Learning Joomla

There are thousands of guys out there who are working with Joomla.

I wanted to learn Joomla. So I set up Joomla on a domain. Read a tutorial for 6 hours and went about setting up the site.

The Joomla default setup gives the a few sample articles, menus, themes etc. which is user is free to modify and experiment.

I deleted the default Joomla articles, menus etc. to set up my own and now it looks like the thing has crashed. Its giving me a 404 for a component that is not found. I have to re-install the thing now

Webserver on Home PC

I setup my home PC to be a webserver based on the instructions given in the following articles.

http://www.thinkdigit.com/details.php?article_id=1061

Everything seems to be working fine. I’ll need to test this tomorrow from a PC outside my home.

Running two wordpress blogs on the same domain

Today I tried to run two wordpress blogs from the same domain name.
It is entirely possible and works like a charm.

The following are the steps to be used:

1. Download the latest version of WordPress.
2. Unzip the the WordPress files to a folder.
3. Make a second copy of this folder
4. Name the copies of the folder as say blog1 & blog2
5. In each of these folders you will need to create wp-config.php file.
6. To create this you need to edit the wp-config-sample.php file
7. The following items shown are to be edited:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘);    // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’);     // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);    // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

8. To edit the above you will need to first create your databases.
9. Create two different MySQL databases one for each blog in your domain. I’m assuming you have MySQL/PHP on Linux hosting. You will need to use the control panel provided by your web hosting service to create these databases.
10. Note down the parameters with which you set up the database and fill up the wp-config.php file suitably.
11. Upload the blog1 & blog2 folders to your domain to sit at http://www.yoursite.com/blog1 & http://www.yoursite.com/blog1
12. To setup the first blog start with http://www.yoursite.com/blog1/readme.html and follow the standard WordPress install procedure.
13. To setup the second blog start with
http://www.yoursite.com/blog2/readme.html and follow the standard
WordPress install procedure.
14. Now you will have two different wordpress installations, two different databases and two different blogs.
15. The first blog will be at http://www.yoursite.com/blog1 and the second one at http://www.yoursite.com/blog2.

Have fun with your blogs.

Getting on to the internet

Today I purchased a domain name and some space on a webhosting server.
Now I can peacefully learn how to run the “real” wordpress.

Open “My Computer” in “Windows Explorer”

enThese are a couple of old windows tricks that I find very useful. However, I manage to forget them every time I sit on a new PC or re-install windows and I thought it would be better to write it down.

Trick 1 : Always open “My Computer” In “Windows Explorer” Mode

Many users find My Computer on the desktop to be a convenient starting point for file operations. Clicking My Computer opens to a Task Pane view, which while gaining wider acceptance, has yet to come close to overtaking the more widely accepted and preferred Explorer view. To set the default so My Computer opens in Explorer view:

1. Launch My Computer > Tools > Folder Options… > File Types tab
2. Select the icon for (NONE) Folder and click the Advanced button
3. In the Actions List, select Explorer and click Set Default
4. Click OK and Close.

Trick 2 : Always op”Windows Explorer” in “My Computer” mode

1. Reach for the Shortcut to Windows Explorere Start > All Programs > Accesories > Windows Explorer.
2. Right-click the Explorer shortcut, select Properties, and in the Target line, add: “/n,/e,/select,c:\” to the end, so your Target line looks like this: “C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE /n,/e,/select,c:\”
3. To Open Explorer in your other choice of folders use a format similar to: “explorer.exe /n, /e, c:\windows\favorites”

To Mac or not to Mac, that is the question

A week after Mac, it has still failed to sweep me off my feet.

I don’t know if 2 gigs of RAM is indeed too small to handle three operating systems at the same time. But things become so slow when I try to run three operating systems together. Also, getting all the operating systems to read all the hard disks at the same time looks difficult too. I operate 6 portable hard disks to keep my data. So with data transfer becoming a chore, some times it looks like the windows way was simple.

Debian too runs on a Mac. But Mac had a much smaller range of applications to choose from. There are sadly no equivalents to the small but powerful FlashGet and uTorrent in Mac. Azuerus seems to be a complicated program to do a simple thing.

In the place where I live, we lose electric power many times a day. When we have power back, I need my PC needs to return to what it was doing even if I’m not sitting in front of it. There seem to be a few problems in getting the Mac to do it. But I think, I’ll eventually tide over it.

I think I need to live through this period of difficulty before I learn to shuffle data between NTFS, ext3 and HFS+. Not to mention, that the keyboard bothers me too. I surely cannot unlearn the windows shortcuts because I need to use windows at work. Remembering how to do it on a Mac with a keyboard is clearly an extra load on the head.

On Debian, again

I didn’t realize that months had passed by since I changed my default boot OS to Win XP.
Now I’m on Debian again.

Reading Linux Partition from Windows

Just so that I am always able to access my data from Linux, even when I’m on XP, I installed this little utility.

http://www.diskinternals.com/download/DiskInternals.zip

It loads the Linux partitions as read-only and lets you copy files from Linux partitions to Windows partitions.

Cool

Moved to Debian

After downloading 3 DVD isos totalling 13 GB, after a week of 9 hour per day scheduled power cuts, after sitting up all  night, after drinking precisely 11 cups of tea with sour milk, after the first few install attempts crashed due to NVIDIA, after GNOME, after KDE, though I’m still on Iceweasel – I movedto Debian.

Good bye Mandriva 2008, You gave me the confidence that Linux can be truly fun.

Good bye Vista, You suck.

KDE 4 release event

KDE 4 release event is planned on January 17-19, 2008

http://www.kde.org/kde-4.0-release-event/

Living with Linux

Setting up ktorrent to start automatically after a power cut:

With KDE:

Open up the file manager (konqueror) and browse to ‘/home/username/.kde/Autostart’. Right click in that folder and create a shortcut to ktorrent

Without KDE:
You can also add the command in your .bashrc – This is not dependent on KDE.

Using Yahoo Chat on Mandriva:

Gyache is the solution. I just ran this rpm.

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gyachi/gyachi-1.1.0-1.i386.f7.rpm

Setting up NTFS read write:

Mandriva 2008 release notes read as follows:
In Mandriva Linux 2008, drives and partitions formatted with the NTFS file system can be made writeable via the use of the ntfs-3g
driver. If the package ntfs-3g is not installed, install it. Then use the Mandriva disk management utility, diskdrake. Select the desired partition, unmount it, and switch to advanced mode. Change the partition type to ntfs-3g.Click Options, and ensure the checkbox labeled ‘ro’ is unchecked. Now mount the partition again. Exit, and save your changes.

But for whatever reason, I was unable to install ntfs-3g through the internet. I ran the following packages from the install DVD manually in the following sequence:

1. fuse-2.7.0-6mdv2008.0.i586.rpm
2. libntfs-3g10-1.826-1mdv2008.0.i586.rpm
3. ntfs-3g-1.826-1mdv2008.0.i586.rpm

I then tweaked the mount points settings and restarted the machine.

Bingo! I was able to move 200 MB of downloaded stuff to my 320 GB hard disk which is NTFS. Now who needs Vista?

Living with Linux

Now here is a story that is a living proof of people’s laziness to move out of Windows:

http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/

For the last two weeks now, I’ve been playing around with computers and operating systems. I’ve finally settled on Mandriva 2008. Its been a week now. I haven’t booted once into Vista though it is installed on my PC – some austerity is required, if I were to ever learn Linux.

Just so that I don’t forget it, I need to document my steps every now and then.

Installation (12th Nov 07):

I re-installed from the Mandriva 2008 Powerpack DVD iso which I downloaded. My earlier installation did not include GNOME so I added it on. Install process was simple. I allocated only 15 GB space to the root ext3 partition, which seems to be big mistake now though. The remanining 65 gigs of this hard disk and the other 320 GB hard disk are all in NTFS. This is limiting my ability to handle data.

I could not boot any version of Linux with my NVIDIA geforce 5200
plugged in. So I simply pulled it out and am presently on i915G
graphics.

Configuration of installation sources and update (13 Nov 07)

After repeated complaints about the installation media not being readable, I used to Mandriva control centre to change the media source for installation and updates to be from internet and excluded the installation media. No complaints since then.

Added compiz effects (16 Nov 07)

Now the 3D graphics rocks . Shame shame Windows Vista.

Viewing .rar files (17 Nov 07)

Added capability to view .rar files on Mandriva by running this rpm

ftp://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/plf/mandriva/non-free/2006.0/i586/unrar-3.51-0.1.20060plf.i586.rpm

Now set to learn Linux

For the last two weeks now, I’ve been playing around with computers and operating systems.

One thing comes out clearly. Open source software has come a long way.

In the last two weeks I tried SuSE 9.1,  openSUSE 10.2, openSUSE 10.3, ubuntu 7.10, kubuntu 7.10, Mandriva 2008 power pack. I loved what Linux did to my PC.

I could never resolve the conflict between my nvidia geforce fx 5200 and the onboard i915G that kept preventing Linux from booting. I finally yanked the nvidia card out and settled for the onboard graphics.

Vista runs on my PC with an experience index of 1.0 and the Aero interface disabled. Mandriva rocks my PC.

Haven’t used Vista or XP in weeks. I dont think I need these anymore. I need to learn Linux to survive.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Booting from grub

All this week, till I complete re-formatting, this is what I need to type at the grub prompt during every start-up of my PC

rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

HP iPAQ 610 business messenger

This is the news I’ve been waiting for.

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=1173338163

HP iPAQ 610 ships this month or next. Hopefully it should be in India by the last quarter. It is one super gizmo which is a mini-computer with windows mobile 6, can run office, push email, a mobile phone, a camera, a PDA with a touch screen and – hold your breath -  a GPS all in one tiny bundle less than 150 grams.

No wonder Apple dropped the i-Phone prices.

The specs are here and the phone retails at US$600

Now the question is, if I get to lay my hands on it. Buying this makes even more sense to me – because this can tether with my laptop, which is also HP, to give wireless internet access at every location where there is phone coverage.

I love Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia for many reasons

- It is a dynamic encyclopedia
- It is free
- I can contribute to it
- It unleashes the full power of hypertext and enables the knowledge seeker to reach new limits effortlessly

Now there is one more reason to love it.

- It runs offline on my Palm.

I discovered the possibility just 5 hours ago. Thanks to the download speeds and possibilities in the U.S., Wikipedia is now running off-line on my Palm

Black Web, bright future

Anand Patil, my college mate, sent us all an email.

When your screen is white, being it an empty word page, or the Google page, your computer consumes 74 watts, and when its black it consumes only 59 watts.

Mark Ontkush wrote an article about the energy saving that would be achieved if Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge number of page views, according to his calculations, 750 mega watts / hour per year would be saved.

In a response to this article Google created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version, but with a lower energy consumption check

http://www.blackle.com/

for more info …
http://www.blackle.com/about/

We can shut down a few power stations and pollute less without significant loss of fucntionality only if all our web pages are black.

Please spread the word.

Killer apps

I am beginning to like simple programs that pack a lot of power.

I’d mentioned TED notepad earlier.

Today I discovered two other great apps. The Foobar2000 player and ScribeFire.

Foobar2000 is my default music player within just one hour of its installation.
And, of course, I’m typing this on ScribeFire – which runs from within firefox.

These are two great apps which will now be permanent features on my PC.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Spreadsheets these days

The square root of -1 is i. Excel 2007 thinks otherwise.

IMSQRT(COMPLEX(-1,0)) is 6.1257422745431E-17+i

RSS readers

There are two feature rich Firefox addons I discovered recently.

First great program is Newsfox which converts Firefox into an RSS reader. It is a real light weight client which gives you all essential functionality.

The second program is Torrent Search Toolbar. This makes it possible to search 25+ torrent sites without actually opening them. It also reads RSS feeds from several sites and allows you to scroll through them. Cool!

Many torrents posted on these sites are illegal and one should be careful of what they download.

Linux links, compiled

This is a compilation of Linux links the average Linux learner will ever need.

Linux, Pronunciation

Linux, as named and pronounced by Linus Torvalds:
http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux.wav
http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux.mp3
http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/torvalds-says-linux.au

Linux, People

Linus Torvalds
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/torvalds/
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/linus/
Richard Stallman
www.stallman.org
Larry Ewing
www.isc.tamu.edu/~lewing
Lars Wirzenius
http://liw.iki.fi/liw/

Linux General

www.linux.org
www.kernel.org
www.linuxlinks.com
www.linux.com
www.linuxhq.com
www.linuxiso.org
www.distrowatch.com
http://counter.li.org/
www.linux.org.uk
www.linuxhq.com
www.li.org/

Linux, Learning

http://learn.clemsonlinux.org/wiki/Getting_Started
www.tldp.org
www.linuxhotbox.com
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/linux/cmd/

Linux, GUI
http://www.gnome.org/
http://www.kde.org/

Linux Distros

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/
www.debian.org
www.slackware.com
www.mandrakesoft.com
www.redhat.com
http://fedora.redhat.com
www.ubuntu.com
www.kubuntu.org
www.gentoo.org
www.novell.com/linux/
http://en.opensuse.org
www.mandriva.com
www.linspire.com
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
www.damnsmalllinux.org

Programs for linux
http://www.linuxsoft.cz/en/
www.gimp.org
www.openoffice.org
www.koffice.org
www.sourceforge.net
www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/
www.mplayerhq.hu
www.real.com/linux
www.scribus.net
https://helixcommunity.org
http://xinehq.de
http://www.linuxprinting.org/
http://www.linuxgames.com/
http://www.konqueror.org/
http://directory.fsf.org/

Linux, News
www.linuxmagazine.com
www.linuxtoday.com
www.linuxworld.com
www.linuxjournal.com
http://lwn.net

Linux Search

www.google.com/linux

Linux, Others
www.linuxsecurity.com
www.linuxdevices.com
www.linux-usb.org
www.linux-on-laptops.com

Write for Wikipedia

Over the last couple of days, I spent a lot of time wondering what web content I could create, all by my own.

Narrowing down on an answer was not easy.

I have lived three decades on this planet. Been there, done that – but would it interest anyboy at all?

Ideally, I’d like to create content that lasts forever.

But what is it that lasts forever?

People change companies. Companies change businesses. Businesses change technologies. Technologies change. Even science changes.

No matter what I write today, I’m cluttering up the disk space of some server.

If what I write does not serve a purpose today or is not required to be preserved for future, there is no point in my writing it. I only hope that a few bloggers realise this before they waste their efforts.

In these few years that I’ve known the net, I’ve read through a large number of blog sites, checked many search engines for the content they index and browsed through a large number of other websites created by individuals and companies.

I would argue that internet should be used only constructively for education and archiving and passing on our wisdom to the future generations.

All those websites out there that sell sleaze and whose only purpose is to make money would definitely disagree with me.

Internet, after all, is yet another product of the human mind and has consequently evolved to reflect the human mind. There are a great many number of things in it that have a varying degree of utility and legality.

After a self humbling experience of browsing the internet, which is as difficult as trying to understand the human mind itself, a tired traveller can just ask for two things.

“Organisation and structure.”

This is what Wikipedia has perfected.

To me, seeking knowledge on Google represents “the struggle of the mind to find a solution amidst chaos”.

Google is, beyond all doubts, a great tool for the internet. Given that the internet itself is the byproduct of actions of nerds, musicians, artists, perverts, maniacs, grand mothers, lawyers, psychopaths, educators, kids and pretty much every one else, it is natural that seeking knowledge from the internet is as chaotic like what it is today.

Wikipedia, on the other hand, to me represents order.

I am a structured learner. By typing the same search string into Wikipedia, I’ve often learnt much more than what I’ve learnt from Google.

Wikipedia does not help if you are looking to download warez, cracks, source codes for viruses or anything else illegal. Needs such as these, which have a varying degree of utility and legality, are best addressed by Google.

But what Wikipedia does, and does very well, is it lets you seek information in a very formal, structured and hyperlinked way.

I remember my excitement when I first learnt about hyperlinks from a text book without even having seen one and how fascinated I was by the idea that information can be interconnected in any manner we want. Reading through Wikipedia, I realise that the potential of the hyperlinking has been exploited like never before.

To me Wikipedia represents a dream fulfilled, a truly wonderful legacy that we will be passing on to the generations to come.

If every person can add even just one line to it in his life time, the entire 6 billion strong world can benefit from this wonderful tool. I can only urge every one to participate in the Wikipedia wonder, use it and contribute to it.

Gearing up to create

I guess I figured out something important today.

For people like me who are not IT professionals and who create content without spending money, writing a blog or writing a HTML page or even setting up a wiki can all be simple piece meal tasks in themselves.

But the fact remains that these are different tools and are best suited to create different types of content.

For making Wikis, the webspace available for free services is limited. Blogs are more popular but are still mostly used to rave and rant. The standalone HTML page has its own advantages interms of integrating it with so many different types of scripts and languages.

So what would work best in my case, in creating the content I like to create, is actually a combination of these. So I’ve tried to put these all together today.

• Provided a new theme for the site
• Made a new WOW (Words of Wisdom) page
• Added feed Chicklet buttons
• Linked to my new wiki bigbook.wikispaces.com

This should let me organise things better.

Another day passes by

I was trying out different things today.

• Installed Clamwin after weeks of being without antivirus protection
• Tried out Windows Live Writer (Beta) on which I tried to post this entry first. It was no good for WordPress so I’m doing this with BlogDesk now.
• Changed my Notepad executable to TED Notepad
• Made my own Wiki Server that runs from Windows Desktop
  • Installed EasyPHP 1.8
  • Installed TikiWiki 1.9.4
  • Created and edited a sample database and it works fine. However, I’m still asking myself if Wikis is a good basis to created long lasting content.

• Checked out Yahoo Web 2.0 (beta) and backed up my del.icio.us to Yahoo
• Checked out a new Yahoo Booter. Works . Need more bots now.
• Updated iTunes Library to include folders from my external 400 GB hard disk
• Installed Gaim for Windows
• Tried out dbabble, but it didnt make sense
• Installed Vodei Codecs
• Loitered around interent

Replacement for Notepad

I replaced Windows Notepad with TED Notepad 5.0

 

This is truly a worthwhile feature-rich replacement.

Even during installation you get to chooose if this should be a notepad replacement or a standalone program. I chose to replace notepad. Windows cried about the original OS file being replaced. Sob! Sob! Sob! All it takes is a confirmation that you prefer the new executable.

The coolest thing is that this permits you to select text columnwise too! A real handy program.

Its also on Wikipedia, here!