31March2008
Posted by Christopher under: Family & Friends; Travel & Leisure.
So my younger brother has hit the road at long last. Good for him. Already some ace pics on his blog (see right - Metal Michael’s travel blog) and my personal favourite.
26March2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
For those who haven’t had the pleasure, one of the great things about running linux is that all your software sits in (pretty much) one place. This is called a repository and new in Fedora 9 is a bit of software that, for the first time, paves the way for an identical package management frontend across all distributions. Its called PackageKit and here are some rather nice screenshots
In other news it isn’t often this happens but when it does its a shock:
24March2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source; Travel & Leisure.
Spent most of the day prodding around in various languages, mainly c++ and python and submitting various trivial patches. I’m getting more comfortable with light tinkering and patch-submission, though the level of feedback varies from project to project. I’ve get to receive any “Argh, that makes my eyes bleed!” responses though. :)
Easter egg count ran to 3 in the end so am content to have had a glutton-free season. There’s snow on the ground outside and due to lack of youngest brother for work transport and lack of car insurance I am once again taking to the cold steel rails of doom to get me to Sheffield tomorrow!
23March2008
Posted by Christopher under: White Noise.
A year ago this happened. A few days ago my driving license slid through the door and on to the mat. In a few days I’ll be back on the road. I’ve made some pretty major changes in my life since then, most notably cutting down drastically the amount of alcohol I drink. I’ve also taken up mountain-biking again and have realised that I’m now medication-dependent and probably will be for the rest of my life.
11March2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
So today I had to call Microsoft. Except it wasn’t Microsoft it was an automated voice as I tried to activate 5 additional client licenses for a copy of Windows Server 2003. No internet access so it had to be telephone. Windows Server comes with 5 CALs (Client Access Licenses) which allows 5 clients to connect, no more. Some software folks were running their fancy stuff which uses Windows file and print sharing to talk to the server app which ran, unsurprisingly, on the server. Only it stopped when the sixth PC tried to connect - this happened to be the PC which was being used to demo the software to the client. I have to drop everything and add in the 5 CALs. Only when I request a text of the activation code it doesn’t arrive. I wait and still nothing. So I call the number again. After refusing to enter any numbers on my phone I’m eventually transferred to a CSR, somewhere in Asia. I’m not racist - I just have difficulty understanding the numbers he is reading back to me - there is about 40 of them.
Eventually I have the key and the CALs are added, everything starts working and we’re happy. I’d like to note at this point that a Linux-based PBX with 7 telephone extensions took less than two hours to set up. This is an entire telephone exchange. I have then spent two days dealing with seven Windows clients and two servers, activating this, uninstalling cruft and agreeing to that. For $DEITY’s sake Microsoft, get with the program.
I got the activation code text five hours later. This was not a network issue either - The Girl had texted me to let me know she was in A&E. Die, foul beast of Redmond, just die already.
10March2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
You can read the horrifically long release notes here. We are still running an old svn checkout from ATrpms at home at the moment but I will update on my return. It really is a most incredible piece of Free software.
10March2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
So support for these little beggars has been present since 2.6.20. They’re pretty clever things - setup as mass storage devices containing the drivers so on Windows the install wizard sets it up and you’re online within seconds. With linux its a quick config file edit. You’ll need to have wvdial or gnome ppp installed. Here’s the /etc/wvdial.conf file which works fine with 3 in the U.K. and seems to be the case with vodafone as well.
[Dialer Defaults]
Phone = *99***1#
Username = wap
Password = password
Stupid Mode = 1
Dial Command = ATDT
[Dialer 3G]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 384000
Init2 = ATZ
Init3 = ATq0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D1 +FCLASS=0
ISDN = 0
Then (as root), run:
wvdial 3G and you should be on!
9March2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
So after mapping my local area on openstreetmap, I felt compelled to try and get mapnik into Fedora. Spent a good part of Sunday finding out why it wouldn’t build on PPC64 - this is because I’m thick and in the end it need a two line patch to stick the libs under /usr/lib64 as opposed to /usr/lib. Still, learnt a bit of python in the process so not a dead loss.
Job continues to be ace. I will however be very, very glad when I get my driving license back two weeks from now. :)
