Apr 09
ErinGadget
I want a sub-notebook, preferably the up and coming Asus eee 900 so I am keeping my eyes and ears open for how much this baby is going to retail here in the Philippines. I already got approval from my chief auditing officer (aka the Wife) that I can get one for my birthday and the recent cash flow makes the possibility of owning one sooner more of a reality.
The first generation eee PC retailed here in Manila at around the Php20K mark (or roughly US$500) due to importation taxes and such. The local retail price is a jump of 25% of the original and press release value of only US$400, which for the sake of those not tracking sub-notebook discussions is not a reality until just recently. If one is enterprising and patient enough, a similar model can be bought at a lower price but my guess is that you will have to forgo the shop warranties (aka hand-carried through customs). Nevertheless the appeal of the eee PC comes both in its portability and low price, but with some compromises like smaller screens, no bundled optical drives and solid state hard drives (which means you can bang it more without risking the data in the drive, the screen and other parts are another matter). As a local tech journalist puts it, the eee PC is changing the playing field for portable computing.
I have been salivating with getting my hands on a sub-notebook that it has been an addiction to track news about the various developments and players in the sub-notebook race to the bottom. Last Monday night I was looking for a side-by-side spec comparison between the eee 701 and 900 models when this link from a local computer store caught my eye because it was already showing a price tag for the 900 model. I assume that this is a pre-selling quote but the figures gave me quite a start: Php33,800 (~US$805) for the 8GB SSD+2GB RAM model, and Php37,800 (US$900) for the 12GB SSD++2GB RAM configuration. WHAT!
With that kind of money I could already get one of those 14.1″ laptops but I will forgo some of the portability aspect. Or maybe get the 701 model instead but I really want something with a larger screen. I just can’t rationalize spending that much for the eee PC 900 given that the first wave of this model might ship without the new Intel Atom processor just to beat the recently launched HP Mini-Note and the upcoming Acer EEE-killer models. My personal favorite for an alternative sub-notebook unit would still be the MSI Wind PC but with no announced shipping date I am still on the fence on whether I am willing to wait for it if the eee PC 900 is not economically practical for me.
ciao!
Mar 04
ErinGarbage, Technology
I am sick and tired of getting these SMS information pushes about some crap service/downloads that I don’t need. The thing is I can’t remember of actually subscribing to them. What is annoying is that this specific push channel that comes from the 6960 number keeps on sending truncated messages that comes in groups of three and have no unsubscribe information. I am usually in vibra mode and there is nothing more irritating when getting three buzzes for crap information.
When I was assigned in Denmark, I got a “helpful” SMS push about how to unsubscribe by sending SMS messages. Since I was using roaming then, it was not practical to send a couple of messages as each one costs about Php15 a piece. Unfortunately I somehow deleted the messages so I am back in square one.
Today I got some spare time and energy to hunt down how to get off this list. Fortunately the telco website has this FAQ which basically instructs the user to do the following:
- Send the word CHECK to the number sending the SMS pushes. You will receive a message about the services your number is subscribed to.
- Send SERVICENAME OFF to the number to stop SMS pushes. Or you can send STOP ALL to terminate all services from that channel.
Let’s see if it works…
ciao!
Feb 01
ErinFLOSS
This is a post on my attempts to run an ArchLinux-based desktop on Leo thus the codename “Leo the Archer”. Leo by the way is Betsy’s replacement which we picked up last July prior to my Denmark assignment. The attempt to create an ArchLinux system is partly due to the lack of support of the Mandriva 2007.1 installer (the one I had handy at the time) for the JMicron motherboard controller. Between Ubuntu and ArchLinux, I think I would learn more if I use ArchLinux. 🙂
Last night’s development included the following
- Update to the latest release. This is what is great about rolling distributions, the option to use the latest and the greatest are always at your fingertips, assuming you have an available broadband. 🙂
- better acquaintance with pacman. Installing new packages from Internet repositories does not include specifying -A or –add in the command line. That is reserved for installing local packages.
- NTFS-3G works. This is my first Linux distro that I have easily achieved successful NTFS writing support.
- Sound still does not work. I followed the beginner’s guide for getting sound but no sound devices are being detected.
As it was already getting late, I decided to call it a night. The fact that my wife is practically breathing down on my neck to go to sleep had nothing to do with it. PROMISE! 😉 I hope the restart would make udev detect and produce the right devices when I start it up again. All in all, not a bad piece of update.
[edit] the sound device got created after the reboot but for some reason flash sound (i.e., youtube) is not being processed.
ciao!
Oct 25
ErinFLOSS
Day 3.
Starting up the laptop again to try my luck in getting wireless and wired connections working side by side. My laptop is now a permanent resident of the living room that it is so sad. 🙁
Every sign still point to the same effects: no wireless connection, missing wlan0 device during startup, lots of errors about a thousand things during shutdown but I guess I can skip them for now.
I tried reading materials on the web specifically on the Arch Linux site as I like the way information are posted there. I can’t find any stuff that seems applicable to what I am experiencing. I tried restarting a couple of times but I am still stuck. And twice the shutdown got stuck literally.
I tried shutting down eth0 again and the keyboard input went nuts again and stopped responding. I tried rebooting using the touchpad and was able to get out of X then everything went blank. I am missing my toothpick today so I just took a pen and did a hard reset.
Next step I did was to uninstall mandi which I read does the hotplugging of network devices. I am not sure of the impact but I am getting desperate and I want to isolate where the problem really is. Bye-bye mandi service which took out two other mandi package which I am assuming is for the ethernet and wireless connections. The Windows habit kicks in and I rebooted to make sure all changes are in.
After the reboot (and the message that wlan is missing), I am back into KDE. I tried reconfiguring the Wireless connection, and it was able to connect and get an IP address. I was already smiling then I made the unthinkable: the Yes option was selected in the screen asking if I want the connection to start at boot. That effectively killed the wireless connection.
I tried bringing down eth0 to test the effect of gutting the mandi service out and then I lost my keyboard input again. Ballpoint pen to the rescue, and now I am typing this in Windows in a wireless connection.
From what I can see right now I have two options:
- Post this problem in the Mandriva Users Board and wait two days for some suggestion on how to fix this problem, or
- Reinstall another distribution. I already have finished downloading the latest Arch release and have it burned into a CD.
Hmmn, one is for patience and the other is for another adventure. I think I will go for the first option first and see if I can learn something new in return.
Since this might be the end of this series, at least MDV2008 gave me something good that I haven’t experienced before: the scroll button on the touchpad works out of the box. Even Windows can’t make that work. 🙂
ciao!
Oct 24
ErinFLOSS, Garbage
Last night I decided to continue digging around the problems I had with my spanking new Mandriva 2008 installation. Booting my laptop shows that the wlan0 device is still missing during network initialization. This is going to be a problem so I lug my laptop and power brick to the living room so I can have a wired connection to help solve the problem.
I am assuming that the problem is somehow related to the way the wireless connection is being brought up. I read some information about ndiswrapper and iwconfig and decided to do some tinkering. I decided to shutoff the wired connection to better know when I finally get my wireless connection working. This is when the proverbial s#17 hits the proverbial fan.
Shocker of the night #1.
After clicking the system tray network utility to close down eth0 the processor then starts to do something. And then somewhere between something and nothing. Ten minutes and I still haven’t got anything and the menu windows has started to be rendered as blank squares.
Mouse works. I can move my pointer but the keyboard is dead. The capslock, numlock and scroll lock keys are not inducing any reaction. Since the mouse is still usable and I am in KDE then there is still a way out. I clicked on the K button, and proceeded to restart the laptop.
Shocker of the night #2.
Shutdown seems to work but stopped during the shutdown of the mandi service. My only option at this point is push the hard reset button with a toothpick. Exasperated and since the night is still early I decided to perform another clean install over my new Mandriva 2008 installation.
Installation #2.
Same drill. I just selected to reuse my partitions since I don’t want to mess with the partitioning. During the package selection I checked the manual package selection option (like always) and then proceeded to the next screen.
Shocker of the night #3.
The installer proceeded with the installation. What!?! Where did the manual selection screen go? I was thinking when I saw that the installation will take around an hour. I don’t want this selection as the default selection will consume about 90% of my root partition where my /usr resides. I think streamlining the packages afterwards is going to be far difficult than starting all over again. Out cames the toothpick to press the hard reset and restart the installation process.
Installation #3.
Same drill except the installer now hanged after the license screen. I waited 15 minutes before taking out the magic toothpick. Man, this toothpick is my McGyver’s all-around magic utility tonight.
Installation #4.
Same installation drill. I am beginning to hate the Mandriva 2008 installation background. No fiasco on the package selection and I would only need to wait 26 minutes for all selected packages to be installed. Neat. I think I spent more time than that during the past few attempts.
At the configuration page I decided to skip the configuration of the network. I figure to do it once the system is functioning. Restarted the Linux system twice just to be sure (I think I am developing an OC identity 😀 ).
Booted into KDE and then installed ndiswrapper which prompted the installation of other packages. I also installed the prism54 firmware that I have saved in /storage/packages/NoArch. After this I tried configuring the wireless connection first by using the Intersil Javelin drivers (prism54). At the end of the configuration wizard I still don’t have any wireless connection. The system can’t even list the wireless routers in the vicinity.
I fired up the network connection wizard again and selected the ndiswrapper option. This time the system is able to list the connections found in the apartment. I configured the parameters for our router that uses a WPA PSK. I still can’t get any connection. Just for the heck of it, I rebooted the machine and LO AND BEHOLD the dreaded error message is back informing me that the wlan0 driver is back.
Hell. I give up for now. If I don’t get my wireless connection up within the week then I am ditching Mandriva for now since my 2007.1 installer is in Manila. I will take this as a sign for me to try other distributions in this laptop.
Time to sleep.
ciao!
Oct 21
ErinLiterature, Technology
Here are some techie stories that I have read this week. The long novel about system admins was something that I have read from the PLUG mailing list. The two stories about test coverage was something I happened to visit when I was researching about some coverage items that I am evaluating. Have fun!
Have fun, and hope you learn something along the way.
ciao!
Oct 20
ErinFLOSS
After almost a week of downloading it via torrent, I have finally finished downloading the latest and the greatest of Free DVD version of Mandriva Linux. The md5sum checks out so I off to burning it goes so I can begin installation on the following day (I still need to go to work!)
Machine: Fujitsu Siemens Amilo ProV7010, 3.0Ghz, 1.5GB. Code name: Lala (the laptop)
Installation _the first time_ was pretty painless. Mandriva was up and running within 30 minutes. I performed an install and reused my partitions, retaining only the contents of /home and /storage.
First problem: Wireless was not working.
No problemo as this already happened with 2007. Lugged my laptop in the shared living room and used a wired connection to connect to the Internet. Configured a DHCP connection using the network utility in the system tray. Did a quick visit to rpmfind.net to look for the prism54-firmware package. Download, open terminal, su to root , install firmware package. Disconnect wired connection.
Using the network utility in the system tray, I tried to configure a Wireless connection. I opted to use the Intersil Javelin driver instead ndiswrapper. Configuration was reported to be successful. Weirdly, there is no wireless connection.
Tried the network configuration utility again to redo the wireless connection. This time I opted to use the ndiswrapper route. Everything looks good. Along the way the wireless connection got connected and the system tray got the ! Yipee! At the last screen I was asked if I want to start the connection during startup. Oh yes! Press OK.
Network system tray popped with a red error message. No connection. Eyebrows began to meet. What the? Right-click on the system tray->Manage Wireless Connections, select wireless router that is a few feet of me. Laptop does something. After a few minutes still no connection. ifconfig, iwconfig , man. Nothing.
Open network system tray again. Do the wireless configuration again. Before the last screen I noticed that the system tray network utility reports a connection again. Do you want to start the connection at startup? Thanks but no thanks buddy. I selected no and dismissed the wizard.
Ok, so I now have a wireless connection. I lugged my laptop back to my room at the other end of the apartment. So far so good. Started up Mozilla Thunderbird to get my mail. Nothing happens. My accounts were recognized but my mails are not in the mailboxes!
Reboot to Windows to check. Goodie, my mails are still all there. I checked the Thunderbird version and they are the same: 2.0.0.6.
Rebooted to Mandriva, and then I got my second shock. During the network boot scripts, an error was shown that the wlan0 device is not available. Upon boot-up I did the trick with the network utility and all is fine again.
Time to sleep. I need to figure out what went wrong with the initialization part of the wireless boot up.
ciao!
Jun 17
ErinGarbage, Technology
Sometimes the cause of the problem is glaringly simple that you could smack yourself in the head when realization hits you.
Ever since I brought home both Paquito (my IPaq rx3715) home with my Dixie, the DLink DI-624 wireless switch, I was no longer able to make them communicate like what I was able to do in Helsinki. I already tried resetting the device but still no dice. Since I was not able to get any connection from the free Wifi in Robinsons Galleria and Pioneer I decided that it might be something in the PDA. Unfortunately there is no update available so I chucked the task in my backburner until I get an inspiration or new information, whichever comes first.
A couple of weeks ago my Lala, my Mandriva installation in my laptop, lost her ability to connect wirelessly to the switch so I was forced to leash her to one of the LAN ports. I already tried reloading the PRISM driver and ndiswrapper but nothing was working. My schedule is to hectic that I decided to just let Lala be leashed for the time being. What makes me squirm is that Stubborn, my Windows installation, is able to connect to Dixie without any problems. Trying to bring up the wlan0 in Lala always churns out an error that it cannot set the WEP key. I viewed it and everything looks fine. Another dead end, it must be one of those updates that I let urpmi download and install…
Last night I was tinkering with Dixie’s web admin interface and happened to click on the Wireless page. Then I noticed something that burned a light bulb in my head; three of four digits were in a different order! I double checked the one I have in mcc and lo behold, Lala have a different key! Eureka, and gundammit! I was elated that Lala was unleashed again, and I want to kick myself for having to subject Lala to the humiliation of being chained to Dixie. I still cant figure out what happened and how the config WEP keys got exchanged in Lala but not on Stubborn is something to figure out at a later day.
This morning after a quick morning nap the light bulb flickered again. What if the same problem applies to Paquito? I switched on Dixie and reconfigured the WEP key again. After a few sputtering handshakes later Paquito was online! All this time Paquito have a different WEP key sequence. My LASIK procedure has done something more than sharpen my vision, it also jumpstarted a portion of my brain.
Typing this in Paquito, and the theme I have sucks when you are viewing it from a portable. The menu column is hugging all the real estate and all the texts are squeezed on a 8-character column. Putting the display on landscape mode is better but only by a slight margin. And for some reason I cannot complete my reply on Apple’s comment on the previous post. I think I am hitting something that makes pocket IE go back to the previous page. I have to reinstall minimo into Paquito. Would be super if Opera for pocketpcs is also free like the desktop counterpart.
ciao!
Feb 26
ErinTechnology
MS Visual SourceSafe is the worst version control software that I have ever used. I won’t ever use it again if I had my way with it. I won’t even list down why you should avoid VSS, I will just refer you to this link. 🙂
Now what would you do if you have to exhumate (yeah, I chose that word since any data versioned in VSS should be considered dead) data from an old VSS backup and nobody remembers their password? Thankfully VSS security sucks (for various reasons) and some helpful VSS users have provided a way to easily reset any VSS user password which is apparently the way Microsoft support will tell you. I am mirroring it here because I see a lot of exhumation on my future and I can’t risk losing this gem of a resource.
NOTE: Even if VSS security sucks, using this information without prior authorization can get you in trouble. Use it for non-destructive and legal purposes only.
Dont forget to make a backup!
[tip starts here]
Edit the um.dat file to remove the Admin password from offset 80 the bytes are (all numbers are hex)
0:80 55 55 bc 7f 41 64 6d 69 6e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0:90 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0:a0 00 00 00 00 90 6e 00 00 a8 01 00 00 00 00 00 00
This information is at YOUR OWN RISK.
As the um.dat is ordered alphabetically by login. If you have a user name that appears aplhabetically before “Admin” they will appear at offset 80. And Admin will appear further down the file. morgancrr’s tip is useful to know – as it will help you locate the Admin password on your own particular set up.
[tip ends here]
ciao!
Sep 19
ErinFLOSS, Technology
Today my webbrowsing with Firefox just got a little bit better since I stumbled upon the FasterFox extension. I have been reading here and there about tweaking the network configuration (hint: type about:config in the address bar) to get better network mileage when browsing but FasterFox brought everything under one roof. It provides 4 preset configurations ranging from default(non-optimized) to turbo-charged (increased webserver load) and an option to customize the settings to your liking.
 I only used the optimized preset and the difference was very noticeable. I am satisfied with that setting so I opted against trying the turbo-charged setting since that will just add to the webserver load for a few measly seconds. A few seconds is not enough justification for being greedy. 🙂
ciao!
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