Another Friday

Hello imaginary internet friends, here I am with another useless post. Today I have nothing in particular to do. Work is always quiet on a Friday and my boss is away so I can get away with doing even less work than usual, and all I'm doing is idly talking to this girl I met a while ago.

Last night I installed VMware on my Netbook, created an Ubuntu Linux VM and set about trying to get everything installed you need to crack WEP and WPA encrypted wifi. Trouble is, I'm a complete Linux n00b and being extremely tired I was lacking the patience needed to learn to work the fucker. I did manage to get Aircrack-ng installed (along with airodump and airdecap etc that comes with it), as well as Kismet before giving up for the evening though. Next up is trying to get Ubuntu to talk to the wireless adapter as, so far as I can tell, all it's doing at the moment is connecting to the host machine with a VMware virtual Ethernet connection, and I can't find any wireless devices in Network Management. Under devices in VMware Player the only thing that might be it is a Broadcom something-or-other, and when I disconnect that from the host and connect it to the VM, the wireless doesn't disappear from Windows and a Bluetooth icon appears in Ubuntu, so I guess it's just the Bluetooth adapter.

Having googled about, I don't think the wireless adapter is supported under Ubuntu, and if it is possible to get it working its way beyond my meager expertise (especially on a virtual machine). I managed to find some Linux drivers, which I think I've installed but after a reboot it's still not detecting any wireless devices. I give up for now, maybe I'll install SUSE instead and try with that, or make a dual boot with Ubuntu on to see if it's just VMware fucking it up.

On the plus side, I got it on my home network and connected up to my server without a hitch and transferred a load of stuff onto it. MAME works pretty well, and I can't see any problems with video playback. Haven’t tried any HD video, but I never download any of that anyway. I really need to get a new wireless router with IEEE 802.11g though, as the signal on my current one is pretty shit. Trying to stream an episode of Free Agents (which is hilarious btw) to the netbook was impossible, and a straight file transfer of the episode was going to take about 40 minutes. I also installed some desktop themes, Rocket Dock, changed the windows login screen and put a car vinyl of a skull on it, 'cos it looks cool. Plus it hides the Samsung logo - not that I have anything against Samsung, but the logo makes it look like any other Samsung netbook out there, and having a big skull over it adds a touch of individuality.

Not sure if I'll go out tonight. I just found a guide for cracking WEP encryption from Windows instead of Linux so I might indulge my nerdier side and stay in to try that out on my own network (followed by my neighbors obviously).

Netbooks...

Today I’ve been looking at netbooks. I don't own a laptop and I've decided I’ll probably want one while I’m away in the summer for internetting, dumping all the photos off my camera onto and watching movies while I’m on the train/plane. Trouble is, I'd have to lug it about with me and I really want to be travelling light, so the logical option would be to go for a teeny tiny netbook. Other than size, my other main limitation is price. Finance for the big trip is tight as it is, so there’s no way I can afford to spend more than £200 on a netbook. This wouldn't be so hard to achieve, but a lot of cheaper ones only have 8" screens and 8-16GB SSDs for storage. For what I want to use it for, I need one with an actual hard drive way bigger than the SSD models. Ideally I'd want an Asus Eee PC 1000H, with it's 10" screen, 160gb HDD and Atom N270 CPU, but they're fucking expensive so right now I’m ebaying for either a second hand one of those, or a cheaper Siemens Amilo Mini (8.9" screen, 60gb HDD, other specs more or less the same). The Amilo's reviews aren’t brilliant and the keyboard seems a little dodgy, but i like the design (kinda retro?) and, most importantly, it’s cheaper than Asus or Dell or Acer. I must choose my electronic companion for the coming storm wisely...