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Ha! It wasn't until I went to do the weekly rollover last night that I realized I hadn't done a Sunday post here. Well, here's my excuse<g>. That, and I just flat forgot about it while I was dealing with that server over the midnight hour. So; I have a question for you: What The Heck is going on with my systems and that server?
Details: The ID comes back as an NT server running FTP 4.0. Login goes okay until I get a ''425 Can't open data connection''. Okay, that could be because I'm behind the firewall in the router... 'Cept: I can connect from work through that NT firewall. And forget Passive mode: no go either...
Okay, over to the Win95 box and the dialup. Cool; I'm in. I can affect changes on the server (add directories; download files; delete files), but I cannot upload a file from across my network here... Huh? If I tell Athena (Win95 box) to grab a file from Janus (NT4ws) and shove it through the cloud to Heather (NT server at the hosting service), I get a file creation but it's not my file. Typically, I'll get a zero byte file for gifs and CSS files, and a very basic vanilla HTML file instead of my HTML file...
There's a clue there. If you know what it is, drop me a line. I'm sure the problem is on my end since the other webmaster emailed that he was able to upload last night. Tonight's test: bring the file to Athena first and see if I can send it from that machine. ...'cause I can send files to work and ftp them up from there (thank goodness for LapLink!)...
Ah, the joys of Linux. ...especially for a Linux newbie. Yeah, yeah, I have lots of stuff up, but I want to know how it works. ...and that sometimes involves doing it the hard way. ...or I may just be stubborn<g>. Last night I decided to change the laptop over to Mandrake 7.2 (from a working Redhat 7.0 install). No problem... But this older laptop won't boot from the CD. So I know I need to make a boot disk... Now, the usual procedure is to head into the study and use rawrite on a Windows box to make the boot disk. That's when the stubborn part kicked in: No, darn it. I have functioning Linux OS running; there should be a way to do it from here...
Okay, Gnome won't read the CD's files. Oh yeah; somehow I hosed Gnome on this one a while back and I've been using KDE instead. How? Heck, I don't know; just call it talent... Okay: KDE it is. Yep there's the CD; there are the files... Hey! This looks interesting: just do a ''DD if=cdrom.img of=/dev/fd0'' and you can make your own boot disk! Whoohoo. ...not. ...won't work.
Fire up the processor between the ears and lets see. K', DD--help gives me the syntax. Input file, yeah, yeah; the image from/for a CD install... Output file, yeah, yeah; that's the floppy: it's a device, and its floppy drive 0... Ooo; Ooo (a Horshack moment)(or if your old enough: Car 54): there's something wrong with that input file part. Sure I want that file (cdrom.img), but the DD command doesn't know where to find it. See, silly, it's right there on the CD. Well, I know that. ...and you know that. But the blasted command line command cannot find it. Heck, I'm not even sure I'm specifying the CDROM device correctly. <Sigh> The study for a search for syntax? Nah. ...to far to walk.
Okay, copy the file from the CD to the 'tmp' directory... Tacky, but hey... Now, ''DD if=tmp/crdom.img of=/dev/fd0'' and Mr. Thompson is once again my uncle (although how the age thing would parse out is suspect...).
...and it works like a champ. ...and the install proceeds apace. Right up to the reboot... When I remember that I have to manually configure the video on this laptop 'cause only Caldera gets it right. <sigh>^2... That means another text mode session as I try to remember/lookup/hope someone emails/I guess correctly on the root-based command to get to xconfig...
That didn't work Brian... But only because I hosed things. So, a reinstall under ''custom'' and I was up and running on Mandrake 7.2 through the wireless.
Seamless.
Everyone was in bed, so I went for an install and forgot about it. Heh. I put in the numbers during the installation and fired up Netscape when things came up. Right through to the net. ...no additional configuration to do. Heck, should I even tweak this?
Sure. I'll tweak it. Aunt Minnie? Not quite yet. ...at least on a laptop with an oddball video setup. Preloaded? Perhaps. More investigation is warranted. But, for now, I'd give it three thumbs up...
Post? What post? Oh. This post... Okay... Excuses? None. Problems? Aplenty. But that's okay.
...it seems I spent a little too much time playing on the laptop last night.
...and I managed to hose the jpilot ap. Wow; I'm on a roll. But! I was able to pull the updated 2.01 KDE PIM rpm down and get it installed. All I had to do is follow the instructions<g>. Still, I hosed something and now I get to figure out how to recover from it.
On the other hand, Kmail seems to work well enough. Not that I care. What? Oh: Maximum Linux showed up yesterday in snail mail; the CD was chock full of enough email applications to make even JHR happy<g>...
Arrggghh... I simply have to join Bob and Dave in their recent commentaries on the Tom's Hardware article about upgrading an older machine...
As most of you know (or not<g>), I run older equipment here. I don't have the cash to buy new machines and I don't review for a living. So I settle for stuff from the last decade. ...and I watch my bargains.
So, let's go theoretical for a few. How about an new AT motherboard, with USB and other goodies for $29? Dave pointed that one out the other week (gone now, but here's an ATX version) for $39US. Okay, you now need a case; but if you'd been watching...
...and a Celeron 500 to go in it? These are ''new pulls'' for $64US...
Memory is interesting right now; both Global Computers and Insight have had branded 128mb memory in the $50US range lately.
Heck, let's change out the hard drive while we're at it; that old Maxtor 540 is probably ready to pack it in anyway... I don't even bother with computer places for those sometimes: I just wander down to my local Office Depot and see what they have kicking around in the $99US range; it's currently something around 20gig (Maxtor or
So, for maybe $350, you're talking a Celeron 500 with 256meg of memory and a 20gig hard drive. Heck, you may even be able to upgrade your video card... Yeah, I know: there's tax and shipping in there also. ...and don't forget the CPU fan; PC Power & Cooling will pay the shipping on an $18US cooling fan.
Man, I feel for Tom... Nothing like connectivity woes to get your blood pressure up. But, you add in dealing with dips for tech support and I'm amazed he didn't go past red line.
Me? I haven't been at a machine since 0200 this morning, except to check for mail. 0200? Yeah. I usually write the night before, but I have to say I got distracted <g>.
Um, the tool was Adobe LiveMotion. I started with a gif done by a web designer and added in some sequencing. While we know I'm no design specialist, that doesn't look too bad for a program loaded at 2200. ...and with a program that was an add-on in a package deal that I had no plans to use. An interesting night...
So: no computers today. When I finally got up, I fired up The Beast and laid on some sausage patties. Then velcro boy (that's him next to the grill) and I proceeded to clean the pool filter, plant a full flat of pansies behind the pool, knock down a bunch of weeds on the north side of the house, hand weed two gardens, level twenty feet of pathway that hadn't been done yet (and the rain is due back this evening), and, and... And man, am I tired...
I'm really, really hoping for rain today... 'Cause if I put in another day like yesterday, I'll have to be rolled to work tomorrow. Stiff. That's the word. Last night was all sorts of fun; every time I sat down to type or read... Yeah, sooner or later, you have to get up... Oh boy.
...and I want to get on with another project anyway. I told Shelley I'd gather up the tax stuff; so I want that done. But as soon as that is over, I want to finish stuffing a case with parts. I have the remnants of Shelley's old machine, and some of this and some of that...
There's two Linux boxes to be reborn: Tux^2 is due up in Mandrake 7.2 as a for-real workstation; and Tux is scheduled for an overhaul as a firewall (actually, he wasn't going to come back at all... Then Dave posted that link to FREESCO and that piqued my interest once again in what I call a ''Firewall with a Fan'').
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