Marilyn Levin has generously decided to give one of her kidneys to Thomas Harris. The transplant is tentatively scheduled for August. But without your help, the life giving transplant will be delayed.

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Garmin GPS devices - Linux source code, platform, and dependencies & Trimble Outdoors

Garmin, one of the big players in GPS (global positioning system) devices and applications has released the Linux source code for their Nuvi 8xx and Nuvi 5xxx-series devices.

The source code hints that the Linux version of these Garmin series devices is linux-2.6.17.7 and are configured to use 64MB of ram.

Here is a full list of libraries, applications and dependencies for the released source:

According to a blog by Henri Bergius, Gnome mobile (GMAE) might be its desktop environment. This includes C, C++, API's for features such as bluetooth, and other subsets of GMAE, and a standard Gnome GTK graphical toolkit.

nuvi8xx-v2.xx-sources/
|
+-- GPL/
|    |
|    +-- linux-daisy-2.6.17.7-daisy-2.xx
|         |
|         +-- linux-daisy-2.6.17.7-daisy-2.xx.orig.tar.bz2
|         +-- linux-daisy-2.6.17.7-daisy-2.xx.diff.tar.bz2
|
+-- LGPL/
|    |
.    .
.    .
.    .

The source code is available here:

http://developer.garmin.com/linux/ 

• nüvi 8xx Series
• nüvi 5xxx Series

For example, the Nuvi 800 has a base set of these operating system applications and environments:

• gnome 2.4.0
• gnome-vfs-2.16.3
• xserver-kdrive-common-0.1
• busybox-1.01
• tinylogin-1.4
• alsa
• blueZ
• matchbox window manager
• geoclue-0.9

I use Trimble's Outdoors Platinum Java application for Geocaching and outback hiking and camping which is available for various cell phones.

Here are some features of this edition of this GPS navigation system:

• plan routes and trips using nationwide high resolution (1:24,000) topographic, aerial, or street maps
• create your own trips by modifying trips posted by other outdoor enthusiasts on trimbleoutdoors.com
• add notes and pictures to your trip from your PC or digital camera
• share trips with friends and family online
• use your cell phone as a recreational GPS receiver
• navigate with a digital compass
• display speed, heading, altitude and latitude/longitude coordinate readout
• track your route with scale information for creating a bread crumb trail
• mark waypoints and navigate to waypoints
• input notes and pictures into your trips from your PC and digital camera
• wirelessly download trips, routes and waypoints to your cell phone

AND the platinum version includes these extra capabilities:

• enjoy all the features and benefits of Trimble Outdoors Gold, plus
• wirelessly download topographic, aerial and street maps to your phone (see the list of supported phones here)
• wirelessly insert notes into trip from your cell phone
• wirelessly insert pictures into trips from your cell phone (requires the use of a camera phone)

Resources used:

1. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8827997755.html
2. http://developer.garmin.com/linux/
3. http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/AboutGoldPlatinum.aspx

Is P2P the next Archive.org? Here is an artist releasing an album exclusively on Demonoid:

In relation to: "You live once more! Welcome back Demonoid!", here is an excerpt from TorrentFreak:

"Xihilisk is one of the many artist who use BitTorrent as one of their main distribution platforms, and for a good reason. BitTorrent makes it possible to reach millions of people at once, at zero cost.

Being a dedicated user of Demonoid, Xihilisk is used to sharing his (and probably others) music. His previous 10 albums are all available for free on BitTorrent. However, he decided to release his latest album “EPTwo Special Edition”, exclusively on the popular BitTorrent tracker Demonoid.

This move seems to be counterintuitive, since an exclusive release on Demonoid will limit the audience. On the other hand, the album wont be exclusive for a long time. In fact, it’s the nature of p2p and BitTorrent that such releases soon spread to other sites..."

My Blog post can be reached with the title link at the top, or the "(more)" link at the bottom - or rather if you are on my permalink page, you get it all... (More)

a look back at Firefox 1.0, New York Times, and my Firefox 3 Beta installation

The latest Ubuntu desktop distributions comes with Firefox Beta 3 set as the default browser.  I was out bound suprised at the performance of the to be released browser, which now is a release candidate.

I have to admit, after a couple weeks of use I started missing my plugins and I switched back to Firefox 2.  That didn't last more than 4 hours noticing the difference in performance, and I once again re-installed Beta 3, found alternative plugins for my needs, and lighter weight I must add also.  I was rather disappointed that Google hasn't gotten on the bandwagon with Google Browser Sync.

Hecker's Blizzog reminded me of this meant to be published, but put off post:

"..i must say, it’s pretty sweet. there are some nifty new features and the performance is indeed wayyyy better. particularly on those javascript & ajax-heavy pages like gmail (and most other google apps). switching through tabs is faster as well. not to mention, there’s now a “native hack” (if you will) to launch mailto links with gmail…cool!..." - http://www.aaron.2netwits.com/wp/?p=514

I have been a Mozilla user since the beginning, the beginning in which it took 6 to 8 minutes to startup on my computer - next generation browser at the time? heh.  Others with the rendering engine took the fit though.

Remember Firefox 1.0?  When it was first introduced they accepted donations from dedicated users to put a full page add in the New York Times, with color.  I was one of the dedicated users, and you can find my name in the Times as "Andy J. Wright".  Here is a link to the PDF file, but take note that you must have a pretty decent computer and PDF reader to render it without frustration: nytimes-firefox-final.pdf

I look forward to new and great add-ons and plugins to match the new standard of possibilities Firefox 3 will provide!

A lyrical rap song about the Unix command "kill -9" and the systems mechanics surrounding it.

A rap song you ask, I shit you not.  The source with video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fow7iUaKrq4

This album contains: mpeg (mp3) audio of the rap song "kill -9" in both 64 and 16 bitrate versions and a text file, kill-9_lyrics.txt with the rap song's lyrics

(for those using rss, please visit this post for the streaming audio of "kill -9" contained below)

"I guess I'll have to shut you down for good this time,
Already tried a SIGQUIT, so now it's KILL DASH 9.
You gotta learn when it's time for your thread to yield;
It shoulda slept; instead you stepped and now your fate is sealed.
I'll take your process off the run queue without even asking
'Cause my flow is like reentrant and preemptive multitasking.
Your sad rhymes are spinnin' like you're in a deadlock,
You're like a synchronous sock that don't know when to block;
So I pull out my keyboard and I pull out my glock,
And I dismount your girl and I mount /proc
And I've got your fuckin pid and the bottom line
Is that you best not front or else it's KILL DASH NINE.
KILL DASH NINE,
No more CPU time.
I run KILL DASH NINE,
And your process is mine.
I run KILL DASH NINE,
'Cause it's MY time to shine
So don't step outta line or else it's
KILL DASH NINE!
See it ain't about the Benjamins or Pentiums or Athlons,
But you rappin' 50 meters while I'm spittin' in decathlons.
Your shit's old and busted, mine's the new hotness;
You're like CLR and I'm like CLRS.
You're running csh and my shell is bash,
You're the tertiary storage; I'm the L1 cache.
I'm a web crawling spider; you an Internet mosquito;
You thought the 7-layer model referred to a burrito.
You're a dialup connection; I'm a gigabit LAN.
I last a mythical man-month; you a one-minute man.
It's like I'm running Thunderbird and you're still stuck with Pine,
Which is why I think it's time for me to KILL DASH NINE.
Yeah it's KILL DASH NINE
No more CPU time.
'Cause it's KILL DASH NINE,
And your process is mine.
I said KILL DASH NINE
'Cause it's my time to shine,
So don't step outta line or else it's
KILL DASH NINE!
My posse throws down like leaky bucket regulators;
I was coding shit in MIPS while you were playing Space Invaders.
With my finger on the trigger I run ./configure
Yo, this package is big, but MY package is bigger.
I roll my weed with Zig Zag while I zag-zig splay,
And I do a bounds check before I write to an array.
I'm a loc'd out baller writing KLOCS a day,
'Cause it's publish or perish, fool, what can I say?
I'm 26 now, will I live to see 28?
Some days I wonder if I'll survive to graduate.
But hey, that's just fine, I won't ever resign,
And if fools try to step then it's KILL DASH NINE!
Yeah it's KILL DASH NINE,
From my command line
It's KILL DASH NINE
Sending chills down your spine,
I said KILL DASH NINE,
'Cause it's my time to shine,
So don't step outta line or else it's
KILL DASH NINE!
fs sa rlidwka
I'll chown your home and take your access away
Comin' straight outta Stanford, ain't nobody tougher,
Control-X, Control-C, I'll discard your fuckin' buffer.
You're outside your scope, son, close them curly brackets,
'Cause I drop punk-ass bitches like a modem drops packets.
Dump your motherfucking core, and trace your stack
'Cause where your ass is going, there won't be no callback.
See my style is divine and my code is sublime,
My career's in a climb and yours is in a decline.
I'll write a pound-define and assign you as mine,
So refine those sad rhymes or remove your plus signs,
Or it's KILL DASH NINE,
No more CPU time,
'Cause it's KILL DASH NINE,
And your process is mine,
I said KILL DASH NINE
'Cause it's my time to shine,
Bitch you stepped outta line and now it's 
KILL DASH NINE!"

do you use Charter Communications for your ISP? if so, you hold no secrets to your online activity in all its provided provisions

"Charter Communications, one of the nation's largest ISPs, plans to begin eavesdropping on customers' web surfing activity, to help web advertisers deliver targeted ads.

In letters being sent to some of its 2.7 million high-speed internet customers, Charter is billing its new web-tracking program as an "enhancement" for customers' web surfing experience. The letters were first reported by a BroadbandReports.com user on Sunday. The pilot program is set to begin next month." - http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/charter-to-inse.html

I have always been biased against Charter and all of their provided services.  This may be the nudge that some of you need to switch to an ISP with policies that protect, and not advertise the private uses of any paid (with hard earned money) services they offer.

Ubuntu upgrade, VMWARE console not working as you would like? here is a quick fix:

1. sudo cp /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/
2. sudo cp /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/
3. sudo chmod 777 /home/"your home directory"/.vmware/preferences

OPTI-UPS Value Series VS375C - provided software for this device breaks Ubuntu Server's run-levels and modifies the inittab

 [click here for a larger view]

Right off the bat, this post is indeed not to technically in depth - In relation to [this post] and the UPS battery backup device I purchased, I experienced some troubling and at first nerve-racking boot errors when needing to reboot the computer after installing the provided linux applications on CD with the UPS. 

I will tell you right away, I ended up getting it to administrate the UPS, but not after it copied my inittab file to inittab.dn* (forget the exact file name), and replaced inittab itself with run-level configuration that I would think would not work on Debian based system of any kind.

The new inittab does contain the path to the binaries to be run at boot, but why in inittab, I do not understand.

I needed to edit the new run-level file and remove the dnpowerd related variables, and copy it back over to inittab.  I did this while running in recovery mode, remounting the drive rw.

I then placed the applications referenced in the run level file, and placed them in /etc/rc.local.  I then starts a web server on port 9982 with a default login of admin and a password of 1234.

All important information is piped through /dev/console along with the http web interface.

You are able to change event variables, however you need a current windows controller application to change specifications like output watts, and other, more technical information.

The linux service is able to send out network broadcasts of power status, and SNMP connectivity to remote hosts.  It can also alert you by e-mail, or page you through a modem.

Bruce Sterling's HACKER CRACKDOWN - Voiced By Cory Doctorow

I have taken each part and re-encoded the audio in mp3 format at 16kHz, 16kbits mono - about 1/8th the size of the below source audio, and just as enjoyable I want to add.

If you are unfamiliar with this book, here is part 1 with the preface:   

[The book is in 28 parts available here].

"Since last June, I've been podcasting a weekly reading from Bruce Sterling's 1992 classic journalistic history of the founding of the online civil liberties movement, The Hacker Crackdown, which chronicles the events that led to the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer. Hacker Crackdown was the first book I ever read electronically, the first piece of "literary freeware" I ever met. It's a fantastic book and it was a fantastic read.

Yes, I'm done. It took 28 installments, and included some of the strangest stuff I ever read aloud (for example, a mind-bogglingly bureaucratic phone company document around which a great deal of controversy once swirled). Now that I've finished it, I've put together an XML feed for all 28 parts, as well as direct MP3 and Ogg download links -- it's all under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. I hope someone'll download all the parts, normalize 'em, trim out the intros, and piece them together into a single file.

I need to thank Bruce Sterling here for his gracious permission in allowing me to read this aloud. Reading Hacker Crackdown back in 1992 -- actually, 1991, since I got hold of an advance copy through Bakka, the bookstore I worked at in Toronto -- absolutely and permanently transformed my life. Reading it again has made me revisit more than a decade's worth of striving, writing, imaginging, working and agitating. This book's an education and a half.

Thanks, Bruce.

MP3s: Part 01, Part 02, Part 03, Part 04, Part 05, Part 06, Part 07, Part 08, Part 09, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28,

Ogg: Part 01, Part 02, Part 03, Part 04, Part 05, Part 06, Part 07, Part 08, Part 09, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26 Part 27 Part 28

Podcast feed of the whole book

My podcast feed" -- Cory Doctorow