Andrew's Blog

Add an element before the last element of it's kind in jQuery wiht insertBefore()

2011-05-26T19:29:00.006-06:00


// Add the new tag (li element) before the last tag (li element)
      
$('<li>this is a test 3</li>').insertBefore($('li').last());

In an unordered list such as

<ul>
   <li>this is a test 1</li>
   <li>this is a test 2</li>
   <li>this is a test 4</li>  <------ last element
</ul>

The above jQuery statement will insert it before the last li element -

<ul>
<li>this is a test 1</li>
<li>this is a test 2</li>
<li>this is a test 3</li>  <------ inserted here
<li>this is a test 4</li>  <------ still the last element
</ul>


http://api.jquery.com/insertBefore/

Get event keycode in both Firefox and Internet Explorer

2010-08-08T22:37:00.005-06:00

This solution should work in both IE and Firefox.

JS -

function getCharCode(event)
{
var charCode = (event.which) ? event.which : event.keyCode;

// Might want to get the character representation of the Unicode keycode -

var character = String.fromCharCode(keycode);

}

HTML -

Just put an onkeypress="getCharCode(event)" event handeler in your input code (textarea, whatever)

Open files in a folder recursively with Notepad++

2010-07-14T13:17:00.004-06:00

Open Explorer and drag the folder on top of the Notepad++ window (somewhere in the main window).

I'm posting this because I could not find out how to do this quickly with a simple Google search -- hopefully someone else will have this question and stumble on this post through the keywords.

Installing Canon MF3240 on Windows 7 64 bit (x64)

2010-06-04T15:33:00.004-06:00

You probably inserted the CD that came with this printer and got a dialog box during the driver installation that complained about 64-bit incompatibility. Thanks, Canon, for providing the 64 bit drivers on the CD! (/sarcasm)

Anyway -- here's how you install the scanner and printer drivers for this device on Windows 7 64-bit machines --

Detach the printer from the computer.
Visit the follow link (http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&tabact=DownloadDetailTabAct&fcategoryid=335&modelid=12943)
Find the "Select OS" dropdown and select "Windows 7 (x64)" from the list.
Click the red download link (MF3200_MFDrivers_Win_x64_us_EN_7.exe).
Scroll to the bottom of the next page and click "I agree -- begin download".
Save the executable to an easy to remember location on your computer. Browse to the folder in Explorer and run it. It will extract the drivers to a subdirectory in the same directory as the executable called "MF3200_MFDrivers_Win_x64_us_EN_7". Remember the location of this folder for later.
Attach the printer to the computer.
Ignore or cancel out of any automatic prompts that Windows tries to open. It will not be able to find the right drivers on Windows Update or elsewhere.
Click the Start menu button and search for "Device Manager". Open it.
Under both the "Imaging devices" and "Other Devices" tree menu subitems, you will see CanonMF3200 devices (there should be a CanonMF3200 entry in both tree menu subitems). They should have question marks or exclimation marks next to them, meaning they are not functioning or are not installed.
Right click on both of these devices and select "Update Driver Software". Click
Browse my computer from driver software" and browse to the driver folder ( that you extracted to earlier (called "MF3200_MFDrivers_Win_x64_us_EN_7"). Again, you will need to do this two times -- for both devices (scanner / fax and printer).
You should be done.

Let me know if you need clarification or this does not work.

7-zip not in context menu 64-bit Windows 7

2010-04-16T15:27:00.000-06:00

This is a known problem.

Solution / Workaround: Download 7-zip 32 bit version. This version should put items in the context menu.

MagpieRSS question marks

2010-03-25T18:03:00.003-06:00

If you are trying to use MagpieRSS, you might encounter an issue where quotation marks (single and double quotation marks), and other characters, are simply displayed as questions marks (?) in the RSS output.

The issue is an charset issue. 1) You need to tell Magpie to output in utf-8. 2) Additionally, your HTML page needs to be in the same charset.

For 1)

Before any of your MagpieRSS code ... include these PHP statements.

define('MAGPIE_INPUT_ENCODING', 'UTF-8');

define('MAGPIE_OUTPUT_ENCODING', 'UTF-8');

For 2)

Make sure your page has this at the top ... you might need to replace whatever is already defined on the page.

EDIT: Blogger doesn't like META tags ... here is what you need at the top of your page: http://pastebin.ca/1852343

Thanks to http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=309378 for the tips.

Concatenate Date and Time From Two Fields -- MySQL

2010-03-06T22:56:00.001-06:00

Example
In this example, I'm checking whether a time slot in a schedule table is in the future.

SELECT * FROM table
WHERE concat(date(appt_date)," ",time(start_time)) > NOW( )
ORDER by appt_date desc, start_time desc, end_time desc

Change essays, application after submission of Common Application (CommonApp)

2010-01-24T16:19:00.001-06:00

Copy and paste this is your browser --

https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Default.aspx?allowcopy=true

Then sign in and follow the instructions. You'll want to click the "Replicate" button on this page.

Bottled water - wasteful, expensive, and unsanitary

2010-01-23T17:26:00.001-06:00

Bottled water has three general problems -- it's wasteful, expensive, and unsanitary.

Source: http://www.onlineeducation.net/bottled_water/

Wasteful
-----------

a) They are horrible for the environment (17 million barrels of oil are used in the production of water bottles every year).

b) It takes 3 times the amount of water to produce the bottle as it does to fill it.

Expensive
-----------

c) Bottled water is extremely costly relative to tap water (up to 10,000x as expensive) -- .0015 cents / gallon vs $10 / gallon). In some alternate universe, this might actually be worth it if the water was sanitary, but it's not (points d, e, and f).

Unsanitary
-----------

d) 40% of bottled water has been taken from municipal water sources (i.e. 40% of bottled water IS tap water).

e) 22% of bottled water contains chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health limits.

f) Bottled water isn't regulated like tap water is. It doesn't have to be checked for E Coli, it is not subject to quality reports, the companies that produce it are not required to provide the source of the water, and it can still be distributed when tap water standards (which are deplorable and outdated it and of themselves) are not met.

Basically, bottled water is even worse than tap water, on almost every count. Except, I think it tastes better, (but certainly not because it's cleaner)

Liberal Misrepresentation of the Tea Party events (smear tactics) -- what are the Tea Parties really about?

2009-09-26T17:04:00.005-06:00

I found this statement in a community college newspaper (Hutchinson Community College in Kansas) the other day --

People aren’t willing to find out facts behind their beliefs, instead blindly accepting whatever they hear or read as fact, or fiction depending on said beliefs.

Take a look at the people that are involved in the Tea Party movement, an organization filled with angry people who believe that their disparaging comments and actions are going to bring about change in America. Simply reading some of their signs shows their lack of reasoning and information. These slogans range from “Abort Obama”, “F@#$ The Poor” and the classy “I’m not your ATM Obama.”

I was a little teed off after reading this because I have personally attended Tea Party events, and I know they are not "full" of fringe, radical right-wing crazies trying to push their ideology of religion, anti-abortionism, etc down people's throats with violence and hateful signs. Yes, there are some isolated instances of this, but that is hardly the entire story, as anyone who rises above the cable chatter knows. I tried to make this clear to the author. Here is my response --

******************************

I find this article highly offensive and ignorant on several levels. However, for how, I just want to focus on the comment ___ made about the Tea Party movement. Let me address several of his ideas about the movement point by point –

I want to discuss a) my personal experience with the tea parties, b) the actual principles of the tea party movement, d) the cause of the limited extremism at the tea parties, and d) the reality of what goes on at the vast majority of the tea parties.

a) My personal experience: I have personally attended a Tea Party event (the 4th of July Dallas Tea Party event, specifically), and I did not find the people to be "angry" in the slightest, or their comments to be negatively "disparaging" in the least (there is a difference between constructive criticism and pure disparagement). The Dallas Tea Party event on the 4th of July of this year was a calm, docile event filled with reasoned (and enthusiastic) participants standing for what they believe. Your disparaging comments about the character and disposition of the people at these events are typical of the blatantly misrepresentative smear tactics that have been used by far-left persons even since the Tea Parties began. You have gone too far when you begin maligning the thousands of responsible, average citizens involved in grass-roots small-government activism with some of the more radical, unrepresentative instances you cited (such as the signs with “Abort Obama”, etc). Your generalization (events being “filled” with radical people) personally offends me as I was a part of one of these events, and I believe myself to be an open-minded and civil person, not a racist, ignorant, and narrow-minded one. Not only does it offend me because it’s not true of me, but it’s not true in general. What you have claimed is blatantly contradicted by what actually happens at these events. I will get back to that after discussing the principles of the tea party.

b) The actual principles of the tea party movement: The Dallas Tea Party and the majority of the other tea Parties (nearly all of them, I dare say) stand for the same basic principles – limited government, fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and national sovereignty. For example, the platform for the Dallas Tea Party as of a few months ago (was on their website) were as follows --

1. Limited Government – As our Founding Fathers recognized, restraint of government is necessary to protect the liberties of the people.
2. Fiscal Responsibility – Government at all levels must learn to live within its means. To saddle future generations with the crushing burden of our excess spending is unconscionable.
3. Personal Responsibility – Liberty is unsustainable without responsibility. Each citizen must take responsibility for the consequences of his or her own actions while respecting the rights and dignity of others.
4. The Rule of Law – Consistent, independent and uniform application of the law is critical to a free and prosperous society.
5. National Sovereignty – We must maintain a strong national defense, effective security for our borders, and sole control over our land and our laws.

These principles are what the Tea Party movement is really about. There are radical extremes in every movement, and these surely must be contained – but it is not useful, instructive, or fair to focus on the excessively negative examples and ignore the positive aspects of the movement. Yes, there have been crazy people touting crazy signs at some limited number of Tea Party events, but as a recent opinion article in the Dallas Morning news said, the reality is that that the events are filled with a wide variety of people espousing different points of view, “united in their fear of the future and bedrock belief that Washington is not to be trusted”, not a “rabble-rousing mob of right-wing hotheads and religious nuts”.

The Humble Libertarian website summarizes some reasonable Teabagger principles on their website – which are –

* Voting out each and every single incumbent up for re-election in 2010 who voted for the Stimulus Package and/or the 2008 Wall Street Bailout.
* Electing to office only candidates who promise to support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution (without any exceptions -e.g. in the case of war, emergency, or a 3/5ths vote in Congress) in an act that also requires spending reductions only (no raising taxes) for the first four years to balance the budget, as well as:
* The transition of Social Security from a mandatory pay-as-you go system to an optional system of private pensions.
* A permanent repeal of the payroll tax.

c) The repugnant signs you mention are the result of a lack of leadership in the Tea Party movement -- as the Dallas Morning news opinion article says, “the tea partiers' main problem is lack of responsible leadership to bring focus, coherence and moderation to their movement.” The policing of the radical fringes of the movement is not something that is really being taken seriously at the moment, and this is why some have gotten a skewed perspective about what we are all about (the media misrepresentation does not help, either). Yes, the Tea Parties have leadership issues that need to be addressed, but this does not imply the issues being discussed at the events are irrelevant or should be completely dismissed. Liberals have every right to recognize and be outraged at the problem with the Tea Parties (fringe protestors touting repugnant signs), but they do not have the right to ignore the actual substantive issues the Tea Party wants addressed.

d) What really happens at the tea parties: I have already given you anecdotal evidence about what goes on at the Tea Parties from my own personal experience. The same experience I mentioned has been repeated at thousands of other events as well. Bryon York describes a Tea Party event in Virginia as follows – “If you listened to the speeches at the Tax Day tea party held in the courthouse square of this northern Virginia town, population 25,733, you might not have caught the name of the man in the White House. Among many denunciations of high taxes and out-of-control government spending, there were just a couple of mentions of Barack Obama -- one when a local activist criticized the administration's cap-and-trade energy plan, and the other when a city businessman said he prays for the president … Here in Winchester, Tax Day was a serious and well-meaning affair. For the people here, there are principles at stake in this fight, and, as much as they can, they intend to stand up for what they believe.” Instances like this reinforce the notion that this movement is not based out of ignorance and racism – but people shocked at the expansion of the role of government in our daily lives (runaway federal spending, etc).

Conclusion: Your view of the Tea Party is misrepresentative of reality. The events have problems with fringe protestors, but this does not mean you can dismiss the thousands of reasoned, principled citizens participating in acceptable ways and trying to change their country for the better.

Sources

http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2009/03/american-tea-party-2009-goals.html
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-march_0917edi.State.Edition1.281f723.html
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Small-town-rally-shows-true-meaning-of-tea-parties-43078082.html

Internet Sharing fix for Sprint HTC devices (HTC Snap, etc) -- resolve error code 67

2009-09-11T10:42:00.006-06:00

Are you getting error code 67 when you try to share the Sprint Vision network on your phone with your computer (via USB or Bluetooth?) Here is the fix that actually works (tested on HTC Snap).

1) Download and install CE Registry Editor at http://ceregeditor.mdsoft.pl/ceregedit_setup.exe
[Mirror: http://www.4shared.com/file/131961139/a8a6fa59/ceregedit_setup.html]
2) Connect your phone to your computer via USB.
3) Run CE Registry Editor. In the top menu, click Connection -> Connect.
4) Navigate to the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\InternetSharing\Settings"
5) The key "ForceCellConnection" should be set to "Phone as Modem". That is bad. Right click on the key, click "edit", and change the value to "Sprint PCS" (no quotes).
6) Click OK.
7) On the top menu, select File -> Save.

This should allow you to tether your HTC devices to your computer (like I said, tested on HTC Snap)

PHP - Get a list of a particular day of the week between two dates

2009-08-04T02:24:00.004-06:00

This is a modified version of function in the previous post. I had to modify it for a project I was doing.

****************************************************************************

function dayOfWeekListDateRange($start, $end, $day_of_week)
{
$range = array();

if (is_string($start) === true) $start = strtotime($start);
if (is_string($end) === true ) $end = strtotime($end);

if(!empty($day_of_week))
{
do
{
if(strcmp(strtolower(strftime("%A",$start)),strtolower($day_of_week)) == 0)
{
$range[] = date('Y-m-d', $start);
$start = strtotime("+ 1 day", $start);
}

else $start = strtotime("+ 1 day", $start);

}

while($start <= $end);
}

else
{

do
{

$range[] = date('Y-m-d', $start);
$start = strtotime("+ 1 day", $start);

}

while($start <= $end);
}

return $range;
}

PHP - Get a range of dates between two dates

2009-08-04T02:22:00.002-06:00

function dateRangeArray($start, $end)
{
$range = array();

if (is_string($start) === true) $start = strtotime($start);
if (is_string($end) === true ) $end = strtotime($end);

do {
$range[] = date('Y-m-d', $start);
$start = strtotime("+ 1 day", $start);
} while($start <= $end);

return $range;
}

Credit: http://boonedocks.net/mike/archives/137-Creating-a-Date-Range-Array-with-PHP.html

PHP - Serialize an array for use in a MySQL table

2009-08-04T02:14:00.003-06:00

This is the function I made to "serialize" a PHP array for dumping into a MySQL table into a readable, searchable format. It separates each value with an uncommon character , "|".

When you grab the "serialized" data out of the DB later, you should run the following to convert it back to an array --

$values_array = explode("|", $seralizedValues);

I'm aware that there is a PHP function to serialize data, but I wanted to make my own simpler, easier version that did not insert the array keys or any other junk into the array. Take it to leave it.

*******************************************************

function serializeArray($arr)
{
$temp = "";

if(!empty($arr))
{
$iter = 0;
$arr_size = count($arr);

foreach ($arr as $item)
{
$iter++;
$temp.=$item;
if($iter!==$arr_size) $temp.="|";

}
}

return $temp;
}

PHP - Format a variable for a MySQL query

2009-08-04T02:11:00.002-06:00

This is my personal, very simple function I use to get a variable ready for use in a MySQL query.

*****************************************************

function sqlformat($var)
{
return "'".addslashes(trim($var))."'";
}

PHP - Find min and max values in an array

2009-08-04T01:57:00.004-06:00

/**
signature
  array getMinMax( array )

returns an associative array with:
  'min' -> smallest value in the given array
  'max' -> greatest value in the given array

if the array is empty both fields are NULL
*/
function getMinMax($array)
{

reset($array);
  if(FALSE === key($array))
  {
      return array('min' => NULL, 'max' => NULL);
  }

  $min = $max = current($array);
  $val = next($array);

  while(NULL !== key($array))
  {
      if($val > $max)
      {
          $max = $val;
      }
      elseif($val < $min)
      {
          $min = $val;
      }
      $val = next($array);
  }
  return array('min' => $min, 'max' => $max);
}

Usage:

$min_max_arr = getMinMax($myarray);

$min_val = $min_max_arr['min'];

$max_val = $min_max_arr['max'];

(found here -- http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?t=130494)

Example application -- If you had an array of dates, you could turn each entry into a timestamp, run the array of timestamps through this function, and get the minimum and maximum timestamps. Then you could simply convert the min and max timestamps back to a string (using something like strftime).

Why the Swine Flu is more dangerous than the regular flu

2009-04-29T22:07:00.002-06:00

Why is this strain dangerous?
*******************************

There are three reasons why this issue is more serious than the regular flu.

a) The main issue with this strain is that no one has a natural immunity to it, because it has never really been seen before this point in time in it's current genetic form. And a vaccine can take months to develop. Vaccines generally take at least 9 months to develop under normal conditions, and even the accelerated development of the vaccines for this strain will take until at least September to develop. You can see where problems are going to arise. People are just going to keep on catching it and not fighting it of effectively, and then pass it on to others, because we have nothing to fight it off completely yet. To be more specific, this new strain has taken on genetic elements from animal viruses, potentially making it (genetically) unique enough to pose a pandemic threat. Experts say that our current seasonal flu vaccines are not going to be effective against this strain at all.

b) This particular strain seems to attack the young and healthy, rather than the sickly, old, or extremely young. The people who died in Mexico were younger (healthy people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s). The problem with this is that when a virus attacks healthy people preferentially, it suggests that the strain is completely new and is causing overreactions in the immune system. Basically, the logic is that this strain is causing the body to create abnormally large numbers of normally helpful inflammatory antibodies, which are so abundant that they actually end up causing more harm than good. This is exactly what happened with the bird flu fairly recently.

c) It's all about the potential ... it's not about what's happening right now. Even though most of the cases so far in the United States have not been very serious (except for that one kid who died), the virus spreading across the U.S. is identical to the strain of the virus that is killing people in Mexico (genetically speaking), meaning that the possibility that there could be similar deaths in the U.S. is not completely unfathomable.

What is the main alarm bell?
******************************

Sudden onset fever. Watch out for this in particular.

Are there are signs of hope?
****************************

Influenza strains don't like the heat of summer. So this issue is going to die out somewhat (or significantly) during the summer months. This gives us a short window of a few months to develop a vaccine as rapidly as possible.

What's the best way to prevent getting this?
*********************************************

All we can really do is use hand sanitizers and wash our hands with soap whenever we touch a public surface. Also, if you suspect someone has the flu around you, get at least 3 - 6 feet the heck away from them.

Creating Samba shares with no username or password in Ubuntu Linux

2009-03-29T10:57:00.000-06:00

Samba sometimes frustrates me. It seems to be very picky about under what circumstances it will actually let you broadcast the existence of your Linux machine on your LAN, and share a folder with read and write permissions for other Linux or Windows users to see.

After a little tinkering, here's how I went about doing just that.

(thanks to http://www.debuntu.org/guest-file-sharing-with-samba) for most of the tips)

********

(1) Make sure you have Samba installed. As far as I remember, it is included with most distributions, but just in case, try this --

sudo apt-get install samba

(2) Now you need to modify the Samba configuration file located at /etc/samba/smb.conf and make some changes to remove the necessity to type in a username and password every time you wish to access a share. Run --

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

(3) At some point, you might want to share a folder that does not belong to you on the network. To allow this, under the [global] section of this file, add (copy + paste) the following line --

usershare owner only = False

(4) Find the variable "security" (in the global section) and ensure that it is set to "share". The security line should look like this --

security = share

(if you absolutely can't find the security variable anywhere, add it to the file under the global section)

(5) Find the variable "guest account" (in the global section) and ensure that is set to "nobody". The guest account line should look like this --

guest account = nobody

(if you absolutely can't find the guest account variable anywhere, add it to the file under the global section)

(6) One guide I found said that since you are making Samba security insecure, you should ensure that only your local network can access the Samba service. I personally did not end up keeping this line in my smb.conf, because I did not seem to have any success getting Samba up and running by adding this to the config file, but you can (and probably should) at least try this to make sure it works. So go ahead and add this in, and if you can't access Samba/any shares after finishing the guide, remove the line altogether (or make sure you have permitted the right interface to bind).

To try this, you need to set the interfaces variable to lo and your local network interface (e.g eth0, eth1, wlan0) and you need to specify that only these interfaces can bind

interfaces = lo eth0
bind interfaces only = true

(7) Now, smb.conf should be set. Restart the samba daemon like this --

sudo service samba restart

(8) At this point, you have two options to add a shared folder on your machine. There's the easy way, that actually seems to work, and there's the hard, theoretical way, that I havn't had any sucess why. I'll go over the easy way first.

The easy way to share a folder is similar to the way you share a folder in Windows. All you need to do is right click on the folder in the question, press "Sharing Options", and fill out the resulting dialog. I recommend the following options --

At this point, you should be done. Congratulations. You should be able to access your shared folder by browsing your workgroup from another machine (Windows or Linux-based).

As far as I know, the name of your server is the host name of your computer, truncated to 15 characters. For example, the host name of my computer is andrew-laptop-mint. I can access my samba shares from Windows, for example, with \\andrew-laptop-m\Share (for example). You can get your host name by simply opening up a terminal and typing in hostname.

EXTRA: Here's the hard, theoretical way to add a shared folder in Samba --

(1) Run the following --

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

(2) Near the bottom of the file, or where the other entires of this sort seem to be, add the following text (replacing generic items I've written in with your own variables, of course)

[generic-share]
path = /folder/to/share
comment = Insert comment here
read only = no
available = yes
browseable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
public = yes
printable = no
share modes = no
locking = no

(3) Run this --

sudo service samba restart

(4) You should have a shared folder now, although I can't say I've had any success with this. What's even more interesting is that the "Sharing options" method I described above doesn't seem to add anything of this sort to smb.conf. I don't know what's going on, maybe someone can enlighten me.

Good luck!

News Summary: Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation

2009-01-10T16:35:00.002-06:00

Israel tells Gazans to brace for war escalation

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_PALESTINIANS?SITE=VACUL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Basically, Israel is warning the people of Gaza to brace for more bloodshed in Gaza. The Israelis issued this note to the Gazans --

"The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) is not working against the people of Gaza but against Hamas and the terrorists only," the leaflets said in Arabic. "Stay safe by following our orders."

Meanwhile many are protesting Israel's increasing violence against the region.

The other side of the story? Some say that Hamas is doing everything in its power to provoke Israel into killing as many Palestinian civilians as possible, in order to generate condemnation against the Jewish state. (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1149129&p=3)

How to recover most/all of your JournalSpace posts/images using Google Cache

2009-01-02T15:05:00.020-06:00

Hey all --

I just read on Slashdot how JournalSpace.com has had a serious database issue, resulting in the loss of all their users posts, images, personal data, and more.

Immediately, I thought, "Google cache probably took snapshots of may users posts, and maybe even some of their images. It's worth a shot running a sample query..."

So I ran a sample Google query on someone's JournalSpace username, and I was correct. It looks like all, if not most of your posts and maybe even images have been preserved by our big brother Google. For one sample query I did on a user, I got pages and pages of results!

Unfortunately, this method only works for people who did not have their blogs/journals set to be viewable only by other JournalSpace members, or set to Friends &/or Favorites only, and for other entries that were not set to private. Also, if people configured their blogs so that the googlebot, or other bots were blocked, they may have limited success in resurrecting old entries from the cache (thanks Charm for this info). So a lot of people may have limited or no success with these methods. For that group, I extend my sympathies. I know the feeling of losing so much personal data.

Assuming you didn't do any of the things above, try running a Google search like so --

site:your_journalspace_username.journalspace.com

Then, look for the link labeled "Cached" under any particular result, and you'll get Google's cached version.

For example, if I had a JournalSpace, I'd simply type in Google --

site:andrewtheart.journalspace.com

Other ideas for Google searches:

Get a particular post from an entryid (thanks Class Factotum)--

entryid site:your_username.journalspace.com

Get posts by date (examples)

site:your_username.journalspace.com "m=12" "y=2008"
site:your_username.journalspace.com "y=2008"

Get comments from cached entries (thanks Charm) --

"your_username.journalspace.com" displaycomments

Get any page on JournalSpace with a reference to your name (may not work as intended/expected) --

your_user_name site:journalspace.com

There may be better ways to search Google for your cached posts. Experiment a bit and post your results here.

Some have also recommended using the Web Archive to look up old posts (thanks Frederick and Anon) -- http://www.archive.org/web/web.php. I tried using this, but it appears like the webmaster has blocked access to JournalSpace archives (at least temporarily). Maybe they couldn't handle the traffic. Give it a shot anyway.

You may want to try the Google cache trick quickly. I have a sinking suspicion Google may not like all this traffic.

You saw it here first. Good luck.

Andrew

Blank screen on startup after installing Ubuntu 8.10? Try this fix

2008-12-23T16:29:00.004-06:00

Compiz (a fancy window manager for Linux) is probably causing the problem.

Reboot your computer. When GRUB pops up, it may say "Press ESC to enter menu", or alternatley you may be kicked to the menu if you have multiple OS's installed. Either way, when you get to the OS selection menu, select the menu option (kernel choice) that has the word "Recovery" in it.

Once that's loaded, choose the "drop to root terminal" option (to that effect, the exact wording may be different) from the imtimidating blue menu that pops up.

From there, type the following command.

Code:

sudo apt-get purge compiz compiz-core

Now reboot your computer just in case.

Hope that works...

Download a YouTube video using C#

2008-08-19T20:28:00.008-06:00

I've posted the code to download a YouTube video using C# at PasteBin -

http://pastebin.com/f396257b6

Original credit goes here - http://krishnan.co.in/blog/post/download-videos-from-youtube-(C).aspx

Visual C# 2008 Express Edition Setup Error - Setup has encountered a problem while trying to copy...

2008-08-09T18:26:00.004-06:00

Recently, I was attempting to install Visual C# Express 2008 Edition on my Windows XP computer and got this error message after downloading the "Web Installer: -

Screenshot -

Error Text -

Setup has encountered a problem while trying to copy:
m:\\$shtdwn$.req
Press Retry to attempt the copy again. Press Cancel to cancel setup.

After reading some forum (can't find the web page again!), I determined that it was probably related to the fact that Windows had decided to use my ext3 formatted hard disk drive (mounted locally using Ext2 IFS) to extract temporary files to, and this was causing some issues with the installer. The easy solution is to simply download the Visual Studio Express Editions DVD ISO (link here should work, if not Google for "Offline Install), and either burn it to a DVD and run the installer that way, or use a ISO mounting utility like Daemon Tools to mount it in a virtual DVD Drive.

Hope this saves someone a little time.

Fixing rdp MIME type in Ubuntu Linux

2008-07-02T19:16:00.006-06:00

If you've ever been presented with the problem of downloading a dynamically generated (or even static) rdp (Remote Desktop) file from within Firefox in Linux and you were optimistically expecting Firefox to recognize it and open it in some graphical interface like tsclient, you were probably sorely disappointed - you might have gotten a message like -

You have chosen to open
example.rdp
Which is a: BIN file

In this instance, you are only granted the option to Save the file to your computer.

To fix this, you need to configure Linux to automatically recognize this MIME type so that Firefox recognizes the file type as something besides binary (for some reason you can't directly add the recognition in Firefox without extensions).

To do this, you need to add the rdp MIME info into the file /etc/mime.types. Run the following two commands to quickly achieve this -

sudo -i
echo "application/x-rdp rdp" >> /etc/mime.types

This simply appends the rdp MIME info to the file.

Trying download a rdp file from Firefox now (you don't need to restart it). When the Save dialog pops up (and actually recongnizes the file type!), press the "Browse..." button to open the Application Helper selection dialog.

In the resulting window, locate the "Location" bar and type /usr/bin/tsclient (for example, if you have this installed). Press "Open" to continue. Firefox should now associate .rdp files with tsclient. Press "OK" on the open dialog to proceed.

The Terminal Services Client GUI will open. You may wish to change the various options using the tabular interface provided. This application is richer than the built in Windows Terminal Services client itself!

The next time you click on a n RDP file, Firefox should remember the association and ask you if you want to open the file in tsclient. If the "Open with" field in Firefox's Open dialog on attempts subsequent to this tutorial is blank, press "OK" regardless. tsclient should still launch.

Side note: to use tsclient, you need the packages

* tsclient
* rdesktop

So just

sudo apt-get install rdesktop tsclient

2008-04-20T15:20:00.000-06:00

Ubuntu 8.04 Notes and Tips

I currently run Ubuntu 8.04 on an old eMachines desktop, and on my Toshiba A215-4767 laptop.

Here I will update the Linux community with my experiences installing and maintaining this crazy operating system on two machines.

Getting VirtualBox set up

For getting VirtualBox properly set up and configured, this guide will point you in the right direction. The steps are pretty much the same for 8.04 (Hardy Heron).

The highlights of the guide are these -

(1) Two versions to choose from - OSE vs Non-Free

"There are two versions of VirtualBox, the OSE (opensource edition) and the closed source, binary one. The OSE edition is the one you will find in the Ubuntu repositories (add/remove programs), but it lacks some features of the binary one, most notably, USB support. For this reason, I would advice using the binary. For Hardy, download it here (link many change eventually)

(2) Add yourself to vboxusers group

After installing, you will get a warning that you need to add users to the vboxusers group. Let's do so now:

System menu > administration > users and groups > manage groups

Select the “vboxusers” group > properties > check any users you want to be able to use VB.

Now log out, and log in again for these changes to become effective.

(3) Fix USB error #1 - VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND

You may at some point get the error - "Could not load the Host USB Proxy Service (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)":

To fix it, we need to enable usbfs. Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

Find this part:

# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
#mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
#domount usbfs "" /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
#ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
#mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

remove the # sign in front of the last 4 lines so it looks like this:

# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs "" /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

Reboot Ubuntu.

Restart virtualbox, select your VM, then click settings. You should have no error messages now.

(4) Fix USB Error #2 - Permissions

You might also encounter a USB permissions problem with VirtualBox. (see here)

The fix? Open up a terminal and type in the following -

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Add the following to the bottom of the text file -

 none  /proc/bus/usb  usbfs  devgid=46,devmode=664  0  0

(This assumes the group plugdev is group ID 46 on your machine - that's the default group ID for pulgdev anyway, so it shoulden't be a problem)

Now, plugdev, which handles plugable devices, can interact correctly with VirtualBox (after a reboot, probably)

Toshiba A215-4767 Specific Notes

Installing Ubuntu 8.04 on the Toshiba A215-4767 is a fairly simple process. There are only two components that take any real configuration - the wireless and sound setup.

Be sure to attach an Etherent wired connection to your laptop before the install or directly after it. You need to do this because you need to install ndiswrapper to get wireless access, and the simplest way to get it is from the online repositories. (You can install it from the installer CD, but I have been unable to determine how to set that up properly)

(1) Wireless setup (per this site)

Instructions for Atheros wireless card:

Download drivers:

XP 32-bit
XP 64-bit

Extract the drivers and take note of where you extracted them.
Open a terminal a type in the following -

Code:

sudo -i
echo "blacklist ath_pci" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
rmmod ath_pci

apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 ndiswrapper-common

ndiswrapper -i net5211.inf

ndiswrapper -l
look for something like this:
net5211 : driver installed
device (168C:001C) present (alternate driver: ath_pci)

modprobe ndiswrapper
echo "ndiswrapper" >> /etc/modules

After a reboot wireless should work. You should see available wireless networks in the network manager. Note: every few bootups, Ubuntu doesn't get the MAC Address for the wireless card correctly. (Andrew's note - haven't noticed this problem yet) So far it looks like the easiest way to correct this is to go into /etc/ndiswrapper/net5211 and look for the file with a symbolic link. Edit it and replace the line that says

mac_address|XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

and replace the X's with your MAC address.

(2) Sound setup (per this site)

After the inital boot and some updates, but you notice that the sound stops working after a reboot.

To fix this issue, you need to upgrade to the cutting edge version of Alsa. The easiest way to do this is to just use the backports modules.

1) Enable backports in software sources (System Menu> Administration> Software Sources--> Updates--> check "Enable Backports")

2)Then open a terminal and type in uname -r (this will tell you what kernel you're running (eg 386 or generic)

2) In a terminal, type -

sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-hardy-generic

OR

sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-hardy-386

depending on what kernel you have.

4) In a terminal
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
this will open a file in gedit(the text editor). scroll down the page and
add this as the last line
options snd-hda-intel model=toshiba

(5) Reboot. This will upgrade your alsa to the 1.0.15RC3 and your sound will be fixed.

O' Reilly cuts off Swanson... my thoughts

2007-06-22T19:12:00.001-06:00

Watch this (if you want) to see the "incident"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHC3MOFb_lg

(1) O’ Rilley : Why do you think the far left is disenchanted with Mrs. Clinton?
(1) Swanson : I think that actually Hilary Clinton is articulating a position that most Democrats agree with to get out of Iraq.
(2) O’ Rilley : OK, Mrs. Swanson, it’s very simple, why do you think the far left is disenchanted with her, why?
(2) Swanson : Well, I think that she’s put herself in a position to explain a little too much in terms of her past votes. I think John Edwards, by apologizing, has been able to move on a little easier than Hilary has. It’s easier to move on …
(2) O’ Rilley : …I don’t know what your saying
(2) Swanson : … It’s easier to move on after apologizing, and election are about the future.
(Medea Benjamin clarifies to Bill that the people were booing at Hiliary because that believe that we can’t put the blame on the Iraqi government… we need to have a withdraw plan and timeframe, get the intl community involved, etc. Therefore they were mad at Hilary’s statement that the Iraqi government has failed)
(3) O’ Rilley : Do you agree, Mrs. Swanson, that that is why the far left was disenchanted with Hilary Clinton?
(3) Swanson : I think you’re creating a division that doesn’t exist. I think that the real division exists in the Republican party, when you’ve got no Republican candidates (except for John Meccain) who don’t agree with the President’s policy in Iraq.

**************************************************************

(1) The main issue stemmed from the fact that she answered the question about why the Democrats in the crowd were disenchanted, by telling O ‘Riley that the Democrats actually agreed with Hilary’s position to get out of Iraq. No, she said, the Democrats weren’t disenchanted, they were very agreeable with Hilary’s war withdraw plan!!! Unfortunately for Swanson, the fact that the Democrats in the crowd agree with her plan to get out of Iraq has little or nothing to do with their rationale for being audibly disenchanted with her statement that particular day about the Iraqi government being at blame for the entire mess of the war. Swanson (apparently) didn’t realize that Bill was talking about the crowd’s disenchantment with Hilary’s statement at the particular conference, not their level of enchantment with a withdraw plan. This is where she went terribly wrong – wake up Swanson; O’ Riley was talking about something unrelated, that is, the reason why the Democrats were booing at Hilary that day? There had to be some reason, and saying that they agreed with the war plan isn’t going to justify anything at all. The more I think about her statement the more unrelated it appears.

How can you blame O’ Rilley when Swanson wasn’t answering the questing at all? Swanson obviously thought that Bill was talking about the general disapproval with Hilary’s war plan, which she (Swanson) believed didn’t exist. Yet, it was more than clear to viewers that Bill was referring to the disenchantment evident in the audible disapproval of Hilary’s statement in which she blamed the Iraqi government. Swanson must have been sleeping during the playing of that clip, because everybody else knew that Bill was referring to the disenchantment with the video.

(2) No excuse for Swanson on this one. Bill is simply trying to get her another chance to answer a simple question about why the crowd was disenchanted with Hilary that day after she said that damming statement about the Iraqi government, yet, she goes off into a completely unrelated tangent about how Hilary is generally evoking sentiment of disenchantment in people because of her questionable past voting record, and that John Edwards saved himself from this by coming out clean. She is once again blowing Bill’s question out of proportion and thinking big picture. She still hasn’t caught on that Bill is STILL referring to the particular disenchantment sentiments that were evident at the conference in which Hilary was booed! Bill clarifies what he was talking about in (3), only because Swanson is incredibly slow to realize that were talking about once instance here, not the general disapproval with Hilary.

(3) She still doesn’t answer the question here at all. Bill was referring to the DIVISION IN THE DEMOCRATS PRESENT AT THIS ONE CONCFERENCE in which Hilary made the audacious statement about the role of the Iraqi government in the war. There was a division, but only on that one statement (there was clearly a separation in the crowd that day, because some were cheering at Hilary’s statement and some were doing the polar opposite – they were booing her.) Because she still hasn’t caught on, Swanson decided that O’ Rilley is talking about a division in the Democratic party in general, when O’ Rilley is still referring to the disenchantment in the crowd that once day and only on that once statement.

Summary – Swanson was thinking way too big picture the entire time. She was probably stressed or embarrassed about being on National TV, causing her to misinterpret was Bill was referring to.

Defining a human

2007-06-21T11:53:00.000-06:00

Every person within humanity can be distinguished and classified by several *relatively* indicative (but nonetheless non-unique) signs, but the truley 100% unique indicator that I find the most appealing is the ability to think abstractly. Instead of defining this term itself, I'll give you a few examples of abstract thinking. One is introspection. Humans alone are capable of introspection, which is essentially the physiological process of self reflection and examining one thoughts and feelings. Regardless of whether we can visibly notice this quality in a person, or it is extremely inconspicuous, all humans are introspective at most points in their life, and this is, as I said before, an entirely unique quality in our species. No other species examines their thoughts. Anyway, even the select individuals within our species that are considered different for one reason or another can be identified by this, if prompted correctly. Some other abstract process we demonstrate very uniquely to our species are self awareness/consciousness. However, these tie in closely with introspection. To clarify on their definitions, though, self awareness is simply our cognizance that we exist, and consciousness is more or less the same thing (I just threw in the word because it might clarify to you more what I'm talking about exactly). This is also unique to all humans and identifies them easily.

It is my duty to note, however, that as I was writing this, I realized that babies might not demonstrate some of these qualities, and after looking that up, I was right. To explicitly label a baby (under the age of 2, specifically) as human would be somewhat harder, then, in my opinion.

There are a few other thing relatively unique to our species, but not everybody shares these qualities. For example, not every human possesses the capabilities to construct complex grammatical sentences using our upper level and highly developed form of communication, or to speak with the aforementioned language, for that matter. Additionally, not everyone is part of the complex human social networks that are so evident to us. Because these qualities are exhibited in either a large number of other species or a minority of species that are decidedly non-human, they cannot be used as crystal clear, lucid signs of the humanness of an animal - although some signs can give us 99% assurance that an individual is human.

So there you go - my opinion is that humans, ALL humans (except babies under the age of two) can be identified, whether it is a difficult process or not, by determining if they have a sense of introspection, self awareness, and consciousness (all under the umbrella of abstract thought). How once can check for the existence of such abstract thought processes is another issue entirely.

Understanding p2p

2007-05-23T06:24:00.000-06:00

Recently, I had a small little discussion with a friend over what exactly defines the p2p technology. He thought that it uses the client's LAN when possible to speed up connections. (Specifically in this case, we were talking about a p2p extension for Firefox, AllPeers)

ME: However....AllPeers doesn't use the host computer 's local LAN to transfer files - it uses the Internet to connect to a remote AllPeers session (as far as I know). Therefore I could simply set up an AllPeers share on my computer with the Tournament demo in it. I'll do that, keep Firefox running, go to school, and then we can use your Firefox w/ AllPeers to connect to my home computer and download it that way.

Of course you could do the exact same thing with your personal home computer. It's just a matter of convenience and preference.

HIM: What is the point of p2p if it has to go through something else?

ME: You're right in saying that p2p doesn't "go through something else" - however, you're wrong in saying it would use the school's LAN to achieve this. You need to understand some basic p2p theory first to understand what it's actually going to end up doing. (By the way I recommend reading all of this - I worked hard on it.. lol)

The only two reasons to use p2p are that (1) it allows you to initiate a direct connection between client to client, thusly eliminating the need for a mediating central server and (2) it distributes the clients resources (bandwidth, etc) to each other equally.

This is in juxtaposition to the client-server model in which everyone downloads from one main server (similar concept to the Boyd drop boxes and shared drives in general). This main server gets considerably drained as more people access it, decreasing download speeds for the individual.

P2P solves this problem under optimal conditions and is in those cases faster that the client-server model. However, we need to define optimal conditions. They are, simply put, a relatively speedy Internet connection, high bandwidth, and (most importantly) a relatively sizable number of clients that are connected at the same time to the p2p network. The number of clients is so important because each one serves as a node to both distribute already existent resources (like bandwidth, storage space, and computing power) and to add their OWN bandwidth, storage space, and computing power resources.

Let’s create a scenario - Let’s say that there are only two people sharing resources on a p2p network. The speeds will undoubtedly be slower than a traditional client-server setup in this instance because the two computers are probably average home computers using their relatively small, restrictive, and slow RoadRunner internet bandwidth. They are sharing very little bandwidth and computing powers between themselves. (I know that from experience), in comparison to simpy connecting to a server that in all likelihood will probably have a T3 (or whatever the major Interent connection is) connection that is routing incredible amounts of bandwidth to it for the public to access and utilize.

Of course if the number of people in the theoretical p2p network I made up increases, then its overall power in comparison begins to completely own.

So the problem(s) at school are that when we use AllPeers, we are distributing the school's bandwidth to *each other*, essentially negating any speed benefits of a p2p network. We are still using the Internet to do this because AllPeers was designed for non-Intranet file sharing and it doesn't know how to interface with a nearby Local Area Network/Intranet. (put more simply, AllPeers has no idea that we are in a LAN config at school - for all it knows, the computer next to you in the CompSci lab is located in China.) Logically, why would AllPeers use the LAN to do sharing? That would defeat the purpose. If you already have a LAN, you essentially have one major part of a p2p network set up already between all the computers in the network. Think about shared network folders in Windows. Machine to machine file transfer. LAN. Partly p2p.

If AllPeers used the LAN, it'd be exactly the same as about a thousand other programs out there, including Microsoft's built in networking tools and capabilities themselves.

We can still do it your way but I guarantee you it will not be any faster that your traditional downloads and it definitely won't use the school's LAN. It's just a convenient way to set up a private temporary network that uses the Internet to gather people in a p2p pool of clients. But in our case, two people isn't going to make any download speeds very fast.

acroread expr syntax error (Adobe Reader for Linux)

2007-04-23T06:30:00.002-06:00

Solution is here.
http://linuxon-vgn-a497xp.blogspot.com/2006/11/acroread-expr-syntax-error.html

But basically, you comment out the appropriate lines using the # operator in the acroread startup script (usually located in /usr/bin/). Here are the modifications.

418# echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-$[0-9]*$.0.so.0.$[0-9]$00.$[0-9]*$\|$.*$/\1\2\3/g'
419 echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-$[0-9]*$.0.so.0.$[0-9]*$00.$[0-9]*$\|$.*$/\1\2\3/g'

644# MIN_GTK_VERSION="240"
645 MIN_GTK_VERSION="2040"

Back to Linux

2007-04-23T06:30:00.001-06:00

Not going into detail why...

XP versus Linux... why I chose Windows XP

2007-02-15T00:03:00.001-06:00

I hate to say this, but I'm going to be using Windows XP for a while. There are several reasons for this. I've switched between both XP and Fedora for weeks, using both for about a week at a time. However, Windows XP has sort of come on top after these daily test runs. Essentially, I can be equally productive in both environments. For the most part, I can get the same results/products out of open source software alternatives on Linux as I would using a mix of proprietary and open source applications in a Windows environment. However, there are a few minor annoyances in Linux that make it, overall, *slightly* less appealing than Windows XP. It's the small things that kill - getting some Windows apps to run correctly, window focus stealing problems, printer annoyances, etc (the list literally goes on and on). A prime example of some of the factors that are the causation of this lesser appeal would have to be the eight plus hours I spent on a Saturday to find a way to print to my printer from Fedora Core. Sadly enough, it was just a cheesy workaround I was using - Canon doesn't support Linux (basically I was sending the file to a shared network folder to be printed by Adobe). In terms of window focus stealing, I spent nearly an hour just trying to determine why a particular application kept losing focus when I switched back to it. Even after changing some settings, the focus was flakey. In Windows XP, window focusing isn't even a second thought - it just works automatically without the pain of configuring KDE to run a list of windows specific settings based on the windows title/name or the process name. These are just two fine examples of the growing pains that you experience daily when using Linux.

Windows application support is not exactly up to par either – although this one is hard to blame on Linux at all. In fact, it’s not Linux’s fault period. CrossOver office simply couldn’t effectively run some of my mission critical Windows applications when I needed them most. (It was an audio editor, GoldWave, by the way – Audacity simply couldn’t meet my needs). Little annoyances in Microsoft Word 2003 also ticked me off – why couldn’t I import an AVI movie to display in a PowerPoint, or why wouldn’t I simply access the clip gallery? On top of this, certain things I use frequently under Windows (aka the .NET framework and the free version of Visual Studio, Visual C# Express) simply don't run on Linux and had to be run on a processor emulator running a copy of XP. This is entirely feasible (I was running a brand new copy of XP in VMWare while I was using Linux), but it is still somewhat annoying to open this virtual machine every time I wanted to use such an app. It was also sluggish of course. All it did was add around 50 seconds to my wait time to use a critical application, whereas in Windows, instantaneousness would have been feasible. Mono does a half decent job for .NET support, but nowhere have I found the 100% compatibility and feature rich IDE’s associated with the wonderful Visual C# Express in Windows XP.

Once again, don’t get me wrong – Linux is amazing in the sense that it can emulate the Windows kernel like this with Wine or CXOffice, but the applications support is just not completely there yet. Unfortunately that some really good software is written in Windows native languages. Linux is literally crippled in his sense.

The security advantages of Linux are also technically negated when you think about it. If, while in Windows, you don't install random applications from random websites, and you use a stable, bug/hole/breach free web browser (aka Firefox), the chances of you getting a virus or any form of malware are slim. Take it from me - I've use Windows for many years without problems - after I got Firefox and become more restrictive on downloads. You simply have to be careful and take precautionary measures with your data. Basically, downloading only trusted applications, using multiple malware scanners, and having an inbound/outbound firewall basically should do the trick. Sure, Linux is secure all by itself with little to no effort – but so is Windows with minimal effort and prodding.

Ultimately, I think Linux is destined to be abolished to the file/web servers realm of computing unless a drastic change in commercial support for the free operating system comes rapidly. Honestly, if all the hardware and software vendors supported Linux generally, it would become an extremely viable option to me and to the general populace. Linux is simply a generally superior operating system in general crippled by software/hardware incompatibilities and minor bugs and annoyances that add up to a mess of trouble. Another option, of course, is if someone could develop an extremely fast process emulator that runs a legal copy of Windows XP as its primary virtual machine, and the Windows apps in this install are run “natively” in Linux as actual applications that can use the native Linux file system, etc.

So my final determination on Linux is that a few small, trivial, non essential things keep it from being my desktop of choice. Don't get me wrong - I'm not deleting it off my hard drive just yet. When Windows XP becomes way too slow or unsupported for me soon enough, this computer could be made fairly decent with my Fedora install. Also, if Windows decided to poop out on me anytime soon (somewhat unlikely, actually)

Despite this, imagine if I was too poor to afford Windows XP or it simply wasn't feasible to do so. Linux would be absolutely amazing. Obviously, you can save some money by not having Windows XP installed by default on your barebones/custom built machine. If Windows XP is simply not an option for whatever reason, Linux absolutely becomes a viable, free alternative.

Overall, though, I’m glad I’ve has the experience with Linux that might give me the edge someday. I love the open source movement and think it is absolutely amazing in many aspects (that explains why I've been through countless Live CD's and HD installs ... including SuSE, Fedora, and Ubuntu). It's amazing that people have made a very much viable Windows alternative for free – it still completely blows my mind. Linux has made leaps and bounds from the console based days.

Thanks for listening. Any comments are appreciated.

Poor ps3 sales - Completely Owned?

2006-12-31T14:04:00.000-06:00

Console: Sales (according to Wikipedia.org)

Microsoft Xbox 360 (Released 2005): 9.1 million
Nintendo Wii (Released 2006): 2.0 million
Sony Playstation 3 (Released 2006): 808,025

Nobody disputes that part of the reason so few ps3 units were sold IS the price. It's simply a deterrent to a majority of gamers as of now. If Sony truly did their stuff right (somehow magically made the price more gamer friendly at it's release) , my guess is that they would have at least a million sells by now. I KNOW for a fact that they shipped out that many units to the USA already. Of course they HAD to price it so high. (BluRay and such). Anyway, I guarantee you that Nintendo sold more units in relation to it's total units FASTER than the ps3 did in relation to total units.

Anyway, I still think the ps3 owns, but it's too expensive for me. When I said "completely owned", I meant in sales. Not in console awesomeness.

I like how one commercial sums it up. It shows a fat lady who basically keeps on saying "I'm large and in control". Then, a skinny hot girl in a bikini is saying "I'm just FUN!!! And playful!!!". After some more of this banter, the fat lady says "Don't you know that BlueRay is the FUTURE?!!! GOD!!!" Then she leaves, leaving the bikini girl to continue to say "I'm fun!!!!" (There's some inappropriate butt slapping going on as well :P) I'm sure you can guess who the ps2 is and who the wii is.

In better news, the ps2 is still selling awesome. I find that plain out sweet. The ps2 was truly the best selling console ever.

Ben Stein quote

2006-12-19T22:44:00.001-06:00

Sorry, but this (relatively old) Ben Stein quote is too awesome to miss... (take to my friend Austin for pointing it out)

Herewith a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?

I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.

I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK. Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK. Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW." Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards .. honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

What to do?

2006-12-06T22:35:00.000-06:00

Currently, I have a dual boot between Windows XP and Fedora Core 6. However, I might be triple booting in a couple of weeks after I receive my free copy of Windows Vista Business arrives in the mail (let it suffice to say that I won a contest through which I am now guaranteed receive both Vista Business edition and Microsoft Office 2007). I don't know if that's going to be an option though ... three operating systems on an 80 gig HD aren’t going to create a particularly pleasant situation. Vista itself takes up 15 gigs (ouch?) minimally; 40 gigs are recommended. Currently, my one hard disk looks like this -

Windows 60gigs (~13 gigs free)
Fedora 20 gigs

As you can clearly see, Vista has no room to fit in as a triple boot with my current configuration.

My options are (Assuming my XP partition must be at least 50 gigs (if I keep it at all), because it’s already 43 gigs in size), in no particular order:

(1) Delete Linux partition, having a dual boot between the Windows monopoly of operating systems. (Something in the order of 30 gigs for Vista and 50 gigs for XP)

XP - 50gig
Vista - 30 gig

(2) Triple boot between Linux, Vista, and XP. However, I’d have to shrink the Linux partition to around 5 to 10 gigs in order to accommodate Vista

XP - 50 gigs
Vista - 25 gigs (or 20 gigs)
Linux - 5 gigs (or 10 gigs)

(3) Install Vista completely on top of XP, meaning my config would be identical to how it is now, except I’d have Vista now and no longer XP.

Vista - 60 gigs
Linux - 20 gigs

(4) Install Vista on a whole new hard disk. They are relatively cheap, so I could theoretically handle this. However, doing the jumper cable and slave/master crap is a pain in the butt.

I’m sure there are other possibilities I’m not thinking of, but I’m tired.
What does everyone else recommend in his instance? My two requirements - I want to run Vista and keep XP. That eliminates one option at least.