Motorola Razr

Picked up a Motorola Razr yesterday from best buy. It's not the biggest and baddest phone on the market. But it does what I think a phone needs to do. Make phone calls, if I need to do something other then make a call or take a quick snapshot i'll break out the good ol lappy.

On to other news, a Lieutenant Treadwell from the Fairfax County Police Department called me today to let me know that I get to do a ride along with the Fairfax county police. This should be fun, now all I have to do is give him a call and setup a time.

Long time no post.

So since I've posted last I've been down to Louisiana for about 3 months, hated that place. Came back here to Virginia, got a job with Best Buy. I've decided to join the Fiarfax County Police Department here. It's to a point that my father actually bought me a Springfield Armory .45 Sub Compact for a backup weapon. It was my big Christmas present. Guess he wants me to be safe. Just to make this clear my father has been in law enforcement for about the past 30 years.

I also got a new Laptop. A Dell XPS M1210, which on an offhand note I actually had to buy a bluetooth card for it today. This laptop so far runs anything I throw at it, which makes me happy. It came with windows Vista Home Premium, but I decided to downgrade back to XP. It runs so much faster with the 2 gigs of ram this laptop has.

I signed up with Amazons S3 service, which is awesome. Using JungleDisk to interface with it. Prices are really cheap and I like t he ability to run around with jungledisk on a USB drive pop it into any computer grab the files that I need and put them on my S3 service, or pull something off of it.

xorg.conf

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder3) Mon Oct 16 22:13:07 PDT 2006

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the /etc/X11/xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man /etc/X11/xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen" 0 0
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# path to defoma fonts
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "i2c"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "lv3:ralt_switch"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# /dev/input/event
# for USB
Identifier "stylus"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/wacom" # Change to
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# /dev/input/event
# for USB
Identifier "eraser"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/wacom" # Change to
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# /dev/input/event
# for USB
Identifier "cursor"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/wacom" # Change to
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Envision EN7220 17inch"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 55.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "NVIDIA Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000 AGP 8x]"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "TripleBuffer" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "NVIDIA Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000 AGP 8x]"
Monitor "Envision EN7220 17inch"
DefaultDepth 24
# 32-bit ARGB GLX Visuals
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1280X1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1280X1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280X1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280X1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Ubuntu 7.04 Beta

Canonical announced on March 23 that the beta release of Ubuntu 7.04. Mainly it brings these new features to the table. -- Of course they release the new wireless support after I spend about 3 weeks trying to get my ralink mpg54g wireless pci card to work

Ubuntu 7.04 BETA

The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the beta release of Ubuntu 7.04.

Ubuntu 7.04 is the most user-friendly Ubuntu to date and includes a ground-breaking Windows migration assistant, excellent wireless networking support and improved multimedia support.

Ubuntu 7.04 server edition adds support for hardware facilities that speed up the use of virtual machines as well as other improved hardware support, making it an excellent choice as a web, database, file and print server, the fastest growing area of Linux server use.

Desktop highlights

Windows migration tool: The new migration tool recognises Internet Explorer bookmarks, Firefox favourites, desktop wallpaper, AOL IM contacts, and Yahoo IM contacts, and imports them into Ubuntu during installation. This offers easier and faster migration for new users of Ubuntu and individuals wanting to run a dual-boot system.

Easy-to-install codec wizards: A new guided wizard for installing codecs not shipped with Ubuntu gives users a safe way of installing codecs they can legally use to view multimedia content.

Plug and play network sharing with Avahi: This new feature allows users to automatically discover and join a wireless network and share music, find printers and more.

Server highlights

Virtualisation support: On x86 systems with the Intel VT or AMD-V extensions, Kernel-based Virtual Machine support (KVM) allows users to run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux. Each virtual machine has private virtualised hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, and so on. We have also added VMI support, which provides optimised performance under VMWare.

Edubuntu highlights

Thin client: Edubuntu integrates the latest thin client technology out of the box. Edubuntu Classroom Server consists of two CDs, a server image and a server add-on image with additional education applications and languages.

Improved documentation: The Edubuntu handbook with tips and best practices for educators and educational IT administrators is included.

Thin Client highlights

Print and sound support: Jetpipe, a new printing architecture for thin clients, greatly improves on previous technologies. Sound support in applications is also dramatically improved with the PulseAudio sound server.

Thin client management: Administrators can now manage thin client connections to a server more easily.

Other

• On the Desktop: GNOME 2.18, OpenOffice.org 2.2.0rc3, X.org 7.2
• On the Server: Apache 2.2, PostgreSQL 8.2, PHP 5.2.1, LTSP 5.0
• "Under the hood": GCC 4.1.2, glibc 2.5, Linux 2.6.20, Python 2.5

The full release notes can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyFawn/Beta

About Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop, laptop, thin client and server, with a fast and easy install. The Ubuntu project makes no separation between our free edition and our enterprise edition - this is our best work and it is freely available.

Used by businesses, home users, schools and governments around the world, Ubuntu offers regular releases, a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default and professional commercial technical support from Canonical Ltd and hundreds of other companies.

Ubuntu 7.04 will be supported for 18 months on both the desktop and on the server. Upgrades to new releases will always be free of charge.

To Get Ubuntu 7.04 Beta

Download Ubuntu 7.04 Beta here (choose the mirror closest to you):

Europe:

http://se.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Sweden)
http://es.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Spain)
http://nl.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (The Netherlands)
http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/linux/ubuntu/7.04 (The Netherlands)
http://ie.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Ireland)
http://it.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Italy)
http://pl.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Poland)
http://de.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Germany)
http://bg.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Bulgaria)

Australia:

http://au.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04

Africa:

http://za.releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (South Africa)

Rest of the world:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/7.04 (Great Britain)

Please download using Bittorrent if possible.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 6.10 to Ubuntu 7.04 Beta, follow these
instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FeistyUpgrades

The final version of Ubuntu 7.04 is expected to be released in
April 2007.

Known Bugs

• Resizing ext2/ext3 file systems may fail unless a full file system check has just been run. To work around this, run 'e2fsck -f DEVICE' (where DEVICE is the name of the device in question, such as /dev/sda1) and retry the resize operation after that completes. When using the desktop CD, you can run this from a terminal window; when using the alternate install CD, you can press Alt-F2 to get to a terminal, and Alt-F1 to return to the installer. https://launchpad.net/bugs/94647
• Systems with JMicron IDE(PATA) chipsets may experience a crash on boot. This was not fixed in time for beta release, but a planned kernel upload just after release will rectify the problem. A work around has not been tested, but would involve blacklisting the `generic` kernel module. https://launchpad.net/bugs/84964

Feedback and Helping

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of
ways you can participate at

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help turn
this Beta into the best release of Ubuntu ever. Please report bugs
through the Launchpad bug tracker:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+bugs

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but
are not sure, first try asking on the #ubuntu IRC channel on FreeNode,
on the Ubuntu Users mailing list, or on the Ubuntu forums:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

More Information

You can find out more about Ubuntu and about this preview release on
our website, IRC channel and wiki. If you are new to Ubuntu, please
visit:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to
Ubuntu's very low volume announcement list at:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce

Ruby, the ghetto way (Ubuntu 6.10)

Quickie, Had my wisdom teeth out Friday, don't feel like sitting around here all night.

Before we start check and make sure your zlibs are up to date.
apt-get install zlibc zlib1g zlib1g-dev
sudo cp /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/zlib.so /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i686-linux/

Install ruby now.

* Bring up the terminal, login as system root, and create temporary directory to store downloaded files.
[~/] su
[~/] mkdir local
[~/] cd local

* Download official source distribution. This will create a file named ruby-1.8.5.tar.gz in your local directory.
[~/local] wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.5.tar.gz

* Extract all the files from downloaded archive. This will create local/ruby-1.8.5 subdirectory that stores extracted files.
[~/local] tar xvfz ruby-1.8.5.tar.gz

* Install GNU C++ compiler you'll need to build Ruby from source.
[~/local] apt-get install build-essential

* Run configure utility to determine your system configuration.
[~/local] cd ruby-1.8.5
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] ./configure

* Run make command to compile and build Ruby.
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] make

* Test newly built Ruby executable by running regression test suite. Upon successfull completion you'll see a message like: "Finished in 44.904424 seconds. 1440 tests, 13585 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors."
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] make test-all

* Install Ruby onto your system. This will move Ruby executable and utilities to /usr/local/bin and standard Ruby libraries to /usr/local/lib/ruby.
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] make install

* Install Ruby documentation. This will compile Ruby documentation in format required for ri command.
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] make install-doc

At this point the installation of Ruby 1.8.5 is complete. If you had previous version of Ruby installed in /usr/local/bin, you should take two extra steps:

* Make sure /usr/local/bin comes before /usr/bin in your $PATH:
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games

* Logout from your current terminal session and login again to reload hashed value of ruby:
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] which ruby
/usr/local/bin/ruby
[~/local/ruby-1.8.5] ruby -v
ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i686-linux]




Check it out.
Make sure you're running the latest version:
ruby -v
ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i686-linux]

if so good!

Now pick up the GEM source http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126&release_id=9501

To Install gem:
tar -zxvf rubygems-0.9.2.tgz
cd rubygems-0.9.2
ruby setup.rb

make sure gem works:
gem -v
0.9.2

got it? good!

now run a sudo gem install Rails.

Say yes when it asks to install dependencies!

After GEM pulls down rails

make sure you're good to go:
rails -v
Rails 1.2.2

got it? Good!

Thats all for now.

Launching LZTX

Welcome to my blog.

You can thank Andrew for getting me to make this blog. I'll be rolling out the software research studios LZTX in the next few months here. Between the project I am working on for Andrew and because I need something for myself to do. I have a LOT of free time on my hands while waiting for work to call me back so I can start.

LZTX will be something I have wanted to start for a while. Not sure if I will even be able to get a userbase, but I really don't care. I'll just poke away at Ruby/PHP/Java stuffs, along with some security things on the side.

Anyway it's 1:11AM local time. I'll get to bed.