Firefox cool & a short linux command line primer

I know a lot of people are raving about Mozilla Firefox, and some of it is surely because a lot of people hate Microsoft, but I found something pretty useful I'd like to share.

I was downloading a file this evening, and the file seemed to get stuck. It was a short file, so I didn't mind downloading it again. I was a bit irritated, because I thought that I'd have to switch between the Firefox download manager, and the web page with the file link. Switching is really no big deal, it just takes time to move the mouse to the link and resave. B U T... I didn't have to switch away from the download manager. After I clicked cancel, a link appeared to try the same download again. I've probably skipped over this small detail a million times before because I really didn't want the download, but this time I did, and the file started downloading again, this time to successful completion. The download manager is actually something I find irritating about Firefox. I've never liked download managers. Just download the file and close the window, that's my philosophy.

I've also been doing a lot of reading about IRC, Internet Relay Chat. I've used IRC for years, and before that multi-line chat on Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) independent of the Internet, but I've never been the blow-hard some have been. It's a cool tool. Anyway, I decided to launch xchat from the command line. I still wanted to use the command line session so I appended an & symbol to the end of the command. Here's the session:

charm@linux:~> xchat &
[1] 13265

Again, this is something I've done a lot before, but never paid much attention to. Then I got thinking..."I bet that number is the process number of xchat. Hmmn, that means I could probably kill xchat using that process number. What a cool and useful thing to be on the command line!" Okay, it probably didn't go quite like that in my mind, but something close. So I did a process list:

charm@linux:~> ps aux | grep xchat
charm 13265 15.0 4.6 22296 11884 pts/1 S 23:38 0:01 xchat
charm 13271 0.0 0.2 2692 680 pts/1 R+ 23:38 0:00 grep xchat
charm@linux:~>

Sure enough 13265 is indeed the xchat process, and I could kill it using kill 13265. The second process listed was the search/grep I just conducted. It was shown because it also contained the word xchat.

These are just a few more reasons why I like Linux.

jPodder vs. iPodder - Running in Ubuntu Breezy.

Ubuntu Breezy Linux is without a doubt, one of the hottest user-friendly Linux distributions around. I've been using Ubuntu for a few months on my notebook and it's been terrific. That said, one of the applications that seems to be lacking in the distribution is podcast feed pullers. Ubuntu does have ipodder, but my experience is that ipodder is pretty basic, and it doesn't seem to pull .torrents without extra configuration. I like ipodder's simple interface. When you add a feed, ipodder only asks for the feed link, it then auto-inserts the podcast title. Ipodder sets up downloads under a download sub-directory (within a user ipodder directory). Ipodder is great if you're new to downloading podcasts.

JPodder is another great podcast downloading application. It does require you insert a title, but that functionality can be an advantage, because the title is what jPodder uses to create subdirectories for each podcast. When JPodder first starts up it creates a My Received Podcasts directory in the users' home directory. As with iPodder, the location of downloads can be changed. JPodder seems to have fewer problems downloading podcasts, and I like the option of viewing downloads in a tabbed folder. The only bummer about jPodder was setting it up with the current version of Ubuntu Breezy. Normally you would install jPodder by running:

java -jar install-unix.jar

Where install-unix.jar is the jPodder java file you download. Breezy complains about what looks like two missing files, libawt and libXp. All that's missing is the libXp file. You can download it in Breezy using:

sudo apt-get install libxp6

We really need more podcast downloading applications. I like both iPodder and JPodder, but I'd like to see a GTK client included in Ubuntu. With that, it's back to listening to The Linux Link Tech Show.

Sun-licious!

By now you probably know I'm a bit of a fanatic when it comes to technology generally not available through big box computer stores. Over the past few years I've picked up enough spare parts to get a semi-working Sun Sparcstation 5.

Thanks to Netplus, an eBay seller, I finally have a Type 5 keyboard and mouse - the last component I really needed to simplify my Sun-penchant.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a couple of other Sun parts, a Sparcstation 1, and a Sun GDM 20D10 monitor (pictured here). The Sparc 1 was set to get a password from a NIS server. I was thinking of wiping the machine, it seems in good working order, but the hard drive is barely 210MB, almost nothing I put on (Linux-wise) will be useful, so for now it's going to stay as it is until I set up a NIS server. Unfortunately, the monitor has a pretty bad bowing effect. There are no controls on the monitor to change the bowing, or anything else for that matter, and the keyboard controls apparently don't work unless you've got Solaris running (I could be wrong about this, if I am please correct me). At first I thought I might pop the cover and try to tune it as I have PC monitors (note: don't try poping your monitor cover unless you know exactly what you're doing, there's enough electricity in these babys to kill!) but I wasn't having much luck getting the cover off, so I decided to do some research... low and behold the controls for this baby are actually on a remote control - is that cool or what?!

So the ultimate idea here is to get my Sparcstation running and use it as a server for the futuristic MuSH/MUD I mentioned in my last post. With no CD-ROM, and what seems to possibly be a bad hard drive, I haven't had much luck yet. But I have another drive to test tomorrow. It's getting quite late and I still want to jot down a few notes to myself about the MuSH. Sleep tight everyone!

MuSH - Down boy!

The idea of a world where cybernetic huskies roam around in a post-apocolyptic setting sounds pretty cool to me! I've been interested in fantasy worlds since I was a young lad, about 25 years ago. For a few years I played pen and paper fantasy role playing games, but when my family bought a Commodore 64 I ended up spending a lot of time playing games like Shamus, Shard of Spring, and Phantasie III. With a little coaxing from my folks I eventually gave up pen and paper games. Thankfully they were not the type to argue that the games were satanic, instead arguing that I could spend my time better. Today I might argue that point too, with moderation I think they help develop imagination and social skills, and they keep young people busy with social events which don't involve vandalism, physical violence, or sitting alone in a room. Anyway, all of this is leading up to me thinking about running a MUD/MuSH server based in an apocolyptic Mad Max-style world.

I think I've settled on a MuSH server, TinyMUSH 3.0, and I've found some pretty interesting hacks people have written for TinyMuSH. I'd love to create a client like they use for The Mana World project, but it's way beyond my skill. If someone is in interested in working on a post-apocolyptic client UI for TinyMUSH, please let me know. A number of graphical clients exist for MUDs and MuSHs, but nothing I've seen to the extent of The Mana World. A few of the better ones I've seen for Linux are:

• GNOME-Mud - a Gnome-based MUD client.
  
• SMM++ - a Tcl-based MUD client.
  
• Gmoo - a client included in the Ubuntu Breezy repository
  
• Papaya - another GTK-based client.
  

What probably interests me most at this point is coming up with the ideas for the server world, and hacking scripts to make the server behave in a wild and wonderfully eerie way!

Palm Pilot hacking

When I first got my Palm m125 I was estatic, no more lugging around a notebook (a relatively light ThinkPad 701C butterfly), and no more dead battery after 45 minutes. For an entire semester I used it on a daily basis to download news using the included Avantgo software for a course I was taking on writing for the media, it served well in this capacity. During this time I was syncing on a daily basis and everything seemed fine until near the end of the course when the batteries seemed to die on a daily basis, which meant mandatory synchronization. Luckily, my Sony Ericsson T310 phone also had infrared, and I discovered by accident that it's possible to synchronize contacts between the two devices over Infrared (it works quite well). I made the plunge for AAA rechargable NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydrate) batteries, but discovered the m125 doesn't like NiMH. Scouring around the net I found some cached posts which seem to imply that NiCAD (Nickel Cadmium) rechargables also don't work with the m125. If you've experienced differently, please let me know.

So for the last six months my m125 has sat unused in one of my drawers. I take it out now and then to look at and with the intention of using it again, but inevitably it ends up back in the drawer after a few days. Lately I've been considering using it as a LCD reporting tool for one of my desktop machines. Some cool open source developers have posted complete details about using Palm Pilots as cheap LCD displays. Since I have a couple of headless boxes (computers with no monitors, keyboards, or mice attached), it would be a handy way of reading certain data without having to secure shell or remote desktop/vnc in. What interested me about the hack is there's a section about hacking your palm with a power adapter (goodbye batteries). Of course the m125 would have to stay in the machine, and it would require another outlet for the adapter, but it might just be worth trying to put the m125 back in circulation.

Friends, family, and strangers, thanks for checking out the Silicon North blog. Have you ever had a hankering for some technology that's a little bit different than the norm? Maybe you have friends who have some piece of technology that you wish you had, but with a few modifications? Perhaps you're sick of seeing the same tired reviews of software X, which has been funded by Company M? Silicon North is my little slice of heaven where I'll spin my brand of 'take no prisoners' reviews.

Being a bit of a sucker for the 'geek factor' of an item, sometimes I'll review hardware and software that's a little dated. Not everything that's old is 'tired.' Many hackers have found terrific uses for technology others consider lame. For example: Got an old iMac sitting around? Check out this iMac Rack Mount Project.

If different is your thing, then stick around, there's a lot more to come!