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Friday, March 31, 2006

awesome wiki

i was pretty surprised to read http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/HOWTO
wiki on installing non-macOS on mac mini already?

there are some downside to this web2.0 stuffs, for example if i was to accidentally lose 50page worth blog or email before clicking submit/send button.

but, it grows much better than weeds, just awesome.

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five fingers and five toes

this is last note from mac mini core duo before the surgery.

counted and see that it works fine for past 3+weeks, so i give blessing to get dual boot with fedora core.

ironically, but not surprisingly, it was my sister's birthday yesterday.

many events to celebrate. ^^

so, dr. frankensteine is at work and we'll see what happens to mac mini.

with 2gig memory and 100gig disk space, it should handle the dual installation without any problem, is the assumption.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

should search music share blog

annual big event, my sister's birthday, is coming up soon.
would make a silly april fools or painful tax filing deadline forgetful, heh.

can't get her a home baked cakes but, i did think hard & long to get her something she might find useful.

afterward, as I'm listening to some manhattan jazz & 80s' music, in particular AHA's "Take On Me" i wish i could send her these for her birthday as well. but then again, i'll spend forever at mailroom, huhu.

maybe there's some music share site w/ privacy i can get both of us signed up to share music. with all these legal issues against music download sites from music industry, one can never be careful. but, i will have to make time to investigate, so i wouldn't have to worry about mailmen breaking cd i compile. ^^

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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

sony vaio x505, ready for trips

when i got it 2 christmas ago, vaio x505 came with winXP and since then, it's been home to fedora core 3, soon to be upgraded to newly released fedora core 5.

for the longest time, through my lazyness and ignorance, the thin laptop wasn't able to play any video clips, which frustrated me to take it to daily commutes from sf to south bay, nor to long flights across continent to some conferences.

last week, i finally put my foot down, and spent some time, trial & erro method with reading up articles online.

after a few attempts, i became more familiar with reading for audio devices from /dev, or from lsmod, and what audio card came with vaio as pcmcia. i've also tried creating the audio user & group, most likely in redundancy, and downloaded a few tools including alsa-mixer, tried to recompile audio kernel modules for latest kernel installed on the laptop.

recompiling or creating user/group were not necessary, and lsmod/dmesg and reading through log indicates that device is located properly. some gnome problem to get the sound volume control, or any audio/video tools to open up got fixed. everything seem fine, and i can open mplayer for video output, but no sound.

i've tried to launch alsa-mixer as was mentioned on some online articles, to no avail.

finally i ran into http://www.csanyi.net/wiki/space/x505+linux+install today, and it just was matter of turning on or off external amplifier or headphone using checkbox. hehe.

now i'm set for daily commutes & long drive/flights.

still left homeworks are AVI conversion to MPEG and DVD burning on mac.

and, setting up mac mini for the best usage.

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Friday, March 17, 2006

how to be good

happy st. patrick's day.
today there are quiet a lot of people acting real bizzare, maybe for st. patrick's day on friday.

first there was a guy in green suit w/ beer glass before noon, and then that weird couple in bus on the way to downtown. followed by that guy at borders who buys a magazine then tearing it at border's cafe and alerting the staff there.

the streets are full of drunk people, worse than normal friday afternoon. maybe it's clear sky after the long rain, or maybe it's friday, maybe ...

well, that's san francisco, i guess.

lately tho, i've been wondering.......
at virgin's, at border's, nick hornby's books, including "how to be good" stares at me.

because there's no pure evil and no pure saint, maybe. from a non-fiction i'm reading on catholic priests' scandal on child abuse, i've been outraged by some of complaints these priests and their protectors make: that the kids couldn't have suffered much and that prosecution they are facing for such a small deeds is too harsh. how conveniently self justifying.

when i was first introduced to nick hornby's literary works, at first through 'high fiedelity', then with 'about a boy', it was difficult pill to swallow. perhaps i didn't live long enough, perhaps i didn't understand the world as well. it was sort of confusing to read 'how to be good', with a wife with kids and successful career having an affair with someone she doesn't even love. hornby spends most of the book narrating transformation her and her husband go through, in much similar way i saw dawson's parents do in that tv series called "dawson's creek." perhaps grown-ups are as much confused and may be in need of guidance as much as teenagers. that in my immature mind, i didn't really understand. more conservative and narrow minded, hornby's narration at often times through out much of his published works seem mere excuse of what's lacking in one's character.

maybe so, or maybe not. his yet new book is published, thus bringing light to his older works, and i'm reminded of these three books.
my adequacy, my maturity in handling or perceiving things do make me wonder about what i thought obvious to be shakey.

am i like those sinners casting stones in a typical jesus' story?

i don't want to learn the lessons hard way. but, would i be one of the lucky ones? and, not having to face life challenges make me lucky? it's sorta confusing.

what is good? and how to be good?

oh well, maybe i'm drunk on st. patrick's day without drinking.

sorta sentimental lately, sentimental w/ chet baker's "funny valentine" ringing on back of my mind.

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Thursday, March 09, 2006

adopting baby mac mini from china


far from holidays yet, and not quiet my birthday, I'm getting a gift! ^^

i remember at some time back in 90s i couldn't stop hear about adopting a chinese girl. that i've not heard in a while. but, i've been notified that mac mini duo w/ memory & harddisk upgrade is shipped from CN on fedex tracking.

wireless keyboard & mouse already arrived when i came home from work yesterday.

maybe i'll see my baby early next week?

its having new intel architecture, there certainly wasn't hardly any discount to take advantage of, and i'm warned of many application software to not work properly.
i see many articles about installing windows or linux or freebsd on mac mini, away from its tiger mac os.
haven't yet decided. most likely to replace my current desktop of debian, and possibly evolutionize into next step of fedora core 4 or ever so popular ubuntoo?
or just stick to good old mac as is. or be fancy and have dual boot?

anyways, i can't wait to see baby mac arriving on american soil, and come home to me~~

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Wednesday, March 08, 2006

galaxy express 999 to planet CCRMA

my vaio x-55 came w/ pre-loaded win xp that got scraped in favour of fedora core 3.
well, considering funding source for the laptop, i got no saying in what os gets installed.

most of the time, except like when i can't find tax software or when i can't seem to play vod from korean sites, i'm pretty content with my fedora core box. a few things not working that used to work, one is audio device and the other is ssh login to company's wifi. gotta play with atheros drive for wifi, but since it works everywhere else, oh well...

since i have about 45 min one way, total of an hour and half minimum to kill on commute daily, and since i see enough of netflix & other media customers watching some tv series or movies on laptop, or on video ipod on shuttle, i'm interested in figuring out my vaio to once again speak & sing.
linux is great in many ways, yet it's not quiet windows when it comes to pre-loaded settings, where system detects and pre-configures sound stuff. i'm keep getting that there's device detection problem. when i type in 'lsmod' i see /dev/snd just fine, and i've tweaked some /etc/ files and added audio group. and ran redhat's package update util, and it seems rpms on my laptop are all up to date. so with some web surfing i encountered 'planet CCRMA'. like 'planet linux' or 'planet debian' or 'planet Hormes', heh. too late to be snooping and following steps on planet CCRMA just now. will have to give a try tomorrow evening. maybe i can enjoy some silly video on the way to work, and stop jumping off the bus still half asleep, in no time.