Big Fat Ostrich

I found that this is the easiest way to go about installing VMware on Ubuntu 8.10  (and no, I still haven’t upgraded to Jaunty)

Go to the VMware download page, and grab the bundle. You have the choice to download the rpm, but trust me on this one; the bundle is what you want.

Once the download is complete, make the file executable:

sudo chmod 655 VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.i386.bundle (or whichever version you downloaded)

Then run it as root:

sudo sh VMware-Player-2.5.2-156735.i386.bundle

Surprise! We’re treated to a nice graphical installer. Follow the prompts (there are few), and let the installer complete. Once it’s done, you should find VMware Player under Applications > System Tools > VMware Player. Go ahead and launch it and accept the EULA.  Then browse to your VM images and you’re done.

m.

Well, it’s upgrade time once again! April 23 marked the release of Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), so I’m going to run through a little review while I upgrade my laptop which is currently running Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). Both my laptop and my desktop are running 8.10, but I use my laptop as my sandbox in case anything goes wrong. Honestly, I’ve been running Ubuntu since Edgy Eft (6.10) and have never run into any major issues. The last few upgrades have been ridiculously simple and headache-free.

When I install or upgrade Ubuntu, I try to put myself in the shoes of the novice in order to gauge the ease-of-use for the end user. My experience so far has been good, with minimal knowledge required to get your system up and running straight out of the box.

Hardware
Dell Latitude CS
PIII 500 Mhz
Memory 256 MB
HD 20 GB

Part I

The Upgrade
As a “best practice”, I usually like to do a full update of the current system (Intrepid Ibex) before doing the upgrade. The upgrade will install all of the newer packages anyway, even if your system is not up to date. I’m impatient today, so we’re going straight for the upgrade. So much for best practices, eh?

The number of packages required to download varies from machine to machine. Depending on what (and how many) packages you have installed will have an impact on the update process. In my case, I had to download 822 packages.

Alright, so you may have noticed that I’m not exactly running a bleeding edge system, but that is exactly the kind of system you want to try this out on.You get a good idea about an operating system’s performance when you install it on less than state-of-the-art hardware.

The upgrade is slated to take about 3 hours, which is to be expected for my ancient laptop, aka Methuselah. The last time I upgraded my P4 2.8 GHz (2 GB RAM), the upgrade was complete in under an hour.

Now we play the waiting game while the updates install. Once the updates are being installed, there’s really no need to hang around and stare at the screen as there are no prompts to wait for until the end. Of course, there will be a reboot.

Part II – Post Reboot Tracker Bug!

Once the upgrade completed and the reboot was initiated, we’re treated to a smaller, sleeker, sexier splash screen. The logon screen has also been tweaked with a sleeker look.

However…

After logging in, the Tracker Applet appears and asks you if you want to index the files “for faster searching”.  I selected “yes” to indexing, but it failed with this message: “There was an error while performing indexing: Index corrupted”

Hitting OK, simply brings back this message, so I hit “Reindex all contents”, which brings up the following dialog: Reindex your System? Yes/No

Whether you hit yes or no, the initial “Index Corrupted” error message stays on the screen. Hitting Cancel or OK, has no effect, and Re-index all contents isn’t an option right now, since we seem to be in a loop. Time to kill it.

I opened up a shell and ran top. tracker-indexer is running with the PID 3488, so let’s kill it off.  I also noticed that trackerd is also running, which looks like the daemon which is spawning tracker-indexer. Better kill that one off first.

From the shell I typed:

sudo killall trackerd followed by sudo killall tracker-indexer

I ran top again and saw no sign of tracker running. Finally I was able to close the Tracker error dialog.

On reboot, I got the same problem.  A quick Google search confirms that this is indeed a bug. If you want to read about it, you can do so here -> Bug #346912

If you’re running into the same problem, you can disable indexing like so:  System > Preferences > Search and Indexing > General > uncheck Enable Indexing and hit ‘apply’.

Well OK. On reboot, tracker isn’t harassing me to index anymore.

I’m not going to get into how to remove tracker, since this is just about the upgrade. Unfortunately, this is an annoying little bug which I hope the folks over at Canonical will address quickly. Otherwise, the process was similar to previous upgrades (Gutsy Gibbon, Intrepid Ibex).

So that’s it. A “relatively” painless upgrade + 1 annoying and obvious bug. New features? Haven’t discovered them yet. Will I upgrade my primary machine? Not yet. I’m still a fan of Ubuntu, but we’ll test drive the old laptop for a few weeks first.

Update Update!

I’ve now updated my main machine to Jaunty. Prior to doing so, I made sure that Search and Indexing was disabled first, and on reboot the tracker bug didn’t manifest. So, all in all, a very smooth upgrade with an easy to avoid minor bug. I’m using Gnome at the moment, and dialog boxes have clearer and sharper lines. At first glance the upgrade is easier on the eyes and performance feels lighter, with snappier window switching.  So far so good.

Lata

M.

P.S. If any of this was at all helpful, we’d love to hear your comments!

Hey all you freaks! Are you ready for a workout? You better be, cause I’m here to give you some excellent tips which you can apply to a great 20 minute workout. Alright. Throw on last years 5 sizes too small shorts and let’s go!

Before we start, I suggest a 12 minute warmup. You can easily get the heart going by jogging around your apartment, or running over to the place where you plan to do your workout. You can shake out your arms and do light rotations while you run as this will help circulate the blood flow.

Level 1

Situps
If you haven’t done situps for awhile, they suck but they’re highly beneficial. Like every exercise, there’s a right and wrong way to do them, so form is everything. You want to raise yourself using your abdominals, without using your legs or your back. So get someone to hold your lower legs in place. I do situps whenever I can. Last year I was in a car accident and a truck pinned my legs. Instead of freaking out, I did some situps until help came! Like I say, always keep a positive outlook!

Set 1 – 15 reps
Set 2 – 12 reps
Set 3 – 10 reps

Skill Level – medium
Mana needed 50
Experience gained + 500
Area worked – lower abs

Plank (variation a)
The Plank is like half a pushup in the up position. It’s easy. Keep your back straight and don’t bend in the middle like a banana. Hold the position for decreasing intervals.

Set 1 – 30 seconds
Set 2 – 20 seconds
Set 3 – 15 seconds

Skill Level – easy
Mana needed 20
Experience gained + 1000
Area worked – triceps, core

Plank (variation b)
Start off in Plank variation a, keeping your elbows close to the body, lower down about half way. Hold the position for decreasing intervals.

Set 1 – 20 seconds
Set 2 – 15 seconds
Set 3 – 12 seconds

Skill Level – medium
Mana needed 30
Experience gained + 2000
Area worked – triceps, core

Plank (variation c)
Start off by lying on your stomach.  Clasp your hands together so that you’re resting on your forearms. You should be looking down at your clasped hands, not directly ahead as this can cause injury to your neck.  Keep your back straight and even with your pelvis and hold this position for:

Set 1 – 25 seconds
Set 2 – 20 seconds
Set 3 – 15 seconds

Skill Level – hard
Mana needed 60
Experience gained + 4000
Area worked – core, core, core!

Pushups
For best results, do them slowly and evenly. It’s harder to do, but it helps you to pay attention to the movement while reducing the chance of injury. You’re only racing against yourself, and the winner will be you, everytime! (Yes, that was a cheesy thing to say, but it’s the truth)

Set 1 – 10 reps
Set 2 -  8 reps
Set 3 -  6 reps

Skill Level – medium
Mana needed 50
Experience gained + 10,000
Area worked – pecs, biceps, core

Tricep Pushups
Sit on the floor with your legs bent up in front of you. With your hands flat on the floor by your hips, push yourself up. Repeat until your triceps are begging to do anything to make it stop, oh god, please make it stop. Trust me, your triceps will be happy.

Set 1 – 20 reps
Set 2 – 15 reps
Set 3 – 12 reps

Skill Level – medium
Mana needed 50
Experience gained + 50,000
Area worked – triceps

Squats
Stand with your legs apart a little wider than shoulder width, squat down as low as you can and come back up. Do this slowwwwwly. When you do this, pay attention to your knees and keeping your weight equalized between them. You don’t want to be off balance which can easily cause injury.

Set 1 – 12 reps
Set 2 -  9 reps
Set 3 -  7 reps

Skill Level – easy
Mana needed 100
Experience gained + 80,000
Area worked – quads, knees

And that’s all there is to it! Ideally, you want to do a good hour of training, so I’d recommend throwing in 20 minutes of cardio as well, be it jogging, cycling or whatever it is you enjoy that gets your heart pumping. The Wii does not count! Or does it…hmm…I’d stick to the trdaitional way myself, but hey let’s see what the studies say in a few years. Anyway, mix it up.

Dobson

Some weeks (months?) ago, me and my good friend Jerome started playing Grand Theft Auto IV together. I know I know, I’m a bit late for a “review” but get used to it, I like to let my games sit there and age a bit before I pick em up and play them seriously. Since we play on the PS3 and I bought the game when it came out, we had to delete my old save file and start over in order to unlock trophies. My old save file was about 30% into the game. Now it may sound sad, but I think it’s the best thing that could happen.

Starting fresh made us really pay attention to the story. What’s cool when playing with a friend is that when you’re not holding the controller, you can enjoy watching the action just as if it were a TV show. And GTA4 is one hell of a show, let me tell you. A lot has been said about the game since it came out, and even though the press gave the game awesome scores, the impression I got was that the game wasn’t that much fun, had too many flaws, a story that went nowhere. I even heard some people on some podcasts say that the story being so solid was bad for the “fucking around beating up hookers” that we enjoyed so much in the past games. For those of you who don’t know anything about the game, feel free to check out the wikipedia article, I’m lazy.

Here’s my take so far (we’re roughly at 60% now). To fully appreciate the astounding work Rockstar did, you gotta spend a while in Liberty City. You have to stop and listen to the conversations on street corners, you gotta drive around town listening to the radio, cross the river at night, take a cab and look around through the full ride. After 5-6 hours spent inside the game, it becomes like a very good book. You can’t stop thinking about Niko and his story, his future, his friends, his enemies. We have been playing for 4 to 6 hours every week since the beginning and it’s an ideal format. We stay interested in the story, we remember what we did last week and it’s really motivating us to get to the end.

Even the greatest game is bound to have *some* flaws. Here’s a couple of issues I encountered. The driving frustrated me a LOT at first (and there are so many pursuit missions) but after a bit of practice you get it. The trick is to not treat this game like a racing game where you have the pedal to the metal constantly. You need to drive smooth most of the time, only pressing the trigger halfway. Only then can you really enjoy the cars. When you go full speed, you get what I call “moon physics” all the time. The car tilts way too much when you turn a corner, and you keep jumping into the air at the slightest bump. And it sucks bad. Another problem is the cover mechanic. Sometimes when you press R1 to hide behind a wall, you’ll stick to the wrong surface. In 30 something hours of play, it happened often enough that it became very frustrating. Aiming can also be tricky at times.

That said, the game is absolutely solid and fun. The story loses some speed past 50% but it’s almost a relief since the first half of the game is so jampacked with all sorts of crazy action. I cannot wait to get to the end. I’ll post more about it as we progress.

Hello there! Boy it’s been a long time. I was in the woods all along, growing my beard and hunting wild animals with my bare hands to survive. The best thing about the woods is, you have a whole lot of free time. I chose to spend most of that free time playing Dragon Quest V on my DS and I have something akin to a review brewing. For now I’ll only say that it’s my favorite RPG to date. I’m not the biggest RPG fan to start with, but I played and enjoyed a bunch of them (most recent one being The Last Remnant, which I hope I can review soon as well). I won’t even get into the MMORPGs because I become angry every time I do. All that to say, I have something to compare Dragon Quest V to. I promise a lengthy post about it before the end of the month.

On another topic, I think it’s important to mention the AWESOME AWESOME WORK of a bunch of ex 1UPpers who now go by the name of Area5. Those are the guys behind the now defunct 1UP Show, and they now create a weekly video feature called CO-OP, among other things. If it’s possible to love someone you’ve never met or talked to, well that’s what I feel for those guys. Love. A whole fucking lot of it. Check em out, download their show, digg them, send em long creepy emails or booze, you know, all those things superstars deserve. I really think what they’re doing now, the way they’re talking about video games and the people who make them, is of vital importance for the industry. It is historic stuff. This post will probably add like, one dude to their fan base (one dude who stumbled upon our site looking for “Food Porn” or some sick shit), but still, it’s one dude I send their way with all my heart.

And to finish, I wanna announce a feature that’s coming soon to the blog. “What to do when fucking Solaris 10 doesn’t fucking do what it’s supposed to and you can’t find the documentation any fucking where”. I may shorten the title a bit. But yeah, I plan on posting a bunch of tech articles for n00b Solaris 10 admins (especially those coming from the linux world and expecting as much good and free web documentation for Solaris 10 and SURPRISE! It’s not the case at all!), based on experiences and problems I’ve had myself at work. Hopefully it’ll save some people some precious time.

That’s it for now.

Later everyone,

Dan

I’m 2 weeks late to report on the fact that Red faction: Guerrilla has a very VERY pleasing surprise (easter egg?) for you, the player, to unlock. I’ll give you one guess what it is.

Did you guess Ostrich? Cause I didn’t. I guessed a bag of chips. Anyway, if you guessed an Ostrich Hammer, you’d be right. Check out the screen shot:

Although the game was released on April 9 (for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3), there was whispering on the 1st that it was just a sneaky little April Fool’s gag. Turns out that those guys at THQ know what their fans really want: a major weapon that looks like an ostrich. And it’s more than that. It IS an ostrich. An ostrich that can break stuff.

We haven’t reviewed it yet, but we will soon enough. If it has to do with gaming and/or ostriches, we here at BFO will definitely have something to say about it.

M.

If you’ve been anywhere within listening range during the last year or so, I’ve probably tried to steer the conversation towards The Walking Dead at some point.

Robert Kirkman‘s serial masterpiece follows a group of survivors as they try to navigate their way through a zombie apocalypse. The focus is mainly on Rick who, back in issue #1, wakes up from a coma to find that the world has gone to hell. That initial premise is reminiscent of 28 Days Later, but the similarities end there. That said, I won’t be going into a full synopsis of the series since it’s much more fun to discover on your own, so check out Image Comics, or the Wikipedia entry for the full low-down.

The zombie genre has been done, re-done, and done to death, but Kirkman has a way of telling a story that keeps you engaged without focusing solely on random zombie attacks (which are still fun). Marry that with Charlie Adlard‘s astounding artwork (and Tony Moore’s from issues 1 to 6), and you have a series that’s immediately addictive and reads way too fast. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that upon discovering The Walking Dead, I burned through the first 8 collections in about 1 week and now have to suffer while I wait for the monthlies.

So, if you haven’t already acquainted yourself with The Walking Dead, I can’t recommend this series enough. If you’re a fan of the whole zombie thing, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of The Walking Dead, and if you haven’t, well, get to it and start reading!

I wasn’t going to draw any parallels between the undead and rabid Walking Dead fans impatiently waiting for the next issue but hey, I just did. Who could resist?

The Walking Dead Issue #60 will  be released on April 15