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December 28, 2005
Typing this under Linux, with wireless
So, it looks like I did not have to scratch my head to have the latest and brightest version of wpa supplicant installed in order to have my wireless working.
I did download it, managed to compile it...
But then the new kernel version was out. I tried it with the old wpa supplicant, and it was working.
Do you want to do it too?
Very easy
sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant
sudo gedit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and put in your settings (some reading required to figure out what to put there)
For me, since my laptop has has ipw2200 card:
sudo wpa_supplicant -ieth0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -Dipw
Afterwards, I unplugged my ethernet card, then ran
sudo network-admin and set eth0 as my default gateway.
Finally, since I could only ping up to my router,
sudo dhclient
And everything was working fine afterwards.
I now just need to put that in the computer initilization scripts so that it happens automatically at each bootup :D
The good news is that I'll be doing most of my work from Linux now (assuming all works right), ,instead of Windows. My geek side is happy triumphant now!
Posted by ma at 9:06 AM in Software | TrackBack
December 22, 2005
Beautiful in academic dress
The company providing the graduation picture, Chappell, has a neat web service.
I took the liberty to picking my small-sized picture until I order the big ones from them, scan them and so on :)
I guess I can call this pre-emptive fair use of copyrighted materials...
Here's your good-looking man in an academic dress!
Tell me which one you think is best (assuming you can actually squint your eyes enough for that) :)
Posted by ma at 10:30 AM in Life | TrackBack
December 21, 2005
Thanksgivings for blessings
So... my semester is over.
We finished the project on Monday, wrapped up the documentation today, and I'm slowly tearing through quite a few things on my todo list that were on hold...
Since I promised God I'd give him all the glory on the project, henceforth I do so now: thanks for the Almighty that allowed this project to work enough so that we had something to show!
Our project was very disfunctional as of Monday, the day of the demo. Many prayers went for miracles, and the closest thing we had was a de-facto extension. We presented at 8:30 PM. We barely had the time to enable the SSL connection of the LDAP server. One test was done, and the prof comes in and asks for the demo to start. It could have gone wrong, but things were OK. He seemed satisfied by all that.
My supervisor signed my passport application. I did it on the Internet with their new epass system. Once I got to the passport office, I had expedited treatment. While some folks at ~1h30 minutes to wait, I was in front of the employee within a minute of being given my queue number.
They have some quirks to iron out... the web application says that many information is optional, but it turns out that they are all required, and I had to get them from memory... lets just hope I did not mix up stuff! Overall, I was surprised by the efficiency of the process. My old passport is pierced as invalid now, and the new one should be mailed by Jan 9th, and I did not ask for a rushed treatment!
I made my decision regarding the OIQ membership: I will remain part of the student branch, to avoid the yearly fees for the time being. I got some advising by a staff member there. The credit card application is dealt with, I just need to wait... so I don't need to move forward with a 90$ a year gold card.
My supervisor had encouraging words for me. He gave some advice to be careful not to get too religious... I replied that I had a conviction that what I invested in God, God was giving it back to me, allowing me to be successful. He said that this was something very wise. Apparently they have a something close to that in the Coran. I do recall a proverb saying something of the effect of not being too wicked, nor too righteous... Full commitment to God does not mean living as a hermit in a monastery :) It means far more to live a radical lifestyle, to be a beacon of light IN the world, FOR the world, BECAUSE of God's grace thanks to Christ, and to win some to Him.
Posted by ma at 4:56 PM in Life | TrackBack
December 13, 2005
Pouches under the eyes the size of a sand bag...
So, in very short...
1) I got my B. Eng. degree last monday, with Distinction, and with co-op. Very proud. The party to celebrate wasn't great
2) The last final went good, I feel.
3) I was able to wrap up the report for our OS project for something that looked clean
4) The project due tomorrow is not going anywhere. snif. I'm struggling with that OpenLDAP server thing. It seems that no matter what I do, it refuses to work. I can't even test my Java code :(
5) Got myself the new Second study Bible this Saturday. Yummy! I've compare with the NASB Study Bible from Zondervan and found it to be more neutral. The Zondervan one acknowledges its failure on the "salvation by faith alone" doctrine in the footnotes of Romans 6:3 or Acts 2... basically saying that:
the conversion, back then, had faith+repentance+baptism all bundled together... which is why the apostles sound like you are saved at baptism. Of course, this is not the way we do it anymore, and we know we are saved by faith.
In short, they recognize that the "conversion" they are talking about diverges significantly from the apostles'. Basically "we are wrong in our practice, but we got a good enough excuse to keep on doing it"... lovely!
Posted by ma at 2:12 PM in Life | TrackBack
December 3, 2005
2 final exams are done
2 done, one to go.
Monday, it was Cryptography, and Thursday it was Operating Systems Security.
The Crypto exam had a few math questions, a few theory questions, and a creative question (mediated RSA). I still don't know how to inverse a matrix un modular arithmetic.
The OS exam had one math question, and the rest were of theoritical nature. There were 2 questions I was not sure to do or know I didn't do that well.
Thanks to God who gave me the wisdom and peace to go through two exams in a week! Those who know me know that the "peace" part is the most significant one.
Posted by ma at 10:23 AM in Life | TrackBack
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is out!
It is out, baby...
It is hot and rocking, an order of magnitude better than its predecessor... oh yeah!
Too bad that the Bible toolbar doesn't work anymore on 1.5
For those less geeky, Firefox is a web browser that is simply better and safer than Internet Explorer. Its open source too, so its a good ethical choice. I suggest you try it. The tab browsing will, alone, restore your sanity.