IBGerm

Linux is brilliant at serving files.All you need is a relatively low-powered PC, a decent amount of storage and somewhere safe to hide it.

1. Install the software

We’ve chosen to use Ubuntu Server Edition for two reasons. First, it’s the same distribution that most people know and love, only optimized for use on a server. Second, you still have access to exactly the same packages and repositories as you do with with the desktop version, which makes installing and using software easy.

Put the disc into the machine you want to use as the server and select your language followed by ‘Install Ubuntu Server’. Unlike the desktop version, there’s no graphical installer. Instead you’ll need to choose your configuration settings from the pages of options that appear throughout the installer.

Don’t let this put you off; there aren’t any questions that can’t easily be answered, and the installation is effectively no different from a standard desktop installation.

The first question asks you again for the language, the second for your location and the third for your keyboard layout. After a brief pause, you’ll be asked for a hostname. You might want to change this to something like ‘mediaserver’, rather than the default ‘ubuntu’ to avoid confusion with any other Ubuntu installations you may have running on the same network.

2. Partition the disk

The next installation step is disk configuration. This is a much more important consideration for a media server than it is for a standard desktop installation, because of the sheer volume of files that you’ll be storing on it.

The most convenient solution is to use an old disk of around 10GB (or less) for the Linux installation and a high capacity drive for your media content. You can then select ‘Guided – Use Entire Disk’ on the installation page, then select the disk to install to and give Ubuntu complete control over how it creates the installation. Your media storage disk can be configured later.

PARTITION YOUR DRIVE: If you create a separate root partition, you’ll be able to update your system without worrying about your files

The second-best option is to create two partitions on a single drive, using the smaller partition for the root file system and the other partition for your data. This way, you can update the root partition if you need to, or easily back up your data partition without infecting it with system files.

After skipping through the partition section you’ll be asked for your real name, username and password. You should give this a little more thought than with the desktop, as it’s likely that your server will be on all the time and accessible from the internet, so a secure username/password combination is vital.

Press Continue to skip the HTTP proxy installation, and choose to install security updates automatically when asked. Finally, don’t select any of the default server packages unless you want to enable SSH for remote administration, then click on Continue to install the system.

3. Configure MediaTomb

We’re now only a couple of steps away from completion. When your machine restarts after installing all the main packages, you need to log in and type sudo apt-get install mediatomb into a terminal. This will grab the media-streaming software and install it on your system.

All you need to now is type mediatomb to run the server. Watch the output, because you should see something like the following:

2009-07-16 15:20:52 INFO: MediaTomb Web UI can be reached by following this link: 2009-07-16 15:20:52 INFO: http://192.168.1.89:49152/

This is the port and the IP address for the server, and you should now be able to point a web browser on the same network at this address and use the simple user interface to add the files and folders that contain your various bits of media.

After a few moments, the media should appear on any UPnP streaming client, such as those on a Playstation 3 and XBox 360.

A survey by insurance company Diamond has found that a fifth of women admit to applying make-up while driving. It is estimated that the practice causes 500,000 accidents every year. 

According to Sian Lewis, managing director of Diamond, women who drive and apply make-up at the same time risk both the safety of others around them and a ticket for careless driving.

"Applying your make-up when you’re driving means your full attention is not on the road ahead… Women are generally great at doing more than one thing at once but this is definitely one area where multitasking should not be practiced," said Lewis.

Source: www.ananova.com

Alaska – The Juneau Police Department has reported life-threatening  injuries in the case of a 25-year-old man who used a .22-caliber rifle Friday afternoon to shoot himself in the mouth in order to determine whether or not it was loaded.

The release indicated that "the man joked that there was one way to find out if it was loaded and, at that point, he reportedly put the rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger." Sgt. Dave Campbell said: "It looks like it was a tragic accident."

It occurred in Lemon Creek as he and others were planning a trip to the gun range. The man was found unresponsive but alive. "It’s still a bullet and when you’re talking about close range like that, small calibers are very dangerous," said Campbell.

source: AP

Associated Press

TULSA, Okla. — Arena football isn’t dead yet.

Officials from what will be known as Arena Football 1 said Monday that they will have at least 16 teams ready to play in 2010, including four in former Arena Football League markets: Salt Lake City, Chicago, Phoenix and Orlando, Fla. The Arizona Rattlers and Orlando Predators played in the old AFL, but the new league’s Chicago and Salt Lake City teams did not.

The league will also have teams from the AFL offshoot arenafootball2, as well as at least one team from another indoor league. It will be based in Tulsa. Commissioner Jerry Kurz said it would be a "brand-new league" not connected with the AFL or af2.

"There has been arena football before," said Kurz, a former af2 commissioner. "It’s been done well but not as good as it’s going to be done this time."

Kurz said more details of the league’s business structure — including what the players might be paid — will be announced during the coming weeks. He said the league would use a schedule similar to that used by the AFL and af2, with games starting in late March or early April and running through the summer.

Dan Newman, the owner of the Bossier-Shreveport (La.) BattleWings — who are moving from the af2 to the new league- said Arena Football 1 will use a rule book identical to those used by the AFL and af2.

"This is arena football," Newman said.

Arena Football 1 said its markets also will include Little Rock, Ark.; Fresno, Calif.; Des Moines, Iowa; Jacksonville, Fla.; Lexington, Ky.; Milwaukee; Oklahoma City; Spokane, Wash.; Huntsville, Ala.; Kennewick, Wash.; and Tulsa.

The new league said eight more teams have submitted membership applications. Newman said the league is negotiating with seven other former AFL franchises, including those in Tampa and San Jose.

Hank Stern, vice president of the San Jose SaberCats, said Monday that while that team was "looking to bring arena football back to San Jose," he wouldn’t comment about the new league "until things become clearer."

Kurz said other franchises will be considered for inclusion in the league through Oct. 9.

"We’ll grow as it fits us in a smooth economic model," he said. "Other leagues in many different sports have just grown to grow and we don’t want to do that. We want to make sure we go into markets that want us."

The old AFL canceled its 2009 season and folded in August, ending a 22-year run for the high-scoring indoor brand of football that helped launch the career of Super Bowl winner Kurt Warner. Play in af2 was never disrupted, but teams ended the season unsure of what would happen next. The AFL owned 50.1 percent of af2.

Kurz said that while previous arena football leagues were "well-intended," their business model resulted in overspending.

"The sports business has to be like every other business," he said. "You can’t spend more than you generate in revenue."

Kurz and Newman dismissed the possibility of a new version of the AFL forming. Newman noted the AFL canceled its 2009 season "because of a collective bargaining agreement that they agreed to that spiraled out of control. The financial model was broken and finally it broke the machine. It didn’t work. The AFL is not in existence, it’s in bankruptcy.

"They will not play in 2010. That precipitated the necessity to go to the drawing board and come up with a financially viable model that works to play arena football."

If the new league’s owners are patient and market the league correctly, there’s no reason it can’t succeed, even during the current recession, said Mark Nagel, a professor who teaches sports management at the University of South Carolina.

"If they can keep those expenses in control and have a good plan to attract the consumer who’s looking to do something that’s affordable, it might work in this economy," Nagel said.

Shy Anderson, the chief operating officer for the AFL’s Dallas Desperados — who won’t play in the new league — agreed with Nagel’s assessment, saying the business model for the AFL "wasn’t solid." He said the new league "will be great for the fans and the players who want to continue playing football."

"It is an entertainment sport," Anderson said. "It’s not a pure sport. It’s football played indoors with a lesser number of players. But there is a niche for it."

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press

A news conference is planned Monday to announce the formation of a new arena football league with teams from the former AFL and af2 leagues.

Representatives of the af2 teams in Oklahoma City, Arkansas, and Spokane, Wash., all confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that they intend to be part of the new league that will be based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz general manager Christie Cook says ownership meetings are planned this weekend in Tulsa to finalize which other cities will have teams.

The old AFL canceled its 2009 season before eventually folding in August, while af2 continued play in smaller cities across the U.S.

Games in the new league called Arena Football 1 are to start in late March or early April.

The teams involved are unknown at this time. Will they just bring those teams  back that don’t have another Pro Football team? They are also looking at the possibility if they have allot of team, they may try and do a Tier I and Tier II system. I for one like the fact the Arena Football is back.

Source: AP

You should note that the new Windows 7 taskbar allows you to dock items to the taskbar, combining the features of both the normal taskbar as well as the Quick Launch. For more on this, be sure to read through our coverage of the Windows 7 beta if you haven’t already.

The above screenshot is the Windows 7 taskbar after changing back to XP/Vista mode, and adding the quick launch bar back. Looks just like Vista doesn’t it?

Adding the Quick Launch Bar Back to Windows 7

To add the toolbar back, you’ll want to right-click on an open area of the taskbar, and choose Toolbars \ New Toolbar from the menu. You should probably also unlock the taskbar at this point.

Now’s the slightly tricky part… you’ll want to paste the following path into the location bar:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Make sure that the location bar shows the full path, like the next screenshot, before you choose the “Select Folder” button.

You’ll immediately notice the Quick Launch toolbar on the taskbar, but it’s all the way over on the right, so you’ll want to click on the dotted lines and then drag the toolbar all the way to the left (which is slightly tricky sometimes). Note that you’ll need to right-click and unlock the taskbar before you can move the toolbar.

There we go, it’s over on the left… but now you’ll want to adjust the regular taskbar toolbar to be closer to the left, so use the dotted lines to drag it over as well.

The normal Quick Launch that we’re used to doesn’t have text, so right-click on the dotted lines and uncheck “Show Text” as well as “Show Title” from the menu.

Once you’re sure it’s the way you want it, you should check the “Lock the taskbar” again.

And there you are, the quick launch bar has returned and there’s virtually no way anybody would know this is Windows 7.

Microsoft detailed the minimum system requirements for Windows 7. According to PC World, the requirements are:

• 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit) 
• 1GB of main memory 
• 16GB of available disk space
• Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)
• A DVD-R/W drive

It is funny, these are basically the same specs for Vista.

Partition Your Hard Drive

Before you go installing Windows 7, the first thing you need to do is create a new partition on your hard drive to hold the new installation of Windows. Partitioning your hard drive will vary depending on whether you’re running XP or Vista—namely because Vista has a partition tool baked in, XP does not.

Partition Your Hard Drive in XP

To partition your hard drive in Windows XP, you’ll need to download some sort of third-party partitioning software. There are a lot of options available, but I prefer to stick with the previously mentioned GParted live CD, a free, open source boot CD that can handle all kinds of partitioning duties.

To use it, just download the GParted Live CD, burn it to a CD, then reboot your computer (booting from the disc). You’ll boot right into the partitioning tool. HowtoForge’s previous guide to modifying partitions with GParted is a great place to start, but it’s a fairly basic procedure:

1. Resize your current OS drive to free up enough space for a Windows 7 partition (the minimum system requirements ask for 16GB).
2. Create a new partition from the newly freed space.
3. Apply your changes.

Partition Your Hard Drive in Vista

The folks at Redmond were kind enough to include a disk partitioning tool in Vista if you know where to look. So go to Control Panel -> System and Maintenance (skip this one if you’re in Classic view) -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. Once you launch the Computer Management tool, click on Disk Management under the Storage heading in the sidebar. It’s partitioning time.

In a nutshell, you’ll need to shrink your current OS partition to free up at least 16GB of disk space (per the Windows 7 minimum system requirements), then create a "New Simple Volume" from the free space.

 Install Windows 7

Insert your Windows 7 disc and reboot your computer (you’ll need to have enabled booting from your DVD drive in your system BIOS, but most PCs will have this enabled by default).

Once the DVD boots up it’s a simple matter of following along with the fairly simple installation wizard. When you’re choosing installation type, be sure to select Custom (advanced) and choose the partition you set up above. (Be careful here. Choosing the wrong partition could mean wiping your other Windows installation altogether, so make sure you pick the new partition you just created.)

After you select the partition, go grab yourself a drink and let the installer do its work. Windows will run through some installation bits, restart a few times in the process. Eventually you’ll be prompted to set up your account, enter your license key, and set up Windows. Keep your eyes open for fun new Windows 7 features, like your new homegroup (and the accompanying password). When it’s finished, you’re up and rolling with your new Windows 7 installation.

DONE!!

See other post on how to change the boot loader menu.

Yes, you can.

Yesterday, I installed Windows 7 Pro on my 5 year old Dell M70 laptop. It currently had only Windows Xp pro. I at first had to change and create a partition on my hard drive to install Windows 7 I gave it at least 20 gigs of free space. I used a Live Linux  Cd called GParted ( I will link to that later). So now, I set up  XP/ Windows 7 dualboot. The Windows 7 installer set the  default boot choice to  Windows 7 and renamed the XP as “Previous version of Windows”, also a timeout of 30sec set.

If you try to modify the boot options the old-fashioned with boot.ini file, you get the following warnings:

    !!Warning: Boot.ini is use d on Windows XP and earlier operating systems!! 
    !!Warning: Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options!!

If you examine, Windows 7 doesn’t have NTFS write permissions on XP system partition, even though it creates a "boot sector" inside it, cause it is the first one in line on the system disk, which is shared half on half by both systems.

So I booted into Windows 7, and run the following commands: 

• By default Vista/Windows 7 open command prompt in user mode, so we need to change the permission. To do so, just execute this command:
  Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > (right-click & "Run as administrator") Command prompt
• bcdedit /set {legacy} Description "Windows XP Pro" (Changes the text description of the "Legacy" OS line in the boot menu. he quotation marks must be included in the command)
• bcdedit /default {legacy} ( Sets the legacy (Windows XP) OS as {default} boot item)
• Running bcdedit /? (shows all commands one is able to use)

Also, if you go into the system properties (right click my computer,properties, Advanced System Settings, Click the advanced tab, under start up and Recovery, setting,) You can change the Default as well as the time to display it.

"Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12) found themselves trapped/lost in a storm water drain in Adelaide, South Australia. The interesting point of this article that makes it Blog worthy, is that although the teenage girls had mobile phones, instead of calling for help using 000 (Australia’s 911 number), they decided to notify people through Facebook. My guess is it was something along the lines of ‘Jane Doe is like totally trapped in a storm water drain, really need help, OMG!’. Luckily a young friend of the girls was online at the time and was able to call the proper authorities."

I think this is a true reflection on society today!

Points to be made-

Ages 10 and 12 are not typically teenagers but..you must be at least 13 to have a Facebook account. They have Facebook accounts. So they must be 13, and hence teenagers, even if they’re only 10 and 12.

Everyone knows that if you need to call for rescue, you use twitter.

"HELP ME! I am stuck and in real trouble and hurt real bad! I think my leg is broken, and I am losing a lot of blood. You can find me at" http://locme.

Maybe they didn’t have a signal strange enough for a call, but a text could get out (I hope this is the correct one).