23May2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
So …. NetworkManager in Fedora 9. Its been fascinating to watch the progression of this through subsequent releases. It was unusable in Fedora 7, intermittent in Fedora 8 so I was keen to see what had changed. Static IP addressing but most importantly, support for 3G/HSDPA modems such as the huwaei e220, of which I have one through work.
This works, out of the box. So well, in fact, that I use it in preference to my house WLAN when ath5k eventually grinds to a halt. As in:
Fedora experience: Plug in modem, wait 5 seconds, use internet.
Windows experience: Plug in modem. Wait for drive to mount. Wait for hardware detection to complete. Get confused when Windows says it is installed a CD-ROM drive. Run through software installation (must be Administrator to do this). Load up software. Watch as software declares SIM to be invalid. Restart software. Use internet.
That’s not the end of the tale though dear readers. I have an itouch dual mobile phone. On Fedora 8 when connected via USB the system speaker emits a squawk, prints a kernel bug to systems logs and charges. On Fedora 9 it identifies it as a networking device and makes it available for connection.
You mean I don’t have to type:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid “My Home Lan” anymore?
19April2008
Posted by Christopher under: White Noise.
You decide….
Friend and occasional blog commentor Clifton is the master of this piece of video history. You might spot me in there somewhere…
13April2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source.
[chris@stig ~]$ history|awk ‘{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] ” ” i}}’|sort -rn|head
170 ls
119 cd
72 rpmbuild
72 emacs
58 less
52 diff
42 sudo
32 ssh
29 exit
28 rm
13April2008
Posted by Christopher under: Family & Friends; House; Linux & Open Source; Travel & Leisure; White Noise.
Sometimes people conspire to make you feel like you live in a nation of Very Bad People.
Incident One - A few days ago the house was broken into. I was away visiting older brother and so the house must have looked deserted. Said intruder got a surprise when younger brother greeted him when he walked into his room at around 11pm. He left taking with him one of my old mobile phones and leaving us with a hefty bill to replace the windows frame he had used as his entrance.
Incident Two - I was involved in a minor collision (my fault entirely) a week or so ago. I have received a letter claiming personal injury and GBP £1k plus in damages. Err, no.
Incident Three - Two snotty emails at work, one sent late Friday, just in time for the weekend. Thanks!
Not great. Still, here’s the bright side.
Wordpress 2.5 (on which this blog is written) is awesome. Upgrade was a cinch too.
Metal Michael continues his awesome adventures and I continue my persual of travel sites.
Tomorrow is another day.
5April2008
Posted by Christopher under: Family & Friends; Travel & Leisure; White Noise.
Okay, time to name and shame the people who fell for the previous post/email.
Th(Rob)erto (on left)
Older and Better Brown
G.G.B. (second left)
Travel Brown
The Girl (ten minutes of crying followed by ten days of vengeance)
Top prize goes to Mr Clifton Firth (on right, obviously) who thought I was leaving mid-day!
UPDATE: Okay as Rob has pointed out then, I add myself to the above list.
1April2008
Posted by Christopher under: Travel & Leisure; White Noise.
Just to let you all know that within a month or so I will have my day skipper’s ticket. During a recent visit to Cornwall I was offered the chance to sail one of our client’s boats, (the Olof Lipar!), to Sydney as it will be talking part in the Sydney-Hobart yacht race at the year end and of course I’d be a fool to miss the chance. The job hasn’t been working out quite as expected (long hours, not much pay) so of course I jumped at the chance. I’ll be leaving probably around mid-may for three months. Anyone planning on being in Oz around August?
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.
