J_K9 @ Linux

Linux and Windows: Can They Coexist In Harmony?

Linux users are well aware of the complexities associated with multi-platform environments, particularly in cases where one tries to connect a Microsoft product to a Linux distribution or service in one way or another. Windows has no native filesystem drivers for anything other than FAT16/32 and NTFS - that is, Linux’s main filesystems (ext3, ReiserFS, and ext2 to a certain extent) are not recognised by Windows, so third party drivers have to be used to access Linux partitions from Windows. This is just one example of how difficult Microsoft have made it to use Linux on the same system for the use, or even as another platform on the network.

However, Microsoft and Novell (the company which owns the rights to and develops SUSE Linux - one of the most prominent Linux enterprises, in fact, for those of you who may never have heard of them) appear to have been collaborating over the past few months, and have released a joint letter proposing the end of Windows-Linux warfare as we know it.

Continue reading Linux and Windows: Can They Coexist In Harmony?…

The Upgrade From Hell

When I had K2 looking just how I wanted it, I backup up the SQL database, backed up the Wordpress files, disabled all my plugins and hit the “Upgrade to Wordpress 2.0.3″ button on my webserver’s Fantastico page. Fantastico is an auto-installer, and the great guys at BlueHost try to keep it as up to date as possible, so that we’re installing or upgrading to the latest software. Wordpress 2.0.4 came out a month ago, but they haven’t got to that yet - not a problem, I’ll just upgrade to it when it is added to Fantastico.

Then I visited my site - oh no, the old K2 theme (for the 1.5.x versions of Wordpress) is still active, and debug messages are being shown at the top of every post. Rats. Not a problem - I’ll delete K2, and replace it with the newer version, which I have customized (check the “just how I wanted it” link above). I went to my server’s administration pages and opened up the File Manager (BlueHost don’t allow SSH access to the (virtual) server unless you send them a photo of yourself by fax, which is quite silly in my opinion), and tried to delete the K2 folder. That didn’t work.. Oh, it’s in use - fair enough. As I had been working on the other, newer version of K2 on another installation of Wordpress on my website (appropriately called “testblog“), I just copied the folder to the root directory, renamed it to “k2s”, and then put it in the same folder as the old K2.

I then came to this blog’s admin page and switched the theme to the new K2. I then went back to File Manager, deleted the old K2, and renamed the new one to “k2″. Oops, bad idea. I went to this blog’s homepage and was greeted by a white page with a single MySQL error. Oh CRAP.

I couldn’t change the theme back, as the admin panel wasn’t working (and I had deleted the theme anyway). So, I reopened the File Manager window and renamed “k2″ to “k2s”. I then went to the Wordpress theme site, downloaded the first one I saw (Almost Spring), uploaded it here, and went to this blog’s admin page. It was working… Excellent. The K2 theme I had copied was broken. There goes all my hard work. *sigh*

I activated the Almost Spring theme, and that is the beautiful thing you’re looking at now Hehe.

I then deleted the K2 theme, and uploaded a freshly downloaded (and untouched) version of it. I unpacked it, and switched to it from the blog’s admin page. I’m still getting the old header image… Err,, what? How is that possible?

It looks like the first one was not deleted properly. So, off I go to contact BlueHost’s support team to ask them to erase it. Then, I’ll upload K2, and customize it all over again

I can’t help but laugh at this. Join in the fun

If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines…

I came across this thread via TAZForum, and I just had to share it!

Read on to view this hilarious masterpiece.

Continue reading If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines……

Wordpress Upgrade

I’m customizing a Wordpress 2.0 theme called K2. When I’ve got it looking purrty, I’ll upload it to this blog’s themes directory, upgrade the blog to Wordpress 2.0.3 using Fantastico (I know 2.0.4 is out, but it has not been added to Fantastico yet), and update all my plugins!

This should be one heck of a ride - it’ll hopefully all be ready by noon tomorrow (today) - stay tuned!

Windows, Windows, Windows…

My Linksys WAG54G-UK has been going strong for about a year, possibly a bit less - it is a good wireless router (with an inbuilt ADSL modem), and while I had many problems with the firmware it came with, it worked perfectly after installing the latest firmware.

However, my trusty companion has finally conked out.
My desktop uses a Linksys WMP54G for its wireless connectivity, but I have yet to set up the card’s driver on my installation of Ubuntu 6.06.1 (amd64 version).

But, there is still some hope - according to this article, I can get my card working using Linuxant’s driver. It’s not free, but I can sign up for a short trial and download the driver while that lasts! Ah, Linuxant saves the day (once again).

Anyway, the driver is not what my rant is about. In fact, I’m quite glad I’ve found a way to get my WMP54G working on Linux. Now, I would just download the Linuxant driver from Ubuntu on my desktop by connecting to my router via an ethernet cable (cat5), but it seems that my router (see above) has decided to shut off its ethernet ports. That’s right - my router is refusing to let me connect via ethernet! Just kidding; the damn thing is broken. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but no matter what computer I plug into the router, it just doesn’t work.

So here I am, working on my laptop, on Windows. I also have Ubuntu on this laptop, and although it recognises my Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG (which works using the excellent ipw2200 driver), I have attempted and failed to connect it to my WPA-encrypted WLAN. That’s not because I can’t - it’s because I’m lazy, have not installed network-manager yet, and it appears that the wpa_supplicant documentation is fairly incomplete. I’ll set it up later on - that’s another thing I have to do! And I can’t wait to get off Windows. Seriously.

What about this post’s title? Windows, Windows, Windows? Oh, yes, of course. My desktop. It not only has Ubuntu Dapper Drake installed, but also Windows XP Professional - it’s a shame that some of my games are not compatible with Cedega, if not that partition’s space would currently be taken up by Ubuntu. Alas, there is nothing I can do about that - maybe in a year or two, we might start seeing games ported to Linux.

Oops, the title.. Well, yes, that desktop. My installation of Windows XP Professional has become corrupt. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why - it just has. I went away on holiday for a week, and now I’m back at home - do you think it got severely depressed while I was away, and is now in a state of such extreme unhappiness that it refuses to respond? Such is the way of Windows - it has its days. When I get the boot screen, and that lovely little blue bar is speeding along showing me how fast and polished Windows is, what do you think happens next, every time I try booting into Windows? I get the dreaded BSOD, with a 0×0000007E error. There is no way to get around this - not even Safe Mode will work. Windows has decided to take a dump on me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Oh well… I’ve already backed up the saved games and whatnot onto Ubuntu (thank God for Linux), and I’m about to reformat and reinstall.

If only we (the gaming community) could do away with Windows… Well, I guess I could always switch to America’s Army instead of Counter-Strike:Source - at least that runs on Linux

[edit] Rats… The America’s Army developers have stopped support for Linux, and in case you are wondering, I am hurling verbal abuse at my screen at the moment. Grr. I guess I’ll have to stick with Windows for games then..

Although there’s always Frozen Bubble to provide hours of fun!

One A Day

I have been on another short hiatus, and I have no excuse for it other than my own laziness! A few problems here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary… Except the fact that I’m travelling to the UK every other week.

So what is this post’s title all about? One a day? What does that mean? Read on.

Continue reading One A Day…

Another exam down..

..and just three more to go. I had my first Ancient Greek exam this morning (it’s about the 9th or 10th public exam I have done so far), and although I thought it was going to be difficult, it went much better than I had expected. I just hope I will be able to say the same for the next three!

Wish me luck.. And keep your heads up for those tutorials I promised - they will be here in a few weeks, once these blasted exams are over

What Is To Come

My apologies about the short hiatus - I have been very busy with work, revision for exams, and have just about been able to keep up with the smaller communities I am a part of.

I’ve got exams beginning tomorrow, and these will last for a few weeks - although I will be getting a few breaks in between. So, I’m going to be a spoil-sport and tell you what’s coming next! If you want to find out, read on

Continue reading What Is To Come…

Google AdSense - Statistical Errors?

I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I am not sure whether this issue has been raised before. Neither am I aware of whether this would work or not, but if it works then there is a serious blunder in Google’s advertising system.

Let’s call our attacker X. If X spoofed his IP address, then any replies to packets sent from his computer would never reach him again - unless of course the spoofed IP address was of a compromised computer. So, X decides to write a script which will spoof his IP address to something else every five seconds, and writes another script which opens URLs in a browser and then closes the window - also in five seconds. X then goes onto my website and gets the link to one of the ads in my AdSense bar (which is, coincidentally, paid by the advertiser per click and not for a certain click limit). He hard codes it into his script, and then runs both scripts simultaneously.

Now, Google would see this as a click from a unique IP address every five seconds, and so would count it accordingly. Therefore, not only will the person running the AdSense bar (me, in this case) get far more money, but the person who is paying for the advertisement via AdWords will have to pay Google for every click. It’s making me rich, and robbing the advertiser of his money.

Obviously, the scripts would have to be more complicated than as I have described them, but the same concept applies. Would this work? And if so, isn’t this a critical error in Google’s advertising system? I hope I am proven wrong..

Yeti Sports

While this blog has nothing to do with Yetis at all, it does have a lot to do with penguins - and what better way to waste your office time than smacking a penguin with a club, a flamingo, or the tip of your crazy surfboard?

Continue reading Yeti Sports…