DreamNid's Hangout

Moved

Hi all,

In case you've bookmarked this page, I've move my blog to the new server. You can reach it here

Thanks!

Hardy is out!

Ubuntu Hardy is officially out! Check out the download site to get your copy!

Addendum:
1) Ok, I guess I had the wrong file to blacklist the kvm module for VirtualBox - try specifying it in "/etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common"

2) To update server installations: "sudo do-release-upgrade"

3) Flash + sound works. What I did was the following:

"sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree"
"sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree libflashsupport"

Hardy Issues

I've been running Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop for the longest time without much problems, so I figured to beat the download rush and upgrade my desktop.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite go as smoothly as I hoped.

1) Hard trouble setting the resolution and force the use of the nvidia driver to enable 3D acceleration. The quickest fix is to install the envyng-gtk2 package.

"sudo apt-get install envyng-gtk2"
"envyng-gtk2"

This program is actually a wizard that will automatically downloads the driver for your ATI/nVidia card.

2) Flash keeps crashing. The temporary fix is to uninstall libflashsupport:

"sudo apt-get remove libflashsupport"

Unfortunately, this library is needed to get flash working w/ PulseAudio. So hopefully, this will be fixed soon.

3) KVM module enabled by default. VirtualBox apparently does not want the KVM module to be enabled.

The easiest way to fix this is to blacklist it:

"sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist"
Add "blacklist kvm" on it's own line.

For intel users, also can't hurt to also blacklist "kvm_intel"

You can then unload the module by executing
"sudo modprobe -r kvm_intel" (for intel users)
"sudo modprobe -r kvm"

This allows you to unload the module without rebooting.

4) Hardy by default will not share printers. While upgrading, it will alert you for a new cupsd.conf file that only listen to localhost. I used the maintainer's version anyways since I didn't have any custom options set.

In order to share any printers:

-Open System->Administration->Printing

-In Server Settings, make sure "Share published printers connected to this sytem" is checked. This is a global share option for all your printers. For those upgrading, this will probably be unchecked and the only thing that needs to be changed.

-Under Local Printer, select the appropriate printer
-Goto the Policies tab
-Ensure that Shared is checked

Save and you're done! This will overwrite the cupsd.conf file so it will listen for any ip address.

5) I had to upgrade Adobe Acrobat (acroread) from the medibuntu repository, otherwise it will crash right away. Check http://www.medibuntu.org for instructions on how to add the repository.

That's it for now... I'll post more if I come across it.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron Coming Soon!

Sigh

It is sad I haven't updated my blog for nearly a year. I have to get motivated to update this more often...

I did update the site to incorporate my Google calendar which I think is pretty cool. Hopefully, it will make me use Google calendar more.

Upcoming Plans:
Move site to igloo.dreamnid.com (hosted on Zack's SL machine).
Try JSP (since I'm coding a lot in Java for my grad classes anyways)
Maybe create a portal for my class projects to serve as a portfolio?

PHP Development with Eclipse

These are mostly my notes to get a working PHP environment, and I'm doing this from memory, so it isn't very detailed.

Get Eclipse v3.3 here:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

I suggest using the "Eclipse for RCP/Plug-in Developers" version since it comes with the WDT repository (but you still have to install it), but it really doesn't make a difference.

Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install -> Search for new features to install

Add the following repositories below using the "New Remote Site" button:

PDT - http://downloads.zend.com/pdt
PHP Development Tools - Developed by Zend as a PHP plugin for Eclipse.

Target Management (TM) Updates - http://download.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/updates/2.0/
Contains the Remote System Explorer plugin that allows you to edit files remotes via SFTP.

Subclipse - http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.2.x
Subversion (SVN) integration

Check Europa Discovery Site, Web Tools Platform, Subclipse, and Target Management, make sure that "Automatically select mirrors" is checked, and click on Finish.

Select WDT (you only need the one WDT feature from the WDT repo), Subclipse, and RSE. You may have to check "Add dependencies" first and then manaully going through each subfeature and unselecting them that still have missing dependencies. Most are not needed since they are adding support for Java or C++.

When finished, return to the installing new features window. This time, only check Europa Discovery Site, and PDT, and make sure "Automatically select mirrors" is unchecked. There is a bug that prevents jar files being served correctly so you must select the PDT Site at the bottom of the list (Georgia Tech also works too). At the next screen, install the PDT feature, and continue with the rest of the rest of the installation.

To setup the RSE, select the RSE perspective. On the left side, create a new link. You only need to select the SFTP component, but you can also choose to add the Shell which adds a SSH shell to Eclipse. When the SFTP link is create, click on it to login with your user/password. To view a specific folder, right hand click on your link and select new-> create new filter. You can then specify that path there.

Time Management

Be sure to check out Google's Calendar. I don't know how they did it, but they certainly did a great job of making it feel like a desktop app. You can literally drag any event anywhere you want on the calender, quickly add events by heuristics, view events from public calenders, etc.

Another neat feature is that you can send reminders to your cell phone/e-mail/browser pop-ups so you can't possibly miss that important date (unless you choose not to use it).

Kudos to the Google Calendar team!

Money Management

Want a way to keep track of where you money is going?

This blog post list 6 free ways to do so.

Out of the six, I'm trying out Wesabe. The cool thing is that they try to offer tips based off what you tag your purchases. They claim everything is private (they don't ask for personal info) and the social aspect is carefully constructed so nobody can directly link you or your spending habits.

My only complaint is they don't have a native Linux client to automatically upload my credit card/bank statements :( Oh well - maybe the Windows version will work under Linux.

Isn't Summer Great?

Gotta love the weather being random...

Yeah... School does suck :(

Like everyone else, I'm back to school - and I'm already dreading the amount of work I have to do.

Classes I have this quarter:
Embedded Systems Design I - Working with the Intel x86 CPU architecture (more specifically, the 8086 processor). These classes are supposed to be the hardest classes in our major so to me, it would be more gratifying if we were working with a more modern CPU.

CS for Transfers - My first course in the CS department. My professor just moved from Canada so he does occassionally say weird idioms. He does remind me of Jim Carrey based on his looks and motions that he makes. The class itself is a review of TP 3 except it is based on Java 5. The CS dept makes us do labs using Sun machines which apparently have a slightly different keyboard layout to be very annoying. These annoyances make programming very irritating, so I hope the actual language is a lot easier to work with.

Graph Theory - This class further examines graphs that were introduced in Discrete. It is really cool stuff and many things (especially networking) uses its principles so it is good to know.

Intermediate Microeconmics - As the name implies, this course is one level higher than Principles of Microeconomics. Again, a really interesting course although I do wish he does assign us homework so I am forced to do some problems in the book. Yes, my professor reminds me of my high school orchestra conductor based on looks and motions (especially when he raises his eyebrows).

I'm sure hoping that this quarter will go by fast since the course load will soon quickly go through the roof :(

Dang...

I'm not sure how several months went by without me updating this blog, but the summer sure went by fast.

I do want to note how it is sad that after our first co-op block, most universities were just closing for school. Now that I'm done with my co-op this Friday, those said universities are starting for the new school year. Thus, there is no time to hang out with friends or what not.

It does suck my summer is now only one week instead of three months and most of it will be devoted to moving back and getting ready for the fall quarter :(

More to come later.

Update

Well, my 21st birthday was last Wednesday. I think it went pretty well albeit a little dull. Most of the day was the usual work and played some basketball afterwards.

Dustin held a party the next day, mainy because his frat brothers were going to be there. Highlights: First beer pong, the "large" pizza from Domino was over an hour late (they only charged us $5... but they should have done the 555 deal in the first place), and play Kings (although I cheated by drinking water).

My parents came to visit Friday morning. It was a bit hectic trying to do anything since they only stayed till this morning. But I think the highlight was getting a microwave and eating a really nice lobster dinner (and I don't usually eat seafood).

While we were at the mall, I tried out a massage chair at Brookstone. It was pretty impressive since it used airbags (for the legs and arms) in combination with the rollers. There were a variety of programs to choose from that seems to worked very well (I had some difficulty standing up afterwards). Unfortunately, it retails for $4,500, so I don't think we'll be getting soon.

Dan Rathers visits North Korea

http://www.taytv.com/2006/01/dan-rather-visits-north-korea.html

Dan Rathers did a documentary on North Korea after being one of the few journalists into the country. The only reason why they allowed it is they were celebrating their 60th birthday.

This documentary is just freaky - you see how the military rules there lives - all because they fully expect America to attack. The country is only the size of Mississippi but has the money to afford the world's third largest military. Of course, the country has to cut some corners in order to afford it (mass starvation as an example).

The sadest part is the segment on the children. There is one part where they should an entire side of a stadium filled with children that is orchestrated to show various images with flash cards. While it does look impressive, I have to question their motivation.

I also question why they love the "Father" so much. I admit I don't know the history of North Korea, but it is still very strange to honor a person after twelve years has past as if he is alive. While I would love people to do similar celebrations to me if I died, I wonder if they realize they should let go and move on on to better things and not be stuck in the past?

The general in the video commented that America is like the Nazis because there are some conservatives in the Bush administration who wants to conquer other countries after Iraq. Yet they should take a good look at themselves since the things they are doing to their citizens are very "Hitler-like" - starvation, arresting people who let strangers in their home, no westernism (such as the internet) although the president confides in such things, etc.

The scary thing will be what they will do if we don't attack them for the next couple of years - will they still expect America to attack? If yes, will they wait for America to make the first move?

Mirror TV

http://www.seura.com/

Imagine walking into your bathroom doing your makeup or slipping into the jazcuzzi. You really want to watch some TV - but where do you put such a bulky device? Sure, you could buy a plasma TV, but that still requires a large empty wall.

Solution - put the TV behind the mirror. Thus, when the TV is off, it becomes a mirror.

Now why didn't I think of that? :-P

Another week

Yes, back at the laundry mat. I really need to try to update this blog more often...

Let's see what happened this week:

First - Daylight Savings Time: Yes, the time of the year where we lose an hour. This is the last year when DST will start in April (it will start on March next year). It does sucks that we lose an hour, but then again, maybe I'll actually walk home in sunlight.

Did I ever mention driving around here sucks? Many drivers are very aggressive, the roads are usually only one lane, the terrain is very hilly, the roads, esp in neighboring Latham, are confusing, etc. The only reason why I mention this is because there is no major stores in Troy - I either have to goto Brunswick or Latham if I wanted to go to Walmart, Target, etc. If I wanted to go to BestBuy, I have to drive even farther to Colonie which I think is about a 20 minute drive.

Speaking about driving, I had to pick up a package from UPS last Wednesday. Fortunately, the directions were not that hard, but even if they were, all I had to do is follow the pleathora of UPS trucks.

Actually, I was surprised to see that this UPS center was a distrubution hub (then again, I never been to a UPS center before). The parking lot, even though it was somewhat large, was overfilled with employees (even though this is around 5:30 PM). I guess many of them are driving across the state. Even so, I'm glad that orders from Newegg is practically next day if they ship from NJ. I guess living this far east does have its benefits.

Ryan, if you're reading this, you better update your blog since I'm tired of your picture of the construction cone... I'm sure you have taken other pictures since then.