A Conflagration of Randomness

Considering I just got a new router yesterday that has Wireless N I thought I would post something about how to configure one since the first time I tried with a router a year ago it took me two hours to figure out how and just happened to because I randomly saw an IP Address among the many pages of an instruction PDF.

First, the CD almost never works for anything…I’ve tried multiple CDs for router configuration and DSL configuration alike, but none have worked and I have always had to turn to manual configuration which I find very useful to know.

1.  Connect the router like the instructions that came with the router say.  Assuming you have a DSL modem or other modem that does not have wireless means, this means you connect the telephone cable or other internet cable from the wall to the modem.  Then take an ethernet cable and connect the output on the modem to the input on the router.  Now for initial configuration attach an ethernet cable to the router and connect it to your computer (I’m assuming its a portable one since why else would you really need wifi).

2. Open up an internet browser and enter one of the following ip addresses, depending on your router brand, into the address bar.  You may need to try several different ones:

3. Enter the username and password from above into the respective fields, submit, and you should find yourself in the control panel.  If these passwords don’t work for your router you may need to try the different ones for you router at http://www.routerpasswords.com/

4. Often times there will be a wizard that you can follow that will guide you through the process of connecting to the internet/setting up wifi.  Now usually though if you have done what I said you will not be able to access the internet if you load a page because the internet is not set up correctly.  Depending on your router you need to go to internet or WAN admin panel.  On my Trendnet, the WAN option if under the first menu, but on my D-Link there is a separate internet menu.  Either way find a form that has a drop down menu that has options such as DHCP, PPPoE etc.  Once you have found this menu you need to play around with the different options if you have not chosen the wizard to figure this out for you.  This is a tedious part as depending on your ISP (Internet Service Provider) you may have any of these.  At college, Virginia Tech, I must use DHCP option with obtain IP address automatically, but at home with Juno DSL, I must use PPPoE and enter my username and password for the DSL.  That is the part that took me a good hour the first time I set up a router.  It is probably a better option to use the wizard, but manual may be neccessary.  If all went well, you should now be able to load a website.

5. Now for wireless.  Again depending on your router you may have to search around for the Wireless configuration page, but you will know you found it if one of the fields asks for Wireless Network Name/SSID and another asks for a security type of WPA/WEP.  Once you have found this, you can create a name for your wireless network.  As for security type, I highly suggest WPA, and WPA2 if possible.  You will then be asked to enter a passphrase for the network.  I suggest something very random so that neighbors will not be able to leech from you wireless network.  Save your settings and test if you can connect to the network.

A few months ago I got into using virtualization software, which as it suggests, allows you to virtualize operating systems. First I started with a program known as VMware, which proved decent, but was lacking in one thing that annoyed me, it could not virtualize graphics card drivers so trying to use Ubuntu through VMware was pointless if I could not have my lovely Compiz effects which I adore in Ubuntu. This being a tragedy, I could not continue much with VMware. However to my joy, a few weeks laterI discovered that the newst version of VirtualBox, made by Sun Microsystems (the same as who own Java), allowed using up to 128 Megabytes of Video Memory for virtualization, which means I can now happily use UBuntu with the amazing Compiz effects.  If you want more on compiz fusion effects please visit http://lifehacker.com/software/pretty-and-productive/power-up-your-linux-desktop-with-compiz-fusion-291002.php for a sampling.  VirtualBox can virtualize most Operating Systems except unfortunately Mac OSX (though since I don’t prefer Mac anyway it is okay).  For a list of Operating Systems that can be run through VirtualBOx please visit http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes.

I’m taking a Problem Solving in Computer Science class this semester and one of the problems was:

How could a (normal, human) baby (accidently!) fall out of a twenty-story building onto the ground and live?

One of our solutions?  Drop the baby onto wet cement >_> What?!  It will survive (at least for a short time).  Fine what other suggestions do you have?

Months ago when I started Mechanics in college, my friend and I were discussing kinematics obvioussly and a thought poppped into my head.  What is the intergral of position?  I thought about it all day.  Obviously the units had to be meter*seconds, but what was the meaning?  So I turned to google and discovered that at least one other mind has pondered this question, but as with me, the comprehension just doesn’t make sense.  Read the article here. What do you think?

So a few weeks ago I was trying to install Windows XP x64, but for some reason I could not get it to run, no matter what I tried.  So I borrowed a friends’ 32 bit as well to test it and I was also getting a Blue Screen of Death right after the installer said “Starting Windows XP.” So I started doing research.  The key factor I found on a random website was that Windows XP does not natively support Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), ie, the way my computer reads my SATA drives.  The Wikipedia Article on AHCI states:

The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a programming-specification which defines the operation of Serial ATA host-controllers (also known as host bus adapters) in a non implementation-specific manner. The specification describes a system memory structure for computer hardware vendors in order to exchange data between host system memory and the attached storage-devices.

However, since Windows XP only natively supports ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment; such funny names these programmers have), the fact that I was trying to install XP on a AHCI computer meant the Blue Screen of Death was inevitable.  To solve this problem, the Windows XP install disc needs the proper drivers to be able to recognize this Hard Drive specification and below I will show you how to do it for the Dell XPS 630i, which is the computer I own, installing Windows XP 64-bit.  The drivers vary with computer and chipset, but I will show you a semi-general way that you may be able to repeat with other computers, since the original instructions I followed were for not even an XPS computer.  First we will need to find out what kind of chipset we have.

Needed programs and items:

• Windows XP Installation Disc
• CPU-Z
• Drivers for your chipset
• nLite

Getting Chipset

1. Download CPU-Z from here and unzip it.  This program allows you to view information about your computer such as your chipset. 
   
2. Run CPU-Z and look under the Mainboard tab.  There should be a place where it says chipset and to the right of this is the chipset that is running on your computer.  For the Dell XPS 630i this should read “nForce 650i SLI,” however this will be different depending what computer/motherboard you have.  For example, my HP dv9820us Laptop reads “nForce 560.”
   
3. If yours reads “nForce” something then go to http://www.nvidia.com -> Download Drivers.  For product type, select “nForce” and for product series, pick the number of the first digit of your chipset number.  For example in the Dell XPS 630i, the series is 6, and for my HP laptop, the series is 5.  Then under product, find the number of your chipset.  Select your operating system that you want to install.  In this case I chose Windows XP 64-bit.  If it does not have “nForce” try search your computers main drivers website or Google for these drivers.
   
4. Go to the next page and accept the agreement and download the drivers to a location that you can locate.  In this case I chose my desktop.  Extract these files if archived into a folder.  Personally I have Winrar so I can extract the files directly from the exe file, but if you can’t install using the exe then browse to the folder similar to “C:\NVIDIA\nForceWinXP64Int\SOME CUMBER” or remember the path that it extracts the files to.
5. Now we will need to download nLite from here.  Install this program like normal. Then open this program.  Here comes the part where you make your own installation disc.
6. Start the program and click next after selecting your language.
7. On the installation disc page, browse for your installation disc.  You can also select an iso file here. It will then immediately ask where to copy these files to.
   
   
   
   (click to enlarge)
8. Let it copy the files then click next twice until you are at task selection.
9. Click on Drivers and next. You may select more if you know what you are doing.
10. On the next page click Insert and select Multiple Driver Folder.
    
11. Browse to the folder containing the drivers.
12. It will ask you to select the drivers to integrate.  Press All  then OK.  In the next few screens (depending on how many drivers make sure to select all the drivers in menus.
    
13. You should then see the main screen filled like below.
    
14. Click next and click yes to the question.
15. It will take a while to compile the data and output a result.  On the final screen you can select what you want to do with the installation disc, whether make an iso or burn it.