Figures... as soon as I get some time off, the weather turns to this wet, damp crap, unseasonably warm and all.
Not what I want to see in December. I have never liked having a green Christmas. When I was a kid, I found green Christmases really disillusioning.
Now I find them annoying.
Off for a few days... did the Boxing Day shopping, got out of the Yonge and Dundas area about an hour before someone got shot... lovely... enough is enough is enough. i'll rant about htis later.... or maybe not at all. Many people more eloquent than I have weighed in on this.
Sleeper Cell: Wow. This show blows 24 out fo the water. No contest. Watch it. It's good.
On iTunes: Outcast mashed with Le Tigre - Bombs over Baghdad.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Learning to drive... again (sort of)
Yeah... picked up my new car from the dealer yesterday. First time I have driven a stick shift in well over 10 years - and I'll level with you: I was never that well-practiced at it before.
After a humiliating start (yes I was that jackass on Plains Road in the middle of Saturday afternoon), everything slowly began to pull together.
Drove my mother to drop a package off in Oakville. Mistake - my mother has rarely been comfortable with my drving in an automatic - the experience of riding with a novice stick shift jockey did nothing to calm her nerves.
Drove back to Toronto on the Lakeshore, made it without incident, though I gave the RIDE program out on Lorne Park something to laugh at.
At the end of the road, Iw as manoeuvering into a praking spot, doing the olde reverse-forward-reverse-forward... yeah I stalled out about a half dozen times.
That was embarassing. Then I got lazy and just snagged a spot further down the road.
Next week, the highway run...
After a humiliating start (yes I was that jackass on Plains Road in the middle of Saturday afternoon), everything slowly began to pull together.
Drove my mother to drop a package off in Oakville. Mistake - my mother has rarely been comfortable with my drving in an automatic - the experience of riding with a novice stick shift jockey did nothing to calm her nerves.
Drove back to Toronto on the Lakeshore, made it without incident, though I gave the RIDE program out on Lorne Park something to laugh at.
At the end of the road, Iw as manoeuvering into a praking spot, doing the olde reverse-forward-reverse-forward... yeah I stalled out about a half dozen times.
That was embarassing. Then I got lazy and just snagged a spot further down the road.
Next week, the highway run...
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Off the drugs
Damn, I hate being sick.
Ah well, feeling better now, sleeping well and not waking up feeling like a bag o' shit.
Did I mention I hate being sick?
It's snowing fierce tonight, and will continue to do so for the next few days. I am definitely happy about that.
IM'd my friend Prize for a bit this eve... haven't chatted with that dude in ages. I was beginning to feel lax in my correspondence.
Xmas is definitely in the air. It's going to be a hectic week: get rid of the old car, pick up the new, do the extended family Christmas... moses.
Yeah... I almost forgot... My old friend Marc is in a band (well, a duo) called Dresden Sky.
the Windsor press cannot say enough good stuff about them. I'll say this, they'll folk you right up (thanks to Acker for a good theivable quote).
If you can dig that, you need to check it out.
Oh and Marc... Props man, that's good stuff.
Ah well, feeling better now, sleeping well and not waking up feeling like a bag o' shit.
Did I mention I hate being sick?
It's snowing fierce tonight, and will continue to do so for the next few days. I am definitely happy about that.
IM'd my friend Prize for a bit this eve... haven't chatted with that dude in ages. I was beginning to feel lax in my correspondence.
Xmas is definitely in the air. It's going to be a hectic week: get rid of the old car, pick up the new, do the extended family Christmas... moses.
Yeah... I almost forgot... My old friend Marc is in a band (well, a duo) called Dresden Sky.
the Windsor press cannot say enough good stuff about them. I'll say this, they'll folk you right up (thanks to Acker for a good theivable quote).
If you can dig that, you need to check it out.
Oh and Marc... Props man, that's good stuff.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Not next to useless...
...two seats down, in fact.
Ugh... I have a minor cold won't go away, and yesterday the effect was post-nasal drip which was/is driving me batshit.
So, before I fell into the coma, I had some cough syrup to help get that away.
When I got up, I reached for the non-drowsy decongestant pills to keep the sinuses clear.
Well it looks like there's some interaction happening, 'cause I'm on a chemically-fuelled roller-coaster between lucidity and torpor... I can type for a few moments at a time and then it all gets bad...
...Yeah, or I daze out and find myself half-asleep absorbing all the office gossip around me. And I hate that. Like most people I have my own shit to worry about, I don't need to hear (especially involuntarily) other people's issues.
Moses... I think I was asleep with my eyes open for a few moments there.
OK, back to work... hopefully I won't drool on the keyboard.
Ugh... I have a minor cold won't go away, and yesterday the effect was post-nasal drip which was/is driving me batshit.
So, before I fell into the coma, I had some cough syrup to help get that away.
When I got up, I reached for the non-drowsy decongestant pills to keep the sinuses clear.
Well it looks like there's some interaction happening, 'cause I'm on a chemically-fuelled roller-coaster between lucidity and torpor... I can type for a few moments at a time and then it all gets bad...
...Yeah, or I daze out and find myself half-asleep absorbing all the office gossip around me. And I hate that. Like most people I have my own shit to worry about, I don't need to hear (especially involuntarily) other people's issues.
Moses... I think I was asleep with my eyes open for a few moments there.
OK, back to work... hopefully I won't drool on the keyboard.
Friday, December 02, 2005
What the fuck is going on in France?
http://www.fsffrance.org/news/article2005-11-25.en.html
Here's a highlight from the article:
"Friday November 18th, 2005, French Department of Culture. SNEP and SCPP have told Free Software authors: "You will be required to change your licenses." SACEM add: "You shall stop publishing free software," and warn they are ready "to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code" should the "VU/SACEM/BSA/FA Contents Department"[1] bill proposal pass in the Parliament. "
Now, I am not a lawyer by any stretch, but I have to wonder what end it serves to make free software licenses criminal. What kind of jurisprudence is this?
How the devil can you press a civil suit against an individual or group who is willing to give away their IP for free? Who does that hurt?
Ça c’est fucké…
Here's a highlight from the article:
"Friday November 18th, 2005, French Department of Culture. SNEP and SCPP have told Free Software authors: "You will be required to change your licenses." SACEM add: "You shall stop publishing free software," and warn they are ready "to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code" should the "VU/SACEM/BSA/FA Contents Department"[1] bill proposal pass in the Parliament. "
Now, I am not a lawyer by any stretch, but I have to wonder what end it serves to make free software licenses criminal. What kind of jurisprudence is this?
How the devil can you press a civil suit against an individual or group who is willing to give away their IP for free? Who does that hurt?
Ça c’est fucké…
Monday, November 28, 2005
Rain?!
Ah, fall in Toronto... Where it will be -12 and snowy one week and 13 and constantly rainy the next.
I prefer the snow. This constant rain is bringing me down.
I prefer the snow. This constant rain is bringing me down.
Ill wireless
Man oh man...
I have a headache the size up Gibraltar. But my sinuses are clear for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I am not sore all over anymore.
A nice change.
Well, I rebuilt the wireless network yesterday. Adios, ovislink hub... you were loud, fickle and I never liked you anyway. As for the combo router-802.11b WAP... you had to yield to G hardware.
Yeah... it's good, quiet, reliable wireless... with a decent (well for consumer wireless) security mechanism. And I can finally get a reliable signal in the kitchen while I'm making brekky.
I have a headache the size up Gibraltar. But my sinuses are clear for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I am not sore all over anymore.
A nice change.
Well, I rebuilt the wireless network yesterday. Adios, ovislink hub... you were loud, fickle and I never liked you anyway. As for the combo router-802.11b WAP... you had to yield to G hardware.
Yeah... it's good, quiet, reliable wireless... with a decent (well for consumer wireless) security mechanism. And I can finally get a reliable signal in the kitchen while I'm making brekky.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Google Base
Damn. This is the only thing able to challenge Wikipedia as the closest thing we have to the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.
And I had to edit the link in the post below... that was just plain fugly. I would even go so far as to say fue asqueroso.
O'Reilly had an article earlier this month on the Korg OASYS. I said damn, that's a sweet piece of gear. Cojonudo, even.
And I had to edit the link in the post below... that was just plain fugly. I would even go so far as to say fue asqueroso.
O'Reilly had an article earlier this month on the Korg OASYS. I said damn, that's a sweet piece of gear. Cojonudo, even.
Friday, November 25, 2005
A quick thought on Conrad Black's citizenship plea
So... when you're all hot to become a peer of the realm in England, your Canadian citizenship is an "impediment".
Yet, when facing fraud charges in the US, suddenly the prospect of spending your sentence in a Canadian jail is considerably more appealing.
OK, so you brush off your birthright but come running back to it to avoid a US correctional facility, so we can pay the costs of your incarceration?
Get bent. You made your bed, lie in it.
Yet, when facing fraud charges in the US, suddenly the prospect of spending your sentence in a Canadian jail is considerably more appealing.
OK, so you brush off your birthright but come running back to it to avoid a US correctional facility, so we can pay the costs of your incarceration?
Get bent. You made your bed, lie in it.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
A decade of geek life
In a few short weeks, I will have been in the punk rock IT biz (at one level or another) for ten years.
Wow.
Ten years man! Ten years!
I remember when a 1 GB hard disk was something special. I remember the web dev station we installed at the coop at Laurier; Pentium MMX 200 MHz. It was a screaming fast box for the time, with 128 MB of RAM making Windows NT4 SP3 supa-dupa responsive.
I think most modern BlackBerry handhelds have faster processors. I'm positive most PalmOne devices do.
I now carry 1 GB of solid state memory around with me in a form factor so small I constantly fear losing it. Did I say one? I meant two... I forgot about the iPod shuffle I am currently listening to.
Upcoming gaming consoles (*cough* PS3 *cough*) will support dual layer blu-ray optical media, with a capacity of up to 50 GB per disc.
So much, so fast... it doesn't bug me unless I look back on it.
Here's my bit of "grumpy old man" after ten years: the current media hoopla over converged devices (which has been going on for years, but seems to be picking up speed again of late).
Seven years ago a group of 6 3rd and 4th year business students at Laurier sat down around a pitcher in Wilf's pub to figure out what their research project would be for their MIS class.
A small faction of us pitched convergence. We were shot down as it was a "pie in the sky" idea.
Hah.
Yeah, listen: I get my email (work and personal) delivered to my phone handset, my work email comes in on an encrypted connection. I can check my outstanding tickets on this handset as well, over a 3DES encrypted wireless connection back into the office network.
Oh yeah... it's a phone too.
I haven't needed to power on a laptop to communicate with the office when I am away or off site in years. I know guys in UNIX shops who run SSH clients off of their handhelds when they have to quickly make an adjustment to a server, or verify that a process is still running.
So yeah... the past decade of geek life has seen concepts that were once dismissed as "nice, but..." become daily reality.
I am not sure what the next step is, though Robert X. Cringley has something to say about that (eh, I can't find the link).
All I know is that consulting life beats the hell out of the helpdesk.
Wow.
Ten years man! Ten years!
I remember when a 1 GB hard disk was something special. I remember the web dev station we installed at the coop at Laurier; Pentium MMX 200 MHz. It was a screaming fast box for the time, with 128 MB of RAM making Windows NT4 SP3 supa-dupa responsive.
I think most modern BlackBerry handhelds have faster processors. I'm positive most PalmOne devices do.
I now carry 1 GB of solid state memory around with me in a form factor so small I constantly fear losing it. Did I say one? I meant two... I forgot about the iPod shuffle I am currently listening to.
Upcoming gaming consoles (*cough* PS3 *cough*) will support dual layer blu-ray optical media, with a capacity of up to 50 GB per disc.
So much, so fast... it doesn't bug me unless I look back on it.
Here's my bit of "grumpy old man" after ten years: the current media hoopla over converged devices (which has been going on for years, but seems to be picking up speed again of late).
Seven years ago a group of 6 3rd and 4th year business students at Laurier sat down around a pitcher in Wilf's pub to figure out what their research project would be for their MIS class.
A small faction of us pitched convergence. We were shot down as it was a "pie in the sky" idea.
Hah.
Yeah, listen: I get my email (work and personal) delivered to my phone handset, my work email comes in on an encrypted connection. I can check my outstanding tickets on this handset as well, over a 3DES encrypted wireless connection back into the office network.
Oh yeah... it's a phone too.
I haven't needed to power on a laptop to communicate with the office when I am away or off site in years. I know guys in UNIX shops who run SSH clients off of their handhelds when they have to quickly make an adjustment to a server, or verify that a process is still running.
So yeah... the past decade of geek life has seen concepts that were once dismissed as "nice, but..." become daily reality.
I am not sure what the next step is, though Robert X. Cringley has something to say about that (eh, I can't find the link).
All I know is that consulting life beats the hell out of the helpdesk.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Snow!
Well, we had a few moments of serious flurry here in the TDot.
To think it was 17 degrees just two weeks back (that's celcius; for you metric-impaired types that's ~66 Fahrenheit).
And now sun... after the last two days of clouds, wind and rain I for one welcome the sight.
OK, Fable: the Lost Chapters... Huge props, this is a great re-release, finished what was the core plot of the original XBox release last night and to my surprise... there's more. A lot more based on appearances.
Puzzles that are actually challenging.
Opponents that I won't necessarily be able to chop through like a hot knife through butter.
More missions.
Cool plot.
Back to work...
To think it was 17 degrees just two weeks back (that's celcius; for you metric-impaired types that's ~66 Fahrenheit).
And now sun... after the last two days of clouds, wind and rain I for one welcome the sight.
OK, Fable: the Lost Chapters... Huge props, this is a great re-release, finished what was the core plot of the original XBox release last night and to my surprise... there's more. A lot more based on appearances.
Puzzles that are actually challenging.
Opponents that I won't necessarily be able to chop through like a hot knife through butter.
More missions.
Cool plot.
Back to work...
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
...and a quick thought on the Sony/BMG rootkit
Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it.Quote attributed to Thomas Hesse, president Global Digital Business Division, SonyBMG.
Nice job buddy. Thanks to that kind of thinking now everyone has heard of rootkits.
Not only that, but this intrusive software has created backdoors in thousands of networks across the planet, but people are taking advantage of it to bypass the World of Warcraft Warden software and effectively defrauding Blizzard.
IANAL, but the last time I checked, buying a CD from a label did not give them the right to root my machine.
To appease the peanut gallery
Damn your hides... I'll post when I bloody well feel like it, not before.
Ah... I think I will have to become a Wacom tablet user. A decade in the IT biz in one way, shape or form or another is taking it's toll on my arm joints.
November... this has been a socially hectic month. I know far too many Scorpios.
Birthday greetings to (in no particular order) Brad, Graham, Sara, Josh and Stefan.
Those of you listed who have just turned (or are about to turn) 30: my silence can be purchased for a moderate fee. Email me at the usual address to discuss payment details.
Well, my bike got stolen a while back. To any bike thieves reading: you are all fucking bastards.
Let me tell you how I really feel.
My next bike will have a security system with an electroshock component. Not powerful enough to cause any lasting physical harm, but just enough so you shitheel thieves will lose control of your bowels when attempting to steal bicycles.
So, I am planning to get a new ride built. Here's the skinny on the new bike project:
I have a late 70s Gitane frame - I need to take this to Bicycle Specialties for a new French threaded lower bracket and a crank, likely a TA crank.
As for the rest of the gear, I have but one word: Campagnolo. Vintage if I can find it.
I'll need at least 2 locks to keep this safe in this town, but hell, I'll probably never need to buy another bike.
This is going to be fun...
Ah... I think I will have to become a Wacom tablet user. A decade in the IT biz in one way, shape or form or another is taking it's toll on my arm joints.
November... this has been a socially hectic month. I know far too many Scorpios.
Birthday greetings to (in no particular order) Brad, Graham, Sara, Josh and Stefan.
Those of you listed who have just turned (or are about to turn) 30: my silence can be purchased for a moderate fee. Email me at the usual address to discuss payment details.
Well, my bike got stolen a while back. To any bike thieves reading: you are all fucking bastards.
Let me tell you how I really feel.
My next bike will have a security system with an electroshock component. Not powerful enough to cause any lasting physical harm, but just enough so you shitheel thieves will lose control of your bowels when attempting to steal bicycles.
So, I am planning to get a new ride built. Here's the skinny on the new bike project:
I have a late 70s Gitane frame - I need to take this to Bicycle Specialties for a new French threaded lower bracket and a crank, likely a TA crank.
As for the rest of the gear, I have but one word: Campagnolo. Vintage if I can find it.
I'll need at least 2 locks to keep this safe in this town, but hell, I'll probably never need to buy another bike.
This is going to be fun...
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Dungen at Lee's Palace on October 11 2005 review
Wow. That was a fun show... even with the majority of the lyrics being in Swedish.
And no, the lead singer's stage poise was not in the least bit influenced by Robert Plant. Not all. Not more than 85% anyway.
If Dungen is coming to a venue near you, and you have a penchant for vaguely poppy, at times psych rock... then you don't want to see them. You need to.
And no, the lead singer's stage poise was not in the least bit influenced by Robert Plant. Not all. Not more than 85% anyway.
If Dungen is coming to a venue near you, and you have a penchant for vaguely poppy, at times psych rock... then you don't want to see them. You need to.
Ted Leo + Pharmacists at the Mod Club September 29
Damn...
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are excellent live. Right from the get-go they rocked out, opening the set with "Little Dawn" at about 40 bpm faster than the album cut.
The rock didn't stop. The slowest anything was played was album speed, but that didn't happen that often.
I don't think I have ever seen such flawless timing on stage in my life - this band plays really tight and they were all doing their own sound on the fly.
Personal favourite moments from the show: "Where have all the Rude Boys gone?" and "Ballad of the Sin Eater".
These are some of the "hardest working dudes in show business" (thanks Acker). Check them out if at all possible.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are excellent live. Right from the get-go they rocked out, opening the set with "Little Dawn" at about 40 bpm faster than the album cut.
The rock didn't stop. The slowest anything was played was album speed, but that didn't happen that often.
I don't think I have ever seen such flawless timing on stage in my life - this band plays really tight and they were all doing their own sound on the fly.
Personal favourite moments from the show: "Where have all the Rude Boys gone?" and "Ballad of the Sin Eater".
These are some of the "hardest working dudes in show business" (thanks Acker). Check them out if at all possible.
Black Mountain et al. Lee's Palace October 1 2005
Three bands from Vancouver... and thanks to some thieves in New York, only one set of instruments.
First up: Ladyhawk. Rocking guitar and drums in a Neil Young-esque alt-country style.
Overall impression: very enjoyable, they do what they do well. I'd see them again.
Second up: Blood Meridian (using Ladyhawk's gear).
Overall impression: while I had heard some buzz about this band, and I did enjoy them I would rank them slightly behind Ladyhawk in terms of what I enjoyed more. Check them out, because they rock.
The headliner: Black Mountain (again using Ladyhawk's gear).
Overall impression: damn... Their first Toronto show back in late March/early April was good. This time, just off a tour with Coldplay (hey, more power to them) and on the road with some fellow musicians from Vancouver it was incredible.
They have their live act down. It was so good as to be ridiculous. The last encore featured every member from every band on the bill grabbing whatever instrument they could get their hands on, grabbing any piece of spare stage real estate - to the extent that the drummer from Ladyhawk had a couple of drums in front of him as he sat on the steps at stage left. I really can't say enough good shit about Black Mountain right now, so I'll cut myself off. See them when you can.
First up: Ladyhawk. Rocking guitar and drums in a Neil Young-esque alt-country style.
Overall impression: very enjoyable, they do what they do well. I'd see them again.
Second up: Blood Meridian (using Ladyhawk's gear).
Overall impression: while I had heard some buzz about this band, and I did enjoy them I would rank them slightly behind Ladyhawk in terms of what I enjoyed more. Check them out, because they rock.
The headliner: Black Mountain (again using Ladyhawk's gear).
Overall impression: damn... Their first Toronto show back in late March/early April was good. This time, just off a tour with Coldplay (hey, more power to them) and on the road with some fellow musicians from Vancouver it was incredible.
They have their live act down. It was so good as to be ridiculous. The last encore featured every member from every band on the bill grabbing whatever instrument they could get their hands on, grabbing any piece of spare stage real estate - to the extent that the drummer from Ladyhawk had a couple of drums in front of him as he sat on the steps at stage left. I really can't say enough good shit about Black Mountain right now, so I'll cut myself off. See them when you can.
Random recipe blogging
Lunch on the fly 20051012
Cod
Cooked rice
Misc fish/seafood
Seafood stock (or water and stock mix)
Vinho d'alho
Olive oil
Salt
Balck pepper
Basil
Oregano
Bay leaf
Preheat a skillet on medium-high heat and add oil.
Once oil has become heated add cod to skillet.
Add vinho d'alho to taste.
Cook fish on one side and flip.
About halfway through cooking the second side add stock or water and appropriate measure of stock mix. Stir.
Add basil, oregano and bay leaf.
Add pepper and salt to taste.
Allow to come to gentle boil.
Add rice.
Add any additional fish or seafood.
Add additional stock as required.
Allow stock to slowly reduce, the goal is to infuse the rice with the flavours of the other ingredients while poaching the cod and any other fish in the mix.
Once stock mixture has almost completely reduced and fish is poached serve in a bowl.
Disfrutad.
Cod
Cooked rice
Misc fish/seafood
Seafood stock (or water and stock mix)
Vinho d'alho
Olive oil
Salt
Balck pepper
Basil
Oregano
Bay leaf
Preheat a skillet on medium-high heat and add oil.
Once oil has become heated add cod to skillet.
Add vinho d'alho to taste.
Cook fish on one side and flip.
About halfway through cooking the second side add stock or water and appropriate measure of stock mix. Stir.
Add basil, oregano and bay leaf.
Add pepper and salt to taste.
Allow to come to gentle boil.
Add rice.
Add any additional fish or seafood.
Add additional stock as required.
Allow stock to slowly reduce, the goal is to infuse the rice with the flavours of the other ingredients while poaching the cod and any other fish in the mix.
Once stock mixture has almost completely reduced and fish is poached serve in a bowl.
Disfrutad.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Gig-itty, gig-itty!
Ah, I need to get a picture of Quagmire for that...
Long weekend coming up, looking forward to starting a new engagement (12-15 weeks) on client site come Tuesday.
Until then, wine, turkey, family, friends and wine.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Long weekend coming up, looking forward to starting a new engagement (12-15 weeks) on client site come Tuesday.
Until then, wine, turkey, family, friends and wine.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Monday, September 26, 2005
There's always a silver lining...
In my case, it is the same colour as my bike frame, right down to the flecks of rust it has picked up in service as an all-season commuter in Toronto.
Oh yeah, it's back... and it rides like a freakin' dream!
I had the crank replaced (which was due after the beating it took one Friday night in Burlington last winter... damned sand and gravel) and the new crank is a much better match with the shifter. It's a new bike.
I am so cheerful right now that not even my bruised ass can bring me down.
It's good day.
Oh yeah, it's back... and it rides like a freakin' dream!
I had the crank replaced (which was due after the beating it took one Friday night in Burlington last winter... damned sand and gravel) and the new crank is a much better match with the shifter. It's a new bike.
I am so cheerful right now that not even my bruised ass can bring me down.
It's good day.
Happy Monday
Got out of bed, started down the stairs to the bathroom, fell ass first halfway down the stairs.
TTC running with serious delays on the southbound University-Spadina line... and it has been pissing rain for close to 12 hours.
On the other hand, the day can only get better...
TTC running with serious delays on the southbound University-Spadina line... and it has been pissing rain for close to 12 hours.
On the other hand, the day can only get better...
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Remember Palm?
Readers of the Register do, and not very fondly.
With reason. The Palm family of devices (especially the Handsrping Visor) were at one point the handheld device of choice.
I had one in those halcyon days... A Handspring Visor: sleek, nice screen size and expandable.
At the time I was wearing a lot of hats working in an industrial shop. One of my roles was that of the "management" rep on the Joint Health and Safety Committee. The Visor made publishing the weekly reports on the state of the floor a breeze; write (not type) the damn thing on the handheld, pull it into word when I got back to my desk and email the bugger off.
I cannot even begin to tell you how much I sneered down my nose at PokcetPC/WindowsCE/Windows Mobile/whatever the hell it's called this week users. Their battery life was shite.
Their colour displays were cluttered with a UI ripped from a desktop OS designed for a 17" monitor.
Their hardware crashed often where I had to work to crash mine.
But it all came crashing down. The reasons don't matter at this point, only the result.
They had the handheld market by the proverbial short and curlies and did jack about it.
To paraphrase the movie adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting: What I am trying to say is that the Treo is a blip on the radar, a high point on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
And as far as gadget quality goes, I think its a damned shame.
With reason. The Palm family of devices (especially the Handsrping Visor) were at one point the handheld device of choice.
I had one in those halcyon days... A Handspring Visor: sleek, nice screen size and expandable.
At the time I was wearing a lot of hats working in an industrial shop. One of my roles was that of the "management" rep on the Joint Health and Safety Committee. The Visor made publishing the weekly reports on the state of the floor a breeze; write (not type) the damn thing on the handheld, pull it into word when I got back to my desk and email the bugger off.
I cannot even begin to tell you how much I sneered down my nose at PokcetPC/WindowsCE/Windows Mobile/whatever the hell it's called this week users. Their battery life was shite.
Their colour displays were cluttered with a UI ripped from a desktop OS designed for a 17" monitor.
Their hardware crashed often where I had to work to crash mine.
But it all came crashing down. The reasons don't matter at this point, only the result.
They had the handheld market by the proverbial short and curlies and did jack about it.
To paraphrase the movie adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting: What I am trying to say is that the Treo is a blip on the radar, a high point on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
And as far as gadget quality goes, I think its a damned shame.
Floating hub blues
A short while ago, I noticed that something bad was going on with the bike... the ride felt seriously unstable and when I looked down, I could see the rear wheel wobbling left to right.
Bugger, I said.
Took it to the shop yesterday to get someone to check it out. I was expecting one of two diagnoses:
Fortunately it was neither. What it was was a loose hub. Which explains the travel. And the fact that the tire and tube were both shredded to ribbons (yes, I was riding with an underinflated tire and yes, for that I deserve what I get but shit man... a loose hub on a new wheel? Whaddafuck...) by the moving rim.
Ah well. Tuesday I'll be back on the bike and I cannot wait...
With my luck I'll get packed off for 4 weeks in Sudbury come Tuesday.
Bugger, I said.
Took it to the shop yesterday to get someone to check it out. I was expecting one of two diagnoses:
- Loose wheel; or
- Warped rim
Fortunately it was neither. What it was was a loose hub. Which explains the travel. And the fact that the tire and tube were both shredded to ribbons (yes, I was riding with an underinflated tire and yes, for that I deserve what I get but shit man... a loose hub on a new wheel? Whaddafuck...) by the moving rim.
Ah well. Tuesday I'll be back on the bike and I cannot wait...
With my luck I'll get packed off for 4 weeks in Sudbury come Tuesday.
Memories of Biz School
I see my friend Pete (currently doing his MBA at Tuck) has quickly learned the first lesson of Business School: party photos are ideal for blackmail...
...and the next time you see Acker, ask him about the bus in Peru...
...and the next time you see Acker, ask him about the bus in Peru...
FreeBSD, beer and possessed hardware
Warning: the following is rife with geekiness and profanity. So just fucking deal with it.
All right... So my flatmate's computer is fucking possessed. I have no other words to describe this.
It all started about 3 weeks ago when Windows Me (that being the most modern Windows operating system his accursed machine would run) up and decides out of the blue to stop recognising the wireless NIC that was installed.
So he reinstalls it, reboots... and discovers that Windows has removed TCP/IP entirely. What's that mean? No networking. None. The machine has decided to become a hermit and forswear the company of it's own kind by isolating itself.
After much ado, and fairly gratuitous use of the word "fuck", he gave up on Windows Me, and asked me if I had any ideas. So I gave him the install CDs for FreeBSD 5.4...
...and it was good. The OS is fairly solid (this is a direct descendant of BSD UNIX... as is Solaris, AIX... this is real UNIX, not some userland lashed to a kernel with duct tape... that's right, I said it you Penguin-minded dogmatists... accept it, that's your development model), the KDE GUI is easy on the eyes and surprisingly modern... expect the fucking drivers for the wireless card won't load... the damn thing cannot seem to get an IRQ.
I should back up and mention the hardware. This is an old school Pentium II 266 MHz machine. How old school? EDO RAM. I shit thee not. But it runs the newest RELEASE of FreeBSD and does so well, so who cares?
At any rate, there was further gratuitous use of the word "fuck" on this revelation. So, we did what was necessary. Grabbing 3 cold beers each, we built and installed a customised kernel for the hardware in question.
And then there was yet further gratuitous use of the word "fuck", this time employed with "motherfucker", "rat-bastard" and "ill-tempered son of a bitch".
Well, the upshot is dude has a working machine with absolutely no networking... so I borrowed a crimper from work, made sure the box of bulk Category 5e cable still has enough on the spool (thanks for the gift Jer...) and I'll be grabbing some cable ends on the way home.
If I can't make the sonofabitch network the plan is to overclock it to death. This should be fun.
All right... So my flatmate's computer is fucking possessed. I have no other words to describe this.
It all started about 3 weeks ago when Windows Me (that being the most modern Windows operating system his accursed machine would run) up and decides out of the blue to stop recognising the wireless NIC that was installed.
So he reinstalls it, reboots... and discovers that Windows has removed TCP/IP entirely. What's that mean? No networking. None. The machine has decided to become a hermit and forswear the company of it's own kind by isolating itself.
After much ado, and fairly gratuitous use of the word "fuck", he gave up on Windows Me, and asked me if I had any ideas. So I gave him the install CDs for FreeBSD 5.4...
...and it was good. The OS is fairly solid (this is a direct descendant of BSD UNIX... as is Solaris, AIX... this is real UNIX, not some userland lashed to a kernel with duct tape... that's right, I said it you Penguin-minded dogmatists... accept it, that's your development model), the KDE GUI is easy on the eyes and surprisingly modern... expect the fucking drivers for the wireless card won't load... the damn thing cannot seem to get an IRQ.
I should back up and mention the hardware. This is an old school Pentium II 266 MHz machine. How old school? EDO RAM. I shit thee not. But it runs the newest RELEASE of FreeBSD and does so well, so who cares?
At any rate, there was further gratuitous use of the word "fuck" on this revelation. So, we did what was necessary. Grabbing 3 cold beers each, we built and installed a customised kernel for the hardware in question.
And then there was yet further gratuitous use of the word "fuck", this time employed with "motherfucker", "rat-bastard" and "ill-tempered son of a bitch".
Well, the upshot is dude has a working machine with absolutely no networking... so I borrowed a crimper from work, made sure the box of bulk Category 5e cable still has enough on the spool (thanks for the gift Jer...) and I'll be grabbing some cable ends on the way home.
If I can't make the sonofabitch network the plan is to overclock it to death. This should be fun.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Long week, the perfect segue to a long weekend...
Ay ay ay...
The week didn't suck. Seriously. It was just long and injected with uncertainty, though heard some good news today at the office.
Well, I stood up in front of a number of my fellow geeks and yapped for 10-15 minutes about the Shmoo Group's Defcon talk, specifically developments in Rainbow Tables and Exploits for Exploits. Apparently a few people were paying attention and found it interesting... I was given props when I went out for a smoke during intermission and that's always cool.
Hell, it was just nice to know that my part of the presentation was not teh suck.
In a few short hours I shall be the proud owner of a new Mac Mini. I cannot wait. Bring me the pretty UNIX, yes... let the fun begin.
Ack's blogs (both the fiction and the op-ed) are some good reading of late. I suggest you check them out.
The week didn't suck. Seriously. It was just long and injected with uncertainty, though heard some good news today at the office.
Well, I stood up in front of a number of my fellow geeks and yapped for 10-15 minutes about the Shmoo Group's Defcon talk, specifically developments in Rainbow Tables and Exploits for Exploits. Apparently a few people were paying attention and found it interesting... I was given props when I went out for a smoke during intermission and that's always cool.
Hell, it was just nice to know that my part of the presentation was not teh suck.
In a few short hours I shall be the proud owner of a new Mac Mini. I cannot wait. Bring me the pretty UNIX, yes... let the fun begin.
Ack's blogs (both the fiction and the op-ed) are some good reading of late. I suggest you check them out.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Changes
Ah yeah... the back room/library is now for storage only no longer.
One chair, one loveseat and *boom*, a lounge was born.
I'm not going to lie, it's pretty sweet.
And I think the new flatmate has stepped forth... waiting to confirm before I drop names, but we shall see how it all goes.
I'm excited; this den of hippies has never looked so good.
One chair, one loveseat and *boom*, a lounge was born.
I'm not going to lie, it's pretty sweet.
And I think the new flatmate has stepped forth... waiting to confirm before I drop names, but we shall see how it all goes.
I'm excited; this den of hippies has never looked so good.
Ph3@r & L0a7h1ng at Defcon 13
OK, so I haven't posted for a while.
The truth is I burned out in Vegas... Defcon was (in the case of some presentations) pretty damn good. Lots o' neat stuff out there. I left with an expanded mind. Seriously.
It was the non-Defcon activities of the 4 days in Las Vegas... beer went down far too easily the whole time, and I had cause to curse myself almost every morning upon waking.
Good times, good times.
Highlights from Defcon:
Good times, good times...
The truth is I burned out in Vegas... Defcon was (in the case of some presentations) pretty damn good. Lots o' neat stuff out there. I left with an expanded mind. Seriously.
It was the non-Defcon activities of the 4 days in Las Vegas... beer went down far too easily the whole time, and I had cause to curse myself almost every morning upon waking.
Good times, good times.
Highlights from Defcon:
- The Shmoo Group
- Kaminsky's Black Ops Session
- The memory obfuscating rootkit POC
- Suicidal Linux
- Hacking Google Adwords
- Google Hacking for Penetration Testers
- Post-intrusion SSH Hijacking
Good times, good times...
Friday, July 22, 2005
Cool drek of the Week
I thought I had seen cool when I saw Google Maps.
Then they added satellite images and that made it cooler.
Then I saw Google Earth. I said to myself:
Damn... Now that is cool.
Other cool stuff... Longhorn is no more, behold Windows Vista.
The FreeBSD project will be unveiling a new logo. Check back at the link for results.
Then they added satellite images and that made it cooler.
Then I saw Google Earth. I said to myself:
Self, it can't get cooler than this.Then I saw this week's cool Googletoy: http://moon.google.com.
Damn... Now that is cool.
Other cool stuff... Longhorn is no more, behold Windows Vista.
The FreeBSD project will be unveiling a new logo. Check back at the link for results.
the heat wave breaketh...
...and I no longer envy the citizens of Dakar their cooler weather. I'm serious.
That's one odd thing about the climate here; we'll see -30 celsius in January and 42 celsius in July.
Gets expensive on the wardrobe front, ye ken?
Working from home is easier, now that I don't sweat off 3 pounds of water a day just attempting to write. If only the scripts would work, I'd be a happy man.
Junk food of choice: two way tie between salted soy nuts and Doritos Black Pepper Jack.
Album of choice: Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze.
Movie of choice: Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.
Weapon of choice: the pen.
That's one odd thing about the climate here; we'll see -30 celsius in January and 42 celsius in July.
Gets expensive on the wardrobe front, ye ken?
Working from home is easier, now that I don't sweat off 3 pounds of water a day just attempting to write. If only the scripts would work, I'd be a happy man.
Junk food of choice: two way tie between salted soy nuts and Doritos Black Pepper Jack.
Album of choice: Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze.
Movie of choice: Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.
Weapon of choice: the pen.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Sunday, July 10, 2005
IKEA'd out... A deadline looms... Fear and Loathing settle in...
Sweet zombie Jesus.
All right first some words to the people:
Acker, best o' luck to you and Nicola in BC. I may have to take you up on that offer of couch/floor space.
To those who know what I am talking about, I won. Enough said.
As a result though, we have a new coffee table, the entertainment unit is now an entertainment unit instead of a half-assed coffee table. When I get these damn demos written, I'll have the wardrobe put together and a whole lot of shit put in order.
In the meantime it's... shit, it's five after one... I have a deadline looming and I'm short on demos. The virtual lab is not co-operating with me. The situation is becoming grim. I will need some coffee in short order. Or possibly Jaegermeister. Either way, it will have to be in quantity.
The fact that Bravo has Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on is not helping my productivity either.
Where the hell are my cigarettes?
All right first some words to the people:
Acker, best o' luck to you and Nicola in BC. I may have to take you up on that offer of couch/floor space.
To those who know what I am talking about, I won. Enough said.
If I were you, I'd leave the Doctor alone... He's a very crude man...It was a busy day. Run out to Ikea right after brekky with the Stef, and we packed my car full of boxed furniture. And I do mean full.
As a result though, we have a new coffee table, the entertainment unit is now an entertainment unit instead of a half-assed coffee table. When I get these damn demos written, I'll have the wardrobe put together and a whole lot of shit put in order.
In the meantime it's... shit, it's five after one... I have a deadline looming and I'm short on demos. The virtual lab is not co-operating with me. The situation is becoming grim. I will need some coffee in short order. Or possibly Jaegermeister. Either way, it will have to be in quantity.
The fact that Bravo has Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on is not helping my productivity either.
...[g]roovy. Grooooooovy!Right... the Fear is upon me... I must press on, damn the torpedoes.
Where the hell are my cigarettes?
Friday, July 08, 2005
London Bombs
Hey, McNuts! If you're alright drop Graham or I an email, OK buddy? Look forward to hearing from you.
Damn...
Well as a friend said yesterday in an email: "we were due for a while [...] but all my friends are ok.. so i guess i'm lucky." Indeed.
I turned on the BBC World Service yesterday looking for some news on the G8 Summit. I was then unable to change the channel for two hours.
We're going to be hearing about this for a long time to come I think. And it isn't going to get any better.
Damn...
Well as a friend said yesterday in an email: "we were due for a while [...] but all my friends are ok.. so i guess i'm lucky." Indeed.
I turned on the BBC World Service yesterday looking for some news on the G8 Summit. I was then unable to change the channel for two hours.
We're going to be hearing about this for a long time to come I think. And it isn't going to get any better.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Long Hot Summer Night
...as far as the eye can. But sitting my ass out here on the porch, the breezes are being kind to me.
Another day, another demo. Knocking them down, slowly but surely. That's half good. But I'd rather be punching them out faster.
Life is good right now, better than it's been for some time and on many fronts to boot.
I feel good. I need to do some more now. Get back on track some aspects of living I let slide when I was letting the punk rock IT biz own my very soul.
Well no more! At least, not this week.
That's all I have to say right now, save for: ex-Naylor, give us a shout back when you can...
Another day, another demo. Knocking them down, slowly but surely. That's half good. But I'd rather be punching them out faster.
Life is good right now, better than it's been for some time and on many fronts to boot.
I feel good. I need to do some more now. Get back on track some aspects of living I let slide when I was letting the punk rock IT biz own my very soul.
Well no more! At least, not this week.
That's all I have to say right now, save for: ex-Naylor, give us a shout back when you can...
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Tempus fugit
By gum... it hAs Damn Well been a lOng time since i Last posted anything on this Fine blog.
And it has been quite a month... Started a new job, got the car back on the road and into Toronto... now all I need to do is get the parking permit taken care of.
Been fairly busy on the concert front... In one week towards the end of May I saw the Doves, the Black Crowes and Kasabian (again). It was a good week.
The Doves kicked ass. Period.
The Black Crowes was a blast... happy I could see that show. Best quote to open a show with ever: "It smells like George Bush's worst nightmare out there... and I don't mean falafel." (Chris Robinson).
Kasabian... oh man, the album sounds better everytime I hear it, and the band gets better every time I see them. Always a good show, if they come to your neck of the woods... go see them. Do it. Trust me on this.
...and has anyone else be watching the new Doctor Who on CBC (or bit torrent if you like to get your imports within a few hours of their original air time)?
Christopher Eccleston is now my favourite Doctor. I confess to having had reservations about an ex-pop star playing the companion, but Billie Piper's Rose is a good character. I am quite chuffed she is staying on after the first season.
Hey, have to give out a large number of congrats to a lot of people for different reasons... Acker, Page, Nick, Trevor... good work on the new jobs, hope you enjoy them. Chi, congrats on your impending nuptials.
It's finally cooling down. We've had a week of heat that can only be described as just stupid... temperatures in excess of 30 degrees celcius with heavy humidity every day.
Thankfully since yesterday we finally started getting the thunderstorms we needed to take the swamp effect away.
Been working from home for the last couple of days... it's been good, I can get a fair amount done in a day, minimal distractions and I can knock off some of the more mundane tasks of life.
By the way, if anyone sees the Fleck, let me know... that guy still owes us a whack of cash.
Right, I have a morning meeting with the client, and I need to do some more work on this material. Out.
PS. I won't let five to six weeks pass without blogging again.
And it has been quite a month... Started a new job, got the car back on the road and into Toronto... now all I need to do is get the parking permit taken care of.
Been fairly busy on the concert front... In one week towards the end of May I saw the Doves, the Black Crowes and Kasabian (again). It was a good week.
The Doves kicked ass. Period.
The Black Crowes was a blast... happy I could see that show. Best quote to open a show with ever: "It smells like George Bush's worst nightmare out there... and I don't mean falafel." (Chris Robinson).
Kasabian... oh man, the album sounds better everytime I hear it, and the band gets better every time I see them. Always a good show, if they come to your neck of the woods... go see them. Do it. Trust me on this.
...and has anyone else be watching the new Doctor Who on CBC (or bit torrent if you like to get your imports within a few hours of their original air time)?
Christopher Eccleston is now my favourite Doctor. I confess to having had reservations about an ex-pop star playing the companion, but Billie Piper's Rose is a good character. I am quite chuffed she is staying on after the first season.
Hey, have to give out a large number of congrats to a lot of people for different reasons... Acker, Page, Nick, Trevor... good work on the new jobs, hope you enjoy them. Chi, congrats on your impending nuptials.
It's finally cooling down. We've had a week of heat that can only be described as just stupid... temperatures in excess of 30 degrees celcius with heavy humidity every day.
Thankfully since yesterday we finally started getting the thunderstorms we needed to take the swamp effect away.
Been working from home for the last couple of days... it's been good, I can get a fair amount done in a day, minimal distractions and I can knock off some of the more mundane tasks of life.
By the way, if anyone sees the Fleck, let me know... that guy still owes us a whack of cash.
Right, I have a morning meeting with the client, and I need to do some more work on this material. Out.
PS. I won't let five to six weeks pass without blogging again.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Microsoft Reaches Out to Open-Source Community
Microsoft Reaches Out to Open-Source Community
Well colour me pleasantly, but cautiously, surprised... I'll reserve final judgement on this for a wee while.
Well colour me pleasantly, but cautiously, surprised... I'll reserve final judgement on this for a wee while.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
Cómo me gusta la primavera blues...
Wow. That's an odd title.
Hell of a nice day, but moses I am feeling worn out.
Not easy to enjoy one's self when the job search becomes (at least in the mind) more and more vital with each passing day, and the results are less than stellar.
Ah, well. All things in time. O así espero.
On the upside, I did get out of the office for about an hour, doing necessary errands. Seriously.
Kicking it right here in the after work establishment, doing a bit of unwinding and Blackberry blogging, and maybe a wee bit of thinking.
Well, let's not get carried away.
On the playlist:
Rancid (tracks from ...And Out Come the Wolves, Life Won't Wait and Indestructible)
The Pogues (tracks from Hell's Ditch)
Ted Leo + Pharmacists (tracks from Hearts of Oak and Shake the Sheets)
Joy Division (tracks from Substance)
Pennywise (tracks from From the Ashes and an album whose name I cannot recall)
Manu Chao (tracks from the Live Album)
Ramones (tracks from the King Biscuit Flower Hour)
Bad Religion (tracks from The Empire Strikes First and the New America)
Eric Clapton (tracks from Crossroads)
Eagles Of Death Metal (tracks from Peace Love Death Metal)
Now *that* is some good times.
Cómo me gusta la primavera....
Viva primavera
Wow... It's been a pretty good week weather-wise.
Sitting out on the patio right now having a coffee, and waiting for the order to get here.
Windows Sharepoint Services is beginning to vex me, and vex me mightily at that. Trying to get this to run on a machine with IIS 6 and some tweaked socket pooling, *and* ip-specific host headers on every site is not as easy as one would think.
Hell, I cannot even get the admin vitrual server up and running.
I suspect I can make it work in the end, but I also suspect I'll be doing a fair amount of work with httpcfg again before this is done.
Oh, well. It could be worse; I could be bored...
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
The Doctor returns...
...and I didn't see it, likely because I was sitting above Yonge Street finishing a beer with some friends before heading out to the 360 for the Black Mountain show.
Hopefully some good samaritan taped it (provisional thanks in advance to Jeremy, Hannah and Hannah's mom), as I was interested in seeing how the Beeb handles the Doctor with an fx budget. The actual presence of an fx budget was probably why they chose the Autons as the first villians on the new series; plasticity is always a fun thing to see on screen.
If anyone has seen the new Dr. Who, comment on this post with your thoughts... thanks.
Hopefully some good samaritan taped it (provisional thanks in advance to Jeremy, Hannah and Hannah's mom), as I was interested in seeing how the Beeb handles the Doctor with an fx budget. The actual presence of an fx budget was probably why they chose the Autons as the first villians on the new series; plasticity is always a fun thing to see on screen.
If anyone has seen the new Dr. Who, comment on this post with your thoughts... thanks.
Rock and Roll (and KOTOR)
Just got in from the Black Mountain show. That was some good "Stoner Rock".
Elements of 60s and 70s rock and roll blended with other more modern influences (soem trainspotters maintain we heard a riff from Daft Punk's "Da Funk", as well as some Franz Ferdinand-influenced bits).
Honestly this band put on a good show, and, yea verily, did they rock in a most hardcore fashion..
Yeee... Two hours sleep last night (I'd like to thank Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) plus the exertions of the day are now beginning to take their (not inconsiderable) toll.
Eyelids impossibly heavy, motor skills lacking... Consciousness fading....
Saturday, April 02, 2005
A dreich morning; April showers of wet snow
Ach... It's one ugly morning out there. Thoughts of productivity are banished by this weather: fortunately we have season one of the Family Guy on DVD.
Hung out with my friend Brad last night for the first time in ages. Good to see him, fatherhood seems to agree with him. As does grabbing a couple of beers at Sneaky Dee's while seeing Pinch. Good band.
As it turns out, I can blog from the Blackberry. Well, if you are reading this then I can say yes, I can blog from the Blackberry. Otherwise I am just typing in vain.
We're using the crap weather as an excuse to geek out big time. I'm trying to blog from a mobile device, and Stef is hunting up ringtones. Ah, Saturday...
Friday, April 01, 2005
April Fools
Well...
We are in April and still looking for a new roommate.
We are also without cable or internet at the house right now, which is becoming somewhat frustrating. Hopefully Rogers and I can come to an understanding and they can begin to bill me for service soon...
I recently caved and bought a Blackberry... Telus Mobility's retention special was too good to pass up, so I ended up buying the 7510. Given that there is no net connection in the house currently this has been something of a boon as it means I can still read my email in the interim. I even tried blogging from it, but the browser couldn't find the submit link on the composition page.
Just as well. I'm already too geek for my own good anyhow.
So why am I blogging from my desk today? As it turns out, there was some bad media in the tape drive last night, so I am running an emergency backup run right now and watching it to make sure that it goes well so I can send it off to head office ASAP.
Fortunately this should be the last time I have to do this as the autoloader is scheduled to be repaired today, and for this I am extremely grateful.
I still haven't got around to reinstalling my machine with FreeBSD 5 yet... the lack of internet connection has slowed that initiative somewhat. I'll get around to it.
Slashdot's April Fools gags are stellar as always, as is Google's Google Gulp Beta page. Almost as good as the pigeons.
Good times, and geeks with too much time on their hands....
We are in April and still looking for a new roommate.
We are also without cable or internet at the house right now, which is becoming somewhat frustrating. Hopefully Rogers and I can come to an understanding and they can begin to bill me for service soon...
I recently caved and bought a Blackberry... Telus Mobility's retention special was too good to pass up, so I ended up buying the 7510. Given that there is no net connection in the house currently this has been something of a boon as it means I can still read my email in the interim. I even tried blogging from it, but the browser couldn't find the submit link on the composition page.
Just as well. I'm already too geek for my own good anyhow.
So why am I blogging from my desk today? As it turns out, there was some bad media in the tape drive last night, so I am running an emergency backup run right now and watching it to make sure that it goes well so I can send it off to head office ASAP.
Fortunately this should be the last time I have to do this as the autoloader is scheduled to be repaired today, and for this I am extremely grateful.
I still haven't got around to reinstalling my machine with FreeBSD 5 yet... the lack of internet connection has slowed that initiative somewhat. I'll get around to it.
Slashdot's April Fools gags are stellar as always, as is Google's Google Gulp Beta page. Almost as good as the pigeons.
Good times, and geeks with too much time on their hands....
Thursday, March 17, 2005
St. Paedrig and snow... Oh yeah, and Evil too!
Well, that was a fun couple of days, getting IIS and a standalone instance of Tomcat to both listen on port 443 (here's a hint... httpcfg on IIS6, on IIS5 it's a metabase edit; also you'll need to muck about with server.xml on the Tomcat side).
And just as I getting ready to pack up and go home... it starts snowing, snowing really hard. Spring begins in 3 days, can someone explain this to me?
Or is my issue that I have been too spoiled by too many years of mild winters?
Oh yeah, Evil too...
The Evil Doers gig last Saturday was underattended. I blame the snow, as the music certainly rocked. They opened with "Go" (an original) and kept on rockin' from there, playing mostly original material and closing with an excellent rendition of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law". Hell, I don't even like Priest and I thought it sounded good. Seriously, if you are a fan of the old school rockin' you need to see these guys. Come on, just once and then decide. Do it for me. Do it for the gipper. Just do it.
Well the Fleck is Alberta bound in a couple of weeks, and we need another flatmate now. We're searching. If you know anyone, drop me a line.
I'll be geeking out hardcore over the next week or so, as I drop a 60GB HDD into my case and begin building a FreeBSD workstation. Mmmm... KDE goodness and the joys of tcsh. I'll post the highlights of my trials and tribulations.
And just as I getting ready to pack up and go home... it starts snowing, snowing really hard. Spring begins in 3 days, can someone explain this to me?
Or is my issue that I have been too spoiled by too many years of mild winters?
Oh yeah, Evil too...
The Evil Doers gig last Saturday was underattended. I blame the snow, as the music certainly rocked. They opened with "Go" (an original) and kept on rockin' from there, playing mostly original material and closing with an excellent rendition of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law". Hell, I don't even like Priest and I thought it sounded good. Seriously, if you are a fan of the old school rockin' you need to see these guys. Come on, just once and then decide. Do it for me. Do it for the gipper. Just do it.
Well the Fleck is Alberta bound in a couple of weeks, and we need another flatmate now. We're searching. If you know anyone, drop me a line.
I'll be geeking out hardcore over the next week or so, as I drop a 60GB HDD into my case and begin building a FreeBSD workstation. Mmmm... KDE goodness and the joys of tcsh. I'll post the highlights of my trials and tribulations.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Snow, snow, freakin' snow (and Evil)
Heading out to see the Evil Doers tonight... Should be a good time. I remember the first show last year, it rocked. I'll post a review up here post show (or whenever I get up tomorrow).
So as I contemplate leaving the house, I look out the window, to see that there is so much snow coming down, I cannot see the house next door.
Now, I have nothing against winter. I actually like it. I would point out though that it is nine days until the first day of spring, and 3-4 cm of snow in less than half an hour is not what I would call "seasonal" -- not in southern Ontario, anyway.
Ah well, it could be worse: a few years ago the city would have called in the armed forces for snow removal. No, I will never let Toronto live that one down, ever.
On an unrelated note, sweet opener on the Simpsons tonight, a pneumatic tube delivers Fry instead of Bart, then removes him again. Gotta love the gratuitous Futurama plugs.
So as I contemplate leaving the house, I look out the window, to see that there is so much snow coming down, I cannot see the house next door.
Now, I have nothing against winter. I actually like it. I would point out though that it is nine days until the first day of spring, and 3-4 cm of snow in less than half an hour is not what I would call "seasonal" -- not in southern Ontario, anyway.
Ah well, it could be worse: a few years ago the city would have called in the armed forces for snow removal. No, I will never let Toronto live that one down, ever.
On an unrelated note, sweet opener on the Simpsons tonight, a pneumatic tube delivers Fry instead of Bart, then removes him again. Gotta love the gratuitous Futurama plugs.
Friday, March 11, 2005
I fear Fridays
I have a lot more fear of the end of the week than the beginning.
Nothing ever gets dropped on you on Monday with a "...By the way can we get this for 5, I fly out tonight". Only Fridays, everyone is (usually) gone for the weekend after 5:30 (at the latest), deadlines are nastier, and inevitably someone comes to you with a "by the way, I forgot to mention this earlier, but it seems I need...".
No matter. This is why humanity has a long-standing affection for coffee.
Nothing ever gets dropped on you on Monday with a "...By the way can we get this for 5, I fly out tonight". Only Fridays, everyone is (usually) gone for the weekend after 5:30 (at the latest), deadlines are nastier, and inevitably someone comes to you with a "by the way, I forgot to mention this earlier, but it seems I need...".
No matter. This is why humanity has a long-standing affection for coffee.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals revolt over VB6
OSNews reportsMVPs are revolting over the death of VB6.
Might have something to do with huge amount of applications written in it out there.
Might have something to do with huge amount of applications written in it out there.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Blogging and dynamics in the workplace
Well, there are now officially 2 publicly acknowledged blogs from the office, and we have set up a Web Part to publish their details to our portal site via syndication...
Which is kind of cool, I have to admit. It definitely reminds me of a time when the office was less than half the size it is now, and the constant exchange if information and ideas - where everyone is a sounding board for everyone else. It's nice to get that atmosphere back, you lose it when an office or workgroup gets beyond a certain.
Not that you ever really lose that professional exchange with colleagues, it just tends to change with the organisational structure.
Which is kind of cool, I have to admit. It definitely reminds me of a time when the office was less than half the size it is now, and the constant exchange if information and ideas - where everyone is a sounding board for everyone else. It's nice to get that atmosphere back, you lose it when an office or workgroup gets beyond a certain.
Not that you ever really lose that professional exchange with colleagues, it just tends to change with the organisational structure.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Oh, crap...
Hey Dad, Happy Belated Birthday... We'll see you on Saturday!
Wow, don't I feel like a heel... Mind you, he insisted for years that his birthday was the day after it's actual date so I don't feel as bad as I could about SNAFUing the date.
Sorry, Dad but it's true... Happy 65th.
Wow, don't I feel like a heel... Mind you, he insisted for years that his birthday was the day after it's actual date so I don't feel as bad as I could about SNAFUing the date.
Sorry, Dad but it's true... Happy 65th.
Thoughts from an Ex-MS Distinguished Engineer
Markl's Thoughts is a blog belonging to Mark Lucovsky, currently employed by Google, late of Microsoft.
In his February 12th post, he makes some interesting observations on what delivering software to customers actually means.
Food for thought.
In his February 12th post, he makes some interesting observations on what delivering software to customers actually means.
Food for thought.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Dreich and snowy
Accursed weather...
I don't mind snow, really. It's the 8cm deep puddles of dirty, icy water along side the road. That coupled with the sheer volume of snow that has come down overnight is forcing me to take the subway to work, leave the bike locked up in the back.
Ah well.
Found some cool software today on Sourceforge... found it by accident as a matter of fact. Mind mapping software still in beta, called Freemind. I remeber seeing something like this at an unnamed large software company's Canadian office a while back, essentially it lets you map out your train of thought.
It's really cool; any idea, any tangent you can map out in software, save it and come back to it later.
Trash your whiteboard, this is free and written in Java so, as long as you have a Java runtime installed, you're good to go.
I don't mind snow, really. It's the 8cm deep puddles of dirty, icy water along side the road. That coupled with the sheer volume of snow that has come down overnight is forcing me to take the subway to work, leave the bike locked up in the back.
Ah well.
Found some cool software today on Sourceforge... found it by accident as a matter of fact. Mind mapping software still in beta, called Freemind. I remeber seeing something like this at an unnamed large software company's Canadian office a while back, essentially it lets you map out your train of thought.
It's really cool; any idea, any tangent you can map out in software, save it and come back to it later.
Trash your whiteboard, this is free and written in Java so, as long as you have a Java runtime installed, you're good to go.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Snowmobiking (or is that Slopmobiking?) and SCSI
Ugh... I need an addition to my rear fender, I was soakng wet when I got in.
Hopefully it will get coldser tomorrow, as I would much rather deal with ice than with slop.
Weel, the ther Fleck has been busy cannibalising old hardware. The Beast yielded up a couple of hotswap bays and a RAID controller.
This is going to be fun...
Hopefully it will get coldser tomorrow, as I would much rather deal with ice than with slop.
Weel, the ther Fleck has been busy cannibalising old hardware. The Beast yielded up a couple of hotswap bays and a RAID controller.
This is going to be fun...
Sunday, February 27, 2005
This is Radio Clash...
...on private WiFi LAN.
Oh yeah, we got the icecast server receiving streams again, and outputting to the stereo. Good times, good times.
And now, I want to get a new hard disk and convert my windows box into a FreeBSD server. Yeah, and then I can run it as a headless X client... with OpenLDAP for an authentication source, after I get pam_ldap and nss_ldap configured...
Clearly I need to get out more.
All kidding aside, I conquered laziness today: did a grocery run, got out on the bike, cleared out the fridge, emptied the Green Box and resurrected our FreeBSD streaming server. That's a productive Sunday in my books.
Speaking of Open Source and servers... My friend Dan has recently become a Slackware reseller. He is also going to be carrying some *BSD retail product. So, if you're in southern Ontario and looking for a retailer/service provider that speaks Open Source (both the GPL and BSD dialects), check him out: Servicetech.ca, up on Fennell in Hamilton.
Believe me, when this Windows verification thing gets going (sorry, no specific link, just Google it), you are going to want to go OSS just to avoid the hassle. Seriously.
Oh yeah, we got the icecast server receiving streams again, and outputting to the stereo. Good times, good times.
And now, I want to get a new hard disk and convert my windows box into a FreeBSD server. Yeah, and then I can run it as a headless X client... with OpenLDAP for an authentication source, after I get pam_ldap and nss_ldap configured...
Clearly I need to get out more.
All kidding aside, I conquered laziness today: did a grocery run, got out on the bike, cleared out the fridge, emptied the Green Box and resurrected our FreeBSD streaming server. That's a productive Sunday in my books.
Speaking of Open Source and servers... My friend Dan has recently become a Slackware reseller. He is also going to be carrying some *BSD retail product. So, if you're in southern Ontario and looking for a retailer/service provider that speaks Open Source (both the GPL and BSD dialects), check him out: Servicetech.ca, up on Fennell in Hamilton.
Believe me, when this Windows verification thing gets going (sorry, no specific link, just Google it), you are going to want to go OSS just to avoid the hassle. Seriously.
Post Kasabian Blogging
That show rocked, huge props to Stef for hooking me up with the ticket.
Well, for those who don't know, Kasabian have a sound not unlike Screamadelica-era Primal Scream, and they absolutely rock live!
The band was on, the sound great (my ears are still ringing), they played the majority of the album, and at least one track that does not appear on the copy of their eponymous disc that I have sitting next to me for reference purposes.
Definitely the best show I have seen in a while, and certainly the best one I ever saw on a whim.
Well, for those who don't know, Kasabian have a sound not unlike Screamadelica-era Primal Scream, and they absolutely rock live!
The band was on, the sound great (my ears are still ringing), they played the majority of the album, and at least one track that does not appear on the copy of their eponymous disc that I have sitting next to me for reference purposes.
Definitely the best show I have seen in a while, and certainly the best one I ever saw on a whim.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Unexpected surprise
Well, well, well... Looks like I'm off to Lee's Palace tonight for the Kasabian show.
Should be good, if I'm feeling energetic I'll put up a review later.
In geekier news, switched to a remote Gnome desktop instead of the KDE session I was using last night and earlier today. Gnome's nice but KDE sure is purty.
Should be good, if I'm feeling energetic I'll put up a review later.
In geekier news, switched to a remote Gnome desktop instead of the KDE session I was using last night and earlier today. Gnome's nice but KDE sure is purty.
The SUN-ny side of the street
[UPDATE: Laziness prevails; we had ISOs of Solaris 10 kicking around, so that's what we're getting...]
New project... Solaris for the house servers.
It's all Flecker's fault, blame him.
With the impending return of one of our Sun boxes from co-location, we are going to be reinstall it and the Icecast machine with Solaris 9 (though I'm lobbying for Solaris 10) just because we can.
This is going to be fun.... wonder if work wants to sell off that Enterprise 250 that we decomissioned last year?
So what does this mean for the Geekhaus network? Let's take a step back and do the tally:
2 Windows XP Pro machines
1 Windows Me machine
1 FreeBSD 5.3 (i386) machine
2 Solaris machines
And coming down the pipe this year we should be adding:
1 Mac mini
1 iMac
If this keeps up, we are going to need a bigger switch and Gigabit Ethernet. Hmmm... now there's an idea...
New project... Solaris for the house servers.
It's all Flecker's fault, blame him.
With the impending return of one of our Sun boxes from co-location, we are going to be reinstall it and the Icecast machine with Solaris 9 (though I'm lobbying for Solaris 10) just because we can.
This is going to be fun.... wonder if work wants to sell off that Enterprise 250 that we decomissioned last year?
So what does this mean for the Geekhaus network? Let's take a step back and do the tally:
2 Windows XP Pro machines
1 Windows Me machine
1 FreeBSD 5.3 (i386) machine
2 Solaris machines
And coming down the pipe this year we should be adding:
1 Mac mini
1 iMac
If this keeps up, we are going to need a bigger switch and Gigabit Ethernet. Hmmm... now there's an idea...
Building blog communities and the Joys of X11
Spent some time this week installing and doing some inital config on a blog community for work, and less than a week into it we have a fairly prolific poster already. Check him out: big bald ActiveNick muses on Active Nick's Big Bald Blog.
I have to say, the software we went with to run the community was some good stuff, IMO; and I don't say that lightly, it runs on .NET/IIS and I am becoming more and more of a php/Apache fan. I think this bodes ill for my future as a Windows administrator.
Just finished checking out my former co-worker Ritesh's blog... I see the Gates are very much a topic of interest in Manhattan these days.
Another (current) co-worker who blogs (and has been doing it for a while) is Ack. Read his blog, and buy his book. I did and I regret nothing.
The Geekhaus continues to earn the name. Thanks to some earlier work I did trying to get X over SSH working, and the Fleck using the old brain and remembering to edit sshd_config, we now have (in addition to the UltraSPARC powered IceCast server running FreeBSD) an X terminal server in the living room. I'm actually typing this on it right now, using Cygwin/X and PuTTY on work's windows notebook.
Beyond the geek-cool factor of just having this in the house, I am glad one of us finally figured out why we couldn't get it working before... Now I have a secure terminal back to the office, no VPN required, no IPSec tunnel limitations, oh yeah. Let the good times roll.
I think I am going to have to play with this more. I like it a hell of a lot better than RDP, and it is definitely more secure. VNC is no longer welcome (not that I ever liked it anyway... remote control sans encryption always made me feel queasy).
I definitely need to get back into dealing with Unix and workalikes more, I can do a lot more with less money. And I like that idea.
I have to say, the software we went with to run the community was some good stuff, IMO; and I don't say that lightly, it runs on .NET/IIS and I am becoming more and more of a php/Apache fan. I think this bodes ill for my future as a Windows administrator.
Just finished checking out my former co-worker Ritesh's blog... I see the Gates are very much a topic of interest in Manhattan these days.
Another (current) co-worker who blogs (and has been doing it for a while) is Ack. Read his blog, and buy his book. I did and I regret nothing.
The Geekhaus continues to earn the name. Thanks to some earlier work I did trying to get X over SSH working, and the Fleck using the old brain and remembering to edit sshd_config, we now have (in addition to the UltraSPARC powered IceCast server running FreeBSD) an X terminal server in the living room. I'm actually typing this on it right now, using Cygwin/X and PuTTY on work's windows notebook.
Beyond the geek-cool factor of just having this in the house, I am glad one of us finally figured out why we couldn't get it working before... Now I have a secure terminal back to the office, no VPN required, no IPSec tunnel limitations, oh yeah. Let the good times roll.
I think I am going to have to play with this more. I like it a hell of a lot better than RDP, and it is definitely more secure. VNC is no longer welcome (not that I ever liked it anyway... remote control sans encryption always made me feel queasy).
I definitely need to get back into dealing with Unix and workalikes more, I can do a lot more with less money. And I like that idea.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.
This just in: Hunter S. Thompson has has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Dr. Thompson's work remains some of the best I have ever read (you have seen the name of this blog, right?). Condolences to his family and friends.
Dr. Thompson's work remains some of the best I have ever read (you have seen the name of this blog, right?). Condolences to his family and friends.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
What's up with Gmail?
On the off chance that someone (else) actually reads this... What's up with Google's GMail service?
Here's the deal:
I checked my inbox last week and had 50 invites. I gave away 2.
I had 50 again Monday morning.
I have been talking to a few people, and have heard some very different opinions on what GMail is doing.
Some of these opinions can definitely be classified as Fear and Loathing; to wit, that GMail is actively tracking individual users' mail content and personal information... Not passively tracking via an automated system that serves up the proper ad based on the message content, but an Echelon-like surveillance system.
That is a scary thought.
So... who knows what? Is this the real deal with GMail? Or is this fear, uncertainty and doubt?
Hey, it's a free GB (or so) of storage on an ad sponsored site. I don't have a problem with something crawling through my mail to bring me relevant ads. I do have a problem if someone is creating a marketing profile of me based on what I choose read and what is sent to me.
Again, do you know anything? Someone care to enlighten me while I re-read the TOS for GMail?
Drop me a line, theaxon {at} gmail (dot) com[period/EOL/EOF]
Here's the deal:
I checked my inbox last week and had 50 invites. I gave away 2.
I had 50 again Monday morning.
I have been talking to a few people, and have heard some very different opinions on what GMail is doing.
Some of these opinions can definitely be classified as Fear and Loathing; to wit, that GMail is actively tracking individual users' mail content and personal information... Not passively tracking via an automated system that serves up the proper ad based on the message content, but an Echelon-like surveillance system.
That is a scary thought.
So... who knows what? Is this the real deal with GMail? Or is this fear, uncertainty and doubt?
Hey, it's a free GB (or so) of storage on an ad sponsored site. I don't have a problem with something crawling through my mail to bring me relevant ads. I do have a problem if someone is creating a marketing profile of me based on what I choose read and what is sent to me.
Again, do you know anything? Someone care to enlighten me while I re-read the TOS for GMail?
Drop me a line, theaxon {at} gmail (dot) com[period/EOL/EOF]
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Dispatch from the server room: 20050201
It has been some time since my last rant. But it was a good rant, and I don't feel the least bit bad about leaving out there to be digested for a wee while.
That and I moved shortly after the first set of posts (disgustingly enough, to be closer to work... yeah, after that rant, I know...) and then promptly discovered Fable as soon as I got settled in.
And then it was Xmas, with all the lovely family drama that brought this year, and then... well hell, with a massive tsunami devastating south Asia, the wait for the UN report from Darfur, Sudan who the hell has time to write to stroke their own ego and vent their frustrations on a blog? Certainly not me, as I really didn't have anything to say about it.
Ah, well... we live in interesting times.
What else? Oh yes, the Hour on CBC Newsworld seems to have found its feet and its format in the last week, and is getting better.
For those who don't know, this is CBC Newsworld's project to try and do something different, an hour of news coverage hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos (late of the FAN 590 AM, CFNY 102.1 FM and MuchMusic). It's interesting and covers a lot of ground in an hour. Check it out.
Of course, if that's not your speed, there's always Rick Mercer's Monday Report to get you to watch the CBC.
So, what now? No rant for you today, just observations.
I have worked in a few widely differing industries (my apparent inability to hold a job is a topic for a future post), I have noticed that the people I most enjoy working with are the ones who would much rather be doing something else, hell, almost anything else than that which they collect a regular paycheque for.
Which is what really makes people fascinating, that juxtaposition of the stereotype of what they do for a living and how they actually live.
Seriously, I have known bike couriers who were working on becoming industrial designers, network administrators who wanted to be tour guides...
And this seems to be more common among tech workers than any other group of people I have ever been associated with.
Food for thought? Maybe...
That and I moved shortly after the first set of posts (disgustingly enough, to be closer to work... yeah, after that rant, I know...) and then promptly discovered Fable as soon as I got settled in.
And then it was Xmas, with all the lovely family drama that brought this year, and then... well hell, with a massive tsunami devastating south Asia, the wait for the UN report from Darfur, Sudan who the hell has time to write to stroke their own ego and vent their frustrations on a blog? Certainly not me, as I really didn't have anything to say about it.
Ah, well... we live in interesting times.
What else? Oh yes, the Hour on CBC Newsworld seems to have found its feet and its format in the last week, and is getting better.
For those who don't know, this is CBC Newsworld's project to try and do something different, an hour of news coverage hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos (late of the FAN 590 AM, CFNY 102.1 FM and MuchMusic). It's interesting and covers a lot of ground in an hour. Check it out.
Of course, if that's not your speed, there's always Rick Mercer's Monday Report to get you to watch the CBC.
So, what now? No rant for you today, just observations.
I have worked in a few widely differing industries (my apparent inability to hold a job is a topic for a future post), I have noticed that the people I most enjoy working with are the ones who would much rather be doing something else, hell, almost anything else than that which they collect a regular paycheque for.
Which is what really makes people fascinating, that juxtaposition of the stereotype of what they do for a living and how they actually live.
Seriously, I have known bike couriers who were working on becoming industrial designers, network administrators who wanted to be tour guides...
And this seems to be more common among tech workers than any other group of people I have ever been associated with.
Food for thought? Maybe...
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