Start by executing this command:

cd /usr/share/vim && sudo vim vimrc

After entering your password press i to enter insertion mode and add the following lines after the line set backspace=2:

set showmatch           " automatically show matching brackets
set binary noeol        " do NOT put a carriage return at the end of the last line
set backspace=indent,eol,start  " make that backspace key work the way it should
set history=100         " keep 100 lines of history
set ruler               " show the cursor position
syntax on               " syntax highlighting
set hlsearch            " highlight the last searched term
filetype plugin on      " use the file type plugins

" When editing a file, always jump to the last cursor position
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if ! exists("g:leave_my_cursor_position_alone") |
\ if line("'\"") > 0 && line ("'\"") < = line("$") |
\ exe "normal g'\"" |
\ endif |
\ endif

The lines above add syntax highlighting and a few other useful things. The line set binary noeol is very important for web developers. For example if you are programming in PHP and you leave a space outside the closing ?> it will cause http headers to be needlessly sent. That line prevents that from happening.

Well that's it if you press ESC then type :wq you will return to the terminal. Try editing some files again and the highlighting should be enabled.

Well anyway here are a few commands to configure a vim template system on UNIX (It should work on both OSX and Linux):

• Download the template system:

  curl -C - -O http://www.vim.org/scripts/download_script.php?src_id=3747

• Open VIM:

  sudo vim

• Source the file you have downloaded from within VIM by typing:

  :source ./download_script.php\?src_id=3747

• Now the VIM template system has been configured. The previous command should output the template directory so that you can create new templates, it differs depending on your OS.

That’s it if you need more info on how the system works you can visit the project homepage here.

Anyway the Kember Identity is an md5 hash. Each md5 hash contains 32 characters so the KID is the theoretical hash that when it is encrypted it returns itself. At the moment this is a theory as it has not been proven. So Elliott has started a competition to see if anyone can figure out if the KID actually exists and if so what it is.

I have chosen to enter this competition with a PHP script that I wrote just a few minutes ago. It’s fairly simple and I have added a html table in there to clean it up a bit. Instead of computing endlessly this script displays all failed equations as it goes. When it finds the KID it will stop and show it in bright green. I ran the script for a few minutes and got to 200,000 hashes with no luck. Also FireFox froze a few times while running it. The best thing to do is just leave it to do it’s job and don’t do anything else while it is working!

You can view it here: http://files.macaoidh.name/php/the-kember-identity/md5.php


<?php

?>

This script should, in theory, find the KID. But it is really a matter of time. I am going to keep it running all night tonight and see if I have any luck. Kae is thinking of writing a JavaScript version that will spread the load between multiple computers thus reducing calculation time. So the race is on! I hope that I am the first to find this magical, mysterious number!

First you need to download and install the Java Development Kit (JDK) from Sun here. Then change directory to your workspace – where ever you want! In my case it was:

cd /home/conor/java

Then open up a new file named HelloWorld.java in your favourite text editor. In my case it was:

vim HelloWorld.java

Now we start the coding:

class HelloWorld{
  public static void main(String[] args){
    System.out.println("Hello World!");
  }
}

This is basically just a class that tells Java to output the words ‘Hello World! Now the code must be turned into machine code so that it is faster to run. To do that simply type:

javac HelloWorld.java

This creates a new file named HelloWorld.class which is written in machine code. If you open this file in your text editor all you will see is a load of gobledeegook. Now the application is ready to run. Type the following command to run it:

java HelloWorld

You should then see Hello World! written on your screen like this:

[conor@host java]$ java HelloWorld
Hello World!

Another one in the bag!

yum install mplayer

Oh my god. It doesn’t work.

I just re-installed Fedora 10 last week and didn’t get around to installing mplayer until now. I can distinctly remember that when I did it on my older installation it installed without a glitch.

Anyhow this time I just sat there and scratched my head for a while. I never really made a decent attempt to do anything about it until now – enough became enough! I want my music back!

Ok lets start with why this is happening in the first place. You see recently livna (an rpm repository) merged with two other repositories and formed rpmfusion. But linva still exists. It still has some packages that rpmfusion doesn’t, don’t ask me why! So there is an easy way around the problem; install both of the damn things!

yum install livna

Click here to download rpmfusion F 8,9,10.

Then simple as:

yum install mplayer

and hey presto!

yum install @kde-desktop

God damn it’s refreshing! I got really bored of the dullness of Gnome and just decided to get rid of it! I had forgotten how great KDE 4.1 really is. It just looks so different and simply better!

I managed to completely screw up my computer in the process though! After I changed I decided to mess about with my graphics settings and try and get out of bloody Vesa. But unfortunately there are no Fedora drivers for my Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] card and I will inevitably have to use Vesa mode… Ah well I’ll just have to put up with my you tube videos skipping ’till Fedora 11! Anyway I screwed up the graphics and had to boot to init 3 and do a display reconfig;

system-config-display --reconfig

Once I was up and running again I got to work doing what KDErs do best; customisation. I found this cool desktop app called KDE Twitter. It allows me to tweet from my desktop! Pretty cool. Oh and the pride and joy of my new desktop; kooldock! It really is cool. It’s basically the same thing as the Mac OSX dock except as with KDE, better and more customisable. Installation is simple:

yum install kooldock

You can also set it to start the program as soon as you start the computer. Although it is a joy watching those icons bounce up and down this saves you having to run it manually every time! Go to System > System Settings > Autostart and add kooldock to the programs list.

Fedora and KDE both go very well together and it was well worth the change from dull Gnome. Here’s a screenshot:

Fedora KDE

I sat there for like two hours trying to remember the password and eventually realised that it wasn’t going to happen. Then I began to think of alternative methods of getting in. I had one advantage over people who are actually trying to hack into the computer – I knew the root/super user password. This proved to be the thing that saved me in the end! But unfortunately Fedora, with good reason, does not allow root login through GUI so the task is made harder again.

After looking online for solutions to no avail I began to recall my Fedora installation. You see when I installed the OS initially it rejected my graphics card and would not boot into GUI. Then it dawned on me – If I could get into that state again (init 3) I could log in as root from there, start the GUI and eventually reset my password. But how the heck to do that!

It’s easy really once you make it clear in your head what your about to do. We’ll start from the beginning:

• Turn on your computer.
• Keep pressing the “p” key until something happens.
• If you have a grub password enter it at this point.
• You should see a list of kernels. Select which one you want to boot with (usually the first one) and press the “e” key.
• Go to the line that begins with “kernel /vmlinuz**” and press the “e” key again.
• At the end of that line add this text (without the quotes): “init 3″
• Press enter.
• Press the “b” key.
• You should now be in a command line interface. Login in as root (su -) and then type “startx”.
• You will now boot into the GUI logged in as root. Go to System > Administration > Users and Groups
• Edit your user details.
• Restart and login as normal!

It took me a while to figure out how to do this but it worked out alright in the end. Hope that this posts helps other people in the same situation – I wish someone had spelled this out for me!

Firstly I went for Fedora 10. It’s really not as difficult as I thought it would be! Just yum install liveusb-creator then go to Applications > System Tools > liveusb-creator. This will bring up a nice program to make the proccess easy. And yes it is cross browser compatible! Well at least it works on XP, i’m not sure about Vista or Mac. There is one major disadvantage to the installer – it only lets your distro take up 2GB. I’m not sure why though. Anyway it’s as simple as select your device, your iso, your size and then just press the Create button! One bonus is that there is no need to change the file system, ie. you can still see the files through Windows. When your finished just reboot > go to multi boot menu > select USB > bang and you will see the friendly Fedora splash screen!

I was a little deterred by the small size of the Fedora installation so I decided to try something different. Dream Linux seemed like a good direction to go in. It is really all a Dream, and I like the Mac-like dock, that’s what really sold it for me. Initially I went for an on-the-edge version – DL 3.5 Candidate 5. After a long night of trying to figure out why it wouldn’t work I googled the error and found out that there is a bug in this candidate that prevents any Pen DL installations from being successful! One day and one long download later I started from scratch on DL 3.2 (a very safe and stable version I must say!). It’s relatively easy to create a USB distro with DL as well. Just select the Pen DL installer (should be on the desktop) and choose the relevant options. One disadvantage here is that you must use a Linux file system, I chose ext3, which means that you cannot look at the stick contents on Windows. I tried partitioning after the install but it would not let me! Anyway why would you want to look at your stick from Windows if you can just look at you whole computer!

In the end I stuck with Dream linux for a few small reasons, it gives you a choice on each boot between xfce and Gnome, it lets you “add modules” or programs to your USB which will remain forever, and it lets you use as much space on the disk as you want! One thing I don’t get about either of the installations is that while you are using your pen distro you cannot access the files that are actually on the computer that your using – at least I don’t know how to do it anyway. This does seem a bit stupid because whats the point in bringing a stick to use on another computer if you can’t look at files from that computer! It is possible on live DVDs, why not live USBs? I can’t stress enough, if you are going to do this yourself get a decent memory stick! The one I went for works seamlessly, there is no apparent difference between booting from it and booting from a hard disk. I should also mention that your stick will only work on computers that support booting from USB, but most modern computers do anyway.

Conclusion: Break out of the system, use a portable distro and shock innocent Windows users!

1. I was sixteen on 19th September > Virgo (What a sign – a fucking  mermaid!). I am still in fifth year at school which i absolutely detest. In fact the only thing that is keeping me in there is the promise of College. From my perspective that is heaven! Parties all the time – and when there are no parties I will be studying for tests by Programming! What more could you want? I should probably mention that I have been in an all Irish school for my whole life and that I talk Irish at home. Native language gotta be done. Oh and just for the record my name, Conor Mac Aoidh is pronounced “Mac í” or “Mac e”.

2. I play the Drums in two bands > The Pot Smokin’ Pirates and The Dominican Affair. Guess which one I enjoy more? I started the drums when I was 13. Before that I played the bodhran (What a load of shite). I went to drum lessons for about a year then I tought myself. When I finished teaching myself I moved on to teaching other people. At the moment I am practicing for the local Panto. I have done it three times before, it is good crac on the night. Gotta hate the music though! The Pot Smokin’ Pirates where the first band I joined, or should I say formed! They were a school band but soon enough I discovered that school and rock music don’t go so well together! We used to practice in the lead singers garage. One day his older brother asked me to join his band ‘The Kamikaze Potato Men’. Thats when I really got to grips with the drums – I was playing with a band three years older than me! Eventually ‘The Kamikaze Potato Men’ got rid of the lead singer, found a new one and formed The Dominican Affair!

3. I am Oifigeach na hAirgeadais for Ógra Shinn Féin Muineacháin. I don’t want to delve to deeply into this because once you start me I can’t stop! Basically I support and am a member of Sinn Féin. I am in favor of a democratic-socialist, anti-neo-libiralist, egalitarian 32 county united Ireland. Make Partition History! 26 + 6 = 1.

4. Oh what else… I am half Scotish, half Irish and was born in England. I used to collect Warhammer! God I have to include that because it was not a minor thing in my life. For those of you who are familiar with the way it works, I had a 3,000 point Empire Army! That is pretty massive for a ten year old in fairness. The strange thing is that I used them for display. I only ever played a couple of times and found the games to complicated. My main concentration was actually painting the things. I used to paint them like a machine. I also had millions of nobles and all that I couldn’t use because I didn’t have enough points to incorporate them! Come to think of it my first army was High Elves. By the end of my Empire collection I had gotten pretty good at painting the models. Then I started with Bretonians. I had just enough of them to play – two core units and a general. I recently got rid of almost everything in my collection. I kept only a few things. My two best painted pieces – ‘The Green Night’ and a Celtos model which I made a cool base for. Also I have an old White Dwarf from the 80′s signed by the Eavy Metal Team. I might Ebay it! I think that I have enough to make a core unit and general army at the moment!

5. PHP. This tagged thing is directed towards the language users so I had better talk about it. I started learning HTML at the end of 2007 as part of a school transition year course. I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. Then by chance I got work expierence with the local web design company, webworks last summer. That is were i learned CSS and began on PHP. Not to soon after that I got hooked on the language and I love it! I am currently writing Furasta CMS, which will be in beta of it’s first “stable” version by the end of next week, hopefully! I am a linux user and have been since November! I started out with Mandriva One 2009 and then recently moved on to Fedora 10. I think that Linux bears a big role in the future of computers in general.

6. I can fight. With a sword I mean! I trained for Medieval Historical Re-enacting for too many years. I did all the shows where you dress up and people stare at you and ask you if they can look at your sword. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be really. It’s like any other physical sport. You do the same thing over and over and over untill you can do it in your sleep! Then finally once you have done it for a few years you dump the wooden swords and go on to metal! I have to say the proper equipment is pretty cool. It’s quite tough to fight with armour actually because it weighs a ton. I learned how to fight with a sword. shield, staff, pike, bow and arrow and claymore. I haven’t really done anything with it in the last year but there is talk of it starting again so you never know!

7. This is tough… Em… I am an atheist. I believe that believing in God is a completely personal thing and that it should have nothing what-so-ever to do with the state and especially the schools! I don’t have a problem with anyone else that believes in god I just hate the fact that so much trouble has been caused in this world because of religion. I was not baptised and brought up to make my own decision – and I have! It annoys me that my school gets massive “grants” from Catholic Associations and therefore it is a Catholic School. Not only that but the fact that I have to take time out of classes to go to mass four times a year. Basically I think that religion in schools should be eradicated, but the religion class should be kept. I think it is a good idea to discuss religions and to make people aware that there are much more religions out there than Catholicism and that they should make their own decision rather than blindly following the crowd.

Now onto the tagging. I am bound by the rules to tag seven other people. The problem is that I only know one PHP developer and that is the person who tagged me! So for now I will leave this part. But I will update it once I meet other enthusiasts, so I’m not breaking the rules!

Rules

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter

Mandriva was the first Linux OS that I ever used and I suppose it appealed to me because of it being a very user

friendly distro. Actually when I first stumbled upon it I was extatic. I was stuned with KDE 4.1 and its amazing ability to allow you to customise everything. But eventually I realised that I didn’t want to customise everything and that some things are better left to the distro designers! Mandriva, for me, was kind of a bridge into the Linux world. I learned a hell of a lot while using it and I am now quite familiar with the Konsole and all it’s various

commands. But after a while I did feel like I wanted more, more Linux that is – and less Windows. Because at the end of the day Mandriva is designed for Windows users and in my opinion it is a bit Windows like.

Anyway I better start talking about Fedora. I went of to a faulty start with this distro. I had previously tried Fedora 9 on my laptop but it rejected my graphics card and I decided to wait for the release of Fedora 10. I know it has been released for a couple of months at this stage but I was waiting for a packaged release. I got this last week in the Linux Format magazine. Unfortunately Fedora 10 also rejected my graphics card. But not to worry the local Linux guru was happy to help! Once I got the graphics sorted I had free reign!

The CD I got with the Linux Format magazine had everything! I distinctly remember in Mandriva having to download ever

ything that you would expect to have with a distro, packages that a hell of a lot of programs depend on, such as glibc. Not the case this time though thank god because my internet connection would probably get stressed and stop working or something…. The CD gave me a pre-installed web server! Brilliant because frankly I could not have been arsed learning how to set up Apache vhosts again! It also came with a wide range of extra programs such as GIMP 2.6 (I tried to get this for Mandriva but urpmi was still stuck on 2.4!), Transmission Bit Torrent (usefull for downloading music) and rythmbox music player. I was surprised at the fact that it didn’t include Konqueror – I thought that all distros did. It could be a KDE program.

Another choice that I had to face was KDE or GNOME? As I earlier emphasised Mandriva One 2009 came with KDE 4.1, which was the first stable release of KDE 4, and Mandriva was the first distro to be released with it. It certainly had a lot to live up to after KDE 3, not that I would know – it’s a bit before my time! I had enjoyed KDE and I wanted to take it with me when I made the switch to Fedora. But i still haven’t actually got round to setting it up and for the moment I am stuck with GNOME 2.24. That is not a bad thing though because it is ever so slowly growing on me. I am at the point now where I think that I might just not bother setting up KDE…

So Fedora 10. All round it’s impressive. The last release I toyed with was Fedora 8 and it has certainly changed for the better since then! The new graphically animated boot proccess is much better than the old jumpy thing and the desktop photo of a blue star is very interesting. For those of you that reject it’s animated state you are wrong! I spent ten minutes yesterday staring at that screen and I am certain that it moves! However slightly and smoothly, it does move!. Thats about it. Fedora 10 gets top marks by me, great distro! Hopefully the team can keep up with their twice a year releases because I for one can’t wait ’till Fedora 11.

Oh and be expecting some Fedora Magik in the form of USB!