Tom LaMantia

Raspberry Pi Ordered!

Ordered a Raspberry Pi today. Updates to come!

Creating GnuPG Keys Using Cryptophane

My GunPG key got obliterated when I formatted my Ubuntu box. So today, I went about the task of setting up a new key. While playing around with Cryptophane, I noticed the documentation is a little sparse. So I am going to run through a quick tutorial about creating and using the program.

Cryptophane is a GUI frontend for the GnuPG encryption framework. Do a quick Google search to download it. It saves a lot of messy command line work, and works quite well. It allows you to create GnuPG keys, import/export keys and sign keys. This guide outlines how to set up and use the keys.

I am not going to explain the technicalities behind how GnuPG keys work (nor do I understand them). Wikipedia has all that info.

Generating Key Pairs

Generating key pairs is pretty simple.

Go menu > keys > generate secret key

Enter all the information is asks. Remember to write down your pass phrase. If you forget it, you will be unable to decrypt any items encrypted with your public key.

Set an expiry date if you wish. This is not necessary. Whatever works for you.

Encrypting

Create a .txt file containing the data you wish to encrypt.

Open Cryptophane, right click your public key >  “Encrypt To”.

Navigate to your file.

Click Process on the menu that comes up.

The selected file will now be encrypted.

Decrypting

To decrypt a file encrypted with your public key right click on the .txt file you want to decrypt.

Click open with Cryptophane.

Select a file name and location for the decrypted document.

Enter your private key paraphrase when prompted.

That’s all there is to it! If you have any questions/comments/concerns,  use comment form below!

SEO Is A Complete Joke

Spam emails occasionally provide me with a source of hilarious entertainment. Ones that advertise “search engine optimization” are one of my personal favorites. What exactly IS search engine optimization?.  Google will provide you with numerous interesting results, however I thought I would come up with a short (yet not complete) list of all things SEO:

SEO is:

• A complete scam
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• A common subject of spam WordPress comments.
• A common subject of robot Twitter accounts
• A common subject of spam emails
• Marketed in all the above ways with a lack of basic grammar using excessive links from url shortening services
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• Commonly conducted by a click center
• Not taken seriously by anyone
• Overcharged
• Overrated
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• A “lingo” to give the impression you understand “all things web”
• A often hilarious gimmick
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• SEO < Nigerian fax scam
• A overused buzzword
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• The subject of 4,674 (and counting) spam comments in my trash can
• The subject of numerous weblogs that dont have a clue
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• Extraordinarily obnoxious
• Meaningless
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• That (insert groan here) when yet another SEO bot follows you on Twitter
• A way to make your “firm” look like it actually does something
• Especially the above ^

Never Force Update Pacman, Trust Me

Last night I melted my Arch Linux machine through my desk. The moral of this post is quite simple: never, ever, ever do a forced update on Pacman. After trying to update Pacman, the update files would download and the system would print out a million "file.foo not found in filesystem" error messages. So I came up with the (not so) brilliant idea of running pacman -Syu --force, and hammering y and Enter on my keyboard repeatedly. Turns out that was not such a good idea.

A quick Google search would have probably given me the necessary warnings:

As quoted from the Arch Linux Wiki:

Every installed package provides /var/lib/pacman/local/$package-$version/files file that contains metadata about this package. If this file gets corrupted – is empty or missing – it results in “file exists in filesystem” errors when trying to update the package. Such an error usually concerns only one package and instead of manually renaming and later removing all the files that belong to the package in question, you can run pacman -S --force $package to force pacman to overwrite these files.

Do not run pacman -Syu --force.

That simple command  totally destroyed my system. Any command I type now gives the error: FATAL: Kernel too old

Well, that’s too bad. I probably should have known anyway. Lesson learned.

Disabling Those Annoying Blue HP Hotkeys

I have never used a É character in my entire life. I doubt you have either. HP on the other hand, apparently sees things a little differently. In fact, it is quite likely they think you need this “bilingual caps lock” about once a day. I sure don’t.  Around once a day, I was running into an annoying little problem: I found my self typing these characters at the worst possible times. When there is 10 minutes left in a Computer Science lab, and your struggling to complete all the tasks, the last thing you need is this annoying problem.

Judging from a quick Google Search, hardly anyone knows how to fix this problem (besides from rebooting) and judging from my call to HP tech support last night, they don’t know how to solve it either. Fantastic! (Even though they had absolutely NO IDEA how to fix it, they DID want to sell me an extended warranty, but that’s another story!)

Either way, I did figure out how to disable these annoying hotkeys after accidentally pressing some mystery key combination in the bottom right corner of the keyboard. The solution is simple. Press:

Ctrl + Left Shift + Right Shift

Eclipse and Infinite While Loops

It’s 2AM. I’ve been programming all day. My laptop was acting up, and I am blaming it all on Eclipse. Ahhhhh Eclipse, its one of those love hate relationships, ya know?  Turns out I did not properly set a condition on a while loop, and my CPU got caught up in infinite loop. This, combined with the simple fact my desk can barely be seen amongst the Mountain Dew cans and miscelanous math homework, should indicate I should be getting to bed. After all, I have to do it all again tomorrow!

YAY! For Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts. Not

Here is a brilliant idea: put the easiest to accidentally press keyboard shortcuts with the most “dangerous” commands. It appears as though the developers at Gmail have done exactly this. A few days ago, I sent my first Gmail message! (Well I technically sent only one sentence due to someones temporary wave of brilliance) but that is just a technicality. Truth be told, it doesn’t take much skill to send a message, as I learned firsthand. One sentence into a (thankfully) unimportant email, my message magically sent itself off. BAM just like that. You get the point. Well, to my surprise, it turns out that <Tab> then <Enter> sends the message. Just brilliant! Like most people who have the misfortune to use Gmail, I indent my paragraphs. I guess I mistakenly hit the enter key after indenting my first paragraph. A simple mistake, but apparently a big one. I am sure I am not the first, or last person to do this. Next time I use Gmail, I will be sure to watch out for that. Either way, this shortcut has to be the worst idea ever. I wonder if the developers at WordPress used such a dumb shortcut… (presses <Tab> then <Enter> multiple times). Nope! My faith in WordPress is not lost! It is still mind boggling to imagine who could ever have thought this shortcut was “intuitive”. Comments? Leave em’ below.

Why I Hate Acer

I have always hated Acer Computers. Always. Every time I buy an Acer computer, they always end up screwing me over. I own a lot of budget computers. Acer, Compaq, eMachines, you name it. I have never had any problem with any other budget brand of computers, except for Acer, and they seem to be on a roll…

Lets flash way back to the first time I was unfortunate enough to purchase an Acer computer. I bought a new mid-end desktop last year, complete with Windows Vista. Since Windows 7 had already been released for Beta testing, and was scheduled for release in less than a month, Acer guaranteed a free copy of Windows 7 for anyone who purchased a new machine for a limited time. I met all the requirements necessary to be eligible for my free copy of 7. When I finally went to redeem it, it was not meant to be (no surprises here).

When I went to register online to have the CD sent directly to me, my model number was not included on the list of eligible computers, and “was not eligible to receive my copy”. It was stated that all computers shipped with Vista premium were eligible… yes, that means me. After a few calls to Acer I was flatly told “no, you do not qualify” (even though I met every single requirement). When I explained this to them, they did not really listen. Many emails later, I had came to the conclusion that no one at Acer had even the slightest clue. I only have a limited supply of time and energy and I prefer to not waste it chasing after Acer all day. I still have not gotten my copy of Windows 7

Flash forward one year. I just purchased a new Netbook. I made the mistake (against my better judgment) to purchase another Acer. Of course Acer couldn’t help themselves and had to screw up yet again. It came preloaded with Windows 7 (how ironic) and I decided to dual boot it with Arch Linux. After partially completing the setup, the time came to partition my hard drive. The partition manager, cfdisk would not even look at it: Overlapping Partitions. You have got to be kidding me. So I searched this issue. After reading a few threads, this problem started to smell slightly fishy. The more I searched, the more strange this got. I have a feeling (just a feeling) that some clever developer overlapped the partitions slightly (probably a few kilobytes) in order to prevent me from installing Linux on it. That’s what I like to call TERRIBLE. I purchased this computer, I can put whatever OS I like on it. Apparently not. I eventually ended up settling for Ubuntu, whose GUI partition manager did not complain about the strange partitions. That’s the end of my rant, how does it feel that I did succeed in installing Linux on my Netbook Acer? By the way, I am still waiting for my copy of Windows 7.

Chrome Web Apps, Is Google Gearing Up For Chrome OS?

Today, Google launched and added a new feature, Web Apps to it’s Chrome web browser. So what are these Web apps all about? I shall get to that. But first, what the hell are these Web Apps and how do I get them? That’s a very good question. These Web Apps seem to essentially be sexy looking “links” located in your tab bar, to all your favorite Google services. Google will soon be introducing a “Web App store” (sounds kinda familiar, doesn’t it) where Web Apps can be purchased. After clicking on this Web App link, which appears to be a favicon type icon, you are directed to that particular service. If you want to try out these Web Apps for yourself, I have outlined some directions below.

1. Update/Download/Install the newest version of Google Chrome (6.0.472.0) Here.
2. Navigate to Extensions >> switch into developer mode >> and click “unpack extensions”.
3. Navigate to: %APPDATA%/local/Google/Chrome/Application/6.0.472.0/Resources on Windows, Linux users see below.
4. Load those extensions.
5. Enjoy.

Of course I wouldn’t forget Linux, the extensions can be found in: ~/.config/google-chrome/Default

Macs do not matter, so I will not bother to post those instructions here.

After excitedly loading these extensions, I found myself wondering: Whats the difference between using these “Web Apps” or navigating to the service/page itself. Well, sexy favicons aside, there doesn’t appear to be one. However, I think these Web Apps might just be the beginning of something very important. If you search way back in the archives you will stumble upon this post. I always said that the Google Chrome OS, will extensively use an “App” system, in which everything is an App. These Web Apps, are the beginning of the Chrome OS “App system”, or at least that’s my bet anyway. I will agree that these Apps seem pretty useless right now, but they might come back later, to become an essential part of Google’s Chrome OS, but that’s just my opinion.

On a totally unrelated side note, I hate the new version of the Chrome Browser. While it still feels like you are not actually using a browser, the rest of the visuals have gone downhill. I think the new menu shading really cheapens the browser and brings down the whole user experience.

My Router, DNS Issues And Google

When you know the number codes to talk to a support technician on a company’s support hot line, you know you have a problem. Unfortunately I know that pressing 1,1,1,4 on your phone will get you talking with a real live person when dealing with D-Link’s customer hot line. It’s a shame I know that. Ever since I got my new router (DIR615) I have had nothing but problems with it. The router works well, but I have been having issues with my DNS. Randomly, with no rhyme or reason, my browser “could not find server at google.com”. Interestingly enough, no other sites experienced this problem. This intermittent problem happened about once a week. This issue happened on all computers, and went away when I plugged my computer directly into my modem, proving my router had issues. The only solution to this problem was to run downstairs, flip the power button on my router, and run back upstairs again. This running, flipping, and running again method worked. Extremely annoying however if you are in the middle of a MSN conversation, or SSHing into your iPhone. Extremely fed up with this problem, I have been desperate for a solution. I have called D-Link numerous times, in hope of getting the slightest hint to what was my problem. I did not expect to actually solve this problem, but to get a hint. As expected, I had to go through  the “level 1 support technician” ideas, before I got to actually solving the problem. After reformatting my router numerous times, updating the firmware, and resetting router’s network settings, as advised by the guy on the other end of the phone, my problem was still not solved. I prefer to not deal with tech support, but in the case of this problem, I did not know what else to do. On one particular phone call, the guy told me to reset my wireless settings. All of my computers are on a wired connection. After asking him numerous times, and in numerous ways “why will resetting my wireless settings, solve this issue on a wired computer?”, he was still pretty convinced it would. So I go through and reset my entire wireless network and settings. That did not work, obviously because all my computers are wired. This seemed to be news to him, although we had discussed that the network was wired no less than 5 minutes prior. When I politely reminded him the computers was connected to the network though a wired connection, silence ensued on the other end of the phone. I will also add that all the people I talked to were very polite and did they’re best to help. As an interesting side note, the server at google.com/ca, Docs, ect could not be found, while the servers at Maps could. Interesting. I suspected a DNS problem at the start, and yesterday my suspicions were finally confirmed. It turned out that the IP address that my ISP was providing was causing issues with my dynamic DNS. I simply had to set a static DNS. I changed my primary DNS to 4.2.2.2 and my secondary to 4.2.2.3. Finally, this actually worked. I changed these settings when the address at google.com could not be found. It fixed the problem without rebooting the router! Looking back, this makes total sense. I originally though I was doing something to trigger this problem. However, it seemed to happen at random. This “random trigger” must have been when my ISP was changing my dynamic IP, messing up Google in the process. I am really happy this is fixed for good, after all, I was getting really tired of running downstairs to flip the power on my router!