Wed, 28 Jun 2006
An adventure in futuristic graffiti.
Last week we made throwies and
put them on a bridge.
posted at: 12:06 | path:
/movies |
permanent link to this entry
Wed, 21 Jun 2006
Cisco VLAN's. A whole new world.
I haven't posted in a while. So I'm
posting
a link to the Cisco Catalyst 3500 XL VLAN reference. Why you ask? Because
it's a good thing to know. In case you have an "enterprise level" switch on
your hands and you feel like carving it up into a bunch of smaller switches for
different networks. It's like 2, no 3, no 4 switches in one!
In other news, I recently had to talk with a "activation manager" who got
really weird when I told him my router was an intel compatible computer running
OpenBSD. He didn't know what I was talking about and hid behind his Cisco
certification. Man, people need more unix in their life.
posted at: 00:05 | path:
/proprietary |
permanent link to this entry
Sat, 17 Jun 2006
I have been using mac os x for the last week
...and after two years of not using it I can honestly say it has not improved
for multimedia at all. The reasons I switched to GNU/Linux for audio production
have only been reinforced by the way open source audio applications and code
libraries are implemented on OS X. This is not the fault of open source
developers. It is only proof that OS X is not a serious platform for audio
development.
Grip is a open source program that runs on GNU/Linux. It does an excellent job
of ripping audio CDs and encoding them to ogg/vorbis or mp3. The only program I
can find for free on OS X is called Ogg Drop, which is nice but hasn't changed
in four years. Yea proprietary development.
ogg/vorbis playback is equally bad with strange third party codecs and
unsupported obsolete applications bearing the responsibility of playing back
open source encoded media.
Compare this to a default Debian GNU/Linux system and you'll find OS X is
virtually non-functional unless you pay individual developers for their niche
applications which you are not allowed to learn from or improve by editing their source code.
My overall experience with OS X is that it hasn't evolved at all since I stoped
using it.
Despite Apple's commitment to open source software under the GUI, their
dedication to open source desktop applications is unsuprisingly absent. In it's
place are the low class shareware hackers, who spend their time reverse
engineering OS X to make it "value added". The whole while with the wool over
their eyes so they can't see the thriving alternative right in front of them.
Shareware hackers! Move on! There are alternatives that work better and have
more users. Your niche is closing in.
posted at: 01:06 | path:
/linux |
permanent link to this entry
Sun, 11 Jun 2006
I got a macbook amature, not a macbook pro but it's fat nonetheless
Apple has entered my life again in the form of a laptop computer. This is my
second Apple laptop in 6 years, my previous being a Pismo Powerbook that got
stolen right around the time when I stopped using OS X and moved to Debian
GNU/Linux. In all honesty, I have not used a proprietary
operating system in those three years for any of my personal work and I made
many decisions in my professional life to do the same. It worked out
extrodinarily well.
Then Apple caught my attention with their moderately priced 6 pound widescreen
laptop with a camera and motion sensor built in. Sweet! It also contains a
Intel Duo CPU. Double sweet! But the thought of
using OS X was painful. A real deal breaker. Then I discovered Parallels, a
virtualization application similar to VMware but designed for the OS X desktop
user. It supports a pirate's booty of other operating systems, including my
favorite Debian GNU/Linux. Triple sweet!
Needless to say the first thing I did when I opened the box and turned on the
Macbook was...watch that stupid animation they put on new laptops. Yeah, that
was annoying...but
after that I downloaded and installed the Parallels
RC2 application and installed Ubuntu Linux. While not Debian, it's familliar
and has all the same packages aside from Gnome and the kernel. And I've been using
that since.
But now I get to the point of this writing. I noticed that the 60 gig hard disk
inside the laptop was already quite full after doing nothing more than
switching on the laptop for the first time. What could be consuming all this
disk space, I asked myself. A virus? Spyware? Some Apple store employee's
mp3 collection? None of these assumptions were correct. MacOS X 10.4.6 was
consuming 15 gigs of my disk space. This is just absoultely insane. What the
hell does an operating system need 15 gigs of disk space for? Here's my
findings, which are far from exhaustive:
- 2.1 gigs of language data. Not fonts, but text strings for menu and
system messages translated into languages other than English. That's actually
pretty cool but why does Apple not provide a removal tool for those who need
only one language?
- 1.95 gigs of music loops for the Garage Band application. This one
freaked me out. What the hell does an unsuspecting user need this for? How difficult would
it be to manufacture a DVD including the samples and put it in the box?
- 1.37 gigs of printer drivers. I'll admit printing on desktop computers sucks
ass. I'll admit it's very confusing and hard to configure a new printer. But
is it 1.37 gigs confusing? I say no. That DVD I mentioned still isn't filled
to capacity yet. Perhaps these can go on there too?
I haven't wasted anymore time hunting for more crap to delete but my system is
now down to a mere 10.3 gigs. about 1 gig of this is consumed by some SDKs from
the Xcode installer (which I actually want because I installed them myself, on
the included CD-ROM I might add) but really, roughly 9 gigs of disk space
consumed for an operating system with ONE other third party application
installed? Barf. And if you actually read this far and found my loophole, I
already subtracted the size of the GNU/Linux virtual machine from all of these
calculations. So there.
posted at: 19:39 | path:
/computer_hardware |
permanent link to this entry
Mon, 05 Jun 2006
Windows XP Professional Does Not Support RAID-1
Brain explody!
OMG, OMG, OMG, WTF. Okay. Get a grip Lee. It's only software. It's only the
most popular operating system in the universe. There must be a way. And of
course
there is.
Here's the summary of what this guide explains. There are three system files on
a Windows XP Professional system that limit the functionailty of the Disk
Manager Snap-in. They limit this functionality by containing a text string of
"WINNT" or "SERVERNT". The implication here is that a "home" user would never
need a "server" feature like disk mirroring (RAID-1). By changing this string
using a binary editor, this feature of Windows becomes "unlocked". That's
right, this feature is not determined by the programs included in Windows, it
is determined by a very short string of text embedded in those programs. They are
completely capable of doing this feature as shipped but Microsoft has decided
that it is not in your best interest to do this.
Please refer to the brain explody graphic above.
posted at: 00:44 | path:
/hacking |
permanent link to this entry
Sun, 04 Jun 2006
CrimethInc Shareholder Report
The Anarchist front group criticizes itself and continues the message that
the logo is just a means to an end. This is an exceptional quote
Among other things, CrimethInc. has been an experiment in
structure. In adapting the decentralized, radically participatory approach of
Food Not Bombs and the Earth Liberation Front to the project of propaganda
outreach, we have attempted to put whatever notoriety we win for ourselves at
the disposal of all. The objections of traditionalists that this approach could
not provide enough control over who acts as CrimethInc. have not been borne
out by reality: neither fascists nor communists nor liberals have attempted to
hijack the CrimethInc. bullet mid-trajectory
I encourage you to
read
the whole thing. CrimethInc is the most amaingly consistant collective when
it comes to writing with a tone of hope and discouragement at the same time.
Moralistic without the morals.
posted at: 11:16 | path:
/power |
permanent link to this entry
