Posted on June 14, 2007
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These past few days I spent time learning about Movable Type (MT), that newly open-sourced blogging framework based on Perl. The plan is to use it for one of my blog project. I’ve heard about the tricky installation of MT beforehand that made disconcert to some. But that’s the fun of learning, right? You do the hard stuff so you can learn something from it. So that’s exactly what I usually do and this goes to MT as well.
First, I install it on my local home box and quite frankly, it was not so difficult after all. I only had to do some usual stuff like changing database name in its configuration file. Better yet, you can do it via a wizard file (mt-wizard.cgi). Though different from Wordpress, MT is heavily base on Perl and you have to put the executable on the cgi-bin directory.
After playing it around on my homebox, I then try it on the live server yesterday. Right after the upload and database setting process has finished something peculiar happens. The process stuck on one of the installation page. That’s just great, another headache. I found a similar solution by googling. However, I still had the error after I implement it. Okay, after a couple of tries finally I found the answer. As stupidly as it may seem, I haven’t upload some of the files and directories to the appropriate place in the server. Doh! So that’s why…
Then the installation went smoothly, but since it was working hours, I have to stop for a moment. Am planning to tinker with it much more tonight. Will keep posted about this MT thing in future post.
Posted on May 28, 2007
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My ass would probably be kick because of this by some Ubuntu zealots. Fine, I only want to write what I think without any bias. Yes, I used Ubuntu for some time. Nevertheless, I’m not a blind fanatic with it.
One of the interesting news on this past month is when Ubuntu declared not the number one distro in Distrowatch’s Page Hit Ranking.
Ubuntu, the over hype distro of all-time getting ass kicked by PCLinuxOS. So what? Sometimes we had to understand how it felt to be number two. How it felt down there…
But what is this has to do with us, I ask? Nothing! Nada! None! Would you change your lovely distro if it drop rank in Distrowatch? You wouldn’t, right? Therefore, this fact is somewhat meaningless. This kind of things happens and in my opinion, this means nothing at all.
Yet there were people who uphold Ubuntu with every breath they take. I felt sorry for them. Ah… the great religion war, you sure know what to expect…
Okay that was that. For now, Ubuntu has return back to its throne to be number one in Distrowatch. Don’t know what will happen in the upcoming days or months, well just wait and see…
In the meantime, let me go back to my Etch…. (wtf?)
Posted on May 15, 2007
Filed Under Internet, Linux, Daily Notes, Software | 5 Comments
Yesterday, Dodi need help from me about a problem. He wants to install Ubuntu inside his Vista using Virtual PC. This is for an article that he wants to write about Virtual PC. Okay, we know that in order to install Ubuntu we must first use the Live CD then choose the installation process. The problem occurred whenever we went to graphic modes. The display would go fuzzy, garbled and unusable.
Therefore, he went googling for an answer and found out a small workaround to solve this issue:
(via zdNet Blog)
Then I help him with this, (Because he didn’t want to touch console-based stuff). The problem solved, so I leave him, because I have to go somewhere else. That evening I came back again to found out that he cancelled the experiment. “What’s the problem?,” I asked. It seems that Ubuntu has problem with mouse recognition using VirtualPC. And with some googling, he found out that as of today this problem had not been resolved yet. (though there is a workaroud where you can use the keyboard as a mouse)
This is the fundamental problem with Linux in general. I know that Linux is a best solution for me. But not for everybody, at least not for now. Though it is more user-friendly nowadays, but when it comes to bug, you need a little bit effort to find a workaround yet a solution. The kind of effort that do not reside in every average users. This eternal problem would always creep in Linux. No matter how friendly it becomes.
I don’t know, is it just me and my pessimistic aspect of Linux or is this the reality of Linux after all this year?
So why am I that bummed out? it’s because I’m planning to use Virtual PC as a testbed for Ubuntu and other distros that I got. I want an alternative for VMware.
Posted on October 26, 2006
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After a successful installation of Vmware, I am moving to the next step: “How to interconnect my Ubuntu with the VMware guest OS”. I’ve installed CentOS 4.4 and FreeBSD 6.1 in my VMware.
To my surprise, the network setup was a headache! VMware has four methods in network. Bridge networking, NAT, Host-Only networking, and direct device connection. I don’t quite understand this four method, so I tried all of it in order to communicate with my guest OS. The results? Null! Both can’t connect to each other.
It has been almost a week, I’ve been trying to work these things out but no workaround has come up. Last night I tried to use the NAT setting again, suddenly I realized that this VMware NAT setting was kind of like a gateway. The guest OS and the host communicate each other using this private gateway. With this in mind, I setup the IP address using the same subnet as the VMware NAT address.
Then I test the connection…still can’t connect! I almost give up until I realized that maybe the problem was with the firewall in Ubuntu, so I disable the firewall and suddenly the Ping test works!! Thanks God! Finally it works!
So for you who likes test the connection of all your VMware guest OS with your OS, first be sure to check your firewall setting, is it allowing connection from the VMware subnet network? After that, you must ensure that the virtual interface (vmnet0-vmnet8) is working fine.
Here’s my VMware network setting:
The NAT gateway : 192.168.218.2
Host Address : 192.168.218.3
Guest OS 1 (CentOS): 192.168.218.4
Guest OS 2 (FreeBSD): 192.168.218.5
The host and the address are using the same NAT gateway : 192.168.218.2.
Posted on September 25, 2006
Filed Under Linux, Software | 2 Comments
A week ago, I had an interesting chat with one of my good old friend. He had established an internet café a couple months ago and just like what Chris would do, he bought Windows XP licenses for his computers.
That day he wanted to talk to me about Vista, considering that my magazine bundles up Vista Beta 2 on our July issues. He asked sort of stuffs about what he can do with Vista. So I told him what I knew about it. The conversation went well until he mentions about Vista’s activation method.
He told me that from what he knew and experience, the logic behind Vista Activation Method was so simple. It’s just a bunch of If – Then – Else (I forgot the details, no, no..I don’t care about the details actually). So you can bypass it with ease. He asked me if that’s the way it can be done, then what’s the difference between the genuine activation method and the illegal one. What advantage would he received by buying a (soon) Vista license.
I told him about the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) feature by Windows were he could use certain features when he validates his copy of Vista. Then comes his big statement: “WGA my as*!!”. He thinks that the WGA is just penetrable like the other Windows protection technologies. He still can bypass that in a matter of seconds. He even told me that, I only had to copy one file to the windows system to bypass the activation method. Really? Okay, That thing aside, I’m questioning the true purpose of his intentions on using Vista.
Posted on September 5, 2006
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Some days ago, my best friend Chris called and he wants to discuss about how he wants to start an internet café. You know, here in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta an internet café business is somewhat famous. In a couple of blocks, you could find people who build computer/internet rental services. So back to my friend Chris, he just finished his college duties and wants to step up to the real world. Well, I have tried to persuade him to join me here in CHIP, but his entrepreneur spirit seem got the best of him.
He told me the details of expenses that he had to spend and how much budget that he had to own. One interesting thing here is when he told me that one of the expenses was for buying Windows license. As an internet café entrepreneur the one thing that they avoid is the sweeping by authority. The high rate of software piracy in Indonesia makes the authority took a step and went to café to café and sweep them who had a piracy copy of Windows in their computers. Therefore, my friend Chris doesn’t want to have any problems and decide that he has to buy a Windows licenses (as suggested by my other friend who had an Internet café too).
I know that this is somewhat a good thing; he had the consciousness to reduce piracy. However, the price that he had to spend is rather expensive in my opinion. With 10 computers that he initially buys, he had to prepare 10 Windows XP license for every computer.
Well there’s where I slip in. I ask him, “Why don’t you use Linux?” I told him that one of the internet café in the Blok-M Plaza (one of the elite mall here in Jakarta) is using Ubuntu. They used it as their “operating system of choice”. From what I saw, the café went just fine. With people come and go and the place was crowded occasionally. In my opinion, that shows that people are getting used to alternatives other than Windows. I’ve seen the growth of internet café that uses Linux to be a positive one, here in Indonesia. We’ll see in a couple of year if this trend goes on.
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Posted on August 21, 2006
Filed Under Linux, Hardware, Daily Notes, Software | 1 Comment
A couple of week ago, I want to maximize my old system. My old Leprechaun wasn’t a wrecked, the only thing that’s not working in there was the hard drive. I was planning to change the hard drive with a new one and use it to test Ubuntu.
But I tend to change my mind rapidly. Last week after days of researching the perfect specification for my needs, I decided to build a new PC, rather than polishing the old one. With long discussions with my best friend Chris, I bought this new system. : AMD64 3200+ with 1 GB of DDR RAM, integrated graphic card and 80GB hard drive.
This specification is perfect for my purpose. After working at CHIP a year ago, I barely use my desktop PC at home. I gave my brother the one PC (I called it the amusement PC :) that I had and stuck with my old Leprechaun, but actually, I barely touched it. I’ve been busy using my dad’s laptop for my needs, cause face it, laptop’s are more flexible.
However, after some time, I missed using a desktop. I used Linux in a daily basis on my job, but as a server system. I want to use Linux for fun just like old times. After testing Ubuntu, I believe that Linux can be now be fully used as a desktop system just like Windows and Mac.
So I’m guessing that I do not need a state-of-the-art hardware, I even use an integrated graphic card. My emphasis is on memory; 1GB of memory seems more than adequate for Linux, especially on Ubuntu. 80GB of hard drive? Well I can live with a less capacity, but that’s the minimum specification out there in the market.
Posted on August 15, 2006
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I finally finished my research (can I called it a research?) on how to install Ubuntu on VMWare. Yeah yeah yeah… I know that this wasn’t a new stuff anymore, but hey! I like to try stuffs! Though someone has already done it and others have written about it too. I really like to write it again, no no, I am not trying to reinventing the wheel or retell the world that the Berlin Wall has collapse or something. I just want to share my side of the story on how to install Ubuntu on VMware under Windows. Its not a diggable material ladies and gentlemen. This is only for personal documentation, but if you find this useful, then maybe I can die happy (at least one person think this is useful :D )
Okay first the tools: