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djotaku's twitter feed
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- http://www.gnu.org/fry/
- Clinton Supporters: Are you really such sore losers that you're prepared to screw us all over for four years just because you lost?
- More Christian Tech Goodness: http://tinyurl.com/6c8587
- When I was a kid, I played some corny Biblical video games. Now this comes out: http://tinyurl.com/5mxczl Will it sell?
- From now on all LPGA players must pass an oral english test. Who cares if you speak english if you can swing a stick at a small white ball?
- I thought my blog looked a little weird and then I remembered that I had ad blocker turned on and my google ad was therefore missing.
- Foobar2000 the strangely named audio player with the neat features
- I'm annoyed that my Civ 4 BTS hasn't been auto-updating. Just had to download over 300 MB of patches just to play Fall from Heaven 2.
- @ASPwizer: Nothing wrong with you, Honda Elements are the cars that winners drive. q;o)
- Also, sharing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsbinaryworld/sets/72157606917571613/
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May
25
The end is…today (for now)
Category: Site | 
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It has been a wonderful journey with this server. I have been able to be liberated and have my very own server. I am limited only in the space and hardware constraints of the machine. I can have SQL databases, php, and whatever else I wish to support. I have been able to have my own blog, fully customizable in the way that no other is. I have provided space for my friends; Andrew Laine used it to the fullest. That’s why I’m so sad to have to shut it down. But don’t worry! It’s just temporary! I plan to have it back up as soon as I can when I get back to my parent’s house. Then it will run until I move to my job location. After that it should be running for another long period of time.
When I upgrade to a newer machine (hopefully this summer) I plan to add an exciting and new dimension to my server - email hosting. It’s a lot more complicated than website hosting, but it IS doable. I hope to see you all again soon.
2500 people so far this month. Wow…I used to get excited about 200 people visiting.
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May
24
Bash Shell Scripting
Category: Geek Love, Linux, Me, programming | Leave a Comment
One of the best things about Linux is the ability to write shell scripts. These are most often used as utility programs to do repetitive tasks for you. I just wrote my first one on Sunday and here it is followed by commentary.
#!/bin/bash
echo "starting xchat..."
xchat&
echo "starting Gaim..."
gaim&
echo "starting Thunderbird..."
thunderbird&
echo "starting Gkrellm (docked)..."
gkrellm -w&
echo "starting 2 instances of Eterm (transparent, no buttonbar, no scrollbar)"
Eterm -x --scrollbar=0 --buttonbar=0 --trans&
Eterm -x --scrollbar=0 --buttonbar=0 --trans&
The first line is required in any bash script. On the second line I am using the echo command to write stuff to the screen. This is just to remind me of what exactly the script is doing. This could be important if I write another startup script that launches different programs.
Why did I write this script? I wrote this script because I was starting up these programs every time I started up my computer. While a Linux computer barely ever needs to be rebooted, I still wanted to be able to type just one command instead of six. Additionally, I didn’t memorize the command to make the Eterm window look like I wanted. Instead of scrolling through all my commands every time I wanted to launch up an Eterm window, I coded it in. In fact, if you like how my Eterm windows look, you could write a script called “Transparent Eterm” and run it to start them up instead of typing that long statement every time.
I’m sure there’s some way to launch programs at startup in Linux, why not use that? A very simple reason: I don’t want it to startup every time. Back when I was really into Windows I put some programs into the “Startup” folder that I thought I would use every time I launched the computer such as AIM and WinAmp. Then came a day when the computer was misbehaving and I had to reboot it a few times. Waiting each time for all those programs to load that I didn’t want to load because I was doing diagnosis was very annoying. Thus, by writing this script (which currently can’t be done in Windows) I am able to launch all the programs I use at startup, but only when I want them up.
Other things you should know:
- when you write a script you need to make it executable. If you are the only user on a system the easiest way to do this is to do:
vi scriptname
to write the script and
chmod 777
to make it executable. Of course, everyone can execute your script now, but if you’re the only one it doesn’t matter - you need to type
./scriptname
to launch the script.
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May
23
Panoramas!
Category: Photography | Leave a Comment
Two panoramas I’m really proud of. They’re being hosted on flickr and you can click on them to go to the photo’s page.
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May
23
Here I have decided to run the “top” command in the top transparent Eterm window. This is a great command to have running on the desktop. Basically it’s equivalent to hitting control-alt-delete in Windows and then clicking on “processes”. It tells you what you are running on your system, how much RAM/CPU cycles it’s taking up, and a bunch of other information. It dynamically updates so as you run programs you can see what’s holding up the computer. It doesn’t normally have that line running down the middle. That’s a consequence of some glitch when I was taking the screenshot.
I was using the bottom window to run my programs. This way I don’t have to look for the window, I know it’s sitting on the desktop and I can get a quick view of which programs I’ve launched as well as any information they are telling me as they run.
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May
23
official end date
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This server will go down this Wednesday. It will be down at least until Tuesday while I move out of my university apartment.
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May
18
The end is near … really, this time
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While it turns out that the place I’m living at never went with wireless, thus allowing me to keep the server running, I know for sure that we will be shutting down soon. There is always one problem with running your own server at home - when you move there’s no way to keep it on and connected. I’ll be leaving this place in about two weeks. After that I’m not sure how long it will be before the server is operational again. Ideally, it would be the following week. Since I’m also getting married soon, the timeline might be a little different. So if you try to come by two weeks from now and the site isn’t here - don’t worry, it’ll be back really soon.
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May
16
Finally I have figured out something else I have wanted to do for MONTHS! If you look on the top-right corner you will see what looks like an embedded terminal in my desktop. The biggest reason why I’ve wanted to do this is simply because it looks really neat to have a terminal “built into” the desktop. I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet, the way people use them to run a logger in the background or other neat utilities. Besides looking really neat, it allows you to enjoy your background while using the terminal instead of covering it up. I mean, what’s the point of going through all the trouble of having such a great background when you can’t even see it? If you are into computers you are now nodding in agreement. So, how did I do this?
Well, in a word: Eterm. As I mentioned a few days ago, Linux is all about choice. There are many, many terminal emulation programs for Linux and Unix. The most often used is the xterm program. In KDE the default program is called Konsole. Finally, many people use a program called aterm. xterm is pretty vanilla and it seems to be designed simply to be a terminal and nothing else. Console is highly configureable and has transparancy capabilities, but, as far as I know, no way to hide the borders or title-bar. I haven’t used aterm so I don’t know much about it.
Eterm, on the other hand, was purposely designed to be the most highly customisable terminal emulator around. The options for customization are dizzying. There is the ability to write a configuration file to govern the appearance of each new Eterm. However, I feel that the user gains the best use out of Eterm either launching it with a specific theme or specific options. This allows the user to have many Eterms open with different display properties instead of all of them being transparent or whatever other options they choose. As an additional benefit, the creators claim that it uses less system resources than the bland xterm.
So, how can you get the effect I have? It’s actually pretty simple. First of all, get a copy of Eterm. For this you can visit www.eterm.org. Type the following into your terminal program:
Eterm -x --scrollbar=0 --buttonbar=0 --trans &
“Neat!” You might say, “But how do I move it?” That, too, was bugging me when I first did this. You can move it around by holding down alt and dragging it around with your left mouse button.
Once I figure out the logger program and other such l33t things I will then pass them on in a future post. Happy customising!
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May
15
My Fluxbox desktop on Fedora Core 3
Category: Geek Love, Linux, Me | Leave a Comment
I wanted to share my Fluxbox desktop on my main Linux computer both for the geeky motive of showing off my desktop like jocks show off their cars and also to help others achieve the same configurations that I have. Fluxbox, like Blackbox and other *box window managers, are very, very customizable.
Here is the screenshot of my desktop, which you can see in full resolution by clicking it.
First of all, on the left-hand side of the screen you can see my system monitor, gkrellm. If you’ve spent any amount of time checking out screenshots of others’ desktops you’ve definitely seen this system monitor, especially on a non- KDE or Gnome screenshot. I was actually trying to figure out what this program was for months before finally stumbling upon the answer. It is highly customizable both in what it shows and what the colour scheme is. Currently I have it showing my CPU usage, user/program usage, internet traffic, and a few other small things. The best and easiest way to get get gkrellm if you are a Fedora user is to install it from the freshrpms repository via apt or yum. Freshrpms also contains themes and plugins for gkrellm.
The second important thing I wanted to highlight is how to use themes in Fluxbox. Themes typically come as a tarball containing a “styles” file and a background picture. The styles file tells Fluxbox how to draw the menus and which colour scheme to use. Once you have Fluxbox installed on your system there should be a .fluxbox folder in your home directory. (Linux is case-sensitive so check .Fluxbox if you don’t have .fluxbox) If it doesn’t exist you can create it. Then create a styles folder and a background folder if they don’t already exist. When you untar a tarball move the files to their respective folders. Then you can right-click for the menu to come up and click on Fluxbox Menu > User Styles and the one you just put in should be there.
The most common problem is that the background doesn’t change and some errors pop up. This is because all the *box WMs use the same style files to control themes. Whereas on Blackbox the command is bsetbg, it’s fbsetbg in Fluxbox. At least, that’s what made it work for me. There may be some options listed after fbsetbg which you may have to remove if they produce errors.
I am currently using the Ghost in the Shell Theme available from freshmeat.net.
I hope to make some more advanced modifications to the look and feel of my desktop and will post here how I did it. While I feel that there are many, many great desktop screenshots out on the net there aren’t as many tutorials. Hope you found this one useful.
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May
14
Whatever you do, don’t dumb down Linux…
Category: Fedora, Gnome, KDE, Linux | 4 Comments
As we saw in yesterday’s post, one of the things the author of the article suggested was that Linux needed to get simpler in order to gain a wider audience. But I say, hell no! Do not dumb down Linux! One of the most powerful things about Linux is that we still have access to the raw commands and configurations that allow each person’s computer to be infinitely different from the next. Already part of this process has taken place with a right-click in KDE (at least in FC3) not even having an option for opening a terminal. Look at Microsoft, it’s such a pain to use DOS now and, although some don’t like it, text commands hold a much greater amount of power and complexity than an icon can.
Another related complaint I hear a lot is, “Does Linux REALLY need 15 web browers, 20 IRC clients, and 10 terminal programs?” I believe the answer is a definitive YES! It certainly does! Why do some want to make Linux like the monster we hate? (Microsoft) Microsoft, you will remember is “evil” because they limit choice. They don’t include Firefox or any other browsers in Windows, just IE. And they believe that everyone should use IE or Windows Media Player or any other program they produce. That’s why they enter into deals with companies to only make things compatible on Microsoft products. That’s bunk! I don’t know about the rest of my readers, but as an American you can’t get anymore anti-American than limiting my choice. I have the choice whether or not to believe in a God whether or not to vote, etc and these are big issues. So I want choice on my computer!
For example, recently I began trying out Fluxbox, a window manager based on Blackbox source code, because of the limitations of the donated computers I’m running Linux on. (Unfortunately school work requires me to keep a computer that can run Windows - as well as a lack of a Photoshop port - the GIMP not handling RAW pictures just doesn’t cut it for me) I previously loved KDE to the point of advocating it to anyone who asked. It was certainly better than Gnome and as far as I knew those were the only choices. But now my eyes have been opened and I love Fluxbox, XFCE, and many of the other window managers. They do what I need them to do and are customizable in the way I want them to be customizable. Will I ever go back to KDE? Perhaps, when I get a better computer. For now, my main computer has been running Fluxbox for 14 days straight and it works fine for me.
But without choice this would have been impossible. I would have been stuck with a windows manager too bloated for my computer. Sound familiar? Yes! That’s Windows ME or XP. Why have something with more bells and whistles than you need? My look on life is that you should have a WM that uses the fewest amount of system resources so that you can dedicate the rest of them to running programs! What a novel idea if Windows didn’t take up so much of my RAM that my computer chokes at the most basic of tasks.
So developers, please, if you can read this, DO NOT DUMB DOWN LINUX. There are forums for doing this like Linspire and other Linux Win-Clones. But for the rest of us, allow us to have the power of Linux. Otherwise, people will move on. We don’t want Windows, but free as in beer. We want Linux! At least I do…
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May
13
Another reason why Linux will take over the world.
25 Years After DOS: Lessons Learned for Linux
by Walter V. Koenning for the Reallylinux.com OPINION/EDITORIAL section.NOTICE: Our other recent OP/ED postings include:
Microsoft’s Approach May Isolate U.S. Permanently
Open Source VS Windows: Reality of a Better ParadigmMicrosoft Corporation is preparing a gallant pageant to celebrate 25 years of what should at the very least be considered remarkable marketing. But what can the Linux world learn from Microsoft’s past 25 years of unique experiences and domination? I think we can uncover a lot simply going back to that first fateful year when Microsoft released PC-DOS for IBM PCs (as a joint venture with IBM).
First, we must admit openly once and for all that the “best solution” is not always the “most used solution.” There are few who would be foolish enough to argue that back in 1981 PC-DOS was the best solution. There were obviously a number of choices. PC-DOS was the least robust, the most temperamental, and arguably not very compatible with the IBM hardware and BIOS it was sold to work on. Yet, somewhat like the odd but obvious dominance of the VHS over BETA, this simple, cheap OS stole the show.
With 25 years of hindsight we can now identify the three core ingredients that allowed PC-DOS to enter the race and then shockingly exceed all expectations. Indeed there were a number of OS choices, but PC-DOS was the best choice, if not the best solution. With its weak memory management capabilities, the issues with the original BIOS specifications and support, PC-DOS in any engineer’s mind was not a superior product. But it was indeed three things:
1.
It was in the right place at the right time. Yes, timing is one of the obvious reasons why PC-DOS, later to become the well known MS-DOS made its debut, and survived to become the world’s most dominant OS. The IBM compatible market skyrocketed the use of Microsoft’s OS beyond even Bill and Paul’s expectations.
2.But wait. Timing can not possibly be the key ingredient. Sure enough there were two other ingredients essential to making the timing work out. The second was PC-DOS’s price. It was cheap, and the cheapest of the options that at least for the entry IBM PC made it’s debut. PC-DOS fit the home and small business market perfectly because it was cheap.
3.And of course, if it was just plain cheap it still would have gone no where, unless it contained what I believe is conceivably the most important ingredient to Microsoft’s initial success with a less than superior product. PC-DOS was simple. That’s right, it was simple. I could shove that darn disk in to the drive, and so long as I knew to press the drive lock down the disk would spin and the OS would load. I could learn the basic set of commands within a few minutes. It was not just simple, but darn simple and made it possible for the genius and the technophobe to achieve the same results: operating a PC.
Yes, unquestionably Microsoft’s unique ability to be “shipped with the PC” as pre-installed OS eventually gave it another huge advantage. But, in the earliest days there was NO PRE-INSTALL. It was about ease of bootup and loadup, sticking disks in to the drive to boot.
Now, let’s start with the negative lessons learned. For one thing, I can say with every friend and colleague who has ever written software drivers, compiled kernels etc. Microsoft Windows is not a superior product. Look I say this with caution but sincerity since I began using DOS around the same time I had used UNIX and its variants, VMS, Stratus VOS and others. The initial Microsoft DOS just wasn’t superior. This was at the time most obvious to the many people who had indeed used more superior products in academia and government. Ironically, most of these people who knew of better options were not on the marketing list for IBM’s PCs.
So, the negative lesson learned: claiming Linux is a superior product often ticks people off more than it convinces them.
There are always more superior products, like when I go to