Into.the.Void.

Question #1: My windows XP system suddenly throws a “When trying to update a password the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct” error message…what do I do ?
Answer: Did you not format your windows installation this week ? Well, now you certainly have to.

Question #2: What is the safest way to change the boot partition from a windows xp installation cd ?
Answer: You just boot with a linux live cd and change it using fdisk/cfdisk. It can probably be done with DOS fdisk ..using the recovery console. But…do you trust it ?

Question #3: I can’t get bwbar to compile, I keep getting errors about png functions like
undefined reference to `png_create_info_struct' , undefined reference to `png_init_io', etc
Answer: Make sure you have installed libpng. Then open the Makefile with a text editor and change the line LIBS = -lz with this: LIBS = -lz -lpng -lm. Don’t ask my why -lpng never gets inside the Makefile using the configure script. It just doesn’t.

Filed by kargig at 07:16 under General
No Comments | 3,893 views

Well it looks like google is going to offer massive storage for e-mail accounts on any domain… just check this page: https://www.google.com/hosted/Home

Very interesting, and simple…you probably just need to change the MX record of your domain to a server IP that they will send you.

If only the interface was a bit better…if it had encryption support…if … if…if they could be trusted not to make your e-mails searchable in public one day in the future…

Filed by kargig at 03:36 under General,Internet,Privacy
1 Comment | 3,478 views

That’s what the Greek Minister of Economics said. If don’t believe me…well you can read what was said in the Greek Parliament discussing the deal between the Greek Government and Microsoft.

Quote from: http://www.parliament.gr/ergasies/showfile.asp?file=syne060209.txt

ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣ ΑΛΟΓΟΣΚΟΥΦΗΣ (Υπουργός Οικονομίας και Οικονομικών):
…
Επίσης, νομίζω ότι πίσω από αυτές τις απόψεις σας κρύβεται και μια αντίληψη η οποία αν υιοθετηθεί, θα καταδικάσει τη χώρα στην ψηφιακή υπανάπτυξη για πάρα πολλά χρόνια, διότι όλοι ξέρουμε ότι το ελεύθερο λογισμικό έχει πολύ περιορισμένες εφαρμογές και δεν μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί τόσο ευρέως όσο άλλο λογισμικό.
…

Translation by me:

GEORGIOS ALOGOSKOUFIS (Minister of Economy and Economics):
…
I also think that behind these views of yours (he’s talking about someone who asked him a question about open source) hides a perception that if inherited, will deem the country to digital “underdevelopement” for many years, because we all know that the open source has limited applications and cannot be used as widely as other software can.
…

Go Go Greece!! Long live the stupidity! Sometimes it’s better to shut up than speak in public and say bullshit. Shame on them for undermining the potentials of this country.

Filed by kargig at 19:34 under General
1 Comment | 3,436 views

Today the Government announced that for many many months members of the Greek Government, the main opposing party and some other businessmen wire wiretapped through their cell phones.

We are living in a country that even the Government cannot secure itself from others. The Prime Minister had his cell phone wiretapped. How long can these people govern our lives ? How can they protect us when they can’t protect themselves? They can’t protect their country they are supposedly serving…After about a year of pre-investigations what do they know about the people who had done the wiretapping ? Nothing! Just …nothing! Null!

This is so ridiculous…

more news on the wiretapping case: http://news.ert.gr/en/newsDetails.asp?ID=14811

*Update
BBC reports on the wiretapping
*Update #2
Bruce Schneier blogs about the wiretapping
*Update #3
Slashdot article on the subject
*Update #4
Vodafone SpyLine, humourous Vodafone advertisment in Greek…enjoy it 🙂

Filed by kargig at 20:48 under General,Privacy
No Comments | 3,170 views

While most other countries in the world turn to Open Source software to secure their investments and to gain more from the tax payers’ money, the greek government makes a leap backwards and makes an agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft will sell software to the greek government and to all public services for a cheaper price than normal.

In order for you to understand the stupidity of this decision just take a look at what the minister of economics said after the agreement.
Original text:

“Προσωπικά, έχω ωφεληθεί πολύ από τη χρήση των τεχνολογιών της Microsoft ήδη από τη δεκαετία του ’80, όταν ως νέος καθηγητής οικονομικών χρησιμοποιούσα προσωπικούς υπολογιστές για τις ανάγκες της δουλειάς μου”

My translation of what he said in English:

“Personally, I have been benefitted a lot from the use of Microsoft’s technologies since the 80’s, when as a young teacher of economics I used personal computers to do my work”

The original version should be here: http://www.mnec.gr/MS_GA_Dilossi.aspx … but cleverly enough someone has deleted the file from the website of the Greek Ministry of Economics, and you are now presented with a 404 error. Someone “thankfully” realised how embarrasing that was.

Shame on the Greek Government. The previous government had done quite the same thing and had then agreed with Microsoft (I have blogged about that in the past). Looks like these “new” guys are not any better than the previous ones…maybe they are even worse. Now you know where the Greek government spends your taxes, on Bill Gates 200-meter long yacht(link2).
These government people just remind me day after day how pathetic are we as a nation. Go on! Vote for them in the next elections too…make sure Gates gets an even bigger yacht for next year!

Can we change that ? Maybe not…but we can try…
http://manifesto.digitalrights.gr/

Filed by kargig at 21:21 under General,Greek,Linux
1 Comment | 3,211 views

a cartoon says it all…

Filed by kargig at 19:45 under General
No Comments | 15,095 views

I’ve ‘re-found’ (Charmed[] had originally showed it to me, but I couldn’t find afterwards) a really nice addon for my blog. It’s called Lightbox JS and it just makes image viewing a bit better.

Just click on the image below from a previous post about yahoo’s expired SSL certificate to see what it does

Filed by kargig at 03:28 under General
No Comments | 2,947 views

A small introduction to shells by Adam Spiers.

Bash now supports sockets

And if you wonder how that smiley “:) fishsticks$” on the prompt of user mendel appears:

Just edit your bashrc, add this line somewhere:
smiley () { if [ $? == 0 ]; then echo ':)';else echo ':(';fi; }
and then change your PS1 line to include this:
\$(smiley)
in the beggining…so that it looks somewhat like this:
PS1="\$(smiley) \[\033[01;31m\]\h\[\033[01;34m\] \W \$\[\033[00m\] "

It’s somewhat funny…

Filed by kargig at 12:57 under General,Linux
No Comments | 2,804 views

a nice quote I saw on a documentary:

Asking humans to describe god is like asking fish to describe the water they live in

Filed by kargig at 16:28 under General
1 Comment | 5,255 views

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanjatiziana/76484944/

isn’t that the worst restaurant ever ?? would you ever go eat there ? Even McDonald’s is better than this crap.

Filed by kargig at 18:25 under General
No Comments | 3,301 views

Open Source is coming to town!

Just take a look at the savings of a school using Open Source compared to what it would have payed if it used MS products!

Schools save with Open Source

That’s a nice present for the educational system economy…But I guess some contracts are more powerfull than a few more computers educating students.
Have you forgotten the contract between Microsoft and the Greek Government ?
Just take a look at all these wonderfull things the Greek Government gains!

WHO is going to take a look at the source from the Greek Government ? The ministers ? for WHAT ? auditing ???

Now THAT’s usefull. Learn how a buggy system works. An excellent education plan. Learn from other people’s mistakes.

Oh ok..now I feel secure. Our government conducts audits to maintain “secure computing environments”…wow! I guess that could not happen on any other platform..right ?

Yihaaa!!! Let’s travel to Redmond! Free tickets for the ministers! And their families ? Their little children ? won’t they play with uncle Bill ? …who cares about the rest of the citizens ?

enough. Get a life and start working for your citizens than your already full pockets.

Filed by kargig at 14:20 under General,Linux
1 Comment | 3,551 views

How many network cameras are unprotected ?

Cameras ?
No, No, Mooore Cameras
I was sure there were some more!
And what about a list with even more cameras with a screenshot of each one ?

Enough with cameras…I know I can find mp3s on Google, but is there anything more worth searching for ?

just enjoy the power of Googling 🙂

Filed by kargig at 20:35 under General,Internet,Privacy
No Comments | 3,075 views

It’s the first time I see such a message 🙂

Filed by kargig at 03:37 under General,Linux,Privacy
1 Comment | 4,385 views

Yesterday I installed a new firefox extension. Fasterfox gives firefox a nice speedup. Now it can almost be compared to Opera. Anyway…I think this extension is already my second favorite extension…after the Bugmenot extension of course.

Yesterday I had the most awkward chat to date. My friend Charis (aka Charmed[]) was on a plane from US to Germany and flying over the atlantic when he started chatting with me on my Greek Jabber server . I was amazed. That was so cool. Internet on a plane, what’s better than that when flying for hours and hours ? Watching boring movies ? naaah…
He was more than 30 hops away from me when I tracerouted him, with more than 3 seconds lag, but what the hell…it’s far better than nothing 🙂
I wish I could have internet here in Greece inside trains, planes, etc. Last time I travelled from Athens to Thessaloniki by train my mobile phone was unable to work throughout the whole travel because there was no signal…Internet on a train here in Greece is like 20 (light ?) years away from the current situation…

Filed by kargig at 18:43 under General,Internet
No Comments | 3,297 views

A list of great OpenOffice tutorials on basic and advanced tasks by Bruce Byfield:

OpenOffice Tutorials

Filed by kargig at 03:13 under General
No Comments | 4,972 views