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Almost a year ago I wrote about SSHing with a web browser using MindTerm.  This was good, if the network allows traffic via  the SSH port, and nowadays this is usually not the case.

Ajaxterm is a web based terminal that provides SSH connectivity with a AJAX supported web browser.

Installing Ajaxterm in Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get install ajaxterm

Modify the configure file /etc/default/ajaxterm if a different port for ajaxterm is desired.  The default port is 8022.

Setting up Ajaxterm with Apache

By default Ajaxterm only listen at 127.0.0.1:8022.  For remote access, configure it with Apache using mod_proxy.

$ a2enmod proxy_http

Add the following to the Apache config /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

ProxyRequests off
ProxyPass / http://localhost:8022/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8022/

When completed point the browser to the domain associated with Ajaxterm.

Ajaxterm

If you want people to focus on the subject of a picture, a photographer would mention something related to the depth of field (DOP), which usually means that the subject needs to be sharp while everything else is blurred.  This can usually be accomplished by setting a large aperture e.g. f/2.8.  Sometimes I find my pictures lack this relationship, either because there is a limitation to my camera or I simply just forgot to adjust the aperture.

Fortunately, this effect can be easily accomplished using the lens blur filter in Adobe Photoshop.  I will walk through this using Adobe Photoshop CS3 and a picture of a giraffe which I took during my visit to Metro Zoo.

1. Open the image you want to edit in Photoshop and duplicate the background layer. From the “Window” menu, select “Layers” or press F7.  Right click on “Background” and select “Duplicate Layer…”.  Finally, set the original background layer to invisible by removing the eye.
   

   Duplicate background layer.

2. Click on the “Channels” tab, and click on the “Create new channel” icon at the bottom of the window.  The entire image will become black and a new channel named “Alpha 1″ will be created.  Set the RGB channel to be visible so the image reappears again.
   

   Create new channel.

3. Use whatever tool you please to fill in the shape of the giraffe.  For example I selected to use “Brush Tool” with white foreground color.
   

   In Alpha channel fill in shape of giraffe.

4. Go back to the “Layers” tab, and from the “Filter” menu select “Blur” > “Lens Blur …” to bring up the “Lens Blur” configuration window.  In the “Depth Map” section select “Alpha 1″ from the “Source:” drop down, and check off “Invert”.  In the “Iris” section adjust the “Radius” value to control the strength of the blur.  Click the “OK” button when done.
   

   Set lens blur filter settings.

5. Go back to the “Channels” tab and hide the “Alpha 1″ channel and you have successfully applied the lens blur filter.
   

   Hide Alpha 1 channel.

Before and After Lens Blur Filter

I got tired of cooking noodles for dinner so I decided to make something else.  I found some tomato sauce and canned pineapples in the kitchen so I came up with an idea to make Hawaiian fried rice.  I cooked some white rice the night before and putted it in the fridge.

Ingredients:

• chopped cooked ham
• canned chopped pineapple
• tomato sauce
• Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• white rice

I began heating some margarine in the sauce pan and added the chopped cook ham.  Then I added the rice and poured in the 2 whipped eggs.  Once the eggs were evenly mixed in the rice, I added the tomato sauce and finally the pineapples.

Hawaiian Fried Rice

Even before Windows 7 was officially released, many owners of the Fujitsu LifeBook U820 had tried out the Windows 7 beta version and had nothing but praises for it.  A week after Windows 7 released I purchased my own electronic digital distribution and created bootable DVD to try out on my U820.  The Fujitsu support site had also released U820 Windows 7 compatible drivers.

Fujitsu didn’t provide any “Chipset” or “Video” drivers for Windows 7 therefore I downloaded the ones for Windows Vista and installed those instead.  To properly install the drivers for Windows Vista, it needed to be ran in Windows Vista compatibility mode.

Right click on the executable file and select “Properties”.  Check off “Run this program in compatibility mode for:”, and select “Windows Vista” from the drop down. Finally, check off “Run this program as an administrator”.

To resolve the unknown devices found in the Device Manager, I installed the “Fujitsu System Extension Driver: FUJ02E3″ and “Fujitsu HotKey Driver FUJ02B1”, followed by the “Fujitsu System Extension Utility” and “Fujitsu HotKey Utility”

To enable the 3 buttons below the screen, I installed the “Button Driver”, “Button Utilities” (for Windows Vista), and the “Fujitsu Zoom Utility”

The touch screen wouldn’t calibrate properly but was resolved by installing the “Pen” driver.

The “GPS” driver for Windows 7 was not provided as well, therefore I used the Windows Vista driver for that as well.

Other drivers that I installed were:

• Audio
• Bluetooth
• Camera
• Fingerprint Driver
• Fujitsu Mobility Center

Drivers that I did not install:

• Media Slot
• Power Saving Utility
• WLAN (Atheros)
• WWAN (Sierra Wireless – AT&T) UMTS

Last week I purchased Windows 7 Professional through an online store where they let me download my copy as  an electronic digital distribution.  The downloaded files were not a single ISO image but consisted of 3 files: Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x86.exe, setup1.box, and setup2.box.  This was annoying because I had to take the files and create a bootable ISO image which can be burned onto a DVD myself.

Creating Bootable Windows 7 ISO image

1. Place the downloaded files (Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x86.exe, setup1.box, and setup2.box) in the same directory e.g C:\Win7Pro.
2. Run the Win7-P-Retail-en-us-x86.exe executable to extract and unpack the installation content.  A new directory will be created C:\Win7Pro\expandedSetup which will contain all the Windows 7 setup files.
3. Download the Oscdimg CD/DVD Premastering Utility and copy it into the directory C:\Win7Pro
4. Open the command prompt and run the following command:
   C:\Win7Pro\oscdimg.exe -bC:\Win7Pro\expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com -u2 -h -m -lWIN7PRO C:\Win7Pro\expandedSetup\ C:\Win7Pro\Win7Pro.iso

   

When the command has finished, a bootable Windows 7 UDF format ISO image (Win7Pro.iso) will be created in the directory C:\Win7Pro directory which can be burned into a DVD.  The ISO image can also be used to create a bootable USB drive with the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.