leadiv

Started up my computer this morning and found I lost Unity. While scratching my head trying to figure out what went horribly wrong I remembered the night before there were some updates that I had apply before going to bed. So I fired up chrome and started my search for Unity. Well after I figured out how to fire up chrome from the terminal after figuring out how to fire up the terminal without icons. Seriously, icons are very useful.

After a few searches I found a few things to try and learned a bit more. Like how to test if your system works with unity — just run this in the terminal

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

Seeing that I needed some way of making my system sort of usable I started downloaded alternative windowing systems like kde, lxde, cinnamon, and so on.

Many frustrating dead ends later, it turns out that an update to VirtualBox 4.2 also changed my nvidia-settings and nvidia-current programs but did not install them correctly. So I uninstalled nvidia-settings and nvidia-current from the terminal and rebooted:

apt-get remove nvidia-settings nvidia-current

Yay, I see Unity again! But wait, now VirtualBox has been removed and I can’t use vagrant, awwwww. So I tried the default install of VirtualBox (which for me is 4.1.18). Yay, vagrant works again! But wait, vagrant can’t reach the internet which still kind of makes it unusable for setting up new environments.

Finally, after a plethora of google searches on nvidia ubuntu and virtualbox I came across this ticket talking about my missing internet on virtualbox: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10864. Turns out that I had to install 4.1.20+ in order to restore order and LiberianGeek had a good how to on that. So while only half understanding what these commands did I pasted each one into my termainal:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian precise contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.1

Then restarted and yay all the things work! So now I am happy for now, sure I blew about a days work trying to get this all put back together but at least it is done and hopefully wont break again any time soon.

A story about: Ubuntu 12.10, VirtualBox 4.1.10 and Unity.

I have found myself with some time off from work for the holidays so I decided to embark on a winter break project. I must admit it is a bit ambitious of a project so I am not sure if I will be able to finish it to my satisfaction.

The basic concept is to create a web application that uses a Genetic Algorithm to approximate a target image using SVG vector shapes. My inspiration is from Roger Alsing’s post on Genetic Programming: Evolution of Mona Lisa. I thought it would be fun to see how well it works as a web application. This project gives me an excuse to play around with HTML5 SASS + Compass, and responsive design concepts.

To follow my progress see my github project.

The problem

I recently added clamav to my Ubuntu system. The next time I received a notice from the software center to update my system there were some updates from clamav. When trying to update this error message was returned:

The action would require the installation of packages from not authenticated sources.

What this means is that Ubuntu was unable to find a public key to authenticate against the code being requested making it an untrustworthy source.

Is this solution for you?

To determine if this solution will work for you fire up a terminal (“Applications > Accessories > Terminal”) and run:

sudo apt-get update

Among the messages outputted on the terminal, you will be looking for a message at the end with similar wording:

W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net natty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 8AB767895ADC2037

Notice the hexadecimal number at the end (8AB767895ADC2037), this is the public key that is missing.

The fix

To fix this I ran the following command:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 8AB767895ADC2037

NOTICE: Your key(s) will most likely be different from mine. Use your key(s) not mine.

Other reading

As with most problems in life, this one can be solved through Googling. Here are the resources that I used:

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1221323
• http://askubuntu.com/questions/69285/software-center-errors-and-doesnt-update-any-more

I have been on a vacation this pass week and decided to try this Blender tutorial (click thumbnail to the left for full image). I saw this tutorial last year when it first came out but my blending skills were still very novice and I could not get through the first 5 minutes.

This is a good intermediate tutorial. I was able to practice working with mesh manipulation, materials, uv wrapping in the new Blender interface and learning about the render node editor capabilities. Made lots of mistakes along the way (always due to my lack of understanding how Blender works) but all in all was able to follow along with the tutorial with out getting lost. The number of balloons is homage to twentysixcats.com. Technically you can see all 26 balloons but a few of them are almost completely hidden from view. Here are the blend file for anyone interested.

Released OpenRule 2.0 (Venus) into the wild. Lots of new features including:

* Transparency controls
* Can measure in Inches, Centimeters, Pica and Pixels
* Custom measurements can be created
* The new Preference dialog allows you to customize the functionality and look of the ruler
* The tick leader line — a small line that hangs off the ruler — helps you keep track of where your mouse is on the ruler
* The ruler can be nudged by one pixel using the arrow keys and moved by 10 pixels by holding down the control key and using the arrow keys
* New about information
* Pressing F1 takes you to the user guide page
* Window and Mac executable are available

Yes I haven’t updated this summer and really I don’t have a good excuse. Just got out of the habit I guess. Well here is a new theme for the fall.

The Onion, one of my favorite fake news sources, just recently added video and audio sound bites to their site. I found one video entitled “Breaking News: Something Happening In Haiti” that really highlights the absurdity that sometimes occurs when 24/7 News agencies (such as CNN) are reporting a breaking news story especially when the story is still quite fluid.

This is a reposting from theborregos.org — 2 May 2007

Update: It appears that the onion removed the video but you can still see it here courtesy of AbsZero of http://fliiby.com – 5 Dec 2011

Created this logo the other day using inkscape. The idea is that the rose is a graphical representation of a haiku—a 3 lined poem in the format of 5-7-5 syllables usually about nature. The font used for “haiku” is called dreamer one found on urbanfonts.

haiku logo

haiku logo by leadiv is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Thats right folks I have upgraded my phone recently and now have T-Mobile’s new sidekick. This spiffy piece of technoloy allows me to IM several people at once, grab my email from 4 different accounts, listen to music, and take snapshots (1.3 giga-pixel but what can you expect its a cell phone!) all while surfing the web for random (and useless) facts. But thats not all, I can extend it by taking images and uploading them to flickr pretty much in real time; use ssh to log into servers to move files and edit information; access your home computer for files; and to actually make phone calls without going through T-Mobile — which is good since I only have a data plan — using Skype (:-). All this for the low low price of $250. Yeah I know thats a fairly steep price but for what you can do — not to mention the fact that the data plan is one of the cheapest plans out — with the sidekick I think it can easily make up for this price.
Right now I am trying to figure out how to get it so that I can edit my website and various blogs that I own.

This is a reposting from theborregos.org — 9 April 2007