LUX.ET.UMBRA

Movie Review: Vantage Point

2008-07-18T13:00:00Z

Finally got to rent Vantage Point and I can tell you that I wasn't disappointed.

Strangely enough, whenever I see Dennis Quaid with a serious face, it reminds me of Harrison Ford. Crazy isn't it. And in this, he's got that serious face the entire time. The movie itself is very interesting since it begins with a television producer's perspective while she's directing the entire scene from the news command center. Amusing enough, the station is called GNN, probably a spoof off of CNN.

The secondary viewpoint is with a Secret Service agent's perspective, then rewinds and plays another perspective but adds a little more time to it, and keeps doing that from different perspectives until you finally get most of the storyline. That's when they throw you to the action and chase scenes.

While I'm not sure what sort of code names Secret Service now gives to designate the President, there were names like Eagle, and POTUS (President of the United States) thrown around by the secret agents. I assume that it actually changes for protection of the President in real life, but it was definitely interesting to see movie depictions of how they perform.

The movie itself shows that while things could ultimately go wrong sometimes, there's always someone out there that is doing the right thing and helping "save the world". One of those, be glad that there are people out there doing so, type of things. Thomas Barnes (Quaid) was one of those people. Strangely enough, during the entire film I wondered if Barnes actually had a family or not. This makes a big difference to heroes that put everything on the line since those that are willing to take more risks (aka. James Bond effect) usually do not have a family and thus no emotional ties.

Either way, the entire antiterrorism summit covered from different "vantage points" was a different style of movie and definitely kept you on the edge of your seat the entire time. Definitely recommended.

iBackup

2008-07-18T03:01:00Z

I recently used iBackup as a freeware alternative to Time Machine, since I haven't had time to go and get a Time Capsule yet. And boy does it work. You can backup pretty much everything as long as you can mount the drive, regardless of if it's locally or on the network. You can't burn to DVD but it's definitely totally worthwhile for a network backup.

What's interesting is that you can schedule it and select what you want backed up. The bad thing is that it does create a copy of everything first, and then sends it over, so you have to have the extra space involved in actually doing a mirror copy. Outside of that, it took me somewhere around a couple hours to do a full scale backup which isn't too bad considering I was doing everything else under the sun while this was going on.

Definitely worthwhile for your MacOSX system if you're looking for something that allows you to select the files that you need to be backed up. Again, it doesn't do burn to divisible DVDs, but it works very well for network backups.

SCO ordered to pay $2.5 million to Novell

2008-07-17T18:37:10Z

It looks like SCO has finally dug itself into a hole. Ordered to pay for attorney fees plus interest and probably will put a stop on the SVRX agreement with Sun Microsystems since they were found have unjustly held onto royalties that were owed to Novell.

What's more interesting is that while SCO is reviewing the findings and will probably appeal and push for a jury ruling, this hasn't broken them out of the IBM case yet. Which means that the other hammer hasn't fallen. Fun times for SCO. Fun times.

Sometimes, the old applications just work better

2008-07-17T03:01:00Z

Sometimes, newer isn't always better. In fact, there are many people that regret being first adopters since the new version of an application sometimes drives away to a new trend in an effort to either bring in a different type of customer, or if they had a change in development staff.

Either way, sometimes you just don't want that newer version and want to replace it with the older one. But can't find that install anymore? You might be in luck. OldApps.com and OldVersion.com both deal in older versions of the materials. Unfortunately, most of the applications are actually shareware or freeware, but there are a couple applications out there that are paid installs (there are not many that are installable anymore without a DVD). Obviously you'd need the serials for these applications (the non-free ones) but it's still a great resource to track down that one application that you just can't live without. Buggy or not.

What exactly is 3G?

2008-07-16T14:26:32Z

It's definitely interesting when I see this question come up. "What is 3G?"

Surprisingly, if you read most of the commentary, not only do mainstream media not get what 3G actually stands for, but a lot of the general populace isn't acquainted with telecom terminology (nor should they be). Strangely enough, this has actually been marketed but hasn't been conveyed very well.

3G itself is actually third generation, but not with the iPhone, of which many believe. It actually has to do with the network infrastructure. 3G networks are under a certain standard that require high speed internet and the ability to do video telephony. This allows you to do extra services that previously you could not do on a 2G network. Each technology layer is obviously overlayed on top of the older one, so most users don't realize that the features they want actually drop in under one of these technology realms.

For example? HSDPA is 3G. So is EVDO (rev0. and revA). 2G is mainly any digital standard, from CDMA, to GSM to iDEN. So from a big picture perspective, you can see that there carriers will offer more and more with each new generation of technology. The technologies that just increase speed, but not services do not count as actual generation changes (such as WiMAX which is pre-4G).

Fun stuff eh? Things I get to deal with every day in the telecommunications industry.

Photo Credit: (SANOKAME)

AlertThingy

2008-07-16T03:01:00Z

Been trying out Alert Thingy and so far, it's not bad I must say although there are a few things I like and dislike.

First, the pros. I like the fact that FriendFeed has a client that runs on MacOSX, Windows, and sorta linux (Adobe Air is alpha stage for linux). The alerts are similar to Growl notification which is interesting, but also a nuisance too. You can also interact with Flickr and Twitter, which is actually very useful in that regards.

The cons? The nuisance of Growl-like notification. As far as I can tell, you can't turn it off. And Adobe Air. While Adobe Air allows easy multiplatforming, it also is overhead that I don't need. Either way though, it's not too shabby and it's nice to actually have a client for FriendFeed instead of just the website itself. I'd love a native client, but right now this will do.

WordPress 2.6 is live!

2008-07-15T13:18:00Z

It's interesting that after I had announced that 2.6 was out when the WP dev team released it, and had upgraded the couple of blogs I manage over to 2.6, that there hasn't been much talk about it, at least not in my circles.

And I also don't see huge changes that are just super impressive. So far, there is group editing where it's more like wikis in the fact that it keeps track of changes, and Google Gears support which allows some caching, and a bookmarklet that allows you to post from anywhere.

Kinda neat is the images addition where you can add captions, SSL support in the core, and just more in general moves towards better usability. And they invalidated my buddy, TD's plugin, by rolling in word count! Sorry buddy.

All in all, it didn't take but thirty seconds to upgrade since I have the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. The ease of use is definitely one of the key features of WP.

UPDATE (7/16): My bad. I checked out the word count integration in WP2.6, and all it is right now is a "word count". TD's plugin itself does an entire breakdown not only on posts, but all of the posts each author does, a ranking system, and a whole lot more.

Kiva Key Chain Pack

2008-07-15T13:00:00Z

When we went on our vacation, this little bag was of great help when you needed a little extra carrying space but didn't need right off the bat. This helped in the shopping excursions and when you had a few more souvenirs than you had planned with your usual travel bag. What's great is that it's made of thinner nylon so it packs into the key chain sized bag but unfolds on itself into the large bag.

I personally wouldn't put really heavy things in this bag, but on a day trip for shopping or what not, it beats carrying plastic or paper bags around. The Kiva Key Chain Pack is worth every penny when it comes to traveling.

Solaris: How to view partition slices

2008-07-15T03:01:00Z

In Solaris, partitioning is a little different that linux. Everything is divided into slices, and there is a total of eight slices per partition. Each partition pertains to a disk.

So to access the partition menu, you type the format command, and after selecting the disk you want to view, you would type partition at the format prompt:

format> partition

PARTITION MENU:
0 - change `0' partition
1 - change `1' partition
2 - change `2' partition
3 - change `3' partition
4 - change `4' partition
5 - change `5' partition
6 - change `6' partition
7 - change `7' partition
select - select a predefined table
modify - modify a predefined partition table
name - name the current table
print - display the current table
label - write partition map and label to the disk
! - execute , then return
quit

From here, you would only need to type print, to print the partition slices.

partition> print

Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 3361 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
2 backup wu 0-3360 1.12GB (3361/0/0) 2352700
3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
7 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0

And there you have it. In slice 2 of that particular disk, you have 1.12GB set up. This doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't extra space on the disk partition that isn't being used, it just means that only 1.12GB has been set for slice 2 and nothing else for the rest. When you begin to set slices, you can actually see how much there is left.

Texting on a motorcycle

2008-07-14T21:13:00Z

You have to see it to believe it, but this guy is crazy. Texting, while lying down on a motorcycle. I'm not exactly sure how he's keeping his throttle going at a regular pace since it's motorcycles have a turn throttle that's operated by the right hand, but it's still nuts. Crazy nuts.

When you pass away, your debt doesn't just go away

2008-07-14T13:00:00Z

Beware of racking up the debt. If you think that you're out to beat the system, think again, especially if you're thinking about even leaving your loved ones a little something.

Creditors will try to clear the debt through funds appropriated from estate or property. Outside of joined debt, and rarely, they even have the option to have existing family members pay for the debt. The only actual forgiven debt is when the deceased had nothing of value at all, and left nothing.

In any case, it's a really scary thought that people can on a rare case, directly inherit debt. Even more so, when it's indirectly. It also goes to show that financial responsibility is something that everyone should think about and always be aware of. The unexpected doesn't just affect your loved ones on an emotional level, but it could also take its toll financially.

Scary. Very scary thought. I'd also be curious to think of how creditors stop this from happening. It's not that you could predict "death" itself, but more so on if they quit loaning high risk individuals whom are racking up a lot of bills, or if they believe they can truly collect the money later on. I'm sure there are mathematical models out there for this just as insurance is based on mathematical models.

Photo Credit: (iandavid)

How to disable Windows XP boot screen

2008-07-14T03:01:00Z

Solaris: Basic commands with services

2008-07-13T03:01:00Z

One of the most basic things about Solaris are the services just like the linux daemons. To list all the services that are active, do:

# svcs

If you add the -a flag, then it'll list all services that are enabled and disabled. If you use the -x flag, it'll actually breakdown the services.

If you need to enable a service, you do:
# svcadm enable service

Where service is the name of the service. Obviously disabling would be:
# svcadm disable service

Special LUX Dreamhost offer

2008-07-12T23:01:00Z

If you're looking for some hosting, it might be worth your while to take a look at Dreamhost.

While much of it is pre-paid service, signing up as a new member from LUX can you get $50.00USD off your price with the PROMO Code of LUX00001. What's interesting about Dreamhost services is that for a shared hosting account, it's one of the few that allows a shell access alongside very good bandwidth and disk space. One of the few more configurable type systems where it allows the administrator almost as much access as a VPS, except you're limited to shared processing power.

They also have services such as a scalable cloud where you can guarantee CPU cycles alongside memory. Not only is it an affordable hosting provider, but it gives geeks what they want. The entire system is built upon a Debian linux system which should be fancied by many linux fans. Either way, it's worth your while to take a look, especially if you're sick of your current host or just have had no luck in getting any results.

iTunes Saturday

2008-07-12T13:00:00Z