Review requests
Well, I’ve purchased/borrowed a number of gadgets and toys in the last year or so that I HAVEN’T reviewed, so I thought I’d list them, and see if anyone wanted me to review any specific items (comment below with which item you want reviewed): Read more
Forgotten passwords…
A buddy of mine in the fire department forgot his password on Windows XP. Turns out he mistyped it twice when he changed passwords. Since I need to fix this type of problem reasonably infrequently, I thought I’d put in a blog post so that I could remember the program I used for the password recovery, ophcrack. This could even be run off a memory stick!
Setting up wview on Ubuntu
I decided, mainly for myself, to document my setup of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron running with a weather station, the inexpensive WS-2310. I built this computer setup for a buddy who wanted to run a weather station, but didn’t want to buy a Davis Vantage Pro2. The machine is a Pentium 4 2.8GHz, 80G HDD, 1 GB of RAM.
- Download ISO for 8.04 Hardy Heron SERVER EDITION.
- Use PowerISO (Nero, Roxio, ISORecorder, etc.) to burn CD.
- Plug computer into network (needed for below step)
- Boot to this CD, in install mode (IF you have Windows or remnants of Windows on the target HDD, be sure to boot CD as a LiveCD, in interactive mode, and run the partition editor GParted to delete the remnants of Windoze, which WILL stop the installer from working).
- Select Automatic, Use Entire Disk in the options.
- Configure to taste, include Apache, MySQL, etc., then install Server Edition.
- Remove CD, boot, type in user name and password. you set above
- Type:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop, type password when prompted. - When done, reboot into GUI (
sudo shutdown -r now), login. - Apply updates when prompted. Reboot.
- Go into Synaptic Package Manager. Install:
- build-essential
- libcurl4-openssl-dev
- libgd2-noxpm-dev
- libmysqlclient15-dev
- Download radlib and wview. Put them in your home directory
- Open a terminal window:
- Reboot. Should be all
tar xvzf radlib-2.7.5.tar.gz cd radlib-2.7.5 ./configure --enable-mysql make sudo make install
tar xvzf wview-3.9.0.tar.gz cd wview-3.9.0 ./configure --enable-mysql --enable-station-ws2300 --enable-http make sudo make install-env sudo cp examples/Debian/wview /etc/init.d sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/wview cd /etc/rc.d/rc2.d sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/wview S98view sudo apt-get install tnftp sudo /usr/local/bin/wviewconfig sudo /usr/local/bin/wviewhtmlconfig mysql -u root -p [password] CREATE DATABASE wviewDB; GRANT ALL ON wviewDB.* TO wvwuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "wvwpasswd";
Let me know if there’s any errors above, or you’d like me to detail some of the substeps better.
Booting Ubuntu installer off flash
I was trying to setup a buddy’s old laptop to run Ubuntu and wviewweather, and having no luck because his CD-ROM drive was flaky. So i found this great utility (OK, google found it) that sets up a USB flash drive so that it will boot as if it were the CD-ROM. This is: UNetbootin. Tell it where to find the ISO, tell it where your flash is, and ta-dah! Great utility.
No, copying the files from the ISO onto blank USB memory stick doesn’t work, in case you were wondering…
To give a little more detail, wview now supports a very inexpensive weather station, the La Crosse 2310 (I bought it for $120 including shipping off eBay). This is great for those who want to participate in CWOP and can’t afford or don’t want to spend the money to get a $400+ Davis Vantage weather station, and have an old PC with a serial port lying around.
Funambol for Blackberry-Outlook OTA synchronization
I’ve been working on getting Over-The-Air synchronization working on my BlackBerry using only SyncML, Blackberry Internet Services (BIS) and Funambol. All with no luck! If anyone reads this and knows what’s going on, please drop me an e-mail or leave a comment.
Wiping a Blackberry
Well, who’d have thunk it. Wiping a BlackBerry is very difficult. From my previous post, it should be apparent that I left my previous employer, and I have a Blackberry Curve 8310 (personal property). Well, the IT department at my previous employer had imposed a IT Security Policy (that required a password, etc.). It turns out that invoking the Wipe Handheld command does not remove this policy. This is a bad thing, as I do not have access to my new employers BES server to overwrite the policy. SO, here’s two ways of doing it:
- Upgrade your Blackberry to OS 4.5 and then run the JL_Cmder utility to perform a real factory reset. (I used the Beta OS 4.5.0.37)
- Follow the regedit procedure in the documentation here to install a “blank” policy into a Blackberry.
Struggling with Drupal
Well, after a detailed analysis of the different CMS systems, I chose Drupal, and have been struggling, fairly successfully, to port the fire department website, bouldermountainfire.org. Here were my criteria for CMS selection:
- Fantastico compatible (more about this later) for easy upgrade
- MySQL-based
- Good permissions-based content protection (with different users and groups have specific permissions)
- Embedded Gallery2 plugin
Digital converter coupons
Got my digital converter coupons in the mail this week. The end of analog TV is nigh! February 2009 is the turn off date.
Coffee maker reviews
Many folks know I’m an extreme coffee fan, so I thought I’d review the various super-automatic espresso machines I’ve had or tried since 2003. These are in chronological clay texas holdempoker 100 gratuitesle poker gratuites à télécharger en ligneune régle du jeu pokerpoker gratuites bruelpoker multijoueur en lignepoker 3dpartie de poker gratuitesentrainement poker gratuitesjeu poker reseaujouer poker flashtricher au poker en ligneregles poker mainspoker gratuites pas en lignepoker gratuites netjeu de poker hors lignepoker gratuites patrick brueltélécharger jeux poker gratuitsholden poker gratuitesjeux poker omaha gratuitesjeu de poker en lignejeux de poker a telechargerregle de pokerpoker tournamenttexas holdem on linepoker avec argent virtuelregle poker casino,poker casino,jouer poker casinologiciel poker en lignejeu poker tourregles du texas holdemtilt pokerjeux pokerpoker texas gratuitesjeu world pokerjouer poker omaha gratuitesregle world pokerregles de jeu pokerpoker 3d gratuitesjeu poker gratuites francaisjeux de pokerjouer argent pokerpoker gratuites pour macjeu de poker onlinejouer au poker sans argentpoker en ligne patrick brueljouer poker omahale poker gratuites sans téléchargementcomment bien jouer au pokertelecharger jeu pokerpartie poker gratuites order:
Gaggia Compact
Jonathan Coulton
After playing through Portal (awesome game, need to do a review soon), I heard a quirky song at the end by the monstrous computer who’d been trying to kill me. Well, it turns out this song was written by Jonathan Coulton, and I heard about his life story on TWiT. “Code Monkey” and “Re: Your Brains” are my favourite songs by him.
PS: If you’re wondering, Jonathan licenses under Creative Commons, so it’s ok for me to post the mp3s here.
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Weight
Now Reading
Planned books:
- All the Presidents’ Pets : The Story of One Reporter Who Refused to Roll Over by Mo Rocca
- Voice of Reason : Why the Left and Right Are Wrong by Ronn Owens
- Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News by Tucker Carlson
- 1491 : New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
- The Original Turtles Trading Notebook by Russell Sands
Current books:
-
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
Recent books:
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke
- The Yiddish Policemen’s Union: A Novel by Michael Chabon
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn\’t by Robert I. Sutton