Doc Blades

Connecting to SPSU wireless in Ubuntu with wicd

I’ve noticed from browsing forums and from my own personal experience, connecting to any WPA encrypted wireless network in Ubuntu is less than stable. In my own experience, my connection stops every 10 or 15 minutes.

To solve this problem, I recently switched to Wicd and now I get a nice stable connection on my home wireless. But here at Southern Poly, I had some trouble connecting to the wireless network. After some googling, I found this script: http://wicd.net/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=200. What I’m follows is a step by step HOWTO for connecting to Southern Polytechnic State University’s wireless network in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

1. Add the wicd package
   

   sudo apt-get install wicd

   It’s going to want to remove network-manager, but don’t panic, you won’t miss it. After the install, the gnome panel is going to complain about network manager not working, but this is also normal.

2. Download this template (eap-ttls) to your desktop and move it to your /etc/wicd/encryption/templates folder.
   

   sudo mv ~/Desktop/eap-ttls /etc/wicd/encryption/templates

3. Now add the template to wicd’s active list
   

   sudo echo eap-ttls >> /etc/wicd/encryption/templates/active

4. Start wicd.In the menus, click “Applications”->”Internet”->”Wicd Network Manager”
5. Find “hornet” in the network list.
6. Click Properties.
7. Leave all of the choice boxes unclicked except for Use Encryption.
8. In the drop down box, choose EAP-TTLS
9. Under Identity, type your user name (the part of your school email address that comes before @spsu.edu)
10. Under Password, type your password. The same one you use for your school email.Your property window should look like this, now.
11. Click Ok.
12. Now click Connect and you should be good to go.

Tags: howto, SPSU, ubuntu, wicd, wireless

Hostile Email from the Registrar

So, I got this email from the registrar today, and it just drips with hostility. Read along and see if you agree.

(I read the extra spaces as pauses where the writer is trying to give me the stink eye down the web-o-tubes)

edit: added subject, equally disturbing

More »

Tags: email, hostility, school

My Wife’s Etsy Page

(or how to write a shameless plug)

http://flutterbeads.etsy.com

She makes some neat stuff, and is only selling this stuff to offset the cost of the gazillions of beads and stuff she’s buying. And she takes requests. What’s not to like?

I keep trying to convince her to make some nerdy jewelry. Like a millenium falcon necklace, or stargate earrings.

Tags: art

Hate to break it to you, but you’re not getting into college

Step 1) Learn to spell your sponsor’s name.

Step 2) Give up on “Colage.” You’re not going to pass the intranse x-am.

Step 3) Focus on the skills that will help you later in life. Like running a McDonalds cash register, or finding a good park bench to sleep on.

Tags: misspellings

Who Else Has Received This Fishing Email Claiming To Be From Gmail?

This special thing about this one is that the spam filters let it through. Usually those spam filters catch just about everything. I’m impressed.

It almost looks official. All of the links in the email go to their correct addresses at Google, except of course for the “Click Here to update your account” one.

It goes to some website at http://accupdategmail.110mb.com, which is a pretty good spoof of the gmail login page. Except that the space counter doesn’t go up, and it’s only at 2 gigs instead of the 7+ that we have here in 2009. If you’re fool enough to log in, the page captures your account name and password and dumps you back to the real login page.

Needless to say, I wrote a nasty message in the “password” section.

Tags: fishing, gmail, google, spam

Mother of all Blues Mixes

Tags: art, music, youtube

I’m Literally, Literally Reading a Blog

For all of us grammer Nazis who get all offended when people use the English language incorrectly, there’s a new blog just for us.

Literally, a Web Log covers press conferences, newspaper reports and other errata that incorrectly use the term “literally”. Like “I literally love this!”, or “I can literally taste that chicken from here.”

Maybe reading this will reduce the urge to go on a grammer rant in the forums literally every time someone sucks at language.

Tags: blog, grammer

WTF Wednesdays – ROFL?

They’re called “Chuckle Buddies”, but frankly I’m scared.

Tags: toys, wtf

Felon Escapes From Police Onto Kennesaw State Campus

Today at around 3:30pm, a felon escaped from police custody at the Waffle House across the street from Kennesaw State University. He was being transported from Orlando, Fl to Tennessee when he broke loose from the officer and managed to get out of his handcuffs. From there, he ran on to Campus.

Apparently he was spotted, or the police dogs tracked him to (I’m getting conflicting stories) the wooded area next to the science building. Which is where I have my classes. By luck, I wasn’t in the building, I was a couple of buildings away.

Then came the lock down. We were ushered into the nearest buildings and locked inside, and crisis management teams were posted at the entrances.

From my own point of view, Kennesaw’s response to the situation was quick and appropriate. They cleared the outside of the buildings of students to allow the police dogs and choppers to work more efficiently while ensuring the students’ safety. The parking garages were the most dangerous places the students could go, so they prevented us from leaving campus.

Granted, there were some hiccups in the system. Whatever the reason, some of the students were allowed to leave before the “all clear”. I myself was allowed to leave the building I was in and wasn’t stopped until I headed for the Science building. No one even told me the situation until I asked a student what all the helicopters were for, despite my passing a crisis management team on my out of a building.

Once the all clear signal was given, it took another 45 minutes to actually get off campus. In this case, it was because the police were searching all of the cars for the felon. We were given a visual inspection, and anyone driving a car was required to open his trunk.

Of course, being a suburb of Atlanta, there was plenty of news coverage, and news choppers were flying overhead during the entire incident, proving a constant droning soundtrack during the situation. Fortunately, that means that you have plenty of other stories to read, so you don’t have to take my word for it.

• WSB’s coverage
• Fox 5 Atlanta
• 11 Alive
• CBS Atlanta

Tags: ksu, news, police

Bob Ross Radio

BobRoss.fm

Remember listening to Bob Ross talking about happy trees? Remember that sense of peace and calm? Well, now you can experience it again. BobRoss.fm broadcasts Bob Ross talking 24/7. So you can use it to relax after that hectic drive home, or use it to fall asleep, or use it to paint your own landscape scene. Whatever you like.

Calmly.

[BobRoss.fm]

Tags: art, bob ross