It seems strange having to write stuff without posting any pictures. That's especially true with hardware reviews. :) Well, maybe I'll go back to reading camera reviews, and one day get my own. I've never had one my entire life. It's been a long itch. Then, maybe I'll get back to posting stuff.
What's a good digital camera for a neophyte photographer wants to get better at this?
20110120
Laptop Scoliosis
I bought an MSI EX460 a whole year ago, and just forgot to post my rants about it. It's entirely too old for that now as I think you can't buy this model any more except through the bargain bins.
I selected this model mainly for Linux graphics work. It sounded nice enough, with a Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, and a video card with its own memory. But I only really saw how it looked like after it was delivered.
It wasn't really that bad, except that I wouldn't want it for my own, if only because the keyboard is off-center. With some unused shortcut buttons placed prominently at the left of the keyboard, it felt to me that there's a grave discomfort in having to maintain your hands slightly to the right and not center of the screen.
That, and too many blue lights.
I selected this model mainly for Linux graphics work. It sounded nice enough, with a Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, and a video card with its own memory. But I only really saw how it looked like after it was delivered.
It wasn't really that bad, except that I wouldn't want it for my own, if only because the keyboard is off-center. With some unused shortcut buttons placed prominently at the left of the keyboard, it felt to me that there's a grave discomfort in having to maintain your hands slightly to the right and not center of the screen.
That, and too many blue lights.
20110112
The Last Box
The last box might as well have died last Saturday. It's the last computer in our small office of 20 that's still running Microsoft Windows. While the rest have been linux-ified, (some after being rendered untrustworthy by malwares), the last one has been churning on for a couple of years, trying and failing to update during shutdowns, but otherwise left to its own lifeline.
Last Saturday, it refused to boot up. It's not the dead like nothing's turning on, but it was in a zombie state, trapped in dying and living in an infinite loop of failing to even get a second into booting Windows. Unfortunately, it's not going to be as easy as a reformat. The only reason that we still have a Windows computer in our office is that it runs Autodesk Inventor, which we use for drafting and project plumbing design and layout. What this meant was that my weekend was booked. I had to get it up and running come Monday.
How did it go? First, I tried the Windows Repair option using the OEM CD. It got to detect the previous installation. It copied the original Windows files that are sure to work. And then after 15 minutes or so, I got to the Detecting Device part. Suddenly, the mouse and keyboard stopped working. The system was now asking me to insert an Nvidia NForce driver installation CD. That was the trap.
First, I have thrown all my driver CDs away already, being too used to modern Linux installations in which hardware just worked automatically. Next, the mouse and keyboard don't even work. It looks like it turned off the USB subsystem while waiting for the motherboard drivers. I can't cancel the prompt or even browse for the files needed in the hard disk. The only interface left was me ejecting and loading the CD drive. So, that was a failure.
It looks like I needed a really fresh installation after all. Ok. No problem about that except for my worries with the licensing and activation of Inventor, which I have no experience yet. It was a good number of hours of installing Windows XP yet again, and the cyclical downloading updates, restarting, and downloading updates, and restarting again and again. I got to the old Windows installation routine from 3 years ago, installing our a basic software set which includes 7-Zip, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Adobe Acrobat Reader, MS Security Essentials. And then the behemoth of Autodesk Inventor 2008. (We're still using an old version because we decided not to renew subscription until perhaps the software can run in our primary OS, which isn't Windows after all.)
I found out activating Inventor was a problem. I couldn't figure out how to input the correct serial number of the installation. Upon running Inventor, it automatically directs me to activate over the internet. But to activate, it first needs the correct serial number so it can generate a proper Request Code. It was a chicken and egg bug, it seems.
Fortunately, after some meditation and a bit of RTFM, I found my solution. I only had to copy the license files from the previous partition to the new partition. It was that simple after all. I got it to running state, applied 3 sets of service packs for Inventor and Autocad Mechanical, and I could now rest easy. At least till the time I upgrade to the next hardware or software.
So there was the last box. It went down but it refused to die. I don't have high hopes of seeing Inventor for Linux see the light of day. (We might try Varicad first, or some other more linux friendly CAD software.) Till then, it will just have to live and survive.
Last Saturday, it refused to boot up. It's not the dead like nothing's turning on, but it was in a zombie state, trapped in dying and living in an infinite loop of failing to even get a second into booting Windows. Unfortunately, it's not going to be as easy as a reformat. The only reason that we still have a Windows computer in our office is that it runs Autodesk Inventor, which we use for drafting and project plumbing design and layout. What this meant was that my weekend was booked. I had to get it up and running come Monday.
How did it go? First, I tried the Windows Repair option using the OEM CD. It got to detect the previous installation. It copied the original Windows files that are sure to work. And then after 15 minutes or so, I got to the Detecting Device part. Suddenly, the mouse and keyboard stopped working. The system was now asking me to insert an Nvidia NForce driver installation CD. That was the trap.
First, I have thrown all my driver CDs away already, being too used to modern Linux installations in which hardware just worked automatically. Next, the mouse and keyboard don't even work. It looks like it turned off the USB subsystem while waiting for the motherboard drivers. I can't cancel the prompt or even browse for the files needed in the hard disk. The only interface left was me ejecting and loading the CD drive. So, that was a failure.
It looks like I needed a really fresh installation after all. Ok. No problem about that except for my worries with the licensing and activation of Inventor, which I have no experience yet. It was a good number of hours of installing Windows XP yet again, and the cyclical downloading updates, restarting, and downloading updates, and restarting again and again. I got to the old Windows installation routine from 3 years ago, installing our a basic software set which includes 7-Zip, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Adobe Acrobat Reader, MS Security Essentials. And then the behemoth of Autodesk Inventor 2008. (We're still using an old version because we decided not to renew subscription until perhaps the software can run in our primary OS, which isn't Windows after all.)
I found out activating Inventor was a problem. I couldn't figure out how to input the correct serial number of the installation. Upon running Inventor, it automatically directs me to activate over the internet. But to activate, it first needs the correct serial number so it can generate a proper Request Code. It was a chicken and egg bug, it seems.
Fortunately, after some meditation and a bit of RTFM, I found my solution. I only had to copy the license files from the previous partition to the new partition. It was that simple after all. I got it to running state, applied 3 sets of service packs for Inventor and Autocad Mechanical, and I could now rest easy. At least till the time I upgrade to the next hardware or software.
So there was the last box. It went down but it refused to die. I don't have high hopes of seeing Inventor for Linux see the light of day. (We might try Varicad first, or some other more linux friendly CAD software.) Till then, it will just have to live and survive.
20110111
Sun Wireless Broadband in Ubuntu 10.10
For a welcome surprise, it's even easier to install Sun Wireless Broadband in the latest Ubuntu version. After I plugged in the USB modem, I clicked on the Network Manager icon and proceeded to create a Wireless Broadband account. I still specified fbband as the APN, and set Authentication method as PAP only. but that's it! If I know better, those might not have even been needed.
20100904
Endian Firewall
Last month I finally decided to install Endian as our office firewall. For the last 4 years, we've been dependent on our hardworking Netgear home router to serve our needs. This year however, we've had some difficulties in our glue-on networking infrastructure: slow VPN, lack of bandwidth management, employees browsing unproductively and excessively during work hours, intermittent connections, and frequently dropped wireless connection.
We've found the latter to be due to a faulty wireless router. The intermittent connection was frequent with our previous internet service provider, and also after brownout occurs. I'll see on the next brownout if it will still be a problem. For the rest, I'm hoping the firewall will help.
We've found the latter to be due to a faulty wireless router. The intermittent connection was frequent with our previous internet service provider, and also after brownout occurs. I'll see on the next brownout if it will still be a problem. For the rest, I'm hoping the firewall will help.
UDP not available in Sun Wireless Broadband
I wanted to give our warehouse an internet connection so that they can access our company enterprise inventory system through VPN or other secure remote means. So I went to test Sun Wireless Broadband under Linux just to see if the connection will be a good fit for our warehouse.
Internet browsing, and email works smoothly. However, when I tried OpenVPN which uses UDP, I couldn't connect. It looks like Sun does not allow UDP traffic through their service. I'll wager UDP wouldn't work with Smartbro or Globe either. Fortunately, remote NX connection over TCP works just fine.
I'll have to think it over whether to set our VPN connection to use TCP instead and live with it.
Internet browsing, and email works smoothly. However, when I tried OpenVPN which uses UDP, I couldn't connect. It looks like Sun does not allow UDP traffic through their service. I'll wager UDP wouldn't work with Smartbro or Globe either. Fortunately, remote NX connection over TCP works just fine.
I'll have to think it over whether to set our VPN connection to use TCP instead and live with it.
20100812
Sun Wireless Broadband using Ubuntu 10.04
Last year, I hoped to evaluate several mobile broadband internet services for our warehouse internet needs. We can't justify DSL because a business DSL package is too expensive for a low bandwidth internet requirement just so our warehouse manager can send emails and instant messages to our office. Besides, we're not entirely sure we'll be staying in the same warehouse for a year or more.
Today I got the chance to try Sun Wireless Broadband. The modem I got to try was Huawei E1550. Initial installation was not providing stable connections. I had to create a udev rules for the usb mode switching. But I just couldn't connect. I thought I needed to google some more. Searches for "sun ubuntu huawei e1550" brought me to the same non-working solutions for Lucid until I got here and here.
It was simpler than I thought. As detailed in the above blogs, I just installed two packages: linux-backports-modules-headers-lucid-generic and usb-modeswitch, set the appropriate APN and put authentication to PAP, and I was set.
The appropriate APN depends on your broadband package:
- fbband for post-paid < 1000php
- minternet for pre-paid
- mbband for the post-paid > 1200 php
Connection was not bad. You're assigned a private IP address so you can't set up a server with this connection, but it's ideal for the occasional internet needs.
Today I got the chance to try Sun Wireless Broadband. The modem I got to try was Huawei E1550. Initial installation was not providing stable connections. I had to create a udev rules for the usb mode switching. But I just couldn't connect. I thought I needed to google some more. Searches for "sun ubuntu huawei e1550" brought me to the same non-working solutions for Lucid until I got here and here.
It was simpler than I thought. As detailed in the above blogs, I just installed two packages: linux-backports-modules-headers-lucid-generic and usb-modeswitch, set the appropriate APN and put authentication to PAP, and I was set.
The appropriate APN depends on your broadband package:
- fbband for post-paid < 1000php
- minternet for pre-paid
- mbband for the post-paid > 1200 php
Connection was not bad. You're assigned a private IP address so you can't set up a server with this connection, but it's ideal for the occasional internet needs.
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