tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59924932011-04-22T02:24:05.152+08:00This is the Blog for Thomas LaiThomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.comBlogger161100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1150036726639155842006-06-11T22:09:00.000+08:002006-06-11T22:38:46.666+08:00

One of my favorite game is Ancient Art of War. It was created in DOS/PC-XT times. It was amazing that the PC processing speed is so little compared to now, they managed to come out with a real-time strategy game (almost real-time) with some good AI. It even has a terrain/map editor. All under 560KB. I cannot imagine writing any real application under 1 MB.I tried out dosbox and mount the drive as

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1149995074904789202006-06-11T10:56:00.000+08:002006-06-11T11:07:18.306+08:00

All along I am using Totem, Rhythmbox to manage my libraies of music files. Then I discover amaroK, the KDE music jukebox player.It supports podcast, and also display lyrics based on the song being played, and display singer and album info based on wikipedia.

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1149993447106067632006-06-11T09:52:00.000+08:002006-06-11T10:37:27.106+08:00

The upgrade steps are quite easy.1. change the /etc/apt/sources.list such that all the word "breezy" to "dapper"2. sudo apt-get update3. sudo apt-get dist-upgradeI left it to run overnight. Next morning, all the packages are downloaded. It has started modifying the system. Before some critical files are overwritten it politely asked for my decisions to keep the old one or create new one. I reply

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1133001898265689002005-11-26T18:38:00.000+08:002005-11-26T18:44:58.276+08:00

Recently read a lot of good reviews about Ruby programming language. Its web application framework Rails is also getting very popular (RoR, Ruby on Rails in short). I found 2 good links to learn Ruby.http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/http://poignantguide.net

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1132747418809206572005-11-23T19:54:00.000+08:002005-11-23T20:28:35.213+08:00

This morning I saw the Upgrade Manager icon blinking again. I click on it and it seems like a minor kernel upgrade is available.After installing the new kernel, it prompt me to reboot. Seems like a much convenient way to upgrade kernel.

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1132483487776236182005-11-20T18:44:00.000+08:002005-11-20T18:46:57.913+08:00

In Windows XP, I can always invoke the Task Manager to check the processes, and the CPU, Memory Utilization by typing "Ctrl-Alt-Del'. I could do the same in Ubuntu using Gnome System Monitor. To use the same keys in Ubuntu, just use the following commands:gconftool-2 -t str --set /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/run_command_9 "Delete"gconftool-2 -t str --set /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1132455752457704602005-11-20T10:09:00.000+08:002005-11-20T18:45:32.263+08:00

I was installing FreeMind, a free mind-mapping software which runs on Java. I downloaded the debian package and use 'sudo dpkg -i' to install it. It prompted me for some additional libraries as follows:thomaslai@ubuntu:~/Desktop$ sudo dpkg -i freemind_0.8.0-1_all.deb (Reading database ... 85042 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace freemind 0.8.0-1 (using freemind_0.8.0

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1131862474833913082005-11-13T14:10:00.000+08:002005-11-13T14:20:37.516+08:00

OSX Expose is a nice feature, which arrange all the different windows in a single window and you can get to choose which one u want. In this era of multi-tasking, it is a useful feature.In Ubuntu, u can get the same function by using 2 little applications:1. Skippy2. KomposeSkippy has lesser in functions. Kompose, in contrast, can allow me to group and upgroup the different windows in different

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1131841967744697432005-11-13T08:27:00.000+08:002005-11-13T08:51:27.670+08:00

Beagle Search is a desktop searching tool just like Google Desktop (in Windows) and Spotlight (in OS X Tiger). I have played around with it. You need to start a Beagle Deamon first for the Beagle client to work. I documented the steps where I added in a file with the searched term "DVD" and the Beagle desktop search result will automatically refresh with this new file. Not bad for an Open Source

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1131803529940781942005-11-12T21:52:00.000+08:002005-11-13T01:34:05.273+08:00

There is a feature in Gnome which allow me to change the theme. I downloaded an Apple OS X theme, install the icons and the Splash Screen from GNOME-Look.Org. I modified some of the default icons from the theme. The result is a clean and nice desktop interface and login splash screen.In case you wonder how I capture the login screen, here is the trick, install Xnest (Nested Xserver). Here are the

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1131495566889794792005-11-09T08:07:00.000+08:002005-11-09T08:23:30.620+08:00

I have 3 NTFS drives which are auto-mounted by Ubuntu. However, I encountered 2 problems. One issue is that I do not have the priledges to use Nautilus to view the contents of the NTFS drives. I found this script which can launch Nautilus as 'root'.The second issue is that I have some files which has Chinese Unicode filenames. The files are 'missing' from the Nautilus or Terminal if I view the

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1131040890146453432005-11-04T01:50:00.000+08:002005-11-04T08:04:32.366+08:00

Finally resolved the puzzle on why Sun Java 1.5 does not seem to work well with Azureus. Azureus started ok, but download is always at 0 kbps. However, if I switched to Blackdown Java 1.4, Azureus download will be ok. It has puzzled me for a while.Thanks to my friend Coyote, he encountered the same issue in FC4. After some experimentation, he found that it was due to the existence of default

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1131017535556727012005-11-03T19:22:00.000+08:002005-11-04T02:16:00.696+08:00

My friend Fuyichin is a proponent for Smart School Project. He mentioned that there is a school in a remote area in Malaysia, Dinding Secondary School, which has been computerized. In fact he visited the school himself, and he is impressed by what he saw.Read his blog here.Today Taiwan up the ante by having a primary school which is a Smart School. 苗栗縣大湖鄉大南國民小學 - 全球資訊網站.. It runs on FreeBSD. Ta

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1130990294094187592005-11-03T11:58:00.000+08:002005-11-04T21:30:28.843+08:00

Avidemux is a software which splits the multimedia files in Linux. It supports AVI, OGM, Mpeg etc. I tried it on Ubuntu, and it works like a charm. Just click on te fram to start, the frame to End, and the Save. That's all.Also found a guide to convert AVI to DVD.

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1130793317200945752005-11-01T05:05:00.000+08:002005-11-01T05:22:31.000+08:00

The Website Slack World is pretty good. Although it is targeted for Slackware users, the Linux concepts are quite useful to other distro too. For example, the fragmentation in Linux disks actually does not affect the performance, as much as MS-DOS systems. Here is the article in Slack World explaining why.Anyway, there is only 3 online issue of Slack World so far, April,June and July 2005. Hope

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992493.post-1130673959135903742005-10-30T20:05:00.000+08:002005-11-09T08:51:12.566+08:00

For the past week, I have been busy setting up Ubuntu 5.10 "The Breezy Badger". This is a nice Linux distro based on Debian. Previously I used most Red Hat and Mandrake, so it is a new experience for me.Setting up Ubuntu is a breeze. But out of the box, there is no support for mp3 and other multimedia, but there is always help from online forums -1. Ubuntu Starter Guide2. Automatix 3. Chinese

Thomas Laihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12294063286458985384noreply@blogger.com0