This is a sample format for a dated entry. Please substitute the actual date for “Month Day, Year”, and duplicate the level 4 heading to make additional entries.

As an aid, feel free to use the following questions to help you generate content for your entries:

• What action or concept of significance, as related to the course, did you experience on this date?
• Why was this significant?
• What concepts are you dealing with that may not make perfect sense?
• What challenges are you facing with respect to the course?

I have started a screen session, started on this blog, and read the mage book. Additionally, I joined the mailing list for this course.

The Harley Hahn's Guide to Unix and Linux is a rather long read. I may need to go back to the book the first few times I use each command. The UNIX for the Beginning Mage book was interesting, but will also be referenced later. The Learning the UNIX Operating System, 5th Edition book has not been read yet. The first project is done, although I am still working on the labs. I do not see the unix folder next to my data folder, or anywhere else, for that matter. I will talk to Matt tomorrow, or this afternoon, if he is still there.

Project uxi0 is done, and project arc0 is pretty much done as well. The labs are coming along nicely.

I used the ~ (tilde) character today. I found a directory that I could access remotely, changed it to my working directory, and looked around in there.

I am finished with project arc0. The commands used will have to be reviewed next time I have to use them, however.

This is for project pbx0. The file.txt file appears to be a simple ASCII file. The text inside seems to confirm the fact. It is just plain text, and says “This is a simple text file. It contains ASCII text.” After compressing with gzip using the default compression, file says “gzip compressed data, was “file.txt”, last modified: Mon Feb 1 16:47:32 2016, from Unix”. After decompressing, file says “gzip compressed data, was “file.txt”, last modified: Mon Feb 1 16:47:32 2016, max speed, from Unix”.

I am working on pbx0. I found riddle.html and copied it to my home directory. I then changed its name to riddle.gz and unzipped it. I found a file inside called making.waves, which was a uuencoded ASCII text. I decoded it and found a file called leaf_on_the_wind.wav, which was a zip file. Inside was a file called dinosaurs_with_hats.mp4, from which I extracted a file I called result. I decoded the file and the decoded message was put in a file called results. I then did what the instructions said.

I have started on pbx1. I am using unzip on pbx1.zip, and getting the text inside of README, a prompt for enigmatic.file, the text inside of octal2ascii.c, and a prompt for a password for part1. I do not know that password. When file is run on enigmatic.file, it says it is uuencoded. I tried running uudecode on enigmatic.file, and a file called stage2. Whats wrong, is that stage2 has no read, write, or execute privileges with anyone.

I finally realized that the octal code 000 in enigmatic.file was the problem with stage2. I changed it to 644, which gave user read and write permissions, and others read permissions on stage2. Stage2 is a hexadecimal file. I tried to write a program for extracting the message, but kept coming up empty. I finally used the command “xxd -r -p stage2 returned.txt” on the file stage2 from enigmatic.file, and sending the result to returned.txt. The message was clear, I followed it, but the password I put in first was wrong, since I left out the space at the end.

I have been on break since February 16, 2016, so there is not much to tell about the past week. Over break, my goats kidded. Three bucks and a doe.

I have started on the wpa0 project. I am thinking I will do a deciphering game. The homepage is done, and the map is started. The Revolutionary War part is done, as far as I am concerned, and the Civil War part is coming along.

I have only done a little with the WWI section of the game, since I was studying for some tests tomorrow.

WWI is kind of difficult, since I do not know whether to put it in German, and in code, or in English in code. I have it in German right now.

WWI is probably done now. I put the message in English, and encoded it. WWII is coming along. I only have two pages done for it, though. WWII is going to be the main part of my game.

I did not do much for the project over the weekend. I have made a story, and done a considerable portion of the game.

My game is almost done now. I just have to finish up a few things.

I have finished the game and submitted it. After that, I took a peek at the next project, cus0, and started on it. I have figured out how to change .hgrc.

I have looked at cus0 a bit more, and I have figured out how to change .hgrc.

I have now made changes to .Xsession, .bashrc, and .viminfo

I made some customization changes to .bashrc which allowed me to run programs at start-up and personalize the welcome page.

I submitted the cus0 project, and got started on the udr0 project. It is slightly confusing right now. I realized that part of the memdump.ram data file is a uuencoded file, so I took that out, and decoded it. It turned out to be a data file.

Still trying to figure out udr0.

So I finally found out that the dectohex.c file can be used by changing a few lines and compiling several times to create hextodec and octodec. These can be used to find the numbers given. After that, I was able to find the various parts of the puzzle.

I finally found the right way and stages to combine the parts.

Getting started on udr1. Got right ahead and obtained the file. However, I did get confused soon.

I found out how to get the four parts out of the disk.image. However, I am hung up on how to put files into F:

Found out that the mcopy is useful for moving files. Cannot figure out how to put part 4 (F:) back into disk.image.

Holy Week I learned that the way I was trying to stick part 4 back in disk.image was not correct. I just needed to use dd with conv=notrunc.

I am starting udr2 now. This is slightly more difficult than udr1. I am still figuring it out. More later

I had to ask Mr. Haas about the project, and have now started on it. The first half seems easy.

Well, easy-ish. I have gotten in a roll, and have done quite a bit.

I have almost finished udr2, I can finish it this week and next.

I forgot about the second half of udr2. I will most likely not have it finished in time.

I finished upr0 now, after having found a way to hack it and not wait the two hours. I wonder if that was part of the test.

I have started on the next project. This is pretty straight-forward, although I have barely written any shell script before. I am trying to finish before this weekend.

Well. I will not be finished before this weekend, although I am rather far into it.

After a weekend of thinking, I have started again on the gfo0 project. I have finished the project component, but messed up the other two sections.

I have been working on gfo0, but am no closer to finishing.

I finally realized that for the Journal component, I just needed the outputs of the commands cat thing | grep 1:opus | wc -l, and cat thing | grep :opus | wc -l.

I am starting on the eoce. first part, huh?

I have unraveled the first part of the puzzle-box, still trying to figure out the rest of it.

I started on the next part, leaving the puzzle-box for later.

The next part is the palindrome. I did the first way, and I am trying to figure out a completely different way to do it.

I figured out another way to check for a palindrome. I am now going to start on the pom project.

Pom is giving me trouble. I figured out how to find the next full moon. I am having trouble finding how far to skip after the first full moon.

I finally realized that the I can make a loop to skip through 27 days. This gave me a day cushion to make sure I did not over-step the next full moon.

The counter, apparently cannot use bc. I will have to make counters for binary, octal, and hexadecimal. The counters were really rather easy.

The last two parts, except for the in person knowledge assessment should be easy, aside from needing to think a bit.

The pom thing apparently does not work for single digit days. I had to fix a few things to make sure it would work for any day numbers.