gemmapeter.co.uk

Last weekend I went to the Devon and Cornwall Linux User Group meeting in a Computer shop in Penzance (which is why I skipped the Termisoc LOTR marathon) and thanks to Viv I got to see Virtualbox in use. Virtualbox is virtualisation software that lets you run several operating systems on the same computer at the same time by tricking the guest operating system into thinking it’s running on it’s very own computer.

Today I went about installing it using the Debian packages virtualbox-ose and virtualbox-ose-source and installing Windows XP home in a disk image which I’m probably going to use regularly for checking sites in Internet Explorer. To me this looks like a much easier solution than trying to force a program to work in Wine although the downside is that you need a copy of windows.

The guest operating system runs smoothly at a resolution of 800×600 but it feels bizarre to be using Windows in a window. I’m also considering installing some other things like maybe Solaris or BSD in other images just to have a play with them.

Since I thought I might want a bit more memory in the host OS before letting multiple other OSes have a chunk of it I decided to upgrade my PC (first major upgrade since 2004) this will probably be the last major upgrade it will ever get. It now has triple the RAM (now 1.5GB) and a slightly quieter CPU fan (or at least one that doesn’t make the case resonate).

Update: 2007/11/16 I’ve also replaced my NVidia GeForce 4 with a NVidia 7600GT unfortuantely due to my widescreen TFT and somewhat small desk I am unlikely to use the dual headedness feature of it (though if i did get another similar monitor I’d have a whole metre of horizontal screen space)

Decided to update my Wordpress install, something which I’ve been meaning to do for a while.
This time though I’ll be upgrading wordpress using Subversion version control which should make things quicker next time.

Previously I downloaded the tar file and then extracted it to a separate folder then tried to figure out which bits I needed to keep and copy them across to the new folder.
Using Subversion this should no longer be necessary as when you update it checks for custom files and keeps them safe.

This looks like it would be very useful for scripting the upgrade of lots of sites at the same time.

Here is a render from Blender3D of the joystick that was spray painted gold as a trophy for one of Termisoc’s previous LAN parties. I changed the top around a bit, the real one has a turbo switch on the left side of the button, I left it out because I didn’t want it cluttered.

I am considering presenting another tutorial on 3D modelling for Termisoc this year.

I finally got around to getting myself a better display for my desktop, a 22″ widescreen monitor. It is great, I have loads more usable space on my desk now, mostly due to not having a CRT but also because I moved some of my junk onto my bed so I could take a nice photo.

Panoramic Pics

Before I went on holiday (I will be writing about this sometime, honest) the hard drives in (Sephiroth) my desktop machine decided to die on me, possibly because they were not getting enough power due to be installing a big-ass graphics card (I wanted dual monitor).

So now I am back it is time to take a look at fixing it. I remember my motherboard manual saying it supported SATA and I remember the motherboard coming with official MSI SATA cables (because they were a bright shade of orange). So I go out and get myself a SATA drive and then I try to install my new drive. There’s one big problem however, despite the manual saying it has SATA and despite the included SATA cables there is no actual SATA connector on the motherboard. Why include SATA cables with a mobo without SATA connectors? WTF?

I officially own a real motorbike now, a 600cc Yamaha Diversion that was previously my dad’s. It has already got a name, it’s called “Phoenix” because it caught on fire once.

The bad news is Wasi (my scooter) is gone now, I decided to traded in on my dad’s new bike in return for a discount on buying his old one from him.

Welcome to the new shiny website, I had a craving for rounded corners and gradient fills.

It was a nightmare to get it working in Internet Explorer.

For the past month I have been working for a company called Pulse8 in Totnes as a Web Developer and Linux Sysadmin.

It was kind of a surprise for me getting the job, they emailed me saying they wanted a chat with me. As my parents were using the cars for work I had to go to Totnes by motorbike, I tried to look presentable (not an easy thing after travelling by bike). I guess it worked because later that day they offered me a job, one of their people was leaving at the end of that week so they wanted me there immediately.

It is refreshing and motivating to have a good job again (yay, no horrid data entry temping), I look forward to days now (apart from the early waking up). It was difficult for me being unemployed, after a while it is disheartening when no one contacts you. Which makes it even more difficult to perform well in an interview, especially if like me you didn’t have much self confidence to begin with.

I like being around other techies, they make life much more interesting. There are 3 people in the “techie pod” me, Stu (he was there already) and another new employee Marc, who started a few days after me.

Having designers around to make the sites look good is really great. I never thought it would make a difference but it is motivating to see the code turning into the shiny designs they mock up in Photoshop. Hopefully some of the artistic talents of the design people will rub off on me and maybe then I’ll redesign this site to look like more than just boxes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6301301.stm

“A large-scale breach of AACS could be a threat to the $24bn DVD industry and dent hopes that high-definition discs would invigorate the market.”

There is usually increased spending on a new format after it’s released as people re-buy their collections (this is what they are referring to with the “invigorate the market”) but eventually this settles to a lower level because people then only buy the new titles they’re interested in.
The problem is that the DVD industry wants to keep people in the state of re-buying their collection by releasing new formats. Perhaps the DVD industry will reach the stage where the format is of such a high quality that there is no practical benefit to a new format, like with audio CDs.

I don’t think the home market is ready for a new format yet many of my relatives have only recently purchased DVD players, the quality is high enough for their needs, they don’t need or want massive televisions.

AACS has the ability to to revoke player keys to already released players, this technology is really consumer unfriendly. Imagine this, you buy a new AACS disk and come home to find it refuses to play on your player, if it’s anything like DVDs the store will refuse to refund you for the disk (it’s not defective, it’s working exactly the way it should) and any other new releases will also refuse to work on your player.

Sure the industry will say that it ‘had’ to put the restrictions on there to stop piracy but the truth is that despite DVDs having already been cracked (which isn’t necessary to copy a DVD) there is still a $24bn industry around them.

Next time you watch a DVD on Linux please spare a thought for the ‘poor’ executives.