OSDCM

The BV Disaster

Robuis — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:32:50 +0000

Title says it all.

Josh Neisius thinks that he can chug half a bottle of Black Velvet w/o Pukin….funn as sh!t

Announcing social experiment digital begging.

Robuis — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:20:15 +0000

I was looking around the web psdtuts for some tutorials on that I could use in the gimp. One of them was how to create paper looks, so I thought I would create a homeless sign in the gimp.

You can view it here and if you do donate the one dollar I will send you the Xfc file.

Mothers day thoughts..

Robuis — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:43:26 +0000

When I was a child I used to joke with my mom that I would find her the worst nursing home that I could, of course I was just kidding her. She is an RN who does home health care in the south. So growing up I was exposed at a young age to what unfortunately awaits us as we enter our twilight years. As I have aged now some of my vision is to provide her with the best care I can find. While researching, I came across this site gilbert GUIDE, here you can find a plethora of information. Topics such as assisted living facility reviews, information about how to pay for long term care. They have tons of articles and tools.

I hope I never need to place my mother in one of these places but with help from the gilbert GUIDE I can rest assured that I am making the right choice. What does this have to do with Open Source? Well all the money I save by not buying license for software, I can invest for these kinds of unanticipated needs. Not to mention this kind of information sharing is what open source is all about.

I expect good things to happen in my life. Thing that will allow me to give back to those who have sacrificed for me.

So Mom if you are reading this, I may put you in a home, but thanks to gilbert GUIDE it will be the best one I can find.

To incorporate or not to incorporate, that is the question

Robuis — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:00:53 +0000

I am just a small time blogger for now, but as my revenues grow, I will eventually be faced with this question. From a legal stand point creating a corporation has its advantages. One way to look at it is you are creating entities that have to pay taxes. Also these new entities can get loans, have a credit standing, and can give loans as well. Just like in life these entities can be sued. By creating a corporation, you are essentially adopting a child who will insulate your business liability.

When it comes to S corporations C corporations, and LLCs I would recommend that you seek the advice of a professional in this field. I found this site entity formation in San Diego, it looks very professional and is who I will contact when I am ready to incorporate. Because to me taxes can be much harder than creating web sites using open source software. How cool is it that an accounting office can be reached, and consulted across the void of cyberspace. They use apache web servers as well.

A Storm Is Coming And Some Will Perish

Robuis — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:38:05 +0000

Did you ever wonder why hurricanes still manage to kill people? We have advanced notice, most have the ability to evacuate, but some still fall. It is human nature to keep with old paradigms, to make judgments based on tradition or filamentary, to fear change. We have weathered storms this size before, we don’t need to change our behavior. Because this is the human condition, we see this attitude paralleled in the software industry. The unexperienced seek the advice of the experienced. The problem is sometimes the shepherds by no fault of there own, lead their flock astray into the eye of the storm.

When I was a child DOS was king. Few people had computers, schools were coned by apple’s marketing, a sin for which I don’t think they will ever be forgiven. So I was a pro PC guy, then a collage kid found a way to sell licenses to use his software, and Microsoft revolutionized the industry. Eventually eating up little DOS. In the background the telecoms were developing and expanding UNIX, because the home PC OS was just not robust enough to do the job. As time passed I was an advocate for the super power that is windows because my only alternative was macs. Even as a young man I saw that open compatibility, in a hardware setting was a good thing. It took some time for me to find an OS that embraces that same philosophy.

Linux is a powerful force, moving through our world , forcing the old guard to change.

Linux is a powerful force, moving through our world , forcing the old guard into that uncomfortable, place where new meets old. Some get it, and embrace it while others run in fear. I heard a story last night that a certain computer vendor would never recommend an open source solution. This I am tying to understand, with all of the BSOD, worm viruses of all kinds, hacker target number one. I mean seriously who do you blame when something goes wrong? Is it the customers fault for not properly educating himself, the vendor for the bad recommendation, or the software supplier? I would and do recommend Open Source software when it fits the needs of the customer. There are many reasons why, its secure, its obscure so not as much of a target for hackers, and its configurable. Do you work as a software consultant? Do you shy away from open source software? Can you tell me why?

Rockstar sued by parents when their 17 year old dies while playing GTA 4

Robuis — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:44:34 +0000

This is a bit off topic, unless you account for a dot com mogul’s lifestyle, but who cares it’s my blog.

Does anyone remember the WoW players that played till they died? Here is a link to the story.

How long will it be before we see the head line “Rockstar sued by parents when their 17 year old dies while playing GTA 4”. Does a mature rating on a game prevent this type of law suite? I know if I let myself play this game I would have to stop working and enter the world created by Rockstar. A modern day turn on tune in and drop out. I would like to see some readers comment on this issue. How long do you think it will be? Should Rockstar be held responsible?

Announcing Open Source Logo Design Contest

Robuis — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:37:07 +0000

Are you a graphics designer? Do you use Open Source tools to craft your designs? If you answered yes to these questions, I would like to offer you the chance to create the header for the OSDCM site. I would require that you use free tools to create the header. The winner will get his or her header featured on the OSDCM site. I will also allow the winner to write for the OSDCM in the design section, as well as provide a free review of your site, and a free ad banner on the OSDCM to your site. I will showcase all submissions under the design section of this site, so if you want some link love, enter today! This contest ends 5/17/08! Send all submissions to Robert.Sharp@osdcm.com as well as a link to your web site. Good luck to all who enter.

My quest to become a Digital Renaissance Man

Robuis — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:06:28 +0000

Isn’t it strange and wonderful how we as people, expand the upon the wealth of human, understanding one generation at a time? Sometimes I am filled with wonder, as I look back into the great names of history. Today we live in a time where just about anyone with a will can share there ideals with a truly global audience. Now is the time of the Digital Renaissance Men or more politically Digital Renaissance Persons. This statement alone infers a new understanding of the roles we can play in society. With todays technology we have leveled the playing field. The Internet sees no gender no age no color bias. Literally any one of any age, color, or creed, with any idea can stand upon their soap box and openly express with the world.

How hard it must have been for the Renaissance Men of the past.

I have had to take a journey during the creation of this blog. I have forced myself to learn the anatomy of web servers. I have leaned to paint a new digital canvas, to code its appearance. I have leaned to look inside my self to find the will to share my beliefs. To defend them from my critics. I am so happy that I have taken this time to lean these skills, of creative content creation, coding and design. I almost feel a kinship with the Renaissance men of the past.

Edubuntu 7.10 and the NDISwrapper with a Belkin FSD7000

Robuis — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:51:53 +0000

This year we decided to mix together a computer for my son Logan.

Ingredients:

1Dell Omniplex GX260.
1 Keyboard
1 Mouse,
1 Samsung 19” flat screen
1 Belkin FSD7000
1 Pinch of Edubuntu.

In a small lab/table assemble all the hard ingredients.
Stir in the software. Install at low speed for about 1 hour.

Now that, my friends, could be a recipe for disaster. Did you ever notice that food recipes do in fact give you all the ingredients but come up a bit short on the techniques to accomplish the desired results? Just like the icing on the provable cake I hit the wall trying to get the Belkin card working with the ndiswrapper. My thought process was I will just cook up this box and then by the power of the ndiswrapper just wrap up the ini/sys file and go on my merry way.

Like a kid in the kitchen I was bound to make a mess of this, and so let me teach you how to do this the correct way the first time so that you don’t need to make a mess.

First and foremost the card is not a Belkin card! So the Belkin drivers don’t work! When I looked at my card I saw a chip that says Realtek 8185. So below you will find a step by step install guild.

Step one download and install the ndiswrapper.

Next you will want to get the net8185.inf you can get them from here. I used the one labeled Driver_1097_2KXP.

Next you will bring up the Terminal, from the Applications Accessories menu.
sudo ndiswrapper -m

Extract the net8185.inf and rtl8185.sys files to a folder. Change to that folder in the Terminal.
cd /home/logan/ndis

Install the driver with the ndiswrapper.
sudo ndiswrapper -i net8185.inf

Next I had to find out where on the pci bus my card was.
lspci -n

Mine is on 1799:7000f so now I need to tie the wrapper to the driver.
sudo ndiswrapper -a 1799:7000f net8185

Now I needed to insert the module into my kernel.
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

Two more steps.
sudo -i echo ndiswrapper >> /etc/modules

This worked out for me! Hopefully this will help aspiring Edubuntu box cookers.

Got a new PC for Christmas and not sure what to do with your old one?

Robuis — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:40:49 +0000

It seems that everyone these days has some spare computer parts laying around the house. We cannot just toss them in the trash, so we have old beige cases, power supples that have turned into dust bunny farms, and a museum of hard drives. What is one to do with their supply of obsolete digital do dads?

Well if you have:

PC, with 96MB RAM CPU Power supply
A Ethernet Card
At least on hard drive/CF card USB stick, better to have 2 of the same size.

You can create a FreeNAS file server for your home. FreeNAS is a project who’s goal is to create a freeBSD based Network Attached Storage server. Protocols that this will support are CIFS samba file sharing, FTP, NFS, AFP, RSYNC, iSCSI, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, Software RAID 0,1,5 all with a web based interface so that you can configure it from your network. How much space on the hard drive you think it would take to add all of this functionality? 32MB can you believe that!

After some very basic setup you will have the web interface, where you can add or remove drives set up services, and control security. If you configure a RAID you will have a nice safe place on your home network to back up important files.

Don’t have a spare PC? Still you want to experiment with Virtual FreeNAS? In an up coming How-To I will show you how to set up configure, and implement this on a Vmware PC emulator.