Pan Admun Republic of Western Blog

From "My tagged link dump":

• HEYU - A text-based console program for remotely controlling lights and appliances in the home or office with X10
• Linux Home Automation
• NBC/NXC - LEGO's NXT programming toolkit
• zxing

From "My tagged link dump":

• The “uplifting” Canadian auto business (Alec Saunders) - It's make no sense we Canadian have to pay more for the same stuff...
• Why Verizon Went Open & What It Means (GigaOM) - I am wondering who else is opening up next.... I don't really want CDMA on my cellphone, even I work on the technology.

When I first start my blog back in 2003, two of the final candidates were NucleusCMS and Wordpress. At the time, Wordpress is still pre-1.0 and by looking at their feature list I decided NucleusCMS is more fun to play with.

Not that this is important...

Later, I re-visited my previous decision when Wordpress rapidly advances and gains popularity while Movable Type pisses off its users and caused a mass exodus. At that time, Wordpress has grow into something interesting as there is a huge community surrounding it. But I decided to stay with NucleusCMS because:
- NucleusCMS seem has better performance as my own benchmark shows.
- There are already a big developer community when compare to NucleusCMS, . It's crowded, IMHO. In NucleusCMS, I can make contributions on many fronts.
- I do not like certain aspect of how the project is being run.
- I like the skin/template system in NucleusCMS over theme in Wordpress. My main reason is: It is wrong to see PHP code in your theme.

I guess my instinct was not just from my bias over NucleusCMS, after all. PHP code in theme/skin/template is a security risk...

Yes, a skin can included links that is potentially harmful. But there is no code actually executed on my server, and browser has protection to malicious code if there is any XSS present. The same cannot be said for Wordpress theme as the example show.

In addition, I do not think a certified "marketplace" for theme is the answer to theme policing. A properly designed theme system is needed.

Are Hackers Exploiting WordPress Themes? - GigaOM

One of the reasons I upgrade my home LAN to 1Gbps is to gain higher throughput for access to NAS. My dad and brother have been using external HDD for backup and file transfer in the past, there's been close-call that HDD was corrupted and near data lost. Also, it's inconvenient to move files around with the external HDD. The NAS provides a centralize and reliable data storage for backup (w/ True Image), personal data storage/sharing (via CIFS and FTP), and media streaming via UPnP.

As we move our data to the network, 100Mbps ethernet is unable to catch up. A test show that write over network top at ~1MB/s, sending 1GB of data takes over 16 minutes. In addition, a 1000Gbps switch is relatively cheap ($65.99) these days. Onto the storage, each of 3 PCs on the network has about 300GB HDD installed. Therefore, NAS requires over 1TB of storage. This mean a typical BYOD RAID0/1 NAS is not sufficient as 1TB size HDD is still very expensive. Furthermore, SOHO-grade RAID5 NAS is also too expensive (i.e. Synology CS-407 costs over $600 w/o disks). After some search around on Fry's, I settled on a DYI system with a Abit AN-M2 m/b, socket AM2 Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPU, and 1GB DDR2 RAM. It costs ~$170 without disks. Then I added 4xSATA2 HDD (for storage), 1xPATA HDD (for system), and a CDROM drive to the system.

This NAS is setup using FreeNAS. A friend of my setup a NAS earlier with this BSD based software and seem work quite well, so I decided to give it a try. I was a bit surprise by the problems I run into with the latest 0.686b "beta" version. It just failed to install on to the 10GB PATA HDD, period. After many failure attempts, I finally manage to install a older version 0.684b..... Then I found the on-board 1Gbps ethernet adaptor is not supported, I solved the problem by install a Trendnet NIC that works.

After setting up RAID5, mount point, CIFS, FTP, and UPnP on the NAS, the system is finally up and running. I put the system in the garage as our server room for 24/7 operation. Then a CAT5 cable is laid to my dad's room as the wiring closet, where the rest of DSL modem, wireless DSL router, and 1Gbps switch are located.



Stay tuned for part 2, we will look at some numbers.

Just finished some upgrade to my home network in San Francisco. Netgear GS608 is the latest addition to bring 1000Mbps ethernet to the LAN.

More about the NAS, MCE later.

From "My tagged link dump":

• Analyst: Google making its own 10GbE switches
  - I always curiuos who's Google network gears suppliers.
• Google Planning To Bid In 700Mhz Auction - And they will likely shell out billions without partners... - dslreports.com
  - If this really happen, and Google get a chunk of 700Mhz, it will be fun to watch how it turns out.
• 電槍慘劇 (哲子戲)
  - This sort of things happen often here, ppl got shoot dead (by gun), and etc.... where is the balance between safety and protection?
• plusplusbot - A brownie points service taps into Twitter, you can express how you feel with ++ or --

More update on my Fedora experience
- Miro didn't work, it failed to play video.... see this bug
- bluetooth bug seem like a kernel problem impacting other TP laptop, a work around fixed it for now.
- gdesklets weather widget seem to rollover to next day now. not... I think I dream about it.
- suspend to ram and hibrnate works. But I think it will not work if I installed ATI driver for X...
- mugshot is very buggy, crashed often
- power usage improvement npoticed, laptop life about ~ 2 hours 15 min on normal usage (compared to ~2 hours)

From "My tagged link dump":

• Timbuk2 Bags - A popular messenger bag menufactor in San Francisco
• Kata - Manufacturer of camera bags, and body armor....

I was reading Mark Evans talking about why del.icio.us can be the next Google.

I have been using del.icio.us indirectly for a while now, mostly as a bookmarks service. I have NucleusCMS blogroll deposits all my links to it to facilitate sharing.

I agreed that del.icio.us indeed has great potential, but it need to come out of coma to be the next great Internet icon.

A re-ramp, if it happens, I would like to see a few things happened.
- a more exciting API to interact w/ the service, maybe with OpenSocial support.
- a "Do you mean this?" function, which suggest to user better tag to use. I believed one of the problems with tags is that there is hard to have the same tag semantic across the board to improve the accurate of a tag.
- a tag/link search on-line or via API.
- a mini-feed feature like in Facebook kinda already done by "your network".

Do you scare of a paper cops?

From "My tagged link dump":

• 旅遊文明行為指南 (moliuOLOGY)
• 普通話不等於中文 (刁民公園)
• 正字遊戲

From "My tagged link dump":

• RSCODE - an implementation of a Reed-Solomon error correction algorithm.
• Open Source QR Code Library - A open source QR code library
• 2D BARCODE ENCODING/DECODING SOFTWARE: QR CODE
• J2MEQRCode - A J2ME QR code reader
• Mugshot - A on-line desktop service to allow users to share contents from various popular on-line services

It's been 3 days since I installed the new Fedora 8 on my T60. This new incarnation came with impressive set of features.

Like previous experience, there are always some rough edges with a new Fedora.

- The default 10pt fonts a bit too big for T60's 1400x1200 screen.
- Even with a new and improved version of NetworkManager, it is not yet fully integrated with the rest of the system (which will be a feature for F9). I have to manually install pam_keyring and make some file change to allow login with networking on without enter keyring access key see here.
- Codec buddy is really irrelevant to me.... It often come with no suggestion for me when I try a propitiatory format . livna gets the job done in a better way.
- Pulseaudio is still very beta.... I found that PCM and Master volume level are somehow messed up. Skype is broken (fortunately there is a work around)
- Bluetooth is not working... [update] bug report is opened

From "My tagged link dump":

• open80211s - A consortium of companies sponsoring/collaborating to create an implementation of IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh standard

From "My tagged link dump":

• gOS - A Ubuntu based Linux distribution for a $199 PC sale by Wal-mart

From "My tagged link dump":

• maemo - A application development platform for Internet Tablets (Nokia N series) based on Gtk+/GNOME

From "My tagged link dump":

• Mini koobox - A small form factor Linux based mini PC like mac mini
• Itty-bitty, teeny-weeny Linux PCs - A overview of linux small form factor PC
• decTOP - A tiny computer with 128MB RAM and 10GB HDD

From "My tagged link dump":

• Zingku - A social netowrk service running on cellphone via SMS