GPS Humano

I did it. I went to FNAC and bought it. I really did it

I just got this new Acer Aspire One (D250).

I’ve installed UNetbootin on my Fedora and downloaded an Ubuntu 9.10 image. After deploying the image to a 2GB USB stick, and booting the netbook, it just went on booting without any trouble at all. That’s what I like in Ubuntu, and that’s what I need for this laptop. After booting, just went through the installer and, after a couple of questions, all was ready: Wi-fi, Ethernet, Microphone, Webcam, everything worked out-of-the-box. Even the Wifi led is working, against all odds

I went through a shared installation to keep things simple. I still have to investigate this further, but awesome as well is the fact the Ubuntu installer respected both Android and Windows 7. Both are still bootable, the first being booted without option (I think it’s my fault when I was asked how I’d like it to boot), then GRUB, and from there I can go wherever: Ubuntu or Windows 7.

Windows 7, as usual, didn’t seem prepared to partition adjustments. After first boot it started a filecheck (still the good’old CHKDSK, just imagine :)… after rebooting again, it was ready to stay. Luck for it that handled it afterall, as its days of existence here are probably limited.

So, this page is needing an update. Pending testing is now the card reader and the webcam. After that, I should update the page.

In the meantime, between reboots, I just found my newest addiction (on the phone, so far) online as well: Tower Bloxx

Last Sunday I commented about Pedro’s opinion about cloud computing and thought I could give my blog a reversed trackback Here it goes:

I think Pedro’s message is important. Cloud marketing and fuzzing seems to be targetted to business decision making personnel. However, no matter what they try to look like, that’s a technical decision and I really think that companies just following this marketing hype will eventually get caught on those small contract letters. As a technician, I agree with Pedro on the enterprise [not] moving its core to the cloud, and that the prices are [still] overrated.

However, for medium-to-large traffic platforms, such that they require a complex setup (meaning >4 machines) cloud can be a solution very similar to what could be called Hardware-as-a-Service. Unavoidabily, you have to move this kind of platforms outside the core, even if they are on a DMZ. More, you don’t usually want to mix corporate traffic with specific platforms (eg. a multinational’s CRM, the company’s website, etc.). In this context, cloud adds as much value as a regular hosting company would do, IMO. No more, no less.

Having said that, I still think it has lots of potential for intermediate companies (and again, this lives in technical scope) to provide HW solutions to costumers by clicking and adding “resources” to a [kind of] shop cart and then split them accordingly to their needs. That’s pretty much how Amazon seems to work – not some VPS/sliced hosting we are getting used to. Also, I see benefit for large hosting companies (now these could be those VPS/sliced ones ) because they can turn the income on periodic basis to match the periodic costs. From this intermediate’s perspective, one of the great features of this cloud thing is that they have setup quite heterogeneous provising systems, which a regular company can’t handle – that is to say you could setup a small/medium/full-blown pile of servers with a few clicks. Time also costs money.

Of course, this is all theoretical while the prices remain so high. It seemed even worst from my searches (although I confess I didn’t explore in depth): you will pay much more with cloud to have there available the same resources you can find on typical dedicated hosting servers – but it’s also true you rarely use them at 100%, so you may eventually get more cost/performance benefit in the near future (because when you buy or rent hardware it’s very difficult to recover the cost).

My conclusion is that the cloud is trying to attract customers on the hype, and that makes our technical advice more needed than ever: explain to the client how to plan, how to implement, and how to scale and where exactly the cloud fits in. To them, my recommendation is this: being on the cloud just because “it’s cool” or because it (seems) so simple you won’t need specialized IT staff, will eventually turn against you.

Following my tests with DATETIME vs vs TIMESTAMP vs INT performance and benchmarking with MyISAM storage engine, I’ve wondered about the performance impact using InnoDB, which is usually more peaky with I/O. Read the rest of this entry »

Although “Linux” seems a little vague, I’ve seen people complaining about their problems with this HP/Compaq model on almost any distribution. These small-form factor desktops are one of those labeled with Windows-ready logo - and support for in can only be found on HP’s forums. Actually, HP clearly states (somewhere) Linux is not supported. But… Read the rest of this entry »

Descobri que existe um módulo completo de Net-SNMP para as estatísticas de IPVS, o net-snmp-lvs-module. O ponto de partida é, naturalmente, a FAQ de LVS, que nos leva para o dito cujo. Os gráficos talvez possam ser mais trabalhados, particularmente no que toca ao valor InActConn, mas para já não tenho tempo. Read the rest of this entry »

Há alguns dias atrás fui descobrir que havia pessoal a usar o driver EPCAM que eu, em 2004, tinha gerado a partir dos trabalhos de Jeroen Vreeken.

Sem lhe tirar o devido crédito, o driver deixou de funcionar praticamente após a transição 2.4->2.6 e, entretanto, envolvi-me noutras coisas, pelo que o driver ficou mais ou menos obsoleto (para o que ajudaram também as várias alterações ao Video4Linux, e sua versão 2). Por mero acidente, localizei o thread acima nos UbuntuForums e, finalmente este fim-de-semana, pude testar o driver e - surpresa das surpresas - trabalha melhor que nunca! Por isso, se por acaso tens uma Creative Webcam (PD1001), experimenta!

De pequena área na minha homepage, e agora que somos mais do que dois (eventualmente) a participar neste projecto, decidi registar o projecto na sourceforge.net; estou à espera que o pessoal adira, e já recebi respostas positivas.

Lamento não poder ajudar mais, mas ainda bem que não foi tempo desperdiçado… esta é uma das coisas que me fascina no Open Source.