Need to get in gear.
Knock it up, knock it up, knock it up!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Trembling Ambition
Waiting for my departure,
There's a place that I haven't been.
Waiting for the words to finish,
There's trembling in novocaine speak.
What did I see?
The world did turn and shed a tear.
Where did I dream,
The relic of a time only we could see?
And when I wailll...
By recognition and ample time,
Oh I don't refrain,
We've recovered from a trembling ambition.
And there's time to make haste.
It doesn't take years to uncover,
But many to build it up.
To see what's yet to come,
By forgetting what brought us here.
And when I trail...
I go on and on at you.
But don't let me fail,
It's ok that we are here.
It's ok, we're making memories.
(C) me, 2011
There's a place that I haven't been.
Waiting for the words to finish,
There's trembling in novocaine speak.
What did I see?
The world did turn and shed a tear.
Where did I dream,
The relic of a time only we could see?
And when I wailll...
By recognition and ample time,
Oh I don't refrain,
We've recovered from a trembling ambition.
And there's time to make haste.
It doesn't take years to uncover,
But many to build it up.
To see what's yet to come,
By forgetting what brought us here.
And when I trail...
I go on and on at you.
But don't let me fail,
It's ok that we are here.
It's ok, we're making memories.
(C) me, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Lyrics: Bob Dylan - My Back Pages
I feel a breeze, the air it carries a sweet tenderness about it. It is not that which compels me to proceed, rather that which tells me how. There be many tales which remain untold, that require to transcend time. But it is the words of a well known man, which cite the reasons not to be bold (insert more appropriate word here).
Bob Dylan - My Back Pages
Bob Dylan - My Back Pages
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Copyright © 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992 by Special Rider Music
Yeah...so as you can tell I've found lyrics, and they have imprinted on me. Nevertheless, I will see how many people I can share them with.
Ciao!
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Copyright © 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992 by Special Rider Music
Yeah...so as you can tell I've found lyrics, and they have imprinted on me. Nevertheless, I will see how many people I can share them with.
Ciao!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
md5sum for Ubuntu USB Installer
Hey all! Just a quickie to explain the importance of md5sum checking.
When using the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator, making bootable USB thumb drives is straight forward. The .iso file which is used to make the thumb-drive however must meet a data integrity test using the md5 algorithm. Essentially, if you decide to download a Linux distro, you should (and up until now, I haven't been) check the md5sum and that it matches the string defined on the Ubuntu Website.
The method is quite simple and will save time in the longrun. A description and method for use of md5 checksum can be read here.
To check the integrity of the data via md5, open terminal, goto the location of the linux-distro.iso, and enter the following:
This may take some time depending on your computer, but I'd say no longer than 2mins. Here is an example showing the output when checking the md5sum for the distro Ubuntu 10.10:
And if you cross reference with the Hash Site, you will see that there is consistency.
This post was made because I have just tried to boot Ubuntu 11.04 Live on my friends laptop and was getting SQUAHFS read errors.
A seemingly n00bish mistake, but we gotta learn somehow.
Until next time. Ciao!
When using the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator, making bootable USB thumb drives is straight forward. The .iso file which is used to make the thumb-drive however must meet a data integrity test using the md5 algorithm. Essentially, if you decide to download a Linux distro, you should (and up until now, I haven't been) check the md5sum and that it matches the string defined on the Ubuntu Website.
The method is quite simple and will save time in the longrun. A description and method for use of md5 checksum can be read here.
To check the integrity of the data via md5, open terminal, goto the location of the linux-distro.iso, and enter the following:
$ md5sum linux-distro.iso
This may take some time depending on your computer, but I'd say no longer than 2mins. Here is an example showing the output when checking the md5sum for the distro Ubuntu 10.10:
$ md5sum ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso
59d15a16ce90c8ee97fa7c211b7673a8 ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso
And if you cross reference with the Hash Site, you will see that there is consistency.
This post was made because I have just tried to boot Ubuntu 11.04 Live on my friends laptop and was getting SQUAHFS read errors.
A seemingly n00bish mistake, but we gotta learn somehow.
Until next time. Ciao!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Crontab
When editing crontabs, you must edit the root cron. I found that editing the user cron file, will not run the script which you desire. Today I've read that Crontab is a file/process which acts to automate script files insync with time. The best example of what a Cronjob is, are monthly backups that people perform incase data becomes corrupt or they get a virus. Rather than doing it manually, or downloading some process heavy software to do it for you, you edit the Crontab file, and specify script/s that you want to run.
Below will be the list of code you will use + an example in which you can see if you have set up a Cronjob correctly. Yes, I'm one of those people whom enjoy peace of mind - knowing something works is better than thinking something works.
Here's what you need - but don't execute them yet, keep reading:
The first time you access the crontab file, it will ask you what editor you wish to use - I use nano. I'm puzzled about the location of the crontab file as I originally thought /tmp files were deleted on shutdown. Anywho...the default crontab might look like this:
The information you need to know about the Cronfile, and editing, it are in the Cronfile itself. But here's a quick run down.
You add a cronjob by using the following syntax:
Notice there are 5 positions. From left to right they specify:
Testing Crontab/Cronjobs
Here's a quick way to test crontab.
1) Open terminal and move to a directory of your choice.
2) Make a new file and call it "crontest.sh".
3) Give crontest.sh user executable permissions. Or 755, which also enables write-perms:
4) In crontest.sh, add this script. This is just a script that echos the date, given the format you desire.
Save and exit.
5) Open up the crontab file:
6) Look at the current time and edit the crontab file with a few minutes added to the current time. So, if the time is 17:40, make the crontab entry look like this:
Close nano and save the changes.
7) Now refresh crontab:
Giving your password where required.
8) Sit and wait. When 17:45 comes around, the script will be run. Check the /path/to/the/storage/file.txt file and see if the date is there. If yes, then your method is good. If no, then check that permissions are correct; check that the code and all pathways are right.
Hope you enjoy this HowTo. I'm probably going to make a cronjob to append CPU temps to a file such that I can graph them and see if certain parameters are better/worse for my CPU performance.
Here are two sites which I found helpful:
http://klenwell.com/press/2010/11/cron-d/
http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techblog/article/schedule_tasks_on_linux_using_crontab/
Enjoy, Ciao!
Below will be the list of code you will use + an example in which you can see if you have set up a Cronjob correctly. Yes, I'm one of those people whom enjoy peace of mind - knowing something works is better than thinking something works.
Here's what you need - but don't execute them yet, keep reading:
$ sudo crontab -e # To access the root cron file
$ sudo touch /etc/cron.d/ # To refresh the cron process with your new settings
The first time you access the crontab file, it will ask you what editor you wish to use - I use nano. I'm puzzled about the location of the crontab file as I originally thought /tmp files were deleted on shutdown. Anywho...the default crontab might look like this:
# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
#
# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# and what command to run for the task
#
# To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any').#
# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system
# daemon's notion of time and timezones.
#
# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
#
# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# at 5 a.m every week with:
# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/
#
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
#
# m h dom mon dow command
The information you need to know about the Cronfile, and editing, it are in the Cronfile itself. But here's a quick run down.
You add a cronjob by using the following syntax:
* * * * * /path/to/crontest.sh
Notice there are 5 positions. From left to right they specify:
- Minute, 0 - 59
- Hour, 0 - 23
- Day of month, 1 - 31
- Month, 1 - 12
- Day of week, 0 (Sunday) - 6 (Saturday)
Testing Crontab/Cronjobs
Here's a quick way to test crontab.
1) Open terminal and move to a directory of your choice.
2) Make a new file and call it "crontest.sh".
3) Give crontest.sh user executable permissions. Or 755, which also enables write-perms:
$ sudo chmod u+x crontest.sh
4) In crontest.sh, add this script. This is just a script that echos the date, given the format you desire.
#!/bin/bash
date +"%d-%m-%Y" >> /path/to/the/storage/file.txt # Date ID, >> tells terminal to append to end of file
Save and exit.
5) Open up the crontab file:
$ sudo crontab -e
6) Look at the current time and edit the crontab file with a few minutes added to the current time. So, if the time is 17:40, make the crontab entry look like this:
...
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
#
# m h dom mon dow command
45 17 * * 1-5 /path/to/crontest.sh
Close nano and save the changes.
7) Now refresh crontab:
sudo touch /etc/cron.d/
Giving your password where required.
8) Sit and wait. When 17:45 comes around, the script will be run. Check the /path/to/the/storage/file.txt file and see if the date is there. If yes, then your method is good. If no, then check that permissions are correct; check that the code and all pathways are right.
Hope you enjoy this HowTo. I'm probably going to make a cronjob to append CPU temps to a file such that I can graph them and see if certain parameters are better/worse for my CPU performance.
Here are two sites which I found helpful:
http://klenwell.com/press/2010/11/cron-d/
http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techblog/article/schedule_tasks_on_linux_using_crontab/
Enjoy, Ciao!
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The journey of overclocking begins!
Overclocking is something that I've always wanted to do. And today, when I should have been finishing an assignment about National Park Management, I decided to read up and perform some overclocking, hehehe.
So far I've:
Here's a neat little YouTube vid that I found interesting. The dude states, and it sounds as though this could be the first tenet of overclocking, and that is that the NB Frequency must be equal to or greater than the HT Frequency in order to have a stable system.
NB Frequency >= HT Frequency (But is this true? I'm wondering now.)
I'll be testing this in the next few days to see if that is the case. Also, he suggests that CPU temps that exceed 65 oC may not be very good, so keep that in mind also.
Vid1
Vid2
While it was slightly disheartening when the BSOD came up, I was able to go back to default settings. What troubled me was that when I rebooted, I had somehow lost 1 core - only 5 cores were being detected/used. So even though the settings were on default, I had lost a core. But I soon discovered that the BIOS appears to have individual core on/off settings and 1 of the cores was switched off when the problem was detected. So I turned it on and everything is fine.
But I guess I learned something, don't be in a hurry.
Computer specs:
ASUS M5A88-M Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X6 1075T
2 x 4GB Kingston RAM @ 1333MHz (need to upgrade this next)
And I suppose I should mention that I'm running most of the tests on Windoze 7....
There is a really good AMD Phenom overclocking guide here. But there are no specific posts where people show successful/stable settings. Maybe I can be the first to post one...
According to the AMD Datasheet, there are some max settings which I probably should not exeed. MT/s stands for 1 million transfers per second.
Max DDR speed: 1333 MT/s
Max HT Link speed: 4000 MT/s
Update 9/10/2011:
In regard to doing the system stability tests on Windoze, I am still as yet able to find a Linux CPU stress tester. CPU and MB temps are now docked on the top panel and this is useful. However, I'm skeptical on the accuracy as I'm almost certain that the temp is just a function of the voltage being run through particular components at any one time. As a result, the temperature factor used by Linux may be different to the temperature factor used by Windoze...
So far I've:
- Joined overclockers.com
- Overclocked my desktop PC using the preloaded OC profiles on my ASUS motherboard, and
- Crashed my desktop once -> a BSOD!!
Here's a neat little YouTube vid that I found interesting. The dude states, and it sounds as though this could be the first tenet of overclocking, and that is that the NB Frequency must be equal to or greater than the HT Frequency in order to have a stable system.
NB Frequency >= HT Frequency (But is this true? I'm wondering now.)
I'll be testing this in the next few days to see if that is the case. Also, he suggests that CPU temps that exceed 65 oC may not be very good, so keep that in mind also.
Vid1
Vid2
While it was slightly disheartening when the BSOD came up, I was able to go back to default settings. What troubled me was that when I rebooted, I had somehow lost 1 core - only 5 cores were being detected/used. So even though the settings were on default, I had lost a core. But I soon discovered that the BIOS appears to have individual core on/off settings and 1 of the cores was switched off when the problem was detected. So I turned it on and everything is fine.
But I guess I learned something, don't be in a hurry.
Computer specs:
ASUS M5A88-M Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X6 1075T
2 x 4GB Kingston RAM @ 1333MHz (need to upgrade this next)
And I suppose I should mention that I'm running most of the tests on Windoze 7....
There is a really good AMD Phenom overclocking guide here. But there are no specific posts where people show successful/stable settings. Maybe I can be the first to post one...
According to the AMD Datasheet, there are some max settings which I probably should not exeed. MT/s stands for 1 million transfers per second.
Max DDR speed: 1333 MT/s
Max HT Link speed: 4000 MT/s
Update 9/10/2011:
In regard to doing the system stability tests on Windoze, I am still as yet able to find a Linux CPU stress tester. CPU and MB temps are now docked on the top panel and this is useful. However, I'm skeptical on the accuracy as I'm almost certain that the temp is just a function of the voltage being run through particular components at any one time. As a result, the temperature factor used by Linux may be different to the temperature factor used by Windoze...
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Blacklisting a driver
For new computers, there can be a lot of tinkering involved. Ever since I bought a new Asus desktop computer, I've been doing a lot of that - and it's been great! If only the building process took a little bit longer than 25mins :(...
Generally, I've found Ubuntu Linux great for computers. Both of my laptops have worked well - after a clean installation of Ubuntu, all my hardware is usually detected correctly. It's quite pleasant. When clean installing Windoze on the other hand - I have to hunt around the web and download the exact driver for the exact model hardware. But I won't go there.
This will be a quick blog about the Realtek LAN card on my new computer (see specs below). The problem: the driver loaded by Ubuntu, r8169, appears to be faulty once the clean installation is complete and I upgrade all necessary packages. Solution: install the driver from the Realtek website, r8168, restart /etc/init.d/networking and you should be fine.
Desktop specs:
Motherboard: ASUS M5A88-M
Realtek Card (on-board): 8111E/8168B
But, Ubuntu tries to be clever (and I enjoy it when it does :D) and resets the driver to r8169 when you restart the computer. So one solution put to me was to blacklist the r8169 and set the r8168 as the default (NB: my terminology is incorrect, r8168 may not be the correct name for the 'driver'). praseodym from UbuntuForums gave me this suggestion, and the method for implementation is at this UF thread.
Alternatively, I came across another thread which appears to be a duplicate of my problem - although worded differently. The suggestion here is to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.39 and the problem should go away.
Seeing as my system is running and has a continuous connection...I might try that another time.
Why fix it if it ain't broke?
Ciao!
Update - 28 Nov 2011:
There was an update just the other day of a few hundred meg, after which I found that I was having trouble with my connection. What I found was that the 'new' driver had been reinstalled and thus started giving me the up/down problem again. Had to back track a bit because I had forgotten just how I installed it last time.
The Realtek driver download was fine, but because I'm running kernel version 3.0, I suspect that the autorun.sh file was unable to execute properly. Did a quick search and found this website with a run down for those not on 2.4x or 2.6x linux systems.
Connection is working now. :D!
Generally, I've found Ubuntu Linux great for computers. Both of my laptops have worked well - after a clean installation of Ubuntu, all my hardware is usually detected correctly. It's quite pleasant. When clean installing Windoze on the other hand - I have to hunt around the web and download the exact driver for the exact model hardware. But I won't go there.
This will be a quick blog about the Realtek LAN card on my new computer (see specs below). The problem: the driver loaded by Ubuntu, r8169, appears to be faulty once the clean installation is complete and I upgrade all necessary packages. Solution: install the driver from the Realtek website, r8168, restart /etc/init.d/networking and you should be fine.
Desktop specs:
Motherboard: ASUS M5A88-M
Realtek Card (on-board): 8111E/8168B
But, Ubuntu tries to be clever (and I enjoy it when it does :D) and resets the driver to r8169 when you restart the computer. So one solution put to me was to blacklist the r8169 and set the r8168 as the default (NB: my terminology is incorrect, r8168 may not be the correct name for the 'driver'). praseodym from UbuntuForums gave me this suggestion, and the method for implementation is at this UF thread.
Alternatively, I came across another thread which appears to be a duplicate of my problem - although worded differently. The suggestion here is to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.39 and the problem should go away.
Seeing as my system is running and has a continuous connection...I might try that another time.
Why fix it if it ain't broke?
Ciao!
Update - 28 Nov 2011:
There was an update just the other day of a few hundred meg, after which I found that I was having trouble with my connection. What I found was that the 'new' driver had been reinstalled and thus started giving me the up/down problem again. Had to back track a bit because I had forgotten just how I installed it last time.
The Realtek driver download was fine, but because I'm running kernel version 3.0, I suspect that the autorun.sh file was unable to execute properly. Did a quick search and found this website with a run down for those not on 2.4x or 2.6x linux systems.
Connection is working now. :D!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)