Diary of a Wolfeman

Yesterday, having gotten almost everything else re-configured the way I want it, I went after getting the sound to work on my Slackware install again. Unfortunately, everything went kerplooie on me to the point it wouldn’t even boot anymore, and I was once again faced with a re-install.

Faced with the prospect of “gee, what won’t work this time?”, I decided to give SuSE 9.2 Pro a try on a real machine. (The last test was on a laptop). My roomie told me of this wonderful thing called apt4rpm, a port of the Debian apt-get tool, which should alleviate the problems inherent in an rpm distro. With that in mind, I went for it.

The nice thing about commercial distros like SuSE is their hardware-detection – I was able to set up basic 3D support during the install, and Sax2 correctly set my screen dimensions to 1280×1040 without any serious tweaking. Again, sound worked on the first try, with the exception of many of the multimedia apps being crippled due to SuSE’s worries about copyright.

The major wrinkle came in trying to set up apt4rpm. In the SuSE version, the security feature that checks the GPG keys of the packages before download is enabled by default. A handy security idea yes, but having it on by default means you can’t install the keys because the keys are unknown! It took the roomie and I some searching to figure out how to turn it off, and once we did things actually worked. Now, to install new software I can either use a command-line version or the Synaptics Package Manager GUI to simply select the software I want installed. The program will automatically install any necessary dependencies, and off I go.

The odd thing about SuSE is that they do not include Koffice in the main grouping. I prefer Koffice over OpenOffice.Org because it runs leaner, and all my email settings and website membership logins are stored in a kspread file, which I could not read in OO.o. Thanks to apt4rpm, though, I simply had to select the Koffice package group and voila! Now I can feed my email addiction :)

*Update: okay, maybe not so voila: I’ll need to upgrade KDE before I can install the current version of Koffice. I think I’ll ghost an image before I do that…

I’ll let you know in a few days how things turn out, but for right now, I am happy with SuSE again. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Y’know, Arch Linux is leaning towards a new release, and they have the pacman thing…

The current poll on slashdot asks “Preferred Title: King, Emperor, Shogun, President, Prime Minister, Kwisatch Haderach?” The two prevailing answers are Emperor and Kwisatch Haderach. One lost soul asked “What about good ol’ Democracy?”

I’ve posted my response here, because any response on a /. would sink into obscurity. I post it here, it starts out in obscurity, so can only get better :)

Me, I chose Emperor. Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, not you specifically, unless you happen to be an older version of Windows.

This article at the Washington Post goes into a survey that shows a rather scary percentage of computers today are still running Windows 95, 98 and Millenium.

Well, duh, I could have told you that.

While the big boys of business may have the budget to upgrade all of their systems to XP, most of your average businesses either don’t have the money or don’t have the pressing desire to do so. They aren’t worried about security or new features – the software they are running is old too, and runs just fine on their older systems.

Of the companies I have done work for this year, the ones that have upgraded anything have done so for one of two reasons: their software went obsolete or their hardware gave out. Anything that is still working, is well, still working and therefore does not need to be fixed.

Some of these might have migrated to XP for the better security, if it wasn’t for the fact that there is no way to run it on their older hardware. $1000 for 7 new licenses they could have done, but not $7000 for new computers.

Some have done partial upgrades by accident – they needed to buy a new computer for expanded staff, and were unable to get an older OS. Most times, they just have to make some minor tweaks to get the old software working on XP. A medical office that calls us has recently had to scrap all of their computers, though, because the software they use has finally been axed, and the new solution won’t work on less than XP.

For the home user, there’s no need to upgrade until it breaks or they get new toys that won’t play nice. (A customer who ended up buying a new computer to use with his new iPod comes to mind.) Avid gamers spend the dough on hot hardware, but solitaire and tetris players chug right along. I still hear alot of “What do you mean it won’t work now – it’s only 5 years old!”

Imagine their expressions when I tell them about Moore’s Law and what it means about hardware obsolescence. These are the same folks who buy a car and drive it for 15 years. Then I have to tell them it will cost them $700 to use the iPod they got from their kid for Christmas.

:: how jedi are you? ::

	I’m Mace Windu, which Jedi Knight are you???
Take the Jedi Personality Quiz at MHoNiP

2 out of 2 inane quizes can’t be wrong! (Well, except for the purple lightsaber bit – mine would be the blue-white of a lightning strike on the surface, and as black as the Emperor’s heart at the core. Of course I’m a geek – weren’t you here last week?)

Zombie Survival Quiz at OK Cupid

Armed and Dangerous
Congratulations! You scored 83%!

You made it out, alive and well supplied. You probably even kept most
of your party alive too. You know what to look for, what to take, and
when to just run. You even feel a strange inkling to go back. If you
did, you’d probably do just fine.

If you haven’t already seen it, go rent Shaun of The Dead. Do it now.

I told you when I wrote the first post on this topic that I was knee-jerking, and I was right.

Posted earlier today was a response from the folks at AOL, claiming that the section of the TOS that was quoted in the Slashdot article referred, in fact, to their bulletin boards and forums, and that they did not monitor the Instant Messaging conversations.

This brings things a little more into perspective. Still, I am glad to be quit of any and all things AOL. I created the account originally to converse with one person, who also uses Y!Messenger, so there is no need to keep my AIM account active.

Still, there is a good bit to learn about this: if you plan on making money from an idea, be very careful who you tell it to and where you tell them. For the price of an envelope and postage, you can irrefutably stake your claim to any original work. Write it down on paper, stuff it in an envelope, and mail it to yourself. The cancelled postage will have a date stamp you can use as proof of prior art in court (provided the seal is intact until you get it to court).

For those truly worried, most banks offer free or nearly-free Notary service. Once again, you write everything down and take it to your bank to have a Notary witness and stamp the work. Voila, almost as good as a patent.

For the rest of us out there, it pays to remember something I read in a David Eddings book:

“No crime is complete until you’ve tidied up.”

Today I ran head first (yet again) into a cliche.

I delivered a computer to a customer. Now, this customer is obviously an intelligent man – he has built his business up from nothing, and is doing well. Phone calls for new customers were coming in as I worked, and I could tell he knew his business.

When it came to the computer, though, the man was not only completely ignorant of basic operations, he had no desire to learn how to use this most powerful tool. A tool that could save him countless hours in handling the mundane aspects of running a business, yet he could barely (with my direction) check his email.

On the one hand, I find it abyssmally sad that this man of means and intelligence had no desire whatsoever to learn how to use the tools at hand to make his life easier. Stuck in his ways, he will spend much time needlessly doing things by pen and paper that could be automated, thus granting him time to better his business or enjoy the fruits of his labor.

On the other hand, I know I’ll be back in a matter of weeks when he runs into problems, and he’ll be paying me to fix them.

Last Friday night, I ran an upgrade process on my main slack box, and finished it up Saturday morning only to find that I had somehow broken KDE. Unfortunately, it was beyond repair to the point I had to format and re-install.

Thankfully, I still had the latest cd’s from when I did the laptop, so no sweat, right?

Wrong-o.
For some damn stupid reason, it completely failed to see my network card, and no amount of pounding on it got any results. Ok, fine: replace the card. Still no go.
Fuck.
I don’t know what actually did the trick, but a few hours later I set the damn thing for a static IP, which did not work. But, when I stopped the process again to change it back to DHCP, it somehow woke up and has been working fine.

*Blink*

I have it mostly restored now to what I wanted originally, with the exception of two things: I still need to re-do the ATI AGP drivers, and now I have a sound issue. It plays sounds like MP3’s and other files just fine, except in the sound notifications section. (The little bleeps and whatnot that are supposed to accompany window minimizing and such.) They work under the root login, but not the user login.

*Blink*

This probably has something to do with how I restored my home directory, which amounted to me copying it en masse from a fat32 drive I had archived it to. Some little config file hiding out of sight. Now I just have to track the bitch down…

I love Linux, I really do – except for these little damn annoyances.

In a wake-up call for the IM generation, Slashdot reports on the new Terms of Service for AOL’s Instant Messenger service, AIM. To quote from the new document:

‘…by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy.’

Well now. Isn’t that special.

From the Slashdot forum discussing this topic, I have selected two posts that say most of it:

New Terms in A Nutshell All your base are belong to us

-And-

UUEncode Windows and send it to yourself over AIM.
Let Microsoft and AOL club each other to death :-)

Lovely thought, eh?

In any case, in moment of typical panic reaction to the reminder that AOL is truly the Root of All Evil, I have signed up for a Jabber account and deleted my AIM account. I stll have the Yahoo! account as well, if you don’t want to try Jabber.

Incidentally, I chose Jabber due to it’s open-source nature, and the fact that both gaim and kopete chat clients support it. I can now be reached at thecyberwolfe(at)jabber.org or thecyberwolfe on Ymessenger.

MSN Messenger, of course, is not an option no matter what program I use. I just can’t go there.

Okay, I think I’ve managed to hack apart this theme to something I like. A link to the original author’s site is at the bottom of the page and here.

What I did was take the original Devenir-en-Gris theme’s layout, then painted all the .png’s black, followed by color-tweaking of the headers. I also lost all the lowercase text transforms.

There may be further color adjustments coming, but I am satisfied for now. Not bad for a guy who barely codes html, eh?

Graumagus over at Frizzen Sparks says:

On your blog (or in my comments if you are blogless) pick five really expensive toys you’d like to have that you really have no legitimate reason to get (other than the most legitimate of all reasons, that being that you just want it!)
Remember: Money is no object. My only rule is that it has to be something you could actually buy (or have built for you) legally. No “I’d have my own F-22!” stuff.

Well, here’s my Top Five of Toys I Have No Business Having:

1) An AV-4.
Okay, this hasn’t actually been built yet, but I could probably manage it. Take one large van or bread truck, then bolt the engines from a Harrier jump jet on it. Why? Because I keep getting sent into Beaverton, a land where they have no respect whatsoever for the ideas of decent road planning and traffic control. Sure, it will have all the aerodynamic properties of a brick, but with that kind of thrust-to-weight ratio, who cares? Just remember to strap in before you hit the Big Red Button.

Hey, if Burt can build SpaceShip One, I can build this.

2) Alienware Area 51m 7700 with all the options cranked to maximum: 3GHz P4 proc, 2 gigs of RAM, Creative laptop audio, dual-layer DVD+RW, extra battery, wireless logitech joystick, bells, whistles, and a kitchen sink logo. Somewhere around $4300 as configured.

Yes, boys and girls, I am a geek.

3) Ok, so the AV-4 is going to be difficult to get around in – I’d better get something with wheels to go with it. The car would be custom-made to my specs, based on a Viper rolling chassis and drivetrain, but built to seat 4 comfortably for distances. Black, of course.

4) The Weapopns of Destruction category: a pair of Sig-Sauer P226 9mm automatics. The Barrett .50 Grau listed is nice, but I like to be a little more up-close and personal than he does. Besides, you can’t carry that BMG around, and I can’t see anything at that kind of range.

5) The Weapons of Annoyance category: I’ll steal from Grau and list the paintball rotary cannon – and then strap it to the car’s trunk :)

Go ahead and tailgate me while flashing your DOC-damned ultra-halogen brights in my mirror, you SUV-driving ass-hat. I dare ya.