It has been a week and I can’t believe how fast the time flies. I know this is going to sound crazy, but it took me a week to find a content management system that I like for my new website.

HoW2WiKi
http://how2wiki.ryanjb.com

I know isn’t it awesome? I got really tired of using my forums (that no one uses) to post my how 2’s. I needed a WiKi and I found it! I chose to use the Joomla content management system because I was exhausted at going through thousands of lines and pages of php code with some others. I won’t mention names because I don’t want to bad mouth those systems. They are very great and allow an open range to do anything, but there’s a price to pay (hours of effort without major gains).

I’m beginning to realize that my main site, www.RyanJB.com also needs a content management system. I would hate to go through thousands of web pages just to change a copyright notice. Why not make the change once and have it applied across the board? That’s a great idea.

Visit Joomla (it’s worth it).

I want to say fork Q to Loganwifi for there attempt of providing quality service. Why am I a little upset? I wrote a long post about 2 hours ago under the title: Tikiwiki, www.RyanJB.com and a DOD server. Then I hit the publish button and got a redirect screen to a loganwifi logo. That was it. Nothing more or less. I couldn’t visit any web sites (I couldn’t even head back to loganwifi.com). I had to disconnect from the Loganwifi router and reconnect (re-establishing a connection). When I re-visited my BLOG, all I had was a title and there wasn’t any text in the body of the post.

At other times my laptop could find a router but not connect to it. It’s not an issues with my laptop because it occurred with other machines at the same time right next to me. As advertised, you should be able to connect to Loganwifi anywhere throughout the airport. But at times, I can’t find a router. I don’t like being out in the open. I like to find a corner to sit in out of the way when I’m traveling. People are to nosy these days and I prefer to keep their eyes off of my LCD.

Lesson learned is… from now on I’ll do all of my editing locally and then copy over right before publishing. I guess GEdit will become my best friend because this BLOG is nothing but text composing.

Hello everyone, this is another perfect example of a company releasing a premature product. A bunch of people who are known by the name of researchers, found a bug in the SKYPE software that would allow you to execute code through the search command. I think it’s a beautiful way to remotely launch programs. A lot of people release software in Beta form. Hoping, the beta testers will discover any bugs and report them. These bugs will then be fixed in an updated product or with service packs (think about Microsoft service packs). The only problem is, some companies release products to the end users with flaws (hoping that no major flaw still exists, will be discovered or will be used). We can only assume that SKYPE didn’t know about this little loop hole in their software and they allowed it to be used publicly. If this were true, then which developer on their team knew about this and used it to their advantage?

Anyway, I gotta run but you can read up all about it at:

http://securitywatch.eweek.com/exploits_and_attacks/
researchers_find_code_execution_bug_in_skype.html

Special thanks to eweek security watch for letting us know what’s going on in the world of SKYPE.

I’ve been out of a laptop for a day. What?the?fudge happened to Ubuntu? I ran into a strange problem with my dual boot setup. My laptop is an HP dv6308nr, 4gig 64 bit monster that I love. Here’s the problem. I have Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) running with a generic, US english keyboard map and it doesn’t play well with my hardware. Trust me, I learned the hard way that it’s really important to have the proper drivers for your specific hardware.?I used my hotkey’s to increase and lower the LCD brightness. Well, I pressed the down button so much, the LCD went completely dark and powered off my backlight. The os was still running fine. At an angle, you could barely make out the desktop.

At this moment, the worst thing anyone can think of happened to me. The keyboard shortcut’s/hot keys (whatever you want to call it) stopped working. I couldn’t increase the brightness and now I’m stuck in the backlight completely off. My Laptop is unusable. So I tried to find my mouse cursor on the brightness icon in my panel but I can’t even see the cursor. Then I did what anyone would do, I hit the power button to hard power down the machine. The laptop remembered the LCD brightness settings (I beileive it’s controlled by the BIOS, but within the BIOS settings there’s no control to change it) and as it rebooted, I always got a black screen because the LCD blacklight was completely off. Ok you’re thinking, why don’t you boot into Vista and solve your problem? I can’t even see my GRUB menu to select the Vista partition. I could not make out what the white text looks like.

My only option at this point is to reset the BIOS. This will allow the backlight/LCD brightness to resume at a default level. I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to put in a live cd and tweak Ubuntu’s files. But no, things always have to be a little difficult. I unplugged the Laptop, removed the battery, unscrewed the memory cover and disconnected the BIOS battery. After a few minutes I reassembled the laptop and powered it on. I thought to myself, for a Linux OS this was easy. My hopes were destroyed because right after the Grub loading messages, I received another, “Grub error 17.” The machine wouldn’t boot and is now stuck in this area.

I can’t believe when you illegitimately power off a Linux machine, the boot record is affected. I could be wrong and if I am, why is Gurb failing to load my OS menu? A little research online is now going to make me use a live cd, boot the machine, mount the bad partition and edit the Grub settings. Then I should be able to boot normally. I ran into another probelm, after booting from pendrivelinux, I couldn’t mount the Ubuntu partition. I could mount my NTFS 32 bit Vista partition and my swap partition, but not Ubuntu. The partition tools I used with pendrivelinux detected the Ubuntu partition as /dev/sda2, but it could not tell me what file system it was. Even the auto switch with mount was a no go.

I then launched parted and discovered there was no file system associated with sda2. Puzzling, isn’t it? How can an illegitimate power off, wreck a boot record and a partition. So I powered off without unmounting my main file system, what’s the big deal? Looks like a huge deal becuase now it’s gone. I could power off any Microsoft Operating System and the MBR/main file system would not be affected. How come the swap file was not affected? I know it was mounted and activated for use by Ubuntu. I know it was not being used. My swap is only 300 megs because I have 4 gig’s available to Ubuntu. What can I do to fix this issue? I have 7 gigs of unallocated space on my hard drive and I decided to install a fresh copy of Ubuntu on it.

The fresh Ubuntu 64 install only took about 20 minutes and Grub was re-installed in the process. My boot menu now contained Vista and Ubuntu 64. Vista was not affected by this messhap and that makes me very happy. That’s one less monkey to spank. Anyway, after configuring my Nvidia and faught with my Wifi card, I started to play with my old file system. I can’t mount it but I can see it. It shows up in GParted and in Nautilis. Within GParted, I assigned it as an EXT3 system and I did not format it. Strangely, There was no file system type assigned to it. Now I could mount it without a problem. I couldn’t access anything? within it though. I only had a visible lost and found folder. No hidden files and I didn’t even bother to check the available space because I just gave up on it.

This strange problem left me with a lot of un-answered questions that I can’t find a solution to. I can’t even locate anyone on the internet who has had a similar issue.

• Why was my boot loader affected by an illegitimate power off?
• Why was my Ubunutu partition destroyed and marked as no file system within any partition tools?
• Why couldn’t I simply reinstall the Grub boot loader from my live cd and usb pendrivelinux?
• How come my Vista and Linux swap partition was unaffected?
• Importantly, why the heck did anyone think it was a good idea to completely turn off the Backlight of an LCD? If I want it off, i’ll power off the laptop, place it in?standby, sleep or hibernate mode.

Finally, I plan on destroying the old fex’d-up partition and extending my current install of Ubuntu to use the space. Then, I’ll figure out how to completely DISABLE the option to power off the LCD back light from the brightness controls. I love being able to control how bright or dim I can have the screen; I hate being able to power off the Back light.

That’s right, I’m not a pack rat and I try not to be. My weakness is books though. I love to have a library of works that I do and will re-read over time. I could use as much space as I can get on my dual boot setup. Right after an installation, I’ve changed my mind on what I wanted, so I launch the Synaptic Package Manager and here’s what I removed:

• All Games (I am a gamer, but I Game in Windows, Halflife, Farcry and Quake 4 just to name a few. I’m also not going to spend hours trying to get these titles running in Linux). I recovered 77.4 megs of Hard Disk space.
• Unnecessary drivers (this setup is on my laptop for god’s sake). I’m not going to need various display adapter drivers. In fact, I will only use the generic and the latest Nvidia drivers that I download. Why the Generic? That’s for the time I spend in between Nvidia drivers. If you have a desktop machine then it makes sense to have various drivers on hand.

There are a lot of other things you could remove to save on space. Why would you need multiple programs to do the same task? 3 web browsers, 2 email clients? It’s a waste of space and time. Find one program that does everything you want it to do. Within 10 minutes of browsing through the Synaptic Package Manager on my system, I was able to recover around 100 megs of space that I could use else ware. As I continue to remove other unnecessary programs, I’ll post about it here.

If you have been following my BLOG, you may know that I have a dual booted Laptop with Ubunutu and Vista. It was a breeze to install but Vista gave me another reason to hate Microsft. The first thing you need to do before you begin to dual boot your machine is create some free space to place your new OS on. I used the partition tool that came with Vista. If you google it, a lot of people love the little program. It’s not an advanced piece of software, but it can get the basics done. Anyway, I was only able to shrink my Vista volume to a small percentage. This program only gave me 6.5 gigs to install Ubuntu on. I could not go any lower. So I thought to myself, this sucks… I’ll install Ubuntu and enlarge the partition from there. So I did install Ubuntu and by the time I got through with installing the basic programs and packages that I require, I only have about 500 megs of free space. I NEED MORE.

So it turns out the partition tool (with a GUI) that came with Ubuntu is called GParted. It’s a very nice little program and I like it. But my NTFS partition was locked and I couldn’t resize it. Even if I unmounted it, I couldn’t touch it. So what should I do now? After spending 10 minutes on google I learned that, if I convert my NTFS partition to a dynamic drive within Vista, I could probably shrink it as I desire. This is not a good option for me, I don’t want to waste any time mucking around with Vista. Then I found a set of tools called ntfsprogs and you can learn about them at http://www.linux-ntfs.org . These are available for installation within my Synaptic Package manager in Ubuntu. With these tools the lock on my NTFS partition was remove, I was able to specify a size I wanted and then resize my NTFS partition.

Now that I can have what I wanted. I’m a happy camper!

Checking my email this early morning I thought to myself, it’s really nice to see some companies taking care of their customers. Wait a minute, shouldn’t all employees take care of all their customers? Well, don’t get your hopes up. It doesn’t happen all the time. Here’s my experience in the past 3 weeks.

Enterprise Rent a Car sent me an email in spanish. I didn’t respond to them, file any complaints or even promise myself to boycott the company. I simply deleted the message and a few days later I received another email from them regarding the matter. Within this new message they apologized for sending me something I couldn’t understand and offered me a 15% discount or a free upgrade on my next rental. A few days later I went to Southern CA for XMAS and rented from Thrifty RAC. I got a better deal without a coupon or discount. I give Enterprise a thumb up for their effort. Them I thought to myself, I wonder if they raised their prices for the holidays? With the discount, the rental would have been a little close to Thrifty’s price.

Ebay emails all of it’s users all the time. But I like how they attempt to get you to use their service. I’m always receiving messages about the discounts of certain fee’s based on using their service on certain days. One person’s junk is another person’s treasure. I do sell a good amount of stuff on Ebay. I’m not a reseller, but I like paying only 10 cents for a listing.

Redbox movie rentals, oh yes you can find them in your local super market. and for a single US dollar a day, you can have a movie for a night. They sent out a message around New Year’s day that contained an invalid link. I recently receive an email with an apology, the correct link and an offer for a free one night rental. No problem, I’ll take a one nightie rental for the weekend.

Have a good morning world.

The application that is my gateway to Valve gaming heaven has a flaw. It does not play nice with a DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). This information relates to my router. I have a wireless router (also contains RJ45 ports) that’s connected to my ISP’s router. Everything on my network is protected. I am in the process of setting up a Day Of Defeat Source, dedicated server. I’ve discovered that you can’t log into Steam when your PC is in a DMZ. I want my DOD Source server to be accessible to everyone on the internet. I want everyone world wide to be able to connect to it. To keep the rest of my network safe, I want this machine in a DMZ.

In theory, I access my router and dis-engauge the DMZ. Now I can log into Steam. Then I boot up my server. After it is fully loaded and users can log in, I re-access my router and enguage the DMZ setting to my DOD Source severs IP address. My DOD server should now be logged into Steam and available to everyone.

I have done the following and I believe it’s working. I need to get my laptop on another network and see if I can find my server. That is how I can confirm my theory of bypassing the Steam-DMZ problem.

+++this is an edit, made on January 15th, 2008.+++

Regarding the DMZ issue I’ve talked about up top. Do not place your server in a DMZ. It’s not safe and a simple invitation to anyone who wants to hurt you. In the gaming community I’ve developed a good list of enemies. I know if they had their way, my server would be in pieces. I’ll post in the comments of this topic about how to access and program your router. Allowing specific access to what you need and what you want others to have.

OH MY GOD! HE’S GONNA KILL COLINUX! ::SCREAM::

Ever since I dual booted my laptop with Ubuntu 7.10, I haven’t powered up CoLinuX at all. I love CoLinuX and have used it all the time. I still have it installed on my Desktop XP Pro machine. So I think I’m going to hit delete on my CoLinuX directory. Installing CoLinuX was a great way to introduce myself to tweaking a Linux OS. You have to do good amount of tinkering before CoLinuX plays nicely with you. Well, if you like to have a GUI and a list of special programs installed. I will still use CoLinuX, but I don’t think I will use it on my laptop. There’s a good 12 gig of hard drive space I could use in Ubuntu or Vista.

Maybe I should get a 4 or 8 gig USB key and keep CoLinuX on that! Oh that sounds like a lovely plan. Hmmm… Ok, for now I’ll be a pack rat and let it sit on my hard drive.

This is a very important topic folks. Property theft is very easy to do. A lot of people do it and don’t care about the matter until they are either caught, or it’s their property that’s stolen. I’ve read a lot of research and as I apply my thoughts with it, I agree that mainly the younger generation don’t think it’s a crime. If you google the topic, you will come across a lot of items to study. If you are smart enough to hack, crack or break anyone’s code… to illegally distribute and use their software, then you are smart enough to do the right thing. If you can’t afford Microsoft Office, use Open office. Even if you can’t afford a Microsoft Operating System, use a Linux or Unix based Operating System.

Ok, I know there’s a fine line as to what is considered stolen or not. Let’s say I bought a dual core Dell PC and it came with an OEM version of Vista 32 bit. A few months later I build a new quad core machine and decide to use my OEM Vista 32 bit on my new rig. That is considered theft. I have to buy another copy of Vista/license or use Linux. I wanted to briefly talk about this topic because Baselinemag.com has a little site of some companies that were caught stealing Software by the Business Software Alliance . Please read about it at:

http://www.baselinemag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=2100&a
=222694&po=1,00.asp?p=y

I don’t know how long the link will last, but I’m sure you can search for it through baseline’s main page.