First post!

First of I don't know how many...

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-03-19 17:52:35 by Andrei Moldovan

Site update

I've been playing around a bit. Wordpress seems quite a nice tool for this job. I would have preffered to use Django instead, but I wasn't able to complete the install (some issues with Dreamhost). It would have meant a lot more work, but it would have been a great exercise. Maybe some time in the future.

Now I just have to find something to write about. :)

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-03-20 16:30:05 by Andrei Moldovan

We're going away!

Finally! After 2 months of discussions and planning. Just 4 more hours to go. After that, 2 days away from the city and every little stress related to it. Too bad it's only 2 days... :(

Not even the rain outside or the bad forecast for this weekend is going to bring my spirit down.

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-03-23 14:50:33 by Andrei Moldovan

Best. Trip. Yet.

Off-topic: Anyone got a spare HP laptop charger? (18.5 V - 3.5 A) I'm a dead man without my laptop... :(

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-03-26 09:47:55 by Andrei Moldovan

Laptop problem update

Small update on the whole laptop/charger problem.

With the help of a friend and a co-worker, I got some power in my laptop. Right now I got about 2 and a half hours left. :(

The people over at the site that sold me the laptop won't 1) answer my email and 2) answer the phone on their Customer Support service. It's been a week now and I'm starting to get pissed off. I payed a lot of money for this thing and I expect support from them for it. Plus, I heard some rumors on different forums that I have to ship the laptop too along with the charger so they can fix it. I already know the laptop works, so what's the point? I can't live for 2 weeks without my computer...

So what choices do I have? Well, I can either go for 2 weeks without my laptop or dish out some more cash for a new (third-party) charger and forget all about it. Also, make a mental note not to buy from them anymore.

One thing's for sure: I can't wait to talk to them so I can tell them a piece of my mind...

2 hours and 20 minutes left... Better enjoy it!

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-03-29 18:01:07 by Andrei Moldovan

Let the games begin

After 9 days, the company that sold me the laptop finally answered my email. As I predicted, they want me to send the whole thing (laptop, charger, all original accessories...) so they can "diagnose" the problem. I wrote them back saying that I have already "diagnosed" the problem and that I can't send the laptop because I need it. Now I'm waiting for an answer. Gonna give them 1 day before I start calling and give them hell... :)

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-04-03 15:36:20 by Andrei Moldovan

Back online

The ISP people finally came to my (new) home and installed the cable modem. So, I am back online. It wasn't easy (neither difficult). Took a little time to get the wireless router going. Let me tell you, it's a beauty. An Asus WL500g Premium. Along with the basic LAN/Wifi stuff, it has 2 USB 2.0 ports that can be used for USB Mass Storage devices, printers or webcams. I just plugged my external hard disk rack with a 160 Gb hard drive in it and (with some minor tinkering) got an FTP server working. I want to add that the hard disk had 3 ext3 partitions, so getting things to work this fast was a surprise to me. It seems the router is running a stripped down Linux distro. The next thing will be to install [openwrt(http://openwrt.org/) on it tomorrow. That way, I'll have a real server at my disposal. :)

An interesting thing I've noticed while reading the manual is that the router has a Download Manager built into the web interface. They (in the manual) advertise HTTP, FTP and BitTorrent download features. All to the external hard drive connected to one of the USB ports. Imagine being able to download without having to leave your computer on. (The router's probably gonna be on, anyway :) ). This is sounds like a great feature, especially in my case, as I take my laptop with me almost all of the time. I can go to work/friends and have my torrents running without a hitch. This needs some further testing. I'll be back with updates. ;)

Off topic, Friday may be my lucky day. At least, I hope so. It's the day my new laptop charger is supposed to arrive. :D

And now for some food...

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-04-10 20:43:36 by Andrei Moldovan

I got the power

New laptop charger arrived today. Finally, I'll be able to start hacking on the router. :) Plus, spend more than 30 minutes online once I get home.

Posted in: | misc | on 2007-04-12 17:21:27 by Andrei Moldovan

Exactly as advertised

First try...

root@router:~# uname -a
Linux router 2.4.30 #1 Sat Feb 3 13:16:08 CET 2007 mips unknown

I finally got around to installing OpenWrt on my Asus router. It all went exactly as described on the wiki

After that, ethernet worked ok (DHCP). WPA needed an extra closed-source package to be installed (nas). The greatest pain was finding out that USB 2.0 doesn't work in the current version. So, I had to use USB 1.1. I don't think there's gonna be a big difference. Since the CPU on this thing is running at 266 MHz, I don't think it'll reach the speed limit. From what I read on their forums, it's around 2 MB/s. Had a little more trouble getting the ext3 partitions to mount (I misread the instructions), but now, everything works. I can watch my movies from my usb hard disk over wi-fi.

I'm gonna need some more time to get everything the way I want to. But, for now, it's enough. Wireless read/write access to all my data is what I wanted in the first place.

This was a great day for hacking. Maybe not for writing... :)

Posted in: | linux | openwrt | on 2007-04-17 23:57:11 by Andrei Moldovan

Long break over

After a very long break, I'm back. This time with something funny. Working in this industry, I can find and relate a lot of them to real life situations I've encountered at my workplace. You know that old saying "It's funny because it's true...". No matter how sad it actually is. :)

Posted in: | fun | on 2007-06-22 17:23:13 by Andrei Moldovan

How can you tell if you're a geek [part I]

Yesterday I went to a party. The food was good, the drinks were good :D and so was the music. At one moment while I was looking around the room, I noticed that the DJ had a laptop on his table. A Thinkpad. For the next half an hour, maybe more, I found myself thinking from time to time "What model is it? It looks like a T series... T43? T60? Wonder what OS is it running. I bet it's Windows. The DJ doesn't look like a man who'd run Linux." and other little questions along these lines without realizing.

Is this a sign? :)

Posted in: | fun | on 2007-06-25 22:52:12 by Andrei Moldovan

How can you tell if you're a geek [part II]

I just returned from an open-air festival I attended last week. Among the bands present there was Kosheen. Big stage setup and 2 screens, one on each side of the stage. During the concert they would project different images on them. They all looked random to me. One of the images was that of a circuit diagram. Jokingly, I turned to one of my mates and asked him "What kind of circuit is that?" He hadn't noticed it and we waited till it showed up on the screen again. As soon as he saw it he went "Aah! That's an operational amplifier." and started trying to explain what that meant. In the middle of the crowd. At a rock concert... If that's not a sign, I don't know what is... :)

Posted in: | fun | on 2007-07-30 13:24:05 by Andrei Moldovan

DSLR goodness

Having a DSLR was an old dream of mine. When I was 18, my father bought me one day an old Russian film camera. A Zenit ET. I started playing around with it and started reading some books about photography. I soon found out about the joy of having so much control over the whole process. Focus, exposure, depth of field...

As the years passed, digital cameras became more common and I started playing with different ones from different people - friends, family, colleagues. Most of them were simple point & shoot, but they were fun to use. Being able to see the results almost instantly and to make adjustments/corrections was something very appealing. But they lacked the control and convenience of my SLR. Enter the DSLR!

I wanted one ever since I ever picked up one of my friend's Nikon D70s. It had the both of both worlds. :) But it also had the price of both. :( But I kept on dreaming.

And now, that dream has come true. I am the proud owner of a new (ok, not exactly new anymore, it's a month old) Pentax K100D camera. So far, I am one very happy customer. I haven't had a lot of time to really play with it. Maybe after I get back home (right now I'm in Germany for another 3 weeks - one of the reasons for not writing anything lately).

This is a link to a few pictures that I think turned out ok until now. I know I still have a lot to learn.

Posted in: | photo | on 2007-09-11 16:46:26 by Andrei Moldovan

Software freedom day in Cluj-Napoca

Saturday, the 15th of September 2007, Cluj Napoca Free Software Group will organize the Software Freedom Day starting from 11 a.m. at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca building from Baritiu street 26.

This event is dedicated to free software and we will try to bring free software closer to the new or future users.

We will demonstrate the use of Ubuntu and Kiwi. CDs will be given to the audience, and for those who will come with their laptop we will assist them in installing Ubuntu.

Everybody is invited, your age or previous experience with free software don't matter.

Posted in: | linux | free_software | on 2007-09-11 17:42:46 by Andrei Moldovan

Random photo #1

Seeing that I don't have anything else to do in the evening here in Germany but sit in my hotel room, I started playing around with some pictures I took last weekend. I'm new to the whole post-processing business, so my results may vary... Be gentle.

A kid on his father's shoulders walking around a flea market in Stuttgart last Saturday.

Posted in: | photo | on 2007-09-11 20:04:07 by Andrei Moldovan

Lightplay

Last Friday afternoon at work was very boring. We had some network connection problems so we couldn't work. So I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures. It was a sunny afternoon and the sunlight was entering the room through the window blinds at a strange angle.

A stack of post-it notes with a piece of some plastic packaging that was laying around the office.

Vlad, a colleague of mine, fascinated by his mobile phone. :)

Shadows on the wall. This is one of a series of pictures of shadows. Basically, just playing around with different aperture settings and depth of field. This is f/4.0. But there's something more to this picture. I don't know what.

Alas, I must go now and do some more playing. I just wish I had a faster lens, for an even shallower depth of field... Maybe I'll find an adapter and be able to use my old lenses from the Zenit.

Posted in: | photo | on 2007-09-17 00:18:46 by Andrei Moldovan

First try at RAW conversion

Seeing that I'm still in Germany with a lot of spare time on my hands, I said to myself "Why not learn more about digital photography?". I started playing around with different post processing tools and RAW.

The Windows world has a lot of them. Photoshop, Lightroom, Silkypix are just a few. But what about Linux? What's the current situation? Well, I did a little search and my best result was UFRaw . It's available in Ubuntu both as a stand-alone application and a plugin for The Gimp. It allows a few adjustments/settings. White balance, exposure compensation, tone curve and few more. A full list of features can be found on the project's website. All these plus all the Gimp's standard functionality.

Well, enough talk, time for some pictures. These were taken today on the walk home from work.

Not a typical sunset. Well, it's not really a sunset. :)

Cat hunting mice in the field. It ran away as soon as I took the picture and got up. Don't know what mice it can catch if it's that afraid. :)

Posted in: | photo | on 2007-09-25 22:05:20 by Andrei Moldovan

How can you tell if you're a geek [part III]

De data asta în romana, ca numai asa are farmec. :) Vorbesti cu cineva pe messenger despre baut vin si incerci sa intri în vim. Scriu fara sa ma uit la taste, dar mai verific pe ecran. Mie mi s-a parut perfect normal. :)

Posted in: | fun | on 2007-09-28 21:29:44 by Andrei Moldovan

Know your geek

Someone else has created a small description of nerds in the real world. A handbook for how to interact and understand the intricate mind of a nerd.

A lot of truth in there... :)

Posted in: | fun | on 2007-11-14 10:48:57 by Andrei Moldovan

More on RAW conversion in Linux

Sunday morning finds me in bed, reading the DPReview Pentax SLR Talk forum. Scrolling around, I come across this very interesting thread - RAW conversion and image editing software for Linux users. The list contains Gimp, UFRaw, DCRaw and others. I've tried most of them, at least the open source ones. It seems that there is some commercial support for the Linux community, too. Here's a complete list of both commercial and open source software.

One application that people recommended was LightZone. A poster in the thread provided a download link to LightZone version 2.4. It may not be the latest version available, but I found it to be quite powerful. It's written in Java, so it's a bit hard on your computer after some intense use and it may feel sluggish sometimes. Feature-wise, LightZone is quite powerful. It has tools for a lot of adjustments: white balance, exposure compensation, color balance, noise reduction, sharpening, Gaussian blur, black & white conversion and many more. Modifications are saved per image in a file. They can also be saved as a template that can be loaded in later editing sessions. Images can be exported as TIFF of JPEG.

A screenshot of the application in action running on Ubuntu 7.10.

Posted in: | photo | linux | free_software | on 2007-12-02 14:19:46 by Andrei Moldovan