Recovering partition table...

There's a tool call TeskDisk. To make your life easier simply download latest GParted LiveCD, TestDisk is included in it. TestDisk executable file also available for DOS, Win32, MacOSX and Linux. Executable TestDisk will run on top of the OS, but there's an disadvantage especially for legacy Windows OS.

By using TestDisk from GParted LiveCD you don't even need to bother about the OS and all other craps like below.

Windows 2000 SP3 added support for 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA), which allows the OS to access hard disks larger than 137 GB. But, 48-bit LBA support must be 'enabled' in Windows 2000 SP3 or above! To do so, the EnableBigLba value must be defined and set properly in the Windows Registry. (text copied from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/OS_Notes#Windows_2000_and_48-bit_LBA)

Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) adds support for 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA), which allows you to access hard disks larger than 137 GB. (text copied from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/OS_Notes#Windows_XP_and_48-bit_LBA)

gtk/gtk.h: No file or directory found when compiling...

To do the checking, run this command

    $ pkg-config --cflags gtk+-2.0

If the output is something like this

    Package gtk+-2.0 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
    Perhaps you should add the directory containing `gtk+-2.0.pc'
    to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
    No package 'gtk+-2.0' found

Install libgtk2.0-dev package

    $ sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

Windows 7 "endless reboot"...

So now we have new terms for Windows, dubbed as "endless reboot". It seems like it happen to Vista users attempting to upgrade to Windows 7. Also another issue known as "62% bug", which finds the Windows 7 installation stalling at 62% complete. Microsoft’s support forums are rapidly filling with users reporting both issues.

If my memory serve me correctly, including these two now we have

• Blue screen of death
• Green ribbon of death
• Endless reboot
• 62% bug

What's next?

To Linux user, don't be so happy. It still have "kernel panic" problem sometimes.

Moral of the story.
There's no such thing as "Perfect OS". From the software development point of view, there will always be a bugs. If someone said that it's perfect that means it's bullshit, marketing people tends to say this by sweeping the truth under the carpet...

Fake Google Chrome OS...

People gets too excited to know how Google Chrome OS looks like thus giving an opportunity for someone to fake it :) If the fake creator targeted high traffic for his/her site, I guess he/she had successfully did it :)

Read it from here.

It's human nature to seek info into something that has been given a lot of coverage on it yet it is still not ready (Windows Longhorn anyone?)...

Rise of the laptop...

Screenshots...

Last year, an old friend of mine (Hazman) has given his old laptop (Compaq Presario V2000) for my kids (at first I thought he asked me to fixed it for him). The laptop is still in good condition but without battery and power adapter. I bought a brand new power adapter for RM 120.

Since the laptop only have 256Mb ram, I've installed XP Pro (pirated version) but once connected to internet I'm getting the BSOD complaining about NTOSKernel error. Installed Xubuntu, everything works fine except that when playing an online games the response was too slow. In the end both my kids use back my old machine.

Last weekend I managed to get a secondhand DDR1 PC2700 512Mb ram. Bought it from Meri for RM 65. On Sunday, I've given a new life to the laptop by installing Ubuntu 9.10 beta. The kids love it (not because of the OS and definitely they don't care about it, it's because they can play online games better now).

Talk about Ubuntu 9.10, I noticed there's new software included by default (apart from Empathy). Palimpsest Disk Utility, a nice utility that will notify you if your harddisk life going to end soon. It happen to this laptop :) I guess I need to prepare some money for the new harddisk...

MultiGet Download Manager...

Finally I've found a good download manager for Linux. All this while I'm using D4X and had thought that it's the only available download manager for Linux. Yes, I know wget, curl etc. I'm talking about something with GUI instead of command line. MultiGet does the job for me now. Great thing about MultiGet is that it can run on Windows 2000/XP, almost all Linux desktops, MacOs and BSDs.

Features

• Multi-task/multi-thread/multi-server usage
• User-friendly interface (resembling Flashget)
• Multiple language support
• Proxy support
• Extension ignoring/capture
• FTP anonymous pass
• Panel icon

MultiGet is available in Ubuntu Universe repository. To install, open terminal and type

    $ sudo apt-get install multiget

For the list of download managers available for Linux, you can refer to this blog.

Easiest way renaming file extension (in bulk)...

From uppercase to lowercase or vice versa.

In Linux,
1) All files in a directory

    $ for f in *.JPG; do mv "$f" "${f%JPG}jpg"; done

2) Files within subdirectory(ies) included

    $ for f in `find -name "*.JPG" -type f`; do mv "$f" "${f%JPG}jpg"; done

To learn more, go to Command line reference: Database and Operating Systems.