I Got a Nice Letter Today</h1> <article> <h1>I Got a Nice Letter Today</h1> <p>2006-03-29T15:53:00.000-05:00</p> Today I opened my mailbox and, what did I find? I found a letter from Microsoft. I opened it up and found a nice little sheet of paper about a class action lawsuit against Microsoft. They are going to pay me for each copy of Windows/Office that I bought from 1994-2004. They will pay me:<br /><ul><li>$12 for every copy of Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, or Millennium</li><li>$5 for every other version of Windows (including MS-DOS)</li><li>$5 for Office, Excel, or Word</li></ul>Also attached was a list of products that I already registered with them. I haven't registered all of my copies with them, but I did register 1 copy of 95, and 2 copies of XP. Right off the bat, I can think of another copy of 95, a copy of 98, another copy of XP, and 2 copies of Office. In total, that's $68 right there.<br /><br />It's about time Microsoft paid me something for all the hours I've had to fix Windows because of problems that are their fault in the first place.<br /><br />I never thought I'd say it, but... thanks Microsoft! </article> <article> <h1>ajaxWrite</h1> <p>2006-03-23T12:58:00.000-05:00</p> <a href="http://static.flickr.com/54/116842613_4f8c3cf8cc_o.png" target="_blank"></a>Today, I just discovered this really nice web based word processor called ajaxWrite. It is a web application that has a native look an feel (and speed), can edit word .doc files (although no OpenDocument yet) and looks really nice. It's relatively new, so there are bound to be bugs in it. If you have Firefox 1.5, <a href="http://ajaxwrite.com" target="_blank">try it out</a>. </article> <article> <h1>NetworkManager</h1> <p>2006-03-21T12:24:00.000-05:00</p> One cool new feature in Dapper is a neat-o little tool called NetworkManager, which is geared towrads laptops with wireless connections. It's not so useful for desktops, but on laptops it will be quite useful.<br /><br />If you download a Dapper Live CD, you will notice a little icon in the notification area, which will either show some bars (if you have a working wireless connection), a blinking computer icon (if you have an active ethernet connection) or a little computer with a warning sign if you have neither.<br /><br />In a nutshell, NetworkManager is a daemon that sits in the background and monitors your wireless/ethernet connections. It will automatically connect to wireless networks, and if it detects an active ethernet connection, it will automatically switch the wireless interface off and turn on the wired interface seamlessly and transparently. So, if you have a laptop that you bring to an office (and connect via ethernet) or connect to a friend's wireless network, it can proove quite useful. It works quite well on my desktop and laptop. </article> <article> <h1>Dapper Delayed</h1> <p>2006-03-21T12:02:00.000-05:00</p> Now it's official from Mark Shuttleworth: Ubuntu Dapper has been delayed until June. Off the bat, this may sound like a bad thing, but I think it is a good thing. You can read the official announcement <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/2006-March/000058.html">here</a>, but I'd like to highlight a few positive improvements that I think are worth the wait.<br /><blockquote><ul><li>devote an additional three weeks of bug-fix-only quality assurance time to the release for the core development team<span style="font-family:monospace;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:monospace;"></span>devote additional developer time to UI polish that we believe will make Dapper stand out as a high-quality desktop operating system for large-scale deployment<span style="font-family:monospace;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:monospace;"></span>ensure that Dapper will be LSB certified at the time of release<span style="font-family:monospace;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:monospace;"></span>ensure that the new graphical Live CD installer receives very widespread testing</li></ul></blockquote>I already think Dapper is impressive, so with an extra 6 weeks, it should be even better (but what will the release be? 6.06 seems more appropriate for July). </article> <article> <h1>New Idea</h1> <p>2006-03-20T17:44:00.000-05:00</p> I've been using CastPodder (formerly iPodder, but for Linux) for a few weeks now and I really like it. It has a nice, clean GUI, I can keep it running in the tray, and it works really well. I used to use bashpodder, and since switching I have been missing that level of customizability.<br /><br />And today I had a cool idea - create a little bash script (with some Xdialog GUI goodness) that will offer to copy songs to an iPod after you download a podcast. If you select yes, it will copy that song to the iPod. If you select no, it will keep the podcast info and transfer it the next time you click yes.<br /><br />Simple, yet effective. I think I'll try it. </article> <article> <h1>Justin Died Again</h1> <p>2006-03-19T11:24:00.000-05:00</p> Not really. I've been pretty busy lately and I haven't really had the time to blog about anything. So here it is, a huge update post on what I would have blogged about this past month.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ubuntu Dapper</span><br />I think the most notable update is that I have upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.04) and I have to say, it's really nice. Gnome 2.14 is noticeably faster and there is a new Ubuntu "Human" theme. Booting takes about 30 seconds to get to the login screen, which is about half the time of Breezy.<br /><br />So far, I have only had one problem with Dapper: my wireless card. When I was first installing it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had detected my Broadcom-based wireless card and offered to configure it, although this didn't work. I told it not to configure the network and went on with the install.<br /><br />Dapper comes with kernel 2.6.15, which includes the new and unstable <a href="http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/">bcm43xx</a> driver for broadcom wireless cards. In order for this driver to work, you need to obtain a bcmwl5.sys file (the windows driver) and use a utility called fwcutter to extract firmware for it. However, due to licensing issues, Ubuntu is not allowed to ship the sys files or any firmware files and because of this, my wireless card did not work. Although, I got the fwcutter program and cut out my firmware and it still didn't work, since this driver is still so new.<br /><br />No problem, just go back to ndiswrapper, right? More problems. I installed the ndiswrapper-utils package (which, luckily, is on the CD) and correctly loaded the driver, and that didn't work, either. Later, I figured out that this didn't work because the bcm43xx driver was already in charge of my wireless card. So, I did a 'sudo rmmod bcm43xx' to unload the driver and then a 'sudo modprobe ndiswrapper'. This worked, although it still detected my wireless card as "eth0", when it should be "wlan0". Dmesg revealed that it also should be "wlan0", although ifconfig said it was eth0. The experts on the Ubuntu IRC were stumped. I could have left it like that, but the wireless card does not get started on boot and I cannot access my local apache server (yes, http://localhost did not work)<br /><br />I know there is some way I could have fixed that issue, but I didn't want to waste any more time. I took the wireless card out and did a reinstall of Ubuntu and when it first booted up, I blacklisted the bcm43xx module, shut it off, put the card back in, and booted up again. That time, ndiswrapper worked perfectly and I have not encountered any more problems.<br /><br />After the wireless issue, everything has been working flawlessly. I even got into some cool remote administration, but I'll get to that later in the post.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Web </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Blazing</span><br />There's web surfing, and then there's web <span style="font-style: italic;">blazing</span>. I happen to live in a lucky area where Verizon is unrolling FiOS internet service. Since 1999, I've had RoadRunner and it's been fine (5 Mbps down, 386 Kbps up). But now, I get 15 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up for the same price. I even got a nice D-Link router (108 MB/s) for free.<br /><br />And yes, it really is fast. I just downloaded <a href="http://twit.tv/mb4">MacBreak</a> off of Libsyn at 1.5 MB/s, and my average net speed is between 1 and 3 MB/s. Everyone is complaining about how the quality in SkypeOut sucks; it was for me too, but now it is perfect. If you happen to live in an area where they offer it, I suggest you get it. It really is that good. (and, as if that was not enough, my real phone sounds better because it too uses the fiber)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Remote Administration</span><br />For a while now, I've been using VNC and the VNC Java web applet for remote administration. It's worked OK, although it was fairly sluggish and anyone who turned my monitor on could see what I was doing. However, I have been using FreeNX (all the GPL components of the NoMachine NX server) for the past week, and it is much, much better. The mouse moves as if I was sitting at the real computer and whole windows move with minimal lag (and I don't think that's entirely to do with my faster internet connection).<br /><br />I avoided NX for a while because there was no Java applet, but I checked their site and there it was... a perfectly good Java client. It has been working flawlessly since I started using it. On top of that, NX uses SSH, so there is strong encryption built in (VNC's encryption is so poor, the password can be cracked in a matter of seconds). Also, instead of simply sending the current X output over the internet, NX actually sets up a separate X server running on the machine which can only be viewed and controlled from the client over the network, which means no one can come by and turn the monitor on to see what I'm doing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gizmo</span><br />I have a neutral opinion about Skype. I'm glad they make a Linux version, although they have neglected the Linux version for a while and they're still using OSS, which means that nothing else can use the soundcard while Skype is being used. On top of that, they still haven't released video support on Linux (or OS X).<br /><br />Luckily for me, Gizmo is here and works much better. On top of that, there is a new version that supports ALSA. Finally! I've been asking this since the first time I used Gizmo, and it's finally here. On top of that, it works very well. Sound quality is great, as always.<br /><br />I've also been able to get Ekiga to connect to SIPphone (the SIP service that Gizmo uses). Since Gizmo is completely based on open standards, innovation like this is possible (take <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span>, Skype).<br /><br />On another note, Gizmo not only has free voicemail, but now lets you record your own greeting for free. If you're using Gizmo, call 'record' to record your custom greeting.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Skype</span><br />In other Skype news, I've finally figured out how to get Skype working well on Ubuntu. Skype has this annoying problem of not closing the sound device once it has used it. This results in only being able to make one call before getting an error and needing to restart Skype. On the <a href="http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?t=48195">Skype forums</a>, someone found a configuration that allows you to run Skype with the aoss wrapper, which enables you to play sound from multiple applications while Skype is on a call. I can report that it works quite well and completely eliminates all of my skype problems. Now I can use up the rest of my SkypeOut credit before transitioning over to Gizmo.<br /><br />That's about it for now. Stay tuned. </article> <article> <h1>Google Apps for Linux?</h1> <p>2006-02-15T12:06:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> Yes! It seems that Google is rumored to be working on a Linux version of Picasa, a really nice photo management application. When I was using it on Windows, it was really nice and even had it's own IM client optimized for sharing pictures called Hello. </p> <p> </p> <p> This is a good move on Google's part. The Linux community has been waiting a while for Google to offer Linux versions of their software for a while now and it looks like Google may finally be cooperating. </p> <p> </p> <p> Notice that I didn't use the word <em>port</em>, because Google is not porting the apps to Linux. Instead, they are using Wine libraries (CrossOver Office, actually) which will be included within the executable to run on Linux. I'd like a clean port of the app better, but this is the next best thing. </p> <p> </p> <p> <a href="http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9556554213.html" target="blank_" title="Read the article">Read the article</a> </p></div> </article> <article> <h1>Newsvine</h1> <p>2006-01-30T19:44:00.000-05:00</p> <a href="http://static.flickr.com/28/93339064_0d96f9f6a5_o.png" target="_blank"></a>I just got invited to try the private beta of Newsvine, and so far I like it. I think of it as digg and del.icio.us meets blogger. There's a lot to it, but it consists of a few different parts: news from traditional sources like the AP, CNN, etc, viewer submitted stories (called seeds), and user contributed stories (called a colums, but really are blogs). They use tags to organize things, and have direct links to the main tags.<br /><br />It is similar to digg because popular seeds get put on the homepage.<br /><br />Each user has their own watchlist as well, so you can add your favorite tags right to your personalized home page. You can also comment on articles and see what other people have to say about them.<br /><br />OK, so this is nothing new. Newsvine is, however, the first service in my opinion to tie everything together well in an appealing way. Up until now, I have been using digg as my news site, Netvibes as my home page, and Blogger to blog (although hopefully I can switch to f2o soon). With Newsvine, I can hit all of these on the same page.<br /><br />If anyone wants an invite, send me an email at jgrace103@gmail.com. I've got 20 of them right now. </article> <article> <h1>Gaim Humor</h1> <p>2006-01-24T16:06:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The second beta of Gaim 2.0 has just been released. I have been using and like the first beta, but there are some annoyances and bugs with it (like changing status from away). After reading the news on digg, I grabbed the source and started compiling. I was pleasantly surprised to see this while the configure script was running:<br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/><blockquote>checking for me pot o' gold... no<br/></blockquote>Nice :-)<br/></div> </article> <article> <h1>Minor Update (Free iPods Anyone?)</h1> <p>2006-01-20T16:04:00.000-05:00</p> Here's a minor blog update: I've decided to take down the Google AD. It's ineffective and I probably creates more of an annoyance than a nice thing to have. It may come back when I get more traffic or actually start paying for hosting.<br /><br />In some other news, I'm trying out one of those incentive sites, in this case mp3players4free.com. I already have an iPod (that I'm very happy with), so I'm just going to get a $275 check.<br /><br />Basically, in order to get an iPod (or iRiver H10/Creative Zen/$275 check), you have to complete a sponsored offer and get five other people to sign up with you as their referral and also complete a sponsored offer. I did the Blockbuster Online offer (I was going to sign up for it anyway :-) ), but there are tons of other offers. There's Columbia House DVD, a few ISPs, webhosting, DirecTV, and BMG Music Service to name a few. You can get away with most of the offers without paying, and a few of them are free (I think the LumiDent one is free).<br /><br />And here's the thing: I only need <span style="font-weight: bold;">2</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">more referrals</span>! This could literally pay for good webhosting for about four years. If you enjoy reading my blog and want me to continue, this is the way to support me (and maybe get an iPod in the process). If you're skeptical, there's TONS of proof online, just go out and search for it (the company is OfferCentric).<br /><br />If you're interested, <a href="http://www.mp3players4free.com/default.aspx?r=15263">here's the link</a>. </article> <article> <h1>No, I Haven't Fell Off the Earth</h1> <p>2006-01-19T17:10:00.000-05:00</p> I've been busy these last few weeks. Now, I'm back and ready to start blogging again.<br /><br />I'm trying to think of some meaningful posts that will be worth reading.<br /><br />Stay tuned. </article> <article> <h1>My Opinion on Running as Root</h1> <p>2006-01-02T14:15:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">I think it's no secret that I'm against primarily running as root. I outlined this in my recent post, "Toying with Linspire". Jon left a <a href="http://mightylinux.blogspot.com/2005/12/toying-with-linspire.html#comments" title="comment" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">comment</a> on that. Most of all, he agreed with me, but disagreed about running as root. I started writing a reply, but it got long and I decided that it really deserved it's own post, so here it goes.<br/> <br/> Before I start here, let me fully <a href="http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1121&page=4" target="blank_" title="quote">quote</a> Michael Robertson (former CEO of Linspire) from the same question I did before (I cut off the beginning last time).<br/> <br/> <blockquote><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Jo</span>: On the security front, I noticed during the presentation that you were running everything as root. Is that really a wise idea, to train users to run everything as the one user who can mess everything up whenever they feel like it? Should you not try to teach them one basic UNIX security idea, that you really don't want to run things as root?<br/><br/><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Michael</span>: I think, like everything, it's a question of balance. Ease of use, versus security. I defy anybody to tell me why is it more secure to not run as root. Nobody really has a good answer. They say "oh, yeah, it is!", but it really isn't. Here's why: What's the most important thing on your desktop? It's the data. If someone gets access to your libraries or whatever, who cares? Your data is the most precious thing on your computer. And whether you log in as root or log in as user, you have access to that data, technically anyone who's compromising your account has access to your data as well.<br/><br/><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Michael</span>: Then you could say "Well, it's not really about your data, it's that people could accidentally mess things up!". Well, you could accidentally drive into a wall as well, it doesn't mean we should make all cars drive at 10 miles an hour. So, I don't see the added benefit. I DO see it's an added pain in the ass when grandma tries to change her wallpaper, and it tells her "you don't have root privileges". What are you talking about, man? I'm just trying to use my computer, or change the clock, or any one of a hundred other things. So, people always say "it's less secure", but I defy anyone to point out a single instance, and people all go "Well, I, erm, it's theoretical!". There's no one area I think you can point out where a machine that's run with the root user could be compromised. It couldn't be.<br/><br/><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Michael</span>: I know the hardcore geeks feel differently, that's fine. When somebody installs Linspire, we say "do you want to set up users, yes or no", we give them the choice, right there when they start up for the first time. If they want to set up multiple users, they're welcome to do that, but we don't force them to. That's the difference we have.<br/></blockquote>I can think of a few good scenarios where it is a good idea to not run as root.<br/> <br/> Take the typical Linspire scenario - you want a cheap computer. Unless you want to buy more than one or already have a computer, chances are this will be a family computer. Having separate user accounts just makes sense, because you will almost always have different needs than Billy, who spends most of his computer time playing TuxPaint and various games. You don't want him getting in and messing with work documents or anything else you may have in your account.<br/> <br/> I definitely see Michael's point, but he's missing one critical factor: frustration. If you're running as root and a virus comes by and deletes everything on your hard drive, there's enough frustration that you've just lost all of your data. On top of that, you now have to go back and install the whole operating system over again. Then, you have to install all your programs again. This is a problem that can be completely avoided simply by running as a regular user. If you were running as a regular user, your files would still be gone, but it would only take a couple minutes before you'd be using it again. On top of that, all your programs and libraries are still there. If you're a good user and create backups regularly, it would only be another few minutes before you would be editing your documents and surfing with your bookmarks.<br/> <br/> And there's another factor he's missing too: other people's frustration. It is very typical for more than one user to share a PC. If everyone uses the same root account, all of their data would be gone too from the same scenario described above. If everyone who used the computer had separate accounts, the virus would be isolated to the user that ran it. It would not affect anyone else.<br/> <br/> Michael does make a good point, though: running as root does make certain tasks easier. Setting the clock, for instance, is one common thing that requires root permission. But he is overlooking a great tool which I, being an Ubuntu user, have come to love: sudo. Sudo can be used with multiple users so that it doesn't require a different password to do root tasks. It also will not ask you for a password more than once within a certain amount of time. On top of that, it can also be configured to run without a password. This isn't as secure, but at least it's controlled this way (and it's probably possible to disallow executions of certain commands, like 'rm -rf /').<br/> <br/> I really hope Linspire does something about this. Teaching users that they should run as root is unacceptable. At least, during installation (not the initial setup) they should ask you if you want to create normal user accounts and explain that it is more secure to run as a normal user.<br/> <br/> And then they should work on improving their boot speed. That's just pathetic.<br/> <div class="techtags">Tech Tags: <a class="techtag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/linux" rel="tag">linux</a> <a class="techtag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/linspire" rel="tag">linspire</a> <a class="techtag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/root" rel="tag">root</a> <a class="techtag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/security" rel="tag">security</a> <a class="techtag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/users" rel="tag">users</a> </div></div> </article> <article> <h1>My Christmas Gift.</h1> <p>2005-12-25T15:59:00.000-05:00</p> <a href="http://static.flickr.com/36/77290643_0414827d22_b.jpg"></a><br /><br />Feel the power. </article> <article> <h1>Importing into Wordpress</h1> <p>2005-12-24T10:17:00.000-05:00</p> I'm in the process of importing this blog into the WordPress installation on f2o (you may have noticed that I took the blog down for a little while this morning).<br /><br />It shouldn't be much longer now... </article> <article> <h1>New X.Org Released</h1> <p>2005-12-22T10:03:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The X.Org foundation has just released a new version of X.Org: X11R7.0 and X11R6.9, which is the "first major release of the X Window System in more than a decade".</p> <p> </p> <p>7.0 and 6.9 have the same code, but there is a big difference in version 7 - modularity. As I understand it, you can add on Modules after you install it without waiting for the next release in the long release cycle.</p> <p> </p> <p>This is cool because it will encourage developers to contribute code and distribute it as a loadable module. There are likely to be a lot of cool things that come from this.</p> <p> </p> <p>By the time Vista is released, X.Org will probably have so many features that are not in Vista, but wil run on lower end hardware. We can expect to see some really great things from this.</p></div> </article> <article> <h1>Toying with Linspire</h1> <p>2005-12-21T18:27:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Arch Linux has failed me again. I have tried messing around with Grub boot parameters, modifying fstab, but still no go. Arch just will not boot up with kernel 2.6.<br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/><br/>So, I have a PC doing nothing of particular importance. You know what time it is... time to try out another Distro.<br/><br/>Jon has been having such a great time with Linspire, that I thought I'd give it a try. I had a CD from a while back when they were giving them away for free. It was sitting there doing nothing, so I tried it out.<br/><br/>My initial impressions are mixed. There are some things I like and some things I don't like. That install - it's really easy and pretty, but it needs to be a bit... better. It's fine for a user with a single hard drive, but in my case, there are two hard drives: a 16 GB one and a 40 GB one. Unfortunately, the 16 GB one is the IDE drive so I need to install Linspire on that (the other one is connected from a PCI card). What I usually do is install the base system on the smaller drive and make the other one the home directory. However, on Linspire, this is not possible during installation. I chose advanced, but all that allows you to do is pick a particular partition to install it on and toggle installing Grub to the MBR. There isn't even a partitioner, which is really sad. So, I go back and do the auto-install.<br/><br/>The install took about 15 minutes, which isn't bad, but I've installed Mepis in 10.<br/><br/>Most of my issues with Linspire come after the install.<br/><br/>Linspire takes WAY too long to boot. I didn't time it, but it probably takes somewhere around five minutes. Unacceptable. Then it launched LDM (which is probably just KDM with a nice theme) and that took about thirty seconds to give me the login screen. Also unacceptable. Kubuntu took maybe 2 minutes or less to boot up and get to the login screen.<br/><br/>Once I was logged in, it wasn't as bad. But I had another issue. After the first boot, it comes up with initial setup. At one point, it asks you to adjust your soundcard. I didn't hear anything. I moved the slider up and down, still nothing. The speakers were plugged in correctly, I even plugged headphones in... still nothing. I found out later that the sound does work, but it seems unprofessional to have a problem with the initial setup.<br/><br/>My next issue with the setup is at the end of it. On the final screen, there are a bunch of buttons that allow you configure other parts of your system. Hidden among them is "Add Users". That really should be taken care of during the install, and even if they wanted to wait until that initial setup, there should be a whole screen devoted to it. I'd like to <a href="http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1121&page=4" target="blank_" title="quote">quote</a> Michael Robertson here:<br/><blockquote>I know the hardcore geeks feel differently about [operating as root], that's fine. When somebody installs Linspire, we say "do you want to set up users, yes or no", we give them the choice, right there when they start up for the first time. If they want to set up multiple users, they're welcome to do that, but we don't force them to. That's the difference we have.<br/></blockquote>He's lying. There's isn't a portion that says "do you want to set up users, yes or no". There is a tiny icon that says "Add Users" that most people aren't likely to click. As Linux gets more popular and eventually may get viruses, running as root is a deathtrap. A virus could run a simple 'rm -rf /' and everything would be gone.<br/><br/>Ok, I got over that in a few moments. I just clicked on, as I probably won't keep Linspire on there.<br/><br/>You all knew this was coming - that damn CNR! Honestly. I'm not going to pay $20 a year to get access to a service that works just as good as apt-get, only with less programs. In the end, $20 isn't that much, but it's the concept I don't like. Charging for access to free software seems pretty cheap to me. And then, if Linspire is the distro that brings people to Linux, what if they raise the prices? You're trapped. They say that you can use apt with Linspire, but I haven't tried this. I assume it works pretty well, but they generally keep that hidden. If you're sitting at a new install of Linspire, they say that you can use CNR to install programs. They don't say, "Or, if you want a free way of installing packages, you can use apt-get instead..." If you're a newbie, you'll have no idea there are any alternatives and will likely shell out money for CNR.<br/><br/>I wanted to install Gizmo, just to see what CNR is about. I went to the Gizmo web site, and clicked on the CNR link. I got a prompt asking me if I wanted to install it. I clicked yes, and nothing happened. I looked in the CNR window, and it had a page informing me that I needed to pay in order to use CNR. So, I went back and downloaded the DEBs, but Gizmo still won't run because Linspire is missing a shared library (libstdc+6, I think). Without apt, I can't use Gizmo.<br/><br/>There were some (actually, five) programs you could install for free in CNR. One of them happened to be Frozen Bubble. I like that game, and used to play it a lot. I installed it. First, I noticed that the downloading was pretty slow. It took way longer than apt would have. But, after it was installed, it worked well.<br/><br/>Then, I wanted to try hibernating. This is the only distro that Jon was able to hibernate in, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. First of all, it was hard to find where to hibernate on a desktop. I eventually found it from KLaptop which was running in the tray (why would KLaptop even be running?) and I was able to hibernate from there. Hibernation actually took a while. I guess this is partially due to the speed of the PC, but I'm pretty sure that another distro would have been faster. Then it came time to resume - I booted back up, it started resuming. It got to 20 Megs, and froze. I left it there for about 10 minutes, but still nothing. Hibernation worked fine in Kubutu, but doesn't work in Linspire. And that's odd, because Kubuntu came with Suspend1, while Linspire came with Suspend2. I will give it that - Linspire is the first distro I have seen to have Suspend2 support out of the box. If only it worked...<br/><br/>I'm going to say it right here - In Linspire, everything else worked. All my hardware was detected and working, all the software I tried worked, etc. But then again - every other distro I've tried on there also worked just as well (and in some cases, better). CNR is a rip-off, and booting takes waaay too long. Maybe I'll give Arch another try, but I also wanted to try the new version of SuSE. We'll see how this unfolds.<br/></div> </article> <article> <h1>Going With Arch Linux</h1> <p>2005-12-16T18:40:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Well, Gentoo's been a fun learning experience, but I don't think I'm going to keep it on there. I don't really mind compiling everything from source, but there are a couple things I want binaries for: X11 and KDE. There's no way I'm keeping that thing on for 48+ hours while it's busy compiling. That computer uses up lots of energy (it has 5 fans), is really loud, and I've had problems with it crashing in the past.<br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/><br/>So I think I'll go with Arch Linux for a few reasons:<br/><br/><ul><li>I couldn't figure out how to get Portage to install a binary package</li><li>I figured out why Arch didn't work (I had the same problem with Gentoo - When it gets installed, the /dev/discs... scheme switched back to /dev/hda. Odd)</li><li>Even though Gentoo is supposed to be quick and clean, Arch <span style="font-style: italic;">still</span> booted up faster.</li></ul><br/>So there you have it. Maybe I'll try Gentoo again sometime. For now, I'll use Arch. I like the reassurance that when I want to install something, it won't take hours compiling. Like on Ubuntu - If I need a library, apt-get does it in seconds. I'm sure Arch will be the same.<br/><br/>Let's have a poll - If you use Arch Linux, leave a comment here!<br/></div> </article> <article> <h1>HOWTO: Hibernation on Linux (Suspend2)</h1> <p>2005-12-16T15:39:00.000-05:00</p> I have a <a href="http://www.writely.com/View.aspx?docid=ahx49cfv3hvz">guide up</a> if you want to learn how to Hibernate in Linux.<br /><br />You can leave comments for it here. </article> <article> <h1>Arch Linux and Gentoo</h1> <p>2005-12-13T21:33:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">I had heard so much hype over Arch Linux, so I just had to check it out. Last night, I took the plunge and tried installing it on my secondary desktop.<br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/><br/>A couple of things. First of all, it didn't work. I am sure that I installed it correctly, but it wouldn't fully boot (something about VFS syncing, I don't remember). I re-installed it again, and got the same problem. Second, it used this really weird hard drive naming scheme that I've never seen before in Linux. Rather than /dev/hda1, I had /dev/discs/disc0/part1.<br/><br/>Anyway, I figured maybe it was a Kernel problem. There was still hope! I re-installed it a third time, but using kernel 2.4 instead. It worked! I logged in and tried 'startx', but wouldn't ya know it, X wouldn't start (and I know I installed it). But I will say this - it starts up wicked fast. That machine is fairly old. It is 600 MHz with 256 MB of ram, but that thing booted up faster than this machine, partially because I have more running on bootup here, but that definately doesn't account for everything. Props to Arch for being such a quick distro.<br/><br/>Since 2.6 won't boot and I can't live without an X server like in 2.4, I decided to retire Arch Linux.<br/><br/>I had an empty computer just begging for a new distro to be installed...<br/><br/>Why not Gentoo? I had read the docs on it before, and a stage 3 install doesn't require you to compile the base system (which means it won't take 24+ hours to install). So, I'm currently doing a stage 3 install of Gentoo. I'm not finished yet, but I'm sure it will work (and Gentoo also uses the /dev/discs/disc0/part1 scheme; Fedora and Kubuntu didn't).<br/><br/>But I do have to give props to Gentoo for having great documentation. They go over every possible option in great detail, and I'm never questioning why I may have to do a certain task, because the answer is right there in front of me.<br/><br/>I also like that SSH is included on the mini-install disc. I'm able to blog, read the documentation in FF, and install Gentoo at the same time. Life is good :)<br/></div> </article> <article> <h1>Another WordPress Update</h1> <p>2005-12-12T21:20:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Sorry for the delay, but better late than never (right?)<br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/><br/>I have my f2o account and am currently playing around with WordPress on there. I know that I said I would be going with the Sapphire theme, and I changed my mind. I got under the surface and found tons of inconsistencies with it. Rather than spending hours making the site look alike, I just decided to get a new theme. I'm trying out the pool theme now, and I like it a lot. My only complaint was that there wasn't a slogan in there by default, but that was not hard to add in (how does "Attack of the Penguins" sound?)<br/><br/>If you have a spare moment, <a href="http://mightylinux.f2o.org/" title="check it out">check it out</a> and possibly leave a comment.<br/><br/>I'm currently seeing what technorati tag options that are avaliable. We'll see how this unfolds.<br/></div> </article> <article> <h1>WordPress Status</h1> <p>2005-12-06T16:14:00.000-05:00</p> Just a quick update on my status of moving to WordPress.<br /><br />I found a theme that I like, it's called <a href="http://www.michaelmartine.com/free-wordpress-themes" target="blank_" title="Sapphire">Sapphire</a>. I like the look and feel of it, but there are also a lot of things that I want to change in it. I'm tweaking it to my liking.<br /><br />I also tested importing a dummy Blogger blog into WP. The default tool to do this is included with WP doesn't import comments. So, I scoured the internet (actually, a two second google search) and came up with <a href="http://www.skeltoac.com/2005/03/12/from-blogger-to-wordpress-2/" target="blank_" title="another tool">another tool</a>, which was like the first but included comments.<br /><br />The way to import a Blogger blog into WP is kind of odd and tricky - you have to tweak a bunch of settings in Blogger (like the date timestamp), you have to set up Blogger to FTP the files to your base WP installation, you have to modify your template so it contains one line, and then the script will parse that file and import it.<br /><br />I've only done it once, but I was successfull the first time.<br /><br />As I continue to tweak the theme, please feel free to <a href="http://mightylinux.mi.funpic.org/" title="check out my efforts">check out my efforts</a> so far. That will not be the final location of the WP blog, it will just be where I will tweak it to suit my needs.<br /><br />I signed up for the f2o.org account, now I'm pending account creation. We'll see how long that'll take. </article> <article> <h1>Six Months</h1> <p>2005-12-03T21:47:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Wow, I just noticed today that I've been blogging for six months.<br xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/> <br/> I started this blog and posted my <a href="http://mightylinux.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-i-switched-to-linux.html" title="first article">first article</a> on July 1st (2005) and since then, I have posted exactly 150 articles (this will be #151). Do the math, that's a little under an article a day.<br/> <br/> After being officially blogging for half a year, I like what I see. And now, I've outgrown Blogger.<br/> <br/> You may recall that I mentioned a while ago that I was going to eventually move to WP.com because I was getting sick of Blogger... well, I'm still sick of it and I'm not moving to WP.com. Instead, I got in touch with the guys at f2o.org, and they said they could get me an account (which is nice of them, because new sign ups are not accepted at the moment). Their free hosting package includes everything I need to set up a WordPress blog with a good bandwith limit.<br/><br/>Now I'm just waiting for them to email me back, so hang tight. It shouldn't be much longer.<br/><br/>Who knows, maybe I'll even design my own template.<br/></div> </article> <article> <h1>Another Ubuntu Hidden Gem</h1> <p>2005-12-01T17:11:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><a href="http://static.flickr.com/9/69144128_4404b75bd0_o.png" target="_blank" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> </a> I was happily browsing along today, when my hand slipped on the keyboard and I saw an interesting dialog that I've never seen before. It was a dialog that showed the sound level. At that point I remembered... I have multimedia keys! I had generally accepted that they didn't work in Linux, because the programs that can use them really don't appeal to me. But now, I've discovered that some of the extra keys on my keyboard work. The volume wheel, the mute button, the calculator button, the email button, and the play/stop/FF/RW (in totem) all work under Ubuntu, without any configuration or anything.<br/> <br/> This is yet another thing that Ubuntu has done, all by itself, that has never worked in any other distribution. And take a look at the screenshot. Damn, that sure beats the <a href="http://static.flickr.com/6/69144131_e0167b2c1f_o.png" target="blank_" title="Windows one">Windows one</a>!<br/><br/>Ubuntu continues to amaze me.<br/><br/>Now I'm going to experiment and try to get some other keys to work.<br/></div> </article> <article> <h1>Gizmo + SIP Adapter = Duh!</h1> <p>2005-11-30T12:32:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">I was browsing the web yesterday when it hit me - I still have that D-Link SIP adapter! </p> <p> </p> <p>Let me explain. I used to have AT&T CallVantage (home VoIP service). I liked the features, but the quality just wasn't that good so I canceled it early this year. Of course, I kept the VoIP gateway they sent me (a D-Link DVG-1120M). </p> <p> </p> <p>And today it hit me - use that with Gizmo/SIPphone and have an always-on free internet phone! Why didn't I think of that before? I hooked it up and went under da' hood, only to found that cheap AT&T set a username and password for advanced options so you can't use it with any other VoIP service. That's a cheap way of getting buisness. </p> <p> </p> <p>I started searching online. I found one username/password for a newer version of my adapter, but that didn't work on mine. I spend about an hour of googling, but I found no other username/passwords. </p> <p> </p> <p>So, I consulted the SIPphone forums. A fellow user pointed me to a geocities site that had the SIPphone firmware for my SIP adapter. SIPphone keeps it unlocked, so that's good for me. In order to apply the firmware on this (and I think any D-Link device) is to set up a TFTP server and it will download it directly from your computer. Nice, I guess, but I like the way Linksys does it much better.</p> <p> </p> <p>Included in the ZIP package is a Windows exe, a couple firmware files, and a readme. But, before I could upgrade the firmware, I need the administration panel...</p> <p> </p> <p>Another user told me that if I did a hard reboot (hold the 'reset' button for over 1 min), then that may reset the password. I just thought "That's so simple, it'll never work" and boy was I surprised when it did. You'd think AT&T would have a more clever factory reset, but they don't. Oh well, I can log in with admin/admin now and get at the administration panel.</p> <p> </p> <p>I was hoping that if I could get this far, I wouldn't need a firmware upgrade. But now, AT&T has reached an all-time cheapness. The firmware installed on it will not allow you to configure the SIP settings. So, I'm stuck with their service unless I upgrade the firmware for it (which I luckily can do).</p> <p> </p> <p>No problem, right? Just set up a TFTP server and send it... wrong. I could not actually get a TFTP server working. tftpd didn't work at all, atftpd ran but I couldn't get it working, and tftpd-hpa didn't work. I spent a few hours trying all three of these things, but none of them worked. The only machine in the house that has Windows is my main desktop, but that is downstairs on a wireless connection.</p> <p> </p> <p>Why is this a problem? My adapter has two ports: one for the Internet and one for a computer or router. Since my main desktop is on a wireless connection, I didn't think it would work because it was behind a NAT.</p> <p> </p> <p>The obvious answer... forward ports. I'm so stupid. I forwarded port 69 to my computer, booted up Windows and ran the D-Link mini tftp server. To my surprise, that worked right away. I think this is the first time a server has worked perfectly in Windows the first time while I was fiddling around for hours on Linux and still couldn't get it working.</p> <p> </p> <p>Regardless, I configured it to work with SIPphone, rebooted it and it worked :) Connected directly to the internet, I can make and recieve SIP calls with great clarity (better than CallVantage, though still using the same device).</p> <p> </p> <p>But after I get something working good, it's time to complicate it.</p> <p> </p> <p>My first plan was to hook it up to my unused ethernet port on my computer, but that would create a double NAT and probably wouldn't work. Also, it would only work when the computer is on.</p> <p> </p> <p>So... I picked up an 802.11b ethernet bridge that was laying around (yeah, I have lots of little gadgets) and hooked it up. I plugged the D-Link into my computer directly and configured it to use a static IP and then configured the router to set up a DMZ on that IP. I plugged the box into the wireless bridge, waited a moment (untill it 'clicked', if anyone else has a similar box) and dialed 411. To my amazement, it worked the first time.</p> <p> </p> <p>With all this success, I discovered a problem. Because this is an old model (like a year), the firmware is also old and doesn't support STUN (for those of you who don't know, STUN is a way for a device or application to discover it's real internet IP addres when it's behind a NAT and can't tell itself). Because of this, I cannot recieve calls. I don't think this will create a huge problem, though, because I am usually the one calling other people.</p> <p> </p> <p>Stay tuned, more to come.</p></div> </article> <article> <h1>KDE 3.5 Features</h1> <p>2005-11-29T18:47:00.000-05:00</p> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> I just checked the KDE site to see that KDE 3.5 has been released. And along with this new release, there are some cool new features. I'll just highlight them for ya.<br/> <br/> <ul><li> Kicker has some nice improvements. The Pager (desktop switcher) now shows application icons so you can tell which application is running on which desktop. Also, the tooltips have been extended (not exactly sure what that means, though).</li><li> SuperKaramba is now included in KDE. The last time I tried this, I really hated it. Now that it is included within KDE, it should (hopefully) improve.</li><li> Konqueror now includes KHTML improvements so that it can pass the Acid2 test (which was done a while ago, but was not included until now). Konqueror now has Adblock functionality, so you can easilly block out annoying ads.</li><li> Kopete got some nice improvements. Now it can handle MSN and Yahoo webcams (yes!). Also, custom MSN emotions are supported now.</li><li> KDE now has good support for external media (although Gnome has for a while now). Now if you insert any media device, KDE will present a <a href="http://static.flickr.com/12/68454009_0506444905_o.png" target="blank_" title="dialog">dialog</a> similar to the one in XP. Definately cool.</li></ul> <br/> I'm looking forward to trying this new release of KDE.<br/> <br/> <a href="http://www.kde.org/announcements/visualguide-3.5.php" target="blank_" title="Check it out">Check it out</a></div> </article> </main></body></html>