Tony Baltazar

Free Software / Ruby / Security / Arsenal Football Club

Sad farewell to my first Apple Intel computer

Oct 29

Posted by admin in Apple | No Comments

After over 5 years, I finally said goodbye to my very first Intel Apple computer. Up to this day, my former 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo Mac Mini was and still is a rock solid machine. With a stock 60 GB 5400 rpm drive and a shocking 512MB of RAM, the Mac Mini was my first modern Mac experience, since in the past my only Apple computer experience was using the Macintosh Classic or Macintosh Plus. Since at the time I didn’t knew crap about computers, but I definitively remember using a keyboarding/typing program and a Wheel of Fortune game. Shortly after buying the Mac Mini, I upgraded it to 2GB of RAM and to a 500 GB 5400 rpm hard drive and most importantly installed CentOS on it, then it was no turning back. For the last 4+ years, the Mac Mini has been my local LAMP and file server. I had absolute zero issues with the computer functioning as a server and I estimate having the Mac Mini powered on for almost 2 years straight. However, the Mini was not powerful enough to run virtual machines smoothly. I tried using QEMU/XEN, but the computer completed choked. Although this was not the reason why I got rid of the computer, it was definitely a big limitation on it, since I didn’t want to build a big, noise custom PC to use as a hypervisor; I loved the absolute quietness of a Mac Mini. The final axed on getting rid off my Mac Mini was the fact that my little niece and nephews’ PC was an absolute piece of crap. I flat out got sick of supporting their really old PC, so instead of fixing their computer for the 20th time, I gave them my Mac Mini. An old Intel Mac Mini combined with Snow Leopard, in my opinion is the best solution for any elementary and middle school student that needs a reliable and stable computer.

Now, I’m planning on buying the latest Mac Mini model (2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, at the time of the writing) and planning on turning it into a hypervisor, using VirtualBox.

How the Cartels Work: Guy Lawson on Mexican Drug Lords

Oct 27

Posted by admin in Politics | No Comments

“The idea that the Latino drug dealer is some Tony Montana like person, it’s not only wrong; it’s dangerously wrong…”
-Guy Lawson

On the Part II of Rolling Stone’s coverage on the Drug War, Guy Lawson gives a really good over view on how the cartels operate in America. Unlike other US journalists who pretty much cover the drug war in Mexico with binoculars, Guy Lawson clearly describes how the cartels operate in America, and yet how their is NO cartel spill over violence like so many politicians and idiot reporters want you to believe.

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The War Next Door

Oct 16

Posted by admin in Politics | No Comments

“America needs to confront its own hypocrisy in this regard; the consequences are not just felt inside your lives, but are felt inside the lives of perfectly innocent people who are just trying to live a decent existence..”
-Guy Lawson

Outdated, yet very interesting video on the drug war by Rolling Stone.

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Sad day in the UNIX word – R.I.P. Dennis Ritchie

Oct 13

Posted by admin in Linux/Unix | 1 Comment

Yesterday was a really sad day in the UNIX world and in the technology world in general. Dennis Ritche, the creator of the C programming language and co-creator of the UNIX operating system (fundamentally the best operating system in the world) sadly passed away. Comparing Dennis Ritche to the also recently deceased Steve Jobs is like comparing apples and oranges (intellectually it is not fair to compare a scientist to a salesman). Both were part of the computer revolution as we know it. However in my eyes, Dennis Ritche had a far more greater impact in the technology world than Steve Jobs. The simple fact that practically all of UNIX/Linux; all core internet applications like Apache and BIND, MySQL and PostgreSQL, and all modern scripting languages are all written in C, is absolutely amazing. Unlike the media coverage that was made on Steve Jobs death, it is an absolute shame that the majority of people do not know who he was and not know the amazing work that he did. May he rest in peace, as his work and legacy will live forever.

“UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.”
 – Dennis Ritche


#include <stdio.h>
main ()
{
printf("Farewell\n");
}

Extreme World – Mexico

Oct 5

Posted by admin in Politics | No Comments

“The inhuman cruelty and violence that I’ve witness in the streets here, will stay with me for the rest of my life…”
-Ross Kemp

Yet another really good documentary on the drug war. This time, on an episode of Extreme World, Ross Kemp looks into the violence in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico.

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Rubygems annoyances

Oct 1

Posted by admin in Ruby | No Comments

Earlier today while working on Ruby CLI Mailer, I had a problem installing the pony rubygem. I was getting the following error when trying to install the pony via rubygems:

ERROR: Error installing pony:
invalid gem format for /home/tony/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p352/cache/pony-1.3.gem
ERROR: Error installing pony:
invalid gem format for /home/tony/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/cache/pony-1.3.gem

I soon came to notice that the problem was because the Barnes&Noble wifi session had expired and I had to reconnect to their network. After getting my laptop online, I tried to install the gem, but once again I was still getting the invalid gem error. This was even after I removed the gem from all Ruby installations (RVM) and tried to install them from scratch. Knowing that the issue was caused because the files were partially downloaded, I removed both cache gem files and voila, I was able to install the pony rubygem.

While it would be wonderful if every single rubygem package would be digitally signed of some sort, it would have been helpful if at least it had some sort of checksum verification after it downloads the package prior to installing any gems. This is certainly somewhat scary since rubygems is not able to detect/verify that it downloaded the right package without any sort of alterations.

Immediate things to do after installing FreeBSD

Sep 29

Posted by admin in FreeBSD, Linux/Unix | No Comments


FreeBSD is quickly becoming my favorite server operating system. However, comming from the GNU/Linux world, there are certain things that Linux distributions and Mac OS X to a certain point provide that are not available on a default FreeBSD installation. The most notively are the default shell and text editors. The default shell for standard users is /bin/sh (NOT BASH!) and for root is the C-Shell. While vi is indeed installed on a default FreeBSD installation, it is not the vim (vi improved) that I’ve learned to enjoy and love all these years.

Therefore anyone wanting to fully enjoy a modern Unix system should install both bash and vim on there systems. Thanks to the FreeBSD ports collection, installing these two applications is really simple.


[root@freebsd01]# cd /usr/ports/editors/vim
[root@freebsd01]# make install clean
[root@freebsd01]# rehash


[root@freebsd01]# cd /usr/ports/shells/bash3
[root@freebsd01]# make install clean
[root@freebsd01]# rehash
[root@freebsd01]# chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash tony
[root@freebsd01]# chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash root
[root@freebsd01]# ln -s /usr/local/bin/bash /bin/bash

Excertps from Charles Bowden

Sep 29

Posted by admin in Politics | No Comments

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New TV

Sep 18

Posted by admin in Random Crap | No Comments


As if drinking plenty of alcohol is not enough to kill my brain cells, I’ve decided to buy a television. My main motivation on buying a television is to watch most of the English Premier League football games. I’m not an expert on current television specifications, but based on my research prior to buying the television, the Vizio 32-Inch Full HD 1080p LED/LCD HDTV under $500 was the bang for a buck for any 32-inch model. Another thing that also made me buy this television is because it has built-in wifi and access to Vizio’s Internet applications. The quality of the Netflix streaming content using the internet app is absolutely awesome. Overall, I’m happy with TV so far and would definitely suggest it to anyone that’s in the market for one.

Amazon

Alex Jones on the Drug War

Sep 15

Posted by admin in Politics, Random Crap | No Comments


“The Mexican government is a narco-terrorist criminal state that abuses and dominates its own people..”
- Alex Jones

While I’m fan of Alex Jones, he can finally say something completely true without sounding like a total wack job. He hits the nail on the head in all aspects of unmasking the Mexican government, militarizing the border, and decriminalizing drugs.

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