Almost as Important as Sex

I chanced upon an article at Gizmodo that featured Intel's attempt to find out how important the Internet was to people. Well, you guessed it. Results of the survey showed that the Internet is almost as important as sex. Read more about sex and the Internet here.

ARP Cache Entry: How to Clear, Delete and Refresh

Here's something for me to remember. I found this at the My Digital Life site, and I thought I'd like to share this with anyone who might be interested.

OK, so here's how to clear, delete and refresh your ARP cache entry in Windows XP, 2003 and Vista. Simply open a command prompt window and type in:

netsh interface ip delete arpcache

Read more about it.

Inheriting a Compaq Armada M700

I couldn’t believe my stroke of luck when I found out that I was going to own a notebook computer. I had always wanted one, but I couldn’t seem to convince myself that it was worth spending for. Depreciation has always been my main concern, and that has prevented me from buying myself a notebook.

I only started wanting to own one when it occurred to me that a notebook’s power consumption is about half that of a desktop PC. You see, I pay the electric bills, and because my country’s government has not done anything to ease up that burden, I had to think of a way to increase my personal savings. A notebook was one solution.

My German brother-in-law had actually given the notebook to my brother, who in turn passed it on to me, most likely because he wanted to help me with my situation. I knew that my bro had two notebooks at the time, so I tried my luck and asked for the older of the two. To my surprise, he gave me the newer one. It sure felt like I won the lottery or something.

I couldn’t explain how I felt when I pulled out the notebook from the box. The word “COMPAQ” clearly printed on the box simply elated me. I didn’t care if it was an old model; the thrill of owning a notebook made me forget that.

What made me even luckier was the fact that my brother-in-law, an electronics tech guy who used to work at a Benz factory, took very good care of it. He put in 512Mb of memory, a 20Gb hard drive, and a CD/DVD combo. My M700 came with a docking station and monitor base, an extra LCD monitor, a USB card, a floppy drive, a spare power supply, an extra touchpad, a second 6Gb hard drive (which I plan to house in an enclosure with a USB port), and a backup battery. Even the operating system is an authentic Windows XP Pro. My sister also gave me a wireless mouse, which I really prefer to use instead of the touchpad.

My M700’s processor is a relatively sluggish Pentium III 500, but I turned off all the unnecessary services and used the classic Windows theme. I also removed the desktop wallpaper. In fact, for simple tasks such as doing wordprocessing, using spreadsheets, and watching YouTube videos, this puppy works very well. I sometimes forget what kind of processor it has. Anyway, if I could buy a 1Gb Pentium III board/processor and an English keyboard, everything would be perfect. Yes, everything is in mint condition. It feels like I bought everything brand new a few years ago. Good thing my bro took good care of the M700 too.

Anyway, I love my M700 a lot. I can’t type hard on the keyboard because I don’t want the letters to come off. Yes, even the keyboard is mint; it really looks and feels brand new to me. Looking back at the surplus notebooks and laptops being sold at stores around the city, I can’t imagine how badly treated those tech wonders once were. Seeing all those deep scratches and barely readable letters on the keys of those surplus laptops and notebooks being sold in stores makes me love my notebook even more. I am compelled to take good care of M700 the way its previous owners did.

One added advantage of owning a hand-me-down computer -- or any electronic gadget for that matter -- is the fact that I'm less scared to open it up compared to if it was brand new. In fact, I just got to take off the keyboard and memory modules, and it sure was a great learning experience. I would never take this computer to a technician.

So, if you own an M700, you don't like the idea of paying a technician who could potentially ruin your notebook or steal some parts from it, you're in the mood for some DIY fun, and you promise to be extremely careful, go check out this site that tells you how to disassemble a Compaq Armada.

Online at Last!

It was a nightmarish experience not being able to go online for three days, which is the longest I've ever waited. First, you still have to pay for the full month, and three days of complete inaccessibility to the Internet results in your being shortchanged. Second, if you're waiting for important e-mails that you want to reply to as soon as possible, going to an Internet cafe makes it really impractical unless you're willing to pay for long hours of possible futile waiting. Third, if you make money online, you not only lose money from being deprived of the Internet but also lose money from the potential amount of money you could have raked in.

There could be a slew of other reasons depending on your situation, but in short, Internet access is really vital for certain people, and Internet service providers should always keep that reality in mind. I don't know why my service provider doesn't have some kind of backup or contingency plan to keep subscribers online 24/7.

Still, I have to credit my Internet service provider for bringing service back to normal. For under 1,000 pesos -- 999 to be exact -- I guess MyDestiny is still the best there is here in the metropolis. Great job, people.

The Trouble with Manually Merging Bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox

My laptop computer sits on the table beside the cable modem and router, while my desktop PC is in my room. Sometimes I surf with the laptop and accumulate bookmarks in the process. I do the same with my desktop. Naturally, I end up having bookmarks in my laptop that are not in my desktop and vice versa.

After I've realized that there was a huge disparity between bookmarks in both computers, I decided to export my laptop's bookmarks to an HTML file generated by Firefox, which I then imported using my desktop, which also has the Mozilla browser. OK, so, when I clicked on the Bookmarks drop-down menu, what did I get? Chaos.

What would I like to happen? Automatic merging of bookmarks so there won't be any doubling up and so the bookmarks are listed in an orderly fashion. I didn't know about Foxmarks when I tried to merge the two HTML bookmarks files.

I can simply send that HTML file containing my bookmarks via e-mail or move a copy of the file using a USB drive or through our LAN to another computer. Now it would be very, very practical to simply import the HTML bookmarks file, and then the browser does the merging for you. I don't recall such a problem with Internet Explorer. I may be wrong though.

Can someone from Mozilla solve this inability to neatly merge HTML bookmark files and make life easier for all of us? Or perhaps a plugin or add-on that I haven't heard of already exists out there?

Thanks in advance!

UNiROSS Hybrio: Better than Sanyo Eneloop

I accidentally discovered the UNiROSS Hybrio earlier this afternoon after one of the sales staff at the customer service deficient CDR-King in SM Sucat drew my ire by telling me in a condescending manner that they didn't have any more stock of their self-branded Eneloop-type AA rechargeable battery. Needless to say, customer service at that branch really sucks. They ask you to fall in line, but there really isn't any system to entertain clients, and a closer look at the staff will show you that they're taking their time despite all the people patiently or impatiently queued.

I decided to check out Ace Hardware at the ground floor. In stark contrast with CD-R King's, customer service at all the Ace Hardware stores that I've been to is way much better. I found my way to the battery display shelf, which was locked to prevent shoplifting. I then asked the sales guy if they sold any Eneloops and if not, whether they had a battery that uses similar technology.

Lucky for me, Ace Hardware carried one such brand -- the UniROSS Hybrio. It was cheaper -- 495 pesos for a pack of four compared to the more expensive Eneloops, which sold for 680 pesos (4 batteries) or even more, depending on which store you go to. I was told that the batteries that came in packs of 2's were only rated at 1900 mAh while those that came in packs of 4's were 2100 mAh. I opted for the latter.

As you most likely already know, the Eneloop is a technology that uses an optimized separator and electrolyte to drastically reduce self-discharge rates. Currently, there are three manufacturers of these batteries; a couple of these manufacturers sell it to companies who brand it as their own. Anyway, these batteries are, for me, the way to go, but I really believe that I should also go get myself a set of four Ansmann batteries and a four-hour charger to go along with it.

Here is a shootout that I think you'll find interesting:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1023&message=24756026

You might also want to check this out:

http://www.users.on.net/~mhains/Reviews.html

USB Cable Release

Here's something electronics enthusiasts can build for their Canons and I guess other cameras too.  Of course, you need to know the voltage needed by your camera's model.

Here's how to build one:

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/USB_Remote_Cable

A Really Powerful PowerShot

You're lucky if you own a Canon PowerShot and/or IXUS camera that's in this list as of today:

(model, firmware)

A450, Fw: 1.00d

A460, Fw: 1.00d

A530, Fw: 1.00a

A540, Fw: 1.00b

A550, Fw: 1.00c

A560, Fw: 1.00a

A570, Fw: 1.00e, 1.01a

A610, Fw: 1.00e, 1.00f, 1.00d with CHDK version for 1.00e

A620, Fw: 1.00f (1.00e is not compatible, update to 1.00f is needed, see here))

A630, Fw: 1.00c

A640, Fw: 1.00b

A650, Fw: 1.00d

A700, Fw: 1.00b

A710, Fw: 1.00a

A720, Fw: 1.00c

S2, Fw: 1.00e, 1.00f, 1.00g, 1.00i with CHDK version for 1.00g

S3, Fw: 1.00a

S5, Fw: 1.01a 1.01b

G7, Fw: 1.00e, 1.00g, 1.00i, 1.00j

SD400 (IXUS 50), Fw: 1.01a, 1.01b

SD450 (IXUS 55), Fw: 1.00b, 1.00c, 1.00d

SD500 (IXUS 700), Fw: 1.01a, 1.01b

SD550 (IXUS 750), Fw: 1.00f, 1.00g

SD600 (IXUS 60), Fw: 1.00a, 1.00d (beta)

SD630 (IXUS 65), Fw: 1.00a

SD700 (IXUS 800), Fw: 1.00b, 1.01b, 1.01a with CHDK version for 1.01b

SD750 (IXUS 75), Fw: 1.01a, 1.01b with CHDK version for 1.01a

SD800 (IXUS 850), Fw: 1.00e, 1.00d with CHDK version for 1.00e

SD850 (IXUS 950), Fw: 1.00c

SD870 (IXUS 860), Fw: 1.00c

SD1000 (IXUS 70), Fw: 1.01b, 1.02a, 1.01a with CHDK version for 1.01b

SD1100 (IXUS 80), Fw: 1.00c, 1.01a

SX100, Fw: 1.00b, 1.00c

TX1, Fw: 1.00g, 1.01b

Why? The Canon Hackers Development Kit, better known as CHDK, is software that enhances your Canon PowerShot's firmware. Stored in the camera's memory card, CHDK beefs up your digital camera with more functionality, including the ability to program your camera in such a way that it can execute a series of steps over the desired time frame. With all those features, tech-oriented DSLR owners will surely want CHDK for their cameras, and I believe they will in the not-too-distant future. Actually, point-and-shoot isn't quite descriptive of the PowerShot. It's more than just point-and-shoot.

Think about these:

• still pictures in RAW format
• increased video recording times and lengths
• on-screen enhancements that include a histogram, a battery life indicator, depth of field setting, et cetera
• up to 65 seconds of exposure time
• shutter speed of 1/25,000 of a second or even faster
• programmable, can run scripts written in uBASIC
• simulated cable release via the camera's USB port
• file browsing capabilities
• games
• stereo photography
• bracketing
• time lapse
• motion detection
• high dynamic range imaging or HDR (Search www.flickr.com using HDR or hdr as keyword and prepare to be blown away.) 

... and the list goes on.

Can't wait to install CHDK? Rather than be redundant, I better provide you with a link that shows you how to do just that.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_For_Newbies_-_How_To_Install

Here's where to download the latest Autobuild:

http://mighty-hoernsche.de/chdk/

Go Google it up. For inspiration, check out the Flickr site and search CHDK up. Have fun!

Fixing the Canon PowerShot A540

When I saw the ad saying a Canon was for sale at such a price, I couldn't believe it. Just a few days ago, I read that the Canon PowerShot A540 had a safety issue and a major defect -- the camera would overheat, and battery life was extremely short. This was due to a spring that was long and angled vertically in such a way that it would cause a short circuit, which in turn would drain the battery and cause overheating.

The price was too much had the unit been damaged indeed beyond repair, but since I knew I could fix it, I guess it was pretty cheap. Thinking about how much the camera originally cost makes me feel like a winner. I didn't spend much time deciding to make the purchase.

The first thing I did after taking the Canon PowerShot A540 into my hands was to open the lid and check the spring. I felt discouraged. It didn't resemble any of the pictures at the Canon Web site. The spring's left end looked like it had sneaked behind the metal plate on the lid; I don't know what's behind there, but I guess it did short the circuit. Anyway, I had to pluck it out of the metal plate with a pair of tweezers, carefully moving it to the left at about a 45-degree angle until I freed the end and it looked just like one of the photos in the Canon Web site safety advisory. It's the photo saying that the Opening/Closing spring sticks out.

I took a pair of tweezers and a small long-nose (needle nose) pliers, held the lower part of the spring's left end (2 mm. above the point where the spring wire exits its spiral) by the tweezers, and used the pliers to bend the spring at a right angle to the right, making sure it doesn't cross the plastic "divider." You don't want the spring to touch the metal plate that comes into contact with the batteries.

If you can't make out the photos in the said advisory, check out these macro shots I made using a DIY lens taken from a junk Sony video camera and my tiny 3.1 megapixel Yakumo Mega-Image VII.









The first owner of this PowerShot A540, the guy I had bought it from, had brought it on a number of occasions to the local Canon repair center, but the technicians couldn't fix the problem and insisted that the problem was with the battery and/or the charger. I think he brought the camera to the said center about three times, got fed up and finally gave up. He even said in his ad that he couldn't bear with the camera any longer, that's why he's letting it go.

Dude, I'm really grateful that you're so busy with your programming work at Accenture that you don't have any more time to surf the 'Net. Otherwise, I wouldn't have this puppy in front of me right now. This is bliss.

Thanks!

Cisco 7200 Simulator

I signed up for an account at oDesk (http://www.odesk.com/w/), where a lot of outsourced work is advertised. A home-based provider (contractor) gets to deal with the service buyer directly and thus gets pretty much the full payment deserved, with a fair 10 percent of a contractor's earnings going to oDesk. You don't need to work for some local company that will take a huge slice of your paycheck by virtually doing nothing.

Anyway, one ad struck me; someone was in need of a technical writer who is either CCNA certified or in that level. Damn, if only I had started reading all my materials a long time ago, maybe I'd have a chance of sealing the deal. Anyway, I figured that it would be extremely helpful if I had an emulator so I could do some practice, so I went Googling and found this:

http://www.ipflow.utc.fr/blog/

I haven't installed the Cisco 7200 simulator yet, but I intend to play around it soon. Hope this helps.

Lexmark Printer Annoyance

I uninstalled that @#$%! Lexmark driver about a month or so ago, thinking that I wasn't going to use the 3-in-1 gizmo in a long time.  I suddenly needed to scan some documents and, upon trying to install the driver, the Print Spooler service won't start.  

According to Bruce Sanderson's site:

The Lexmark printer installation process sometimes installs a service that makes the print spooler service dependent on itself.

It can't get dumber than that.

Anyway, here's the link to help you maintain your sanity and keep your cool:

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm

Well, we made a mistake in buying this Lexmark.  Aside from the astronomical price of its ink cartridges, which cost more than the printer itself (think Polaroid in the olden days), uninstalling the drivers isn't smooth -- definitely not user friendly.  It looks like the company was in a rush to get the product out to market that it failed to address some of the essentials.  This is a freaking lousy product.

Uncommon Sense Security

Everytime I look at my blog, I always end up telling myself how selfish I really am. Why? Because I post stuff mostly for myself. It's like having bookmarks that I can access anytime I'm connected to the Internet. It's like replaying thoughts that went through my head but had been mostly forgotten, which usually makes me wonder how I could've thought that way.

Anyway, back to the present. I've just spent some time reading the blog of someone who I perceive as an alcoholic beverage lover who also happens to be an IT professional -- an engineer, I would say -- or the other way around. Does Jack Daniels ring a bell?

I don't know why, but this love-hate relationship I have with anything and everything computers is really an on-and-off thing such that I had nearly forgotten what Nmap was. Just kidding.

Check out Jack's blog here:

http://blog.uncommonsensesecurity.com/

Speaking of Nmap, here's an interesting GUI called Zenmap.

http://blog.uncommonsensesecurity.com/2008/09/ooooohhh-pretty-pictures.html

Google Chrome: A Promising Future for the Browser

Unbelievable as it may seem, my favorite browser Mozilla Firefox has become a memory hog. Now, 512Mb of RAM feels inadequate as I watch my FreeRAM XP icon show dwindling numbers whenever I fire up Firefox. I'm not thinking of using Internet Explorer 7 even as Windows Task Manager shows Firefox's memory usage running up to over 70Mb. Well, it's not really the memory usage that bothers me. It's the overall sluggishness of Firefox that prompted me to look for a better alternative. So I then tried a likely candidate, Apple Safari, on my computer running Windows XP; Safari didn't work the way I expected it to.

Anyway, it's not as hopeless as it seems. Google has released the Beta version of its Chrome browser, and from the looks of it, even a Pentium III 500 processor will run the application like it's supercharged. IMHO, aside from being secure and fast, the best browser should be backward compatible with every processor that's online; the farther back the better. Yes, there are still Pentium II computers (or even older?) out there surfing the Web.

I downloaded and installed Google Chrome, and after getting slightly disoriented, I found my way and started browsing my favorite sites.

After playing around with the browser, I must tell you that I'm impressed with the speed Google Chrome starts up and displays a Web site. I thought Mozilla Firefox was going to be the end of my quest for browsers, but it looks like Google's browser is now the best so far for all-purpose browsing. A look at Windows Task Manager will show that the browser breaks up its processes into two or three sub-processes, which I believe contributes to its speed.

One thing I noticed though is after installing Google Chrome as administrator in Windows XP, I found out that limited account users do not have the browser installed, so I had to install it again using the other accounts. It's a good thing my desktop and my laptop both have only two accounts in Windows XP.

Another behavior I found strange was that when I used the Google site to download Chrome and the site was in my native language, the version downloaded and installed was also in that language (awkward because there were still many non-translatable words such as "download" -- and if a word was translated, it sounded like it was out of context or too profound). I didn't have a choice to convert the browser into English (or maybe I just didn't know how to do it). To get around this, I merely downloaded the English version from a Google page in English and then did a re-install. I should've been given a choice as to what language I want my browser to be in, or the browser should've had an option to switch from a native language to English or vice versa.

I'm not quite ready to ditch my Mozilla Firefox because it's got all the useful extensions I need to accomplish specific tasks, including work-related activities. Still, I believe Google Chrome is the way to go for surfing fun. So what are you waiting for? It's here. Go take it for a spin. You'll love it.

Before I forget, make sure you right click on the "Other bookmarks" icon and select "Always show bookmarks bar." Also make sure that your browser gives off information about usage and bugs to help developers improve this Beta version. Finally, the Home button can be made visible by checking the box in Options -->Basics-->Home page-->Show Home button on the toolbar.

To delete the "Most visited" bookmarks, simply left-click on the icon that resembles a wrench, choose Clear browsing data... then click on the drop-down menu Clear data from this period: and choose Everything.  You can also go on incognito mode if you don't want your browsing history to show up anywhere.  It looks like the Recent bookmarks can't be deleted, and organizing your bookmarks isn't as easy as it is with Firefox.

Best Tech Blog

For me, this is the best tech blog right now:

http://lifehacker.com/

I guess you already know it.

Default Path

For some reason, my default Windows XP path had been erased, leaving me with paths to Ulead's MPEG and DVD directories. To make matters worse, I couldn't find any site among the first three pages turned out by a Google search.

Anyway, if something like this happens to you, here's the default Windows XP path:

%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem

You'll find the default system variables here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

Entering the Letter Ñ

You want to know another way to enter the Spanish letter Ñ in Microsoft Word? I have Word 2003, but I guess it works in all versions.

I used to do an Alt-164 to enter ñ in Notepad and other applications since the early days of Microsoft's MS-DOS. Well, somehow I needed to enter it in upper case, but I forgot the code, which is actually Alt-165. Duh. I even tried a logical course of action by subtracting and adding 26 to the lower case code. Then I tried using Windows XP's Character Map, but I couldn't find the letter, which actually showed up in the Cataneo BT font set but looked italicized to me.

So, in Microsoft Word, you press Ctrl, Shift, and ~ together, then type in the letter N or n. For Notepad, you'd still have to use the old Alt trick.

That's it!

Mission Five and Sleepy

Hack This Site really rocks! It challenges you to think. Be resourceful and you'll find tips on how to go about the missions.

It's nine minutes to midnight and I'm sleepy. It was fun doing the first five basic missions in one sitting. I'd still give it a go if my eyes weren't trying to shut.

It was really fun! So what are you waiting for? Try it! If you can, go contribute or advertise!

Now this is an online "game" that I can actually and would really like to play.

Security Forum

Here's a security forum that you might like to join:

http://www.governmentsecurity.org/forum/index.php

For related articles and resources, please check this out:

http://www.governmentsecurity.org/

Happy reading!

Hacking Fun!

Okay, okay, so I used the H word. Anyway, here's a training site for hackers that's free, safe, and legal:

http://www.hackthissite.org/

What you do with what you learn here is up to you. Don't blame me if you get into trouble for your wrongdoing.

Be good.

Bypass Compulsory Registration

If you get annoyed by yet another Web site that forces you to login or register,
here's a quick fix:

http://www.bugmenot.com/

Have fun!

Scripting Guides

My interest in Linux was sparked by a very attractive female colleague named Eleanor sometime in 1997, when she casually mentioned that her friend was into it. We had Internet access at the workplace because it was essential to our work, so I lost no time searching AltaVista and Lycos for information about the operating system.

I downloaded a bunch of HOW-TOs, printed them out, and proceeded to read at a leisurely pace. I'd read a few pages each time, usually as a replacement for Reader's Digest, while performing my daily excretory routine (in the bathroom, of course). Needless to say, ASCII file printouts done with a dot matrix Epson aren't exactly the prettiest sight to behold, but my interest convinced me that I was looking at a work of art.

Now, about decade and a year later, Linux has become so user friendly that installation is peanuts compared to the way it was done back then. I remember installing my first Slackware distro on a native ext2 partition while clutching continuous form printouts of the installation guide.

Playing with Linux has been an on-and-off thing for me because most of my applications were Microsoft based, and most of the apps I had for Linux were meant for scanning, cracking, and security in general. Well, that's the way it was, so it seemed like a natural progression for a Linux enthusiast to learn networking and the like. I really don't want to use the word "hacking" because it doesn't sound nice to certain ears; and besides, I've somehow matured to the point that using that word makes me feel like I've entered my second childhood stage.

So, Linux introduced me to the world of scripting. Well, I do know a bit, but I do check out resources once in a while to bring me closer to proficiency. Fortunately and much to my delight, a forum mainstay posted some links to help members with scripting.

Without further ado, here are three guides that I'd like to share with you:

1. http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html
2. http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
3. http://www.usd.edu/~sweidner/lsst/

It's really handy to know something about scripting. Who knows? Maybe someone will ask you to run a script that was meant to screw up your system. It pays to know what you are doing.

WTF? Low on Disk Space?

It was unbelievable. Windows XP told me that I was running out of disk space. True enough, the drive showed that it had a couple hundred thousand bytes left, so I went to check each of the folders in my system partition. I used to have difficulty filling up my 10 Gb partition because of my mean-and-lean philosophy. Now this. I found out that

C:\Documents and Settings\xxx\Application Data\NCH Swift Sound\Scribe\Current

used up 338 Mb of my drive space but was cleared on exit, and

C:\Documents and Settings\xxx\Application Data\NCH Swift Sound\Scribe\Done

had accumulated all the previous temporary files and by now had used up 5.13 Gb. WTF?

Apparently, Express Scribe uses *.ra and other audio files to create temporary *.wav, *.txt, and *.dat files. So this means that it bloated the 7.08 Mb files to 300+ Mb. When I clicked the Done icon, the said files were moved to the Done directory. Those files stay there until you delete them. Well, it's like having a backup, but if you don't know this, you'll find yourself without any disk space left.

Better Torrent Share Ratios

After leaving my computer online overnight to seed a number of BitTorrent downloads, I couldn't believe it. I was staring at my pathetic share ratio of 0.7-something through my Azureus client.

Of course I wanted to seed rather than leech. I don't want to cheat the system. It's only fair to give back what you took. So where's the problem?

In my humble opinion, there are files that more people are willing to seed than there are people who are willing to download. So what does it do? It gives you an unfavorable share ratio and it makes you want to leave your computer online forever.

If I could, I would, but considering the high cost of electricity here (which is about one-fourth of the average employee's take-home pay), I'd rather use ratio cheating software. I've found two such programs, but I'm not keen on trying them out, as I'm not really that desperate to up my share ratio. I can live without those downloads anyway. Besides, my sons would rather buy a DVD for 50 pesos than go through all the trouble.

Bram Cohen, inventor of the BitTorrent protocol, has a suggestion that may very well be the right way to calculate share ratios.

Damn Small Linux: Made Me Say, "Damn It!"

It's not as bad as my title suggests. Damn Small Linux (DSL) is, in fact, pretty good. I guess it works pretty well on other people's systems -- but not mine.

I have this 250Mb flash drive that's actually a non-functional MP3 player that died out on me. Luckily, it managed to retain its memory storage capability, so I decided to try installing dsl-4.2.4, which I got from www.damnsmalllinux.org's download page here using instructions I found here.

I followed directions to the letter, rebooted, failed a couple of times, then voila! It worked! By the way, I had to format my flash drive with "format h: /fs:fat" rather than use the /fs:fat32 switch because I couldn't boot with the latter option on my previous attempts.

I was all smiles until my problems began:

• I configured our home LAN to use static IP addresses. DSL is configured by default to run with DHCP, so I had to reconfigure it. For some reason, the configuration was recognized only after I changed my IP address from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.104. It took like 10 attempts. Maybe I should've rebooted, but it suddenly worked, and I don't know how it happened. I just found myself being able to surf the net. It would've been better if, at the beginning, I was given a choice to configure my Internet connection. I read later on that there were cheatcodes to do that.

• The default window manager looked fine except that, because the only theme installed was mostly black and I usually set my monitor's brightness really low to reduce eye strain, it felt like I was trying to find my way in the dark. I finally installed a few desktop backgrounds and JWM themes, and then switched to FluxBox, which brought me back to the days when I used BlackBox with my Slackware distro. Doing all that tweaking gave me this really cool feeling, knowing that I was running a Linux distro from that tiny device in front of me.

• After restarting, I found out that I could no longer boot into DSL, maybe because:

1. I unchecked the option to back up. Because of the terse info in the message box, I didn't know what was being backed up. Well, I guess I didn't read enough, so it could've been my fault. I thought it meant backing up my session, so I thought that if I didn't do that, nothing bad would happen because I've tried not backing up my session in various Linux distros and nothing went wrong; I could still boot into the system.
2. I installed various themes and desktop backgrounds. Maybe it could've filled my flash drive.
3. I reconfigured my IP address, so maybe DSL tried to look for the configuration files that I failed to save.
   
4. I could've overwritten or deleted the default configuration files.
5. I played around with the swap file, creating a 60Mb and then later changing it to 128Mb. The window just closed, and when I went back to it, I saw that my swap file was 74Mb.

Well, I tried installing DSL to my flash drive several times, but I was able to boot only on two occasions; I was never able to reboot back into it. The first time, I got a boot error message, and the second time, the screen scrolled endlessly and rapidly with error messages I couldn't quite read.

I installed DSL for the third time just about an hour ago, and it refused to boot. I don't know what went wrong. Is it because flash drives aren't standard?

I sure would like to try burning a CD or installing from Linux, but I guess I'll do that some other time. Well, it was a short-live but fun experience that was frustrating for the most part. Based on my experience, it seems like DSL doesn't want me to go back. It would've been better if everything was intuitive and a simple reboot would bring me back to the system.

Oh, well, maybe it's better to buy their bootable USB drives. Yes, it's pre-installed with DSL, so you won't go through the difficulties I did. It's also 2 Gig and USB 2.0!

Yipee! Wubi!

I don't understand why I always end up with a Linux distro installed in my machine. The last time I said goodbye to Feisty was when my son asked if he could get back his hard drive. You see, I had to borrow his when my drive failed after about 3+ years of continuous use and frequent formatting. After I'd gotten a replacement, I decided to keep my son's drive and put it to good use since it had been dumped for one with 10x more capacity. Anyway, that Feisty installation, replete with bells and whistles to my satisfaction, was pretty much up to date before the drive reunited with its owner. So I finally said goodbye, trying to convince myself I don't need Linux anyway.

Then I stumbled upon Wubi.

Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you.

Before anything else, here's the WubiGuide. Now back to where I was.

I installed it, and now I have a triple-boot setup: XP for work, XP for music, and Ubuntu. I could've repartitioned my drive, but I really wanted to try Wubi because the skeptic in me always seems to surface with anything new. Yes, Wubi is the easiest way to Linux indeed.

This is the way to go for newbies, and if you're one, I must caution you to learn the command-line interface and, most importantly, the commands. I read in a forum about pranksters giving advice to unsuspecting users, telling them to type in cryptic text that will delete files, create files, or some other action that will cause a hard drive crash. Pardon my sick sense of humor, but I found such ruse somewhat amusing. Well, it may not be as bad as it seems, especially if you don't have important data stored in your drive, but it's still a waste of time for you to start from ground up.

The installation itself doesn't take too much time; it's the *.iso download that makes you wait. Well, you could get lucky if you get connected to a fast server like I did. From what I experienced, the .fr sites were slow. I got 100+ Kbps from my connection to a *.de (yeah!), and it took me about two to three hours to install Feisty.

There's an alternative to this. You could first download the *.iso, place it in the same directory as the Wubi installer, and click away. Now, if you see that the installer wants to connect to a server, then your *.iso is corrupted. I experienced this with the Feisty *.iso I downloaded from a torrent site. So, be careful where you download your *.iso from.

I remember the time when I had DosLinux; I eventually created a native Linux partition. With Wubi, I don't really feel a pronounced sluggishness in my installation, but I guess I'm going for a dedicated partition in the not-so-distant future with LVPM. I don't know. Maybe it's just me.

At any rate, it won't be long before many of you out there will be making Wubi. Pardon the pun --- or the malapropism -- whatever.