Hawk's Realm » Blog

Updated software

Hawk — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:48:53 +0000

I’ve just updated my WordPress plugins and Exifer PHP module. CAPTCHA plugin now works properly with WordPress 2.9.x and Exif plugin now allows more complex templates with option to override Exif info. No real changes were made in Exifer PHP module, just lens/model databases were updated.

Linux replaced with Windows

Hawk — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:27:41 +0000

I’ve recently decided to remove Linux from my laptop. Everything started with kernel 2.6.30.5 two months ago because it broke support for 3D accelerated graphics on Intel based video cards. Bad things happen from time to time on all systems but fixes are usually released very quickly – not in this case. Problem still wasn’t officially fixed and I doubt it will be addressed at all. There was of course workaround: you could get it running by using recent enough version of kernel + video driver and dropping support for older Intel video cards. Thats fine for single user, but not for entire distribution (PLD Titanium in this case). Its a pity that users in these days have less and less choice. “You want to use 3D graphics? No problem, just get newest kernel and cutting edge software for it. What you say? It won’t be stable? Your one year old card will not work? Who cares! Get new video card or use old, buggy and unsecure software and stop complaining!”.

Thats pretty much how situation in Linux looks right now. Of course it is generalisation and an exaggeration of single problem. If you have enough knowledge and time you can work it out. But who has time in these days to play with things instead of just using them? Most of us want tools that are ready for use without doing anything. For home use I may spent one or more days on backporting security fixes to older software or simply keep using it “as is”. In work I just don’t have time for such things and can’t ignore bugs or security flaws.

So to keep things short: I’ve installed Windows 7 on my laptop and I’m quite happy with it. Its noticeably faster than XP and completly outperforms Vista (I mean default system configuration without any tweaks). You also don’t need to do all those things you had to do to make Vista usable. Its all preconfigured and ready for use. No need to care about drivers for your hardware too. If Windows doesn’t have them it will download them and install for you. As an administrator you have full control over almost every system feature and how it will work (however I’m using Ultimate edition so don’t know how it looks in lower editions). The only drawback I’ve found is Start Menu. I really hate its fixed size. With lots of applications installed its pretty much unusable when using mouse to navigate. You either need to use keyboard and search form or keep clicking with your mouse and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling… Too bad they removed classic Start Menu, but this issue can be fixed in seconds with free third party software. I hope that regular Windows 7 Start Menu will allow much more intense customization in the future.

How about support? Known bugs are being fixed quite quickly… and thats all. Its to early to write anything more given the fact that Windows 7 was officially released on October 22nd 2009. Overall impression is however very good. Seems like perfect system for desktop use. If Microsoft will keep listening to their users then forget about Ubuntu or other “user friendly” Linux distributions. Windows 7 will simply beat them to the ground as desktop system.

P.S. To be honest – I kept my PLD Linux on 30GB partition for developement and testing purposes I also still have it on my desktop computer as primary system.

VServer templates updated

Hawk — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:11:12 +0000

I’ve just uploaded new versions of VServer templates. Following things were changed:

All systems have been upgraded with latest available updates.
All services that are not required inside VServer guest have been disabled in all systems. This resolves problems with Debian and Ubuntu guests.
Fedora 10 have been upgraded to Fedora 11.
In Ubuntu guests upstart have been replaced with good old sysvinit. In Fedora there is no sysvinit anymore so you need to deal with upstart (whole one command to get it working).
PLD Linux templates were added with PLD 2.0 (Ac), PLD 3.0 (Th) and PLD Titanium (my unofficial fork of this distribution).

Download

VServer templates

Hawk — Sat, 02 May 2009 21:54:46 +0000

For all those folks out there using Linux VServer – I’ve prepared templates with some popular Linux distributions. Creating VServer from template is much faster and will work on any VServer enabled system. They may also be used as regular chroots.

All templates contain just very base system so don’t expect any software there. You will have to install what you need and fully configure your VServer guest or chroot. It is not recommended to use these templates to install standalone systems. It is possible but requires knowledge of what is not required in VServer guest (thus missing from templates), but is required to properly boot standalone system.

Currently available distributions are: Centos 5.x, Fedora 10, Debian 5.0 (Lenny), Debian Unstable (Sid), Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron), Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope).

I’ll add templates with three versions of PLD Linux soon and then try to prepare more templates (Gentoo, Arch, OpenSuse) but can’t promise anything. All systems are available in i386/i686 and x86_64 versions.

Download

Exifer 20090326

Hawk — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:41:18 +0000

Exifer has been updated again. I’ve added lens identification for Pentax DSLRs. Don’t expect any new releases soon Exceptions will be made for bugfixes only.

Exifer 20090325

Hawk — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:54:51 +0000

I’ve just released new Exifer. See changelog for list of fixes and enhancements.

Wordpress plugins

Hawk — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:27:50 +0000

I’ve noticed that my CAPTCHA plugin for Wordpress stopped working It was probably dead since last Wordpress upgrade and this means quite long period. Doh. Its fixed now so if you tried to comment some posts and it didn’t worked, try again Fixed version of plugin is of course available for download in “My stuff” section. I’ve also added plugin used by my photoblog which displays images along with their EXIF information.

My version of Exifer

Hawk — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:33:02 +0000

If you own Sony or Canon DSLR and would like to have lens identification in your web gallery or photoblog please check my version of Exifer PHP library. Any comments or bug reports are welcome.

Photoblog

Hawk — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:12:22 +0000

As some of you probably know (or noticed) I already have photo gallery. I’m using it to publish what I think are my best photos. As you may see there aren’t many of them As I don’t want to fill up that gallery with dozens and dozens of average or poor photos I decided to create photoblog.

So here it is. Just navigate to it through menu. I’ll be posting various kinds of my photo materials there that would otherwise remain unpublished.

Speed adventures

Hawk — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:30:44 +0000

On saturday I was driving a bit too fast on my way to work. Its nothing unusual. I’m always trying to sleep as long as I can… and a bit longer Because of that I usually go out a bit late. This time my car had a little jump at speed of about 80 km/h. Nothing serious, but hey, its 11 years old. I heard a very loud bang on front right side when car was landing.

At first I thought that tyre exploded so I stopped immediately to take a look. Well, there was no visible damage so I tried to continue driving. Everything looked fined except there was a horrible rumble when speed was over 20 km/h. Fortunately I had only 5 km to mechanic so I slowly got there and left car in hope they’ll repair it before I’ll end work. And so they did – after replacing front coil springs along with shock absorbers everything works fine again.

Moral: sleep more and slow down before bumps to avoid 5 km walks in the morning