When I first start my blog back in 2003, two of the final candidates were NucleusCMS and Wordpress. At the time, Wordpress is still pre-1.0 and by looking at their feature list I decided NucleusCMS is more fun to play with.

Not that this is important...

Later, I re-visited my previous decision when Wordpress rapidly advances and gains popularity while Movable Type pisses off its users and caused a mass exodus. At that time, Wordpress has grow into something interesting as there is a huge community surrounding it. But I decided to stay with NucleusCMS because:
- NucleusCMS seem has better performance as my own benchmark shows.
- There are already a big developer community when compare to NucleusCMS, . It's crowded, IMHO. In NucleusCMS, I can make contributions on many fronts.
- I do not like certain aspect of how the project is being ran.
- I like the skin/template system in NucleusCMS over theme in Wordpress. My main reason is: It is wrong to see PHP code in your theme.

I guess my instinct was not just from my bias over NucleusCMS, after all. PHP code in theme/skin/template is a security risk...

Yes, a skin can included links that is potentially harmful. But there is no code actually executed on my server, and browser has protection to malicious code if there is any XSS present. The same cannot be said for Wordpress theme as the example show.

In addition, I do not think a certified "marketplace" for theme is the answer to theme policing. A properly designed theme system is needed.

Are Hackers Exploiting WordPress Themes? - GigaOM

One of the reasons I upgrade my home LAN to 1Gbps is to gain higher throughput for access to NAS. My dad and brother have been using external HDD for backup and file transfer in the past, there's been close-call that HDD was corrupted and near data lost. Also, it's inconvenient to move files around with the external HDD. The NAS provides a centralize and reliable data storage for backup (w/ True Image), personal data storage/sharing (via CIFS and FTP), and media streaming via UPnP.

As we move our data to the network, 100Mbps ethernet is unable to catch up. A test show that write over network top at ~1MB/s, sending 1GB of data takes over 16 minutes. In addition, a 1000Gbps switch is relatively cheap ($65.99) these days. Onto the storage, each of 3 PCs on the network has about 300GB HDD installed. Therefore, NAS requires over 1TB of storage. This mean a typical BYOD RAID0/1 NAS is not sufficient as 1TB size HDD is still very expensive. Furthermore, SOHO-grade RAID5 NAS is also too expensive (i.e. Synology CS-407 costs over $600 w/o disks). After some search around on Fry's, I settled on a DYI system with a Abit AN-M2 m/b, socket AM2 Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPU, and 1GB DDR2 RAM. It costs ~$170 without disks. Then I added 4xSATA2 HDD (for storage), 1xPATA HDD (for system), and a CDROM drive to the system.

This NAS is setup using FreeNAS. A friend of my setup a NAS earlier with this BSD based software and seem work quite well, so I decided to give it a try. I was a bit surprise by the problems I run into with the latest 0.686b "beta" version. It just failed to install on to the 10GB PATA HDD, period. After many failure attempts, I finally manage to install a older version 0.684b..... Then I found the on-board 1Gbps ethernet adaptor is not supported, I solved the problem by install a Trendnet NIC that works.

After setting up RAID5, mount point, CIFS, FTP, and UPnP on the NAS, the system is finally up and running. I put the system in the garage as our server room for 24/7 operation. Then a CAT5 cable is laid to my dad's room as the wiring closet, where the rest of DSL modem, wireless DSL router, and 1Gbps switch are located.



Stay tuned for part 2, we will look at some numbers.

Just finished some upgrade to my home network in San Francisco. Netgear GS608 is the latest addition to bring 1000Mbps ethernet to the LAN.

More about the NAS, MCE later.

More update on my Fedora experience
- Miro didn't work, it failed to play video.... see this bug
- bluetooth bug seem like a kernel problem impacting other TP laptop, a work around fixed it for now.
- gdesklets weather widget seem to rollover to next day now. not... I think I dream about it.
- suspend to ram and hibrnate works. But I think it will not work if I installed ATI driver for X...
- mugshot is very buggy, crashed often
- power usage improvement npoticed, laptop life about ~ 2 hours 15 min on normal usage (compared to ~2 hours)

It's been 3 days since I installed the new Fedora 8 on my T60. This new incarnation came with impressive set of features.

Like previous experience, there are always some rough edges with a new Fedora.

- The default 10pt fonts a bit too big for T60's 1400x1200 screen.
- Even with a new and improved version of NetworkManager, it is not yet fully integrated with the rest of the system (which will be a feature for F9). I have to manually install pam_keyring and make some file change to allow login with networking on without enter keyring access key see here.
- Codec buddy is really irrelevant to me.... It often come with no suggestion for me when I try a propitiatory format . livna gets the job done in a better way.
- Pulseaudio is still very beta.... I found that PCM and Master volume level are somehow messed up. Skype is broken (fortunately there is a work around)
- Bluetooth is not working... [update] bug report is opened

I like to keep a lot of souvenirs from trips, might that be a ticket stub or other silly little things. I have boxes of them. I did the same in the virtual world; I archive all my bits and bytes since I started with computer. I still have all the programming assignments from the university; I have over 1GB of email from old email accounts; I have NP_Twitter archives all my tweets; Pidgin has all my YM/ICQ/MSN IM logs; My pictures are stored off-line and my on-line gallery photo albums.



I have the urge to preserve all my stuff.

As we enter the Web 2.0 era, new services were introduced everyday; on-line email, web application suites, web photo albums, social bookmarking, RSS feed burner/reader. A lot of people use it, many develop for it, and the net is all about it.

However, I never really too excited about all these web services. In fact, I only use a handful of them, mostly Yahoo mail/Gmail, and Google search. I don't like my information scatter all over the Internet. I'd rather able to archive/backup what I got on-line. You never know if the web service that hold all your stuff will be around tomorrow. Privacy also some of my concern.

I want total control of my data.

In another word, my web is me-centric, a platform to hold all my data and provide a window to feed me information from the web. It provides a portal to the Internet, construct in the way I prefer.

With the popularity of web service API, I am able to integrate Web 2.0 service to my private, localize, web service. It's so called mashup. My blog is running on my own server and becomes a platform to captures my thought, knowledge, and bits and pieces. With this, it mashup with other web services; NP_Technorati and NP_Blogroll submit links back to del.io.us NP_Twitter integrates tweets into my blog. Also, it is a form of archive.

I like to reinvent the wheel, in order to learn how things work.

But this platform's sole purpose is to for me to consume, even it facilities web2.0 interaction; allow comments, implemented trackback, provides RSS function, map to tag cloud. It's only an island in the sea of ether. In reality, this platform rarely got much interaction from others, unable to ignite and foster communication, and promote sharing of idea/discussion with others. These are one of the most important elements of web 2.0.

Does that mean I am not able to embrace web2.0? How can I make my silo more connect to the web2.0 world?

With the emerge of web service API and widgets, it provides the mean to do mashup with my personal web portal. The next wave going to hit with the introduction of OpenID and OAuth, which allow my private web to further integrate with the rest of the web 2.0 infrastructure, hopefully.

Even through v3.3 has not officially released, I upgrade anyway.

Most things are working (bookmarklet is currently broken), and I am still testing the new setup.

There is no visible change from the front-end, most changes are in the back-end such as auto-saved, new ping functions.

I am getting all the blues when playing many video formats failed after I messed around with xine/totem/mplayer. I decided to remove all of them and start from a clean base. After re-install totem and xine from livna, I finally get the playback function fixed. Now many video formats, including DVD, once again functioning on F7.

On the other hand, the bluetooth problem I was having turn out to be caused by bluetooth file sharing... it was running in the past, but after my GNOME session reset a while ago, the setting was lost. sign.