RSSHalf-way through GM Diet Day 1
Jul 14
Way past half and gorging on apples, pineapples, watermelon, turnips and grapes. This isn’t as bad as the first attempt.
I think I will survive…
ciao!
Day 0: GM diet update
Jul 13
Ok, so I was finally coerced to try going into a diet again by my wife. My weight has plateaued in the 200lbs figure but a lot of people has stated that I look like pufferfish so off I go again into a week-long General Motors Weight Loss Diet. I already went through this last year which was pure pain for a voracious eater like me but then again I lost around 10 pounds in a week which is pretty nifty. Even if I don’t lose any pounds then it is still alright since this is also a cleansing diet, especially the dreaded fourth day wherein I can only take bananas and milk. Ok, replace milk with yogurt since I am lactose intolerant and I don’t want to spend the whole day in the thinking throne. 😉
I decided to blog about it because I read in a getting-it-done blog that it helps to blog something if you need some extra boost in achieving your goals. Even if you don’t have any readers then it would still instill a fear of failure since nobody wants to be a failure in the public eye. I might even use the bitesize blog (located in the far right of this blog) to post some mid-day updates.
So here it goes::)
Day 0: Weighed-in at 200lbs. Still feeling normal. We still have that Shakey’s pizza to finish for dinner. 🙂
General Motors Diet for Day 1
All fruits except bananas. Your first day will consist of all the fruits you want. It is strongly suggested that you consume lots of melons the first day. Especially watermelon and a loupe. If you limit your fruit consumption to melons, your chances of losing three lbs. on first day are very good.
How and Why it works
You are preparing your system for the upcoming programme. Your only source of nutrition is fresh or canned fruits. Fruits are nature’s perfect food. They provide everything you could possibly want to sustain life except total balance and variety.
Unfortunately I hate melons (except watermelon) due to a early childhood psychological event. 🙂
ciao!
Ext2/Ext3 undelete
Jul 11
Frequently I come across queries on how to retrieve files in Linux wherein the most probably answer will be that it is almost impossible due to the journaling nature of the standard file systems for most Linux systems. Ext2 is not a journaled file system but its use for large partitions (>128MB) is not recommended since a premature crash (system-induced or external like a power shut-off) will cause the file system to be marked as dirty and be subjected to a file system check and possible data loss. At this time where terabytes of disk space are becoming available to us members of the unwashed masses, I don’t think anybody in a right mindset will even consider using ext2 on a 20GB partition.
Back to the topic, previously you are screwed if you were clicker/presser happy with delete operations (rm -rf ~ /tmp comes into mind, ouch!) then it only takes a split second from the time you confirmed the delete operation to switch between nonchalance and an agitated mental anguish. It may be a single document or your whole directory (I hope you are not in the habit of running as root for day-to-day use), but if you really need to get that file you just delete and you are using ext2/ext3 then there might still be some hope. I just came across the page for ext3undel which promises a set of utilities and scripts that will help you in getting your precious files back. The project is not available on official Mandriva and Arch repositories 🙁 but the project provides RPM and Deb downloads.
I haven’t used it yet as I am fortunate enough to haven’t gotten the need but the documentation on the project’s wiki seems to be simple enough. I am going to try installing this on my systems this weekend since this would be a handy tool to have when my stupidity arises need beckons.
ciao!
Jul 09
In a world of dreamers, somebody has to keep their feet planted firmly on the ground.
me, “About work”
6-cell MSI Wind delayed until September 2008
Jul 09
This week has been a series of disappointments. Crunch gear reports that the battery factory fire has hit MSI hard so the 6-cell version won’t be coming out until September. *sigh*
tux on a stick
Jul 06
I have a 4gb TDK usb drive and i want to try running a full-blown linux on it. I am using this guide from pendrivelinux to install xubuntu on the flash drive.
The instruction is for creating two partitions: the first one is a fat16 partition that will hold the main system while the second partition is a small ext2 partition for the persistent data (settings?). I modified it a bit with this setup:
- sdb1 – 3GB FAT32 – for sharing data
- sdb2 – 1GB – fat16 for the main system. I tried using ext2 but the instruction was really for a fat16 partition for the syslinux step
- sdb3 – 115MB – persistent partition that is labeled casper-rw
The partitions were created using cfdisk on my archlinux system. I opted to put the 3GB partition at the start because I am from the old school thinking that when dealing with stupid OSes always put the partitions it can read first. All of the partitions are physical partitions but i marked the second one as the active/bootable partition.
Everything else in the tutorial went smoothly except when it was time to boot the machine using the usb drive. The booting stopped with the message that the boot sector was invalid or damaged. I tried googling around for the fix which basically suggests installing the boot loader on the flash drive’s boot sector (/dev/sdb) but these did not work.
I finally gave in and restarted the installation process, only this time I placed the 3GB partition at the end so that I will be mostly compliant with the pendrive linux guide. There is really something to be said for following instructions especially if those instructions do not contain any discussion on the rationale. My tux in a stick works although it takes quite a while to boot my laptop. I have been able to use it in the office so I can copy a big file (RTC linux client) that I need to bring home from the office since I cannot complete the download at home.
I am happy since I have a portable Linux system in case I need it. As for the question on whether Windows was able to recognize the data space at the end of the drive, I honestly don’t know. I haven’t booted into Windows yet here at home, and the USB ports are locked by the domain server at work. I guess I will eventually know the answer but I am not in a hurry to find out. 🙂
ciao!
Fixing the swap partition
Jul 06
After a few failed attempts in getting my ArchLinux desktop system go into hibernation, my boot-up shows an error during the mounting of the swap file. Issuing the “free” command validates that I don’t have any swap space running. My desktop system has 2GB of physical RAM but I wouldn’t want to wait for something to fail before fixing the swap space.
The fix is to format the swap partition (/dev/sda8) again before activating it using this command sequence:
# mkswap /dev/sda8
# swapon -a
mount -a would also work in place of the swapon command.
NOTE: mkswap will happily format the device or file you pass on as parameter so make sure you are passing the correct partition or you will be sorry. 🙂
ciao!
A big whole gaping difference
Jul 03
IT Security is for keeping intruders out. Prison Security is for keeping occupants in. My question is what type of security are we implementing?
MSI Wind is now available at PC Corner
Jul 02
I just got wind (pun intended) from TipidPC.com that THE WIND is now available at PC Corner. Here is the link to the PC Corner page.
Unfortunately stocks are pretty limited and they only come with the 3-cell battery (max of 3 hours at minimum settings) and in white and pink colors only. I am too much of a pig messy user to go for the white and I don’t think pink suits me. I guess I can wait for a month more but a Wind is definitely within my horizon.
Price list is as follows (quoted directly from the link above):
PhP 23,999.00 - - - - 512Mb / 080Gb / NO Operating System
PhP 24,999.00 - - - - 1.0Gb / 080Gb / without MicroSoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, SP3
PhP 25,999.00 - - - - 1.0Gb / 080Gb / with MicroSoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, SP3
PhP 26,999.00 - - - - 1.0Gb / 080Gb / with MicroSoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, SP3 . . . .with external 60Gb Mobile HDD with enclosure !!!!
PhP 27,999.00 - - - - 1.0Gb / 160Gb / with MicroSoft® Windows® XP PRO COA
PhP 29,999.00 - - - - 2.0Gb / 160Gb / with MicroSoft® Windows® XP PRO COA
PhP 31,999.00 - - - - 2.0Gb / 320Gb / with MicroSoft® Windows® XP PRO COA
Now I can’t sleep!
ciao!