Wow. It's been a busy week. Last week I got an e-mail from my Mum advising they were shifting back from the States. No more vagaries, but actual dates and flights. It was funny, but after years of "Some day", to suddenly be told they would be here in about three weeks! My goodness!
Saturday was the day that is was and we shall speak no more of that. Was a good day though...:-)
Sunday was cool. We bought Nooboo's cot. Pics of all the new baby stuff are of course on Flickr. TradeMe rocks...:-) Last "major" thing to get is a car seat.
Stumbled across a cool piece of software on Digg. It's called Hamachi, and it is basically used to create a password protected, encrypted VPN through the Internet between machines. It's free, and it's simple (My two favourite features) and it runs on Windows and Linux. I can then VNC (Password protected, which of course also runs on Windows or Linux) through the tunnel to remote control machines. Finally the perfect (As far as I can tell), way for me to help remote friends and family with their machines without having to dick around with firewall and router ports. W00t! And I've even thought, if I leave Hamachi and VNC server running on our PVR at home, I can Hamachi/VNC through and set it to tape TV programs if I lean of or forget something I want to record. Cool! Sorry if this is old hat for you.
20051220
20051215
GEEK - Ow, my bleeding scalp
Gott love it:
Using WPA under Mac OS, Windows XP and Linux
...The section for Windows is like part of a page. The section for Linux is page, after page, after page...:-( I'm sure someone somewhere is blaming Sir Bill. Cause it's always his fault, right?
Using WPA under Mac OS, Windows XP and Linux
...The section for Windows is like part of a page. The section for Linux is page, after page, after page...:-( I'm sure someone somewhere is blaming Sir Bill. Cause it's always his fault, right?
Geek - The Linux experiment
Right. This has been done a million times, and now it's been done a million and one. I'll document my progress with this Linux experience, if for no other record than my own.
Day one saw the install of SuSE 10.1. As one would expect after the number of Linux has been around now, the install progress is no longer the total bitch that it used to be. Important things are done for you (Correctly) with the option to change the recommended settings and config as you go. I did a custom install and added a few bits. All the hardware was detected correctly. I've had nightmares in previous years with sound and graphics cards.
The machine is an old HP Omnibook 6000 (PIII 800, 128 MB of RAM at the moment, a 10 GB HDD). I've had it for years but haven't been doing anything with i cause the battery was naff and a replacement was $400 till I found a good laptop battery source on TradeMe (Plug plug! Laptop Battery NZ). $120! Not bad.
Unfortunately after the install, when the machine would boot and X Windows would start, the screen would just fade to solid white (Or grey as I was calling it at the time). Starting with the boot option "vga=normal" would get me in. And all the graphics options seemed correct. I could test at 1024 x 768 in 24-bit colour. But restart and *bleah*! No screen output. I tried Googling, but didn't really know what to look for. Was it a machine problem, a settings problem, a Linux problem, a driver problem, a SuSE problem? I feel stupid as in the end I checked with a work colleague in Dunedin who is a Linux user (And Micro$oft BASHer...;-) and he pointed me to an article mentioning a graphics option in the BOS of the HP Omnibook 6000 that I needed to change. I was annoyed, but also happy to get around the issue.
So the next thing I wanted to do was update Firefox from 1.0.7 to 1.5. Still haven't figured this out. Not as simple as logging in as root, and running SETUP.EXE...:-) Had a quick look at the release notes, and it looks like it might just be a matter of extracting the tarball over the existing copy of 1.0.7. But wouldn't that leave behind old files and stuff, if a newer file has a different name? Looks like I can use RPM (Haven't tried when I've been a home and haven't got the machine's proxy settings working at work (Authentication failure for some reason. Another colleague says there's a trick to it).
Happily plugging in my USB IDE drive works off the whack and auto-runs with Konqueror, and my M3Us play right away with amaroK. Trying to play some other media (Videos) and it seems I'm missing some codecs (Event MPEG2. Would have though that would work out of the box). Get to figure out how to install those.
My colleague also has a little network monitor thing in his system tray which I don't and he doesn't know what it is or how it got there (Need to take a sec to find out what it is).
Today I found that eth0 doesn't automatically release/renew its DHCP address when unplug/plug in the network cable. So when I plug in at work it still has my address from home. So I restart and it gets an address. And when get home, it's got the address from work. I only noticed this today. So back to Google to find Linux's equivalent of IPCONFIG. Turns out it's IFCONFIG. But IFCNFIG doesn't have a release or renew switch. Fortunately I found someone pointing out DHCPCD, and -f and -n. Sweet (If annoying. I'm sure this behaviour had be changed in some config file and all the Linux nuts would say "See how powerful it is", and my response is "No. See how annoying it is" and they'd counter with "You're just used to Windows doing everything for you" and I'd be like "Yeah. Saves time for more important things...". Oh. Don't forget to SU first :rolleyes:
Got the right address wherever I go now, rather than dragging around my last IP address when I switch networks, so I'm able to rdesktop to a Windows Terminal Server to get access to the tools I need. Outstanding tasks include:
* Updating Firefox (Will try to update via RPM when I get home)
* Accessing a Windows share
* Authenticating to Active Directory (Either mine at home or at work)
* IMAP address to my Exchange mailbox at work.
* Sourcing a 802.11g NIC that supports Linux (I don't know if I want the hassle of dealing with the ndiswrapper)
* Getting a Telecom T3G (Sierra Wireless CDMA1X/EVDO) PCCard working
Others at work are looking to play with Linux to get their working knowledge up. So they can learn from my pain, and we'll see how we come out the other end...
Day one saw the install of SuSE 10.1. As one would expect after the number of Linux has been around now, the install progress is no longer the total bitch that it used to be. Important things are done for you (Correctly) with the option to change the recommended settings and config as you go. I did a custom install and added a few bits. All the hardware was detected correctly. I've had nightmares in previous years with sound and graphics cards.
The machine is an old HP Omnibook 6000 (PIII 800, 128 MB of RAM at the moment, a 10 GB HDD). I've had it for years but haven't been doing anything with i cause the battery was naff and a replacement was $400 till I found a good laptop battery source on TradeMe (Plug plug! Laptop Battery NZ). $120! Not bad.
Unfortunately after the install, when the machine would boot and X Windows would start, the screen would just fade to solid white (Or grey as I was calling it at the time). Starting with the boot option "vga=normal" would get me in. And all the graphics options seemed correct. I could test at 1024 x 768 in 24-bit colour. But restart and *bleah*! No screen output. I tried Googling, but didn't really know what to look for. Was it a machine problem, a settings problem, a Linux problem, a driver problem, a SuSE problem? I feel stupid as in the end I checked with a work colleague in Dunedin who is a Linux user (And Micro$oft BASHer...;-) and he pointed me to an article mentioning a graphics option in the BOS of the HP Omnibook 6000 that I needed to change. I was annoyed, but also happy to get around the issue.
So the next thing I wanted to do was update Firefox from 1.0.7 to 1.5. Still haven't figured this out. Not as simple as logging in as root, and running SETUP.EXE...:-) Had a quick look at the release notes, and it looks like it might just be a matter of extracting the tarball over the existing copy of 1.0.7. But wouldn't that leave behind old files and stuff, if a newer file has a different name? Looks like I can use RPM (Haven't tried when I've been a home and haven't got the machine's proxy settings working at work (Authentication failure for some reason. Another colleague says there's a trick to it).
Happily plugging in my USB IDE drive works off the whack and auto-runs with Konqueror, and my M3Us play right away with amaroK. Trying to play some other media (Videos) and it seems I'm missing some codecs (Event MPEG2. Would have though that would work out of the box). Get to figure out how to install those.
My colleague also has a little network monitor thing in his system tray which I don't and he doesn't know what it is or how it got there (Need to take a sec to find out what it is).
Today I found that eth0 doesn't automatically release/renew its DHCP address when unplug/plug in the network cable. So when I plug in at work it still has my address from home. So I restart and it gets an address. And when get home, it's got the address from work. I only noticed this today. So back to Google to find Linux's equivalent of IPCONFIG. Turns out it's IFCONFIG. But IFCNFIG doesn't have a release or renew switch. Fortunately I found someone pointing out DHCPCD, and -f and -n. Sweet (If annoying. I'm sure this behaviour had be changed in some config file and all the Linux nuts would say "See how powerful it is", and my response is "No. See how annoying it is" and they'd counter with "You're just used to Windows doing everything for you" and I'd be like "Yeah. Saves time for more important things...". Oh. Don't forget to SU first :rolleyes:
Got the right address wherever I go now, rather than dragging around my last IP address when I switch networks, so I'm able to rdesktop to a Windows Terminal Server to get access to the tools I need. Outstanding tasks include:
* Updating Firefox (Will try to update via RPM when I get home)
* Accessing a Windows share
* Authenticating to Active Directory (Either mine at home or at work)
* IMAP address to my Exchange mailbox at work.
* Sourcing a 802.11g NIC that supports Linux (I don't know if I want the hassle of dealing with the ndiswrapper)
* Getting a Telecom T3G (Sierra Wireless CDMA1X/EVDO) PCCard working
Others at work are looking to play with Linux to get their working knowledge up. So they can learn from my pain, and we'll see how we come out the other end...
20051214
GEEK - Ah the nostalgia
My current ownership of an Xbox and a PS2 (As well as being a PC gamer), is long precedented:
...Ah Berzerk. One of my fav games from the early '80s...:-)
...Ah Berzerk. One of my fav games from the early '80s...:-)
20051212
Life - Goodbye to Richard Pryor
I remember one year when I was a little ankle biter (About five or six), and I was watching the Academy Awards with my grandparents. And it came to the part of the show where they remembered those from the entertainment industry who'd passed away that year. And I didn't know any of them. But my grandparents both commented that "...it was a shame to see so-and-so had gone this year". And I specifically remember thinking "One day, I'll be watching TV and saying those same things".
As of late there has been deaths amongst people I've known or known of for a large part of my life. And it's all very real now. Personally I'm very afraid of death. I'll be trying to fall asleep sometimes and I'll just think "I'm going to die some day. Some time I just won't be here any more". And my heart starts racing, and eventually I chill out and fall asleep.
So Richard Pryor has been taken from us. He's made me laugh on more than a few occations. It's funny. So much of his comedy is racially based, and yet during his peak (And admittedly I was young at the time), the race side of his comedy was always transparent to me, like I couldn't understand it. And I don't mean because I'm not black. I mean because I don't see any difference between someone who's black and someone who's white. Unfortunately I don't think humanity is evolving quickly enough to overcome rasism. It will be with us for the forseable future. But anyway. Goodbye Richard. Thank you for the laughs. It is the thing I prize most from entertainers beyond all else. Laughing is the best thing in the whole world.
And to those out there reading this blog. Having lost a family member recently, I'll say one thing. Take a second to appreciate the people around you. Your family and your friends. The vicar at my father-in-law's funeral said:
When we are on our death bed, the important things aren't the money we've made. They're not the things we've bought. It's the people we've known and loved. You don't say "Bring me my plasma telly" or "my expensive car". You say "I want to see my brothers and my sisters and my friends". Appreciate the time you have with your friends and family. Don't waste it.
As of late there has been deaths amongst people I've known or known of for a large part of my life. And it's all very real now. Personally I'm very afraid of death. I'll be trying to fall asleep sometimes and I'll just think "I'm going to die some day. Some time I just won't be here any more". And my heart starts racing, and eventually I chill out and fall asleep.
So Richard Pryor has been taken from us. He's made me laugh on more than a few occations. It's funny. So much of his comedy is racially based, and yet during his peak (And admittedly I was young at the time), the race side of his comedy was always transparent to me, like I couldn't understand it. And I don't mean because I'm not black. I mean because I don't see any difference between someone who's black and someone who's white. Unfortunately I don't think humanity is evolving quickly enough to overcome rasism. It will be with us for the forseable future. But anyway. Goodbye Richard. Thank you for the laughs. It is the thing I prize most from entertainers beyond all else. Laughing is the best thing in the whole world.
And to those out there reading this blog. Having lost a family member recently, I'll say one thing. Take a second to appreciate the people around you. Your family and your friends. The vicar at my father-in-law's funeral said:
When we are on our death bed, the important things aren't the money we've made. They're not the things we've bought. It's the people we've known and loved. You don't say "Bring me my plasma telly" or "my expensive car". You say "I want to see my brothers and my sisters and my friends". Appreciate the time you have with your friends and family. Don't waste it.
20051211
LIFE - Just a quick follow-up
It cracks me up some times really. The largest critisism I often have for Linux is it is simply too hard to use for most people who have never used it before (Another big critisism is for those that say "With Linux I have such a choice of different utils to use". Too much choice. Keep it simple). I'm reading a man page on MOUNT.CIFS:
"The mount.cifs utility attaches the UNC name (exported network resource) to the local directory mount-point. It is possible to set the mode for mount.cifs to setuid root to allow non-root users to mount shares to directories for which they have write permission".
Now I understand this...But I have enough trouble helping people plug in a USB webcam over the phone withouth dealing with crap like this. Give me a break.
"The mount.cifs utility attaches the UNC name (exported network resource) to the local directory mount-point. It is possible to set the mode for mount.cifs to setuid root to allow non-root users to mount shares to directories for which they have write permission".
Now I understand this...But I have enough trouble helping people plug in a USB webcam over the phone withouth dealing with crap like this. Give me a break.
LIFE - Yeah...I'm still here
Haven't blogged in a while. Two reasons really. I've been busy, but haven't really been busy with anything worth blogging. Life falls in to two camps at the moment. Work, and waiting for Nooboo with other little things to fill the time. Bit of telly. Bit of reading. Some movies. Visiting friends. Just "stuff" stuff really. Not really been playing paintball since the last AXL event. One, all my boys are down in Wellers, and two, well the last AXL event just kinda pissed me off. Hey. It's simple. When we had to win one game, we lost it. So no bitching. But still...
Still reading Judas Unchained. I've enjoyed it, though not as much as Pandora's Star. I think Peter F. Hamilton can waffle on a little some times, which has meant I haven't been as "in" to this book as the previous one.
Work is work. I feel we kinda lack direction at the moment. And by that I mean the whole company. But the team has changed a little over the past month. Some of the team have stepped up and are taking on more of the interesting work, which means I think they're enjoying themselves a little more.
Megz gets a little bigger every day. About a month to go now, and life will change forever. I'm looking forward to it. It's funny, but I've not even seen my son/daughter yet (Other than ultrasound of course), and still I love them very much. I'm looking forward to teaching them about life, and having a new friend in the world. I just hope I do a good job as a dad. I'm under no illusions as to this being an easy task.
I learned over the weekend that my mum and family are nearly committed to returning to NZ. It's funny. I was excited and yet I was overcome with a large feeling of guilt when we spoke. It isn't an easy task to uproot a family and move overseas. Especially when you're leaving behing family and friends. It was just mum and I when we came, so it was easier for us. But Richard and Mardie both have good friends and are doing well in school. I feel awful for asking them to leave that behind. But I do miss them very much.
So this weekend I've been busy'ish. I started installing SuSE Linux (v10.1) on an old PIII laptop of mine (Found a cheap battery on TradeMe to replace a faulty one, so it made using the machine worth while again). I've had a crack at Linux about once a year, every year for the past six years or so. And each time it's been too hard. Windows does what I want. The software is available and the system is familiar. I have no time for Linux zealots with their "Windows sucks because it's made by Microsoft and Microsoft is evil and Bill Gates is the antichrist". Get a flipping life. I think that Linux is to the point where I don't have to spend weeks studying it to make it useful. I can slowly start to use it. The interest is mainly in terms of having Linux work skills.
We watched Footrot Flats on DVD on Friday (Thank you sweetie). We also saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this weekend (Megz, Christopher and I). Chris and I enjoyed it. Megz thought it was so-so. I thought the first two were better. And I finally got round to start watching Farscape on DVD after years of wanting to see it. And we Skype'd with Lou for a while which was cool. Now that Skype (Version 2. Thanks for pointing that out Richard) does video, it's much easier to video conference with friends and family rather than dealing with the grief of routers and firewalls which effect Messenger and other IM/VoIP systems.
Still reading Judas Unchained. I've enjoyed it, though not as much as Pandora's Star. I think Peter F. Hamilton can waffle on a little some times, which has meant I haven't been as "in" to this book as the previous one.
Work is work. I feel we kinda lack direction at the moment. And by that I mean the whole company. But the team has changed a little over the past month. Some of the team have stepped up and are taking on more of the interesting work, which means I think they're enjoying themselves a little more.
Megz gets a little bigger every day. About a month to go now, and life will change forever. I'm looking forward to it. It's funny, but I've not even seen my son/daughter yet (Other than ultrasound of course), and still I love them very much. I'm looking forward to teaching them about life, and having a new friend in the world. I just hope I do a good job as a dad. I'm under no illusions as to this being an easy task.
I learned over the weekend that my mum and family are nearly committed to returning to NZ. It's funny. I was excited and yet I was overcome with a large feeling of guilt when we spoke. It isn't an easy task to uproot a family and move overseas. Especially when you're leaving behing family and friends. It was just mum and I when we came, so it was easier for us. But Richard and Mardie both have good friends and are doing well in school. I feel awful for asking them to leave that behind. But I do miss them very much.
So this weekend I've been busy'ish. I started installing SuSE Linux (v10.1) on an old PIII laptop of mine (Found a cheap battery on TradeMe to replace a faulty one, so it made using the machine worth while again). I've had a crack at Linux about once a year, every year for the past six years or so. And each time it's been too hard. Windows does what I want. The software is available and the system is familiar. I have no time for Linux zealots with their "Windows sucks because it's made by Microsoft and Microsoft is evil and Bill Gates is the antichrist". Get a flipping life. I think that Linux is to the point where I don't have to spend weeks studying it to make it useful. I can slowly start to use it. The interest is mainly in terms of having Linux work skills.
We watched Footrot Flats on DVD on Friday (Thank you sweetie). We also saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this weekend (Megz, Christopher and I). Chris and I enjoyed it. Megz thought it was so-so. I thought the first two were better. And I finally got round to start watching Farscape on DVD after years of wanting to see it. And we Skype'd with Lou for a while which was cool. Now that Skype (Version 2. Thanks for pointing that out Richard) does video, it's much easier to video conference with friends and family rather than dealing with the grief of routers and firewalls which effect Messenger and other IM/VoIP systems.
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