Technology & Networking tricks/concepts/solutions

ReadyBoost on Linux

2011-06-08T05:32:00.000-07:00

In my previous post on readyboost I tried to explain out the basic ideology of the technique called readyboost and also some performance statistics to support the theory. Well that was for Microsoft operating systems [dedicatedly available in Vista or newer and have to be manually configured in older OSs].

The idea of readyboost is simple. For machines with low RAM, whenever the data access requirements over-flood the RAM, the OS starts to pass the least probably-important data to the page files on the hard disk and loads currently required/most important/high priority data on to the RAM from the hard disk/page files. This is where the machine slows down. Activating the readyboost adds another layer in between the page files and the RAM in the data access hierarchy. Thus whenever the ram over-floods, the new data is loaded from the flash drive and the old data is passed to the flash drive. In the flash drive also data is collected and maintained in the same manner as the RAM.

Now, Linux also uses something similar to the paging file systems called the swap partition. Swap partitions do the almost the same job that is done by the page files in the windows environment. So it is possible to create swap partition on a flash drive. As because flash drives give a higher access speed, the swap partition will be faster on the flash drive. And if we assign priority to the flash drive swap compared to the dedicated hard disk swap, the flash drive enters in to the hierarchy scheme and performs almost the same way as the readyboost concept.

Now the most important thing….. HOW TO DO IT…. [the code is for ubuntu]

Open the terminal.

i> Plug-in the flash drive.

ii> Linux shall automount the drive. Then you have to unmounts it

Sudo unmounts /media/”usbdisk”

iii> Now find the usb device in the terminal using the command

Sudo df –h [it will be something like /ev/sda1 or /dev/sdb2 etc. I am considering /dev/sda1 here]

iv> Sudo mkswap /dev/sda1 [creating the swap at the /dev/sda1 flash drive]

v> Sudo swapon –p 32767 /dev/sda1 [-p is to activate a partition and not a file. Anf the number 32767 is the priority number. Linux processes support a priority range of 0-32767. 0 being the min priority and 32767 being the highest]

Ok. The flash drive is now working as a swap partition. It’s better to format the flash drive in exfat file system [specially ext4] as the swap partition works best on that file system.

To verify the swap partition being operational type the following code on terminal

Cat /proc/swaps

If the swap partition is active, then it will be shown on the output list along with the dedicated hard drive swap partition(s).

To turn the “ReadyBoost” off on the linux [Ubuntu] type this code on terminal

Sudo swapoff /dev/sda1 [/dev/sda1 here is the flashdrive as detected in step 3]

Now I did mention that the swap technique will work almost the same way as readyboost. Well, Almost. In windows we were creating a page file which is comparable to a swap file, not a swap partition. Swap files are very flexible but vulnerable. If deleted accidentally, data could be lost or even the OS can get corrupted. Swap partitions can’t be modulated while being used. Thus the data cannot be affected. And in some cases the access speed in swap files is better than swap partitions. In linux, we are creating a swap partition on the flash drive. We shouldn’t create a swap file as because linux will not prevent us from deleting the file due to its high flexibility. So the speed advancement in linux may not be as promising as in windows. But, yeah it still works..

Multi core architecture Simplified

2011-04-03T17:45:00.000-07:00

I have come across many people who just can’t figure out exactly how is the multicore architecture better than the single core. A more important question among them is, how is a single core 2.55GHz single core [e.g. pentium 4] processor is not better than a 1.6GHz Dual-core, Core2Duo etc. processors.

Well it’s certainly a very strong point that, the clock frequency ultimately decides the processor speed. Higher the clock frequency, better the processor performance. But still we moved to the multicore architecture even if the clock frequency is not necessarily greater. WHY?

The reason is simple.

The higher the frequency, the faster the processor.

The faster the processor, greater the data speed.

The greater the data speed, more the heat generated.

As the generation of fabrication technology advances, the transistors become smaller the current processors are built over 32nm (µ=32nm >Sandy bridge & λ=32nm > in R&D) fabrication technology. The smaller the transistor get, the less power is required and the less heat they can sustain.

So, we can’t just keep increasing the clock frequency. As the generation of fabrication advances, the transistor density increases in the processor. The processors become smarter and more capable. But the supported clock frequency may not increase relatively.

So far, it is clear that processor clock frequency can’t just be increased to achieve higher efficiency. Now, comes the multicore architecture. The most common idea about multicore processors is that, they consist of multiple processors cores in the same board, thus gives twice the performance than single core. Well it’s not entirely wrong. Lets take a Dual Core processor for understanding. In a Dual Core processor, there are 2 cores embedded on the single core environment. The cores share the same BUS system. Thus if one core performs at its 100% the other can at max achieve 80% of its processing capability (as per the processor architecture).

This is an example shown here. In the environment, there are 2 cores each of 3.6GHz core speed, sharing the same bus system. The BUS structure is optimized to a level to achieve 80% of max performance while the other core delivers 100%.

If we increase the number of cores, the effective performance will be relatively lesser than an architecture with lesser number of cores, though the overall performance increases.

Another example??

Consider a system with 4 cores. A Core 2 Duo processor. In this type of architecture 2 dual core processors are scaled together to give a 4 core based processor system. The dual cores a are designed in the fashion described earlier. Here dual core fabrication is just a part of the process. The dual cores achieved 80% SOSS, resulting in an 180% processing power compared to a single core. The 2 cores are embedded together in a single processor architecture. Here the SOSS remains 80% but the COCS is 70% for both the dual cores. If the number of cores are increased under the same architecture, with each layer of scalability the efficiency will get relatively reduced. Standard Core2 Quad systems were built in an architecture similar to Core 2 Duo, but the Xeon Quad cores are designed in a more efficient way.

So this was the general architecture of multicore environment processors. Though one must be aware that, multi core is not all that makes the new generation processors so much efficient.

I will post, in the upcoming weeks, about the latest Core i series processors, 2^nd generation intel processors and various technologies that help increase performance dramatically, e.g. HTT, AVE, DFT, ITB etc.

Thank you for reading.

Instant Boot

2010-12-30T17:27:00.001-08:00

At the beginning when I used to get so amazed to see that “Loading Windows” screen [1^stwas introduced to windows later other OSs ]. After an year or 2, I used to get amazed to realize that the behind that boring screen so many drivers were being loaded, so many things are happening behind the screen. And finally the OS logon screen appeared. WOW.

And now, I feel like throwing my PC if takes to much time to boot. “60 second to boot!! I rather keep in on”. :P

Many people does keep their PCs on, as because the boot time is too much for them. Power isn’t cheap. IF every one can save 1Watt/month, that could serve someone or few with no power at all.

Apart from the Nobel thoughts, keeping the PC ON, reduces the device lifetime and there are other side effects also. So the Idea of Instant boot was in the dreams for a long time.

And voila, Microsoft hints for an 8 second boot Windows 8. With Intel’s SandyBridge processors, It may be possible to provide boot time less that 8sec. Microsoft didn’t promise anything but they are working on the feature called “Instant ON”.

While this stays on the drawing board, there are a few products in the cloud that could give people a taste of the “POOFFF!!! __ON” action. A popular tool called SplashTop/QuickWeb, which can be installed parallel to the standard OS in a PC and it will integrate with the BIOS and will allow a 4 sec boot to that app. SplashTop/QuickWeb app. has the facility of Browsing, Listening to music ,viewing Photo Gallery, check emails Etc. Now this is a very promising tool. Its very useful to access the Websites and listen to music without waiting for the boot time. IF we want to get in to the main OS, there is a button on the app to boot into the OS.

Yeaah.. that’s awesome.. But that doesn’t comply to the challenge of instant booing to the Main OS with full features…

ASRock came up with some thing called “Instant BOOT”. This brand new technology allows to boot supported motherboards within a blink to the fully functional OS. It not only saves energy but helps system running speed.

The function is effective iff u hav a single user account with no password to their system. The boot time will depend on the H/W config.

And now, I feel like throwing my PC if takes to much time to boot. “60 second to boot!! I rather keep in on”. :P

Many people does keep their PCs on, as because the boot time is too much for them. Power isn’t cheap. IF every one can save 1Watt/month, that could serve someone or few with no power at all.

Apart from the Nobel thoughts, keeping the PC ON, reduces the device lifetime and there are other side effects also. So the Idea of Instant boot was in the dreams for a long time.

Yeaah.. that’s awesome.. But that doesn’t comply to the challenge of instant booing to the Main OS with full features…

The function is effective iff u hav a single user account with no password to their system. The boot time will depend on the H/W config.

The following block diagrams taken from the ASRock site, explain the process:

The System Power States:

The states S1,S2,S3,S4 are3 the sleeping states where the system cant perform any computational task. While the S5 state is the complete shutdown state. A sleeping state allows to retain memory state of the system eighter in hardware or in some other storage media.

Devices may be able to wake up on occurrence of certain incidents. e.g. call to the modem, alarm on the mobile phone etc. with the increase of the sleep state index the System goes into deeper sleep starting from shutdown of processor clocks(S1) to loss of total system hardware contex(S4).

During the Hibernate method the memory is written to a Hibernate file. During hibernate, all sort of power consumption is off. The operating system context is retained in a hibernate file. Before restart, the system loads the hibernate file and reads for the jump location and returns to the previous state called the prehibernation location. If AC power is lost, the system cant wake up from S1,S2,S3 states and requires to boot up to S0 state. But S4 state retains the memory due to the hibernate file.

	Power consumption	Software resumption	Hardware latency	System Hardware Context
S1	Less than S0. Processor clock off BUS clock off	Control Starts Where It Left Off	Typically not more than 2 seconds	All Contexts Retained & Maintained by H/W
S2	Less than S1 Processor off BUS clocks off BUS might have power	At wake-up control starts from processor’s reset-vector	2 sec of more	CPU context & System cache context lost
S3	Less than S2 Processor off Some chips may be off	At wake-up control starts from processor’s reset-vector	Almost same as S2	CPU, Cache, Chipset context lost System memory retained
S4	Off, except the trickle current to the power button	System reboots from the Hibernate file	Undefined and considerably long	Nothing retained. System loads from the hibernate file

So there u have it.. if your mother board is Instant boot enabled go for it. Or if you hav a new ASRock/ASUS motherboard, download the Instant boot tool from the ASUS website.

Otherwise.. hang out with the QuickWeb or SplashTop..

Thank you for reading.

Plz give comments on the article.

A 5G-ed Claytronic Cognitive Future

2010-10-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

This is a huge picture of the future, so I am gonna be steady with What I wanna say.

First let us get two technology understood.

What is Claytronics?

è Well it’s a branch of nanotech science where devices are conceptualized to be build of millions of nanobots called catoms. The idea is to create and mass produce a type of nanobotic entity which can be programmed to construct a synthetic reality of any existing construct irrespective of the entity being an organism or an object.

For any conceptual/theoretical details on claytronics you can check the Carnegie Mellon University website.

So claytronics offers us an intelligent robo-form which is tiny like a grain and it can communicate with others of its kind and mimic live, objects or organisms in real 3D space.

A simple example [that first came on to my mind], I can sleep at home while my robo-form attend my classes. J

What is 5G?

è Simple, 3G, then 4G and voila … 5G. 5G is the breed of future network which offers enough cognizance to make devices self aware and intercommunicative. A simple example, my digi-cam/mobile would know the location of the view, the camera is focusing to and wont let me take pictures if camera is not allowed there. Every picture I take, will be uploaded to my cloud storage immediately. Its just a fragment of the masterpiece called the FUTURE.

Why discuss it now!!

è Both of the above technologies are directly linked to AI[artificial Intelligence] and are going to be dominant at the same time. But the possibility.. more like eventuality of the implementation of 5G in claytronics is kind of unnoticed. There one most impressive display of claytronics and 5G in the movie TRANSFORMERS revenge of the fallen. There is a scene when a decepticon robot[dog] lands on earth and pours a huge number of catoms through a air pipe. And these catoms reach the secured chamber where the CUBE shard was kept. They combine to construct a suitable form to steal the shard. The reason for discussing now is that, India is ready for it now, this October. And all thanks to Rajnikant. His movie ROBOT though was pretty much inspired from iROBOT and the Bysentinal Man, it had its own spark. There was a scene when huge number of Rajni-bots combine togather to form a larger robo-sepience and some other construct. Both of the movies are Hit. So the people did digest it easily. It’s the right time to discuss about this.

I did mention that catoms are programmable didn’t I!

Catoms require a new type of programming beyond normal OOP. The revival of TSR with modifications comes into play. The programming environment here, is highly organized, single purposed, densely concentrated and physically a dynamic network of unwired nodes. The clatronic-matrix not only have to be able to transfer packet data through unstable channels but also have to actuate the physical locations of the anonymous nodes while transferring data.

Claytronics is a brainchild of prof. Seth Goldstein[associate professor at Carnegie Mellon] and Todd Mowry[Director at INTEL Research Pittsburge].

With the help of INTEL researchers at Carnegie Mellon developed 2 programming languages for catom matrix programming. While MELD takes a gobal logical perspective to ensure higher proximity to overall performance while LDP[locally distributed predicates] concentrates on distributed pattern matching.

Still both of the languages are underdeveloped and improving contneously.

To improve insight to the subject INTEL is providing an open-source UNIX based simulator [DPRsim] where codes can be tested [supports even C]. Details about Dynamic physical rendering can be found on the Intel website.

OK. Now we have catom. We know that they can be programmed. We have 5G and catoms use network, effectively internet to communicate.

Now, the big picture. After a certain success in claytronics, the template codes for synthesizing reality [e.g. a human simulation, a car, a phone] will be stored on a cloud storage. Catoms will be able to access the codes and download the required ones accordingly. So the catoms are togather semi-cognitive and they are interacting over a cognitive network.

An outcome scenario>My personal catoms are my pet bots. They keep tack of me. They asses my need and behavioral patterns, store the generated model on cloud, predict my next move. They form a mobile when I need a phone. They might even form my car and drive me to office. They form my couch when I want to rest. There is just no limit to this “to do” list.

The future may be uncertain to us but not the other way around. Hell of an imagination… right!!!

get back Hyperterminal in w7

2010-09-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

yes its disappointing to lose the hyperterminal in w7.

So, here a little trick to get you hypeT back in your fav OS.

Windows Xp had Hyperterminal. its just a dll file and an exe file that did the job.
So, Y not just use those files to run hyperterminal in w7!!!

just copy the files::

1. hypertrm.exe from C:\Program Files\Windows NT\ to the same location in w7
2. hypertrm.dll from C:\Windows\System32\ to the same location in w7

make a shortcut to hypertrm.exe and you r good to go...

the files download

Be fast....be a Dvoraker....

2010-08-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

Now, for all the programmers, there should be a common quality among them, which is, faster coding capability then normal people..

But still we r not yet a Dvoraker..

lets get in to the description ..

There are two popular types of keyboards [the main weapon of a programmer]. The all time favorite QWERTY
ant the myChoice, Dvorak.

what is QWERTY keyboard layout!!

well. its the keyboard thay we use generally.

it was designed for the typewriters..
the early typewrites had a problem if subsequent keys were pressed very quick.
they couldn't recognize them that fast, causing errors. So, the QWERTY type keyboard was invented by Christopher Sholes.

So the most frequent keys were kept apart from each other, which improved the efficiency of the typewriter but not the typist.

But it somehow became the most popular convention of keyboard layout.

what is Dvorak keyboard layout!!

this is the layout which was designed to improve the efficiency of the typist not the typewriter.
Dvorak layout keeps the most important keys on the middle row. The mid importance keys on the top row and the list important keys on the bottom row [approximately].
In the middle row, the vowels are placed on the left side and the most important consonants on the right.
So, a Dvorak typist would keep his fingers on the middle row. this provides a faster typing speed compared to QWERTY.

Lets look at the statistics..

topic QWERTY DVAROK

keystrokes                           32%                                                    70%
in middle row

keystrokes                            52% 22%
in top row

keystrokes
in bottom row                       16%                                                   8%

finger movement   30Km/Day 15Km/day

user friendliness takes time to get used to    very quick to get
                                                                                                      used to..

============================================================

almost all computers supports DVAROK today by default. MaCs use DVAROK.
many great programmers [Bram Cohen(inventor of BitTorrent), Matt Mullenweg(lead developper of WordPress), Barbara Blackburn(world's fastest typist)]

it is a good practice/choice for efficient coders who take less time to think then to type.
most importantly,.. it was a nobel work.. It deserves respect..

Cognitive Computing

2010-08-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

It is not very unrealistic to imagine a child asking for a brain instead of a PC now. Even more, a child may even ask for a non-pirated MIND operating system preinstalled in it. I mean, look at the world now, PCs processing graphics more realistically than….. reality. Mobile phones are becoming smart phones, as if they are regularly going through crash courses or something. Even the digital sensors sense better than me. I used to visit places with a tour guide, but now a GPS phone or PDA out-smarted the guides. Countless examples exist. But where did they come from!! The brain of course!

Scientists have been working to decode the algorithms of brain for so many years. All of the today’s technologies are the result of reverse engineering the Brain and engineering the Mind. Our brain has this indefinable capability to simulate a cognitive reality in time-space-object dimensional frame by interpreting the inter-relativity of touch, vision, audition, taste, smell and the previous records of the database running on some neuro-synaptic SQL server [called the 6th sense].

So we need to find a way to build a brain, as cheaply an quickly possible, People at the IBM, Almaden Research Centre, are already on to it, so that they could build one, before their child asks for one.

So what is Cognitive computing!!

Cognitive Computing is an intersection of the sets of neuroscience, supercomputing and nanotechnology. It is the very subset holding the algorithms of MIND.

Research shows, that a cognitive computing device [BLUE GENE/L, for now] equivalent to a simple rat’s brain will need 1.06GB/sec ip/op/node data communication speed, 91.8TF computation power with 32,768 CPUs and 8TB of RAM.

The interesting part is, IBM did it. They have this simulation of a simple brain. But the downside is, there is no MIND. Also, if we look in to the power consumption scenario, the simulation consumes 0.5MW of power compared to a rat’s brain consuming only 20mW.

So, the real deal is still far away. But acknowledging the current technological progression rate, it is imagined that may be, in the year 2018 somewhere on earth a successful brain simulation will be possible. Now, at least there is a better strength in hope. Future will be cognitive. Time will promote the recognition.

Ready Boost!!!

2010-07-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

Starting from Vista up untill w7 ReadyBoost has been a improving facility..

So. what is Ready-Boost!!
well, ready boost is a technology that allows a flashdrive[specific-we will go into that] to use for catch to provide another layer between the RAM and the Harddrive.

and How does it work!!
Now its true that harddrives are much faster devices[an avg harddisk with 7200rmp speed can easily provide speeds upto 60-70MB/s] than flashdrives[typically 10-16MB/s] but its not the throughput that is important here...

Flashdrives are non-volatile, similar to RAMs and has a faster random access speed than any harddrive.
readyboost requires an access speed of 1ms or better while harddrives have 14-16ms due to the read/write head's moving time and other mechanisms.

the readyboost enabled flash drives are used to store the virtual memory pages. for small files it is faster to access the flashdrive than harddrives.. But the data is kept on both drives, so you can take the flashdrives out anytime without causing any dataloss..

there are 2 basic differences in the storing mechanism of harddrives and readyboost enabled storage drives..

1: the data stored in the readyboost device is compressed by 2:1 ratio.. so a 4gb pendrive will actually be storing 8gb virtual memory pages...[readyboost cant support more than 4 gb till now]

2: the data stored is encrypted using 128bit AES on the fly.. this is necessary because you can take the drive any time causing the caches files to be retained on the drive..

the chart concludes that readyboost has very specific requirements to work. the key factor is the random read write speed.. Flashdrives are built for sequential read-write and they are very fast in that way. But there are very few flash drives with sufficient[>=2.5MB/s] random read speed. though they can provide random write speed sufficient enough..

Microsoft made if specific that readyboost needs a random read speed of atleast 2.5MB/s for 4kb.

and a write speed of 1.75MB/s for 512 kb.

but as they evolved with the technology, now ready boost does support even smaller read/write speed devices. But the main concept is the same..

space reservation....

A flashdrive used for ready boost should have a space reserved at 1:1 to 2.5:1 ratio. i.e. if you have 1 gb of ram then ready boost should consume 1 gb to 2.5 gb of space on the flashdrive.

performance boost...

readyboost is intended for slow systems. if you have a 512MB ram then there will be significant performance boost. the higher the system config. the lesser will be the impact significance.

finally....

readyboost is a technology which allows to catch harddrive data to a flashdrive and using if for faster access.

the obvious part is, all that read/write is going to effect the flashdrive performance/lifetime.

Microsoft has made significant improvements in this technology and expects a lifetime of 10 years for a flashdrive dedicated to readyboost.It may sound as drawback but 10 years are a huge time and no one usally expects to be using the same flashdrive for 10 years, which is not a proper justification but a bare fact.

as every other , this is also a technology and it has its goods and bads. and concluding something on technology is a vague practice. If people need it, they are going to use it...

you can share your views on it and let others share theirs'..

Genome 3.... WOW...

2010-07-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

This September, a new desktop will be unveiled to the world in the form of GNOME 3. This desktop will change the way people view, work with, and think of the desktop. It's different, it's intuitive, and it follows the current evolution of what the desktop should be. But best of all, it's all about Linux.

Back in 2008 a few of the GNOME developers met and came to the conclusion that there was a lack of excitement surrounding GNOME and the Linux desktop. They needed a new vision. From that, and after a few years, that vision started to develop into a working, solid desktop that will be the new branch of GNOME this year.

But what will it look like? How will it work? Can we try it now?

Let's answer those questions.

A New Philosophy

The GNOME development team didn't just decide to make a new panel, or change the menus or window decorations on you. Instead they decided to look at the desktop in a completely new way. Now, you will think in terms of how you start an activity and how you switch between activities. The old desktop metaphor? Gone. Instead of a start button, you now have an Activity Window. Instead of a pre-configured set of desktop applications, you can create them as needed (and easily). Windows are moved between desktops easily and started in specific desktops with even more ease. GNOME 3 will also handle searching much better, as it will be integrated into the shell. So a user can quickly search for anything on their machine from the Activity Window.

GNOME 3 does everything it can to help you be productive. To do this it strives to keep everything out of your way, unless needed. So now...let's see what this will look and feel like.

The Desktop

Figure 1

The default desktop (see Figure 1) might not look that astounding to you. You see a wallpaper, open applications, what seems like a taskbar and a notification area. Don't be fooled, as those items are not what you think they are.

For instance: What you see in the upper right corner is the Activities hot spot that opens the Activities Window. There are actually three ways to open the Activities Window:

1. Move the cursor to the upper left corner until the window opens.

2. Click on the Activities link in the upper left corner.

3. Click the Super key (often referred to as the "Windows" key).

Figure 2

But what does this Activities Window look like? And how does it work? Let's examine it first-hand. Figure 2 shows the Activities Window "in action." What happens is, when you activate this window the "desktop" will shrink, giving way to the Activities Window. In this window you will see five sections:

Find: This is where you can search for anything. It's similar to GNOME Do in that you can do a search for either an application or a file you were working on.

Applications: This is the list of all the applications installed on your machine.

Favorites: These are applications that you use most often. We'll chat about adding to this list momentarily.

Places and devices: All the important folders and devices you have on your machine.

Recent items: The list of the recent items (documents, images, etc) you have worked on.

Now let's say you want open up an application. You can do this a number of ways:

Figure 3

Find and start: When you open up the Activity Window, immediately enter the name of the application you want to run. More than likely, before you finish typing, the application will appear in a list below the text area. You can hit enter (when you see the application) and it will open.

Favorites: If you see your application in the favorites, just click it and it will start.

Applications list: When you open up the Activities Window, click on the Applications area (the line that contains the word "Applications") and a new window will appear (see Figure 3) with all of your applications. Find your application, click it, and watch it open.

But what about those favorites? How do you add applications to that list? That, my friends, is very simple. When you have an application open, initiate the Activities Window, find your open application icon in the favorites section, right click the icon, select Add to Favorites, and the icon will remain their (even when the application is closed).

Workspaces

As I mentioned earlier, workspaces can be added or removed on the fly. This makes it so easy to expand your desktop as you need it. To add or remove a workspace to your desktop initiate the Activities Window and look for the "+" and ""-" symbols near the bottom right corner. To add a workspace click the "+" symbol and to remove one click the "-" symbol.

Figure 4

You will notice, as you add workspaces, there are two ways to view your entire desktop. You can view them one workspace at a time or all of them at once. To change this, initiate the Activities Window and you will see the workspace viewer icon near the bottom right corner of the Activities window. If you are viewing your workspaces one at a time you will see four small squares together. If you are viewing your workspaces all at once, you will see a single square. Figure 4 shows workspaces being viewed all at one. This, to me, is the most efficient way to view your workspaces. Why? Let me illustrate that for you.

Let's say you have four workspaces and you want one workspace dedicated to writing. So you want to open OpenOffice Writer in workspace number 2 (upper right workspace). All you have to do is open the Activities Window and click and drag the OpenOffice Writer icon to the desired workspace. Or, say you already have an application open and you want to move it to another workspace. Simple. Open up the Activities window and click and drag the open window to the desired workspace.

I hope you can see that GNOME 3 looks to be all about efficiency.

Installation

So...you want to give it a try? All you need to do is open up your Add/Remove Software tool, search for "gnome-shell" (no quotes), mark it for installation, and click Apply. I have had zero difficulty getting this installed on Ubuntu 10.04 and Fedora 13.

Final Thoughts

GNOME 3 has me excited about the desktop. That says a lot, because I have been through the gamut of desktops and back again. I have experienced every Linux desktop that has been available, and GNOME 3 proves there is still plenty of innovation left in the Linux desktop community.

I hope you are looking forward to September 2010 as much as I am. Although I have already been using this desktop for some time now and even in its "infancy," GNOME 3 is an impressive piece of work.

courtesy>linux.com

a little concept on dual layer break-point

2010-07-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

Now , it might occur to someone ... "why is it called a dual layer!! its just a single disk with more memory.."..

well a few years back I also thought so...

I came across this fine little info on dual-layer break points which clears all doubts ....

The layer break point is the place where a dual layer DVD switches from the first layer (layer 0) to the second layer (layer 1). DVDs are laid out in sectors (each sector contains 2048 bytes of content), starting with sector 0 (zero). The break point is the sector address of the first sector on the second layer. This number also represents the number of sectors on layer 0.

It is important to keep in mind that although your DVD-9 title has 2 layers, it is not 2 discs. The DVD player software will see only one disc, with one ISO/UDF file system, and one set of files. The DVD drive that plays back the disc will have to know where the layer break occurs, so it can refocus to layer 1 when it reaches the break point, or whenever any content is requested that is beyond the break point. The drive will read the layer break point in the control data, a small file at the start of the disc (in the lead-in).

The position of the layer break is important. It can also be called the layer split point, because it splits the contents of the disc into 2 layers. So, the position of the layer break determines how the contents of the whole disc is divided into 2, and how much content ends up on each layer. A dual layer DVD can only hold about 4 Gigabytes of data on each layer. If the total size of the DVD is 7 Gigabytes, for instance, and the layer break was set too far from the halfway point, one layer might end up with more data than the disc can hold. GEAR checks the layer break point that you enter, to make sure that it doesn't cause this problem.

At this time, all dual layer recordable DVDs are oriented with Opposite Track Path. This means that the first layer (0) is recorded in a spiral track from the inside to the outside of the disc, and the second layer (1) is recorded in a spiral track from the outside (at the same diameter where the first layer finished recording), back towards the inside of the disc. For all Opposite Track Path DVDs, the layer break point must be at a sector address that is at least halfway through the total number of sectors. This insures that layer 0 is larger than layer 1. If layer 0 was not larger than layer 1, the disc would run out of room when it records layer 1, since it starts at the end of layer 0 and records back to the inside.

DVDs are encoded with a sophisticated scheme that scrambles groups of 16 sectors, in order to minimize the visibility of any errors that occur during playback. These groups are called ECC blocks (Error Checking and Correction). The layer break must occur at the start of a new ECC block, so that an ECC block is not written on 2 separate layers. So, the layer break must occur at a sector address that is evenly divisible by 16.

When the DVD is being played back, it will reach the end of layer 0 at the layer break point. The player will refocus the laser to layer 1, which is behind layer 0. While this layer transition usually takes only a fraction of a second, the player's data buffer may run dry during this time, and the video and audio will appear to freeze for a moment or two. This is normal, but DVDs are designed to try to minimize this problem.

DVD Video titles consist of up to 99 Video Title Sets (a VTS). The audio and video content of each program is arranged in Video Objects (VOBs). Each Video Object is broken up into files that are 1 Gigabyte or less, but really the video object itself can be as large as 8 Gigabytes. DVD Video discs have an Information file (IFO file) for each Video Title Set. A spare backup (BUP) copy of this information file is also stored on the disc, in case the information file is unreadable.

The content within each VOB is organized into cells. Each cell is a segment of video (or a still picture), along with the audio. In order for the video decoder on a DVD player to function correctly, the layer break for DVD Video titles must occur at the start of a cell. To find the location of cells, you can use a tool called IFOEdit.

To help you calculate your DVD layer break point, download our Layer Break Calculator spreadsheet.

To summarize, you can find an appropriate layer break point using the following rules...

For all DVDs, the layer break point:

must be less than 2,074,496 sectors (so that layer 0 does not exceed 2,074,496 sectors, the maximum capacity of a DVD-9 layer)

can not be within a 16-sector ECC block (must be on a sector that is evenly divisible by 16)

For Opposite Track Path (OTP) discs (all DVD-Video titles, and all titles written to Double Layer recordable DVDs) the layer break:

must be greater than 1/2 the total sectors of the disc (insuring that layer 0 is bigger than layer 1)

For DVD-Video titles, the layer break:

must point to the start of an IFO File, or the start of a program cell within a VOB.

ideally, it should be at a cell that is flagged as non-seamless (seamless playback linked in PCI = no). This rule can be broken without negative consequences.

Generally, the ideal layer break point is halfway through the title, or as near to this point as possible (given the conditions described above). When one or both layers is filled to near capacity, the content is written close to the outer radius of the disc, where there is a greater possibility of problems in manufacturing either replicated DVDs or DVD recordable discs. This is why it is not a good idea to push the capacity limits of a DVD.

Also, you will notice that some of the rules that must be followed specify the minimum layer break point and some specify the maximum layer break point. These two points give you a range of acceptable values, or a "window" where you can place your layer break. As the content of your title gets larger, this window will get smaller. If you attempt to fill a DVD-9 to it's maximum capacity, the window for your layer break point will narrow to a single sector, exactly halfway through the title (at 2,074,496 sectors).

good to know.. right!!!

PC problems...

2010-07-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

I hope these still hold effective...

One long beep followed by two short - Graphics cards faulty or inserted incorrectly.
Two long beeps and three short ones - Possible flat battery.

One long, one short then four short beeps - BIOS checksum error (possible new motherboard).

Three long, two short then four short - Keyboard control failure (maybe damaged cable).

No beeps at all - If fan and lights are on the cpu has blown

slipstreaming via dos

2010-04-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

How to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 3 to Create an Integrated XP Setup Disk with SP 3

This tutorial takes you through the steps of integrating the Windows XP Service Pack 3 into the files from an existing Windows XP setup CD. A new setup disk will be created. This disk will have the full XP installation with SP3 already merged into it. Such a slipstreamed CD has a few advantages over installing your current version of XP and then running SP 3 afterwards:

Saves Time
Installing XP slipstreamed with service pack 3 is considerably faster than installing a previous version of XP and then running SP 3 separately.
More Secure
If your computer is always connected to the network or the Internet, and you do not have Service Pack 3 integrated, it is vulnerable to any malware that targets pre-SP3 XP. Although the window of opportunity for a successful attack of your system is small (the time needed to apply SP 3 and reboot), some people prefer not to take the chance.
Uses Less Disk Space
If you install XP first and then install SP 3, the service pack installer will create backup copies of the previous versions in your Windows directory. System Restore will also make a backup set of files on your computer. These backup files take up space on your computer, to the order of a few hundred megabytes. (Note that this advantage is minimal, since you can manually delete all these backup files yourself later if you are short of space.)

Prerequisites

Windows XP Professional or Home Setup CD
You will need your existing Windows XP Professional or Home setup CD. This CD can either be the original Windows XP release CD, or one with either SP 1 or Service Pack 2 integrated.
If your computer did not come with such a CD, but you created your own Setup CD by following the instructions given in howtohaven.com's How to Create a Bootable Windows XP Setup CD/DVD on a Preinstalled Windows System, you might want to try using that CD instead.
WARNING: do not attempt to use this guide to slipstream your Windows XP Media Center 2005 disk. Slipstreaming of this version of XP is not supported by Microsoft.
A CD/DVD Burning Software, a blank writeable CD and a CD/DVD Writer
After creating a new XP Setup CD that has Service Pack 3 integrated, you will need to write it onto a new, blank CD (such as a CD-R or CD-RW). You can also use a DVD+/-R(W) if you want. As such you will need a CD/DVD writer and a program to burn the new CD.
For the purpose of this tutorial, I will describe the procedure for using the ImgBurn, a free utility listed on the Free CD and DVD Burners and Copying Software page on thefreecountry.com.
XP Service Pack 3
Windows XP service pack 3 can be downloaded directly from Microsoft.

The Basic Steps to Merging SP3 into the XP Setup CD

Download and Save XP Service Pack 3
If you have not already downloaded XP service pack 3, get it now, and save it with the filename of "XPSP3.exe" at the top level of drive C:. Actually, you can save it anywhere you want, and leave it at its default name if you wish. However, for the purpose of this tutorial, I will assume that you saved it so that it can be accessed as C:\XPSP3.exe. If you save it as some other name, you will have to change the command lines I supply below yourself to the appropriate one.
Extract or Download the Boot Sector of the XP Setup Disk
You will also need the boot sector of an existing bootable Windows 2000, XP or 2003 setup CDROM. You can either extract it from your CD yourself, or just download a boot sector already extracted by others. To save myself some time describing the procedure for extracting the boot sector, this tutorial will just use the same method mentioned in my guide to create your own XP setup disk. That is, download the file wxp10.zip from one of the links on http://www.nu2.nu/download.php?sFile=wxp10.zip and save it somewhere on your computer.
When you've got the file, open it by doubleclicking it in Windows explorer. Go into the "cds" folder and into "wxphome" (or "wxppro"; it doesn't matter which) folder, followed finally by the "files" directory. Drag the "w2ksect.bin" file into C:\ (the root directory/folder of drive C:). Don't get creative and place it in some other directory. If you do that, ImgBurn will not be able to find "c:\w2ksect.bin" later.
Create a Working Folder
Create a temporary folder for the integration to take place. For the purpose of this tutorial, I will assume that you have created a folder called "XPSETUP" at the top level of drive C:.
To create a folder, open "My Computer", go to drive C:, right click somewhere in the window and select "New" followed by "Folder" in the menu that appears. Then change the default name from "New Folder" to "XPSETUP". If you did this correctly, you will have a new folder, C:\XPSETUP.
Copy the XP Setup Disk intto C:\XPSETUP
Put your existing XP setup CD into your drive. If the setup wizard appears, dismiss it. Drag all the files and folders on the CD into C:\XPSETUP.
Open a Command Prompt
Open a command prompt window. You can do this by running the program "Command Prompt", found in the Accessories folder of your Start menu.
Slipstream the Service Pack
From the command prompt window, which will be a black window with a blinking cursor, type the following, followed by the ENTER key.
```
C:\XPSP3 /integrate:C:\XPSETUP
```
Note that there is only one space character -- between the "C:\XPSP3" and the rest of the line. If you did not name the service pack "XPSP3.exe" and place it at the top level of C: as I described earlier, you'll have to modify the command line accordingly.
The process will take some time to complete, so take a coffee break if you wish.

This completes the slipstreaming part of the tutorial. You will now need to burn it to make a bootable CD or DVD.

Boot vista/W7 from pendrive

2010-04-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

with the mini series of notebooks, I have seen the demand of methods to make boot able pen drives.

there are plenty of methods.. a ton of application to do it..

I still like the command prompt method the most.

perquisite :

1. a pendrive (4gb or higher)
2. an installer disk of the OS
3. a computer/laptp with proper dvdrom
4. & most importantly... you..

the method:

1. open command prompt in administrator priviledge.

DISKPART

LIST DISK

2. notice the serial no. of ur pendrive.

SELECT DISK 1

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)

ASSIGN

EXIT

3. ok. now ur pendrive is ready to use

4. insert the dvd. say your dvd drive letter is X.

X:

CD BOOT

5. considering your pendrive letter Y

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 Y:

if the rply msg says successful.. well the job is done..

you have your bootable pendrive.

Mac Address spoofing

2010-04-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

I noticed people scrubbing head and asking,
"How the hell does the mac id[eth. id] change on Mac with each boot!!"

most have a concept that the NIC id is directly used as the mac id. means, e.g. the lan card's id is supposed to be the physical address of the card[embedded in the card] on the network.

well, after the boot, the eth id is loaded to the registry for this purpose (windows). So people using windows think that physical address is static and not changeable.

if we can modify the registry value for the card, then we can use any id as the physical address.

in a bit older OSs the mothod fr this was to stop the eth. device> edit he id> restart it.
well that seems not to work in vista/w7....

so heres the process to make windows change mac id..

1. Click Start – Run, type “regedit”

2. Navigate to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Control
\Class
\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. Under this key, you shoud see numbers in sequence as “0000″, “0001″ and so on. Click on one at a time to check the description of the device to match it with that of your network card.

4. Once found, in the right-pane, look for “NetworkAddress” key value. If you find it, right-click and select modify. Enter the desired MAC-Address as a 12 digit number (all in one, no “space” “.” or “-”)

5. If you don’t find the key, right-click in the rightpane, select “New” – “String Value”. Enter the name as “NetworkAddress”. Now modify and set the desired value.

6. Now, disable and enable the Network card from the ControlPanel – Network Connections.

This should reflect the new MAC-Address on your NIC. Should you choose to go back to the original manufacturer set MAC-Address simply delete the key you just created/modified in the Windows Registry.

_________________________________________

in new MaC a feature like this is inbuilt..
for old MaCs..

Retrieving your current MAC address

First, you’re going to want your current wireless MAC address so you can set it back without rebooting. Launch the Terminal and type the following command:
ifconfig en1 | grep ether
You’ll know see something like:
ether 00:12:cb:c6:24:e2
And the values after ‘ether’ makeup your current MAC address. Write this down somewhere so you don’t forget it. If you do, it’s not the end of the world, you’ll just have to reboot to reset it from a change.

Spoofing a MAC address

To spoof your MAC address, you simply set that value returned from ifconfig to another hex value in the format of aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff

For this example, we will set our wireless MAC address to 00:e2:e3:e4:e5:e6 by issuing the following command:
sudo ifconfig en1 ether 00:e2:e3:e4:e5:e6

The sudo command will require that you enter your root password to make the change.

Verifying the Spoofed MAC address worked

If you want to check that the spoof worked, type the same command as earlier:
ifconfig en1 | grep ether
Now you will see:
ether 00:e2:e3:e4:e5:e6
Meaning your MAC address is now the value you set it to. If you want to further verify the spoof, simply login to your wireless router and look at the ‘available devices’ (or attached devices) list, and your spoofed MAC address will be part of that list.

If you want to set your MAC address back to its real value, simply issue the above ifconfig commands with the MAC address that you retrieved in step 1. You can also reboot your Mac.

Enjoy!

_______________________________________

for linux...

First find the physical MAC address of your machine by running the following command :

$ ifconfig -a | grep HWaddr
eth0  Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:48:BA:d1:20

The hexadecimal numbers in blue denote my machine's MAC address. Yours will be different. Learn how to use the ifconfig Linux command.

Next, login as root in Linux and enter the following commands -

# ifconfig eth0 down
# ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:80:48:BA:d1:30
# ifconfig eth0 up
# ifconfig eth0 |grep HWaddr

Note above that I have changed the MAC address to a different number highlighted in blue. 00:80:48:BA:d1:30 is the new MAC address I have provided for my Linux machine. You can choose any 48 bits hexadecimal address as your MAC address.

Technology & Networking tricks/concepts/solutions

ReadyBoost on Linux

Multi core architecture Simplified

Instant Boot

The System Power States:

A 5G-ed Claytronic Cognitive Future

get back Hyperterminal in w7

Be fast....be a Dvoraker....

Cognitive Computing

Ready Boost!!!

Genome 3.... WOW...

a little concept on dual layer break-point

PC problems...

slipstreaming via dos

How to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 3 to Create an Integrated XP Setup Disk with SP 3

Saves Time

More Secure

Uses Less Disk Space

Prerequisites

Windows XP Professional or Home Setup CD

A CD/DVD Burning Software, a blank writeable CD and a CD/DVD Writer

XP Service Pack 3

The Basic Steps to Merging SP3 into the XP Setup CD

Download and Save XP Service Pack 3

Extract or Download the Boot Sector of the XP Setup Disk

Create a Working Folder

Copy the XP Setup Disk intto C:\XPSETUP

Open a Command Prompt

Slipstream the Service Pack

Boot vista/W7 from pendrive

Mac Address spoofing

Retrieving your current MAC address

Spoofing a MAC address

Verifying the Spoofed MAC address worked