Planet TLLTS

First time this happened! A coworker asked me today how to get into his Linux Mint box after he forgot his password. Of course I rattled off the old GRUB way to get things done, but, what?? This is GRUB 2! No so fast there! Turns out it’s quite different.

You hold down the shift key while booting to get to the grub menu.
You hit ‘e’ to edit your boot options.
You change the kernel line options on the very end of the kernel line to read “rw init=/bin/bash”.
You press F10 to boot.

Once booted you are dropped immediately into a shell prompt where you can change your password with the “passwd username” command. Reboot and you’re home free!

I have been carrying a Targus laptop backpack around with me for years. Well, let me qualify that a little. I have been carrying that around with me for years while I have been trying other bags.

Honestly, I was perfectly happy with that Targus bag for the longest time, until I got old In the last 4 years or so, I have had some issues with my right shoulder, and slinging that backpack around on that shoulder has occasionally aggravated that. I know what you are saying, why not wear that backback as a backpack? Well, there are a lot of reasons like accessibility and convenience and comfort, along with the face that it makes me look/feel like more of a geek/dork/fat than I am already.

I tried to find a good sling backpack, but they are all either ridiculously expensive, cheaply made, too small or the sling is on the right hand side. Most recently I tried a Solo messenger bag, which worked in form factor, but had it’s own issues like the pocket in the flap bulged out nasty when used, the flap closure clip was single in the middle of the bag which made the bag front roll up on the corners, and the pockets just weren’t adequate enough for my space needs.

Enter the last try, the Rothco Vintage Classic Army Messenger Heavy Weight Shoulder Bag. This is a messenger-style bag made out of heavy/durable canvas material. It has 2 roomy front pockets big enough for me to carry all my odds and ends including my Kindle, usb drives, mail, my little travel hygene/medial kit,etc. The 2 side/drink pockets are great Normally those kinds of pockets are only 3 or 4 inches of mesh, but these are almost full bag height solid canvas pockets which work fantastic for carrying things like all my assorted cables and my glasses case, etc., and can be secured with snaps at the top. There is one small zippered pocket on the inside that is big enough to carry all your assorted pens and paraphernalia. Lastly the single main interior compartment is quite sizable. Although not padded for laptop carry itself, you could easily fit a 15″+ laptop in there with plenty of room to spare for your chargers, books, papers and probably your lunch too. Also, worth noting is that the bag, even when packed, does not look oddly malformed or too bulky to carry comfortably.

I mentioned previously that this was made of durable heavy canvas. That level of durable construction appears in every aspect of the bag. The stitching is solid, the hardware all the way around is metal and build for hard use. I am quite impressed with the strap itself. It too is made of a wide width heavy canvas, attached directly to the bag and is not removable. Many other messenger bags use cheap plastic clips or thin metal dog clips which invariably bind up on something and detach at the most inopportune moment. An added bonus of the strap being canvas is it does NOT slide off my shoulder

All in all it’s a great bag and so far I am quite happy with it. For around $25 you just can’t beat the price. I highly recommend this for the rest of you commuters, it gets 2 thumbs up!

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, this one had me riveted to the page that it did. The intrigue of the series keeps getting better and better, that it does. Eddie is by far my favorite character, although Roland is a very close second.

While Susannah is not a likable character to be, I am curious to see where her story goes from here. I am glad it seems Calahan is along for the ride. I never expected so many references to pop-culture from this series but I am glad they are there.

This series has truly changed my opinion of Stephen King. I had so soured a posture towards him largely because many of the adaptions of his novel into movies. While not bad, they just never grew to strongly on me. It is clear that his work should never be judged by that media and needs to be considered solely upon the media it was created for.

Fantastic book, fantastic series, I look forward to the next.



View all my reviews

Been too long since I’ve posted anything on this blog. What I have I been up to? Well, I sold the Archos 101 tablet in order to get a Viewsonic gtablet on the cheap from woot.com. It’s much more powerful than the Archos and actually has a dual core tegra2 processor in it. I’ve nuked the default version of android and installed Cyanogenmod 7 on it. It works very well and I’ve enjoyed using it every day. I even got the Netflix streaming application working on it without any issues. This year I’ve decided not to go to OLF (Ohio Linuxfest) for a couple reasons. First off I’ve been to the conference multiple times already. It’s a great show that I highly recommend people to attend if you’re interested in Linux and Open Source. Another reason I’m not going is that my proposed talk was rejected. While I enjoy going to Linux conferences and just hanging out I feel like I’ll get more out of the experience if I actually contribute with a talk. Finally I plan on attending the Maker Faire in NYC the weekend after OLF. I’ve heard so many good things about the Maker Faire (both in San Francisco and NYC) over the years that I feel I really need to finally check it out. I’m trying to get my kids interested in science and what better way than bringing the whole family along. Let me know if you plan on going and perhaps we can get together for a bit.

Jesus Lied by C.J. Werleman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a tough book to review on some levels. I love religion and history, especially dealing with Christianity. This book does a good job of reviewing some contemporary historical and scholarly research, but the manner this delivers comes into question. The author is an unapologetic atheist and has no qualms issuing statements to insult those of faith. There were many times I cringed at his humor, that I did. More often than not he did make an effort to be offensive. To me that took a bit away from the book.

Had he presented the theories and research without the profanity I probably would have rated the book higher, but then again, what should one expect from the title of the book?

Why is it I cringe at this kind of profane humor directed a religions?



View all my reviews