Well, it's another new year. Not a lot has gone on, my sites have stayed infection free (yay!), I have been learning more about Microsoft Server 2012 / 2016, as well as PowerShell. Pretty neat stuff for some, rather dry for others, but its important to keep learning.
I have purchased a few YubiKeys. They work pretty well, and can provide two factor authentication natively for things like Google, Last pass and even Facebook!
Guess I'll post later when I think of something interesting to post…
So I just moved from one GoDaddy host to another GoDaddy host, as they told me the server I was on, was out of date and could not be updated beyond PHP 5.4 (and probably other OS components…). Any who, during this move, my buddy messages me saying my site has been hacked, but it looks fine when I go to the site directly.
Long story short, some how some one got in and modified my .htaccess file in the root dir. It checked to see if people came to the site from a search engine. if so, it changed a lot of text to say things like "Viagra".
Edited the .htaccess and all is good, but pretty sneaky stuff, as most website scanners did not even pick up the hack.
Its been about a year, better put an update out… hmm lets see… to all my 0 fans out there, nothing new to report. I put Ubuntu on my main home computer, since its really easy to get some games (Steam) and netflix to work (Chrome). No dual boot for me, pure Ubuntu 14.04 and a windows VM. So far so good.
Once again its been awhile since posting here. I have been pretty busy as of late, with a decent amount of work coming in, but also the family side is taking a lot more of my time, thanks to the wife working more then me!
Let see, Ubuntu 14.04 will be out in a matter of weeks! So that's pretty exciting. They are brining in a few nice updates, such as allowing local menus again (not all the file menu's at the very top, but in each app if you desire). Its a setting you can enable in the settings panel. They have also improved the scaling for super HD monitors, such as the 4k displays. The kernel will also be 3.13 with a already back port from 3.14 for the new intel graphics support. So I'm fairly excited about this LTS release. Things we will NOT see for a fairly long time is the Mir display server, as its not up to spec yet, which is a bit disapointing, but understandable, as that's something you want rock solid! Due mostly because of all the contraversy, I kinda wish Canonical would just go back to making Wayland their target but o well (I just hate seeing a big divide in use of a main OS subsystem).
In other news, SteamOS is coming along nicely and thanks largely to SteamOS, the 3 main Video card makers seem to be picking up the slack for improving the Open Source Drivers for their video cards! Nvidia is not doing a heck of a lot for older cards, but they seem to be doing a fair bit of work for their SoC Tegra graphics support. They will also hopfully open up more documentation along the way to help out the open source driver. SteamOS is also using Debian as their main OS instead of Ubuntu (As I think I mentioned before). If the Open Source drivers keep inproving, I may give straight Debian a try instead of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu seems to always get a lot of hate for things they do, but I think a lot of it is unjustified. Granted, I would like to see Canonical use more standard directions, like Wayland instead of Mir (especially since they were the ones who started going with Wayland), but I'm sure they have their reasons, and if I remember correctly, one of the main reasons was to get android drivers working with it for quick deployment.
That being said, I think they are doing a lot more good then harm. Their biggest achievement I think has always been getting Linux as a desktop platform into the publics eyes. Also the only “harm” people seem to complain about, is either
A) putting in non-open source things like driver blobs
and
B) making their own software instead of using something already out there
For the first part, yes I would like to see more Open source drivers out there, but Canonical made it so Ubuntu runs on WAY more systems, and better! This is a plus for the user, and once things get rolling with Linux being more main stream, I'm sure companies will start putting more time into making better open source drivers for their hardware (Nvidia is now putting out documentation so a better Open Source driver can be made, partly thanks to Steam making SteamOS and maybe partly because of Linus fingering them…).
For Canonical making their own software instead of using things already out there, who cares? I know of only really 2 things they have made them selves and people have complained about, and that is Unity (user interface) and Mir (instead of wayland). In the case of Unity, simply install another user interface…. its not hard, there are loads of documents on the web to help you as well, should the software center not have it (but I'm fairly sure the software center does indeed have all the major ones) or you want a updated version. As far as Mir is concerned, I don't see the big issue, for one a lot of people are comparing it to how it runs right now… which is in a alpha state, so it will get much better, and 2 all the side distro's that REALLY don't want to use mir, could just create the distro with something else, granted it would be more work, but it's possible.
Another thing you have to keep in mind, is that Canonical is pushing the boundaries of Linux/GNU to get to places that it would otherwise be really hard to get to. Like the phone. It took a HUGE company google to get Linux as the base of their android OS and that is ONLY the kernel. Canonical is trying to get Linux/GNU as a whole out there, and they are going to have to do things differently in order to push it out in time and be able to stay on top of things to make sure their product functions as it should. Right now they need the driver blobs and Mir to get the whole convergence thing, and that's fine. I for one applaud them for making the hard calls to advance Ubuntu in to areas that would other wise be just a dream.
Linux/GNU is MUCH better with Canonical then without. When Open source software and Linux becomes more of a norm in all area's of computing, I have no doubt Canonical / Ubuntu will be a big reason why!
Dang, that's a lot of space. Wonder how long it would take to burn 1PB of data 😛 Still would be very useful for backups.
Read article here
This clears some things up. It also makes me excited about Wayland… not sure how it ties in with Canonical's Mir though… Any who, graphics in general are a weak point in Linux, and its nice to see this side of things being cleaned up. Now to get better Graphics drivers! Wonder if it will be easier for display drivers to be make for wayland vs X?
Wow! This is one of the best articles about the history of money I have EVER read! If you want to know a bit about what runs every country in the world, read this!
P.S. Its a bit long, so you may want to send to your kindle or something if you have one ^_^ Very much worth the read though!
So I got LTSP running on about 15 LAB computers all at once, and after getting a few applications running locally instead of on the server, the computers are rockin 🙂 Unfortunately the school has to wait a bit before putting it into production, but they are good to go now! I look forward to having the kids and teachers use them and give me some feed back.
I am getting back into some tech training and plan to finish my TCP/IP 6 training and then moving onto some CompTIA certs like Linux+ and Server+.
In other news, ubuntu is making their OS for phones. Looks pretty neat, but I probably won't jump on that right away, but will try it on my Note 2 if its ported there.
So, its 2013! We made it past the horribly over ratted and misunderstood mayan end of the world (actually end of an age). Its been a pretty good end of 2012 / begining of 2013 as far as my business goes. I have been messing around with EdUbuntu and the LTSP (Linux terminal server project) and that's been awesome. I'm going to introduce it to a school next week if all goes well. Basically it lets me send out a image that loads off the server through the network to a bunch of low powered desktops. This is good, because their computers are old, crappy and they have no budget to replace them (like a lot of schools). Not to mention Edubuntu is free!
Now I'm impressed with LTSP, because after a day of messing around with it, its actually really easy to manage, maintian, update and just generally mess with. For my original messing with it, I just installed LTSP on top of Ubuntu and it didn't take long to figure it out (assuming you have experience with linux and the CLI). The options are simple and useful, decently well documented and a breeze to get up and running. I have just tested it on one computer + the server I had laying around, but I'll try and post an update after getting a bunch of other computers on it at the actual school.
Happy new years every one!
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