This is a picture someone on my buddy list randomly sent supposedly because he doesn’t have a better way to entertain himself. It shows you how effective the MPAA and RIAA really are.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2336/2219282175_83aa0cddec_b.jpg

I just, believe it or not, paid 99 cents for the domain xx0r.info. As of this writing xx0r.net is still available. Can you believe nobody has registered this yet!?!?

This of course leaves incredible e-mail address possibilities. I’ve of course claimed h@xx0r dot info, but there’s still possibilities like 1337_h@xx0r.info, etc. Easily the best 99 cents I’ve ever wasted in my life! 

One of the Christmas presents I haven’t really mentioned on here was a 4GB USB stick. Seeing as I already had a 2GB one that’s about half-full with the majority of the data on it being Knoppix, I decided it was time to go extreme with portable computing and see if I could load a full-featured Linux distribution onto a USB stick in a rewritable, fully production-worthy package.

I chose Fedora because it’s my favorite desktop distribution, because Ubuntu doesn’t migrate between computers too easily, and because in this case it just works. Installation went quite well, though I had to boot Nighthawk natively because anaconda had problems under VMware.

Keeping enough free space to work comfortably is mildly difficult. Being an Enano developer I naturally need MySQL, Apache, and PHP on there, so that’s at least 100MB. A base installation of Fedora with the usual and expected trimmings is about 3GB. So, accounting for jEdit, Blender, and some other non-standard apps, I ended up with only 300 megs free. I decided OpenOffice.org wasn’t important, so I let it go and reclaimed 300MB. Eventually I ended up with a comfortable 600MB or so, and by now I’ve got it up to 650MB.

One of the coolest tricks you can do with Linux is transparent encryption of a filesystem. Because I have IM accounts, SSH keys, etc. in my home directory I decided it would be a good idea to encrypt it. (No, going without my SSH key just isn’t an option.) I know cryptoloop is deprecated but I decided anyway to make a simple init script that loads the aes and cryptoloop modules, prompts for the passphrase, sets up the loop device, and mounts it using the usual losetup/cryptoloop approach. The cool thing about this is that losetup does properly prompt for the passphrase in RHGB, so entering at startup is nothing short of painless. I also figured out that you can reboot the system after 3 incorrect password attempts, though I suppose a half-experienced hacker could remove that constraint.

So what are the advantages of such a setup? Basically I can code Enano and log into my network anywhere. Anywhere. Even if I don’t have my laptop, any half-modern computer can boot from my USB stick and give me Compiz, Firefox, jEdit, and (soon) VPN-over-SSH access.

For those of you who want to replicate this, it really couldn’t be easier with anaconda. Just plug your USB drive in, boot the system from your Fedora DVD, and install, making absolutely sure that GRUB goes on to your flash disk instead of to your hard disk’s MBR (that can be a pain to fix!). Happy Fedora-hacking!

No tengo suerte. Or maybe it’s Lenovo’s fault?

Today my power brick randomly started to beep. Googling around told me that I’m gonna need to have the cord replaced. Luckily it’s still under warranty.

Of course, then there’s the other problem. The latch that holds the screen shut just fell out. This problem isn’t unique to me either. Over the course of its lifetime my tablet PC has taken exactly one fall, and it came out of that without a scratch. It’s amazing to me that as soon as the Chinese start manufacturing ThinkPads they turn into crap.

Where’s my money going to go now? Probably towards a MacBook Pro, but that depends on what kind of Linux I can put on the thing. I’m going to be merciful and give Lenovo a chance to replace my power brick and fix the computer under warranty, but I am not an easy customer to deal with when I receive a bad product.

Anyways, if you get an extra minute, say a prayer for Scribus. Thanks.

I suppose I haven’t posted in a while, so here goes. First off happy new year to everyone! Dunno about you but my partying ethic hasn’t quite died down yet.

This is just one of those times where I feel like there’s so much code to be written that I don’t have time for anything else. I’ve started a contracted NSIS project, necessitating a boot-up of the ol’ never-used copy of Vista on Nighthawk and for when that doesn’t work my collection of VMware VMs with every imaginable version of Windows. Let’s not forget that I have to get an alpha of Enano 1.1 out by the end of the month - that means finishing localization. Do wish me luck, I’ll need every ounce of it that I can get.

In the mean time, my printer looks like it’s gonna end up in the backyard beneath a little plate saying “Here lies \\nighthawk\deskjet722c, 1997-2008.” OK, so I don’t hate the environment that much. It’ll probably just sit in the basement until spring comes around and I can get it up to the recycling center. I’m looking for another inkjet printer that’s compatible with Fedora and doesn’t have scanning or copying features (not needed). The current candidate is the HP DeskJet 6980, but if anyone has recommendations, post away!

What else? Oh yeah, I got myself another box to tinker with. A guy down the street gave me an old Dell OptiPlex GX150 about 4 months ago; only a couple of weeks ago did I get around to bartering some RAM out of a coworker. In a related note, Tiny Tux, the legendary $4 server that protected my network for 2 years, has found a new home as a Fedora Core 4 server. It was a pretty even trade when you think about it - my coworker ended up with a decent Linux server, and I got the final piece of mine, 256MB of PC133 SDRAM. I’m looking for another stick with the same size and clock speed so I can get a decent Linux distro on there and get Xombie (named for her current OS, Xubuntu, and the fact that I raised her completely from the dead) into production use.

Anybody remember Lapdawg? The old Acer TravelMate 230 that served me for almost 3 years? Sadly, she suffered a failure of the power port a couple of months ago. The battery died too fast for me to make any real backups. After trying for several hours to solder some wiring to the motherboard to get enough juice to the thing I finally saw some success, only to get a lovely wisp of smoke as soon as I turned on the juice. It was pretty obvious that there was no point in not gutting her, so I threw out the mobo and other proprietary components and saved the DVD-ROM drive, PS/2 touchpad (which later failed and was thrown out), hard disk, RAM, and LCD screen. I plan to sell off all but the hard disk, which Neal has claimed so he can save RoadWarrior.

Christmas saw the arrival of a beautiful new fake-leather chair and the usual assortment of gift cards (Chipotlé, yay!) and snacks. (The now-empty box for said snacks can be seen on the floor in the chair picture.) I, of course, overloaded on Chex Mix and lebküchen, the latter being sort of a family thing. It’s funny because I’m the only one left in the family that still likes it and isn’t allergic to it.

I think that’s about it for now. *looks at watch* *yawns*