Anti-Vista Article

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Night-of-the-Living-Vista/

Installing linux on an ibook

My sister used to have an old, clamshell ibook before she got her new computer. I had had my eye on it for linux instalation. At the last lug, I installed Xubuntu. After getting a few things working, and learning how to change the dns servers from the command line, I installed several windowmanagers: blackbox, fluxbox, and openbox. After trying each of them, I settled on fluxbox as the main window manager. I fixed a small empty menu problem (My menu was empty, so I copied one of the example ones and off I went), and noting the one second start time, I got down to building my menu. After reading up on fluxbox menu syntax, I added a few submenus, and some items. Fun. Everything is working fine!

DNS Problem and Solution

For some time, I have had a problem. My computer has failed, for some time, to aquire the proper DNS server from the wireless router. However, it only happens on some wireless networks. So, I signed up for OpenDNS, and I use it frequently. However, whenever my computer suspends, I lose my dns settings on these networks. So, I wrote a shell script to add OpenDNS to my DNS settings. The Script:

#!/bin/bash
echo Contents of /etc/resolv.conf:
cat /etc/resolv.conf
echo Replace dns with open dns, press enter. Otherwise, press ^C.
read $LFJLKJLKJSF
echo nameserver 208.67.222.222 > /etc/resolv.conf
echo nameserver 208.67.220.220 >> /etc/resolv.conf
echo Done. New contents of /etc/resolv.conf
cat /etc/resolv.conf
echo Happy?

The first few lines prints out /etc/resolv.conf, and asks whether the file has open dns or not. If you press enter, it is given to a junk variable, and it continues. ^C to cancel. It then replaces /etc/resolv.conf with te first OpenDNS server, then adds the second. It then prints out the file to make sure, then exits. Rather useful.

“Why I use Linux”

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163552/why_i_use_linux.html

A great article about why people use linux. I personally agree with most of his points.

APG

APG is really quite an interesting program. It randomly generates passwords. Big deal, I can write a ruby program that does that in one line. However, APG makes passwords that can be pronounced. This is amazingly usefull. This means that you can chooe a good, strong password, that you can easily remember.  In Ubuntu, you can install it with sudo apt-get install apg. It’s quite usefull.

-Indigo

Deady and irc bots.

I recently got involved in the creation of irc bots. It is common knowledge that my language of choice is ruby, so I set about making a bot in ruby. None of my friends had used ruby, they had used perl and PHP. I got an IRC library, and improved it, adding support for joining channels after the MOTD, a problem which was afflicting my bot (it wouldn’t always join the channels) an added support of auto-joining mutliple channels. I am currently working on a weapons system and dice bag. I then forked the project, and created Deady, a hellish irc bot. Deady is just like my other IRC bot, only Deady is contained in a single file, which you can download here. Deady utilzes ruby’s random number generator to generate a random name. It then joins the specified channels, and sits, doing nothing. However, if somebody says:
botsnack

Deady will say: botsnack, starting a vicious cycle where each deady will say botsnack, causing the other one to say botsnack, and causing all the other bots in the channel to respond with thier proper botsnack response (typicaly “:D.”) Though it has not been tested in a real world enviroment, I trust it works well. You can visit my nice bot, RBHellfire, on #bots on irc.foonetic.net. He doesn’t do much yet.

-Indigo

YstSimRB

Got a new programing project on github: YstSimRB Please provide positive criticism. No negative, please.

Orion’s Arm

Orion’s Arm is a massive universe created by volunteers, based on science. It has a detailed history, and has some pretty cool tech. Not many people know about this site, so I wanted to post the link here. Thats all!

the BOFH

The BOFH stands for something I am not able to print. Suffice to sa that there are 2 different swearwords in the title. It is located here. I think you need to read it. There are a lot of them though.

Switching to the zsh SHell

As you know, I have a laptop running Ubuntu 8.10. A while ago, I installed the shell, zsh. I had first heard of zsh from the live CD distro, SystemRescueCd. It used a nice installation of zsh, and I wanted to use it on my Ubuntu machine. I installed zsh, and went through the configuration. I must have done something wrong, because the zsh that started the next time I started zsh looked nothing like the zsh that I saw on the live CD. I abandoned the project for some time, until I thought of an answer. I would start SystemRescueCD, copy the zsh config files to a pendrive, copy the config files from the pendrive to the Ubuntu laptop, place them in the correct spot, and hope. It worked perfectly. I now have a working version of zsh, and it has become my shell of choice! It’s power, flexability, coloring, and command auto- correction has made me a fan of zsh. I love it!. It’s so fun! -Indigo