rude awakening, linux laptops

So I am up and waiting for a phone call from the east coast to install an Asterisk server. It dawns on my I don't have their phone number, so I can only wait.

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.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3504708 Walmart has this Linspire thing, but it is underpowered for the price. You should probably just pay the Vista tax and get a special, you will probably get something faster then if you insist on having Linux preloaded, then ask for shipit.ubuntu.com to send you a CD and load it yourself, Dells usually work, and I am pretty sure that others do too. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam is a listing from Ubuntu on testing laptops. Dell on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/Dell, mine are all on this page, and I don't think that the company thought about running Linux on those laptops when they bought them, although they do run all Linux servers, except for one. Dell has a linux blog at http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board?board.id=sw_linux

And the Asterisk is up again, cool... what a night.

Drupal

Tomorrow I am carpooling to the Drupal meeting in Venice with Stephan, tried to invite Conrad Walton of ElSegundo.net fame, but no response yet. That car chase on it 2 days ago went half a block from my home.

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

So today, Memorial day I got some daytime sleep in, been a pretty long last week and childcare is also a bit exhasuting. I get a phone call from Brendan, long time didn't hear from him with something that seems to be a more constant request, whats my passwd, well I don't make it a practice to write down passwds, especially if you ask me to distroy them after using them, however I keep getting this more often. It is a bit like having credit card numbers, keeping them makes you liable in case you lost them. But the fact that this is an ongoing request that I get I may have to figure out a way to store a massive amount of passwds in a safe manor.

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.

Up at 4am, need lit keyboad

keep moving the display down to light up the nonlit keyboard on the D430, Apple has it right in lighting up the keyboard on some models, we do use our laptops in the dark sometimes, when we insomniacs start blogging. was thinking of approaching the Church ac cross the street as a venue to have LiLAX meet and educate a whole new membership into the virtues of open source and free software. I could hand out Ubuntu CDs and answer questions on Linux, maybe even have a workshop on how to convert from Windows. So I guess I should approach them today. I not up out of choice, got woken up and then after that my mind just started thinking.

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.

FiOS in Hermosa Beach

This is taking too long.

This week I was ordering memory, I never knew that memory was that complicated or that it took so long to find the right kind from the right supplier. It was one of those situations when you have a really hurry hurry thing going because memory is the last thing you want to think about at that moment, but alas, we were running out of it and the server upgrade was the only way to solve it. So we are tossing out all the old memory of course, putting in new, next questions is there are market for perfectly good 1 Gig memory sticks, when you went out and bought 2 Gig sticks? I bet the used market is flooded with it now. I wish the mother board would fit 4 or 8 Gig sticks, because we bought something that won't be useful for very long, would have rather replaced the whole server, but alas, they are watching the budget. In fact when I rebooted the server I had to run to the data center. Then the whole drama of getting the thing paid for, ended up on my card, geez... time is tight, been busy, not blogging.

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.

Masako Ueki

So today I took the lunch shuttle to work, the morning was used up telecommuting, so what the heck. As I am walking on Franklyn I find a bank card on the street, pick it up and think about it, hmm... I don't end up flying to Hawaii, rather dropped the card in the night deposit at the bank and then went home, tried to google what I remember the name to be and after some thought decided to use it in this story, on the off chance this person might someday google him/herself.