fyhuang
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Posts posted by fyhuang
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I'm thinking about switching to TextDrive now (it's now a lot more urgent, since PayPal cancelled my subscription payment to my old host, as their PayPal account apparently had some problems...). Can you give me some information about TextDrive's reliability? How long has the company been around? I've read some comments about their being acquired by some company on WHT, is this affecting their service in any way? Their customer support (even pre-sales) seems quite speedy, I got a response in about an hour.
Thanks and cheers!
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Hey guys,
I was looking for a webhost that offers a lot of value for a fairly low price, and I happened to stumble upon Tomorrow Hosting. One of my friends seems to know the owner of this company (I assume it's a small company), and he referred me to them. Have any of you ever used this company or know anyone that does? I'd like some 'outside opinions' before I start paying money to use them
. Uptime? Customer support? Any info would be greatly appreciated.Thanks and cheers!
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I remember that Microsoft compilers should come with OpenGL link libs, and for Dev-C++ (which uses MinGW IIRC), all you have to do is -lGL in linker flags, I think.
Latest OpenGL libs should also not matter, because the OpenGL extension system allows you to access all OpenGL features regardless of header or library version (correct me here if I misunderstand).
Cheers!
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Mplayer appears minimalistic because of its un-GUI-ness, but in fact it probably has just a big a footprint (in the console) as WMP does graphically, because of its INSANE feature set and codec support
. It does load a LOT faster though, even with all the codecs (generally I've found that Mplayer will play anything WMP plays and stuff that it doesn't as well).VLC is pretty nice too, all the Linux/generic geeks at my school use it.
HTH and cheers!
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How to setup an Acer C314Xmi (possibly also any other 31x series) tablet PC's tablet function on Linux (also serves as a useful howto for creating init scripts):
0. Make sure you have the packages setserial and linuxwacom installed.
1. Create an init-script with the following code (in most distros, create a file like /etc/init.d/local, put the one line in it - in Gentoo, edit the file /etc/conf.d/local.start):
setserial /dev/ttyS0 port 0x06f8 irq 6 uart 16550A
A possible script could look like this:
#!/bin/sh
# Local start script
case "$1" in
start|restart|reload|force-reload)
setserial /dev/ttyS0 port 0x06f8 irq 6 uart 16550A
stop)
;
esac2. Add your script to your default runlevel:
2a. For most Linux distros: symlink /etc/init.d/local (or whatever you called your script) to /etc/rc5.d/S90local
For example: "ln -s /etc/init.d/local /etc/rc5.d/S90local"
You may need to do this as root (put 'sudo' in front of the command). Also note that different distributions may have different default runlevels, it is usually 5 (the 5 in rc5.d).
2b. For Gentoo, nothing has to be done, merely editing the local.start file is sufficient
3. Edit your X config file, adding three InputDevice sections:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "TabletPen"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
Option "BottomX" "28800"
Option "BottomY" "21760"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "TabletEraser"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
Option "BottomX" "28800"
Option "BottomY" "21760"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "TabletCursor"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"
Option "BottomX" "28800"
Option "BottomY" "21760"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
EndSection4. Restart computer, and you should have a working tablet screen!
5. To use this functionality with the GIMP, you will need to edit the input devices, which can be found in File->Preferences->Input Devices->Configure Extended Input Devices. Play around with the different settings until you find one that works - I've found that setting the mode to Screen works best.
Whilst there will be no handwriting recognition, there are advantages to using the Acer tablet screens on Linux as opposed to Windows - pressure sensitivity. I haven't tried this yet, but simply setting up the input devices in the GIMP will allow you to use pressure sensitivity on Linux, but Windows doesn't seem to have this functionality.
The above post may be condensed into a HOWTO of sorts someday.
Have fun!
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Flash 8 is out???
I've been living without Flash for quite a while now (some badly designed Flash animations crashed my browser, namely the one on NFL.com (I think... this was quite a while ago)), so I've stopped keeping up with these things.
I'll keep this solution in mind though, methinks a bunch of people at my school are going to have this problem
(our school is currently the only high school I have been to that encourages the use of Firefox and distributes it on all school-issued PCs complete with IEview and Adblock extensions).Cheers!
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I'm using it right now... I'm not completely sure about the legality, but you will soon know if my account is mysteriously deleted...
Their site says that they pay all due royalties to the artists they sell music for. Thus, I am fairly confident that they are legal enough for me to buy music from.
YMMV. Cheers!
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The reason MP3 support is not compiled into your packages is this: MP3 is a patented format. This means that, legally, in order for open-source developers to use it in their programs, they have to pay the MP3 Consortium Group thingy an amount of money for each copy of the program they distribute. Sure, it might be only one cent per copy, but if you think about it, libmp3lame is downloaded like a thousand times a day - that's $10 a day and can quickly add up...
Libmp3lame is, by the way, a free implementation of a codec very closely resembling MP3 (i.e. open-source MP3), just as Mesa is an implementation of an API very closely resembling OpenGL (i.e. open-source, software OpenGL).
I could see why projects such as Fedora (I assume you use Fedora) wouldn't want to muck around with borderline legal issues like this one, for the same reasons that most major distros don't include support for libdvdcss out of the box.
If you wish to use Debian, BTW, Ubuntu is probably your best choice. Ubuntu is a Debian-based Linux distro, and from what I've seen and heard (one of the staff here at school is a Linux GENIUS), it's quite possibly the easiest distro to install and configure. It has the best hardware detection, it's based on Debian and so has their excellent apt package management system, and although the latest version has some problems (GCC 4.0???), it's quite a good distro to work with.
HTH and cheers!
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Get a BIG hard disk. Something at least 40 GB... they're not *exceptionally* expensive...
Also, more RAM. If your processor model is fine, 1.7 GHz isn't that bad. More RAM. AT LEAST 256 MB, 512 if you can afford it. I saw a stick of 256 MB for $25 the other day, so this should be doable.
Ask your parents to wait a while and give you more budget, because making a future investment is definitely in your best interest, given the rate of current technology growth. $200, BTW is a *very low* budget for a computer, especially for replacing one that is 7 years old. I would recommend something like $400 if you want to actually *use* this computer for useful stuff, and $200 for a complete bare minimum, email and word processing computer (and absolute nothing else, and not even email and word processing at the same time
).[edit] In other words, you are replacing a computer with one that is functionally equivalent in today's world - i.e. wasted $200.
HTH and cheers!
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Unfortunately, yes, Windows Firewall does suck. It's the Microsoft one that comes bundled with Windows, blocks legitimate apps and fails to catch spyware...
And no, we're not in the military here
.Cheers!
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One of my teachers encrypts his wireless network with WPA, changing the key every 10 minutes, and on top of that uses MAC address filtering. He is really, really paranoid
. That's about the extent I know about wireless security, but you could definitely go into other security issues, for example encrypted wireless might help but if the data itself is unencrypted, it doesn't even matter. You could talk about using SSL tunnels (what I'm planning to do here at school - leave a computer hooked up to my ethernet w/an SSL tunneler so when I'm on wireless, I can SSL tunnel all my transmissions), or how SSH works, or why it's important to have a firewall which is NOT named "Windows Firewall"...A great side topic would also be about how to be careful on the Internet - what kinds of things to be suspicious of for spyware.
HTH and cheers!
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I'm not sure you can record more than one track at the same time - the most today's sound cards can do, to the best of my knowledge is full-duplex, playing and recording at the same time, not recording two things at the same time...
If it is possible though, there might be a setting in Audacity for the recording source, which you could set to "What you hear", then somehow remove Mic from what you hear and start recording on the second track with the Mic...
HTH and cheers!
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Press whatever key they want you to press for BIOS setup, then set the boot order so that CD-ROM boots before hard disk. Or, if there is a multiboot key, press that and select CD-ROM.
Cheers!
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At the end of Xfree86.0.log, there might be some useful messages. For me, the useful messages are usually near the end.
If you have an nVidia card and the open-source nvidia drivers ("nv", do 'cat /etc/X11/XF86Config | grep nv", and if you get Driver "nv" then you use the open-source drivers), you may get graphical corruption with some cards (the only one I know of so far is the 6200 Go). If so, the closed-source nVidia drivers will solve your problem (maybe), because nVidia releases practically no information about their cards, so open-source developers have a hard time developing for them.
KDM, by the way, does have an option I think to skip the login screen, so even if you use a DM you can still skip the login. The good thing about a DM, then, is that it enables features such as 'Shut down', 'Reboot', etc. in the log out screen of GNOME (when using GDM) or KDE (when using KDM), I think. I could be totally wrong about this too.
Also, try turning up the color depth to 24 if it's not already set at 24.
If you need help editing the XFree86 config file, feel free to ask
. I also should mention, the entire Linux world is switching away from XFree86 to a newer X server called X.org. Newer nVidia and ATi drivers are being written for Xorg, so eventually you might not be able to get drivers for XFree86 anymore...Cheers!
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Hmm. I seem to have this kind of problem with the 'O' key, on every single keyboard I have ever tried, on both Windows and Linux. I think it's either a problem with generic OS input handling, or a problem with generic keyboard event handling, or maybe I just have bad typing habits and miss the O a lot...
Cheers!
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What I don't recommend is Acer
Seconded. Very strongly. My boarding school requires laptops to be purchased through their program, and the Asus was the only real contending choice (god, who wants to buy an HP laptop...), but it is the suckiest thing I've ever seen. Volume control, sleep, etc. buttons are COMPLETELY NONSTANDARD, i.e. they don't generate keyboard events, and even in Windows it takes like 15 seconds before pressing a key does anything. The lid is just weird, you actually have to slide the latch to the left to close the lid (it doesn't just 'snap' when you close it). The BIOS is just a piece of crap. If you have an ethernet cable plugged in at startup, the BIOS will not let you continue. Says something about a PCI bus system error (0x0000 - which is a really strange error code
), sometimes. Other times it just freezes with no notification.This causes insanely stupid problems where I have to boot from network (to reload a computer with Symantec GhostCast Server), so I need the ethernet cable plugged in, but then the BIOS won't let me start it. It's seriously, insanely stupid.
The battery life is okay, but this is my first laptop so I wouldn't know. At the lowest screen brightness and the lowest CPU speed setting, you can crank out just about 3 hours. It's completely inadequate for school use though, I would have expected one to last at least an entire school day.
The components are, amazingly enough, compatible with Linux
. Not a single thing on this laptop refuses to work with my Linux (except ACPI, which never works anyways), INCLUDING the tablet PC functionality.Cheers!
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Ink Desktop? That is, if you own a tablet... I find Google Desktop to be a bit intrusive with their latest iteration, but oh well. Good enough.
Cheers!
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Go Gentoo sources!!!
I don't patch my kernel with anything else than that, other stuff I just compile as modules.
Cheers!
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Manuel.... hardware firewalls (at least the really good one on my Linksys router) tend to be MUCH more stable (hardware is ALMOST ALWAYS more stable than software), much less pesky, and much more reliable. If you opened a virus you downloaded from a email/website, and it compromised your computer, your software firewall is down with the rest of your computer, and a hacker can get in. As far as I've seen, no one has compromised a router yet (unless you happen to be a big company and have the world's 10 best hackers after you).
Hardware firewalls are also much less pesky than software firewalls. Sure, they may not provide outbound protection, but if you're careful about downloading and emails, you won't need it. Not only that, a hardware firewall has the capability to protect an entire network, with one central configuration place.
In short, hardware > software. But having 2 is even better, as it gives you an additional layer of protection in case one might fall, and the software firewall can give you outbound protection. One software and one hardware will not conflict. Two softwares will conflict, because they are both fighting to control packets on one interface.
My NSH opinion. Cheers!
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Okay, the testimonials and representative sections are now officially done! I need free software-experienced (right now, Firefox/TB/Mozilla-experienced) individuals to become volunteer campaign representatives in their respective communities. An idea of what you'll likely be doing/need to be doing - I'll be 1) promoting/persuading people to use free software, 2) providing basic installation support for free software (needed later on for Linux I bet), and 3) providing basic tech support/question answering after the software is installed.
I don't want the experience to be like talking to a tech support guy - you should be like the community's free software mentors. Because of the above recommendations, you'll, as I said probably need some expertise with computers and free software in general. I would be prepared to solve fairly challenging technical problems, as well as answer philosophical questions about free software in general.
Geological location doesn't matter, but it's probably better if you're in a non-US country because we can then boast that the campaign is international
. As a representative, you will be required to uphold our reputation (i.e. please try not to inflame other people or otherwise give us a bad name), but other than that there are no legally binding contracts (yet ).For those of you who aren't eligible/interested (not enough time, etc.), you can help by writing a short testimonial which I can post on the FSC site. Email, post here, or PM me if you want to do one or have already done one.
I'll continue working on other pages in the meantime, and probably will be reserving a domain for the campaign until it goes live/official
.Thanks in advance and cheers!
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I just did
. The width of all background images is now 1600. This should work for all resolutions up to and including 1600x1200. After that, I'm not really sure I want to widen my images any more, because that would be a really big download for one background image.Cheers!
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Thanks for the nice comments and Linux SVG, Klaas! I'm modifying my Linux page image now... I'm also adding a random testimonial selector, to fit with my random image selector
. If you want to submit a 'testimonial' of your usage of Free Software (whether by my influence or not ), feel free to PM/email/whatever me.BTW, I haven't 'officially' launched the campaign yet - because I have never kept track of the start dates of my previous projects, I plan to 'officially' launch the campaign once I finish the website, thus making it my first project with an official start date
.Cheers!
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Actually, I had dial-up for a *long* time before we switched to cable, and I must say that broadband doesn't really help your computer expertise all that much, except to maybe allow you to work faster
. So I still plan my websites and stuff for people with slow connections.Cheers!
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The Tux on the Linux page was sharp when I got it, but... it was very aliased and my bad blurring job is a crude attempt to make it look more antialiased
. Um, if you guys really like the aliased one better, I could do that... What I really need is someone to turn it into an SVG.Oh, do you think that the Gnu on the front page will confuse people too much? Do you think the GNU project will mind me using it?
Cheers!
IE List Bug
in Computer Desk
Posted
The first thing my mind read when I saw your title was "IE bug list"
. Do you have the entire page+CSS source for us to peruse?
Cheers!