« September 2005 | Main | November 2005 »
From a story on the BBC "Beavers in 'wild' after centuries"
The beaver was hunted almost to extinction for its fur and the pain-relieving properties of its anal gland secretions.
Who first figured that out and who did they tell about it? How do you explain that you figured this out?
That's why it's called ASSprin!
NPR : How Many Euros Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb? is a great example of regulations gone amok. How do you balance regulation and common sense?
To get the version information from ubuntu try "cat /etc/lsb-release".
To get the version information from Red Hat Enterprise Linux try "cat /etc/redhat-release"
To get the version information from Fedora Core try "cat /etc/fedora-release"
To get the version information from Suse try "cat /etc/SuSE-release"
Steps: Overview:
1. -It works only in Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 (thus not in
Windows95/98/ME),
and Linux
2. -VMWare tools must be installed in that operating system
3. -make sure the VMWare operating system is running
4. -create a share, using the wizard
1. -Power off your operating system (by clicking the red '[]')
2. -select from menu option 'Edit'
3. -select from list 'Virtual Machine settings'
(or press at once
4. -select tab 'Options'
5. -select from list 'Shared folders' to highight it
6. -Click on button 'Add...'
7. -This will start a wizard, click button 'Next'
8. -Give it a name
e.g. myshare
9. -Choose the directory on the host where you want to share
and so where you are going to copy in the files you want
to transfer between the operating systems
e.g.
c:\myshareddirectory
e.g.
c:\temp
or browse to that host folder
10. -click button 'Next'
11. -click button 'Finish'
5. -Now possibly create a drive mapping in your client VMWare
operating system
1. -click on the blue VMWare tools icon on the taskbar right
bottom
2. -select tab 'Shared Folders'
1. Usually this will show text which refers you to
using Microsoft Explorer in that operating system
1. -Start Microsoft Explorer in your client
operating system
1. -right click on the 'Start' button
2. -select from list 'Explore'
2. -select from menu option 'Tools'
3. -select from list 'Map network drive...'
4. Assign possibly drive 'z:' to your shared drive
1. -click button 'Browse'
2. -Click on 'VMWare Shared Folders'
3. -Click '\\.host'
4. -Click '\\.host\Shared Folders'
5. -Click 'Share'
5. -click button 'OK'
6. -Check the drive name (e.g. z:) to see if you see already some
files there.
If not, goto your host operating system and copy some files to
that shared directory, which you see (e.g. via drive z:)
in your client operating system
Portable USB Apps - TheInfoBox.com has a collection of portable USB apps. These are great if you use multiple computer or public computers regularly.
Finding The Right Man (Page) has a neat little scriptlet to dynamically set MANPATH. Very handy!
The Browser Appliance Virtual Machine is available now as well from VMware. You can use this to test the new VMware Player.
VMware player is the newest cool tool from our friends at VMware:
VMware Player is free software that enables PC users to easily run any virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC. VMware Player runs virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server and also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats.
FlyteComm is a great way to track a flight. It gives you position, speed, eta, altitude, etc. I was tracking my brother's flight into DFW and it was very accurate.
Easy Ubuntu 2.3 - Bienvenue chez moi ! looks great. I have an Ubuntu install. This looks to simplify customizing it.
Evacuees binge on Cape: Spend fed cash on booze, strippers shows that some people are desitned to be poor. It is sad but true. Some people aren't poor by circumstance, but are poor because of poor choices. Just look at gouda boy above.
A great example of using mplayer to record streams. I have my own version I have written that is specific to the few streams I record.
#!/bin/bash
#
# Streaming Media Recording Script
# Dependancies: bash, mplayer
AlarmCatcher() {
clear
echo -e "Timeout... \c"
KillSubs
TIMERPROC=
}
KillSubs() {
echo -e "SUBS KILL: \c"
if [ -n "$CHILDPROC" ]; then
kill $CHILDPROC > /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "ok"
else
echo "failed"
fi
CHILDPROC=
else
echo "no subs to kill..."
fi
}
SetTimer() {
if [ -z "$TIMEOUT" ]; then
TIMEOUT=10
fi
if [ $TIMEOUT -ne 0 ]; then
sleep $TIMEOUT && kill -s 14 $$ &
CHILDPROC="$CHILDPROC"
TIMERPROC="$!"
fi
}
UnsetTimer() {
echo -e "STOP TIMERS: \c"
if [ -n "$TIMERPROC" ]; then
kill $TIMERPROC > /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "ok"
else
echo "failed"
fi
TIMERPROC=
else
echo "no active timers..."
fi
}
CleanUp() {
KillSubs
UnsetTimer
exit
}
if [ $# -eq 1 ]; then
STREAMSOURCE=$1
else
echo -e "You must specify an online audio source to record from!"
echo -e "USAGE: `basename $0`
exit 1
fi
OUTFILE="smrsession_`date '+%m.%d.%Y-%T'`.mp3"
TIMEDREC=
echo " STREAMING MEDIA RECORDING SCRIPT"
echo "This script uses mplayer to record media streams from an online source"
echo "The recorded media stream from source [$STREAMSOURCE] for this session"
echo "will be placed in the file [`pwd`/$OUTFILE]."
echo " "
echo "Do you want this recording to stop after a specific amount of time?"
echo "CAUTION: If you do not specify a record time, this will continue to"
echo "record until manually stopped or the connection is terminated!"
select CHOICE2 in Yes No Cancel
do
case $CHOICE2 in
Yes)
TIMEDREC="true"
echo -e "Enter the number of minutes to record stream: \c"
read TIMEOUT ; TIMEOUT=$(($TIMEOUT*60)) ; TIMEOUT=$(($TIMEOUT+5)) ;
echo "NOTE: Five seconds were added to allow for connect time" ; break
;;
No) break ;;
Cancel) exit ;;
*) echo "Invalid option, $CHOICE2"
esac
done
# main ()
trap CleanUp 1 2 3 9 15
trap AlarmCatcher 14
if [ -n "$TIMEDREC" ]; then
SetTimer
else
TIMEOUT="indefinite number of"
fi
echo "Recording stream from $STREAMSOURCE for $TIMEOUT seconds..."
mplayer "$STREAMSOURCE" -dumpstream -dumpfile "$OUTFILE" &
if [ -n "$TIMEDREC" ]; then
CHILDPROC="$CHILDPROC $!"
wait $!
UnsetTimer
else
wait $!
fi
echo "Finished recording from [$STREAMSOURCE] at `date '+%X %r'`"
exit 0
Using ssh-agent with ssh is handy. I got tired of typing the passphrase in for my key. I love the .profile code to automate starting ssh-agent.
If you want to, say, put it in your .profile, then you might try the following setup. In my .bash_profile, I have
SSHAGENT=/usr/bin/ssh-agent
SSHAGENTARGS="-s"
if [ -z "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK" -a -x "$SSHAGENT" ]; then
eval `$SSHAGENT $SSHAGENTARGS`
trap "kill $SSH_AGENT_PID" 0
fi
Microsoft makes its Windows License Policy very Virtual Friendly!
This is very big. It makes the cost advantage for VMware and other virtual servers huge.
The Netflix Analysis Spreadsheet is a great tool. I used it to calculate how many rentals per month I have averaged (seven). It looks like you need to average five rentals a month to make it pay, although the variety of netflix makes it worth it even if you break even.
MSCONFIG System Configuration Utility Update is available from M$. It looks like it adds a bunch of nice new features.
We went camping last weekend at Redtop Mountain. It went well. This was our first time so it was a bit bumpy, but fun. The kids had a great time. We are looking for the next place. Here are some candidates: