How to become a root user in Ubuntu

I have not blogged for a long time.

I am stuck in office in these days for my new career.

I guess people rarely use Ubuntu unless your PC is very slow and still want to use it or you want to make your PC becoming a server and earn some money from it like website storage.

Recently, I updated my ubuntu to 11.04. This is quite good. It is different design and template to use.

Anyway, I have just learnt how to become a root user in using terminal.

You can directly click to terminal or just press Alt+F2. The “Run Application” dialog will pop up.

Type Gnome-terminal (Enter) and then type sudo gnome-terminal (Enter).

You will be a root user for the terminal in this moment.

You can drag the program you want to install from there.

What do you think about the flooding in Australia?

This is just my personal view. It is not related to any numerical calculation nor computational programming and insurance products advertisement.

The following is quoted from SMH.com.au
http://www.smh.com.au/business/plea-to-broaden-scope-of-business-flood-relief-20110126-1a5ch.html

Plea to broaden scope

of business flood relief


BUSINESSES in Queensland that are too big to access flood-relief assistance are in danger of going under, says the state's Chamber of Commerce and Industry....

The AIG contacted more than 200 of its members in affected areas and more than 40 per cent of them were inundated. More than half of these would be closed for more than a month. Ms Ridout said she would like to see some of the eligibility for low-interest loans widened to include medium-sized businesses.

The federal opposition’s small-business spokesman, Bruce Billson, said grants were confusing for many small to medium-sized enterprises. ‘‘The government has asked insurers to show compassion and commonsense. Now it’s time for the government to adopt its own advice.’

......
I guess most people would think about disaster insurance/ catastrophe insurance.

Let's think about what would the insurer do then.

I have few for thoughts for this.

1. AIG think about reinsurance. I guess the AIG group would most probably do as the cost is a lot.

2. Will they earn a profit? That's the problem. I guess they barely hit the profit. Most residents would never think that they would face flooding in their life time. Hence, they won't think about water insurance. Instead, they would think about fire insurance due to the trauma of fire blaze few years back.

3. Life insurance does not cover the loss of them. I guess the government would launch some ad-hoc solution to relieve the pain of people there. (I hope. Aussies sometimes are lay back) What could people do then if they have nothing? Theft occurs. So other kinds of insurance would take into effect as well such as household insurance.

4. Risk of default? Who would think about this? Will people claim a lot? I am not sure. I am green here. Let's see what will the Australia government do.

Merry Christmas Few Tips on Ubuntu Crash & Rescue GRUB

Hi. Wish you all had a nice holiday. I have been studying actuarial control cycle with limited time besides working.


The stock market in Hong Kong is fluctuating a lot these days like our mood of holiday.


Hope you all had an enjoyable weekend.


These are tips I got from the internet and I searched it for myself as well.


1. "Freeze" Screen


This is the most common one. Perhaps, my computer does not like linux system.


Here are some handy tips.


     i.) Quit a program if you can still use your mouse and keyboard
This is similar to when you use windows. You press "CTRL+ALT+DELETE" to end a process


In Ubuntu, you can go to System-> Administration -> System Monitor.

Select the program that you to end and select ‘End Process‘. If it does not work, right click on the application and select ‘Kill Process‘.

However, if you think this is tedious. You can place a short cut of "Force quit" in your bar.
Right click and then select "Add to panel" 

     ii. Control +Alt+ Backspace

This is what I usually do. If you Ubuntu crash, press Ctrl + Alt + Backspace‘. This will quit all programs forcefully and you will be returned to logout screen.

If this works, you can login again.

     iii. Alt + SysRq (With Fn key if possible)+ K

Please be noted that SysRq is under PrtSysRq button.

Similar to 2, it will log you out.

    iv. Alt + SysRq + ‘R’ ‘E’ ‘I’ ‘S’ ‘U’ ‘B’ (In correct order)

The system will process a series of tasks automatically and then reboot itself. Time consumption is a lot for this one.

It is recommended you do this one if there is no other choices.

2. Rescue GRUB

I guess some of you may sometimes incorrectly setup GRUB (Maybe you are using windows loader as your default loader). There is a crash and you see that your computer cannot be booted to your OS.

Just chill down, put in your live CD (USB or other external storage sources which has Ubuntu) and type these magical words.

sudo update-grub

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

You must type these one by then your computer can be rescued. You can go to your linux again and you can choose to re-install your ubuntu again.

These are what I faced these few weeks.

Hopefully, it could help you a bit.

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Ubuntu Flash Problem " adobe-flash plugin is virtual."

I recently installed Ubuntu. It is so called another version of linux. It is self-claimed as the safest and most stable engine.

I am a beginner for this OS. The first thing I got stuck is installation of Flash. I tried to install flash from Adobe. http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
However, I got this error - " adobe-flash plugin is virtual."  The program to solve it is at the bottom of this page.

I looked around in the internet. One of the guy said that I installed Ubuntu 64 bit Version. This is very common ( I guess). This bug is listed with links to a few solutions https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rl/+bug/554449

If you are facing the same problem as me, you can check out whether you have installed 64 bit version.

1.Checking 64 bit OS?
Applications -> Accessories->Terminal

Type uname -a

If the the last few words as "Linux ubuntu 2.6.32-26-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 24 10:14:11 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux"

This shows that you could use the following solutions.

2. Installaion

There are many ways as what I said. You could try install it through the update manager. Or you could directly download a program from a blog which is made by LovingLinux.
Link: http://flash-aid-extension.blogspot.com/

or
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/161939/

It works for me.

Good luck.

About Myself

I guess this is my first post here. I would like to briefly describe myself.

I am currently seeking jobs in HK and UK region as I am a dual citizen. I have been looking for a job which is suitable for myself for a year but I could not find one. Most of my jobs are either temporary or contract. I hope that one day I could work in the risk management or actuarial field with my knowledge in risk.

Since studying secondary school, I would like to become an analyst. I have tried my best to achieve excellent results in my master and bachelor degrees. The University awarded me a scholarship and an appraisal letter in recognition of my diligent work to achieve high academic achievement. Also, I have been trained to become an actuary in my course. I already passed Core Technical 1 – Core Technical 8 from the Institute of Actuaries Australia. This could my analytical skill. Also, I am currently studying Fundamentals of Actuarial of Practice from Society of Actuaries. I like to be an analyst and I hope that I could be an actuary one day. I have been practicing AS/400 VBA, SAS and SQL through working and my course in order to develop my career in actuary. I believe a successful person cannot be merely professional in a single area. On the other hand, he/she should have a broad horizon of different aspects of knowledge. Through all these vice verse experiences, I was trained to have a broad horizon of views. I could see problem in different views. 

For technical skill, I am experience in C++, VBA, SAS, SPSS and Linux. I hope that I could I bring what I learn into  practice in the business world one day.

For this blog, I will put some of my investment views and technical knowledge which I learn each week here (randomly).