Entries Tagged 'Linux' ↓

So, I recently bought a Nokia N800, partly because of all the N810 news I’ve seen recently and partly because I wanted a cool new toy. My roommate recently bought an iPhone, which for all of the hype, is kind of lame. Don’t get me wrong, the interface is really slick and using the ‘net anywhere is kind of cool, but it’s a closed system that people keep hacking to add functionality. It also has a really low resolution and doesn’t support Flash, which is pretty lame.

The N800 on the other hand is based on Maemo Linux, is totally open, already has full VoIP functionality, fully supports Flash (meaning YouTube and all-Flash sites work just fine), has about twice the resolution of the iPhone (so I don’t have to keep zooming and scrolling websites) and has a ton of really cool apps. GPS? Check! USB OTG? Check! Expandable memory? Check! True multitasking? Check! Mozilla browser? Check! VNC, SSH and VPN access? Check! Video chat? Check! It even has Skype and Gizmo clients and a port of Pidgin, the greatest chat client ever. Sure I don’t have Internet access anywhere my phone works, but WiFi is so easy to come by that it’s hardly a factor for me. If I really need to I can pair it with a Bluetooth phone and use it that way.
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Well, trying to post consistently on here isn’t working either I guess, as it’s been like 6 weeks since I last put something up. So, the new goal is to post quick and small things.

First, Xubuntu! The main drive on my desktop crapped out on me, so I was forced into reinstalling Linux. I had been runnign Ubuntu 6.10 for a while and it was in dire need of a refresh anyway since I botched the nVidia drivers on day 1 and never cared enough to start over. I’ve been reading a lot about how great Ubuntu 7.10 is and I got used to using Gnome, but it always just felt so slow and I also read that Xubuntu (which runs Xfce) was a lot faster. So, that’s what I decided to install. Continue reading →

Well, this site and nearly all the other sites the my friends owned have been moved over to a new server. The overclocked Celeron I had sitting in my parents’ basement on their cable connection just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

The new server? Dreamhost! I got a shared hosting plan and went in on it with 9 other people. Then I found a $97 off coupon (Google it, you’ll see it) and got 2 years of hosting for about $94! Split that 10 ways and that’s about $10 per person got 2 years of hosting! That includes 200GB of storage (increased by 1GB per week), 2 TB of bandwidth (increased by 16MB per week), unlimited domains, unlimited databases and 75 unique user accounts, above other things. They also have one-click installs of a bunch of software, SVN, phpMyAdmin, free anonymous domain registration and a ton of other things that you can find listed on their site.
Bottom line, if you are looking for a new host, check them out! Their service has been pretty solid (despite some early issues, but I think that was our fault) and their wiki has answered every question we’ve had so far.

Thanks to this little tutorial, I was able to make all my hotkeys on my shiney new Logitech diNovo keyboard. As useful as teh site was, there was a LOT left open to figure out. I thought I would take the time to make an easier to follow write-up to help others get their diNovo sets working right in Linux.

Keep in mind I am NOT using the Bluetooth enabled one because it was out of stock when I bought this and, quite honestly, I don’t need it. Also, this was tested and done using Ubuntu Linux (5.10 in fact) so if you are using another distro, things may be a little different. I should also point out quickly that simply switching the keyboard layout in Gnome to “Logitech Desktop Pro” will give you the same functionality as all this will. Also, my keyboard, mouse and number pad worked out of the box so this is really only geared toward getting the media keys working. If youre doesn’t work out of the box, I can’t really help, but I bet Googling a little will get you to this point.
First things first, we need to edit some files. Open these files up in your favorite editor and add the following to them.

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Well, I still haven’t heard back from the office I went to last week. Since then, though, I’ve had a phone interview with a company through another palcement comany and gotten contacted by 2 more placement companies. I am also meeting with one of them this coming Thursday which should be a good time.

One thing I have noticed with all these people is that they all want your resume in “Word formatted form” and don’t take kindly to offers of PDF versions. I think that’s kind of odd, since a PDF would be harder to tamper with and will always look the same regardless of how you look at it. It also assumes that all people with resumes have access to a computer with Word on it. In my case, I don’t. Continue reading →

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. That’s mainly because I haven’t been up to a whole lot lately. That’s not to say things have been boring, but they haven’t been all that great either.

First, earlier this month I was playing volleyball with my roommates and some people that one of them works with when I rolled my ankle. Those of you who don’t know what that means, basically the foot folds over and the outside ball of the ankle hits the floor; not fun and very painful. Here’s a link to a video showing what it looks like when it happens. I’ve been using crutches for a while as a result and I only recently started walking on it again.

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I have been using Linux on my desktop for some time now, but I have never bothered to get the “Back” button on my optical Logitech mouse to work. While using the same mouse at the office, I got very used to hitting the button to go back a page in Firefox and I now had a desire to make it work under Linux
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For a few months, I’ve been having problems with my computer. About a year and a half ago, Windows simply woudl not run for more than a month or so before getting a twitchy and needing to be completely removed and reinstalled. I took that as my que to run strictly Linux on the machine and never looked back. I had a solid year of install going when all of a sudden KDE started flaking out. My setting weren’t saving and certain colors in the theme weren’t working at all. Anything GTK-based was completely messed up.

Having gotten used to using KDE, and having recently install Ubuntu on my laptop (which I love now), I opted to install Kubuntu. After about 2 months of using Kubuntu, the system started getting flakey again and would lock up randomly. I thought it was a KDE issue since it was the same version I had been using on Gentoo. So, after trying out a handful of LiveCDs to see what I would dig, I installed PCLinuxOS, which ends up being pretty bloated, but I had a completely working system with all the functionality I needed at the time (including MP3 and video playback) in a matter of minutes. But, like Kubutu, the system was still halting, and halting often.
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First, let me say that Ubuntu is pretty awesome. Those of you new to Linux should look into it, it’s pretty easy to figure things out and get everything working. Those of you who have been using Linux for a while will find it very easy to use and will have no problem setting up and configuring it. It’ll save you a ton of time getting things up, and you still get the stability and usability of Debian, so you’re all set.

One thing it is lacking, like almost all distros are lacking, is the ability to play proprietary audio and video formats. This includes a lot of really common formats, like MP3s, WMA, DVD, and WMV to name a few. The simple reason is licensing; in order to play these formats in Linux, you may need to break some laws…. kinda. It’s all fair use though, so it should be legal; but there’s that annoying DMCA issue. Anyway, long explanation short, the distros can’t include the means to play these types of files.
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Recently, I realized that you can extract image information from images in Linux. I was tipped off by playing with Gallery2, which shows you all kinds of information about the image; the dimensions, the date and time the image was taken, the camera used, exposure info, flash info, etc.

Upon looking further, I found the ‘exif’ program. I used that for a while, but the information it spits out, while extremely extensive, was not really usable. It would require a ton of parsing to grab even simple information out. Digging around further, I found out that Imagemagick has it’s own ability to read EXIF info. So, I wrote a little script to read that information out.
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