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• Entry #2: Creating A Graph From A Dot File Via The Command Line
  Topic: Graphviz
  

  Sun, 26 Feb 2012:

  I installed graphviz in the command line on ubuntu with

  sudo apt-get install graphviz

  On mac, I used macports via the command

  sudo port install graphviz

  
  Next, I created a dot file with a text editor. Something simple like:

  digraph G {
      one -> two;
      one -> three;
      one -> four;
      four -> five -> six;
      five -> one;
      six -> two;
  }

  then, save it as dotFile.dot

  Next, in the command line, you can use that dot file to generate the graph. The format is as follows:

  dot -Txxx dotFile.dot -o graphName.xxx

  so for png, I use:

  dot -Tpng dotFile.dot -o graphname.png

  see the man page with

  man dot

  and you will see instructions for the command line usage for:

         dot - filter for drawing directed graphs
         neato - filter for drawing undirected graphs
         twopi - filter for radial layouts of graphs
         circo - filter for circular layout of graphs
         fdp - filter for drawing undirected graphs
         sfdp - filter for drawing large undirected graphs

  I used dot above, but if you try generating the graph with neato, twopi, circo, fdp, or sfdp you get differently structured graphs. So, testing it out, I got the following:

  dot -Tpng dotFile.dot -o dotGraph.png

  

   

  neato -Tpng dotFile.dot -o neatoGraph.png

  

   

  twopi -Tpng dotFile.dot -o twopiGraph.png

  

   

  circo -Tpng dotFile.dot -o circoGraph.png

  

   

  fdp -Tpng dotFile.dot -o fdpGraph.png

  

   

  sfdp -Tpng dotFile.dot -o sfdpGraph.png

  

   

  They all use the same .dot file, but I have yet to determine the fundamental defferences between each. I'm sure that each method has its advantages and drawbacks... things usually work that way. Perhaps as I learn about more about writing .dot files It will become more clear.

  
  Next, I need to learn how to add some more style to my graphs, I'll look to the pdf guide found at http://www.graphviz.org/pdf/dotguide.pdf

  or, in case they moved it, I uploaded a copy you can download here

  I think I will print out some of the appendices for quick reference on styles I can use while creating graphs.

  
  

• Entry #1: +1 For macports Package Manager
  Topic: mac osx
  

  Wed, 22 Feb 2012:

  I liked Ubuntu because of the apt package manager, but trying some out on the mac and they have been not so bad.

  The main players in the race for best pacakge manager on the mac right now are brew, macports and fink. I chose brew first because it was supposed to be simplist. Very easy to install with only one line from the command line

  ruby -e "$(curl -fsS http://gist.github.com/raw/323731/install_homebrew.rb)"

  And, until now It had the packages I needed. Start simple right?

  But just now, I tried to install graphviz via brew and couldn't find it in the repo's. So, I thought I'd give macports a try. I just had to downloand and install the .dmg from the macports homepage, which was dead simple on osx 10.6. Then,  using the command

  sudo port install graphviz

  to install graphviz. +1 for macports

  
  Then again, brew onlyclaims to be the simpler alternative so I have no hard feelings. I haven't tried fink yet.

  
  

• Entry #1: ISO 9001 - Why I Question It's Value
  Topic: ISO 9001
  

  Thu, 16 Feb 2012:

  The first line of from wikipedia...

  "ISO 9000 is a family of standards related to quality management systems and designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders"

  Sound like a great certification, but I'll be a bit skeptical after reading a bit further on wikipedia and seeing

  Rank	Country	No. of certificates
  1	China	257,076
  2	Italy	130,066
  3	Japan	68,484
  4	Spain	59,576
  5	Russian Federation	53,152
  6	Germany	47,156
  7	United Kingdom	41,193
  8	India	37,493
  9	USA	28,935
  10	Korea, Republic of	23,400

   

  hmmm... China is first? CHINA HAS THE HIGHEST STANDARDS?!!... After going to Shanghai and seeing first hand their 'great' standards, I find it hard to accept that any company with ISO 9001 certification is automatically deemed respectible. From what I saw, companies in China work real hard to have everything on paper, but the enforcement and execution of such quality measures are far from present...

  Its like the delinquent student who pulls off all kinds of cleaver jazz to make their homework not look too much like their buddy's... if your gonna work so hard, why not just do it... right?

  
  

• Entry #1: My OS Usage Background
  Topic: OS
  

  Sat, 04 Feb 2012:

  I grew up using Windows, even using DOS at a young age. In primary school we used Mac, but I didn't like it very much as I was used to having in-my-face-settings haha. The average user can sometimes find the settings confusing, but I found them empowering as they gave me the ability to customize things the way I wanted.

  First year Engineering at my University does programming curriculum through Linux terminals, where they use the classic g++ and makefiles to compile the c++ code learnt. However, I transfered into second year and missed this exposure to linux. My first year was done on windows machines using eclipse and visual studio. I learned C++ and elected to learn java as well. At the time, I found programming quite strait forward and later found myself opting to go into Electrical Engineering instead of Computer because I liked the challenge of visuallizing Electric and Magnetic fields. I have since been more inspired to learn about good software engineering.

  In 4th year, I saw a peer of mine do some fancy command line editing, compiling of C code, and loading it onto the micro controller. I usually just used Notepad. I was impressed with the workflow, and since he mentioned linux frequently It made me wan to give it a try.

  On an an old and (at least 4-5 minutes to boot windows) slow laptop, I installed Debian after reading it was a very solid and stable version. It booted to the command line and I didn't know what to do. I ended up installing Ubuntu because it had a gui by default. I fell in love. I marvelled at the fact that when I had a problem, someone on a forum somewhere posted a few line of command line scripts that would fix everything. This must be a very well structured OS if people can go behind the gui and fix the configurations. Often times, they are not even using the same flavor of linux.

  Now at work, I came accross a spare iMac which had better hardware than my current laptop. hmmm, Mac? A supporter of open source and free software, I really don't like their bussiness model. Sure it works out of the box (although I tried iPhoto and found it rubish), but you you really pay for it with $$$ as opposed to linux (free). I would probably like the bussiness model if I were part of their team, lol. What I can't complain with is how well they put together their machines. iPads, iPhones, Macbooks all have quite robust hardware which always seems to work better than the competition. I had dells before and I was really turned off with their design choices after my XPS laptop graphics card failed (I later found out that they were selling them still even with a defective line of Nvidea Chips that overheated and caused the chip to die, which effectively kills your mobo as well since its integrate....arg).

  Anyways, I'm exploring the world of Mac osx 10.6 now and finding its not so bad, I'm comforted by the thought that its based on linux (+10 points to mac over windows) and +100 points for having a native terminal with bash shell. Other than mac, I use Linux mostly (Ubuntu 11+ if i have resources, Linux mint or Lubuntu on low resource machines (and live boot USBs), puppy for ultra-lightweight use (sometimes without Hard Disk), and ubuntu server. I hope to find the time to learn slackware and/or archlinux, but I tend to use ubuntu based distros because the apt package manager i just so nice. I am very comfortable on a Windows machine, but get the most frustration from it at the same time. I used windows to play Star Craft 2, and use adobe graphics programs (which I've been replacing with GIMP, and other open source alternatives).

  I hope to log my usuage more closely in more specific subtopics relating to each OS.

  
  

• Entry #3: Network/PXE Boot with FOG Flashes Menu Too Quick
  Topic: Network With Windows Clients And Linux Admin
  

  Mon, 02 Jan 2012:

  After setting up a FOG server and configuring a machine to boot off the network using PXE / Network Boot, I had an issue with the boot menu flashing too quickly to choose anything (even if I held a key down beforehand). It turned out that the timeout was set too small by default for my machine to handle.

  so, In

  /tfptboot/pxelinux.cfg/default
  
  I changed

  TIMEOUT 30

  to

  TIMEOUT 300
  

  it appears that that timeout value is in 10ths of seconds~ and only defaulted to 30 (which, in my opinion, should be enough but for some reason my machine flashed it so quick).

  
  my original post on the FOG forum

  
  

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