St0rY oF uNpReDiCtAbLe LiFe II

Currently, I’m using Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) as my 2′nd OS. It had been a while that I stick with Ubuntu since my first venture with it on the 5.04 release. And by far, I can say that each releases, promise an enhancement (be it major or not). My previous Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) had been solid for me even up to the point that I feel kinda reluctant to upgrade it (but I do it anyway). When the Hardy is up, not facing any major problem but when I’m browsing the net (using Firefox 3 beta), it seems my Logitech MX518 can’t work properly; I can’t use my back & forward button. At first I thought it was the upgrade causing my Xorg configuration been reverted to the default one, but when I checked it, no…nothing changed; all my previous settings still intact in it.

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Yesterday mark another release day of one of my favorite Linux distro (Fedora); Fedora 8 codenamed Werewolf ( what a codename ). Among notable features in this release were:

• Features a 2.6.23 based kernel.
• GNOME 2.20
• KDE 3.5.8 (KDE Live and regular DVD) while the KDE 4 (Beta) Development Environment is available in the repository.
• The implementation of PulseAudio sound daemon.
• Codec Buddy (a.k.a codeina).
• A new look and feel (the “Infinity” desktop art is cool..changes color to reflect outdoor conditions).
• Nodoka, a fresh new GNOME theme created specially for Fedora
• Compiz Fusion installed by default.
• Open-source Java integration through the IcedTea project.
• Improved laptop support.
• Remote virtualization management.
• Improved network management
• Many other improvements.

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I’m always searching for media player that will let me watch my video files hassle free; meaning that I don’t have to worry about codec installation/setup and having different player for different file types. Before this, whether on Windows or Ubuntu, I often end up needing a different media player due to some problems that occurred. Mainly the problem consist of a bloated codec and its’ compatibility with my media player. At that time I used K-Lite Codec Pack as my main codec pack. Time passed by and I realized that I must change to other codec pack to rectify my problem; and doing some search on the net I’ve encountered with CCCP. It solve most of my problem thank GOD, but I realize how do I install CCCP in my Ubuntu machine?

Don’t get me wrong, the codec that I’ve downloaded from Ubuntu’s repositories provide me with no major problem at all but still I feel that it can become much better. Then through some of my acquaintances, I tried VLC media player. But it seems some of my *.mkv files will not play properly using this player. Some times the screen goes blank or when viewing videos with external subtitle files, there’s some kind of green line been drawn at the bottom of the screen. My searching at the net again had resulted in the discovery of another media player that share some of the greatness of VLC media player, SMPlayer. Read More

Okay, imagine a situation like this; you downloaded a files, in the end you notice that the file is corrupted and you have to redownload the files again. But there are certain scenarios that even though it’s corrupted, it’s still can be executed. For example video files. But due to the file corrupt problem, there are some glitches in the video. In some cases, it’s nice to know whether our downloaded files contains error or not as soon as possible. There are many ways or tools to use to check the files integrity. This kind of tools or techniques involved the usage of cryptographic hash functions (eg: SHA1, md5) and redundancy check functions (among others). Among the most popular method been used is Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC).

All right, we’ll look into a practical part and for that purpose I’ll use “[Shinsen-Subs]_Le_Chevalier_D’Eon_-_01_[6BD7BF33].avi” filename as an example. On a side notes, the example file is a video files (an anime to be exact) and as most fansubbers, they tend to include the CRC value at the end of their releases file name (the CRC value of that file is ‘6BD7BF33′). So basically, to check the file integrity, we will compute the CRC value of the file and compare it with the given CRC value. If it’s the same, safe to say that there are nothing wrong with the file and vice versa. For a little of howto demonstration, I will classify it into two different platform; Linux and Windows. Read More

I don’t know the exact date and time, but a couple of minutes ago, I just realize that Fedora 7 “Moonshine” has been released. No more “Core” in their naming convention, this latest release marks some major changes that sure looks appealing to different type of Linux user (beginner, advanced, or expert). Fedora 7 features a tickless kernel, KVM virtualization, Liberation fonts, and the capability to mix your own Fedora distribution with ease (from what I understand, it something that let the users to customize their Fedora 7 to contains only a set of package they desire and best of all share it with others). I didn’t install and test it yet, so it’s quite unfair to write any further. Go to their official site for more info (FedoraProject.org), this link for their release notes and here for the official announcement. Talking about their official site, it had been revamped to accompany the new release. I really like their tag line “Reach Higher” because it describe their intention to become much better than ever…hopefully Fedora 7 can live up to it.