Saturday, May 31, 2008
still working
did the bars close?
This week I had to return dual rank RAM, which worked, but couldn't get up to 16Gigs, and order single rank RAM, which will hopefully do the trick. I now know more about RAM then I ever did want too know. I can recommend some suppliers, actually they have pretty much all been good, but lets see how those RMAs work out. MemoryTen.com or MemoryX.com had the best price, stock and boy did they ship fast. MemMan.com gave me the wrong memory, but he was gracious about giving an RMA.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
PC outlets
rude awakening, linux laptops
So by now I even got a call from (3:34:57 AM) mr_dallas: hello ralf
(3:36:03 AM) mr_dallas: sudo dd if=/dev/hda1 | ssh username@192.168.0.2 "cat > /home/user/name/hda1_drive_image.img"
(3:36:35 AM) mr_dallas: sudo dd if=/dev/hda1 | ssh username@192.168.0.2 "dd of=/dev/hda1"
For this cool piping stuff that I wanted to do on my mysqldump commands, I guess now I can simply: mysqldump database|ssh user@othermachine "mysql database" and have the file fill right into the other database, since these can be very large, this would save time. Maybe even compress the output first: mysqldump database|zip|ssh user@othermachine "unzip -p|mysql database" actually that wouldn't work as ZIP writes the directory at the end, very bad idea, but maybe mysqldump database|compress|ssh user@othermachine "uncompress|mysql database"
with some help on commands, the guy doesn't sleep at night either, at least not tonight.
I saw an add for linuxcertified.com and http://system76.com with well Linux laptops http://linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html, also penguincomputing.com has servers with Linux pre-loaded as well as Lonovo and Dell, http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&ST=dell%20linux&dgc=ST&cid=22125&lid=519235, I bet HP has them as well and the EEEPC is Linux, as is the OLPC. Google brings me to http://www.linux-laptop.net/ where I find what looks like a test site by distro, . I it seems like we now need a way to figure out which of all these preloaded linux laptops to use, but if you want to pay for Vista, you will find it sometimes isn't something you will even notice, since at times the vista laptops can be cheaper then Linux, they certainly are on special more often, MS makes sure that you don't get a better deal buying a Laptop without Vista on it. There are many Linux distros and it isn't really cheaper for Dell to support a Linux laptop then a Windows one as they have to hire a new guy who does this, for not many calls. However if volume increases it promises to be cheaper someday.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Drupal
I am getting up at 3:15 am to work on a VoxLine project tonight, or should I say Tuesday?
Meanwhile finding out about the interesting things happining in Crown Hights.
Daytime sleeping
I am writing this on an HP Compaq nc6400 a laptop I have regular access too and have always liked. After Apple HP seems to have carved itself a nice nitch as the best laptop maker in my opinion, however I do have a rather limited sample as I also remember IBM now Lonovo, Toshiba and Sony making good product in the past, they are just not part of my every day laptops, which consist mosty of Dell product right now. I do feel the need to use lots of different laptops in case someone asks me the usual, what do I buy? Work does afford me a good veriety, this weekend I sport a D430, which replaces the up on smoke and don't turn this hazard on D420, I also have the 410, where my stuff currently lives, but I feel is in real need of reformating, something you should regularly do if you run Windows, I have found it a bit less needed in Ubuntu, but then you get a new OS every 6 months and you can upgrade it automatically, by pressing a single button, so I would imagine that if it ever got all the crud that Windows does, it woudl be replaced in 6 months, when I upgraded the OS.
When I started this post I wanted to give a hoot to GrandCentral, what a great service. Although I had my IP and Cellphone ring in the wrong room and the PolyCom is not setup yet to ring from the outside, something about it not supporting STUN and I haven't used WireShark yet to figure out the right ports for SIP to forward on my router so that this thing is happy behind the NAT. What a pain, on the other hand if I could get more IP addresses for free, like if I had IPV6 I would also get more of those unliked probles that I can see on my edge router with increasing frequency. So much of the internet is bad traffic these days, what a shame. So I was woken up with the your phone is ringing, but what is the use, by the time I get to the other room, it is all over anyhow, time to check messages.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Up at 4am, need lit keyboad
So I have this laptop for the weekend, wish I could keep it, it is nice and clean new and factory installed, Windows has this bad habit of degrading with time, I am sure this one will too, but in the meantime it rocks! Lets try dualbooting Ubuntu, darn, didn't bring a DVD drive home :( On the other hand I could install Open Office on it, but I heard bad things about OO on Vista, might try out the free downloadable Office 2007, for 60 days, then you have to pay more then $400 for a copy, messed up, if Dell has shipped it would be cheaper. So again, seems like the choice might be to simply try Ubuntu for the whole thing, I checked and this hardware is tested to work with it, but I bit little details like battery life might suffer.
I spent some time with some great people, but clueless about computers. I finally decided to move Leo over to his new computer, when I say new it runs Win2K, but it has a Gig of RAM, I don't really know how old it really is, probably doesn't predate XP, but then again who really knows, maybe David who built this monster. I thought it was high time that he make use of the best hardware he has. Leo teaches at our old LiLAX meeting place and I got his number from David who didn't have time to consult. So I spend time there every few months trying to help out with their home office computers. Easy job, but rewarding as they seem to dislike setting up these systems.
So as a comparison I decided to test my home cable modem with Road Runner.
Pretty bad in comparison, but enough for what I do.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
This is taking too long.
It is rumored that Apple has been quietly shipping G3 phones into the country and labeling them as computers. Neat... BTW NewEgg Rocks! They really beat out MemoryMan on Price, but MemMan is a great place too.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Masako Ueki
LiLAX/IEEE joint meeting
Time, blog, I have Fast Money on, and as I listen to it, I can blog a bit, time is so tight. So Jon Inouye has a very interesting sounding talk, but I got there late so didn't really get much of it. Dallas talked about bash a subject I always find useful as I use bash quite a bit, he cover lots of material in the 2 hours he carved out for himself, went over the end time, but the audience didn't protest, but rather asked questions.
Monday, May 19, 2008
fire hazard
Spent the weekend trying to get a Polycom 320 to work with a NAT, much harder then the Grandstream which supports STUN. But Polycom has better sound quality, so there, more expensive, I don't want to review phones here, just my little experience and still looking for a good place to teach me how to port forward SIP, not on that great website I always use, too bad, Skype is on, and I have done that, increases your transfer rate and probably promotes you to ta super node.
Our Lilax.net server died, as it is on the UML-coop and all those are gone, Chris is trying to fix it tonight. Bought a 1TB external USB at Fry's for $199, cool, nice big storage, now how many MP3s can I keep? 250,000, wow, anyhow expensing it to work, don't have the time right now, although I bet I could sell this thing on Amazon, the 3/4 TB went for $350 there, don't get it. Strange. No ready made listing on Amazon, oh well, bad time to sell things anyhow.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Work
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Norco ZFS
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
UUASC-OC
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Google Health
In further talking with someone about this I realize that Yahoo and WebMD are also big in the area. I have been spamed by WebMD for a long time and they are Jim Clark, of Netscape fame's Healtheon.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
I can get a house for $329
Wow what a great website to protect people from falling for the scams. Probably should sleep, not done that in a while. But on Conan someone who is building a space elevator in his garage, geez... I have to fast forward the DVR. Is this how it starts? We should make LiLAX into something big.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Crazy days...
I am considering building an email server, upgrading some servers and am even thinking of changing a VoIP server from CentOS to Debian, so I guess tech stuff is happening too, but gosh time is pretty tight, may have caught a cold too.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Hosptial
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Google helping out Yahoo
Listening to Jumping Monkeys as I type this podcast about kids and technology. Today I find out listening to Security Now with Steve Gibson that my laptop has that darn hackable 2200BG Centrino chipset with the old 9.0.2.31 driver. I upgraded it :)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
George's Barber Shop
It is a loverly shop in 222 Richmond St., old town El Segundo, across the street from the trendy Second City Bistro and a walk to the beach. So fill the station, you could be cutting hair in a nice environment, in a great town.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Cracked iPhone
In the movie you can see the process from middle to finish. I don't show the downloading of the software from ZiPhone's blog, which I talked about in my April 30 post. Watch enjoy and if you feel gutsy activate your phone with any carrier you like or don't hack it and use ATT, either way it is a great phone. Remember kids if you can brick your phone by doing this, you could have all kinds of problems and hassles. Only because this worked for me doesn't guarantee that it will for you, or that future firmware upgrades won't break your phone, in fact future firmware updates probably will, research a bit further then my blog post before you attempt this.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Pics
My journal?
Last night I want to Python Piggies and saw a presentation about Pylons and Google App Engine. Since I really need to learn Python and am looking for reasons to make me read what is a rather boring book, I go to these meetings. I think that seeing all the cool stuff that I can do with it is the best encouragment to learn Python. I think maybe the book I have is simply too easy, for an old programmer like me I think it is more a matter of simply getting a project and starting to code, or maybe some maintanance, I should get involved in an open source project, that will force me to learn, or just work. Money is a motivator too. I want a house. Also spoke to our host Steven Wagner of Gorilla Nation about having LiLAX meet there, he would like to find someone other then himself baby sit us, but didn't say no, even gave me his card after I asked, we might have a home for our Linux group, this is rather cool. I could however skip a May meeting, I imagine I will be very busy.
From the way back machine, if I knew the future department, these are the jobs I should have been applying for back when I got to LA back in '98. But back then who had heard of Google and who thought that a company that didn't have a business model, but rather was trying to solve a problem for the founders would make so much money with AdSense. I might have to find some crazy people with stupid ideas to fund as they could be the future. After all I give money to all kinds of companies anyhow, my portfolio could include a very early startup, unfortunately most fail, but then I would hope that I could help this one make it.
I am watching Lil'Bush, Osama bin Laden is diagnosed iwth a weak heart, what an interesting cartoon. Seems to be something written to kids and adults at the same time, very cool idea. It simply exposes all the stereo types we have in a very fast and compact way, like the Simpsons, but this is politics.
Sold 20 BIDU@240, grrr... look it up, very bad move. In fact don't sell, buy, the market has really turned. So if I am convinced of this, is that a top? The market can be so tricky. I have an interest in the Finance API, I think that is what I might program on AppSpot, maybe some game to pit investors against each other.
So for the past few days I have been annoying the hell out of people are meetings because I needed to turn off the blasted beep in my terminal, here is the explanation of what I did to rip out the PC speaker in Ubuntu 8.04, rmmod pcspkr. For some reason the mute button doesn't cover this, bad coding, it should, I don't want nothing to come out when I mute, not this either.
Today I must figure out what sends DNS requests on a server that don't resolve, another thing I have no idea how to do, but with Google, anyone can be an expert, lol.
I found a very intersting product called Majic Jack, lets you call all you want for 39.95/year and then 20/year the next year. My neighbor uses it and really likes it, my VoIP vendor says that he has heard that it doesn't work well, conflicting views, it probably works as well as the underlaying internet. But then at that price, I wonder if it really matters when it is that cheap. I think that we are all used to spotty service with wireless, and it will sell like crazy, especially since they are investing in ads.
Still trying hard to sell my iPhone, please someone buy it from me, new in box, or I can crack, jailbreak it or develop a cool app for it, you pay for the mac if I do that.