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Random Tech: Speeding up Ubuntu 10.04 boot time

Jul 4th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: , ,
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Typically Ubuntu boots in around 15-45 seconds out of the box, but overtime this can change as you add more applications and the init scripts get bloated.  So here are a few quick tips to help you speed up Ubuntu’s boot time (I am using Ubuntu 10.04).

Start up

Ubuntu Start-up Applications

Remove unwanted items to speed up boot time

The easiest tweeks to make can be found in the “System > Preferences > Start-up Applications” menu.  On a desktop machine you are unlikely to need a few of the services, and on a server you are likely to need even fewer.

The applications which I have disabled are:

  • Blue-tooth Manager: If you don’t use blue-tooth then this service is a waste of resources!
  • Evolution Alarm Notifier: Personally I do not use evolution as a mail client, so there is no need for the notifier. Even if you do use evolution, you may not need the reminders!
  • GNOME Login Sound: As nice as that sound is, the monkey in the jungle gets annoying very quickly!
  • Visual Assistance: I don’t need the “accessibility” features.

You may find others that you don’t need, such as “Ubuntu One” which you might not make use of.

A good kick up the BUM

BUM or Boot Up Manager is a useful program that takes controlling start-up programs and services one step further.  You can use it to completly stop the CUPS (Printing) services and any other laptop only items if you are running a desktop or server.  It can be installed with the following apt-get command:

sudo apt-get install bum

I will leave you to decided which items to disable, as everyone’s Ubuntu installs can be different.

If you have any other speed-up tips please comment!!

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Random Tech: Synergy for Ubuntu and Windows 7

Jul 2nd
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: , , ,
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How many of us have got more than one computer on our desks? The answer is almost certainly a lot of us!  I have just set up my office in my new apartment (I moved on Monday!), and I decided that I didnt need to have to two keyboards and mice.

I have used synergy before, and have decided to use it again.  For those that have not seen synergy before, it is akin to a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse sharing hardware) but is purely software.  I can share a keyboard and mouse with any other machines on my network, they don’t even need to be in the same room (although what use that would be I don’t know!).  The best bit is that synergy is free, and runs on Linux, Windows and Mac, and takes moments to set up.

I have a Windows 7 laptop and an Ubuntu 10.04 desktop, synergy runs as a server on the laptop allowing the desktop to connect to it.  Installing Synergy on the desktop is easy, just download the installer from the Synergy website, as for Ubuntu just type:

sudo apt-get install synergy quicksynergy

Once installed you set up the server (in my case on the Windows machine) with a few simple clicks:

Synergy Screenshots

Synergy Screenshots

All you have to do is add the “screens” aka machines to the top list (Badwolf is my laptop, Paladon is my desktop : guess the naming convention!), then tell Synergy where the screens are in the links pane. You can get posh and set up the vertical positioning of the screens, e.g. 50% of the left of one is to the right of another, but I don’t see the need unless you have several machines.  This screen is accessed via the “Configure” button on the right hand screen shot.  Once set up click “Start”.

Read the rest of this entry »

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TTPMO: Virgin Broadband are all asses

Jun 29th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: , ,
1 comment

Well I’m writing this from the wordpress for iPhone application, as I currently do not have Internet access (apart from GPRS). I moved into a new house yesterday, with my lovely girlfriend Emma.

Last week I contacted Virgin Broadband’s “Home Movers Team” to inform that I was about to move house. I spoke to a very kind lady called Katherine l, who told me hat she would arrange for my service to be cut off from my old property in the morning and it to be connected in the afternoon. She also found that the previous tenants had not ended their contract, so she would get that sorted and call me if there were any problems. Simple aye?? Unfortunately not so.

Yesterday early afternoon I called Virgin’s “Quick Activation” team to get everything going. It seams I was with wrong team, so the put me through to Customer Support who spoke to me q while and put me back again.

Apparently Katherine never did anything, my service was still connected to my old flat, and the previous tenants service had no been removed. So the “man from India” (no racial slight intended) told me he “would submit the form, and contact me most quickly when he had the response from the requested form he had sent just now”.

An hours worth of phone calls later and I am told that the property has no Virgin Service (so what did they waste my morning disconnecting) and they must send round an engineer. Regardless of the fact that I have already connected everything and just need them to “flick the switch”. So I get Internet on Wednesday, and intend to get at least a months refund on Thursday once I speak to their complaints department!!!

Sorry if this post rambled but it’s hard to type a good one via an iPhone!!

UPDATE: Virgin Media tweeted back at me!! They said,

@jamesakadamingo Really sorry about the problems James, moving house is stressful enough. Do get in touch if you need further help. ST

I will get in contact with them, and see what ST can do to stop me being angry!!

Oh and look it’s a virgin service point in my flat how did thy get there, maybe it was ALREADY here?!?!

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O2 Drop Unlimited Data Contracts

Jun 13th
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: ,
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In the wake of Apple’s WWDC 2010 conference, it appears that network providers around the globe are now dropping their unlimited data packages (and not just for the iPhone). It seamed that only minutes after Steve Jobs sat down, AT&T dropped their package, and the next day @O2 did the same in the UK.

This instantly angered me and my fellow O2 iPhone friends, being limited to 500MB a month seamed painful. It got me thinking about how I use my phone, as I see myself as a relatively heavy user. I use my phone regularly to check Twitter, The Register, SlashDot, Google Blogs, Twitter Blogs, the BBC and much much more. And of course the odd bit of YouTube and WeRule (sad I know). I thought that this would surely mount up to a lot of data usage.

To my surprise I have only used 2.1GB of data since I got my iPhone (in October 2009), however the surprise was short lived. When I am at home, I have WiFi, when I am at work/the cafe/my Girlfriends/etc I have WiFi, so it all comes down the pipes rather than over the air!

So yes O2 are about to limit us, but as they say most of us won’t even notice!! My only concern is that with the incoming iPhone 4 (and iOS4 for the 3GS) some of us will start having streaming programs running in the background as we walk from A to B (listening to spotify or similar), so perhaps O2 should use a different model than just limiting us all! They say that the problem is the 1% that use crazy amounts of data, perhaps just put it in the fair use, and charge them rather than limiting us all!

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Seriously back up your databases!

May 23rd
Posted by: jamesakadamingo | Tags: , , ,
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Backups Backups and more Backups, always an important mantra. I was surprised to find that a fellow geek wasn’t backing up his MySQL database that runs his website. Yea he has backups for all the code files, but not for his content!

It frightened me when I found out how many people don’t backup their websites SQL databases. Every WordPress blog runs off of a SQL (normally MySQL) database, if you use a WP-Hosted blog then your safe as they back it up for you. If you host your own WP blog (or geeklog, drupal, etc, etc) then your backups are up to you!

It is for that reason that I have just finished knocking together a page detailing how my simple Linux script backups up my databases at regular intervals (some hourly, some every two, some once a day!) zips them and emails the smaller ones to me!

Check out the article on “Backing up MySQL databases automatically in Linux“.

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