Linux Outlaws Planet

Some Basic Thoughts on GPL Enforcement

2012-02-01T19:05:00+00:00

I've had the interesting pleasure the last 36 hours to watch people debate something that's been a major part of my life's work for the last thirteen years. I'm admittedly proud of myself for entirely resisting the urge to dive into the comment threads, and I don't think it would be all that useful to do so. Mostly, I believe my work stands on its own, and people can make their judgments and disagree if they like (as a few have) or speak out about how they support it (as even more did — at least by my confirmation-biased count, anyway :).

I was concerned, however, that some of the classic misconceptions about GPL enforcement were coming up yet again. I generally feel that I give so many talks (including releasing one as an oggcast) that everyone must by now know the detailed reasons why GPL enforcement is done the way it is, and how a plan for non-profit GPL enforcement is executed.

But, the recent discussion threads show otherwise. So, over on Conservancy's blog, I've written a basic, first-principles summary of my GPL enforcement philosophy and I've also posted a few comments on the BusyBox mailing list thread, too.

I may have more to say about this later, but that's it for now, I think.

summer plans still TBD

2012-02-01T03:15:29+00:00

I almost certainly will be in Baltimore for the summer. Wendy and I are going to be trying a scary and exciting experiment of living together for the summer.

I don’t want to go into detail about my summer plans because they are not finalized, it is late and, most importantly, I’ve already written about the project twice. More specifically, I wrote a welcome to the Music Manumit Lawcast and a recap of the work I did during the winter break.

I hadn’t announced the launch of the Lawcast here, so that is one of the things I wanted to do in this post. I also wanted to give a slight update to the project that I didn’t feel warranted a post on the Lawcast.

1) Stephen of Cyberunions and I will decide in March if we are going to do a sports podcast. While ultimate transparency would suggest I should tell you what we’ve decided so far, the matter is subject to change. Plus, Stephen and I have been discussing the potential for the show on status.net. Consider this a small enticement for using status.net instead of the t-word.

2) I have been kicking the idea around of working on a book. Stephen and I have been discussing the name for the book. In the process of discussing the potential project with John Britton, he pointed me to this book by Mozilla. The current idea will be that the book will be a collection of essays on openness in various disciplines. Often we get fractured into various camps due to requirements of specialization, and I feel like the world needs a “from the trenches” book that places various ideas together in one space. Too often corporate entities and academia set the terms of discussion. Even though the SOPA protests wouldn’t have been as powerful without Google and Wikipedia, the fact of the matter is we as a global society are under-going change. The Occupy movement is a part of that change as was the Arab Spring (which of course is on-going in Syria, to the extent that situation qualifies). We can have a list of bloggers or a list of social media pages, but the Internet lends itself to choice, of à la carte. While I am a huge fan of choice, there is value in occasionally being forced to take things as a whole. If we only allow ourselves “similar items” we risk missing new and exciting interests.

I certainly have some ideas as to people I will want to be involved in the project, but if you are interested in getting involved, please let me know.
I will need, at the very least, writers. I will also need promoters. I will need a domain name complete with web-developer/web-host. I will need people with insights into the publishing industry*.

*Plan A is to release through Amazon and/or Lulu, but the project is not far-enough along for me to have looked into the details. I need to get through the semester first!

Weekly Rewind #103

2012-01-27T16:38:15+00:00

Welcome to another Weekly Rewind. This edition could either be considered overdue from last week or early for next, depending on whether you’re a glass half empty or full kind of person. I’ll let you decide. I was trying to think of witty things to link with the number 103 but I’m drawing a blank. The only two examples I can come up with are the Peugeot 103 and the Manchester radio station Key 103, neither of which seem particularly relevant. If you think of something I’ve missed stick it in a comment at the bottom. There’s no prizes, it’s just for fun. Maybe I’ll invent some arbitrary points system like have on Q.I and award you a million points. Anyway, let’s stop this nonsense and begin ploughing our way through the last 10 days or so…

I believe I last left things late on the afternoon of Monday January 16th, so let’s pick up there. I went on to broadcast Linux Outlaws with Fab in the evening. You’re probably tired of hearing me say this but it really does seem odd that we can be 247 episodes into this podcast now. As we close in on 250 episodes and 5 years in the business of pod, I don’t think either of us ever imagined this popularity or longevity could happen. The show was fun as always and I edited it later that week. You can grab it now as Episode 247 – “Poke Him With Your Pipe Old Boy”.

On Tuesday I got a nice visit from my mum and we found some time to catch up. We also did some cooking and she taught me a new chicken dish. I’m not bad at cooking but I think I need to expand my repertoire a bit. I’ve considered a cookery class, maybe I’ll look more seriously at that as the year goes on. I went to band practice in the evening as we prepare for an upcoming 20lb Sounds gig. I won’t go on too much about it now as there’s many more band practices to mention. I did some work on my websites and began the long process of migrating all my music to Bandcamp.com. If you check out danlynch.bandcamp.com you’ll see that all the stuff from my main site is uploaded now. I just created an album and put it all in chronological order. You may wonder why I would choose to do such a thing but as I recently discussed I want to get more serious about music professionally. The migration isn’t all about making money and the album is actually free to download. It just seems sensible to keep things in one place and I’ll be doing the new acoustic album on there soon. I’ll redirect danlynch.org/music and look at incorporating the design. Bandcamp do mp3, ogg, FLAC and almost any other format you could want, plus I really like their simple management tools.

On Wednesday it was the big SOPA blackout protest and in accordance Fab took down Sixgun.org. The most noticeable take down was probably Wikipedia. It seems as though the legislation has been postponed (not killed or abandoned as some believe) and it’s a victory for all involved. We still have a lot of work to do though and the war isn’t over. If anything it’s just beginning. I have to confess I didn’t take this site down or RatholeRadio.org, not because I didn’t believe in the cause, more out of a lack of time and planning on my part. I feel a bit guilty about that but I’m pleased to see the protest had some effect. On the day I was also set to appear on FLOSS Weekly and the TWIT Network took and interesting stance. I joined Simon Phipps to interview James T. Nixon III about file storage solution FreeNAS. The show was in black and white to highlight the protest and we spent a long time discussing SOPA. You can download it as FLOSS Weekly 198 – FreeNAS.

On Thursday I got on with some Drupal stuff on various sites and also attended Jelly Liverpool down at LEAF. In the evening I stopped by the Merseyside Skeptics meeting at The Head Of Steam pub on my way to band practice. They’ve been having some PA problems and getting bad feedback. My friend Siobhan asked me to have a look. I wasn’t there too long and I don’t think I really offered much by way of a solution but hopefully it helped a bit. I then went to rock out with the 20lb boys. On Friday I edited the Linux Outlaws recording from Monday and prepared Rathole Radio for the weekend. Saturday involved more RR prep and then a Liverpool LUG afternoon meet at Studio 2, Parr St. The turnout was low unfortunately and most of the meet involved paying pool with Bob and Steve. Not a bad way to spend your Saturday though by any means. I was scheduled to appear on the Alt3rd Egos podcast in the evening to talk about comics. So I nipped over to Forbidden Planet to do some research. I am a comic book fan and I own plenty of graphic novels but I’m not up on current happenings in the medium at all. I know there’s been a big fuss over the changes to the DC Universe but that’s about it. I headed home and waited for the show but as time went by I began to wonder if I’d messed up the timezone conversions. Eventually I got a message off one of the hosts saying they’d had a family emergency and couldn’t make it, which is understandable. I wished them the best and we planned to reschedule. After this I went to catch up with friends at a whiskey party. I’ve never been to a whiskey party before but my friend Rachel is off to Australia and was emptying the drinks cabinet before packing up the house. I was ashamed to admit that I don’t really drink whiskey, or spirits of any kind for that matter, but it was actually really fun.

On Sunday I headed down to Dale St for another 20lb practice and we got in gear for our gig on Saturday Feb 4th at The Zanzibar. I’m really looking forward to it as it’s a Saturday night and I hope we can get plenty of people along. It’s only £4 and the doors open at 8pm. If you’re in the Liverpool area come and join us. It’ll be fun. In the evening I broadcast Radio Radio 70 and had fun chatting with the listeners. That was released on Wednesday this week. Check out my slightly ropey version of “RE: Your Brains” by Jonathan Coulton. I had fun learning that. On Monday it was back to Linux Outlaws and the recording of episode 248. That isn’t out yet at the time of writing but should be soon. On Tuesday I headed up to Edge Lane for a day’s video production course with Chris Chadwick of The Hatch. He’s a top bloke and we had a really good day. Spending time with real video experts makes me realise how little I actually know about this though, I’m trying to get up to speed. I headed to LEAF in the evening with Neil on PodFactory business. We streamed the BigSWIG event live and it all went very well. SWIG is a Liverpool WordPress users group and this was their first big live event. The audio wasn’t quite as good quality as I would have liked due to a last minute workaround. It seems our video conversion box is on the fritz. It did the video as normal but the audio wasn’t playing ball. I had to put that into the internal sound card on the laptop. As some of you will know they never sound good and often pick up mains noise. Despite this the SWIG people seemed happy and I was pleased we could help them out. I’ll be working on that audio problem for next time and packing my USB sound card in case we need it. Finally on Wednesday (25th) I sat down and wrote my first article for Seven Streets, a popular Liverpool news site. I’ve been asked to do a monthly tech column and my article was about indie gaming culture. I don’t know if they’ll think it up to standard but hopefully it’ll be published soon. I’ll let you know.

There’s bound to be a couple of things I’ve missed but for now that just about brings us up to date.

Upcoming:

Tomorrow night I’m be on the rescheduled Alt3red Egos podcast talking about comics and so on. There’s no live stream but I’ll let you know when it’s published as a podcast. On Sunday I plan to finally get down to recording this acoustic album and in preparation I’ve been playing the keyboard a bit of late. I’d like to do some of the songs on piano, so we’ll see how that goes. On Monday night we’ll have more live Linux Outlaws. You can join us at sixgun.org/live from 8pm UK time. There’s chat via the IRC channel and a live audio stream. It’s an hour later than normal as we’ll be recording another Leave Your Hat On with LO community legend Jezra. On Wednesday I have another FLOSS Weekly booked in. You can tune into that live at twit.tv/live from 4:30pm UK time, an hour earlier than usual. At the weekend it’s TEDx Merseyside and I also have the 20lb gig in the evening. Then on Sunday (Feb 5th) there’ll be another live Rathole Radio from 9pm. Other exciting things are happening right now and I’ll tell you more about all of those as they develop.

Until next we meet, take care of yourselves.

Dan

Ravens, and possibly all properly trained talking black birds, are quite the motivation speakers.

2012-01-20T04:52:34+00:00

I’m a little late on my New Year’s resolutions, but with the help of a friend, I have come up with some:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, I wrote predictive memos. Quoth the Raven, nevermore.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December. From my books increased the sorrow – sorrow for the lost slumbore*.

Quoth the Raven, nevermore.

While sick two weeks Fran’s assistance I did not implore.
Quoth the Raven, nevermore.

Law I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing.
Quoth the Raven, nevermore.

*If I had more energy, I’d write some etymology to humor myself, but I am lacking in energy.

FaiFCast and Upcoming Talks

2012-01-17T14:15:00+00:00

This blog post is mostly just informational about a few oggcast releases and my upcoming talks and conference trips.

Today Karen Sandler and I released Episode 0x20 of the Free as in Freedom oggcast (available in ogg and mp3 formats). We discuss in that oggcast the issue of gender inequality in the software freedom community and in computing generally (which I made reference to in a blog post I wrote about a year ago.

I also forgot to note here in my blog when Episode 0x1F of the Free as in Freedom oggcast (available in ogg and mp3) was released. In that episode, Karen and I discussed the issue of legal discussion fora, which I mentioned in my blog last month.

This weekend, I'll be giving a talk entitled 12 Years of FLOSS License Compliance: A Historical Perspective at the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) 10x. It's actually been 13 years now, so I suppose this will be the last time I give that talk. If you're curious to hear the talk, it's similar to one I gave at OSCON 2011, which was later an oggcast.

Finally, I wanted to note that the schedule for the Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom at FOSDEM 2012. My thanks in particular to Tom Marble, who did most of the work putting the track together, although Karen, Richard Fontana, and I helped, of course. :)

The Day the Internet Went Black

2012-01-16T22:22:47+00:00

Wikipedia will go black on the 18th in protest of SOPA and PIPA, along with many other websites. This is a big deal.

Now, some of you may not know what SOPA or PIPA are, even though you read this blog, so I’ll try to explain it simply.

PIPA and SOPA are bills that are being pushed through the American government that would essentially allow the entertainment industry a really easy way to block any website in America that they feel like.

Most people and companies in the tech industries are against this, including big companies like Google, Facebook, Ebay, Amazon etc, because it doesn’t help fight “piracy”, it censors the internet in America and has wide-ranging consequences for everyone, not just people in America.

It would break DNS (the fundamental force of the internet), cause legitimate websites to be blocked (it has been done before, that things to get rid of piracy have cause legitimate websites to be blocked) and force many people outside of America to block these sites even though there is no law saying they should…as the governing bodies of the Internet are American organisations, and therefore subject to their laws.

The fundamental problem is…this will not stop piracy. Pirates will go around these issues and you cannot stop that. There are always ways around these things. You need to either go after the money…or don’t try.

If you want to help (even if you aren’t in America, you can still do something) – go to this website: http://americancensorship.org/ - it explains everything. Scroll down a bit and you can petition the American State Department to stop being hypocritical.

In solidarity with the websites that are going black on Wednesday the 18th, this blog will also be going black from 00:00 GMT till 00:00 GMT on the 19th. That is a full 24 hours it shall be out.

Vala GIO Socket Server Sent Event Example

2012-01-16T20:00:00+00:00

While researching Push methods that would allow me to push data from a server to a client, I learned about Server Sent Events and decided to go about writing a bit of code to test the technology.

...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/Vala_GIO_Socket_Server_Sent_Event_Example

Weekly Rewind #102

2012-01-16T17:58:47+00:00

Hello again and welcome to another Weekly Rewind. Updates and tales from the interesting (or not so interesting) happenings in my life. We’re just over a week from the last article so that’s not bad going. Only 1 day late. Let’s begin with Sunday night, January 8th…

I broadcast episode 69 of Rathole Radio and it went pretty well. There was some lively chat going on in the IRC and it seems the new website is holding up well. I need to fix a few things on there still but you know how these things are. You’re never 100% done, at least not if you’re a hopeless perfectionist like me.

I'm a total night owl

On Monday Jan 9th I got up quite a bit earlier than usual in an attempt to start a new regime. I decided I need to add a little more structure to my life and begin separating work and leisure time more clearly. I don’t have a 9-5 job or any strong routine, outside of podcast schedules I suppose. This makes most people think “lucky bastard, doing nothing all day”. In fact what happens though is I work on 10 different things pretty much all the time. There may not be a clearly defined clocking on time, but there’s also no clocking off time so it’s difficult to unwind. I always work late nights and weekends. I rarely watch films, television, play video games or do anything like that really. Now I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me, put the violins away. Compared to a lot people my life is very easy. I just think I should make some attempt to get more in sync with the rest of the world. I also hope it will help me be more productive and enjoy some time off. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. Time will tell.

One of the first things I did on Monday in my newly defined office time was arrange to have our band PA collected by courier and taken to Newcastle for repairs. It died on us just before Christmas but luckily it’s still under warranty and they should repair it for free. I also got quite a few things ticked off my list of jobs which I was pleased with. Monday is of course Linux Outlaws night and I got ready to record the show live with Fab. At this point the Internet gods decided to mess with me and we spent the next hour trying to get our VoIP communication working. It seems like it’s either something going wrong with my broadband connection or the new studio PC. I’ve tried to trace the problem but typically it hasn’t happened since. The show went well once we did get started and you can download it as episode 245 – “Dirty I/O”. On Tuesday I continued hammering my way through a back list of jobs. I also released the episode of Rathole Radio from Sunday, fixed some CSS problems on the 20lb Sounds website and edited a video for LEAF. Hopefully you’ll be able to see that soon. I then contacted some venues about booking gigs with the band and there’ll be more on that in a moment.

On Wednesday I joined Randal Schwartz to host FLOSS Weekly 197. My Internet gremlins seemed to have disappeared which was good. Our guest was Sam Aaron of the Overtone project. An Open Source music making framework written in Java. Well worth having a listen to that for anyone interested in synthesizers and new ways of making music. Following FLOSS I headed down to Dale St for a practice with 20lb Sounds and delivered some interesting news to the lads. I almost remember the conversation word for word. I said to them “You know I was gonna look for more gigs? …. I’ve got 3!”. Tony, the manager at The Zanzibar very kindly offered us 3 gigs, all on prime nights and we owe him a big thank you. Combined with the Rathole Roadshow at LEAF in April it means we have the first half of 2012 pretty much fixed up gig-wise. Here’s the line up:

Saturday February 4th – The Zanzibar, Seel Street, Liverpool.
Saturday March 3rd – The Zanzibar, Seel Street, Liverpool.
Friday April 27th – LEAF, Bold St, Liverpool.
Friday May 25th – The Zanzibar, Seel Street, Liverpool.

Ok so it’s hardly a world tour but it’s a good start I think. If any of you can come along please do, we’ll have a good time and it would be great to see you there. On Thursday we had another 20lb practice but my voice was shot. I’d been developing a cold all week and as I write this I still can’t shake it off. I can just about talk, but only like some weird cross between Ringo Starr and Barry White. Yeah I know, what’s different about that right? On Friday morning I met Neil and we discussed Open Source City business. Still a massive amount to do there but we’re starting to make progress. In the afternoon I got online and recorded a Linux Outlaws special with Fab and our guest Jonathan Nadeau. Jonathan has been on the show before but we dubbed him our official Accessibility Corespondent some time ago. He’s a blind computer user and offers us a great perspective on problems we don’t even think about as sighted people. Plus he’s a great guy and very funny. I don’t want to give the impression that his lack of sight is the only reason we have him on our show. Following that I recorded some lines for a radio play I was recently asked to appear in. It’s for one of our listeners and I’ll get you more details when I can. My character is a wise old warrior and I used my croaky cold voice to full effect. I hope I didn’t go over the top in a Christian Bale Dark Knight style though… “HE MUST HAVE FRIENDS!!!”. Not content with my day’s work I then wrote a Bash script to automate downloading and uploading the raw audio Bradley sends me for Free As In Freedom. It’s just a wrapper for a couple of rsync commands really but I was quite pleased with myself. I posted the code on Pastbin at the request of some people on Google+. It’s not gonna win any awards but it was nice to get it done.

Eddie Vedder, on stage

On Friday night I decided not to do any work and try to stick to my new routine. Instead I watched Pearl Jam Twenty, a documentary about Pearl Jam, one of my all time favourite bands. Back when I was 14 I would have given anything to be Eddie Vedder. Watching the film I realised something. I still want to be Eddie Vedder, some part of me always will. On Saturday I nursed my worsening cold and tried not to do too much. Then late in the afternoon I headed to LEAF for my friend Rachel’s leaving do. She’s moving to Australia with her husband which is all very exciting. It’s a big change but I’m sure it’ll work out for them. I got a chance to catch up with some other friends down there and had a nice evening. I didn’t stay too late and was home in time to watch Match Of The Day, rock and roll or what?

Yesterday I had did a lot of audio editing. First I assembled the next Free As In Freedom for Bradley and Karen. Then I moved on to editing the Linux Outlaws special we’d recorded on Friday. It took up most of the day but it felt good to get it done. I canceled band practice as I still had no voice but hopefully that’ll be back in a day or two. It better be back in time for our gig or we’re screwed. I’m trying to be good and rest it though. No attempts to sing at all while I recover. I’m even trying to talk less but not really succeeding. Come on, this is me after all.

That pretty much brings us up to date.

Upcoming:

In the next week there’s much podcasting to be done. Tonight we’ll record another Linux Outlaws, Internet gods willing. On Wednesday I will host another FLOSS Weekly, this time with Simon Phipps. Our guest project is FreeNAS and I can’t wait to hear more about that. At the weekend we’ll have more live Rathole Radio on Sunday night. Plus, on Thursday 19th it’s back to LEAF as Jelly Liverpool kicks off for 2012. I also hope to get back to singing again once my throat recovers. This cold has totally scuppered my plans of recording an acoustic album quickly. I’ll get that done as soon as I can but unless I decide to make it a Tom Waits tribute it’ll have to wait a little longer. Sorry Folks. I’ll report back on events next weekend I hope. Until then take care of yourselves and I’ll see you soon.

Dan

Sixgun Productions is Going on Strike

2012-01-15T18:49:53+00:00

Written by Fab on January 15, 2012

All Sixgun Production sites (including LXnews) will go on strike on Wednesday, January 18th. Our sites will go completely dark for 24 hours that day, all you will be able to see is this page. I have explained why we are concerned about SOPA/PIPA in this video post and I believe we have to make a stand against such incredibly dangerous legislation, even if it concerns a country that neither Dan nor I live in.

I am sorry that you will not be able to reach our site that day but I place the blame for this inconvenience squarely on the shoulders of the United States Congress and Senate houses as well as the representatives of the RIAA, MPAA and anyone else pushing these horrible laws.

If you have comments, please post them in this Google+ conversation.

A Message About SOPA

2012-01-14T16:16:58+00:00

Written by Fab on January 14, 2011

Oppose SOPA and PIPA. Join the fight today!

Tech Predictions Review: 2011

2012-01-09T22:24:26+00:00

Time for my review of 2011′s tech predictions. Wide range of predictions, from gaming to phones to…well snarkiness. And I think I did not too bad last year. Let’s have a look.

There will be at least 1 upgrade to either ps3, 360 or wii at E3. Most likely will be the wii, as I think it is the 1 most needing an upgrade. We haven’t heard any rumours yet, but that makes this one more fun. PS3 will hopefully not, as it should have a long time left in it as we haven’t reached its potential yet (and I’ve only had 1 for a year…) 360 will probably get 1 next year.

Wii U was announced. Wasn’t released, but I think that counts

Google TV will have its Hero moment (arguably the point when android on phones became properly usable for everyday users). It will have a couple of upgrades, and actually start to be usable by normal people. This will then cause people to buy it, and make it useful and fun.

Well, I was right about the update. It was quite late in the year, but the Honeycomb update for Google TV made it really nice and useful and fun, and people are starting to like it. But still…not many people are buying it.

We will drown in tablets and e-readers. The first colour e-reader will be released, and this will be kinda rubbish, cause the refresh rate will still be pretty crap. Better devices will not be released until 2012 (probably until after an Apple colour eReader, an i-nk-pad perhaps?).

Hmmmm. Ok partly right about the first bit. Wrong about the second bit. But technically probably will be right about the last bit? (not the Apple bit though…).

The Notion Ink Adam will be released?

It was. And what an anti-climax that was. I never ended up getting one. Got a transformer instead.

New iPad, iPhone and iPod touch (pretty obvious…) No MacBooks this year though. They seem to be going off MacBooks and releasing them with more than 1 year gap. They will slowly be turned into the iPad with a keyboard.

I was right, right and right. But then I was wrong. There was a Macbook refresh. Maybe even 2…can’t quite remember.

Windows 8 will be announced, but will not be released till either the end of 2012, or beginning of 2013, but they will say beginning of 2012. It will look exactly the same, but will have great “security” features. Including, but not limited to, something “unhackable” and also a new “uncrackable” activation code system, that they seem to spend a lot of time on…

Right to start with, but then very wrong. It is nothing similar in look and feel…hello Metro interface.

Commercially available 4K tv. People start to hear about it, forget about 3D. Although, people will continue to say that the number of pixels I have just now is fine, thank you very much. But they will buy one eventually anyways…

Nope. Sad times. Sometime though.

Android 2.4 and 3.0 will be released within the year.

Hmmmm. Well, I was wrong about the numbers…but 3.0 and 4.0 should count I’d imagine. Who would have known exactly what would have happened with all this crazy tablet only version of Android and stuff. But I’ll take that as a win.

Canonical will continue alienating people and projects, and will continue on its mission to mac-ify the Linux desktop.

Hmmmm wow, I was feeling snarky that day wasn’t I. I’ll just leave this one at the side for just now.

Hulu will get off their backside and start their UK service. People celebrate…

Nope, and we didn’t even get Netflix last year In fact, apparently, Hulu just gave up. This is weird, and I wonder whether Netflix got some of these deals and managed to make them exclusive first? Who knows what actually happened. I guess we never will. The whole industry seems to be giving up on Hulu anyway.

All in all, a reasonable year. Lets just look forward to another year of awesome technical innovations. I’m excited. I hope you are too

Breaking in the New Year

2012-01-07T20:00:00+00:00

A Gift for New Years

The subject of my coffee on 2011-12-31 was a note from my sweetheart lamenting the lack of New Year's Eve kisses we would be sharing. Fortunately, she included a chili pepper with the note so that I could have a hot New Year. Challenge Accepted.

12AM January 1st

New Year's Eve was celebrated at my buddy Joe's place with his family and a bunch of close friends. As the moment approached, I read the note to everyone present; and at the proper time, the chili was chomped and eaten. I think it was a serrano and it set my mouth ablaze.

When eating chilis, make sure your friends are there to share the laughs.

6PM January 1st

16 hours into 2012, I went to the hospital due to a broken collar bone. Bummer. Wow, look at that swelling... and the terrible haircut that I gave myself.

Eventually the bone will heal, and my hair will grow out. In the mean time, there is code to hack and chilis to chomp.

Happy New Year

A geeky HPR New Year's Eve

2012-01-05T12:00:35+00:00

I am not sure if it is just me, but I have always found New Year’s Eve to be problematic. Social doctrine dictates that I should probably celebrate the event by socialising in meatspace, which involves getting totally wankered on alcohol, dancing like a complete muppet, and freezing my tits off as I watch a squazillion pounds worth of gunpowder being shot into space. Now, call me a “boring old fart”, but personally that sounds like far too much complicated multitasking for one night.

So, when I read that the Hacker Public Radio crew were planning on holding a special 12 hour LIVE New Year’s Eve event, I danced with joy (well, not quite, but I was pretty excited.) I mean, what better way to celebrate the New Year than by joining some like-minded geeks for an open round-table discussion?

So, both Becky and I joined the event for a few hours and we spent our night chatting about all manner of things. Topics included some chatter about CrunchBang, mesh networks, drugs and naughty stuff, as well as other random subjects.

It was a fun event and I just wanted thank everybody involved for allowing Becky and I to be a part of it. It was definitely the geekiest New Year’s Eve that I have ever experienced and I really hope it becomes a regular event!

P.S. If you missed the event, but would like to listen to the discussions, the whole 12 hour show is being made available from the HPR site.

--
Tagged: crunchbang linux, hacker public radio, hpr

Good things

2012-01-03T12:39:41+00:00

Just recently, I have received a number of emails from people who have discovered CrunchBang. The following, by Paul McClellan, is just one example:

Wanted to tell you that after using linux as a desktop & server for 12+ years, I never found a linux distro that I liked for the packages, the stability & the aesthetics all at once. At most got two out of three. Until I found #! - I can’t tell you what an eerie yet delightful experience it was when I first started it up & found everything just so.

I hope to see you continue with this distro, while the donation is a tiny pittance, I hope to do more as time goes on & send like-minded folks along to try #!. I think there are many of us who are like me somewhat technical, yet have a sense of aesthetics and efficiency that recoils at either “bling” loaded desktops or worflow-interrupting instability.

My sincere esteem to you sir for making a Good Thing.

Now, I do not seek out affirmation that CrunchBang is a worthwhile project, but now-and-again it is nice to hear from people who seem to “get it”.

P.S. if anyone is reading this, I wish you a Happy New Year and I hope 2012 sends many good things your way! :)

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Tagged: crunchbang linux

Christmas Eve 2011

2011-12-24T10:14:00+00:00

Today is Christmas Eve! This year has really flown by for us--having kids seems to enhance that effect, definitely. At least this year we didn't pop out another kid...for a while it seemed as though it were a yearly thing...

The past few days it has been pretty unnaturally warm, and we've had all the windows in the house open, but last night it seems the cold has rolled back in. Not very cold, but at least the heat is back on and the windows are shut now.
I did come across an old blog of mine a couple of days ago--on livejournal no less. It was quite amusing to read through--I think the dates ranged from early 2004 to the end of 2006. I was definitely a dumb kid back then, haha. Had a lot of good times with friends, though.

And that got me thinking about blogging systems. I like this one decently, but it is "no frills" for sure. Sometimes it is nice to have some additional features... So I was considering moving back to wordpress, or maybe even tumblr or something. I don't actively think I will do it though, it is nice to have the freedom of my own platform and host and all that. Besides, I could always program in the features I would like to add, since this whole thing is open source! One thing that I do not like is that articles are stored and named as numbers, since there is no db backsystem. I may have to go and try to re-work this so that it is more intuitive for humans. Without using a db, it can get tricky, and would be facilitated by an editor of sorts to create posts. Right now I just ssh in and use nano to create posts, which is an advantage of the simplicity in the way that it is currently set up.

I think today the family is going to go to church, and then this afternoon we will go to my parents' house for Christmas stuff with my immediate family and mother-in-law. Should be fun, and I'm sure that the kids will have a blast.

Kids really bring Christmas alive!

Tags: #christmas #random #life #blog

Random update

2011-12-17T10:14:00+00:00

I forget that I have a website sometimes. And then when I remember it takes me so long to get through writing a post that most of the time I do not bother. Or, my train of thought gets so broken up I can't remember what I was thinking to start with. Such is life with kids, though.

With some of the money I got from selling my #jeep, I got a PS3. I haven't had a gaming console except the Wii for a long time. I did have an Xbox 360, but sold it not long after we started having kids since I just didn't have any time to play. And it's bogus that you have to pay to play on Xbox live.

I've been playing Fallout3, which I got for $10, but I also have Red Dead Redemption, that I've only just started playing.

Hmm, what else has been going on? I rarely sign onto identi.ca anymore--I mostly use G+ and occasionally sign into diaspora. And facebook for my family and other friends. Too many networks, and I'm only online 30 minutes or so a day--usually in the mornings while I drink my coffee and try to stay up to date with news and everything.

I am thinking about not renewing the factorq.net domain, I don't really need two. The only downside is that I have my email setup on that domain, though I really only use it for mailing lists. I'll have to figure out if I can transfer it out or something like that.

Christmas is coming up quickly, and my kids are growing up way too fast!

That's all I can think of at the moment. I do intend to come back and make a separate post about some code development stuff that is going on at work, but I don't know when I will be able to get around to that.

Tags: #random #linux #opensuse #ps3

Odd FILE Behavior in PHP

2011-12-06T15:44:19+00:00

Just wanted to note a very bizarre bit of behavior that I noticed with some of PHP's predefined constants.

The $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] variable in PHP gives you the currently executing script's file name - no surprises there. It always gives you the name of the parent script, though; so, if you include a file, and reference $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] in that included file, it will give you the address of the including file.

For example, if we execute test.php, and it includes lib.php, a reference to $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] in either file will return "test.php". Here's the code:

  test.php:
<?php
echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'], "\n";
include('lib.php');
?>
lib.php:
<?php
echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'];
?>
Produces:
/var/www/test.php
/var/www/test.php

The __FILE__ variable in PHP gives you the file name of whatever script it's called in. So, if you call it from an included file, you'll get the file name of the included file.

  test.php:
<?php
echo __FILE__, "\n";
include('lib.php');
?>
lib.php:
<?php
echo __FILE__;
?>
Produces:
/var/www/test.php
/var/www/lib.php

The bizarre behavior comes with symlinks. On my workstation, I had a symlink for /var/www that pointed to a folder in my home directory. This caused some very bizarre behavior:

  test.php:
<?php
echo __FILE__, "\n",
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'], "\n\n";
include('lib.php');
?>
lib.php:
<?php
echo __FILE__, "\n",
$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'], "\n\n";
?>
Produces:
/home/windigo/test/test.php
/var/www/test.php
/home/windigo/test/lib.php
/var/www/test.php

Well, that was unexpected! Apparently the $_SERVER variables report the path that I would expect, where the magic constant seems to dereference (?) the symlink and point directly at the target file.

This caused some strange behavior in the pages I was working on, so I thought I should shed some light on things and write it down in case I ran into it again later. Hope this helps somebody out - otherwise, carry on. :)

Note: Formatting kinda jacked up, will work on that once I get my blog moved to newer, cooler software.

Federation

2011-11-25T20:42:11+00:00

After Identi.ca had a rash of issues shortly following the release of Status.net 1.0, I decided that the only logical solution was to take advantage of the open source nature of Status.net, and set up my own instance. Overall, I'd say this is a success; although there are a couple issues that could be addressed.

Dependence on the Mothership

One of the issues you run into immediately after getting Status.net and OStatus set up is that you're still extremely dependent on Identi.ca. I have over 200 subscriptions, and the vast majority of them are still on Identi.ca. When Identi.ca goes down, your instance may still be up and running - but it's not doing all that much.

Not only do you get an empty timeline, but any posts you make probably won't get through to the majority of your subscribers. The method in which posts are synchronized across instances is beyond me; but messages can be, and have been, lost.

Plugin or Bolt On?

One of the issues I encountered when I first set up my instance involved the OStatus plugin - or lack thereof. OStatus wasn't listed anywhere in the admin section, either...

A quick stop into the Status.net IRC informed me that I needed to add the plugin manually via the config.php file, and then run checkSchema.php from the command line to make sure all of the right database tables are present.

...really? It seems like this could be refined quite a bit. Enabling a plugin shouldn't require hacking in PHP and executing shell scripts.

Overall

Honestly, I've had a pretty good experience overall with my Status.net instance, Micro.FragDev.net. Most of the pain points occurred early in the setup, and the community supporting people who run their own instances has been wonderful. Whenever Identi.ca goes down, there are still a bunch of federated users having discussions in my timeline.

It seems like version 1.0 of Status.net might have better been a beta release, with a bit of more polish applied before it was thrown on a huge production system like Identi.ca.

I'll be sticking with Status.net for the time being - and look forward to further development and improvement from Evan and the team.

Detective Story

2011-11-16T17:36:07+00:00

So the other day, was exciting something i will always remember; becoming a detective. What you say, yes well i will try to keep this mostly anonymous as i think that’s more appropriate due to the circumstances. Well a close friend of mine created a website for buying and selling cars in a foreign country which his brother lives in. So all going well website is fine bla bla, I just helped my friend system admin for the server maintaining apache, mysql, postfix etc.. the website was fairly busy.

But there was fake accounts created over time posting fake ads selling cars but most of which in-fact all were very obvious scams but one of which ads was created 5 times on this website from 5 different users with 5 different emails but each listing was exactly the same. Long and short of it one person fell for this listing and ended up wiring ~£8000 to this scammer. So the victim contacted the local police which contacted us to try and find as much details as possible on the scammer like emails ip’s etc.

As the scammer was trying to get more money out of the victim the police suggested to play along with the scammer so we can catch him in the act. But my job was to find out as much information as you can. And by god the amount of information you can figure out about someone based of server logs is scary if your clever.

So we cross referenced the times which the scammer signed up to the website each time, to get his ip and his email and checking the post data to be 100% sure we had the right ip. There were 5 instances we had to go through. 3 of which ips would origionate from exactly the same place which was a major city and isp the other 2 were in a more local rural town. And if you take more attention to the dates the first 2 sign-ups by this scammer originated from this city and occurred around June then nothing until October or so where the next 3 sign-ups occurred so this could give rise to the idea that this person moved house. We know its the same scammer each time when the listing is exactly the same each time and the trace on the ip go to the same places each time.

So yes this was an interesting day but very very interesting what you can figure out about people from their IP.

Pretty Firefox Theme

2011-11-03T18:40:23+00:00

I like solid desktop look. And the fact that Iceweasel didn’t quite blend in has been bugging me, as much as I like the personas. Anyway I found GTK+ Native and it’s awesome!

In other news, I upgraded my #! Statler which is bases on Debian Squeeze to Debian Testing today. :o Took a while but everything seems to be working. Pondering just what to do with the long autoremove list.

ps. In future you may expect a recycled PekWM post.

--
Tagged: debian, firefox, iceweasel, screenshots

Update #1

2011-11-01T13:44:16+00:00

So i plan to try and do an update of me every 2 weeks on my blog to get more into routine in my life. For the last few years i realized i was very depressed and frustrated, from university i would go in and do my mathematics side of my degree and go to my Computer Science classes and hope to learn from these to understand what the updates in my debian system meant like changes to libc for security reasons then once 2nd year hit, it became very obvious that university wasn’t going to teach me the skills i wanted or hoped. So i took things into my own hands and threw my self into ~4 years of solid learning on my own and university kind of took a back step.

I have no regrets in the choices that i made, doing what i have done has opened so many more doors for me in my life than anything else has in my life, including university. These days so many students go to university especially science related topics and dont get a related job from it in the end. I can say for me i know i am good at programming, i know i love it; i know i want to do this for the rest of my life as a career not many people at my age can say anything like that about themselves. For me i never wanted to blame university to not get where i wanted to be in life. If it wasn’t for me taking so much time to learn on my own i wouldn’t have become a decent GCC hacker with server access etc. Mentored by Ian Taylor a well know free software hacker. I took my until june this year to break a lot of depression i had in my life and to accept my failing at university i felt like i had let down my whole family so much when i failed a module, it was when i tried the absolute hardest i possibly could at an applied math module at university and it didn’t pay off and there didn’t seem to be anyone to help you or talk to about it. That was in my 2nd year and that was when i really pushed my self into open source and free software.

It feels good to just talk about it and it doesnt make me feel sad anymore, i am back at university this year i should have been finished now but i failed all my modules last year it really took the biscuit if i am honest, i realised even more so that there is no chance students can learn anything useful from university, well at least from my university if you compare what others do. But yeah the long and short of it is i only need to pass 4 modules now this year to finish up my degree and i will be finished. Its hard for me but i will do it there is so much i want to do this year so i am pushing my self into alot of work to keep my mind active and my self in a routine.

It scares me how much power your mind has over your body, when getting over all my depression i feel so much better in every day life. Its like i can see again but anyways enough of me blabing on i have lots of gccpy updates to post so i will do that over the coming weeks.

Uniguin

2011-10-24T17:49:01+00:00

Uniguin (thanks for inventing that name goes to Robert at G+) is mythical creature. It’s like penguin with pretty pearly colour horn. I had been pondering bit what do to this default layout and then was inspired by joke that went old before telling it for the first time. I was thinking unicorn but I felt that penguins fitted to my theme better. So uniguins were born and they are as rare as girls in internets. This is still pretty much the default. :P I’m quite surprised I was able to draw that penguin and make it look fine with GIMP. Yay. :D

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Tagged: uniguins

Using KeepassX on Ubuntu Linux

2011-08-28T18:02:56+00:00

Recently I switched my personal password manager from Revelation to KeepassX. I keep an encrypted password file in my Dropbox account, which syncs across all of my computers (Dropbox on Ubuntu).

Install KeepassX
You can install KeepassX by opening a terminal and running ‘apt-get install keepassx’, or by opening the Ubuntu Software Center and searching for it there:

Create a password database
After installing the first thing you are going to want to do is create a password database. This is where your passwords will be stored on your hard disk.

Add a new entry
Now that you have created a password database, you can start adding entries in

Generate a password
One of the best features of using a password manager like KeepassX is that for every single site you use, you can use a very long password, and a different password for each website. Here we can hit the button labelled ‘gen’ and create a password

Right click your entry
Now you can right click your new entry, copy the new password and paste it into sites. This is much more secure, as if you use the same password for every website you visit, and one of them gets hacked, you will have to change your password on the other sites, if you even get a chance before they exploit your information. In addition, KeepassX is cross platform, working on Windows and OS X also.

Broken Sea – a fanfic site

2011-08-15T10:11:10+00:00

A new addition to my original audiobook article, I would like to mention Broken Sea.

This site is dedicated to fan fiction, the genre where the author sets the story in an established universe. An example of this is A Different Point of View, a serialised audiobook from the viewpoint of a Star Wars stormtrooper.
This is a contested issue from time to time because of the copyright issues, but here we have Broken Sea, a site apparently dedicated to a wide range of fan fiction.
I have not listened to all of it, for several reasons. First, there is an insane amount of audio, they have really been hugely productive. But also, the authors set some of the stories on the background of shows I have never heard of. An example is Logan’s Run, a show a lot people have said good things about, but I have no idea…
What I can say is that I have listened to the Dr. Who show, and that is very well done. While I only really got into the Tom Baker version of the Doctor, I liked the show, and this audio show certainly fits well in that atmosphere.
Another show I caught was Gaia, a show set in the Star Trek universe. Of course, one would expect to find Trekkies on a site like this… the show is well-written and well-performed, and I find that the characters are quite balanced and interestingly diverse. Gaia is a zoo ship working as a sort of ark to prevent ecological disaster wiping out the Earth species, a situation the Earth has recently been recovering from.
While I have not had time to listen to the others yet, I noted Battlestar Galactica, X-files, Twilight Zone and Planet of the Apes. Already with this list – about half of the shows – I would have enough audio to last me for a very long time, even if I took a break from podcasts.

Audiobooks – a beginner selection

2011-08-14T07:24:29+00:00

Part of the point of this website – though it may not be as obvious as it was at the beginning – is to discuss literature.
While I have recently had my books on the Russian Liberation Movement returned to me, making this an obvious topic for a future article, there is another thing I have been thinking about doing a feature on.

I started listening to audiobooks when I had a dog. This may seem a curious result, but our dog Pushkin (every literary reference intended) got me walking ten miles a day, and it gets old… at the time I was listening to podcasts like Lugradio and Linux Reality, and Chess Griffin did a Linux Reality episode where he mentioned podiobooks – serialized audiobooks.. I listened to a couple of them – 7th Son by J. C. Hutchins and the outstanding and extremely creepy sci-fi horror story Crescent by Phil Rossi – and have been doing it ever since.
When I was a teenager, I briefly looked into audiobooks and… hated them. At the time, I was entirely unable to deal with the fact that they ran at a pace different from my reading speed. Also, I suspect that this was because the people reading the audiobooks were talking… very… slowly… and… without… variation…
So that wasn’t a winner.. But it has changed. Partly because a book like Crescent has good effects and a narrative style that will keep my attention.

I get the impression that people are getting more into it, along with the popularity of podcasts. I actually see audiobook CDs in the stores nowadays, a sure sign of the time. I suspect this is partially because nearly everyone has an audio player available these days. Even a fairly cheap phone like my Elm has a decent MP3 player and 2 Gigs of storage built in.

But where to start? Well, I have a solid selection. I’ll show you.

Detective stories

From the thriller-plus-entertainment department: Black Jack Justice is a classic hard-boiled, banter-centric series of episodes, where each episode is a finished story.
Jack and his girl detective sidekick Trixie Dixon and a gallery of entertainingly stereotypical characters work their way their way through their cases, aided and obstructed by cops and crooks alike. If you are into old sleuth movies, you will want to listen to these.
Also, they are a good introduction to audiobooks, because they are finished segments, well-read and with good effects.

Though other themes are involved here – but genre mix is probably the case with independent publication more often than mainstream - Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword is another detective novel set in Chicago in the thirties. Billibub is a dwarf warrior magically transported from his own Tolkien-style universe, ending up in Chicago. After getting his bearings, he starts his own detective agency. The story is a curious mash-up of Billibub’s reflections mixed in with experience from his old world – as in battle axes and elvish ladies – but Tee Morris also manages to wrangle a real detective novel out of it.
The story is published as a podiobook, i.e. a series of recorded chapters.

Sci-Fi and variations

Jake Bible’s Dead Mech is a potent action-packed sci-fi horror novel. The population has been decimated by a zombie infestation. As a result, soldiers go out in giant mechs to fight the zombies, and with good results; however, when a pilot dies in his mech, you suddenly have a zombie mech… and that’s a different story.
If you can’t stand blood and gore, don’t consider this one. If you don’t mind and can take the soldier jargon, this one is for you. You certainly won’t be bored.

It is hard to get around published and bestselling Scott Sigler (more of him in this article) when talking about audio- and particularly Podiobooks. I would actually recommend listening to all of it, but a good place to start is Earthcore. He is tough and talented.

One of the most well-known and appreciated audiobooks ever must be the 7th Son books by J. C. Hutchins. After the assassination of the US president, a group of people with very different backgrounds are captured and brought together, and it is revealed to them that they are actually clones – that their childhood memories are not actually their own, but belonging to the original person, John Alpha, from whom they are cloned – and who has now gone rogue. He is behind the murder of the president and with plans for considerably worse acts.

Action/Thriller

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff won a Parsec Award – the award of excellence in the field of audiobooks/Podiobooks – for his high-paced thriller Number One with a Bullet. In this story, retired hitman Johnny Dane is drawn into a contest setting the world’s best assassins against each other with a group of very wealthy men betting on the outcome.
Nemcoff tells the story with great voices and ever-changing pace.

In his podiobook 65 Below, Basil Sands takes us to Alaska. Retired Marine Marcus Orlando Johnson is confronted with a complex plot for a terrorist plan to unleash an extremely potent biological weapon.
A well-told story with good characters. While this is my favorite Basil Sands book, consider also listening to his Faithful Warrior.

Horror

I have to say, I would never have expected an audiobook to be scary. I also have to say that Crescent by Phil Rossi had my skin crawling. I often listen to these books while doing something else, but this one had me stopping to listen. The story takes place on Crescent Station. This is a story in space, but there are bad things even there, lurking in the night, wanting to chew on your flesh…
There are good… as in effective… effects in this story. Don’t listen to this if you have a heart condition, but if you like a good horror story, go for this one.

Steampunk

Only one recommendation for this category, but a strong one. The Gearheart by Alex White introduces the Seekers, a mysterious order merging mechanics and magic. There is spying and deceit, there are mechanical beings, there are intricate mechanical devices kept running by magical glyphs signed by magician mechanics. Very pure steampunk. Certain things – particularly the order of the Seekers – reminded me of the universe portrayed in the incredibly immersive (and addictive, if it is your thing) video game series Thief.
It is worth taking a look at the interview with Alex White at The Traveler’s Steampunk Blog. He has done the voices – an impressive array of distinctive voices – with his wife, and he has composed and played the featured music himself.
Note that there is also a sequel, Maiden Flight of the Avenger; I recommend listening to The Gearheart first.

Fan fiction

A new addition to the original article, I would like to mention Broken Sea.
This site is dedicated to fan fiction, the genre where the author sets the story in an established universe. An example of this is A Different Point of View, a serialised audiobook from the viewpoint of a Star Wars stormtrooper.
This is a contested issue from time to time because of the copyright issues, but here we have Broken Sea, a site apparently dedicated to a wide range of fan fiction.
I have not listened to all of it, for several reasons. First, there is an insane amount of audio, they have really been hugely productive. But also, the authors set some of the stories on the background of shows I have never heard of. An example is Logan’s Run, a show a lot people have said good things about, but I have no idea…
What I can say is that I have listened to the Dr. Who show, and that is very well done. While I only really got into the Tom Baker version of the Doctor, I liked the show, and this audio show certainly fits well in that atmosphere.
Another show I caught was Gaia, a show set in the Star Trek universe. Of course, one would expect to find Trekkies on a site like this… the show is well-written and well-performed, and I find that the characters are quite balanced and interestingly diverse. Gaia is a zoo ship working as a sort of ark to prevent ecological disaster wiping out the Earth species, a situation the Earth has recently been recovering from.
While I have not had time to listen to the others yet, I noted Battlestar Galactica, X-files, Twilight Zone and Planet of the Apes. Already with this list – about half of the shows – I would have enough audio to last me for a very long time, even if I took a break from podcasts.
I will update this section when I have listened to more of the shows.

I should not neglect to say: These deeply talented people have made these stories available to us. Consider giving them a contribution. Most of them have versions of their works for sale, sometimes in print, sometimes ebooks, sometimes higher-quality recordings.

Ubuntu VS OS X

2011-07-17T17:29:08+00:00

A few months back I wrote a post that had quite a few reactions, speculating on why open source developers run OS X.

Recently I have been using the newest Macbook Pro 15″, and I thought I would update my direct experience on how Ubuntu and OS X stack up.

Web Browsing
On both platforms Chrome, in my view, is the defacto standard for nerds and an ever increasing porportion of the general population. Having used Safari for the first month to try ‘the apple way’, I can say that Chrome feels faster, has better features, and was just really well thought out. Both platforms are a wash on this one.

Flash Plugin
This one is also a wash, both platforms have support for flash — I actually think Ubuntu has an edge here since Flash can be installed via the package manager, instead of an entirely separate installer in OS X.

Text Editing
Textmate is a very cool application, with tons of pre-defined bundles that allow for quick completion, and a great project view. However for Java development, it seems that IDE autocompletion / debugger integration is hard to beat (Eclipse / Netbeans work on both platforms), while for Python / Ruby etc Vim was a better fit for both platforms, as an advanced user. Definitely a great entry level editor that is an inbetween for Gedit / Vim.

Terminals
I think here gnome-terminal blows away terminal.app — gnome-terminal is noticeably faster and the design was clearly by people using the terminal day in and out. I think the Mac community feels the same way, and in general uses ITerm, or the recently released ITerm2 (not same authors as ITerm oddly enough). ITerm2 does work well, but again it feels like the terminal lacks speed in comparison.

Performance
One thing that struck me was the lack of responsiveness / speed. This Macbook is a quad core with an ATI dedicated graphics card, but for most operations the OS feels quite sluggish. Starting up iTunes or Safari takes much longer than you would expect for a $2000 USD piece of machinery. I will however note that I only use Gnome 2, so Gnome 3 may suffer from a similar issue, but I am not experienced enough to write about it.

Application Installation Method
I was able to install apps through the Mac App Store, in the same manner I do in Ubuntu using the Software Center. The Mac App store has many more commercial applications, however most of them like Photoshop are just not needed for a Linux veteran as Gimp does everything needed. I also purchased XCode 4, but was underwhelmed other than the Iphone emulator which ran awesome in comparison to the Android emulator I was previously used to.

Email
I am sure a lot of people use Mail.app and like it, but I have always been a fan of the GMail interface. I guess if we are comparing Apples to Apples, Evolution and Mail.app are both not very strong competitors (ie the rest of the world either runs on Outlook or Gmail).

Photo Management
iPhoto is a strong point, it is very easy, intuitive and nice looking to manage photos. Linux alternatives here are weak.

Music Management
iTunes is a horrible, slow monster of expensive music. One thing I miss is my Droid and the Amazon MP3 application, as that was by far a better deal, and my purchases went straight to the cloud. iCloud is coming shortly, but Amazon is still my vendor of choice, and they already have proven to get the cloud right.

Gaming
OS X and Ubuntu both have my favorite game, Heroes of Newerth. Mac OS X has Steam, which is definitely a benefit and World of Warcraft. Ubuntu can’t really compete in this arena, so it is something to consider.

Conclusion
So, if you were like me, and curious about Mac OS X, you can see I am not overall impressed. Maybe I am just biased towards Ubuntu, but I find overall it has favorable performance, and I can change out any pieces I don’t like. I would recommend OS X if you wanted a generally worse experience but the ability to install Photoshop and a few more games (still nothing compared to Windows in this respect).

I'm still alive...

2011-06-30T07:08:54+00:00

Considering the amount of time I've spent not updating my blog, Google probably doesn't agree. :)

I've been a lot (most) of my time doing web-development related things. Reading every paper I can get my hands on on site optimization, applying them to all the sites I administer, and (of course) measuring. You'll notice the newly-minted PostOn, a replacement for our old use of AddToAny that pulled in a bunch of unnecessary junk. As my home page reflects, I've also been aquiring design information in school (no way to measure design performance without outside assistance, unlike performance; summer for tech, rest of year for the much clumsier design).

The rest of my time has been spent randomly playing games, Bible reading, and basic body functions. It's an extremely uneventful summer before returning to school, but it's not exhausting at least.

Copying mysql tables with keys / extras

2011-06-22T23:08:43+00:00

A lot of sites will tell you to do this:

CREATE TABLE t2 SELECT * FROM t1;

Problem is that you’ll lost your auto_increment, primary key and any other indexes you have (and any other extra meta data like that.)

This might not be the best solution, but hey it worked for me:

CREATE TABLE t2 LIKE t1;

INSERT INTO t2 SELECT * FROM t1;

Hope that helps somebody.. I only noticed I’d lost all my primary keys after copying a load of tables using the old method.

How to prevent saslauthd sucking up memory

2011-06-18T02:40:52+00:00

For about a year I noticed that very infrequently my VPS would run out of memory.. at first I thought it was probably just a wordpress plugin, but after a while I discovered it was actually saslauthd. This is a known bug (not known very well though..) with saslauthd on Debian. Anyway, here’s the fix – I’m not totally sure of the implications, so if you run a busy mail server I’d recommend you look into it a bit more before doing it:

I changed this line:

Update the file: /etc/default/saslauthd

OPTIONS=”-c -m /var/run/saslauthd”

to:

OPTIONS=”-c -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r”

I think this basically disables threading and enables forking of the process (or something like that) which is what was responsible for the memory leak.

So if you’re running out memory on your server, maybe give this a try

[Thanks to Djamu: http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-52750.html ]

A somewhat neutral observation

2011-03-10T21:23:29+00:00

I don’t get it. There’s a huge bunch of people, users and contributors, throwing mud at each other in the name of their favorite Free Software project. Online on blogs, identi.ca, forums, mailing lists and virtually any form of communication known to the broader Free Software community. Most blog posts have no actual content, but are just slurs and hatred wrapped in nice rhetoric. Both sides seem to largely have lost the ability or will to talk to each other. What I’m observing is the GNOME/Canonical debate.

On the GNOME side, people accuse Canonical of not working together with the GNOME project. Most of the controversy seems to evolve around the decision to use the desktop that started as an in-house Canonical project called Unity instead of the new GNOME Shell in the upcoming release of Ubuntu. Supporters of GNOME seem to see that as an open attack on their project, or something like that. Much of the argument is also fueled by past and present Canonical “mistakes” like moving the window buttons, their policy of copyright assignment and most recently the change of the Banshee Amazon affiliate ID.

On the Canonical side, it seems people are sick and tired of receiving a ton of hate mail for every little change they make. I could imagine that having to justify that they’re working on a Free Software project and giving it away for free can be quite frustrating for Canonical employees and Ubuntu community members. After all everything they do (at least on the desktop) is completely Free Software.

Now, when I see both sides putting so much effort into the discussion, I am asking myself:
What do they try to achieve?

The thing is, that’s not that easy to answer. Of course everyone speaking/writing on this subject may try to achieve something else, but the general tone I seem to hear is:
GNOME: Use GNOME Shell in your next release and abandon your non-upstream stuff like Unity, Application Indicators, Messaging Menu etc or at least integrate it into GNOME Shell.
Canonical: We would really like to keep using that stuff, leave us alone already.

Let’s broaden the perspective a bit. Let’s move away from the current discussion and look at what the projects, GNOME and Ubuntu, try to achieve. Because I think they have a common goal, and actually a very similar vision of how that goal should look like. A Free Software desktop, easy to use, elegant, with a unified user experience and a unified developer experience. In short, a Free Software desktop operating system and platform that is able to compete with the proprietary alternatives. This also includes an App Store/Software Center. Let me show you two screenshots.

GNOME 3 in the Fedora 15 Alpha

Unity in Ubuntu 10.10

Does this look like a different vision to you? Does this look so different to you that it’s worth having a heated argument about it? To me it seems that GNOME and Ubuntu still share the same vision, and also have very similar understandings of the concrete manifestation of a Free Software desktop. This is what the Ubuntu community means when they say they are still a GNOME distro. Canonical tweaked the desktop over several releases with the introduction of App Indicators, the MeMenu etc etc and presented Unity as an end result of this, while the GNOME people got their Shell ready and ported most of the core applications to GTK3.

Now the final release of Unity for standard desktops and the final release of GNOME 3 (which will first be included in a major distro in Fedora 15) are soon to happen. It’s not a new phenomena in Free Software communities that when two projects are equally good and it doesn’t look like one is going to cease development anytime soon (it is my point of view that Unity and GNOME Shell are currently equally good desktops, I’m trying to be as objective as possible here), a huge flame war starts. These are almost never based on “technical” arguments, only sometimes based on project politics, and all of the times pure personal preference. The latter also applies in this case. You might argue about Canonical’s decision finding process, or the way they develop software, but they release working software that obviously pleases its users. This is Free Software. Even if you don’t like the company developing it, in the end only the code matters, and whether the users like it. The freedom is not going away.

What I’m trying to say is: Are the points brought up against Canonical really that grave? Grave enough to justify a major split of the Free Software Desktop? Can’t two projects with such similar goals, such similar visions and such a shared history as GNOME and Ubuntu stop the turf war and try to get things done together? And if that’s not possible for reasons I fail to see right now, at least accept and respect the existence of each other? If Google launches Chrome OS soon, I’m sure they’ll put all their force behind it, and I don’t think there will be enough space left for a fourth major player on the desktop market after that. This might be the last chance for the Free Software Desktop. Can we unite, or will we go down fighting each other?

The Price of Mobility: iPhone 4 VS Random Amazon PC

2011-03-03T22:04:05+00:00

Title says it all.

The Price of Mobility: iPhone 4 VS Random Amazon PC

Mint KDE – All mouth, no trousers :(

2011-03-03T15:17:02+00:00

I so wanted to like Mint KDE. Lately, I’ve been getting a little bored of my Gnome Desktop. And I’m a longtime admirer of Mint’s various output. So I lept into their KDE version with much anticipation. But it sadly turned into a bit of a let down.

I have to say that the first impressions were extremely good. The installer was very swish, and didn’t have any bother hooking into my separate /home partition. And the prettiness of the eye-candy continued to impress through boot into initial tasks. The KDE Plasma idea have having everything at your fingertips is very seductive indeed. You find yourself pushing all sorts of simultaneous tasks onto the desktop, just because you can. And for a while I found myself dismissing glitches and irritations because of a lack of familiarity. But soon, the novelty of your machine looking so different begins to wear off a bit and some rather fatal flawes start to severely undermine the experience.

For me it began with KDEs rather odd launcher. Not only have they retained the really annoying menu structure that hides your path leaving you often clueless where you are, but they managed to make it worse. I should stress, there is an option to turn it off, but i’ll come back to that in a minute. The thing that really puts you in a spin is they no longer list the apps in the menu by application name, but by what the application does. I can see why, and it’s a nice idea, but in practice it’s just fucking confusing. For example in the “Internet” menu grouping, I expected to see Firefox About a third of the way down the list, A bit below Chrome (ordered alphabetically or by most used?) but because they were listed by function, ie Web Browser, they were skulking away at the bottom of the menu where I couldn’t see them. That’s the first I noticed, but so it continues, and nothing is where you expect it to be. Which is fine I thought, that must be just a default. So I delved into the launcher settings and switched the launcher to listing by app name.

I think at this moment, I really started to notice the gaping holes creeping in. I’m going to try another KDE distro soon just to see if this is a Mint implementation thing, or whether it’s KDE at fault. The problem was I tried to change that menu option and it didn’t do anything! So I tried again and rebooted. No change in the annoying menu, and my lovely uBlog plasma widgets bringing Twitter and identi.ca to the desktop decided to forget all my settings. GRRRRR!

Speaking of which, you can’t merge the uBlog timelines, so you have to have two widgets open at the same time. The LCD weather widget doesn’t work at all. the Facebook wideget does a similar thing etc etc. Ugggh, it started going from bad to worse.

If I have the time to go fiddling to put these things right, the least I could expect is to have a little music on in the background. Now this bit really got on my nerves, No matter what media player I tried, and which ever of various methods of streaming or linking I tried, It just wouldn’t play a playlist of tunes from my Tonido. I must emphasise that Tonido streaming and WebDav is utterly rock solid with every other interface I use. But Mint KDE was just a sea of fail on the media front.

As I say, I’m going to try another KDE distro soon, because this is after all, Mint’s first stab at it. But I did get the strong feeling that it was KDE not behaving. My experience of Mint’s other versions has been outstanding (Their Debian version is very nice and they do a better Ubuntu than Ubuntu does, in my humble opinion). Overall, I have to concur with other reviews of KDE that I’ve read recently. That’s to say that the whole thing has the air of having bitten off more they can chew. It just left me feeling that I wish the leaders had said no to some of the glut of features they’ve pushed in, and concentrated on bug fixing, useability and general QA issues. A cautionary tale for Unity and Gnome 3?

PS. Fuck me is it pretty though.

What the Hoff?!

2011-03-03T11:53:51+00:00

There’s no accounting for taste, and I understand subjectivity… but!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Very-Best-David-Hasselhoff/dp/B00005Q8UG

I was taking the piss out of the Germans earlier, specifically Fab on Linux Outlaws during the live show. He was bemoaning the fact that Spotify doesn’t work in Germany. I was basically jibing along the lines of “What do people in Germany want it for? 24h David Hasslehoff?”. Yeah, I know, dreadful national stereotyping, but what the fuck I was just getting a rise out of a friend amongst friend.

The thing is, it did get a bit of a rise, so on the off chance that I could get a further Fab rant going (Fab is sublime when spitting feathers!), I went on the hunt for more sources of the Hoff with which to bait him

So, I happened across the page on Amazon that I’ve linked to above. The first thing that caught my eye was the average customer rating. 4 ½ stars out of 5? And there were a fair few ratings there as well. What the fucking hell is going on? I know it’s subjective but really?

Check the reviews out, there are fifteen glowing reviews on there. I have to admit that back in the day, I bought quite a few Whitesnake albums, including the truly dreadful Slip of the Tongue, without realising for a little while how much they sucked the sweat off a donkeys balls. (A quick dose of Led Zeppelin 1 soon sorted that out thank the heavens). But even then, I could feel in my bones how much of a shit eating monkey the Hoff became when he got near a recording studio.

If there are any Germans out there who can explain it to me, do please try, because I am totally mystified

Political correctness

2011-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

back to basic

2011-02-21T10:06:00+00:00

After a few years of using several linux distros i've hopefully found my distro of choice :-D. It's debian. There are several points that i want to figure out why i like that distro most.

Debian gives you 3 stages of stability they are called stable, testing and unstable. So you could decide which dagree of security and stablenes (is there such a word :D) you want to have on your computer. Furthermore debian is trying to get rid of all nonfree stuff so in the main branche you've only the free opensource packages but you could also get nonfree stuff by enabling a diffrent repo branch. One thing i realy like about debian is the fact that you could build your system from scratch via a basic install or a bootstrap both theniques give you very much power about your system. The basic install is somewhat like archlinux install.

So to sum up debian is like it says a distro which could be everything fileserver, desktop and/or plugserver.

And now for the impatient people a screen:

New Toy: Hauppauge HD PVR

2011-02-12T18:13:49+00:00

Okay my nw HD PVR arrived I’m really liking it it so far. I bought it with the intention of archiving some gaming footage and so far it works very well for that. I’ve starting uploading some to Youtube. It’s also nice to be able to capture in HD. My original choice was going to be the Blackmagic Intensity Pro but it would have required me to add 4 more drives in a raid to my setup which I didn’t feel like doing.

One of my captures:

Is Google Hypocritical for dropping H.264 but not Flash

2011-01-12T11:55:25+00:00

This blog post is a response to a post by John Gruber.

The argument is that Google are hypocritical for not dropping support for Flash at the same time as supporting WebM instead of H.264.

In my view, saying this is hypocritical is complete rubbish.

Whatever your opinion of Flash, it’s widely used on the net at the moment and has some features that cannot be replicated SENSIBLY by HTML5 at the moment. In time that will change, but that’s the reality of the situation at the moment.

Chief amongst those features is access to client side audio and video from webcams. Flash is the only sensible way of accessing these resources and streaming them beyond installing additional plugins (which may or may not be any better than Flash’s effort).

In WebM, Google has a patent free alternative to H.264 (the Apple-preferred codec which may at any time cease to be free for use on websites). The quality of WebM encoded video is arguably very slightly lower than H.264, but immaterial when discussing low bandwidth streaming in a browser. Google’s commitment to integrating open standards understandably sees them implementing WebM in Youtube and Chrome because it’s a sensible and viable alternative to H.264. Sure, right now there’s no hardware acceleration for decoding WebM, but that will come in time. Of the major browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox and Chrome will all support WebM/VP8 encoded video in HTML5.

There is currently no credible alternative to Flash. If Google were to abandon Flash purely on the basis that it is propitiatory, they would be cutting off their own nose to spite their face. In the same way that H.264 served them until there was a viable alternative (in WebM/VP8), Flash will continue to serve Chrome users until the shortcomings in HTML5 are addressed.

If, and only if, at that time, Google choose not to remove Flash in favour of the open standard, then they can justifiably be called hypocrites.

An extraordinary request

2011-01-05T21:53:21+00:00

Hey everybody, I thought I’d share an E-Mail I wrote recently. I was inspired by Jezra’s letters to Dell and Google, but didn’t actually have the patience to find out Steve Ballmers postal address. So I just sent it to his Microsoft e-mail address. I’m still waiting for an answer and will update this post if he eventually responds…
To: steveb@microsoft.com Subject: An extraordinary request

Hello Mr. Ballmer, my name is Julian Aloofi, I'm a 17 years old pupil, currently living in Germany, and interested in PCs and especially programming. I'm a very satisfied user of Windows Vista (I'll upgrade to 7 with my next computer soon, I promise!) and generally tinkering with the .NET framework.

Well, why am I writing to you? I heard rumors on the internet that you threw a chair at one of your employees. Maybe you heard about this as well yet. I don't even want to talk about whether this was right or not, it's your chair after all. However, my chair recently broke, and while I was looking for a new chair, I thought that the best chair I could think of possibly is this very chair. If someone owns a good office chair, who but not the CEO of Microsoft? Would I ask too much if I'd ask you to send this chair to me? I know it probably doesn't mean much to you, but just imagine how happy you'd make a small german boy. If you're interested, write me back so I can tell you the postal address. My eternal gratefulness is of course guaranteed.

Best regards and a happy and successful New Year, Julian Aloofi

PS: Yes, I'm serious!
I just hope he doesn’t find out about the operating system I actually use…

By the way, I made some new packages for eViacam. They should contain no errors, regarding the application itself and packaging guidelines compliance. You can find 32-bit packages on my fedorapeople space. 64-bit users will have to rebuild the latest SRPM for now. If you try them and something breaks, please let me know!

My Game of the Year 2010: Mass Effect 2

2011-01-01T01:10:44+00:00

So the end of 2010 is here and I’ve been thinking about the game that made the biggest impact on me this year. There were plenty of great games this year but only one which I feel stands above them all which is Mass Effect 2. The world, the characters, and everything else made it a fantastic RPG experience from start to finish. I think EA really did an amazing job crafting the whole Mass Effect universe and the story as a whole. It’s also cool to be able to import you’re character from the previous games and see choices you made take shape and cause changes in the future. The first Mass Effect which was my GOTY for 2007 and the sole reason I purchased a 360 was amazing but by no means perfect since it did have a few flaws (*cough* elevators *cough*) but I still very much enjoyed it. However with ME2 they improved so many aspects of the game and really polished it. They also went the extra mile with the DLC they’ve released and hopefully they continue to release more of it. Lair of the Shadow Broker really added to the game and the way it fleshed out more the story especially at the end was awesome. Hopefully EA can ME3 my 2011 GOTY.

Other great mentions this year were Bayonetta, Final Fantasy XIII, Dragon Quest IX, Halo Reach, and Ryu ga Gotoku 4. All in all it was a great year for gamers and hopefully 2011 is the same especially with the release of 3DS (which I plan on importing).

2010-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

east coast/west coast

Seasonal (and not so seasonal) beers

The season of seasonal beers is upon us and if there’s anything I’m up for it’s seasonal beers.

While the first of the beers I’m going to talk about is not exactly seasonal, it’s good. After having some mixed experiences with Dogfish Head brews, one caught my eye: “Aprihop”. It’s an IPA brewed with real apricots and weighs in at a warming 7% ABV. If you can find it, buy it. It’s awesomely drinkable and it looks like this:

Second is Christmas Ale from Anchor Steam (another great brewery all around). What’s great about this beer is that it isn’t the same every year. Each Christmas Ale is unique. While that may not sound appealing for say, bringing it to holiday parties, it’s definitely worth picking up for some home or small crowd consumption. At 5.5% ABV it’s a nice beer to sip/swig on while getting dinner ready or relaxing with friends (or both AT THE SAME TIME). I recommend it and my west coast pick looks like this:

The reviews are brief (I just drink it, I don’t usually write about it), but I hope you try (and enjoy) my picks.

The moral of the story is go drink some beer. There’s some really good ones out there today. Support your local micro breweries and maybe some that aren’t so local.

I’m always on the lookout for beer recommendations so comments are appreciated!

FileHunter 0.4

2010-11-10T10:01:11+00:00

One small bug fix to FileHunter today:

Ignore symbolic links when searching the haystack

FileHunter-0.4.tar.gz

Linux Mint 10 “Julia” RC, Hot Off the Presses!

2010-10-18T21:15:43+00:00

The Release Candidate (read: almost finished) version of everybody’s favorite Ubuntu-based Linux distro is up for grabs! Most improvements are highlighted on the Linux Mint blog where you will also find download instructions.

Some new features that I particularly like:

The Mint menu highlights newly installed apps and has GTK themes support
The Update Manager displays the download size, it has a revamped UI and should also be faster
The Welcome screen will immediately give you the opportunity to install missing codecs that aren’t shipped with the distribution due to international licensing issues.

Here’s a link to the torrent (32-bit)

So, what do you think? Will any of you Ubuntu users be switching to Mint 10? Will any of you Mint users be switching to the upcoming Debian-based edition?

Linux Mint 10 “Julia” RC, Hot Off the Presses!

XMPP servers head-to-head: ejabberd vs Openfire (first impressions)

2010-09-26T15:53:00+00:00

During the last few days I’ve been playing around with two of the most prominent XMPP servers currently out there: ejabberd and Openfire. ejabberd is written in Erlang, a functional programming language developed at Ericsson Computer Science Laboratory for use in telephone switches. With this use case in mind, they designed the language and its runtime for high degrees of concurrency and fault-tolerance. As it turns out, these traits are quite desireable in messaging servers as well. Right off the bat, I declare this ejabberd’s biggest advantage - the scalability inherent in the technologies it is based on. Yet another Erlang-induced win is the fact that hot code loading is supported, meaning that a live server instance can be upgraded without disrupting the service.

This is where the fun stops, at least for developers looking to extend ejabberd by writing modules. The process of installing and configuring ejabberd is thoroughly documented, but the developer documentation is severly lacking. It all ends up in a good amount of RTFS. The Java-based Openfire is in many ways much more manageable than ejabberd. If you intend to extend the functionality of the server with plugins, you’ll come to appreciate the availability of developer documentation and guides to get you started. The way plugins can be snapped into place through the web-based administration interface is really sleek too.

So, any closing thoughts? If scalability is key, and you don’t have any immediate plans of adding custom behaviour - bite the bullet and go with ejabberd. If you do decide to start tinkering with modules, I recommend Jack Moffitt’s excellent blog related to the topic. If you just need an easily manageable, easily extensible messaging server - try Openfire. Actually, try them both (and preferably a few more) like I did, as your mileage may vary.

frog4j - simpler integration of Hoptoad and log4j

2010-09-19T15:05:32+00:00

Stacktraces are a Good Thing™, but not very useful when hidden away in your server logs. Hoptoad is a useful exception tracking and notification service for your application. Although skewed towards Rails applications and webapps in general, Hoptoad can be integrated into existing logging frameworks quite easily. This is exactly what I did with the aptly named frog4j.

Setting it up

The sources can be built using Ant. The default task builds a jar, so just run ant in the top level directory, grab the jar from the dist directory and put it in your classpath and smoke it.

The source contains a sample log4j.properties file that shows how to configure frog4j:

log4j.rootLogger=INFO, stdout, hoptoad

log4j.appender.stdout=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
log4j.appender.stdout.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.stdout.layout.ConversionPattern=[%d,%p] [%c{1}.%M:%L] %m%n

## frog4j appender
log4j.appender.hoptoad=org.freeasinbeard.frog4j.HoptoadAppender

# mandatory parameters
log4j.appender.hoptoad.api_key=76fdb93ab2cf276ec080671a8b3d3866
log4j.appender.hoptoad.environment=production

# optional parameters (with default values)
log4j.appender.hoptoad.threshold=ERROR
log4j.appender.hoptoad.only_log_exceptions=true

By default, frog4j only forwards exceptions to Hoptoad (only_log_exceptions=true) but can also forward normal log messages at the given threshold (Level.ERROR).

Todo

Adding support for log4j layouts so that the error messages can be customized

2010-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

smtp_toolkit

Speaking SMTP to mail servers with Python!

In my daily work, I often find the need to test various mail servers: verify that they are responding, see if they support TLS, check what the max supported message size is, etc. This is usually an exercise in running a telnet session to port 25 of the mail server and inspecting from there.

Seeing as telnet isn’t installed by default on some operating systems these days (I’m looking at you Windows 7), writing a Python class seemed to be the right thing to do. I can incorporate it in to scripts, schedule checks, work it into mxutils.com… The list goes on.

It’s pretty straightforward to use, and I’ve made the code available under the BSD license at http://github.com/polera/smtp_toolkit.

Here are some basic examples of usage:

 1 from smtp_toolkit import SMTPServerTest
 2 
 3     # setup a list of servers to check
 4     server_list = ['smtp.gmail.com']
 5   
 6     for server in server_list:
 7       print(server)
 8       s = SMTPServerTest(server)
 9       # server connection results are returned as a dict
10       print(s.results)
11       # get the EHLO options (i.e. what would be returned after an ehlo command)
12       print("EHLO options %s" % ", ".join(s.ehlo_options))
13       # see if the server supports TLS (based on the EHLO response)
14       print("TLS Supported? %s" % s.server_supports_tls)
15       # what is the max message size that this server will handle (also from EHLO)
16       print("Max message size: %d MB" % s.server_max_message_size)

I plan on building this out to support more features in the near future, so if you’re interested, keep an eye on the github repo.

Now, go test your servers!

10 Problems with Government Websites

2009-11-28T23:59:49+00:00

So in general these suggestions are meant for Canadian Government Websites. I believe that these sites are especially guilty of the following problems but are also applicable to other sites.

1. Problem: Poorly implemented or no RSS. Even if present it is usually useless, hand-generated, out of date or doesn’t pertain to very much of anything.
Solution: Implement RSS or use a CMS that has RSS built in. Even most good programming languages have excellent XML handling built in.

2. Problem: anything.aspx
While aspx is a semi-decent programming language, using it doesn’t encourage you to use some of the great CMSs or Frameworks like Drupal or Django. Not to mention it screams to the world that you are using windows to host your site. Terribly insecure.
Solution: Use different languages that can run on several platforms to have a heterogeneous environment.

3. Problem: IIS
No respectable outfit, ever… EVER uses IIS as their web server. And it leads to using html mangling programs like Adobe Contribute and Front Page.
Solution: Use Linux/BSD/OpenSolaris or if you must, I think SCO is still around right?

4. Problem: www.example.com vs example.com
Every good website since 1996 has fixed this problem, one redirects to the other. When I go to a government site and I see “Under Construction” because IIS is misconfigured I think less of politicians.
Solution: Correct configuration of IIS or switch to Apache.

5. Problem: streaming WMV etc.
While I believe that governments should disseminate content in open and non-patent encumbered formats(I’m a believer that people shouldn’t have to have a license to read a word document or play an mp3), and even though (most) browsers support HTML5 elements that allow for embedding video, I realize that using flash is the most realistic option. Most government sites don’t even do that, They stream video in wmv and audio in wma. Using this is a bit jenk on a Mac and technically possible(but practically impossible) on Linux. Also transcriptions should be available for every video(for people using text browsers) or captioned.
Solution: Use Flash or open formats like ogg, or better yet use both.

6. Problem: Intelligible URL structure
I am a believer that I should be able to navigate 90% of a website by typing plain English words into a URL. Call me old fashioned but it is just the way that I feel. HINT: It also keeps the site easier to maintain. If the URL structure is a mess, the code is probably a mess.
Solution: Use a language like python or frameworks that encourage or require clean URLs.

7. Problem: English or French?
Every Time that you go to a Canadian Government site for the first time, the site will ask you what language you would like to view the site in. Every browser that has been made in many years has been able to send information about your language preferences. Most English speakers don’t realize this because they are too dominant to ever run into the problem. But if that is too difficult to implement for the government, then enable a checkbox that says “Remember my selection whenever I visit a Government of Canada Website.”
Solution: Learn about cookies.

8. Problem: Colour Scheme
No one worries about the 216-256 “web-safe” colours anymore. NO ONE USES 8-BIT DISPLAYS ANYMORE. But if you had been to a government website even today it seams that they are still subscribing to this philosophy. The design of the sites could be so much more appealing with better colours.
Solution: Use colours.

9. Problem: “What’s New”, “Top of Page” and other similarly useless links.
“What’s new” is a throw back to when site were smaller, they quickly become out of date and are made redundant by things like RSS feeds. Top of page is a throwback to when browsers did not have scroll bars. Guess what? They do now. “A-Z Index” this is an interesting one. Some usability experts believe that “you should be able to access all of a site’s content within X number of clicks”. I would append one thing to this “you should be able to access all of a site’s content within X number of clicks and in under 1-2 hours”. An (A-Z Index) is useful when you approach $items>26. However, there is an upper limit to this.
Solution: Top of page might be useful for accessibility, or text browsers. Do browser detection. If the user is using a browser that would benefit from this show it, if not hide it with Javascript.

10. Problem: Open Data.
I have issues with Crown Copyright. I believe that, in most cases, works that a government create should be owned by the people and not by “The Monarch”. I am sure the queen could care less that she has all the rights to the 2006 Ministry of fisheries report on salmon populations. I was amazed, when during a recent copyright consultation roundtable, Minister of Industry, Tony Clement did not understand why it mattered that Canadians should hold the rights to government works. A good compromise to this would be to make both the crown and Canadians both rights holders. It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Also government Data should be made available to the public as easily as possible. Either by dumping the raw data on the internet or creating open databases with APIs to access the data. NOTE: It is important that crown copyright be fixed before this happens. I should not have to pay money to get at government data, nor waste paper in the process. All I should need is an internet connection and the desire to find out.
Solution: Create a mechanism and reform copyright so that this information can be disseminated more easily. Embrace Creative Commons. Follow the lead of the Americans.

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Ubuntu – Xubuntu 9.10 Beta: first look

2009-10-26T04:41:33+00:00

I has been awhile since I have had the time/opportunity to do a distro review due to other projects I have been working on, but I will get to that later. I am currently testing the beta for Xubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Kola) which is set to be released on October 29th. I have not gotten the ‘Netbook’ remix of this version yet, so that will have to be saved for another time. So here goes, first look at Xbuntu 9.10 on the AAO.

Speed:

Karmic seems to be getting a lot of press regarding boot speed,but I cant say that I notice much of a difference. In fact, the new login window and GDM seem to possibly be slower (right now I am comparing this to Linux Mint GLORIA). But it does seem to be faster doing a suspend/resume. It also seems to be a small amount faster in all around performance.

Improvements:

One of the things I have always liked about Ubuntu is how well the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ has worked. This has gotten even better with the introduction of the Ubuntu Software Center . This combines all that was good with the old system and improves upon it. They have also improved the mechanism for adding a PPA (personal package archive) for software that is in active development (such as chromium). This is now accomplished with the simple line: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:x where x is the name of the project (chromium daily). I will (hopefully) be doing a full how-to on PPA’s (both for pre-Karmic, then Karmic) shortly. Another improvement is that at least in the main line version of Ubuntu which has always been very much into integration of the different desktop apps, you now seem to have the ability to remove any one of these applications without causing any problems with the rest of the suite. Specificaly, if you chose to, you can now remove Evolution/Empathy without complaint from the ubuntu-desktop package. This is good for the users (like myself) who appreciate the effort made to integrate all the applications into a cohesive desktop, but disagree with the choice of software used (I personally prefer Pidgin IM client and Thunderbird mail client) .

Theme:

The new them for Karmic seems to have finally gotten past the Brown/Orange theme and gotten into the realm of a darker theme for the desktop. This includes a more streamlined GTK theme (smaller buttons, smaller borders). The Xubuntu theme sticks with blue, but also brings a darker feel, which I personally enjoy.

Other Thoughts:

The new release seems to boast better battery life (have not confirmed yet, still testing this) and required no additional work to get all of the usual features working, though it seems that microphone support (for the built in mic at least) is still non-existent.

This is my first look of the beta, and I will update this post once I have used it longer. My initial reaction is very hopeful, and if the final release shapes up to be as good as the beta promises, Karmic will be a bit hit. I hope to be doing more distro-hopping in the coming weeks, as well more general how-to’s. As always please send me any suggestions for new distros to try, or any how-to’s you would like to see.

-x1101

Kubuntu 9.10 Review

2009-10-25T02:11:36+00:00

I have recently downloaded and installed Kubuntu 9.10 and it is great! The problem I have always had KDE is that half of the applications are much better than most Windows/Mac/GNOME apps, and half of them are about 90% as good as the other platforms. Well I have used Kubuntu 9.10 for a bit now and I must say it is giving me very little to complain about. Network has a little ways to go yet. New installer bling is great! Some great new improvements to gwenview. You will also notice that unlike in my 9.04 review I didn’t have to turn compositing off to get screenshots. (Most) compositing effects now show up in screenshots! Congrats to Pinheiro for his work on icons and theming. K3B looks great now that it is integrated into KDE4 as well as the newest air desktop theme. Kopete can now integrate with Skype. Awesome

I was disappointed that they decided not to include the Arora in this version, as I think it shows a lot of promise. There is now a Firefox installer included in the menu structure. I also installed Chromium from a launchpad PPA and even though Firefox and Chromium are GTK apps they finally(Firefox especially) are more integrated with the desktop. In previous releases Firefox wouldn’t know what to open files with unless you had GTK apps installed.

Great job KDE and Kubuntu Teams!

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Day 1

2009-10-07T20:50:19+00:00

I'm a little behind on these as I have been setting up a lot of things, but this is my account of the first day, September 30th, 2009.

The phone rang this morning at 5:21 am. It was SFC Samuels, my immediate supervisor. I fumbled through the dark for it, but was too late to catch the call. When the chime came in for a new voicemail, I let it go as I stared at the celing of my room one last time. T didn't bother to check the voicemail as I normally would have. I knew what it said, so I replied with a text message reading only "I'm up." I got dressed, threw my bags in the van, said goodbye to my Sister-in-law, and loaded the wive and kids up in the van.
It was about 6:15 when we got to the airfield. It's a place in which I've become comfortable working, but would now say the last face-to-face goodbye to my family. at 6:30 a brief formation was held to ensure that everyone was there, and they let us go back to our loved ones to await the buses. Abby, Alex, and Ash all played as the sun slowly rose to the east. They would not be going to school today. It's Wednesday, a short day for all of them anyhow, and they had something else to do. The retention NCO came by with flags and boxes which contained a t-shirt and a nylon enclosed binder full of army promotional items. I grabbed one up before even knowing the contents, as there were plenty available. I stuffed the binder into what little space remained in my backpack, and Rachel made her claim on the t-shirt.
Everything was pretty easy and simple until I saw the first bus preparing to turn towards us. Then it all hit me pretty hard. I did my best to hold it together, but could not help letting a few tears fall. I still had to struggle though to keep from overwhelming the kids. Few have ever seen me cry, and I'm not sure how they would handle it. Abby seemed to understand the gravity of the situation, and Alex was at least playing along. Ash was the one who really got to me though. He rarely speaks, but he said good bye as if he knew exactly what it meant this time. As Rachel started to cry, Abby hugged her and said
"It's okay Mommy, I'll take care of you."
What more could a father ask for?
As it all got to be too much, I sent them off. They could have stayed longer, or even followed the buses to the airport as some families did, but we like to have as much control over our goodbyes as we can, even if it means doing it a little earlier. SSG MacNamee, newly promoted and a fellow commo guy, came up and gave me an understanding pat on the back. He said to me
"It'll only be 30 days." referring to the possible leave scheduled for the end of our mobilization.
"I won't be taking the leave." I told him. "I can't do this again any time soon."
I bummed a cigarette from PFC Rose to calm my nerves, loaded my bag on the bus, and got on.
The American legion had a team of motorcyclists bearing flags escort our buses to the airport, and by 9:00 am, we were there loading it up. I volunteered for the detail to load bags into the cargo spaces of the 737 we would take to Oklahoma. Didn't take long, and despite about a dozen weapons racks, we had plenty of space left over. Finally getting on the plane, I saw why. In a column of 3 on each side of the aircraft, there was no more then 1 person per row on board. It's nice to have a little extra space. As we flew away, I watched the city I grew up in and have always considered home disappear behind us. At one point I could see all the way across it to the Chesapeake Bay, and as we passed through the clouds I knew it was going to be obscured from my sight for at least the next 6 months. Half the people on board eventually sprawled out across 3 seats to sleep. The staff was courteous and generous with food and drinks, and I finally got a cup of coffee. It was a little weak, but enough to keep me going.
I spent a fair amount of the in flight time writing, and as we approached the airport, I realized that Oklahoma from the air looks pretty much exactly as I had imagined it. Rural and rustic.
We took more buses, this time much more like the ones you might expect soldiers to ride in, the rest of the way to Fort Sill. We checked in with our ID cards, had some food at the “Mob Cafe” (pronounced like MObe) and went on to where we would stay. I got a 4 person room with Specialist Hardy, my communications partner in crime, Sergeant Coley, one of our operations counterparts, and Specialist McGill, our supply support. We got all set up in our room, and await another day. The first on our way to war can end.

How to prepare

2009-09-11T19:52:13+00:00

Preperation is something that you get better at with experience, but all the experience in the world is sort of useless if you are uncertain what conditions you are preparing for. I know that I'm going to need a personal computer of some kind, and I'd like to have a laptop for the sake of convience and mobility. I even ordered a pair of netbooks off the internet, but today I am making my last ditch effort to put software onto them that will make them reasonably functional. I have been at this since they came in a week ago, and I think I simply have to accept that I made a mistake in buying them. I have never sent anything back before, so I'm a little unsure how to go about it, and I of course have to justify the return at least in my own mind. They may ask for an explination where I purchased them, they may not, but I think I have a reasonable excuse either way.

For those of you who know a little about computers, you might do well to know that I am a proud Linux guy. This means that I don't use Windows for my computers. Mac people likely understand this at least a little, and it's always been in my nature to be a little countercultural and defiant. I like that it's free, and that I can try new things at will, but some Linux perple can be a little preachy about freedom and whatnot. Me, I just like that I can fix it when it, as all things do, breaks. If you're interested in Linux, I have some really great sources for you to check out, but moving onward.

I bought these 2 machines because knowing that if I had an example with me would make it more likely that
I could replicate any problems the wife had with hers and that I could instruct her on what to do over the phone should something be amiss. I think it was a good plan, but I skimped on hardware, and I think I'm paying for it. I've found that if you buy a computer that has either Linux or, nothing, pre-installed, you can save a pretty penny. If you really must pad the pockets of the Microsoft corporation, you can do that later, and being a menber of the Army, I'm pretty sure I can get it at a discount if I really need it.

I'm going to have to get hopping on this. I'm short on time. I've got just 2 and a half weeks to get ready, and there is a lot of unrelated things to get done. More on that later... for now, I am ready to make my last attempt. Wish me luck.

UNetBootIn How-TO

2009-08-12T18:27:12+00:00

Hello again.

Today’s topic is another general introduction before we really get started on our journey. Since the AAO (like most net-books) doesn’t have a CD ROM drive, UNetBootIn is a must for installing a different OS. That being said, I thought it would be appropriate to spend a bit of time delving into the specifics of UNetBootIn so that anyone who wants to has enough information to try a distro or two out for themselves.

The only things you need use UNetBootIn are 1) A PC running Windows or Linux and 2) A USB drive large enough to hold the disk image (ISO) of your desired distro. For most distro’s a 1 or 2GB drive should be plenty, but if your prefer a meatier offering, such as Fedora, you will need at least a 6GB drive (because Fedora and others are DVD ISO’s, which are approximately 4.5 GB in size.) I have a 2 and an 8 GB drive for this, depending on how large the image is, and on which one is not being used.

To start off, open up UNetBootIn. You have two options on how to use it. Firstly, you can use the top portion of the application to download a specific version of your distro of choice (many are included, though often not the most up to date versions)and burn it all in a single step.

The image below shows this method with the live image for Ubuntu 9.04 chosen. If you were to select a location and start the process, you would download and install the Ubuntu live installer environment onto the USB drive selected below.

The other way to use UnetBootIn is to download the ISO on to your computer manually and then create the USB installer. Use this if your distro or version of choice is not listed in the automatic download menu.

With either option simply insert your USB drive and select it from the “Drive” menu. Then Press OK and the installation (and download if you selected the automatic download) will start.

If you selected the Automatic download your screen will look like this, and the download will begin. How long this will take depends on the size of the image you have chosen and your connection speed. This will download the ISO file of your selected distro and save it as a TEMP file in the default location for your OS. After the install you may want to go and delete this to save space.

Regardless of which method you choose, UNetBootIn will extract and copy files into specific locations to use for booting the installation environment. It will then install the boot loader and finish up.

If you are doing this download on the PC you wish to install the new distro on, go right ahead and click the “Reboot” option on the next screen. Otherwise simply select “Exit.” Either will close the installer. From here you simply insert the USB boot device you have created into your AAO (or other PC/Netbook.) Make sure you have “USB Hard drive” or similar chosen as your 1^st Boot device in the BIOS (the initial start-up screen will flash press <Some Key> to enter setup, press that key to enter the BIOS and make changes, carefully) and boot up your new installer.

Hopefully this little UNetBootIn walkthrough will be useful to you. This is a very powerful tool for installing operating systems on any PC that does not have a CD ROM drive (as long as it has a USB port.)

Stick around, because next I will begin reviews in earnest. The first distro up is #!CrunchBang Linux, a minimalist project based on Ubuntu, running the OpenBox window manager.

-x1101

2009-03-16T16:00:01+00:00

Linux Outlaws Planet

Some Basic Thoughts on GPL Enforcement

summer plans still TBD

Weekly Rewind #103

Ravens, and possibly all properly trained talking black birds, are quite the motivation speakers.

FaiFCast and Upcoming Talks

The Day the Internet Went Black

Vala GIO Socket Server Sent Event Example

Weekly Rewind #102

Sixgun Productions is Going on Strike

A Message About SOPA

Tech Predictions Review: 2011

Breaking in the New Year

A Gift for New Years

12AM January 1st

6PM January 1st

A geeky HPR New Year's Eve

Good things

Christmas Eve 2011

Random update

Odd __FILE__ Behavior in PHP

Federation

Dependence on the Mothership

Plugin or Bolt On?

Overall

Detective Story

Pretty Firefox Theme

Update #1

Uniguin

Using KeepassX on Ubuntu Linux

Broken Sea – a fanfic site

Audiobooks – a beginner selection

Detective stories

Sci-Fi and variations

Action/Thriller

Horror

Steampunk

Fan fiction

Ubuntu VS OS X

I'm still alive...

Copying mysql tables with keys / extras

How to prevent saslauthd sucking up memory

A somewhat neutral observation

The Price of Mobility: iPhone 4 VS Random Amazon PC

Mint KDE – All mouth, no trousers :(

What the Hoff?!

Political correctness

back to basic

New Toy: Hauppauge HD PVR

Is Google Hypocritical for dropping H.264 but not Flash

An extraordinary request

My Game of the Year 2010: Mass Effect 2

east coast/west coast

Seasonal (and not so seasonal) beers

FileHunter 0.4

Linux Mint 10 “Julia” RC, Hot Off the Presses!

XMPP servers head-to-head: ejabberd vs Openfire (first impressions)

frog4j - simpler integration of Hoptoad and log4j

Setting it up

Todo

smtp_toolkit

Speaking SMTP to mail servers with Python!

10 Problems with Government Websites

Ubuntu – Xubuntu 9.10 Beta: first look

Kubuntu 9.10 Review

Day 1

How to prepare

UNetBootIn How-TO

Hello again.

Security Consultation

Vulnerability Assessments

Incident Response

Digital Forensics

Systems Hardening

Virtualization/Cloud Solutions

Open Source Software Support

Odd FILE Behavior in PHP