The Spring 2009 Semester at McNeese State University is over and my final grades are in.
This Saturday I will graduate Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Finance, with an overall GPA of 3.70 (my GPA for the three years full-time study at McNeese State University is 4.0).
All I want to say is “Thank you and praise God!”
This August will find me at Louisiana State University’s Hebert School of Law, as a miserable first year law student.
# Baidu
61.135.168
61.135.190
# Naver
61.247.222.53
61.247.222.55
# Searchme
# UA “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Charlotte/1.1; http://www.searchme.com/support/)”
# 208.111.154.15
# 208.111.154.16
# 208.111.154.27
# Yanga
# UA “Yanga WorldSearch Bot v1.1/beta (http://www.yanga.co.uk/)”
91.205.124.3
# Youdao
# UA “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YoudaoBot/1.0; http://www.youdao.com/help/webmaster/spider/; )”
61.135.249.203
61.135.249.216
So I voted for the other guy…
But so far I’ve been pretty happy with how the big O (not Oprah, the other one) has been handling things. Other than the constant doom and gloom with every speech, the things he’s actually been doing have been pretty smart.
Aside from the fact that I hate the very idea of a stimulus and bailouts, if you are going to have one, it ought to be big enough to get the job done. His isn’t, but it’s a step in the right direction. Another good step is his move to set up a site dedicated to transparency in how the stimulus is spent. Check out recovery.gov to see this effort.
I recently wrote a blurb about Jaimie Sirovich’s WordPress Firewall script. I’ve had a chance to review it and I must say that it is a real handy piece of work!
It caught five nearly simultaneous attacks last night. Here is a screenshot of the email it sent me:
(Click to enlarge.)
The plugin is easy to use and the default configuration was perfect for me.
Way to go Jaimie!
So I decided to install Ubuntu on a desktop at my office. Naturally, I used Wubi to perform the installation, which was startlingly simple and easy. Wubi allows you to install Ubuntu Linux on your Windows machine without creating a new partition or otherwise screwing up your file system.
The first thing I did after the install was come up with a bash script that allows me to access my Windows files from my Gnome desktop. I then configured the system to execute the script while booting so I can access the Windows files without having to manually run the script every time I boot. Here are the details:
I created a file called “winmount” in my Desktop. Here are the contents of “winmount”:
#! /bin/bash
# script to mount the windows drive
mount -t ntfs /dev/sda3 /mnt/windrive -o "umask=022"
You will want to replace the “sda3″ part with whatever your Ubuntu system calls your Windows drive. You can find out what your system calls it by running the GNOME Partition Manager. You will probably have to install it first, then run it using the command in a console window:
sudo gparted
You will see a list of partitions. Look for the largest one; it’s probably your main Windows partition, and will be named something similar to “sda3″.
After you are finished creating your “winmount” file, you should set its execute permission. I think the easiest way to do it is to right click the file’s icon and click Properties, then click the Permissions tab, then put a check in the “Execute” checkbox.
Then, open a console window and execute this command to copy your file to the right location:
sudo cp /home/username/Desktop/winmount /etc/init.d/
Make sure to replace “username” with your user name.
Then, still in the console window, navigate to /etc/init.d by executing this command:
cd /etc/init.d
Finally, still in the console window, tell the system to execute the file at bootup with this command:
sudo update-rc.d winmount defaults
After completing these steps, restart your computer. Then, navigate to /mnt/windrive . Your Windows directories and files are available in that directory. Note that the owner is “root”.
A couple of miscellaneous things I did was make a link to my /mnt/windrive directory on my Desktop, and delete the winmount file from my desktop.
In coming up with this tutorial, I accessed the following sources:
http://technical-itch.co.uk/2006/11/06/how-to-access-your-windows-hard-drive-from-ubuntu/
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=379253
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/manual/gparted_manual.html#gparted-getting-started
Note: If following this tutorial screws up your computer, it’s not my fault!
Jaimie Sirovich just sent me a Facebook chat about his new WordPress Firewall script. I just installed it, and will post my thoughts about it when I’ve had a chance to evaluate how it does.
After installing, go to the WordPress Admin panel, click on “Settings”, and then “Firewall” to manage the script.
I saw a nice SEO position tracker today. You should check out ExactFactor.com and check your site’s rankings. You can check them against a competitors site and sign up for weekly email reports. The service is (currently) free.
