finally used the bcm43xx-fwcutter package and used the included script found at: /usr/share/bcm43xx-fwcutter/install_bcm43xx_firmware.sh.
I also added a little script to handle some of the oddities included in the new setup. Note: I do not use WPA/WEP on my network.
#!/bin/bash
###########
interface=wlan0
broadcast=havana
sudo ifconfig eth0 down
sudo modprobe bcm43xx
# setting wireless device parameters
sudo ifconfig $interface up
sudo iwconfig $interface essid $broadcast
sudo iwconfig $interface mode managed
sudo iwconfig $interface key off
sudo dhclient $interface
(yes, I changed my /dev to wlan0 from eth1 in /etc/iftab)
Apr
27
Let’s have some suggestions
Filed Under Development | 1 Comment
Continuing from a previous entry I’m trying to decide what to do with my driveless (is that a term?) notebook. Its a decent machine (HP Pavillion ze1210) but the HDD recently crashed. I’ve been running DSL 2.2b on it, but haven’t used it too much yet. I’m not sure what the best use for it would be.
What suggestions does the wide world have? Live-CD based router? Firewall? Email/Web console? I hate to just let it sit here but I’m not sure what to use it for 
Speaking of which I still need to put Orphan and Mini-Me to work as well. Yes, I named the two new boxes.. I’d like something a little more exciting than a backup machine. I’ve got two of those already.
Apr
27
Dapper Woes
Filed Under Linux | 2 Comments
Tonite I tried yet again to enable wireless networking in Ubuntu Dapper 6.06. I have been using it w/o a hitch since v5.04 but, for whatever reason, it doesn’t work in 6.06. I’ve tried Flight 3, 4, 5, 6, Beta & Beta 2. No luck. I don’t know what they’ve changed but its quite a step back in my mind.
I’ve tried ndiswrapper, which I’ve used for months. It doesn’t seem to work.
I’ve tried the bcm43xx-fwcutter package which, supposedly, puts together the firmware info from the MS .sys file and uses the resident bcm43xx driver. It doesn’t work either.
With both of these methods I can scan & list available networks. I can see my essid, my neighbors, etc. I can display all the info about the broadcast. I just can’t recieve and IP. I R E A L L Y hope this is fixed by the final release. I’d hate to keep using 5.10 on two machines for lack of wireless support especially when so many other things have stepped up so significantly.
Apr
27
(Disclaimer: not at all ‘nerd’ related but local and fa-reakin’ hilarious)
Employees are returning to work this morning at the sight of a domestic dispute that turned violent. Police say a woman drove her SUV through a building near 700 East and 4000 South and chased down her husband. She is in jail this morning on attempted homicide charges.
Witnesses say they saw the same couple arguing in the parking lot of Woodland Towers at lunch time Wednesday. Investigators say late Wednesday afternoon Brenda White chased the man around the parking lot in her SUV.
“She just floored it, just hit her gas and went right into the building and came through,” one witness says.
Annalee Rowley, Witness: “I thought to myself she’s going to hit the building. No brakes, no nothing, just heading full speed towards the building.”
Tire marks are visible on the courtyard concrete where the woman pulled into the building, chasing the man into the lobby.
Drew Lambourne, Witness: :”I just saw broken glass everywhere and I saw the car in the lobby.”
It happened as most people were trying to head home.
The SUV went in one side of the building and came out the other. Police say, a domestic dispute went too far.
Drew Lambourne: “I heard the big boom. I heard a big boom.”
Shattered glass litters the lobby of this office tower.
Drew Lambourne, Witness: “You could not not step on glass walking out of the elevator.”
Sybil Terry, Witness: “I was in shock actually, in disbelief whether or not that was really a car coming out through the front door.”
Witnesses say this was no accident. Police say White was trying to run down her husband. They were arguing, and she chased him through the parking lot.
Lt. Chris Bertram, Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office “He was running as fast as he could trying to get away from her.”
The man ran into this building, but he still wasn’t safe. His wife drove through the lobby, and hit him. But that didn’t end it.
“She actually struck him when they got to the end of the hallway. She wasn’t able to stop in time and crashed through the front window. She actually backed up and tried to strike him again,” says Salt Lake County Sheriff’s.
By then, witnesses had called for help. They say the victim managed to hide in a closet.
Drew Lambourne: “I saw the man bleeding. He looked like he was in shock.”
They say the woman showed little emotion.
Annalee Rowley: “She just sat there in the truck as calm as could be.”
Drew Lambourne: “To me, it looked like she couldn’t believe what she had just done. She was in shock herself. She was wide-eyed.”
Witnesses are just as shocked. They say, more people could have been hurt.
Annalee Rowley: “A lot of people leave at 4. It could have been a whole lobby full of people. She could have killed someone.”
Witnesses say the man pushed a little girl out of the way, just before the SUV crashed through the building. Police aren’t sure what the argument was about, but say the couple is going through a divorce. The man suffered serious leg injuries. His wife had minor cuts and was taken to the hospital.
Apr
27
javascript to the rescue?
Filed Under Internet | 4 Comments
In a continuation from my previous post I’m still trying to find a good solution for a rotating header. I wanted to stay away from flash. Partly because I’m not very familiar with flash & I wanted to be a little more universally compatible. I’ve tried an animated .gif, which works, but its 800K! Not very dial-up compatible. Even lags a sec on my high-speed.
I’m now looking into using javascript to auto-rotate a list of graphics. I’ve done this previously in conjunction with a webcam but now don’t remember exactly how I did it. I figure this may be the most efficient solution as 1) it stays away from flash 2) is more bandwidth friendly.
EDIT: As I’m writing this I’m wondering if the javascript option really is more bandwidth compatible. I guess I’ll need to compare file sizes between all the .gifs and the animated result. If its comparable that really wont save me anything in the end. Am I avoiding flash when it may be the best solution? Ugh. I hate web design lol.
Apr
26
I’ve been working on a site for a client and, of course, he likes all of the flashy, well, flash sites out there. He wants something similar but I’m trying to stay away from flash if possible. I thought using an animated banner .gif would be close enough. What do you think? I basically need to rotate thru a number of header graphics that I put together. Not anything fancy.
Should this work well enough or will the animated .gif not give me enough customization options as far as timing, etc?
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