Terminal Geek

xorg.conf madness

2011-11-17T15:41:00.000-08:00

Ok, so here's the scenario... I have an OLD and I mean OLD Nvidia card that most people laugh at when they hear it's a 128meg card... It does have dual head and under Windows7 it is sluggish at best and can't play a full screen video to save it's life... But under Ubuntu 11.04 it's snappy fast as hell and performs quite well even with full screen video. So I decided, why not make use of the second video head, naturally I first goto the GUI's system settings (looks like a gear with a wrench) and I load up the DISPLAY program hoping to see, as I did in windows two monitors that I can control... NOPE, no such luck... So back to the terminal I go to mess around with /etc/X11/xorg.conf

I won't bore you with too many details, and first I'll just copy and paste my configuration because I looked around for someone's example hoping that their file will just work... Finally I put together bits and pieces from all the xorg examples I could find to come up with this one... Works great! In fact so great that I am now able to play a VLC movie on one of the two monitors in full screen with NO shake down, and for fun I filled the other screen with 12 more VLC sessions each running a separate movie! Now that's what I call efficient! Way to go Linux!

# Don's xorg.conf as of Nov 17, 2011

Section "ServerLayout"

# Option "Xinerama" "1" #To move windows between screens
Identifier "DualSreen"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
Option "Enable" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
Option "Enable" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "1"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "3200x1080_75.00"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Device1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

# End of the xorg.conf file

OK, Now notice that the Xinerama is commented out near the top, and TwinView is set to "1"... That's because What I really wanted was to have screen 0 and screen 1 just one HUGE screen that I can slide stuff back and fourth on... it works great!... Also each screen has it's own wallpaper so it's not one long stretched out wallpaper which would look retarded... Anyhow it worked great for me so hope it helps you out...

One more thing, if your getting some strange message like;

Could not apply the stored configuration for monitors
none of the selected modes were compatible with the possible modes:
Trying modes for CRTC 354
CRTC354: trying mode 1366*768@50Hz
with out put at 1280*720@0Hz(pass 0)
CRTC354: trying mode 1024*768@51Hz
with out put at 1280*720@0Hz(pass 0)

Simply go into your user directory inside a hidden one called .config and locate Monitors.XML remove that file with rm Monitors.XML and log off then back on again and it will create a new proper Monitors.XML file...

The terminal proves useful once again!

A-EON Reveals AmigaOne X1000 Processor Through Cake.

2010-12-31T03:54:00.001-08:00

It's taken far too long for this to develop, but after 25 years I guess another year isn't much of a bump...

(A few moments ago, a woman appeared at my doorstep with a package for me. Since it was about 19:30, I was a little perplexed - this isn't a very usual time to be delivering packages. Also, this was a woman who I've seen walking around town before - she's a local. She handed over the package, and when I saw the note on top, I was even more intrigued: "From Trevor Dickinson, A-EON Technology".)

READ THE FULL STORY...
http://www.osnews.com/story/24151/A-EON_Reveals_AmigaOne_X1000_Processor_Through_Cake

The Commodore Amiga is Back for 2010

2010-10-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

Or at least it would seem... Being one of the original Amiga enthusiasts back in the days of Commodore, I am a bit skeptical and leary but still. The thought of a new Amiga in 2010 is just too much to keep quiet about...

Old Amiga commercial!

So now a company called A-EON Technology is talking about releasing a new amiga called the X1000 and it looks like it may be quite a neat toy to have. Their website, I must say is not exactly the most professional, and things seem a bit novice and quirky as far as the web design and media goes... But who knows, maybe they are just too busy packing features into their new system to really give focus on the public perception... Oh man, this is beginning to remind me of the late great Commodore and their marketing flop.... Bah Humbug...

Until there is more proof and local news about the new Amiga, once again I hold onto a possibility that the world might change once again thanks to the creative genius we once knew as "The Amiga"

Need a simple onscreen keyboard?

2010-07-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

I'll make this blog a short one since I'm editing it entirely with my mouse. If you have a need for an on-screen keyboard to use with A touch screen capable monitor, or perhaps your just too lazy to sit upright in your chair. I am happy to report that while nestled comfortably in my chair and with only my arm extended I am able to type with the on-screen keyboard and my mouse...

So how do I do it?

The terminalgeek way:
Simply enter the command "onboard" in your terminal window...

The Gnome way:
In Gnome you can press the key combinations "Alt - F2" which brings up the "Run Application" window. Simply enter "onboard" as the command and you will have an on-screen keyboard...

Enjoy!

Linux Ubuntu IP recovery?

2010-06-05T04:35:00.000-07:00

PROBLEM: (Forgot my devices IP address)

If you've stored that unused network device (router, ATA adapter etc...) and you can't remember what the IP address was to administer it via web browser. No problem! While I'm sure there are a million ways to discover what the IP address was, this one is free of charge! And if you've got Linux installed, particularily Ubuntu Linux or some debian distro it's even easier.

SOLUTION: (Install and use netdiscover)

Open up a Terminal window in Gnome or KDE and simply type in the command as described in the video.

**note** If you get the message "The program 'netdiscover' is currently not installed." simply enter "sudo apt-get install netdiscover" in the terminal window to install the program, then try it out as described in the video example.

Enjoy!!!

Automatic Number Announcement Circuit

2009-10-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

There are many reasons why you would want to know what telephone number is associated with the line your working on... For me, I have performed various installs and troubleshooting for companies that have multiple external lines and recently I was sent to a job where someone had purposely ripped out all the wires from a bix block. I knew where each line number belonged, but was unsure of which external line contained each line. After a brief online search I was able to find the ANAC number that would help me sort out the mess of 10 external lines.

204: 644-4444 Manitoba
250: 958-6111 All of British Columbia excluding Vancouver (604)
306: 115 Saskatchewan
403: 311 Alberta, Yukon and N.W. Territory (except Calgary, Alberta)
403: 958-6111 Alberta (Telus)
403: 705-0311 Alberta (Allstream - may work in other parts of Canada - untested)
403: 555-0311 Alberta (GroupTel - may work in other parts of Canada - untested)
403: 908-222-2222 Alberta, Yukon and N.W. Territory
403: 999 Alberta, Yukon and N.W. Territory
416: 981-0001 Toronto, Ontario
450: 320-1180 Most of the province of Quebec
506: 1-555-1313 New Brunswick
514: 320-1232 Montreal, Quebec
514: 320-1223 Montreal, Quebec
514: 320-1233 Montreal, Quebec
514: 320-1180 Most of the province of Quebec
519: 958-2622 Ontario
604: 1116 British Columbia
604: 1211 British Columbia
604: 211 British Columbia
613: 958-2622 Ontario -Bell ANAC-
613: 555-0311 Ontario -Rogers ANAC-
705: 320-4567 North Bay/Saulte Ste. Marie, Ontario
709: 311 Newfoundland
780: 958-6111 Northern Alberta
819: 320-1112 Quebec
819: 320-1180 Most of the province of Quebec

I hope you find this useful :)
Cheers!

Replace your missing Desktop IE icon in XP SP3

2009-04-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

If you've installed service pack 3 in Windows XP and removed the Internet Explorer icon from your desktop you may have also realized that it's not so simple to replace the icon. Oh sure you can just create a shortcut to the program itself but then you won't have all the right click menu items associated with the original icon. In previous service packs, Microsoft allowed the recreation of the icon in a menu inside the control panel's display settings. Since their court battles about the integration of IE inside the operating system they seemed to have removed this feature all together.

Please only do this if you are moderately comfortable with the registry editor. Manipulating keys in the registry can really mess up your OS. That being said, enabling the icon can be done by opening your registry editor start/run/regedit and Navigating to the following registry key:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explore\HideDesktopIcons\

You may see either NewStartPanel like I did or ClassicStartMenu, inside whichever one your using you would create a new key then inside that key you create a DWORD (32-bit) value named {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} and set it with value of 0 (dword:00000000).

After doing that, if you've done it correctly you can refresh the desktop by pressing F5 or right click on it and click refresh.

Voila, your icon should be restored!
Happy computing...

A nice partition Magic Alternative...

2009-04-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

So you've got a drive that's dying and you want to copy it's contents over to a new drive. Normally people would use Norton Ghost to do the job and I must say Ghost does a fantastic job at it as I've used the product many times in an industrial setting. However today I just needed to recover some data from a dying drive before the drive failed and put it on a larger one. I didn't have a copy of Ghost anywhere in my disks, not sure where my disk went so onto the google search engine I went. Very quickly I found what I was looking for. A free and I must say very flexible product called Clonezilla. In my situation i was able to use it to clone my friends drive to a remote SSH location...

Huh? What do you mean by remote location?

Well it means that Clonezilla created an image file for me but not on the machine I'm working with... It grabs the data and stores it over the network on another machine. In my case it is the 500GB sata raid drive in my server. This means that I will retain the state that the machine is in so if the drive fails I can simply re image it from that ssh location. Theoretically this would even work from a far off remote location but on the local network it would be MUCH MUCH faster. I have a gigabit connection so things run smooth as can be and it doesn't affect my usual web traffic.

I recommend you use Clonezilla if you need a free alternative to commercial cloning software.

Cheers!~

Worried about the Conficker virus?

2009-03-31T17:03:00.000-07:00

First things first... Run the online scanner from microsoft found at http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?s_cid=sah

Then panic...

hahahaha, Just kidding!

Update your virus scanner software definitions and make sure windows update has downloaded the latest security patches...

If your already infected that's another story... Send me a message if you find that you are already infected and can't seem to clear it out on your own...

Cheers!

Online Security, does it make you nervous?

2009-03-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

Online security is to say the least something that makes most people nervous. Ask someone if they are comfortable with online purchasing, banking and just general electronic fund transactions. They will likely look at you like a green eyed monster and tell you about some horror story they heard about on the news or experienced first hand. There is no doubt that as technology makes it easier for the merchant to take money from your pocket, the thieves will follow in hot pursuit.

I do my share of online transactions, in fact a lot of what I do to make a buck is online. Not as a merchant with a store front but through the years I have forged relationships with companies overseas, through email, in person etc. This lets me purchase products and then resell them online at auctions like eBay or through word of mouth with friends etc. It is something that has been steadily growing and while it's not something that pays the mortgage yet it does help out.

Paypal and eBay being two of the largest money movers on the internet both present a blessing for consumers and a stumbling block for merchants. On one hand, paypal offers a great way for a merchant to accept payments without the hassle of trying to win the trust of the customer, but at the same time the horror stories about paypal accounts gone bad and stolen credit card numbers has people on edge about using the service. It is no surprise really that most of the people I talk to day to day are afraid to use their own paypal account even when they signed up years ago... They tell me they just never used it because they are afraid. Most in fact, don't even have their paypal accounts linked to a credit card or bank account. And who can blame them? I wouldn't want my account information stolen either.

Recently when signing into paypal however, something I do almost daily. I was presented with a new option. For a small one time fee of 5 dollars, paypal would send me a little plastic key chain device with a single button on it. Pressing this button generates a 6 digit number for which only paypal and eBay can understand. How does this help me? Well, now when I sign into either eBay or paypal. After entering my username and password it then asks me to press the button and enter the number that was generated. A new number is generated every 30 seconds and so you can't just sniff it out on a network to log in and once the number is used their servers instantly require a new number for subsequent logons.

Finally, a way to securly log into these services. I always had the fear in the back of my mind that one day from a hotspot or even on my own network some sneaky thief would sniff out my username/password. Now it's just not possible and I love it.

So now your asking yourself, so what if you lose the key fob? What then smarty pants. And my answer to that is... You have a phone number registered on file, you can login and click a link telling them you lost or forgot your fob somewhere and the system will call you at the designated phone number and give you a temporary access number. You can then request that another fob is sent to you.

Brilliant I say, and if you use either eBay or Paypal, you should get this little device on your side ASAP.

Clicking our way through life, one link at a time...

Linux Security Permissions...

2009-03-19T18:10:00.001-07:00

I had just installed the latest Ubuntu on a machine last night and got a couple users set up then I noticed something wrong.. Something seriously wrong... All of the users had access to each other's home directories. I believe this is true of all Ubuntu installs these days and I'm not quite sure why it's set up that way but here's how to clean it up a bit...
This was done in Linux Ubuntu...

I will assume that you are the owner of $home/user

I will also assume that you know how to open a Shell and enter some commands. The one we are going to use here is called CHMOD.

First a bit about how hexadecimal based file permissions work. The order of our three digit number XXX is;

Read =4
Write =2
eXecute =1

And the three XXX's are like USER/GROUP/WORLD permissions.

So to figure this out you simply add up your permissions. If you wanted to give full permissions you would add 4+2+1=7 therefore if you wanted to give everyone access to everything you would set your XXX to 777 but this would be insanity as your files would not last very long in a human world :)

I suggest you give user full permission so XXX looks like 7 groups should have read and write access so set that one to 5, remember read=4 + eXecute=1 so we got 5... your XXX now looks like 75X. So what about the rest of the world? well since some things like web pages need some sort of basic access to files we will set Read on the last bit so the now looks like 754.

So now you have files that you don't want other users to have access to in $home/user/MyPrivateFiles

The linux command to do this (REMEMBER TO SUDO or ROOT)

chmod -R 754 $home/user/MyPrivateFiles

the -R command will recursively go into each directory and modify the permissions of the files contained in MyPrivateFiles...

Hope that helps you secure your machine,
Cheers!

Classic Arcade Sounds...

2009-03-09T14:56:00.001-07:00

Possibly one of the geekiest things anyone has done but obviously done by someone of the same era as me... It brought a sense of nostalgia from my past and I think anyone who is between 30 - 50 years old should definitely check this site out... The person who made these recordings is a brilliant artist...

HERE IS THE LINK!

:)

Cheers!

Firefox Add On Review

2009-02-26T04:51:00.000-08:00

Have you ever watched a video online, through youtube or google video or just some embedded stuff and thought to yourself. I sure wish I could keep that video to be used on my portable device or even to put it on a DVD for offline viewing?

Well I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, and I have a solution for you... I have used this for almost a year now and it's been most excellent in it's task of ripping video and even audio content directly off the page for my selfish, grubby little hands...

It's called Download Helper, and it's a firefox extension. You can find it at http://www.downloadhelper.net/ It is easy to install and well, you should already be using firefox anyhow :)

Basically how it works is by automating the process of finding not just the meta files that process the streaming video but it digs deep into the source and finds the mp3/flv/avi/mpg etc that is the actual video, it then waits for it to stream to a file in your temporary internet folder and then saves it to wherever you want. When youtube first came out this was as easy as looking at the source code and clipping and pasting where the original file is, then they got smart and changed the code a bit... I had to create a meta file of my own etc... Now it's even more difficult, buried in php code etc...

If you want to keep the media your watching, download helper is the way to go!

Best of all, it's FREE!

Cheers!

Tweet Tweet in Linux Gnome...

2009-02-19T00:55:00.000-08:00

If your using twitter for your sms type communications, and I highly recommend you do. Linux users will really like the twitux application for Gnome. It has a mozilla like icon that sits in the system tray and will notify you of new tweets and allows you to publish tweets directly to your twitter account.

The latest client uses https for it's updates instead of regular http giving some added security.

One major feature that is missing is the minimize to system tray when you click the close widget. Like most instant messengers this feature should be built in, I hope the author includes this feature soon.

A thumbs up though, this is a cool application for the Gnome desktop.

The project can be found at http://live.gnome.org/DanielMorales/Twitux

SVN:

svn co https://twitux.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/twitux/trunk twitux

Enjoy!!!

VirtualBox 2.1 upgrad in Ubuntu 8.10

2009-02-18T04:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my upgrade notifications in the menu bar lit up telling me there were upgrades. Well I was super busy but clicked to start the upgrade just before leaving the house. Out of the corner of my eye I read that there was an update to VirtualBox... Well this excited me because I use VirtualBox all the time to design web pages and to run my invoicing software. Major downside of virtualization has always been that I can not pay Subspace Continuum.. Just wouldn't run because of the lack of proper 3D graphics support... Well that may all change soon enough.

VirtualBox 2.1.4 (released 2009-02-16)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

Windows hosts: ﬁxed host crashes/hangs on certain 32 bits Windows systems when running Linux guests (bugs fixed in SVN/2.1.4 (closed)">#1606, fixed in SVN/2.1.4 (closed)">#2269, Linux guest -> BSOD / fixed in ... (closed)">#2763)
Windows hosts: Fixed network component BSOD issue (bugs fixed in SVN (closed)">#3168, Fixed in SVN/2.1.4 (closed)">#2916)
Windows hosts: Fixed installation issues (bugs #2517, #1730, fixed in SVN (closed)">#3130)
Linux hosts: ﬁxed occasional kernel oopses (bug #2556)
Linux hosts: ﬁxed module dependency for shipped modules (bug #3115)
Linux hosts: moved the udev rules for USB forward so that they don’t override existing system rules (bug fixed in ... (closed)">#3143)
Linux hosts: ﬁxed the issue with guest not being able to communicate with each other when attached via TAP interfaces (bug Fixed in SVN (closed)">#3215)
Linux hosts: give up probing for USB gracefully if dbus or hal are not available (bug fixed in SVN (closed)">#3136)
Linux hosts: ﬁxed warnings in installer when SELinux was disabled (bug fixed in SVN (closed)">#3098)
Linux hosts: VirtualBox sometimes failed to start if it had been started using sudo previously (bug fixed in SVN (closed)">#3270)
Solaris hosts: ﬁxed high CPU load while running many guests in parallel
Solaris hosts: ﬁxed inability to start more than 128 VMs
VMM: ﬁxed performance regression for Windows guests (bug fixed in SVN/2.1.4 (closed)">#3172)
VMM: ignore CPU stepping when restoring a saved state/snapshot
REM: ﬁxed inability to use gdb to debug programs in Linux guests with software virtualization (bug fixed in SVN/2.1.4 (closed)">#3245)
GUI: ﬁxed dead key handling on Solaris hosts (bug fixed in SVN (closed)">#3256)
GUI: in the shutdown dialog, disable the action send the shutdown signal if the guest is currently not using ACPI
GUI: suppress additional key release events sent by X11 hosts when keys are auto-repeated (bug fixed in SVN (reopened)">#1296)
API: restore case insensitive OS type name lookup (bug fixed in SVN (closed)">#3087)
VBoxHeadless: really don’t start X11 services (clipboard service, 3D acceleration; Solaris & Darwin hosts only; bug Fixed in SVN (closed)">#3199)
NAT: ﬁxed occasional crashes when the guest is doing traceroute (non-Windows hosts; bug Fixed in SVN (closed)">#3200)
NAT: ﬁxed crashes under high load (bug Fixed in SVN (closed)">#3110)
NAT: ﬁxed truncated downloads (Windows hosts only, bug fixed in SVN (reopened)">#3257)
NAT: don’t intercept TFTP packages with a destination address different from the builtin TFTP server (bug Fixed ... (closed)">#3112)
USB: several ﬁxes for USB passthrough on Linux hosts
USB: reduced host CPU utilization if EHCI is active
VRDP: ﬁxed VRDP server black screen after a client reconnect (bug Fixed in SVN (closed)">#1989)
VRDP: modiﬁed rdesktop client (rdesktop-vrdp) now uses NumLock state synchronization (bug use rdesktop -N command line ... (closed)">#3253)
LsiLogic: make FreeBSD guests work (bug fixed in 2.1.4 (closed)">#3174)
ATA: ﬁxed deadlock when pausing VM due to problems with the virtual disk (e.g. disk full, iSCSI target unavailable)
iSCSI: ﬁxed possible crash when pausing the VM
3D support: added missing GL_MAX_TEXTURE_COORDS_ARB (bug Fixed in SVN. (closed)">#3246)
Windows Additions: ﬁxed ERROR (e0000101) error during installation (bug ... (closed)">#1923)
Windows Additions: ﬁxed Windows Explorer hang when browsing shared folders with 64 bit guests (bug fixed in ... (closed)">#2225)
Windows Additions: ﬁxed guest screen distortions during a video mode change
Windows Additions: ﬁxed the Network drive not connected message for mapped shared folders drives after the guest startup (bug #3157)
Linux Additions: ﬁxed occasional ﬁle corruption when writing ﬁles in O_APPEND mode to a shared folder (bug ... (closed)">#2844)
Linux Additions: the mouse driver was not properly set up on X.Org release candidates (bug mouse support fixed ... (closed)">#3212)
Linux Additions: ﬁxed installer to work with openSUSE 11.1 (bug fixed in SVN (closed)">#3213)
Linux Additions: disable dynamic resizing if the X server is conﬁgured for ﬁxed resolutions
Linux/Solaris Additions: handle virtual resolutions properly which are larger than the actual guest resolution (bug fixed in ... (closed)">#3096)

All in all this is an excellent fix...

Sharing LONG website addresses or URLS

2009-02-12T11:20:00.000-08:00

Have you ever needed to share a link with someone, only to find out that the link you need to share is a really really long one? Retyping it or even clipping and pasting it becomes a nightmare and does not always translate properly in some instant messengers. Well there is a stupidly simple solution to it. Point your web browser to http://tinyurl.com and there you will be able to enter a HUGE link to make it smaller...

I wanted to share an eBay item with someone, but surprisingly giving people just the eBay item number can be confusing, they end up saying where do I enter the number it? eBay has not quite made it clear that you just put the number in their search bar.

Example:

Tiny URL will take a long URL like;

http://cgi.ebay.ca/DVD-Multi-Drive-Burner_W0QQitemZ280312663161QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item280312663161&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1215|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318#ebayphotohostinge

And it creates one like;

http://tinyurl.com/cdp7cf

Much easier to share!

If you have useful geek tips like this, please email them to romrider@gmail.com and I will share them on this blog with credit and a link back to your website or email address!

Great Software Review - flashcam

2009-02-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't rave enough about this little baby...

But to make it short and sweet, for free, this gem allows your flash based camera utilities like ustream.tv and possibly facebook etc to be able to use v4l based cameras as if they were v4l2 based devices. It does this by creating a Vloopback device that translates every frame from the camera into the new virtual device. Thus your programs can now poll the new device and in real time use the frames.

BRILLIANT! absolutely useful software.

The flashcam project is available at http://www.swift-tools.net/Flashcam/

Cheers!

Ubuntu Sound Server Restart

2009-02-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

Occasionally in Ubuntu Linux, some application hogs the pulseaudio sound server causing other programs like vlc and mplayer to not be able to actually play sound. There is a simple fix for this problem and it can be found at the command prompt level.

Open up BASH and do the following...

mousecrash$ cd /etc/init.d/

mousecrash$ sudo pkill -9 pulseaudio
password:

mousecrash$ pulseaudio

mousecrash$

That's it... If that didin't make any sense to you just reboot your computer ;)

Cheers!

Coining the phrase, "Mouse Crash"

2009-02-04T06:12:00.000-08:00

What is a "Mouse Crash"?

A Mouse Crash is best described as the state when your mouse pointer seems to freeze on the screen yet other computer processes seem unaffected. To be considered a true "Mouse Crash", the mouse pointer must be the only process affected. This means that other processes such as a video could continue playing without interuption and the operating system can still be controlled by other input devices such as a keyboard. It's happened to all of us at one time or another. Some operating systems such as linux are less prone to this type of computer glitch but if the problem is not mouse driver related it generally affects all computer users at some point in their lives. Sometimes we reboot the computer or much like kicking the washing machine to make it work we whack the mouse down onto the table thinking it will correct the issue.

The problem can be caused when little bits of dust and debris get trapped in the bottom of your mouse making the distances measured by the ball or optical device less accurate. It may also present itself when the computer itself is underpowered for the processes it is working on, causing higher priority programs to still run and the lower priority mouse driver to fail. The term itself almost always inspires memories of a frustration in computer user.

Don Millette,
MouseCrash.COM

Handing over ownership of a file in Linux.

2009-02-01T04:45:00.000-08:00

Occasionally in linux you will find that you have moved a file to someone's directory only to find that they can not manipulate the file. They do not have ownership of the file and are not a member of the file's group so no access to it.

To display the access permissions of a file or directory use the the command:

ls -l superfile

This displays a detailed line for the file or directory and looks like:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 romrider romrider 49211 Feb 1 12:50 superfile

This first part -rwxr-xr-x shows the access permissions on this file. Then the number of links, username, who owns it, size of the file, a time and date stamp, then the filename itself.

Now lets say you want greg to take ownership of the file. The command would be:

chown greg superfile

You should also change the group to greg so he takes complete ownership:

chgrp greg superfile

Now greg completly owns the file called "superfile" and to top it off it is in gregs group so unless you are a member of that group you don't have any permissions anymore to alter the file.

So if you are a member of the greg group, greg the user themselves, or root you can access the file.

Simple eh?

Creating Web Page favicon.ico for IE5 or higher.

2009-01-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

Some web pages in IE5 or higher and newer versions of firefox have a little icon next to the address or URL of the page. These little icons are called favicons and are placed at the root of your web server where the index file is. The file is called favicon.ico

The icon you create has to be exactly 16 pixels by 16 pixels. There are some alternative larger sizes, but only use these if you've investigated favicon use very thoroughly. The safest route is definitely 16x16. Try to fool the browser with a larger or smaller size and it will usually ignore you. You should also stick with the 16 Windows colors. Again, more colors can be used in sophisticated icons, but 16 is your safest bet.

Use whatever graphics program you desire, some more complex ones will be able to save it directly as an .ico file but if yours does not you can convert your newly created bmp or gif using a program called IRFANVIEW. If your not a fan of installing software you can use this online converter found HERE!

Keep in mind, not all web hosts support .ico files and so if their web server does not serve the file it will not show up no matter how many times you click your heels together and say... "There's no place like my home page, There's no place like my home page..." Well you get the idea...

Good luck!

Can Linux keep up with Windows 7?

2009-01-24T07:23:00.001-08:00

I don't know enough about Windows 7 to comment directly on it's features but if history has anything to say about it it will be riddled with bugs and not easily accepted even within it's own fan base. All things aside, I will give it the benefit of the doubt. Up to this point I have heard good things from the Geeks community and I've also heard some bad things. The windows market share is falling fast as far as desktops are concerned. Enough of a fall in fact that I think the giant that is Microsoft must be at least clenching it's fists and having developer meetings whenever possible. A fly on the wall might hear opening statements similar to "Ok, now everybody stay calm..."

Just like a shiny new vehicle rolling off the production line for the first time, Windows 7 has it's first time appeal. The bug eyed consumer waiting for a product that is more stable and secure than before, but what will they really get? Will it just be Vista with a new paint job and some duct tape to hold the tail pipe up? I hope not.

There are a few Linux desktops that are just too good to ignore. Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora. Compatibility was always the first question native windows users would ask when a linux geek said "Hey, you should try Linux". The standard answer was always "Yeah, but can it run my windows programs?". Systems such as WINE and my personal favorite, VIRTUALBOX both allow for an easy transition to linux leaving access to the stuff that just hasn't been ported over or won't be. Linux performance is increasing, hardware support getting better and of course Linux is still more secure and stable than any version of windows to date.

If your a gamer... Well progress is always being made but is still rather messy, most serious game developers are including linux in their designs but we are not yet seeing true cross platform simplicity...

I'm not yet convinced that Windows 7 isn't just Vista with a new slip cover over it. Power shell or not I'll gladly take a good 'BASH'ing before submitting to a time and time again proven failure. Windows may be easier to install and perhaps even to use but it isn't my cup of tea. Not when I can do anything they can do at the best price available, FREE! And pardon me if the linux environment actually forces people to use their brain and think about how to run a computer. Instead of laying out some stupified options that don't conform to the users exact needs. At the age of 10 I asked a friend from the Computer Shop of Calgary how to approach the problem of understanding the computer. His response was so simple but true. "Stop trying to understand the computer and start teaching it how to understand you!"

That's all for now, back to gnome I go...
I GNU you'd understand!

Cheers!

Root access to your Linux PBX if you forget your password.

2009-01-12T22:59:00.000-08:00

Regaining root access "on a PBX that YOU OWN!"

Warning: It is ILLEGAL to do this on a machine that you do not own, this is intended only for hardware that you own. It is intended for people who are running a PBX system where they have either forgotten the password or were not supplied with it by their former system administrator.

(If you own the hardware, you should you know the password but if you don't for some reason!)

This was tested on the free version of switchvox.

Step 1 - (Using the well known Single User Mode to get a root prompt with GRUB).

While booting into the PBX press 'e' as soon as the grub menu appears.
Using the arrow keys, choose the line with your kernel. It will look something like "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-23-rt root=/dev/sda1 ro"
change the 'ro' to 'rw' then add ' single' to the and of the line. Then press 'enter'

The new line should look like "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-23-rt root=/dev/sda1 rw single"

Make sure the kernel line you modified is highlighted and press 'b' to boot the new line.

**IMPORTANT NOTE - As soon as your system is booting and you see the "press I for interactive" press "I" a few times. Soon you should be greeted by a bash prompt. If you get asked for the root password when entering single user mode use 'init=/bin/bash' on the kernel append line which should boot the machine into a bash console where you can get read/write access.

Step 2 - (You should be at your single user bash prompt with # next to the cursor)

Try the command 'passwd' If simply using 'passwd' to change root doesn't work and you get an error then you will have to keep reading. If passwd successfully changed the root password then reboot and enjoy your new PBX system.
(Assuming passwd did not work) - type 'adduser newuser' and set the password to newuser.
Now CD into /etc and edit the passwd file or shadow file if you have one with 'vi /etc/passwd' or 'vi /etc/shadow' if you have a shadow file, that is where the encrypted password is kept.
The newuser you created will have a line in /etc/shadow that looks like this;

newuser:$1$GTayGdXe$Nz/jvMC7SImVQCfMuPG.m1:14257:0:99999:7:::

Now just copy the string that exists between the first set of colons in your newuser and put it where the * or string is on the root line. Here are some examples.

Old root string - "root:*:14095:0:99999:7:::"

New root string - "root:$1$GTayGdXe$Nz/jvMC7SImVQCfMuPG.m1:14095:0:99999:7:::"

(Now Save the file)

Step 3 - Reboot the system and log in as root with the password you set for newuser.

That should work just dandy, you can now access your PBX using root!

Special thanks to Douglas for helping me understand how the passwd & shadow file work.

Cheers!

2009-01-04T16:07:00.001-08:00

When setting up a fresh linux distribution it is often easier to just set up an entire hard drive as root partition. That root partition is represented as / in unix like operating systems including linux. The various directories exist usually within root, or /

The / directory or root directory is not to be confused with the root account. The root user's home directory or workspace is actually located at /root

Some other common directories that make up the basic linux directory structure are;

/boot (This is where the boot information is stored, as the name suggests)

/etc (Most programs including system programs keep their configuration files here, some of which can be hand edited with a program called VI, or VIM.)

Within /etc there are a few vital files that linux needs, those are /etc/inittab which is much like autoexec.bat or system.ini in dos/windows environments. It describes what processes are started at boot time.
and of course the all important /etc/fstab which contains information about various file systems for automounting at boot time. If this file did not exist you would have to mount file systems manually.

/bin and /usr/bin are more or less the same idea, they hold the executables such as 'ls' and 'cp' and 'mv' these executables are called from their path to do the various things that one would like to do when in a shell environment. These programs are often called upon by sub routines in programs to pipe or bring information to the program as variables that can be used for data manipulation. It really doesn't make a difference which of these to executable paths you choose to put your programs. When you type a command at the BASH prompt, BASH looks in both of these directories to see if the program exists.

/usr is kind of reserved for applications and their components, the source code, pictures, documentations etc. Even configuration files can be kept here although usually that kind of thing goes in /etc as described earlier.

/usr/doc is self explanitory, if it's not then you really should take up a nother hobby... :)
/usr/share contains config files, photos and other components that may be accessed by all users of the system.

/usr/src usually contains the source code for programs that you install.

/usr/include contains header files for use with C programs at compile time. Most C programs rely on these header files to build programs while you install them on your particular system.

/lib (contains libraries for programs, they can be dynamically linked just like DLL programs are in windows.)

/home (This is where all your users data will be stored. Whenever I format a new hard drive I always put this on it's own partition.)
So you will have a / partition for all the previously mentioned directories, and then you will have a /home that my look something like;

/home/user1
/home/user2
/home/user3 etc...

/var is an important place where files that change on a regular basis are stored. Such as log files etc.

/var/mail obviously for keeping in/outgoing mail for users.

/tmp writable by most programs and users, programs keep temporary files here while they are being executed.

/dev (Here is where all the hardware on your system is stored. The information about how your system can use the hardware is contained in the files.)

/mnt (This directory is for physical devices usually removables like floppy drives, cdrom drives and or usb mass storage devices.) On some more recent systems this is also stored in /media

/proc (This isn't really a directory it contains some information about the kernel and contains a bunch of numbers, each one associated with a process or running task on your system.

/lost+found (When your system crash's, files that were open and not yet properly written to the hard drive are kept here. This way you can restore files that may otherwise not be recoverable when the system powers down.

I know it's not an exhaustive list, but hopefully this gave you some sense of how the linux directory structure is layed out. People often ask me about this and at first it can be a bit confusing...

Cheers!

Chris Pirillo singing...

2009-01-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

If your a true geek, then you already know who Chris Pirillo is. On new years eve while hangin' with the good geeks at live.pirillo.com Chris was accepting donations for the IRC network they use. In return he would do some crazy things for us all. So as my request I asked Chris to sing "King of Spain" by Moxy Fruvous. A Canadian singer from Toronto.

And here is what that request looked like :)

Find more videos like this on Geeks!

Adding a cdrom source to /etc/apt/sources.list

2009-01-01T14:19:00.000-08:00

Just a quick response to someone needing help with apt sources. This particular person is using ubuntu 5.04 server edition and since the repos are not maintained anymore he needs to install some packages from the cdrom itself.

To do this is quite simple. First if you don't want to modify your /etc/apt/sources.list the move it with the following command to a backup.

sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak

Simply make sure the cd you want to add is in the drive then simply execute;

sudo apt-cdrom add

A few moments later the packages on the cdrom will be cataloged and accessable to apt.

Hope that helps!

Sendmail MTA Outbound Mail Problem.

2009-01-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

One of the most used mail transport agents, the one that basically built the early years of the Internet was Sendmail. Simple, and Rock solid this has worked for many many years but now It's software that is showing it's age. With the increasing problem of spam default servers like this one are being forced to take a safe approach. In Sendmail's case, a default install on Ubuntu for example is set not to allow external mailing. This is a good idea in a world where a default unsecure setup can leave a person with a serious problem when some script kiddie from another land uses your computer to mass email thousands of people. Quickly your ISP will spot you and you will end up with a blacklisted IP and no internet service at all.

I am not going to elaborate on the securing of sendmail, I would just hope that you would seek out the answers to that yourself. But I do know that to get a mail server up and running quickly you need to be able to get mail flowing out of the lan and into the wan...

Since sendmail is by default configured to accept connection from local system (127.0.0.1). Which would avoid open mail relay problem.

To allow connections from ALL hosts/LAN IPs open sendmail.mc file (login as the root):

# vi /etc/mail/sendmail.mc

Look for line that read as follows:

DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA')dnl

Comment or remove above line and insert new line that read as follows:

DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Name=MTA')dnl

Above line will force to accept connection from any host. Save the file. Regenerate sendmail configuration file using m4:

# m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

Restart sendmail service :

# /etc/init.d/sendmail restart

"That's IT!" Yup, you've been struggling for days with this problem but it's really very simple when you know where to look eh?
I hope you found it useful...

Using SSH to securely tunnel traffic from your XP laptop through your home or office network.

2008-12-27T09:32:00.000-08:00

If you are even just a bit computer savvy, then your probably aware of the extreme lack of security when you use open WiFi to connect to the internet from remote locations. Even just connecting your laptop to the network at your workplace can be a hazard assuming the guy in the cubical next to you has some knowledge of packet sniffing. I am assuming of course that while connected to that popular WiFi hotspot at the local Starbucks coffee place you will be doing more than just basic web surfing. Marthat Stewart's articles may be interesting to you but perhaps not to that of a hacker nearby.

It's true!, what the hacker typically waits for is the unsuspecting soul who connects to every open WiFi connection available to his laptops antenna, and then surfs to their internet banking site or connects to their MSN messenger. You may even think that your vpn connection is totally secure, but is it?

The other situation that got me thinking about writing this article is the annoyance of corporate firewalls. I make frequent visits to a large hospital and sometimes I find myself being forced to work from the not so comfortable place in a plastic chair or in a lobby. Often I will connect to either the hospitals network because it's much faster than that of the Starbucks in the lobby. The one problem though is that the connection goes through a proxy so all of the traffic on the typical port 80 is sent through a firewall that restricts sites and type of traffic flowing through it. Common places like facebook and blogspot are even restricted which makes blogging not possible. Somthing I was just not willing to accept so I looked for a way around.

What I found was that since I am running my own Linux system at home and actively use an SSH connection to send and recieve data to my cellular phone. Keep me up to date on various statistics etc, that I could also use this encrypted connection to make a tunnel much like the virtual private networking tunnels used in the windows world.

You'll have to use firefox to get this to work because for some reason IE just didin't work. I'm not quite sure what it is that prevents it but none the less, Firefox is a much better browser anyhow, and you should be using it.

First you may want to prove to yourself just what network your actually using. Open up Firefox web browser and surf over to http://ipchicken.com There you will see your current IP address. Write it down so that you can reference it later.

If you don't already have your own Linux system running at home, you can usually find some shell account at a university or something who may be willing to give you an account for this very purpose. Although I am sure it's getting more and more difficult to find these. Your better off to just get an old slow computer and install Ubuntu and SSHD to leave running at your home.

Most people have a router with firewall enabled at home, if you don't then you probably shouldn't even be trying to run servers at home and should probably also promptly find the power button on your computer, turn it off and then call the local newspaper to advertise a slightly used and possibly infected computer system. If you are one of the smarter geeks, you should go into your router's configuration and forward whatever port your SSH server is running on, usually this is port 22 but it is also wise to change the port number since many Trojans and network worms attempt to brute force attack ssh servers on this port.

If your running Windows XP or Vista, download a copy of PUTTY.EXE and configure it as follows...

Windows PUTTY.EXE setup;

Open your putty.exe client and enter the host name or IP address of your linux server. Port is usually 22, and connection type is SSH.
In putty's "Category" column click on SSH, under the "Protocol Options" to the right checkmark Enable compression and set "Preferred SSH protocol" to "2"
Now under the "Category" menu again, click on "Tunnels", under the "Add new forwarded port" enter "4567" in the source port box, and make sure "Dynamic" and "Auto" are checked. When you click on the "ADD" button you should see "D4567" in the forwarded ports list.
Last, but not least you'll want to go back to the "Category"menu on the left and click on "Session". Give your new connection a name in the "Saved Sessions" box to the right and then click on "SAVE" this way you can connect to this anytime you like from the "Load, save or delete a stored session" menu.

Firefox Configuration;

Go to "Tools > Options..."
Click on "Advanced" then the "Network" tab and then "SETTINGS"
From the "Connection Settings" menu, select "Manual Prosy configuration" and enter "127.0.0.1" where it says "SOCKS HOST" and make sure the port is set to "4567" just like it is set in putty. Also make sure "SOCKS v5" is selected.

Now all you need to do is make the connection using Putty.exe and the saved session you created. Log into the server and then open Firefox. Your IP address should be the same as the one your Linux server is using. You can check from http://ipchicken.com

This process also works for using US television sites that do not allow Canadian IP's to view their content. The linux server or shell you connect to however must reside in the US. :) I am fortunate enough to have a friend who runs a public server in the US so it's very handy for me when I want to watch television from within Canada.

Good luck Geeks!

Easy DTV transition.

2008-12-23T06:33:00.000-08:00

If your anything like me, you may have cable television or even a satellite dish to receive your television fix. But you may also have or may only have an antenna on the roof of your house or rabbit ears on your television to receive local channels. If so, then this blog post is for you.

By February 17, 2009 All broadcast television signals (over the air) will be digital. This means that your analog televisions won't be able to receive the signal.

If you use an antenna to receive your television broadcasts you will have three options.

- Subscribe to cable television or Satellite provider. "Uggggh, more monopoly money"

- Upgrade to an HD or SD television with a digital tuner built in.

- Buy a DTV converter to connect to your old antenna.

Being the cheap a$$ that I am, I am planning to buy the DTV converter box for the transition. I still have my Satellite receiver from Bell ExpressVu but for the kids playroom and my mom's bedroom television they really don't need access to all those porn and movie channels that I currently subscribe too.

One nice thing about it though is that when your antenna's set up you'll either have perfect reception or no reception at all. Which means no more snowy channels with a ghost of the adjacent channel. It's a digital stream so it's either perfect or it's not. No in between...

I'll keep you posted on different models of digital TV tuners in future blogs... Oh boy, think of all those old geezers who will wake up one morning and not be able to view their televisions... Then think of all those grandkids and children who will receive said call from the geezer begging them to come fix their television...

I bet bestbuy's gonna be busy that cold February morning eh?

Sharing your Ubuntu printer with an XP machine.

2008-12-17T09:07:00.000-08:00

Now I did not write these instructions, they came from {HERE} But since they did a much better job of describing the steps for this procedure than I ever could, I thought I would just paste it here for my own reference and yours. In the past, printers have been a HUGE source of frustration for the Linux world so recent improvements in this area are a welcome thing...

_________________________________________________________________________

Gutsy

NOTE: This was tested with the beta version of Gutsy.

1) Make sure your printer is installed.

2) Open the Printing window (System -> Administration -> Printing).

3) Click Server Settings in the list of printers.

4) To the right, under Basic Server Settings, check the box that reads, "Share published printers connected to this system".

5) In the list of printers, click the printer you want to share.

6) Click in the Policies tab and make sure all three check boxes (Enabled, Accepting jobs, and Shared) are checked.

7) Click the Apply button in the lower-right corner of the window.

On the Windows machine:

1) Now add the printer to the Windows computer by using the Windows "Add Printer" Wizard. Select to connect a network printer and then select the option to connect a printer on the Internet or on a home or small office network. Type in the following for the printer URL:

http://HOSTNAMEorIP:631/printers/PRINTERNAME

Replace "" with the hostname of the Ubuntu computer sharing the printer. It's also possible to replace "" with the IP address of the computer sharing the printer.

Replace "" with the name (exactly as displayed including displayed casing) that was shown in the Printers window you opened earlier on the Ubuntu machine. If you're unsure about the exact printer name, you can use your webbrowser to open

http://localhost:631/printers/

That should show your printer in a webpage. Click on your printer link, and you should see the exact URL in your browser's address bar. You can use that URL in the Windows setup mentionned above.

2) Windows will ask you to select a driver for the printer. If you have the Windows print drivers, you should use them. Click the "Have Disk" button and select the .inf file that describes your print drivers.

If you do not have the drivers for the printer or cannot load the .inf file, you should select the "MS Publisher Color Printer" driver from the "Generic" manufacturer. This driver should be found on all Windows 2000 and XP installations by default and it gives all the printing functionality one should need.

NOTE: Windows XP can print over IPv6 to Ubuntu Linux (tested between Windows XP SP3 and Ubuntu Linux 8.10). Make sure both the Windows and Ubuntu have IPv6 connectivity. You should tick "Allow Printing from the Internet" on the Ubuntu machine. Then use the URL (which resolves to IPv6) of the Ubuntu machine as described above.
____________________________________________________________________________

I hope this benefits some linux users, I know it helped me a lot...

Moving Files in Linux BASH

2008-12-16T19:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a great example of the power of the command line interface in Linux. In my case and probably most of your systems I'm using BASH as my CLI.

I recently used the all powerful wget command to mirror a rather large database of images from an undisclosed location on the web. This website had almost 4000 clipart images that I really wanted to add to my collection for web design etc. Anyhow the issue was going through the website one by one and saving the files would have killed me. Just not practical so I just recursivly retrieved 5 levels deep of the clipart which incidentally was located in hundreds of sub folders labelled as per the content... Example: www.site.com/images/cars, www.site.com/images/plants etc... You get the idea... So now I have a mirrored site with a problem, how to get all those handy little .jpg and .gif files moved into a single directory that I could peruse on my own terms.

PROBLEM: Thousands of .jpg exension files in hundreds of subdirectories.
SOLUTION: Use some BASH commands... In this case FIND and MV.

The syntax I used looks like this;

find /websitedir/ -name "*.gif" -type f -exec mv {} /onlyimages/ \;

OK so lets break this down... The find command is being told to look in directory /websitedir/ for files named *.gif the * is a wildcard so it means find anything with the .gif extension. Then the second switch -type f tells find that it is a file it's looking for and not a directory. When it finds the files -exec invokes the mv (move) command recursively to copy the said files to the new directory /onlyimages/ then it ends with \;

The result is a directory called /onlyimages/ that is filled with all the images from those hundreds of subdirectories that are in the original find dir...

Fantastic eh?

Picasa 3 Software review.

2008-12-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

I've never been easily impressed by graphic databases but there have been a few that caught my eye. In my early windows years around 1998 I was an avid user of acdsee program. It allwed me to catalog all my images etc but it costs a fee and I don't like giving my money away to people and I do not believe in pirating software in a world where so much can be obtained for free.

Google however has many useful tools and toys to please the average geek. And being Google they are a trustworthy monopoly to say the least. Does that qualify for an oxymoron? "Trustworthy, Monopoly" :) Anyhow, while adding photos to my blog I realized that it's actually uploads and stores the photos to my picasa account which incidentally I did not know I even had. It is one of the perks of having a gmail account at Google. Even all the photos in my personal blog's slide show come from my picasa account. So As I started to realize how useful this photo storage place at google is, I found that instead of using their web based uploader you can actually download software to incorporate uploading directly from your photo catalog. Fantastic features... It even has the ability to throttle bandwidth usage so if you have 10 thousand photos to upload and it may take a few days you can limit how much of your internet speed it uses.

Picasa 3 brags the following features;

The ability to make web albums, even videos can be viewed over the web.
Easy search and Explore features. Photos that you forgot you even had on your hard drive are cataloged.
Creative printing, create slideshows, add text to your pictures etc.
Easy, or should I say STUPID easy to share photos with other people on the web.
One click fixes for common problems like red eye and lighting, the software is intelligent enough to assist without any graphic skill.
Using name tags, like people are grouped together so that all the photos of a particular person for example will be in one place.
And of course they have the usual ability to purchase professional prints and download the photos again so you can print them somewhere else.
The best thing about this software though, is that it's absolutely FREE!

Watch a video demonstration of Picasa 3

All in all, if you have a lot of photos and want to keep them backed up somewhere, why not use this software to keep a copy on your local hard drive, and a copy on google's servers?

Software Review (VirtualBox)

2008-12-16T02:53:00.000-08:00

OK I have to share with all the geeks out there some fantastic software I have stumbled across.

A year or so ago I was running Vmware to add a windows compatability layer to my Linux distribution. A virtual machine offers severe performance advantages over emulation so it was the way to go for me. I have been running Linux as my primary desktop since the early 1980's. I have never been a big fan of pirated Microsoft software and so I being the cheap bastard that I am looked for an alternative to Windows. My Amiga was a unix like OS and so I was already comfortable with the Command Line Interface or CLI, the move to Linux was just a natural one to me. Above: Original Amiga 1000

Recently I had been listening to a friend rave about VirtualBox, how fast it is and how well it supports hardware as a much improved virtual machine over vmware. VirtualBox is produced and released free by the Gods at Sun Microsystems and so I was willing to give it a chance.

Well I had this Acer piece of crap laptop that I spent 600 bucks on in Calgary and in less than a year the laptop had died on me. The so called support team at Acer refused to help me get the laptop fixed for any reasonable price. They said the best they could do is replace the laptop for around 500 bucks... W00T? I am stuck with this piece of crap that doesn't work? Stupid Acer, I will never recommend or buy another one, they are made with cheap plastic that cracks and fades within months anyhow... Ok enough of the anger... I installed VirtualBox on my linux ubuntu distro and created a drive of 2GB... Then I used the windows license I paid for when I bought that stupid ACER laptop to install WindowsXP Home Edition... not sure why I made such a small drive cause Windows is a pig... But I guess I was thinking that the option to dynamically resize the partition would apply if I needed space in the future... what it actually means is that the actual space on your physical drive is only the size of the data that is contained in the virtual drive and so you have a maximum dynamic state of up to the 2Gb... So I suggest you make a larger drive to begin with in VirtualBox...

Anyhow now for the software I recommend highly... I was looking for a way to clone this virtual drive and I stumbled across yet another awsome Linux ISO disk. It's called G4U - Harddisk Image Cloning for PC's the iso can be burned to a real CD to be booted in the drive or it can be loaded by VirtualBox as if it were a physical CD. Now this is awsome!

On to what it does...

G4U has the ability to copy a disk to disk partition just like Norton Ghost does, or if you don't have a second drive installed... you can use the FTP option to upload the hard drive image to an FTP location and then back down to several or a single system. This is a FANTASTIC feature!

And so I was able to clone my 2 gb virtual partition to the new 25 gb virtual partition which should leave room for all the basic programs and files...

This is FREE and quality software folks... If your a geek, and you need to clone hard drives, this is for you!

Microsoft's Brain Fart!

2008-12-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

Imagine I build a new brand of car. Millions of them are sold, and occasionally when you get to a red light, as you slow down to stop your car suddenly stalls without warning. You have to start it back up again and sometimes the engine just turns over for a while before starting. So you take it to a garage and tell the mechanic.. "My car stalls without any apparent reason, just quits sometimes while I'm using it..." "In Fact" you say, "I think it's rather dangerous... " The mechanic looks at you and says yeah it's just the way this model of car is.. you'll just have to deal with it because there are problems deeply embedded in the makeup of the car that the manufacturer just isn't willing to deal with.

Out of Redmond Washington on November 18th, 2008 Microsoft announced their plans to release a free anti virus software solution that runs with such light resources that it can even function on a windows 98 machine... Uhhhh pardon me but guys Isn't this a decade too frickin' late? You create an entire line of computer operating systems that are riddled with problems and somehow manage to go from the extremely unstable 3.x versions to the fairly stable XP and now Vista and now suddenly you release this band aid solution to keep external problems out?

Now don't get me wrong, I've used the free windows defender for a few years now and feel that it has protected me quite well. But just how is this new project code named "Morro" suppose to be accepted by the thousands of people who avoided this operating system for stability and security reasons?

Root kits, and Trojans, spy ware, and viruses... All have become sort of like the much anticipated car that stalls at every fourth or fifth red light. You just deal with it.... Reboot your computer and the problem will go away right?
Your solution is entirely toooooooooo late!

The other thing that bothers me, I have always felt that somehow the antivirus software developers of the world have had a hand in creating and or at least perpetuating both the virus scare and the streamlined code that makes up these nasty little "de"buggers... I mean come on, can you think of a better way of selling ice cream than to get all the teenaged kids in the neighborhood hooked on pot? Munchies anyone?

In closing, how is this going to affect companies like Mcaffee or Norton... I find it hard to believe that people are going to be continuing to renew their licenses when they can get protection right from the horses mouth... The demise of the anti virus software industry may happen quicker than you can say "Mass Lay Offs".

Anyhow, congrats Microsloth for finally including the protection that should have been built into your product from day one... I would not have minded a six floppy disk install instead of the five I received when I purchased windows 3.0 and probably wouldn't have seeked out an alternative operating system had yours not stalled at every fourth red light...

Oh and, Bahh Humbug day is approaching... UghhhH!

Introduction

2008-12-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

I am a "Terminal Geek". Self diagnosed, I will die a terminal geek and could not be happier about it!

I have other blogs, but this one will be strictly geek related!

I hope you will actively participate and make your comments about various subjects known. Correct me when I'm wrong, suggest something useful etc...

romrider@mousecrash:~$ exit