What’s VirtualBox? In layman terms, you can have multiple OS running at the same time on your pc without rebooting. Those of you who only know Windows all their life, yes there are alot of other alternative OS you can try, like Ubuntu. Hey install Ubuntu on your Windows using VirtualBox, that’s possible too.

Installing another OS (guest OS) on your existing OS (host OS) will take space and consume memory. In my case, I have allocated 1GB of RAM and 40GB of space for Vista according to its recommended system requirement. So that’s 40GB off of my 250GB and if I switch on Vista I have only 1GB left for Ubuntu, which is ok for me (it only takes 384MB of RAM for Ubuntu). So you have to plan your memory allocation carefully as you must allocate as much as you can to let the guest OS run properly but do not do it until your host OS is left with not enough for it to run either.

What do you need for virtual machine?
1. PC that can meet the minimum requirement
2. VirtualBox
3. Guest OS installation CD/DVD

Install VirtualBox
Add deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian karmic non-free in /etc/apt/sources.list then sudo apt-get update.

$ sudo apt-get install dkms
$ wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-3.1

Install Vista on Ubuntu Karmic
1. Insert installation CD/DVD.
2. Follow instructions here. It’s well documented!

And then finally.

Windows Vista Home Premium on Ubuntu Karmic

I think 40GB of hardisk is abit overkill for me. And 2GB of RAM is kinda limiting for virtual machines. Well, despite all that, I’m going to have fun first and then think. That’s the way to go in this crazy days. You’ll never know when you’re going to be hit with molokov cocktails….

Well what happened was, I was unable to browse the internet (Firefox and Chrome both had problems but Opera worked fine). Pinging worked. Other Windows machines didn’t have problems at all. Sudo apt-get update didn’t worked because it was looking up 1.0.0.0 for every mirrors I tried. I tried this with Firefox at first:

In address bar, type in about:config, filter for ipv6. There should be only 1 listed – network.dns.disableIPv6. Double click to change the value to true. Problems solved for Firefox.

I continued googling around and did this:

#in /etc/resolv.conf, changed nameserver to those of streamyx
#previously it was 192.168.1.1 which points to my router
#Generated by NetworkManager
nameserver 202.188.0.133

And now everything works again. Only that if I reboot it will change back to 192.168.1.1

[1] Add PPA https://launchpad.net/~bdrung/+archive/ppa
[2] sudo apt-get update
[3] sudo apt-get source htmlvalidator
[4] change 3.1.* to 3.5.* (in xpi/install.rdf.in, change maxVersion 3.1.* to 3.5.*)
[5] Install some build dependencies - libxul-dev
[6] in htmlvalidator directory, ./configure and make
[7] open up just created .xpi in FF, install

http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/index.html

Time management – how important it is to me now.

I need a hair cut.

The translation page.

I’ve been doing it for a while now, and it’s kinda fun(ny) translating English to Malay. I only armed myself with wiki and kamus dewan (go go online dictionary!). One can only wonders how to translate “Headers and Footers” or “Plug and Play” (thanks Eric for the idea haha!). Sometimes I just settle with sentences that can make sense, it doesn’t have to be translated literally, or word by word. So far I haven’t faced any major difficulties yet, only minor setbacks, like I couldn’t find the translation for some very techie word in malay but that’s ok. I’ll leave it to the reviewers muahahaha!

No seriously, the hardest part would be the ones that involves the shorcuts. That’s tough. Apart from it has to be consistent, it also has to make sense too. I think the best way to do it to list down all available shortcuts in one app, assign all those letters and then translate it. But someone has to be in charge of this.

I noticed that I can download the .POT file. It’s so much easier to translate using say, Poedit, then using the web based. We’re using Poedit for MyMeeting translation by the way – i’s kicking ass as of now. But I couldn’t find a way to upload back the translation file to Launchpad. Maybe the settings? I didn’t have time to investigate further. Web based is fine for me for now.

One thing that I like about Launchpad is it’s displaying the context of the strings to be translated. Example, if you were to be given “Page”, how would you determine whether it’s “Laman” as in the website page or “Muka Surat” as in pages from a book? Come to think of it, we can use laman for both but you get the general idea right?

Ok have to break fast for the last day of Ramadhan now. We’re having the usual rendang and ketupat for tomorrow’s eid! There’s also ketupat palas, which anyone of you doesn’t know of, I’ll post a pic or two later. I’m in Penang now, and I expect to have lots of laksa. Yum!

P/S: Btw, Header = Pengepala, Footer = Pengaki. I had my laughs, now it’s your turn.

MSC OSCONF 2009

Visit official website
The microsite

Who should attend?

• Business executives from MSC Malaysia and Non-MSC Malaysia Status companies
• Open Source developers, communities, inventors, evangelist, researchers, strategist
• Government officers
• Students, general public

Why you should attend?

1. Provide exposure and knowledge on the importance of Open Source in enhancing competitiveness by giving freedom of choice in software usage with lower total cost of ownership, hence benefiting businesses and society at large. Over 30 session tracks are made available.
2. Share amongst the open source community on new directions and latest innovations by the subject matter experts, thought leaders and industry gurus.
3. Provide a platform for conference participants to actively interact, share and exchange views, ideas, and tools on the latest trends and issues of Open Source.
4. Networking, learning and having great fun!

If you’ve been on 4 dozens on tutorials on how to get flash player working on Ubuntu, even though you have it already installed (flashplugin-nonfree), stop what you’re doing and go to Synaptic and mark gnash for complete removal (if you have it installed somehow). Restart Firefox.

And then if it’s still not working, continue your journey and I bid you good luck.

p/s: Logo hari merdeka this year looks like it’s derived from Ubuntu’s jek. Hmmmm….

UPDATE: huh! note to self again: if flash is playing but no sound in Hardy, sudo apt-get libflashsupport -> restart Firefox