Category Archives: Applications

Learning from Broken Equipment and Minor Mistakes

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A few days ago, I noticed that websites were loading very slowly, particularly in the early stages.  It appeared as if there were problems with the DNS service being provided by my internal storage server.  I tried to SSH into the machine to do some investigation and access the Webmin web interface; neither option worked.  However, I was able to receive replys to pings sent to the server.  I knew something was up, but I would have to dig in to figure out exactly what.

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A Weekend Project

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This weekend, I finished the bulk of the work of a long-standing project I had been pondering. I had all sorts of data lying around on my desktop machine that I didn’t want to lose. Photos, videos, school assignments, and the like. I wanted to be able to back up multiple machines and be able to synchronize my documents, especially while I was using my laptop. Knowing what I wanted to do, and being the IT control freak I am, I chose to build out a home storage appliance. I thought I would share my build process.

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Starting a Podcast/Netcast

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I have been wanting to start a podcast for a very long time, inspired by what Leo Laporte does with TWiT and with what my parents did educating people. So, I spent some time thinking about a focus for the show and decided to start a podcast for people who are wishing to learn more about Linux. The Linux Enthusiasts’ Podcast recorded its first rehearsal podcast today (yes, on April Fool’s Day) to get a feel for the amount of material to need to fill 30-60 minutes.

For the most part, I would like to spend the time answering anyone’s Linux questions. But I thought I would include some weekly news, and I want to include two applications per week, one graphical and one text-based.

To get help with any conundrums, email len@nosbig.net. I want to hear from people before and during the podcast. I will probably post the rehearsal after I edit it down a little. There were a few spots where my ADD got the best of me and I repeated myself or I had to pause a moment to collect my thoughts. I thought I had prepared sufficiently for this episode, but clearly not.

Wireless Streaming Media Server

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Today, I am finishing up my Streaming Media Server. It will wirelessly share music streams and setting up in-house file sharing for my music.\n\nThe hardware included a Thinkpad 390E from IBM (333 MHz Pentium II, 192MB RAM, 6 GB hard drive) and a D-Link DWL-122 USB Wireless Wi-Fi Adapter. The software I am using is Debian 3.0 stable and the SlimDevices.com SlimServer software.
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Windows 2000 == Unix? Does not compute!

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Sitting in my Windows 2000 class (a required course for my degree), the instructor talked at great length tonight about Active Directory, groups, roaming profiles, and permissions. While listening to him, I ponder, “What is exactly the point of running Windows 2000?”

- Active Directory (a fundamental part of the Windows 2000 and XP environment) appears to be based on Novell’s NDS, which is in turn based on LDAP.
- Windows 2000 Native Mode Domains rely on DNS, another standards-based technology
- Roaming Profiles are the poor-man’s method of doing NFS for home directories

There are other eccentric quirks to Windows 2000 that I should cover in a future entry, should I not have more coming my way to interfere with writing it.

Playing a GAIM…

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For quite a while, Gaim, my IM client, was crashing on me… I don’t know what it was, but my whole system kept locking up on me. So, I tried the latest version, 0.67, and it is amazing. It has a new look from older versions of the software and some little features that are really nice. In addition to tabbed conversations, it also can have the status icons from the buddy list right on the tabs. You could keep your buddy list minimized and know which of the folks you are talking to are away/idle/unavailable…

You can pick up a copy at http://gaim.sourceforge.net. And don’t worry if you are running Windows, there is a Windows port that also works very well.

The Matrix is Reloaded

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I fire up the latest version of GAIM this morning to send a quick message to a friend of mine, Singe from World Class Mods, and was surprised to be greeted with this logo, rather than the default logo that I am so used to.

gaim-matrix-ee.jpg

This is just as surprising as the Christmas easter egg for WindowMaker. Another reason to love Linux, the authors love to throw in little bits and pieces of code in that surprise us from tie to time.