The photo gallery is finally back online, and this time it's integrated into the site layout. I settled on using plogger this time. It's a nifty php-based gallery that was easy to understand and modify to fit into my site layout. Pictures will be added over time, but there's a decent set already up there now. Enjoy, folks!
It may not look much different, but I rewrote the site to conform to HTML5 spec, and utilized php to simplify things. In doing so, I was able to add an HTML5 audio player, jPlayer, and link the music on this page to the audio player. Next project will be to move the entries from pure html into a database of some sort and just pull out x number of them. I also trashed the Solaris server. It was having weird issues that I never fully found fixes for. Instead of arguing with it, I decided to wipe it and throw on a linux distro. Now it's a full-fledged media, file and web server. Huzzah! XBMC is quite nicely laid out, I must say. I'll miss some of the cool features of Solaris, but that's how it goes in the tech world!
mion, the server that hosts this website as well as some other services for my local network at home, is sick! I don't have the slightest idea what is going on; it is out of the depth of my knowledge so far, and I don't have the luxury of swapping out parts for testing purposes. The type of problem is interesting, too... Here's the gist of it. After some indeterminate amount of time, some locations on the ZFS tank zpool don't like to be read. By "doesn't like to be read," I mean whatever process on the server that tries to read them becomes zombie. Unkillable, unbreakable. This means that local commands like ls, zfs list, df -h and so on completely lock. It also makes smb connections fail. Not very good for a file server. Sadly, the only remedy I have at the moment is a reboot, which is horrible for a Unix server. I was able to capture some truss output, which is similar to strace in linux, but even truss will zombify itself. Sometimes I can't even successfully reboot or send the system down. Warghabrbrbrll. I blame Larry Ellison.
Speaking of Ellison, I'm pretty dismayed, though not surprised, about the direction the Snorkle merger has gone. In case you haven't heard, Sun Microsystems was bought out by Oracle earlier this year, after much hemming and hawing from the European Union about how Oracle would be acquiring MySQL through this deal. Many awesome Sun projects have been shutdown, many employees fired. Solaris proper is no longer free-as-in-beer. End of an era, indeed. Since Solaris was my first introduction into the Unix world, it holds a dear place in my heart, despite any technical, practical or any other problems it may have had. I still enjoy using it to this day, but I wonder if I should rethink my career plan for the future. My inclination is to keep going where I am going, but the future in tech is anything but certain.
A while ago, I took a cue from decluttered and used pegboard and zip ties to attempt to clean up my computing area. I am pretty pleased with the results, though I ran out of zip ties and wasn't able to get the Philips VOIP 841 skype phone/mini computer hooked in. It is a lot better than it used to be, though! After pictures are here AND here.
Lately, I've been searching for things to automate and other excuses to write scripts. I really should revisit the SMF services scripts, but boy are they ugly. In other news, I'm installing debian with KDE 4.3.3. Kubuntu was an epic disaster, with plasma constantly crashing. Hopefully, debian will be a better experience overall.
Also, my wife and I just picked up Nokia e71x's -- smartphones with a QWERTY keyboard. Symbian s60 is quite snappy, much snappier than some of the non-symbian devices they had to test at the store. And, there are some nifty apps for it. Not the deluge of apps you get with the iPod Touch, which I also have, or iPhone, but a nice selection. This includes putty! I had used some of the free ssh software on the iPod Touch, but without a real keyboard it was not as functional as it could've been. Biggest problems I ran into was the need to use screen guestures to be able to do key combinations such as ctrl-c. No such problem on the e71x. I would recommend it, or the unlocked e71.
Well, I finally took the time to sit down and dig through the premade xml files for SMF services. After some digging and trial and error, I've managed to get what I want done. Dirty, though. I'll have to learn more about scripting to do it in a nicer fashion through the default method scripts. Now, if there is a power glitch(need to replace my older UPS), the services will come up upon reboot. Yay.
First day of classes again, and it has already been hectic. However, all is settled, and the first japanese class was great! There are some familiar faces from over the summer sessions. Beyond that, I have been enjoying some lovely demoscene prods and music disks. This summer has been great for releases. Lots of brilliant demos to be found at Pouet.net and easily streamed from Demoscene.tv. I am preparing to installing OpenSolaris Indiana and try out the new utilities! I am excited for that.
While updating this in notepad, I really miss Bluefish, which I use when I update in ubuntu. In the future, I hope to have a dedicated linux/unix machine in addition to my webserver/etc and my windows boxen. I am quite sad that I am not doing as much technologically lately. I need to find a part time sys admin job somewhere!
Lots has happened in the past few months! First off, I've taken Japenese I and II to fill a high school language deficiency. I have decided that I will persue a minor in it, just for fun. It is infinitely thrilling to be able to watch an anime/japanese program and be able to pick up some words here or there, or to be able to catch conjugation and tense even if I don't know the verbs/adjectives. Geek out, I know.
Besides that, due to finally getting proper tuning of my suspension on the 318i, i blew up the subframe. Sadly, getting it fixed (or reinforced prevantively) is expensive, so I'm selling it cheap, intsead. I would've loved to have kept the car running for 5 more years, but I decided the cost just wasn't worth it. Nothing I could do to that car would increase its value, ever. So, to replace it, I bought an '01 330ci. Staying BMW, of course. I don't know if I'll ever shake that bug. I still need to be concerned about the subframe issue, but until I drop the suspension, it shouldn't be an issue. If it is, BMW NA, here I come (complaining). Class action never went through, but lots of people have gotten the repair done free at the dealer.
Just a quick update, I've managed to mostly get my head around the audio philosophy common within linux, which is to have a single engine which is abused by different programs. I managed to find a mod(that is, the module music formats) plugin for the xine-engine, which works mostly fine. I've grown fond of amaroK, as well. Not sure why iTunes puts me off so much, but it does.
I've always loved music of pretty much any genre, as long as it was well done. I have even dabbled in the creation of music(see the navigational window to your left), which is also endlessly enjoyable for myself, even if it shouldn't be labeled as "well done." I've always created music that I enjoy, with little regard to whether or not the masses would enjoy or even care for it. By the way, I'll go ahead and mention that you can do whatever you want with the music besides release it for sale or pass it off as your own work(why would you want to, anyways?); I just ask that you send me an email! I'll post that in the generic description above these posts, obscured as to keep away the bots.
Anyways, in the past few years I have become enamored with Drum and Bass and all its underlying variants. I'm sure that this stems from my musical roots as a percussionist in middle and high school, as well as a set drummer and pianist. Oh, and also a member of an, at one time while I was a member, undefeated drumline competing in AAA high school marching band competitions. Drum and Bass really seems to hit the pinnacle of expression that I have been yearning for, often hinting at other genres, such as jazz. Being an synth based style, it also harkens back to my early days of composition, and my ever-growing fondness for the demoscene. How I hate that I missed the heydey of that scene. So, with nostalgic background, the pulsing rhythmic beats, oppressive bass and persistent synth accents, I find myself engorged in an almost manic obsession.
Since redesigning my website to be somewhat of a useful repository and a weblog, I've taken a closer look at how I've actually set up my personal web server, the Ultra 10 named ebichu. I set it up originally without much of a plan and things are running without thought to security or best practices.
As I'm working towards getting a SCSA certificate, I thought it'd be fun and productive to wipe out the current Solaris 11/06 install entirely and start anew with openSolaris build 87, grabbing tools such as web stack and SFWNV. I also wanted to set things up properly using zones to seperate processes and set up individual mysql users for each program using it.
Unfortunately for me, openSolaris bumped up the minimum memory requirements from 256MB to 512MB. This piddly ultra 10 only has 256MB, so for now, no openSolaris rebuild. I'm looking at grabbing a full gig of DIMMs for about 60 bucks shipped, but I'm still unsure about it. I've never trusted ebay.
Exploding redesign of my website. Dropping the minimalist menu only site and instead hacking the menus into this opensource css/html design grabbed from the Open Design Community. Great place to get a starting point for a project.
In other news, I'll be using this space to post updates, much like my livejournal. I will probably dual post them. I am quite pleased with my ability to get the menus working mostly right(at least as right as they were working on the other site).
Sound is now working in opensolaris on my laptop!!!!!!!111111 <br /> I am now using Opensound System 4.0 build 1015. hooray!!!!!! off to play monkey island in ScummVM. :D <br /><br /> oh, and on another note, <a href="http://plopbox.net/">plopbox</a> is now working on my ubuntu install, too. Just FYI, plopbox is a website with a java based music player that supports Amiga and Tracker music formats, such as SID and AHX. Total score in the sound department, today.
It is still stunning to me how much longer it took to get ubuntu, in all its apt-get glory(thanks, debian!), to properly install, as opposed to opensolaris. ;ltbr />opensolaris:
install from dvd
drop to shell
wget nvidia drivers or load them from cd/dvd/usb
install nvidia drivers
voila!
for candy, run a compiz install sh script handily provided by the community.
ubuntu:
install from cd
run in low graphics mode, load up synaptic and allow the restricted drivers to run. ubuntu recommends rebooting.
come back in low graphics mode. nvidia driver not detected! update the driver. ubuntu recommends rebooting.
come back in low graphics mode. nvidia driver not detected! drop to shell and try installing the driver from the nvidia site "manually" through their installer.
come back in low graphics mode. nvidia driver not detected! fume for a while, discover, hopefully, a program called envy which autodetects and gets the latest drivers(??) ready to use for your distro. restart your shit.
be amazed as everything works.
or, on my t61 laptop, laugh as the installer blacks out and won't run.
puppylinux livecd with compiz-fusion:
boot from cd. everything is detected, and you just have to manually enable your secondary monitor. everything works like a fucking charm. in 128megs, too! well, except the "install to hard drive" option. the grub it installs fails at life. manual reinstall borked, too. oh fucking well. too lazy to attempt to play with that.
but, now i have wrangled it into submission. driver support in opensolaris for audio and so on is horrid.
I am running gnome desktop with compiz-fusion and emerald. xmms2 for audio. My only issue now is that iced-tea doesn't seem to handle plopbox's java webapp right.
But, hell. it looks freaking gorgeous. hoo-ray.
