Popularity plugin enhanced

Db02 Comments

Excellent. Not only did I just discover the appropriate tools to make the Popularity Contest plugin to play nice with the WP-Cache plugin, but I’ve found the necessary widget to allow it to work in the ACP‘s sidebar as well.

Now I’m happy 🙂

The only very minor snag was that the popularity contest widget had only the default values for the akpc_most_popular function (that is, 10 list items) where I only needed five and even though there was a title field, there was a secondary title, hard-coded in the plugin. However both were quite easy to fix by editing the widget code.

Maybe in the future I’ll try to code the widget to accept arguments for number of list items displayed and/or category but seeing as my php knowledge is non-existant that might take a while…

Ogg to Avi

Db0

I finally found the way (again).

I needed such a way so that I could upload youtube videos of my screencasts. For some reason Youtube did not like theora vids, even in .avi format (something about my 1 min, 1Mb vid exceeding limits).

All I had to do after all to convert it into the more popular format after capturing it with Istanbul is:

mencoder input_file.ogg -ovc lavc -nosound -o output_file.avi

Instructions found here

This post is in part here to jog my memory in case I forget once more in the future.

Just one more distro change

Db02 Comments

Every time that I change a GNU/Linux distro I claim that I’m going to keep it for a while but for some reason as soon as some thing start to break down things always start to look brighter on the other side. So this is how I ended up looking toward Ubuntu once more.

For those that do not follow my distro jumping story (and I blame you not), last thing I was trying out was Sabayon Linux, after getting totally pissed off with my Ubuntu 6.10 installation where the system was hanging all the time without reason. Sabayon’s initial install seemed more stable and I thought to install it. (never mind the fact that the true culprit was Nvidia crappy drivers)

Unfortunately for me, Sabayon was much less stable than it seemed initially. I blame it on the absolute bloatware format of the distro. It just includes so many applications for the same purpose, along with 4 different desktop environment and generally every conceivable package that you could think of that it seems inevitable that something will break as soon as you start upgrading things. If only they had an install option to install a more minimal system…

At some point I had gotten fed up with my CD drives disappearing, Kopete crashing (I eventually used Pidgin which is very very nice), randomly failing HDD (OK that still happens) and having to use legacy nvidia drivers in order to have beryl without system halts, I found myself buying a new external HDD (about time and I thought to myself,

Why not buy a cheap VGA to see if that will stop the system halting with newer Nvidia drivers? If nothing else, you can keep your old one to finally setup the extra server you wanted.

And so I did. I grabbed a Geforce 8500 for 90€ who I mistakenly assumed would be better than my 2.5 year old Geforce 6600 GT AGP. When I reached my place, it occurred to me that if I’m going to go to all the trouble of setting up a new VGA, I might as well go all the way and install Kubuntu Feisty 7.04 which will give me a chance to check out the new Compiz-Beryl Fusion as well. Who knows, maybe the new, “Better and more Stable” version would not overheat my Geforce 6600.

S’yeah, right. The first installation failed because I wanted to keep Sabayon as a second OS but the damn Kubuntu installer did not have support for LVM and insisted on formatting my old boot partition if I were to use it. I couldn’t be bothered at that point to play with Grub so I installed the system in my old 80Gb HDD after freeing up my old 25gb “Storage Space” (Hah!) but no luck. Since the primary HDD is the SATA one, installing it on the ATA drive did not make the system boot the new boot loader as the MBR kubuntu wrote on resided in the inactive drive.
So I bit the bullet and after backing up crucial files (Porn), critical settings (Porn playlists) and other stuff I did not want to lose (Porn links) from the home directory I deleted the Sabayon LVM and installed Kubuntu on the freed partition while formatting the boot sector and keeping my home directory intact. I assumed that K[tag]ubunt[/tag]u would just use my old KDE/Firefox settings and I was mostly right. Unfortunately there were quite a lot of setting that did not work “just right” so I ended up resetting the KDE settings (read: rename the .kde dir) and pasting the app setting I wanted to keep in it afterwards.

The initial problem was that I could not install the propriertary nvidia drivers as in the official documentation as Kubuntu does not include the necessary restricted-manager script. No problem, I fired up the package manager and requested the installation. As it was not installed on the menu, I had to use it from the console but no biggie.
I then installed [tag]compiz[/tag]-fusion and used my gf6000 to see how it went. As expected, it halted the system just as I finished setting it up. No problem then, I opened the box, installed the new VGA and tried to use it. Well I was quite surprised when the restricted-manager told me that I do not have a restricted card, the system recognized it as VESA and no matter what I did, Kubuntu just refused to acknowledge that I had a damn nvidia card inside. Checking on the compatibility list, I discovered that my card was not supported by Ubuntu. *Groan*. Now I had to find out another way to install the driver. I did not want to use Envy as it was supposedly not compatible with the official way, but in the end I gave up and used it because nothing else seemed to work.

Fortunately that helped and my new card started using acceleration. Woe to me when I discovered that it was actually much worse, performance-wise, than my old card 🙁
It was at this point that I swore and decided to just buy a good card. Shallow? Quite. But at least I had

an excuse to get myself a present for my good job performance and after all it might allow me to play a newer game. So, I returned the card, became 200€ poorer and got me a Geforce 8800 GTS who I knew was supported this time.

I took me a while to install it because I did not realize it required extra power but I happened to see the appropriate holes as I was getting “hammer and saw” thoughts.

new vgaOne envy run later (no restricted-manager still said I did not have a restricted card) I got my acceleration going. I set it up and playtested it for a while. Fortunately it did not hang the system anymore.

Now there are a few more details to iron out (like the system not booting up at 1280×1024 even though I put it in the X.org) or allowing me finally to change languages with double-shift (which does not work, again) and stuff like that but from initial experience I believe that, other than a strange slowness issue, Kubuntu is much much more stable than his predecessors and surely more stable than Sabayon 3.3. Time will tell if this will continue. For now I am contect to play around with my new accelerated desktop.

[coolplayer width=”355″ height=”288″ autoplay=”0″ loop=”0″ charset=”utf-8″ download=”1″ mediatype=””]
Compiz-Fusion Rulz
[/coolplayer]

I’m thinking of making a nice video with the new version but I need an editing software that is not too hard to use. i tried Cinerella but it seems to like to crash so I don’t know how much I can use it. If anyone can propose a good screen capture setup (so that it doesn’t start to flicker when too many 3d stuff are drawn) and video editing for [tag]linux[/tag], I’d love to hear it.

Και γαμώ τους καιρούς

Db0

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    Ότι να’ναι καλοκαίρι δηλαδη. Ένα και ένα για μπανάκι…

    Και να φανταστείς οτι ο Απρίλιος ήταν ζεστός όλο το μήνα ενω δεν αγόραζα ποδήλατο γιατι περίμενα το καλοκαίρι…

    Silenced cannons

    Db0

    There goes PirateShare then. I just learned about it from a last.fm forum where I had posed the link in times past. The information just notes that nobody helped the guy when he asked for it but it does not mention the reasons. I can only guess that someone decided to sue them or their bandwidth costs just went through the roof or something.

    The site apparently closed down at the 20th of June and had posted a plea for help just 24 hours before that. I pretty much understand how nobody could respond as the site was not really popular yet for enough people to learn about it. Hell checking at Technocrati, there is not a single link to the site currently. Unfortunately with only 3 months live, the name did not get around much.

    The nature of the site also meant the people would not visit the homepage as much. Most probably had a link and then gave that away when needed. The plea would only be seen by people wanting to upload something new. And there certainly should not have been a lot of them since I’ve never actually seen a pirateshare link around since the time I discovered the site. In this age, unfortunately, there are better solutions. For example I use my private ftp access to give files to friends for the bandwidth is just so much better. Others use IM or one of the other uploading (and more popular) sites out there.

    In the end, it is a shame to see the site go, and I’d like to know what happened as it could really be another attack by the copyrights lobby, but overall the hit to our lives is not great. I guess those Polar Bears where not enough after all.

    Sicko

    Db03 Comments

    Just saw it and I must admit that I was seriously impressed. I honestly believe that this is one of the most important film for this year, to say the least. If it manages to improve things over at the other side of the Atlantic then that can only be for the best.

    I especially liked the fact that Moore did not put so much personal opinion on the film (other than the dramatic music at key points) but rather let the facts speak for themselves. The way the it showed the top executives of health care companies fighting tooth and nail to stop a “socialistic” health care system and then immediately showing propagandistic clips against communism/socialism. How many of the people in the committee and the chief congressman that served pass a “better” bill for old people got new jobs in health care companies. All this little facts, they served better than any monologue Moore might have made to make the point.It was especially touching when the Americans received free medical care in “evil” Cuba. The way they could just not believe their ears and how they were reacting was brilliant. I do not know how set-up this whole thing was but, seriously, it didn’t seem fake.

    After this plays in the U.S. I am pretty much convinced that Moore will be labeled as totally unpatriotic and a Communist – since this seems to be an lethal branding in that part of the world – by, of course, people with a vested interest in health care profits.

    The only note I want to make, is that even the first world countries (Canada, UK and France) that he went to get examples of “communistic” health care systems were an appropriate way to compare to US, it bears to notice that they are pretty much the cream of the crop for human treatment. They would no be able to afford all that if they did not have some other nation to abuse.

    All in all, this film perfect exemplified the major problem with Capitalism, especially in America. It marks the big difference between Positive and Negative Freedom. You mighthave the most liberal government in the world but it will not make an ounce of difference to be allowed to do something if you are no able to do it because you are, say, a lowly wage slave.

    How much more until people wake up do something about things like that I honestly do not know? How can they suffer being played for such fools by their own government is beyond me.

    UPDATE: I just discovered this webpage when reading the comments on a diggpost about how the healthcare and pharma companies are getting ready to attack Moore. It seems that Moore was treated to one of those hospitals for tourists that are pretty amazing. It’s a good thing to get the other opinion on this and try to find the answer that lies in the middle.

    Mobaaargh

    Db0

    Damn sonnova…my [tag]mobile[/tag] b0rked last night. I noticed as I was to set up my alarm. The screen just went completely white and although the OS behind it seems to be working, I cannot see anything. I have no idea hat caused it but I took it to the T-Punkt and they say that they need to send it back and give me a replacement. Which means that I will lose all my settings. 🙁

    Just a heads up to anyone who might be trying to contact me. Until I put my sim in a different mobile, I won’t be able to receive sms (I may lose some as well). Hopefully I’ll be able to backup the contacts through the data cable but there is a chance I’ll lose all telephones 🙁

    Damn luck…

    …that I had – UPDATE @ 9:00pm – As I was looking desperately for the mobile’s install CD I turned it on and lo and behold! It works!

    Wo0oo0o0hooo!