Coredump

• Got the 80-GB HDD from FTIC4.
• Installed the HDD as primary. Booted on primary slave WXP.
• Deleted primary partition (~35 GB) on hda.
• Installed Ubuntu Warty on hda.
• Booted on Ubuntu - SUCCESS!
• …
• …
• …
• [Lots of goobledygeek lines later...]
• Ubuntu boot screen. Yay!
• Fired up terminal window, edited /etc/network/interfaces:

  auto lo eth1
  iface lo inet loopback
  iface eth1 inet dhcp

• Ran sudo /sbin/ifup -a.
• Started Firefox, set up proxy config, and browsed Google.

Recently read a blog about home-brew outdoor WiFi by way of the PLUG mailing lists and Migs Paraz’s blog post.

We have a somewhat similar project at PhilRice: Low-cost WiFi connectivity for Pinoy farmers, in partnership with the University of Southern Mindanao (USM), Preginet (ASTI-DOST), AFRDIS (DA), and DA BPRE.

The USM team fabricates low-cost antennas from common household materials such as pots and pans for use on off-the-shelf indoor WiFi equipment (Cisco, D-Link, Orinoco). The low-power antennas can be used as access points and bridges for last-mile broadband connectivity.

We have successfully deployed such configurations in our network clusters in Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Los Baños, Agusan del Norte and North Cotabato.

Soon, we will be also working with ASTI and NTT (of Japan) on WIPAS, a fixed wireless access solution using the 26-GHz range and capable of throughput up to 40 Mbits/second.

Found a good read over at Poynter Online: “Debunking Myths”.

Having been involved in editorial design since high school, I’ve come across some of these “design dogmas” that are nakataga sa bato. Of course, being an inept conformist, I’ve always managed to cut against the grain, so to speak.

Ah, I’m mixing metaphors. Oh well, that’s what a long weekend does to you.

Just discovered a cool feature in Flickr, an online photo-sharing tool: you can add notes to your photos!

When adding notes, you can drag a marquee over any area in the photo, add your text, and voila! notes are added to your specified regions in the picture.

Feature in action:

• Items in my diecast wishlist.
• Design for Gab’s toy storage
• A corner bookcase for copying

Managed to finish printing the super’s poster paper, after the unwieldy plotter refused to cooperate several times.

I’m interested in the low-cost WiFi solution. I’m fairly sure there will be ways to coax a few more kilometers out of the home-brews.

Tomorrow — no, in a few hours, gah! — will be the 18th National Research and Development Conference, which will focus on farmers’ best practices. Lots of things to look forward, too. Too bad the LTSP didn’t quite make it. It would have been a nice debut.