Bow Down to Mutha-Na-Chah

So I've been trying to track down the radar map from July 10th, 2008 to compare the photos I took to provide some perspective. These were taken from my deck using my Nikon D40 and my 18-55 lens. This storm was crazy looking, crazy fast (only lasted about an hour or so) and crazy cool...

Here are the photos:




Here is the only radar picture I've been able to trackdown, the storm was a little more defined (it looked like a up-side-down/side-ways 'U') this image shows the storm shortly after is left the Chicago area...


While I was searching for this radar image, I did stumble upon THIS video on YouTube. It's 2 dudes somewhere in the Chicago Suburbs commenting on this storm. The commentary is pretty funny...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos...

Gmail & Firefox 3 - How to make Gmail your default email client.

So today I discovered 2 of my most favorite things (web related) have kept racking up the 'I'm a Bad Ass App' points. On my laptop I only have Thunderbird installed as a way to archive my Gmail account and prefer to use the Gmail web interface for all my mail.

I just happended to be purusing the Gmail Blog this evening and saw this great post about taking advantage of Firefox3 and using Gmail as your default email client.

Open firefox and log into your Gmail account. Now from your Gmail window past the following into your address bar:

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://
mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Gmail")

Click 'Enter'

You will be prompted to add Gmail as an email client. Make sure you put a check in the box "Remember my choice for mailto links" or Firefox will not keep Gmail as the preffered email client.

//This content was found at the Official Gmail Blog. If you have any issues with this DO NOT CONTACT ME! I am only sharing this info as it is a feature I am using with my setup.

PhotoRec - Recover your lost files!!! (Life with my Nikon D40)

So, I had some family in this weekend and had taken hundreds of pictures with my new Nikon D40. Your probably reading this thinking "So? Everybody takes pictures of their family..." Well you would be correct, except that these photos are of my brother n' laws first trip to Chicago. Needless to say they are quite important, and the 'Wifey' was a little upset when I mentioned the following:

Me: 'So, honey... you know those 250+ photos I shot yesterday of everyone in one of the coolest cities in America?'
Wifey: 'Yes'
Me: 'Well I just transferred them to the laptop (Dell D630, Ubuntu 8.04 64bit)'
Wifey: 'Yeees'
Me: 'They have mysteriously dissapeared...'
Wifey: 'YES!'
Me: 'I'm not sure what happened to them'
Wifey: 'YES!!!!'
Me: 'Oh, wait, let me see if I can find a way to recover the images from the lost partitions'
Wifey: 'Wait, you lost ALL those photos?'
Me: 'yeeeeeeeees...'

Anyway, I was able to find this thread in the Ubuntu Forums - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=172296

Thankfully, I'm not the only person who forgets to switch off the camera before putting it in the nice, new, padded camera bag and then have the nice, new, supersweet camera figure out how to erase the SD card. So, I installed TestDisk from the repositories and after reading the Ubuntu Forum Thread I discovered that it comes with a program called PhotoRec.

ATTENTION... THIS PROGRAM WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE AND YOUR MARRIAGE... (not really, but it will recover your photos if they are deleted)



Everything ran in the command line with prompts so don't be afraid of the dreaded 'command line'. I was able to recover ALL 250+ photos that I took and my Wife still loves me! Not a bad day if I say so myself...

Firefox 3 Download Day 2008 - Over 8,000,000 Downloads!!!

Update: UNBELIEVABLE!!! 8 Million downloads in 24 hours... This whole process was so much fun to watch. All my co-workers and I were constantly refreshing the download map and I have not met one person who was not riveted by the amount of participation. Long Live FireFox!!!

I'm so excited about this release... I remember discovering firebird as a stand-alone browser where the entire app was located in one folder that you could migrate to different locations and did not connect to anything in windows... O'h my how things have changed! Anyway, help break a record and start using a BAD ASS BROWSER!!!



Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do to help us set the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours is get Firefox 3 now – it’s that easy. We're not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

//pasted from http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

My Most Used Command!

I have a bunch of 2.5" HDD's that I used to 'ferry' data back an forth between my laptop and various computers. I have not taken the time to setup a file share on my Windows box and like most people I have a wife, who would devorce me if I started spending all our disposable income on FIle Servers, Web Servers, Firewalls, a DVR and a T1 line... trust me I've asked!

Anyway, a while ago I noticed that my laptop would not mount one of my HDD's after I unplugged it from my windows box. This drove me crazy for hours... I could not find any easy way to mount the drive and all the suggestions I did find online were fstab hacks.

Basically when you unplug a drive from windows, it locks the drive or marks the drive as inuse. (To get around this, you need to open the small green arrow hardware icon and then stop the drive and then unplug the device). So when ubuntu tries to mount this drive it sees it as being locked or in use and you get an error like so:


In order to get this drive to mount you must do the following. First create a directory in the /media directory (I called mine 'usb')

sudo mkdir /media/usb

Now you can 'force mount' the drive using the option flag and force command

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/usb -o force

You will need to change the device name, mine is usually sdb1. Once you are done, you will need to unmount the drive. Now since we did this via the command line, you will need to issue the following command to unmount the drive via the command line as well.

sudo umount /dev/sdb1

That's it! I use these commands on a daily basis, I guess I'm a creature of habit and dont' really want to take the time to find an automated way to do this. Ussually if I can remember or I'm not in a hurry I'll eject the drive from windows first. Good Luck!

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Upgrade...

So here is the first part of my upgrade process. I am still compiling the sources and commands, but this is the very basic steps for my D630 install.

• Backed up all Files to external Drive

I only have a CD burner on my laptop, so I tend to use some external 2.5" HDD's that I've collected over the years. I copied all the documents, movies, music, downloads... basically anything under the /home/*username* folder.

• Clean install of Hardy Heron

I decided to use the 64 bit version, hoping that I was not going to experience any issues. When the 7.10 release came out, I could not get GRUB to load the OS. After a few hours fixing that problem, Ubuntu kept crashing and I gave up and loaded the 32bit version and did not have any issues (that is until my wireless kept crashing on me... A story for another day)

• Added other Sources

First, I'm a Google Homer, tried and true!!! I like their products, I religiously use their search and I 'Spread the Word' to others about using Google. So in the list of sources I have some google items listed along with Screenlets, Wine, AWN and some multimedia stuff that doesn't come with the standard distro.

• sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following (I would recommend at least the Backports)

#Hardy Backports
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-backports main universe multiverse restricted

#Google software repository http://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/apt.html
deb http://DL.Google.Com/linux/deb/ stable non-free

#“Illegal” multimedia stuff
wget http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

#Google desktop
wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub -O- | sudo apt-key add -
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free

#Wine, official packages
wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main

#Screenlets
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gilir/ubuntu hardy main universe

#Avant-Window-Navigator
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main

• Updated system

So after you add the above to your Sources list you will need to do an update, so Ubuntu will search for the changes and then install the additional packages. It will also allow you to go to the 'Add/Remove' programs and install any other packages that are not available in the standard disto.

• sudo apt-get update

Preview - Ubuntu AMD64 on a Dell Latitude D630

First I really like my laptop, the keyboard is comfortable to type on, I think it's fairly easy to upgrade (Memory, Bluetooth, HDD, Media Drive, WAN card (mobile broadband from say Verizon or Sprint)) I like the layout of the ports compared to the Lenovo laptops... Anyway, the last time I upgraded my system I had a hard time getting things up and running fully. First eye candy is very important to me and the Intel 965 chipset was a huge hurdle to overcome, then my intel wireless kept freaking out. So when the wifey is surfing www.thenest.com and the network manager keeps crashing and she has to reboot, makes a not so fun evening at home. I would say it took me a couple weeks to work out those issues, and after that it was pretty much smooth sailing... most of the time...

So, today I finally backed up my files (Mainly some movies & programs I had on my laptop) and installed the highly touted release Hardy Heron. To be more specific I installed the 64-Bit edition... There is a really good Pro vs. Con on installing the 64-Bit edition on the Ubuntu Forums, so I decided to at least give it a try.

It's just after Midnight CST here in Chicago and I've been up and running with my upgraded system for over 4 hours... Needless to say I'm EXTREMELY impressed with this release... I have compiled my notes and hopefully will have time soon to walk through the detailed steps, until then you'll just have to be satisfied with a screen shot.