The Daet Excursion

I went to Daet, Camarines Norte since I was invited, for the second time, to talk about Free/Open Source Software. This time, there are participants hailing as far as Sorsogon. Well, I'll blog about the seminar later, but for now, I would just like to share my Daet Excursion.

After a 6 hour trip from Baguio via Victory Liner, I arrived at Cubao. Thank goodness the Superlines Terminal is just a minute's walk from Victory. Ok, I arrived at 7PM and I have to wait for 2 hours before I could get an airconditioned bus going to Daet, Camarines Norte. The wait was fun, boring... but fun. I've been listening to FM and chanced upon this station (forgot what it is, but it's like 10-something and a half!). The idiotic remarks and the good tunes kept me sane... That was the longest 2 hours of my life. Oh yeah, I met a pretty girl too... smart and funny.. didn't get her name and number though. I didn't ask, heh, I'm not interested anyway, besides small talk to pass the time away.

This is the bus I took, Bus No. 347. I wonder if DC Comics is aware that a bus company is using their character's logo(?).

After 8 hours, I arrived at the Daet Terminal. Geez, too hot... way too hot, even at 5AM. Nothing to do (again) but wait for another 2 hours before I take a tricycle to Lourdes College.

By 7AM, I arrived at Our Lady of Lourdes College Foundation. I didn't have a chance to take a few pictures the first time I was there, good thing I have a camera phone this time.

The entrace to the foundation is still undergoing renovation, but this is just the entrance. Below is the main building.

And this is the road going to the Gymnasium, but before you arrive there, you'll pass by the Kindergarten classroom and the Cafeteria. Trust me, this is a very huge property.

This is the view from the 3rd Floor, an awesome view, a magnificent scene.

And I'm not really sure what this is, but I asked and was told that this is used by marine technogist, or those taking a marine course. It's very intriguing....

This is the 2nd Floor Balcony.

And a wide unused space to the right of the main building. I'm guessing they'll erect another building here once the students need it.

And this is the view from the back, in a few months time, we'll see a Computer Studies building here.

Oh, and let's not forget the High School Building.

This is the Computer Studies' Vision Mission Board. We'll fix that soon.

This is the day before the seminar. So in preparation for the D day, I removed Edubuntu (was installed a week previously by their technician) and installed Xubuntu.

This is Jhun, their technician... He was kind enough to help me install Xubuntu and we finished at around 9PM.

Satisfied, but not there yet. Good thing I brought an AptOnCD with MonoDevelop, Anjuta, Eclipse, Gambas, Inkscape, etc. etc. etc. By nightfall, we only completed half. Tired, but a very satisfying experience.

Ok, now I'm really tired. I badly need a bath 'coz I'm sweating like a pig... oink! oink! oink!

Ok, this is my hotel room. MegaStar Hotel, right beside Caltex.

And here's the view from my hotel's balcony.

So for the next two days, I've been talking, answering questions, and basically encouraging them to be part of the Ubuntu community. Also trained them on the use of OpenOffice.org, especially those little differences from MS Office.

And here's our group photo, unfortunately, not everyone decided to join us. For posterity's sake.... smile!

Blogged with Flock

$100 Thin-Client

Inquirer.net's news article
Blog post
Woopwoop page
Devon IT

The above are links to the project I'm interested at. I'm actually thinking of adopting this Thin-Client for knightlust.com, unfortunately, Devon IT's terminal needed $39 more. Woopwoop would only cost $100, no more no less, but you get what you paid for.. a crappy looking case. Oh, wait.. it's not a freaking casing! I think assembling one myself is the most viable option. Since my plan is manufacture hundreds of this, I need to look for a supplier that won't make my wallet scream.

Here's what I need:

• ITX Motherboard/CPU combo
• 800MHz to 1GHz
  
• Fanless
• SD and MMC ports
• at least 2 USB ports
• Can boot from USB, SD/MMC, and Network
• very small footprint
• to save space, there shouldn't be any Parallel or Serial ports

I think, with this setup, the system would run below 20W. I do need to test it though. I also hope the Mini-ITX.com offers a much cheaper systems, so I wouldn't have to rack my brains thinking about this.

Ok, this is nice. But the price! Damn!

Blogged with Flock

Job Offer

Just got a job offer and will be leaving in a month or two.. Care Home in
Sacramento, CA. Hey, no problem, I already have experience in elderly care
but I'm still looking for an IT job.. heh! Can't beat 'em all. Gotta prepare.
Too bad I won't be able to help out with Ubuntu for the next six months,
unless the care home has internet access. I'll also go buy a laptop (most
probably Dell) within a month of my stay there so I can still help out the
Kubuntu community.

Windows Marketplace: Ubuntu - Download the Free Version

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007062209235346

Blogged with Flock

Customized Homepage

Google's Customized Homepage, for me, is too sluggish and the plain old Google Search Page is, well, too plain. I decided to create my own page instead.

As you can see, I have there 4 search fields which I regularly use (I'm using Google for this) in the middle of the page, a tasks list on the left column and the Fridge RSS on the right. I also have Google Notebook, that way i can keep my notes without fear of losing them. On the right column, I also have Launchpad, Ubuntu/Kubuntu, KDE, and Xfce links which I regularly go to. And on the right, I have my internally hosted sites, those which I use for training. Below them, are a few more links like Google Services, links to webmails, KDE, Qt, and News links.

A friend commented on this... why not use Firefox's bookmarks? Well, if it's hidden, I tend to forget they're there. Besides, I've got literally thousands of links saved on my bookmarks. Even though they're organized, I don't think I'll easily find what I'm looking for. Especially those that I usually go to. Besides, having those links on the homepage itself isn't bad. One middle click and there it is, not to mention that I don't have to click on Bookmarks, then search for the link every time I have to open individual pages. For me, this is much more convenient.

Blogged with Flock

Authorware and Photoshop

Been playing with WINE and I tried installing a few more applications I used in Windows.

Here's my Adobe Photoshop 7.01

And here's my Macromedia Authorware 7

I know they're old versions but I won't spend money for a newer version that I'm not going to use anyway. Too bad I gave my Macromedia Flash MX to a friend, I wouldn't know if it'll installl on my system.

Also, I tried install Microsoft Visual C++ 6 and my dad's AutoCAD 2005 and AutoCAD Maps 2000 (?) but only Visual C++ 6 installed. Never got it to work though, but it installed.

Also tried installing Half-Life (the first one), Stronghold, Unreal Tournament, and Battle Realms. Sorry, can't get a screenshot, I either get an error if I used the game's internal screenshot tool and KSnapshot doesn't work.

Are you stil using Windows?

Blogged with Flock

Internet Explorer 6 on my Kubuntu

Finally, after a few months of contemplating whether I need Internet Explorer or not, I installed IEs4Linux. Since I've been doing a couple of XHTML work, I'll be needing IE. Even though it's not W3C compliant, I need to make sure that the pages I'm working on, well, works on IE too. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to convince my friends to switch to Linux (most of my pages are FOSS advocacy stuff). Besides, I need that for my Metrobank account (which I've been spamming.. urging them also test their page out with Firefox or other W3C compliant browsers).

Blogged with Flock

Installing Drupal on your locahost

Here's a guide on how to install Drupal. I used my (main) Kubuntu Desktop.

Make sure you have Apache2, MySQL5, and PHP5 installed before attempting to install Drupal. First, download the package here and extract them on your system.

Then copy the extracted files to your /var/www folder. Since my system is used for training purposes, I installed it on a different folder, /var/www/dax.

After that, create a schema and a user. Assign privileges and you're all set. In my case (again) I used MySQL Administrator, you can use also use PHPMyAdmin.

Now go ahead and try to surfing to the said directory. http://localhost/dax for my system.

Of course, we'll have some errors on the first try. Change permission and assign all groups (Owner, Group, and Others) to have Read/Write access to all the files. This might pose security risk but we need it.

Now try surfing to the Drupal installation page again.

Here's my setup. Database type is set to mysql, Database name is testing, and Database username is dax, and of course the password. This has been setup using MySQL Administrator (see above).

Click on the Advanced Options link to expand it. Database host is set to localhost, and Table prefix is set to dpl_. You may opt not to use a prefix, but if your database would use 2 or more CMS, then I suggest you use a prefix. We don't want other CMS overwriting tables used by Drupal.

Congratulations, it's all setup. Now we only need to remove Read/Write access to /sites/default/settings.php

This is the initial Home page. It's asking you to create an Administrator account. Do this right after setting up Drupal, if not, then anyone can just create an account and use your Drupal.

At first, Drupal would assign you a random password, go ahead and change it.

After this, go to your Administrator's page and check on the Status Report.

According to this page, I have 2 problems.

Fix the Cron Maintenance Tasks by clicking on run cron manually.

Fix the File System problem by changing the directory's permission to Read/Write. Do take note the at first, this directory is owned by www-data. You have to issue the Chown command to change it's ownership before you can change its permission.

Also make sure you create a tmp directory. This is where all uploaded files would initially stay.

Check the Status Report again to check for any errors or problems.

All set. Now create a page and promote it to front page. This is required to remove the setup instructions which poses, again, security risks.

Now you can configure your site.You can change the theme, add modules, build your site. etc. from the Administer page.

Goodluck!

Blogged with Flock