Rusty Wallace for President

We need someone to run for President that is not John Kerry and not George Bush. We need someone to run for President that has actaully felt the effects of the poor economy. I really don't think Bush and Kerry feel any effects of the economy. When I say economy I mean the economy in families homes not the economy that corporations live in.

We need someone with recognition that wasn't born into where they are. Rusty would be a great choice for 2008. He is retiring after 2005 so he will have some time.

Software Renaissance

I keep reading these articles about software revolutions that are happening because of OpenSource and other things of that nature. After reading many of these articles I have determined that software isn't going through a revolution. It is going through a Renaissance. It is very similar the the Artistic Renaissance in that people were not learning how to paint a picture or make a sculpture instead they were redefining the way they did it and the what their final producted looked like.

This is really the same with software. Nothing new is actually happening in software. People are still writing code and it is still being run by the computer. What is changing is how a programmer looks at it, creates it, designs it and what the finished product looks like.

Renaissance is also defined by "revival of learning" which falls right into the lap of the OpenSource community. This is becuase the OpenSource community is about sharing knowledge and learning from others.

Voting for Hawaii and Alaska

I have been thinking about the issues that Hawaii has with their votes not counting. If Florida can vote for 2 weeks I think Hawaii should vote the day before the actual election. Their votes would then be available for the rest of the US.

I also think that exit polls should be banned until a certain time of day. If they keep exit polls they should get rid of electoral votes. This way the elections would be a lot more fun.

Kasey Kahne

Kasey has been running really good ever since he started in the Nextel Cup. He hasn't had any wins yet. He runs into different issues keeping him out of victory lane. I really think that once Kahne gets into victory lane it will be very very hard to keep him out.

Handle change

I have been pondering changing my handle to ROAR. I used to have a weekly meeting in which at the end of the meeting I would present my ROAR for the week. This is pretty similar to what I do in my Blog. It is just my ramblings.

Selling Cars online

I have been trying to sell my 1990 Dodge Shadow and 1985 Dodge Ram online for a little while now. I really haven't found a good free online "Classifieds" site to post these on. I have put them on some sites but those sites haven't been accessed in somecases months and others years. This is really frusterating. I will keep on trying to sell them. Maybe I will put them in the side links part of my blog to possible get a couple more people looking at them.

Does anyone know of any good places to do this?

Tivo and Old School Games

I have been thinking about my "Old School Games" post for a while and I have a better idea than the "iTunes" style solution. What would be the coolest thing to happen is if Tivo would provide this solution. This way you can use your set top Tivo solution to play the games. You could buy a controller from http://www.sealiecomputing.com/ and plug it directly into your Tivo. You could then start playing some cool old school games. It wouldn't take to long to send down ROMs of the games either.

Gatorade Gestapo

Has anyone else noticed the rapid decline of PowerAde and other sports drinks from you local gas stations? This is Gatorade's doing. They have sent their reps into each of these stores and demanded them to remove all other competing products from their shelves.

Isn't there laws against this? This sounds like a Gestapo if I have ever heard of one.

What do you think?

DVR "Tivo"

I got a Tivo for my birthday and that thing rocks. It smokes the competition. I have some friends who have DishNetworks PVR and it doesn't even compare to my Tivo. I can do season pass and some other cool features that they wish they had.

Having a Tivo makes me want to setup a MythTV box. I want to set it up to do TV stuff and be able to burn shows to DVD. I also want to setup a NES Emulator so I can play the games I have through newer technology instead of hoping the cartridges still work.

No Blogs for a while

It has been a while since I last blogged and I have good reason. Everytime I went to post a blog it failed. So now I have some backlogged blogs that I am going to post here shortly.


Update:

Well I guess my failed updates some actually made it so now I need to clean them up.

Old School Games (NES, Atari, Sega)

I think that the game makers need to embrace the ROM market. I think that if a game company like Atari or Capcom came out with a solution similar to iTunes that a person can go out and purchase a ROM for an older game and then be able to play it. This would rock. I think this market would be pretty big. I think the retro controller market would enjoy this also.

I was having issues with my blog so I ended up posting three versions of the same post. I have consolidated them here but left them in their entirety for reference sake.


Post 2:
I think it would be really cool if old school game makers created a solution similar to iTunes to sell and run older games (ROMS). Games like Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, etc would actually be big. People could get to run the games that they used to play.

I thaught of this because of this site and this article.



Post 3:
I think that companies that made video games from 5+years ago should embrace ROM and Emulators. Instead of following the entire path that the music industry took with MP3s these companies should look at the end result. These companies like Atari, Capcom, and many others should try a service like iTunes to sell games and make money on games they created 10 years ago.

Here is a cool site with retro controllers.

Fiberglass work

Recently I have been interested it doing fiberglass for different purposes. I have found a website that might be of interest so I am putting it up here on my blog. http://www.fibreglast.com another cool car site is: www.megasquirt.info This site shows how to make your own fuel injection system. I also want to try this out. Time to go to Radio Shack.

Adding a Hard Disk in Linux

If you are trying to add a HD to Linux for additional storage here are some simple steps to get it going. This example will be for hdb (a second ide hard drive)

run:
>fdisk /dev/hdb
>p
Delete any existing partitiona if you so desire by using "d" and selecting the partition number.
Now to create a new primary partition. We will use number one for the partition number:
>n
>p
>1
Use the defaults to get the max size of the disk unless you want more partitions.
>w
Now your partition has been created. Now to format it:
>mkfs -v -t ext2 /dev/hdb1
Now turn on journalling:
>tune2fs -j -i 365 /dev/hdb1
Now create a directory where you want your new partition to be mounted like this:
>mkdir /MoreSpace
Then edit your /etc/fstab file and add the following (without the quotes):
"/dev/hdb1 /MoreSpace ext3 defaults 0 0"
Now reboot and you will have more space.

VMWare User Group in Grand Rapids

I am thinking about starting a Grand Rapids area VMWare Users Group. I am going to try and go to the Kalamazoo LUG meeting soon and see if there is some interest there and possibly doing a "West Michigan VMware Users Group" that we could schedule one meeting in GR and the next in Kalamazoo, etc.

My Todo List

I need to create a quick little todo manager for my different applications that I write and/or work on. Right now I have another todo that I need to add to an application called Vispan. So I am going to use this post as a temp todo list manager.

Vispan:
Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly break outs of information.
Whitelisted consolidation.

Sprint-PCS tool:
Bug fixes. I need to fix this one up.

MailScanner:
Antiphishing support. try and tie into http://www.antiphishing.org.

Fedora Games:
Work on an initial CD for Fedora Core 3. Hopefully I can put something out when FC3 comes out and possibly get some help from other developers.
I would also like to try and connect it with http://www.happypenguin.org and possibly get other distros supported.

Awesome Gnome Book

I have been playing around with Gnome and writing some applications for it and I always found the documentation out there to be kind of hard to take in as a newbie to the Gnome ways of development. I have been on the lookout for a good introduction type book or document. And today one was published on the web. http://www.gnome.org/~newren/tutorials/developing-with-gnome/ This tutorial rocks!! It answers so many questions I had about different things that I feel I should pay for it. Maybe it is time I donate to the GnomeFriends foundation. This blogger gives this document two thumbs up...

Going to the races

Tomorrow morning I will be on the road to Michigan International Speedway to watch the NASCAR race there. It should be pretty fun. I have been there to watch Indy racing which is pretty fun but this should top that. Hopefully Ryan Newman will pull out another win at Michigan.

A feature I want in Gnome

There is a feature that I want to be in gnome. I think it needs to be at the GTK level but I have no clue. I started to look into it but I don't know what to call it. The feature I want is something you can do in MS Windows. If you have a window open that has a list you can select a file (or directory or any value in the list) and start typing the one you want. The list will then refocus to the location. Example: I have a list of 500 directories. I know there is a directory in there call "orange" so I click the first directory named "apple" and I start typing "ora" now the list has refocused on orange I hit enter and use this value.

usbautocam for Linux

I found this link a while ago and I think other people might like it. http://warmcat.com/usbautocam/ It sets up Linux to accept all sorts of USB storage tools like cameras, MP3 players, etc.

This would be something that I would like to see in Fedora Core in one shape or another. Maybe setup a GUI tool that does this when a new USB device is added then configure it the first time. Then after that it would already know what to do with it.

FlightGear 0.9.5 for Fedora Core 2

www.fedora.us has put up prebuild rpms for Fedora Core 2 of FlightGear. I am still trying to get all the things figured out with the addon CDs for Fedora Core. Once that gets done I can start building a CD. Otherwise I will be looking at playing with InstallBase to get that to install packages.

What do you think would be better. A GUI installer for each games or a CD that would install any/all the games via a check list.

Joe

Scalix 9.0, MS Exchange 2003, Novell Groupwise 6.5

We have currently been testing 3 email solutions to replace our MS Exchange 5.5 solution. No new requirements have been added over what MS Exchange 5.5. We have setup each solution. Let me rephrase that we got Novell Groupwise 6.5 and Scalix 9.0 setup completely. MS Exchange is really kicking our butts. We have three 2003 servers installed. A PDC, main Exchange Server and an Outlook Web Access Server. After following the instructions to a "T" Outlook Web Access doesn't work. I have started search this issue but it seems no one else has had this issue. When we attempt to contact our MS reps they spend their time bashing the other solutions and trying to sell us Portal Server.

Scalix has shown to be awesome. It took less that 4 hours to install and configure it. It doesn't require anything really special for Antivirus and Backup software.

Groupwise is really good too. It wasn't as easy to install as Scalix but it has a lot of functionality that would be cool. It has messanging and document management. But these features aren't required for our solution.

Scalix is running

I got Scalix running on a test system for our email evaluation. It looks pretty cool. I had one issue with Tomcat 5 and Xerces that was fixed by running Tomcat 4.

Looking at new email solutions.

I am currently working on a project to evaluate replacing our old email solution. We are currently looking at 4 products. MS Exchange 2003, Novell GroupWise 6.5, Novell SuSE Linux OpenExchange 4.1, and Scalix OpenMail. Right now I am really liking Groupwise but from what I have seen with Scalix this might be the solution to get.

Ryan Newman pulls out a 13th finish

After having a really bad day Ryan worked his way back from 2 laps down to post a 13th place finish. With this he was able to move into 8th place in the overall standings which keeps him away from being replaced by someone from 11-15 in points.

VMWare ESX 2.1 rocks

I have been using VMWare products for a while. Starting with VMWare workstation then moving up to GSX server and now to ESX server. I have to say if you are looking at purchasing VMWare GSX go and get ESX. It is so much easier to manage. Everything is in one interface rather than setting some stuff up on the OS and some in the software. I need to talk management into Virtual Center now!!

The Software Industry should be like the Pharmaceutical Industry

I think the Software industry should be run the same as the Pharmaceutical industry in that It can patent software and technologies but the patent is only good for 5 years. After that 5 years the software/technology should become public domain (preferable with the source). This would give the software developer time to sell their product but it help people who stay on older systems get fixes for software that they are using. After 5 years the technology has changed so much and most software vendors stop supporting the product at this time. This would force companies to innovate any chance they get to make a better product that will sell better and be better than the one before it.

Linux Adoption

Linux is great I use it everyday for pretty much everything. The one issue that I can see that keeps it from taking over is people don't realize how it can be used. I priced out MS WindowsXP and MS Office. To get almost what you get with standard fedora and it costs nearly $800. I don't understand why people waste their money. If these people start using Linux that they can buy or download for a fraction of the price or most times free, then the applications they like to use will show up in full force. Just look at RealPlayer and other things like that. The applications that don't move over soon will be replaced by OSS versions of what they try to sell.

Does anyone read these?

I am just curious if anyone actually reads these? Or is this just me talking into a black hole? If you come across this drop a comment.

Thanks

Dell SAN With RHAS

I think I have found something to go with on the SAN issues I am having. After talking to Jeff from Dell tech support I found some information at: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kb/en/document?dn=1045368&c=us&l=en&s=slg&cs=RC957164 which talks about the LUNs being masked on the Raid controller on the SAN device. Now I need to find out how to turn it off.

Next Version of FlightGear

I have been watching the FlightGear Mailling list lately and alot of new stuff has been tested and put into FlightGear. I am really excited. I am tossing around the idea in my head to create a website called "Fedora Games" This would be an addon for the standard Fedora Core. It would contain a large amount of games prebuilt and ready to install from the CD.

Dell's Linux Support

I have gotten an official response to my request for help connecting a Dell 1750 with RedHat AS 3.0 (with support for the next three years) to a Dell 660 SAN. In which I was given this response:

Thank you for contacting Dell E-support Services. Currently we only support the Precision Workstation and PowerEdge Server systems. For questions pertaining to your San please contact Storage Support at 800-822-8965. They will be happy to assist you on your issue and are available to take your call 24 hours a day.

Now I am going to look at RedHat's support to see if they can help me.

Ryan in on the Pole in NH.

Ryan Newman got the pole for this weekend. Hopefully he can turn this into a win. He needs to get some more points and move up in the top 10. Go Mopar!

UPDATE:
Ryan ended up in 3rd place. I was really hoping for the win but he is only a handful of points out of 9nth.

Mailling lists and Forum's

Sometimes I wonder if the questions I post to forums and mailling lists are too hard. Or I am trying to do something no one else has ever done/tried. I have postings out on forums over 2 years old that don't even have a response. When I post out to mailling lists it seems every one on the list ignores it. I sent out 3 emails to Dell's Linux PowerEdge mailling list and I still have not gotten one response. I really hope Matt or someone else on the list has some sort of solution.

Setting Up Linux on a SAN

I have now found that the SAN is being loaded but I am having issues addressing the LUNs that are available on it. I have started banging around with a command:

echo "scsi add-single-device 0 0 0 1" > /proc/scsi/scsi

Which doesn't seem to want to work. On a side note it seems that the dkms module aacraid doesn't upgrade when using the "dkms match -k 2.4.21-15.0.3.ELsmp --templatekernel=2.4.21-4.ELsmp" command. I am going to post that to the Dell Mailling list also see if there is anything that I can do about this.

RHAS 3.0 on a Dell SAN

Setting up RedHat AS 3.0 on a Dell SAN. I am having troubles finding information on how to set this up. I have posted to the Dell Linux mailling list but I am now in limbo waiting on a reply.

I did find some cool stuff out about Dell's DKMS Linux Kernel module. It will update any drivers that you install using DKMS at once. Using the command:

dkms match -k 2.4.21-15.0.3.ELsmp --templatekernel=2.4.21-4.ELsmp

But I still can not see the LUNs on the SAN.

First One

I new I should have created a blog a while ago but now I am doing it and hopefully getting things done.

Joe