Wicd won't connect automatically

Problem: Wicd won't connect automatically

Facts: I'm running ubuntu on a computer of mine, and I want it to automaticly connect to wired networks when available, or a wireless network if not. After running it on a wired connection for some years, I decided to move my router to a computer room, and therefore my HTPC in my living room had to go wireless. This gave me a problem with the computer not automaticly connecting to the network, and the wireless interface acted REALLY unstable when trying to connect. Something was wrong..

Solution: The problem? I noticed that I halso had Network Manager installed. I prefer using Wicd since it gives me a great CLI interface on my HTPC which I only use a XBMC frontend on. After removing Network Manager (apt-get remove networkmanager), everything worked out fine.

New Neato Botvac 80!

Neato has recently released their new robotic vacuum. In short, Neatos new vacuum cleaner now presents a side brush as well as some other nifty optimizations since their previous vacuums. Neatos "sister-company" Vorwerk have for a long time been offering the previous Neato XV-15/25 with a sidebrush under the name Vorwerk VR 100, but only for the german, french and uk market.

I will soon be publishing a review of this new vacuum. It's already available for purchase on amazon.

Quick bitcoin guide: Bitcoin value charts

The best way in my opinion to follow the value of bitcoins is the following:
A) Bitcoincharts.com - Go to this page, and select median price as chart type. This will give you a good heads up on the value. There is a lot of options and you can base it on mtgox, amongst others, which is the largest bitcoin trading exchange.
B) Inside your wallet - if you are using multibit you can follow the value of your bitcoins instantly based on mtgox.

Quick bitcoin guide: Acquiring/buying bitcoins

Bitcoins have become very popular lately. I will release some quick guides from now on introducing bitcoin.

This first guide will show you how to acquire/buy bitcoins, and put them into your personal wallet, and how you wallet works.

Wallets
You can get as many wallets as you would like. Opening up a wallet can be done in literarily seconds. Your wallet can be stored either on your computer in a file, on a piece of paper or on a online wallet service. The access to you wallet can be held in multiple copies, so remember to make some kind of backup and don't only store it on your local harddrive if you chose to store it in a file.

Running linux, I prefer using a wallet tool called multibit. With multibit I can easily create new wallets, get the value in local currency based on mtgox retrieve and send bitcoins to others.

Acquiring/buying some bitcoins
The easyest way for me was using justcoin.com. There is also a lot of other online services which can help you buy some bitcoins. When you sign up for an account and buy the bitcoins, the bitcoins usually gets places on a online wallet on the service you are using. After that, you can easily transfer the bitcoins in just seconds to your local wallet. It will then take some more minutes before the money has been completely integrated into the blockchain. In multibit you can see this process happening live.

Securing your local wallet
After creating your wallet in multibit, make sure you add a password to your wallet. Easily done. After that, backup the wallet file somewhere secure. You can i.e. use a truecrypt container or keepassx. This is important, because if someone else gets their hand on your wallet file, they can steal the money in seconds, and it will be impossible for you to get them back.

Backup routine for safe photo storage

This is how I backup and store all my private photos. Me and my wife have a lot of photos from traveling and other family events which we truly wouldn't want to miss. That's why we, and others in the same situation, should set up a proper backup plan.

This is how we do it:




Photo locations:
A) Incoming photos gets downloaded to our HTPC. This is where we have access to the photos we want to watch. This way we can access the photos via NFS to our computers, ipad as well as watch the photos on the tv with XBMC. Having a fast 11n dual band network makes everything act really smooth.
B) All photos then regulary gets backuped to a Western Digital Mirror Edition disk which mirrors the photos to two disks in RAID mode. If one of the disks fails the disk will alarm us via it's LEDs.
C) If something happens at home. I.e. theft, fire etc, we also have a small 2,5" external USB drive which carries a mirror of the photos on the WD. This drive gets safely stored at an external location (Tips: family, work, friends). If you have crucial private information, I sugges that you somehow secure it. There's some encryption options out there.

Taking care of incoming photos:
Photos gets stored in directories by year. I name all the directories in the following format:
YYYY-MM-DD-DESCRiPTiON i.e. 2013-04-21-ITALY_VACATION
This way I can easily sort all the events by date.
Inside each directory the JPGs gets stored. RAW format gets stored in a seperate directory inside the dir, as well as movies files. I also prefer to seperate files between digital cameras and mobile cameras.

Backing it up:
I use rsync for backing up.

1) For backing up between location A and B I use the following command:
 rsync -vrab --suffix="."$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S") --size-only --progress --stats /home/user/source/ /media/USBDISK1/destination/
Explanation:
-v gives verbose information about the copy process
-r recursive copy mode
-a makes sure time and date (modified) gets copied correct
-b makes sure if there's already a file at the destination, but with a different file-size, a backup is made before replacing it. Backup files is prefixed with a "~"
--size-only because some of my local files have wrong modified dates
--progress shows some progress information
--stats shows som nice stats at the end

2) For backing up between location B and C I use the following command:
 rsync -vrab --progress --stats /media/USBDISK1/source/ /media/USBDISK2/destination/
Explanation:
This time size-only gets dropped. This way, rsync will make sure the files looks exactly the same between both the backup drives.

Do you have any tips or suggestions? Please comment!

Also check out my post about free online backup providers. These are great for storing smaller types of backups and making it available on multiple locations.

Nike Pro Fitted Shirt versions (pictures)

I use these tees for training, and apparently Nike has been changing the design for these multiple times. I prefer the previous versions, and in order to recognize them on ebay, I ind it useful to have some pictures of the versions for comparision.

First version (L version pictured):
The logos has been washed out after years of use. Still a great quality shirt!

Version 2 (L version pictured).
Nike Fit logo has changed to Dri Fit Logo. Lower left corner.
I also have a feeling that it has become slightly firmer in the fit
Also changed name inside the collar from "Nike Pro" to "Nike Pro Combat"

Latest version (XL version pictured)
- Notice the new venting system on the sides, and on the back. It uses a different fabric then they used to.
- Also new design inside the collar
- Also known as "Nike Pro combat core 2.0"
- Also notice the seams going in on the stomach unlike the previous versions. This gives the shirt a different feeling whean wearing it. I don't like it, others might do.

Bulkpowders Discount Code

There's a great deal going on at bulkpowders which gives you 5£ off your first order. It's still working, and I will update and remove this post once it doesn't work anymore.

Simply register at the site and use the following referral code. You have to use this code in order to get the discount. The code is A&04716. I just had a friend to test it (6.Oct 2013), and it worked just fine!

The discount will show up before you check out your order to pay.

Enjoy!