The Life of J: 2018

Saturday, August 4, 2018

Installing Emacs on CPanel with GoDaddy.com Web Hosting

NOTE: This was updated 7/1/2020 with some changes, because I had to install emacs *again* when GoDaddy attempted to solve a wordpress problem and nuked my entire home & bin directories.

August 14, 2018: Once upon a time last year, I installed "emacs" -- an old UNIX command-line editor that I got used to in college -- onto my GoDaddy.com CPanel web hosting server. Today, I had to do it again on a new server, but I couldn't remember exactly what I did last time because I assumed I'd never have to do it again. Well, I am, and I'm documenting it here because these steps don't seem to be documented well online.

It's a little-known fact that, despite CPanel's "Installatron" feature not having much useful to install, you CAN still install programs on your CPanel server without "root" (sudo) access! This tutorial assumes that you have enabled SSH access on your GoDaddy CPanel account and are using a tool like "Putty" to SSH (modern, secure version of "telnet") into your server (first time just say "yes" to the "key") and you can now see a command-line prompt.

Of course, if you're not on the current CPanel system that I am (check by typing "uname -a" in the command line, which, for me generates "2.6.32-896.16.1.lve1.4.54.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux"), you may have to Google your way out of it. But here's what I did.

First, you need to download the source code by typing:

lynx http://gnu.mirrors.hoobly.com/emacs/emacs-26.3.tar.gz

(More recent versions can be obtained by browsing here). The Lynx web browser interface will ask you if you want to download the file, which you do by clicking "d" on your keyboard. When it's done, you'll have to use your arrow key to highlight the download button to save the file. Then, type:

gunzip emacs-26.3.tar.gz

(This could take a while). Follow it up with:

tar -xvf emacs-26.3.tar.gz

This will explode all the installation files into a directory called "emacs-26.3". "cd" into that directory, then type this:

./configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-gif=no --with-gnutls=no

This will result in a long list of checks as the installer readies for your machine's environment. If it ends with some talk about "mail," then it successfully installed. If it doesn't, it should give you some advice for additional "=no" statements to add to the line above.

This was the part that really confused me -- running the configure executable failed multiple times until I added those commands. If you're just looking for command-line emacs, you won't need them anyway.

Next, type "make" on the command line and you should see a long list of installation files scroll by as it installs the software, looking something like this:

And, finally, type "src/emacs" and you should see the emacs interface! Woohoo! It's a freaking miracle.(Ctrl-X then Ctrl-C to get out).

You can also set an "alias" when you login to point to the exact directory where that executable "emacs" file is. To do this (assuming you're using "bash"):

echo 'alias emacs="/home/youraccountnamehere/bin/emacs-26.3/src/emacs"' >> ~/.profile; source ~/.profile

If you want to learn emacs, click here, but be warned it's also a pain in the ass, but I got used to it in college when I didn't have any choice besides command-line editing. "Pico" is another popular UNIX editor that is much easier to use.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Northern Exposure

I wanted to take a few moments to jot down some thoughts about Kamp Kenawachee -- a college experience in the wilderness of Alaska. The days are beautiful and classes are held outside in green grass or on wooden bleachers, under tall pine trees and a sky that's a dark blue that I have never seen. The nights are crisp and clear. Multi-colored shooting stars streak across the sky under a thick, bright canopy of galaxies that I didn't even realize existed. Most kids don't know what to expect when they reach the camp -- it's better to be thrown into an immersive experience that's free of technology and grounds them back to earth. Everyone's a stranger at first, leveling the social playing field and allowing students to form relationships naturally in an easy-going environment. Camp counselors are everywhere to help kids along and serve as their advocates, gurus or muses. Nature is everywhere -- the first night I slept in my cabin in the cool Alaskan air with one of the camp cats curled up against me. Later, a badger climbed in through the window and joined our warmth. During the day, butterflies and birds abound and deer walk among the cabins as students progress through their classes. Technology is absent -- only a community landline is available once a day, encouraging students to find their story within, rather than face the pressures of society. They drink water from a stream that meanders through campus. Meals are created from the earth and served in long, open dining halls where the breeze blows through the friendships that blossom at wooden picnic tables.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Dream Thrum

June 26, 2018 Went antiquing with Kristi and other people. Found old 8-track or similar cassette player that, when you turned it on, shifted you into another dimension. It was kind of like augmented reality, as in you'd still be in the same room, but things would change. For example we discovered if you began playing the tape near a children's green chair, it would come to life. We videoed this event on Kristi's cell phone and were eager to show it to others. In our kitchen at home, we found that when we pressed play, again only certain things would change. There was a dog and a cat who weren't there in real life, for example. The cat had thrown up in the corner of the kitchen and it looked so real that Kristi tried to clean it up but I said, "No, press pause" and it slowly faded away. We also noticed some seams between the dimensions in the corners of the room for some reason. One seam started dripping liquid that formed into an Aibo-like robot on the floor. Once leaked from the other dimension, apparently, it stayed in ours, so we were showing people how it would do tricks, bring us drinks from the fridge, etc.

Friday, March 30, 2018

The Origin of LOLcats

There is a history for everything.

KnowYourMeme says that the term "LOLcats" wasn't coined until 2007* when someone pasted a caption saying "I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?" (with the classic Impact font) onto a photo of a British shorthair named Frank, on the 4chan chat website.

TheStar explains:

Some time in 2005,* an anonymous poster put text over a picture of a very relaxed cat, indicating he was waiting for "Caturday." Soon, 4chan.org was flooded with pictures of cats in various states of idyll proclaiming their love for "Caturday."

Because it was more cute than funny, it would have been a short-lived fad had not another anonymous poster uploaded a picture of a hungry-looking, plus-sized grey cat with the text, "I can has cheezburger?" It was followed by a picture of the same cat snarling at a heap of clementines, with the words "Do not want!"

And thus LOLcats and memes were born.

*It's not clear if 2005 was the correct date, or how much later the "Cheezburger" photo was posted, but a graph by Google Trends of some early LOLcat search terms shows that the term "LOLcat" itself wasn't used until 2007.

The photo itself was from much earlier -- Frank's disembodied cat head had also been used in 2003, on the website of a Russian pet food company, advertising "Happy Cat."

It's not clear who took the original photo, but KnowYourMeme.com says that Frank was born in 1994 and died in 2007.

Before the term itself, some say the original LOLcat might have been the "Hang In There" cat photo. According to Wikipedia, that picture was taken in 1963 by Photographer William Baldwin of his Siamese cat Sassy in Beverly Hills.

The photo was featured on the back of a children's fictional book the photographer wrote in 1970 (ironically, the cats name was changed to "Wiki"). He got so many requests for copies of the photo that he made a poster of it that year, made into what would turn out to be a famous poster in 1970 with the caption "Hang In There Baby." The first copy of the poster was sold to composer of The Music Man's Meredith Willson.

Going even further back, there are at least two collections of photographs of cats with amusing props and captions, taken in 1870 and 1906 by photographers Harry Pointer and Harry Freese (yes, they were both named "Harry"). Here's an example of Mr. Pointer's work:

The story of how Mr. Freese began photographing animals is told in the annals of Life Magazine's March 1, 1937 edition:

HARRY Whittier Frees of Audubon, Pa. has given the better part of his life to dressing up little animals in human clothes and taking pictures of them. The most famed U. S. photographer of dressed-up animals, he began his career by accident. In 1906, one of the Frees family brought a paper hat to the dinner table. It was passed gaily from head to head until, in a final burst of hilarity, it was cocked on the head of the Frees cat who, up to that time, had taken no part in the fun. Then and there, Mr. Frees de- cided to take a photograph of the cat wearing a hat. It was so much admired that he took others, sold some to a postcard printer. The printer clamored for more and Mr. Frees began taking pictures of animals in more and more elaborate dresses and poses.

While the Internet doesn't appear to have a copy of the original paper hat photo, here's an adorable one taken that same year and no doubt inspired by the original:

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Grandma's Passing

My Grandma passed away yesterday, at age 94. I always liked this picture of her, which I took during a summer visit to North Carolina in 2007, the year before Grandpa passed away. You can see the sky and trees from her back porch (and me taking the photo) in the reflection.

But that picture doesn't show as much of her warm spirit as is warranted, so I'll submit this photo of us hand-churning ice cream (one of our favorite pastimes) with my cousin on my mom's porch in the mid 1980s.

We always held Christmas Eve at her house, and those are fond memories as well, but I couldn't find the photos of those times today. We would walk over from Mom's house through the woods to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas Even dinner every year, then open family presents and walk back home, full of food and family stories, in the crisp Appalachian December darkness, illuminated only with our flashlights, the moon or stars.

For the first six years of my life, I was lucky enough to be the only grandchild, and after that, my parents and I lived on the hill adjacent to ours in rural North Carolina. Grandma didn't have a job, which guaranteed that at any time from that point forward, I could expect to always have a gingerbread cookie and a bowl of hard candy waiting for me at her A-Frame house (shown below after they first moved in in the late 1970s). I would often stop by while riding my bike as a kid to talk to her as she worked in her garden.

Grandma loved hiking around in their 50-acre woodlands, and so did I, as an only child living out in the country. Here we are pictured on a hike that we and my parents took one day up to the top of a nearby mountain in the early 1980s.

Grandma came with us to the beach in North Carolina every Summer during my life until she couldn't travel. The photo below was taken just after Grandpa passed in 2008, but my most vivid memories are from 25 years before that, of getting up early (we were the only two that would) and taking a walk on the beach to find seashells (which, as legend says, were much more plentiful back then).

Grandma's passing didn't come as a surprise, but that doesn't always make it easier. She had suffered from Alzheimer's for more than 8 years, hadn't spoken much in the last year, and could barely wake up for the last month. And yet a life of healthy choices made her body's strength, even though her mind had left, amazing.

During all that time, my mom was her primary care provider, and it was a testament to both of their kindness, good nature and patience -- Filial piety at its best.

I last saw Grandma in August, and even though she was barely there, in the moment, I was glad that I did. This was my last picture, with her and my mom:

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Installing a SSD in my Dell Inspiron 3650 Desktop

After weeks of working and ordering cables, I FINALLY got my SSD HD installed on my new desktop today. If I'd have known it was this hard I might not have done it, or might have spent the money to get a desktop with one already installed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again though -- having Windows on an SSD is THE BEST improvement you can make. Even on this brand new Inspiron 3650 computer, it was still slow to boot and launch programs until I completed this task.

(Sidenote: I got a great deal on this Dell Inspiron 3650 on CyberMonday 2017. It comes with a 2 TB HDD, 12 GB RAM & an i7-7400 processor, but no SSD)

I'm writing this blog to say that is IS possible to install the Samsung 850 EVO SSD on an Inspiron 3650 desktop, it just takes some research, specific parts, and work, especially if you're like me and haven't installed a hard drive since Windows 98. 

One problem was the proprietary power cord that Dell puts in these computers, shown above at the arrow. It comes hardwired with one end proprietary to this motherboard, and is split into one SATA and one other power cord that goes to the DVD-ROM. So even if you purchase another of these proprietary cables with two SATA power ports, you can keep your old HDD but you will lose your DVD-ROM (I *think* a SATA power splitter will solve this but I still have to test that theory). 

Another problem is that the SSD bracket Amazon gives you with this SSD doesn't work in the Inspiron 3650 due to proprietary brackets that Dell uses. Early on in the Inspiron Desktop line, and even shortly after they began selling the 3650, it was impossible to purchase the bracket without convincing a Dell salesperson that you needed it. Fortunately now you can purchase it on Amazon. (Supposedly -- I haven't tried it out yet). I suspect I may not be able to use it due to the long distance between the hard drives and motherboard in the 3650).  You don't HAVE to have this, you can secure the SSD with existing screw holes or cable prongs, or you could leave it hanging (not a great idea but not a huge problem with SSD's since they have no moving parts). 

Yet another problem is the BIOS, which Dell was kind enough to include two confusing options (F2 & F12 on bootup). Before I reversed the SATA cables, putting the Samsung SSD on SATA1 and the other hard drive on SATA2, I could not find an option in the BIOS to boot to the SSD at all, even with their F12 boot-from menu, which either tried to boot from the network card (why in the world is that even an option), or said it was booting from the SSD but in fact booted Windows on the old HDD. 

Here's a step-by-step process that will allow you to port your current Windows 10 installation over from the HDD to the SSD: 

1.) Plug in your Samsung EVO SSD into a USB port on your computer. (To do this, you'll need a special cable that is rumored to come with the EVO, but didn't for me, and my Vantec HDD to USB didn't let Windows or Samsung software recognize the drive -- super surprising to me because the Vantec has saved my ass many times). 

2.) Install and run the Samsung Data Migration software (the "Magician" software doesn't appear to do anything useful). This will clone your drive, and despite what some say, you DON'T need other software like EaseUs to do this. 

3.) Shut down your computer, unplug everything and open 'er up (a little tricky but there are instructions online).

4.) Install your bracket & cables (you'll need one SATA data cable and whatever solution works for the bizarre Dell power situation, I'll explain more later with a picture, when I get a working solution that saves the DVD-ROM too). 

5.) Plug your SATA data cable INTO THE SATA1 (BLUE) port. It won't work without this, I found out in the end, because the BIOS (despite all the options) will never boot from anything but the first port. 

6.) Boot up. You shouldn't have to do ANYTHING to the BIOS, it should just boot up. If it's still slow, and you can only see your old HDD when you get into Windows, you can pop out the CMOS battery to reset everything. (Because I did this before doing #5 correctly, I'm not sure if this step is required, but it didn't work by itself).

7.) Now if you can't see your old HDD in Windows, it's because of something called a "Disk Signature Collision." Follow the instructions on Google to re-enable it. Now, you're good to go, you can delete Windows off your old HDD and use it for storage. Hooray!