Archive for

June, 2008

...

June 27, 2008 10:26 AM

Ubuntu on a stick

2 comments
by    in General,Technology

For the past couple of days, I’ve been attempting to install Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on a USB flash stick. I’ve followed the tutorials word for word and so far, it’s sort of working. My only problem is that nothing saves. I’m trying to follow the other tutorials that show you how to save your session but those are working either.

This whole thing started when my coworker and I tried to copy an installation disc to a flash drive. The book process for the disc was very slow and it would take about 2-3min before anything would happen. We wanted to see how much faster it would be if we booted from a USB flash drive so we copied the content of the disc to our flash stick.

The part that took the longest was the loading part but when we ran it from the flash drive, it literally took seconds. I think the whole process was completed within a minute. After we were able to do that, we thought it’d be cool to try and boot and operating system (OS) from our flash drives. Our first choice was to try Linux, namely Ubuntu.

After creating the necessary partitions, copying over all the files and making the flash drive bootable, I restarted the computer and booted from the USB stick. Everything appeared to be working just like the Live CD. It signed me in and I was able to do things. I tried to install a few packages and it allowed me to. So far so good.

I created myself an account because I didn’t want to use the “Live session user” account. I switched over to my account and did some mores testing. I tried a few of the included software, played some music and surf around a bit. The nice thing about Ubuntu is that every working right out of the box. I didn’t have to do much configuring. It detected my display, picked up my wireless card and everything. The only downside at the time was that it didn’t save my session.

After a quick reboot, everything that I had done was gone. My account was no longer there and it had defaulted back to the Live account. All of the software that I had installed was gone. The only thing that was left was the files that I had saved on the ext2 partition. I later found out that I had to edit some things so that it’ll boot up in “persistent” mode.

When I made the changed and booted up in persistent mode, the problem was still there. I didn’t go all out and install all the software this time. I just created an account for myself and reboot. It still didn’t save that information and signed in using the Live account again. I made some more changed and the next thing I knew, I was booting into something called “initramfs” which was pretty much like DOS.

My first few attempts at installing Ubuntu onto a flash drive failed. Although I can boot into it, I cannot save any of my sessions. I don’t mind booting up like that but it’d be nice if I can save what I was doing. All of the settings that I’ll be making to the OS should save itself somewhere on the flash drive. I’m probably doing something wrong and skipping some steps somewhere so I’ll have to go back and try it a few more times before I start to look interest in it.

tags: ,
2 comments!
June 23, 2008 3:58 PM

Third party

3 comments
by    in Rants

I don’t like getting calls from telemarketers because I don’t like to be sold a product that I don’t know anything about. I prefer to research a product on my own and build an opinion of it on my own. But what’s equally annoying are calls from third party companies who are “calling on behalf” of a company whom you’re a client of.

I receive many calls from a toll free number every day so I don’t pick up because I’m at work. Whoever it is will continue to call me throughout the day and will not stop until I answer their call. The stupid thing about it is that when you do answer, there’s nothing but dead air. I’ve worked at a call center before so I know that they’re using a machine to dial the clients. The machine will pass the call onto an available representative when the call is connected but that doesn’t happen right away. There’s always a couple of seconds of delay. During that delay, I hang up.

I don’t know why these third party companies bother to call clients and then put them on hold. That’s not a very good method to gain customers. I don’t like to wait for sales representative to help me when I walk into a store let alone wait on the phone. One time, I went into Best Buy to purchase an SLR camera but I walked out of the store empty handed. I had my mind set on picking up a camera that day but there weren’t any sales representative around to assist me with my purchase. I ended up placing an order online for the camera and it arrived a few days later.

Anyway, as I was saying, I get calls from third party almost every day for the past month. Today, I decided to answer one of their calls because if I didn’t, they wouldn’t stop calling. The lady that I talked with was calling from RBC and informed me about some product they called RBC Alert! This product would inform me if there’s any mischievous activity with my credit. They’ll tell me if someone tries to open a bank account under my name or if someone tries to charge a purchase to my credit card. Basically, it was things that I could keep track of myself but they’re willing to do it for me. For a price!

There’s always a catch to these things. They don’t call to give you free stuff but they’ll call you to try and sign you up for a product. I never sign up for these products. If they have to call me to tell me about it, chances are, it’s no good. I don’t need some sort of alert system to tell me whether or not my credit card has been used. I do a lot of online banking and I can monitor everything from there.

I’m thinking of removing my phone number from all of my online profile with financial companies so they will stop calling me to inform me about their products. Unfortunately, RBC requires a home number so I can’t change that part online. As for the other credit cards, I’ll just have to cancel them or something.

3 comments!
June 22, 2008 11:54 AM

No hacking

Comments Off
by    in General,Random

1/500 sec | f/2.8 | 35mm

This golf course frowns upon hacking. IPH yOU’RE @n 37337, J00 W1Ll B3 A5k3D tO LE4V3.

Comments Off
June 21, 2008 10:59 AM

Firefox 3

2 comments
by    in Reviews

The latest version of the Mozilla Firefox browser was released a few days back and I downloaded because I made a pledge to download it. Mozilla was looking to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the most downloaded software or something and I think it achieved it. I didn’t know exactly what to expect with Firefox 3 but I wanted to download it because the previous version was eating up a lot of RAM.

The first thing that I noticed about the new browser was the graphical user interface (GUI). They had redesigned it slightly and organized things a little better. I’m not sure if one of my themes was still activated but it looked like the Aero Glass theme of Internet Explorer 7 just less congested.

When I started to surf around, I noticed a drop down menu show up with a list of addresses that matches what I was typing. This is available in most browsers but the fact that I can see the favicon for these addresses looked cooler. In a way, this should help you ensure that you’re going to the correct site.

The bookmark hasn’t changed me from the previous version. They’ve added a folder for most visited sites, recently bookmarked, recent tags and unsorted bookmarks. And I’m not sure if it was available in the previous version but you can perform real time searches of your bookmark. I don’t bookmark too many sites so I never had to use that option before. I’m only using it now because I’m testing out the new version.

Firefox 3 has some nicely added security features like the Site Identification button. If a site is going to be sending information regarding your identity, the button will change from gray to blue or green. This will ensure that you’re browsing safely and that you’re information is secure.

The gray icon indicates that the site doesn’t send any identity information and that the connection between the browser and the server is unencrypted. Most website will contain a gray button because most sites don’t involve the exchange of sensitive information back and forth. You can probably tell whether a site is a spoof site or not by look at the address bar. If it has a gray site identification icon and there’s no padlock in the address bar, you should take caution.

The blue icon indicates that the site’s domain has been verified and the connection between the browser and the server is encrypted. What this means is that the people who are running the site have bought a certificate proving that they own the domain and it is not being spoofed. My bank’s site has a certificate and an encrypted connection so a blue icon is displayed. When I click on the icon, it tells me that the www.royalbank.ca site has been certified by RSA Data Security Inc. Also, this assures me that the connection is encrypted so no one can eavesdrop on the connection and my information.

The green icon indicates that the site provides fully verified identity information about its owner and that the connection is encrypted. These sites gain an “Extended Validation certificate” by going through a more rigorous identity verification process to validate that the owner is who they claim to be. While the blue icon indicates that a site’s domain is not being spoofed, it does not verify that they own the domain. The green icon indicates that the domain is valid and that the owners of the domain are who they are.

Click on the “More information…” will obviously display more information about the site. You can view the certificate, the number of times that you’ve visited the site and whether you have any saved password stored for this site.

The site idenification icon does go red to warn you of suspicious sites but I wasn’t expecting to see it on this site. Every now and then, I’ll browse to the sites on my blogroll to see what’s up on their end. I didn’t expect Kelly Penguin Girl’s website to be a suspicious one but apparently Google seems to think so. I’ve never had any problems with it and even now I still don’t. Every time I’ve visited the site, I never received any notification to download anything so it’s probably some sort of glitch. I told Kelly about it but she told me not to worry about it. So it’s back to regular surfing for me.

Yes, I know that I visited my site a lot today but that was because I had to preview my post. It probably counted all those times that I hit the refresh button but nonetheless, it’s some nice useless information to see. So, if you haven’t downloaded Firefox 3 yet, I’d recommend that you do. It’ll make your web surfing easier and safer than using Internet Explorer. It’s got everything you need to make your browsing experience a satisfying one.

2 comments!
June 20, 2008 1:59 PM

I was working on that

Comments Off
by    in Rants

People at work can give you a lot of attitude when you’re doing something that they don’t like. Even if you’re doing your job and your job involves interfering with that they’re doing. I sometimes get that around here but I usually brush it off because I have a duty to perform. If I inconvenienced someone, I simply apologize ahead of time and carry on with my work. Usually they’re okay with it but there are a few that will give me a hard time.

I received an email at work today from a coworker requesting that I take a look at a computer that wasn’t updating its virus definition. I didn’t want to walk all the way down to the shop so I used the Remote Desktop Connection software to connect to the machine. I was part way through when someone powered down the machine. I assumed that they were just restarting it because I was logged in and it locked anyone else from logging into the computer but when I called to ask why it was shutdown, I received a whole other story.

The person on the phone had no idea what I was talking about. When I asked him about a computer on the shop floor, he wasn’t much of a help either. So I asked him if he knew the user of the computer but he replied that he didn’t know the person and ask for their last name. Since the computer was shutdown, I had no choice but walk down to the shop and fix the problem locally.

As I arrive at the scene, another work was there doing his work. I told him that I was from I.T and I was there to work on the computer. I don’t know how or why but the worker started to give me a hard time because I was in his space.

Me Did someone turn off this computer?
Worker You think you can just walk in and do what you want?
Me I’m sorry, what?
Worker I was the one that turned off the computer.
Me I was working on it remotely. The connection broke so I decided to come down here and see what’s wrong. I didn’t think someone would just turn it off.
Worker Well, you can’t just come here and do what you want.
Me I checked the computer and no one was logged into it for an hour so I took control of the machine.
Worker Why? What’s wrong with it?
Me The antivirus scanner is out of date and I was repairing it. I have to update the virus definition and I was in the middle of that when I was disconnected.
Worker Oh, okay. Then you make yourself at home and do what you have to do.
Me Yeah, I will.

After our little talk, this worker started opening and closing his desk drawers to grab his tools before leaving the area. Inside one of the drawers was an FHM magazine with Jaime Pressly on the front cover. He told me to keep my eyes off of the cover as if it was his girlfriend. I’ve never even met this guy before and he’s already giving me a hard time. Everyone here is here to do a job and I was there to do mine so he should have just let me do my job and get on with his. If there’s one department you don’t want to mess with it’s the I.T department because people need their computers and they definitely need their internet access.

Comments Off
June 19, 2008 1:14 PM

Tax Freedom Day

1 comment
by    in Finances,General,Nature

If you work, I’m sure that you work hard for you money so it’s only right that you keep the majority of it. As Canadian workers, we have to share part of our pay cheque with the government but there comes a day when you stop working for the government and start working for yourself. That’s what Tax Freedom Day is all about.

I think that we pay enough taxes as it is. Taxes are taken from us when we get our pay cheques and the amount that is taken off is way too much. And when we buy anything, we have to pay even more taxes. So it’s like, I pay 31.15% on my pay cheque and then an addition 13% on purchases. That’s almost 40% of my money going to the government.
According to the online tool from the Fraser Institute my Tax Freedom Day was on June 11. Throughout the year, I would have spent 161 days working for the government and 204 days working for myself. I work Monday to Friday so that’s not exactly 161 days. If you take away the weekends, I’ve only working about 120 days so that confuses me a little bit more. I’m assuming, if I read the charts correctly, everything that I’ll be paying to the government after June 11 will result in a tax refund.

I used a Personal Tax Calculator at Ernst & Young to calculate how much taxes I’ll be paying this year. I’m in the 31.15% tax bracket so I’ll be paying about $9,218 in tax. I’m planning on putting away my maximum for my RRSP so it’ll generate a savings of $2,617. I don’t’ know the exact calculations but that $2,617 should be my tax refund and if I’m getting a refund for that amount, I should probably think about getting an RRSP loan for that amount but then again, I would be going over my contribution limit for the year. I could max out my RRSP contribution and then donate the remainder to charity and get a tax credit and then get more back during tax season.

I’m not sure exactly how the Tax Freedom Day is calculated and it seems like it’s generating that date based on the average family whereas I’m entering the numbers as one income. It’s saying that I should be paying $9,218 in taxes but so far I’ve only paid $5,955.46 since the beginning of the year. Also, I’ve played around with my age and for it appears that as I get older, I get a $10 credit for something. That’s kind of cool. So if the dates are correct, I’m looking forward to working for my money.

1 comment...
June 18, 2008 4:08 PM

The Incredible Hulk

1 comment
by    in Reviews

I went to watch the Incredible Hulk last night with my girlfriend and I’d have to say that it was pretty good. The animators did a good job with the CGI and they integrated the Hulk into the movie seamlessly. There were a lot of actions scenes where the Hulk was fight and some of it looked like it hurts but there wasn’t much dialog.

I don’t quite remember what happened in the first movie but I think this movie starts off where the last one ended. At the end of the first movie, Hulk was running away from the military. At the beginning of this movie, we see that he somehow made it to Brazil. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is looking for a way to cure himself of his gamma radiation. He’s speaking with someone known as Mr. Blue who is attempting to help me find a cure. While he’s in Brazil, he’s working in a bottling factory as a maintenance worker. He’s been doing a very good job so the boss wants to put him on the payroll. While he’s talking to the boss, he accidentally cuts himself and a drop of his blood falls to the level below. He runs downstairs to make sure that the blood didn’t fall into a bottle and cleans up the mess. That’s where a whole sequence of events starts to unfold.

Throughout the whole movie, Banner is looking to rid himself of the uncontrollable Hulk that’s kept locked inside. He’s been trying to suppress his anger in order to avoid letting the Hulk loose. The military on the other hand wants the Hulk for themselves so they can use it for military purposes. They’ll do whatever it takes to capture Banner but they won’t kill him, they just want to bring him in.

Hulk’s nemesis in the movie is a Russian soldier with an English accent. It didn’t click at first but the more he spoke, the less Russian he sounded. Maybe he grew up in the UK or something but it’s odd when the actor portraying a character doesn’t fit the part. His character was a bit cocky but Hulk eventually shuts him up in the end.

Even if the movie was pretty good, I guess it was worth it to see it in theatre but not needed. I could have waited until it came out on DVD to watch it but I didn’t have anything else to do on a Tuesday night. At the end of the movie, there were hints about upcoming movies, especially one that caught my attention. If you’re a Hulk fan, go watch the movie in theaters. If you’re not a Hulk fan, you can probably wait. There wasn’t much in the storyline or cinematic that’s was eye catchy. I think Hulk going around smashing stuff was the best scenes in the movie.

tags: ,
1 comment...
June 16, 2008 4:26 PM

Cancel me, please!

2 comments
by    in Finances,Rants

My bank account manager recommended that I cancel any credit card that I haven’t used in a while. Even though I’ve already cut them up, it’s still a good idea to cancel them with the credit card company, you know, just in case. I took his advice and canceled my CitiBank credit card. I haven’t charged anything on that card for months and it was just taking up space in my wallet so I called in to cancel it.

I’ve canceled a lot of cards before so I’m aware of the proceeds that I’ll be put through in order to get the card canceled. I know that they’ll try to persuade me to stay with them but my mind is set on canceling and that’s what I intend to do.

When you call some companies, their voice automated system will have an option for cancellation but CitiBank didn’t have that option. I know better than to select from one of their five options so I immediately pressed “0″ to reach an operator. I spoke with a customer rep who put me on hold for about five minutes before coming back on to transfer me to the correct department. I spoke with a Kevin and he tried to keep me on.

Kevin seemed like a nice guy at first but he was pretty persistent to keep me as a customer. I know that having the card will be good in case I need it for an emergency and the card would be good to have in the longer run but there wasn’t enough of an incentive to keep it. The other cars that I have are cards that are part of a rewards program so I get something back in return. The CitiBank card doesn’t have anything that will help me so I didn’t see the point of hanging on to it.

I initially signed up for the card because of its low introductory interest rates but that time has come and gone and the rate is back up to normal. I call them to see if there were any promotions going on that will keep me as their customers but there wasn’t so I decided to cancel. My conversation with Kevin went a little something like this:

Kevin: I’m sorry to hear that you want to cancel. May I ask why you’re canceling?
Me: I don’t have any further use for the card so to be on the safe side, I’m canceling it.
Kevin: What do you mean when you say “no further use?”
Me: I have a bunch of other credit cards in my wallet and this one rarely gets used. I don’t think I’ve made any transaction on it for a long time.
Kevin: Okay, I see but there must have been a reason why you went with our card in the first place.
Me: Yeah, I signed up during a promotion with a low interest rate. That is no long…
Kevin: But the other cards probably have a high interest rates as well. You signed up during a promotion but what about the other cards?
Me: I get a 3.99% interest rate with RBC and it’s…
Kevin: Yeah but that sounds like a promotional rates as well.
Me: Yes, it is but the card also offers me rewards on top of that.
Kevin: Okay, what if I gave you a 9.9% interest rate for the year with an annual fee of $35?
Me: The annual fee is already a turn off. The other cards don’t charge me anything and I get…
Kevin: But if you take the money that you’ll be saving with the 9.9% interest rates, you can use that money for other things.
Me: Well, how much would I be savings with 9.9%?
Kevin: If you have a balance of $1000, you can save a lot.
Me: But I rarely carry forward a balance. I try to make sure that I pay off the balance so I can make use of the rewards program. So if I make sure that I pay off the balance at the end of the month, the other cards are better because they don’t have an annual fee.

At that point, Kevin proceeded to read me some fine prints to notify me that I’m responsible for any balance that’s remaining on the card and if I decide to reopen the account, I have 90 days to do so. I don’t think I’ll be re-opening the account any time soon.

I was thinking about hanging onto the card but I didn’t quite see the point. The credit card has a limit of $5900 so it would be nice to use somewhere down the road but the other cards limits put together can be as high as that. I think the one thing that persuaded me to cancel even more is the fact that Kevin kept cutting me off. I was trying to explain things to him but he was more focused on trying to get his points across that he forgot to listen to me. If someone is calling in to cancel, I think it’s best to listen to everything they have to say before you put in your two cents.

tags:
2 comments!
June 12, 2008 3:15 PM

She’s coming home

2 comments
by    in General

It’s hours away from the time my girlfriend’s plane lands and I’m getting very excited but at the same time I’m also getting a little nervous. A part of me is very happy to see her but then there’s a part of me that feels like it’s the first time we’ll be meeting.

While she was away, I had planned on renovating our bedroom a little. The paint that was on there wasn’t the best colour for a bedroom because it was a little bit on the dark side. My girlfriend hasn’t seen it yet so I hope she likes it when she does. I think that’s the part that’s making me nervous because I’ve put in all this work into the room and I don’t know if she’ll like it or not. I’m sure that she will because she’s had a bit of an input. I’ve described the room to her but she hasn’t seen any of it yet. I can post pictures up and not worry about her seeing it because she’ll be on the plane as I publish this.

Originally, I wanted to renovate the whole floor but that would have taken a lot longer than I had. This room alone has taken me a few months. And as it stands, I’m not 100% done with everything yet. The floor needs to be cleaned because I splattered small drops of paint on it when I was painting the ceiling. I’ve managed to wipe it down but there’s still small pieces of it left. I’ve got an hour after work to finish up with the little things before going to the airport to pick her up so I’ll have to rush things up a bit.

The closer it gets to her arrival, the more nervous I get. Every now and then, I’ll find myself biting my nails because of the excitement. I guess I’m worrying for nothing but my girlfriend’s opinion of things matters a lot to me. For some reason, her view has a great impact on me and it affects me a lot. If she was to go around and call me stupid, I actually become stupid for a while.

So anyway, without further adieu, here’s what my bedroom looks like. If you want to see the before picture, you can check them out here.

I needed some nice pillow coverings because the old ones were getting a little out of date. These pillow coverings look a little more modern than the previous ones. I’ve also bought a few cushions because I usually do a little reading now and then in bed.

I won’t have to rely on my cell phone to wake me up anymore. This clock was a few bucks and it went nice with the bed and the rest of the bed decorations. Some of the pictures were from Hong Kong. I bought them when I was visiting but when I got back home, I didn’t know where to hang them. Now I don’t have to worry about hanging them because they sit right there by the window.

Behind the headboard is a small set of shelves where I can store things in. My girlfriend used to put things in boxes but now she can hide things in the headboard. I’ve got my side filled with books but some of the books are a little too tall so I had to lean then on their sides. The good thing about the shelves is that it comes out just far enough. As you can see, they slide out to the point where they can’t slide out any further so the room was just the right size.

My girlfriend bought a throw a while ago but that one is all dirty now. The cats have been sleeping on it because it was so soft. I’m not sure exactly what throws are used for but they’re like small blankets.

Originally, I wanted to put carpet in the room but with the cats in the house, I was afraid that they’ll make it dirty. I can’t remember to always close my bedroom door before I leave the house and there’s a chance that the day that I forget, is the day that the cats will go in a mess up the places. The one cat likes to poop everywhere and if she poops on the carpet, it’s going to be a paint to have that cleaned.

I’ve painted this section of the room a different colour at the request of my girlfriend. She has been mentioning this idea to me for a long time but I didn’t know that she mean this. I was assuming that she meant the ceiling was going to be a different colour. Once I understood what she requested, I fulfilled that request.

The room feels a little empty because there aren’t enough things on the wall. I’m trying to fill up the walls with some decoration but I’m running out of things to put up. The only thing that I’ve managed to hang on the wall so far is this picture of us. Oh, and don’t mind Spider pig at the bottom of the picture. He just wanted to get in on the photo session.

Last but not least are these hooks. During the winter, I usually hung all of my coats on the stair rail or on the door. It’s nice and convenient to have some hooks that I could toss some things onto. I’m hoping that these will come in handy one day. When I bought the hooks, I wanted them put them in the lobby but I think it’ll be more useful in the bedroom.

So there you have it, the bedroom renovation all completed. I hope that my girlfriend will approve of what I’ve done with the room. There’s probably still a lot more to add but for now, what I’ve got is a good start to make the bedroom and warm and relaxing place. I hope that the warm colour will help me wake up happy in the morning.

2 comments!
June 11, 2008 8:42 AM

Foggy night

Comments Off
by    in General

1.6 sec | f4.5 | 18mm

After the rain storm, a fog slow crept onto the Burlington waterfront. There were a lot of people there walking around and doing their daily things. They didn’t seem to mind the fog. There were times when the fog was so thick that you could only see 5m ahead of you.

tags: ,
Comments Off
Older Posts »