Ok, so I found this today while I was surfing around. It seems Google is trying to promote an FCC bill that would free up the "white spaces" between the analog tv channels for public use and make them unlicensed wireless spectrums for use by anyone.
Personally I think this is a great idea, which is why I'm going to give them some publicity here on my blog. Imagine the possibilities in wireless technology if these analog channels were to be opened to public use! The possiblities are endless.
If you read this and you agree with this, go to FreeTheAirwaves.com and check it out. There is a short video clip on the main page that goes into some more detail about what this is all about and what Google's position is on it as well. There is also a petition on the site that Google will be presenting to the FCC for consideration with this bill.
So check it out, and I'll see you back here soon.
(PS. This is my first post using w.bloggar application. I'm test driving this app in hopes that I can use it more in the future. But in case this post comes out looking weird, that's why and I'll try to fix any problems I find as soon as possible.)
Monday, August 18, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
New Server, W00T
Alright, so I just got settled in my new condo, had Comcast come out and setup my internet and TV and my server has been live now again for about 16 hours....14 hours into it I managed to bork it up, however. I was messing around with my user groups and accidentally removed myself from the "admin" and "adm" groups which allow my user to use the "sudo" command to execute programs and commands with root privileges...So, right now, the web server is still up and running (no domain name yet, working on it) but until I can get back to my condo to reboot into the recover root console, I won't be able to fix my group settings so I've been locked out of it now for about 2 hours and will remain that way for the next hour, until I can get home. I also got webmin installed on the server, but forgot to set the router to forward the proper port to the server for it, so even though it's installed it's useless until I can get home and set that on the router (I don't have remote administration on the router setup for security reasons).
But bad news aside, I'm really excited for this project. I will be documenting my progress as it goes along, but the basic plan is to make a big combination server that will be a prototype for the beefier server I'm planning for later this year. Right now the mightly PIII processor it's running on currently will be a standard LAMP (Linux Apache2 MySQL PHP5) server with Webmin, web administration and Samba installed as well as FTPd, OpenSSH and Postfix. My hope with all this is mostly just for educational purposes so that once I have the beefier hardware I can set this up in a virtual server environment so that each of these services will be on their own virtual server instead of all running on the same computer and then I'll probably keep it that way as long as I can partly for the educational experience it will provide, but I'm also planning to make it a fully functional personal FTP and Mail server for myself and my roommate, so we will see how it goes, I'll keep the updates rolling.
But bad news aside, I'm really excited for this project. I will be documenting my progress as it goes along, but the basic plan is to make a big combination server that will be a prototype for the beefier server I'm planning for later this year. Right now the mightly PIII processor it's running on currently will be a standard LAMP (Linux Apache2 MySQL PHP5) server with Webmin, web administration and Samba installed as well as FTPd, OpenSSH and Postfix. My hope with all this is mostly just for educational purposes so that once I have the beefier hardware I can set this up in a virtual server environment so that each of these services will be on their own virtual server instead of all running on the same computer and then I'll probably keep it that way as long as I can partly for the educational experience it will provide, but I'm also planning to make it a fully functional personal FTP and Mail server for myself and my roommate, so we will see how it goes, I'll keep the updates rolling.
Monday, July 14, 2008
How to fix Ubuntu Splashy problem
I've seen reports all over the web of people saying that the new "splashy artwork manager" for Ubuntu 8.04 doesn't work on their computer. I had the same problem so I thought I would post up how I fixed it.
First you need to open up a terminal and type in:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer
Once you are there you will see a list of different drivers, look for the one that says "vesafb" (this is what worked for me) and put a # in front of it to comment it out. Save that file and then in the terminal again type:
sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
This will bring up a list that contains these two lines at the end:
# raid1
# sd_mod
Below those two lines put:
fbcon
vesafb
Save that file and then in the terminal again, type:
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all
Once that's done, type:
sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
Find the line towards the bottom/middle of that starts with "Kernel" and then has a bunch of stuff after it, it should look something like this:
Once you find that (it will be the first one you come across most likely), you will need to add a line that says "vga=xxx" where "xxx" is a numer that you will find in the table I've linked to here (It's the table right at the top of the page). You'll probably want the number for your resolution that is in the 16M line since most monitors can handle 16M colors now. But if you're resolution is not there, pick the closest one (for example, mine is 1280x800, so I picked 1024x768 since 1280x1024 would have been to large in one dimension).Then you will save the menu.lst file. Type in:
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all
Then when that has completed reboot your machine and splashy should work now with the proper image coming up.
Good luck
First you need to open up a terminal and type in:
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer
Once you are there you will see a list of different drivers, look for the one that says "vesafb" (this is what worked for me) and put a # in front of it to comment it out. Save that file and then in the terminal again type:
sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
This will bring up a list that contains these two lines at the end:
# raid1
# sd_mod
Below those two lines put:
fbcon
vesafb
Save that file and then in the terminal again, type:
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all
Once that's done, type:
sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
Find the line towards the bottom/middle of that starts with "Kernel" and then has a bunch of stuff after it, it should look something like this:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=763f09b5-cf76-42a1-8dd2-123a2739b3ab ro quiet splash
Once you find that (it will be the first one you come across most likely), you will need to add a line that says "vga=xxx" where "xxx" is a numer that you will find in the table I've linked to here (It's the table right at the top of the page). You'll probably want the number for your resolution that is in the 16M line since most monitors can handle 16M colors now. But if you're resolution is not there, pick the closest one (for example, mine is 1280x800, so I picked 1024x768 since 1280x1024 would have been to large in one dimension).Then you will save the menu.lst file. Type in:
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all
Then when that has completed reboot your machine and splashy should work now with the proper image coming up.
Good luck
Friday, July 11, 2008
How To: Dual boot and use only one Mozilla Thunderbird inbox
Ok, so I have been dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu for some time now, as many of you already know. I have also been using Mozilla Thunderbird now for a few years as well on both platforms. However, until today, the idea of merging both installations of Thunderbird into one unified profile had not crossed my mind. But today I was reading around on the web and noticed someone asking about it, so I thought I would see if I could figure out how to set up Thuderbird in Ubuntu so that it would share the same profile as my Thunderbird installation in Windows, that way I wouldn't have to worry about keeping both inboxes syncronized and having duplicates of all my emails in two separate places. The following will be the instructions you need to setup your Ubuntu Thunderbird installation to use your Windows XP Thunderbird installation's profile. (These instructions are assuming that you have already started up Thunderbird at least one time so that it has generated a profile directory and a profile.ini file.)
First thing you need to do is open up a terminal, then copy and paste this, editing where necessary:
First thing you need to do is open up a terminal, then copy and paste this, editing where necessary:
cd /home/Your_home_dir/mozilla-thunderbird && mv xxxxxxx.default xxxxxxx.default.bak && ln -s /location_of_windows_partition/"Documents and Settings/your_windows_username/Application Data"/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxxxxxx.default ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/xxxxxxx.default (where xxxxxxx is the name of the profile directory and you need to change anything that is italicized to fit your configuration)
Once you have done that, all you need to do is open up Thunderbird and you should see immediately that you have all the messages and contacts and EVERYTHING from your windows installation of Thunderbird on your Ubuntu installation, easy right!?
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Intel moving forward with incredibly fast 45nm chips, what will AMD do to counter?
It seems that Intel isn't going to be losing it's crown as fastest CPU manufacturer any time soon. They are testing new 45nm chips that will increase the processing speed of their processors from 8-10GB/s up to an incredible 128GB/s and that's just at 2.2Ghz clock speed. It is speculated that if they can manager to increase the clock speed to those of the Q97xx series that they would be able to accomplish an incredible 200GB/s if not more.
In comparison, AMD's quad core, Opteron processor can manage about 8GB/s. Assuming that AMD is not going to utilize Intel's new methods of production, it is unlikely that we will see AMD processors as being any serious competition to Intel in the near future. AMD does have plans for new processors to be released in 2009, the "Bulldozer" processor, however, they are still working on completing the "Shanghai" processor to be released later this year and there is still very little detail about that processor and as such, even less information available about the "Bulldozer" processor. However, the one thing we do know about "Bulldozer" is that it wil be a total redesign of the AMD processor. "Shanghai", to be released later this year, will be the last of the Athlon 64 based chips AMD is going to produce before "Bulldozer's release.
In comparison, AMD's quad core, Opteron processor can manage about 8GB/s. Assuming that AMD is not going to utilize Intel's new methods of production, it is unlikely that we will see AMD processors as being any serious competition to Intel in the near future. AMD does have plans for new processors to be released in 2009, the "Bulldozer" processor, however, they are still working on completing the "Shanghai" processor to be released later this year and there is still very little detail about that processor and as such, even less information available about the "Bulldozer" processor. However, the one thing we do know about "Bulldozer" is that it wil be a total redesign of the AMD processor. "Shanghai", to be released later this year, will be the last of the Athlon 64 based chips AMD is going to produce before "Bulldozer's release.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Changes on the blog
If anyone at this point is following this blog, you will notice some changes I just made. I have changed the theme a little bit (still playing with that, so you might still see it continue to change). I also changed the title and description. This is in an effort to try to re-direct the focus of this blog. I am going to start focusing on two subjects that are very near and dear to me: Bicycles and Computers. For the Bikes, I'll mainly be covering my commutes and stuff that is in cycling news (or maybe not) and with computers, I'll be covering "hacker" conventions that I attend regularly and I will be throwing up some interesting computer news on occasionn too.
New hours, New commute, New Apartment
Alright, well thanks to the guys at ecomodder.com giving me the extra boost of motivation I have needed I have begun riding my bike again...a lot. I do the daily 10 mile round trip commute to work 5 days a week which so far has knocked a total of 280 miles off my car per month so far. I have also started riding pretty much everywhere else too. I rode to my parents house the other day, about 11 miles away, but had to have them drive me home with the bike on the rack because we ate dinner too late and riding 11 miles in the dark didn't sound like much of a plan.
I've also picked up more hours at work, and CONSISTENT work at that! I'm now pulling almost 30 hours a week, so I can actually afford stuff, WOOHOO!!! The only thing that kinda sucks now though is that I have to wake up at 6:30AM to have time to eat and get out the door and to work on the bike (commute takes about 30 minutes) and then still have enough time to clean up a little before I sit down at my desk for the day. The commute home is great though, I get off at 2PM and that means there is NO TRAFFIC so it's a really relaxing commute, all be it uphill.
In upcoming news, I'm preparing to move at the end of next month. I am moving in with one of my fellow con goer buddies that I met at Carolinacon earlier this year and she's really great, we get along like we've known each other for years. The other plus to moving there is that the place is literally across the street and down a block from the apartment, so I won't even need my bike anymore to get there. So, I've begun packing for that all while making plans for going to H.O.P.E next month too. Looking forward to that as well, I'll be posting here while I'm there (assuming I can find some secure wifi while I'm there, unlikely) and putting up some pictures as well on my flickr page, so be looking for that.
I've also picked up more hours at work, and CONSISTENT work at that! I'm now pulling almost 30 hours a week, so I can actually afford stuff, WOOHOO!!! The only thing that kinda sucks now though is that I have to wake up at 6:30AM to have time to eat and get out the door and to work on the bike (commute takes about 30 minutes) and then still have enough time to clean up a little before I sit down at my desk for the day. The commute home is great though, I get off at 2PM and that means there is NO TRAFFIC so it's a really relaxing commute, all be it uphill.
In upcoming news, I'm preparing to move at the end of next month. I am moving in with one of my fellow con goer buddies that I met at Carolinacon earlier this year and she's really great, we get along like we've known each other for years. The other plus to moving there is that the place is literally across the street and down a block from the apartment, so I won't even need my bike anymore to get there. So, I've begun packing for that all while making plans for going to H.O.P.E next month too. Looking forward to that as well, I'll be posting here while I'm there (assuming I can find some secure wifi while I'm there, unlikely) and putting up some pictures as well on my flickr page, so be looking for that.
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