Peter Vatistas

I am a huge fan of FreeBSD and use it religiously for my servers but for my normal day to day computer OS I have been using Ubuntu (as some of you already know). Well tonight my laptop is going to get a nice clean format and I’m installing PC-BSD - built off of FreeBSD 6.

PC-BSD is a complete desktop operating system, which has been designed with the “casual” computer user in mind. It offers the stability and security that only a BSD-based operating system can bring, while as the same time providing a comfortable user experience, allowing you to get the most out of your computing time. With PC-BSD you can spend less time working to fix viruses or spyware and instead have the computer work for you.

Installing the system is simply a matter of a few clicks and a few minutes for the installation process to finish. Hardware such as video, sound, network and other devices will be auto-detected and available at the first system startup. Home users will immediately feel comfortable with PC-BSD’s desktop interface, with KDE 3.5 running under the hood. Software installation has also been designed to be as painless as possible, simply double-click and software will be installed.

Get PC-BSD now and get with the program.

I just upgraded my servers from FreeBSD 6.2 to 6.3 (even though FreeBSD 7.0 will be here any day). Here are the steps to upgrade, make sure to backup!

# fetch http://people.freebsd.org/~cperciva/freebsd-update-upgrade.tgz

Downloading and verifying the digital signature for the tarball (signed by the FreeBSD Security Officer’s PGP key) is highly recommended.# fetch http://people.freebsd.org/~cperciva/freebsd-update-upgrade.tgz.asc

# gpg –verify freebsd-update-upgrade.tgz.asc freebsd-update-upgrade.tgz

The new freebsd-update(8) can then be extracted and run as follows:# tar -xf freebsd-update-upgrade.tgz

# sh freebsd-update.sh -f freebsd-update.conf -r 6.3-RELEASE upgrade

# sh freebsd-update.sh -f freebsd-update.conf install

The system must be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before continuing.# shutdown -r now

Finally, freebsd-update.sh needs to be run one more time to install the new userland components, and the system needs to be rebooted one last time:# sh freebsd-update.sh -f freebsd-update.conf install

# shutdown -r now

For more information, see:http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2007-11-10-freebsd-minor-version-upgrade.html

Apple has released the 1.1.3 firmware update for the iPhone - get it and check out all the slick new features!!

A few of you wanted to know where you could find Apple’s OS X Leopard Server wallpaper, well here it is (click image for 2560 x 1600 Leopard Server wallpaper):

Here is a sneak peak at what Apple may be cooking up. There are several sites that did a decent enough write up so I will just provide links. When this thing hits the market I will be the first to buy one - I LOVE THIS IDEA!!

Gizmodo

Engadget

I use a great application called WebCEO to track and manage various parts of my SEO/SEM efforts. As much as I would like to get into how awesome their software and support is I would rather talk about the people behind WebCEO.

A couple days before Christmas I received an envelope from Kherson, Ukraine. I wasn’t sure why I had received a letter from the Ukraine considering I don’t know anyone from there, I thought it was some sort of mistake or just a marketing piece. I opened the envelope and pulled out a very rich and shiny holiday card with a little WebCEO logo at the bottom. I figured it was just a holiday promotion printed in the masses - I was wrong.

I opened the card and found a long, had written letter addressed to me - wishing me a safe and happy holiday season. The letter was well written and by the looks of it not rushed at all. In addition the letter never once mentioned anything about business, their products, money, or a holiday deal - just a letter hoping and wishing I have a wonderful holiday.  WOW.

Now this is what I call great marketing, you see they didn’t have to mention what they are about or what they are selling - not even a holiday coupon or discount - just a hand written personal letter directed to me. It made me feel great! I was very impressed with what I saw and very happy to be a customer of theirs. More importantly (for them) it made me think about WebCEO and their products.

In my opinion this is the kind of thing that separates companies apart; even though there aren’t many comparable applications to WebCEO available today I would stick with WebCEO regardless. Something like this shows me (the customer) that I am important to them and they care about me and my business (which they do).
Take note of this guys, a great marketing campaign with little cost and a bigger impact than you could imagine. Thank you WebCEO - Happy Holidays!

Just got message from a loyal reader of mine asking if it is possible to stop Ubuntu from asking for the Ubuntu CD when he installs applications from packages. This is actually very simple, all you need to do is go to:

System>Administration>Software Sources

Select the “Third Party” tab and un-check “cdrom:” - reload your sources and your good to go!

I am in the process of building a social site using Drupal and realized I didn’t have GD support for PHP5 installed on my server. I’m sure this is a common roadblock for people new to installing Drupal or even just PHP so here is what you need to do:

Open terminal and type in the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install php5-gd

Now restart Apache

# sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

There you go, you now have GD Support for PHP5 in Ubuntu. Get your Drupal on!

Here’s a screenshot of the proposed theme for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy - I think it’s pretty slick but still far from the current OS GUI competition.

In the last three weeks I have received 8 requests on how to install Cinelerra on Ubuntu (Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon to be exact). So, this is how to correctly install Cinelerra on Ubuntu and add a little more memory for it to run in the kernel.

System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager:
Settings>Repositories>Third-Party Software Tab:

Click the Add button and add this repository:

deb http://giss.tv/~vale/ubuntu32 ./

Close, Reload the search “Cinelerra”. Mark for install & hit Apply (to install). When that is done just close out of Synaptic.

Now open terminal and type (I use ee to edit but you can also use gedit):

sudo ee /etc/sysctl.conf

And add this line to the bottom of the file (this adds the extra memory for Cinelerra to run properly):

kernel/shmmax=0x7fffffff

Now save and close and run this command (instead of rebooting):

sudo sysctl -p

Now go to Applications> Sound & Video>Cinelerra and get your editing on!