Blog entries from James Sparenberg

Automation security and OOPs!

James Sparenberg — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:24:59 +0100

Quick note for all. I just learned that if you start a blog, get a call from Nagios that a raid array crashed, and mark a blog you just started as "unpublish" it just might get published auto magically for you at some point in the future.

For those who read that piece of a blog, sorry. I'll edit locally and cut and paste going forward. As one gentleman I know once said, "Whatever automation and security do for you they also do to you." Well it did it to meRead More...

Using CPULimit to prevent Firefox+ Flash CPU Overrun.

James Sparenberg — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:30:02 +0100

Ever had this situation? Go to Youtube to watch the latest fashion in wedding dances, and suddenly your CPU goes to 98% and everything on ..... the ..... box ........ slows ............ to ........ a ........ crawl. Well there is a way to prevent that overrun and get back control of your system.

A project caled CPULimit at sourceforge has for me presented an answer. In a nutshell what it does for your system is tell a running process that it can't consume Read More...

JoliCloud (JoliOS) Day one on my netbook.

James Sparenberg — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:45:28 +0100

JoliCloud, A new Linux Distribution aimed at the Netbooks we use, and shooting for the Cloud. Leveraging the Cloud based apps around us. Right now they are in public alpha, but my initial reaction is that if this is Alpha, the Gold is gonna rock.

The literature, etc, from the site, leads me to believe that the creators of JoliCloud Linux, "get it" when it comes to Cloud Computing, and they are committed to aiming at the concept of , always on, always available computing. &nRead More...

My turn to weigh in on Google OS

James Sparenberg — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:25:16 +0100

The buzz all last week and weekend has been about Google OS. With more than just one pundit going on and on endlessly about how silly it is for Google to introduce a second OS for NetBooks when they were all ready getting traction with Android blah blah blah blah. Try this one on for size

Android is Google OS. Always was. Always will be.

You see Android in it's current form is an excellent platform for smartphones. However last time I checked you and I wantRead More...

Journey to Android programming (hell?) Heaven. Part II

James Sparenberg — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:37:14 +0100

Arrrrrrghhh. I've got past having the basic environment installed. I've said hello to the world with and without a picture on the screen. I've run through a tutorial that has me putting little red dot's on a horrendously green background. I've not a clue what in the hell I've done.

One of the hassles of OOP is that there is a lot of background magic that happens. Most OOP programmers understand the basics of the incantations. But can't explain Read More...

Getting Flash (Adobe) to stop crashing Firefox in Fedora 11

James Sparenberg — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:48:00 +0100

Before anyone hit's me over the head with "File a Bug Report" I'll save you the time you didn't take in checking to see if there was a bug and, there is. #505365 to be exact. The work around is known, it's a matter of waiting until Fedora decides on how to fix it.

Meantime, Firefox still crashes. So what to do. Well in dealing with the bug and in dealing with some stack traces I did, we came to the same idea. There are a number of libs in Firefox, that are referenced Read More...

Journey to Android programming (hell?) Heaven.

James Sparenberg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:18:41 +0100

I've begun my journey. May God have mercy on my enternal soul. For whatever reason, I've broken down, and have begun the journey into programming, again. Now I did this once before, the part about learning programming that is, and I'm not sure I want to repeat my initial disaster.

I began my programming career with Fortran IV (the Watt book, also known as "What For") back in the days of punch cards and paper tape. When other schools Read More...

Getting SCP working on Android

James Sparenberg — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:43:16 +0100

I wanted scp ... Care of an app called ConnectBot I've got ssh, but what I really wanted was the ability to securely move files onto my G1, from my G1, and perhaps off. Granted I could plug in the USB cable, but I don't always have a cable on me and I'm not always in the same building as the computer containing the file.

Requirements: G1 phone (duh!) running any rootable version of Android, Terminal Emulator and ConnectBot apps installed. It turn out that the onRead More...

6 months on with G1

James Sparenberg — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:00:00 +0100

OK, I've owned a G1 since day one. Bought it (loyal T-Mobile Customer) and I've enjoyed it totally. Nice part is, I've got an iPhone in the house thanks to my wife so I can compare. Both her 3G and my G1 are around the same age.

Comparison,

Reliability, Her iPhone has had to go back to the Apple store twice due to problems one got it replaced (internal error, infant mortality) and the second resulted in a full factory reset cause by an Apple suppRead More...

Getting HAL to allow Horizontal Scrolling

James Sparenberg — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:00:00 +0100

This is how I got it working on my little netbook. Seems somehow more and more websites are being designed for larger than 1024 wide screens and so horizontal scrolling is becoming more of a need.

Two steps are needed 1st I edited Firefox and then I edited the files for HAL. In the end we have to reboot the system because somehow the implemintation of X on a number of modern distro's (cough *buntu cough) are more windows like and so every change now requires a reboot. (CNTRRead More...

We don't need you either Asus.

James Sparenberg — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:00:00 +0100

After reading articles like this one today. It's safe to say that this sucks. Linux MADE Asus the market leader it is. Xandros bent over backwards to tailor a UI specifically for the tiny 7inch screeen that really did make the first netbooks fly. Now this crap.

Some of the things that I've learned by asking (off the record) some local retailers of the Asus systems. These retailers tend to be more hands on than a "Best Buy".

1. Linux outsold Read More...

Tweak your GTK app fonts to look as good as KDE apps

James Sparenberg — Tue, 26 May 2009 07:00:00 +0100

I don't know how many times I've had to install 100's (ok it seemed that way) of gnome apps just to tweak the font's in GTK apps so that they looked decent. The KDE apps have always looked good. But the GTK ones lacked, well, everything.

Then I ran across this little article on how to do it. All I had to do was run this command in a term window.

#> sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

Then I restarted thRead More...

Using SSHFS to remote mount a Windows System.

James Sparenberg — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:00:00 +0100

Try hard as we might, it's impossible to get away from the OS from Redmond. All too often we need to be able to get a file off or onto a Windows system in a secure manor. Samba won't work over the Internet, NFS isn't an option either over the internet. Linux to the rescue, along with some FOSS for Windows.

FUSE or File sytem in USEr space, allows Linux to create file systems of multiple kinds that can be mounted and manipulated by an unpriviledgeRead More...

First Post (always wanted to say that)

James Sparenberg — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:00:00 +0100

Really just posting this to test out the system and to say hello. Hello. Ok, now that that is completed I'll get down to something a little less inane. I've been using Linux since around the time of Red Hat 4.2. A KDE user since 0.1 (on FreeBSD then)

My first Linux distribution was of all things called Alzza Linux, a Korean distro based on Red Hat, and hard as heck to install because I don't read Korean. (I was living in Korea at the time) Later, I was a hard core user of MaRead More...