Author: Roganty

Playing with new Computers!

My last post was about me playing about with old computers, the update is that I have reverted back to Puppy Linux as Zenwalk Linux kept throwing up “Disabling IRQ #10 – Nobody cares” and that was the IRQ the network card was using so I would lose the network!

This post is about me playing with new computers, or more specifically, I was building a new computer for my mum.
The computer I built is loosely based around my computer, its got a similar motherboard, the same memory and power supply, and its got my processor!

I brought myself a faster processor and a heat sink and I put my old processor in my mums computer!

Here’s a handy hint for trying to remove the heat sink from a processor, make sure the processor and heat sink is warm, because when the thermal paste is cold, it sticks like super glue!

Yes, I did manage to pull the processor out of its socket just by trying to get the heat sink off 😳 lol!
I also had trouble putting the new heat sink on to the new processor, I applied the thermal paste alright, I just could not get the clips to clip into place! And I swear all of the thermal paste has squeezed out of the sides!
I’ll find out when I next try to remove the heat sink! 😀

Till next time
Happy building!

Playing with old Computers!

These past two weeks since I last posted I’ve been showing some old computers the “free” way!
I sent Windows 98SE to the recycle bin, and installed Linux! Or more specifically I first installed Puppy Linux, and then Zenwalk Linux

I got Puppy running on one, but the x windows system wouldn’t start up, so I switched to a second computer, and got it installed and running! The wireless network worked straight out of the box, except that it I had to unhide the network SSID for it to connect!
I ditched Puppy because I just couldn’t get the wireless started on boot-up!

So I went with Zenwalk Linux. It installed without a hitch, the desktop runs a little slow but I’m going to see if I can get another one installed instead.
But wireless didn’t work, so I had no connection to the internet, and the kernel module for the wireless card wasn’t installed by default. I managed to get the files needed onto the computer, but it stopped compiling with an error.
Luckily the NDIS wrapper program was installed so I could use the Windows driver provided with the network card on Linux.
I downloaded the install program from the Belkin website
~ $ cd Download/f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0
f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0 $ ls -l
total 23796
-rw-rw-r-- 1 anthony anthony 24333824 2008-06-01 20:26 f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0.exe
f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0 $ unzip -a f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0.exe
Archive: f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0.exe
inflating: start.exe [binary]
inflating: files/._setup.exe [binary]
inflating: files/rt2500.cat [binary]
inflating: files/Rt2500.inf [text]
inflating: files/Rt2500.sys [binary]
inflating: files/Rt25009x.sys [binary]
inflating: files/setup.exe [binary]
inflating: manual/._manual.pdf [binary]
inflating: manual/manual.pdf [binary]
inflating: other/.DS_Store [binary]
inflating: other/._.DS_Store [binary]
inflating: other/._ar500enu.exe [binary]
inflating: other/._flashmain.swf [binary]
inflating: other/._icon.ico [binary]
inflating: other/ar500enu.exe [binary]
inflating: other/flashmain.swf [binary]
inflating: other/icon.ico [binary]
inflating: AUTORUN.INF [text]
f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0 $ ls -l
total 27104
-rw-rw-r-- 1 anthony anthony 45 2004-10-25 18:45 AUTORUN.INF
-rw-rw-r-- 1 anthony anthony 24333824 2008-06-01 20:26 f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0.exe
drwxrwxr-x 2 anthony anthony 4096 2008-06-03 12:43 files
drwxrwxr-x 2 anthony anthony 4096 2008-06-03 12:43 manual
drwxrwxr-x 2 anthony anthony 4096 2008-06-03 12:43 other
-rw-rw-r-- 1 anthony anthony 3343706 2004-08-24 10:41 start.exe
f5d7000v3_2.2.7.0 $
And it worked! I got it connected and onto the internet in no time at all, and the best bit, it connects to the network while its booting up!

I haven’t decided yet, but I might either go back to Puppy, or install a different distro, maybe DSL or Vector Linux

Another Year, Another Birthday!

I’m getting old now, I’m going to start drawing a pension soon if I carry on like this! Lol!

Yep, as you may of guessed from the title, I have recently had a birthday, it was on Saturday, and I am now 23!

The day started off alright, I opened my presents, and then I got a phone call from my mum, who was on holiday at the time in Cyprus.
Then my girlfriend came over and took me out for the day for a picnic on the Cheddar downs.

Boy was that some trek! First we had to walk up the road to a path, and then we had to walk up a load of steps, which would of been alright, but we were carrying all the food, and my presents!

Luckily it didn’t rain, and, even though the sun wasn’t out, it was warm, and it wasn’t all that windy either!
After the picnic we spent an hour or two in the gorge going in and out of all the shops.

And here’s the mandatory present list:

And now some news on my car.

On Sunday dad took me on a guided tour of the innards of my cars engine, we had towed the car to his work Friday evening, and he was working on it all Saturday. The photos can be seen in the usual places, on my website, and on flickr.

From what dad can see at the moment, it just looks like the valves need replacing, and because its been taken off, so does the head gasket.
But first dads got to make sure the cylinder head hasn’t been warped.

That’s it for now
Till next time!

The End of an Era

The timing belt on my car broke on the way to work this morning, it happened just as I was going on to the slip road off the motorway.

I managed to get the car on to a lay-by, and then I had walk the rest of the way to work – it wasn’t that far.

Dad then towed my car to his work place to have a look at it, he phoned me to tell me what was wrong.

He got a new belt and fitted it, but the engine won’t start again, it’s knackered.

Thats the end of the road for my car, and I don’t have any photo’s of it!

St George’s Day

Todays St George’s Day, the patron saint of England, and the guy’s at English Heritage has launched a campaign to dispel the apathy surrounding St George’s Day and encourage more people to celebrate their patron saint.

You can read more of this article on the Telegraph’s website

The English Heritage’s St George’s Events page can be found here

Brian Patten, a Liverpoolian poet was asked by the English Heritage to write a poem, the poem is called The True Dragon

And here’s an excerpt from the poem:

St George was in awe of it [The Dragon]
It was a thing apart
He hid the sleeping dragon
Inside every English heart

[…]

Let’s celebrate St George’s Day,
The dragon in repose;
The brilliant lark ascending,
The yew, the oak, the rose

How are you celebrating today? All comments are welcome

A Day of Updating

Ok, this post is going back to Saturday, but I didn’t have anytime left to post anything!

All day I made two updates to Linux-Links.co.uk, the first update is the Linux-Links.co.uk feed!

It took me most of the day to set up and get working properly, I then set up a FeedBurner account for people to subscribe to the feed from.

The second update is a proper external links format. Instead of linking directly to the website, there is a (hopefully) unique code that corresponds to the site, and when clicked leads straight to the website requested!

If you’re unsure about what I’m trying to explain, head over to Linux-Links.co.uk, and have a browse around!

The code creation is interesting, it is three separate functions.

The first function accepts a string, creates an hd5 hash of that string and then passes that string to the second function which splits that string into four pieces and passes it back to the first function.

The first function then does some wizardry, and passes four numbers to the third function which then does some more wizardry and returns four alphanumeric characters back to the first function.

The first function then returns those four alphanumeric characters back as a single string

Maybe I should setup a URL shortening site!? Lol!

If you are interested in seeing the code that is used, then you can either leave a comment or email me, the email address is at the bottom of the page.

That all for this post
Till next time,
Happy browsing!

Finally Updated!

I must start this post with an apology to anyone who is subscribed to my feed!

Earlier today I finally upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.5. At the same time I took the opportunity to clean out my database, quite literally I reformatted my blog!

This involved me exporting all my posts, and blogroll, deleting all WordPress files, apart from my theme and wp-config.php, and then deleting all the WordPress tables from the database!
Then I installed the new version of WordPress and ran through the install. I then deleted the test post, and updated some of the options. I then imported all of my old posts into the fresh install.

That was only this morning, now what have I been doing for the past two weeks since my last post?
The answer, nothing much!

The only notable exception is that I have finally got my new computer up and running!

I installed both Fedora 7 and Windows XP onto the first hard drive, Linux on 100Gb, and Windows on 60Gb.
I am using the 500Gb hard drive for all of my files, on Linux this is mounted as /home

The new computer is working brilliantly, and its so much quieter than my previous computers!
I’ve just got to get a set of speakers, and possibly a new heat sink/fan for the processor, and that will be it sorted!

It’s getting quite late now, so thats it for this post
Till next week!

Linux Links 2.0.1 Released!

It’s April the first (just!) and no, this is not an April Fools joke, Linux-Links.co.uk has been updated, on time!

This version is a complete rewrite of the server side of the website.
I have rewritten it all from scratch and have collected all the functions into one place, this means that all the settings for displaying and collecting the data is set in one place, and means that everything is displayed uniformly across the whole site.

I have updated the search function, and hopefully it will return more relevant results, its still not perfect, but it is working better now!

I have added a “help” section, but the only area it gives help on is the HTTP Status Codes that are displayed on the URL pages.
The basic structure is there and can easily be added to when more areas need to be added!

There are a couple more things I would have liked to have included, but I ran out of time!
I will add these updates when they are ready!

Ok, its now past midnight and it’s no longer April Fools Day!
Hope you believe me now! Lol 🙂

It’s Easter!

Well, it’s Easter today! I’ve got two Easter eggs, one bar of chocolate, and a bag of mini eggs, and I’ve still got one egg left to receive!
Really, I’m nearly 23, and I’m still getting excited over receiving Easter eggs, but I think its chocolate that does it, when else are we given this much chocolate, it just takes you back to childhood!

In other news, I have finally restarted work on Linux Links, now I just have the search page to complete before I finally release this long awaited version of Linux Links.
I am aiming to release the updated Linux Links on Tuesday 1st April, no joke! Honest!

I have done a few tweaks to my website and blog, a couple of them you might not notice!

The first is that I’ve separated trackbacks and pings from comments in single post view.

Secondly I have added a print CSS style sheet to both the blog and website, so if you need to print anything out you only get the main content, and not the navigation bars.
I think there is still a few more bits to change with the print style to make it more complete, but its working!

The third is that I’ve signed up for a FeedBurner account, I have already burnt my feed, and you can find it here. I have set up the redirects, so you can continue using the old address, and you will still receive the feed as normal!

There’s a few more that I have fixed or changed as I have been going around, but they don’t really effect anything!

My dad’s off to Brands Hatch this afternoon to watch the Truck racing on Monday, he’s camping over tonight and Monday night and coming back on Tuesday morning.
The Truck racing was awesome last time, and it’s something I would like to go and watch again, the thing that put me off the most is the weather, it going to be cold and wet!

That’s all for this post now, I’ll post more details when I know more!
Till then
See you