failing to install a phone (continued)

Hi!

How y'all doing?

In a previous post I talked about my failure to install a phone and a home network in a friend's home. A long time has passed since then and I've gone back to his house 2 additional times (as far as the phone and network installation is concerned).

To make the long story short, I've managed to install everything successfully.

The telephone was relatively easy (after the issue with the correct line was resolved), since a call center was not required (if anyone talks to any of the 5 phones and another one picks up another phone, he will just join the conversation).

The biggest challenge that had to be dealt with was the network, since the house didn't have a LAN infrastructure (can you believe it? A 3-storey house with a 100m^2 underground parking and a swimming pool built in 2008 without LAN!). What I decided to do was to install a modem router at the penthouse and then transfer the network to the other floors through the power line using Belkin HD powerline adapters. 4 adapters were needed:

• 1 in order to transfer the network from the penthouse to the rest of the house
• 1 in the 1st floor in order to be connected with a wireless router to provide wireless network-internet access to the three bedrooms located there
• 1 in the ground floor, again connected with a wireless router in order to cover the living room, the kitchen and a most of the pool and garden area
• 1 in the basement, which will be connected to the usual wireless router which will provide network access to the study of the ground floor, as well as the two bedrooms and the living room of the basement

So, we (me and my friend) thought to purchase two HD powerline kits, which contain a pair of adapters each and pair all the adapters together. Though, due to a limitation of the kits (or lack of proper explanation in the manual), the 4 adapters were unable to be synchronized (couldn't understand what was wrong; possibly unable to enter search mode?). When despair and fatigue had evaporated our hope that this could ever work, I thought one last thing that we could do: To return the one of the two kits and buy a single adapter instead (whose manual explicitly referred to pairing with other adapters). I wasn't very optimistic that this idea will bear fruits (and if it did, I though they would be rotten), but this scheme actually produced excellent results and the resulting network was exceptionally stable and fast (the penthouse to the basement link is the slower with 4mbps).

I will end this post here, but I will edit it accordingly with total cost of the infrastructure and further details about the project!

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

PC malfunction

Hi.

Today is a bad day. A day full of sorrow and remorse. My thoughts are (and yours should be) with my beautiful motherboard (or, unlikely, its RAM) that ain't continue the boot process beyond the detection of the graphics' card and the BIOS manufacturer printout. It stops right before the RAM chip detection. I tried to start the PC with only one of the chips (and no drives attached), to no avail, as neither of them seems to respond (thing that increases the possibility of a motherboard malfunction).

The motherboard is the Chaintech Zenith VNF4 Ultra.

Anyone with similar experience?

Going back to resume tryin' and cryin' :p

elias a.k.a. diluted

Self analysis

Hi!

How y'all doing?

I'm pretty good too, thanks for asking.

Today, kids, we're gonna talk about self analysis; not self disclosure, an idea that just popped into my head :p

A colleague at work is very fond of analysis and we've thoroughly discoursed about its merits and advantages. In this post, I will try to establish the notion of self analysis, as that concept has been perceived by me.

In order for one to analyze itself, one should be sufficiently qualified for practising clinical psychotherapy, or even vaguely familiar (that's me) with the concepts of psychology and psychotherapy. One should have read his share of Yalom and Lacan.

After the above requirement has been met, the therapist-patient hybrid should successfully detach the 2 aspects of itself, in order to establish a fictional dialog session. The therapist self should be agnostic of the patient self in order for the maximum objectivity to be achieved.

Enough with my incomprehensible mumbo jumbo.

Ta ta, 
elias a.k.a. diluted

2012

Hi!

Today was the big day that I finally went to see the great blockbuster 2012.

Now, I will write some thoughts. It was an action movie. In an action movie you expect to entertain yourself by watching the awesome (and, may I add, highly unlikely) adventures of some pretty damn lucky people from the United States of America. That's why they are cool :P

The movie sucked in every other aspect (scenario, scientific basis, acting), but all these parameters are sufficiently covered-hidden by a lot of action :P (imagine the dressing that hides the real taste of the food)

By the way, in order to compile vlc 0.9.0 in debian lenny (in order to use it with Gmote), one should first install the packages below and then configure with "./configure --disable-mad --disable-a52 --disable-glx --prefix=/usr", followed by the standard "make" and "sudo make install"
Packages: libhal-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libglib2-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libpostproc-dev libfribidi-dev libqt4-dev libgcrypt-dev libdvbpsi5-dev

That's all boys and girls :)

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

failing to install a phone

Hi!

How do you do? I could be better actually :p Today, one of my best friends called me for help with his new phone connection in his new house. I consider that I have a certain aptitude towards electronics, so I gladly accepted his invitation.

I expected the usual stuff that I deal with in similar situations.. That is: A functional connection to the telephone network at the outdoor station where the line to the house should be connected. In the house, things should be simpler, with a small call center to manage the phones and a router, coupled with some switches and access points to manage the network.

But not at all.. Indeed there was a (working) connection with the telephone network at the outdoor unit, but there were, like, a million telephone wires in the indoor unit without even a remote indication that would denote which of these is connected to the outer world. After countless combinations, we failed to locate the correct line, so we decided to call a technician (as I, the worthless bloke, failed miserably). If the technician does his job well and the telephones start working, I'll go and fix the net (and also fail at that task too :p)

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

HTC Hero!

Hi!

How y'all doing?

I'm ok :P Have I got news for you! I'm the proud owner of an HTC Hero (pictured below)!

The Hero has some advantages and disadvantages.
It's merits are endless and contain, among others (all the features below are out-of-the-box features; using the Android Market or searching in the web, every imaginable feature can be added):

• Tethering
• Flash
• Gmail, Google Talk, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr integration
• Google Maps (street view enabled)

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks:

• Lack of out-of-the-box blogger integration (loved that feature in my Sony Ericsson K610i)
• Lack of data connections for the Bluetooth (e.g. the OBEX profile)
• The Bluetooth sometimes does not connect with my car's hands free
• The USB mounting function does not always function with my car's USB port

I hope that most of the drawbacks above will be resolved with the upcoming Android 2 :P
I can live without tight blogger integration, although such a feature would be awesome (imagine taking a photo of a place and geotagging-uploading-blogging with one keypress). I've found, though, an application for on-the-fly blogging, but it's not as cool as my k610's tight integration ;)

Your opinions for the hero or any other android phone (especially interested in the HTC Tattoo and the Motorola DROID-MILESTONE)?

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

Upgrading Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 RTM

Have found this article in lifehacker.com. Very cool. Awesome. Just rip your original Windows 7 dvd, make a slight modification and here you are! :D

@ the kavourotripes beach

Hi!

How y'all doing?

After three days in the 1st peninsula of halkidiki (kasandra), me and my friends decided to visit the 2nd one, sithonia. There, we went to a beautiful little beach, kavourotripes. It is one of the greatest beaches I've been to.

That's all for today! Ta ta,
--
elias a.k.a. diluted

Let the vacations begin

Hi!

How do you do?

Today I will start my vacations, which will last till the end of August.

For starters, I will go at the Polihrono village at the peninsula of Kasandra in Halkidiki for 5 days (from 20090809 to 20090814), along my good friends Stathis and Tasos . We have booked a room at the hotel Odiseas. It is worthy to note that the hotel has free wifi access to the net. Awesome :D

After that, Irene and I will travel to Hania for 8 days (20090816 to 20090824). We will stay in Epimenidis hotel in Agia Marina.

I'll try to post some photos from the hotels.

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

mips qemu

Hi!

I created a mips virtual machine using these instructions. What I exactly did was:

• Since I've got a debian, I didn't compile the qemu, but I just "sudo apt-get install"ed it
• Created a hard disk using "qemu-img create -f qcow hda.img 10G"
  
• Then I downloaded the images initrd.gz and vmlinux-2.6.26-2-4kc-malta from http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/main/installer-mips/current/images/malta/netboot
• After that, I ran "qemu-system-mips -M malta -kernel vmlinux-2.6.26-2-4kc-malta -initrd initrd.gz -hda hda.img -append "root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0" -nographic", in order to install debian
• Then, after the installation was completed, I booted into the system using "qemu-system-mips -M malta -kernel vmlinux-2.6.26-2-4kc-malta -hda hda.img -append "root=/dev/hda1 console=ttyS0" -nographic -localtime", installed a few additional packages (e.g. "apt-get install gcc g++ bison gettext")
• The machine can access the network, but only through TCP, Thus, SMB and TCP-NFS remote mounts are only available.
• The instructions provide a way for full network access, but I don't need it.

It's awesome. :D

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

Hi!

How y'all doin'? I am at the beach of Agios Dimitrios near Koropi.
It's not the first time I come here, but today it was special, as I
managed to skip the traffic, which was terrible, using my GPS unit.

Other news include that I booked a room for me and 2 friends of me at
the Kasandra peninsula of Halkidiki and specifically in the Polihrono
village. We'll be there from the 9th of August, till the 14th.

I think that's all :P
Ta ta,
--
elias a.k.a. diluted

Workplace 2009

Hi!

How y'all doin'?

I'm still striving through the hardships of life :P

Today kids, I'm gonna show you my workplace! I know that it's dreamy and extremely sexy; that's why I'm showing it off ;)

Let's start with the right side; in the picture below, you can see the following things there:

1. the XPU board (the thing with the heat sinks and the chips),
2. my old computer (p4@1.3GHz w/ 256MB RAM),
3. my eastpak (black of course; it contains many things, which will be covered in a different post [if requested]),
4. my bathing suit (it's summer, yay),
5. a laptop (it's not mine [my laptop -netbook- is in the eastpak]; it's a friend's where I will install some things; a pentium M@1.4GHz with 128MB RAM),
6. my coffee thermos (espresso roasted @ my home; don't so much like the [otherwise free] filter coffee the company offers; also note the subliminal message that the phallic shape conveys :P),
7. 3 CDs turned-to-coasters (keep the workplace clean),
8. my freddo glass (it's no Serse Freddo, but it's kinda cool :P) and last, but not least,
9. a half eaten apple (in order to complete this dead nature masterpiece with a cliche).

Now it's the turn of the center side, here the main work takes place. Let's see what that contains:

1. My telephone (for old school communication),
2. My new pc (Debian GNU Linux 5.0 Lenny, Core2Duo 7400, 1GB RAM),
3. Two mouses (one for my new pc and one for my windows pc),
4. My two monitors (the TFT is for the new pc; the windows pc handles both the screens),
5. The new pc keyboard (sleek and cool),
6. A brochure for accessories for my car (a rather cool brochure),
7. The keyboard of my windows pc and
8. A DSL modem that is being used as a switch (in order to connect the PCs and the boards to the net)

As for the left side, it is worthy to note:

1. The windows pc keyboard (must figure out how to use one keyboard with two pcs),
2. the windows pc itself (which is a P4 with 512MB RAM btw),
3. another board (named IDU; a rather cool board actually),
4. the power supply for the boards (and an accompanying fan) and, to conclude the tour of my workplace,
5. the MUSIC board.

Now you've seen where I work. Isn't it magical? It sort of reminds me the pictures of Google in Switzerland.

ie8

Hi!

I downloaded (through the windows update) Internet Explorer 8, with blog accelerator. I am now trying it out :P

Sorry for posting so scarcely. :(

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

Google

Hi!

What's up children?

I have great news! My "site" (http://dilu.no-ip.info) now appears in the Google search engine! Search for "diluSouthpark" for example. Some of the results point to my site :P

That's all :P

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted

New year's post

Hi!

How y'all doing? My best wishes for the new year to all! I'm just fine, but today my vacations end :(

While trying to get a good night's sleep, some thoughts entered my mind and urged me to change my fundamental beliefs on god and all that supernatural stuff.

I thought that it is very probable for extraterrestrial lifeforms to exist. But I can't prove it. So, if one inquires me concerning my beliefs about alien species, I would answer that it is very probable for them to exist, but I can't say that I believe that they exist. I don't know. And, quite frankly, I don't care.

I then extended this "I don't know, I don't care" theory of mine and realized that I don't believe in anything that can't be proven using science and/or hands on experience. (i.e. I deny any form of dogma) If I am somehow interested in the field of belief in question, then I'll consider the possibilities based on the scientifically proven facts about it and make my selection based on them. For example: If the "extraterrestrial life" topic is under discussion, I will state that my belief is that it is highly possible for aliens to exist. As a footnote I will also add that I don't care whether they do or not, but it is very fun to develop theories and talk about it.

The question of belief always brings to one's mind pictures of god and supernatural stuff and so on. So, here's what I think about god:

It is highly unlikely that god exists. I don't care if it does. (don't get me started about the genre now.. Do you think that the supposable entity that supposedly created the whole universe would have a penis or a vagina?)

So, until now I didn't believe in god. Now, after this revelation, my belief is:
I don't believe that god exists, but I don't have definitive knowledge in order to deny its existence. In other words, I define myself as an Agnostic Atheist (some authors call it Weak Atheism).

You can find some excellent articles on theism in general at the endnotes of the wikipedia link above.

Ta ta,
elias a.k.a. diluted