As I tread the Globe....

खरंच कुणाची जिरली?

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:51:00 +0000

- अबू आझमीची हिंदीतूनच शपथ घेण्याची घोषणा
- मनसेचा मराठीतूनच शपथ घेण्याचा आदेश
- सभागॄहातला गदारोळ
- News channels कडून मनसेला उद्धार आणि अबू आजमीला आधार
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XARIMMAG4Go चा सगळ्यांना सोयिस्कर विसर
- मनसेचे ४ आमदार निलंबित
- मराठीद्वेषामुळे निलंबित झालो पण अबूला २ देउन झालो आणि शेवटपर्यंत मराठीसाठी लढलो असे मानणारे मनसे आमदार
- मला मारता काय, आता कसे निलंबित झालात असे मानणारा अबू

खरंच कुणाची जिरली? खरंच कोण जिंकलं?

जाहिरातबाजीचे राजकारण आणि राजकारणाची जाहिरातबाजी

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:07:00 +0000

लहानपणीचा एक विनोद...

पहिला: अरे माझा मोती कुत्रा हरवला रे
दुसरा: काळजी करु नको, आपण पेपरात "हरवला आहे" अशी जाहिरात देउया!
पहिला: वेडा आहेस काय, त्याला पेपर कुठे वाचता येतो?

आजकाल गल्लोगल्ली लागलेले शुभेच्छा आणि अभिनंदनाचे फलक पाहिले की मला हा विनोद आठवतो.

हे फलक ज्याच्यासाठी लावतात ती व्यक्ती ते कधी वाचत असेल काय? शक्यच नाही. पण जो ते लावतो त्याची पब्लिसिटी मात्र होते. आपले कसे "जिव्हाळ्याचे संबंध" वरपर्यंत आहेत हे दाखवण्याचा आणखी एक हेतू त्यात असतो. राजकारणात पाय रोवू पाहणारे उगवते तारे आपली "निष्ठा" दर्शवण्यासाठी त्यांचा हमखास उपयोग करू शकतात. तसेच, कोण किती काम करतोय हे "दाखवण्यासाठी" अजून सोपा मार्ग दुसरा कुठला असेल?

एवढं असेल तर शहराची स्वछता, नियम, सुरक्षा, पैशांचा दुरुपयोग ईत्यादी दुय्यम गोष्टी कोण कशाला विचारात घेतो?

Installing Ubuntu over USB flash drive RAID array in Intel Atom 330

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:24:00 +0000

Ubuntu makes it pretty simple to install it over USB flash drive RAID array. You can install it using flash drive itself.

Why would you do it? Flash drives are pretty cheap nowdays, even for capacities worth GBs. You can create RAID array out of more than one flash drive and have a system that can tolerate disk failures. Linux distros do not eat up diskspace like Windows so you can fit entire box in minimum two flash drives.

I downloaded Ubuntu server installation from a mirror and transferred the ISO to flash drive using Unetbootin. This has worked effortlessly for desktop live CD and I could boot in minutes. The installation also transferred itself onto other flash drive in system. However, I could not find any advanced options during live image - hdd transfer. So decided to download Server ISO.

It took 5 hours to get the image from net :( Unetbootin transferred it to flash but the installation kept complaining about missing CD-ROM drive. There are few links on web which mention you can mount the filesystem on /cdrom during setup. It worked but then setup kept complaining about something or the other. Finally hacked out CD-ROM drive from sister's desktop at midnight (she stays few miles away).

Once CD-ROM drive was there, setup was breeze. You need to make sure that USB emulation is set to "HDD" or "Fixed Disk" in the BIOS setup and boot using CD.

Setup is RAID aware and it provides easy options to create software RAID volumes. Setup also installs GRUB on all drives. This helps if you loose one RAID member and reboot.

Here are few screenshots during the install

- Choose manual mode to create partitions
- Create partitions on member drives first (keep sizes of partitions same. They can be in any order)
- Once partitions are created, come back to partitioning menu and create MD devices. Here you need to create as many partitions you need and make sure you select partitions of same sizes.
- Provide mount points to each partition and other usual parameters
- Commit changes and proceed, setup will do its job
- Reboot and test.

I tried removing one flash drive online and the system continued. However, if you try to reinsert that drive back online, the drive letter changes and hence the drive wont join RAID group. I would suggest you shutdown system, add drive and then restart. This is not the ideal thing to do but if the system is so critical, you wont be running it like this anyway ;)

If you are going to add a HDD after this, make sure that the HDD is not part of system boot sequence in BIOS. I am also not sure how the system will behave if you add more flash drives to the system. When the system is on, it should not cause harm, however, during boot the system might assign different drive letters. A quick look at mdadm.conf makes me believe that the RAID array is configured to look for disk signatures so you are at no risk if drive letters changes. Dont have a flash drive now to check that.

Let me know if it works for you. Following two links have been quiet helpful to me.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-raid.html#mozTocId435101
https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/i386/boot-usb-files.html
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help/138532-solved-install-packages-cdrom-thru-terminal.html

Are you fan of DXDIAG?

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Whats the first (or one of the firsts) things that you do after installing a new instance of Windows?

I usually run DxDiag. Is this something that you too do?

Diagnostics utilities always amused me. It started with CheckIT for DOS which I ran on MS-DOS 3/4. My usual screen that time was MS-DOS prompt and then GW-BASIC interpreter. No wonder CheckIT caught my attention. It was something screenful and had lots of information - much more than I could interpret. I behaved exactly like Number 5 from the movie - Short Circuit. I ran around craving for "Input" most of the time then and diagnostics gave me that :)

Windows 95 came along and it took away most of the fun of running MS-DOS diags. But DxDiag was cool. Watching the DxDiag video test somehow became "the thing to do". Running it and watch the white rectangle and colourful cube jumping around the screen was quickest and coolest thing you could do on Windows, wasn't it? And it had quick MIDI test which rocked on my Creative AWE 64.

Sad to see DxDiag crippled in the Windows 7 RTM...no video tests in DxDiag :( :( :(

Longest time without formatting XP :)

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:00:00 +0000

My laptop harddisk has started locking up recently. Seems like a sign of failure in near future :(

Incidentaly this laptop has not been formatted since I messed up with it when I got it first. A small VBScript found here tells me that it was done on "Friday, January 05, 2007". So that means I am using one install instance of Windows XP for 2 years 9 months!!!! It has slowed down over time but not till the point that its needs a format :)

The first format was accidental. I had got it home and after booting up, I decided to install Windows 2000. I immidiately created Ghost image of the partition and installed Windows 2000. Just to discover that there are no drivers and I had no pen drive etc to download and copy using my desktop. Ghosted image was put back in minutes and thus XP stayed on.

This is most used instance so far ever for me.

Make yourself a Nokia N series USB Charger cable

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:21:00 +0000

Many a times I forgot my charger at home and the battery died while at work. Carrying a charger worked opposite as I forgot it at work. Earlier I used my mobile for internet access and it required charger to be plugged in to avoid disconnection. Plugging laptop and phone to their chargers and connecting via cable caused chassis current due to unbalanced ground connections. Nokia had a data cable + charger cable but its not available around here. I could buy two chargers but creating a chargerless solution for yourself seems more attractive :)

Follow these simple steps to make yourself a Nokia N series USB Charger cable. This can work for older Nokia phones as well if you get the right connector. Nokia chargers, like most other chargers, are nothing but 5VDC adapters without any intelligence. The phone handles all charging functions using this 5VDC supply.

Requirements:

USB cable - This can be any USB cable as long as you don't need it for anything else. It needs to have typical USB connector to connect to your laptop or desktop. Connector at the other end can be anything as it would be discarded anyway.
N series connector - I bought a cheap Nokia adaptor charger adaptor cable. One end of this connects to older Nokia chargers and other end connects to the handset. This is officially called CA-44

Wire stripper/cutter tool
Insulation tape
Digital Multi Meter with continuity tester

Steps to follow

Cut the USB cable in between. You can cut it to desired length. It need not be as long as it is.
There would be four wires inside - Red (+5V), White (Data+), Green (Data-) and Black (GND). You need to open insulation of Red and Black wire.

Cut the charger adapter cable near its female end. This adapter cable is usually shorter in length so cut near unwanted connector to get maximum length.
Using multimeter find out which wire connects to outer conductor of charger pin. Connect this wire to black wire of USB cable.
Connect red wire on USB cable to other wire of charger pin.
You can solder these connections or use insulation tape to properly cover up the cable. Soldering is preferable as it will make the cable less prone to accidental pulls or rough use.
Test that there is no short between connectors after the joint has been covered up.
Connect the cable to computer and phone and check.

Enjoy your new charger :)

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:28:00 +0000

Official press release of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

Are they trying to say that Mahatma Gandhiji was not photogenic???

The limited edition pen by Mont Blanc

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:48:00 +0000

I did not like the INR 11+ lac pen brought out as a tribute to Gandhiji. Nor did many others. It obviously does not relate to his preachings of simplicity and austerity.

And if you ever use this pen to write, you would be writing with his image held upside down!!!

Back to school...

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:59:00 +0000

बांद्र्याला कामासाठी गेलो होतो. मग अचानक विचार केला की जरा शाळा पाहून यावी. शाळेबाहेर थांबलो आणि आत एक चक्कर मारायची तीव्र इच्छा झाली. आत जावं की नाही, कोणी ओळखीचं भेटेल काय, ओळखेल काय - मनात चलबिचल झाली पण शेवटी आत गेलो...तब्बल १७ वर्षानंतर!

"teacher's room कुठे आहे?" आत शिरताना एका शिपायाला मी विचारलं,
"काय पाहिजे?". मला शंकेने न्याहाळत त्याने विचारलं, "काय काम आहे?".
पण जेव्हा मी सांगितलं की मी शाळेचा विद्यार्थी होतो, तेव्हा त्याचा सूर एकदम पालटला. मला उत्साहाने त्याने रस्ता दाखवला.

शाळा आता खूप वाढलेली होती. आधी मोठ्या दोन इमारती होत्या आणि त्यातल्या एकीला लागून एक बैठी शाळा होती. या बैठ्या शाळेतच आमचे वर्ग होते. ती तोडून मुख्य दोन्ही इमारतींना जोडणारी एक तिसरी इमारत आता आली होती. शाळेत junior college आणि मुलींसाठी वसतिगृह आले होते. लहानपणी मोठ्ठं वाटणारं मैदान आता छोटं वाटत होतं.
Passage मधून जाताना time machine मध्ये चालत असल्याचा भास होत होता. Teacher's room जवळ पोहोचलो आणि माझ्या एका class teacher चे नाव head master पाटीखाली पाहिलं. "Madam आहेत का?" मी तिथे चौकशी केली. तिथल्या शिपायाने माझं नाव आणि काम विचारलं. मी घाग म्हणाल्यावर त्याने पटकन "किरण घाग?" असा प्रश्न केला. मी चकीत झालो. मनातली एक जुनी आठवणींची cassatte लोड झाली. मला विचारणारे प्रकाश मामा, समोर बसलेल्या पुळेकरबाई, सगळं पटकन आठवलं.
मला बसायला खुर्ची आणि प्यायला पाणी मिळालं आणि सगळी विचारपूस सुरु झाली. ओळखीचे बरेच जण retired झाले होते. परिक्षा सुरु होती म्हणून सगळे शिक्षक वर्गावर होते. मग मी वर्गावर जायचं ठरवलं.
सोमणबाई, वालावलकरबाई आणि पावसकरसर भेटले. आपला विद्यार्थी इतक्या वर्षांनंतर आल्याचा आनंद मला स्पष्ट दिसत होता आणि त्यांच्या प्रश्नांना उत्तरं देताना माझं मन तृप्त होत होतं.

बोलण्यात मला शिक्षकांच्या आणि शाळेच्या काही व्यथा जाणवल्या. शि़क्षण महाग होत चाललय, मराठी तुकड्या कमी होत आहेत, मराठी माध्यमातून शिकणं स्पर्धात्मक राहिलं नाही असा गृह बळावतोय, मुलांचा उत्साह कमी होत चाललयं, या त्यापैकी काही. हळुहळू मला जाणवलं की शाळेची इमारतच फ़क्त बदलली होती. पण शाळेतलं शिक्षण अगदी तसच होतं. आमच्या वेळेला भिंतीवर असणारे तक्ते, frame केलेले models, सुंदर अक्षरांवर जोर देणारे, जिव्हाळ्याचे शिक्षक अजून तसेच होते.

- एका वर्गात २ मुलं अशीच बसली होती. मग कळलं की त्यांचा आज पेपर नव्हता, पण ती चुकून आली होती. मग एकटं परत पाठवण्यापेक्षा त्यांना बसवून ठेवलं होतं.
- वालावलकरबाईंशी बोलताना एक मुलगा करंगळी वर करुन आला - "बाई सूसू!" त्याला पाठवलं मग एकामागून एक ४-५ जणं आली. अशी संसर्गजन्य सू आम्हालापण व्हायची :)

बाहेर पडताना बहुतेक पेपर सुटला होता. मुलं रांगेत बाहेर पडत होती. त्या रांगेतून मार्ग काढत मी पण बाहेर निघालो. घरी येउन २ दिवस झाले, मन मात्र अजून एका छोट्या बाकावर बसलय.

Two songs with a common thread

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:16:00 +0000

There is a song "Mahi ve" from a Hindi movie named "Kaante" and another "Mahi ve" from Faakhir...

Years ago, the first Mahi ve got associated in mind for a nice friend of mine. Simply cause we heard it repeatedly as we got introduced and got to talk each other for hours in same meet.

I had tried to download the song from net and I got Maahi ve from Faakhir. I did not know about second song. After downloading and playing, realised that its not the one I wanted. But I liked it very much.

Now after many years, I wanted to download Mahi ve from Faakhir as I could not find it on disk...and I ended up downloading Mahi ve from Kaante..

:)

one puzzle that troubles me since few days...

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:10:00 +0000

If - one shop has goods worth 2 lakh, is looted for half of its goods,
next day news will say - "goods worth 1lakh stolen".
Now if that shop announces 50% flat discount on everything, and is looted for remaining material...
what should the news say?

Why Indians worship many Gods?

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:03:00 +0000

Met a friend's mother on the weekend. She had returned from Singapore after staying with her elder Son. Following is a small incident she narrated.

Their Christian housemaid was amused to see her worship photos of different Gods.

maid: There is only one God. Why do you worship so many Gods?
She: We could just boil rice and eat. But still we make steamed rice, jeera rice, pulav, khichadi and so on....Its about different forms. God is just one!

Installing VMware ESXi 4 on Intel Atom D945GCLF2 using USB Flash drive

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:48:00 +0000

Unfortunately, trying to install VMWare ESXi 4 on Intel Atom D945GCLF2 using USB Flash drive FAILS :( :( :(

You can get trial version of ESXi 4 on VMWare website. This is good for 60 days. You can extract the downloaded ISO image and extract a boot image from it. This boot image can be directly flashed to a USB pen drive (larger than 1GB) and boot off directly without setting up entire stuff.
More info can be found on net for this process.

I am not sure what you would miss if you pop the ISO image on a DVD and boot using it.

You will have to enable USB boot support in BIOS setup and move USB higher up in boot order. Also make sure that USB boot emulation is set to Hard Disk. On Intel D945GCLF2, setting USB boot emulation to AUTO did not work for me.

To my dismay...the boot fails with following two errors...
Failed to load tpm
Failed to load lvmdriver

This had worked on Intel Laptop so I was quiet hopeful that it runs on D945GCLF2, being an Intel motherboard.

Quick googling reveals that the Realtek NIC in Intel Atom motherboards is not supported. The installation error is not specific i.e. "Unsupported Network Adaptor" or something like that...Apparently, the boot code uses NIC MAC address to generate unique identifier for some kind and that code fails.

Temp solution is to install a supported Network adaptor and install. My system cabinet does not have slot to add any card, even though the motherboard supports one PCI slot. This should have been checked while buying soI cant complain now. The Zebronics Chotu cabinet is quiet compact. But this lack of slot makes it bad buy for D945GCLF2 boards. The SMPS provided is also not fully enclosed. The heat generated by SMPS shares is not barred by entering cabinet. This causes the system temperature to rise by few degrees when covered up.

No plans to test ESX further on Atom now :(

अज्ज दिन चढेया ...(Ajj Din Chadeya)

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:05:00 +0000

काही गोष्टी किती सरळसोप्या असतात. पण कुठेतरी मनात आत भिडतात. Love Aaj Kal मधल हे गाणं असच कुठेतरी आत घुमलं.
बघायला गेलं तर टिपीकल मेलोड्रामॅटिक, व्यावसायिक चित्रपटातील अजून एक गाणं; पण सुरेख!

नेहमीचा एक सीन...तो लांबचा प्रवास करुन तिला पहायला येतो. ती भेटेल की नाही, त्याला पाहेल की नाही, त्याच्याशी बोलेल की नाही, याचा काही विचार न करता, फक्त येतो. त्याच्याकडे असतो फक्त तिचा पत्ता आणि तिला भेटायची आस. सकाळ होण्याची वाट बघत घरासमोरील एका बाकावर तो रात्र काढतो...

(सकाळ किती प्रतिकात्मक असते आपल्यासाठी. आजचा दिवस जर मनासारखा नसेल, तर रात्री झोपताना नाही का वाटत कि उद्या काही मनासारखं घडू दे. सुर्य तोच असतो, दिवस तोच असतो. पण किती वेगळा वाटतो!)

हळुहळू दिवस वर येतो. त्याचा डोळा उघडतो आणि एक चमक दिसते त्यात...तो क्षण जवळ आल्याची चाहूल लागते...तो दिवस नवीन असतो..अगदी रात्री मनात आणला तसा...अलगद सुरू झालेल्या गाण्यात ते आपल्याला जाणवून देउ लागतो...मनातली घालमेल जेव्हा वाढते, तेव्हा मग देवाला साद घातली जाते आणि त्याला या गाण्यात साकडं घातलं जातं.

अज्ज दिन चढेया तेरे रंग वरगा,
फूल सा खिला है आज दिन...
रब्बा मेरे दिन ये ना ढले, वो जो मुझे ख्वाब मे मिले,
उसे तू लगा दे अब गले, तैनू दिल दा वास्ता...
रब्बा आया दर दिगार के, सारा जहान छोड के,
मेरे सपने सवार दे, तैनू दिल दा वास्ता...

बक्षा गुनाहो को, सुन के दुवाओको
रब्बा प्यार है तुने सब को ही दे दिया
मेरी भी आहोंको, सुन ले दुवाओंको
मुझको वह दिला मैने जिसको है दिल दिया
आसमां पे आसमां उसके दे इतना बता
वो जो मुझे देखके हसे, पाना चाहू रात-दिन उसे
रब्बा मेरे नाम कर उसे, तैनू दिल दा वास्ता...

मांगा जो मेरा है, जाता क्या तेरा है
मैने कौनसी तुझसे जन्नत है मांग ली
कैसा खुदा है तू, बस नाम का है तू
रब्बा जो तेरी इतनी सी भी ना चली
चाहिये जो मुझे, कर दे तू मुझको अता
जिती रहे सल्तनत तेरी, जिती रहे आशिकी मेरी
देदे मुझे जिंदगी मेरी, तैनू दिल दा वास्ता...

रब्बा मेरे दिन ये ना ढले, वो जो मुझे ख्वाब मे मिले,
उसे तू लगा दे अब गले, तैनू दिल दा वास्ता...

रब्बा आया दर दिगार के, सारा जहान छोड के,
मेरे सपने सवार दे, तैनू दिल दा वास्ता...
अज्ज दिन चढेया तेरे रंग वरगा,
फूल सा खिला है आज दिन...

शेवटी ती येते आणि त्यांची नजरानजर होते. तिच्या नजरेतल्या आश्चर्याने त्याला जाणवतं की त्याचं येणं सार्थकी लागलय... हवं ते मिळाल्याचा आनंद त्याला भारुन टाकतो.

काहीतरी हवं असणं आणि ते मिळणं यालाच तर सुख म्हणतात ना? काय हवं असतं याच्या व्याख्या प्रत्येक जण वेगळ्या बनवतो मात्र. संन्यास घेणारा योगी म्हणतो की त्याला कसलाही मोह नाही, काही नकोय त्याला. पण काही नको असणं हे देखील काही हवं असणं नाही का?

वरचं गाणं जेव्हा सुरु झालं, तेव्हा मला एक प्रकारचा "Deja Vu" झाला होता. असं वाटत होतं की पुढचं गाणं मनात वाजतय आधी. का ते कळेना. घरी आल्यावर मी ते चक्क विसरलो होतो. पण सकाळी उठलो तेव्हा मनात कुठेतरी ते घुटमळत होतं पण. मनात घुटमळणारं गाणं नक्की कोणतं हे कळत नव्हतं पण. नुकतंच TV वर येणाय्रा "दिन है सुहाना आज पहली तारिख है" च्या ओळी आणि चाल मध्ये येत होती.
थोडयावेळाने सवयीप्रमाणे लॉगीन केलं आणि Love Aaj Kal ची गाणी डाउनलोड केली. जितकी मिळाली ती सगळी. रांगेने लावली तेव्हा हे अचानक लागलं. डोक्यात फिरणारं आणि प्ले होणारं गाणं मॅच झालं आणि एक शोध पुर्ण झाल्याचा आनंद झाला...अंगावर काटा आला.

त्या क्षणाला हवं असलेलं काहीतरी गवसलं आणि एक वर्तुळ पुर्ण झालं.

Home Server Project - Installing and testing Windows Home Server inside VMware on Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 09:59:00 +0000

Linux is going on good and the server has stabilized on it much.

There are still few little little things like bluetooth streaming, web based media player and remote video monitoring etc are pending...little things? well could be not so little :)

I decided to give WHS (Windows Home Server) a try and only way to do it without worrying about connecting DVD drive was to go back to Windows XP. VMware can run on Linux but remember that its a headless machine :)

So changed boot preference in grub.conf and rebooted. Windows was quickly up.

Follow these tips for installing WHS inside VMware

- Create ISO image of the installation DVD. And assign this image as DVD image in VMware
- Choose Windows 2003 Server as VM type
- WHS failed to recognize default SCSI virtual hard disk so create a virtual IDE drive of 70GB or more. (See addendum below)
- My system has 2GB RAM and dual core-dual cpu Atom processor. I allocated 1GB RAM and two processors to the VM
- Do not choose to allocate all the space at once. WHS expects a drive more than 70GB in capacity to be there and preallocates 20GB partition for itself. And does not 20GB at once during setup so its better to do thin-provisioning for the drive.
- When the virtual machine first boots, enter BIOS setup make sure that the boot order is set to Hard disk first and then DVD drive. Else you will end up entering setup every time you reboot.

Remaining installation is straightforward. WHS is built on Windows 2003 engine so you will see that branding during setup and bootups. This may have changed in final revisions.

I was quiet skeptical about running Linux and WHS inside VMware on Windows XP. However Intel Atom330 was quiet tolerant to the load. CPU utilisation was under 20 when both guest OSes were up and running. During installation the utilisation went up and stayed between 60-70 for most of the time, but never peaked to 100%.

All was well till I installed bluetooth dongle driver and logitech webcam driver. After rebooting XP is into rolling reboots, even if safe mode is chosen.

Finally gave up and back to good old Linux now :)

Addendum:

VMware has provided a SCSI driver if you want to use its SCSI drives for Windows 2003 or XP virtual machines. This is a floppy image so download it and edit VM properties to connect the image to VM (3.5" 1.44MB drive). This should detect virtual VMware SCSI drives during installation.

You can download the image from here - http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp

Michael Jackson is no more!

noreply@blogger.com (Globe Treader™ - © Kiran Ghag) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:53:00 +0000

I was never a pop freak, nor a MJ fan. Have hardly listened to any kind of 5 English songs in a row.

Just came to know that Michael Jackson is no more, thanks to a video comment on youtube! This news confirms it.

He was definitely controversial :) I dont know much about his career/life/songs or dance so better not make any statement. So just enjoy the video...

And here is an interesting link about his face :D

http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Jackson.html

Home Server Project - Remote management and configuring alets about system/hdd temperature

The box is back in its final place - my personal-data centre. As observed before, closed cabinet adds warmth to the cabinet and adds almost 10 degree Celsius in the temperature reading. For now, it would remain uncovered and temperature lies between 50-60C

This rack is 8 feet above the ground hence turning the machine on is a challenge. WOL came to rescue. The onboard NIC supports wake on lan so I got one wol utility from internet. There are plenty available. I tried with two and both worked well.

Sendmail for google apps has been already configured for this box. The box is able to mail whenever apache has been started or stopped. To extend this further, I am trying to schedule cron jobs to mail me temperature status of various components. A quick tutorial and hddtemp package is now able to send me HDD temperature over mail, every 15 mins. Following command has been scheduled for it

mail -s `hddtemp /dev/sda | awk '{print $2$3}'` test@example.com < /dev/null

I am still trying to get sensor temperature but not able to get HTML mail out. It looks like a permission issue. The script works fine when ran as root, but not when through crontab.

Home Server Project - Configuring PHPMyAdmin

The steps are getting tougher :) I had to spend a complete day trying to setup phpMyAdmin on the server. It was crazy.

I was able to install php and php-mysql correctly. phpMyAdmin is needed to manage databases using browser. I could otherwise login to CLI and manage things well. Decided to configure phpMyAdmin and it ate up whole day.

First I was stopped by SELinux...

Jun 14 12:16:16 atom setroubleshoot: SELinux is preventing the /usr/sbin/httpd from using potentially mislabeled files (/var/www/phpMyAdmin-3.1.5-english). For complete SELinux messages. run sealert -l b25683a9-e1ea-429d-aa13-4130012ee64d

Tried renaming folders but no luck. One option was to disable SELinux but it was not straightforward either. after a lot of searches and reads, found the simple solution. The error itself asks to run sealert command. Ran it and it tells what to do to stop this from happening!

Next was the Apache authentication prompt. It turned out to be lack of configuration for authusers and authgroups, well not easily again, took another hour I think :)

Now page would just indicate on top corner - PHP 5.2+ required. This was a bummer. I thought it was there, but it wasn't. The DVD ISO was on the client laptop, so thought of copying it over to server and see if php 5.2 was there. The copy software indicated 40 mins ETA for copying over 54Mbps WIFI connection. "Why not copy it by 1Gbps crosscable network?", I asked myself.

The copy broke after connecting using crossover link. Apparently the server lost DNS servers by this and sshd broke. grrrrrrrrr....

Another hour worth of fiddling finally got this done. Just to tell me that the default php that came with installation was 5.1.

Next step was to download PHP 5.2 manually and compile. It was done and next problem - PHP would work fine on cli, just wont enable itself with httpd :|

I decided to go back completely on 5.1. I had avoided pointing to CentOS repo since begining. I tried doing it now. I had to manually edit repo files to replace $releaseserver by "5". And it was faily quick.

Finally at night the brain worked. I installed older version of phpMyAdmin and that was all that I needed to do in morning :) :) :)

Hopefully I can start writing php-mysql toy-code tomorrow!

Home Server Project - Configuring Apache

Apache configuration is otherwise pretty straightforward. You can choose to build from source or via the packages.

The services will be installed by default and Apache will serve you its default page as soon as the service is started.

Tricky part is to get the pages served over internet for the FQDN - www.kiranghag.com

My ISP assigns me dynamic IP. Luckily the router supports DynDNS. So I setup DynDNS client and let it update DynDNS records every time it got up new IP.
My existing domain - www.kiranghag.com, has been registered using Yahoo! Small Business. I added a CNAME record so that the beta webserver name - atom.kiranghag.com points to my DynDNS alias.

On the server, the hostname and DNS suffix has been setup for its internet domain - kiranghag.com. After that edited the apache configuration files and add ServerName directive for correct domain. The server also needs to be given static IP on home LAN.

The router firewall needs to be updated so that port 80 is forwarded to the webserver's internal IP and port 80.

Now I am able to connect to atom.kiranghag.com from outside!!!

PS: This breaks sometimes though. I guess this happens when the router is restarted and IP changes before DNS servers on Internet flush their cache. This can be solved by restarting apache and network services on the home server first. Turn off router for a minute and power it back on. That should take care of it.

Home Server Project - Configuring Sendmail (for gmail)

This one was tough!

I was always intimidated by sendmail :) My interaction to it was limited to disabling it at startup because it used to hang at bootup :)

For the home server, decided to set it up so that I could be notified for different events. There are many links that explain how to setup sendmail for gmail but it took me little longer to decipher it and get it up. Config is complicated by the fact that gmail uses SSL for mail acceptance via SMTP and sendmail is not friendly for beginers :)

Check out the links that were more useful

http://www.brennan.id.au/12-Sendmail_Server.html
http://rajasuperman.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2006-09-08T15%3A47%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=4

After lot of fiddling around, the mails started flowing :)

Home Server Project - First extended UAT run

Its up for 12 hours today

# uptime
23:11:35 up 12:30, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Temperature is now in little control. I got one cheap HDD cooler and removed two small fans from it. Adding these fans to the case has brought down cabinet and CPU temperature to less than 60...earlier it used to hover around 70!!!
Keeping the case open reduces it further...problem with Zebronics chotu cabinet is its SMPS. The SMPS generates more heat and heats up entire cabinet. I had kept a sponge sheet under motherboard because it shorted itself before. But I think that blocked bottom went in the cabinet.
Now its removed so hopefully aiding ventilation.

After 12 hours, following temperatures are noted

#sensors
smsc47m192-i2c-0-2d
Adapter: SMBus I801 adapter at 2000
in0: +2.55 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +3.32 V)
Vcore: +1.15 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +2.99 V)
+3.3V: +3.28 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.38 V)
+5V: +5.00 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +6.64 V)
+12V: +12.31 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +15.94 V)
VCC: +3.30 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.38 V)
in6: +1.58 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +1.99 V)
in7: +1.77 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +2.39 V)
SIO Temp: +43.0Â°C (low = -127.0Â°C, high = +127.0Â°C)
temp2: +53.0Â°C (low = +40.0Â°C, high = +70.0Â°C)
temp3: +47.0Â°C (low = -127.0Â°C, high = +127.0Â°C)
cpu0_vid: +2.050 V

Not bad at all!

Managed to create and configure Apache with a self-signed certificate. The web page is accessible from outside world. But for few minutes, the pages stop serving from internet domain. Not sure why. If I used the DDNS provided, it works flawlessly.

Need to check with ISP if they can provide static IP. I had requested that in application form but they nicely ignored it :) Bunch of craps...

Good to see things moving a step everyday ! makes me happy!!

Intex USB TV BOX drivers

Drivers for this are not available from Intex website. I purchased the tuner and missplaced the driver CD.

The tuner quality is not so great and you need to select "CATV" method if you are tuning cable TV signals. If the quality had been good, the accompanying software could have made it a great deal to buy.
http://www.newmi.com/en/productsshow.asp?id=475

Original manufacturer of this box is "newmi" and drivers can be found at following location
http://www.newmi.com/en/systemadmin/upfile/upload/music/200871867871705.rar
or http://www.newmi.com/en/Download.asp

Hope this helps

Home Server Project - HD Playback check

I was sceptical before attempting HD movies.
Intel Atom 330 is able to handle HD playback fine, while folks on web dont feel so.

I downloaded some HD movies from net and played back -both the 720p and 1080p variants. Both play smooth and CPU utilisation doesnt shoot up. Not sure if I am missing anything...I am running them on a TFT screen set at 1024x768 usng onboard 945GMA.

Someone please let me know if things change when you run it through HDMI.

PS: upgraded Windows XP SP3 and system started rebooting yest night. Did a system restore and things are back fine. Good news is that the ADMTek wireless card is able to connect, however only if the antenna is in line of sight. Not bad anyway. Havent been able to configure it yet in Linux, maybe tonight!

Home Server Project - checking temperature

This is first time to configure lm_sensors

- dloaded the source using wget ftp://ftp.netroedge.com/pub/lm-sensors/lm_sensors-3.1.0.tar.bz2
- extracted the file using bunzip2 and tar
- compiled source and did "make install"
- ran sensors-detect to find out which sensor i have
- loaded sensor driver (follow the output of sensors-detect!)
- run "sensors -s" and then "sensors"

didnt feel it would be so easy. having net connectivity to the box helped!

# sensors
smsc47m192-i2c-0-2d
Adapter: SMBus I801 adapter at 2000
in0: +2.55 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +3.32 V)
Vcore: +1.15 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +2.99 V)
+3.3V: +3.28 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
+5V: +4.97 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
+12V: +12.25 V (min = +10.81 V, max = +13.19 V)
VCC: +3.28 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
in6: +1.57 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +1.99 V)
in7: +1.76 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +2.39 V)
SIO Temp: +51.0Â°C (low = -127.0Â°C, high = +127.0Â°C)
temp2: +63.0Â°C (low = -127.0Â°C, high = +127.0Â°C)
temp3: +57.0Â°C (low = -127.0Â°C, high = +127.0Â°C)

I haven't forgotten my way around in Linux yet! This is perhaps after many years I am sitting the the box for RnD, Thanks to Intel Atom :)

time to sleep! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Home Server Project - getting the web server up for alpha testing

Just got the server up for some time. For those who are not aware (almost all of you would be :) ), its following configuration...

Intel 945GCLF2 motherboard with Atom330 (Dual atom, dual core) CPU
2GB DDR RAM
Seagate 320GB internal SATA HDD
miniature keyboard, mouse and DVD-RW drive, though not to be connected

This is low power consumption system and low in size, thanks to Intel Atom. Planned to be run up and running 24/7, either as a web server, HTPC, home server or any combination of these :)

The mobo and SMPS went kaput just on the day when it was pieced up :( :( managed to get it back after 4 weeks.

So now the box is hunting for its final place, waiting for work at home to finish for this. Just powered it on for a while of testing.

Was trying to setup Apache on Linux. SSHed to it and started Apache service. Came up fine. Checked up local page access, and it was fine. But could not be accessed from other machine on network or internet.

Tried to scratch my head hard, and "iptables" hit me. Checked if iptables was running and stopped it.

Voila! The Atom is on the net now :)