HanWorks Research

Fastest way to upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04 within 24 hrs of release

2008-04-25T02:04:00.006+08:00

Yes... the long awaited Ubuntu 8.04 is finally out... but everyone is trying to upgrade their system through the Ubuntu Update Manager. Why get stuck with the Ubuntu Update Manager and a sluggish Ubuntu server when there is a faster way? Even, the Ubuntu mirrors take time to get the latest release.

Note: This guide is meant for the impatient...

Get the alternate cd iso bittorent file. Get it. (Note: this ONLY works with the alternate cd, and NOT with the Live CD.)
Use a bittorent client such as transmission to download it.
(Tip: sudo apt-get transmission if you dont have transmission.)
This will take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours. Depends on your luck.
Verify the iso file you downloaded using a MD5 check. (Get the MD5 file from the same place where you got your bittorent file.) (This step is optional but recommended.)
Mount the iso file. E.g.: (note: /cdrom is similar to /media/cdrom) [Time saver: no need to burn CD!]
sudo mount -t iso9660 ubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso /cdrom -o loop
Hit Alt-F2, type in and run the following:
gksu "sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade"
Sit back and relax. Go and grab a cup of coffee. Restart your computer at the end of the upgrade. The upgrade takes about 30 mins on a Intel C2D 2.0GHz.
Enjoy a game of classic minesweeper while the installer runs in the background.
Don't panic if your system does not function "normally" during the upgrade.

Note: if you encounter the "exclusive lock" error associated with aptitude, hit ctrl-alt-backspace and re-login.
Say "hello" to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS! Congrats for making it through!
Note: some programs may appear to "crash" when you first login. Don't panic. Simply click away the error messages, logout and re-login and most of your problems will be solved. (For me, I had to coax my wireless to work.)
You may now remove the CD entry to the image found in the file: /etc/apt/sources.list
Tip: Hit Alt-F2 and run gksu "gedit /etc/apt/sources.lst" and comment the following line:
deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 8.04 _Hardy Heron_ - Release i386 (20080422.2)]/ hardy main restricted (or something similiar, with the "8.04")
Total time I took ~ around 2.5 hours.

Thanks to Albert Bicchi's guide for insight into this matter.

Fireclip

2008-04-19T21:53:00.000+08:00

This blog has been very quiet for almost a month. The primary reason is that I have been busy writing an extension called Fireclip for Firefox.

Fireclip is a nifty tool which allows you to clip out portions of webpages and reload them later to check for updates. The latest version is 0.2.1 and it is a stable release.

This blog post is a CFC (call for comments) or rather, call for reviews on Mozilla's Add-ons Page. Fireclip is currently labeled "experimental" and reviews are needed before it can go public. So, to all those out there, please get a Mozilla account and write a review here (on the right)! Thanks!

If you are interested in trying out Fireclip without registering an account, download fireclip-0.2.1.zip, extract the xpi file, and drag and drop it inside your Firefox browser.

More Resources:
- Official information
- Short video tutorial

File Sharing Services

2008-04-19T18:10:00.005+08:00

Here's a list of file sharing services which I find useful.

Anyway, it possible to solve a rubik cube in 6 seconds.... even better, 0 seconds for this one.

Flickr Photo of the Day: Entrance

2008-03-10T01:09:00.001+08:00

Entrance, originally uploaded by Jordi (OWK)

Random Updates for the Week

2008-03-09T18:40:00.000+08:00

Random stuff:

1. Flickr is turning 4 on 15 Mar. Here is your chance to get your photo printed and put up for display at Flickr's "pin-up" exhibit in San Francisco. (Do this before 12 Mar. Your photo must have a min res of 1500 x 2100 pixel too.)

2. This "horror story" on G-Archiver rocks. If you are a hacker, you got to be smarter too. If you frequently download shareware or freeware apps from "untrusted sources", you have to be more careful. On a side note, I didn't know there is such a cool tool as Reflector.

3. I have been reading Microsoft's "Heros Happen Here" (rss) Comic. I must say I like it.

4. Firefox 3 T-Shirt Contest. Oh, and Firefox add-ons developers who are able to achieve Firefox 3 beta 3 compatibility by March 18th are eligible for a Mozilla Add-ons Developer T-shirt.

Draft Lessig for Congress

2008-02-25T00:58:00.003+08:00

Stanford Law Professor, Lawrence Lessig, is considering whether to run for Congress. Lessig is better know as the founder and CEO of Creative Commons and also the founder of the Free Culture movement.

In the above video, notes how Lessig rapidly displays short phrases to make his point. Some call his presentation style the "Lessig Method".

I will support Lessig if he chooses to run for Congress.

Update: Lessig has decided not to run for Congress.

Daily WTF Stickers

2008-02-23T16:50:00.004+08:00

I got my WTF stickers today! Many thanks to Alex Papadimoulis!

Happy Lunar New Year

2008-02-06T22:51:00.000+08:00

Wishing all readers good luck, good health and a Happy Lunar New Year!

Security of Wireless Keyboards

2008-02-03T02:33:00.000+08:00

While I was marveling at the convenience of wireless keyboards and mouse recently, a thought struck me - with all the worries over WEP and WPA, how secure are wireless keyboards which rely on simple radio frequency (RF) or Bluetooth technologies? Is it possible for a hacker to intercept your keyboard key strokes or even transmit fake keyboard strokes to your computer?

I went home and did a little bit of research and found that all is not that rosy, including this report on Microsoft's wireless keyboard. Even banks are at risk.

Logitech representatives say their RF wireless keyboards scramble their security codes each time the computer boots up. With more than 4000 possible combinations in the Logitech models, it's unlikely (though still possible) that someone else's nearby receiver would pick up your radio signals. HP is increasing the number of security codes for its keyboards from 2 to 256. (Source: PC World)

But how exactly does Logitech fare? Perhaps, not very good.

I am staying away from wireless keyboards for now.

Happy Birthday LEGO

2008-01-29T22:42:00.000+08:00

As children, we play LEGO. As adults, we reminisce the times we spent playing LEGO. Suddenly, I miss LEGO. Happy Birthday LEGO. I can't imagine my childhood without LEGO.

Davos as a moment of reflection

2008-01-28T01:32:00.000+08:00

The World Economic Forum was held in Davos, Switerland, from 23 to 27 January. It was a meeting of political and business heavyweights as well as influential figures such as Al Gore and Bono. This year's WEF took on a new dimension as Google, through YouTube, posed "The Davos Question" to web users worldwide. Google even set up a "YouTube Room" fitted with five computers (with digital cameras) for attendees to respond to the Davos Question.

For many bloggers, the YouTube room was a "silicon valley moment" in the making. Perhaps, the defining bit was not the two cents worth of the attendees, but the culture of participation that has pervaded the web and social computing. The room was also an arena which saw bloggers utilise web services such as flickr, twitter and qik alike, to democratize information.

It would have been hard to imagine all these happening a year ago.

If viewed a decade from now, Davos will be an insignificant speck of dust on the pages of history. However, Davos is just a case in point. The confluence of technology can only offer so much, but the adoption of technology, especially in third-world counties, is going to make the world an even better place in 2008.

Flickr Photo of the Day: Licorne 3

2008-01-27T21:04:00.000+08:00

Beauty or beast?

This is the third picture of a series of the Licorne thermonuclear test in French Polynesia.

This is a scan of a (digitally restored) hardcopy of a picture taken by the French army which could be purchased in Tahiti at that time.

Licorne 3, originally uploaded by Pierre J.

25 Years wiith Adobe

2008-01-27T20:29:00.000+08:00

It has been a quarter of a century since Adobe was founded, and this year, Adobe celebrates its 25th anniversary. It can be said that Adobe has come a long way - from the humble beginnings of its PostScript language, to the ubiquity of its Acrobat and Photoshop software, and then to the acquisition of Macromedia along with its popular Flash software.

In a way, Photoshop has become the underpinning of the artistic world. As mentioned by Bruce Chizen in the video (read on), it's almost impossible to find something that was not created in Photoshop everywhere we look, be it illustrations in the newspapers or magazines, and even the covers of books.

So, take a trip down memory lane and look at the video celebrating Adobe's 25th anniversary or the comprehensive newsletter (direct download). You will discover a lot more about Adobe than you have ever known.

Others:

This week, Project10X published the Semantic Web 2008 Report, which is worth taking a look at. The report touches on topics such as Web 3.0, Social Computing and future trends.

Macbook Air

2008-01-20T15:58:00.000+08:00

Last week, Steve Jobs gave his keynote at Macworld in San Francisco, and unveiled the Macbook Air. (Download Steve Jobs' Keynote). Although the Macbook Air comes with 1.6 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, an iSight Camera, an innovative multi-touch touchpad and a back lid keyboard, it is missing some other stuff. Of course, one only realises this after breaking out of Steve's Reality Distortion Field. Where is the firewire port and the Ethernet port?

Last week was also significant as I was nowhere near a computer during Steve Job's keynote. However, technological innovations have made it possible to get live updates half way round the globe. I used twitter to provide me live updates via my mobile phone (I don't have a 3G/wifi-enabled mobile phone). SMS (short messages) were popping in at about one every 5 seconds at its peak (imagine the excitement!). Sadly, the messages stopped coming just before Steve Jobs announced the Macbook Air. (I later learned that twitter crashed, probably due to heavy traffic from Macworld.) I waited about an hour before I received the delayed updates.

Anyway, I have finally uploaded the KDE 4 Wallpaper pack to omnidrive.

Bill Gates drinks Diet Coke

2008-01-13T16:01:00.000+08:00

For all Coke lovers and Bill Gates' fans...

Bill Gates drinks Diet Coke during Gizmodo's CES 2008 Interview.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008

2007-12-31T01:20:00.000+08:00

The yuletide season heralds the coming of a new year. It brings to mind the faithful past and the rhapsody from the future. It is also the time of the year when one takes a step back to look at the eventful months that have gone, be it quietly or in haste, and to prepare for that beckoning journey which lies not too far ahead.

HanWorks Research takes a brief look at some issues that will affect us in the coming year.

Technology Predictions for '08

Throughout history, humans have made it a habit to read and tame the future. This year, it is no different, except that the advent of the internet has swelled the number of "predictions".

I think that 2008 will be the year cloud computing will take off in a big way, with Amazon leading the charge. Casual gaming (such as those countless games which have been integrated on Facebook) is clearly on the rise (I was addicted to Desktop Tower Defence for a couple of months this year). Of course, a Facebook acquisition/IPO may also be round the corner. Twitter may get acquired.

On the more technical side, the excitement of HTML 5, CSS 3, XHTML 2 and ECMAScript 4 looms large. Firefox 3 is slated for release in the early months of 2008, while IE 8.0 is in the works and continues the catching up game started by its predecessor, IE 7.

US Presidential Elections '08

The United States has always prided itself as a country which upholds freedom and equality for all men. Ironically, the American people has never chosen a president who is non-white, non-male or non-Christian. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can make the difference. Barack Obama is a promising candidate, but he has hinged his campaign on a campaign of hope.

Mini reading list for 2008

I conjured a recommended reading list a year ago and I have decided to continue this insignificant but meaningful tradition.

1. The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan. I have yet to read this book, but reading memoirs can be a refreshing change from the monotony of life. One identifies with the author's struggles, shares his dilemmas, and learns from mistakes made by others.

2. Superfreakonomics - The sequel to Freakonomics, to be out in 2008.

If you are looking for more books to read, Scribd is a good place to start.

Many Anticipations, One Aspiration

2008 promises to go down in history as an exciting and memorable year. Beijing will be hosting its first ever Olympics. The F1 will have its first night race in the streets of urban Singapore. The Large Hadron Collider will finally begin operations. The world is watching.

So, goodbye 2007 and hello to 2008!

Last but not least, HanWorks Reserach wishes all readers a very Happy New Year!

Flickr Photo of the Day: Majestic Mountains Part II

2007-12-23T00:43:00.000+08:00

In the spirit of our last post, we present to you this HDR panorama:

Again a shot of made during my skiing vacation. This was taken hand held.
Please take your time to view it Large on Black, it looks much better this way.

Majestic Mountains Part II, originally uploaded by chop1n

Creating a Panorama using Autostitch

2007-12-22T16:47:00.000+08:00

There are numerous ways to create Panoramas. This post will focus creating a panorama the vanilla flavoured way using Autostitch.

1. Download Autostitch and unzip it into a folder of your choice.
2. In the root folder, launch autostitch.exe
3. On the menu, goto Edit > Options.

4. Change Scale to 100% and JPEG Quality to 95%. Then click "OK"
5. On the menu, select File > Open.

6. Select ALL the images from the folder path {$AutostitchRootFolder}/images/test in the open dialog box.
7. Let the application to the processing.
8. The result is immediately displayed on screen. Two files are also automatically generated in the folder {$AutostitchRootFolder}/images/test: pano.jpg and pano.txt

9. Congratulate yourself on creating your first panorama using Autostitch.

Notes:
- A guide on how to modify the settings in the options dialog box can be found in README.txt (in the root folder of your autostitch program).
- The version of autostitch you downloaded is "for demo" only. (Quote from website:)

Individuals or companies are free to use images that they generate using the demo version of Autostitch without restriction or royalties so long as they acknowledge the use of Autostitch in such works. A commercial license to Autostitch provides access to the patent, source code, technical support and updates.

Other panorama-creation programs worth taking a look at:
- Hugin (tons of tutorial, including this video tutorial on working with GIMP). This is free, and works with other cool free tools such as enblend.
- Autopano (commercial)
- Photomerge feature in Adobe Photoshop CS2 and above, and Photoshop Elements.

Cool panoramas:
- viewAt.org (Uber cool 360 panos)
- photos on Flickr created using Autostitch.
- Gigapixel Pano

There is no Bubble

2007-12-19T20:01:00.000+08:00

"The Bubble" video is awesome!

It is sung to the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire (mp3). And if you have not heard before, check out We Didn't Go to Harvard (mp3) too.

Times Higher World University Rankings 2007

2007-11-13T23:26:00.000+08:00

The Times Higher World University Rankings for 2007 just came a few days ago and we provide you the file without having to sign up at the website. Also, provided are the files from 2005 and 2006 for comparison.

As one can see, this year's results may dwell on the side of bewilderment, but as usual, such rankings should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Not to be missed, there is also the ranking by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Inside Out

2007-11-03T11:44:00.000+08:00

How to turn a sphere inside out. (21:23, with voice-overs)

GOOG 700++

2007-11-01T23:12:00.000+08:00

Beyond belief.

Flickr Photo of the Day: Morning Launch

2007-10-24T21:32:00.000+08:00

'Morning Launch' Large On Black

A portion of the wintering population of Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. I love the running crane with the bit of splash.

Morning Launch, originally uploaded by Fort Photo

The Kaye Effect

2007-10-19T00:30:00.000+08:00

It's time for a science lesson.

Making sense of 9s

2007-09-30T17:56:00.000+08:00

A recent article on TechCrunch featured the uptime of Google for different countries around the World.

The table looked like this:

Hm... sometimes we take a glance at these digits, but we don't notice the difference between uptime and availability, which can lead to misleading impressions.

As usual, Wikipedia provides the answer:

Availability is usually expressed as a percentage of uptime in a given year. In a given year, the number of minutes of unplanned downtime are tallied for a system; the aggregate unplanned downtime is divided by the total number of minutes in a year (approximately 525,600), producing a percentage of downtime; the complement is the percentage of uptime, which is what is typically referred to as the availability of the system. Common values of availability, typically stated as a number of "nines", for highly available systems are:

99.9% ≡ 43.8 minutes/month or 8.76 hours/year ("three nines")
99.99% ≡ 4.38 minutes/month or 52.6 minutes/year ("four nines")
99.999% ≡ 0.44 minutes/month or 5.26 minutes/year ("five nines")

It should be noted that uptime and availability are not synonymous. A system can be up, but not available, as in the case of a network outage.

Anyway, here are some tidbits for regular readers:
- Mac Leopard Wallpapers
- Mac Tiger Wallpapers
- The 5th Wave RSS Feed