Tag: Linux

Coming Home From Florida

On my way down to Florida I became a Song fan. On my way home, that feeling diminished.

My parents live 20 minutes from the airport so I thought leaving at 12:20 for a 3:05 flight would be fine… and it was. I had my doubts when we ran into bumper-to-bumper stop and go traffic in Lantana, two towns south of West Palm Beach.

After the traffic cleared, I took the new ramp directly from the highway into the airport. When I lived in West Palm 35 years ago this was a little airport where your bags were delivered to you outside the terminal. With all the tourist traffic, this airport is larger than what would conventionally be found in a market this size.

As you approach, a sign directs you to the red or blue terminal. Unfortunately, the signs are reversed! The first one ends with the words “all other airlines.” That’s strange.

An overly anxious skycap met our car at the curb and took my suitcase and golf bags. I carried my camera and computer into the building.

In this post 9/11 world, my carry on bags resemble the accessories counter at Circuit City. I have wires and adapters of all sorts. I also carry a laptop and digital camera. For some reason I usually escape the probing eye of the TSA. Not today.

After removing my sneakers and heading through the magnetometer, I glanced over to see the person running the X-ray machine saying something to the inspector at the end of the line. “Is this bag yours?” It was the computer bag.

My computer bag has lots of pockets, some zippered, others sealed with Velcro. He was going through every one. I offered up if he’d empty it, I’d be glad to put everything back. He looked at me with a scowl that could only be interpreted as, “Do you want to have to take your clothes off?” I took one step back and stared at the floor.

Finally he found his prey. He had been looking for a mini tripod, unidentifiable with X-ray. It was something I packed and never used.

The flight left from Gate C-1. Though that sounds convenient… and I guess it is… the first gate ends up thrusting lots of people who want to be on early, and don’t want to wait in a line, to move into the middle of the hall. That’s where everyone else is walking to the gate.

I should know. I was part of that throng.

Delta/Song uses a zone system. So your boarding pass has a designation of zone one through five. In was assigned row six on the plane and that meant zone two.

Our 757 boarded through a door somewhere around row 10. I turned left, toward the cockpit, while most people turned right.

I sat down and looked out the window. It’s good to leave when it’s gray and rainy. I also marveled at all the rolling stock airlines keep – mostly idle. I’ve never been to an airport that didn’t look like a used car lot for baggage carts, stubby tugs and flight stairs.

As the boarding progressed, a flight attendant on the PA system kept saying which side you could find seats A,B and C or D, E and F. She was right… except for those of us who had turned and walked toward the front!

What makes Song so much more enjoyable than a conventional flight is the satellite TV system. With 24 channels, there’s a lot to watch. The problems with the TV began as soon as it was turned on.

Before I get to the specifics, the system does have a few inherent faults. Song gives out earpieces that are so cheap, they literally tell you to take them home. They are the least comfortable things I have ever put in my ears.

Even with 24 channels, Song has coverage holes. They have NBC, but not ABC, CBS, PBS, or the other lesser over-the-air networks. I flew home with satellite TV during the Jets/Steelers NFL playoff game, but the game wasn’t available to me. NBC has no football.

As the satellite system came on, we were flying through a thick bank of clouds. Satellite TV suffers from rain fade and we were in the midst of clouds droplets. Reception problems were to be expected.

The picture would appear for a few seconds before tearing or distorting or just plain going to black. Sometimes an error message would pop up from the satellite receivers. Though the message buttons said to press for help or more info, and we had touch screens, they weren’t addressable from the seats, making them a source of frustration.

We cleared the clouds, but the TV system still didn’t lock in. The problems affected different channels differently – but affected them all.

After a while the flight attendant came on to tell us there was a continuing problem and she was going to reset the system. She did. It fixed nothing.

I tried to watch but it was tough to stay with a program when it would lock up. Digital lockup is worse that analog since there are no signs if things are getting better or worse.

This would be all I’d write about the TV system, except one more weird thing which happened just before the end of the flight.

I was doing something else, not paying attention to the screen, when it caught my eye. Text was scrolling across the seat back display. I was watching a computer reboot!

This did not happen with either of the two seats adjacent to me. I don’t know if there’s a computer for each display or individual computers for the different services you could be watching (there’s more than just TV to be seen).

Whatever it was, it was happening… and the computer was booting into Linux! I wish I knew which ‘flavor,’ though that scrolled by before I got my wits about me.

The rest of the flight was uneventful and I’d give Song a pass, but they did one thing at the airport that really upset me.

After around 10 minutes of waiting at the carousel, the buzzer buzzed, the carousel started moving and about a dozen bags came off. Then the carousel stopped.

There was no announcement, no excuse. We waited for another 20 minutes until the bags began to come out again.

I think I know what happened because it has happened to me before.

Airplanes don’t come and go, spread out over the day, but come and go in bunches. There were enough baggage handlers for all the flights, but not enough to keep up with the bunches. When it came time to make the decision: get an airplane out on time or get the passengers out on time – the plane won.

So, now I’m home. I’m rested. Later today I’m back to work.

As I write this, it’s snowing here in Connecticut. In Florida it will be in the upper 60s and low 70s this week. Reality never waits.

It Is Paradise

After a few days of eating buffets, you do fill up. You do need to slow down. That awakening came today.

Breakfast this morning was at a small coffee stand in the hotel. I had a bagel and cup of coffee.

This coffee stand, like every other food place in Las Vegas, features oversized portions. Imagine muffins, baked at a nuclear power plant. That’s what you get. You won’t find this anywhere else… or we’d all be waddling around.

Michael, Melissa and Max were at the pool, and I headed there. I haven’t had my shirt off in public in a really long time, but the whole pool area was so inviting. The air was warm. So was the water.

Max, Michael and I took the slide down into the pool a few times. It was really a lot of fun.

I’m starting to think this is the perfect climate. Though the temperature was north of 100 today, it was comfortable. The humidity was bone dry low. In fact, sitting at the pool I wondered what the advantage of Florida or the Caribbean was?

Of course Las Vegas does have winter and it does get chilly. But, for someone like me in Connecticut, this would be considered a mild winter. Florida, on the other hand, has virtually no winter. Maybe this climate would be better when retirement comes along.

My sister and brother-in-law, busy with work related things most of the time we’d been here, showed up at the pool to say goodbye. They were catching a flight back to Milwaukee. Talk about culture shock!

Michael and Melissa had a friend coming over around lunch time, so Michael and I got a table at an open air restaurant at the pool. The birds at this restaurant must feel like they’ve died and gone to heaven as they have run of all the leftovers until the tables are bussed. I’m sure there’s some health concern, but it was sweet and no one seemed to mind. It’s like the birds are part of the whole aura of the place.

Jacques, the friend, showed up and had lunch with Michael, Melissa and a fading Max. Jacques is a choreographer involved with the new Cirque du Soleil production that will open soon at the MGM Grand. My cousin Michael works with Jacques’ dance company, Diavolo Dance Theatre, in Los Angeles (their website is www.diavolo.org). Jacques is French and seemed very theatrical (in a good way) with long flowing hair. Jacques’ family had a lot to do with the view at the pool: his grandfather, a Parisian fashion designer, is credited with inventing the bikini.

When my folks joined us at the table, Jacques kissed my mom on both cheeks. Very continental. She swooned. He kissed her on the way out too.

Tonight, my plan is to play in a very pricey poker tournament. This will be the highest stakes I’ve ever played. I don’t think I would be doing it, except I’m up for the trip. A loss here will turn my net into a negative number – but an acceptable one.

So, while I play this, and Helaine plays elsewhere, Steffie, Ali and my parents will be at New York, New York seeing Rita Rudner.

Oh – one last thing which I do not want to forget. While I was walking through the casino earlier today I passed an area of new slot machines being installed. I stopped to look and see what was going on. These slots are really just sophisticated video games – often built on PC platforms.

As I looked, one machine was actually booting. I looked at the screen and saw some things I recognized. The slot machine was booting into Linux! I thought that was geeky cool.

Blogger’s note: I continue to add photos to the gallery for this trip. You can see them by clicking here. The whole Vegas trip has its own category, which means you can link to these stories specifically by clicking here or read about the 2003 Vegas trip here.

It Can’t Happen Here

Some Microsoft webservers have been infected with a strange virus that infects user’s computers. It’s really dastardly because this can happen on well known, well respected sites where you’d never expect trouble.. Even though the threat from this particular exploit is now virtually nil (the website which was to receive the purloined info has been closed), it will definitely be the first of many similar attacks.

It’s just too lucrative a move for hungry thieves to avoid!

Just in case you’re worried, you should know it can’t happen here. This is an Apache webserver running on a Linux PC. The exploit needs Microsoft IIS servers.

However, this just continues to point out how vulnerable Internet Explorer is. The virus is passed along to individuals through IE.

Last night I downloaded Foxfire, a browser from Mozillla which can replace Internet Explorer. I guess it’s time to make the switch… while I still can.

Visual Basic – Thanks Bill

Recently, I read online where Microsoft was giving away free copies of Visual Basic.Net. VB is a programming language for Windows computers. I think, though I don’t know, Microsoft is giving this away because its use on the Internet requires using a Microsoft powered web server The web server business is one place where Microsoft has been hurt by Linux – hurt badly.

Visual Basic .Net came on a set of CDROMs. This afternoon, before leaving for work, I decided to install them. Oh my God! My installation took close to 2 hours. I sat and watched as registry change after registry change and file after file was loaded onto my machine.

Finally, it was time to go to work – but the process wasn’t complete. Helaine finished it up (calling me as she read off the screen).

I think, based on what I read on the screen, I have just given up 3 gb of hard drive space for this.

But, if it works out, and if I can learn what I’ve been told is a pretty straightforward language, I’d like to write some Windows applications which manipulate weather data from the net.

I hope I haven’t bit off more than I can chew.

Blood and Guts Tech Support

Matt Scott, who I work with at the TV station, was having problems with his computer. It was running slowly and popping ads. It sounded like a typical adware/spyware/malware infestation. So, I offered to help and he took me up on it.

I brought it home and hooked it up, borrowing all the connections from my Linux machine. Almost immediately, it hung while calling a webpage. My suspicions seemed well founded.

Since I couldn’t operate on the web with a browser that was stuck, I burned a CD with Spybot, moved it to Matt’s machine and ran it. It found some cookies, and a few other minor annoyances, but nothing that would cause all this trouble.

My friend Peter Mokover (who has asked me to mention his name and put it in bold letters) suggested I clear the browser cache (which was set ridiculously high at 550 MB). Bingo. The browser opened perfectly, but the machine was still pretty slovenly.

I attempted to do a scan disk, but the computer kept writing to the hard disk – each time aborting the scan. I rebooted into ‘safe mode’ and tried again. There were a bunch of bad sectors – but again, nothing I hadn’t seen in the past. As long as I was here, I defragged the system and prepared to ‘declare’ virtual memory (as opposed to letting Windows 98 do it for you).

I have heard, and I believe, that contiguous virtual memory works better. He had the space, so why not.

As I was entering the system tab within control panel I noticed something that was very strange. The computer was reporting only 32 MB of RAM. I couldn’t believe HP would ship a Windows 98 PC with that little RAM, so I went online and looked. It should have had 64 MB. OK – we’re getting somewhere.

I opened up the machine and went to look at the 2-RAM sticks inside. If he only had 32 MB, I could throw some old memory I had (and which doesn’t work in any of my current machines) to boost it up. I took out the first stick – 256 MB. Uh oh. What’s up here? Obviously, it wasn’t being seen.

Back on the HP website, I noticed this model, HP Pavilion 8655-C, could only take 256 MB of RAM total, with no stick over 128 MB. Oops. That 256 MB stick, probably an ‘upgrade’ was taking up a socket and doing nothing.

I pulled both memory sticks and went to install 2 – 128 MB sticks. Oh my God! The memory was under the CDROM drives, squeezed where only part was partially visible and much was hidden. I had to snake my fingers through while balancing a small flashlight on some cables. I wasn’t able to reach far enough in to release the far side latch. I would hope it opened, as it should, when I attempted to insert the stick, then close when I applied pressure.

This was a whole lot easier said than done. The RAM didn’t want to properly seat. I must have worked on getting the first stick in for a half hour until I looked down and saw red. I had sliced into my knuckle. In fact, by the time I finished getting the RAM installed, I had 6 or 7 little cuts on my fingers and hand.

I’m not sure what HP was thinking when they put this machine on the shelf, but they certainly didn’t expect anyone to work on it. The computer must have been assembled from modules, meaning screws holding the CDROM drives were facing down, toward the motherboard, where I couldn’t get at them! If I could have moved the drives, the job would have been a snap.

Matt has picked up the machine and hopefully by now it’s back on the web and faster than ever. It’s just another case of a computer slowing with age – they all do. Luckily, it’s always curable.

Without The Web

I came home from work last night, turned on the computer, got my mail then went to change. By the time I returned to the PC, the Internet had disappeared. On the cable modem, bot the PC and power lights were on – the cable light was not.

It was nearly 1:00 AM, so I decided not to call Comcast. Who would have been around at that time to fix it? Surely it would be working by morning.

When Helaine got up, no Internet!

As it turns out, sometime around 10:00 AM service returned. But that’s not the point. Without the Internet, I was lost.

I wanted to blog. There was a weather display program I had discovered that I wanted to test on my Linux machine. I wanted to trade emails and read about the World Series of Poker on Usenet. I wanted to play poker.

There is a backup. I’m not even sure if it’s currently connected, but my router has the facility to connect to an external modem I have and (shudder) dial-in for my connection. I have become so spoiled that I put that option off.

I went downstairs and watched two episode of “The Screen Savers” I had recorded from G4TechTV. It’s only during the past week that TechTV shows have been available on my cable system. The shows were enjoyable, though a bit under produced and choppy. Some of the anchors were less than comfortable on-the-air.

Most of all, I missed Leo Laporte. When I had last seen this program, he had been hosting. He is, by far, the best tech host on television – a total natural.

It’s funny how much my late night enjoyment depends on having the Internet. It is a weakness. It is not necessarily wrong.

My Shopper’s Weakness

My wife watches QVC for entertainment. I’ve actually walked in and seen her watching a presentation of crucifixes. Considering we’re Jewish, that’s probably a purchase she won’t be making. But, it gives you an idea of how dedicated she is.

From time-to-time the UPS man pulls up to our front door and drops off something that caught her fancy. Most of the time, I think she watches because she enjoys looking – even when she’s not buying.

I think I’m the same way when it comes to electronics and computer items. I go to techbargains every day and scan the list to see if anyone’s giving anything away. Sometimes they are!

Within the past few weeks I have gotten a free (after rebate) copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator and am waiting for my ‘not-for-resale’ free copy of Visual Basic net – a programming language I’d like to learn.

When I’m really bored, I go to Amazon and look for books on tech subjects I want to pursue. It is amazing how many times I’ve seen a ‘new or used’ price to the right of Amazon’s, clicked the link, and found it’s a new book that’s been remaindered. Usually the price is a tiny fraction of what Amazon is selling the item for. Of course I wouldn’t buy it otherwise.

I look and lust after things I don’t need and won’t buy. I just like looking.

Today, two catalogs came in the mail. I will pour over both, and probably not buy a thing. The first is TigerDirect. Their catalog has computers and components like motherboards and hard drives (I’d like a new hard drive for my Linux machine, if the price would come down, and if it was really cheap… even though I’m nowhere near filling the current drives). I will look at this catalog and then look again… and probably again after that. I have bought at TigerDirect, and their stuff came quickly and was what was promised. I have read their rebates are v-e-r-y slow. I’m waiting for one now.

The second catalog came from DiscMakers. This is a company that duplicates and packages CDROMs and DVDs. In the past I have done some multimedia authoring. I would like to do more. I think there’s a great market in producing multimedia material on disk. It is a very powerful and misunderstood medium, which brings many of the benefits we expect from ‘true broadband’ today.

Considering prices begin in the hundreds of dollars range and only go up from there, I won’t be shopping at DiscMakers right now. But, I could see going to them later, because I’m sure sometime in the near future, I will come up with an idea that needs to be on disk.

In the meantime, window shopping online and in catalogs is fun.

Fixing My PC

It’s been nearly a week since my main computer died a horrible death. Upon close inspection, it was easy to see a diode had popped. Now, with a second motherboard on the kitchen table, it’s easy to do an a/b comparison.

That’s a pretty substantial diode that bought the farm (top left is the dead diode photo, next down is the diode on the new motherboard). The ceramic casing totally flew off, meaning the temperature got very hot in a very short period of time. Hopefully, whatever drove the diode to its demise was on the motherboard and not in some peripheral component which is still in the system.

I made a conscious decision to get the very same motherboard, and preserve the CPU, even though they are well below state of the art. My main concern was to get this PC up and running as soon as was possible and as close to its original configuration as I could.

I was surprised that, while this machine was down, I could do nearly everything I wanted to do on my Linux machine. One notable exception was the ability to spellcheck these blog entries. And, as soon as I’m done with this, I’m going back over the last few entries to see how poorly I’ve spelled.

This afternoon, as 2 turned to 3 and then 4, Helaine asked if I was worried about repairing the PC. She could see I was avoiding it. She was, as always, right. But, no matter what the outcome, it couldn’t be any deader than it was, so I began the surgery.

There’s not enough space upstairs in my office, so I carried the computer down to the kitchen table. I reached in the cupboard and pulled out two coffee cups. They would be used for screw storage, as I removed and then reinstalled motherboards. There’s nothing worse than not finding the screws you just removed – and still need.

As I removed the flat disk drive cables, I marked their assignment. Good move because there were four of them to go into four separate slots.

I cut some cable ties I had used to keep wires from flopping around inside the case. Steffie had graciously gone to Sears Hardware (a very sad store) to pick up some more, and had returned with a psychedelic assortment.

The fried motherboard itself was screwed into brass standoffs attached to the case. I removed the screws and pulled the board out. Other than the diode, I saw no obvious problems. There is the possibility I could have soldered another diode in place, saving the cost of the motherboard – but that just seemed too risky a proposition.

The new motherboard slid in perfectly. Most of the screw holes lined up… and the one that didn’t did after a little coercion.

I inserted the CPU from the first machine and fastened the Zalman heatsink. Then I attached all the cables. There were the 4 – hard drive cables, a floppy drive cable, power, fans, USB connectors and a half dozen small attachments for controls, like the panel lights, internal speaker and power switch.

When I pushed the power button, the computer sprang to life. It beeped – properly this time – and went though its boot process. I hit the “DEL” key to make some minor changes in the BIOS and then watched as Windows XP came up – silently.

In fact, there were a few problems on the first boot. They were simple, like audio cables in the wrong port plus backward USB and high drive light connectors. I fixed them all in an instant.

Then, I set about the process which brought the machine to its knees in the first place. I installed the cooling fan and a resistor to slow (and quiet) it down. The computer didn’t like the lower rate of spin, but I bypassed the protective circuitry and continued.

As far as I can tell, the computer is working like a champ. The CPU is running a little warmer than before – about 141&#176 versus 123&#176. But, those numbers are still world’s away from the ‘redline’.

And, though not silent, the computer is much more quiet. The noisiest component is now the fan on the power supply. Hmmm – I wonder if I can replace that?

Blogger’s note: This is the 500th entry in my blog.

My Fried Motherboard

I took a very close look at my Soyo motherboard tonight. I think I see the problem, and now know why my main computer died.

In the photo to your left, in the highlighted circle, is part of a diode. A diode is like a switch, allowing current to pass in one direction and not the other. That particular diode is ‘fried.’ It no longer goes to the pad on the motherboard where it used to be seated. So, now it passes current in neither direction!

I have checked on eBay and there is someone selling this particular motherboard. In fact, he has 10 of them – each for $40. I have written, asking if he’ll ship 2nd day or overnight.

Of course, once I get the motherboard, I’ll have to remove the old one and install the new. It is possible my problem is caused by something else and this fried diode is a symptom, not the cause. In that case, I’ll probably be out the $40 and still without my computer.

One last note. The lovely photo of the burned part was taken on my Fujifilm S602Z and then transferred to my Linux machine (I’m typing on it now). The photo post processing was done on Gimp V2.0, which is sort of like Photoshop – but not as good. And to me, certainly not as familiar to operate. Oh, it’s also free.

Silence of the Ram(s)

I love my little auxiliary computer. It’s the one that runs Mandrake Linux and sits next to my main (though less powerful) Windows XP machine.

It started life as a Pentium II 300, but thanks to a ridiculous mail order sale, it is now an Athlon XP 2400+. Of course changing the motherboard demanded a new power supply… and it really needed more memory… and there was this CDRW that was only $10 after rebate. You get the idea.

I’ve got Mandrake running nicely… well, nearly nicely. I might reinstall it, again. Anyway, I’ve got it running. And I do use the machine. But there is a continuing, nagging problem. When I turn it on, it’s like standing next to a 747 as the engines get run up!

I know what the problem is. Buying the motherboard, CPU and fan on a ‘deal’ meant the components were low end. For the internal CPU cooling fan, that meant very noisy.

I had heard about Zalman cooling solutions and how they were often nearly silent. I decided to try one. I think it’s interesting that Zalman sounds like an Eastern European name – since it’s a Korean company.

I read a lot and settled on the CNPS3100-Plus. It is a two stage cooler, with a pure copper heatsink shaped like a flower, and a fan. The fan, which isn’t mounted directly atop the heatsink as most are, comes with a “noiseless fan connector.” That’s a clever way of saying a cable with resistor to drop the fan’s voltage and speed.

I went to Google’s price comparison search engine and found the best deal. “Froogle” is a good idea, but is often confused when many items are listed together. It took me a while to find the right item and price. I ordered two. One for the auxiliary and one for the main computer.

For the past week, these two hermetically sealed “Quiet CPU Cooler” kits have sat in my office. Tonight, I finally installed the first.

I removed the original heatsink, a fan attached to a honeycomb of copper. Because it was held by tension, I used a screwdriver to stretch it a little more and pull it off the CPU socket’s pins. The kit came with a tube of thermal grease, which I spread over the area where the CPU and heatsink would touch. Then I replaced the original fan and heatsink with the copper flower. I hung the new fan from the screws that hold PCI cards on the motherboard.

When I fired the computer up the first time, it swung right into action. But, when I went to close the case and try again, the computer let out with a steady tone and shut itself down.

Modern motherboards monitor the fan that cools the CPU. Maybe this one was judging the slower fan as not sufficient? I readjusted the BIOS settings so it wouldn’t monitor the fan anymore. The computer booted right up.

Amazingly, most of the racket the PC had been producing was no longer there! There was still noise from the power supply fan and the new CPU fan – but it was worlds away from the racket I had heard before. I was able to heard the chatter of the disk drives as they accessed data. Earlier, that noise was masked.

Later tonight, or maybe tomorrow, I’ll install the second cooler on my main computer. So far, I’m very impressed by what I haven’t heard.

Mac Users… I’m So Embarrassed

I compose this blog on a variety of computers. Most of the time, the typing is done at home on one of a few Windows XP machines, using Internet Explorer. From time-to-time I will also compose on my Linux machine at home (or if it’s a really slow night, my Linux machine at work) using Mozilla as the browser. Most of the time, the blog looks exactly as I want it to look.

Without going into all the details (since I’m not sure I totally understand it), a blog like this is only possible because of CSS or cascading style sheets. I can define the look of the blog’s component parts and keep things uniform through a master style sheet. That’s why the column on the left looks as it does, the main blog body and headers look as they do, and how

I can put text into a bounded box with mono spaced type by adding a few characters

I don’t own a Mac and never use Macs. I had no idea what this blog looked like on a Mac. Now I do, and I’m not happy. You can take a look yourself if you really want! That capture was sent to me by Michael Dreimiller.

I had somehow left out one tiny little command. It was a command that deactivated big type. Without it, every once in a while, big type would appear where I didn’t want it.

My Windows browser could care less. Unfortunately Internet Explorer really doesn’t follow the exact CSS protocol (even though it accounts for the vast majority of web browsers). So I was short changing Mac owners.

The fix took about 10 seconds. I’m still not sure if everything else is Kosher. For that, I will run the rest of the site through a ‘validator’ later tonight and see what changes are necessary. Though I started with a perfectly valid style sheet, I have modified it mercilessly over the months. Who knows what evil I have done.

Anyway, if you’re a Mac user, my profuse apologies. Feel free to reread whatever looked awful earlier. Everything should be fine now – I hope.

Reading Slashdot

I like to read Slashdot. It’s one of my top two websites.

For the uninitiated, slashdot.org (no www necessary – thanks) is where geeks go for geeky news. If someone has built a monorail in their backyard, perfected stovetop fusion, or said anything good about Linux (or bad about Microsoft), it can be found on Slashdot – “News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.”

There are no Slashdot reporters. This is a site that aggregates from other sites, much as Matt Drudge does. Everything that’s posted is submitted by one of the zillions of readers.

Because of the site’s dedicated readers, smaller sites that get mentioned get overloaded with the aptly named “Slashdot effect.” It is funny to see an interesting post and then note comments, only moments later, proclaiming the linked site as unreachable!

I like reading Slashdot, and I like submitting articles. It’s good to help steer the nerd news agenda.. It’s also a good way to get this website a little free publicity, as they list the URL or email address of those who submit stories.

I’m sure my Slashdot posts had something to do with my rise in the Google rankings. Slashdot is a 9 or 10 in Google’s page rankings. So being mentioned there is very important.

If you’re interested in what interests me, here’s my list of Slashdot submissions – some accepted, some rejected. You’ll notice there’s one pending, a story about burning audio CD’s at concerts.

2004-05-03 17:02:03 Take Home The Concert on CD (articles,media) (pending)

2004-04-28 18:00:25 Sweet News for Open Office Suite (articles,software) (rejected)

2004-04-28 07:34:19 Outsourcing Doesn’t Always Pay (articles,tech) (rejected)

2004-04-25 18:03:14 Linux/Unix computers hacking target (articles,linux) (rejected)

2004-04-06 00:44:51 My personal Linux frustration (askslashdot,linux)(rejected)

2004-03-01 05:06:14 Fighting Piracy is Bad for Business – Honest! (articles,media) (rejected)

2004-02-23 03:38:55 How Geeks REALLY Use High School Gyms! (articles,tech) (rejected)

2004-02-15 02:15:35 I’m Watching Those Who Watch Me (articles,internet) (rejected)

2004-02-08 22:39:48 Microsoft search (askslashdot,microsoft) (rejected)

2004-01-19 23:08:31 Commercials come to the net (after this word) (articles,media) (accepted)

2003-12-06 23:09:58 Perfect Weather on the Net (science,science) (accepted)

2003-11-23 20:27:55 Synthesized Singers (articles,music) (accepted)

2003-11-19 22:37:35 Bill Gates and the Nightclub Video (articles,windows) (rejected)

2003-11-03 01:58:19 Is this the future of TV? (developers,tv) (rejected)

2003-10-29 08:10:39 Fire photos – amateurs as the new chroniclers (articles,media) (rejected)

2003-10-24 07:17:56 Here Comes the Sun(spots) – they’re huge (radio,science) (rejected)

2003-10-24 04:37:54 AOL tweaking users computers… and not telling (articles,spam) (accepted)

2003-10-02 06:41:07 Experience one hour in only thirty minutes (articles,games) (accepted)

2003-09-25 03:12:13 Do geeks really need planes to fly? (articles,hardware) (rejected)

2003-08-20 18:38:39 If you know… how can you stop it? (askslashdot,tech) (rejected)

Blogger’s note: McD points out, all my accepted Slashdot submissions can actually be seen in context by clicking here.

The Penguin And I Are Speaking Again

With an international crew of geeks at the ready (they were working on video drivers before I got stated) I have finally got my Linux machine up and running while looking and sounding good.

It has been a long and arduous task – and even today it reverted to some of its old habits; losing its Internet connection and sound functions.

The benchmark I had been running, “glxgears”, has gone from 130 fps to over 300 fps. When I switched to fewer colors, though still more than I can discern, the speed went to 600+ fps.

I have run a few screensavers and a ridiculous little game to stress the video system, and the computer has responded perfectly.

Now, what to do with the computer? It sits next to this perfectly competent Windows XP machine which can already do most everything.

I will be looking for some modeling and animation software to run. The Linux machine is the perfect testbed because I can dedicate the processor and not have to worry about bumping other things like mail or web browsing.

Still, the most important thing is, it’s running. I’m just not sure it’s currently, or permanently, stable.

More Penguin Grief

I have now reloaded Mandrake Community Linux onto the second PC. It has been named – all computers have a name – Bullwinkle. This one I’m typing on will become Rocky. Later there will be a Boris, Natasha, Peabody… you get the idea.

The installation went easily (after all these installs, I should know how it’s done). Unfortunately, after the CD’s were on the computer a new ‘evil’ reared its ugly head.

The Mandrake people had decided to change the directory structure of their mirrors (mirrors are other computers that carry files in exactly the same way as the mater server). This killed all the hard coded directions to specific files!

I had been working for a few days trying to install video drivers. Now, files that were crucial to the process were unavailable. I kept going back to Google and the Mandrake site and then finally, I found a glint of hope. It wasn’t the exact answer, but enough of a hint that I was able to find the files and move them into my machine.

Are they correct? I’m not sure. The method I used was ad libbed and a little unorthodox.

Meanwhile, an hour and 15 minutes ago I started the process of preparing the new video driver. For that entire time I have been watching text and random characters fly across the screen on Bullwinkle. There’s an admonition from the developer that this step would take a long time. That was an understatement.

Hopefully over the next few days I’ll get this puppy humming. Hopefully.

I Killed the Penguin

Last night, I was looking at this computer, somewhat satisfied in how I had configured it. It was working pretty well – though I still haven’t finished optimizing the video system.

I had read about Gimp 2.0, a new version of an old PhotoShop-like program, and decided to try it out. Often with Linux there are specific packages put together to suit individual distributions – for instance Mandrake Community 10 on this PC. But, there’s no package for me, yet.

I was about to quit my pursuit when I read this on the Gimp site:

If you cannot find a pre-compiled package of GIMP 2.0 for your system, you can build and install the GIMP from the source code. This is not that hard, so don’t be afraid and give it a try.

Who wrote that? Where is he? How can I break his neck?

I attempted to install package after package, each failing in its own individual way, but pointing to a pre-existing condition that could be corrected which would fix everything. And, of course, each time I fixed one thing, it revealed another.

Finally, it got to the point where a certain installation of one system was holding up the entire show. I would mention what that system is, but I am too embarrassed to mention it in front of the Linux aware. Let’s just say I thought it would be a good idea to uninstall it and then immediately reinstall it to fix the problem.

Boom!

Without thinking I had gutted my system. Some of it worked, but most did not – including the easy ability to recover the missing pieces. I was distressed.

I went to bed and told Helaine I had a fight with the penguin… and though he won, I had mortally wounded him.

This morning, I totally reinstalled Mandrake Community 10. In the meantime, some of my ability to update and correct this installation has been removed as Mandrake changed their directory structure in midstream!

I am older and wiser and wary of the penguin.