Dave Lachapelle

Further to my previous postings about Ubuntu and VNC, which seems to have been the most popular page on my blog for a while, I happened across this post from Sam Lesher this morning on how to enable Ubuntu’s built-in remote desktop from the command line. The built-in remote desktop uses VNC, and so kind of eliminates the need for any form of VNC Server setup.

Sam Lesher » Ubuntu 7.04 – Enable/Disable Remote Desktop from the Command Line

To enable remote desktop from the command line, issue this command:

$ gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled true

To disable remote desktop from the command line, issue this command:

$ gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled false

Unfortunately, this only works if you have previously configured remote desktop with a password, which would in theory require physical access to the machine.  That being said though, I want to set it up remotely, and so to add to Sam’s guide, I’d like to add that you can X-Forward a gnome session through SSH which will allow you to change this option.  I’m working on a how-to which I will post shortly.

Well, I’ve seen a few new comments come in to my blog about Rogers’ craptastic billing department, so I figured I’d follow that one up with another small rant about Rogers’ services. So, on July 4th, I got a letter in the mail from Rogers, seems they love sending out mail, aside from their bills I tend to get 4-5 letters a month from them. Guess I know where they’re spending all the money they’re gouging from consumers. Anyway, I digress… I got this letter in the mail: “Important notice regarding your home phone service”. Great, they’re going to increase the price of their service.

To my surprise, its a notice saying they’re going to be upgrading my analog service to their new amazing “digital” service, because they can no longer maintain the analog phone lines. What a load of crock, I was actually a Sprint customer back in the day when Rogers bought them out, and I’m fairly certain that as a result of the buyout, Rogers had to maintain the analog phone lines. That being said, Ma Bell happens to own the lines and leases them out to Rogers, which I would guess cuts into their ever so precious profit margins. So, it would make sense, from a business perspective (aside from the whole giving Bell back their monopoly), for Rogers to try and stop paying the expensive leasing fees and give everyone VoIP, which costs them essentially nothing.

Anyway, the whole point of the argument, monopolies aside, is that I got the letter on July 4th. They are making the change to my line on August 1st according to the letter. Now, the real problem is that I rely on my analog phone line for my DSL, which I get through Sentex. Would seem Rogers can’t even get their act together to give their customers even 1 months notice of changes to their services. Unfortunately, you can’t cancel any contract without a month’s notice, GREAT GOING ROGERS! So, now, I’m forced to cancel my service with Rogers, get Bell to take over my phone line, and look, Rogers has lost another customer.

Really, wake up people, why can’t you get your act together and be a decent service provider like you used to be? Rising prices, crappy service, for what, a few “value adds” here and there? No thanks.

Well, its been a long time coming, but tank has finally died. For those of you who no not its saga and history, you are sorely missing out. Though, as with any computer system, especially one containing my whole television collection as well as all my backups, it will rise again. Not after some serious modification though.

As it would appear, the motherboard finally died, the system simply refused to boot if any SATA drive was plugged into it – obviously a problem. I went out to the local computer shop and picked up a new motherboard, processor and ram. Specially, I got myself an ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI motherboard, and I know, I have absolutely no use for an HDMI motherboard, but it fullfilled my main requirements of being under $100 and having more than 4 sata ports (specifically it has 6), bringing my total available sata connections up to 8 (I have a PCI card).

So, I get it all home, rip apart tank – dust off as much as I possibly can, and I go to town unpacking, reconfiguring the case and generally getting everything set up. So, I’m sitting there going through the checklist, processor mounted… check, processor fan mounted… check, ram mounted… check, hard drives plugged in… check, *CRAP*… well, it would appear my 4 year old Thermaltake power-supply is only a 20-pin, and this new motherboard is a 24-pin. Now this is at 9:30pm on a Sunday night… no computer supply shops are open.

So, just a quick note to anyone looking to upgrade, check your freaking PSU before you buy a new motherboard!

For those of you who know me, you’ll know I generally don’t follow sports (other than Golf / Hockey (occasionally). However, that being said, working for a football team has kind of changed my viewpoint on things, and so now I find myself an avid CFL fan, as well as a football fan in general. The whole point of the pre-cursor is you may see some CFL commentary / news up here, which I know is a little unusal, but right now its what I’m doing / interested in, so its what I’m writing about.

So, last night I didn’t get a chance to watch the Ticats play (though apparently I didn’t miss much), I would just like to point out this article on CFL.ca – it would appear that Lumsden can’t go a season without being injured, though if he can stay healthy, he’ll definately score us some serious points.

CFL.ca – CFL Rushing Leader Lumsden out Week 4

CALGARY – The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are keeping running back Jesse Lumsden out of Thursday’s game against the Calgary Stampeders so the CFL’s leading rusher can rest a sore right knee.

Lumsden carried the ball 40 times in his last two games and his knee made contact with a helmet early in last week’s loss to Saskatchewan, although he continued to play.

So, just set up scribefire (http://blog.scribefire.com/help/getting-started/), hopefully it’ll help me stay in touch a little more, and maybe actually blog about things I like…

I really have to stop saying I’m back and just start writing to my blog again… decided I didn’t like the theme I had going and so I changed it.  I just grabbed a stock template and changed the logo, but I’m hoping to slowly modify it over time and make it a little better.

So, lots of changes around here since I last blogged, I now work as the Director of Technology for MRX & Associates and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.  Much fun, unfortunately time is short and thus I have to keep this one short.

One other thing… Batman Rocked!

So, figured I’d revive my blog a bit with a post about the iPhone / iPod SDK that Apple just released. I signed up to receive their free SDK package, so I could do some testing and messing around with the SDK, just to see what sorta stuff I could build. Just received their response this morning, and was provided with a link to download the nice big 2.1GB DMG file containing the SDK goodness.

I should also note, that I reverted my iPod Touch back to a non-hacked state and upgraded it to the latest 1.1.4 firmware. Springboard looks strange without themes.

In any case, the SDK is installing and work is calling… will update you guys later on any small projects I decide to undertake.

So – last post was at christmas time, I know that has been quite a while since christmas, however, I’m now more or less back. For those of you who don’t know, I started a new job in the first week of January. I’m now working as a System Administrator for a company called MRX Associates (who are directly tied to the CFL and specifically the Hamilton Ticats). I’m still keeping myself super busy, as you all likely know, so don’t hold your breath for updates.

In other news, I finally got around to working on my LVM guide, which you’ll find in the guides section of my website.

Hopefully I’ll have some time to write something a little more substantial later.

Merry Christmas!
written on my new iPod!

Well, it certainly has been a while since I have published anything to my blog, sorry for those two or three people who are checking it occasionally. I’ve had quite the busy last few weeks, and now that things are getting more settled, I’m going to start blogging here a bit more.