Time flies
Well I’ve been out of the country, busy, and sick so ye olde blog here has not been getting much attention.
Here are a couple of shiny things I have come across though.
A fair(y) use tale – A fair-use copyright primer made mostly out of disney clips:
As Yoda would say – “Begun the Microsoft-Linux Fud wars have” :
You can find the latest here on Infoworld. For the long drawn out discussion concerning the current MS vs Open Source issues and their mutually assured destruction if one would litigate after the other please check out groklaw or perhaps slashdot.
APC interview with the CEO of Mozilla on the future of Firefox.
Teaching kids in grammar school how to program using scratch, a language developed by MIT for kids.
And what my wife and I have to look forward to when we take the little one to the happiest place on earth. (very funny)
Enjoy!
Etc : March 1 – 18
Babies take a lot of time … so here is a reader’s digest version of a post:
If you have an old Xbox lying around collecting dust, you may want to take a look here at an interesting project you can undertake relatively painlessly:
How to Go from Xbox to Xbox Media Center in 30 minutes
Pigeons appear to be relatively immune to avian flu and do not appear to spread it :
Avian flu virus H5N1 and pigeons: the facts
The Invincible, Flu-Immune Pigeon
Linux it’s not just for dual boot systems anymore:
30 days with Linux
I have never really gotten into myspace, or classmates.com, etc but I do have to say that I am really liking LinkedIn.com as a “professional” networking site. Check it out.
Dell Ideastorm
Michael Dell opened a new website : www.dellideastorm.com
It’s a place for folks to give ideas and feedback to Dell. The ideas are voted on, and those with more votes get more attention from the Dell folks. The highest voted ideas don’t necessarily get implemented but they do get the most attention from the Dell execs.
I even submitted an idea. You can find it at:
www.dellideastorm.com/article/show/63302/Linux_Gaming_Box
If you’ve got a few minutes, sign up and vote for some ideas … voting for my idea would be especially cool.
Network interface mystery
I did something yesterday I hadn’t done in a while, I rebooted my Gentoo Linux box. I use it for samba shares/backups, DNS & DHCP (using dnsmasq), and it also does a good job of protein folding in its spare time(Foldingathome). I have also been extremely good about keeping the system up to date using the portage package manager. After the reboot though, my poor little box was isolated from the network and it made no sense. The routing was correct, the link lights were lit on my two network cards. I have two because one is used to talk to the rest of the network through my router and the other plugs into my Vonage IAD (Integrated Access Device for those of you not into telecom voip lingo) for maintenance of that box, if needed. So everything looks correct, and I am driving myself somewhat insane resetting the router, re-verifying everything but still no love … I’ve been using this static IP setup since sometime in 2004 and if this box isn’t talking to the network everything goes to a bad place since no dns & dhcp are available. Looking online I found little (once I got a computer talking to the internet by bypassing things). So here is the punchline … apparently the latest and greatest version of udev initializes my ethernet cards in a different order, so my former eth0 is now eth1 and vice versa. After changing some config files around to use the eth0 interface instead of eth1 all is now well (after the fact though, I do realize I could have just swapped the cables in the network cards to achieve the same effect).
If you have this problem sometime in the future, I hope this helps.
Silicon Valley Pioneer Hitchikers
It’s an art project and a history lesson! It’s GPS/Cellphone equipped cutouts of Silicon Valley pioneers hitchiking across the country!
To read more about this project and see the cutout GPS locations and travelogue go here :
http://www.ylem.org/Hitchhikers/
Sun Microsystems also got in on the action as HP didn’t seem to want to care for their namesakes :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/sun_buys_hp/
Definately worth taking a look and reading about the guys who helped make alot of the technology we use today possible.
PHP5 and SOAP is making me nuts
<geek rant>
Trying to generate a soap header using ext/soap in php5 :
What I need to create is :
...
<SOAP-ENV:HEADER>
<USER xsi:type="xsd:string">myusername</USER>
<PASSWORD xsi:type="xsd:string">mypasswd</PASSWORD>
</SOAP-ENV:HEADER>
...
What PHP5 is doing :
...
<SOAP-ENV:HEADER>
<ns1:USER xsi:type="xsd:string">myusername</ns1:USER>
<ns1:PASSWORD xsi:type="xsd:string">mypasswd</ns1:PASSWORD>
</SOAP-ENV:HEADER>
...
For whatever reason PHP requires the header parms to have a namespace which unfortunately causes the server to not understand the username/password in order to authenticate. Apparently at one point you could do this by giving a null to the namespace parm when you build the soap header, but that “bug” has apparently since then been squashed. Java will let you do this with the axis libraries, so it is at least theoretically possible with their interpretation of the soap spec. I guess I may try perl next and see if it lets me have a little more control of the soap header. And I may even try C/C++ with axis libraries.
Several Google searches and lots of time, hasn’t panned out, if you know a workaround I would definitely like to hear it.
<\geek rant>
Etc : July 6 – 13
It’s been a little hectic at work. But here are some snippets from around the “net”.
HeatSeek (link to the TechCrunch article)
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is now a secure browser (IE based) whose sole purpose it to enable you to handle porn easier. It also encrypts everything which makes it harder for junior to stumble upon (or deliberately find) the material on a shared computer. I guess it is what it is.
Windows Legacy
Microsoft ended support for Windows 98 this week, prompting several articles about how this will cause a steep rise of linux on these older boxes. Of course MS isn’t big on losing on any front, even legacy boxes, so they have announced Windows Fundamentals.
Congress & The Internet
Congress seems to be in a rush to do all kinds of things to the internet this week. Please check out the EFF Action Site.
Case in point, check out how Senator Ted Stevens (Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee) views the issue, with special “Daily Show” coverage :
Essential Windows Software
As I’m probably going to be building a computer in the near future as a gift, I figured I would go ahead and share what I consider to be the essential free software to add to a fresh windows installation. You may disagree but here it is :
Documents :
FoxIt Reader – Faster than Acrobat, and feels more lightweight
PDF Creator – create a virtual printer to print PDFs from any app that prints
OpenOffice – Office suite compatible with that other guy’s
Yahoo! Desktop Search – fast, and easy search for your files
Picture Organizer/Touchup :
Picassa – From Google, easy and ituitive
Browser :
Firefox – fast, and just as bloated as you make it
Firefox Extensions :
Sage – RSS Feed Reader, integrates with live bookmarks, and feeds are customisable with style sheets.
Google Browser Sync – Just use the bookmarks (don’t use the cookies, history, or password synchonization as it make me a little quesy)
Google Notebook – Notebook meet bookmarks
BugMeNot – Never register for a one use password again
Media Players :
Itunes – maybe a little bloated but works really well
Media Player Classic – nice video player, plays several formats, harkens back to the days before MS went overboard with Windows Media Player
Virus/Spyware :
Avast! – antivirus suite, frequently updated, easy to use
Windows Defender – Spyware removal for dummies
Spybot S&D and Ad-aware – Backup Spyware detectors
Paranoia :
Eraser – really get rid of files, or whole drives
Extra Geeky :
Sun Java – java runtime/compiler
Cygwin – posix layer for windows, give you access to *nix tools
PuTTY – Windows Telnet/SSH client
TightVNC – Remote Control Software for you computer
Death is only the beginning
Saw this article linked on Digg this evening. It basically show how they were able to resurrect Marlon Brando for a reprise of his role as Jor-El in the upcoming Superman Returns.
Take a look it is neat and a little creepy at the same time:
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23646
Google Notebook
Today Google launched, Google Notebook. It is essentially an extension to Firefox/IE that allows you to highlight text, images, etc on a website and add it to a “notebook”. You can then create notebooks on different subjects, annotate your snippets, and also make these notebooks publicly viewable if you choose. The best part is that the notebook is stored on google so you can access it from anywhere. Suddenly, research, at least for me, has gotten a whole lot easier to manage.
You can try notebook out by going to :
http://www.google.com/notebook
I have already sent in a suggestion, for them to add a feature so that you can automatically generate a bibliography based on your snippet URLs. Try it out and enjoy, although, I think I am officially becoming a Google fanboy. (Although Google desktop search still makes me a little queasy.)
ODF Plugin for MSOffice
Massachusetts (MA) made a request yesterday for a plugin that would allow for seamless integration of ODF (Open Document Format) into Office. You can see that request here. A day later the The OpenDocument Foundation responds that they have a plugin that is compatible with current versions of Word, and going back to Word97. You can read more about that on Groklaw here. So for the first time, you will be able to completely seamlessly share and develop a document between Word, OpenOffice, AbiWord, and other programs.
The MS Office vs MA showdown been like watching a software soap opera and apparently Office has just developed an inoperable brain tumor so that it can be written out of the script. Ok, I don’t watch Soaps but I imagine that is what would happen if Office were in one.
But I digress, the plugin is apparently not yet available for general consumption but is available to the state of Massachussetts so that they can begin their testing.
BTW, you can download a completely free office suite that supports ODF as well as Office formats here.
Google : Calendar
Looks like Google launched their online calendar program this evening. Seems pretty spiffy. You can find it at :
Quick Feature Rundown :
Imports from:
- Microsoft Outlook
- Yahoo! Calendar
- Apple iCal
Notifications :
- Pop-up, if app is open
- SMS, text message
General :
- You can create multiple calendars
- You can share a calendar
- You can make a calendar private or public
- You can create invites (Evite competition, anyone?)
Will revisit in a few days after I have played with it some.
Now Reading
Planned books:
None
Current books:
-
The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4) by Robert Jordan
-
A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) by George R.R. Martin
-
1776 by David McCullough
Recent books:
- Lamb by Christopher Moore
- The Demonata #6: Demon Apocalypse (Demonata) by Darren Shan
- A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2) by George R.R. Martin
- The Demonata #5: Blood Beast (Demonata) by Darren Shan
- Demonata #4, The: Bec: Book 4 in the Demonata series (Demonata) by Darren Shan
-
