Computer Repair, 12/27

M__ hollered at me Christmas day; her computer was broken. With the power problems we had that morning, I really wasn't surprised: surge protectors aren't foolproof.
So I run over and take a look. Sure enough; it was just as she described it to me: press the power button, the light would come on, but nothing happened. Great. Best case, the power supply's borked; worst case, the whole box is fried. I brace her for the worst, and told her I'd take a look at it Saturday morning. To tide her over; I hooked her up with a replacement rig: my new laptop won't win any speed awards, but hook her monitor and mouse up and it's a serviceable email kiosk. No, this isn't something I'd normally do, but M__ is a good customer.
I get this thing to my makeshift workshop and hook it up to a spare mouse and monitor (and power cord, just in case) of mine. No surprise, still didn't work. Was worth a shot, though; a power cord is a lot less expensive than a new computer.
I shut'er down, crack open the case, and get to troubleshooting. All the connections are good, and nothing looks scorched off hand. Power supply is cheaper than a new box, so I hit the test button. Nothing. Now, this power supply is supposed to spin the case fans when you hit the test; but all I get is a twitch and a green LED.
I don't have any spare power supplies on hand, but I had just replaced the power supply in my own desktop. Normally, no problem; hop on New Egg, pick up the part, wait a couple days. I give M__ a call, see what she wants to do. And for some reason, I offered to just leave in my power supply at replacement cost. Normally, I wouldn't have even thought about putting parts from my own PC in a customer's computer, but like I said, M__ is a good customer: she's already shopping for a new computer with me. And since I have the laptop, there's nothing on the desktop I actually need for a while. So, she's up and running, I've got my laptop back. And I've got a customer who knows I'll go the extra mile.

New Comp

Picked up a free laptop this weekend. It cost me bout $125.
Yeah, i know. Sounds like a contradiction, right? But when something is "free", there's always a catch. The laptop itself was crap. And I don't say that lightly. The guy who sold it to me told me it was crap.
So, the rundown... Lappy's an Acer TravelMate 2420, with an Intel Celeron D 1.5GHz, 512 MB RAM, 20 GB Hard Drive, 14.1" screen, DVD-ROM/CD-RW, WiFi, Bluetooth, USBx3, Modem, LAN, PCCard (Type II), VGA out.
Anyway, this thing has never been a "top-of-the-line", and frankly, never will be. That Celeron is just powerful enough to run XP (what it originally came with); 7 isn't in the realm of possibility.
If it was, I wouldn't have gotten it so cheap. Of course, I wouldn't have gotten it so cheap if it weren't DOA anyway.
I can already here you asking, "Wait, if you knew that the laptop wouldn't work, why in the world would you spend money on it?" And I would reply, I never said the laptop wouldn't work, it didn't work. And while I wouldn't go so far as to compare myself to mechanic rebuilding an engine, the basic idea is the same. I take the shell of a computer, salvage what I can, replace what I can't, and wind up with something I can use, give away, or sell. Usually the first.
Before that mechanic begins his rebuild, he figures out the problems, decides if it would be worth the work, then makes a plan, including contingencies in case something new crops up. And like our imaginary mechanic, I did the same thing.
What Was Wrong
The damn thing wouldn't start.
I've ran into the same trouble with my car enough times, I think I'm drawn to things that don't want to get going in the mornings (something, something, wife, something... love you, honey). Of course, just like a car, there are dozens of reasons why a computer won't start. The diagnostic screen wasn't much help at first: some esoteric (read: I didn't recognize them at first) error codes and the dreaded "Operating System Not Found" message. That isn't good. It's the equivalent of getting into the car, putting your key in the switch and the car looking back at you and saying "Where's my power train? I can't find my power train!"
Yeah, that's not a Good Thing™.
So, first things first; I googled the error codes, and found out they were network boot errors. "Network boot" is way of starting the computer where the operating system is hosted on the network instead of on the computer itself. So, into the BIOS we go.
This is where I found part of the problem. The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) was able to notice the hard drive, but wasn't able to identify it. Modern BIOSes are able to read the serial number from drives, and they display it. In a desktop computer, this can be a useful tool when you have multiple hard drives. This laptop was able to grab the basic manufacturer information from the drive, but not the serial number. Just to be on the safe side, I double-checked the boot order: Optical drive, Hard Drive, Network, Floppy. Pretty standard; and pretty much what I expected -- the previous owner was your typical computer user: he isn't one to poke and prod too much; and I knew the other guy he took it to would more than likely return things to base if he couldn't find the cause.
That concerned me a bit... since we were polling the Hard Drive before searching for a Network, the fact that we got the network connection errors were a problem, but not totally unexpected: the previous owner had reported having some corruption issues. I popped open the case, made sure that the memory and hard drive were properly seated -- always a concern when looking at a laptop. I reseated both, and no change. Again, it wasn't a surprise; but double- and triple-checking the simple stuff can save time, money, hassle, and face-palming on a job.
Since I knew the hard drive wasn't accessible at the moment, I went to the next option:
booting from CD.
Luckily, quite a few Linux Distributions have what's called a "Live-CD". Live-CDs are complete operating systems contained on a CD (or in some cases, a DVD). A Live-CD is used to demonstrate the OS or just test hardware for compatibility before actually installing. Booting a live environment is also useful for providing a way to get into an otherwise unaccessible computer (assuming there's no encryption).
Because LiveCDs run completely in RAM, I went ahead and grabbed a memory upgrade; luckily, previous owner had already bought an upgrade. I bought the two 1GB sticks off of him, along with a soft-side carrying case for $50. Sans laptop, he wasn't going to need it, but I gave him fair market for the upgrade anyway.
I fire up a CD called MacPuppy Opera. This particular distro is a variant of Puppy Linux; and one of the major selling points of Puppy is that it has a complete graphic environment, loads completely into RAM, and has the underlying tools to work with a broken computer.
So, I fire up gparted (GNOME Partition Editor) and ask it about the hard drive. It does find it, but like the BIOS, it couldn't actually access it. Seems it needs a disklabel. Unfortunately, I can't seem to create one. Block 0 is unwritable. Crap.
I went ahead and picked up a new hard drive (newegg.com, since nobody seems to have a spare 2.5" ATA HDD lying around.
When it comes in (probably Monday after Christmas), I'll update again.

Misread headlines

Had to double-take this headline; I wondered what was so bad about getting someone a cooktop for Christmas. Then I realized, griddle != girdle

Seriously, can I smack Luke Wilson now?

You have a product. You want to sell your product. You'd like to sell your product to me.
So you advertise. You try to convince me that your product is better than the other guy's similar product. And you make compelling arguments. But there's a catch. See, if I use your product where I would need to use your product, you'll stop me from using your product. So why, pray tell, are you advertising to me?

You see, AT&T, we're at a bit of an impasse. According to your map, I'm in the middle of a great big "Partner" area. And, according to the footnotes linked, "excessive use of Partner coverage may subject [my] service to early termination... Data services may not be available." To get out of the Partner coverage area, I have to go at least 75 miles from home. Besides, we can't very well count your non-affiliated partner's coverage in with yours, now can we? And as for that 3G coverage you keep bragging on, we're talking 130 miles before you say I can even get the signal.

So why, AT&T -- nee Cingular nee SBC nee Southwestern Bell -- do you keep advertising to me?

Hell, I can't even browse your calling plans... because you don't have any for my area. Or Dodge City. Or Larned. Or Greensburg. Or Jetmore. Or Great Bend. Or Pratt. Or Hays. Or Liberal. Or Garden City. Or any other damn city within an hour's drive. I should know; I entered their zip codes to your finder, too.

So please, stop getting Luke Wilson's smug all over my living room. Because when all the comparisons to other cell phone companies you throw up can be shot down by a single answer -- that being, "Maybe so, but if it doesn't work where I need it to, it's useless to me" -- all your ad accomplishes is to piss me off... enough that I switched away from your landline service.

The World Ends With You

I picked up a game last week when I was in Wichita, called "The World Ends With You". Cheery title, huh? But I thought; hey, it's by Square-Enix, and they've got a pretty good track record as far as I'm concerned.
TWEWY (as the forums have taken to calling it) is a recent title from the Square-Enix's RPG offerings. RPGs or "Role-Playing Games" is a fairly broad category which pretty much boils down to "characters get stronger by gaining experience, usually by winning fights".[1] I usually prefer turn-based to aRPGs[2], but I figured I'd give it a shot. If I didn't like it, I could always sell it back to Gamestop and not totally be at a loss.
TWEWY's unique battle system takes some getting used to; it's also something that probably could not have been done a system other than the DS. While Neko (your character) fights on the bottom screen using the various touch commands, you direct your partner's top screen attacks using the D-pad or ABXY buttons[3].
You start out with a limited number of spells/attacks/useful things to do, each signified by a different pin. Yes, your magic powers are fueled by casual-dining restaurant flair; oh, excuse me... designer casual-dining restaurant style flair. After the tutorial battles, you'll equip two of a half-dozen fairly standard fantasy tropes. You've got your sword swing, a wall of fire, a magic missile, a hand to throw obstacles with, lightning, and a limited-use cure spell.
But because it's an RPG -- at least in my opinion -- the story is at least as important (if not more so) as the combat. So, you wake up in the middle of Shibuya, basically Tokyo's version of Time's Square. Nobody interacts with you (which suits Neko fine) but you start hearing people's thoughts. Your phone rings and you get a mysterious text message. A countdown timer appears, burned into your hand. And then the giant frogs with skeletal back feet show up. And start attacking you. Over the first hour or two of game play, you learn that you're a player in the "Reaper's Game"; you're dead in the real world; and if you aren't able to finish the mission from the daily text message, you not only lose the game, you lose your right to exist.
It's a Square game, so you're going to have a bit of philosophy injected. And with this one, it's in the title. "The World Ends with You", meaning your view of the world is limited by your own perceptions and biases. By challenging those biases, expanding your perceptions, letting other people in, you'll be able to change -- if not the whole world, then your part of it.
Saying much more would be saying too much, giving away too much of the story. It's worth picking up.


[1] Contrast this with Adventure games like Legend of Zelda or Metroid, where you can fight all the enemies you want and won't get stronger, you have to collect items/weapons to do so. Or with Action title like the early Sonic games where your character has set abilities throughout, and can temporarily gain extra powers -- invincibility, take extra damage -- by picking up power-ups along the way.
[2] Action RPGs; games that mix traditional console RPG prep-screens with real-time battles.
[3] If you get to fighting on the touch screen and forget about your partner, there is an AI option that will take over after so long.

Tipping

I've been reading through the Waiter Rant blog (link above) archives. Two posts right in a row -- one about tipping baristas and the other basically about jackass customers causing the people around them to tip less -- caught my attention for a little longer than most and got me thinking.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a great tipper. When I tip, it's usually around 15%, but can vary from 10-20 depending on the overall cost of the meal and the service; but then again, I don't make a habit of going places where tipping 20% is the norm, either. That said, I'm not even halfway through the archive and I'm already making mental notes to bump my normal tips a bit.
But the story about a jerk customer negatively affecting his server's tips got me a bit introspective. Two reasons; first, I try not to be that guy. The Waiter (author of the above blog) generalizes them as Yuppies; basically, the "I'm right, you're not; everything must be the way I want it and if it's not there will be hell to pay" guy. Anyone who has worked anything resembling "customer service" knows at least one. If you're my server, I try not to be your that guy for the day. And if that guy is in your section while I'm there -- and the service is still decent -- you can almost be assured to be palmed a extra fiver when I pay the tab. Doesn't sound like much; but when my bills normally come out to $50-60, it is what it is.
But the tipping for baristas sent me back in my own mind. I know it's their job to make those ten-option drinks[1]; but I still feel slightly bad ordering anything more complicated than an iced latte. Besides, your barista is your friend -- or at least you should treat her like she is. Especially if they're busy and you're intending on ordering something more complicated than "Large Coffee, Black".
Which is why I've started wandering a little further down the road from the Starbucks I usually frequent[2]. Usually I try to be as economical as possible when I go shopping: it's about a four hour drive to Wichita and back; even a "quick" trip might as well be an all-day event. Besides, I get lost in downtown Wichita (Kansas City, I can handle, but I just haven't got the hang of Wichita yet), so I tend to stick to the outskirts and places I know. That means -- for me -- Maize, Tyler, Rock and Kellogg. And since Maize Road has the distinction of being the closest to street to home with restaurants and a grocery store, it tends to be my last run when I'm in the "big city". Plus, on the way out of town, we tend to stop at a grocery store, and because of the location -- and since the wife really likes the chicken and gnocchi at Olive Garden that's across the street -- we usually ends up at the Maize SuperTarget.
And inside, there's a Starbucks.
Great location, too... I can grab the few things from SuperTarget we can't get here or in Great Bend, then grab a humungo coffee for the 2 hour trip home (usually with a pit stop in either Hutch or Stafford). But the last few times, I've been driving back through the shopping center (which basically amounts to a 5-block long strip mall) to get to the stand-alone Starbucks on the other side.[3] I've done this for one very important reason.
The in-store Starbucks (or, more likely; Target, which leased space to the Starbucks) wouldn't let me tip the barista.
Now, I haven't always tipped baristas. Mostly because of what I normally drink: either black coffee or iced coffee. And there, I'd tell the wife what I want and hit the restroom; by the time I got back, she'd already taken care of the tab. But when the barista told me that, my mouth kinda hung open. I was really shocked -- though I had noticed the lack of tip jar, I'd just chalked it up to the majority of customers being credit cards instead.
We kinda stopped going to that one after that. There was always an excuse -- it's raining and the stand-alone has a drive through; it's getting late and I'm pretty sure they close the in-store shops early -- but I was of a mixed mind. On one hand; good for Starbucks/Target (the baristas always had Target branded nametags, so I assume they were actually Target employees rather than Starbucks) for paying the baristas enough they didn't need to rely on tips. On the other, if an employee is good at their job, and goes out of their way to make me want to come back (and then spend more money), why can't I -- as the customer -- thank that employee as well? Money may be a base way of saying thank you; but last time I checked, thank you cards don't pay the rent.

[1] You know, the ones they make fun of in the Dunkin Donuts commercials. Yes, I know it's how they make sure the customer gets exactly what they want. But I never know when to actually quit ordering. I've actually gotten intimidated by listening to the guy in line before me order... instead of a cup of coffee, I wound up with a venti half-caff vanilla macchiatto with extra foam.
[2] I say frequented. Not quite accurate, since it's not a daily, weekly, or even monthly thing for me. It's when I make it over to Wichita -- usually once every two or three months.
[3] Yes, there is a Starbucks about 5 blocks from a Starbucks. Don't believe me? Check Google Maps "Starbucks, Maize KS"; between 21st and 29th on Maize. Apparently, if you go down the road a ways, there's another 3 on Central between Maize and Ridge; and another couple on Maple. All west of I-235.

Gentoo: X Update Problems

When building xorg-server-1.6.3.901-r2 with the "+hal +evdev" USE flags:

• X -configure will give you your base xorg.conf.new file


• Use "evdev" as the driver for both keyboard and mouse


• X -config no longer automatically starts twm. Instead, you'll end up with a black screen. This is normal, expected behavior for Xorg.


• Instead, use startx to test your configuration. However, the current version of startx seems to require an existing /etc/X11/xorg.conf to run. So move your new config file over (backing up the old one first if this is an upgrade); and if all goes well, you'll see three xterm and an xclock.
  

Why is this important?

I spent about 3 day trying to "fix" the new default behavior, attempting to get twm to startup with X -config /root/xorg.conf.new . And since the Gentoo Xorg How-To still uses the old default behavior (as of this writing); I figure I had better write this down for the next upgrade. And since knowledge is just information unless it is shared... I'll put it up here in case someone else needs it, too.

Technicalities

I was watching some TruTV at work tonight -- one of those follow the investigation shows -- and something one of the officers said struck me as just plain wrong. He said something to the effect that they were absolutely positive that the guy was their murderer, but he was able to 'get off on a technicality.'

Quite frankly, there's no such thing as a technicality. Either you (as a cop) did your job correctly, or you didn't. You either filled out the application for a warrant fully and correctly, based it on valid (i.e. legal) observations, and executed it within the letter of the law; or you didn't. There was no technicality, there was a fuck up; and it's on you. You broke the rules that allow the prosecutor to present your evidence to the court -- whether it was continuing questioning after a subject asked for a lawyer, stopping a vehicle without a valid reason, or just plain not dotting your 'i's and crossing the 't's on your report -- don't blame the court for finding that the defendant was right on challenging how you did your job.

Reinstalling Windows a distinct possibility

Really, the one of the few things that's sticking in my craw about my plans to go back to school next year is the possibility of having to reinstall Windows on my PC -- or pick up a notebook that can run the programs I need (most likely Office 07+, Visual Studio.NET, that sort of thing).
The other things weigh on my mind as well, don't get me wrong; but this is a concern too. It's not that I don't like Microsoft products. OK, part of it is. Helping my wife with her database homework has been a lesson in frustration when I know that the operation is possible (because after a 5 minutes refresher I can do it with the basic SQL functions[1]) but the lack of coherence in the instructor, instructional material, and online help made the same task next to impossible in Outlook 07.

The other part is -- if I have to use my current computer -- I'll have to find more space for my media server. Not that it's actually 'serving' much (ftp only right at the moment, but hey). Speaking of which, I need to make sure that I have anon read capabilities enabled there, too; or figure out how to get it to follow links. If nothing else, I may have to mount the drive inside my home folder.



[1] SELECT * FROM table
WHERE value=(SELECT MAX(value) FROM table)
OR value=(SELECT MIN(value) FROM table)
will display the largest and smallest 'value'

All Systems Go.

So, I did it. One of the few remaining computer geek rites of passage is complete. I have successfully configured and compiled the Linux kernel for my personal computer; and booted into a GNU/Linux operating system. And since that has been checked off my list...
I went in, reformatted the hard drive I used, and installed Gentoo instead of LFS[1]. Why? Let's just say I have an overwhelming new respect for the packagers at Canonical, Debian, RedHat - compiling isn't the most exciting thing to do, and they do it extremely well. With that said, I like the flexibility of on-site compilation that Gentoo provides. It stands to reason that an executable that is compiled specifically for the hardware it's run on is usually going to outperform the same code when it was compiled for a standard architecture. This won't hold true for all cases, but I've noticed quicker start-up time with lynx (a text-based web browser)[2].
Gentoo took me about 5 hours to get up and going from start to finish (in comparison, it took me around 20 hours to get LFS going, 2 the last time I had to reinstall XP from a rescue disc, and about an hour for Ubuntu). And I mean from the start of formatting the 20GB hard drive until crossing my fingers and rebooting. The crossing of the fingers was fairly important: I had done the entire install over VNC[3], chroot-ed in a terminal from inside of Ubuntu. Basically, that means I built a sandbox in the living room, and a new set of tools. The tools would only affect things that were in the sandbox -- in other words, just the new operating system. I was being doubly careful, because if I messed up building the sandbox I could have totally fscked[4] my entire system. I wouldn't be able to test the setup of three fairly important programs: GRUB, dhcpd, and sshd.
GRUB is the bootloader. A bootloader is a very low-level programs that tells the hardware where to find the operating system. Every computer has one, and you usually don't think about it -- until you mess something up so badly you have to go into "Recovery Mode". That F10/Esc keypress during the memtest? That tells the bootloader you need to change something. If your bootloader isn't configured correctly, you're pretty well locked out. You can change the configuration temporarily -- if you have access to the machine itself. I'm at work. The machine's at home. If GRUB ain't working, I'm SOL.
The other two programs are daemons: small background programs that monitor and take care of a fairly specific task. Think less Beelzebub and more Maxwell. dhcpd is the daemon that asks for and records a network IP address from the DHCP server in the local router. Without it, you don't see the network because the network doesn't see you. sshd is the other half of the remote login requirement: it listens for incoming connections and authenticates the user trying to get it: it's the lock on the door. Actually, it's more the like a hotel's stairwell door: if you have the key, you can get through, but if you don't, tough luck.
If I missed a step setting up any of those three programs -- using the wrong format (sda1 instead of hd0,0), forgetting to rc-update, pointing to the wrong device (wlan1 vs eth0) -- I'm locked out until I can get home and fix it. For the two minutes or so that it took to shutdown Ubuntu, run a full memory test, wait the 10 second delay I built in in case I want to change GRUB, and complete the Gentoo boot sequence, finger-crossing was inevitable.
So, what's next. Well, I haven't had a chance to emerge[6] X Windows yet; and I probably won't until I decide on a Window Manager. I could stick with GNOME; since that is what I'm used to. KDE4 was sluggish on my system, but that was 3 point-upgrades ago. I tried out the new version of Enlightenment (thanks to the latest build of MacPuppy-Opera) and was fairly impressed, though I've been wanting to give Fluxbox a try for a while now. Not to big of a decision, since I can always go in and change my mind later. In fact, I'll go ahead and load Fluxbox when I get home this morning; it should be done by the time I get up this afternoon. (X11 is a fairly large program; I have no doubt it will take a while to compile. Best to start it while I'm sleeping.



[1] Linux From Scratch. They give you a bunch of C and C++ code, and walk you through putting everything together. To extend a baking metaphor... Ubuntu (like most other LiveCD distros) is like going down and picking up a chocolate cake from the bakery. Unless you do something very wrong between the time you pick it up and when you put it on the table; you're going to have a tasty cake that looks good. Gentoo would be around the level of your grandma's handwritten recipe: a lot tougher than the local baker, but if you read the directions - and follow the little notes she made in the margin - you'll be okay. You may end up with something that looks more like brownies than that bakery cake, but it will still taste delicious.
Linux From Scratch - then - would be like someone giving you a pound of cocoa, a jug of oil, a sack of wheat, a cow and a chicken. You can still make you cake; but you have to milk the cow (download the packages) yourself, mill the wheat (make the tools themselves), and wait for the eggs to be laid (compile everything) before you can even think about getting started. That said, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything; it only took me two tries, and that was because I didn't follow the directions I was given the first time.
[2] So, you're probably wondering why I still use a text-only browser? Aesthetics; really. I like the way it renders pages more. Especially pages like google or wikipedia; where it's mostly text anyway.
[3] VNC is the generic version of Remote Desktop: I open a connection to my computer, so I can see (and control) what happens on my screen at home.
[4] Yes, that's what I meant. It's a computer pun. fsck is a command to check - and in some cases, fix errors in - the file system. If you're having to run this command very often, back up your data, because something may be f****d up.
[5] Yes, your standard Windows installation has one as well. You just don't see it because it's limited to standard and limited/recovery modes.
[6] emerge is the front-end to Gentoo's Portage packaging system. Installing a program in Gentoo is fairly simple:
USE="<flags>" emerge <package_name> <options>

Linux From Scratch

So, when I already have a working computer, why in the world would I partition my hard drive and spend what may end up being a couple of days compiling and futzing with the command line?

I'd say it's the same reason that a car enthusiast will spend hours rebuilding an engine. There's something incredibly satisfying about the whole "getting your hands dirty" thing; knowing that the things you've done are what makes the things you will do possible, and at the same time taking responsibility that if something goes wrong it's your fault, and your job to fix it; or break down and ask for help.

Don't Ever Give Up

It snuck up on me this year.

It touches everyone. Chances are, you know someone who has -- or has had -- cancer. And every year -- if I can't donate myself -- I try to make it a point to at least give you a link to donate to one of the few charities that every dollar you give to them goes to cancer research. Charity Navigator has given it their 4-star rating for the 6th year in a row: the V Foundation for Cancer Research.

Please, if you have ten dollars, if you have five dollars, if you have a dollar that you can spare; send it their way. Nearly 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer sometime within their lifetime.

So, go to JimmyV.org, check them out, and help if you are able. If you can't; at least repost the link.

DON vs SNG

OK, gonna try and work this out, so bear with me.
PokerStars "Double or Nothing" Sit and Gos are 10 seat, and pay each of the top 5 places 20% of the prize pool. The payout for a standard 9-seat SNG is 50/30/20.
But let's take a closer look. The entry fee for the cheapest DON is $1.10. So, we're not talking 100% Return On Investment, which is what you'd expect from a 'double-or-nothing'; we're looking at 2/1.1 or about a 81% return[1] when you win. Regular micro SNGs aren't any better: If you cash every time, you're looking at 1.8/1.2, which is only a 50% return. Getting heads up is better: 125%, and winning knocks it out of the park -- of course -- at a 275%[2]. But frankly, the higher numbers are irrelevant; we're looking at 81% for 1/2 the field vs 50% for 1/3rd.
It seems, then that the DONs, at least at the micro-levels, are the better bet.

[1] That's for the turbos, the standard DONs are 2/1.15, or about 73.9% return.
[2] Again, that's assuming 9-handed tables. The return values differ slightly depending on the actual number of players and individual tournament's payout structure, of course.

Ubuntu 9.04 Continued

Writing from Work
The install did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. It actually took three tries to get everything up and running, and two and a half hours later (when I finally gave up and went to bed) it still hadn't gotten exactly what I was hoping for.

What went wrong.
Well, the first two installs both bombed out at different places. Truth told, the first try I was actually expecting to fail exactly where it did... It got all the way through the install process, then crashed and burned on the reboot. Same spot that it did when I first switched over: the error messages were a little more helpful this time around, but it seems that the old Presario does not like to boot Linux when the BIOS's default video adapter is set to PCI instead of the on-board. All sorts of low-end memory conflicts. The prescribed fix -- to disable the motherboard video completely -- is not available with my particular BIOS. I've ran into this problem and enabled my video card before, so I know how (lspci to find the address of the video card, then adding the card's address and driver - ati - to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file), but even if they knew what was causing it, a novice wouldn't know the fix without hitting the support channels.

Instead of fixing, I purposefully went the n00b route and tried the install disc again. This time was a little different... the fail was actually unexpected. GRUB failed to install. So I tried the LILO bootloader. It ran, but apparently didn't actually take, because I was given a "Welcome to GRUB" message on restart. I had also played with the install options, and apparently messed up X enough that it wouldn't redisplay the log-in screen.

Third time, I thought, I'll just let it do its thing. So I leave the preseed ubuntu-desktop. I hit the noapic, nolapic, acpi=off options, but not the expert. I answer the setup questions (Language, Keyboard, Time Zone) and let it do it's thing.

So What's Missing
Whenever there is an 'alternative', there are going to be differences. Aside from the obvious (and changable) things -- font differences, menu and quick-launch bars at the top of the screen, color palette -- there are some working differences - or at least inconveniences - out of the box.
The most noticible of them are the multimedia codecs: wmv, mov, and mp3 all require codecs that aren't among the initial install. Flash and Java get the short shrift as well. All are easy to get running, most with one or two clicks and a password. iPods are more of a problem - or so I understand... I don't have one[1].
Really, that's it. Silverlight would be a problem, but there really isn't that many websites using it, and the Moonlight replacement works nicely.

After I quit jerking around and actually let the installer do the work, it was a breeze, took maybe 40 minutes. Most of that was waiting on the mirror; not a big surprise within the first week of a release. Local install and DVD options are available that would have eliminated that.

Not the best experience in the world, I will admit; but even with the two false starts, it still took me less time than the last non-recovery install of Windows did.


[1] My wife does, but it's synced to her computer, not mine.

Ubuntu 9.04 Install log.

Posting from Windows
After much consideration, I decided to wipe the Debian part of my home system and install Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackelope). The main reason being I love to tinker - I hate leaving well enough alone.
So, I backed up my files (a DVDs worth of tarred MP3s, some pics, and some old writing samples I've lugged around since Win98 was shiny and new) and decided to approach installing from a fresh point of view.
I don't think many people are going to have a spare hard drive lying around, so I (surreptitiously) checked to see what programs I use -- if any -- don't have a version or equivalent available for Ubuntu. For me, the list was short: Windows Media Encoder 9 -- which muxes video for my daughter's MixMax -- is a MS only thing requiring a registered version of Windows to download and use. A lot of Windows-native programs that don't have an analogue can be run with WINE. And you can find out if a program you want to use will work by looking it up in Wine's application database. Unfortunately, neither my WME9 or Full Tilt Poker client (which has a Mac version, go fig) play well with WINE. No big deal; I can dual boot. [1]
First things first, I went to ubuntu.com and download the Jaunty alternate-install disc[2]. Like most distibutions, it came as an ISO file. ISOs are bit-by-bit copys (images) of a CD or DVD -- in this case a CD. XP doesn't handle ISOs natively, and if you don't have a program like Nero that can burn an image to disc, I'd recommend a program like InfraRecorder. From Ubuntu's download page, you can choose which version to download and grab the file directly from Canonical's servers. Down the page is another couple options. I have uTorrent installed on my windows side, so I used the torrent download. For me, this has a couple advantages. The most important for me is built-in MD5 check-summing. MD5 is an algorythm that creates a number (a sum) based on the contents of a file. If the contents of the file are changed even slighty - for example, say from packet loss or corruption during download - there is a large change in the MD5-created sum. By checking the sum of your downloaded file against the sum of the source, you can ensure that the data that was received is the same as the data that was sent. This becomes especially important when dealing with programs and the underlying framework that will run your computer. The difference is multiplied: doing a checksum just at the end means you would have to redo the entire ~700MB download if the checksum was wrong. The torrent protocol's incremental checksum means that you the client (program) can discard corrupt sections as it's downloading -- meaning it only has to re-request 1 or 2 MB at a time instead of 700.
There are other advantages of using the P2P transfer; One, once a file is sufficiently seeded it takes a tremendous burden off of the original servers, and two, it is often faster than the single-point download.
Once the ISO was downloaded, checksummed and burned; I used the disk cleanup and defrag utilities to make room on my hard drive for the install. I come up with 15 GB of free space on my first hard drive. Since this is a dual-boot system, I'm going to use that 15GB to store stuff that I'll want to be able to access from either platform - music, small vids, etc. Since XP can only natively access FAT and NTFS file systems, I'll format that as NTFS and make it a shared folder -- since it is a single-user system, there should be no problem with permissions. If there comes a time where I need more users, I can change that at a later date.
Since I do have a second HD, I'll just use it as my bootable linux partition.
It's 9:38, and I'm shutting down to do the install now.


1> Yes, I already knew all this before. Just like I knew that my particular model of Presario (SR1103WM) doesn't play well with LiveCDs, and needs the noapic nolapic acpi=off flags in order to actually install the Linux kernel. All this info -- and probably the ones for your computer as well -- is fairly easy to find with google.
2> See [1]. One other issue that poppe up on a google search: This presario model -- and linux on Compaqs in general apparently -- have had a problem in the past with kernel panic if the BIOS defaults to something other than the onboard video. We'll give it a try both ways -- it's a bug that's harder to find, and maybe the latest kernel has addressed the issue.

Mad Merlin

I've always been a bit enamored with the Arthurian mythos --- to be totally honest, that would be myths and legends as a whole, but the stories of King Arthur and his knights in particular. And as a country founded primarily by [former] citizens of the British Empire, I suppose that it is natural to explore the stories that shaped our culture.
Which is why I picked up - and read with interest - J. Robert King's retelling entitled "Mad Merlin". The plot will be no surprise to anyone remote familiar with the mythos - even half-remembered from the old Disney movie Sword in the Stone. All the pre-Lancelot standard set pieces are here. Arthur is born, fostered by Ector without knowledge of who he is, goes to London, pulls Excalbur from the stone, builds Camelot, marries Guennivere, sires a son (Mordred) by his half-sister, and defeats the Saxons at Badon Hill.
Where Mad Merlin differs from many retellings of the legends is in the origin of Excalibur and the treatment of Merlin himself - and injecting a rather post-modern sentiment about the power source of gods in the process.
What drew me in was the same thing that drew me into the old AD&D Planescape setting -- that for the gods, belief is power. Here, when the Saxons invade the Roman Britain, they bring with them their pantheon -- in particular Wotan (Odin), and Loki. With the Roman pantheon already displaced by Christianity and the Brittanic gods driven underground by the Roman conquerors, the visible -- and very deadly Saxon gods would be free to decimate the Brittanic forces.
How author King (not Arthur, King) uses these facts is a treat for the comparative-mythologically inclined and a spoiler I'm not willing to share, but it is safe to say that the wizened Merlin is much older than he first appears.

Pick it up, give it a read. It's pretty much supplanted White's The Once and Future King as my interpretation of choice.

New addition

The task I find myself doing the most often with my computer is probably one of the most banal exercises known to man. If I had stuff on there I needed to keep private, or if the possibility existed someone might hack into my computer, I'd feel it would be one of the most important things you can do.
Of course, it is entering my password.
A mix of settings encourages -- actually, it requires -- this situation. Not only do I enter my password when logging in (for both CLI and GUI[1]), I enter it whenever I make changes to my system, when I pipe the view from my monitor up to the office, and even when I let my screen saver kick on.
So, I got to thinking. I'm entering 16 keystrokes every time I put in my password. Is there anything I do normally right after restoring my screen that I could automate?
The result? weatherd.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# weatherd.py v0.3: Current Weather Conditions when you return
# to your desktop.
# Stolen ruthlessly from
# PyGlue's Pause_Rythmbox_on_XScreensaver
# http://code.google.com/p/pyglue
# And the PyNotify Examples
# /usr/share/doc/ptyhon-notify/examples
# GNU GPL 3 licensing applies.
# http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

import dbus
import commands

try:
import dbus.glib
except ImportError:
 from dbus.mainloop.glib import DBusGMainLoop
 DBusGMainLoop(set_as_default=True)

def screensaver_changed(state):
"""This method is called
when the screensaver starts/stops"""

import pygtk
pygtk.require('2.0')
import pynotify
import sys

if not pynotify.init("Basics"):
 sys.exit(1)

currentweather = commands.getstatusoutput('weather ddc')
n = pynotify.Notification("Current DC Conditions", currentweather[1])

if not n.show():
 print "Failed to send notification"
 sys.exit(1)

session_bus = dbus.SessionBus()
session_bus.add_signal_receiver
 (screensaver_changed,
 'SessionIdleChanged',
 'org.gnome.ScreenSaver')

def main():
 import gobject
 loop = gobject.MainLoop()
 loop.run()

def daemonize(func):
import os
import sys
try:
 pid = os.fork()
 if pid > 0:
     # exit first parent
     sys.exit(0)
except OSError, e:
 print >>sys.stderr,
   "fork #1 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
 sys.exit(1)

# decouple from parent environment
os.chdir("/")
os.setsid()
os.umask(0)

# do second fork
try:
 pid = os.fork()
 if pid > 0:
     # exit from second parent,
     #print eventual PID before
     print "Daemon PID %d" % pid
     sys.exit(0)
except OSError, e:
 print >>sys.stderr,
    "fork #2 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
 sys.exit(1)

# start the daemon main loop
func()

if __name__ == "__main__":
 daemonize(main)

So, what does this do? Well, a lot of programs on my computer send a signal when something happens. That session_bus stuff listens for those signals, and when it hears the screensaver saying "I'm turning off", it tells the function called 'screensaver_changed' to do its thing.
In this case, I've decided to take advantage of the National Weather Service's automated feed -- that's the 'weather ddc' line. 'Weather' is part of the weather-utils package available for Debian. 'DDC' tells it to grab the current conditions from KDDC: the Dodge City Municipal Airport. Then we use feed that information to pyNotify, which makes it look like this:


Useful? Right now, that's debatable. It saves me from opening a new terminal and searching, or Firefox and getting the radar. But, writing this thing three different ways before making it work gave me some time to work on my programming skills.

TODO:

• Change the Notify template from Basic to Markup, add hyperlink to a radar site.
  --Note... possible with www.crh.noaa.gov/[TLA]
  
• Un-Hard Code weather station, make it user selectable from command line.

WISHLIST:

• Grab and use the most recent weather radar image as the popup icon.
  

Now, you're probably wondering right now, Deege, why didn't you go out and -- for example -- grab the Linux version of WeatherBug? Now, I could say that my intent was actually finding something useful to work toward while trying to improve my Python skills. Or, I could say that I'm not fond of having Java programs running constantly on my computer. Or, I could say that the amount of junk mail I got from registering the Windows version turned me off to it. Or, that I'd rather use the bandwidth for other things than keeping a connection open. All of which would be true - but none of which would be the real reason. ***Sheepish Grin*** I just didn't know there was one until I started looking for the link for the weather-util package. It's Creative Commons License instead of GNU Public License, which means it's not in Debian's repositories, which means I really didn't know about it.

[1] CLI: Command Line Interface. Like DOS, if you were using a computer that long ago. I use this when I need to get results quickly: type in a command, get an answer back. Graphical User Interface. It shows the pretty pictures. I use this when I need to see what I'm doing -- photo viewing/editing, surfing the web (for the most part).

Importance of pre-flop play

Poker is a game of skill... at least according to a number of studies done by various researchers world-wide. Luck plays into it, of course; but out of every conceivable way a hand could be played, there is only one situation when which of the 2652 different starting card combinations you were dealt have any bearing on the outcome of the hand: the Showdown. Which is why good poker players avoid going to a showdown as much as possible.
I had a hand this morning that reinforced Chris Ferguson's advice from FTPA... if a hand is profitable for a call, it is more profitable for a raise:
The game is a $2+.25 No Limit Hold'em SNG. We're on the bubble -- 4 handed, 3 pay -- and blinds are getting a little higher than I'm comfortable with: 80/160, and I've got 1600 after posting my big blind. UTG folds, Button smooth calls, SB folds, I check my 9-4 off suit, with every intention of folding to the first bet.
Until I see the flop. 9-6-4 rainbow. Just like that my hand o' crap becomes two pair. I lead out, putting 300 into the 400 chip pot, figuring I'm short stacked anyway, this is probably going to be my best bet to get my money in. I haven't played very many hands to this point, and I figure a 3/4-pot bet will either push him out or make the pot nice for me.
The Button raises to about 1000. I trip my time bank and think. Dude has played so many hands in the last two blind levels I don't think he even has a starting hand range. What I don't put him on are pocket pairs -- I'm pretty sure he would have raised preflop with 6s or better, and I figure odds are that he doesn't have 9s or 4s. Which to me means he has done one of three things: 1) paired the bottom half of his Ace-rag, 2) picked up a straight draw, or 3) is trying to price me out of the hand with 2 over cards. Best case scenario, he's looking at a 6-outer, that's about 76/24 in my favor. What don't I put him on? A 9-6. I've got to figure, even with him limping in, that my hand is good. So I push.
He quick calls, shows 9-8. This is good news and bad news. Good news is that there are 6 cards that could make his hand better than mine right now -- any 6, any 8. Bad news is that if a seven comes, he goes from 6 outs to 13 outs (28% to hit) -- any of the three remaining 6s or 7s would give us the same two pair with him having the better kicker, any of the three 8s gives him a better two pair, any of the four 5s gives him a straight. Now, if the board paired 6s on the turn, I'd be behind, but I'd have a lot more outs: even though only the two 4s would give me the win, I'd be happy with a split pot, which meant any of the four 10, J, Q, K, or Aces left in the deck would save my arse: 22 outs, or about 45%.
Good news was, I doubled up when the final two board cards missed both of us.
You could see button steaming through the wires, I didn't have the heart to tell him if he would have raised instead of limping, I would never have seen the flop.

Poker: 4/7

After post last night, I ponied up into a few SNGs and picked up a few bucks. Bankroll to start the day sat at $12.93 / $T9.00.

An aside on FT Bankrolls: FT pays out in 5 different currencies. Most people will play with "Play Money", which is just that: you bet play money, you win play money. On the real money side, the base currency is the standard US dollar ($), and you use them like you would cash in a casino. The rest are a bit more involved.
First you have Full Tilt Points (FTP). They're Full Tilt's version of a customer loyalty program. Garner enough and you can enter into points tournaments, or trade them in for prizes -- a range of things from branded apparel to instructional videos and courses to electronics to a car (a Mini Cooper S, only 6,000,000 FTP). You earn FTPs by playing real money games: 1 FTP for every dollar raked in a cash game you're involved in, and 7 FTP for every dollar in tournament entry fees you pay.
Then there's Satellite Tokens. Available in $26 and $75 denominations, these prizes are awarded for winning certain satellite or points tournaments. Tokens can be used to enter any $24+2 or $69+6 tournament (respectively). I don't have any of these. Mostly because I don't want any of these. Even if I won a $26 Token, it'd have to sit. There's no way I'm good enough right now to play in a $26 tournament. I'm doing good to place in the 1.25, 2.00 and 2.25 tournaments I play. Strange thing I've noticed though. I do better in the 2 and 2.25 tournaments than I do in the 1.25s. I think its because I've got enough theory under my belt that I start looking for my opponents to have recognizable betting patterns, or some logic to their play and starting hand range. I can't count the number of times in $1.25s I've reraised the flop with top trips only to be outdrawn by what at the time was a middle pair that turned into a boat.
Finally, there's tournament dollars ($T). Certain tournaments - notably points tourneys - pay out in $T instead of cash. You also get credited $T (instead of cash) for winning a satellite and then un-registering from the main tournament. $T can be used to enter any tournament, but $T can only be used to enter tournaments. If you want to play in a ring game, you'll need to exchange the $T for cash. The exchange rate is $T1 = $0.95; or rather, there's a 5% commission (rounded up) on a tournament dollar exchange.

I managed to bust out of the $100 US Freeroll really freaking early. Trip 10s vs. a board set to flush that I did not see until after I had pushed all-in.
The Daily Dollar isn't going nearly as well for me, either.
150/300/25, I'm sitting with 8350 chips, putting me in 849/(1418/5773)[1]. Good news is my chair position, most hands I'm acting directly after the high stack on the table - who's sitting in 7th place in the tournament.
200/400/50 Pocket Rockets just doubled me up. Button -3 I raise 3x bb with AA. Big Blind calls me off. Flop comes Q/rag/rag. She bets, I push, figuring she has top pair (to my over pair), she calls; showing Q5. Aces hold up, I double up and put her on tilt. She goes out the next hand on A-rag vs A-J to the big stack, and the table breaks up. I've bumped my position up to around 400/(1200/5773)
250/500/50 Less than 30 people below the bubble. The current bubble boy has 1340 in chips.
300/600/75 Woo! I'm In the Money! --470th currently, but the blinds keep getting bigger...
400/800/100 A tense double-up (KK vs AQ) vaulted me up near 200th position as another prize level falls. I'm at 29K, next prize bubble currently has 6.5K .
500/1000/125 As the blinds keep getting bigger, my stack is holding up fairly well. We're into the $3.00 prize level (720-541); I'm in 275th with a 25.5K stack. I haven't been able to play many hands because of a lack of cards; though it seems the 23o I was just holding would have been good against the pusher's A10. Right now the next prize bubble is around 10K.
600/1200/150 Another blind level, another prize level. 260/530, next cutoff is 360th. Again, need to make some moves if I want to stay in the competition -- I've only got 7K on the bubble boy.
600/1200/150 A8 in the big blind vs A4 in the small, A on flop, SB leads, I raise, he re-raises, I push, he calls. Safe river and turn mean I double up and bounce myself up to about 125th /460. Don't feel too bad for the SB though; he doubled up the next hand.
3rd Break (800/1600/200): 133/436. After a slow start, I'm doing much better than I had imagined I would be at this point. I've locked up $3.50 -- a 350% ROI -- and with 49K chips, look pretty good to make the next prize level (360th place, currently ~16K). And the best part is, I'm not doing anything special: I'm making good lay downs, playing position fairly well, and keeping a low profile.
1000/2000/250: Another run of dry cards. I'm still holding in with 40K, thanks to some timely folds; and I've made it to the next prize level (next cutoff: 270th, ~20K). Still, with 20BBs, I should probably think about loosening my starting hand requirements a bit.
1200/2400/300: Still on a dry run. Down to 30K, I'm well below the cutoff for the next prize level. So at the moment, it really doesn't matter if I bust out: I just don't have enough chips to stall through this prize level. So we up the agression a tad. Still not gonna play crap hands, but I'm gonna have to actually play.
I'm holding KQ off-suit UTG+2. Action folds to me, I raise 3 times the big blind, and everybody else folds. And that's how you steal the blinds.
**sigh** Got a little too anxious. Reraised all in from the big blind with AK. The board gives my one caller a pair of jacks. Oh well, I still upped my bankroll 5 bucks. Now, I need to scoot over to the ring tables to pick up a FTP, to qualify for the $5 bonus for the Take 2 promotion. I was dumb, didn't read the rules closely enough and pissed away my chance at the $25 bonus. Oh well.

06:32 am Quick update... over the past 24 hours, my bankroll has went from a combined 21.93 to a cash only $32.28. So, discounting the $5 for the Take 2 bonus and the $5 from the Daily Dollar tourney, I netted about 35c on SNGs and rings tonight. That's not as bad as it sounds, though. I'm not good at cash tables and the only reason I have been playing ring games at all was to pick up that Take 2 bonus. I even had to re-up on one table because of a misread (didn't notice that the board paired threes, so I didn't take into consideration the dude might have raised preflop with A-rag in early position). Cash games just play differently - and take a different set of assumptions - than tourney play. And I know that, I just failed to take it into account.

[1] That is, sitting in 849th place out of 1418 players remaining in the original field of 5,773.

Poker: 4/6

8am. After some good luck building both my bankroll and FTP balance, I had busted out of a $1+.25 SNG this morning on what I thought was a bad beat. Big blind, J2. Cutoff smooth calls, and there's no way I'm raising with a Jack-duece. Flop comes 2-2-8. I bet my trip 2s, dude raises me all-in. I call, thinking Ace and face card, or at worst over pair. I show my trips, he shows pocket 10s. Turn's clean, but dude hits a 10 on the river. Good news, I had the right read on him and I got my money in when I had the better hand; bad news, he sucked out and knocked me out in 5th when top 3 pays. Balance: 9.97.

9:20 pm: Generally following the FTPA[1] advise has gotten me in decent position as I'm creeping up on the second break -- and cashing -- in the Daily Dollar ($1, $10K guar, 1080/6119)[2]. Right now, with blinds at 300/150/25[3], I'm sitting at 14.6K chips, and sitting around 463rd out of the 1502 players left in the tournament. I've been doing fairly well, and have seen an inordinate number of pocket jacks. Best part is, they've been good to me. I've only not won with them tonight once:
UTG+1 smooth calls; I'm cutoff (Button -1), raise 3.3x, dude calls. Flop comes K9A; dude bets pot, I fold. With the Ace/King falling on the flop, there's no way I can really call with just Jacks. When someone in early position calls, I'm thinking he probably has either and A or K, and when he calls a raise from late position, I'm thinking he probably has A/Face or KQ, something of that nature. That makes a pot-sized bet really hard to call with AK on the board. Now, if it had came AKQ or AK10, I'd have considered it longer because instead of 2 cards that would improve my hand, I'd have 6 outs, which would be about 1/4 chance of improving my hand rather than less than 1/10.
9:37 pm: 200/400/50 Knock-out! BB's antes all-in. I'm UTG+2, and I raise to 2000 (5xBB) on AdKd. Cutoff raises to 4800, I push All-In 13,560; Cutoff calls AI, shows AcKs; big blind has 6s2d. Best cutoff can hope for is the flush to go his way, otherwise we're looking at a split pot.
Board comes 6d,8d,9h; pairing BB, but I'm more interested in the 25K side pot than the 270 chip main pot. Turn gives me 3d and the diamond flush. I'm over 26K chips and top 200 with around 1200 left in the tourney.
9:55 pm: 300/600/75 I'm In The Money! As the first $2.20 prize gets paid, I'm sitting in 226th position. The next payout level is 900th.
10:07pm: 400/800/100 I'm In The Money! As 900th place gets paid $2.50, I'm sitting in 230th Position. The next payout level is 720th.
10:23 pm: 500/1000/125 I'm In The Money! I wasn't even paying attention as 720th paid out, right now, i'm sitting at 293/661... 540th is the next cutoff, which will earn $3.50.
10:36 pm: 600/1200/150 I'm in the money! 3.50 is mine now, as I'm sitting in 348th as the 540 place player goes out. 360th is the next cutoff, so I should probably look to play some more hands.
10:42 pm: Third Break. OK, I've made the third break, and I'm still playing as 398/472. I'm happy with my play so far tonight; not only have I at least tripled my entry fee, I'm playing smart poker. No bad beats either way, and even though I'm down to about 13 BB, I can tell I'm not in 'panic mode' yet. I'm playing for another 70c - a 1c/2c table starting pile, really.
11:05 pm: 1000/2000/250 Lucky Break: I get dealt JJ sitting in the big blind. Fold to the small blind who raises 3x, I raise all the other couple hundred to put me all in, he calls; shows A3o. Flop AJ10. I ride the river out to almost triple up because of the antes. This puts me just far enough ahead that I scoot past the 360th position into $4.20. 270th pays $5, but I don't think I'll get there. A few more good hands, though; and who knows?
11:12pm: 1000/2000/250 A 4x bet in early position backed by QQs nets me some blinds, I'm at 17K in 300th place.
11:13 pm: 1200/2400/500: Got my money in from the button on a 60/40 shot. My AcJs/Kc3c. So of course, flop comes 2 clubs, turn shows club (his flush), and the river... Qh. Damn. Out in 302nd quadrupling my entry fee. Not bad for about 4 hours work.I'm gonna hit the Late Night Happy Hour for double FTPs a while (trying to cash out that next $5 on my first deposit bonus).



[1] Full Tilt Poker Academy. Basically, their advice involves what hands to play in what position, how much and when to bet/raise.
[2] That is, a $1 entry fee, $10,000 guaranteed prize pool, and 1080 places pay out of the 6119 entries.
[3] Ante of 25, 300 chip big blind/minimum bet, 150 small blind.

My Computer Prefers Linux

So instead of finalizing with the release of stable Lenny (Debian 5.0) on my home rig, I went ahead and apt-get updated/upgraded to stay on the Testing (now codenamed "Squeeze") track.
I still dual-boot Debian and WinXP, because as much as I prefer Debian for 99% of what I use a computer for, there are still 2 things I can't get to work right under Wine (so anyone who has tips on encoding to Windows Media Video 9 format or getting Full Tilt to spawn new windows correctly, please send them my way).
When I went to bed last night, I left my box running XP. Pure laziness on my part, really; I had played poker after getting the little one off to school, got busy with other stuff, and never went back to the computer. Get up this morning, and what greets me? My Debian desktop. (Yes, I know. Automatic login is not good security. And as soon as I can figure out how to get either a VNC server to show the login screen, I'll turn it off.)
My first thought was power outage. But I look around, Chel's comp is still pulled up (she has the auto-on after power loss disabled); the kitchen clock is still right.
Then I figured it out: Windows Automatic Update. The last time I worked, MS pushed an update which required a restart. I fought for two hours against those Restart Now/Remind Me Later timeouts the other night. Since I hadn't actually been on the XP side for about 3 weeks, it loaded them in the background and restarted. No big deal, except my GRUB defaults to Debian instead of last used.
So, when Windows shut itself off, my computer decided it would rather work than play games: it loaded Linux.