Pretty Permalinking is used on dynamic websites (such as this blog) to change the address of a post from something like this:

http://talsemgeest.doesntexist.com/?p=123

to something like this:

http://talsemgeest.doesntexist.com/2009/11/20/sample-post/

Ok, so this is how you go about enabling it:

First up, you need to enable the mod_rewrite apache module. You can do this with this command:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Now you must edit the apache settings to tell it to allow the URL rewriting. First, open the file with:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

Then, under

<Directory /var/www/>

Change:

AllowOverride None

To:

AllowOverride All

Save the file with CTRL+O, then close with CTRL+X.

Now, make sure that wordpress has access to the directory with:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/

Restart Apache2 using

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now you can go into your wordpress settings and change the permalink structure to what you want.

Enjoy!

First came black-and-white television, then soon after came the transition to colour TV. In the last couple of years HDTV has slowly crept up on the SDTV, but could 3d do to HDTV what colour did to black and white?

It was from watching “Ice Age 3″ in 3d that I realised how far 3d technology has come since the days of those paper red-and-blue (anaglyph) glasses with the strain on the eyes and the strange colours. The newer “polarised” glasses are comfortable, don’t mess with the colours, and don’t cause too much discomfort trying to focus on the 3d image, so overall, the 3d picture was quite impressive. However, the same problem exists in both the anaglyph and polarised glasses: they rely on a warped picture, which the glasses try to separate into two pictures for the two eyes to see. This is what causes the discomfort on the anaglyph glasses, where the lenses don’t separate the picture very well, which means your eyes try to focus on something that isnt there. The polarised glasses do a much better job, but they don’t separate the images completely.

However, a much better solution exists: LCD shutter glasses. These glasses are syncronised with your TV or PC and shut off one eye in time with the frame refreshes. So, for every frame in the video, the tv will display 2 frames. If the first frame is designed to be seen by the right eye, the glasses will shut off the left eye, then the next frame will be shown for the left eye, etc… All of this happens 120 times a second, which unfortunately requires quite a powerful TV or monitor, and one of the latest graphics cards. You can see if yours is supported here. If you have the GPU but not the glasses and monitor, you can get the set off Nvidia here.

So far, the main use of these glasses are for pc gaming, and most games can be run through these glasses in 3d, looking quite spectacular. Unfortunately, the majority of the population aren’t avid gamers, so there has not been much interest in the glasses yet. However, with Europes first 3d TV channel going to air next year, it looks like interest in these glasses are soon to spark off.

How to restore the Ubuntu/XP/Vista/7 bootloader (Updated for Ubuntu 9.10)

This How-to is for windows dual booters who reinstall an operating system only to find that it has taken away access to their other operating system.
Whether you want to restore the XP, Vista or Ubuntu (Grub) bootloader, this guide will walk you through it.

All three parts of this tutorial require that you boot from a cd. If you don’t know how to do this, check here.

If you have made a mistake and want to revert the changes, simply follow the instructions for reinstalling the previous bootloader. For example, if you have installed vista over ubuntu, try to get the ubuntu bootloader back, but want to get the vista bootloader back, simply follow my instructions for installing the vista bootloader.

How to restore the Ubuntu grub bootloader (Up to 9.04)

First of all, all credit for this part of the tutorial goes to catlet. I am simply rewriting his tutorial to have all three bootloaders in this tutorial.

So, lets begin. To restore the grub, you must boot off the ubuntu live cd. Any ubuntu live cd will do.

Once there, open a terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and type this:

Next, you need to find which hard drive ubuntu and the grub is installed to. You do this by running this command:

Take note of what it returns (something like (hd0,1).)

Now you need to tell Grub where it is installed. Using the output of the last command, change this one and run it:

Replacing <a> and <b> with what you got back before. For example, if “find /boot/grub/stage1″ gave me “(hd0,1)”, you would run “root (hd0,1)”

Ok, so thats the configuration over and done with. Now we just need to run one command to install the Grub to your hard drive:

Now to quit and check if it has worked:

Make sure you have taken the live cd out of your disc tray. All going well, you should start back up and see the grub once again.

How to restore the Ubuntu grub bootloader (9.10 and beyond)

Since Ubuntu 9.10 uses Grub 2, the above method will not work. However, it can still be done and this is how:

First you need to find out what your drives are called. You can do this by going to a terminal and typing:

sudo fdisk -l

You will get something like this:

From that you need to find the device name of your Ubuntu drive, something like “/dev/sda5″.

So, still in the terminal, type:

sudo mkdir /media/sda5

sudo mount /dev/sda5 /media/sda5

And then, to reinstall the grub:

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/sda5 /dev/sda

Please note that it is two dashes in front of “root-directory”, which only seems to show up as one on this blog.

Push enter and you’re done! Of course you need to replace “/dev/sda5″ and “/dev/sda” with what you found in the fdisk output.

How to restore the Windows XP bootloader

For this you will need your Windows XP installation CD. Boot into it now.

You will get to a part where it asks if you want to repair or recover. To do so, press “r”.

If prompted, enter your Windows XP administrator password. This will leave you at at a command line, so type in the following two commands:

Then type

then remove your XP cd. If everything has gone well, you should come to your XP bootloader.

How to restore the Windows Vista and 7 bootloader

To restore the Windows Vista/7 bootloader, you must first boot off your Windows Vista/7 installation DVD. If you have one of the many OEM computers that didnt come with a Vista/7 installation disk, you can get the same effect with a Vista recovery disk, which you can download from here. When you get to the Regional settings, select your Location/Keyboard setting then click next. On the next page you must click on “Repair your computer.”

On the next page, if it finds your Windows Vista/7 installation, make sure it is UNSELECTED before clicking next.
Then click on “Command prompt”. From there, type in the folowing:

Now close the two windows and click “Restart.”

Take out your Vista/7 DVD and hopefully, you will be left with your Windows Vista/7 Bootloader.