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I migrated to Arch Linux back in October and have been in love ever since. I thought Ubuntu was flexible but Arch stretches that whole idea to a new level. We’re talking about building your OS from the ground up, the way you like it. Much more customization and less bloat.
The details:
- OS: Arch Linux x86_64
- Desktop Environment: Xfce4
- Window Manager: Compiz
- Window Decorator: Emerald; Kind of Blue by tob1k
- Desktop Aesthetics
- Applications
- Music Management: Rhythmbox
- IM & Chat: XChat & Pidgin
- Browser: Firefox
I am back at RPI for Spring semester 2009, which will most definitely be filled with a lot of hard work and stress. I am taking 18 credits this semester to stay on track for graduation in Spring 2010. Here is a list of the courses I am taking for Spring 2009:
- Tour of the Solar System – ASTR 1530
- Introduction to Biology – BIOL 1010
- Typography – COMM 4570
- Intro to Management – MGMT 1100
- Rhetoric & Writing – WRIT 2110
I am most excited about Typography, COMM 4570, which is taught by Audrey Bennett. I think the course will be a great way for me to experiment with typographic design, which I haven’t played with too much. I would like the course to challenge me, design wise, and I hope that by the end of the course I have some great work to add to my portfolio.
The final project consists of a Type Entrepreneurship, which lists a couple project choices such as ‘design your own font‘, ‘design a children’s book’, ‘design a set of greeting cards’ or the option to ‘create your own project’. I will probably create my own project, but, as of yet, I have not a clue what that will be. I need to do some serious typography studying before I come up with a solid idea.
I have heard that Intro to Management is very demanding and will probably be like beating my head against a brick wall. The professor, Frank Wright, seems like he will be an interesting and highly endowed teacher. He is always full of enthusiasm and comes off as very intelligent. I think I will do well in the course as long as I am in my seat for attendance at 8:00am! I have heard that Introduction to Biology is rather boring and time consuming. It probably doesn’t help that the professor who teaches the lecture is monotone and slow to speak his words.
I look forward to putting my best effort into the Spring ’09 semester, which may be more challenging than last. I received a 3.93 GPA last semester, all A’s and one A-, but I will try to repeat my success to maintain a high GPA.
Wish me luck!
What a stunning monitor! I finally purchased a 24″ LCD, the Samsung T240, an upgrade from my previous 19″ Samsung 910T.
The quality of text, graphics and images are all so crisp. The colors are vibrant, rich and of beautiful quality; the monitor is bright and luminous. I love the sturdy, shiny plastic body of the monitor, it seems to be made with excellent materials. The red bezel on the bottom is beautiful too. I thought it might not tickle my fancy but I find it actually adds an artistic touch to the eye-catching aesthetic of this elegant monitor.
The pressure touch power button is sleek and incognito, while the remaining buttons are hidden on the side. The power button even gives off a little red-orange glow when turned on. The configuration of the monitor is simplified and easy, requiring only a couple brightness and contrast tweaks. I also set the gamma settings to Mode3, as it seems to be closest to 2.2 gamma. The removable back panel hides those ugly hookups and cables, making the monitor that much slicker! Did I mention the LCD came with no dead/stuck pixels? Samsung makes gorgeous quality monitors.
The only con would be a slight brightness issue, which does not really bother me. A Newegg customer said it best: “When you view the monitor from an angle other than straight on, the brightness dissipates. I personally don’t care (most probably won’t), but it is there.”
The Samsung SyncMaster T240 is huge! Using DVI, it has a 1920×1200 screen resolution. The viewable screen is 24″ from corner-corner, about 20.5″ from side-side, and 12.75″ top-bottom. The whopping 24″ of viewing pleasure @ 1920×1200 makes this monitor a wonderful step-up from my old 19″ LCD. You can see in the 8th picture where my dark Conky script ends (top of screen) – that extra space, to the right, is all the additional screen real estate I gained. The Samsung T240 puts my 15″ MacBook Pro to shame, though, the pictures don’t do the LCD justice, it is truly something to be seen.
Settings (Update)
As far as the settings go, I have the following setup:
- Brightness set to 85
- Contrast to 75
- MagicBright to Custom
- Color Tone to Normal
- Gamma to Mode 3
- Auto Source to Manual.
Those are all the settings I tweaked and they seem to be doing well for my eyes. I’ve experienced, on occassion, that durring a computer reboot the monitor will try to auto detect the input source and change between HDMI, AVI and DVI modes. This is rather annoying becuase it cycles through the video modes while the computer boots. I like to watch my PC boot so I set Auto Source to Manual.
I don’t use the Samsung’s provided MagicColor software though, because I am running Arch Linux. Also, There is a neat feature to turn the Powerbutton LED off… kind of cool but not essential by any means. Also, I find the monitor collects and shows dust rather noticibly on the glossy plastic bezel. This can be easily taken care of with a quick wide-down every week or so.
*Update*
This monitor works perfectly at 1920×1200 resolution with my Macbook Pro. There is no need for additional software, the resolution can be changed through the ‘Displays’ panel in the ‘System Preferences’ of OS X. Here are screenshots of the monitor hooked up to my MBP.
Despite my troubles with Filezilla, I managed to utilize ssh and rsync to download an approximately 9GB iso from my home computer to my Linux box at school. I setup a secure shell on my remote machine before the semester started in case I needed to use it for such reasons.
Command:
rsync -vrPtz -e ssh host:/remote_path/* /local_path/
The command worked flawlessly giving me the power to stop and resume the download at my wishes. As for the Filezilla problem, apparently resuming files via SFTP corrupts the file size and MD5 checksum of the said file. A topic on the filezilla forums points out that it’s currently a problem with uint64_make on 64bit platforms and not actually a Filezilla bug. If your interested, read more.
Thanks to Daniel Ferbers for doing the dirty work and finding the command provided in this post.
What I thought was going to be an effortless upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 turned into a 4 day ordeal with lots of head scratching and google searching. Turns out I nuked the partition table to my /home partition and destroyed all metadata contained within in less than 30 seconds.
The Problem
How did it happen? Well it all started after I successfully did a fresh install of the latest release of Ubuntu, Intrepid Ibex. I avoided formatting my /home partition during the install because I have it contained on a separate partition, which was in ext2 format. I did some research and discovered that ext3 provides journaling vs non-journaling in ext2. So I figured I would convert my home partition to ext3, which can be done by issuing the following command:
tune2fs -j /dev/hdaX
Unfortunately, I stumbled across an option in gparted. The option was to “Format to ext3″. I blindly made a few clicks and began formatting my home partition…. wait… what? Did I read that correctly? “Format”??? OH SHIT! Cancel! Cancel! Cancel!
Less than 30 seconds had passed before I actually realized that the partition was being formatted (erased). Upon mounting the drive, it appeared empty but I knew all my data was still on the drive.
How do I fix this? Well there are two options, extract all the data from the drive or fix the partition table. The partition contains most of my design files, including websites, Photoshop & Illustrator files, and a number of other files I probably would like to have backed up. Thankfully all my music, movies, and photos are on a second hard drive.
The Solution
I used Photorec to extract files based on filetype. I managed to get over 500,000 files, which were dumped into 1,041 folders. Photorec is intuitive and rather easy to use. The problem I have with Photorec is that you cannot search for a specific filetype that is not on the predefined list.
Upon further googleing, I came across Scalpel. Scalpel does pretty much the same thing as Photorec but enables the user to add filetypes to search for, given that your filetype entry meets specific criteria. The config file is located at /etc/scalpel/scalpel.conf to which you can add filetypes. The filetypes need headers and footers to search for, which can be found using a hex editor.
Continue Reading…
Ever think Gmail looks rather plain and boring? Give it some spice with Gmail Redesigned.
Step 1
Install the Stylish FireFox extension.
Step 2
Click View Source on this page.
**Update**: GlobexDesigns.com is now unavailable.
Please downloaded this text file and paste it into a new Stylish script (embedded Images);
Or install the Firefox extension here > http://sonco.synthasite.com/gmail-redesigned.php
Step 3
Click On the Stylish shortcut on the status bar. Followed by, Add File to Stylish…
Step 4
Add a description and click Save on the dialog box.
Now test it out! Fire up Gmail and stare at the eye candy. 
Just on time for the release of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex… grrr i cannot wait much longer! Gnome-Look.org has slightly redesigned the look of their website, giving it a more modern, dare i say, facebook-esk look. I like it though. The sidebar menus & tabs are simpler and easier to read. The colors are more visually appealing and give it more of a Web 2.0 look.
New vs Old
