The Code Crusader

Happy New Year! :) I forgot to tell you, I got a snail mail from LPI that contains my certification credentials last Jan. 9. It contains my LPI Certified Membership card, a congratulations letter from their CEO, a free copy of Linux Magazine that I can claim through their website, my diploma and an invitation to take their Ubuntu Module. This will be my very first certification. Come to think of it, I never realized that I'll have my first certification for linux considering that I was concentrating a lot with programming back in college and a lot of other IT stuff. But after working as a technical support with the job responsibilities of a systems administrator, little by little, I realized I needed to specialize in a certain field of IT. That being a "jack of all trades master of none" isn't a bad idea but being an expert with something will really help a lot. So here it is. I finally found my first goal. A career that has a lot of linux in it. Be it for the enterprise or for the community.

Yep. After a year, I took the second part of my Linux exam. It was quite easy even though I've only reviewed the LPI102 Manual and did some VCE and online test exams. Even though I've finished the whole exam for only 45mins, I only decided to pass my questionnaire and answer sheet 30 mins before the time. I went home quite happy, relax, and confident that I will be having my very first certificate 25 days later after this exam. That is, if I pass. I hope my dream last night of failing the exam wouldn't come true. That would be a very bad Christmas gift and will certain ruin my New Year.

For the past few days, I've been rummaging our office's box full of "garbage" paper. You know, the place where employees would dump all their useless documents or misprinted documents. Majority of paper used for these documents still looks very neat at the back and blank. Most of them are either A4 or Long bond papers. Being someone who prints a lot of documents, I've decided to gather all these papers so I can re-use them when I need to print a HOWTO or some document that doesn't really need a new paper. They can also be useful as a scratch paper or do what I did, I made a notebook out of a bunch of A4s :) After reusing this papers, I'm planning to store as much as I could then later, sell them for a profit :P Think of all the paper you could save and money you can get by doing this :) Just needs a little of your time. Recycle.

Last Oct.28,2008 at 11:45PM, I found myself DIGGing while waiting for one of my client to ask assistance with their servers and whola! Found a link a DIGG about CodeWeaver's LameDuck saying that they'll be giving away their a full version of their WINE for FREE! I was like, "WOW!" I couldn't believe it. It was a mix of joy and excitement. The LameDuck challenge was simple. CEO of CodeWeaver challenged Pres. George Bush to Six LameDuck goals and if he achieved one, CodeWeaver will give a full version of their software for Free. Even though the President wasn't able to achieved one of the goals directly, one of the goals was achieved due to economic crisis and that is, bringing the average price of gas to $2.79 dollar/gallon. CEO of CodeWeavers being true to his word released WINE for one day only and would give the serials through email. But why fuzz about CodeWeavers? You see, CodeWeavers is the biggest developer of WINE. WINE is a popular and quite reliable software in Linux that people use to run MS-WINDOWS apps. Be it games or other applications. Even though WINE is free, it's quite hard to set it up and would require some tinkering that an average computer user wouldn't want to do(as if they'll go Linux in the first place). CodeWeavers on the other hand creates additional modules and some patches that makes WINE easier to use(for a price of course but still very cheap). They have versions for MAC, PC and have versions specifically designed for use with MSOffice and Windows-based games. I remember hacking my way through WINE just to get a sound for my Warcraft3 so a free full version of CodeWeaver's WINE is really great for a Linux user like me. CodeWeavers also gives back their code to the FOSS community so its a win-win situation. With the sudden increase of bandwidth due to a lot of DIGG users simultaneously checking their website, they have to change their homepage to a DOWNLOAD ONLY page to speed up the loading. I just got really luckily I was still able to download a copy since it was already about midnight and even if their having a lot of visitors coming to get their free download.

PS. I just got my registration keys for the version that I've downloaded.(I downloaded all versions btw =p)

For More Info..
http://www.codeweavers.com
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/27/codeweavers-says-cheap-gas-free-software-tomorrow/

Atlast! After years of drooling, thousands of considerations, and saving cash, I finally bought my very first Apple Product. Nope not that thin Mac Air that doesn't even have a LAN Card or a MacBook Pro which would cost me an arm and a leg considering I only need simple stuff but a 6th Gen 80GB silver iPod! hehehe

You see, I started drooling over one back in college. A classmate of mine have a 2nd generation iPod. I really think its a good investment since you can save tons of songs in it and use it as a external device. But since it costs a lot(not less than 10K I believe), I wasn't able to get one. Also, I'd rather buy a Desktop since my very old 350MHz AMD K6-2 is already very slow and my sisters(and mom eventually) needed a faster computer for school and work stuff plus it can double as a my gaming machine.

Going back. After saving some, I was able to buy a 1GB-generic-usb mp3 player which is AAA Battery operated. It died on me months later. Even so, I realized its a really nice companion during long breaks between classes, whenever I commute and as a file storage.

During the years I don't have a music device with me, I endured humming a song, lip synching like I was a crazy person talking with no one and listening/watching Showbiz b*llsh*t inside buses during the long hours of my commute. Since I already save some money, I decided to get one as a birthday present for myself. :) Got a brand new one from eBay.ph which is very cheap than the usual market price. It still have 38GB with my songs and the preloaded songs/movies/episodes on it. Bought it a silicone protector(it's 100% unscratched). All can say is that I'm really happy with it right now. I'll try to post the pics here some other time! :)

Microsoft Products sucks. There. I said it. Their products are headache. From Dev, Office Productivity, Games and yeah, the Operating System that popularized the use of Ctrl+Alt Del(which was originally programmed for debugging purposes) and the Blue Screen of Death... hhmmm ok fine, HALO's cool but come to think of it, it was Bunjie Studios who was acquired by Microsoft that made it. Also, there are rumors going around that Bunjie will be leaving Microsoft. If you really ponder on it, the great stuff inside Windows are usually the apps that are made by other companies. Games for example. Most people are having seconds thoughts moving to MAC or Linux since they don't have as much games as MS Windows. There are also popular apps like Adobe Products that needs a lot of tweaking when you "wine" it under Linux though MAC fan boys don't have a problem on this one. The problem with MS products are bugs. There are too many bugs that later on results to system crashes, security holes, development obstruction, troubleshooting the same problem all over again, portability, upgrades(vista's a memory hog) and lots of other stuff. Microsoft just got lucky that a lot of company's are supporting their stuff through drivers and useful software which doesn't usually have(if not for their community).

I'm a Windows user and has been using MS Operating System since DOS where you even need a boot disk and a system disk to execute utilities like format, copy, diskcopy, etc. But after I learned Linux both on the Desktop and Server side, I have been thinking of moving to nix. I'm using a dual-boot laptop installed with WinXP and Ubuntu 6.06(Upgraded to 6.06.2). So far, the experience was quite normal and the only reason I go to WinXP is for unproductive purposes like games and chatting. Because of this, I made a plan by having Ubuntu for my desktop(installed with XP just incase someone needs it just like my Linux Prof who's wife uses XP), CentOS/Fedora/Solaris(unix) for my servers. Im planning to do this both at home and work by April 2008 because Ubuntu 8.04 will be released by this month.

Now, why am I making this blog entry instead of shutting up and just enjoy tinkering with my servers and desktop? Well you see, I experience a virus and system corruption problem under Windows. My Outlook 2000 here in the office can't send and receive a damn email. I never experienced this with Thunderbird since I got my Gmail account which was by invitation only before. Windows also encounters a lot of bugs and the virus problem I told you about. The virus(a locally made here in the Philippines) is a VbScript virus. As a programmer and a computer enthusiast, I was able to dodge, prevent or even manually remove viruses without the need of a anti-virus since most cases, anti-viruses doesn't detect these types of locally or small time virus. But after what happened, I say I had enough. It's not that I can't fix it, I'm just tired fixing the same problem even if I can or know how. Also, since I know Linux, I already have the option to migrate. So today, I will start slowly migrating my stuff at home and at work to Open Source. Yeah, I can't remove WindowsXP here in the office because most doesn't know how to use Linux. I can't also remove WindowsXP in my personal laptop since I might need a WindowsXP when I go to conferences or meetings where not everyone uses Linux but I'm 100% sure, I'll be seeing less Windows(aside from servers running old Windows Server) starting this April and my use of Windows Applications will start to decline starting today. I'm not sure if I'll be having the standard problem since people here in the office uses Outlook 2000 but I think as long as I can take responsibility of my actions and do my job effectively without having negative effect on other people, I think everything's going to be fine. Casualty for today? Microsoft Outlook 2000.

After waking up. My mom told me that our landline is now fixed. She told me that there's this gossip that some thief intentionally cut some of the land lines. hhmmm from what I re-call, i lost the dial tone at around 2:30PM in the afternoon.. I wonder what the guard in front of our subdivision do during his shift.