Tech Stuff Weekly

Mac OS X 10.4.6 released today

2006-04-03T19:00:00.000-04:00

Piles of bugfixes, security updates, and even a few new drivers. However, theres one new feature that makes the restart worth it:
Searching iWork '06 and Microsoft Office documents with Spotlight.
Yep, no longer do you have to rely on third-party spotlight plugins to search the very documents you use the most. I think Apple should have done this a *long* time ago, but, better late than never ;)

-JaK

Mac Gmail Notifier update

2006-03-23T11:22:00.000-05:00

Google releases another app refresh::

Thats right, Google has released a new version of one of their products. The Gmail notifier this time. Well, actually only the gmail mac notifier, but its still pretty darned sleek.

Not only is it universal now, (having native support for both intel and PPC Macs), but also has a new icon! (which is much shinier, might I add :)
And here comes the "why should I care?" part: well, they fixed the multi-user issue!
Ever since its release, the notifer seemed to simply lack support for multiple users. When envoked on any account other than the one it was first used, it would just quit. Strange, but I
ve had this issue on all three macs I tested it on and the exact same thing happened

And now its fixed, prettier and universal

Cheers, google!

Get it here.

Google releases app refresh

2006-03-23T10:10:00.000-05:00

if Microsoft had designed the iPod package..

2006-03-15T14:55:00.000-05:00

This has been out for a while, so I'm sure most of you have already seen it. But its just that funny, and so true.

MS iPod packaging

..that is all.

Google Blogger Widget

2006-03-14T18:16:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know, Google just released a few dashboard widgets for OS X 10.4.

OK, you say, why do I care? I can already access my gmail and my blog via the web browser.
Well I thought so too, until I actually tried them. The gmail widget I could do without, the gmail notifier for Mac does all that for me already. Maybe not as pretty, but I believe function should take precedence over eyecandy.
The blogger widget, on the other hand, is quite nice. Extremely useful for posting without having to go through Bloggers log in>pick a blog>new post system. Just type in your post and click publish.
Very handy.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the interface is simple (doesn't bother with any extra options that most people don't use anyway) yet not too limiting.
You can close the dashboard, then reopen it and have what you've composed of your post still there.
Overall, I like it. A lot. One of the reasons I havent posted here very often recently was because I didnt like having to go through Blogger's strange interface. It is pretty well done, and yes it does follow some UI guidelines, but I just dont like it.
After finding this, expect many more posts here in times to come...

Teh PS3/360 post

2005-12-30T10:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry I havent bothered to post here in a while, been really quite busy recently.
This is just my take on the whole "next-generation" gaming consoles war. Have fun.

As always, let us begin with teh released ps3 statxorz::

CPU

Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS
GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines
Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)
Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz
System Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)
System Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS
Storage
Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1
I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1
Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)
AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1
Disc Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

Specs are important, however understanding them is twice as valuable.

The official PS3 specs have YET TO BE RELEASED meaning that, despite some of the press releases, we still have only a rough idea of what'll be in it. The specifications previously posted are just sony's way of appeasing the public, giving us a minimum idea of what might be in the ps3.

The Cell processor is not like any other processor ever made. Although we've had multi-core chips before (see the dual-core intels, or tri-core 360, or quad-core G5) there can never be too many of them or it'd take a whole processor itself to correctly divide the jobs and achieve maximum performance out of all the units. So thats what IBM did in the creation of the Cell.

Instead of having one, two or three units in the chip, theres more like 5. About four (or more) slave chips, then one PPC master processor to divide jobs between them. IBM's Power line of microprocessors come in separate generations, the PPC74xx (32-bit) leading into the PPC750 (64 bit, multi core, used in power mac computers and higher end ibm eservers) to cell (64 bit, at least 5 cores). The 360 was released with a modified (specialized) PPC 750, whereas the ps3 will instead use the Cell. So, technically speaking, the 360 is exactly one generation behind.

Even then, the processor used in the 360 was specialized to the extreme. Although they upped the clockspeed to 3.2 GHz, they still lagged some in l2 and bus speed when contrasted with its equivalent PPC750 (the lower-end apple powermac g5s), and achieve disappointing real-world benchmarks against others of its type. This doesnt mean that it isnt a wonderful system at an almost unbeatable price, just that it still isnt comparable to higher end systems, the way an affordable game system (or 'multimedia center' or whatever its being hyped as this week) should be.

Sony, on the other hand, does not intend to market the ps3 as an affordable gaming system. Far from it, the ps3 will have cutting edge technology that hasnt even made it into the personal computer (or even server) realm yet. It may cost more, but with very good reason. It will boast technology that will remain cutting-edge for years to come.

With up to eight controllers and dual-head HDMI HD video output, I think most gamers will enjoy the extra power, even if it does cost $100 more. I know I will.The 360 is a very nice system, yes. And yes, it does blow away the original xbox, gc and ps2. But its only the first so-called 'next generation' console out, and shouldnt make judgments about other consoles that simply arent out yet.

In conclusion, the ps3 will OWN the 360.

HA!

2005-08-09T22:15:00.001-04:00

Jeez, how ironic can it get?
I think this link speaks for itself.
And volumes, at that.

Two weeks in, and my powerbook is better than I could have imagined.
So many of the little things Apple adds into their design add to it so much. Like the un-annoying little LED sleep light in the open-button, the two wifi antennas built into either side of the screen, the two-finger scrolling thing that I've become so terribly addicted too, the slot-loading cd-rw/dvd-r drive with no stoopid tray to break and so on. The keyboard also has a ery, very nice feel to it. Sooo much easier on the hands when typing entirely too fast at the terminal.
OS X is simply fabulous too. Amazingly fast. Safari takes less than a second to load upon boot. Haven't seen that kind of speed on any comp I've owned before. Ever. In truth, OSX is so integrated, beautiful, and just overall everything a good OS should be that for the longest time I actually had a hard time even thinking about installing Linux/(free)BSD. Everything about it is all so elegant in itself, but integrates into the whole beautifully. Its even better than the sum of its parts, the better of which are::
Expose
In truth, I've become addicted to multiple desktops. Really, I have. Being able to open up 8x the number of windows as in Windoze and easily switch between them so easily is invalueable in many a situation. Taking notes on one desktop and poking around on the web on another in class, for example. Because of this, the moment I got a browser open I started poking around for somehting that could emulate this on Aqua. The solution came in the form of Desktop Manager, which claims itself as an extreme alpha (USE THIS ONLY AT YOUR OWN RISK~!)., but works really quite well.
Dashboard
One of my favorite little FOSS apps I've found in the past year was gDesklets (Yes, I do know it was a SuperKaramba clone (which was, in turn, borrowed from E16's Epplets), so don't start). Provided just enough eye-candy to make windoze-users drool without seriously stunding CPU power. Apple noticed this and decided to do something about it, thus the Dashboard was born. Little widgets that pop in and out of existance (and CPU usage!) with the click of the F12 button really can come in extremely handy. My personal favorite widgets are Radar in Motion (kinda like the GNOME panel applet), miniCpuHeat, Airport Radar, and gotMailG. There are over a thousand other widgets out there too, though, and I'm sure there are hundreds of other interesting ones I've missed.
Finder
Ah, the finder.
Spotlight
OK, you're gonna hear a lot of shit about Spotlight wherever you look, I did too before I tried it to a degree that scared me. I came into OSX with the belief that this would be one of its features to simply avoid, or even disable. I don't think I could have been any more wrong.
Safari/iTunes/junk
Now, I love firefox. I really do. To the degree that the very first thing I did the moment I achieved an internet connection for the very first time was download the OS X version from mozilla.org. I've been using ot for about a year
Addon stuff (AKA Adium, XchatAqua, KisMAC, Desktop Manager, NeoOffice/J, Gimp.app, armagetron ;-)
With that in mind, there are a few things it does lack. A prime example being that M$Office problem. A problem thats spread to faar too many Apples worldwide.
Another little issue that can be solves with third-party stuff is the bizare kernel_task thingy that keeps popping up ad using upwards of 7% (!!!) of my CPU randomly. THis is apparently just a bug in Apple's drivers for the new USB touchpads in the 2005 powerbook. I have no doubt that it will be fixed by the time 1.4.3 comes out, but for now, a little app called SideTrack fixes that.
Integrated FOSS (Apache, Samba, KHTML, etc)
Hardware (Freescale CPU, NVIDIA GPU, TI sound card, etc.)

Overall I will give OS X 10.4.2 (Tiger) the best rating I could possibly give. --not that I really rate things here, (as its usually up to the user's interpretation) but this is, without a doubt, the best OS I've ever encountered.

Gnome 2.12 Preview Released
Thats right, Gnome seems to be on a killing spree these days. First 2.10's prettiness amazed us, now 2.12 is here to finish it off. A preview of the new features and add-ons of 2.12 was released today, just to give ya an idea of whats to come. Looks really quite nice.
GNOME 2.12 is scheduled for release September 7th.

Apparently Novell is finally offering downloads on the OpenSUSE.org website. They also provide a document pointing out the differences between OpenSUSE and Fedora Core, for those who noticed the uncanny similarities such as myself.

Oh yeah, has anyone else noticed how Naim recently seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth?
I mean, I know Dan Reed was recently shipped off to Iraq and all, I just hope....

PPC: A Brand NewWorld...

2005-07-19T20:01:00.000-04:00

(yeah i know no one's gonna get that, but too bad..)

This is pretty much an update to my last post. Screw what I said before; I am getting a powerbook! YAAAY!!!

Yet again, I'll just cut to the stats....

# 1.5 GHz Freescale PPC/G4 MUCH faster than the x86 (Centrino) alternative, with MUCH better battery life for the speed as well
# 512 DDR333(2x256)
# 80G ATA 5400 rpm,
# DVD±RW/CD-RW (superdrive)
# NVIDIA GeForce FX GO 5200 (64MB DDR)
# 12.1-inch TFT XGA, 1024 x 768 (res==crappy, but has dvi/vga port to connect to better one)
# Integrated B/G wifi + bluetooth 2.0+EDR
# AMS (Apple Motion Sensor) The things you can do with this are amazing..

Hardware support is shakey, but too bad. x86 is beginning to get a little too supported for me, and my hacker/rebellious nature is beginning to kick in again.
I can't believe people are beginning to use closed-source drivers that companies like nVidia, ATI and linksys are releasing for Linux. I mean, what is that saying about these people? Are they using Linux because its faster and more secure than M$? Is that all? Whatever happened to the free spirit of FOSS? I mean, people claim to love GPLed programs, but some of them use closed-source drivers for things like video performance anyway, because they just have to get their 3D-acceleration to play America's Army or any of the games that now have linux-native support, or use Wine/Cedega to play other closed source games from companies that haven't even bothered to create ports. Well I have a question for all of you people out there, and I know some of you are reading this and I already have your IP logged so dont try to hide,,..
Why bother?
Why bother using something completely and entirely based on the philosophy that all software should be free if all your going to do with it is stick non-phree crap ontop of it? Windoze once used a BSD TCP stack, and M$-DOS was based off of FreeDOS, and if it makes you feel any worse look at it now...

BTW I'm not condemming games at all, I know there are quite a few great GPLed games
out there too, like the infamous Tux Racer, Neverball or Freeciv.

OK now that's out of me; back to hardware support...

What Works:
Everything, Except....

What Doesn't Work:
@ DRI for the Nvidia gfx card. Vesa support does exist, and the 'nv' driver does support 2d-acceleration, but there be nothing for 3d. Nvidia's been real nice about providing drivers for every OS from doze to OSX to FreeBSDx86 to Solaris to Linux on x86, AMD64, and IA64, but no PPC. This isn't a good thing at all, as it in reality only hinders the development of open-source drivers for any of these platforms. "Why spend all the time to create an Open driver when theyy're so nice about giving me a already created one tat utilizes all of the manufactures' instruction sets/features/whatever?" This goes back to my original arguement that no company should provide linux drivers if they're going to be closed-source, as it is a Bad Thing(tm).
@ The Wifi card. The documentation for the Broadcom chipset can't be released by the manafacturers because the card itself has the ability to broadcast in a spectrum that is reserved for military use. Because of this, broadcom imposes these limitations in software in the form of closed-source 'Doze/OSX drivers. By releasing the specifications on how to get this card to work, they may be inadvertantly allowing people to broadcast on a restricted frequency, and therefore making them liable for any nastii lawsuites that might come up. However, work on reverse engineering the driver is being done to fix this

Thats all I have to say for now.
Comments are appreciated.
-jAk

NEW LAPTOP!! (I hope, anyway..)

2005-07-01T12:03:00.000-04:00

Well, where have we heard this before?

Some seriously lame power surge fried the BIOS on my old new one (*tear*), and now there's a slight chance I might just get something new this time!! :D
At this point I'm completely open to suggestions, but I'd rather avoid anything x86 at all costs this time. Most likely gonna and up with some old 700MHz ibook, but, ah well. Gentoo supports it, so, yeah why not?
I've been looking into everything from some of Tadpole's supremely-awesome SPARC notebooks (I wish..) to Apple's powerbooks (still a dream) to some of AMD's newer x86_64 (icky CISC still scares me away, though).
PPC is what attracts me the most, pretty much because it's a combination of being quite well documented and support really isnt that bad at all, yet still a LOT more powerful than x86 and slightly experimental at the same time. Seems to me as if they need more dev work in the area, and, hey; could be fun
Anyway, any reccomendations, advive, or even horror stories would be appreciated. I realy need something before school starts again, hopefully for not that much $$, but before i settle for anything I'd rather get at least some feedback from whoever feels like giving it.

YEah, that's right!

2005-06-18T21:16:00.000-04:00

OpenSolaris is out today!

YEAh!

Go here.

That is not all.

But you're not supposed to know about the rest of them.

So
now
it
is.

Triton: The new AIM

2005-04-26T17:37:00.000-04:00

Looks like AOL's finally going to update their free messenging client known to even the computer illiterate-- AIM.
The beta is so far known only as "triton"
Apparently, AIM's FINALLY decided to implement features like tabbed IM windows and buddy-aliasing. See Figure I below..

^^Remind you of anything? *cough* *cough* gAIM *cough* *cough*
I've been using gaim since version 0.75 (the lastest is version 1.31),they've been the leader in new client features ever since. Guess AOL's finally at least trying to catch up..
more on this later.....

Real Returns

2005-03-21T14:44:00.000-05:00

YAY! I FINALLY get my RealPlayer again!!!
OK for all you people who don't know, RealPlayer is now based on the Open-Source Helix player, and has support for OGG Vorbis/Theora by default! I've been using Real on Mandrake/Fedora for ages, and it was one of my only real disappointments when switching over to Gentoo, but as of the 10.0.3 release they've finally unmasked it! I have no idea why I care so much about this, but still! YAAAY!!!
# emerge media-video/realplayer

I want my SkyOS!

2005-03-20T19:31:00.001-05:00

OK I know I may seem like I'm whining here, but I would really wish to get involved in this one.
I was just looking at the SkyOS home page and, well, I just want
Things like bash, forefox and thunderbird have already been ported to it, and by the looks of things its coming along very nicely. It now has support for things like translucency and screen savers as well.

(more screenshots here)

Although it seems near completion, I would still like to get involved in some developer work, preferably without paying anything if thats possible. I've been a linux guy for a long time now, but linux really is a complete OS now, varying from the power of simplicy and the classic UNIXy derived stuff like Gentoo (my current distro) or Slackware to usability that can make it easier to use than Windows or even MacOS like Mandrake or SuSE.
In truth, I would have to say my work here is done. Linux is complete, all they're doing now is addinc more crap onto it like advanced translucency support and shadows and all kinds of newer pakages you don't really need. Don't get me wrong, I love for that kind of thing too, but its just not any fun anymore when it comes prepackaged in these nice, shiny, documented binaries like it is all to often. There are no more rough, in progress hacks, no more problems they leave the user to resolve left, it just works. Damn well at that. When I finally bothered to just swing it and make gentoo (you dont really install, see my upcoming full review for details) I thought I'd be seing something different, something I havent used before, someting I might have to work on myself and experience something new for the first time in far to long, but, nope. After its a working system, its a working system. Don't get me wrong, there are still all the bleeding-edge updates that come in practicaly every day, but it just isnt the same.
I really want to try something different, get back into hardcore dev work on experimental systems with testing drivers and things that dont work the way they should. The challeneges and glory that come with success are just too much to resist. It was just so much more fun that way, once it works its boring. I think I really want to join a devel team and do that kind of stuff again. IF i cant, I'll probably go for the latest FC4 devel snapshot, but I really want to work on something like Sky more. If theres any way at all I can join up with the SkyOS team anf get a copy of the latest 5.0 beta free of charge, please by all means comment or email me. If there isn't I dont think I'll be able to because I'm still poor as shit, if I really had any money at all I'd swing for it but I simply don't. All I have is a PIII/Coppermine 1.0 GHz/512mb RAM/Rage Mobility Mach64, a rather inventive nature, and some spare time to do a little hacking/patching in.

Gaim-Blogger

2005-03-20T12:20:00.000-05:00

OK This is REALLY damn cool and just as useful for anyone else who just HATES the stupid java database interface that blogger forces you to use...
It takes a little getting used to, but it is pretty awesome once you do.

Ok I'll just kick you off into the deep end on this one; gentoo users (like myself) just
# emerge gaim-blogger
...and for everyone else, try http://gaim-blogger.sourceforge.net.
Should work will all recent versions of gaim on any modern operating system (FC3,SuSE 9+, )

Portage says this about it:
root@r00k jc # emerge search gaim-blogger
Searching...
[ Results for search key : gaim-blogger ]
[ Applications found : 1 ]

* net-I'm/gaim-blogger
Latest version available: 1.0.0
Latest version installed: 1.0.0
Size of downloaded files: 29 kB
Homepage: http://gaim-blogger.sourceforge.net
Description: Gaim-blogger is a protocol plugin for Gaim which makes use of Gaim's IM interface to post, edit, view and track blogs.
License: GPL-2

Basically, its a gaim plugin that allows you to create new blog posts via the gaim interface!!
Its not like rough or anything either, its cleanly perfected and shined up and everything.
Really useful for quick posts-on-the-go. Makes it easy to compose posts as well. Although I personally still prefer raw hardcore HTML, I do like the gaim composer a lot more than the blogger web one (what is with the stupid span tag, anyway???). Its also pretty useful to be able to use gaim's awesome real-time spell check for blog posts ;)
Your blogs show up as buddies on your list. IMing them creates a new post, and do edit previous ones just right click on the buddy that represents the blog you wish to edit and click 'edit recent posts'.
Adding a blogger account is like the same as adding any other protocol, just type your blogger user name/password and then log in like anything else, kudos whoever managed the integration there, really nice job ;)
anyway; once your logged in all your blogs show up on your buddy list with blogger signs next to them (I'll add screenshots later). Right clicking them opens up a menu similar to the menu gaim gives IM buddies, except the options "View blog", "edit recent posts", "edit template", and "reset blog status", all of which open up a nice little GTK-themed interface to do exactly that. This really isn't a hack either, not like some corny linker that opens up the editing page in your web browser or something dumb like that. Its rather cleaned, polished, and damn nice for people like me who devote an entire desktop to GAIM and already have things like the gaim-XMMS remote and gaim-festival plugins.
Enjoy!

...BTW I created this entire post in gaim ;-)

FC jumping back on board

2005-03-16T09:34:00.000-05:00

Fedora Core 4 test 1 is now out.
Traditionally, Fedora has been a little looked down at by old the linux gurus out there, and in part for good reason. Although it is a very good desktop OS for the people who might be just emerging out of the Windoze world, Core 3 just doesn't cut it for someone (such as myself) who actually knows what they're doing.
FC is awesome for the newbies out there, I'll give it that. It has all kinds of easy-to-use GUI configuration tools and automated system tasks that make it easy for almost anyone to use. Another thing I like about Fedora is that in general it, well, just plain works. Even though it may not exactly have optimizations for specific processors or graphics cars, I've never encountered a system that it didn't perform basic functions on. It is also stuffed with all kinda of interesting tools and applications (nearly 7G worth!) that cater to the newbies out there. All of these qualities are what makes it such an awesome newbie desktop, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get started in open-source programming any day.
With that in mind however, Fedora is far from perfect. It's slowly becoming more and bloated and slower compared to some of the other distros out there (for some reason they still compile for i386). Also, even though it has an awesome package system updater (rpm/yum) I still cant help but view it as a little slow to updates. Sure, the Firefox 1.0.1 update came out within about a day of its initial release, but RH seem to be a little reluctant to release updates for bigger packages like GNOME or gcc, and only do upgrade these in the next major release. This severely irritates me, as I kinda like the idea a system that would never go out of date (Debian, Gentoo, etc.)
With that said, FC4 seems very promising. Instead of just going with whats out there, RH seems to be leaning towards the betas out there. Along with the newest versions of many useful applications such as evolution, firefox and gaim, FC4test1 also includes newer and some beta packages such as:
# GCC 4.0 beta
# GNOME 2.10
# OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta (1.9.83)
# Mozilla Suite 1.7.6 beta
# KDE 3.4
# Linux 2.6.11

FC4 also improves upon FC3's PPC architecture. Although I have a feeling this won't be fully implemented for a while, it's really nice to know that another major distro is now offering support for the PowerPC architecture. This means Fedora now officially supports i386, ppc, ppc64, and x86-64. The devel release even has beta support for sparc as well! The recent release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL) now officially supports i386, ia64, ppc, s390, s390x and x86-64. Seems to me like RH has finally decided to expand official support (note: this isn't the first time they've given their free OS support for more than x86; RH7.2, codenamed enigma, supported IA64 as well).
Looks like RH's decided to pick up the pace on Fedora development. To say the least, I think the partition I had previously devoted to Debian might just end up testing Fedora Core 4.
I'll post a full review as soon as I feel like it.

Wecome to my World!!

2005-03-02T22:16:00.000-05:00

Hello all!
I've just created this new blog, because, well, why not?
I've made about 3 divisions of my old one because it was simply getting to congested for a single blog.
However, if thats what you were looking for (and if you've followed this URL I suspect it is), it is still avalible here. I'll continue to update it as well, in reality probably even more so than this one. I just wanted a newer, more significant and less used URL/Title for that one, and this will remain true to its original cause. Kinda like the RHE/FC split of '03.
Anyway, thats all I have to say for now, Check back later...

rock on'
-jAk

Mozilla Firefox

2005-02-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

OK all of you people who still use IE(Internet Explorer) have serious issues.
Firefox is faster, a LOT more secure, easier to use, has many more features, and is over all a LOT better than IE.
Basically there are only two reasons I posted this. First and foremost because some people actually are dumb enough to use IE, even though Microsoft itself has warned against using it, even they admit it is full of security holes and they don't do that often. Secondly, IE's rendering engine is too weak to render some of the advanced Javascript/Dhtml I used in the creation of this blog, and I'm to lazy to fix it.
Also, there have even been recommendations to switch to an alternative (non-IE) browser such as Firefox, by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Also, Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information from IE, so you literally have nothing to lose. I mean, what more of an incentive could you need?

I rather like this one .:.:.
"Internet Exploder is evil, because of its huge market share and lack of web standards support, resulting in it holding the web back from becoming a lot better! Why? It is, because most website creators have to code for The Evil IE making sure there pages display properly in The Evil Internet Exploiter which means they cannot take advantage of the latest W3C standards coding for webpages. If they were able to do this there websites would be a lot better.
If the majority or all Internet Users used a standards complaint browser such as Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Camino, K-Meleon, Galeon or Safari websites would be a lot better, because of what I put above."

Just try Firefox for a week and trust me soon you'll be using it as your main web browser!

Mandrake and Connectiva merger

2005-02-24T09:54:00.000-05:00

I'd like to see the bastard child that comes out of this one.

Something with RPM, urpmi, and apt.
Now thats just excessive.
...but still kool :-D
Thats right, Connie and Big M are kinda one now.
MDK Press release

UPDATE:: Apparently, Mandriva just bought lycoris too... hmm... I dont nkow if I like the way this is going...
The next M$ may just be MDR.... ick...

Awesome Mini-board

2005-02-21T16:24:00.000-05:00

This thing is just plain cool.

TS-7200 Single Board Computer
200 MHz ARM processor

* ARM9 processor with MMU
* 32 MB SDRAM
* 8 MB Flash drive (16 MB optional)
* 10/100 Ethernet
* Compact Flash socket
* 2 USB host ports
* 2 COM ports
* 20 DIO
* PC/104 expansion bus
* Optional A/D and RS-485
* Optional 802.11b WiFi
* Runs Linux or NetBSD

...all for only 149$!

Linux on the Clie

2005-02-21T09:56:00.000-05:00

Oh what the hell, I mean, whats the most damage I could do? [please don't answer that...]

It's been done with older clies, and I think I know enough to get some kind of hacked system up and going.

If anyone knows anything about ARM/Linux that I dont, commments would be GREATLY appreciated...

/*You are not expected to understand this*/

Perl 6

2005-02-20T03:25:00.000-05:00

"Perl 5 was my rewrite of Perl. I want Perl 6 to be the community's rewrite of Perl and of the community."
--Larry Wall, State of the Onion speech, TPC4

OK I was reading part 3 of this rather interesting article about building a 3d engine in Perl when I just happened stumbled upon this, and was taken quite by suprise to find that we really arnt that far at all from Perl 6.
Not only are they dramatically revising Perl as a language over the 5th release, but they're also changing the way the whole language works. And they're not just finally giving a compiler, but also making the compiler spit out bytecodes to be executed by a virtual machine codenamed "Parrot". Apperently their goal is to make Perl work kinda like Sun's Java and M$'s C#. I dont know if I like the concept of this, but it may actually improve Perl's overall appeal. Well, at least it's motives (lazyness, impatience, and hubris) arnt changing anytime soon

"Perl5 was designed in such a way that it would run wherever there was C. These days, though, it's becoming more and more common to not have C but instead to have some kind of virtual machine (JVM, .NET, etc.). So we'd like to have our own virtual machine that will run wherever there's C, but also to make it easy to port the bytecode to another virtual machine for places without C."
More here.

They also are currently working on a project codenamed "Ponie" to allow Perl 6/5 backwards compatibility.

"The Perl 5 interpreter will be rewritten to run on Parrot, the Perl 6 virtual machine. This will ensure the future of the millions of lines of Perl 5 code at thousands of companies around the world."
More here.

"The Perl 6 design process is about keeping what works in Perl 5, fixing what doesn't, and adding what's missing. That means there will be a few fundamental changes to the language, a large number of extensions to existing features, and a handful of completely new ideas. These modifications, enhancements, and innovations will work together to make the future Perl even more insanely great -- without, we hope, making it even more greatly insane."
--Damian Conway, Linux Magazine, April 2003

To say the least, looks interesting. Perl might just make make a big comeback as a modern language. Stay tuned.
Perl 6 is planned to be released in the 3rd quarter of 2005.

one bytecode to rule them all

OS Warz II

2005-02-19T08:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, recently I finally bothered to re-initialize the counter on my blog. This counter, however, not only tracked just how many people visited my page. It also tracked a bunch of funny and for the most part useless other options, like reffering site, time zone, and most importantly (to me anyway) OS/Browser version used.

I was delighted to find out that, as of now, the stats are:
Windoze XP 46.88%
MacOS X 6.25%
Linux/UNIX 43.75%
Unknown 3.13%

Although yes, I know this blog would mostly attract the attention of the *NIX community, and yeah I bet all of the "unknowns" are only me, and I know this whole thing is terribly inaccurate thus far, and i know that slowly the stats will even themselves out as more data is collected and M$'s monopoly will once again show it's ugly face, but still. Looks like Linux is on the rise! Not only that, but as of now, M$ ownz less than 50% of my blog!!! You have NO IDEA how happy that makes me!

^This image is dynamically linked too, these stats may change dramatically over time^

MyWorld January issue #2

2005-01-21T13:45:00.000-05:00

.::THIS ISSUE'S MAIN TOPICS::.
-------------------------------
# 'Cell' architecture actually in existence and beta use... x86 is going DOWN!
*coming soon(if in not lazy)* # Proxies: Why you should use one and how to set it up (AKA proxies for dummies)
*coming soon* # Midgets rule the Market: Apple's kickass new mini-pc

---------------------------------------------------------
'Cell' architecture actually in existence and beta use... x86 is going DOWN!
---------------------------------------------------------
We've all heard of it, like a mysterious mystical force looming in the background, waiting to strike and destroy Intel's x86 dominance at a moment's notice...
...but will it ever be here?
Apperently, yes. IBM is currently testing betas of the chip, and Sony already has plans to include about 4 cells in the PlayStation 3!
If I may quote all our friends SlashDot...
"5 dual core Opterons directly connected via HyperTransport should be able to achieve a similar level of performance in stream processing - as a single Cell."
and the PS3 will have about 4 of these things, now think about that for a second...
I would write more, but I think for just this once, I'll just quote a couple things...

"Cell has the power and it will be cheap. But can it challenge the PC without software? The answer to this question would have been simple once, but PC market has changed over time and for a number of reasons Cell is now a threat:

The first reason is Linux. Linux has shown that alternative operating systems can break into the PC software market against Windows, the big difference with Linux though is that it is cross platform. If the software you need runs on linux, switching hardware platforms is no problem as much of the software will still run on different CPUs.

The second reason is cost, other platforms have often used expensive custom components and have been made in smaller numbers. This has put their cost above that of PCs, putting them at immediate disadvantage. Cell may be expensive initially but once Sony and Toshiba's fabs ramp up it will be manufactured in massive volumes forcing the prices down, the fact it's going into the PS3 and TVs is an obvious help for getting the massive volumes that will be required. IBM will also be making Cells and many companies use IBM's silicon process technologies, if truly vast numbers of Cells were required Samsung, Chartered, Infineon and even AMD could manufacture them (provided they had a license of course).

The third reason is power, the vast majority of PCs these don't need the power they provide, Cell will only accentuate this because it will be able to off load most of the intensive stuff to the APUs. What this means is that if you do need to run a specific piece of software you can emulate it. This would have been impossibly slow once but most PC CPUs are already more than enough and with today's advanced JIT based emulators you might not even notice the difference."

Today, in the OpnSrc/GPL community that is my brain.....

2005-01-12T06:44:00.000-05:00

OK Ok I know I said I wouldn't be posting for a while, but apperently, I lied.
The world of technological crap just keeps growing, and I need something to waste my time on.....

.::THIS ISSUE'S MAIN TOPICS::.
-------------------------------
# Solaris 10 released, OpnSrc Community taken by suprise
# Opera 7.54: The good and the bad.
# M$IE: The bad, the really bad, and the just plain nasty.
# OGG! The Ogg Vorbis/Theora codecs score a hit (with me, anyway)
*coming soon* # Midgets rule the Market: Apple releases a mini-pc

---------------------------------------------------------
Solaris 10 released, OpnSrc Community taken by suprise
---------------------------------------------------------
I know most of you have already heard all this, but as of not so long ago Sun announced that they were going to release Solaris 10 under the GPL. Now they have. Yes, this is old news to you all by now, but since I never bothered to report on it before I am now. I dont know about any of you, But I never saw that one coming. To me, Solaris has always been "the big one", the super-OS that kicks but is too expensive and hard to set up for most people to use. Hell, I had to trash it after only 2 weeks because although it was the most stable OS I've ever used, the x86 port of Solaris 9 was just too plain hard to deal with for someone whos grown accustomed to having millions of APT/YUM respsitories and sites like RPM.pbone.net at their bidding. I mean, I had to manually install GCC! How lame is that??? An OS without GCC preinstalled is like a bicycle without wheels!!!
Solaris 10 looks very... interesting. I think Sun finally decided to do something about that whole the-future-is-open-Linux-is-taking-over thing. They now offer a free download of something they call "Solaris Express". Kinda reminds me of the whole RHEE/Fedora Core split-up. Anyway, I'll post more on this once I get my grubby little hands on an extra burner and the 'express'/x86 ISOs...

---------------------------------------------------------
Opera 7.54: The good and the bad.
---------------------------------------------------------
Recently, I realesed that I'd never bothered to try the Opera rowser. Being the kind of person who just needs to know everything, (those who really know me know that to be like my purpose in life) I instantly stumbeled my way over to Opera.com to check it out.
My fisrt impresson of the website was kinda sticky when I realised that it was divided into a free and unFree products, but this impression wore off quickly when I saw that they had divided the downloads section into installers for Windoze, MacOS, FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux binaries, and even RPMs and DEBs! Now thats not something you see everyday in a non-open source project!
Anyway, I decided to install via RPM just because I was in no mood to go mucking around with tarballs at the moment.
Although the download was a little slow (this could have been because I was sapping off some un-encrypted .11B)The installation went perfectly (as in no annoying lost RPM dependencies) and in no time I had launched my new browser.
My first impression of the browser itself wasn't exactly nice either. It's little internal style window format brought back some particurally bad memories of Compuserve's browser, (urgh.......) and the free mode was actually serious about annoying you to buy the full version. However, soon enough I had gotten used to the rather funny tabbed/window arrangment and the little banner at the right corner that proudly proclaimed "But Opera today! And make this banner go away." stopped bothering me very much at all.
After using it for about an hour, I was already quite impressed and very suprised I hadn't bothered to look into it before. Opera features a pile of other included tools such as a rather good email client, an address book, an IRC client, and much more. One of my personal favorite fearures is it's ability to "mask" itself to appear to be Mozilla 1.3/6 or MSIE 6 insted of Opera to web sites that look at that kind of information.
Opera has left me quite impressed; I'm using it to post this article right now. However, I'm still keeping Firefox around. It's simplicity is quite appealing to someone such as myself...
OVERALL RATING: **** (4/5 stars)

---------------------------------------------------------
M$IE: The bad, the really bad, and the just plain ugly.
---------------------------------------------------------
Oh yeah sorry about that little issue with M$IE 6.0 and the sidebar... for some reason IE just wants to move the sidebar to the bottom insted of the side. Leave it to micro$oft to think of something like that. I try to keep my blog working flawlessly with all other major browsers, (Firefox 1.0, Mozilla 1.7.3, Opera 7.54, etc.) but due to the fact that I dont personally own a windoze box and dont intend to waste any money on one, I cant really fix it anytime soon.
Oh yeah- The same error occurs in Lynx and Elinks. Thats right, MSIE isnt any better that a CLI browser. How good does it get ;-)
Even if you really dont care, I would advise steering away from MSIE if you can. Yes, I know it came with Windows and it's "so easy to use" and all, but in reality not only is it outdated but also downright dangerous. I mean, even the US GOVT has warned against using it!Ok I know like it seems I;m warming up to a rant here, but I'd rather use my time for something more constructive, (#ping -f microsoft.com) so if your using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Check out this page, you might find it very interesting...

---------------------------------------------------------
OGG! The Ogg Vorbis/Theora codecs score a hit (with me, anyway)
---------------------------------------------------------
.ogg
Interesting suffix if you ask me.
Those who've been reading my blog for a while know that I've been rather... how shall I say this... shattered lately, and a while back I actually began listening to some music.
FC3 came with the completely GPL Helix Media Player installed, however I soon upgraded it to the more inclusive RealPlayer for mp3 playback.
.mp3
Another interesting suffix. You can probably see where I'm going with this by now...
*/OGG Vs. MP3\*
Anyway, after screwing with mp3s simply out of tradition, I realised that Konqueror's Ogg Vorbis CD encoder was actually working, so I decided to give it a try.
Wow. Thats all I have to say about this one. Major wow. Not only are Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora open source, fully GPL and sp on, but they also have better compresson rate (Vorbis has about a 14% higher compression rate than MP3) and actually sound exactly the same if not better! Now me, having limited disk space and a firey, zealous passion towards open souce, immidiatly converter all my MP3s into Ogg Vorbis and MPEG/4 videos into Ogg Theora.
Worked beautifully. Wow. Now we dont even have to tolerate closed source codecs. Cheers to XIPH for making it happen.
The simalerly Open Source Helix Media player plays .ogg files beautifully, as does RealPlayer, Totem, Xine, Mplayer, and a whole lot more. Some previously called 'MP3 players' now support Vorbis as well. If you want to try the OGG codec, just google it.
BTW: RealPlayer for UNIXishy OSz is basically nothing more than Helix with added support for the Real Audio/ Real Video, MP3, and MPEG-4 codecs.
And I mean, MP3, come on! 'Ogg Vorbis' kicks the shit out of 'MP3' anyday! A lot more fun to say too, also a lot of people dont know what the hell your talking about when you do :-D

PalmOne's Decline

2004-12-05T19:58:00.000-05:00

We all know them, we've all loved them, but now they're going down.

And no, I don't mean those pathetic 'pooket PeeCees' are winning, they're even worse.

PalmOne recently released their new Palm Tungsten T5, and even I have to admit it really isn't half bad. I mean, the poor thing's stuffed with 256 mb flash memory! 256 meg! On a Palm! Really people, isn't that just the slighest bit excessive?
The invention of Tablet PCs didn't initialy cause so many waves, the clunkey overpriced betas were little more use than an oversized drawing pad with a pen that kept runnning out of ink. However, the newer ones really arn't so bad.
Cheaper, thinner, and I've heard SuSE now supports them, the new tablets are taking over.

Sorry guys, but your little laptop/rolodex hybrid just doesn't cut it anymore.

Yes, PalmOne is doomed.
...But whatever happened to all our favorite infant PalmOS?
I thought the division of Palm, ink. signed the doom of both PalmOne and PalmSource...
BUT
Has anyone looked at PalmSource recently??? They're flourishing! Somehow they've managed to make the PalmOS a global standard.

AND LOOK AT THIS!!!

If your to lazy to click a simple link, basically what it says is that there will soon be a version of the PalmOS running on the Linux kernel!!!
Somehow, thay're trying to implement the PalmOS API on top of the Linux kernel and basic systems.
I really, REALLY like it.

^corny logo^

Nintendo DS

2004-11-22T20:48:00.000-05:00

Ok I've seen waaay to many ads for this thing to not say something about it...
Ninteno used to be the best........ but now they suck. Their main console system, the gamecube, is quite literally pathetic compared to Sony's Playstation, or M$'s Xbox. Nintendo's only last real successful project on the market is the gameboy. Recently, Sony decided to attack that market as well. They are, if I am not mistaken, creating something called the playstation portable. I only saw a couple of the original designs, but it would seem to smash the Gameboy AD-SP in every way possible. A larger screen, wireless, touchscreen and everything else that the Gameboy's needed.

Now, Nintendo saw this. They knew that a company like Sonycould, if well managed, comletely eliminate the gameboy from the market. So, they made a new system. To me it looks liek a piece of trash. They were so desperate to make a new system, that they gave it a new screen. That's right, two seperate screens. How are you gonna develop games for that without overloading the thing's tiny processor? The laptop-ripoff design looks bulky and just awkward. Although I don't know much about it, and have never really seen one yet, I have a string feeling that it's not gonna work.

FEDORA CORE 3 IS OUT!!!

2004-11-12T19:53:00.000-05:00

Fedora Core Release 3 is mow officialy out, code named 'Heidelberg' (FC1 was 'Yarrow', and FC2 was 'Tettnang'). It sports the brand new 2.6.9-1.667 kernel, Gnome 2.8, KDE 3.3, Firefox PR1, Thunderbird 0.8, GCC 3.4, Helix player 1.0.1.436 (Realplayer), SElinux (Security Enhanced linux- a project by the NSA to create a supremely secure linux kernel for government branches such as the NSA, FBI, CIA and army- for those who don't know), The Bluecurve style we've come to expect from RH, and a heck of a lot more. It's crammed to the top with new and useful packages, the full installation takes about 6.9GB worth of disk space!!!

They say a screenshot is worth a thousand words... and I happen to have a couple.

^Click to Enlarge^

Project Looking Glass

2004-11-05T19:01:00.000-05:00

OK I've been meaning to write something on PLG for a while, and just happpened to have some spare time, so yeah. Read.
Project Looking Glass is an attempt by all our favorite company Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com)to create a more usable, powerful, and just plain awesome window manager.
It's written mostly in Java (no suprises there...) and used OpenGL version 1.2 or greater. It's released under the GNU GPL, so there's no fus about copying or price issues. Luckily for me (me=Solaris n00b ^_^). they also are releasing it for Linux as well. The 'how-to' FAQ even tells how to install in under Fedora Core 2!!!
It allows for 3-D window management, full grphical acceleration, and a heck of lot more. I personaly believe it will also eventualy ship with Solaris 10 once that comes out. Little more of an incentive to stay away from Longhorn, (I've tried it... it sucks) and with ZFS and the stability of the genuine UNIX kernel, it looks like it's gonna be a success. Besides, believe it or not, Solaris 9 still ships with the ancient CDE (commen UNIX desktop enviroment) desktop system, which desperatly needs replacement
if you ask me, it looks awesome.

Source code, iloveyou & MyDoom

2004-10-27T19:36:00.000-04:00

Somehow (I won't tell you how...) I have recently aquired the source code of the iloveyou and MyDoom viruses.
Quite interesting, to say the least.

MyDoom is obviously the better one, it is written in C and is quite complex, bosting it's own libraries and quite a few modules.
iloveyou just takes advantage of Windoze' standard built-in Visual Basic interpritor.
That's right, iloveyou is written in Basic.

How sad does it get.

Another little irony I found in a couple of the sources was that the virus specifically avoids some keywords, such as UNIX, *BSD, linux, berkley, and other OpnSrc keywords.

// If you really want the source, just to analyze it and not to attack anyone with it, then ask me and I might just...
// ...not give it to you beacuse you're probably some wacked out script kiddie who wants to look cool.

New laptop!!!

2004-10-20T20:31:00.000-04:00

I finally got my new laptop!
Instead of any strange little commentary, I'll just cut to the stats:

# General Features (Just the more importuned stuff):
# Tri-boot: FreeBSD 5.2.1, MandrakeLinux 10, M$ Windoze Longhorn build 4053 (this is only here so I can use the real DDLs and other sysfiles in Wine under Linux/BSD for gaming... I've only really booted it 3 times and proud of it :-D)
//Revision: Now runs tri of Gentoo 2005.0, FreeBSD 5.3.x, Fedora Core 4 devel
# Pentium III 1.0 GHz processor (This thing is awesome, twice the speed of my old 2.7 GHz celeron)
# 512 MB RAM (What more could you want?)
# 30 GB Hard Drive (Enough for at least 3 OSs... hehehe...)
# Removable DVD-ROM drive
# Removable Floppy disk drive (Like I'm ever gonna use that thing...)
# ATI MACH64 integrated video with 7 MB memory
# Sound Blaster compatible integrated audio w/built-in speakers
# 15.0" TFT LCD Display with 1024 x 768 resolution
# 84-key Keyboard with TouchPad
# Integrated Ethernet controller
# Integrated 56K modem (There has got to be some use for this...)
# Lithium-Ion battery pack
# RJ-45 standard Ethernet jack
# Two PCMCIA type II slots (Perfect for an Orinco Wireless card)
# PS/2 port (I can't stand the touchpad)
# 15-pin standard VGA connector (Dual Moniters!)
# Infrared port (Clie sync, coolness factor)
# USB port (for everything else)

The model is Compaq E500, just in case anyone cares.

This thing is awesome. It speeds faster than any computer I've ever used- even when it's running Windows! And you should see the thing in Gentoo!
So far this is the best computer I've ever had by far (except maybe for my good old Performa 450). So far the only downside I've found to it is it's miserable battery life- 3.5 hours. Ok it's not that bad, I just would have expected more. Then again, this is my first notebook, so I guess I shouldnt judge that yet.

Darwin

2004-10-19T18:50:00.000-04:00

I finally got Darwin up and running. I chose to load the OpenDarwin distribution, version 7.2.1.
To say the last it's an interesting OS. It incorperates the Mach 3.0 kernel into a BSD like filesystem, and uses the X.org window server.
The boot screen is pretty much what all BSD fans are used to, then it opens up the latest version of X11 window server, then the Window Maker window manager.
As you all must know by now, Darwin is based on BSD, using the Mach 3.0 kernel, however Darwin reminded me more of Linux.
Support is low, and the thousands of precompiled packages I've grown used to having access to under Linux is nonexistant (with a few exceptions) and however futile-looking it may be without the Aqua GUI Apple slapped ontop of it for OS X, I believe Darwin has a bright and promising future.
And besides, with the support of a company like Apple behind you, how can you fail?

// You can't not like Hexley either

FC3 BETA 3 IS OUT!!!

2004-10-17T20:47:00.000-04:00

I was casualy browsing on slashdot one day when I stumbled apon this.
Fedora Core 3 beta 3 is out! I've never really been a fan of betas (expesialy of an OS), however I also read that beta 3 will be the last testing version, and the full FC3 is scheduled for release on November 1st!
Fedora Cora 3 looks awesome. I loved FC2, and only my bizzare curious nature (and an explosive hard drive) drew me away from it.
With the latest kernels, SElinux, the new X.org, KDE 3.3, and all the extas we've come to expect from Red Hat, this is starting to look niiice.
I can't wait for November ...for more reasons than one!

TI-89

2004-10-15T16:35:00.000-04:00

Ok everyone I am now officialy obsessed with my TI-89 Titanium.
It can understand 68k assembly, TI-BASIC (an interprited variation of BASIC) and C (with TIGCC), has a 12 MHz processor (MC68000 arch- remember the old Ataris and Apples?), 188k RAM, 2.5Mb Flash ROM, and only costs about 100$!
Moreso, it can be overclocked to around 17-20MHz!

If your half the nerd of me, the first thing you think is : "Hey 2.5mb! That's more than enough to store a new kernel!"
Well here your out of luck, Linux hasn't been ported to it...
Yet.
I've been thinking about hacking one of the uClinux kernels made for Atari/Apple 68020 into a 68000. Hey, it's not that much of a difference; [/famous last words] and it can't be that hard... [/famous last words]

// Another interesting mod for the TI I found was the IR link- My dream of beaming from a calculator has come true :-)

SkyOS...?

2004-10-08T20:21:00.000-04:00

Ok I was browsing Google for a BeOS LiveCD (that's right... I've gone from Linux to BSD to UNIX to Darwin and now BeOS & AIX... I really have issues don't I...) and found something... interesting.
SkyOS.
Not only is SkyOS quite stable and strong on the inside, but the GUI is one of the best I've seen since Aqua! Just look at the screenshots!
Apperently, Sky was founded in 1997 buy one man as a hobbiest OS, but then this one guy just didn't quit. Same dude developed it into what it is today. One heck of a hobby, if you ask me. I mean, this thing is from scratch, it isn't based on BSD, Linux, AIX, BeOS or anything of that sort.
Really people, this looks big.
My biggest suprise, however, was that I hadn't heard of Sky before now. It looks like one of the best OS since Linux, yet it has almost not publicity. I guess this is just my little attempt to give it some of the publicity I believe it well deserves.
Anyone who has any information concerning some ISOs (I couldn't find them) please tell me ASAP.

// Note: Sky is NOT a member of the *NIX family.
// And don't go complaining that I compared it to BeOS, BSD, Linux or UNIX. My blog, My rules. Get used to it.

DELL!!!

2004-10-08T19:23:00.000-04:00

Yup, you guessed it. Dell screwed up. Again.

"Dell Inc. is recalling about 2.9 million AC adapters nationwide_ 4.4 million worldwide_ used with notebook personal computers because they can overheat and cause a fire and electrical shock hazard, the company and the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Friday."

Now they don't just blow up your data, they blow up you too! How Pleasent!

// Check out the full article here.

Red Hat Picks Up Pieces of Netscap

2004-10-05T21:53:00.000-04:00

Well what do you know; two of my favorite companies just seem to have merged.
Red Hat decided to buy back Netscape Communications' Security Solutions unit from AOL for about 20 million.
Red Hat has made a number of bold moves recently, (the end of Red Hat Linux 9, the merger with the Fedora Project, etc.) and this is just one of them. the company is changing, and these deals seem to be pushing it on it's way. I believe this purchase was meant to aid their work on the upcoming Red Hat Enterprise AS 4, which just might turn many people back to RH. Any way you look at it, this was a good move for RH.
[Click here for the full story]

// Also, RH has announced the release of Fedora Core 3 beta 2, and RH Enterprise 4 beta 1!

MS-IE

2004-10-03T18:44:00.000-04:00

Ok recently I was in the mood to do another Anti-M$ post. I decided to work my topic around IE's problems wth compatibility, pop-ups, security, and just plain patheticness when compared to Mozilla's Firefox.
The I found this.

For once, I don't think I could have said it better. Great article; read it if you still use Internet Explorer (if you're not sure chances are you do) or if you just have have some spare time.

"Recently read that even Bill Gates own home systems had been squelched by various worms/spy-ware/etc, if he can't secure his OS, why would you think anyone else could do it?"

// ^Even if you're not a fan of open source, or just don't like Mozilla, you must admit they have some pretty slick icons ;-)

EvilEntity Linux

2004-09-28T22:32:00.000-04:00

I just thought this was entertaining enough to deserve it's own post. EvilEntity is kinda like Gentoo, a rouge distro, just on a lesser scale.
here's their Mission Statement:

"Many say "MS Windows has won and the Linux Desktop is dead!".
Now the Linux Desktop is UNDEAD and it has risen from its crypt in search of virgin blood. Mortal operating systems will cower before the beast that has been unleashed upon them.
Dismiss the weak and inferior, embrace the darkness and possess your box with EvilEntity!

Linux makes computers fun again. It brings back the control, freedom and enjoyment of the early years of computers, before teams of sales reps and mindless consumer drones controlled the industry. Linux puts computers back in the hands of the geeks. As Linux matures, many try to devolve it into that which we despise.
EvilEntity will not bend to the will of the Win-Idiots and their quest for bloated operating systems, un-intuitive environments and boring corporate desktops.

Undead will work tirelessly to provide the best OS we can.
Intuitive, unparalleled performance, filled with features, complete multimedia expirence, easy to install and use and the most fun the dark lord and his minions conceive.

Net profits from the sale of EvilEntity are intended to be used for socially conscious endeavors."

// EvilEntity linux is actually quite good too (2.6x kernel, Enlghtenment 16.7, the xgn package system, etc.) and is well worth a try.

This is REALLY cool...

2004-09-27T14:10:00.000-04:00

Hello All!
Have you ever looked at MacOS X and wished you could use it on your x86? OF COURSE YOU HAVE!!!
...AND NOW YOU CAN!!!
Someone on the OpenDarwin hackers support group found this project called PearPC (hahaha corny name hahahaha) that basically emulates the PPC architecture on any other arch. I think the description says it all:
"PearPC is an architecture-independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running most PowerPC operating systems."

Here's the description; well, just read it...

Features

* License: GPL
* Programming language: C++, C and (on x86 platforms) assembler
* Supported host platforms: POSIX-X11 (Linux, ...), Win32

The following operating systems were tested and run (to some extent) in PearPC (ie. as clients):

* Mandrake Linux 9.1 for PPC installer: Runs well
* Mandrake Linux 9.1 for PPC after installation: Hard to boot. Runs very well afterwards.
* Darwin for PPC: Runs well
* Mac OS X 10.3: Runs well with some caveats
* OpenBSD for PPC: Crashes while booting (accesses PCI in an unsupported way)
* NetBSD for PPC: Crashes while booting
* AIX for PPC: Some people ask about that. See FAQ.

PearPC emulates the following hardware:

* CPU GENERIC: Sort of G3, no altivec yet. A portable (but unported :-) CPU. Using this CPU, the client will run about 500 times slower than the host. It features a modest command-line debugger.
* CPU JITC-X86: Sort of G3, no altivec yet. A very fast CPU for x86 systems that translates PowerPC instructions into x86 instructions on-demand. By caching these translations, a lot of speed is gained. Using this CPU, the client will run about 15 times slower than the host. Only works on x86 hosts.
* PCI-Brige: A barebone PCI-Bridge, enough to work with.
* IDE-Controller: Sort of CMD646 with bus-mastering support. You can attach IDE-harddisk(s) and/or IDE-CDROM(s) by specifying files (or devices for UN*X) from your host machine.
* PIC: A programmable interrupt controller (kind of Heathrow).
* VIA-Cuda: With attached Mouse and Keyboard.
* Network Controller: Emulates a 3COM 3C90x or RealTek 8139 via hosts that support an ethernet tunnel.
* NVRAM: Capable of storing 8KiB non-volatile memory.
* USB: A placebo USB-hub. Sufficient to make the client think that it has USB support.
* PROM: Sort of OpenFirmware. It's ugly and contains a lot of hacks but it allows to boot Yaboot and BootX from HFS/HFS+ partitions.

// You can access PearPC here.

The Ultimate OS

2004-09-17T21:02:00.000-04:00

All you poor people who use Windows, this one's for you.

Red Hat vs. SuSE vs. Mandrake vs. FreeBSD vs. Darwin (MacOS X)

Coming soon: Revised, revisited version with FC4, SuSE9.3, MDK10.2/2006ALPHA, FreeBSD 5.3.x, Darwin 7.8.x, Gentoo 2005.1, Debian Sarge, Xandros, Slackware 10.1, Ubuntu and a whole lot more!

Red Hat

I view red Hat as the perfect OS for Linux newcomers. It combines ease of use with the strength and flexability of Linux.
Red Hat comes in two flavors; Fedora and Enterprise Edition.
Fedora is the free version, a completely GPL community based OS. Some (Ok a lot) of people are hesitant to try Fedora Core, as the entire GPL community was shaken by the cancelation of RH9, however I have used both and believe that RH standard edition never really died, it just was given a new name. Fedora is basically RH9 plus newer software, kernal, GUI, Window manager, etc.
FC is highly reccomended for any Linux newcomer (it maintained the ease of use from RH9) or anyone who's sick of RH9 but isn't ready to switch distributions.
Enterprise is the other RH9 derivative. Although I believe Fedora is completely worthy of business managment, I have also heard some very good things about Enterprise Edition. Also, RHEL is the best supported Linux OS out there.
Conclusion: Although many of RH's fans left with RH9, I believe RH is still running strong and should be looked at by linux newcomers and RH professionals alike.
The latest version of Fedora is Core 3, and the latest RHEL is 4.

SuSE

SuSE has always been the clear alternative to RH for the desktop and server alike. With they're recent purchase by Novell, SuSE may even begin to rival RH's support.
It's always been one of the more user-friendly distributions out there (We all love Geeko;) however, since it's recent purchase by Novell, the popular german distro has made a turn for the business side. Like RH, SuSE divided it's OS into mini editions, the workstation edition and the server edition.
Another aspect of SuSE is it's massive flexability. It is pre-loaded with support for nearly every accessory (graphics + sound cards, gigabit switches, etc.) support for tablets, 64-bit i386, SPARC, and almost everything else you can think of.
Although I will confess to only using it for less than a week, I still think its an awesome distro.
The latest version of SuSE Linux (all branches) is 9.3

MandrakeLinux

Mandrake was originally a branch off of Red Hat 6.x, however it has since become its complete own distribution.
Mandrakesoft markets four personal distrobutions of MDK 10.0; Discovery pack (basic), Powerpack (medium), Powerpack+ (highest version), and the Download (free) version. I downloaded and burnt the free edition for my evaluation.
The free version said it wouldn't have support for some modems (Like RTC and ADSL) or some video cards (like ATI and NVIDIA), however it worked just fine for both of my boxes. (2.7 GHz Celeron, 256 Mb ram, 80 gig 7200 rpm Maxtor Hard Drive, Intel motherboard, built in Ethernet, GPU and SPU)/(1.0 GHz PIII-M (Coppermine), 512 ram, 30 gig IBM Travelstar HD, Intel Ethernet, ATI Rage Mobility GPU, ESS Maestro IIE sound card, ORiNOCO classic gold wlan card, etc.)
Mandrake has, in my view, never really been that big in the Linux distro wars, however MDK 10 changed my mind completely.
As a Red Hat/Fedora Guru, my first impression was that it seemed almost exactly like FC2. A closer inspection revealed quite a few differences; such as a better update agent GUI. Dispite their similarities, FC2 and MDK10 are also different in many ways. FC is based on the concept of a completely free, very functional desktop OS, while MDK is based on choice. FC ships with the KDE, GNOME and xfce window managers, while MDK uses KDE, GNOME, WindowMaker, Enlightenment, BlackBox and IceWM. Mandy also has a better, cleaner, more revised update agent GUI (rpmdrake/urpmi) that dwarfs FC's up2date. The command line version (urpmi) however, kinda pales in comparison to RH's yum.
In conclusion; Red Hat fans will feel very at home in Mandrake; and it should be considered almost like an alternate FC. It also would be probably oe of the best starter Linux distros, as it has all kinds of fancy things that happen in the backround for you, ike automatic mounting of hard discs, floppy drives, CD drives, card readers, USB memory cards and so on. It also detects and configures a lot of your hardware by itself, insted of asking you to do it (it does this as a failsafe). Although it may be one of the easiest distros to use, this may also be a handicap to someone who used it first, as they wouldn't know what to do when thrown into FC, Gentoo, or any of the more traditional, manual distros. Still, it's done quite well and is one of the best distros to show to the win'dooze n00biez we're all haunted by.
Unfortunantly, this isnt exactly true anymore.
THis review was written after the evaluation of MDK10.0, and suddenly in 10.1 MDK just decided to suck. I dont know how, I dont know why, but practically everything good about it that I liked it for is just..... gone. Suddenly its slow, bloated, error-prone, and overated.
The newest version of MandrakeLinux (all branches) is 10.1.

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is actualy not Linux, but BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution); another UNIX-y derivative. It is, however, not at all uncharted waters for Linux users. The usability of BSD isn't exactly fabulous, but not that hard to figure out (just remember it isn't FC and you'll be fine.) Gentoo users (such as myself) will feel right at home in FBSD. Almost... too at home. [more on this later]
The installer is, well, very quirky and awkward (not buggy, just weird). Well, I think it is anyway.
FreeBSD's true strength, however, lies in it's speed. It's got one of the fastest boot speeds I've ever encountered!
One of FreeBSD's coolest featues is the package manager. It's knows as the 'ports' system. In a later revision I'll document this and how it operates completely, but for now just google that.
As I said before, Gentoo users will feel right at home. Mostly because Portage is just a rip off of the FBSD ports system.
Although I must admit my experiences and knowlage about FBSD is minimalistic, I would not reccomend FreeBSD to the average user. It is, however, one of the best Server OSs out there. (some would say the best.... I wouldn't argue.)
The latest version of FreeBSD is 5.3

Darwin (MacOS X)

Ok this is one of my personal favorites. A while ago (2001) Apple decided that it's litte child (Mac OS 9) wasn't doing too well in school so to speak, and abandoned it completely. To me this would sound quite drastic, but the result was so fabulous I would never argue with it. Basically, OS X was the brainchild of some Open Source enthusiast Apple employee who decided that the MacOS just didn't cut it.
So they trashed it.
And cloned one of the smarter kids.
That's right; OS X is really BSD.
Apple took the BSD filesystem, the Mach 3 kernal, the Aqua interface, and Poof! you have OS X. Thay successfully merged the power and speed of a server OS with the simpel usability and driver support of a home OS. This resulted in a beauty that's usability surpasses even that of Windows, power is right up there with Linux and BSD, and the sleek look of the Aqua interface. Beautiful.
Although OS X only runs on PPC, there is a version of it's Darwin core, called OpenDarwin, that has been ported to i386. I've used OS X and OD 7.2.1 (ix86), but never for that long, so I can't give so much of a review for this one. However, I do know that recently Apple has helped embed X11 into OS X, so it can now run most Linux programs. Anyone who thinks compatibility is an issue should take a little trip to a couple sites like linuxsoft.cz or rpm.pbone.net and then even try to tell me there are more free programs for winDoze.
The latest version of MacOS X is 10.3 (10.4 is still a beta), and the latest version of it's Darwin core is 7.2.

// Please don't attack my views on any of these reviews, I'm just posting what I believe.
// If you think I have made an incorrect statement, please comment and I will change it accordingly.

ZFS

2004-09-17T15:39:00.000-04:00

Well I think Sun's done it again. ZFS is supposed to make Solaris' old filesystem look like a Rolodex (I wonder what Windows' filesystem would look like?) and it's shipping with Solaris 10 on not only SPARC, but Intel as well.
It just keeps getting better doesn't it.

// You can check it out here
// Oh yeah, Sun is also letting a select few try the beta of Solaris 10
// Did you catch that part of Sun's website about 128-bit computing???

MacOS Gentoo

2004-09-15T14:04:00.000-04:00

Yup, you guessed it. Portage is now on OS X.

Go here.

The Solaris OS

2004-09-04T19:32:00.000-04:00

Recently I've been looking into a laptop. With school just around the bend and my horrific handwriting still at large, it seemed quite practical to have something at least capable of word processing around.

My requirements were quite demanding to say the least. it needed to have a PCIMCA slot for wireless connectivity (and/or an extra ethernet card), a fairly fast processor, a semi large hard drive capable of storing multiple OSs as I often do, and above all it needed to have a pricetag to less than 300$.
I initialy looked into some older P3 IBMs or G3 Apples with the intention of loading it with BSD, Linux or Darwin.

The I found something that made me change my mind completely.
I found out how to download UNIX free of charge.

I found an example on Sun's website where they loaded Solaris 9 onto an old 133 MHz laptop, and apperently it worked great.

I soon was looking into old 300MHz IBM P2s (which, thanks to Ebay, are avalible for under 100$) and a hard drve upgrade so I could dual boot the poor thing with FreeBSD and Gentoo.

Although Solaris isn't exactly made for wireless, I really don't care too much as I have routed ethernet jacks floating all around my house and an allowed ethernet network access to the school network.

Solaris 9 can be downloaded here.

// Interested in mobile 64-bit Solaris/Linux laptops?
// Take a look at Tadpole Computing.

Linux gaining Ground!

2004-09-03T17:55:00.000-04:00

From today's Newscan, "NewsScan" <newsscan@newsscan.com>

LINUX MAKING MAJOR INROADS IN BUSINESS
A new Yankee Group survey shows that 36% of businesses plan to have at least a few Linux PCs within the next two years and 5% expect to switch over completely. Twenty-one percent propose adding Linux servers to their predominantly Windows environment and 11% plan to move to a Linux-only server setup. "All of the firms would like to reduce the amount of upfront capital expenditure dollars they spend on expensive Windows and Unix software licenses," according to the report. "However, they also recognize that in certain instances, a wholesale or significant switch to Linux might reduce upfront costs but result in higher overall costs." One potential deterrent is the scarcity of Linux personnel, says the report: "The establishments that have or are seriously considering Linux bemoaned the present dearth and high cost of skilled Linux administrators, even as they praised the open-source operating system's ease of use." (San Francisco Chronicle 31 Aug 2004)

// Do you get it yet? Learn OpnSrc programming today, because The Future is Open!

Unix kit for Windows

2004-09-02T21:09:00.000-04:00

A while ago I saw an episode of techTV's The Screensavers where Leo LaPorte introduced a little utility he called "Unix kit for Windows." It was described as a little 6 megabyte batch file that opening would give you a linux prompt once opened on any windows computer.
It was listed to include:
arc arj bash bunzip2 bzip2 bzip2recover cat chmod cksum cp csplit cut dd df diff du file find fmt fold funzip grep gunzip gzip head join less ln ls md5sum mkdir more mv nano nl paste patch pico pr rm rmdir sed sort split stat tac tail tar touch tr tsort uniq unrar unzip uudecode uuencode vi wc wget zip zsh
I was a little skeptical, as this seemed a little too nice. I looked and after a little googling, found it. It really does work too! My only problem was (this is really sad) that I had exterminated my last copy of Windows a couple days ago, so I had to open the file in Wine. A Unix emulator running in a windows emulator under Linux. How sad can it get.
Anyway I would highly recomend this software to anyone who wants a unix prompt everywhere they go, without having to setup a telnet server.

Tiny Unix kit for Windows can be downloaded here.

Micro$oft...

2004-08-29T20:31:00.000-04:00

OK everyone, I've meant to do this for a looooooong time, so finally HERE IT IS!!
We've all done it. Microsoft verbal attacks are very common, even by those actual Windows users. Here I have attempted to compile a couple of the better ones I've heard.

Computers are like air conditioners, they just can't do their job with Windows open.

Windows 98: a 32 bit extension of a 16 bit filesystem for a 8 bit operating system built on a 4 bit processor by a two-bit company that can't stand one-bit of compitition.

Love is hate. Peace is war. Windows is stable.

Windows isn't unstable, it's just spontaneous.

I know where you wanted to go today, but I decided to stop here instead!
-MS Windows

Windows is not the answer, Windows is the question. Unix or "no" are the answers.

The software said "Install Windows 2000 or better.", so I installed Linux.

Micro$oft is popular because it caters to the computer iliterate. Would you want to read an illiterate man's favorite book too?
- Kloss Korban

The destcruction of Microsoft is not our goal, it will just be a side effect
- Linus Torvalds

Time is the fire in which you burn.
Migrate today.

Should you find yourself on the side of majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain

// Feel free to comment on this page if you think of (or find) any good ones to add
// or email me and I'll add them
// Whatever floats your boat.

You know you're a nerd when...

2004-08-20T00:14:00.000-04:00

You know you're a nerd when you call Mac/Intel bias people racist.
You know you're a nerd when your goal in life is becoming a borg.
You know you're a nerd when you NEVER miss a Star Trek episode and shout at the characters.
You know you're a nerd when you password-lock your microwave.
You know you're a nerd when one of yor favorite lines is; "Hey, you deserve it for using Windows!"
You know you're a nerd when you laugh at the lamers who's IQ is less than their Windows verson number.
You know you're a nerd when you worship a router.
You know you're a nerd when you've named your computers.
You know you're a nerd when you know what your calculator's proccessor speed is.
You know you're a nerd when you dream in binary
You know you're a nerd when you think modems are the only use for a phone line
You know you're a nerd when you make a "you know your a nerd when" thread at 2:20am
You know you're a nerd when you drink Java every morning and get a C++ on every test.
You know you're a nerd when your computer starts calling you that.
You know you're a nerd when you call your brain your processor.
You know you're a nerd when your favorite sport is Tetris.
You know you're a nerd when you argue with your computer.
You know you're a nerd when you don't remember how to use DOS.
You know you're a nerd when you spend more time on the Internet than you do sleeping.
You know you're a nerd when you get a new computer, take it out of the box, and you immediately remove the case.
You know you're a nerd when you do processes in the command line instead of X-Windows not because it is faster, but because it just confuses people.
You know you're a nerd when you tinker with computers at work all day,
and when you finally get off work, you rush home to tinker with your computer.
You know you're a nerd when you keep spare computer parts floating around the house.
You know you're a nerd when you try to sleep, and think: sleep(8 *3600); /* sleep for 8 hours /
You know you're a nerd when you know what BSD stands for
You know you're a nerd when you pick up the phone and start dialing an IP number ...

//Feel free to post a comment if you can think of anything else to add.

AMD Vs. IBM

2004-03-25T00:02:00.000-05:00

It seems that everyone is now all hyped up about AMD's new backwards compatible 64 bit processors, advertised as "the only windows-compatible 64 bit processor!" This might be a wonder, as no competition is found at all in AMD's rival, Intel. Intel's only server chip that even compares to the Athlon (the Itanium 2) is not only slower than the average 32 bit processor, but is also not compatible with any 32 bit applications (and is not available for anything but business use.) However wonderful and revolutionary Athlon may be it still has competition. What about the G5? It was put into production a while ago, and its dual 64 bit IBM processors can do anything that Athlon can do, sometimes even better. Is apple the victim of OS bias critics out there, or is it AMD's advertising techniques? Why is everyone flocking to 64 bit power now, and why is everyone choosing AMD over Apple?
Recently, Microsoft released the beta of a new 64 bit compatible OS, allowing the Itanium to run a decent, non Linux OS as well. This will definitely strengthen the average AMD buyer's choice, but Apple has been offering an optimized 64 bit version of Panther (their latest OS) to be shipped with every G5 since the beginning of the G5 shipment.
IBM has made no plans to use their server processors in any other brands' computers yet, while AMD is making deals left and right with big companies like Gateway and HP. IBM seems to not really want to compete in the desktop PC race, and focuses its power towards the business market, which it practically dominates with its powerful servers.
Clearly, unless it makes a last second comeback, Intel is out of the race. Good riddance, too. It's now IBM vs. AMD, if IBM is willing to fight.