Tarraguña's Blog

As it had been over six months since I had installed windows on my HP 2133, it was time to wipe the drive and re install.  Since my Ubuntu is set up to dual boot on this machine, that also meant I had to re install Ubuntu.  The best way to wipe a drive is to wipe everything and re partition.

I started by using gParted and setting up a partition for Windows so that it would not just install and take over the entire drive.  You have to keep your eye on Windows.  After installing Windows on the first partition, I was ready to install Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 8.04 was the version of Linux that I had previously installed.  I had wanted to install the latest version of Ubuntu, which as of this post is 9.10, but I just did not have much success installing the updated distros.

When installing a distro of Linux, sometimes you just have to go with what works best on your hardware.  I downloaded the .iso file for Ubuntu 9.10, 9.04 and 8.10.  I burned the live CD for each of them and proceeded to test them out on my HP 2133.  My biggest obstacle with these Ubuntu versions was getting the wireless hardware to work and jump on my wireless network.  As the HP 2133 Mini-Note is a small laptop made to be portable, the wireless working was essential in my case.  I also knew that I did not have the time nor the Linux know how to figure out a work around for the more recent versions.  As no one had of yet posted a fix online, I opted to reinstall Ubuntu 8.04.  I knew this version worked great on my hardware.

Install Ubuntu 8.04 on HP 2133

• Review, read and follow this wiki
• Download Ubuntu 8.04 .iso here
• Burn .iso to CD or DVD creating live CD, (windows or mac)
• Boot from Live CD
• Press F6 to bring up boot options line
• Type ‘xforcevesa’ at the end of the line and hit enter
• This should start the installation process
• Follow the prompts during installation to establish time zone and the computer name etc
• After installation is complete take out Live CD and restart
• Connect to internet with network cable
• On top right click on System> Administration > Update Manager and download and install the updates and restart
• To get wireless working, click on System> Administration> Hardware Drivers and from here you should be able to activate/ enable the wireless driver and then restart
• Now you can click on Applications> Add/Remove to install more software and set up you machine how you like.
• The webcam is the only thing I have not gotten to work properly so far.

How to think like a computer scientist: Learning Python
Convert Flash (.flv) to AVI (.avi) or MPEG (.mpg)
The True Cost of Ownership of any Car
How to stream music or audio from your website
for this one I even set up a test of some music I just made up quickly.
Storm Pulse.com hurricane tracker

I am starting my OS project and that is to install as many operating systems as possible. This week I installed Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) on my PowerBook PPC Mac G4. Now I only have 2 OS on my computer; Mac OS X Leopard and Linux. I hope to get the HP 2133 Mini Note and use it to test as many OSes as possible. Below are some great links about Operating Systems.

FreeOS.com The Resource Center for Free Operating Systems
Freebyte’s Guide to Free and non-Free Operating Systems
OS History list of operating systems
Vintage Operating Systems
Ubuntu Forums “Are there any OSes not based on unix that are open-sourced?

I have some sad news. Upon downloading Boxee and being all excited about using it in the Alpha development cycle my PowerBook G4 running OS X Leopard is not an Intel Mac so Boxee will not run on my Mac. It is a PPC Mac. I am looking into trying XBMC but I won’t have time to test it until this weekend.

I have just received my email confirming my approval as an alpha tester for Boxee.tv. I can’t wait to get home, download it, and start testing it out. I will keep you posted on how I like it. So expect an update in about a week on this.

If you don’t already know what boxee is let me explain it as I understand it. It is free, open source media center. Now it is available for Mac and Linux and I hear it will be available for Windows soon. It is written in C++ programming language. Ideally it is how you can easily access and play all of your media on your harddrives along with things you have on the web like your flickr photos for example. It is like the ultimate interface for your videos, picutes, music and other media. At least that is how I understand it now before testing it.

I will keep you posted.

I am not sure if I agree with the essential-ness of breaking and entering but I do see where it could be handy. This skill made it to the number one spot on Lifehacker’s top 10 modern life survival skills list. I did thouroughly enjoy the wikis for picking a lock, cracking a master-lock combination lock, and opening a door with a credit card. I love the internet.

I have had this idea that I wanted to build my own computer. Currently I work too much and there is no time to do this experiment. I will be collecting as much information about building a computer up until that special moment when I can totaly geek out and start building. The motherboard is a very important componant. I love this picture below because it shows where everything connects.

I was wondering yesterday if there was a way to search for something nation wide or within a 100 mile radius on Craigslist. For those of you who have used Craigslist before you know how frustrating it can be if you are looking for something rare and want to broaden your search radius. With Craigslist there is no way to do that. It is all local. This is a wonderful aspect of Craigslist along with the fact that wholesalers and spammers are kept off of the site with remarkable success. It is kind of like ebay only how ebay was in the “good old days”. Ebay as a place to get a good deal is dead. Ebay as another market place to get the same stuff for the same price is alive and well.

If you have not tried Craigslist and there is something you are looking to buy, try it. There are not auctions. A seller places an ad and they you answer if you want it. From then on Craigslist is out of the picture and you negociate with the seller. It is free to post an ad and answer an add. The whole site is free and we love free.

Returning to my original pondering of how to search Craigslist beyond just my city, I was listening to Twit Live today and John C Devorak mentioned that his son had built a website to do just this thing. I just tested it and it is amazing. You can check it out here at CraigsFindr.com.

The husband and I have Mac computers he has the MacBook Pro and I have the PowerBook G4 that I absolutely LOVE. Both run OS X for their operating system that I also love. I especially LOVE the spaces fearture. We also have an XBox 360 hooked up to our network. We have a Linksys router and access the internet via a cable modem. We also have external hard drives; I have two 300 GB Seagate Drives and he has a 500 GB Iomega drive. As we are digitizing our “home movies” I was wondering if we can share the external hard drives or if access is only computer specific.

This was just a thought and I really have not had the time to investigate. This week while listening to my podcasts at work they had a podcast specifically over what I had just been wondering about. It was as if they read my mind. The podcast is called Systm and it is a “how to” of messing with your computer systems. I catch the podcast via iTunes but you can also view it on their website www.systm.org. On the show they featured FreeNas and the step by step “how to” looks very doable. The issue is that I no longer have any old PCs or Macs laying around to turn into a fileserver/ network area storage.

Also we are looking into buying the Mini Mac, hooking it up to our Samsung 40 inch flatscreen and use it like a media center. The fun part about technology and computers especially is that you have so many ideas of “how could we do this?” and then you go about learning how to do it and you learn so much above and beyond what origionally started looking into. I also love that the answer very rarely is “no, you just can’t do that on computers or technology”. Well if that is the answer there is a huge YET at the end to offset the negative Nancy’s out there.

Hopefully this weekend I will have some time to look into this project and I will keep you posted.

Setting up a New Network
Computer World; Setting up and Network Storage in your Home.
iNas from MacWorld
Home NAS set up from MacForums

I found a good link with general intro to programming information. It is located here http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/

todavía sueño en comprar el HP 2133 pero espero hasta el invierno para comprarlo.  Ahora es verano y casí nunca estoy en casa.  Pero está vivo el sueño todavía.  Encontré este link ayer que me va ayudar realizar el sueño.

Check out the list here.  It also has links to the bloggers sites and neat pics of them.  Maybe one day I can be on a list like that.

On another note.  I spent some time today updating tarraguna.com and I like it, I like it a lot.

Check it out at www.spreadfirefox.com and download FireFox 3 from here.  There have been some technical issues so if it does not work keep trying.

Descargar FireFox 3 aqui.

Not sure which Linux distro to use? This website can guide you, and it is really fun.