Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

April 1, 2007

Installing Debian without burning CD’s

Filed under: Computer Software,Interesting Sites,Linux/Unix Related,Tech Related — Suramya @ 3:40 PM

Do you want to install Debian on a system thats running Windows but doesn’t have a working CD-ROM (Like my current laptop)? Earlier you had to try to install it using floppies and other methods that didn’t always work but now there’s an easier method:

You can now download a “Debian-Installer Loader” from their project site which is basically an exe file which you can run as a regular exe file. Once you run it, it will work for a few moments and then it’ll ask to reboot your PC, at which point you’ll be given the option to run Windows or Debian. Choose Debian and you will end up in a regular Debian installer interface.

Here are some Screenshots of how the installer looks like.

I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t personally verify how well it works but so far I have heard only good things about it. If you try it out let me know how it works out.

Thanks,
Suramya

March 1, 2007

Open Source Alternatives

Filed under: Computer Software,Interesting Sites,Tech Related — Suramya @ 11:09 PM

Using open source doesn’t mean that you have to run Linux. Its just that Linux has sort of become the flagship of the Open Source Software (OSS) and whenever a person talks about OSS the general perception is that you need linux to enjoy/use OSS. But thankfully this is not true. Even on my Windows system most of the applications I use are open source. e.g. OpenOffice for word processing, Firefox for browsing, GIMP for image manipulation etc.

Now a major problem which newcomers have is that its difficult to figure out what Open Source alternatives are available for a given popular commercial software. The Open Source Alternative website attempts to solve this issue by giving a listing of the various OSS alternatives available for a given proprietary program.

Check it out, you might find some software that replaces the current program you use thus saving you a lot of money.

– Suramya

November 15, 2006

Open Source Freeware list

Filed under: Computer Software,Linux/Unix Related,Tech Related — Suramya @ 2:59 PM

Good list of Open Source Freeware. Most of these software work on both Windows and Linux desktop systems.

Check it out..

Thanks to nixcraft for the link.

– Suramya

November 13, 2006

Getting flash working in Firefox in Linux

Filed under: Computer Software,Linux/Unix Related,Tech Related — Suramya @ 11:32 PM

The past few hours I have been trying to get Flash to work on my Linux system using Firefox. Specifically I wanted to be able to listen to music at Pandora.com. I tried everything I could think of including installing different versions of the Flash plugin. I even installed gnash , which is a free version of the flash player but nothing seemed to work.

The funny part was when I tried accessing the swf file directly it would open it and I would see the player initializing but since it needed info from other sections of the page it wouldn’t play anything. Finally I thought that maybe one of my extension’s was causing problems so I tried shutting off Adblock and that fixed the issue.

So now I could start the Pandora music player, but I still didn’t get any sound. The fix for that issue was thankfully simple, all I had to do was:

  • Install alsa-oss by issuing the following command as root: apt-get install alsa-oss
  • Edit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc and add the following line to it:
    FIREFOX_DSP=”aoss”
  • Restart Firefox

After I did this I can now enjoy music from Pandora without any issues. Well, almost any issues. For some reason when I play music from Pandora Firefox memory usage goes upto 70%. I am running Firefox 2.0 on a Debian Unstable system. If any of you have suggestions on how to reduce the CPU usage please let me know.

Well this is all for now. Hope this helps someone else also.

– Suramya

July 28, 2006

Behaviour : Using CSS selectors to apply Javascript behaviours

Filed under: Computer Software,Interesting Sites,Tech Related — Suramya @ 10:26 PM

This is really cool stuff. It lets you use AJAX (asynchronous javascript and xml) without cluttering your HTML code with javascript tags. So essentially you are separating javascript and html making it easier to maintain code. The best part is that the process looks really simple to use. I am thinking of trying it out for a couple of test pages and see how it works.

Check out Behaviour’s Extended Demo page to see an example of what all you can do with it.

The main problem I have with 100% javascript controlled pages is that if the visitor has JavaScript turned off all your flashy jazz is of no use to him. Plus with all the new hacks/exploits that are coming out that use javascript more and more people are browsing the net with it disabled… So no I won’t be converting suramya.com or my photogallery to something javascript driven or flash driven anytime in the near future.

Check it out: Behaviour : Using CSS selectors to apply Javascript behaviours

– Suramya

Why can’t Microsoft make their messages more specific and meaningful

Filed under: Computer Software,My Thoughts,Tech Related — Suramya @ 3:03 PM

I don’t have anything against Microsoft. Their software has its uses and while I do use Linux on my primary system and on all the servers I run/manage I also have windows XP on one of my systems and on my laptop and am happy with it as It doesn’t crash as often as earlier versions of windows and mostly does what I want it to do. Now that being said, lets move on to the topic of my rant.

I was updating windows using the Windows update tool and I got the following message:

“To use microsoft update, you must first install the latest version of some Windows components. This will allow your computer to work with these new features on the site:”

(Emphasis mine)

Could they have made the message any more vague? Can you figure out what it wants to update? I couldn’t and guess what this latest version of some Windows component was? What, No idea? It was Windows Genuine Advantage(WGA) verification tool. Now my question is, why couldn’t they just say that you need to install WGA verification tool before you download updates? Why did they have to be so vague?

You know what the best part is? WGA is not a default part of windows, its a new software that MS is pushing out to detect pirated copies of windows, so doesn’t this make their message about it being the latest version of a windows component false and misleading?

Below is a screen shot I took of this interesting message and what was actually installed:

Vague Windows message
Vague Windows message

I have the same issue with other portions of MS update. They almost never tell what a particular update is for, I know they give the Knowledge Base number, but why can’t they tell you right over there exactly what issue a particular update fixes? Having that info over there would help me/other users decide if a particular patch needs to be installed immediately or can be installed later in a regularly scheduled update cycle.

Well this is all from my side.

– Suramya

July 5, 2006

Create Visio like Diagrams in your web browser

Filed under: Computer Software,Interesting Sites,Knowledgebase,Tech Related — Suramya @ 11:23 PM

This is a really cool flash application that allows you to create Visio like diagrams using flash. I tried it out and found the system to be pretty responsive. It allows you to share the documents you create for collaborative editing and if you like what you have you can export it as image files (jpg, png) or as SVG files that can be imported into Visio.

I like the idea and will probably use it for personal stuff, however I don’t think I would use it if I ever had to design some sensitive/confidential system layout. I searched for a privacy policy but couldn’t find any so don’t know what level of privacy are they offering. Without a privacy policy they can do whatever they want with your data.. Not saying that they will, just that they can.

Check it out: Gliffy.com – Diagram and draw in your web browser

Thanks to Adam Fields (weblog) for the link.

– Suramya

June 25, 2006

GimpShop Debian Installer Ver 2.2.11 Port Available

Filed under: Computer Software,Linux/Unix Related,Tech Related,Website Updates — Suramya @ 8:56 AM

Created this a couple of weeks ago but forgot to mention it here. This is a debian package installer (.deb) for GimpShop Ver 2.2.11. I tried it on my system and it worked and I haven’t gotten any complaints so far… So I guess it works 😉 Let me know if you have some trouble with it.

Get it from: GIMPShop Debian Package Installer (Ver 2.2.11 Port) [Note: The package is not working at this time. Will fix it and update soon – Sur]

I am also in the process of updating the GimpShop installation guide (To install it from source) but you will have to wait for it a little bit longer…

– Suramya

May 10, 2006

Making Bootable Movies with eMoviX

Filed under: Computer Software,Linux/Unix Related,Tech Related — Suramya @ 1:57 PM

Now this is a really cool software/system that allows you to create a CD/DVD with video/audio etc on it that any system can boot off and play the video. So you no longer have to worry about sending someone the codecs to view a movie/video you created. No more worrying that you might have forgotten to include the codec’s on the CD you gave to the president with your brain wave etc. All they have to do is pop the disk in the drive and reboot the system (while you pray that the system is set to allow booting from the CD-ROM)

I havn’t tried it out yet but it looks good and easy to create.

From the Website:

If you are like me and do all your video recording in Linux, you may wonder how you can share the TV shows, personal videos, and other multimedia content with friends and family who don’t use Linux. How can you get the video from your hard disk to the people you care about in a way that you know they can play it?

Well, instead of just hoping they have a way to play your favorite video format, why not give them your home movie with a player that you know can play it? In fact, why not give them the whole operating system with it so you know that your player will run?

Complete Article: Making Bootable Movies with eMoviX

Thanks,
Suramya

March 11, 2006

Tools to check folder ACL’s in Windows

Filed under: Computer Software,Computer Tips,Tech Related — Suramya @ 11:30 PM

Tools to use that show “ALL” of the the ACL’s permissions that are on these network folders:

I haven’t tried any of these tools yet so I can’t vouch for them. However these were recomended by smart people that post to the Security Basics @SecurityFocus Mailing list so I am sure that they work ;).

Thanks,
Suramya

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