2008 March | 64 Bit Jungle

Mar 27

The Secrets of SEO and Higer Search Engine Rankings

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<rant>Let me tell you a little secret about SEO, or so called Search Engine Optimisation… It’s a joke. Sorry to all those companies that charge a small fortune and promise to “optimise your website for better search engine results” (actually, no I’m not sorry at all. Sorry), but they’re a rip off. They’re con-merchants. And they smell. The way to a better search engine ranking in my opinion is actually quite simple - and I’ll tell you for free… it’s content. All you need to do is write good, relevant content. It doesn’t matter what your site is about, if your page has good content on that particular subject, then you will probably get a good search engine placement. If somebody searches for “trimming dog’s claws” in Google, and you have written a comprehensive, relevant article about trimming your dog’s claws, which contains lots of information about trimming dog claws, then the chances are your page will come out near the top.

The only other thing which can help, is the structure of the site’s HTML. If the site code is well structured, then search engine spiders can access the content easier - the same as a person reading a book: if the book is well structured, then it’s easier to access the information within. The title of you page, for example, enclosed withing Heading 1 tags <h1></h1> near the top of the page’s structure (soon after the opening <body> tag), will be read early by the spider, and taken into consideration. If the sub headings, and content follow sooner rather than later, it all adds up…

There’s no magic formula, no panacea, no need for “keyword optimisation”, “friendly URLs” or any of the other buzz-words and phrases that are flying around the net. Just write good content, in well structured HTML. Simple. As far as Google is concerned, links to major websites may help with regards to ranking - if you’re writing about a popular subject that is…

And no, I don’t expect this article to come out on top of any searches for SEO, but then I haven’t really written a comprehensive article… merely a small rant…</rant>

written by Hodge

Mar 27

Conky: Dual Core Processors in .conkyrc

Conky, Programming, Technology, Ubuntu 4 Comments »

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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OK, this is a bit of a cheeky post, since I’m merely extending a previous post “Conky on Ubuntu 64 Bit - .conkyrc” - or elaborating on it - to clarify setting up .conkyrc for Dual Core Processors - specifically for my AMD Turion 64 X2. I’ve had a few requests specifically about this, so here goes…

Now, the part of my .conkyrc file that deals with my Dual Core looks like this:

${color #42AE4A}Usage (Avg):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu0 5,80} ${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 1):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu1 5,80} ${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 2):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu2 5,80} ${color #42AE4A}Average ${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A}Core 1 $alignr Core 2 ${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A} $alignr${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A}Processes:${color lightgrey} $processes ${color #42AE4A}Run:${color lightgrey} $running_processes ${color #42AE4A}CPU Temp:${color lightgrey} ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o “[0-9]* C”} ${color #42AE4A}Core 1 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core0′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C ${color #42AE4A}Core 2 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core1′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C

This outputs the following to Conky:

Conky Dual Core CPU Output

Stripping out all the formatting, and colouring gives this:

Usage (Avg): ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu0 5,80} Usage (Core 1): ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu1 5,80} Usage (Core 2): ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu2 5,80} Average ${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee} Core 1 $alignr Core 2 ${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} $alignr${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} Processes: $processes Run: $running_processes CPU Temp: ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o “[0-9]* C”} Core 1 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core0′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C Core 2 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core1′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C

Now the walk through. The first line, Usage (Avg): ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu0 5,80} gives the Average clock speed usage for both cores - ${freq_dyn_g} with no parameters, will output the current clock speed usage for the CPU as a whole. Passing cpu0 as a parameter to ${cpu} will output the overall CPU % used, and similarly, passing cpu0 to ${cpubar} will draw the overall % used graph (the parameters 5,80 are just for the height and width.

Now, by passing cpu1 or cpu2 to ${freq_dny_g}, ${cpu} and ${cpubar} Conky will output the same data but for each individual core. This can be extended by passing cpuN where N is the core number, for quad core etc. this could be cpu3 cpu4. So, the first three lines:

Usage (Avg): ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu0 5,80} Usage (Core 1): ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu1 5,80} Usage (Core 2): ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu2 5,80}

Outputs:

Conky Dual Core CPU Usage

The next lines of the file deal with throughput/usage graphs, ${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee} being the average for the CPU as a whole, since cpu0 is passed as a parameter. 42AE4A and eeeeee are just colour parameters to create a gradient overlay on the graph. As before, passing cpu1 and cpu2 will draw the graphs for the individual cores. The additional parameters, 25,120 are again just height and width parameters.

So, the lines

Average ${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee} Core 1 $alignr Core 2 ${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} $alignr${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee}

Will output:

Conky Dual Core CPU Throughput Graphs

Finally, I have a bunch of other data output, such as total processes, processes running, and CPU temperature. The first line outputs general information about the CPU as a whole:

Processes: $processes Run: $running_processes CPU Temp: ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o "[0-9]* C”}

$processes outputs the total number of processes, while $running_processes outputs the number of currently running processes on the CPU. To output the overall temperature, I had to call the execi function, and do some tweaking of the output to get the number, so ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o “[0-9]* C”} basically outputs /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature, pipes the output through grep which searches for the regular expression ‘[0-9]* C’ (which matches a string of numbers followed by a space followed by an upper-case C), and thus outputs just the temperature value - e.g. “45 C”.

To output the temperature of each Core, I once again run the execi function on a couple of piped shell commands, and pipe the output through other shell commands to get the number I want:

Core 1 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core0' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C Core 2 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core1' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C

Basically what is happening here is I’m running the shell command sensors, piping to grep to search for the string “Core0“, piing this output to cut to trim it, and finally editing out some of the crap I don’t want by piping to sed. This is just repeated for Core1. You may need to customise the output from sensors, by greping, cutting and seding different stuff - experiment by opening a terminal, and running sensors, then just pipe it through the grep, cut, and sed commands until you get the data you want.

So, the final lines together:

Processes: $processes Run: $running_processes CPU Temp: ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o "[0-9]* C”} Core 1 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core0′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C Core 2 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core1′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C

Output:

Conky Dual Core CPU Misc Info

Of course, this should work on any Linux distro with Conky installed.

Hope that helps someone.

written by Hodge \\ tags: 64 bit, AMD, Conky, conkyrc, Dual Core, Ubuntu

Mar 27

Eclipse PDT and MySQL - SQL Explorer Plugin

Eclipse, Programming, Technology, Web Development 13 Comments »

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I’ve been using Eclipse PDT for some time now, and since PHP programming invariably involves connecting to a database at some point or another, I wanted to be able to access my MySQL databases from within the Eclipse IDE - even if only to quickly debug SQL statements. I generally use a combination of a locally installed phpMyAdmin, MySQL Administrator, MySQL Query Browser, and now the Eclipse SQL Explorer Plugin, which give me all the functionality I need for Web Application development.

phpMyAdmin, MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser can be installed as follows, by the way:

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin mysql-admin mysql-query-browser

Installing Eclipse SQL Explorer was pretty straight forward - I simply downloaded the archive package from Sourceforge, saved it to a directory in on my desktop (there is also a standalone client available, so be sure to download “Eclipse SQL Explorer [RCP/Plugin]” if you’re setting it up as an Eclipse plugin - here’s a direct link to the latest plugin file), and extracted the files:

cd ~/Desktop/sqlexplorer unzip sqlexplorer_plugin-3.5.0.RC5.zip

This created two directories (features and plugins) along with two text files. To install the plugin, I just copied the two directories to my Eclipse root installation directory (see my previous post “Eclipse PDT IDE for PHP MySQL 32 Bit install on 64 Bit Ubuntu“), which is /opt/eclipse32

cp -R features plugins /opt/eclipse32/

Notice there was no need to use the sudo command before copying, since my user owns the eclipse32 folder.

Configuring SQL Explorer

Once installed, I also had to do some additional setup before I could configure SQL Explorer to connect to my local MySQL databases via Eclipse - namely, download and install the Java Connector for MySQL (MySQL JDBC Driver), to enable JDBC connections. The latest driver (5.1 at the time of writing) tar.gz file can be downloaded from the MySQL site here.

Once downloaded, I just extracted the files, and entered the new directory:

cd ~/Desktop/mysqljdbc tar -zxvf mysql-connector-java-5.1.6.tar.gz cd mysql-connector-java-5.1.6

The important file here (along with the documentation, of course) is the mysql-connector-java-5.1.6-bin.jar file, which is the driver itself. I guess this could be placed anywhere, since we just need to point the SQL Explorer plugin to it when setting it up in Eclipse, but for convenience and tidiness, I moved it to the /usr/share/mysql directory:

sudo cp mysql-connector-java-5.1.6-bin.jar /usr/share/mysql

With the JDBC driver installed, I could set up the Eclipse SQL Explorer plugin. In Eclipse, I went to Window->Preferences and expanded the new SQL Explorer section, highlighting “JDBC Drivers”, then double clicking on “MySQL Driver” to open the MySQL setup dialog:

Eclipse SQL Explorer Setup

In the MySQL Driver setup, I had to point the plugin to the MySQL JDBC Driver, by clicking on the “Extra Class Path” tab, and then clicking “Add” to point it to /usr/share/mysql/mysql-connector-java-5.1.6-bin.jar. Once added, clicking on “List Drivers” will bring up the list of available drivers in the “Driver Class Name” pull down menu. Only one is listed, and it just so happens to be the one we need - com.mysql.jdbc.Driver:

Eclipse SQL Explorer Setup

Click OK, and the driver is set up! I also clicked the “Set Default” button, since MySQL is currently the only database I connect to. With the Driver set up, I could then set up a connection to my database system. If the “Connections” view is not already available, it has to be selected via the Window->Show View->Other menu, and clicking on the “Connections” view within the “SQL Explorer” folder in this dialog.

With the Connections View available, I could set up the new connection profile, by right clicking in the view and selecting “New Connection Profile”, which opens up a new dialog, in which the new connection data is input:

Eclipse SQL Explorer Setup

It was a pretty simple process to create the connection - I just needed to replace the relevant parameters in the JDBC connections string with my connection details, so

jdbc:mysql://<hostname>[<:3306:>]/<dbname>

became

jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydatabase

Entered the DB username and password, gave the connection a name, selected the newly created MySQL Driver, and clicked OK to save the connection. Double clicking the connection name in the Connections View connects to the DB and brings up an SQL window form which Queries may be run. By default, the results are displayed in a small view at the bottom of the main Eclipse IDE window - although, this can be dragged and placed anywhere. There are also several other views available via the Window->Show View->Other menu within the SQL Explorer section to peruse.

The Eclipse SQL Explorer homepage has extensive documentation available, including a cool section on extending the plugin. Maybe I should learn Java too?

That’s all Folks.

written by Hodge \\ tags: Eclipse, MySQL, PDT, plugin, SQL Explorer

Mar 22

Are the BBC Selling out?

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BBC - Sponsered by Sony The BBC has always been a commercial-free television channel - and indeed, radio, and every other form of media the BBC uses have also been free of advertisements. The BBC is paid for by the British Public - we pay an annual license fee, to ensure the BBC remains commercial free - whatever the media. However, it seems that their website doesn’t count. I pointed my browser to news.bbc.co.uk today, and saw Sony adverts, and various other content related adverts. What’s going on BBC? What happened to keeping your output commercial free?

Interestingly, I haven’t seen any more adverts on their site today, so maybe it was some kind of marketing experiment? If the BBC are thinking of placing adverts on their news website, that would really REALLY suck, as it goes against all the BBC’s principals of commercial free broadcasting… and kind of negates the need for the British public to pay a license fee!

What’s the score BBC?

written by Hodge \\ tags: advertising, BBC, commercial, News

Mar 11

BOINC and SETI@Home Data Output with Conky

Conky, Programming, Technology, Ubuntu 5 Comments »

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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BOINC Statistics output to Conky Since my previous article about Conky, Conky on Ubunty 64 Bit - .conkyrc, I’ve been playing around with trying to get Conky to output some BOINC (SETI@Home data), and through a little digging, found a couple of very useful resources. The first being BOINC’s own client_status.xml file, located on Ubunutu in /var/lib/boinc-client/client_status.xml, which contains a lot of information about BOINC projects, Work Units, Status and so on. The second being a command line application, again built into BOINC - boinc_cmd. boinc_cmd can be executed with a bunch of parameters, such as –get_simple_gui_info and –get_project_status which output to the Terminal a lot of information about Projects and Work Units.

To output BOINC data via Conky, it’s possible to call the boinc_cmd in .conkyrc and strip down the information with grep and sed etc:

${execi 10 boinc_cmd --get_simple_gui_info | grep -m 1 "fraction done:" | tail -n 1 - | sed -e 's/ fraction done: //'} ${execi 10 boinc_cmd --get_simple_gui_info | grep -m 2 "fraction done:" | tail -n 1 - | sed -e 's/ fraction done: //'}

…and so on for each piece of data required for output, but this is pretty labourious, and makes for a rather ugly .conkyrc, so I’ve written a really quick and dirty Perl Script (it’s not pleasant to look at, and needs a LOT of work, so it’s more of a pre Alpha-Alpha! I’m not sure how, or if it will work with multiple projects, since I only have SETI@HOME installed…) - which actually retrieves all the data from the client_status.xml file. The (archived) script, boinc.pl can be downloaded here (and viewed below - just copy and paste the text into a file, and save it as “boinc.pl” if the download doesn’t work for you). It’s also posted over at the Ubuntu Forums. I’ve called it in .conkyrc by adding one simple line:

BOINC: ${color lightgrey}${execi 10 perl ~/ConkyScripts/boinc/boinc.pl}

OK, so that’s actually two lines, but the first line doesn’t really do anything except output the text “BOINC:” to Conky, so it doesn’t count - but it’s much cleaner than potentially dozens of lines, right? The script itself is in my ~/ConkyScripts/boinc directory and has been made executable:

sudo chmod a+x boinc.pl

Here’s the script so far - it’s VERY much Work In Progress, but it outputs the data as shown in the image above:

Edit 15/03/08: I’ve updated the code, so hopefully it’ll work with multiple projects:

#!/usr/bin/perl

$BoincStatePath="/var/lib/boinc-client";
$BoincClientStateFile="client_state.xml";
$StateFile="$BoincStatePath/$BoincClientStateFile";

open(INFO, $StateFile);
@lines = <INFO>;
close(INFO);
sub strip_tags($);

sub convert_time_to_string($);
sub estimate_time_remaining;
$projectCount = 0;
$wuCount = 0;
$wuActive = 0;
$wuActiveTask = 0;

foreach $line (@lines) {

   if ($line =~ /<master_url>/) {
      $projectMasterURL[$projectCount] = strip_tags($line);
   }

   if ($line =~ /<project_name>/) {
      $projectName[$projectCount] = strip_tags($line);
      $projectCount++;
   }

   if ($line =~ /<workunit>/) {
      $wuCount++;
   }

   if ($line =~ /<active_task_state>1/) {
      $wuActive++;
   }

   if ($line =~ /<active_task>/) {
      $wuActiveTask++;
   }

   if ($line =~ /<result_name>/) {
      $wuName[$wuActiveTask] = strip_tags($line);
   }

   if ($line =~ /<fraction_done>/) {
      $wuPercent[$wuActiveTask] = strip_tags($line) * 100;
   }

   if ($line =~ /<project_master_url>/) {
      $wuMasterURL[$wuActiveTask] = strip_tags($line);
   }

   if ($line =~ /<current_cpu_time>/) {
      $wuCPUTime[$wuActiveTask] = convert_time_to_string(strip_tags($line));
      $wuCPUTimeRaw[$wuActiveTask] = strip_tags($line);
   }

}

print "No. Work Units: ".$wuCount.", Active WU: ".$wuActive."\n";

for($i = 0; $i <= $projectCount; ++$i) {
   print $projectName[$i];
   for ($j = 1; $j <= $wuActiveTask; ++$j) {
      if($projectMasterURL[$i] eq $wuMasterURL[$j]) {
         print "WU ".$j.": ".$wuName[$j];
         $estTime = convert_time_to_string(estimate_time_remaining($wuCPUTimeRaw[$j],$wuPercent[$j]));
         print "CPU Time: ".$wuCPUTime[$j]." Time Remaining: ".$estTime."\n";
         print $wuPercent[$j]."% Complete\n";
      }
   }
}

sub strip_tags($) {
   my $string = shift;
   $string =~ s/<(.*?)>//gi;
   $string =~ s/ //gi;
   return $string;
}

sub convert_time_to_string($) {
   $cpuTime = int($_[0]);
   #Calculate the number of days
   if ($cpuTime > 86400) {
      $timeDays = $cpuTime/(24*60*60).":";
   } else {
      $timeDays = "";
   }

   #Calculate the number of hours and minutes
   $timeHours = ($cpuTime/(60*60))%24;
   $timeMinutes = ($cpuTime/60)%60;
   $timeSeconds = $cpuTime%60;
   $cpuTimeString = $timeDays.$timeHours.":".$timeMinutes.":".$timeSeconds;

   return $cpuTimeString;
}

sub estimate_time_remaining {
   $cpuTime = $_[0];
   $currentPercent = $_[1];
   $onePercentTime = $cpuTime/$currentPercent;
   $totalTime = $onePercentTime * 100;
   $estimatedTimeReminaing = $totalTime - $cpuTime;
   return $estimatedTimeReminaing;
}

written by Hodge \\ tags: BOINC, Conky, conkyrc, SETI, SETI@Home, Ubuntu

Mar 09

Conky on Ubuntu 64 Bit - .conkyrc

Conky, Programming, Technology, Ubuntu 3 Comments »

(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)

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Conky Screenshot I recently installed Conky, which is a highly configurable and “light weight system monitor”. As with many packages, it’s available via the Ubuntu Repositories:

sudo apt-get install conky

The default installation outputs some pretty useful information about the system - CPU usage, RAM/Swap usage, HD IO, HDD space and so on, and there are also some awesome scripts available to pull in other information to the display. The data monitored by Conky is controlled by the .conkyrc file locate in the user Home directory ~/.conkyrc. Opening and editing, or creating this file if it doesn’t exist (Applications -> Accessories -> Text Editor then Save As .conkyrc in the home directory), .conkyrc allows full control of how Conky gathers and displays information. The first section of the file, controls how the physical aspects of Conky is handled - the window size, transparency, position on the desctop etc., and the second part of the file takes a number of variables - both built in to Conky (which gather information such as RAM usage, etc.), and via exec, execi and texeci commands.

The Conky website has a great references on the configuration settings, available variables, and the man page.

I’ve also recently written a post which deals specifically with setting up Dual Core processors - Conky: Dual Core Processors in .conkyrc

As previously mentioned, in addition to Conky’s built in variables, it is possible to execute external shell commands, and even Perl/Python etc. scripts, and have the output sent to Conky for processing. I currently have two scripts installed, both obtained from Ubuntu Forums:

Conky Gmail Revisited, written by lvleph, is a Perl script, which logs into your Gmail account, and checks for new mail periodically (the interval of which is actually controlled via the .conkyrc). The Perl script is easy to download and use. Once I saved the script to ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl I just had to modify the script to enter my Gmail username and password, and make it executable

cd ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/ sudo chmod a+x gmail.pl

I could then call the script from my .conkyrc:

You have ${texeci 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl n} new gmail(s).

texeci is a Conky command, to which I passed the parameters 360 (an interval in seconds which the script should run), and the shell command to execute - in this case, perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl n (the n is actually a parameter passed to the gmail.pl script!). The original forum post has a great list of installation instructions, thanks to lvleph.

I also added

${execi 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl s}

to .conkyrc which calls the script again, but with “s” as the parameter, to output any new email subjects to Conky.

Conky Weather Revisited V2, also written by lvleph, grabs local weather information. It even comes with its own Weather Font! Again, it’s easy to download and incorporate into the .conkyrc file (I recommend the version from Page 3 of the forum thread - just remember to download the font from the front page). Again, I saved this to its own directory ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl and it was just a matter of calling the script from the .conkyrc as before. Running

./weather.pl

in a terminal window outputs the possible parameters which can be passed to the script - the most important being the area code/city code - in my case THXX0027, for Mae Hongson. Again, the original forum post has a great list of installation instructions, thanks to lvleph.

I’ve also recently written a Perl script, which allows BOINC data to be viewed via Conky. See my recent post on BOINC and SETI@Home with Conky, on Ubuntu.

Desktop with Conky

So, here’s my full .conkyrc file, for anyone who’s interested, which outputs the image above - try and tested on an Acer Aspire 5052, with AMD Turion 64 X2 (Dual Core) Processor:

# set to yes if you want Conky to be forked in the background background no cpu_avg_samples 2 net_avg_samples 2 out_to_console no # Use Xft? use_xft yes # Xft font when Xft is enabled xftfont Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8 # Text alpha when using Xft xftalpha 0.8 on_bottom yes # Update interval in seconds update_interval 1 # Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus) own_window yes own_window_transparent yes own_window_type override # Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone) double_buffer yes # Minimum size of text area minimum_size 260 5 maximum_width 260 # Draw shades? draw_shades no # Draw outlines? draw_outline no # Draw borders around text draw_borders no # Stippled borders? stippled_borders no # border margins border_margin 4 # border width border_width 1 # Default colors and also border colors default_color white default_shade_color white default_outline_color white # Text alignment, other possible values are commented gap_x 15 gap_y 30 alignment top_right # Gap between borders of screen and text # Add spaces to keep things from moving about? This only affects certain objects. use_spacer no # Subtract file system buffers from used memory? no_buffers yes # set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase uppercase no # boinc (seti) dir seti_dir /usr/lib/boinc-app-seti/setiathome_enhanced TEXT ${color #42AE4A}$sysname $kernel $machine - $nodename ${color #42AE4A}Uptime:${color lightgrey} $uptime ${color #42AE4A} Load:${color lightgrey} $loadavg ${color lightgrey}${hr} ${color #42AE4A}Usage (Avg):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu0 5,80} ${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 1):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu1 5,80} ${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 2):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu2 5,80} ${color #42AE4A}Average ${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A}Core 1 $alignr Core 2 ${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A} $alignr${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A}Processes:${color lightgrey} $processes ${color #42AE4A}Run:${color lightgrey} $running_processes ${color #42AE4A}CPU Temp:${color lightgrey} ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep 'temperature:' | sed -e 's/temperature: //'} ${color #42AE4A}Core 1 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core0' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C ${color #42AE4A}Core 2 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core1' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C ${color lightgrey}${hr} ${color #42AE4A}CPU Usage PID CPU% MEM% ${color lightgrey} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1} ${color #42AE4A} ${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2} ${color #42AE4A} ${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3} ${color #42AE4A}Mem Usage ${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 1} ${top_mem pid 1} ${top_mem cpu 1} ${top_mem mem 1} ${color #42AE4A} ${top_mem name 2} ${top_mem pid 2} ${top_mem cpu 2} ${top_mem mem 2} ${color #42AE4A} ${top_mem name 3} ${top_mem pid 3} ${top_mem cpu 3} ${top_mem mem 3} ${color lightgrey}${hr} ${color #42AE4A}RAM:${color lightgrey} $mem/$memmax ($memperc%) ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${membar 5,100} ${color #42AE4A}SWAP:${color lightgrey} $swap/$swapmax ($swapperc%) ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${swapbar 5,100} ${color #42AE4A}HD IO: ${color lightgrey}${diskio} ${color #42AE4A}${diskiograph 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A}Hard Disk Space: ${color #42AE4A} Root ${color lightgrey}${fs_used /}/${fs_size /}${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${fs_bar 5,120 /} ${color #42AE4A} Win ${color lightgrey}${fs_used /media/hda1}/${fs_size /media/hda1}${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${fs_bar 5,120 /media/hda1} ${color #42AE4A} Data ${color lightgrey}${fs_used /media/hda5}/${fs_size /media/hda5}${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${fs_bar 5,120 /media/hda5} ${color lightgrey}${hr} ${color #42AE4A}Network: ${color lightgrey}${addr eth0} ${color #42AE4A}Down:${color lightgrey} ${downspeed eth0} k/s $alignr${color #42AE4A} Up:${color lightgrey} ${upspeed eth0} k/s ${color #42AE4A}${downspeedgraph eth0 27,120 42AE4A eeeeee 180} $alignr${color #42AE4A}${upspeedgraph eth0 27,120 42AE4A eeeeee 25} ${color lightgrey}${totaldown eth0} $alignr${color lightgrey}${totalup eth0} ${color #42AE4A}Power: ${color lightgrey}${execi 2 acpi | sed -e 's/ .*: //'} ${color #42AE4A}You have ${color lightgrey}${texeci 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl n} ${color #42AE4A}new gmail(s). ${color lightgrey}${execi 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl s} ${color #42AE4A}$font${alignc}Mae Hongson Weather ${color #42AE4A}$font${alignc}Today ${alignc}${voffset -5}${color lightgrey}${font weather:size=30}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c cp}${font}$color${voffset -15}${offset 10}${color lightgrey}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c c} ${voffset 5}${color #42AE4A}$font${alignc}5 Day Forcast ${voffset -5}${font weather:size=30}${alignc}${offset -45}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 1p}${offset 25}${color orange}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 2p}${offset 25}${color cyan}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 3p}${offset 24}${color green}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 4p}${offset 23}${color red}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 5p}${font}$color ${alignc}${offset -15}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 1}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 2}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 3}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 4}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 5}

The “Post your .conkyrc files w/ screenshots” thread over at Ubuntu Forums has many other .conkyrc examples to peruse.

written by Hodge \\ tags: 64 bit, Conky, conkyrc, Ubuntu

Mar 05

IEs4Linux - Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6 & 7 on Ubuntu Linux

Programming, Technology, Ubuntu, Web Development 8 Comments »

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I do a lot of Web Development, and try to build W3C Standards Compliant web sites - that’s why I always develop a website for Firefox first, and it’s also why I despise - with absolute passion - Micro$hite Internet Explorer (including version 7, which although is closer to following W3C’s standards than any previous version, is still crap), because I invariably have to spend twice as long as it took to design and develop the site, hacking CSS and JavaScript code to get it looking anywhere near as good as it looks in FF, in IE. That was a rather long sentence, that, had I been using M$ Word to write this, it would have probably suggested I revise and fragment it. positioniseverything.net has some great articles on IE specific CSS Bugs…

Also, as a Lnux user, and despite the fact that I have a dual boot system, I really resent having to reboot my laptop into a substandard operating system, to test my websites with a substandard web browser. Also add to this the fact that it’s a real pain in the arse to get more than one version of IE installed in XPoo. That’s where IEs4Linux comes in to play…

Admittedly, it borders on Heretic to install such dismally poor software in a Linux environment (I’m talking about IE here, not IEs4Linux!) , but for web development, it’s an unfortunately necessary evil. IEs4Linux works with Wine, and is a small set of scripts which automatically downloads and installs the IE 5.0, IE 5.5, IE 6, and with the latest beta version of IEs4Linux, IE 7 binaries. It also requires cabextract - a small application used to extract M$ Cabinet files.

I already have Wine, and cabextract installed on my Ubuntu, but if they’re not present, they are easy to install:

sudo apt-get install wine cabextract

So, I downloaded the IEs4Linux package to my ~/Documents folder - it can also be downloaded using wget:

cd ~/Documents wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-2.99.0.tar.gz

Once downloaded, I unpacked, and entered the new directory:

tar -zxvf ies4linux-2.99.0.tar.gz cd ies4linux-2.99.0

Within the new directory is an executable, ies4linux, which if run:

./ies4linx

IEs4Linux GUI opens a GUI for installing the Internet Explorer binaries. Via the GUI, it is possible to select the IE versions to install (for IE 7, the option is in the Advanced section), along with the Adobe Flash plugin, and also the option to install Desktop and Menu icons/shortcuts. Unfortunately, I ran into a couple of problems running the GUI, and IE didn’t install correctly. Thankfully, however, it is also possible to run the ies4linux executable with command line options, and bypass the GUI all together, with the –no-gui flag. Now, since I didn’t have the GUI to select the extra options, I had to set a bunch of other flags to install everything I wanted, including IE 5.0, 5.5, 7, core fonts, and no desktop shortcuts:

./ies4linux --no-gui --install-ie55 --install-ie5 --beta-install-ie7 --no-desktop-icon --install-corefonts

IE 6 and Adobe Flash are installed by default, but can be switched off with the –no-ie6 and –no-flash respectively. Running ./ies4linux –full-help displays a list of all the options available.

I actually had to run the script a couple of times, since the downloads from the M$ servers timed out, but the script detects what’s already been downloaded, and continues as necessary. Other than that, it was a simple, painless process! I now have IE 5.0, 5.5, 6 and 7 polluting my system, which can be accessed via the menu Applications -> Internet -> IE. The only thing I’ve noticed so far, is that IE 7 is a little clunky and slow, and the Adobe Flash plugin doesn’t always work with IE 7, but other than that, it works well. For IE…

Now, I only wish there was an easier way to get a Standards Compliant website code to work in IE…

written by Hodge \\ tags: IE5, IE5.5, IE6, IE7, IEs4Linux, Internet Explorer, Linux, Ubuntu

Mar 01

Retro: Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k on Ubuntu 64 Bit

Games, Ubuntu 1 Comment »

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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So, I have a state of the art Notebook (well, almost state of the art), with a Duel Core 64 Bit AMD Processor, 2Gb RAM, and a 64 Bit Operating System (Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon) - but, whatever… because I’ve found a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k Emulator! What better use for such a system than to play classic 8 Bit games from my childhood?! Yes, I could drag the old 48k machine along with the Dixons tape deck from my parents’ attic, and hook it up to the TV - but that would involve a trip half way around the world. I can’t afford that, so instead, I ran

sudo apt-get install spectemu-common spectemu-x11 spectrum-roms

which installed the Spectemu (xspect) command line Speccy Emulator, along with a few Speccy ROMs. Searching for some of my old favourite games (Skool Daze, Back to Skool, Lords of Chaos, Spy Hunter, Saboteur, Elite - also see the Oolite post), led me to World of Spectrum, where I downloaded a bunch of TAP tape image files, and dumped them in ~/Speccy

Spectemu is CLI, so from a terminal window, I ran cd ~/Speccy

and extracted the games I’d just downloaded

tar -zxvf SkoolDaze.tap.zip

then ran the Emulator itself

xspect

Load ""

by pressing the Speccy shortcut “j” followed by two double quotes “” which outputs Load “”, followed by Enter. Pressing Ctrl+p outputs a prompt back in the Terminal window to enter the tape file path, which was simply

SKOOLDAZ.TAP

followed by return. Back in the Speccy window, Skool Daze began loading. And loading… and loading… It’s as if I was back in the ’80s - a few minutes later, the game had loaded to memory (without crashing, or needing to adjust the volume of the tape player etc.!), and I could enjoy a blast from the past…

Skool Daze on Spectrum 48k

Quick loading of tapes is also possible. Before typing Load “” simply press Ctrl+y in the Speccy window, and the Terminal window reports “Quick Load on” (it can also be switched off with Ctrl+y). After entering Load “” follow the same procedure of entering the .TAP file name, and the game loads into memory much faster, bypassing the Speccy ROM’s load routine. Nice!

Skool Daze on Spectrum 48k