I found this quite cheap NAS (around 87 USD) few days ago when buying a new hard drive. This is cheap by Chiang Mai’s standard, because if you buy cheaper stuff from the Internet, you will need to pay a lot for shipping cost and tax. This NAS runs Linux but unfortunately they don’t provide the source code. Someone have managed to open this NAS, and connect serial port to it, while another guy find a way to access the shell by modifying samba configuration. I have managed to compile a simple hello world application and run it on the device using http://sources.nslu2-linux.org/sources/arm-920t_le.tar.bz2. I am planning to do more hacking on this device this weekend, and will write more about it.
Get Office 2007 fonts for free
Microsoft office provides several new nice looking fonts in their Office 2007. Some web pages and applications already uses these fonts to make their display looks nicer. To get these fonts into your Windows without buying Office 2007, you can install Power Point Viewer 2007 which is a free application to view a Power Point Presentation.
Bluetooth USB Belkin F8T012xx1
I bought Bluetooth USB Belkin F8T012xx1 to be used in my desktop (using Debian). At first I thought that this thing doesn’t work, but apparently it is misdetected as pegasus Ethernet driver. I thought the best solution was to remove pegasus.ko (in /lib/modules), but everythime I upgraded the kernel, the file will show up again. I can see this happening using dmesg
pegasus: v0.6.14 (2006/09/27), Pegasus/Pegasus II USB Ethernet driver
The best solution is to add this line:
blacklist pegasus
to
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
Wake On LAN
I have two computers at home connected to my WRT54GL (a variant of WRT54G) through cables. Using SSH i can easily shut down my computer, and using Wake On Lan, I can wake them up again when I need them. Here are some of my notes after setting up the wake on LAN:
- You need to activate wake on LAN feature in the BIOS.
- You need to set your network card to wake on LAN using ethtool. This command needs to be inserted to your startup/network script, because in each restart you will need to set it again.
- Some network card will wake using the program wol, but some must use etherwake.
- Wake on LAN only works in cable/wired connection (wireless connection will not work).
LINKSYS WRT54GL
Any geek having the LinkSys WRT54GL will definitely install Linux on it. I bought this device on September 2007, and a week after using it, I started to hack it. First it was just installing DD-WRT, then I tried to add an SD card to it. The DD-WRT mmc driver has the limitation of only supporting SD card up to 1 GB (My 2GB kingston can not be detected), so I reflash using OpenWRT.
DD-WRT is very easy to use. The web interface is great, but as a former Linux administrator, I’d rather handle things trough command line. If you are a command line lover like me, then OpenWRT is better. With OpenWRT driver, I can use my 2GB SD card with higher speed. Now I can use my router for downloading some stuff that takes a long time to download (such as things that are in the Torrent with few seeders).
I connect this router to 2 of my PCs. One of the PC is used for my everyday task, and the other one is my media center. I can wake one or both of my computer through this router (very useful and convenient for me).
Switching from Fedora to Debian
Fedora is good, and gets updated every 6 months, but sometimes I think it is too fast for me. In every new version, they will change some daemon that breaks a lot of things that I have painfully set up in the previous version. After thinking about it, I try to use Debian. After few weeks using it, I already felt comfortable with it. I am also happy because I found a nearby Debian mirror in Thailand (http://www.debianclub.org) which is very fast to access from my home. Here are some things that you may need to know about debian:
Network configuration is at /etc/network/interfaces
Some useful apt-get commands are:
– apt-get install packagename
– apt-get remove packagename
– apt-get clean (otherwise you will use a large disk space for package cache)
some useful dpkg commands:
– dpkg -l to list all installed packages
– dpkg -L packagename to list files in that package
– dpkg -S /path/to/file to check to which package that file belongs
Another useful command is update-alternatives to update alternatives for a program (use this after installing java, etc)
I found a link about someone asking for Debian tips (he is a FreeBSD guy), and the answers he gets is quite good, I think the answers are applicable to anyone switching from another Unix or another Linux distro to debian): http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/234.
Adobe Flex Builder 3 Expiring too Fast
My friend installed the exact same DMG image to install the beta version of Adobe Flex Builder 3 beta 2, but when tried to use it, it says that the Beta has expired. We have the exact same hardware, and same software (Mac OS X, 10.4/Tiger). The Flex Builder does not show when it expired in the message (only: Beta Expired). It took me quite a long time to realize that the SDK says:
computer:~ tc3$ /Applications/Adobe\ Flex\ Builder\ 3/sdks/3.0.0/bin/mxmlc thinkcubic.mxml Loading configuration file /Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/3.0.0/frameworks/flex-config.xml This beta will expire on Thu Jan 31 00:00:00 ICT 1465. Error: Beta expired.
While it should be
Loading configuration file /Users/tc4/flex/frameworks/flex-config.xml This beta will expire on Thu Jan 31 00:00:00 ICT 2008.
It expires 543 years ago!. So why does this happen?. One hint: he is Thai. He prefers to use the Thai language on his computer. Thai people use Buddhist calendar, which differs 543 years from the Gregorian calendar.
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Useful Thai Sites in English
I just moved to Chiang Mai Thailand last month, and I really need a lot of information about this city, but the problem is that most stuff are written in Thai. Here are some English Language sites that I find useful (especially Chiang Mai related):
- Wikitravel info about Chiang Mai
- Thai Visa Many information, the forum is very useful
- Thai2English, if you are stuck trying to figure out a thai website, then this might help you. This is not a translation service, just word by word translation
- Thai text to speech If you want to know how to pronounce a word, you can use this online tool
- Many resources, including dictionary
- Chiang Mai News
- Thanni.com: Buy Electronic Stuff Onlne (I have never buy anything, but useful to know hardware price)
- www.whatsonchiangmai.com
Don’t forget, Nokia Maps has a map of Chiang Mai for free. You can read more about it here
.
Adsense Info
I have found many websites claiming that they can give you a lot of income using Google Adsense. It is all just a scam, and I have compiled informations about this stuff at tinyhack.com/adsense. Hopefully, this will be useful for many people. I will try to update the information presented there frequently.
Funding Small Open Source Project
I have a small open source project, Symbianbible, a bible reader for the Symbian Platform. This is a small project, with many users, and I am the only developer. Currently, I have ported this application to every Symbian version that Nokia has (Series 60, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Series 80, Series 90). In this post, I am going to tell the story of how I got the funding to port this program for multiple Symbian platforms.
Since the first release, many people asked, “can you port it to device X?”. Buying every phone models (at least one for each platform) and their accessories (such as memory card, card reader, Bluetooth adapter, etc) is expensive, so I wrote in my FAQ, that I would only port if there are some people that donate or lend me their phone.
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