Uncategorized
Cable Internet – Isolate the Problem
Feb 17th
Image via Wikipedia
After rewiring my entire house the ultimate way to isolate the problem is to put the cable modem directly on the main line. Replace all splitters, and ask the cable company to drop a new main line, and you can feel confident that the problem is no longer in your house. I rewired my entire house, replaced all splitter, then called the cable company. They replaced the splitter outside, and then dropped a new main line. The problem is no longer in my house. My router is loosing its external ip address. So far the cable company said they will compensate us for one months service, if this continues more compensation is warranted.
Every time the internet goes down, this website, my other websites, and all of my email services go offline. I rely on this website to get me through the day when I am at work. What is a day of work when you can blog about things 
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b3bdb5a1-369e-4601-a9f7-790463f4ed2b)
Sendmail – Crontab and Email Updates
Feb 8th
Cron automatically sends out email to the job’s runner a report of the issued cronjob. This can either be an excellent and invaluable feature or an annoyance. To stop the emails from coming add this to the end of any particular cronjob:
>/dev/null 2>&1
Without the above line the email will be delivered to the mailbox. You can send the mail anywhere. I prefer setting up aliases in /etc/mail/aliases. This associated a particular user with possibly the email address of another domain. You can also put a MAILTO directive directly at the top of a particular users crontab:
MAILTO=" "
Note that sendmail will send outbound mail without any configurations necessary. Just install it:
sudo apt-get install sendmail
Test sendmail with:
mail -v user@domain.com
Write a subject, press enter, add something meaningless to the body, press control-d, then press enter on CC. Accepting mail is another story. To accecpt mail you need to open port 25, and make sure the external ip address is routing it to the local ip machine running sendmail. Then you have to configure sendmail to listen and accecpt email coming from this port. Then you need another application to retreive the mail from the users inbox. I prefer Dovecot. For more information on Dovecot please refer to:
2014 – Windows XP Deadline
Dec 30th
Its time for a shift. Windows XP, the longtime staple of industries around the world, has a deadline. It will no longer be supported by Microsoft in 2014. Because of this companies will either need to upgrade to Windows 7, or some sort of alternative. Windows 7 costs been 4-6 thousand dollars for a 30 license pack. If your company has thousands of computer this is a whole lot of money. Why not switch to Linux, it is free. Is free bad? Is free not good? There are many people that do not like free, which is just strange. Not liking Ubuntu is like someone coming up to you and saying “here take this for free”, and you saying “no thanks I don’t want it”. What a strange notion that Linux is not liked by millions.
Ubuntu can replace the standard workstation. There are some thinks holding back the switch. The main thing is applications that require .net framework. Its really messed up that there is no support for .net framework in Linux. Using Wine .net framework can easily be installed, especially with Wine tricks, but using programs that depend on its functionality is another story. Various frontends to database applications use .net to access the server. Is there an alternative application, made by the company, that does not depend on .net? If your company has thousands of computers, and you can save over a million dollars just in Windows 7 license fees, is it not worth investigating? You’d be surprised there are many companies out there that would rather spend the million dollars than investigate if implementing an alternative is possible.
Ubuntu – MythTV – OSX – Windows XP – Same Desktop!
Jun 20th
Worth posting a screenie again. I have Ubuntu, MythTV capturing HD via Firewire, OSX, and Windows XP all running on the same desktop using the default compiz fusion.
Compiz Desktop
Virtualbox Official iPhone Support
Nov 24th
The recent Virtualbox update comes equipped with official iPhone support. There was a previous patch/hack released which modified the usb kernel module in Ubuntu distributions, but this was not an easy fix for other distributions. The new release makes iPhone use with iTunes nice and easy. Linux users have been long awaiting the ability to sync their iPhone in a Windows XP virtual machine; we wanted this to ditch are completely unnecessary Windows partitions and now we can. So go for it everyone, delete that Windows partition and load up some new free space for all those extra tid bits we have on our computers.
AWN – Avant Window Navigator – Install Current Version
Aug 24th
For Ubuntu Hardy and most other Debian distributions. To install the most current version of AWN first download the files from the development website. AWN: http://launchpad.net/awn/0.2/0.2.6/+download/avant-window-navigator-0.2.6.tar.gz AWN Extras: http://launchpad.net/awn-extras/0.2/0.2.6/+download/awn-extras-applets-0.2.6.tar.gz Your going to need the build dependencies: sudo apt-get build-dep avant-window-navigator There are a couple of other dependencies for AWN Extras: sudo apt-get install libsexy-dev libnotify-dev librsvg2-dev libgnome-menu-dev libgtop2-dev libvte–dev python-alsaaudio python-feedparser python-gnome2-extras Then unzip the packages. CD into the AWN package first because it is a dependency of the Extras package. Then compile as usual: ./configure make sudo make install Then do the same for the Extras package. You’ll probably want to replace the gnome-panel with AWN therefore you have to disable the former: sudo mv /usr/bin/gnome-panel ~/ This moves the binary to your home directory. If you need to access the panel for the reason you can launch it from your home directory: .~/gnome-panel Set AWN to start on boot by creating a startup session.
