automaticable

We've moved!

2008-02-10T10:31:00.000-06:00

Yes, we've finally out-grown our Blogger roots, and it's time to move on to bigger and better things. Check out the blog at our new domain:

automaticable.com

Rockbox

2008-02-08T16:17:00.000-06:00

I'm sure that you have noticed that now-a-days almost everything can be found in an open-source version. Everything from software for your computer, to textbooks for school can be found free and open source. Now you can even get the awesome perks of open source on your very own iPod!

Rockbox is open source firmware for your iPod, or many other types of mp3 players. This means that everything is free, new, and extremely customizable. Rockbox has everything from awesome themes, to an iPod version of Doom. With Rockbox the limits of your pocket music player are endless!

Installing Rockbox on your mp3 player is fairly simple. You can either go the automated route, or the manual route. Personally, I went the automated route, even though it is not guaranteed safe. In most cases, it is still probably safer than digging around in your iPod's file system. To get the automated installer go here. Then installing is as simple as running the file, choosing your player, and pressing go!

Upon starting up my iPod (4th Gen Grayscale, and uber old) I found that the Rockbox display was pretty bland. This was a pretty quick fix, though. Simply go to the settings menu and choose one of the many pre-made themes for your player. You can also choose from different sizes and different fonts in your settings menu.

The interface while playing music with Rockbox, although odd when first starting with it, is actually pretty great. It displays all of your track info, including artist name, song name, album name, next song, and other information about your kbps on the current song. By holding down the Menu button it takes you to an easy to use interface for choosing your shuffle, repeat, and other listening settings.

For all of you people that are not just contented by just listening to music wherever you go, Rockbox also comes with tons of games. You can play everything from dice, to chess, to Doom! Simply go to Plugins > Games and choose your favorite game. For most games, your music will continue to play while you play the games.

Open source things, although usually pretty good, are not entirely without flaws. Twice in my three days of using Rockbox, I found that it was saying I had run out of battery. After getting this message I would have to do a manual restart (menu + select for 6 seconds) and it would restart just fine. If you find that you can't get Rockbox working, it is fairly simple to get back to the original firmware. Turn off your player, and turn it on. As soon as it turns on switch on the hold button and it should restart to the original firmware.

The Breakdown:
Pros:
- Open Source goodness ensures easy customization.
- Themes, fonts, and sounds for every personality out there
- Easy installation, and just as easy uninstallation
- Plenty of documentation on the website, if you get stuck

Cons:
- Having two seperate firmwares will use extra space
- Seems to have bugs telling how much battery is remaining
- Many themes have an odd number-based volume display
- Although it won't break your warranty, you will not be able to get any support while you are running Rockbox

All in all, Rockbox is definately worthwhile if you want to get away from the crowd, and make your mp3 player very personalized. Easy installation, easy customization, and easy interface makes it a win win win decision. Check out http://www.rockbox.org/ to get started.

Shopping Online Frugally

2008-02-08T13:37:00.001-06:00

Shopping online is a great convenience, because you can get everything you need without ever leaving your desk. Moreover, you can easily compare prices at different merchants, to make sure you are getting the best value. Here are a few more little online treasures to help you save a nickel or two:

Google Products / Yahoo! Shopping: This is generally the starting point for all my shopping trips. Both of these sites index products at a vast array of vendors, so it's easy to search and sort by lowest price. Amazon has a similar feature with it's "Marketplace," but I believe it's a little more exclusive about which vendors it lists.
Ebay / Craigslist: Of course, if you don't mind a little dust, everything's cheaper when you buy it used. Ebay has just about everything you could want being auctioned at very low prices. You can generally save even more with Craigslist, because it cuts out the middle-man, and personal listing are grouped by locality.
Slickdeals: If you're just browsing for deals, this is the place to go. Slickdeals is a community based on aggregating the best deals on the 'net. Check back daily for limited-time offers, which often include products free-after-rebate.
PriceAmbush: This is sort of the opposite idea; if you know what you're looking for, but in no hurry to get it, enter the product here. This site scans online stores for the best prices, and emails you when your product falls below a certain target price you set. Pretty cool.
RetailMeNot: And finally, this is often where I go right before checkout. RetailMeNot is another community-driven site, that compiles a list of coupon codes for all sorts of online retailers. Often you can get a quick 10% off or free shipping on a product you were already intending to make.

Backup DVDs with dvd::rip

2008-02-08T11:22:00.000-06:00

(screenshot source)
I've always been a little unorganized with my DVDs-- some are in their original cases, some live in a case amongst some other software CDs, some are just completely lost. I've been meaning to get organized with my DVDs, but I just never got around to it.

Instead, I decided to back them up on my computer. This is convenient because I generally watch them on my computer anyway. Also, I'll never have to worry about them getting scratched or lost.

Which brings me to dvd::rip, the DVD ripper of choice on Linux. I started using it earlier this week, and am very happy with it. It's a little rough around the edges, because it's so feature-rich. The program itself is basically a GUI wrapper for a number of command-line utilities, and each option refers to a command-line flag you can set. As a result, you can very carefully fine-tune the results of your rip-- from target size, to resolution, to subtitles.

One of it's best features, in my opinion, is it's "Cluster" daemon. Basically, you are able to distribute the job of transcoding the video amongst as many machines as are available. The job is broken up into parts, and many computers can get the job done together much quicker. Furthermore, you can schedule many jobs on the cluster, which will all be pooled together and processed by the cluster. Once again, it's an advanced setup, but I was able to backup 10 DVDs overnight.

Crazy Shift-Drag

2008-02-06T15:15:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I found another interesting little feature in Ubuntu by accident today. I was trying to drag a window across the room, and it would jump sporadically, moving only to the edge of another window. It was really weird, until I realized that my shift-key was stuck down. Apparently, if you hold down shift and drag a window, it'll only move to the edges of other windows-- cool for tiling a lot of programs on your screen.

Politics: I voted, and it feels GOOD

2008-02-05T17:59:00.000-06:00

I am not going to discuss which candidate is better than the other. I'm not going to discuss which political party is better than the other. All I want to talk about here is how relieved I am to finally feel like my vote mattered.

Let me give you a bit of voting history here.

I am from California and I am 22 years old. My first real election was Bush v. Kerry. Talk about a terrible first experience. Californians love flip flops, but Kerry almost made us change our minds. And Bush...well we've seen the results of his re-election. Not only that, but the way Bush won was so controversial that I almost lost faith in how the American election system is structured. All of this right on the heels of California voting in the terminator for governor. Sometimes I wonder why certain people are allowed to vote.

After those 2 botched voting experiences I end up living in the bible belt just before the most important presidential election of my life. This is a big deal since I tend to think (socially) Democratic, and the bible belt in general is highly Republican.

Great, so now my vote for president won't be heard no matter what since Georgia is obviously voting Republican!

In come the most closely watched presidential primary race in the history of the United States. I would have never thought the primaries would be my savior. Even if my state is going to end up supporting the Republicans, my voice can help pick which Democrat stands up to that Republican and hopefully beats them. Also, since less people vote in the primaries and the votes are split between Republicans and Democrats, my vote holds more weight. 1 vote in a total 300,000 (that's a guess) means a lot more than 1 vote in 18,000,000 (another guess).

So to wrap this up, I am happier than ever to have a voice in politics after years and years of frustration. My vote matters and I am re-energized politically. I now feel like going to the polls is important and plan on voting on everything that comes my way.

LaTeX is Beautiful

2008-02-01T15:55:00.000-06:00

I started using LaTeX for a few of my classes this semester, particularly because they were offering extra credit. But now that I've learned it, I've fallen in love, and am ready to apply it to more scenarios.

So what is LaTeX? Well, it's a markup language, similar to what you might be used to for editing wikis and such. But, it's more robust, and very capable for mathematical or scientific articles. I've only scratched the surface so far, but it can automatically keep track of references throughout your paper, for automatic numbering as well as bibliographies. Also, it is very clean in the way it lays out math. And the biggest reason to use it, is that it's cross-platform, and it'll always look the same, no matter where it's rendered. You can't say that about Word documents.

So, if you're in school now, or you're ever planning on going to grad. school for engineering, I recommend learning LaTeX-- it'll make you life easier in the long run. I'm sure it would overkill for a high-school math class, but I bet your teacher would be impressed.

Psuedo-science: Planes on a treadmill

2008-01-31T13:15:00.000-06:00

from kottke:

Here's the original problem essentially as it was posed to us: "A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?"

What do you think? It's a tough question, especially because of how it is worded.

I read this a few months back and at first I got it wrong, along with a slew of other people, including professional and amature pilots alike. This question became so popular that Mythbusters picked it up and (after a few delays) just aired an episode dedicated to this question. I missed the episode, but the event was liveblogged by Jason Kottke fantastically. Don't read the post until you've spent some time thinking about the problem. Talk it out with a friend. The debate will surprise you. Before you read up on the outcome of the Mythbusters' experiment, take a look at the original post linked at the top of the page and sift through the comments for a while. It is really interesting to see the different theories.

One of the best parts about this, I think, is that even though the Mythbusters have "proven" how the plane may or may not take off, there is still HUGE debate about it on the Mythbusters forums.

On a semi-related note, do you think it is as ridiculous as I do that someone liveblogged a TV show that almost everyone has access to? I understand that it was for his own amusement, but this just shows how much blogging has changed since its inception.

Frozen Pipes

2008-01-31T12:39:00.001-06:00

I live with 11 roommates in a 3-story house on a college campus that's probably about 100 years old. This is our landlord's second year here-- he's young, excited about property ownership, lives on campus, and is very accessible.

Or at least, that's how it seemed when we signed the lease. Since then, we've had nothing but problems. Our pipes froze last night, so we don't have hot water (and thus, no washing machine or dishwasher). My roommate's bed has bedbugs. The deadbolt on our front door is broken and the door handle is falling off. The thermostat on our water-heater is broken. Our house is half-painted in a single coat of primer. Our ceiling leaks. And our landlord never answers our calls.

So the moral of this story? Well, make sure you know the whole story before you sign the lease. Ask the previous residents if they had trouble. Make use of the tennant union on your campus. Make sure your lease is well thought out and includes any maintenance requests. Take pictures when you move in. Put everything in writing.

Thoughts on Cloned Meat

2008-01-31T12:00:00.000-06:00

So, the FDA passed a bill last night officially declaring that cloned meat is safe to eat. Now, I live in a house with my fair share of vegetarian / organic-eating roommates, so this caused quite a stir. Therefore, I'd like to offer my own thoughts...

So the controversy over cloned meat is multi-level: is it really safe, does it hurt the animal, does it have the potential for health risks, etc. Well the fact of the matter is, we've been doing things like this for a long time, and it's never been a problem. Genetically engineered foods have been on the market for decades, and there is no scientific evidence that shows them to be harmful. And cloned meats are even less likely to cause a problem, because no DNA is actually being modified, just reproduced.

The way that the whole process works (from my understanding), is that a prize-cow is chosen, and DNA is extracted through blood cells. Through chemistry magic, the DNA is coerced into an embryo, and inserted into a female cow. It gestates for a while, and then finally, out pops a baby clone. Now, the clone isn't actually used for meat-- that would be too expensive. Instead, it's bread with other fine steers, and the offspring are used for meat.

So this brings me to the point on animal treatment. The new clones are the most expensive cows on the farm, and thus treated like kings. As far as the cow that produces the clone, the process is comparable to artificial insemination, which has been going on for years. So, you can expect PETA to be all over this one-- but it's nothing new.

Then, the quality of food. The meat that hits our grocery stores isn't going to be any worse or more dangerous than what we have now. There's no new DNA being introduced, and what you're eating is a naturally-born cow. In fact, if anything, there's less chance of disease, because the offspring will be more uniform across the board. If they test one hamburger and it's disease free, chances are the rest will be too.

So I guess the last thing to consider is the future-- how does this bode for our future, the farmer's future, and the future of cows as we know it (as we know them?). From the consumer perspective, we can expect cheaper, higher-quality meat. As the process is perfected and universally adopted, the cows will be cheaper to produce, and they will be selectively bread for prize cows every time. This brings us to the farmer; with new technology, he can expect bigger, healthier cows that he can sell for a higher profit. And as for the cows, each new clone will be selected for higher immunity against disease and to be healthy, happy cows. All in all, it's a win-win-win situation.

PS: You actually have nothing to worry about just yet; although the FDA has deemed clones safe to eat, the Department of Agriculture has asked for a further ban on cloned meat, for at least 2 more years.

PPS: Check out that sweet graphic above. I made that using GIMP in Ubuntu-- cool huh?

Call to Action: gDesklets

2008-01-30T16:00:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I know when I say "Call to Action" I realize that my blog readership really consists of about, 3 people. So, this could really be rephrased "Hey guys, got any ideas?" Anyway, back to the post...

So one aspect that I find lacking on the Gnome desktop is widgets-- Windows has them with Google Desktop or the sidebar in Vista, and Macs have them natively. But on Gnome, all we have is a program called gDesklets. Now, the problem with gDesklets, is that its inventory of widgets is so robust, it's unusable. Because it's open source and it's been around forever, the repository of widgets is dated, most of them don't work, and there's no way to rank them based on popularity or usefulness.

Even after a few searches online, it's hard to find any resource that has details on what the "best" gDesklet widgets are.

So here's my "call to action"-- can anyone find a list of the best gDesklet widgets available, or even a different program to replace it? I'm looking for something that's open-source, integrates well with Ubuntu, and is easy to use. The winner will get a prize of my choosing...

Add Fluff to your Paper with Punctuation

2008-01-30T14:38:00.000-06:00

(photo from flickr)

I recently read an article from HowToGeek about finding and replacing formatting within Microsoft Word documents. This is useful for laying out your document, but also reminded me of a tip my roommate passed me about stretching your research paper to make the length cutoff.

Of course, everyone knows the obvious tricks-- extra line spacing, character spacing, bigger fonts, wider margin... But it's these obvious tricks that your English teacher knows too, and she's not going to buy it. However, my roommate suggested using this selective formatting technique to search for all your periods, and replace them with a size-14 period. Simple as that. Each period doesn't add much, but you can image how many periods you might have in your average paper. Similar, bump up the size on your commas, hyphens, and apostrophes. Of course, this hint also applies to OpenOffice.

Learning SEO: From the Beginning

2008-01-30T13:20:00.000-06:00

(photo from flickr)

In a few days I am going to be switching gears at the advertising agency I work for and move into the interactive media department, specifically working on SEO for our various clients. Other than what I have read in passing over the last few years I know very little about SEO, so I'm sure it is going to be an informative and exciting journey into the new department.

As more and more software and services become free online through open source and web 2.0 methodologies, everyone from student programmers to CEO level business people are going to need to know how to make money off of what they provide for free. Advertising is going to be a great way to create a profitable business and still keep products and services free, and properly implemented SEO is one way to increase those profits.

I want to take this opportunity as I learn about SEO to share some of the intricacies and processes that I stumble upon and share them so the every day person can get a handle on just how much goes into achieving great search engine optimization. This should be a unique view into SEO since I am learning from scratch, so the information will be as interesting and new to the reader as it is to me.

Here's to starting fresh in a brand new department and bringing you along for the ride!

Sneak Peak: Wosaic

2008-01-30T11:44:00.001-06:00

A friend and I have been working on a software project called Wosaic, that is due for its first beta release pretty soon, and I'm pretty excited about it.

Wosaic is basically a software utility that allows you to make mosaics based on your own digital photos. It's released under an open-source license, so will be free to download as binary or source. Right now, we can draw sub-images from either Flickr or Facebook-- pretty cool stuff. Click on the image above to zoom in and see the power of it.

We're hoping to have our first preview release next week, but you can always grab the code from the project website. Click on the image above to enlarge it and see the power of Wosaic.

Wosaic on Google Code

Google's Domains

2008-01-30T11:28:00.000-06:00

I recently came across a neat tool called YouGetSignal. It does a reverse-DNS lookup, which basically tells you what websites are hosted from the same IP as another. Not particularly useful in my case, but fun nonetheless.

I decided to do a reverse lookup for Google, because I recently read an article about some obsure domains that Google owns. Indeed, the list came up with lots of obscurities, such as
http://abnamrobankgroup.net/
http://chessforcar.com/
http://fergusonclinic.com/

Amongst others. It was suggested that these might be useful for people behind a proxy that blocks google.com. This sounds feasible, but I'd think that any proxy that blocks google.com would block domains from the same IP as well. Of well. The most important part of this information is that I found my own personal Google domain:

http://scott.wegner.svc-1.google.com/

Keeping Organized with Remember The Milk

2008-01-23T16:47:00.000-06:00

Recently I started using a service called RememberTheMilk. Their website is dedicated to helping you manage your to-do lists. The premise is simple, but they do a very good job with it. I use Google Calendar to sync and keep track of most of my scheduling, but I wanted something more task-oriented, for things that don't have a real due-date. I've also tried Lightning integrated in Thunderbird, but the downside there is that there's no online integrate. For me, RememberTheMilk works.

The reason why they've won my vote is how robust they've made their service. You can have multiple lists organized in tabs, for which you can have unlimited tasks. Each task can be tagged, recurring, have a due date, priority, notes-- you name it. It's full options, but without being complicated. The interface is very Web 2.0, which brings me to the real kicker-- integration. They've set it up so you can access your lists from just about anywhere-- on-the-go with your PDA, on your Google homepage, and even through Gmail and Google Calendars. This is what really won my heart. For something as simple as to-do lists, they've really done it right, and kept it simple at the same time.

How-to: Use Your Ubuntu Computer as a Music Alarm Clock

2008-01-18T13:19:00.000-06:00

There are many music players that offer the functionality to wakeup to a song or playlist-- both on Linux or Windows. But with each option I've tried, I've never been really happy with the results. For such a simple task, it always seemed overly-complicated. Also, the main downside I found in using a media player plugin, is that you'll need to have the player running for it to actually work in the morning. Below I describe how to create your own music alarm clock, using only command-line utilities found on most Linux distributions. It uses quite a few different tools, and the tutorial will hit on quite a few different concepts. So, without further adieu...

The first thing you will need is to create a playlist. I used Rhythmbox, since that's where I store all of my music anyway. Create a playlist with songs you'd like to wake up to. When you've got enough, save it in .m3u format, somewhere where you'll find it later. I put mine in my home directory.
Next, we'll need to make sure we have all the tools for the job. We'll be using cron to schedule our tasks, amixer to set our volume, and mplayer to finally play our music. To make sure you have each of these installed, issue the following command:
sudo aptitude install cron alsa-utils mplayer
Next, we need to actually add the scheduled task. First I'm simply going to give you the commands, and I'll explain what's going on afterwards. In a terminal, enter the command:
crontab -e
Note: this will open your default text editor, which if you haven't set it, will probably default to vim.
Go to the end of the page by pressing Shift+G. Then start a new line pressing "o". Once you're there, type in or paste the following line:
30 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\% && /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist
Press "ESC" to stop typing. Then enter the command ":wq" (no quotes) to save and quit. If everything went well, you should see the line:
crontab: installing new crontab

Cool, you're done! Now, let me explain what all that was, so you can go back and customize it on your own. Remember, any time you want to learn more about a command, you can use the "man" command. For example,

man crontab

to learn about crontab.

So first of all, we used "aptitude" to install a few packages from the Ubuntu repositories. This is probably familiar to you, or you may be using "apt-get". They are basically the same, but "aptitude" has a few advantages-- you should switch to using it if you haven't already.

Then, we used "crontab -e". Cron is the name of the task scheduler in Linux, and this command opens up our own personal "scheduled task list". You can always use "crontab -e" to edit your tasks, or "crontab -l" just to view them.

Now, on to that crazy line I had you type in:

30 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\% && /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

Each entry in your personal crontab has the following format:

minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week command

So, in our case, our "minute" is 30, "hour" is 7, day-of-month is * (any), "month" is * (any), "day-of-week" is 1-5, and "command" is... the rest of that. This basically means that we've scheduled our command to execute at 7:30 am on Monday through Friday. Changing these options should be self explanatory. Now, let's pick apart our "command" one part at a time.

/usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\%

First thing to note, is that it's a good idea to use full paths for any command you execute from cron. To find out the full path to a command, use

which {command}

In this case, we're using amixer, which is a utility for changing the volume on your computer. I set mine to 35% to wake up to, but you can use anything. Also note here that we can't use simply "35%", because cron uses '%' as a special character. Therefore, we preceed it with '\'.

Next thing to notice is "&&". This essentially strings two commands together-- it won't start the next command until our first one has finished. So, onto our next command:

/usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e ...

This is actually another compound command. xterm is another terminal that we are going to launch our music alarm in, so we can easily shut if off in the morning. We set all sorts of parameters to make the terminal look nice, but the important one is following the "-e": that's the command we will run in the new terminal:

/usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

Ahhh, finally, this is where we finally play our music. mplayer is a command-line music player with a very basic interface, and easy controls. You can run this line in a normal terminal now to make sure it works. We use the parameters "shuffle" to randomize our playlist, and then "-playlist ..." to tell it what to play. Make sure you change "~/.alarm-playlist" to your own location.

And we're done! At this point you should have a fully-functioning music alarm clock. Now go back and tweak it out with preferences that work for you.

Bonus: Move the alarm clock command to a shell script, and keep increasing your volume every minute or so.

How-to: Mount a Network drive in Ubuntu

2008-01-17T21:16:00.001-06:00

Recently, one of my roommates bought an external network drive, so everyone in the house can upload their music and movies. It's hooked right into the network through the router so it's easy for anyone to access-- pretty cool stuff. It was pretty simple to setup in Windows, but it took a little bit of research for Ubuntu. Specifically, we have Maxtor "Shared Storage II" hard-drive, and I wanted it to auto-mount each time I reboot my computer. I figured it out using the tutorial here, but the basics are below.

First you will need to install the "smbfs" package. This is what we will use to mount the drive.
sudo aptitude install smbfs
We will also need a folder to mount the drive in. I used /media/public.
sudo mkdir /media/public
Then, we need to edit /etc/fstab. This is where we add all the information needed to find and mount the drive. Open /etc/fstab using the command:
gksudo gedit /etc/fstab
At the end of the file add the following lines:
# Mount our network drive
//SERVER/SHARE /MOUNT-POINT smbfs guest 0 0
Where "SERVER" is the name of your drive on the network. This can be either a name or IP address. For example, mine was "MAXTOR". Replace "SHARE" with the folder in the drive you'd like to mount-- mine was "Public". "MOUNT-POINT" is the directory we created earlier, such as "/media/public". The rest of the parameters have to do with permissions, and also where you can add advanced options. For more information on the advanced preferences, see
man mount.smbfs
The final step is to tell the system to reload /etc/fstab and mount our drive. Do this with the command:
sudo mount -a
Then, you're done! At this point you should be able to see the files in your drive with the command
ls /MOUNT-POINT

Ubuntu Desktop Course

2008-01-15T00:31:00.000-06:00

From the makers of Ubuntu, there now exists an official Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Course. This really shows the strength of the open source community; the Ubuntu team really goes full-circle with their support. The course is completely free (in both senses of the word), and available for download here. There is a student version, as well as a professor version.

Although it's obviously intended to be taught in a mentoring or classroom environment, this would be a good read for anyone interested in moving to Linux. The read would probably be pretty rudimentary for somebody with a background Linux. However, it would be an excellent overview for somebody not only interested in using Ubuntu, but actually understanding what's going on.

On the Go: Syncing your Data

2008-01-11T15:34:00.001-06:00

As every power-user does, I enjoy working on my own computer because everything is tweaked and customized just how I like it. I use the programs and preferences that work best for me. I organize my data in a way that fits my lifestyle. Everything is perfect for me on my personal computer. But, there is always a question of how to access your setup when on the road and away from home. I'll describe a few different syncing techniques below. Each has it's own advantages and disadvantages, and finding the right one depends on what's important to you.

1. Use a Laptop
Of course, probably the simplest solution is to use a laptop as your primary workspace. Then, whenever you're on the go, you can simply bring it with you. No setup, no hassle-- everything is there for you when you need it.

2. Sync with an external device
Similarly, you can take what's important with you on a separate piece of hardware. This could range from syncing your email and music on a smartphone or iPod, to carrying important data and programs on an external hard drive or flash drive. If you go the USB drive route, you might consider PortableApps Suite-- a system for loading many common programs from a flash drive, as well as organizing your documents.

3. Use online syncing services
Another approach is to upload your data to web services, so you have everything you need as long as there's an internet connection. This could mean sticking to using purely webapps, such as Google Documents, and storing your documents there. Or, you could simply backup your documents on one of the many online backup services. There is a useful post here detailing the best online backup solutions.

4. Remote Access to files
The solution I prefer is to setup remote access to your computer. Then there is no need to sync documents or upload them online-- you'll have access to everything you had on your main computer. It's probably also the most complicated, as you'll need to open some ports on your router as part of the setup. I won't go into the specifics, but there are many different options for remote access. For Windows, Remote Desktop is probably the easiest, and will give you access to your entire desktop. For any platform, VNC accomplishes the same thing, and supports multiple connections to the same desktop. Also, particularly useful in Linux, you can setup an SSH server. This gives you access to your computer through a terminal, but is very fast for small tasks, and you can even run programs from your home computer remotely.

So, as you can see, there are a variety of options, and perhaps even a combination of a few is the best choice. Each has its own setup requirements, so plan on spending some time getting things running. But once you do, it becomes a great resource next time you need to remember a phone number in an email, or find a webpage you bookmarked but can't remember.

If it Looks Like a Duck...

2008-01-08T19:29:00.000-06:00

So it's not often that I find anything good on Digg anymore, but I happened upon this little beauty today. It's a whole site dedicated to things that look like ducks-- a peanut, a tomato, even a fetus! This seems like a treasure from internet-past, but I like it. Check it out!

Secure Passwords with PwdHash

2008-01-08T14:21:00.000-06:00

Using secure passwords is often overlooked by users because of the hassle involved with it. Generally, secure passwords need to include numbers, upper and lower case, and possibly even punctuation marks. Also, they should be reasonably long, and contain no dictionary words.

These stipulations make these passwords very hard to memorize. Also, it's generally a good idea to have a unique password for every website or service, which makes things even harder.

There are many solutions that exist to create and help remember strong passwords. Some recommend creating some sort of acronym for something that you'll remember, and insert numbers and punctuation. This helps, but it's still tedious to remember lots of these. Also, there are password managers that will create pseudo-random passwords and remember them. This is another step, but requires that you have access to your password manager wherever you are.

Another solution, which I am fond of, is called PwdHash. Started as a research project at Stanford, it basically creates a strong password that is a md5 hash of your unique "master password," and the domain name of the site you're creating a password for. The result is a strong, unique password for each website that is reproducible only with both parts-- master password and domain. The convenience is that you only need to ever remember one strong "master password," and the same hash can be regenerated every time.

What really sells PwdHash is that it has also been implemented as a Firefox extension. Once installed, you can press F2 in any password field, enter your master password, and then PwdHash will replace it with your generated strong password. Works wherever Firefox does.

To cover those instances where the Firefox extension isn't available-- on a public computer, in Internet Explorer, or in a standalone application-- there is still a way to retrieve your passwords. Navigate to pwdhash.com, enter the domain and your master password and press Generate. Simple as that.

In summary, PwdHash is a good way to start using strong passwords. You only need to ever remember one password, and strong passwords are generated uniquely for each domain you visit. It is very well integrated in Firefox, and also available in situations where the extension isn't an option.

Ditching Soda For Water

2008-01-07T14:43:00.000-06:00

I just read an article via TipNut with some tips to make drinking water more appealing, rather than soda. I'm a pretty strong believer in this for a few different reasons:

It's a heck of a lot cheaper to just drink water. And convenient!
Soda makes your teeth feel pretty gross, which annoys me.
Every article you'll ever read about dieting tells you that drinking your calories is a waste. It doesn't fill you up, and there's no nutritional value to soda.

In the article they emphasize ways to make water more appealing, such as refrigerating water, or adding some lemon juice. I also like to keep the house stocked with Crystal Light, which is sugar free and packs around 20 calories to the liter.

I would also like to emphasize a similar mind trick-- make soda seem less appealing. When buying soda, buy the two-liter bottles. They already mention that this saves you the mental obligation to drink the whole thing. But also, the two-liter bottles tend to go flat after opening, so it'll be less apealing. Also, it's cheaper.

MXC and the Japanese Market

2008-01-07T10:45:00.000-06:00

I just watched about 5 minutes of the TV show "MXC," which, if you're not familiar, is pretty funny. The premise is that they take footage of a Japanese game-show where they compete in ridiculous stunts. Then, we add American commentary spoofing whatever is really going on, reminiscent of Mystery Science Theater 2000.

What brings me to post, though, is the underlying irony of it all. If you look at the Japanese economy, industry, and entertainment, you'll notice that they are in fact emulating the American market. Because of their growing free market, the Japanese are in an era where the middle-class have more money, and so their lifestyles are influenced by that of America. You can see it in their clothing, their technology, and even the vacations they take. Most specifically, you can see it in their television programming.

So what strikes me as funny here, is that the Japanese make television programming that mirrors Hollywood, but we dub it over and it becomes a comedy in the States. I think if we put the same cheesy dubbing on some of our own shows, they might be equally popular. Moral of the story: the reality TV content put out today is garbage.

Related Rant: How there exists an Americanized version of the "Planet Earth" series, because the United States as a whole just wouldn't understand a British narrator.

Ubuntu Tutorial of the Week

2008-01-07T01:00:00.000-06:00

In my opinion, the best part of the open source community, is that it really is a community. There is all sorts of knowledge to be gained through the many freely-available resources for Ubuntu, and all open-source alike.

This evening, I found another little gem, called the "Tutorial of the Week," hosted on the Ubuntu forums. Each week a new tutorial is posted. Some more useful than others, but they are all high-quality. You can subscribe to the weekly tutorials by subscribing to the RSS feed for this forum topic. This week's tutorial is about Magic SysReq keys, which are helpful when your Linux computer freezes up.

Thoughts on the Writers Strike

2008-01-06T21:12:00.000-06:00

For the most part, I've been unaffected by the writer's strike. I don't have a lot of time for TV during the semester, save The Office on Thursdays. Losing The Office was a major blow, but I didn't realize how bad things really were until I got home for the holidays.

My parents have Tivo at home, and it's generally chock-full of mindless programming to keep you entertained (read: comatose) for hours. But the only programs still recorded are movies, reality TV, and the news. It's pretty sad.

So what does this mean for the entertainment industry as a whole? Well foremost, it's unfortunate for all of the people striking, and also those that lost their jobs because there's no more work. But people just haven't been watching as much live TV as a result. It's an opportunity for people to catch up on all those old movies, previous seasons of sitcoms, and even blogs and video blogs.

With the downplay of traditional TV, I think this is a great time for amateur-based video blogs, and content of all sorts. This is a big opportunity for applications like Miro that aggregate alternative content. Although a few shows are coming back, there's still no end in sight for this strike. This could be the beginning of a major shift in how we get our media entertainment.

CPU Woes and Bigfix.exe

2008-01-06T16:35:00.000-06:00

Have you noticed consistent spikes in your CPU usage, even when you have no programs running? Moreover, are the spikes all in one CPU core (as shown in the Task Manager), rather than distributed between cores? It could be the case that you have a rogue background process eating up precious CPU cycles. To see if its the case, follow these simple steps:

Open up the task manager by right clicking on the taskbar and selecting "Task Manager."
Then, click on the "Perforance" tab, to confirm you're having this issue. (It should look similar to the above screenshot.)
Next, select the "Processes" tab. Sort by CPU by clicking on the CPU column. The entries should have CPU entries in descending order.
The process at the top of the list is your culprit. You can do a Google search on the process name to find out what it is, and if it safe and easy to disable it.

In my particular experience, the rogue process was "bigfix.exe". According to AuditMyPC.com,

BigFix.exe is a tool used to download support information from hardware manufacturers and software vendors. It will also perform checks over your system and try to locate configuration errors and security vulnerabilities. If you find that this process causes problems for your system, it should be terminated.

bigfix.exe is an application that does NOT appear to be a security risk
The Process Server database currently registers bigfix.exe to Bigfix.

So, it came down to a program that was installed with Windows, and running at startup. It was non-essential, so a simple uninstall of BigFix solved the problem.

Troubleshooting 101

2008-01-04T12:11:00.000-06:00

Here's a little indispensable wisdom next time things go awry-- whenever you're having trouble with technology, the easiest first shot is to restart fresh. If you think it's a hardware problem-- such as routers, modems, cellphones-- unplug it or take out the battery for about 30 seconds, and try again. If you think it's software-- VPN, fonts, or general application problems-- just restart your computer and give it another go. This fixes 90% of problems, and saves you a 45-minute call to tech-support.

Last.fm on Ubuntu

2008-01-03T13:34:00.000-06:00

I have been using Last.fm for a few years now, and it's been one of those services that keeps getting better the longer you stick with it. In case you're not familiar, it's an online social network that creates a profile based on the music you listen to you. From there, it can recommend new music, as well as show how musically "compatible" you are with your friends.

One of the most useful features is the free streaming radio. Last.fm creates dynamic stations with music from your musical profile, music similar to a particular artist, or from a tag. There are many options for listening to these streaming stations on Ubuntu, and I'd like to compare each of them.

Last.fm Official Client
Last.fm has released their own client for listening tostreaming content from the desktop. It's a pretty full-featured interface, as far as you can go with a streaming radio client. Also, it has access to much of the content that you would find on the website.
Pros

Full-featured desktop client
Artist bios and profiles
Access to your Last.fm profile

Cons

A little bulky
Closed source

Installation

sudo aptitude install lastfm

Last-Exit
Last-Exit is a lightweight alternative to the official client. It offers all of the basic functionality, and cuts down on all the frill. It's a good substitute if you are having trouble with the official client.
Pros

Lightweight
Open-source
Integrates well with the GNOME desktop

Cons

No album art or advanced functionality

Installation

sudo aptitude install last-exit

Rhythmbox Last.fm Plugin
If you are already using Rhythmbox for the rest of your music needs, then the Rhythmbox plugin is a great option. It offers all of the Last.fm stations, through the Rhythmbox interface. It doesn't have the artist biographies that the official client does, although it does integrate album art.
Pros

Rhythmbox integration
Already installed with Rhythmbox

Cons

Bulky if only used for Last.fm

Installation

Already installed, enable it in the Rhythmbox Plugins dialog.

Last.fm Website
If you prefer not to install a desktop client, you can always stream radio through your web browser. All it requires is a flash plugin and a Last.fm username.
Pros

No need to install a client
Well-integrated with the rest of the Last.fm website

Cons

Requires leaving your browser open

Installation

None

Reconsidering Nvidia

2008-01-03T09:16:00.001-06:00

So, I've had nVidia video cards in just about every computer I've worked on to date. Geforce has always been known as cutting-edge; the standard for any graphics-intensive user. But I think things are changing.

Now, I don't have a very in-depth background in the real trade-offs in video cards, or the specific differences between Nvidia and other cards-- my background has been almost purely installing drivers, and their basic features. But this is the core functionality in any card, the bottom line that needs to work on any standard install. And this is where Nvidia has dropped the ball.

I recently made the switch to Linux with a laptop and desktop that both have Nvidia cards. Now, video drivers from Nvidia are all proprietary and therefore discouraged in the Linux community. However if you want to do cool things-- like use desktop effects)-- a lot of cards require that you use the closed-source driver rather than the free one. The switch is pretty simple, but in my experience, it's a trade-off between eye-candy and stability. There are a number of known-bugs in the proprietary driver that cripple features like sleep/suspend, multiple X sessions, and in some cases, it still crashes with compiz.

But obviously things are better on Windows, right? That's where the user base is, so basic configurations should be well-supported. Not exactly. Upgrading to Vista with most Nvdia cards was a huge fiasco when Vista came out, and I believe it still is for some cards. Also, Nvidia has dropped support for most of its older cards. That means no new drivers, and a wild-goose chase even looking for older ones. It has come down to hacking the new drivers to "support" older cards.

Enter ATI. To me, ATI carries a connotation of being a step below comparable Geforce cards. But recently, their Radeon line has come a long way. But the big news is that ATI recently opened up the source to their video drivers. This can only mean good things. On Linux, it means that the ATI-created drivers can be shipped by default, and better supported. On all platforms, it means faster bug-fixes and better stability in general.

So the bottom-line is, I'm still stuck with my Nvidia cards. But, perhaps Nvidia can take a page out of ATI's book for their support. If things don't change, I think ATI is going to take the upper-hand in the next few years.

A New Year, A New OS

2008-01-02T16:43:00.000-06:00

I've been home with the family for a couple weeks for the holiday season now. I took a break from sitting by the fire and enjoying stories of Christmas-past, to set my brothers with Ubuntu. One of them just bought a new desktop, and was willing to give it a shot on his aging laptop, and the other wanted to setup a dual-boot, to test the Linux waters before making the switch.

Needless to say, I'm now on constant call for tech-support. Neither of them have any Linux experience, but they're pretty tech-oriented anyway. It'll be a good learning experience for all of us. In fact, I've already picked up a few pointers to share:

Don't assume that cool desktop effects are going to work on your old hardware. The new compiz is cool, but old cards just can't hack it. For some Nvidia cards, it'll require using the proprietary video driver, which is a whole new can of worms.
Use local repository mirrors. Just like a fresh Windows install, expect about 100 updates after you've got things installed. You can cut the download time in half by finding a mirror in your area.
Discourage sudo. Coming from Windows, there is an expectation that you should have access to everything. In Linux, there's restrictions there for a reason. Instil a fear of root access, as a means to save the new user from himself. And when you must go editing system files, make backups.
Show off the terminal. This may sounds contradicting to the last point, but Linux is built around the command-line. While your setting things up through the GUI, make sure to mention the alternatives. If they're going to use Linux, they're going to have to dabble in the terminal eventually.
Teach them to search. Starting off, they're obviously going to have questions, and more than you'll probably have time to answer. Show them the wonders of Google. There's even a search engine, Uboontu, that's tailored exactly for Ubuntu and Linux questions.
Setup remote access. Just because the relatives are leaving and the holidays are ending, doesn't mean that the computer trouble will. Make sure you have an adminstrator account setup, as well as ssh and vnc access. This means setting up the server, and opening ports on the router.
Talk it up. Finally, you need to convince them that they made the right move going to Linux. Ubuntu takes some getting used to, so make them feel they've made a worthy investment by bragging about it a little bit. Talk about how easy it is to install software, how everything is free and legal, and that they won't get viruses. Make them like it.

The Birth of Automaticable

2008-01-02T15:46:00.000-06:00

So, I've been thinking about starting a blog for quite some time, and it seems like a good opportunity now. I'm not committing to any specific topic or genre, but really anything that happens in my life. So then, perhaps a little background:

I'm a computer science major at the University of Illinois, and so I assume most of my posts will have a nerdy slant to them. But, I also enjoy music, travelling, cooking, and all sorts of other things that could make their way into here.

But what the heck is 'automaticable'? Well, that leads me to my first mini-post. Coming up with a cool, catchy, and seemingly-nonsense name is the most important aspect of any product. I decided not to go the Web 2.0 route, so I scrapped names like "scottr" and such. Instead, I stole an idea I recently read on Google Blogoscoped to come up with random names. The idea is to use Gmail's account name suggestions to come up with something clever. If you enter numbers for your name, like "123456", it'll combine two random words, and sometimes it's interesting.

The idea from the previous blog was intended for account names, but also applicable for domain names or... blogs. And with that, a website was born.