Testing URL Shortener
Just setup a new shortener service for myself at http://fsk141.me; I made it public so feel free to use it, I’ll be adding a tutorial shortly on how to setup your own for FREE soon. It was very simple & straightforward.
Rawr!!!
Convert .bin/.cue to .iso [Mac/Linux]
I dislike .bin/.cue combinations for a few reasons. But the biggest is that Mac doesn’t natively support mounting them. Good thing I have macports to install linux programs.
Firstly lets install bchunk (use your favorite package manager, or macports on the mac)
# Mac Installation sudo port install bchunk
Then locate your .bin/.cue combinations and CONVERT!
jg_mbp:CBT NUGGETS CISCO CCNA CCENT EXAM-PACK 640-822 ICND1 jgerold$ bchunk agcnccci.{bin,cue} CCENT
binchunker for Unix, version 1.2.0 by Heikki Hannikainen <hessu@hes.iki.fi>
Created with the kind help of Bob Marietta <marietrg@SLU.EDU>,
partly based on his Pascal (Delphi) implementation.
Support for MODE2/2352 ISO tracks thanks to input from
Godmar Back <gback@cs.utah.edu>, Colas Nahaboo <Colas@Nahaboo.com>
and Matthew Green <mrg@eterna.com.au>.
Released under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later (at your option).
Reading the CUE file:
Track 1: MODE1/2352 01 00:00:00
Writing tracks:
1: CCENT01.iso 338/338 MB [********************] 100 %
jg_mbp:CBT NUGGETS CISCO CCNA CCENT EXAM-PACK 640-822 ICND1 jgerold$ ls
CCENT01.iso agcnccci.bin agcnccci.cue
# ^Yay a new .iso
bchunk makes .bin/.cue > .iso conversion EASY!
Pogoplug
Well I took all the pictures for the pogoplug, and took a ton of screenshots of the web interface. Well about an hour into my unboxing I’ve rooted the device, changed the password, checked out the CPU spec, and am planning on oh so much more. I’ve been looking for a new hub to access my home network from far far away. Pogoplug you have been chosen for this task, do you accept? hehe. Anywho it’s a basic linux distro based off ARM9:
-bash-3.2# cat /proc/cpuinfo Processor : ARM926EJ-S rev 1 (v5l) BogoMIPS : 1192.75 Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp CPU implementer : 0x56 CPU architecture: 5TE CPU variant : 0x2 CPU part : 0x131 CPU revision : 1 Cache type : write-back Cache clean : cp15 c7 ops Cache lockdown : format C Cache format : Harvard I size : 16384 I assoc : 4 I line length : 32 I sets : 128 D size : 16384 D assoc : 4 D line length : 32 D sets : 128 Hardware : Feroceon-KW Revision : 0000 Serial : 0000000000000000
Man I love this device so much already. The throughput seems a little sluggish in comparison to my FailNAS (long story) But that is a X86_64 PC with opensolaris (ZFS) and it does an amazing job at storing all my files.
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For a preview the install was the simplest install of a network device that I’ve ever experienced. Followed by automatic encoding of my media files to allow for streaming via web/my motorola droid.
I’ll post the review after having some time to play with the device. Hopefully I don’t brick it 
Busyness
Who has time to type things in their blog anyway? Anywho I’ve been busy with my super job @ Smithmicro. I’ve also been working on a site for a friend of mine Ryan Morck.
I’ve been hacking away at my Motorola Droid (Which is kinda useless) hacking that is, cause the Motorola Droid is AMAZING. But there really is no need to root/hack the droid unless you want to remove the Amazon & Facebook apps (which I did , and do some other kinda neat little things. But you can pirate the apps without hacking the phone, so that’s kinda nice.
I have a lot to catch up on as far as the blog goes.
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On another note, I will be receiving a PogoPlug to Review within the next week. I’m very excited about it, and am going to review the life right out of it
Project Euler Problem 1
Just found a wonderful place to help me grow in programming, and learn some sweet math problems at the same time. That place is called Project Euler (http://www.projecteuler.net) named after Leonhard Paul Euler. There is more information on the about page of the website.
After much struggle with GNU Octave I got the problem working, and also wrote a c++ version. I tried for about 2 hours to get the octave version working. mod() != % for modulo 
. This tripped me up, but everything works, and the solution program is below.
C++ Solution
// Project Euler - P1
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main () {
int i=0;
int t=0;
for ( i=0; i < 1000; i++ ) {
if ( i % 3 == 0 || i % 5 == 0 )
t += i;
}
cout << t;
}
// 233168
Octave Solution
# Project Euler - P1 i=0; t=0; for i=1:999 if ( mod(i, 3) == 0 || mod(i, 5) == 0 ) t += i endif endfor #233168
Octave is an awesome language to program in for math specific operations. It will take a little getting used to, but I believe it’s fully compatible with matlab, so it will be a nice addition to my repertoire.
The quest for the perfect panel
Pics to follow on the next post (this is a quickie). I’m in search for a panel for my openbox desktop. I’m used to the dwm top bar, and wish I could have something simple like that, but haven’t found anything yet. As of now I’ve tried all the popular panels (xfce4-panel, gnome-panel, tint2, pypanel, fspanel, bmpanel) and I’ve liked tint2 (what I’m using now), and xfce4-panel was alright. I think I might try bmpanel again. This is all foreign to me, since dwm has been my only WM for a long time. The only reason I’m moving to something else is because I have a tablet PC, and I need a little mouse support. Also it’s a major bummer that Cell Writer doesn’t work with dwm. Meh…
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^ tint2 panel ^
On a side note openbox sucks, well unless you configure it. And I’ve configured it a little, but I would like it to emulate dwm, with Ctrl-Alt-Shift (Move Windows), and a few other dwm specific things.
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I’m using pytyle to get the whole tiling wm’ish feel, but it’s not anything like the real thing. I really miss dwm, and am pissed that I bought this Lenovo X200 Tablet, and am having issues finding a good WM for it
Screenshot Of The Month
I think I need to find a place for this on my theme, or get a new theme (even though I like the wordpress theme that I have at the moment.) Well this screenshot is from my wonderful X200 Tablet, Enjoy.
On a side note, flickr manager doesn’t play well with wordpress 2.8. Quick Google search yeilded: http://seoishard.com/seo-tool/flickr+manager+2.8 which forces it to play with wordpress 2.8 Enjoy the screenshot because of the wonderful people at seoishard.com
Teach mpd a lesson about stealing your CPU cycles
MPD by default is setup to use whatever it can output to (audio wise), even though such sources might be very inefficient. I was noticing that mpd was using upwards of 30% of my dual core CPU, and it got me to googling for an answer. Well after reading up on mpd configuration tweaks: http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Tuning I got my configuration file to use alsa, and now I’m seeing 1-3% cpu usage from mpd most the time it’s off the radar completely.
I’ve posted my whole mpd.conf below, yet the information I modified was the ‘audio_output bit.
# See the mpd.conf man page for a more detailed description of each parameter.
music_directory "~/music"
#playlist_directory "/var/lib/mpd/playlists"
db_file "~/.mpd/mpd.db"
log_file "~/.mpd/mpd.log"
pid_file "~/.mpd/mpd.pid"
state_file "~/.mpd/mpdstate"
#
user "fsk141"
#
audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "My ALSA Device"
# auto_resampler "no"
# format "44100:16:2" # optional
mixer_device "default" # optional
mixer_control "Master" # optional
# mixer_index "0" # optional
options "dev=dmixer"
device "plug:dmix"
}
Procrastination
We all do it, and it’s hard to get away from. The word of the day is procrastination. I spent my day taking a break, and working through the rest of my photo collection to finish a task that has “long been put off.” Why is it that we put off “important” tasks, until we get “tired” of procrastinating. Or that out life demands that these such tasks are done in a timely manner. Case in point, I never seem to procrastinate about eating. I have food in my house, and when I have the slightest hunger pain I go to the fridge or pantry and get something to eat.
Why do we put off tasks, and waste time watching television, or laying around? The only thing that being a lazy bum gets you is, well nothing. It makes you fat and incompetent. I’m not demeaning myself to a couch potato, cause I at least picked up a couple books today, and worked through a few chapters of Robinson Crusoe. Sorry to get off topic. But what I’m trying to say is that procrastination is a bitch, and everyone does it for a reason.
http://www.counseling.caltech.edu/articles/procrastination.html
… Sorry just got distracted for a few minutes on a tangent. Eh, distraction should be tomorrows word of the day. I’ll write about it later . While I’m at it, I’ll write something up about sarcasm. hehe… Anywho I get hit with the “perfectionism” aspect of procrastination a lot. Also with the “matter of approach” aspect. Both are explained in the link above. I would like to achieve a jumble of things in any given day, and am held back by the interior force that dictates what I “can” do in any given day.
This “can” do attitude, that normally results in my not getting anything done is a bad approach. Instead I’m going with a new approach (I’m working out the details, but it will revolve around having a set plan for the day, and sticking to it the best I can). This gives me a few things that I can work off. Not only does it give me a rough outline of what I should get done in my day, but it helps in holding myself accountable.
I’m not quite sure how I’m going to setup my daily lists, since I’ve tried moving away from “paper,” but I will think of some cool digital something or another. I love todo.txt, and I wish there were some way to have it work with Google tasks, but that is a pipe dream for now since I’m a lazy programmer. …I procrastinate too much.
The summary of this spiel is to say “f you” to procrastination, and get to work on the things that you “want” to get done. I’m going to build something into my daily ritual to show myself what needs to get done, and somehow chart that the things actually get done. Maybe a time tracking application or the like.
Until then I leave you with a few famous quotes. I first looked at my 20,000 quips and quotes book, but procrastination wasn’t in there? So I had to go to Google.
“You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday.” – Unknown Author
Image Organization | In-N-Out NAS
It’s painful, but I’ve been meaning to get my images in good order for a long time now. Well I made a little script to rename all the JPG & AVI extensions to lower case, and remove the IMG_0 crap.
#!/bin/bash mmv "*.JPG" "#1.jpg" mmv "IMG_0*" "#1" mmv "*.AVI" "#1.avi" mmv "MVI_0*" "#1" chmod 755 *
mmv is a powerful tool, and I’m using a very simple implementation of it. I’ve gotten all my images in order at the moment, and right now I’m pushing everything into Picasa 3.5 to get all the faces recognized. This is an excellent selling point of Picasa 3.5. It works pretty well, and my overall experience with Picasa has been excellent. Well I’m off to sleep for now, but an update is soon to come with my overall experience of Picasa.
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The In-N-Out NAS is at a major standstill at the moment. I didn’t think a 32 bit system would be a problem when I purchased the VIA board. Yet I forgot about the “performance benefit” with ZFS & 64 bit. Well come to find out, 32 bit is restricted to 1TB or less. Anything higher is rejected with a nice little ‘f you for using 32 bit’ message in ‘/var/adm/messages’ In the mean time I’m trying to get a new motherboard, prolly core duo mini-itx intel board. The overall experience of this homebrew NAS has been an unsavory experience, yet it looks great, and once everything is worked out, I should have a wonderful NAS setup.