More Knoppix fun

I bought a copy of Knoppix Hacks, and I'm really impressed with the book and the information contained in them. Over the holidays I've gone Knoppix crazy. I've downloaded other versions of Knoppix to try, such as GamesKnoppix, Knoppix-STD, Overclockix, and MediainLinux. I even modified and made a Knoppix CD of my own, that runs PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. I'm adding the dd_rhelp program and chntpw to the next CD I make. I also downloaded Quantian and will probably modify that for a class I'm teaching this semester. Much fun indeed.

Another Gentoo LiveCD tutorial

I found and Furled another site that shows how to make Gentoo LiveCDs. I'm almost done with it, although I have a problem with the initrd I made. Just need to make sure I did that part right. Maybe I'll have some time over the holidays to work on it. I'd like it to have some multimedia utilities on it, as I may use a spare partition to store all of my media on, just for kicks.

Knoppix/Gentoo fun!

I read about a book called Knoppix Hacks, which details some of the things you can do with Knoppix, and after looking at the preview at Safari.com, I wouldn't mind getting that book. I was able to configure the X.org setup on my home computer using Knoppix-STD, and I'm able to get a better screen resolution than when I just used xorgcfg. Nice hack.

Also, I gave up using catalyst to make my own live CDs in favor of a technique I found on one of Gentoo's forums. It works pretty well, and I'm able to archive the setup for whenever I want to make any more CDs.

Catalyst continues....

So far the catalyst is chugging along :) It's nice to be able to remotely access my home machine so I can work on this while I'm at work. It's even more fault tolerant than the livecd-ng, and the instructions seem easier the second time around.

Just of kicks...

I'm trying to build a Gentoo LiveCD that has VMWare workstation installed on it, kinda like the CoolLinux CD that was put out last year some time. I tried to do the LiveCD thing before with Gentoo's catalyst, but at the time I found that hard to follow, and up until now, implement. I found some instructions on Gentoo-Wiki.com using livecd-ng, and that seems easier to set up. I had to tweak the script some to actually get it to work, and even then I ran out of space before the script finished compiling all the software. I might try catalyst now. More in a minute

VMWare goodness

I finally broke down and purchased a copy of VMWare workstation 4.5, and I am enjoying every minute of its use. I have been able to try out different Linux distros and some instances of Microsoft Windows working. Very cool indeed. I just got turned on to Arch Linux this way, and I want to install it independently of a VM. I want to replace Xandros 2 on my machine, but I might keep it there, just because I don't want to play musical partitions again. Good thing I got that copy ov VMWare :)

Endless Possibilities

I'm fascinated with all the gmail and firefox goodies out there. It's nice to know that these goodies are mostly open source, so I can look at the code and find out how it's done. I just ran into a way you can skin the look go Gmail. Go here and find out!

More Firefox Goodness

I was looking at Wil Wheaton's blog, and I ran across a site that has some Firefox plugins. take a look at this: http://extensions.roachfiend.com/index.php

Firefox 1.0PR

I'm absolutely impressed with Firefox and Thunderbird! Live bookmarks, popup blocking, and countless additions make this the smoothest web browsing experience to date!

Blog burnout?

Doesn't seem like I had anything to write about in the last month. It's not like I haven't had anything to write about. It's pure laziness.

I haven't had much time to do any more transcoding of any more Star Trek episodes, but I have an opportunity to record From the earth to the moon on some channel; I have to find out which channel.

I also found out that the individual whose computers I salvaged for parts wants his main computer back. That takes me back down in RAM from 512MB to 128MB of RAM I may have lying around. Looks like I'm investing in some lighter weight apps. Good thing I was looking at that article on Light weight linux apps.

Another link to check out: http://platypuswiki.sourceforge.net/

Interesting find.

I'd like to check this link out further: http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/

Time flies..

Haven't had much tiime to work on my computer at home. I'd like to set up a system to catalog all my CDs here and at home.

I found something to that effect. I also want a program to catalog my MP3 files, and Zinf doesn't work well on my machine, so I had to find something else. More on that later

Gee....

I don't really have too much to say today... other than that I'll be looking forware to the opening of Aliens vs. Predator.

Media magnetism

I snagged another ST:TNG episode yesterday. What I want to do now is the following:

• Set up MythTV on my computer
  
• write a user mode driver for this TV Wonder Card. That thing's the only reason I still use windows
  at home

Transcode success

I was able to transcode all of my recorded MPEG files to DivX format last night. I transcoded a Star Trek:TNG episode just for starters, and it worked out flawlessly, and I think the picture looked better than the MPEG version. I was able to script the transcoding to do Congo and a news segment I recorded.

Transcode

I was ablel to record another show last night. I was able to catch an episode of Star Trek:The Next Generation.

The files I have on my hard drive are HUGE. In order to free up some more space for mor recording I'm attempting to use transcode to convert these files from MPEG to DivX files. Once I do that I plan to make VCDs from these shows and save them to CDs. Sounds like I need a CD-RW on this machine.

TV Wonder USB Burn-in

Last night I got a chance to do some video recording on my computer. The movie Congo was on USA last night, and I was able to record it. The output format for the files (I stopped and started in midstream) is MPEG, and the files are huge. I tried to convert them to AVIs using Virtual Dub, so let's see how that's going this evening.

True to form

I was thinking about the name of my blog, and I thought I'd give you all some insight as to where else I've been hiking on the Information Superhighway.

I keep my bookmarks on iKeepBookmarks.com. Check them out!

An interesting development experience

This past weekend I had a laptop computer I used to do some development for my job. I didn't want to install any of the tools to do development with, so I opted to use the SLAX live CD and create the modules I used for development. The module creation was exceptionally easy, and I had a very pleasant experience this holiday, although I didn't get my work completed.

I used Java, MySQL, Ant, and Netbeans for development, and I like how I was able to use Netbeans for my work. I didn't realize how easy it was for me to create and modify databases with Netbeans. I learned a lot this weekend, especially how to set up a Java servlet to be accessed via the web, and how to set up MySQL.

As I haven't finished my work today I'll just commit the changes I made over the holiday and bring my work home.