computoman

With everything going gui-ish, why would I want to use the command line to micro-blog? Actually there are several reasons. Remember a computer is a robot without legs. First it is a way, remind yourself of certain things even if you are at a terminal where you have no rights to store information on that equipment. Just a matter of keeping twitter site open to receive the tweets if you are using twitter as your micro-blog. With at or chron, you can easily set up your computer to send your specific message or messages at a particular time. Secondly, you have the ability to use a low resource machine to do messaging tasks like capture tweets of other people for you to read later. Sort of a electronic secretary taking tweets like taking phone calls for you. You can even go a step further and do what is call automated web page scraping to get the information you need off the web without you having to go do that yourself. I have several web page scraping batch files that get the weath...

With everything going gui-ish, why would I want to use the command line to micro-blog? Actually there are several reasons. Remember a computer is a robot without legs. First it is a way, remind yourself of certain things even if you are at a terminal where you have no rights to store information on that equipment. Just a matter of keeping twitter site open to receive the tweets if you are using twitter as your micro-blog. With at or chron, you can easily set up your computer to send your specific message or messages at a particular time. Secondly, you have the ability to use a low resource machine to do messaging tasks like capture tweets of other people for you to read later. Sort of a electronic secretary taking tweets like taking phone calls for you. You can even go a step further and do what is call automated web page scraping to get the information you need off the web without you having to go do that yourself. I have several web page scraping batch files that get the weath...

To be honest, I do not spend that much time on Unix history. You could probably get a better idea of the history at:  http://www.robotwisdom.com/linux/timeline.html or www.groklaw.net Android was originally very loosely based on Linux at it's start. Now who knows. What is ironic is that Microsoft according to news reports allegedly earns almost a half billion dollars each year off of Android with their alleged software patents. Not so long ago A company called SCO claimed ownership of Unix via Novell and also claimed that Linux was directly a copy of unix. That assertion was clearly rebuked by the courts. SCO now allegedly in bankruptcy still wants to assert the same argument. They are still in Court with IBM over that assertion. www.groklaw.net has all the details. See also www.eff.org . Linux was developed by Linux Torvalds who still has a great say in how linux is developed. Since it is a free as in speech operating system, many derivatives have been developed. In fact, if you ...

If your phone is android, you are using UNIX. Android is based off of it. If you are using a MAC, you are using UNIX. And of course, there are the many, many Linux distributions such as Ubuntu available for free. IEEE Spectrum has a nice history of the early history of UNIX: The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix . I am surprised my brother Eddie did not run across this one before I did.

I wish everyone a wonderful holiday and a Merry Christmas . Blogging should be easier for me with my new bluetooth keyboard . Now I will be able to explore the limits of my iPad as a full computing device. Without a doubt, it has the computing power for all my tasks: email, web browsing, word processing, and even gaming. Currently, I am enjoying playing Bard's Tale on it. The writing and voice acting of the game are wonderful. I am really looking forward to blogging in 2012. I am planning on doing almost all of my blogging from the iPad. If I see an article at work that I want to point out while at lunch, I will will use that old fashened, last decade technology to make a post on the blog. I believe we are truly at a crossroads in our computing technology. Microsoft agrees with me. Windows 8 is abandoning 25 years of development and refinement of the windows desktop enviorment. Rather than a mouse interface that allows and barely tolerates a touch screen, they a...

Unix xmas: On the twelfth day of xmas, my unix sysadmin gave to me,  twelve virtual consoles, X Windows 11, Mac OS X, nine man page categories (on Linux or BSD), eight permission bits, seven layers of networking, six different runlevels, five minutes of sudo, for loops of running (and lots of punning), three standard filehandles, two forked processes and a new user id. (Thanx to Climagic on Twitter)

A couple of weeks a ago, I posted on what happened on flight 447: What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 Now we have the final report on an in-flight software glitch: Qantas terror blamed on computer . These articles begin to demonstrate how absolutely difficult it is to write computer software that behaves properly with bad data input. It is the old "garbage in - garbage out" concept. In real time systems, the software cannot just dump an error and exit like the typical PC or tablet app does. I am sure that Airbus ran 100,000's or 1,000,000's of hours of simulations with the code base. The testers threw as many combinations of failures and wierd scenarios at the flight software as possible. The Qantas incident was one of three that occurred in 128 million hours of operations. You can see how hard it is to find these type of errors before the software goes into production. Then there is the gap between what the programmer was thinking when writing the softwa...

Computers are getting smaller and smaller. We use them to solve problems, but you still have to give them instructions to do what you want. Computer languages are a way to give the computer the instructions you want it to use.  The first computer I ever used was at college. Then they did not even have a computer major. Mostly you majored in math. The first computer was large and bulky. We used punch cards to get computer code into the machine. In fact, we used a language call Fortran (Formula translation) which was the forerunner of a more recent language called Basic (Beginner's all purpose instruction code).  Fortran is still actually around and you can still use it. On Linux it is sometimes called gfortran. Basic has evolved into so many variations that are too many to mention though you may have heard of VB.net. Personally I prefer Quickbasic variations for my non-gui systems. The next computer I used in the Professional world was the Datapoint Terminal in the days o...

"The crippled nuclear reactors at Japan's Fukushima power plant have finally been stabilised, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has announced." - Japan PM says Fukushima nuclear site finally stabilised Now just add 20 years and billions of dollars and it will all be a distance memory.

Whether it be for commercial radio, ham radio, TV, or even wifi people seem to love antennas. here are a few links to some of the antennas I have run into. My latest home made wifi antenna from someone else's design that is suppose to reach several miles! Still need to get the cable for the antenna interface. Directional wifi antenna: http://www.instructables.com/id/Two-quicky-directional-wifi-antennas/ Other wifi antennas: http://www.instructables.com/id/WIFI-Antenna-Hack!/ http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Wifi-Extender-Cantenna-build-with-a-stand/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Cell-Phone-WiFi-Signal-Booster-Antenna/ Tv antennas (regular tv antenna is a HD antenna already!). We also use the traditional coat hanger antenna also. (Left hand corner of picture.) Other antennas: http://www.instructables.com/id/Yagi-foil-HDTV-antenna/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Foil-based-fractal-antenna/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Yet-another-dtv-antenna/ http:...

Was thinking the other day on how to use older equipment with linux. Once very simple idea was to connect to the serial ports (aka rs232) using an old fashioned modem or terminal program. Granted there will not be the gui (graphical user interface). There are some very fine programs for use with the command line. I have mentioned these before, but it will not hurt to mention them again. We have already talked about networking with xrdp and ltsp . Now, this is a very good way to use older equipment. Especially in an emergency. Knowledge of using the command line is required. Mouse jockeys need not apply. I say that with affection. Most Unix/Linux are set up to connect to the serial ports automatically. Some versions of linux prefer you use a usb to serial connector for communication though. Actually you could do this with a Microsoft based system also. (different application software such as old dos programs would have to be used. Note: Experience at cable making is...

You can develop for the Android platform: Directly:      Android development kit      http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-4.0.html      http://phonegap.com/ Semi-directly:      Develop the app on the android using web languages.      http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781449383268/      http://www.w3schools.com/ Indirectly: (requires use of a web server)      Develop regular web apps that the Andoid device can access.      http://www.instructables.com/id/Uses-for-your-own-private-cloud/      http://www.w3schools.com/

spaceflightnow.com has an interesting article covering a proposed air launched orbital space craft. ...Designer Burt Rutan, billionaire Paul Allen, rocketman Elon Musk and former NASA boss Mike Griffin are teaming to develop an air-launch rocket system that would use a super aircraft the size of two 747s to carry a liquid-fueled SpaceX booster to 30,000 feet where it would be dropped to fire hardware and humans into orbit... Watch the video and read more: Private spaceflight gets new contender with Stratolaunch

The $200 tablet update wars have begun! Amazon has an update to the Kindle Fire to fix some of its early issues: Kindle Fire to get over-the-air update for performance issues . Barnes and Noble has an update to the Color Nook to help it keep up with its big brother - the Nook Tablet: Nook Color update adds Netflix app .

One of my special projects is to help keep older computer equipment viable. This can be especially important for those who are less privileged.  Most people have heard of the "Iron Chef" TV shows where chefs are challenged with ingredients and limited equipment to prepare a meal for the guests. Thinking in that vein, why not sort of combine the two, but without a time limit per se. Your goal is to make a networkable pentium one computer act as a home automation controller. You will be using and Intel Pentium I system that has a floppy drive, 3com network interface card, and a two gig hard drive. You will get to use a monitor just long enough to set up the system. You also get a bootable dos disk with the system plus, bootable dos wattcp disk (with the tcpip stack), and two blank floppies.. You will also have free access to the internet from another system (using Linux of course or another os if you must). You get no other software. (Hint. Hint. internet access.) We nee...

In the early hours of June 1, 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashed into the mid-Atlantic. There were no survivors. Nearly 2 years later the flight recorders were found and recovered. Popular Mechanics explains how a failure to understand what the plane was telling the flight crew and human error doomed the flight. Popular Mechanics: What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

I grew up in the sixties with black and white TV, we only had the 3 big network TV channels, before UHF came around. When the President came on the tube it was a sad night for us kids, it meant no Bonaza or Red Skelton because he would be on all three channels at once. When UHF started in the mid sixties it was a big thing, they were low budget stations with mainly fuzzy local programs, but there was something more to watch and we were happy. My uncle invented his own early version of a remote around 1963, well before the rest of the TV viewers did. He would sit in his easy chair about 3 feet in front of the set, next to the chair was a short cane pole that he had modified the tip to slip onto the volume knob, when a commercial came on he would slip the tip of the pole on the volume knob and turn off the sound. Color TV sets started coming out in the later part of the sixties, I think we got our first one in the late sixties, it was a big deal in the neighborhood, many of the neigh...

I grew up in the sixties with black and white TV, we only had the 3 big network TV channels, before UHF came around. When the President came on the tube it was a sad night for us kids, it meant no Bonaza or Red Skelton because he would be on all three channels at once. When UHF started in the mid sixties it was a big thing, they were low budget stations with mainly fuzzy local programs, but there was something more to watch and we were happy. My uncle invented his own early version of a remote around 1963, well before the rest of the TV viewers did. He would sit in his easy chair about 3 feet in front of the set, next to the chair was a short cane pole that he had modified the tip to slip onto the volume knob, when a commercial came on he would slip the tip of the pole on the volume knob and turn off the sound. Color TV sets started coming out in the later part of the sixties, I think we got our first one in the late sixties, it was a big deal in the neighborhood, many of the neigh...

Standford U working on a project for the visually impaired. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/bringing-tablets-and-smartphones-blind

The last few months have seen various PC makers proclaiming that tablet sales are not hurting PC sales. Rubbish, of course PC sales are being hit by tablets. Almost every PC maker has tried to sell an "iPad Killer" ... and failed. It is very ironic to me that the best two competitors to the iPad are made by bookstores. I can personally attest that for me it was 1) build a new PC or 2) buy an iPad 2. I love my iPad. My PC is getting really lonely. It goes weeks on end without being turned on. I finally had to actually boot it up this weekend to try and diagnose a problem with my DSL since the PC is hard wired to my router. I ran across this article on Slashdot.org today: Using a Tablet As Your Primary Computer . SlashDot.org links to How the iPad 2 Became My Favorite Computer Talk about generating some forum messages...as of Monday at 1pm CST, Shash Dot has over 400 comments on the story. I think it is just going to get worse for Dell, HP, and others since the ARM...

There are quite a few people doing computing who are heavily visually impaired and or even blind. Know of many system administrators both male and female who earn their livelihood and are blind. Traditionally, special sound equipment had to be added to a computer so that all commands and or keystrokes would be spoken via a speech synthesizer. Now with newer systems that is not so much true. Linux has several distros that are free as in beer that were developed for the visually impaired. Knoppix, which has been around a long time was probably the first distro I know of to support visually impaired users. You can get it using wget or going to the url of: ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/knoppix/KNOPPIX-ADRIANE_V6.2CD-2009-11-18-EN.iso Another distro is also available too: Vinix (based on ubuntu) http://vinuxproject.org/downloads Advanced users can try: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux_for_the_blind There is also software that can be added to ...

Web.com bought Network Solutions last month, and also has bought Register.com . Web.com picked up Network Solutions for $405M plus some stock. I have been using an e-commerce package form Network Solution for two years. I wouldn’t have noticed the buy out as the Network Solutions site has not changed. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Network Solutions was offering some new products such as Gorilla Online Marketing . Soon after that we received a sales call about Gorilla Online Marketing from Network Solutions. When I returned the call the phone was answered by Register.com, I was confused at first but quickly found out about the buy outs. They seem like a good fit, they all target the same types of small to medium size businesses. Network Solution has always had great customer support in my opinion. Their sales people are a little irritating sometimes but they beat the heck out of GoDaddy.com and Comodo.com and you can’t beat the prices. If you can beat the prices ask them for a ...

This section requires knowledge of bash. Please get a professional to help if you are unsure. The root partition of the official x86 OpenWrt image is not very big, about 50 MiB.  Many find it too small after installing a few add-on packages.  Here I will cover the steps to expand it.  The resultant image can be used in a live USB (see Easy Live USB for x86 OpenWRT ) or copied to a hard disk. Procedure Outline Get an uncompressed disk image. Pad image to desired size Attach the image file to a loop device Edit image partition table to enlarge the root partition Resize the file system in root partition Detach the image from the loop device. All commands below are run in Bash. Uncompress Image File Use whichever method you like to download an image file from OpenWrt ( http://downloads.openwrt.org ) and uncompress it using gzip.  For example, these two commands download and uncompress the 10.03.1-rc6 disk image. bash$ wget --quiet http:/...

Installing OpenWrt x86 This is a great project to put an old pc back to work. Openwrt is a cousin so to speak of DD-WRT that  is installed on many brand name routers to increase their capabilities. Openwrt will also allow a pc to act as an expensive router without the big price tag. Of course, you could easy use some of the router distros such as ipcop and many others (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_router_or_firewall_distributions ). openwrt is so much more upgradeable and expandable. Did this with the original image on a pentium2 and it worked well. If you want the gui, you may need to install the web add-on. Installing OpenWrt x86 on a PC. ( Try this at your own risk!!! ) Requirements: An X86 compatible pc (i386) or greater with at least 16MB of RAM, 2 network cards, and a hard drive. With newer versions of openwrt require higher hardware requirements. Check openwrt.org for more details. OpenWrt binary file, for x86. Old: http://downloads.openwrt.org/kamika...

Happy holidays and thank you for visiting us. Breakdown by area: Breakdown by operating system.

VMware Fusion users can now install Leopard, Snow Leopard in VMs!! as per: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/vmware-fusion-users-can-now-install-leopard-snow-leopard-in-vms.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

The new file cabinet or what is called network-attached storage (aka nas) is very useful for a business. Network-attached storage is a computer(s) that are dedicated to acting like an external hard drive for your computer network. Not that you could not share files from your local machine, the nas allows more than one person access under certain rules load and save files to the unit. It is basically a computer dedicated to serving out files. Just a new name or buzz word for a traditional file server. Nas units are generally oriented to the home or small business where management or administration of the file server is or can be reduced. You can get a nas in what is called a turnkey package off the shelf from your local electronics store. Generally you might pay a premium for such a setup. But then you know it should be supported well from the manufacturer. Hewlett Packard is a prime example of those units. Now everyone under the sun is selling some sort of system billing themselves a...

Statistics can be very important especially for a business. I like to know how the instructables are dong. Which are the top viewers, so it gives me an idea of what project to do next and trending of views over time. You can do the same thing with the products you may or may not want to keep in inventory. If it does not sell why keep it on hand. Though the instructables do not cost me anything, I have on occasion deleted what I thought was a dead instructable. Lost a few views, but it overall gives a better picture. (Have a program that gets all the data from the site, so the figures do not have to be typed in manually.)

What happens when computer people get together much like old car talk. What's in you machine? You want to say more than I don's know. The newest devices such as the touchpads, some netbooks, and etc. today are pretty much unfortunately throwaways. As for desktop computers,  at least for a while you can upgrade them. It is very useful to know what equipment and and in some cases what software is on the inside. For insurance purposes, you would be well advised to have such a list tucked away in a safe deposit box or where ever. So I went on a little research expedition to find out what might be used to find out what is in my computer. OS/X: (textedit to view) You can go to the system profiler and output a text list of the hardware. More info at: http://www.intego.com/services/systemProfiler.html and http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/26204-howto-list-your-installed-applications.html Microsoft windows: (notepad to view) A script for older systems: http://richardspowe...

Run Android on you pc from a cd on your pc. http://www.android-x86.org/ caveat emptor.

Want to run Andriod on a PC? Try this gadget: USB Stick Contains Dual-Core Computer, Turns Any Screen Into an Android Station

Preface: There is a computer programming language that is oriented towards new developers. That language is called Python. It is available for most every platform. (i.e. MSWindows, OS/X, BSD,. Linux and etc.  Though there are no fancy graphics in what was done in this project, you could surely add that feature. Just wanted to show a bare bones project that anyone could use to start with. One of the reasons I like to do page scraping is to get the data I need without having to take time to use a web browser such as Firefox and or a newsreader to get the specific data I need. Letting the computer get the data for me and making a summary file of the data I need is therefore letting the computer be my secretary and or research assistant. Have been doing some page scraping, but i was not able to get the weather from their (Google) site. Then read they have it sort of hidden. Was able to get a page of the xml they use to show the data. Aha!   Then found a short piece ...

This is probably a better look at the change in resolution. I did a text scrape of a spreadsheet I wrote. Before:  After:   A bit bigger(or smaller as the case may be).....

Note: This also works for the graphics mode. Do this at your own risk as I will not be responsible for any issues: One of the biggest complaints I get is the text screen is too small. I generally agree. More recent computers actually have the ability to use a higher resolution, but do not take advantage of it in the default mode. This article is for more advanced users. Please get help before starting this project if you are at least the little bit. unsure. You will need to have the documentation for both your video card and for your monitor. You will see numbers like 640x48 800x600 1024x768. Take those numbers and use the lower of the two from the video card and the monitor settings. If you can only use 640x400 then stop here. The 640x400 is the default. There is a 320x200, but I have not see that in years, In my case the highest resolution for the monitor was 800x600. Still a boost over the default 640x400 screen. Lastly you need to find out what your linux system uses to bo...