fabianfuchs.com

It's a long time since i wrote the last article, but now i don't have another choice.

Perhaps you have heard of the new google wave, which will be available later this year. Wave is a new way of communication - it's a bit like email, wiki and instant messaging in one tool.

So, in wave it's possible to simply write a wave to someone else or to more than one recipient. Exactly like you do it with emails by now.
But it's also possible to edit the received email, comment on parts or the whole message and do many other great things. After that, you can share the whole communication process with someone else (there is a replay button so everyone can see who wrote something and in which order).
By this functionality you can start with an email, working on it with some friends or colleagues and after a while creating something you needed a wiki for by now.

Another application is instant messaging. The communication in wave is as fast as instant messaging (or even faster, by transmitting every single character!), so instead of switching between emailing and instand messaging you can simply use the same tool for both.

Today i changed the serendipity template from the andreas06 to the competition template (thanks to David Cummings [linked at the foot of every page]).

It's a more quiet template, and i hope you like it as i do.

If you want to see a preview of the old page, look here and imagine some modifications

Today i found a nice video from samsung, showing 24 SSD combined, on computerbase.de

They reached awesome 2GB/s, showing some nice real application test (eg opening the whole start menu in 12 seconds, ripping 700 mb from a dvd in less than a second and so on).
Have a look!

Since more than a half year, i am interested in convertibles.

I got first interested in the lenovo T61 and after that in the x200t.
But these convertibles are really expensive. As student i can get the x200t for 1764€, thats about 2200$.

But, lets get to the Asus Eee T91.
What are the advantages on this netconvertible?

It has taken some time for me to have some time with the windows seven beta. I tried to install it on a virtual machine (with Windows Virtual PC 7) on my laptop. But now i am convinced, that this old laptop (a Pentium M 1.73 Ghz does his job inside) is to slow for Windows 7 in the virtual PC environment.

It may be sufficient if i would install it directly. But i won't try because this could cause some serious damage and yet i don't have an external harddisk for sensible and important data it seems to be a bit to risky for me.

But even if it's too slow for really working with it, i could take a first impression of the new windows 7 beta.

The desktop and taskbar environment seems very shiny and friendly (if you click or hoovering something)
Not to see the name of a program anymore won't take me any bit of productivity and gives me more space for open programs in the taskbar - very useful for me!

I don't know wheter the calendar has been updated for vista and stayed the same nor, but compared to the calendar in windows xp (the one you get if you double click on the clock in the taskbar) is wonderfull. As i sometimes use the calender for looking up some dates quickly it seems very well.

But one thing i can't acquire a taste for is the way the control panel is managed.
It's a similar way i hated it in the "not classical" view in windows xp and windows vista too.
It seems as if i had to put up with the option to display all control panel elements.

As addition to the last entry. Microsoft repealed the limit of 2.5 million downloads for the beta. If you like to test it, you are able to do even now.

Yesterday afternoon, Microsoft published a first public beta for the new Windows - Codename Windows Seven.
If you are interested in testing the new Operating System you can download it here: Windows 7 beta download

Hopefully you will get one of the 2.5 Million downloads Microsoft pronounced to be allowed.

If you are too late for getting one of the official beta downloads, you might look at some torrent sites. You can take a first glance on Windows 7 even without a serial - but for only 30 days [unless you tweak at the right place] instead until 1th August!

Now, have fun. I'm going to install it on a virtual PC tomorrow and hope my graphic card will do Aero.

At the beginning of this semester, i got interested in Computer Vision and took a first glance at the existing libraries for C or C++.

I read a few articles about OpenCV and so on. After few researches i found out, that at University Karlsruhe some guys use the OpenCV library and even build up a Toolkit upon. The IVT - Interating Vision Toolkit, which is used for several cameras on roboter projects.

So i went to the computer science library and got a book published from some people there, named Computer Vision (Principles and Practice) which introduces into the Toolkit and some of the basics of Computer Vision.

Now i am reading more and more, seems a very nice and powerful toolkit to me.
Take a look at it!
ivt.sourceforge.net

Today, i wanted to reformat my brothers notebook and reinstall Windows XP.
Because he has a bit newer notebook than mine, he has a S-ATA Controller not supported by Windows XP out of the box.

To install Windows XP we need to supply this driver to the setup routine during installation. Most common by pressing F6 and inserting the floppy disk with the driver.
But unfortunately it is a laptop, so my brother has no floppy slot and we need to find another way:

Integrating the Intel Matrix Storage Manager into the Windows XP installation Disk with nLite!

Tutorial / Anleitung:
Zuerst einmal kurz dazu, warum man sich überhaupt die Mühe machen sollte PHP nicht einfach als mod_php oder als CGI in den Apache Webserver einzubinden, sondern dieses mittels suEXEC und FastCGI machen sollte.
1. mod_php sollte nicht verwendet werden, da hierbei die PHP Scripte alle unter dem User mit dem Apache selbst läuft ausgeführt werden. Das heißt, von PHP erzeugte Dateien können vom Benutzer selbst (per FTP zB) nicht mehr verändert/gelöscht werden. Noch dazu können unten Umständen Dateien von anderen Nutzern (wenn mehrere Nutzer auf dem selben Server untergebracht sind) eingesehen werden!
2. PHP mittels suEXEC und CGI ist hier schon besser. Die Scripte werden unter dem User ausgeführt, dem die Dateien auch gehören (sofern dies korrekt konfiguriert wurde). Allerdings ist das CGI Modul leider recht langsam, weshalb es hier zu erheblichen Nachteilen gegenüber der Performance zu mod_php kommt.
Hier kommt dann anstatt dem CGI-Modul das FastCGI Modul ins Spiel, womit wieder fast die gleiche Performance wir mit mod_php erreicht werden kann!
Des weiteren kann man sich, wenn man kein mod_php verwendet, eine wesentliche Neuerung des Apache2 gegenüber Apache 1.3 zu Nutze machen und den wesentlich performanteren mpm_worker (anstatt dem mpm-prefork) verwenden.

Der einzige verbleibende Nachteil bei der Sache ist, die relativ komplexe Konfiguration!

I'm sorry, but for the moment i can't supply the article you estimated.

Short information:

Standart Windows XP can't recognize the S-ATA Controller.
If you don't have the possibility to install the driver during Windows install from an floppy (if it is so, you can download the intel matrix storage driver from intel or from your mainboard manufacturer), you have to create a new Windows XP installation disk with nLite.

Here you can integrate Service Pack 2 and the needed drivers (download @ microsoft and google should help).

I'm sorry, that i can't supply more information for the moment, i'm looking forward to rewrite the article as soon as it is possible for me.

Fabian Fuchs

edit: Please look at: Windows XP and S-ATA Boot CD integration with nLite

I needed these posts to recreate the article about Debian Etch with php and so on under the correct URL.

The other Articles can not be refound, because of a harddisk crash on my local laptop and a re-installation of the server without a proper sql backup. :-/