The last several days have been strange and annoying. I have been unable to sleep at night, and unable to remain awake during the days. Very inconvenient when I'm trying to get all of my end-of-semester stuff pulled together.
So last night I just bit the bullet. I stayed up all night, in hopes that at least this way I'll be awake in the morning and at least tired at night.
We'll see how it goes.
It's a bit strange to be reading netnews, shower, and then go back to netnews with coffee.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Spring Break - First Project
I have a rather involved system for dealing with my email. I've got a mail server running my own hybrid filtering system. I access the mailstore on that server using Binc IMAP and mutt. For what I want, it's nearly perfect.
The one gaping hole had been message searching. Mutt does have the idea of setting up a 'limit', and only displaying matching messages. Limiting only works in the current folder. More than that, if you want to limit based on body contents, all messages (and their attachments!) are downloaded to search the bodies. Sometimes this is slow.
I thought it might work to set up MHonArc and ht://Dig and then just access the archive for searching this way. This is what The Mail Archive does.
MHonArc is amazing for mailing list archives, where there's not any folder structure. Trying to impose a folder structure is very much a square peg with round hole of insufficient diameter proposition.
Beyond that, I couldn't find an easy way to get the kind of search excerpts out of ht://Dig that I wanted. Excellent general-purpose search tool. For email, archives, it seemed to be tripping over the headers a lot. I know there's a way around that, but I couldn't figure it out.
After a very late-night learning experience setting up the MHonArc and ht://Dig to get results that still weren't what I wanted, I got some sleep and put in a bit more thought about the mechanics of how this would work.
I'd need to use a browser to read archives. Somewhat annoying not to be able to search from within mutt. I'd also need to set up ssh tunneling to read archives from outside my house. No big deal, but somewhat annoying.
I should also set up an .htpassword to prevent house guests from reading my personal mail. I've got all of my mail stuff authenticating via checkpassword-pam, which gives me a nice single-sign-on system. If there's a way to get apache to use checkpassword-pam, I don't know it. So I'd need to remember to change that password as well to keep it in sync with my other passwords. Also not a big deal, but also annoying.
Becoming less convinced of the cleverness of that setup, I started googling around for other solutions. I stumbled across Mairix after encountering an amusing rant written by someone who appears at least as picky as I am.
Mairix is very cool. After adding: macro index S "!ssh -p PORT localhost mairix " and the appropriate modification to my preconnect to set up this tunnel, it integrates very nicely with mutt. I'm quite happy.
Thus concludes my first work-avoidance project of the week, and also my blog-resurrection.
The one gaping hole had been message searching. Mutt does have the idea of setting up a 'limit', and only displaying matching messages. Limiting only works in the current folder. More than that, if you want to limit based on body contents, all messages (and their attachments!) are downloaded to search the bodies. Sometimes this is slow.
I thought it might work to set up MHonArc and ht://Dig and then just access the archive for searching this way. This is what The Mail Archive does.
MHonArc is amazing for mailing list archives, where there's not any folder structure. Trying to impose a folder structure is very much a square peg with round hole of insufficient diameter proposition.
Beyond that, I couldn't find an easy way to get the kind of search excerpts out of ht://Dig that I wanted. Excellent general-purpose search tool. For email, archives, it seemed to be tripping over the headers a lot. I know there's a way around that, but I couldn't figure it out.
After a very late-night learning experience setting up the MHonArc and ht://Dig to get results that still weren't what I wanted, I got some sleep and put in a bit more thought about the mechanics of how this would work.
I'd need to use a browser to read archives. Somewhat annoying not to be able to search from within mutt. I'd also need to set up ssh tunneling to read archives from outside my house. No big deal, but somewhat annoying.
I should also set up an .htpassword to prevent house guests from reading my personal mail. I've got all of my mail stuff authenticating via checkpassword-pam, which gives me a nice single-sign-on system. If there's a way to get apache to use checkpassword-pam, I don't know it. So I'd need to remember to change that password as well to keep it in sync with my other passwords. Also not a big deal, but also annoying.
Becoming less convinced of the cleverness of that setup, I started googling around for other solutions. I stumbled across Mairix after encountering an amusing rant written by someone who appears at least as picky as I am.
Mairix is very cool. After adding: macro index S "!ssh -p PORT localhost mairix " and the appropriate modification to my preconnect to set up this tunnel, it integrates very nicely with mutt. I'm quite happy.
Thus concludes my first work-avoidance project of the week, and also my blog-resurrection.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Monday, November 07, 2005
Published Author
Service Life Prediction: Challenging the Status Quo. I'm a co-author on Chapter 12 and Chapter 14.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Anniversary
Today was our one-year anniversary. Last night we went out to celebrate.
This was a one-kid weekend. Beth and Laurie watched Will for us. He seemed to really like it, and so did they. Apparently he was really well behaved, too.
We went out to dinner. I wanted to find a nice little cozy little place. Wifey wanted fish though, and there aren't a lot of cozy little seafood places in Madison. I looked at Ocean Grill and The Blue Marlin, but both are on the Capitol Square. That would mean hellish parking and bar-crowds to deal with, which neither of us wanted to put up with. So we just went to Red Lobster. It ended up being really nice, though.
Then we went to see Lord of War. It was good, but not what I expected.
It was so good to get out of the house and get a little time away from the kid(s). We're both so very busy lately, that we don't get to do that very much. Because of that, we're all a bit high strung a bit more often than we should be.
This last year went by very fast. So busy, all of us. But it's been a very good year.
Lily started kindergarten. Her teachers seem to be really impressed with her. She's starting to read and write. A few days ago, I found her spontaneously copying writing from her toys.
Will has started walking, running, climbing. He's started picking up words, and even some phrases.
Melissa has started school. It's something she's not bored out of her skull doing, which is good. The jobs she's tried this last year have been totally unable to hold her interest. She seems to be really enjoying it.
And I'm still doing what I'm doing. I've got about three semesters left on my MS, then I'll probably start in on my PhD. I've picked up another job maintaining the website for my department.
Here's hoping for another year just like this one. And then another. And another.
This was a one-kid weekend. Beth and Laurie watched Will for us. He seemed to really like it, and so did they. Apparently he was really well behaved, too.
We went out to dinner. I wanted to find a nice little cozy little place. Wifey wanted fish though, and there aren't a lot of cozy little seafood places in Madison. I looked at Ocean Grill and The Blue Marlin, but both are on the Capitol Square. That would mean hellish parking and bar-crowds to deal with, which neither of us wanted to put up with. So we just went to Red Lobster. It ended up being really nice, though.
Then we went to see Lord of War. It was good, but not what I expected.
It was so good to get out of the house and get a little time away from the kid(s). We're both so very busy lately, that we don't get to do that very much. Because of that, we're all a bit high strung a bit more often than we should be.
This last year went by very fast. So busy, all of us. But it's been a very good year.
Lily started kindergarten. Her teachers seem to be really impressed with her. She's starting to read and write. A few days ago, I found her spontaneously copying writing from her toys.
Will has started walking, running, climbing. He's started picking up words, and even some phrases.
Melissa has started school. It's something she's not bored out of her skull doing, which is good. The jobs she's tried this last year have been totally unable to hold her interest. She seems to be really enjoying it.
And I'm still doing what I'm doing. I've got about three semesters left on my MS, then I'll probably start in on my PhD. I've picked up another job maintaining the website for my department.
Here's hoping for another year just like this one. And then another. And another.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Karl Rove
There's been quite a bit of buzz in the media about Karl Rove. Much of this buzz is political in nature, and not that I have no opinions on that front, but another aspect of this has really struck me.
Much of this discussion involves going through email records and electronic memos. This makes me wonder: does the media know nothing about protecting the security of electronic records? Why weren't all of these emails and all of these memos PGP encrypted? Why weren't they stored on a system like StegFs, or even EFS? Why did they still exist at all? Why hadn't they been wiped in accordance with a document destruction policy?
This isn't just about the news media, though. Anonymous sources should be aware of tools like Invisiblog and anonymous remailers (like mixmaster).
We have phenomenal tools for maintaining the anonymity of sources. Why does nobody use them?
Much of this discussion involves going through email records and electronic memos. This makes me wonder: does the media know nothing about protecting the security of electronic records? Why weren't all of these emails and all of these memos PGP encrypted? Why weren't they stored on a system like StegFs, or even EFS? Why did they still exist at all? Why hadn't they been wiped in accordance with a document destruction policy?
This isn't just about the news media, though. Anonymous sources should be aware of tools like Invisiblog and anonymous remailers (like mixmaster).
We have phenomenal tools for maintaining the anonymity of sources. Why does nobody use them?
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Kitties
Some time ago, my wife convinced to get a kitten. A friend of a friend had a brand new litter, and was giving them away. I've never been a cat person, so I wasn't entirely sure it was a good idea. However we did want a more interesting pet than a fish, and our apartment doesn't allow dogs. So we got Oscar The Cat:
We got him when he was only five weeks old. So he was very hyper. Being a kitten, he likes a bit of rough play now and again. We asked the vet how we might get him not to do that with the children. Her suggestion was to get another cat. I wasn't convinced that having two misbehaving animals would be better than having one. So that idea was nixed.
Since then, we've cat-sit for friends a number of times. And Oscar really was better behaved when he had another cat around to play with. So we started looking for another cat.
As luck would have it, one of Melissa's co-workers had a pair of black cats that needed a new home. Their previous owner was allergic, and none of the cat allergy medications really helped her. We picked them up last Thursday.
So now we have Missy:
She took a while to warm up to the new humans, but when she did it was like flipping a switch. She went from hissing at us to make us go away to hopping onto laps demanding that we pet her.
And here is her brother:
The picture doesn't really show it, but he is a giant cat. He's still not sure that he likes the new people at all. He spent a very long time hiding in our basement, and only came out after we calmed him with catnip. If he's not calmer by Wednesday, we might be going to the vet to get him some kitty drugs.
His previous owner called him "One-Claw" because when he was declawed, there was one claw on his left paw that the vet missed. I'd like to get him a better name than that though. I'm leaning toward Claude, but it needs the approval of the executive committee (i.e., my wife).
So that's what we've been doing for entertainment the last few days. We're turning into a bunch of cat-ladies.
We got him when he was only five weeks old. So he was very hyper. Being a kitten, he likes a bit of rough play now and again. We asked the vet how we might get him not to do that with the children. Her suggestion was to get another cat. I wasn't convinced that having two misbehaving animals would be better than having one. So that idea was nixed.
Since then, we've cat-sit for friends a number of times. And Oscar really was better behaved when he had another cat around to play with. So we started looking for another cat.
As luck would have it, one of Melissa's co-workers had a pair of black cats that needed a new home. Their previous owner was allergic, and none of the cat allergy medications really helped her. We picked them up last Thursday.
So now we have Missy:
She took a while to warm up to the new humans, but when she did it was like flipping a switch. She went from hissing at us to make us go away to hopping onto laps demanding that we pet her.
And here is her brother:
The picture doesn't really show it, but he is a giant cat. He's still not sure that he likes the new people at all. He spent a very long time hiding in our basement, and only came out after we calmed him with catnip. If he's not calmer by Wednesday, we might be going to the vet to get him some kitty drugs.
His previous owner called him "One-Claw" because when he was declawed, there was one claw on his left paw that the vet missed. I'd like to get him a better name than that though. I'm leaning toward Claude, but it needs the approval of the executive committee (i.e., my wife).
So that's what we've been doing for entertainment the last few days. We're turning into a bunch of cat-ladies.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Updates: Fink Stuff
I'm up to 23 fink packages. I know that's nothing compared to some other maintainers, but I'm still pleased with myself for it.
I've decided that just editing my packages from inside the CVS tree is too error-prone, especially in terms of keeping packages for several differing trees in sync.
Simply keeping a sandbox around with a master copy of the .info and using 'install' or similar to copy the master copy into the appropriate distributions would squish changes from upstream. That would be bad. I settled on using emacs' ediff-mode to handle this.
And as long as I'm automating this process, it would be nice to automate generation of ssl and non-ssl versions for packages that need this. To do this I settled on using a little bit of perl-fu to change the name of the package appropriately, and then a bit of magic with the Variants system to handle the rest.
Here's a snippet of the Makefile (insert tabs where needed) I'm using:
SSL=perl -pi~ -e 's/(Package: (?!%N)[^%\n]+)(%type_pkg.+)?/\1-ssl\2/'
#Fink unstable for 10.3
F103u-lib=/sw/fink/10.3/unstable/main/finkinfo/libs/
F103u-crypto=/sw/fink/10.3/unstable/crypto/finkinfo/
define merge
diff -q $(1) `basename $(1)` || ( touch $(1) && mv $(1) orig && emacs --eval "(ediff-merge-files \"orig\" \"`basename $(1)`\" nil \"$(1)\" )" && rm orig )
endef
define check
fink -v validate $(1) | grep "looks good"
endef
############
# libnasl3 #
############
libnasl3:
$(call merge,$(F103u-lib)libnasl3.info)
$(call merge,$(F103u-lib)libnasl3.patch)
cp libnasl3.info libnasl3-ssl.info
cp libnasl3.patch libnasl3-ssl.patch
$(SSL) libnasl3-ssl.info
$(call merge,$(F103u-crypto)libnasl3-ssl.info)
$(call merge,$(F103u-crypto)libnasl3-ssl.patch)
rm libnasl3-ssl.*
libnasl3-ci:
$(call check,$(F103u-lib)libnasl3.info) && $(call check,$(F103u-crypto)libnasl3-ssl.info) && cd /sw/fink && cvs ci 10.3/unstable/main/finkinfo/libs/libnasl3.info 10.3/unstable/main/finkinfo/libs/libnasl3.patch 10.3/unstable/crypto/finkinfo/libnasl3-ssl.info 10.3/unstable/crypto/finkinfo/libnasl3-ssl.patch
So far I'm quite pleased with it. But we'll see how it turns out as I use it for more things.
I've decided that just editing my packages from inside the CVS tree is too error-prone, especially in terms of keeping packages for several differing trees in sync.
Simply keeping a sandbox around with a master copy of the .info and using 'install' or similar to copy the master copy into the appropriate distributions would squish changes from upstream. That would be bad. I settled on using emacs' ediff-mode to handle this.
And as long as I'm automating this process, it would be nice to automate generation of ssl and non-ssl versions for packages that need this. To do this I settled on using a little bit of perl-fu to change the name of the package appropriately, and then a bit of magic with the Variants system to handle the rest.
Here's a snippet of the Makefile (insert tabs where needed) I'm using:
SSL=perl -pi~ -e 's/(Package: (?!%N)[^%\n]+)(%type_pkg.+)?/\1-ssl\2/'
#Fink unstable for 10.3
F103u-lib=/sw/fink/10.3/unstable/main/finkinfo/libs/
F103u-crypto=/sw/fink/10.3/unstable/crypto/finkinfo/
define merge
diff -q $(1) `basename $(1)` || ( touch $(1) && mv $(1) orig && emacs --eval "(ediff-merge-files \"orig\" \"`basename $(1)`\" nil \"$(1)\" )" && rm orig )
endef
define check
fink -v validate $(1) | grep "looks good"
endef
############
# libnasl3 #
############
libnasl3:
$(call merge,$(F103u-lib)libnasl3.info)
$(call merge,$(F103u-lib)libnasl3.patch)
cp libnasl3.info libnasl3-ssl.info
cp libnasl3.patch libnasl3-ssl.patch
$(SSL) libnasl3-ssl.info
$(call merge,$(F103u-crypto)libnasl3-ssl.info)
$(call merge,$(F103u-crypto)libnasl3-ssl.patch)
rm libnasl3-ssl.*
libnasl3-ci:
$(call check,$(F103u-lib)libnasl3.info) && $(call check,$(F103u-crypto)libnasl3-ssl.info) && cd /sw/fink && cvs ci 10.3/unstable/main/finkinfo/libs/libnasl3.info 10.3/unstable/main/finkinfo/libs/libnasl3.patch 10.3/unstable/crypto/finkinfo/libnasl3-ssl.info 10.3/unstable/crypto/finkinfo/libnasl3-ssl.patch
So far I'm quite pleased with it. But we'll see how it turns out as I use it for more things.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Another Year Another 365.242199 Dollars
Time flies when you're running about all the time.
Classes last semester went well. I didn't get straight A's, but there's always next semester. It's nice though in that I did more than well enough to be rid of the academic probation that I was admitted on. One tanked semester can be annoying to recover from. One of these days I need to update my webpage with updated course information for last semester.
The progress of research has been somewhat brisk of late. Our group has been using the vacation time to catch up with our timeline for last semester. I've been spending quite a bit of time in my subterranean lair. Good thing that it's a nice lair. Of late my task has been integrating an ingrowth routine into our growth simulator. I now have one that does something, but as yet it is unvalidated. As Knuth says: "I have only proved it correct, but not tested it."
Will is walking now. Sometimes he's practically running. Lately his thing has been to run around in circles around people. Usually screaming. It makes me wonder what the neighbors think we're doing to him. We think he said "Kitty" a while ago, but we can't get him to do it again.
Christmas was busy this year. We went to the in-laws on Friday night, my parents came to us on Saturday, and on Sunday we went to both grandparent-in-laws. Sunday was a lot of driving. I got a copies Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Jon Stuart's America: The Book for christmas. So far I haven't gotten very deeply into either, but both seem quite good. I also got FF: Chronicles. Now I've got FF4-11 (and 10.2). The family got a digital camera. I'm sure that makes my wife happy; she's a shutterbug.
We had a nice, calm new year's. We rented some movies (Resident Evil: Apocalypse and The Manchurian Candidate) and stayed home. Living away from campus is still a bit new for me, I was pleasantly surprised that it was quiet outside.
Classes last semester went well. I didn't get straight A's, but there's always next semester. It's nice though in that I did more than well enough to be rid of the academic probation that I was admitted on. One tanked semester can be annoying to recover from. One of these days I need to update my webpage with updated course information for last semester.
The progress of research has been somewhat brisk of late. Our group has been using the vacation time to catch up with our timeline for last semester. I've been spending quite a bit of time in my subterranean lair. Good thing that it's a nice lair. Of late my task has been integrating an ingrowth routine into our growth simulator. I now have one that does something, but as yet it is unvalidated. As Knuth says: "I have only proved it correct, but not tested it."
Will is walking now. Sometimes he's practically running. Lately his thing has been to run around in circles around people. Usually screaming. It makes me wonder what the neighbors think we're doing to him. We think he said "Kitty" a while ago, but we can't get him to do it again.
Christmas was busy this year. We went to the in-laws on Friday night, my parents came to us on Saturday, and on Sunday we went to both grandparent-in-laws. Sunday was a lot of driving. I got a copies Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Jon Stuart's America: The Book for christmas. So far I haven't gotten very deeply into either, but both seem quite good. I also got FF: Chronicles. Now I've got FF4-11 (and 10.2). The family got a digital camera. I'm sure that makes my wife happy; she's a shutterbug.
We had a nice, calm new year's. We rented some movies (Resident Evil: Apocalypse and The Manchurian Candidate) and stayed home. Living away from campus is still a bit new for me, I was pleasantly surprised that it was quiet outside.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Monotone
I've had my home directory under version control for some time now. It's a -very- nice way to keep files consistent across all the various machines I use.
Previously I had been using CVS, and have been pleased with it. The standard problems with CVS apply, of course. Binary files are handled poorly, the network protocol is slow, moving/renaming files is difficult.
So I was in the market for a new version control system. I looked at Subversion looks very nice, but I wanted something decentralized. GNU Arch also looks nice, but didn't really appeal to me. Something about how all the documentation tells you that you shouldn't edit configurations by hand left me feeling uneasy. So I went with Monotone.
Monotone does much of its work by calling LUA hook functions. The defaults pretty much feel like CVS. However, I was very impressed with how much customization can be performed. With a little tweaking, I've got a system that is as close to completely transparent without being Coda as I've ever had.
Suffice it to say that I'm impressed.
Previously I had been using CVS, and have been pleased with it. The standard problems with CVS apply, of course. Binary files are handled poorly, the network protocol is slow, moving/renaming files is difficult.
So I was in the market for a new version control system. I looked at Subversion looks very nice, but I wanted something decentralized. GNU Arch also looks nice, but didn't really appeal to me. Something about how all the documentation tells you that you shouldn't edit configurations by hand left me feeling uneasy. So I went with Monotone.
Monotone does much of its work by calling LUA hook functions. The defaults pretty much feel like CVS. However, I was very impressed with how much customization can be performed. With a little tweaking, I've got a system that is as close to completely transparent without being Coda as I've ever had.
Suffice it to say that I'm impressed.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
AVG vs NAV
I do some contract work for a small Internet Cafe near my old hometown. As of now, I'm sitting in the back hiding from customers, trying to bring the client machines back up to some kind of useful state.
As you might guess, malware is a huge problem in an internet cafe with windows based client machines. So most of my current headache stems from trying to extract wriggling badness from the soft flesh of Windows 98.
At the Cafe, they've been using NAV: corporate for AV, but that's it. So I've installed ad-aware and spybot. Spybot caught some things that AAW missed, but there's no harm in having both of them. For kicks, I installed AVG as well. AVG caught some viruses that Norton missed.
The traditional wisdom is that Norton is top of the line, and if you've got cash to drop, drop it there. So I'm very surprised to find that AVG (traditionally described as an underdog that is only popular because of their free edition) outperforms NAV sometimes. And yes, before someone asks, both were updated immediately before the scan.
As you might guess, malware is a huge problem in an internet cafe with windows based client machines. So most of my current headache stems from trying to extract wriggling badness from the soft flesh of Windows 98.
At the Cafe, they've been using NAV: corporate for AV, but that's it. So I've installed ad-aware and spybot. Spybot caught some things that AAW missed, but there's no harm in having both of them. For kicks, I installed AVG as well. AVG caught some viruses that Norton missed.
The traditional wisdom is that Norton is top of the line, and if you've got cash to drop, drop it there. So I'm very surprised to find that AVG (traditionally described as an underdog that is only popular because of their free edition) outperforms NAV sometimes. And yes, before someone asks, both were updated immediately before the scan.
gmail
Today I got not one, but two gmail invites. Never rains but it pours, eh?
I've been saving all of my personal email since 1998, and I've only used 22MB. I'm sure that there are people who hit their 1GB limit, but under normal use, it'd take me quite a bit of time to do so. Maybe google's "never delete an email" push isn't that far from the truth.
Thus far, I find their conversation view to be very clever, useful, handy even. Other webmail services seem to me to be offering a poor man's IMAP. Gmail actually does something differently in a way that is useful.
I've been saving all of my personal email since 1998, and I've only used 22MB. I'm sure that there are people who hit their 1GB limit, but under normal use, it'd take me quite a bit of time to do so. Maybe google's "never delete an email" push isn't that far from the truth.
Thus far, I find their conversation view to be very clever, useful, handy even. Other webmail services seem to me to be offering a poor man's IMAP. Gmail actually does something differently in a way that is useful.
Monday, June 28, 2004
In Other News
This is going to be a busy year for me, oh yes indeed. My "Instant Family" takes up all the time you'd expect and sometimes more. Of course, who am I to know what to expect? I went from being child-phobic to having two young step children.
I'm meeting with my Professor on Thursday. We've got to decide on what classes I'll be taking, and start familiarizing me with the model (CANOPY) that I'll be working on. I think that I'm going to be adding a light model similar to that of SORTIE. Beyond that, I'd like to extend the model to understand that the world is not flat. Also, if I haven't worked myself into the ground by then, I'd like to add the capability to consider UV exposure profiles in the modeling.
Just like with my research at work, I'm wondering how anyone expects to get accurate data about outdoor phenomena without considering the weather. Now, we can't predict the weather into the future, but being able to enter UV profiles as input would probably help a lot WRT calibrating the model. I think. I -really- need to get myself up to speed on the biological basis of this process.
I'm meeting with my Professor on Thursday. We've got to decide on what classes I'll be taking, and start familiarizing me with the model (CANOPY) that I'll be working on. I think that I'm going to be adding a light model similar to that of SORTIE. Beyond that, I'd like to extend the model to understand that the world is not flat. Also, if I haven't worked myself into the ground by then, I'd like to add the capability to consider UV exposure profiles in the modeling.
Just like with my research at work, I'm wondering how anyone expects to get accurate data about outdoor phenomena without considering the weather. Now, we can't predict the weather into the future, but being able to enter UV profiles as input would probably help a lot WRT calibrating the model. I think. I -really- need to get myself up to speed on the biological basis of this process.
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Weekend Update
Have I complained lately about Internet Explorer? I've been doing some freelance web development stuff for family and friends of late. Two of the people I'm working for are running small businesses. So ignoring IE, and just putting a warning for IE users on the front page isn't an option. OH, how I'd like to.
Recently I was added to the Fink Project as a committer. I've been sending packages in for a little over a year. I wanted to eventually be a committer, but I wasn't going to make myself annoying by asking for it, and I didn't expect that it'd be offered so soon.
I saw Chronicles of Riddick this weekend. It was an ok movie, but not all that impressive. The plot felt rather thin and rushed. It felt like there could have been an interesting background that this story was painted on, but we didn't get to see much of it. Expect it to be a shallow action flick, and you'll enjoy it.
I discovered the most adorable little desktop: xfce. I've been a loyal fvwm user for the past three years or so. I've tried a few other desktops and WMs, and not found any that I like quite as much as fvwm. I found KDE to be very bloated and slow. I found GNOME to be better, but still rather slow on my 800MHz PIII. After trying those two, I generally stayed away from "Desktops". But after reading a good review of xfce, I figured "Why not?" and tried it. I think I'm actually going to keep it. Old dogs can learn new tricks.
Recently I was added to the Fink Project as a committer. I've been sending packages in for a little over a year. I wanted to eventually be a committer, but I wasn't going to make myself annoying by asking for it, and I didn't expect that it'd be offered so soon.
I saw Chronicles of Riddick this weekend. It was an ok movie, but not all that impressive. The plot felt rather thin and rushed. It felt like there could have been an interesting background that this story was painted on, but we didn't get to see much of it. Expect it to be a shallow action flick, and you'll enjoy it.
I discovered the most adorable little desktop: xfce. I've been a loyal fvwm user for the past three years or so. I've tried a few other desktops and WMs, and not found any that I like quite as much as fvwm. I found KDE to be very bloated and slow. I found GNOME to be better, but still rather slow on my 800MHz PIII. After trying those two, I generally stayed away from "Desktops". But after reading a good review of xfce, I figured "Why not?" and tried it. I think I'm actually going to keep it. Old dogs can learn new tricks.
Sunday, June 06, 2004
IE
I have recently had the distinct displeasure of trying to write web pages that work in IE. The issue comes about because I recently taught myself CSS. I knew before that IE was just flat -bad- at standards support, but I had no idea how bad.
I can understand why people write rants about IE now.
Let's just ignore IE's poor security track record. MS Apologists will say that the existence of patches proves that MS is fixing problems. This may be true, but to me the sheer number of "critical security patches" out there for IE would indicate that they released a crappy product which has more holes than a screen door.
Let's also ignore that IE's CSS support is buggier than a beehive. It is interesting to compare Microsoft documentation, with actual standards. Notice how the MS docs conveniently ignore some property values, in this case "fixed".
IE doesn't even support HTML 4.01. This is insane.
IE is the only browser so buggy and generally crappy that it provides its own special tag, that web authors use to work around IE's bugs.
I just can't take it anymore. My personal websites will no longer support IE. Trying to write web pages that are actually functional, that comply with standards, and that render in IE is just too much of a pain in my ass to bother with unless I'm getting paid.
I can understand why people write rants about IE now.
Let's just ignore IE's poor security track record. MS Apologists will say that the existence of patches proves that MS is fixing problems. This may be true, but to me the sheer number of "critical security patches" out there for IE would indicate that they released a crappy product which has more holes than a screen door.
Let's also ignore that IE's CSS support is buggier than a beehive. It is interesting to compare Microsoft documentation, with actual standards. Notice how the MS docs conveniently ignore some property values, in this case "fixed".
IE doesn't even support HTML 4.01. This is insane.
IE is the only browser so buggy and generally crappy that it provides its own special tag, that web authors use to work around IE's bugs.
I just can't take it anymore. My personal websites will no longer support IE. Trying to write web pages that are actually functional, that comply with standards, and that render in IE is just too much of a pain in my ass to bother with unless I'm getting paid.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Solutions
I've been having a few problems with calvin of late. First, he says "calculating..." forever instead of guessing how much battery I have left. Second, he has been crashing a lot.
The second problem was actually pretty easy to solve, once I got off my butt and read the discussion boards. Apparently some other people have also had the same problem. One of them even posted a panic.log that looks -exactly- like mine. The problem? Loose Airport Extreme card. Easily remedied.
The first problem seems to be both more subtle and more common. Though apparently some people have found a solution.
I recently wiped my hard drive and reinstalled Panther (and fink (that was a -lot- of compiling)) from scratch, which -might- have fixed the battery problem. I don't know, since the various knowledge base docs about it suggest that I need to drain the battery to 0% before it will recalibrate itself. I've just started draining the battery now.
However, I'm a much happier person now that calvin doesn't shit on me every few minutes. Maybe I just need to learn not to type so bloody hard.
The second problem was actually pretty easy to solve, once I got off my butt and read the discussion boards. Apparently some other people have also had the same problem. One of them even posted a panic.log that looks -exactly- like mine. The problem? Loose Airport Extreme card. Easily remedied.
The first problem seems to be both more subtle and more common. Though apparently some people have found a solution.
I recently wiped my hard drive and reinstalled Panther (and fink (that was a -lot- of compiling)) from scratch, which -might- have fixed the battery problem. I don't know, since the various knowledge base docs about it suggest that I need to drain the battery to 0% before it will recalibrate itself. I've just started draining the battery now.
However, I'm a much happier person now that calvin doesn't shit on me every few minutes. Maybe I just need to learn not to type so bloody hard.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
In the beginning (or was it?)
This is part two of my attempt to maintain a weblog. Part 1 seems to have failed. I got this bright idea that I wanted to build and maintain my weblog as a part of my website. This would be well and good if I were motivated enough to come up with my own content management system. I am not. So I went and found blogmax, which is a system to maintain a weblog using everyone's favorite editor, EMACS. It works fairly well. However it seems geared toward someone who uses a single machine most of the time. I do not.
Now, I share my home directory and most of my files across my machines using CVS. This is really a nice thing, but it doesn't play well with the kind of structure that blogmax likes to use for storing files. Also, the longer I thought about it, the less sense it makes to store a weblog as flat text files. Something like blogger (do I really need to link that), where they store the entries in a database and use some dynamic voodoo to generate indexes does make a lot more sense.
So I'm switching. And I'll be honest, it's mostly because I'm lazy. There's nothing wrong with the system I was using before, it just requires more motivation than I have.
The project for later tonight: see if I can transfer my old entries from the flat text files they live in now over to blogger. Shouldn't be hard, provided that I am allowed to create blog entries that predate my creation of this blog. We'll see. :-)
Now, I share my home directory and most of my files across my machines using CVS. This is really a nice thing, but it doesn't play well with the kind of structure that blogmax likes to use for storing files. Also, the longer I thought about it, the less sense it makes to store a weblog as flat text files. Something like blogger (do I really need to link that), where they store the entries in a database and use some dynamic voodoo to generate indexes does make a lot more sense.
So I'm switching. And I'll be honest, it's mostly because I'm lazy. There's nothing wrong with the system I was using before, it just requires more motivation than I have.
The project for later tonight: see if I can transfer my old entries from the flat text files they live in now over to blogger. Shouldn't be hard, provided that I am allowed to create blog entries that predate my creation of this blog. We'll see. :-)
Monday, January 19, 2004
CVS Homedir
One of my stupid new-years/birthday resolutions was to not let my weblog go un-updated so long. It makes me look like I've got something to do on weekends when I don't update it, and we all know
that isn't true *wink*.
Inspired by Joey Hess's CVS Homedir I merged together all the files from home directories on my various machines and put the resulting mishmash into CVS. After a bit of re-writing for .bashrc and the like, I'm very pleased with the result. I'm using the CS Department machines for my CVS repository. They back those up like mad, which makes me feel better about not actually backing up my machines in several months.
I can foresee this being very nice for when I start school again. Not needing any special voodoo to synchronize the various papers I'm working on between calvin (my laptop) and hobbes (my desktop) will be delicious.
that isn't true *wink*.
Inspired by Joey Hess's CVS Homedir I merged together all the files from home directories on my various machines and put the resulting mishmash into CVS. After a bit of re-writing for .bashrc and the like, I'm very pleased with the result. I'm using the CS Department machines for my CVS repository. They back those up like mad, which makes me feel better about not actually backing up my machines in several months.
I can foresee this being very nice for when I start school again. Not needing any special voodoo to synchronize the various papers I'm working on between calvin (my laptop) and hobbes (my desktop) will be delicious.
Monday, January 12, 2004
Various Pointless Musings
I know, it's been quite some time since I made an entry. It's not that I haven't had much to talk about, though that has something to do with it. More than anything I have had a lack of motivation. But, so it goes.
It was a relaxing new year, I played pool with a small group of friends. For the most part, we relaxed in a group, It was nice.
My application to grad school seems to be almost done. I've been in contact with some of the people in Forestry, and apparently the only thing that we're waiting on right now is an
approval form to admit me even though my GPA is a bit low. I might even be accepted officially before classes start. I've got all the classes I want picked out. I think I'm going to do band again next semester, I keep talking about how I want to.
My project to build a DVR based on the freevo project has been a complete success. It's impressive what you can do just by putting something on the Internet and sticking a computer in it. It makes a stupid TV into a device that seeks out shows you want and snarfs them for you automagically. The people at IBM who said that four computers would be sufficient to run the world must be going nuts to see what people are doing with computers today.
I was trying to figure out, for a while, what purpose the 'news' section on my website would serve now that I'm attempting to maintain a weblog (Jerry Pournelle says that the pseudo-word "blog" is ugly. I agree with him.). I've come to the conclusion that the 'news' section will talk about updates to the site, and my weblog will continue to be mindless
chatter.
It was a relaxing new year, I played pool with a small group of friends. For the most part, we relaxed in a group, It was nice.
My application to grad school seems to be almost done. I've been in contact with some of the people in Forestry, and apparently the only thing that we're waiting on right now is an
approval form to admit me even though my GPA is a bit low. I might even be accepted officially before classes start. I've got all the classes I want picked out. I think I'm going to do band again next semester, I keep talking about how I want to.
My project to build a DVR based on the freevo project has been a complete success. It's impressive what you can do just by putting something on the Internet and sticking a computer in it. It makes a stupid TV into a device that seeks out shows you want and snarfs them for you automagically. The people at IBM who said that four computers would be sufficient to run the world must be going nuts to see what people are doing with computers today.
I was trying to figure out, for a while, what purpose the 'news' section on my website would serve now that I'm attempting to maintain a weblog (Jerry Pournelle says that the pseudo-word "blog" is ugly. I agree with him.). I've come to the conclusion that the 'news' section will talk about updates to the site, and my weblog will continue to be mindless
chatter.
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