Category: Technology

Ever wonder what the SysRq key on a keyboard did (it is also labeled PrtScn).  Well, if you are running linux, it can do lots of cool things.  For more, see this WikiPedia article on the SysRq key.

 If you ever need to emergency reboot a linux box, remember “Raising Elephants Is So Utterly Boring:”

1. Alt + SysRq + R – takes the keyboard out of raw mode.
2. Alt + SysRq + E – terminates all processes (except init).
3. Alt + SysRq + I – kills all processes (except init).
4. Alt + SysRq + S – synchronizes the disk.
5. Alt + SysRq + U – remounts all filesystems read-only.
6. Alt + SysRq + B – reboots the machine.

 

This guy doesn’t understand the GPL.  At about the 4 minute mark, he says “…this means third party developers can’t continue to charge for their products.”

 The GPL doesn’t say you can’t charge.  It doesn’t say you must not charge.  It says that if you distribute, you must allow others to modify and/or distribute too.

Recently at work, I needed to record some screen captures and embed them into a powerpoint document.  No sweat, right?  Well, first I had to find software to do the screen capture (video not audio).  Then, I had to embed it into powerpoint.  I had used CamStudio with great success in the past so I used it.

Well, when I first did it, everything worked great.  However, as time went on, my video began to thrash (not play cleanly).  It did it sometimes but not others.  This was a pain.

I ended up an assigned an action to an item (right-click and choose action settings) to launch Media Player Classic.  Why not use Windows Media Player?  I tried; however, I couldn’t be certain that the exe would be in the same place all of the time.  I couldn’t just copy it because it requires too many dlls to be registered, etc….  MPC has a nice set of command line arguments (including having the player quit once it played the video once) that made it all possible.

Thanks for no help Micro$oft.  Thanks to the Free/Open Source Software community to rising to the occasion!

I just wanted to let you know that I have started using Google Talk instead of ICQ. I had some issues using Gaim with ICQ (I wanted to use it because of the encryption plugin) so I decided to switch. Add talkwithmatt@gmail.com to your list and you’ll get me. One request….use a client that encrypts stuff (I use GAIM/Pidgin and the encryption plugin).

I was looking at the Joomla site today where I came across this article by the Joomla team about their license (the GPL). I appreciate the fact they are taking a good stand for Free Software. They’ll probably end up and take a hit from parts of the community though.

I think what they are saying is that all modules, extentions, etc… to Joomla also need to be licensed under the GPL. I don’t know if that is right or not, but it is their understanding of the GPL.

Cyndi and I have a new public key.  Please use this whenever possible when you communicate with us.

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For my image viewing app, I use IRFanView. But sometimes I use paint. Today, I was trying to take a screenshot with the mouse cursor in the picture. Well, the standard Windoze ALT+PrtScn or CTRL+PrtScn didn’t work (no cursor). It turns out that IRFanView will take screenshots. To use it, simply open the app, go to Options -> Capture/Screenshot, set a few options, then click CTRL+F11 to take your screenshot. It worked like a charm.

The company I work for uses Microsoft products is a Microsoft shop.  If it doesn’t come out of Redmond Washington, we don’t use it (in all fairness, that is a bit of an overstatement…but not by much).  I don’t like Microsoft.  I like Free Software.  I have recently decided that the next computer I buy is going to run Linux as it’s primary operating system (probably Ubuntu, but I haven’t made up my mind totally yet).  I was talking to a co-worker about this.  Of course, he had all sorts of issues with it (If I’m not the only one who hasn’t drank the Microsoft Kool-Aid here, I’d be shocked to learn it).

Of course, I’m going to have to change e-mail clients (long story….we have used outlook express at home since I moved off of Eudora right after college.  I haven’t taken the time to migrate everything yet).  I’m leaning towards Thundirbird right  That got me wondering if I could come up with some way to have an Outlook type/Lotus Notes type calendaring system where Cyndi and I could keep our calendar.

This morning, I actually set down and did some googling (or is it Googling?) to see what was out there.  My thought was I couldn’t be the only one.  Sure enough, I found several articles, but I ended up at this one .  It looks pretty sharp.  My plan is to migrate off of OE before I make the switch to Linux.  When I start using this solution, I’ll post an update and let everyone know how it goes.

Don’t get your hopes up…it may be some time before I get to try it out.  I am swamped right now.  I posted this mainly so I could find the URL when I actually get time to try it out. 

This morning, I saw this in my inbox.  I can’t tell if it is a new form of Spam or if someone simply got the to address wrong.  What do you think?

Delivered-To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
Received: by 10.78.18.13 with SMTP id 13cs667069hur;
        Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:47:16 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.35.65.17 with SMTP id s17mr2191944pyk.1176954436008;
        Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:47:16 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Received: from imc3.home.ku.edu (imc3.home.ku.edu [129.237.37.55])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id f45si2979305pyh.2007.04.18.20.47.15;
        Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:47:15 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of xxxxxxxxxxx designates 129.237.37.55 as permitted sender)
Received: from MailboxFour.home.ku.edu ([129.237.37.24]) by imc3.home.ku.edu with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830);
     Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:47:14 -0500
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
    charset=”iso-8859-1″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Subject: hello from kansas!
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:47:13 -0500
Message-ID: <2C2613CD69F33246AD228DD450EC58CD01DE01C0@MAILBOXFOUR.home.ku.edu>
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: hello from kansas!
Thread-Index: AceCNWqn8NzlE5AzSEuPjVChJ46Exw==
From: “Garman, Kathleen Marie” <kdawg@ku.edu>
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Return-Path: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Apr 2007 03:47:14.0533 (UTC) FILETIME=[6B1DA150:01C78235]

Hi Aunt Janie!

I would have sent you this email sooner but I am just getting over the
stomach flu! I was pretty sick for about two days. But I’m glad it’s
over with. Anyhow, let’s get this thing started! I am very excited. Here
are the first questions I have:

1. Exactly what services are you dealing with? Food AND beverage (wine).
What are you doing with clients? (really, just the basics of what you’re
doing)

2. Where will you be doing this… initially? your goal place?

3. How many people would you like to ideally be dealing with at a time?
Would you have certain times designated in the week/weekend and people
would just come? Do people have to call first and make appoitments?

4. Have you thought of a name for this new endeavor?

Those are my main ones for now. Anything you want to throw in there
would be great.  Just a general idea of what you would be offering would
be a good start. The next thought I have in mind to ask are what are
your goals? General or specific? Let me know and I’ll try to start
coming up with ideas.  Look forward to hearing from you!

Katie

PS- yes. my email is actually xxxxxxxxxx.   I have no idea why i chose
that as my email at orientation. they told us to do something
professional but I was 17 and had some sort of complex I guess!

Those of you who know me well know I don’t really care for Microsoft.  But, I couldn’t really put a finger on it.  Until a few weeks ago that is.  I went to a MS SOA seminar in town.  Basically, this was Microsoft’s answer to Oracle’s Fusion technology stack I had seen at Oracle OpenWorld.  While watching the presentation, I figured it out:  Microsoft is just too full of itself. 

Imagine that one person in jr high you couldn’t stand because it was them this and them that…you have Microsoft.  Yes, they have cool technology, yes it does neat stuff, but in contrast with open free–as in freedom–software that uses standards everyone can live with, Microsoft saves its coolest most interoperable stuff for other Microsoft based apps.

Now, onto an aside: DotNetNuke (a cms based on .net).  What about the modules?  I recently went looking for a podcast module for Salem Baptist’s website.  The only modules were ones I had to pay for.  ARG!  I don’t want to pay for something only to find out it doesn’t do what I want.  

Contrast this with Joomla and the components and bots available for it. I recently went looking for a podcast module to play with on my site.  Right off the bat, I found several I could download, install, play with, and see if I like.  That’s it…nice and simple.

 While it isn’t Microsoft that makes the module designers choose what they did for their modules, I believe the “microsoftie” attitude shows through them.  Instead of writing code because they want to, they enjoy it, or they have a need for functionality then sharing it with others, they do it and want to “get theirs.”  Yes, in all fairness there are problems with the “free software movement” too:  if all software were free (as in freedom), we would not have world peace, the planets wouldn’t align, and everyone wouldn’t get along.