Manole Paul-Sebastian

FTPES/FTPS aka FTP over SSL client for Mac OS

2015-06-30T18:27:00.001+03:00

I had some problems connecting to a newly set up NAS4Free server over the FTPES/FTPS protocol which is what NAS4Free enables when you tick the Enable SSL and Accept only SSL connections in the FTP server settings page. Free FTPES command line clients are hard to find for Mac OS but the one I've found is called lftp. I've also tried ncftp but later I found out it does not support FTP over SSL. Don't try the sftp client, that's FTP over an SSH tunnel. GUI based clients that support FTPES exist but the only free one for now is FileZilla apparently. Oh, and Total Commander works as well if you install OpenSSL for Windows.

So basically I used Homebrew to install lftp (brew install lftp).
Then open a console and type:


0 ✓ sebastian@nova ~ $ lftp
lftp :~> set ftp:ssl-force true
lftp :~> set ssl:verify-certificate no
lftp :~> connect 192.168.101.71
lftp 192.168.101.71:~> login sebastian
Password:
lftp sebastian@192.168.101.71:~> cd /
cd ok, cwd=/
lftp sebastian@192.168.101.71:/> ls
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel        1024 Jun 20 03:35 bin
drwxr-xr-x   6 root     wheel         512 Jun 20 00:53 boot
drwxr-xr-x   5 root     wheel         512 Jun 20 04:06 cf
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root     wheel           7 Jun 19 22:22 conf -> cf/conf
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel         512 Jun 20 04:01 conf.default
dr-xr-xr-x   8 root     wheel         512 Jun 30 10:19 dev
drwxr-xr-x  16 root     wheel        2048 Jun 30 14:34 etc
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel         512 Jun 19 22:22 ftmp
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root     wheel           8 Jun 30 10:20 home -> usr/home
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     wheel        1024 Jun 20 03:47 lib
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     wheel         512 Jun 20 00:53 libexec
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel         512 Jun 19 22:22 mnt
dr-xr-xr-x   1 root     wheel           0 Jun 30 15:18 proc
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel         512 Jun 30 13:01 root
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel        2048 Jun 20 03:35 sbin
drwxr-xr-x   5 root     ftp             5 Jun 30 11:21 tank
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root     wheel           8 Jun 19 22:22 tmp -> /var/tmp
drwxr-xr-x   9 root     wheel         512 Jun 30 10:20 usr
drwxr-xr-x  13 root     wheel         512 Jun 30 10:20 var
lftp sebastian@192.168.101.71:/>

Google Chrome: Cannot connect to the real *

2014-01-27T10:35:00.000+02:00

If you ever get the above error from Google Chrome and you don't know what the heck is wrong with your web browser or Internet Service Provider (captive portal? man in the middle?), maybe your hardware clock is wrong. That's how I fixed mine. If your hardware clock is fine, then keep searching.

Building an AMD APU-based desktop PC

2013-06-20T00:08:00.001+03:00

A few years ago, when I started working at my second job (and first one to be IT related), I sold my desktop PC thinking that I didn't need a powerful desktop computer anymore and instead, I got a Sony Vaio laptop. More recently, I got tired of the limited capabilities of my laptop to handle serious workloads (like virtual machines and games). I finally got a desktop PC again. It's not exactly what I would have hoped to have but it's what I could afford.

Continue reading to find out how I built my first AMD personal computer based on the AMD APU platform. You can find the 10 steps I needed to build this PC.
Generally, I prefer Intel hardware because it's the fastest. But this time circumstances favored AMD. The problem was that I didn't have enough money to build my dream PC and I suppose anyone that builds their own computers every time especially, finds it hard to settle for less that what their "hearts" desire.

First off, the components list:

AMD A10 6800K Quad-Core APU, 4.1Ghz, FM2 Socket, Black Edition
Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 Socket FM2 motherboard
Seasonic M12II-520 Bronze, 520W power source unit
Thermaltake NiC F3, Non-interference Cooling Heatsink with Thermaltake 4pin PWM fan
Corsair XMS3 8GB x 4 DDR3 1333MHz DIMMs

And that's all. Nothing else because I didn't have money for more than that. I had to use an old PC case I had lying around and a SATA DVD-ROM from work to install Windows with. Talk about cheap.

Here are some photos of the build:

You can find the rest of the photos here.

The build process is pretty simple though I must admit, it's true what everyone says, the aftermarket AMD heatsinks are unnecessarily complicated to mount compared to Intel's one true way of doing it. Not to mention, it feels a lot sturdier mechanically theirs. Alas, this wasn't shabby either but not exactly swift and elegant.

Let me make this more evident. Here are the simple steps required to do this build, as elegantly as possible, since elegance seemed to be the only thing I didn't manage to buy:

Take the motherboard out and put it on a flat surface. A dry wooden table or cardboard would work just good.
Unmount the AMD box cooler's plastic thing around the CPU socket also taking off the metal backplate. I chose to take off the plastic that was glued to the original metal backplate and glue that back to the NiC F3's own backplate for extra softness while squeezing those printed circuits on the PCB's back.
Mount the NiC F3 backplate with the motherboard held up vertically since you won't be able to hold some screws in place otherwise. Check the image gallery if you want to see why. Mount the rest of awful crap you need to mount to be able to install a custom heatsink on AMD CPUs (or APUs in this case). Again, check the image gallery, since I think it's self explanatory.
Lift the CPU lever on the CPU socket and carefully place the CPU taking note of the golden arrow on the CPU and arrow emboss on the socket. Don't push the CPU in the socket, let it fall in place. Be careful not to touch the CPU top or you will grease it unnecessarily.
Take a cotton swab and dip it in alcohol then gently scrape the CPU after locking it in its socket by pulling down the socket lever. Dip the other end of the cotton swab in alcohol and then apply a bit more pressure this time as you scrape the CPU top. I got a lot of gray oxide off the CPU this way and any grease as well.
After the CPU has dried from the alcohol scrub, add a thin line of thermal paste. If you study thermal paste spread a bit on the Internet, you'll find out that the best way to apply thermal paste is to apply it in a straight line since that is the best way to avoid forming any air bubbles and to apply as little as possible since thermal paste is there to fill micro-pores and is never more thermally conductive that the metals themselves. I made my line almost too thick in the middle by not having a steady squeeze while applying it. In the end I had just enough spill so that the paste doesn't run over the CPU. Theoretically, a quantity the size of a grain of rice would have been enough and I've applied thermal paste better than this before.
Now scrub the heatsink as well if you like. It should not be necessary with a new heatsink but I felt like doing it anyway.
Mount the heatsink lightly without force so that the screws align and then start fastening them slowly in diagonal a bit at a time in turns. When you've got a good grip, you can fasten then more seriously this time. The idea here is not to tip off the heatsink once it's "glued" to the CPU and still not fastened enough, since surface tension will introduce many tiny air bubbles in between the two contact planes.
Now start mounting the RAM if you want to, or you can do that later. Place the motherboard in the computer case after you've made sure all your screw holes, washers and whatnot are correctly aligned with the motherboard's configuration.
Continue with mounting the PSU and eventually do some cable management if you still feel like it.

And that's it. Ten easy steps that will feel like a hundred daunting tasks.

So how does it perform? I haven't tested it too much yet but in terms of "idle" performance, there're some BIOS screenshots in the gallery. Considering an ambient temperature of 32 degrees, 40 degrees on the CPU is pretty good I think. At 1300 RPM the NiC F3 is not even noticeable. A quick stress test showed me that the NiC F3 is very capable and maintains that 40 degrees level easily, albeit the fan running a lot faster and a bit more noticeable. All I can say is that, it runs CS:GO at 60FPS@1080p at medium-low settings. ;)

How to modify Windows file timestamps and other attributes

2013-06-17T13:43:00.000+03:00

If anyone's searching for a tool that allows you to modify a file's timestamps on Windows, like when it was created or last modified, don't go any further by risking to install some fishy "freeware" application or tool. You can use Windows Powershell for this just like you would use the touch command on Linux.

First get your item, pipe it to the get-member cmdlet and see if any time attributes are settable:

PS > Get-Item myfile.pdf | gm -Name *time

Your required time property should be {get;set;}-able if you're the owner of the file.

Then if for example you wanted to modify the LastWriteTime file attribute, store the item in a variable and then read that property and use the same format to set it. For instance:

PS > $myvar = Get-Item myfile.pdf
PS > $myvar.LastWriteTime

    Wednesday, December 12, 2012 12:18:15 PM

PS > $myvar.LastWriteTime = "Wednesday, December 10, 2012 12:12:12 PM"

Then check your attribute value again with:

PS > $myvar.LastWriteTime

And that's it. Hope I helped.

Quick tutorial to get started with the MatriX XMPP SDK

2012-04-20T14:27:00.003+03:00

A couple of weeks ago I started playing around with Microsoft's Visual Studio and C#. I hastily decided I liked it so I started looking for stuff I could write with it. I've always wanted a better Jabber client so I decided I should try writing one. Looking around I found a few libraries...
Not as many as I would have expected. I presume there's a good reason for that... Among all the libraries, I found MatriX to be the only .NET XMPP SDK that supports writing all three major components of XMPP: clients, servers and server components. So far, I have only tried writing clients which are the simplest and MatriX provides the most support for. Even for this simple task, some people still have problems getting started with XMPP and MatriX, even problems connecting to their servers. I haven't had such problems so I'll get to the point and provide everyone with my simple way of writing a client that connects to my own server running on the localhost.

using Matrix;

namespace MyMessenger

{

public partial class MainWindow : Window

{

private Matrix.Xmpp.Client.XmppClient xmppClient;

private Matrix.Xmpp.Client.RosterManager rosterManager;

private Matrix.Xmpp.Client.PresenceManager presenceManager;

public MainWindow()

{

InitializeComponent();

}

private void Log(string message)

{

LogBox.Text += "\n" + message + "\n";

// Or instead just print the message on the Console if you want

}

private void InstantiateMatriXComponents()

{

// We're just using the XmppClient component in this example

xmppClient = new Matrix.Xmpp.Client.XmppClient();

Log("MatriX COMPONENTS HAVE BEEN INSTANTIATED");

}

private void RegisterDefaultEventHandlers()

{

xmppClient.OnRosterStart += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnRosterStart);

xmppClient.OnRosterEnd += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnRosterEnd);

xmppClient.OnRosterItem += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnRosterItem);

xmppClient.OnMessage += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnMessage);

xmppClient.OnPresence += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnPresence);

xmppClient.OnIq += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnIq);

xmppClient.OnError += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnError);

xmppClient.OnAuthError += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnAuthError);

xmppClient.OnLogin += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnLogin);

xmppClient.OnBind += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnBind);

xmppClient.OnClose += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnClose);

xmppClient.OnReceiveXml += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnReceiveXml);

xmppClient.OnSendXml += new EventHandler(xmppClient_OnSendXml);

Log("DEFAULT EVENT HANDLERS HAVE BEEN REGISTERED");

}

private void OnConnectCommand(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

xmppClient.SetUsername("user");

xmppClient.SetXmppDomain("domain.com"); // don't use an IP adress as the domain!

xmppClient.Password = "secret password";

if (your_server_is_not_at_the_same_host_as_the_domain)

{

xmppClient.ResolveSrvRecords = false;

xmppClient.Hostname = "custom host";

}

else

{

xmppClient.ResolveSrvRecords = true;

xmppClient.Hostname = "";

}

xmppClient.Status = "your status message";

xmppClient.Resource = "Resource" + new Random().Next().ToString();

xmppClient.Show = Matrix.Xmpp.Show.chat; // set initial presence type to available for chat

xmppClient.Open(); // asynchrounous call, this returns immediately

e.Handled = true;

Log("MANUAL CONNECT COMMAND HAS BEEN HANDLED");

}

private void OnDisconnectCommand(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

xmppClient.Close();

e.Handled = true;

Log("MANUAL DISCONNECT COMMAND HAS BEEN HANDLED");

}

private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

// Do this once the main window has been loaded:

InstantiateMatriXComponents();

RegisterDefaultEventHandlers();

// you can call this now if you want to connect once the window has been loaded

// otherwise call this from a buton click or something:

//OnConnectCommand();

e.Handled = true;

Log("WINDOW LOADED HAS BEEN HANDLED");

}

private void Window_Closing(object sender, System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs e)

{

// Do this if we want to close the main window

xmppClient.Close();

Log("WINDOW CLOSING HAS BEEN HANDLED");

}

// Here come the event handlers for our XmppClient

void xmppClient_OnIq(object sender, Matrix.Xmpp.Client.IqEventArgs e)

{

Log("NEW IQ");

e.Handled = true;

}

void xmppClient_OnPresence(object sender, Matrix.Xmpp.Client.PresenceEventArgs e)

{

Log("NEW PRESENCE");

}

void xmppClient_OnError(object sender, Matrix.ExceptionEventArgs e)

{

// Show a message box when exceptional errors are encountered

Log("******************* ERROR *******************\n" + e.Exception.Message);

MessageBox.Show(this, e.Exception.Message, "Eroare");

}

void xmppClient_OnSendXml(object sender, Matrix.TextEventArgs e)

{

Log("Client says:\n" + e.Text);

}

void xmppClient_OnReceiveXml(object sender, Matrix.TextEventArgs e)

{

Log("Server says:\n" + e.Text);

}

void xmppClient_OnClose(object sender, Matrix.EventArgs e)

{

Log("XML STREAM CLOSED");

}

void xmppClient_OnBind(object sender, Matrix.JidEventArgs e)

{

// this practically means we can start sending messages

// and do other stuff because we now have a resource assigned by the server

// we connected to.

Log("BOUND RESOURCE: " + e.Jid.Resource);

}

void xmppClient_OnLogin(object sender, Matrix.EventArgs e)

{

Log("LOGGED IN");

// means a successful authentication with the server

}

void xmppClient_OnAuthError(object sender, Matrix.Xmpp.Sasl.SaslEventArgs e)

{

Log("AUTH ERROR: " + e.Error.Text);

}

void xmppClient_OnMessage(object sender, Matrix.Xmpp.Client.MessageEventArgs e)

{

            Log("NEW MESSAGE FROM: " + e.Message.From.Bare + "\t(" + e.Message.Id + "):\t" + e.Message.Body + "\n");

}

void xmppClient_OnRosterStart(object sender, Matrix.EventArgs e)

{

// server is sending roster

Log("ROSTER START");

}

void xmppClient_OnRosterEnd(object sender, Matrix.EventArgs e)

{

// server finished sending complete roster

Log("ROSTER END");

}

void xmppClient_OnRosterItem(object sender, Matrix.Xmpp.Roster.RosterEventArgs e)

{

// there's a manual modification of the roster when this event is called

Log("NEW ROSTER ITEM FOR ROSTER VERSION " + e.Version);

List groups = e.RosterItem.GetGroups();

string jid = e.RosterItem.Jid;

string nickname = e.RosterItem.Name;

}

Thunderbird 11.0: Otsukaresama!

2012-03-28T16:48:00.000+03:00

EDIT: I have since bought Office 365 and it's been a bliss! I love Outlook now! Hehe! :P Though, you shouldn't get me wrong. Mozilla has done a lot of great things for the community but honestly, now that Outlook 2013 is included in Office 365 and the subscription fee is just right, it's hard to say no to it, considering how great the new Office 2013 is. Outlook doesn't feel like that big mammoth it used to anymore. So I guess Microsoft also deserves some praise. ;)

Thank you for your hard work, Mozilla! At least Thunderbird hasn't been forgotten! I kid! I kid! :P Thunderbird is now my favorite email client. No more Outlook.

This is how Thunderbird should have looked on Windows 7 from the start, perfect!

Maybe without the buttons bar there it would look even better! I only use the Get Mail button anyway. And that has a shortcut to F5! Who doesn't know about F5, the standard refresh button! And besides, my mail server pushes messages to me anyway, so I don't have to constantly pull. Check this out then:

So more vertical space, less somewhat-usable buttons but mainly, a cleaner looking Thunderbird.

What's next? Collapse-able ribbon interface, perhaps with menus in the title bar. Just don't bring back the huge waste of space rendered with Aero glass that previous Thunderbird had. Thanks Mozilla folks!

EDIT: Here's a better article about TB11.

Bad decisions and unconscious mistakes

2012-01-02T21:45:00.001+02:00

Beware of bad routers ahead!

Does anyone still use WRT54GL's? Because holly #$% do they suck! The fact that you can put custom firmware on them doesn't even compensate for its lack of power, throughput and stability. And to think I bought it because I read that with DD-WRT and some other firmware this router shows its true potential...

Here is what its "potential" looks like when running OpenWRT using a wired connection between router and PC:

And here's my new router, the TP-Link TL-WR841N, which by the way costs half as much:

And here's what it's capable of, in wired and wireless modes:

Holy #$%! I've been paying 70 RON a month for two years now and have been only using half my available bandwidth? Punch me in the face! Sigh... Today I got a speeding ticket, first one in a year :( ... now I find out I may be loosing money unconsciously all the time... something's wrong with me.

Bleach manga revelations in the form of Q and A's

2011-11-28T23:04:00.001+02:00

Questions and answers

Q: Why did Urahara Kisuke create his Hougyoku?
A: Because he wanted to erase the line between a hollow and shinigami existence.

Q: Why did Kisuke want to erase the line between a hollow and a shinigami?
A: Because he wanted more power, a way to ascend beyond a shinigami's limits just like Aizen.

Q: Why didn't Kisuke finish the Hougyoku before Aizen did?
A: Aizen didn't finish it first, he stole Urahara's and fused it with his own creation within himself and even that one needed alot of time to become mature (the Hueco Mundo Arc).

Q: What did Kisuke want to do if he had finished his Hougyoku?
A: Probably the same thing that Aizen wanted to do and now that Aizen is defeated, it hasn't been shown but, Kisuke must've took the Hougyoku out of Aizen since even if Aizen said the Hougyoku was part of him already when Gin tried removing it, Kisuke also said the Hougyoku had rejected Aizen because he showed that he was weak, not strong enough for the goals he had set himself.

Q: Why is Ginjo and Isshin, Ichigo's father, talking?
A: As it seems, Ginjo Kugo knows Ichigo's father and so does Ginjo know Isshin. It has been clear from the first moment Ichigo met him. Although Ginjo told Ichigo that he lied about his father to get him to come to him, I don't believe that's true.

Q: Why is Ginjo still fighting if he claims that he can beat both Ichigo and Uryu (Ishida) pretty easily?
A: Ginjo and Isshin seem to have a history together so I bet there's something both of them want from Ichigo. Right now, all I can think of is that maybe they're testing Ichigo's conquer of his fears when he obtained the final GT.

Maybe I'll add more Q and A's if they come to mind.

Some things never change...

2011-10-09T22:22:00.001+03:00

There's always been a checkmark for "Hide protected operating system files" but there's also always been two radio buttons for "Hidden files and folders" when the options were also always clearly yes or no, hide or don't hide, show or don't show... how else can I say it considering that those two yes and no were there since Windows ninety fscking something? OK, is it just me or what?

New development in Bleach from Tite Kubo

2011-09-24T15:42:00.001+03:00

Just a quick note...
Seems like there's a new and interesting development coming in the Bleach manga. We already know that Ichigo somehow, by learning the Final Getsuga Tenshou, ascended to a level higher than what a regular shinigami can. We also know that he wasn't the first one to reach that level, his father Isshin also reached that level of power in the past and suffered the same fate. They both lost their shinigami powers.

Now Ichigo has regained his powers, in a quite unremarkable way, but so did his father but for some reason, he didn't want to reveal that for a very long time (either that or he just postponed getting back his powers, since anyway it was a sure shot thanks to Urahara Kisuke's genius mind). Ichigo now has his shinigami powers back, thanks to a jolt of reiatsu from the captains of Seireitei and the revealed fact that he didn't actually lose all his shinigami powers, more like his shinigami powers machine run out of batteries (Rukia pretty much stated this as the fact that being a shinigami is an imprint of the soul that shapes reiatsu and transforms it into its weapons and strength). But when he lost his shinigami powers, Ichigo started developing as a regular human, just like his friends had, Inoue, Chado and Ishida did long before him. Since he focused and relied on his shinigami powers for so long, he initially wasn't aware of his human powers thus he wasn't able to see spirits anymore (nor were they strong enough for that, more in a minute). You might think "but how did he see Rukia at the beginning of the manga or the other spirits he gave flowers to?".

Well, that's because there isn't a strong boundary between the nature of these powers we see in Bleach. They all emerge from one soul, in different forms: one is human flesh (the congruence of good and evil in one safe container), one is shinigami form (no body to contain the soul but the soul is mostly controlled by good will and self control) and the other one is a hollow (no body again but this time the soul is mostly a slave to its instincts). When Ichigo used up a big part of his reiatsu to counteract the immense spiritual density of the Hougyoku in Aizen's body, he used the same reiatsu that was powering all three forms of its manifestation (human, shinigami and hollow). Yes, it's not that his hollow form had more reiatsu that it was stronger, it was because, being driven by instinct and exhilaration, it could harness a lot more of the soul's reiatsu (you might think of reiatsu as the density of the matter that makes the soul, or the pressure in that matter, because the shape of the soul doesn't always change and its shell can never be destroyed). So, basically, Ichigo got weakened and instead had to do training by physical and mental exercise to gather up reiatsu. He started recognizing reiatsu stored in objects around him, especially objects that he had with him all the time (his shinigami badge) and learned to harness it according to his spirit's "imprint" as I called it earlier.

Now he can see spirits again (and his dear Rukia of course), got a big jolt of reiatsu from the captains and got his shinigami shroud back but since his human form developed, his shinigami form looks different now, just like how his hollow form changed his hair, his height or his mask, while developing. There's a reason why his forms developed in the order they did: the shinigami form developed first because he desired to protect his family and friends, his hollow form developed next because of his despair in front of stronger enemies and his human form last because it's a safe container form, the one that's most hard to influence. Ichigo had to lose all his powers for this form to develop. Please note that it wasn't despair that helped this form develop this time, it was his will to protect his friends again (and to see his shinigami friends again). There was a brief moment of true despair where no evolution could have resulted from it and that was when Ginjo stole Ichigo's powers but thankfully Rukia and his other friends saved him.

Here's a good question though: why does he have to switch to his shinigami form before he switches to hollow form? I believe that only was before he achieved the Final Getsuga Tenshou, because he needed to do a normal ascension in "release states", but I don't think it's the case anymore (which is kind of sad if we don't see Shiro-san again?) since, when he fought to learn the Final Getsuga Tenshou, he fought Tensa Zangetsu mixed with his hollow form. I believe his nature now is a bit different: he looks like a shinigami + a bit of human-side intervention but he's got his hollow's control over power by trusting his instincts more and himself as well. He's not afraid of using a high risk, powerful strike from the start of a fight now because he's more confident he can control it. I believe there's still a level of uncontrollable hollow-like fighting prowess in him but the level of despair he needs to reach now to get to that level must be way higher than everything he has gone through so far.

I'll end my "quick note" here. Hope you read all it and liked it and maybe have something to say, in which case you're welcome.

What should the iPad 3 have?

2011-09-11T21:26:00.001+03:00

The iPad 3 should have this:

A miniSD card slot that is not springy and somehow easy to plug and play or some other way to have proper file management on external storage media only.

Wireless USB or some other way to connect an enormous range of devices to the iPad over short distaces.

An API to be able to write lightweight drivers for these external devices (the OS would take care of talking to the devices, specific apps would just ask to be able to read or write data to the device and iOS would prompt users for this decision).

No homescreen button. It's annoying when you hold the iPad and don't want to accidentally press it. Think of something else than a button on a touch device.

The back camera needs to be centered like the one in the front.

Both cameras need to be placed on the wider edge because that's how movies and photos tend to be taken, in landscape.

The front camera can be VGA but needs to take clear images in low light conditions.

The back camera needs not have 5, 8 or 10 megapixels. 2 Mp is just perfect. Any more than that and I prefer using a professional camera.

The screen also needs to be around 2 Mp, since I think a 4:3 aspect ratio is best suited for all purposes on a tablet, 1280x960 (SXGA-) or 1400x1050 (SXGA+) should be the next mandatory step up from the iPad2.

Since the overall size of the tablet would increase, except if the screen ppi increases instead, which I don't think it needs to (there is no point on a medium size display - there's only a point on small displays where you need to pack a lot of information to become useful or on large displays where otherwise you could start seeing the pixels (displays that you need to look at from 10 meters away not included)), then you can pack a larger battery since batteries don't tend to decrease in size and increase in power the same way integrated circuits do.

There is no risk involved if the device gets a bit wider and taller. On the other hand, i don't think it needs to get any thinner than this, probably... ever! Not even if it will become almost entirely made of diamond strong glass!

The dock connector should be a lower speed Thunderbolt port but still be chainable.

iOS should have more incremental updates and more people should be working on it especially doing R&D that will keep it futureproof and always interesting to use and for developers to check out.

It needs to support any bluetooth compatible pointing device (aka. a mouse, a remote control, etc.) and keyboard.

Safari needs better web standards support and rendering.
Safari needs a virtual mouse cursor mode for web pages that use onhover javascript events.

At least 1GB of RAM.

More customisation possibilities: color themes, keyboard styles and arrangements, customizable keys, resizable app container groups, desktop widgets, animated wallpapers...

I could go on but I'm tired of remembering more of the things I wanted to say but didn't take note of on time...

Learning to ride a motorcycle, Part 2

2011-09-09T02:18:00.000+03:00

This is part 2 of my longer blog post about how I'm learning to ride a motorcycle and get my license.

To continue from where I left off, I was saying that I was a bit disappointed with the way things were advancing. I felt like I had no chance of learning anything by the end of the training period because I just couldn't feel what I was supposed to and because I only saw the instructor once and I was at my 3rd session yesterday. Today I had my 4th session and he finally came.

When I started first time, he taught me the basic controls, which are not too hard to remember, they are basically the same as with a car, just in different places and with different ways of engaging. Everything felt weird and out of place at first. I had three sessions to accomodate myself with the controls and the bike itself mainly, so I guess that those three sessions of unguided riding weren't entirely for nothing.

First time, I was very excited because he gave me a bike with a smaller engine to accomodate myself with the feel of riding a motorcycle. Riding it was made easy by the fact that the gas was less sensitive, the clutch easier to engage and the engine brake never made the bike lurch. Second time, he didn't come and sent his son instead, this time with only one motorcycle, the bigger one, the one we have to be on when we take the final examination. I couldn't get used to it and it seemed like no-one had a good explanation that is easy to understand or had any practical solution to help me out of my mistakes. Third time was the same but I felt even worse and got a bit depressed.

When he finally came today, at the end of the sessions I couldn't believe myself. I somehow managed to do everything, including going in an 8 figure pattern in 1st and 2nd gear without major issues. But that's thanks to a lot of practical exercises the instructor helped me do, including and most importantly, putting me on the bike with the engine off and holding and pushing me from the back while telling me when I should lean and in fact, I was having problems knowing when to lean, feeling the bike's angle even if just a bit tilted.

I'll have to practice more next time and see how much I can progress now that he said he's coming to every session. Next session is scheduled for Saturday.

Let's hope I keep making progress. More coming soon, in part 3.

Learning to ride a motorcycle, Part 1

2011-09-08T00:56:00.000+03:00

I like riding bicycles, a lot. Unfortunately, I haven't ridden a bike in a long time. My reasons are many but honestly a little silly if I think about them, that's why I'm not going to tell them to the random reader. Since my Dad decided to take the motorcycle driving license school, I went along with him. Honestly, I would love to have a means to just drive away, far away sometimes, when I feel like it. And I do, yes. I feel like escaping sometimes. I also hope to meet more people I would like. Have fun for once...

Driving a motorcycle is easy, apparently, learning to drive one is not. I went to 3 sessions so far. The instructor is horrible. I've mostly (99.99%) did everything as I saw fit and correct. Even alone I could notice the otherwise obvious mistakes I kept making. But no, the teacher has to go somewhere and sends his kid with a cheap, bulky, beaten up Chinese (QINGQI) bike. 200cc too. What does he do to help? Nothing. He just sits in a chair texting while we almost fall or crash repeatedly. On top of that, sessions have to be shorter sometimes because the kid needs to go somewhere. We should have 50 minutes each. Instead we do 30 each. I'll go ahead and appologize for the over-dramatization I just did, but what I said happened so far is true.

OK, leaving that aside for now, I plan on writing about how this goes, in depth. I haven't ridden a motorcycle before so if you're a beginner too, you might like reading what I will say in part 2. I've already gathered a few thoughts and ideas and even though I want to write what I think at the moment so you can see the evolution of things without any subconscious refactoring, right now I don't have enough conviction that what I want to say now is what I really want to say. Let's see how tomorrow goes because me and my Dad plan on taking things more seriously and having a chat with with the instructor.

Bleach and what is in Kubo's head

2011-06-26T00:33:00.000+03:00

I want to get right into it: I'm a big time Bleach fan. Thinking back now, I must have started watching it at first when it had just under a hundred episodes out. Probably another hundred episodes later and I finally started reading the manga as well. Doing a quick google for Bleach and wikipedia reveals that the anime started airing in late 2004 so even if I started watching it a year or two later, that's still a long time that I've been a fan of it so that should tell you a bit about what I think of the show. Basically, it's entertaining, it's about good and evil, the obvious fight that's always gonna rage between them but for me, what matters most is how it's more about getting the power to do anything you want and not just by stealing it or buying it cheap but by earning it and working hard for it then sticking with your original goals to the end while trying to achieve them. The things some might want to do with that power, good or evil, in the anime, it doesn't matter because what matters is how fascinating, how grandiose and how potent that power is and how it can reveal to you that the limits you once saw were perhaps just artificial. The anime characters, of course never realize this at first so that the fascination can go on for longer but eventually once they do realize that they have gone further than the sky, everything turns back to normal, the boring kind of normal. That's Bleach.

Now that I've told you why I like to watch and read Bleach, what I actually wanted to tell everyone were some thoughts I had that lead to some theories about what "Tite" Kubo might have in mind with this manga. Right now the manga is at chapter #453 and ever since Ichigo defeated Aizen, everyone seemed to have forgotten about Aizen. Nobody questions why he went so far and what was he actually aiming for. Was he really conceited in thinking that he was a God or did he really had what it took to become one eventually? I for one, know at least that he was pretty damn ugly before he died to look like what I think a God would look like but for others it may be different. Others don't need an angelic figure for a God because in the end just the power matters.

I don't want to start posing new questions but everything begs a question in Bleach right now more than ever. Defeating Aizen was the climax of the entire series and everyone had questions before it but now that everything is looking like a new beginning we can't ignore the questions left unanswered plus the new ones arising. So here's my theory on the series so far.

Aizen was about to tell Ichigo why he was interested in him so much ever since he was born when Isshin, Ichigo's father, interrupted him. Aizen said something like "...because after all, you are the son of a human and a...". What I believe he meant was "a hollow" or "a vizored".

Let's talk about the Hougyoku. Aizen again cleared some facts about it. The Hougyoku's powers weren't those of controlling the barrier between a hollow and a shinigami. That power was in fact a manifestation of it's actual powers: the Hougyoku can guide souls on the right path to achieving whatever they want as long as they themselves have the power and capability to achieve their goals. That's why, when Urahara Kisuke wanted to breach the wall he found between the two opposing sides of a soul, a shinigami and hollow arrancar, the Hougyoku he created, his Hougyoku, guided him towards that goal because: 1) it was possible and 2) Kisuke had the power to achieve it.

Aizen also used his own Hougyoku (some of you know that Aizen actually had developed his own), to drive Kuchiki Rukia into giving Ichigo her shinigami powers, basically jumpstarting his shinigami side. That's how Aizen realized that what he wanted, the Hougyoku helped achieve by bringing forth the opportunity for him to order her to the human world at the right time, when she was vulnerable after she had killed Shiba Kaien. Aizen said this himself.

So that's how the Vizoreds were born... except Ichigo. Ichigo's vizard side was born right after Urahara already had learned how to break the wall. When he shoved Ichigo into that deep well to turn into a hollow, telling him that by fighting it he could return back with his lost powers, he did that with that purpose in mind knowing that if it was probably impossible for anyone else, for Ichigo it might be possible because of Ichigo's mother who had a vizard/hollow side in her that she passed along to her son. I mean, if Ichigo got his Zangetsu persona from his father (Engetsu), he must have gotten his hollow persona from her mother. Ichigo possessed a mixture of different souls with very powerful wills that Urahara trusted Ichigo could balance out.

Before Ichigo got his enormous physical strength by evolving beyond bankai with his sword chain wrapping around his arm, Isshin also showed enormous physical strength when he fought Aizen and threw what was like a flick of the finger attack at him sending him flying through three buildings. Right after that fight, when he spent time in the precipice world helping Ichigo learn the Final Tensa Zangetsu which is basically two exponential evolutions up from Shikai and Bankai, he told Ichigo that he once also learned his Final Tensa Engetsu. Then we also know that Isshin supposedly lost his powers but it was revealed that he was getting them back around the time Ichigo started fighting with Grimmjow. Perhaps he lost his powers because of using his Final Engetsu or maybe he didn't loose them at all and they were only weakened by the years he spent wearing Urahara's reiatsu blocking gigai.

While this was a lot for me to think about right now, I still have a few theories popping up every time something new is revealed in the manga and it's easier to think about them then than trying to make sense of all of them now. I would like to end this post that's already become too long by saying that I think Kubo is definitely trying to reveal a big picture slowly but not entirely easy which is why this show is going to be memorable.

How to record what you hear from your sound card (and Youtube) on Windows 7 using VLC

2011-02-28T23:52:00.001+02:00

OK, I know everyone's dying for it but a word of advice first.

With Windows 7 most people have been out of luck when trying to record from the "Stereo Mix" or "What you hear" channels of their sound cards, especially the people using integrated sound cards. The reasons, let's face it, are recent anti-piracy measures. The advent of high quality digital media on the Internet, mostly for promotional purposes, has brought both big advantages and disadvantages to artists, record houses and the like. While you can now listen to a full song before you buy it and the quality is sometimes just as great as the original for a simple bloke (haha, I love English!), that doesn't mean that you can rip everything you hear and like and forget about ever buying the song because you're satisfied with it. If you really care about your music the same way that I do, you buy your songs, not rip them off from the Internet! But for those that really hate Flash like I do, you could either download the FLV file and play it using a hardware accelerated player (if it's HD) or simply a lighter, better player, like VLC, KMPlayer or even the awesome mplayer or just rip the audio and then play it using foobar2000 or something. Yes, I said you "could", not that you should. Think about the artists first!

So here's how you could record the audio off a Youtube video using VideoLan Client (VLC):

Open VLC and click the Media menu (first menu) and select Convert / Save.
In the Open Media dialog, click the Network tab, paste your Youtube video URL and press Convert / Save.
In the Convert dialog, select or type in the destination file's name plus an extension (I recommend .ogg). You can tick Display the output if you want to hear what you're recording but it slows the converting to 1x speed (ie. record at normal playback speed).
Select a profile for the converted file format. I selected Audio - Vorbis (OGG). You can edit the profile and change the recording bitrate if you want but 128kbps is overkill already for Youtube videos. Setting it higher would just waste disk space.
Click Start (and peek through the door peep hole to make sure there aren't any men in black suits).

How to install Gajim nightly on Ubuntu Linux

2011-01-23T19:44:00.001+02:00

So I wanted to run the latest Gajim and wondered if there was anyone kind enough to provide nightly builds of Gajim for Ubuntu or Debian distributions.

GajimRepositories, on the Gajim wiki, lists two repositories, one PPA for Ubuntu and one Debian repository. The PPA didn't seem to work when I tried it, the server was probably down, so here's how to add the Debian repository for Gajim nightly builds to your favourite Debian-based distro, Ubuntu Linux ;).
Before that, I just want to mention that there's another PPA on Launchpad for Ubuntu (gajim-ppa) but that one isn't as up to date. When I checked my revision number, it was only one rev behind, which is fairly up to date while at the same time you can take advantage of the package manager to maintain all necessary dependencies and system wide installation/removal.

First, become super user by running "sudo -i", then:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yann-leboulanger-gajim-nightly.list

Insert the following text in the new empty file:

deb ftp://ftp.gajim.org/debian unstable main

Now press Ctrl+X to exit and say Y (yes) when nano asks you if you want to save the file before you exit. If you update your package lists right now, apt will complain that the repository you just added doesn't have a GPG key on the server but it does refer to one. To get that key and add it to your trusted list, while you are still the super user, do:

gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-key 838BC5151E5526DE
gpg --export --armor 838BC5151E5526DE | apt-key add -
apt-get update
apt-cache search gajim

You will see all the gajim packages, including the new one, gajim-nightly. First remove the old gajim and then install the nightly:

apt-get remove gajim
apt-get autoremove
apt-get install gajim-nightly gajim-dev-keyring

That's all folks. Happy Jabbering! Thanks to Yann Leboulanger - main Gajim developer - for hosting and building the packages!

I found the reason and a fix to why my laptop is making high pitch noises when I move the mouse around

2011-01-14T17:44:00.000+02:00

There are many electronics inside a laptop that can create high pitches squeal noises. I'm not an expert electrician but one of the more often thought reasons for this is that some (presumably cheap) capacitors (electronic device that can store electricity for a short period of time, a capacitor is like a slow leaking buffer of electricity) emit sound when current flows through them. It's probably because they're fed some weird square-wave alternating voltage. That's all I can think of. :\

While not many people can hear such high pitched noises (actually, I've never met anyone that can hear the noises I hear and I even had them listen with their ears on the device and they didn't hear anything), I can.

On my laptop, these noises have two triggers: one is unplugging the power jack from the laptop and the other one, which I've just discovered, is caused by AMD/ATI's PowerPlay battery/energy-saving technology.

Unplugging the power jack doesn't create much noise. It's a bearable lower-high pitched noise that seems to go away after a while, although it immediately stops when I plug the jack back in.

But when AMD/ATI's PowerPlay is turned off or it's set to Maximum Performance (ie. no throttling), my laptop starts making this annoying high pitched noise that modulates slightly with moving the mouse cursor and more if I move a window on the screen. Turning PowerPlay off doesn't help. Turning it on and setting it to Maximum Battery however, completely stops any squealing or any other high pitched noise. What does this mean? Poorly manufactured device? My laptop is a Sony Vaio VPC-EB2S1E, though. I don't know what to say. :\

This is the only fix I know of so far and I found it myself by accident. I hope this helps, unless you play games or like desktop effects and desktop compositing to be snappy...

Here's a screenshot of the Catalyst Control Center:

God was evil?

2010-12-28T00:03:00.000+02:00

God was evil or "God is Evil and Evil is God", Huh?
No pitchforks, crucifixes and/or axes, *please*!

Here's a totally random blog post I thought I should write this late at night, not because it's something I felt like telling everyone urgently, but just because I didn't want to forget this and I'd love some feedback on this one.

So, while I was getting out of the shower, I had this idea totally out of nowhere. I thought, what if GOD (if he exists, I must have whispered or mumbled to myself, maybe) doesn't show himself willingly to everyone because he's afraid of people knowing him, while all religious books talk, basically, about knowing your god or how to get to know him better. I thought what if God's past is something totally unthinkable for most Christians. Seeing that in real life only the bad guys win, I thought, if God was once a "bad guy", maybe he doesn't want us to know that during our life here on Earth. Getting to know God would mean the life-long preparation for dieing in peace so that you can accept God once you meet him, no matter how or who he turns out to be. Maybe in the beginning of time, there was only good and evil. Maybe evil won (likely, odds prove it) and that evil was God but maybe God, with immense amount of time passing, started changing, realizing the true path, that the road to awe is longer, much longer than the road to fear, probably infinite... etc. So maybe that's why we must wait an entire lifetime to meet God, regardless of religion, because the sins of our lifetime would be upon us and we wouldn't see God as anything different from us. Or maybe God is doing this, creating this world, waiting to judge us in the end... because he still is evil. Maybe evil is the absolute truth. Maybe good can only be done trough evil and evil can't be done trough good (makes sense, think about it). Doesn't this make this world an image of God? Not just on the exterior looks but in essence and constitution and law as well.

That's where I stopped. Somehow this was only a spur of thought coming probably from the hot steam to my head...

Still curious what philosophers might think about this...

How I got to get the latest AMD/ATI Catalyst drivers to install on openSUSE 11.3

2010-10-03T21:32:00.005+03:00

UPDATE (28-Oct-2010): Sebastian Siebert has posted an update to his script (aka. make-rpm-ati-10.10.sh) which acts a lot like Alberto Milone's Envy script for Ubuntu. They both download, build and install the latest graphics drivers for your NVIDIA and/or AMD/ATI graphics card. Here's a link to his guide translated by Google Translate.

Basically, just to make sure you know the whole deal, if you've reached this page searching for help, the latest Catalyst drivers for ATI video cards (that is Catalyst 10.9) as well as the older version (10.8) don't build the kernel modules (fglrx.ko) correctly due to a breakage introduced with the newer linux kernel that openSUSE 11.3 comes with (2.6.34.7). They're supposed to work with the older kernel (2.6.33) but maybe you don't want to downgrade your kernel like I didn't.

AMD opened up an RPM repository at their sites supporting SUSE but it isn't working anymore (is it?) and it had an older version of Catalyst (10.7). Some people have reported that even those drivers to crash. They didn't for me. :/

Either way, a lot has been fixed in the newer releases, including some annoying drawing artifacts with Firefox. To get to the point, the 10.9 Catalyst does build, if you patch it. I found most of the information here. Don't chose to do it the hard way though, use Sebastian Siebert's script like I did (and it only briefly mentions it there, weird). The latest is always here. The prerequisites are simple:

zypper in kernel-source kernel-syms module-init-tools make gcc libstdc++ libgcc glibc-32bit glibc-devel-32bit fontconfig freetype zlib* kernel-devel

But please make sure to update your system first (I did "zypper up" and "zypper dup"), unless you want to fiddle with kernel sources to find out why the module won't build (for the dumb -- like myself -- : if you're running and older version of the kernel yet have the latest kernel headers installed, the module won't build unless you update your whole system to bring those two into sync).

If your /etc/X11/xorg.conf isn't containing any reference to the ATI driver, it is best to run "aticonfig --initial" as root to first generate a working xorg.conf. Don't worry, even if your ATI driver doesn't work, you should get a login screen using the vesa drivers automatically.

If the module doesn't build, go fix the problem, it might be the kernel headers. You don't have to reinstall each time. Run /usr/bin/fglrx-kernel-build.sh and it will rebuild the kernel modules (if it has everything).

HTH

SciFi

2010-08-16T02:15:00.001+03:00

I've been very engrossed with science-fiction lately. It's all I've been doing actually. Looking for SciFi series, watching them, reading on science subjects like nuclear fusion, time travel, black holes, string theory... honestly, it hardly makes any sense to my kludge's mind but I like it and I can't help liking it more.

I think I've always been a geek in this aspect. In just never thought I'd like anything I read or watch as much as I do now.

I've started watching Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda and finished first season, then I got really interested in some of the actors that were playing my favorite characters (like Lexa Doig for example and don't ask me if I am sure it isn't just cause she's hot, because she is and it isn't :P). My curiosity sprung further when I found some of the actors also played characters in the TV series Firefly which I have seen some time ago and totally loved it.

I haven't always seemed like much of a geek. I don't have Star Wars merchandise and posters on my room's walls, no life-size princess Leia doll (no perverted stuff like all the "real" geeks have, I mean), no nothing.

I do remember watching Star Trek every night when I was little but living in a post communist country at the time didn't help me fall in love with "what's out there". Instead, I chose more down to earth stuff, like electronics, at first, thanks to my dad.

One thing lead to another. From Andromeda I got interested in time travel and started watching Primer (2004). Man, that movie was mind boggling!

Now I found another series! It's called V and ABC aired it. I like it so much that I couldn't stop until I finished the first season before I could head back to watching Andromeda's 2nd season. It's a re-imagining of an 1983 miniseries and it's about an alien race with reptilian-like skin disguised in human flesh that have come to Earth in giant space ships station in major cities all around Earth with a seemingly well intent. Slowly, they begin to uncover their true agenda, lead by V Queen, Anna.
The issues and subjects this series explore are numerous, including world-wide peace, public health, race and skin color aversions, family relationships, relationships between opposing families where their youngest have a love interest in each-other, tradition over evolution or vice-versa, living with a conscience, and more.
Too bad it was only one season. Can't wait for season two.

I've only told you about some of the science-fiction series I have seen recently. If any of this reaches some of you hard-core fans, I want to let you know I'm one of you. If you like SciFi and you haven't watched the series I mentioned before yet, get on it!

I have to admit. SciFi is meant for TV, not DVD. Unless they come in 50 or so more DVDs. :D

The Final Getsuga Tenshō

2010-06-12T21:21:00.000+03:00

I'm a big fan of the Bleach manga by Kubo Tite just because the author always seems to find a curve ball to throw every time the story gets a little bit boring. While the revealing of new interesting things always makes the moment before presentation very intense, the presentation itself hasn't always been as good as you'd expect.

This time, Kubo reveals that there's a final form for Ichigo's ultimate strike, the Getsuga Tenshō. Fans have been discussing various ideas regarding this and I'm going to discuss my own ideas and what I think about this and what other fans are thinking.

First of all, there's the big question if this final form will be able to kill the main antagonist, Aizen Sōsuke. Most people think it won't. But here's what I think. I think it will at least bring Ichigo's combat level up just enough to be able to defend from Aizen's non-special attacks. The community seems to think that Ichigo might be able to scratch Aizen with his new power but I'm pretty sure he won't be able to do anything like that very soon. I know because, even if Urahara was able to scratch Aizen before, he was able to do that because Aizen stopped fearing any attacks, thus stopped defending himself after he acquired the Hougyoku's power. While his defense wasn't as "in-humanly" strong as he appeared, his offensive powers were clearly demonstrated when he took down Urahara, Ishin and Yoruichi-san in virtually one blow (taking all that previous damage only helped to show how much above the powers of those three he is). Of course, there's the idea that Aizen isn't that strong and instead is using his zanpakutō's total-hypnosis ability to manipulate what everyone around him perceives but I think that's a bit far-fetched. If he wasn't so strong, it wouldn't make sense that his zanpakutō's power is absolute and if that was his only power, the majority of fans would stop liking Kubo, for sure.

Then there's a big disappointment because Zangetsu is so cool and everyone thought he will be the one to teach Ichigo all about his powers but instead, Kubo decided to let Ishin, Ichigo's father teach him his ultimate attack. I think there's a big catch here: a chapter or two earlier we see Ishin perform a very powerful Getsuga Tenshō (as he called it when he fired it) in shikai form (if were are going to assume Ishin's zanpakutō is always in shikai form like Ichigo's and doesn't have an un-released form). Ichigo doesn't seem to notice this or he does but doesn't want to ask his dad any questions like he said to him when he first arrived on the battlefield where Aizen and Ichigo were. In any way, Ishin's Getsuga is nothing like his son's so no-one should confuse them. If you want to know why, it's simply because Ishin's Getsuga resembled a slash from a sword many times bigger and the entire mass of reiatsu was evenly controlled while Ichigo's Getsuga can barely be controlled when it's bigger than his sword. He either shoots a center mass that drags the rest of it along like an air bubble surfacing from water or he shoots a fast blast as long as his sword is but has minimal effect as seen so far.

So I think Ishin might teach him the technique but in the end it would be very different from his own. Well, at least that's what I hope.

And a bit about my own ideas. Aizen says to Ichigo at one point that he will be back to eat him. This is very interesting since Aizen looks a lot like a Vasto Lorde or some sort of perfect hybrid between a shinigami and a hollow's souls (and we know hollow eat other stronger hollows to evolve). Actually, he looks much like what Ichigo looked like just before his reiatsu covered him when he transformed into a full hollow in his fight with Ulquiorra or right after he turned back to normal.

When Aizen "tastes" Ichigo's reiatsu from the first slash he received from him, he seems to realize that Ichigo's reiatsu changed after fighting Ulquiorra but doesn't say how exactly, he just acknowledges that he seemed to have acquired an even greater power than that which he expected him to have acquired so far, feeling pleased about the fact (remember that Ulquiorra said Aizen didn't know of his second resurrection form).

It would be great if Aizen's new form is nothing different than Ichigo's new form. It would provide good closure for the manga. But Aizen has always been smarter than everyone else so it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't know about this. This idea could also be flawed, since in the last chapter, Aizen somehow destroyed the "soul train" that resides between the real world and the spirit world where shinigami live. The creature was supposed to be untouchable by shinigami, living in a world of reason, untouchable by reiatsu-based beings. This could only mean that Aizen acquired some form of higher reasoning or understanding which kind of contradicts hollows (though, not shinigamis). If he is both a hollow and a shinigami then it could mean that his powers are hollow and his reasoning is shinigami but that's all just non-ending discussion.

I'm going to stop here because there's too much to talk about and I don't have any feedback yet. I'm only going to tell you another one of my ideas: what if Ishin is a vizard as well as Ichigo? You wonder why I think this? It's been clear that the Vizards have been hiding something from Ichigo and at the same time they wanted him on their team and they place all their hopes in him. I believe they tried recruiting Ishin too. But when did Ishin become a vizard? Well, doesn't he and Urahara seem rather close? ;)

HP Proliant ML350 G6: servers make lousy desktop PCs

2010-05-22T20:51:00.000+03:00

I thought I should just share my experience with this server since I'm probably going to stay away from brand servers for a while after this.

First of all, they're crappy as desktop PCs: video cards with lousy or no hardware acceleration (2D and 3D), extraordinarily long boot-up times, even longer boot-up times if the power gets cut and brought back again due to (very loud!) fan tests, disk array tests, memory tests, PSU tests and other mumbo jumbo and then there's the hardware support: you definitely can't run XP, sometimes 2000 Server and even 2003 on some servers. I couldn't even get it to boot Windows installation disks. No free help anywhere. So I gave up and sent it to the "smarter" and more experienced guys at "Tech Support". :\

Linux though, installs wonderfully and boots up fast. Unfortunately, it gives a mediocre desktop experience due to the slow video card and running a Windows OS under KVM wasn't satisfactory enough for me because of the slow storage (2 x WD Caviar Blue -- I wonder if they got robbed: for a $1300+ server, it had no SAS drives for RAID). I mean with 6GB of RAM and 4 Xeon Cores with HTT enabled, totaling 2 threads per core and hardware virtualization support, this server can run several virtual machines without strain, but it's hopeless without fast storage. The two drives it had barely topped 50MB/s reading.

Servers can be quite a hassle. I wonder what real server admins think of desktops vs. servers since I don't know one to be able to ask...

Bleach Anime Review: Episode 271

2010-05-19T16:27:00.003+03:00

I don't know why some people who started watching Bleach, seemed to have loved the anime early on but then started to really hate it. Is it the fillers? I mean is it so good that the fillers they had to do made everyone forget how good the anime is? No. That can't be. If it is good, real fans wait for it. Yet, some people still think Bleach is on a down slope. Hmph! I really can't understand that. :/

OK, I've read some forums and there was a guy who found it ridiculous that Ulquiorra jumped one level, was untouchable by Ichigo, jumped two levels, even more untouchable (if possible) and then Ichigo jumped all that in an instant becoming himself the actual untouchable one.

I don't know who these people are who claim they have watched Bleach and found it boring... I don't even know if they like shounen manga and anime or whatever other reason they have to watch this anime. Someone needs to tell them the difference between how Ichigo became an Arrancar (of Espada or Vasto Lorde class) and how other Arrancars are born. Or at least to read a Bleach wiki.

If that isn't reason enough to justify Ichigo's jump in power levels, you could very well blame it on the Hougyoku partially or even entirely. Bleach fans already know what the powers of that artifact are and what its limitations are. Do I need to remind you of Ulquiorra's fixation on the human soul?

Still not enough? Watch this week's episode (271) and if that's still not enough, Bleach is probably the wrong anime for you.

A few words about the episode: Ichigo pwons! The most eagerly awaited episode of Bleach, thanks to the manga, has been subtitled by dattebayo. Almost half of the episode focuses just on the fight between Ichigo and Ulquiorra so you'll get to watch another great fight scene, ala Ichigo vs. Grimmjow only shorter but waaay more kickass... for Ulqui :P.

EDIT: I now think it's disputable whether Ichigo really turned into an Arrancar. Arrancars are supposedly Hollows that have removed their masks and have gained shinigami-like powers. In the manga and anime, Ichigo looks more like a Hollow than an Arrancar but that's too crazy because a Hollow could never beat an Arrancar (and one that's in its second release form for that matter). Strength-wise, he's Espada+ class. Look-wise, he's just a Hollow. :\

The dreaded TOC file

2010-04-01T10:03:00.000+03:00

Finally I was able to mount that dreaded ISO/TOC file combination that people still seem to be having problems with. Thanks to the iat tool (Iso9660 Analyzer Tool) from Salvatore Santagati which is available in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories, I converted the RAW iso to an iso with a structure... anyways, it worked! Now the image is loop-mountable.

sudo aptitude install iat
iat MyDreadedIso.iso KeepThisIso.iso

Now I have to hurry back to work. Thanks to Salvatore, my customer is happy. Hehe. :P
The power of OpenSource, baby!

UMTS (3G) with Asus WL-500gP V2 and firmware by koppel.cz

2010-03-24T22:47:00.001+02:00

This Saturday I am to go set up a wireless home network for a customer. First off, it's not as simple as it sounds because of two main reasons: 1. other than 3G, there's no other option to get connected to the Internet where my customer lives and 2. to get the deal, I opted to buy a cheaper router that doesn't come with 3G support from the manufacturer but would still allow flashing the firmware with something that comes with 3G support.

For this, I bought an ASUS WL-500g Premium V2 wireless G router that has two USB 2.0 ports and is supported by several alternative open-source firmwares. The firmware I used is provided by koppel.cz who modifies another firmware by Oleg adding CDMA/UMTS/HSDPA/4G support to it. The firmware has grown a lot it seems. People have had connection problems with it in the distant past but the newest version worked great for me.

Here's how I did it. I basically read a lot of forum posts, kept a lot of tabs open in case I screwed up and wouldn't know what to do and then downloaded the latest firmware at the time, "WL500gpV2-1.9.2.7-10-USB-1.71.trx" to be exact, set my IP to static 192.168.1.12 and used the Asus Web interface to flash the file on the router. Three minutes of high tension while the firmware was flashed and then came the relief. :)

To get connected, I used the Windows software provided with the 3G stick to disable the SIM PIN code, configured the WAN to USB mode, set the USB to UMTS mode, set the APN and dial numbers (different for every provider), I didn't need a username or password in my case and lastly I rebooted the router. My particular 3G modem is a Huawei E160E.

So far, I have flashed 3 routers and I didn't brick any of them. Oh joy... ^_^

Do I really need to remind you that I'm not responsible for anything you do with your device(s)? So be careful, check your firmware md5sums or download two copies and compare md5s and don't forget to secure your power plugs, UPSes, network cables, jacks, IPs, pants...