Tag: processes

Software I use and/or care to write about, including stuff I (might, one day) write; ways of thinking; management techniques; new methods learned. Making tasks more efficient.

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My eyes have been opened to yet another case of foul play by a megacorp.

As if their package management isn’t disgusting enough
(www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/enormouse/), /their BIOS
configuration on laptops of the recent few years leaves MUCH to be desired.

On the bottom of my HP Compaq 6715b laptop is a removable panel which
covers a memory slot and a Mini-PCI-E connector. “Great”, I thought,
having a non-functioning Broadcom card in there, “I’m going to install
an Intel 4925 AGN wireless card here because it’s supported by the
firmware/kernel I use (CentOS 5.3) – and I’m loath to building a new
kernel when I can just plug in a new card ;-)”.

My card, £15 off Ebay, arrived this morning and I carefully fitted it.
Booted the machine, went into the BIOS settings to ensure it was
enabled, and…. wait a minute, it isn’t listed. Perhaps it’s broken…
or …perhaps HP have imposed a blacklist of vendors/subsystems which
THEY don’t allow to be recognised in MY computer. Not listed in lspci,
nor dmesg… basically nowhere.

Is this legal? Did I ever see any restriction declared ANYWHERE before
buying this machine that stated “HP retains sole right to how this
machine is used and with what”..?

What point is there putting this restriction in?! Someone buying a
budget laptop isn’t going to source their over-priced parts from the
OEM! Why, darn it, why?!

If you have – or rather, are thinking of buying an HP, Dell or IBM
laptop, I’d suggest reading these first:
– http://www.engadget.com/2005/02/22/the-hp-bios-that-locks-non-whitelisted-mini-pci-cards-out/
– http://www.aigarius.com/blog/2008/02/07/sneaky-blacklisting-of-wifi-in-hp-laptops/
–
– http://www.richud.com/HP-Pavilion-104-Bios-Fix/
– http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31/wifi-card-pci-ids.html

I’ve thought about actually re-flashing my BIOS with modified code,
partly out of sheer bloody-mindedness towards HP (oh, and I would
publish, intricately, the solution), and partly just out of the
practical need for wireless networking. But now, I’m just baffled by
the whole thing.

Hilariously, as a final insult, the latest BIOS update from HP for my
machine, “updates the Computrace OPTION ROM to version 866”. So…
you’re telling me I have this “Computrace OPTION ROM” installed, huh?

HP – http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=3368540&swItem=ob-67085-1&prodNameId=3356624&swEnvOID=2094&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=3

BlackHat (deactivate the rootkit) – http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-09/ORTEGA/BHUSA09-Ortega-DeactivateRootkit-PAPER.pdf

Is there no goodness left in the world? Can old ladies not be helped
across the road any more? MUST we buy battery hen eggs instead of free
range?! Like, where’s the love, man..?

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So… sometimes I wonder, what’s the point? I add a bookmark, and the Firefox plug-in asks me if I want to add it to delicious, so generally I say yes as I think it’s probably useful to others. But, syncing with delicious doesn’t seem to retain the organisation I give to my bookmarks (they are my bookmarks, after all).

I have installed xMarks to Firefox, which is great. Delicious, on the other hand… it’s not Digg… what is it?

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I have recently spent a considerable amount of time updating my blogs. This is my personal, “daily diary” style blog and I contribute to another blog for work (One Cool).

Why, you may ask, did I decide to use two different systems? Well, not knowing the strengths or weaknesses of one in comparison to the other means I cannot exploit them. One strength of Blogger, for example, is how quick the non-WYSISYG editor is. The speed of it means it’s a joy to type into as opposed to WordPress‘s more advanced, touchy-feely editor.

But it’s all relative – there’s still the need to complete commercial work and get dinner on the table. And apart from that, there’s an outstanding Fedora 9 blog article or two that I still need to sort out.. 😉

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I’ve decided to catalogue my experience with Fedora 9. The reasons for this are:

  • It is a Linux distro aimed at being totally “free” (as in speech, not as in beer).
  • Fedora is the distribution I am most familiar with.
  • I believe Red Hat is actually a pretty cool company and they are serious about the user community.
  • Fedora always aims to be cutting-edge. I like that.

 

So, what first?

 

I plan to record my experience of installing Fedora 9 on my blog so that people who are considering switching to Linux, or switching from another distribution to Fedora, can decide what the benefits might be. It’s also going to serve as a reference for myself, so I can see why it’s such a good/bad idea to do it again!

 

Finally, I have gained so much by simply being interested in Open Source software, that I felt it was about time to give something back. As an English graduate, documentation is probably the best thing I can start with. I hope it’s of help to someone!

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It’s like that, and that’s the way it is. It’s small, it’s a business, it takes up a lot of time and even then you have still only chipped away at your task list. Little-to-no social life. Sometimes you wonder why. And then you get a call. A prospect – cool, but interested. Then you forget about the Small things.


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It might not seem like it at first glance, but I’d say it’s true: whichever medium you choose (e.g. Blogger, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, 12Questions.com, etc…), we are collaborating in an unprecedented fashion.

Collaboration is a nice corporate word. It conjurs up images of busy, suited professionals using PDAs to respond to “Bob” back in the office while we, us more important types, are out there on the road, winning at business and life.

Yet we are all performing the very thing that has been, and still is, this “holy grail” of modern communications. Instead of having our network defined by corporate governance and a system administrator’s tenacity (and love) for rules, simply having a connection to the web now means transformation – not of business, but of people.

And when you think of the web, you can think of people, interconnected by their elected social networks, not just their prescribed business ones. For those of us who are employed outside of the megacorps as well as in, this is natural.

But what it means to those with their roots in structure, rules, regulations and definitions is much more exciting. It is your time – embrace it, wisely.