The Rise of BSDs...

When everyone around me is talking about Linux or perhaps more appropriately GNU/Linux, but did anyone notice even before Linux Torvalds came out with his linux kernel, BSDs family has already been pushing this free software thingy??

The more famous 3 BSDs family - FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD.

Recently i found out some new 'toy'... TT claims that i'm crazy in OSes... it's PCBSD, DesktopBSD and FreeSBIE.

Hmm.. FreeSBIE <> is itself a LiveCD... then DesktopBSD is almost identical (i mean it's meant for easier usage for new BSD comers) to PCBSD

Alright, i'm not gonna introduce these 3 pieces of OSes here, you can easily find out their reviews at distrowatch.com, have fun!!

regards,
Skywalker

Into The Blue - Watching Movie Without Bringing My Brain...

Watched this movie a week ago with my girl friend.. In fact, we're looking for a movie that makes us relax... Gee.. after a hectic day, we both want to watch movie that doesn't make us feel "surprised" nor "shocked" and just wanted to relax our mind after work...

Into The Blue, talks about a poor diver with his gf dreaming of treasure hunt under the sea.... of course, talks a bit of romance and excitement...

Those who likes sea and enjoy the sea scenes with smart looking Paul Walker and sweet Jessical Alba shouldn't miss this one.. ;)

regards,

Skywalker

NBA Fantasy

Hey...

Finally, i've found someone whom share my dream game - NBA Fantasy!!

Ah Teck!! Here we go... let's start our own league for NBA!!!

regards,
Skywalker

Learn Gnu/Linux - Debian

This is a great site, to whoever wants to learn Gnu/Linux...

It has got interative course right now, you can interact with others who has any comments/question/answer towards the subject

http://learnlinux.tsf.org.za/courses/web-courses.html

regards,
Skywalker

Installation - nVidia driver - The Debian Way

Installing the driver through apt-get...
http://serios.net/content/debian/nvidia/display-driver-through-apt.php

Installing the driver via downloading nVidia's own installation
http://serios.net/content/debian/nvidia/display-driver-using-installer.php

regards,
Skywalker

Excel Reporting - Recall back what Solver is all about

It's the 4th years after my uni time, almost forgotten all i've learn during one of the business subject - Excel - DSS (Decision Support System).

Why and what makes me recall DSS using Excel again? It's the data analysis work that i'm doing right now.

I'm doing analysis for some telco report for my company, given bunch of data in different databases but to put everything together making it a meaningful bunch of figures that also presentable.

I've spend a lot of time doing reading about my long lost Excel when i was taught to use it to design DSS.

Unfortunately i've lost track of my lab tutorial and can hardly remember what i've learnt... Hey... i've got the biggest 'library' i've ever imagine - INTERNET!!!

My boss is kind enough to allow me to research on doing analysis using Excel that generates the report needed.

The first thing that came into my mind was - Solver.

What is Solver? While i was doing DSS, it's a logical process that automate a calculation for 3 main fields, it gives you a "what-if" scenario...

- Change/Constant value
- Restricted value
- End/target result

It's a process of changing the values in cells to see how those changes affect the outcome of formulas on the worksheet.

Example, varying the interest rate that is used in an amortization table to determine the amount of the payments. Solver allows you to find an optimal value for a formula.

You got it?

regards,
Skywalker

Deb - Apache/SSL/MySQL/Postgresql/PHP

Promised to post the steps of installing 2 different open source databases into Debian...

As you know, Debian is one of the oldest linux distro with a good package management with more than 15 thousands packages (till date - 14 Sept 2005 - Deb 3.1) under its distributed repository.

I tried installing Apache 1.3x, this time with SSL support. Meaning that i can browse my page with https://xxx.xxx.xxx/ and http://xxx.xxx.xxx/. If i want the web page to point to my own home directory (presume that i wanted to have a personal page which under my own home directory (/home/skywalker/public_html/index.html), then create a directory directly in home directory, named public_html and put an index.html or index.php for testing.

While installing using apt-get, php4-mysql, php4-pgsql, mysql-client, mysql-server, postgresql-8.0, postgresql-8.0-client... (i might be wrong now with packages name. i'll suggest to open up to terminal(mostly like you're in X-windows), one doing a search of apt-cache search postgresql to make sure you put the right package name.

After installing everything accordingly, i'll do a test with php on apache to make sure php successfully points to both databases. Of course it's to add into a something.php and browse it through your favourite browser - I'm using Firefox!

A hint of checking if your browser doesn't browse php format successfully. Once i successfully installed apache, php, mysql and postgresql even though every daemons were restarted automatically, checking http.conf doesn't see anything wrong though. I almost give up the test and switching back to my windows to do my reporting stuff. Then i switch back to debian box, the php test page works!!

I guess eventually reboot does help... who knows... ;)

Right, back to our theme here - after the test page, scroll down... Bingo... php points to both mysql and postgresql... I guess the key point that i shouldn't missed is php4-mysql and php4-pgsql.

Alright... more or less there, time to move on...

regards,
Skywalker

Report ... in Excel??

These days has been doing report for telco, same old same... using the template created by Calc but it's too manual...

Too "manual" in a way that any one time if any changes needed to be changed, i'll have to modified almost 2 weeks of report...

Anyone knows Excel can do something like what Crystall Report can do??

regards,
Skywalker

Distro Upgrade - Debian

If you want to use the cutting edge version of Debian, once you installed the based system, you have to make sure your /etc/apt/apt.source has changed to deb http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx "unstable" (without the quote).

Followed by, apt-get install dist-upgrade (of course, you're root), right?

Phew... step by step, i'll install apache, php, mysql and postgresql in the system.

regards,
Skywalker

The Maid - The 7th Month of Hungry Ghost

Been a while never watch typical horror movie...

The Maid is a Singapore movie, the 'maid' is a 20 yr old girl from Philipine, working as a maid.. :)

Watch this movie on the 7th Month of Lunar Calender, even though i don't feel much special, this movie has created a lot of cool atmosphere that reminds me of the past... When my mom told me the 'legend' and traditional chinese ghost stories..

Never go out late during the night of the Month of Hungry Ghost... This is the first warning, then, on 14th day of the 7th month, is where "The Hell" has "Open House"... invites you all!!!!

Of course, your friends may come out to 'play-play'... Look for their old 'friends' or 'lucky-ones'...

Are you the lucky one??

Traditional chinese opera that house in open field... Inviting the 'friends' to watch opera...

At the road site, you'll see 'candle-light-dinner' being prepared... No matter how many days you've starved, DON'T EAT!!!

If you saw someone eaten it... Gosh... how could you 'see' that????

more to come... feelings of eeerie...

The story happens during the 70s in Singapore, the old building blocks, people riding bicycle... Have you seen the 70s post box in Singapore???

It's a brand new experience of watching ghost movie during the month of Hungry Ghost... you want to join?? Come next year !!

Opps... forgotten to say - May The 'Force' Be With You...

regards,
Skywalker

Re-install Debian 3.1 after a while...

Few things i have in mind, this time i must preserve all my emails that saved in Thunderbird and all the bookmark(s), cache.

I use an application in WinXP that reads my ext2/3 partition in linux, make copies of .mozilla (firefox), .mozilla-thunderbird(as name implies) etc.... Then, after installation of my new Debian 3.1, (by default, the kernel allows read access of ntfs) then mount my ntfs directory (mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/win - ) and copy all the necessary directory over to my home directory.

Strange enough, only root can do all these. Have to find out how to allow normal user to read ntfs as well.... anyone knows??

The easiest way to make sure my Firefox and Thunderbird reads back all the configurations/logs/messages, is to enable all access (chmod -R 777 directory) then close one by one...

Phew... after almost 1 hour of apt-get of few day-to-day use apps, my linux box is coming back...

What else ah??... Uh... some chinese characters not being able to read... how come???

Uh.. use apt-cache search chinese, found quite a lot of chinese apps for viewing... ok... install it!!!

Thiam Teck, where are you going tonight??? Happy Merdeka!!!!

regards,
Skywalker

Ext2 IFS For Windowse

This software will allow windows to access Linux's native filesystem - ext2/3. http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html

Thanks, Thiam Teck for this link - it's quite useful.

regards,
Skywalker

CentOS 4.1 - First timer!

It's been years i've never tried RH product ever since the RH5!

I tried to put aside rpm's command, but due to curiosity towards CentOS which is RHEL based source re-compiled, gave it a try...

Looks like Red Hat/Fedora Core to me....

Nothing much differences, i managed to download a 'patch' for kernel unsupported tools/filesystem cuz i need to view/read my ntfs and lvm partitions.

Well, everything goes pretty well, after rpm -Uvh package-name.rpm, everything works like charm... Opps.. yeah.. if you need to add features unsupported by the original kernel to it, better restart.. Wonder how come it doesn't ask me to restart the system???

But i presume it should 'auto' detect. But it seems like it's not module-like program. Finally, i rebooted the workstation, and voila!! I could mount ntfs and lvm...

Guess i'm better off go back to debian/slackware... but i'm using this workstation in the office, i guess making use of Debian is a better choice to me.. though i love to compile programs in Slackware...

that's about it... thanks to Thiam Teck... else i won't be blogging!!