Tinypliny's Journal

10/01/2010 12:25 #52865

Good Luck, Rahm Emmanuel!
Category: {dodo}

So, farewell then, Rahm Emmanuel,
No more, lighting the White House fuel,
Spent this past weekend in DC's hot spell
Didn't realize it was your last, as well

Keith's mum, who is quite taken with you
Tells me you have the whole of Chicago to woo
I have also heard that it's pretty windy
So, no more worries about politics of Rawalpindi?

NB: {Pardon me, my dear17.5 year old.

}

09/21/2010 10:33 #52796

Fedora: Fine but frustrating
Category: i-tech

"Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do?"
-- Pride and Prejudice, 1797

I am not. But I am determined to stick with Fedora 13. Only, it is so frustrating that I seem to be struggling with the simplest of things.

The minimal installation was so minimal, it forgot to ask me for a login and password preference and then when it finished, it wanted me to use a non-existent login and password to login to the OS. Needless to say, I had to start with the bloated "Graphic desktop" installation all over again and though, I was presented with customization choices, I couldn't really customize anything because I had no idea what any of the packages actually did! And anyway.. why is it that I need a login every time I power it on?! I can't seem to get past this. I hate having to log in to my own computer. I want the boot up to be faster.

I keep trying to install chrome and it says chrome installation had "finished" but I can't see it anywhere. And I hate that trackpad mouse tap behaviour only loads when the operating system loads completely. Before this happens you need to click that annoying trackpad button.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I just thought this might be easier than the other zillion times I have tried.

Arrrrrggh.

But I am not giving up. I am starting on a book called "Introducing Fedora: Desktop Linux" today. 400+ pages later, if I am still struggling, maybe I will revisit Austen's predictable tome.

paul - 09/22/10 00:12
You should come up with a formula for passwords instead. Do something like the first three letters of the name of the system, plus your mothers birthyear and the last three of the month you were born in. I totally made that up, but you get the idea. That way you just remember the formula and it works for every system you use.

tinypliny - 09/21/10 19:08
turn on me - if I forgot the password, that is. I am REALLY bad at remembering passwords because by this time, I have millions of them. It gives me anxiety every time I face the prospect of yet another password and login.

tinypliny - 09/21/10 19:06
I didn't want to have to deal with yet another layer that might potentially turn on me if I encrypted stuff so I didn't choose that option.

This might be a weird thing to say but if my laptop does get stolen, I'd like it to be atleast usable to whoever than headed for trash. It makes me sad to think that they might find out that the hard drive or whatever is completely unusable and toss it in the bin.

tinypliny - 09/21/10 19:04
Good points. I feel like a spoilt kid fed too much windows and false securities.

paul - 09/21/10 17:48
You can set it to autologin but in general thus is really bad practice. Especially because you may have sensitive data on your machine. I also encrypt my drive. Did you choose that during install. Its a free option with fedora.

There is also a good reason to use a under privileged account and need to enter in your password when installing new stuff. If you don't and malware gets on your computer which could easily happen if you don't understand your computer - then that malware can excute anything it wants as a privileges user and do things like open ports, install other malware etc.

Its especially important when you install closed source executables you get off the internet. You carryyour laptop around. What if you got robbed? Do you want your data so exposed?

09/20/2010 17:47 #52790

Drupal: Hooks, blocks, modules and nodes
Category: i-tech

I spent quite a chunk of time reading about it. I am hooked. I have to wonder about the people who actually designed all of this - they must have some of the most logical and organized minds around. It took my puny brain quite a while to understand how content management in Drupal actually works.

But it was tough to figure it out initially. Maybe this is how computer scientists must feel when they are asked to understand and write about a cell-culture or mouse knock-out experiment.

09/18/2010 23:18 #52781

The weekday consequences of a bald spot.
Category: the odes

I have an almost bald patch from my most recent haircut. And no, I didn't do it myself. It's terribly amusing and I can't help laughing at how absolutely abysmal my head looks now.

I resemble him closely.

I guess I am going to repent all this laughing on Monday when people shoot me looks of embarrassment and try and feel bad for me. I will reciprocally try and look appropriately apologetic for having inflicted the bald spot on them.

But my evil twin will want to respond like this...

tinypliny - 09/20/10 17:56
Excellent idea except for a tiny hitch. Might attract even more attention if I suddenly start wearing them indoors.

lilho - 09/20/10 11:20
id wear stylish hats until it grew back.

tinypliny - 09/19/10 21:13
It was an accident. Her heel caught on the long sheet that they make you wear when they are cutting your hair and she twisted her ankle. It happened pretty fast. She was using the thinning shears and her wrist flicked briefly as a reaction. As a result, she cut off slightly more than she was intending too. It was not intentional. Besides, she was really sweet to me. I wouldn't blame her at all.

libertad - 09/19/10 08:26
Where did you get your haircut!?

09/18/2010 04:36 #52773

Print/Read only selections from a web page
Category: i-tech

It always annoys me when articles I want to read on the web, specifically the ones that link out from aldaily.com are almost always embedded in webpages that additionally have unnecessary and distracting elements such as menus, ads etc.

Chrome came to my rescue. I simply right click over the content I want to read, click inspect element, find the element that houses the article (usually it is under some div id), right click on the appropriate div > copy as html > paste that entire thing on a text editor, say, notepad > save as html. Open the new html file in a browser. Et VoilÃ - just content, no fluff!

PS: I know you could just click-drag-copy the text you want to read, but I find this cumbersome for really long articles.

tinypliny - 09/21/10 20:11
Ah! I knew about this before but somehow forgot about it because it has messed up pages in the past. Thanks for the reminder. I have dragged the bookmarklet to chrome.

ajay - 09/21/10 20:04
There's a Javascript bookmarklet you can install, called "Readability". It does a phenomenal job of removing the clutter. :::link:::

paul - 09/18/10 10:22
On a mac, safari has that new reader mode. I wonder if chrome will follow suit.