Base2: Restart

Demonoid Pass Part 2

2007-01-26T23:27:00.001+08:00

Update! Since there are so many comments showing up in my other post and my Demonoid invitation codes are almost always used up, I had this idea of another way of helping you guys out.
I'm assuming you've read my first post on Demonoid Pass.

The same rule applies here: read the mentioned post in its entirety, apply what I said when typing your comment (come on guys, show me at least you're deserving of the entry!), and I'll see what I can do. Easy enough?

Also, include in your comment your desired username, your email address, birthday, location, and gender, and whether or not you want to have your comment posted. Those are the details I'll need for me to register you myself, since I almost always see Demonoid open during weekends (like now). I'll email you if I've signed you up, so you'll know when to look for an activation email. (It's not mandatory for you to reply to my email, but it would make me happy if you do; it would also confirm that indeed you were able to finish registration.) Don't worry, I have no way of using your information against you. Heck, the hell I care about you guys. I don't have enough time for myself, much less time to look you up (I believe that's not much information to work on anyway). Anyway, whaddayathink?

This is also a good way of tracking whether you're doing well on the seeding department. Not that I can do anything if you're being evil. But I do hope the people I chose (and will choose) won't disappoint.
Take note that I filter the comments. So, obviously, if you posted a comment in my other post and didn't receive a reply, it's either: 1) you failed to meet my requirements; or 2) I have no more invitation codes but you're on the list. Unfortunately, most fall on the first category. The rules are simple enough, aren't they? So please, show me why I should give you one.

The same will be done here. I'll filter the comments. Show me effort. I know people can easily twist their words, so I'm telling you now: NO lies. Listen to your conscience. :)
Here ends my post. The game is on.

Update 1:
Notice. When you type your email address, please make sure to use this format e m a i l [ a t ] D E L E T E s e r v e r [ d o t ] c o m. This way, bots won't be able to harvest your email address and send you spam. Make sure the email is in a line by itself, so I can easily read it. Sorry for the late notice.

Update 2:
Guys, I'm officially closing this post. I'll be sifting through all the comments that have been posted from my last update till today on Saturday. I'll be sending out emails to those I think deserve an invitation on the same day. While you're still free to comment and request, I give no guarantees about you receiving an invitation. I might decide to check the thread again in the future and decide to give out invitations again, but like I said, no guarantees. Thanks to everyone who read this post and I apologize for being picky, but we all know that there are those who are more in need of the invitation than others, and that shows when people really take the time to read and do as told. Again, thanks!

Update 3:
I forgot to say in my last update that Demonoid has changed their registration schedule. As such is the case, I've closed this post and will no longer update this. As for invitations, please refer to my previous update. My apologies for that "not" in the first sentence -- I originally intended it not to be there. I didn't bother to check before posting my last update.

Bayantel's Speed-on-Demand

2006-08-15T07:51:00.001+08:00

Okay, I've subscribed to Bayantel/SkyDSL's cheapest plan, which is 256kbps for P899. And it came with an SOD promo. We've been subscribed for a while now, and it was only yesterday that I learned that it wasn't activated by default, and I wouldn't have known it if a PLDT DSL subscriber hadn't told me.

Anyways, if you're a SkyDSL subscriber, you need to activate the SOD (which doubles your subscribed speed from 10pm to 10am) by calling the Bayantel Customer Service at (632) 412 12 12. Or if you don't like calling for technical assistance (unlike me), just append "@sod" to your username account and your speed should double at the mentioned hours. Enjoy!

Demonoid Pass

2006-07-16T19:47:00.001+08:00

After days of searching for a demonoid invitation and repeatedly checking back at Demonoid.com, I was finally able to register. I'm really, really excited right now, waiting for the activation email to appear in my inbox.

My excitement is slowly turning into dread.. I mean, it's been a few minutes and it hasn't arrive. Come on... *sweats*

Anyway, just to inform the other guys, registration is currently open for those looking for entry. If it closes before you learned of it, well, I guess I should just say that keep on checking back. I learned from Yahoo!7 Answers that registration opens once every two weeks (though I'm not entirely sure if it's true), but heck, I got one when I checked right after reading that. So, check frequently!
Update: I'm still waiting (in vain as it seems) for that activation email.. Just how long does it take to arrive? Anybody?

Update 2:
It's been a day and it hasn't arrived. I'm giving up. I'll just try signing up again when it reopens. I don't know what the problem is -- if it is with GMail or with Demonoid itself. I wish Demonoid has a way of resending the activation email. As it is, I couldn't have the confirmation resent, nor can I ask for a new password. I knew I shouldn't have hesitated to sign up again when the mail didn't arrive. But my conscience wouldn't let me! I keep thinking of the unfortunate guy whose slot I will be stealing.. *sigh*

Update 3:
The confirmation email still didn't arrive, but I was able to login now. It seems they automatically activated the accounts created during their last opening. Yatta!

Update 4:
This post has been getting a lot of hits (Demonoid sure is a big keyword), and it disappoints me. It feels like I'm leeching off of Demonoid's name. Plus the post has absolutely nothing helpful in it. So to change that, here are tips.

Make Demonoid your homepage. So that everytime you go online and fire up your browser, it automatically goes to the page and you'll see if registration has reopened.
Be more specific. When you find some blog/forum where you can ask for an invitation, be as specific as possible in what you need to download. Invitations are limited, so members are picky with the recipients of their codes. It would help you get an invitation from someone if you can provide a good reason why that someone should give you an invitation. It's also good to promise and prove you're not simply an ungrateful leecher.
Be patient. This is the most important out of everything that's been said, actually.

Also, be informed that invitations don't always work; sometimes the site disallows new sign-ups despite having an invitation code. If that's the case, try the code again some other time. Once you get in, show your appreciation: don't just leech; do share and seed!

Update 5:
As what can be seen at their homepage, Demonoid opens every Friday (GMT). If for some reason, you badly need an invitation code and I happen to have some, comment below, apply what I've just said, and I'll see what I can do, yes? I have very, very few invitation codes, so I'm picky myself. I won't answer comments that simply ask me for a code. Let me see how hard you tried to register, at least.

Update 6:
See related post: Demonoid Pass Part 2.

Update 7:
Notice. When you type your email address, please make sure to use this format e m a i l [ a t ] D E L E T E s e r v e r [ d o t ] c o m. This way, bots won't be able to harvest your email address and send you spam. Make sure the email is in a line by itself, so I can easily read it. Sorry for the late notice.

Update 8:
Guys, I'm officially closing this post. I'll be sifting through all the comments that have been posted from my last update till today on Saturday. I'll be sending out emails to those I think deserve an invitation on the same day. While you're still free to comment and request, I give no guarantees about you receiving an invitation. I might decide to check the thread again in the future and decide to give out invitations again, but like I said, no guarantees. Thanks to everyone who read this post and I apologize for being picky, but we all know that there are those who are more in need of the invitation than others, and that shows when people really take the time to read and do as told. Again, thanks!

Update 9:
I forgot to say in my last update that Demonoid has changed their registration schedule. As such is the case, I've closed this post and will no longer be update this. As for invitations, please refer to my previous update. My apologies for that "not" in the first sentence -- I originally intended it not to be there. I didn't bother to check before posting my 8th update.

MySQL on Slackware

2006-06-05T16:53:00.001+08:00

If you're using Slackware and you start up the mysql daemon and you get the error "[ERROR] /usr/libexec/mysqld: Can't find file: './mysql/host.frm' (errno: 13)" from /var/lib/mysql/.err, consider changing the permissions on files /var/lib/mysql/* and /var/lib/mysql/mysql/*.

I'm running on Slackware 10.2 and I have Apache HTTPD 1.3.35, MySQL v14.12 dist 5.0.21 and PHP v5.1.2 installed. Upon running mysql_install_db, I got repeating lines of this error statement:
[ERROR] /usr/libexec/mysqld: Can't find file: './mysql/help_relation.frm' (errno: 13).

To resolve this, change the permissions of the files under the directory /var/lib/mysql by typing this in the terminal:

chown mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql/*

chown mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql/mysql/*

Or better yet, ignore the code above and type this single line instead:

chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql/*

The addition of the -R parameter tells the chown (CHange OWNer) to execute recursively so that all the directories under it (subdirectories) are affected by the change.

Now you should be able to run the mysql daemon!

(G)MPlayer v1.0pre7try2 Issues

2006-05-07T05:50:00.001+08:00

I've been, unsuccessfully, trying to compile MPlayer v1.0pre7try2 from source. (Compiling has started to become a habit for me, ever since I've started using Slackware.) It compiles successfully — er, actually I didn't bother to check that much; I just, you know, went ./configure + some parameters, make and make install. But there seemed to have been no problem.

MPlayer runs fine, except for maybe a few warnings in the command line, but it works and plays video. Firing up gmplayer, however, results in an error message like this:

Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Inappropriate ioctl for device.
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.

After doing as told, I checked if indeed change has been made: cat /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq and it now says 1024 instead of the former 64. But still no luck with GMPlayer. It still feeds me the same error message.

Consulting more posts in forums and newsgroups, I also learned that there are issues with rtc and AMD processors. Not that that's any concern for me, since my PC is running on Intel Pentium. Seeing as Google ran out of results and still no solution to my problem, I just kept on recompiling after trying to satisfy as much optional modules as possible and disabling rtc. In the end, my ./configure parameters extend like this: ./configure --with-codecsdir=/usr/lib/win32 --enable-gui --disable-rtc --enable-xmms --with-madlibdir=/usr/lib > ../conf with the bit > ../conf specifying that the log file be stored in a text file named conf in the parent directory. There were some features and paths that I had to specify explicitly because the autodetection wouldn't work.

While make was in progress, I noticed something was amiss with the compilation of the Gui folder: there were lines saying that a certain file, help_hm.h could not be found. It appears that the processes calling on this file looks for it under ../../../help_hm.h — three directories below where the file is actually located. So I placed the MPlayer folder within 3 more folders, copied the file where it will be searched, and compiled again. It happily compiled for a while, then I did make install, wait a little while more, installed a default skin, and finally, fired up gmplayer again.

It worked! Except for a minor error message regarding the fonts (easily fixed), the graphical frontend of MPlayer now works. The new challenge now is how I can make it play .flv files like it did when CLI mode worked. Something to do with -vo and not finding the right device.. Hmm..

Yahoo! Alias

2006-01-07T07:23:00.001+08:00

From Yahoo! Mail Beta Updates:

...We’ve just opened up new "dot" addresses to all Mail users. Now get an extra email address like stunt.racer@yahoo.com or poetry.stud@yahoo.com or whatever.youwant@yahoo.com. It’s absolutely free. Use it just as you would your primary address (which of course you can still use). To make things handy, even use one Inbox to send and receive messages to and from both addresses. ...

Too bad I'm more of a GMail person now; my Yahoo! Mail is just too messy for me to bother with. FYI, my first ever email account, which I got as soon as I turned 13, is my Yahoo account. One thing I learned about signing up early and when you still don't know what lurks around the net, is that you tend to be loose with your email address and as what happened to me, I ended up broadcasting it to spammers from my posts in boards and other insecure gaming sites. I didn't even know about fake sweepstakes sites then, gullible kid that I was. Heh.

That's not gonna prevent me from at least trying out the service, though. *winks*