Salvaging a password protected laptop

I had the task of trying to resurrect an older Dell Inspiron laptop.  Unfortunately, somebody set a hardware password on the BIOS.  Unlike a desktop, this is not a simple matter of setting a jumper to erase the password.   I was stuck.

Then I thought, if I could install Windows Vista on the laptop hard drive with another machine (in this case a Dell desktop),  I could then pop the hard drive back into the laptop and see if it would boot with the reinstalled Windows Vista.  Unfortunately, I got the blue screen of death.  No luck.  I suppose if I could get my hands on a similar Dell Inspiron laptop, this could work.

However, I then thought of trying Ubuntu Linux.  I took out the laptop hard drive again and hooked it up to the Dell desktop.  I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS using the Dell desktop. LTS stands for long term service release and this means that version (relaeased in April 2012) will be supported for five years (until April 2017).  Ubuntu Linux releases occur every 6 months in October and April.  Every 2nd year, there is an LTS release in April. Then I put the hard drive back into the laptop and booted from Ubuntu Linux.  It worked.  I had to let it get software updates.  Some of the usual annoyances occured:

• needed to get VLC Player so it could play DVDs
• needed to get the propietary driver for the wireless network card
• needed to update Flash from the Software Centre so it could play Youtube
• needed to install IcedTea with the Firefox plugin so Java applets could run.

The last point was a real pain.  I tried Open JDK and it still didn't work with Firefox.  I installed Chromium hoping it would work with that browser, but it didn't.  Finally, I installed Iced Tea JRT.  It worked.  When I double clicked on a downloaded jar file to run it, security issues prevented me from running the jar file.  So, I had to set the properties of the jar file to executable and then it worked.  This is why Linux isn`t more popular, but now the hooped laptop can be used to surf the net and LibreOffice can be used as the office suite.

Victoria Day 2013

A full day and some photos of the garden.  Only one Russian Mammoth sunflower sprouted from my first planting.  I'm trying again with a second planting, but it is kind of late this year.

The Saskatoon berries are in bloom.

The Ohio Buckeye is starting to leaf as well.

In previous years, the Norland apple would already be blossoming.  This apple tree split at the main trunk during a storm in 2010 when it was loaded with a crop of apples.  It is healing well as we taped it together and it looks like it self-grafted itself nicely.  The little spruce seedling from last year did not survive though.

We also had a nice trip to the Barry Barn.

Peking Duck was on the menu for lunch!

Drumheller in May

I had the opportunity to accompany students to Red Deer, Alberta for the Festival of Bands.  On the way back, we stopped off at the Royal Tyrell Museum.  The aspens are still in their fresh lime green hue.  One of my favorite times of the year!

I always get a kick out of that sign!  Here is an aspen:

Robert Frost describes this time of year so perfectly:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. 

Got Raspberry Pi Running

This post was done on a Raspberry Pi running a version of Debian Linux.  The credit card sized board has 512 M RAM, an SD Card slot, an ethernet port and two USB ports.  I used an LG cell phone charger with 4.8 V at 700 mA to power it.  I also tried Scratch and Pygame on it.  The board was $55, the plastic case for it is $20 (ordered from Amazon.ca).  It can be bought for the original $35 price from here.  It is connected to my LG TV via HDMI.  I was using the Wheezy Debian distro.

One of the annoyances you may come across right away is when you try to type the @ symbol with shift 2 (it gives you a ").  This is because Raspberry Pi Debian distro is set for UK keyboard by default.  You need to type shift apostrophe to get the @ symbol on a North American keyboard.