beerontuesdays-blog

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Last Saturday I slept here.

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So this is firechat. Lonely. Nice concept though, using mesh networks for IM.

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Move chrome window controls to left | ubuntu / mint

I tend to have my window controls to the left, so it can be a little annoying not to have chrome do the same.

To move them to the left, edit metacity button layout with this command:

$ gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "close,minimize,maximize:"

Sorted.

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"I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be."

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geocaching dog poop

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Run GOG Dungeon Keeper under dosbox / linux

As a kid this game was so good, and still is. Forget the mobile game, the game play is way too slow and it has cartoon-like graphics over the 2D fun. 

The gog edition has a windows build of DOSbox built in. Great if you are on windows, it should run out of the box. It runs on linux too through wine, however not very efficiently -running wine to run a windows build of DOSbox is silly when you can just run a linux build of DOSbox.

So I, installed the game in wine. Browsed the wine folder for the game. Noticed the various dosbox .conf files that have all the settings required to run the game. These were put together by gog. Having tried running the game with the unedited/original dosboxDK.conf I found the game would not get passed the cd graphic with the "?" (no cd) I found out you had to execute GAME.INST.

I edited dosboxDK.conf and added:

[autoexec] # Lines in this section will be run at startup.

mount C ~/keeper c: imgmount d "GAME.INST" -t iso -fs iso cls KEEPER.EXE exit

(Obviously, you will need to change the folder name for mount. )

To start game I run, within the game folder. 

dosbox -conf dosboxDK.conf

The game was a little choppy so I edited the CPU section of dosboxDK.conf for max cycles:

core=auto cputype=486_slow cycles=MAX cycleup=5000 cycledown=5000

Then I edited the mixer settings for smoother music by changing the prebuffer:

nosound=false rate=22050 blocksize=2048 prebuffer=200

Now I can go slap imps.

Also see this article on a keeper launcher http://techthat.net/2014/02/02/running-dungeon-keeper-on-linux/ I found it helpful. 

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ramblings on piratebox

Last week I dusted off my tp link mr3020 loaded with piratebox 1.0 and decided to have a 'run'. It's been running non stop ever since with, and I'm happy to report, no problems.

I have been thinking about what I want to do with it, what I want it to be -its purpose. Every now and then it makes a trip to the pub with me. I load it with it "stuff", mostly harmless bushcraft videos and scout related things, and friends download and share. That's fine but, I guess I want it to serve a higher purpose, -experiment. 

I would like to take it off grid. Why? the uk is facing a future energy crisis that isn't getting better any time soon. Powercuts are on the increase in my area. During a power cut the piratebox could provide entertainment or emergency information. There's also a possibility that I may take the PB on a big scout camp (no power outlets) sometime loaded with survival books, camp cooking videos ect.

I experimented with solar energy last week. I used a 500ma panel from www.cottonpickersplace.com. It could power the router however not with the usb in. I need to also think about UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for which the solar panel(s) or mains can feed into, and if they fail then the UPS will carry out powering the PB. A battery pack that can discharge and recharge at the same time could be used for this. Down side would be the serve ware on the battery. There isn't many portable battery packs on the market that are capable of this, as many rpi users found.

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I know lost is well and truly over but I don't care, these are great geeky ssid names.

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Compile GNU Radio with RTL-SDR Driver on linux mint 16

I've been watching a lot of hak5 as of late, in particular the software defined radio ones using RTL. Ordered my RTL2832 and set about installing GNU Radio with RTL (not included in the old repo version).

GNU Radio is a bitch to install. For a start, even before you build GNU Radio, PyQT and PyQWT has to be complied. 

I found a script that works, from an open source spacecraft project called kicksat (also on kickstarter). I commented out the FunCube and sprite install, and compiled GNU Radio in about 2 hours. I had to run sudo ldconfig to update library paths, but that's all. Many thanks to the project author Zac Manchester.   

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Create an access point on linux mint 16

I was teaching my scouts scratch programming a few nights ago. We have an internet-less scout hut in the middle of town, tucked away behind a train station, as well as a builders merchants, and several car dealerships. There are no nearby residential 'bt with fon' connections just some WEP networks at the dealerships.

So when setting up the laptops for the kids, I was surprised when I picked up a free o2 wifi connection from a local diy chain store 400 meters away. This was with an alfa network adapter, AWUS036NHA, and the 5dbi antenna it came with.

I connected and shared the connection on my linux mint 16 cinnamon desktop via the networking setting 'use as hotspot'.

This is fine, but it creates an ad hoc network rather than an access point, not to mention it's also limited to WEP, and the ad hoc network cannot be used with android devices. The feature works, but is lacking when compared to a gnome3 or unity desktop, which I believe (not used either in a long time) create true access points.       

I tried a number of scripts. A lot of them old, unmaintained and intended for ancient versions of ubuntu/debian. The best I found was Create_ap. It has lots of features such as WPA2, NATed and Bridged modes.

Install with:    

git clone https://github.com/oblique/create_ap cd create_ap make install

Usage: create_ap [options] <wifi-interface> [<interface-with-internet>] [<access-point-name> [<passphrase>]]

The command that works for me: sudo create_ap -m nat wlan1 wlan0 SSIDname password --no-virt with it I can share an internet connection from one wireless interface to another acting as an access point. I find that the virtual interfaces don't work for me hence --no-virt, I don't need them anyway for what I want to do. It also gives a read out of connections. You can also share internet from the same wifi interface, but I haven't tried it.

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Neat idea to hide an ugly router http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/grow-garden-router/#!yNh7y

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Construction simulator 2014. Although you wouldn't think it, it's very addictive.

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my hero

Edward Norton between takes during the filming of Moonrise Kingdom.

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This weekends bushcraft course

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Discovered Minetest. An open source copy of minecraft. It's really addictive. Released under the LGPL 2.1 or later, available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Works well under linux mint.

To install on ubuntu / mint

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:minetestdevs/stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install minetestc55