I primarily followed the Blue trail (B1 – B4 checkpoints on the map) which is accessible by a steep path out of the northeast end of the parking lot, before splitting off onto the Purple trail (P1 – P3). The blue trail was moderately busy, while the purple trail was very lightly traveled. I followed the purple trail all the way to the White Rocks lookout point, before following the Blue trail (B7 – B10) back to where I parked.

Overall, the weather was perfect for hiking (~60F), and the autumn colors were just starting to make an appearance. I should mention that I forgot to start my GPS track when I left the car, but the end of the track is where I parked. The total length of the GPS track is 7.3 miles, so I would guess the total length of the hike, including the part where I forgot to start the track is probably around 7.5 miles with roughly 2100 feet in elevation gain.

This is all of the snowboarding we did before lunch. In other news, the battery life of the HTC Incredible sucks, so there’s no data after lunch.

1. First, edit the nggpolaroid.php file line 41 so that it checks for class nggLoader instead of class nggallery. It should look like this:

   if ( class_exists('nggLoader') ) {

2. Next, copy the code shown below (originally found here) and replace the nggShowPolaroid function with it in the same nggpolaroid.php file. Don’t for get to leave the “?>” at the end of the file.

    
   function nggShowPolaroid($galleryID,$irWidth,$irHeight) {
    
   	global $wpdb;
   	$ngg_options = get_option('ngg_options');
   	$obj = 'so' . $galleryID;
    
   	if (empty($irWidth) ) $irWidth = $ngg_options['irWidth'];
   	if (empty($irHeight)) $irHeight = $ngg_options['irHeight'];
    
   	$replace  = "\n".'<div class="polaroid" id="ngg_polaroid'.$galleryID.'">';
   	$replace .= 'The <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">Flash Player</a> and <a href="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/">a browser with Javascript support</a> are needed..
   </div>';
           $replace .= "\n\t".'<script type="text/javascript" defer="defer">';
   	if ($ngg_options['irXHTMLvalid']) $replace .= "\n\t".'<!--';
   	if ($ngg_options['irXHTMLvalid']) $replace .= "\n\t".'//<![CDATA[';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t".'var '. $obj .' = {';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t".'params : {';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t\t".'wmode : "opaque",';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t\t".'allowFullScreen : "true"},';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t".'flashvars : {';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t\t".'xmlURL : "'.NGGPOLAROID_URLPATH.'nggpolaroidXML.php?gid='.$galleryID.'"},';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t".'attr : {},';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t".'start : function() {';
   	$replace .="\n\t\t\t\t".'swfobject.embedSWF("'.NGGPOLAROID_URLPATH.'polaroid.swf","ngg_polaroid'.$galleryID.'", "'.$irWidth.'", "'.$irHeight.'", "7.0.0", false, this.flashvars, this.params, this.attr );';
           $replace .="\n\t\t".'}';
           $replace .="\n".'}';
           $replace .="\n".$obj.'.start();';
   	if ($ngg_options['irXHTMLvalid']) $replace .= "\n\t".'//]]>';
   	if ($ngg_options['irXHTMLvalid']) $replace .= "\n\t".'-->';
   	$replace .= "\n\t".'</script>';
    
   	return $replace;
   }
    
   } else {
   	add_action('admin_notices', create_function('', 'echo \'<div id="message" class="error fade"><strong>' . __('Sorry, NextGEN Gallery Polaroid works only in Combination with NextGEN Gallery',"nggallery") . '</strong>
   </div>\';'));
   }// End Check

3. Finally, somewhere along the lines, the SWFObject javascript class which is used by the Polaroid plugin is no longer included by default when the page loads. I’m not sure if there’s a setting somewhere in NextGEN to enable this or what, but the easiest way I’ve found to include it by default is to install the WP-SWFObject plugin. This will add the following line to the html of every wordpress page:

   <script src="http://www.your-website.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-swfobject/2.0/swfobject.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

   There is probably a better way, but I haven’t found it.

Finally, the code polaroid=ireland,500,600 enclosed in square brackets includes the cool animation below, which shows all the pictures in the “ireland” album with a width of 500×600.

I am a graduate student after all, and I still need to be able to write papers on my home computer for publication in technical journals.  Standard procedure on my old windows computer was to use MikTex and TeXnicCenter.  MikTex is great because it automatically downloads and installs whatever latex packages it needs on the fly, and TeXnicCenter beats the snot out of notepad.  After switching to Ubuntu and Gnome specifically, I started tracking down replacements for these two pieces.  The most intriguing (and first) solution I came across was using the Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede) development environment with the Texlipse plugin.  Eclipse is an extremely extendable platform that has great plugins and tools for developing in all sorts of languages, and I’ve been using a customized version at work to develop software which runs on some Texas Instruments fixed-point DSPs and Xilinx FPGAs.

The first step to getting a workable Eclipse-based LaTex environment working in Ubuntu is to install a Java Development Kit (JDK), whether that kit is the Sun JDK 6 or one of the open-source (openjdk) distributions.  Since I already had the Sun JDK installed as a prereq for a different program, I’ll outline that first.  On my particular system, I have installed both the JDK and the JRE, which I believe are both required, although I’m not sure about the JDK. Therefore, to install Eclipse 3.4 using the Sun JDK, (sourcing john from jhcore.net):

Install the Sun JRE and JDK:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jdk

Then download and install Eclipse 3.4:

wget
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/eclipse/technology/epp/downloads/release/ganymede/R/eclipse-java-ganymede-linux-gtk.tar.gz
tar xzvf eclipse-java-ganymede-linux-gtk.tar.gz
mv eclipse eclipse3.4

Edit: It has come to my attention that there is a service release (SR1) to Eclipse 3.4. Therefore, when downloading Eclipse, the package name should be downloaded with:

wget
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/eclipse/technology/epp/downloads/release/ganymede/SR1/eclipse-java-ganymede-SR1-linux-gtk.tar.gz

I haven’t tried this installation yet, but it is my guess that the process will be identical.

At this point, you should have a working copy of Eclipse installed in your home directory which can be run by ~/eclipse3.4/eclipse. The next step is to install TexLive, which is a pretty good LaTex package for Linux. In Ubuntu, this is accomplished by:

sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-base

There are other TexLive packages in the Unbuntu repository, but it is my understanding that the texlive-latex-base package includes the necessary binaries (like latex, pdflatex, and pslatex) needed to compile *.tex files. As for the LaTex classes and style packages, that’s where MikTex comes in. Wait, what?

MikTex is a great LaTex package manager for windows, but it turns out you can compile it for linux too! I’m not going to go through it step by step, because that website does an excellent job of it. Just make sure when you’re compiling that you SPECIFY YOUR HOME DIRECTORY PROPERLY TWICE in the part where it says:

cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DMIKTEX_INSTALLROOT="/home/YOUR USER/texmf" -DMIKTEX_ROOTS="/home/YOUR USER/texmf"

This is important because this will be the directory where the MikTex package manager stores the LaTex packages when it downloads them. Also, that website says to run a sudo make install which will install the package into the texmf directory and, by virtue of running this using sudo, make root the owner of the texmf directory or some directories in it. It is convenient to sudo chown -R YourUser:YourUser ~/texmf to give yourself permissions to install packages and update the MikTex database without the sudo command. By default, TexLive is already configured (in /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf) to look for LaTex packages in $HOME/texmf when compiling LaTex files. BAM! Now when you need a LaTex package like cite, you can just run:

mpm --update-db
mpm --install=cite

Piece of cake.

The last piece of the puzzle is the Texlipse plugin for Eclipse. This does the syntax highlighting, compiling, etc, etc in Eclipse. It works pretty well I might add. In Eclipse 3.4, it is a piece of cake to install. Just run eclipse and go to the Help >> Software Updates… menu and add a new site: http://texlipse.sourceforge.net/ . Then check the box next to the site you just added and hit install. Also a piece of cake.

You should now have a completely usable LaTex editing environment at your fingertips, and since it’s based on Eclipse, you can use all sorts of other great add-ons like Subclipse for accessing your LaTex documents stored in a SVN repository.

Hope I’ve helped to make this process a little more straightforward for someone else.

As a derivative of Debian, Ubuntu uses the APT package handling utility and the Synaptic Package Manager graphical frontend.  I’d heard great things about the Compiz Fusion window manager and I’d always wanted to try it out (Look up Compiz on YouTube if you’re unfamiliar). With Ubuntu installed, I finally had the chance. It was a piece of cake to download and install the necessary packages using Synaptic, and here’s a list of the packages I installed to get it working:

1. compiz_0.7.4-0ubuntu6_all.deb
2. compiz-core_0.7.4-0ubuntu6_i386.deb
3. compiz-gnome_0.7.4-0ubuntu6_i386.deb
4. compiz-plugins_0.7.4-0ubuntu6_i386.deb
5. emerald_0.7.2-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
6. libdecoration0_0.7.4-0ubuntu6_i386.deb
7. libemeraldengine0_0.7.2-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
8. compiz-fusion-plugins-extra_0.7.4-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
9. compiz-fusion-plugins-main_0.7.4-0ubuntu5_i386.deb
10. compizconfig-backend-gconf_0.7.4-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
11. compizconfig-settings-manager_0.7.4-0ubuntu2_all.deb
12. fusion-icon_0.0.0+git20071028-2ubuntu2_all.deb
13. libcompizconfig0_0.7.4-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
14. python-compizconfig_0.7.4-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

I’m sorry if I missed any. You can find these by simply searching for “Compiz” in Synaptic. This list of packages includes all of the graphical configuration frontends which are useful in configuring the multitude of compiz options. You can tweak just about everything. I’m a big fan of the popular Cube desktop. Using a laptop with limited screen real estate is so much easier with hot keys which can rotate the cube in any direction to other (hopefully uncluttered) desktops. Also, if you’ve been thinking about trying Compiz but were worried that your graphics card wasn’t up to the task, don’t be. My laptop has a built-in intel graphics chip (using the i915 module I believe) and the Compiz cube desktop with flame effects and wobbly windows runs flawlessly. It even shows video while rotating the cube. Really awesome stuff.

Edit: I’ve noticed that this post has been somewhat popular, so I thought I’d point out that you can install compiz-fusion in the Synaptic Package Manager by selecting really only a few packages and the rest will be installed as dependencies.  These few are:

1. emerald_0.7.2-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
2. compizconfig-settings-manager_0.7.4-0ubuntu2_all.deb
3. fusion-icon_0.0.0+git20071028-2ubuntu2_all.deb

If the plugins packages aren’t installed, then they might have to be selected separately.  I believe all the other packages will be installed as dependencies of the three above.  Once that’s done, a fusion icon will appear in the system menu I believe, and you can access the compiz configuration GUI from there, as well as the emerald theme manager which lets you mess with window themes.  There are also options in there for metacity, but I ignored those and know little about them.

Before I started with the installation, I tried to read as much of the documentation as possible, and I spent extra time browsing their highly active user forums. This allowed me to create a diagram of my home network beforehand which utilizes Smoothwall’s built-in color-coded network partitioning scheme. The scheme works like this for my home network (all connections are referenced to the Smoothwall box itself):

• Red Interface: Connects directly to the internet through my cable modem.
• Green Interface: This connects to a simple network switch to which all of my “trusted” computers are connected. More on this later.
• Purple Interface: This connects to a wireless access point which is configured to use WPA encryption.
• Orange Interface: This connects directly to my web/email server.

For this scheme to work, the computer onto which I was installing Smoothwall required 4 (four) network adapters, one for each interface. This was accomplished by acquiring four cheap PCI network cards. Check the documentation beforehand to make sure the cards you buy are supported by Smoothwall!

Once the computer hardware was ready, I downloaded an ISO from SmoothWall.org and burned it to a CD. The CD is bootable and installation is pretty straightforward. The hardest part is figuring out which colored interface the installer has assigned to which card.

The interfaces come with default rules which define how they can interact with one another. In a nutshell, it works like this: Green, Purple, and Orange can all access stuff on the red interface (they can all access the internet). Green is the “trusted” network and is designed to be the standard location for regular users’ comuters. It can access computers located on both Purple and Orange computers with no specific port forwarding rules. Purple is very similar to Green in the fact that it can access computers on Orange, except it is restricted from inititiating connections to computers on Green. This is great for wireless networks which are prone to being hacked. The Orange interface is the “de-militarized zone” or DMZ. It only has access to the Red interface and cannot (and should not) be able to access the Green or Purple networks. This works well for servers which have potentially vulnerable services exposed to the perils of the internet. This way, if someone hacks your server, that’s all they get. They can’t access any computers located on the Green or Purple interfaces.

By default, the firewall port forwarding rules are configured as “Half-Open” which means that incoming traffic is restricted on all interfaces. Additionally, only selected ports are allowed for outgoing traffic as well. Most applications work out of the box with this configuration, but you may need to poke some outgoing holes for PTP applications for example.

I’ve been experimenting with the wealth of community-submitted “Homebrew Customizations.” Some of these are really spectacular and provide additional functionality which is usually built right into the Smoothwall administrator web interface. Here are a few that I’ve tried out with success:

1. Broadband Modem Monitor v1.3
2. DHCP Lease v2.1
3. Performance Graphs v1.3
4. SmoothBackup for SWE 3.0 v.1.4
5. Smoothwall Express Mail Filter v. SEMF-SW3-3.8.0-0.40-i686-b017
6. and ModCommander for SWE 3.0 v. 1.1 for installing more Mods!

The Smoothwall Express Mail Filter is great. It listens on port 25 and scans all incoming email for spam and viruses before it even reaches my email server on the orange interface. After about a thousand emails, it’s about 80% accurate in detecting spam. After another thousand, it should be extremely accurate.

The Broadband Modem Monitor is also interesting. It monitors the Power and Signal-Noise Ratio of your standard cable modem and produces plots. I’ve noticed that the quality of my connection has been faltering recently, and this could have something to do with it:

I guess the cable company is messing around in the neighborhood and causing periodic degradation of service. I know a few dB isn’t that big of a deal, but it could be a symptom of whatever else they’re doing.

Anyways, the Smoothwall Express 3.0 Firewall is effective and easy to install/use, and the homebrew mods are pretty sweet too. Give it a shot. What else are you going to do with that old computer from the late 90′s?

Sunstone Circuits is the actual fab house servicing PCBexpress.com. After hunting around on their website, I stumbled across this. Sunstone offers Design For Manufacture (DFM) rules for download for both Altium Designer and Eagle. In the zip file for Altium are two rule files and a set of instructions in a word document. The rule files are for single and double-sided boards, and multi-layer boards. Importing the appropriate rule file into the rule-set for an Altium PCB design establishes all the important layout rules to ensure your design gets manufactured the first time every time. Rules are set for things like trace width and spacing, via and hole size, thermal relief sizes for internal planes, solder mask tolerances, etc. This really beats trying to translate the manufacturing information on PCBexpress.com into working rules on my own, since apparently I’m not very good at it.