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February 26, 2006
Suse 10 and the new work laptop
I spent this weekend configuring my new work laptop to run Suse 10. I'm not sure if I have mentioned it before now, but the vast majority of the machines that will be at PFS will be running Linux. This includes the desktop computers that normal office users will be using. I figured that it doesn't make sense for me to have a laptop running Windows XP while everyone else was running Linux.
Here's the configuration of the laptop:
Toshiba M45-S2693
- Intel Centrino Pentium M 740
- 1024MB DDR2 RAM
- 100GB Hard Drive
- DVD+/-RW burner
- 15.4 WXGA display
- 802.11g wireless
Now, Suse 10 is one of the more recent distributions available on the market. In past installations, I've been very impressed with its ability to find hardware and configure it "out of the box". The same holds true for this installation as well. Everything was found on the laptop immediately on installation. There was a hangup, however.
This laptop uses the Intel Pro Wireless card for wireless access. The good news is that Intel has developed a module for this specific piece of hardware and it's available as a part of Suse 10. The downside is that the Linux kernel that ships with Suse 10 (2.6.13) has a bug in it regarding the ieee80211 module. As a result, it's required to uninstall the ipw2200 module that ships with Suse and download the updated modules from the Intel site on SourceForge. By downloading the ieee80211 and ipw2200 modules and the ipw2200 firmware and following the instructions for installation, it's very simple to get the wireless installed. This issue is fixed in the 2.6.14 version of the kernel, as the module is now part of the default Linux kernel.
On the installation of the ieee80211 module, I ran into a problem when trying to run make. This was due to the bug that I mentioned previously. In the kernel source, there is a file called ieee80211.h that needs to be deleted/moved/renamed. On my machine, it was located in the following directory:
/usr/src/linux-2.6.13-15/include/net/ieee80211.h
Once I renamed this file to ieee80211.bak, I was able to run make and make install on the downloaded ieee80211 module and it installed without any issues what-so-ever.
The second problem that I came across was with the built-in Ethernet, which uses the Marvell Yukon chipset. I discovered that the module that is included in the Linux kernel also has problems. This was an easy fix, as it also required a simple module download and installation as well.
After two module updates, my networking was working without any major issues. Additionally, this post was written from the laptop ... wirelessly ... from my couch at home.
~out...
Posted by ed at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2006
Moving forward
I haven't wanted to blog about this until now, but I feel that the time is right. Today was my last day with the Solarity Group. I started with the company back last October with the hope that I would get into IT consulting and make a name for myself. I guess I had this concept of what IT consulting would be pre-determined in my head. What it was, on the other hand, was something completely different.
It's not that I didn't like working with the people. That's totally incorrect. If anything, I met some great people and I'm a better person for knowing them. There's really two things that made me determine that consulting wasn't for me ... at least at this point in time in my life.
1. I discovered that I don't like driving much.
I thought that the driving aspect of the job wouldn't be that big of a deal for me. The problem that I encountered was that I was driving between Louisville, Lexington, Cincinatti and Frankfort on a regular basis. This much time on the road doesn't really work well for me ... especially with my bum knee and the fact that I have a manual transmission. Maybe if I had cruise control, it would be a better scenario.
2. I didn't know where I was going to be at any given time.
This probably wouldn't have been a big issue if I was my own boss bringing in clients. I think that this has a lot to do with me having to wait and rely on other people to tell me what to do. I don't really do well in this kind of environment. I'm the kind of person that prefers to take the bull by the horns and get a job done. I decide what needs to be done and then I do it. In this particular scenario, I would often find myself waiting for something to happen or find out the morning of that I would be going somewhere for the day or for a few hours.
So, tomorrow I start a new job at a place downtown called Print Fulfillment Services. I got a job working as the System Administrator, responsible for the overall IT environment (or so I understand). I'm going to have two people working under me as IT technicians.
There's several nice things about this new job that I'm looking forward to:
1. I get to do this from the ground up.
Similar to what I did at WHAS-TV, I get the opportunity to build a computer network and server environment from the ground up.
2. Stability, stability, stability.
I know where I'm going to be every single day of the week. There's no question about where I'm going to be doing from one hour to the next. This is one of the biggest things that I've missed about WHAS.
So, anyhow ... that's about it. I know it seems that I've been switching jobs alot lately. Heck, this is the 3rd job in a years time. But, I think that perhaps the 3rd time may be the charm. After all, I was at WHAS-TV for 3 years. I probably would've still been there had I not been enticed to leave by SkyWay USA.
But, then again, everything happens for a reason. I'm looking forward to a new beginning.
~out...
Posted by ed at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2006
The iPod Gurus
The PC Gurus have been in a bit of a funk for a while now. Membership participation is down, the Web site was "hacked" and we've had no radio show since Sokoler was canned. I personally believe that if it weren't for Kevin and the guys who keep the newsletter going, this team would've fallen apart over a year ago.
So, a few months ago I began pondering what it would take for a few of us to get back "on the air", so to speak. I figured that the easiest way to do this was to create a Guru podcast. I bought a USB mic and have been playing around with Audacity, but have since discovered that I lack the real instruments required to create a podcast.
The other night, I sent out the following e-mail to the entire team to get a feel for us doing a podcast:
"Anyone want to try a Guru podcast test with me? I want to do something like an open forum discussion and just ramble about technology in general. I'm not sure what software to use at this point, but it would need to be something like Google Talk or Skype that would allow a group of people to communicate over the Internet using microphones at their PCs. I'm open to recommendations.
Reply to the group if your interested."
The response was great. I received responses from most of the team members and all of them were positive with the exception of a select few. Ideas started flowing and opinions were thrown about. It seemed to me that it was the most team related discussion that had taken place since god only knows when.
It's pretty bad when the prior most active discussion was about non-related sports topic months ago.
Regardless, it seems that the idea of doing a podcast has ignited a spark back into the team. With any luck, we'll be able to put together a semi-coherent first try that we can distribute to our current newsletter base to get the word out. What's also nice is that several team members have gotten the proper equipment at hand to really make this into a full scale podcast production. Heck, we might even be able to do a video podcast once in a while as well.
With that said, the choice of software to do this podcast remotely has been somewhat limited. Our best choice, although it's a fantastic piece of software, has been Skype. The only problem with using Skype is that it has a conference limitation of 5 people (4 people + 1 host). Tonight, I found a piece of software that may allow us to get past this limitation. It's called Festoon, and is designed as a plug-in for Skype and Google Talk. It's a audio/video conferencing application that may just allow us to get past the 5 person limitation. Theoretically, we might just be able to get all team members involved on a single podcast, whereas beforehand we would have to trade off.
I'm really keeping my fingers crossed on this one. I've missed the team when we had a radio show. We were all more involved, and it was a fun experience.
Maybe we can even begin to grow again.
~out...
Posted by ed at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
I love this comic
I can't recall if I've mentioned how much I like the Web comic, VG Cats, on my site. Yeah, I have a link to them and all, but I don't think that I ever really put down the reason why I like the comics that Scott puts together. Take the following comic, for example:
PacMan sees dead people ... all the time.
This is pure comic genius. It's a fairly simple concept, but putting it into a comic isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. I should know ... I've been trying to come up with material for my own comic strip for over a year now. Just the fact that Scott can come up with this material week after week is just amazing to me.
Here are some of my other favorite VG Cats comics:
- Bea Jay
- Indigestion
- Ghost Comic
- Party Games
- High Ground
- Ba Weep Granna (A+ favorite)
- Fire Bad, FIRE BAD!
- NSFW
- Dinner with the Folks
- Two robots walk into a bar...
- Eww...
After looking at these and looking at the ideas that I've come up with for my own comic, I realize more than ever that I need someone a little more creative than myself to come up with the ideas for the strip. I can draw the comic all day long ... I just can't create a story line for it.
~out...
Posted by ed at 03:15 PM | Comments (3)
February 15, 2006
More on the new toy
I had a real chance to play with my new laptop today. I messed around with a few different things to see what would happen on the machine, and the results were very interesting.
First, I wanted to see how the laptop would hold up to a Linux distribution. I brought with me a copy of an Ubuntu LiveCD to work to test during my downtime. Unfortunately, I discovered early on that the LiveCD that I had was bad, so that required me to download and burn another one. It was probably a better idea to download a fresh ISO, as there was a newer version of Ubuntu than I had.
What I discovered wasn't terribly interesting. The ATI video card that comes with my laptop, the Xpress 200M, doesn't work very well with Ubuntu 5.10. Apparently, after viewing the logs, it has something to do with the existing generic ATI driver. My assumption at this point is that I should be able to download the proprietary ATI driver from their support site and it should work just fine.
I also decided through the process that I wanted to stick with one distribution throughout my Linux process. Since I have Suse 10 on my desktop, I think that it only makes sense that I use Suse 10 on the laptop as well. So, after I re-partition this machine, I will be installing a copy of Suse 10 on it.
The second discovery today was also due tothe ATI card in the laptop. I spent the rest of the day downloading and installing Steam and Half-Life 2. I figured that if I was going to put this machine to the test, I might as well use a game with some kick ass graphics.
My surprise? It works REALLY well.
I played HL2 on my laptop today. And it looked great. I played through part of the first chapter, up until when Barney makes you escape out the window to get away from the guards trying to break down the door. The graphics were crisp and clean ... I saw no skips and the frame rate seemed to be pretty high. Granted, I didn't have a chance to turn on the frame rate thingie while I was playing (Amanda was waiting to go to dinner). Maybe next time I bring it up, I'll get a good frame rate to let everyone know how good it was.
Also, the settings for the video card aren't anything terribly special ... but it is configured to use real 3D. There isn't any software rendering at all.
~out...
Update: I decided to go into the game and setup the framerate thingie to see what the generic frame rate of the game on the laptop was. I was surprised at what I saw:
High 20's ... not bad at all in my opinion.
So, as you can see, I'm almost at 30 fps with a generic configuration. I didn't make any specific changes at all with this screenshot. I just launched the game and took a screenshot after starting the framerate counter. Now, the laptop is configured to use 64MB of system RAM for the videocard memory ... that needs to be bumped up. Additionally, my system memory needs to be bumped up as well to accomidate this change.
Also, the screen size for this was default to the laptop: 1280x800@60MHz. That higher screen size also has an effect on the frame rate as well as the generic video card settings. My guess is that with the proper configuration, I should be able to get at minimum up to 40 fps and my goal is to get it to 60 fps.
Posted by ed at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2006
My new toy
Alright ... I finally caved in and bought my Christmas/birthday/Valentine present that Amanda has been hounding me about the past few days. When I got in from work today, we were going to go to the gun shop and purchase a new revolver. But, on the way there I told Amanda that I didn't want to go. I decided on the way that we already had a gun ... a good one at that ... and purchasing another gun would be silly.
So, instead we decided to go and get a bite to eat, and afterwards we'd head to Circuit City. Our Valentine dinner was at B-Dubs, where we had boneless chicken wings ... which were really really good.
Our initial purpose of going to Circuit City was to look for an Xbox 360. Amanda seemed to think that we'd find one there, but I knew better. We arrived at the store and I immediately headed back towards the games section, only to see the "sold out" sign. You know, the frustration that is finding an Xbox 360 is just outright mind-numbing. I don't understand why so many places are doing these damn "bundles", jacking up the price to outrageous amounts ... anywhere between $700-1000 dollars.
Anyhow, I headed to the computer section and started looking over the laptops and desktops that were available. At this point, I'm thinking about purchasing a laptop for several reasons that I won't go into here for various reasons. Amanda sees me looking at the laptops and asks me if I wanted to get one. After thinking about it for a while, I thought that it would be a good idea to get one.
Circuit City had an interesting deal going on for a Toshiba laptop (or portable has Toshiba calls them). There was a unit available for $600 after rebates. Now, as most people are already aware, I don't own a laptop of my own. I've always wanted one but couldn't justify the expense. Now I could ... especially at $600. So, I bought myself a laptop tonight.
Here's my new toy ...
Here's the specs of the unit:
- Intel Celeron M Processor
- 512MB RAM
- 60GB HD
- CD-RW/DVD-ROM
- 15.4" WXGA Monitor
- ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
- 802.11b/g wireless
- 10/100/1000 Ethernet
- Windows XP Home
Now, this isn't exactly the creme de la creme when it comes to laptops ... but the specs aren't too bad either. The memory, hard drive, video and monitor are very impressive to me. The only thing that I would like to see different is the processor, where I'm a big fan of the Centrino units from Intel. But, considering the price, you can't hardly beat the deal.
~out...
Posted by ed at 10:38 PM | Comments (5)
February 13, 2006
Now this is neat
Ever seen the movie Minority Report? Remember where Tom Cruise's character is in front of that cool touch screen and he can move stuff around and zoom in and such? Since seeing the movie, I thought it would be really cool if someone came up with something like that kind of interactive screen.
Low and behold, a few years later, some people have come up with something very similar. Here's a multi-touch interactive computer that has been developed at NYU.
Posted by ed at 10:51 AM | Comments (1)
February 12, 2006
Happy birthday to me
Today is my birthday. There's approximately an hour and a half left of the day, and I couldn't be happier.
It hasn't exactly been the best day.
There's several reasons why my birthday wasn't the greatest of days. It's been kinda depressing and I feel bad because my mood has affected Amanda's mood. She's tried really hard today to give me the best birthday possible ... but unfortunately nothing she has done has been able to get my mood back in a positive state. I'm truely sorry for that.
Below is a list of reasons for my pissy attitude today:
1. It's a nasty day. It's cold and where everywhere else in the US is getting snow, there's only been a series of flurries in KY. Considering how mild the winter has been, I don't think we're going to see any significant snow fall this season.
2. I received two calls from loved ones to wish me a happy birthday. This is becoming a regular event it seems.
3. It's rare that I have money to spend at all, regardless if it's my birthday or not. But as luck would have it, I do have a bit of money to spend. But, the problem is that I have nothing to spend it on. The items that I want are either too expensive (new HDTV) or impossible to find (Xbox 360).
4. My birthday fell on a Sunday this year. This bites because nothing is open on a Sunday. If a business or shop is open, it's only for a few hours. It's hard to go out and have a good time when nothing is open. And a trip to Wal-Mart/Target/Meijers isn't exactly my idea of a good time.
I guess that my birthday/valentines/christmas (I didn't get a xmas present this year from Amanda due to money constraints) will be a new gun. Right now, I'm looking at a Smith & Wesson model 66 ... but that purchase is still up in the air at this point. It all depends on how I feel by the time I get out of work tomorrow afternoon and if the gun shop has what I'm looking for.
~out...
Posted by ed at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2006
Who says there's no such thing as a free meal?
Tonight, I was offered an opportunity to have a free dinner at the new Rocky's restaurant on Westport road. I regularly do work for the company that owns Rocky's, so when this new restaurant was built, it was no exception. I was the person responsible for setting up their office computer and network.
Because these people are extremely nice, they asked me if I would be interested in having dinner before the restaurant opened. Apparently, they have a few days of "trial runs" before they open the store to the general public to make sure that their staff is as prepared as humanly possible. If you know me at all, you already know that I leaped at the offer.
Amanda and I arrived at the store this evening at 7:10PM and were immediately seated. How often can you say that about going out to eat at a restaurant in Louisville on a Saturday night, huh? The meal was on the house, with the exception of liquor and the tip. The food was superb and I think we may have had one of the best waitresses on the east end of Louisville. Despite it all being a trial run, she was excellent and extremely helpful.
Overall, it was a great night out. I ended up in the back side of the restaurant a few times to help with some computer problems here and there, but if that's all I needed to do to get a free meal, I was more than happy to do so.
~out...
Posted by ed at 09:45 PM | Comments (2)
February 02, 2006
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2
I've downloaded and installed MSIE 7 Beta 2. Thus far, it's an interesting toy to play with. I'm planning on playing with it for a while and seeing what the pros and cons of the new browser are, then writing about them here.
My initial thoughts:
1. The tabs really seem like a rip of Firefox, but I'm very glad that they're there. This was one of my biggest problems with MSIE 6. I also like the fact that, as with Firefox, you can use the middle mouse button to open tabs in the background.
2. I like the idea that I can easily customize the search engine. While MSN Search is the initial default, it isn't a pain to setup another search engine, such as Google.
3. I also like the idea of "multiple homepages" that open up in several tabs. I currently have 3 set, which are the pages I visit most often.
4. The icons need work. And what is it with all the gradients that Microsoft is using these days?
5. I'm still trying to get used to the "less is more" approach by MSFT with the interface. You can add the "classic" menu back, but I like the idea of a smaller toolbar.
6. I'm digging the RSS interface thus far. I'm also glad that MSFT is using the RSS icon from Mozilla/Firefox.
7. The zoom feature is ... interesting.
8. What is with browsers not being 100% CSS compliant? Thus far, I only know of two ... and neither are available on Windows.
Well, that's all I have for now. After I'm done playing, I'll let you know what I really think.
~out...
Posted by ed at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)
The case of the missing ASP.NET
Today while working at a client site, I came across a problem in a Event Viewer log on a Windows 2003 server. The problem wasn't that much of an issue: WSUS was having problems updating. I tried to log into the WSUS administrative interface but it had been corrupted due to a Windows Sharepoint Services installation.
"No problem," I thought to myself, "I'll just uninstall WSUS and clean up the server a bit". I called the technician that usually takes care of the site to verify that WSUS wasn't in use and that it was OK to take the service off the server. He told me that it wasn't in use and that I was OK to go.
The uninstallation of WSUS was uneventful at best. I was able to remove it using the Add/Remove Programs feature found in all modern versions of Windows software. Once it had been removed, I opened a Web browser to access the Sharepoint site to make sure nothing was broke.
If you're a regular reader of my site, you already know the answer to that one.
So, Sharepoint was broke. I was recieving a 404 error message (can't find a file or directory). I called the technician to make sure that he hadn't done anything special with the Sharepoint installation, which he reported that it was a standard install with no special configurations. I then called for a second opinion from our boss who agreed that it would be a problem either with IIS or perhaps the MSSQL database that was running.
I combed over the Web site configurations in IIS and couldn't find *ANYTHING* wrong. I checked and double checked and triple checked my findings. I searched Google and Microsoft's support site to make sure that all of the settings were correct, which they were.
My next thought was that it had to be the database. All of the files existed and the database itself, MSSQL$SHAREPOINT, was running properly. My boss was able to help at this point and remoted into the server to see if we couldn't find a solution by putting our heads together. He was able to verify the same things that I had: IIS was configured properly and the database appeared to be running. But when we tried to access the Sharepoint site, it would only come up with a 404 error.
At this point, we had spent way too much time trying to get the service back up and running. Defeated, we decided that it was in our best interest to re-install Windows Sharepoint Services and restore the database backup. I hung up the phone and began the process of downloading WSS with SP2, stopping the MSSQL services and moving old data so it wouldn't be written over.
When the WSS-SP2 download was completed, I ran the executable and received a notice that went something like this:
"Windows Sharepoint Services requires that ASP.NET be allowed in Internet Information Services. To verify that ASP.NET is allowed, open IIS and click on the Web Service Extension folder."
At this point, I'm thinking: "ASP.NET? Why would it be disabled? Would WSUS prohibit ASP.NET during an uninstall process?" So, I opened IIS once again and clicked on the Web Service Extention folder. Low and behold, the ASP.NET service was indeed prohibited. I selected the extension, clicked on the "Allow" button and waited a few seconds. I then opened a Web browser, typed in the address of the Sharepoint site, waited a second ... and boom ... there it was.
The source of all my problems ... ASP.NET. Click for larger image.
Now, I'm posting this hoping that somehow, maybe someone else out there might be running into the exact same problem that I did and might find this bit of information helpful, as there wasn't really any specific information available on the Web that was able to help me.
Update: For some reason, I was typing MySQL when I really meant MSSQL. I've gone through and made corrections so that the post is no longer confusing. Thanks for the heads up, Troy.
~out...
Posted by ed at 03:00 PM | Comments (2)