I'm definitely moving to BLOGGER

I had been thinking about it for a long time but somehow I hadn't taken the steps to do it yet; but today is the day!!!

I had my website/blog hosted by weebly for almost two years. I liked it a lot at first. It was easy to use but in time I felt the need to give more prominence to my blog, after all it is the part that is more regularly updated and changed, other more static content does not need much fuss,  you can host it anywhere, anyhow.

Weebly has ease of use, which is fine in today's world where we tend to complicate things unnecessarily. But what I did not like about weebly was:

- Often their servers are way too slow. On a daily basis it takes ages to load my homepage.
- Iceweasel is not supported. At the moment of writing this I primarly use Chromium-browser. Which I do not think it is supported either. But previously I used iceweasel a lot. One thing I can assure you. Noone is ever gonna tell me which software I have to use. And that's the truth.
- I think their DNS servers are buggy or something. In my day to day browsing I get too many navigation errors or "Site not published" messages. After reloading a thousand times the site suddenly appears.
- Blogging features are too poor. You can't search older posts. You have to do it manually.
- Their online editor sucks. I have lost too many hours of my precious time writing and rewriting posts because the editor hungs and I have to start all over again. That makes me sick. Once is enough, but it happens once and again.
- You can't backup your blog.

What I love about blogger:

- Powerful editor with the possibility of having "about me" pages.
- Comments spam detection (I deleted my first attempt at blogging with google because of spam)
- Highly configurable.
- Mail2Blogger (also from mobile devices)
- OpenID
- Google gadgets is not bad although not my cup of tea.
- Stats are great!!!
- Preview option
- You can export/import your blog.

The (will to give) special relevance to the blog came about almost as a matter of chance, as so many things in life. As a grew a regular blogger I felt the need for more powerful features, but when I read Linus' Blog I suddenly realized that we had one thing in common. I quote:

"I sit in my office ... reading and writing email all day."

I also spend long hours reading and writing email, so blogger's feature of "Mail2Blogger" saved my life, or at least a lot of time. Now I do not have to sign in to fight a battle against a hideous online editor. I just have to send an email with my thoughts or my whatever you may call this and press the send button.

I used to think that the web browser was the cornerstone of a computer, but now I'm beginning to think that the mail composer is it. Well times change.

Adding Debian-live to Linux section at chalsattack.com

This text is going to be added at the end of the linux section (See linux tab above) after the Live CD??? paragraph:

Debian-live ???

Talking about live systems I can't help mentioning Debian-live. A personal favourite.

NOTE: Even though the project is geared towards teaching/helping/encouraging users to generate their own images, you can find several standard prebuilt images at their download site.

The Debian-live team produces what probably is the most amazing live system there is out there. Among other reasons because it is based on Debian. The images they create can be copied to Cd's, Dvd's or USB devices such as flash drives or even USB hard disks. These images can also be tried out using virtualization (qemu or vm). The ability to boot from USB devices allows you to try as many images as you please because of the rewritable nature of these drives. I have a 4 GB flash drive exclusively devoted to try Debian-live systems. I do it because they are really useful and secondly for the sake of learning new things.

My reasons for using debian-live systems:

-You can customize the images yourself.

-Images can be used to test hardware.

-Images come in handy as a rescue tool.

-They are nice guys :)

In order to know the project better I recommend you visit their website at  http://live.debian.net/ and in order to master your knowledge of their live system build I insist you read their live-manual at http://live.debian.net/manual/

Here is a list of what you can find in a Debian live system:

- It reflects the (current) state of one distribution.

- It runs on as many architectures as possible.

- It consists of unchanged Debian packages only.

- It does not contain any unofficial packages.

- It uses an unaltered Debian kernel with no additional patches.

If you are interested in contacting the members of the team you can find them:

-Sending a mail to their mailing list at debian-live@lists.debian.org

-On irc in the #debian-live channel on irc.debian.org (OFTC)

Busy eeepc

Can an eeepc 701 4G be any more busy?

First day of Spring!!!

One more...

From caveman to Middle Ages

It goes without saying...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

On why did Facebook kill the msn star

It has been happening for years now but surprisingly enough I had not paid attention to it until last week. There are less and less people connected to the msn (or call it windows live im) service.

I have 83 contacts on amsn but only between 10-15 are online on a daily basis. That was a bit weird but somehow understandable, over the years some people abandon their accounts, some may block you or even delete you. That's life. But so many? No, there had to be a better reason for that.

I began my quest for knowledge on the subject. I asked some people about their msn address but surprisingly enough they told me they didn't have a msn account. However they had  other social networking accounts such as facebook. Then I asked some of my contacts who I met on the street and they told me that since they signed up for facebook or other similar services (like tuenti) they never or hardly ever connected their msn clients. 

How come? Well, I think the reason is easy to understand. Facebook offers you people you may know based on the friends you have and having mutual friends invites you to add more people. You can add a hundred people overnight without any effort. In order to have a contact in msn you have to ask people personally if they want to have you as a friend. Sometimes it is a bit embarrassing.

Installing Debian Squeeze 6.0 on Asus eeepc 701 using a usb stick and Debian-live

In this short tutorial I explain how I installed Debian Squeeze 6.0 on my Asus eeepc 701 4G using a usb stick and Debian-live.

FOREWORD: Formatting drives destroys all data contained there. Before proceeding make sure to backup all important data!!!

In order to follow this tutorial you need:
- A USB stick with Debian Live installed. In order to properly install it you can follow the procedure as explained in the official live-manual
IN SHORT: Download a pre-built image from http://live.debian.net or alternatively build your own. And image it on the usb key using dd.

- An Asus eeepc 701 4G to faithfully reproduce every step. Other models will possibly work much alike.

- Some overall knowledge of how a Debian system works.

STEPS:
1. First plug the usb key in the machine :P

2. Boot the image pressing ESC at the bios splash screen and selecting the usb device from the menu.
3. The first thing to do is to wipe out the contents of the default SSD flash disk as 4G is not enough to dual boot other operating systems. Alternatively you can install this new OS on a memory card (There is a memory card slot on the right side of the computer)
4. Once the default desktop is loaded go to System/Aministration/Synaptic Package Manager

5. Search for and install gparted.

6. Open a terminal. Type sudo su. Start gparted and delete any partitions. BE WARNED that this will erase ALL data. If there is something important in the drive make a backup before proceeding. Have you? Good for you!!! Create a new partition and format it if you want (Formatting is not really necessary at this point since the installer can do it later. What is important here is to prepare a clean partition as a starting point).

7. Once the new partition is ready. Double click the debian installer launcher on  the desktop.

8. Install.
9. Reboot the machine when done and boot into your brand new Debian Squeeze Operating System.
10. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!

Now, as you can see this is really NOT complicated. If you have ever installed a Debian system following d-i steps is a blast.

Creating a Debian live USB flash drive with persistence for non-techies

Foreword: "for non-techies" should perhaps be "for dummies" but it sounds better.

This tutorial aims at showing a fast, straightforward way of creating a  USB flash drive with Debian live installed using the persistence feature. It means that you can save changes back to the usb flash drive after you reboot your machine. It is written and carried out on a linux box, that is why I recommend using linux. There are many more options not covered in this article which are explained in detail in Debian-live's manual. You can find it here:

http://live.debian.net/manual/en/html/live-manual.html


In order to follow this tutorial you need:

-A machine with linux installed.
-A FAT  formatted usb flash drive of 4 GB (2GB will do since the image is 1.1 GB but this leaves little free space for persistence)
-A good internet connection to download an image of 1.1 GB.
-A basic knowledge of the command line.
-Sudo access to your machine. You must be in the sudoers file.
-Software/commands: bash, wget, mount, dd, gparted or alternatively fdisk (fdisk usage is not explained here)

1. Download a usb-hdd image from live.debian.net  A direct link to the latest stable release is here
In order to achieve that, open a terminal. Type:

$ wget http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current-live/i386/usb-hdd/debian-live-6.0.0-i386-gnome-desktop.img

With a fairly good connection it should not take longer than 20 or 30 minutes.

2. Plug in the flash drive and open a terminal. Type:

$ mount (In order to know the device name of your flash drive).

There should be an entry similar to this one:


/dev/sdc1 on /media/Kingston DataTraveler G2: 4.0 GB Filesystem type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush)

Here is important to remember /dev/sdc (your device name can be different like for example /dev/sdb) Just make sure that the name belongs to the usb you want to copy the live image to. Otherwise you risk losing important data.

3. Once the download is finished. Copy the image to the usb flash drive. In order to do that open a terminal and type:

$  dd if=debian-live-6.0.0-i386-gnome-desktop.img of=/dev/sdc (Remember to replace sdc with the actual name of your device.)

4. Wait for it to finish. (It might take a while)

5. It is time to make a new partition to use the space left on the flash drive to save changes. Then type:

$ sudo gparted

gparted interface looks like this:

6. Select the device from the drop down menu. Remember in this tutorial it is /dev/sdc

You must unmount the device. So first right click on it and select unmount.

7. Right click on the device and select new. A new window opens.

8. Complete:

-Primary partition

-ext2

-label: live-rw

Select Add and then apply changes. Unplug. Now you can boot from the usb flash drive using persistence.

9. In order to use persistence you have to boot a machine from the usb. You must first ensure that your bios is capable of booting from usb. Enter the bios and check that.

First thing you will be presented with the splash screen:

10. Press ESC to see the boot prompt and type "live persistent" (Without quotes)

You are done. You can now use the system as you like and all the changes that you make will be saved in the partition you've created.

Only one thing left to say: ENJOY!!!!