Last week I decided that I wanted to set up my own testing network so I could experiment with various networking things in various operating systems. I figure this is the only way that I’m going to learn some things, and heck, it’s just cool anyway.

So I ordered:

5 x Dell Optiplex 240 - 2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB HD
1 x 8 port KVM switch
1 x 24 port Cisco 100 Mb Ethernet Switch
10 x 7″ Ethernet Cable
1 x PS2 Keyboard and Mouse

The grand total for all this, including shipping, was about $700.  Not too bad…that’s about the price of a cheap laptop.

So what I’m going to do is stack these computers in the corner of my UBL (Underground Basement Lair, pronounced “yoo-bull”), plug them into the KVM and the switch, and run a cable from my main computer to the switch so I can manage everything remotely once it’s set up.

Some of the things I want to try include:

• Windows Active Directory Domain
• MS SQL Server
• MS Exchange Server
• Clustering/Load Balancing
• Creating Firewalls and IP rules
• VPNs
• Linux Domains
• Web servers
• OpenVPN
• OpenExchange
• PostgresSQL Server
• Distributed Computing
• Anything else I can think of.

I’ll post a picture when I have everything set up, as I think it will look neat.  It’s been like Christmas every day this week with all the stuff arriving :)  The only think I’m still waiting for is the computers.  I feel sorry for the UPS guy though…the UPS tracking site says that the package weights 145 lbs.

I installed the beta version of Flash 10 awhile back to fix some crashing/freezing problems in Firefox on my Ubuntu laptop. Everything worked fine until yesterday, when I began having the same problems, so I removed Flash 10 and reinstalled Flash 9. I haven’t had any problems since.

How is it that a piece of software that does work stops working and the old software that didn’t work starts working?  I do not know.

I checked this book out from the library the other day and started reading it last night. I’ve only read two chapters, but I think this is going to have to be a purchase. The author, Carla Schroder, has a very direct, to-the-point way of writing that makes it very easy to follow along. She doesn’t waste time over-explaining topics, but at the same time, she gives enough information to get you going. She also provides references to additional resources in case you want to know more about a particular topic.

As for organization, the book is organized, well, like a cookbook. This makes it an excellent reference if you are looking for how to do something very specific. Just look in the index for your topic, turn to it, and follow the clearly worded instructions. Not looking for anything in particular? I noticed that the book also can be used as a walkthrough for learning various facets of networking with Linux.

Although I’m just getting started with the book, I can already tell that it’s going to be an excellent resource. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s getting started with Linux and wants to get more acquainted with the operating system from a system/network administrator perspective.

I downloaded Diablo II from the Blizzard Store a few weeks ago to use on my laptop that I have Ubuntu installed on. I attempted to install Diablo II with WINE (Windows compatibility for Linux) and I noticed that I could not get past the license agreement. The Accept button was grayed out and would not activate. I googled around, checked UbuntuForums.org, and could not find an answer to the problem. So I gave up and used an XP vm for awhile, which worked fine until I screwed up my XP vm a couple of days ago.

So I tried installing Diablo II with WINE again, and I don’t remember what I saw that tipped me off, but I realized that the License Agreement was trying to use Internet Explorer to render the form…but in WINE, the Mozilla Gecko engine was used instead. So I found some instructions on installing IE6 with WINE (If I can find the page again, I’ll post it) and what do you know, after I did that, Diablo II installed just fine.

Note, this only seems to affect the installers downloaded from the Blizzard Store.

I was trying to get Diablo 2 to run under WINE in Ubuntu, but the version that I downloaded from the Blizzard store wouldn’t install.  I was unable to get past the license agreement because the Agree button was grayed out even after scrolling all the way down the page.  So I instead installed it on an XP guest in Virtual Box.

The only problem I had there was that VirtualBox does not support 3D acceleration, so I was getting a Direct3D error when I tried to play the game. This was solved by opening the Registry Editor, going to:

HKEY_Current_User/Software/Blizzard Entertainment/Diablo II/VideoConfig

and setting the Render value to 0. It opened just fine after that, and ran suprisingly quickly for being run inside a virtual machine.

My photos are slowing being destroyed. How? I’m not entirely sure. But I’ve noticed that ever since I upgraded to Vista, my photos have been getting corrupted randomly. I’ll be browsing through them and notice that some have turned funny colors, or have lines through them, or a myriad of other distortions. And I’m not the only one. There’s a whole thread on Microsoft Technet of people complaining about the same problem.

I would bet that Vista is trying to add some kind of information (maybe some kind of tag? a reference to the thumbnail?) to the files and on some it just fouls them up. Really though, it doesn’t matter why, it’s still completely unacceptable to have my precious photos/memories screwed up by a piece of buggy software.  Oh, and it’s not just the photos either.  It seems as though several programs and iso files that I’ve been storing have been getting corrupted.

Also, I don’t know why, but most of my games seem to run a lot slower in Vista then they did with XP. And that’s with Aero turned off and only basic services starting. There’s no reason for it. I do not have a slow machine by any means.

Add to that the fact that while Vista looks nice, things have been shuffled around ridiculously. For example, it takes like 5 clicks and three different screens to get to where you can see your network connections. It only took 1 in XP.

Screw it. When I get home, I’m putting XP back on so I can be happy again.

EDIT:

I’m back in XP and my TF2 framerate went from an average of 25 in Vista to an average of 45…with higher settings even.  I cannot figure that out.

This is an awesome deal that’s going on until May 16th perpetually, so if you’ve been needing a copy of Microsoft Office (or if you’ve been using a pirated version and you wish to go legit), this is the time to get it.  You can get Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate edition for $60.  It’s normally $600.  Heck, even the Student and Home edition is $250.

All you need is a .edu email address (alumni .edu addresses work too) and $60.  Go here to buy it: http://www.theultimatesteal.com/

I’ve never been able to use the Linux driver for my RTL 8185 in Ubuntu.  Instead, I’ve used Ndiswrapper with the Windows XP driver.  It works great.

Here’s the download for the XP driver: rtl8185

Once you have that, you’ll want to install NdisWrapper.  Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

Once you have ndiswrapper installed, unzip the file you downloaded and change your terminal to that directory.  Then install the drivers with these commands:

sudo ndiswrapper -i net8185.inf

sudo ndiswrapper -m

sudo ndiswrapper -mi

sudo ndiswrapper -ma

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

At this point, you should be able to use your wireless card.  If you type “ifconfig” in your terminal, you should see “wlan0″ listed.

This has worked every time for me, so I hope it solves any issues you are having with this card too!

EDIT:

If everytime you reboot, you have to run ’sudo modprobe ndiswrapper’ command, try adding ndiswrapper to your  /etc/modules file.

To do that:

Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/modules

Add a line and type ndiswrapper

Save and close the file.

Reboot.

I was looking for an easy way to install Pidgin Instant Messenger on Feisty (since it’s not in the repositories) and found a site that has recent Pidgin .DEB’s available for download.

You can get them here.

Click the folder for the newest version, download the file, and double click to install.

From http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=622101

“We pulled a bad drive apart at work this afternoon. It had a nasty rattle to it before we opened it, but we didn’t expect this:”