10-19-2012

Fri Oct 19 12:45:43 PDT 2012

Been slacking the past couple nights due to a cold. I think I want to move
formward with a domain name by this weekend. Just choosing a good one
is so dang tricky. I'm sure I will post the update here once I get it
going. In other news I am stuck in a google+ thread debating the usefulness
of ubuntu's UNITY interface. I personally hate it because the left half the
screen takes up half the realestate of the desktop. Boo to that!

Sure, you can technically do a lot of tricks to re-arrange stuff an keep using
UNITY, but I just reverted to Gnome, and everything is good. More on this
later.

10-16-2012

Linux is almost becoming second nature to me now, it's pretty great. I don't get nearly as lost when trying to follow
instructions on how to do things. A couple more months of practice and I think I should be able to get the email
server up and running. I did get the apache server up and running, that was way easier than expected. I thought I
had to tell it to start running or whatever, but it's just... going! I might have to mess around with it later if I do
anything fancier than just a few simple web pages.

Also, I discovered that Xubuntu works a lot better than just ubuntu, it also has more features unlockable than does the
normal ubuntu. For example I can make my own splash screen and login screens with ubuntu tweak, which I couldn't do
under just normal ubuntu. I rebranded my flavor - mothbuntu. Also, I like just running a window manager instead of a full on
desktop environment, it's a lot lighter and there isn't a bunch of unncesscary crap running. Fav so far for that is fluxbox.

10-10-2012

I am getting the software together that I need in order to build a good email
server. I know that I need Apache, and I need SQL, there are some spam filter
things that are suggested as well. I think maybe for christmas for myself I
will arrange that dynamic DNS account. There is a way to rig everything
from what I have read to set my local machine as static, and then also have a
daemon running that automatically updates the DNS directory and points it
to my IP address, incase COMCAST decided to switch it on me. That's rather
handy.

Now the debate is whether I really need to get a faster computer first before
I dive into all of this. The box I am currently using is so unbelievably slow.
It is almost torture.

10-09-2012

OK!

I think I know some new goals for myself with all this computer stuff I have been doing. I think I want to try to host
my own website and email server, like.. at the house. I won't be getting any traffic really, so I am sure I can
pull it off. The purpose being only to prove my mousey worth. Maybe I can get some kind of side work if I figure
that stuff out. I've maintained a website before, but it was ghetttttto. I don't want to make anything flashy at
all, just the basics.

It will be rad to get the email set up. It's a bummer that mothrock.com got snatched up a long time ago and nobody ever
did anything with it.

10-08-2012

WHOA! I finally got some stuff working! I was able to get some programs working
through X11!! Nothing that impressive, and I am sure it was really stressing
out my poor machine at home. I need to figure out how to get ubuntu to default
boot to command prompt only. I am sure there has to be something out there
that I can read to figure that out. I am not able to load a gnome session
through X, as apparently only one desktop environment can run stable on
system. Bummer.

I guess I don't really want it to boot to command prompt every time, just
need to know how to do that so that I can connect a full blown gui session.
Running just separate programs is neat, but looks ghetto on a mac. Ha.

Maybe also there is an alternative skin for X that uses the mac theme? That
would be nifty. Oh... more research to do.

10-05-2012

Had a few days gap there, I've been trying to avoid that, but sometimes life
has its funny way of interrupting blogtastic blogging.

I haven't developed any major super awesome compu-powers in the last couple of
days, but I have been forcing myself to do rather silly things, like shutdown
my computer with the command line. Which isn't all that cool, but kind of
funny to see the warning pop up in terminal, then the computer shuts down.

I was able to create a ssh tunnel to my computer at my house using port
forwarding. I still haven't been able to activate X so that I can use the
gui remotely, but I can get the CLI, and that's all I have been using anyway.

anyhoo. Back to work!

10-02-2012

Not a whole heck of a lot to report today. No adventures in archaic interfaces. I did donate some $$ to help a friend pay for their dog's ear
surgery. It appears the cider making will commence this weekend. I'm kind of pumped to be making a fermented - anything - , but
I am particularly fond of apples, so this is going to be good.

10-01-2012

Hello world!

Not much computer mayhem to report today, nothing too daring. Nothing that exciting. I might be getting a compiler program
send to me through dropbox. Apple only makes their compiler available for the very latest operating system, and since I
don't have that, I can't run it! :( Luckily, I met someone on one of UNIX servers that I dink around on and they are
totally going to hook me up.

In other news - CIDER! I am hellbent on getting myself a cider press so that I can turn apples into delicious cider. Also, the yeast
used to make hard cider is a lot cheaper than the stuff even to make beer, so that is also a project I want to get underway. Soon,
very soon. The delicious cider will be mine.

9-30-2012b

Addendum - !!!

I created a shell script to post my blogs. See how much I am learning! Ok, so it's as easy as saving a file with the google CL code that I need to post to
my blog. I can go in there and change the file name which I am uploading. I then save the file and then just do: sh postblog , and BAM! it runs the command and
the post is uploaded. Shell scripts are going to make all this command line stuff way easier.

I read online and it said to put: !#/bin/bash at the front of my file in order to execute the bash script. I did it, but it did give me an error, but ran the script
anyway and the post uploaded. So??!? I dunno about that first part, if that really needs to be in the file, or maybe I mislabeled? I'll figure it out eventually. The
good news is, it works! BAM! Getting more and more pro every day.

9-30-2012

Not too much to report today, I did have a little bit of time to adventure in linux. I was having some problems reading the mail in the system mail.
System mail is accessed by simply typing 'mail' and the shell prompt. It's very archaic, and only really works on a local network, but I still think
it's a neat feature that is backbone in linux/unix. I probably won't ever get the opportunity to use this nerdliness in real life, but I think
it is neat that it exists. ANYWAY - the problem I was having is that my user ID was not allowed to view my own mail file in /var/mail. It kept
saying 'permission denied' , using SUDO mail doesn't work either, as that accesses mail for ROOT. I needed to change the permissions on the file
/var/mail/userid , so I just navigated to that file and did: sudo chmod 777 userid , this gave global read/write access on that file. There's nothing
important in that file at this point, so I really don't nead to worry about access to it. Now, I can absolutely read messages sent to my user id in unix.
There aren't really any messages though, as I don't have anyone writing to me on my local network.

9-29-2012

Last night's attempts to get the gui working through a SSH didn't go so well.
I can totally access my linux box, but I keep geting Xauth errors when I try to invoke x11 forwarding to
the screen I am accessing the computer from. I am sure there must be some totally simple thing that I
missing that would make it happen no problem.

In other news, I downloaded a different terminal emulator to work with, iterm2. It goes into a nice full
screen mode, which is nice for writing, and pushing out all distractions. I want to try to find some good
text-only sites with articles or academic papers I can read. There has to be something on some college's
servers, right? There has to be!!

I still haven't figured out what I want to do with all this command line silliness. It's not like I
want to suddenly become a programmer. I am far off from that, I don't even think I can begin to have
the tools to be effective with that. I just think it's super funky to bring my computer back in time with
me a good 20 years. It's back where I should have been paying attention. ha.

Blah. Guess I should get off my ass and do some yard work. Happy webbing everyone!

9-28-2012

Oh happy day! It's fah-rye-day!

So, My experiments in computing went well last night. I was able to connect to my linux box from my mac, SSH, a whole new world has opened up to me.
I was not able to get the Xauth to work though, so I was stuck in non-gui land, but that's okay. It's something I am trying to familiarize myself with
more anyway. I liked that I SSH'd to a public Unix server while I was already in a SSH from my mac to my linux box. Neat!

The next step I think is to figure out how to connect to my home computer while on my work's network. I read that I will have to get my external IP on my connection.
(no idea how to get that). The IP on the local network will change randomly because it is DHCP, not I realize this and the alias I cleverly created won't work
forever. I guess I should be able to update that specific IP to a static one to make connecting on SSH simpler, I can just type the name of the computer and
it will connect. I think I can also specify a password to enter as well so that I don't have to type it in every time.

I also want to see if there are any kind of network tools I can use to see computers attempting to connect to my network. There has to be something like that out there.

Ok, so I am done writing today's episode. Now to see if I can remmeber how to upload this to blogger from the command line.

9-27-2012

This has to be the weirdest possible way to keep a log. In a hidden directory
IN Unix. Talk about random ways of storing secrets. I should do things
this way though. I need to become a master of the command line. For what
reason you ask? Well, for the sake of hobby of course. Also on my list are
Learning to fish and building a homebrew setup.

Peace out.

 (above was written in NANO editor and uploaded via Google CL)