Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Novermber 8, 2004 Aurora

Novermber 8, 2004 Aurora

Gaim Filesharing Plugin

These folks are trying to scrape some cash together to get a P2P filesharing plugin for gaim up and running. Which would be awesome if it used some crypto. Then at leastwhen I go to share with my family some picture of my son I can cringe less knowing that the RIAA/MPAA are just champing at the bit to sue the people that support them.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Wow, this is a real book.

Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies

Yeah it's a real book. No, I have no idea what possessed someone to write it, but maybe it's a good thing that Hasbro bought out D&D. I wouldn't have thought that something this *mainstream* would be published any other way.

TripleA :: Strategy Engine Framework

TripleA :: Strategy Engine Framework for Axis and Allies. Too neat the idea that you can play this classic game.

read4me

Welcome to read4me project page a program that can read a bunch of RSS feeds for you and then make mathematical guesses as to which ones would be interesting for you. I am so thinking of putting this up somewhere. It's a sweet idea.

Gentoo Linux Documentation - - High Performance Computing on Gentoo Linux

Gentoo Linux Documentation - - High Performance Computing on Gentoo Linux

Monday, November 15, 2004

What's going to happen to the project ? - Starbase Delta Forums

What's going to happen to the project ? - Starbase Delta Forums

UGO.com Games - The History of Contra Super Feature

UGO.com Games - The History of Contra Super Feature

Buycostumes -- Lady Renaissance Adult Costume

Buycostumes -- Lady Renaissance Adult Costume mmmm Costumes aaaaaah

Gentoo Linux Documentation - - 2004.3 Release Information

Gentoo Linux Documentation - - 2004.3 Release Information

Not much else to say about this. This is one of the distros that I am thinking of going with for the new cluster here at work. Granted I have never hated a piece of machinery so much in my life, but eh, beggars and choosers.

Gentoo Linux Documentation - - 2004.3 Release Information

Gentoo Linux Documentation - - 2004.3 Release Information

Gentleman's Emporium :: Products::Civil War Flags

Gentleman's Emporium :: Products It's a site that caters to the old school in all of us. And the interesting thing is that I found this off of del.icio.us a neat social bookmarking site. Yeah you need to go look at this site. It's a cornucopia of interesting things. And my bookmarks are here.

The 20' By 20' Room

The 20' By 20' Room a blog about roleplaying.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Netcraft What's That Site Running Results

Netcraft What's That Site Running Results

IN case this ever gets erased, Microsoft is trying to launch a search engine that will rival google. With that said a few weeks ago, Balmer sent out this message saying "Linux is spendy, and Windows isn't as spendy." And then the company goes and uses Linux for their server.

IRONY. Kind of like picking a bug for a mascot....

Joe Straitiff: The Man!

joestraitiff: So I'm posting under my real name -- you


Basically EA is the devil. I would never ever work in an environment that showed such blatent disregard for the family [which is why a person works in the first bloddy place]. Anyone that chooses family over work gets an A in my book.

ea_spouse or "Hell no I'm not working for EA"

ea_spouse Read this persons blog entry here.... 5s overview: EA feels it's appropriate to bill 85 hrs/week to a person, yet none of that time over 40hrs is paid, nor is it available to be banked to take time off after serious projects. Just plain sick.

begs the question

begs the question

Remember formal logic. Everything raises the question. Nothing Begs the question.

Tired

Well, I'm heading off to bed. On the bright side, I've been out of town and got some goodies. And some serious brewing equipment, like roasted barley, and mutton's Dark Malt Extract. And a smack pack of wyeast. Oh yeah, thank God for Jimmy Carter.

Yeasts at the Wyeast Labs

The One List
I've got one pack of Thames Yeast for a stout. It's a smack pack, boasting 100 Billion little yeast buggers. This should be most interesting. Granted it's not fruity yeast, but then again, stouts weren't meant to be fruity.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Tutorial - The home of Spybot-S&D!

Tutorial - The home of Spybot-S&D!

Home - The home of Spybot-S&D!

Home - The home of Spybot-S&D!

Verbum Sapiente Sat est. I *think* this is the official site. But with 2.1 million links in google, one can't be too sure.

Mental note: get antivirus software pronto.

Image Zoom Installed

Image Zoom Installed

Mozilla Firefox - Tabbed Browsing

Mozilla Firefox - Tabbed Browsing described for the ordinary Joe. Now, for those of you still using IE and it not having tabs, this is a *critical* feature. It is what keeps my sanity. Imagine a world where you don't have to keep 10 IE windows open of the various websites that you are looking at. No also imagine that the names on the tabs are informative and you don't have to search for the page you were looking at three pages back. Now that is sweet. Oh and there is (or will be soon) a undo close tab feature. I can't tell you how many times I've cursed the luck that I just closed the one coolest page and in firefox, I can get it back.

Woot!

Woot! Yeah I already blogged this. but
This speaker set was only 29.99 with 5$ s/h. that's awesome.

Mozilla Firefox - Live Bookmarks

Mozilla Firefox - Live Bookmarks

Oh yeah, live bookmarks. Check that out.....

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Release Notes

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Release Notes

For those of you with good taste in Browsers

Mozilla Update :: Extensions - List - All Extensions - Page 1

Yes, Firefox 1.0 is out. While it doesn't have *all* the items that I was looking for [like duplicate tab] I know the code is in there and well, this is going to be *the* browser.

Mozilla Update :: Extensions -- More Info: FlashGot

Mozilla Update :: Extensions -- More Info: FlashGot

Mozilla Update :: Extensions -- More Info: FoxyTunes

Mozilla Update :: Extensions -- More Info: FoxyTunes

Ok, I can now control my iTunes while I'm browsing? Hot damn!

Dietrich Ayala | Foxylicious - Firefox and del.icio.us bookmark integration

Dietrich Ayala | Foxylicious - Firefox and del.icio.us bookmark integration

del.icio.us

del.icio.us And with foxylicious this is a winning combination!

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Woot!

Woot!
Woot Site

Gadgets, cheap. Granted it's only one at a time.

RAA - podcatcher

RAA - podcatcher Podcasts? I'm not sure what they are. but I thought it was related to IPodding. Probably wrong.

Google Groups: View Thread "a game like Stars!"

Google Groups: View Thread "a game like Stars!"

Google Search: rec.games.computer.stars

Google Search: rec.games.computer.stars

Freestars, a Stars! clone

Freestars, a Stars! clone

Thousand Parsec:News

Thousand Parsec:News Saw this on the Stars newsgroup. Seems it's a open source work-alike. INteresting.

The Stars! FAQ - File Info

The Stars! FAQ - File Info

Stars! AutoHost KN-2050 Central Computer

Stars! AutoHost KN-2050 Central Computer

Aside from the demo of Stars, there was apparently a hint that led me to a site I think is selling stars. It's the company Empire Interactive. Granted their buzzline for the game doesn't sound like Stars! but the images look simular, and it's under strategy as well.

Hm. Here is the link to the store.

Google Search: rec.games.computer.stars

Google Search: rec.games.computer.stars

Hm, yeah, it's spam. But I think I'm interested. Of course I could be a sucker.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Awesome mini's

Daring Adventurers!
I have to say this is awesome. No where else have I heard being able to buy a mini of Sir Richard Francis Burton. That by itself is the best thing I've ever heard.

And suprise suprise it appears that the wife's 'i' key has died. :(

The Stars! Directory

The Stars! Directory Ah the good olde days might be coming back....

Konfabulator - Downloads

Konfabulator - Downloads

Already blogged this once, but now I have a link for the windows and the mac clients. Might have to see if they have a weather widget for home....

Index [Wills' Projects]

Franki/EarlGreyLinux. It's odd and one floppy only, but then again, that's a good thing in a lot of ways. And fwiw, a person, I think, can write a floppy to an iso and have the ElTorito use it as too boot up...

WYAE - MoSSHe - Lightweight, secure server monitoring

WYAE - MoSSHe - Lightweight, secure server monitoring

Frozen Tuxy

Software Suspend for Linux will allow me to suspend a session to disk. Which, as I might point out now, is the *only* thing that Windows does better than linux in the long term. I really like being able to stop what I am doing, power down, go home, and power up and see the session as it was. And that just hasn't happened for me yet on linux.

GNOME War Pad Site

GNOME War Pad Site

Ah VGA planets. How I remember ye. I'd on many occasion rig up a set of robot opponents and then proceed to try and conquer the galaxy. 'The Borg'-like group was my favourite, but then again I played with anything and anyone. Turns back then were painful to turn in, requiring someone who had a BBS and the appropriate BBS door. Nowadays I suspect turning turns in is a lot easier. And shoot, with the robot opponents I just played solo. And I registered as well :)

Course I also registered and played Stars! but I don't know if that is still even around.

ONLamp.com: OpenBSD 3.6 Live

ONLamp.com: OpenBSD 3.6 Live

Ok, so the major thing of note is ssh multiplexing sessions. That's sweet as buttermilk.

Just when you thought things couldn't get geekier......

Source Wars: Week 23

Schneier.com

Crypto-gram by Bruce Schneier. I really wish my work could get him to come and talk about something sciency, if nothing else than to thank him for his book, which helped immensely in my graduate studies and kept things in perspective, at least from a theoretical standpoint.

OpenBSD Journal: A resource for the OpenBSD community

OpenBSD Journal: A resource for the OpenBSD community That's all I've got to say about that.

OpenBGPD

OpenBGPD might allow me to make my new firewall be more of a router and less of a computer. Hm. Might be something interesting to say the least. . .

Monday, November 08, 2004

[ale] and today's paranoid Linux hack is....

[ale] and today's paranoid Linux hack is....

Oh yeah. This is the neatest hack ever. An encrypted swap space with a random password. That is serious neatness. It is cheese, but then again, it also means that people aren't going to get your swap info. And trust me, it's scary.

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Xbox DVD repair

Xbox DVD repair

Gah. I might have to do this :(

Disturbing Discussion on FreeBSD and NetBSD

Here is one disturbing discussion about FreeBSD 5.3 and NetBSD 2.0. From what I'm reading it isn't the case anymore [at least to this one guy] that FreeBSD is faster on x86 than NetBSD. That would really really really suck.

The hope is that this isn't the case. I've seen some interesting ideas come out of the FreeBSD camp and I'd *really* hate to see that they painted themselves into a coner and need a drink of water. I guess the only way to see if it is the case is to run some tests of my own. He did say that it was most noticeable on an older machine [which I have] and doubly so on a Uni-processor machine [also have that]. Times like this it's nice to work in a Unix shop.

Oh why am I concerned over this? I have an old machine at home running redhat 7.3. It's a nice machine, but there are times that I think that it needs a boost in coolness. It runs ok and all, but there are no more patches being released for it really, and some day in the near future I can see people starting to stop putting out rpms for it. WHen that day comes it is going to be a real bitch to install the latest and greatest packages that I tend to really use. Or if the ssh I have is a security threat, I'd really like to just do something like apt-get update or emerge ssh or cd /usr/ports/security/openssh ;cvs update ; make && make install.

FreeBSD/i386 5.3-RELEASE Release Notes

Here are the notes on the *latest* version of FreeBSD. Oh and it was released on the 3rd of this month so, for once, I'm not that far behind in finding out when a new release is out. Let's not even mention SuSE 9.2 as I didn't realize it was out till last Friday. . .

Quantian

This has to be the perfect distrobution for one of the guys I work with. He always has this suite of utilities that he wants to install and they always include Scientific Python and Numeric Python. Which, while not hard to install, are always something I forget to install. So I get a user call from him at an odd interval asking for it 'whenever I can'. Now that he has the root password at work though, this is less of a concern, I guess. Still a good scientific distro, especially since it can do mpi to multiple nodes as well as doing mosix clustering. Hm maybe I'll use this as a base to replace my current beowulf "solution".

SQLite home page

SQLite home page Shamelessly blogged so that I can go to work and remember the site. Oh and the neat thing about this app is a) no dependencies required b) small footprint c)fast in it's use d) has a Ruby interface out there. The Ruby interface is reason alone for me to look at it, since I'm trying to use that more than my other languages. Oh and it would be neat to drop this into a home directory and then use it in rhtml webpages with impunity.

Doomsday Algorithm -or "How to know what day Christmas is on"

Doomsday Algorithm was invented by Damian Conway. It's a neat algorithm that allows me to say that the 13th of September was on a Tuesday this year. Or that a) 27th of September is on a Monday and b) Christmas Day is on a Saturday.

The mental math isn't that hard to master, but it's quite rewarding to be able to look at your wife and say "Honey our anniversary is on a Tuesday this year, what would you like to do?" anytime you want without having to memorize the exact day.

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Soft Updates and Snapshots

Soft Updates and Snapshots are cool. And supposedly will be available completely in FreeBSD 5.0. Man that will rock for a server. The only problem now is deciding which BSD to run at home or work. FreeBSD seems to have the best TCP/IP stack and has soft updates/background fsck. But OpenBSD has CARP which allows for server farms and has distributed firewalling. And NetBSD? Well is has a weird logo. Oh and it'll run on anything from a toaster to an O2 SGI machine.

The Official DVD Decrypter Website

No, I'm not saying anyone should go out there and use this for DVD ripping! However is supposedly does have an ability to burn iso's better than nero, which is something that I *do* need.

The Official DVD Decrypter Website

Knoppix Linux Documentation - Faq Using

Knoppix Linux Documentation - Faq Using Section on using a memory stick is here. Long and short of it:

Boot with stick inserted
Go to Knoppic Menu->Configuration->Save Configuration (when asked select your usb drive generally /dev/sda1).

Then when booting: knoppix myconf=scan home=scan

The PartImage Handbook: Usage

The PartImage Handbook: Usage Handy in case you don't know how to GHOST something :)

SystemRescueCd homepage

SystemRescueCd homepage Has Partimage a ghosting utility for linux that should allow a person to ghost pretty much any fs system. Esp linux systems, although there is experimental support for NTFS. What does that mean? Well it means that I can back up my windows machines at work in some fashion and then when the machine dies, I can just recall the image. Now I just have to figure out where to store the image at.

FreeSBIE - Free System Burned In Economy

FreeSBIE is a liveCD of freeBSD. Some of the screenshots are quite cool and make it appear as if it is as feature rich as knoppix. I guess we'll just have to check it out and see. It would be nice to have something like this at home just in case the hard drive goes south I can still surf and/or work from home.

Friday, November 05, 2004

20 Reasons why you don't post your picture to the internet

LOL

Hypertext Time Protocol (HTP)

Hypertext Time Protocol (HTP)

dungeonmail_03.jpg (JPEG Image, 350x260 pixels)

dungeonmail_03.jpg (JPEG Image, 350x260 pixels)

Konfabulator Webpage

Day 1 - The Sighting

Computer Laboratory - Xen virtual machine monitor

Computer Laboratory - Xen virtual machine monitor

Long and short, it needs a hack on the linux kernel and then some other evil. But in the end it can run a couple of OS's in parallel on the same machine. Granted I'm not sure how bad the performance hit is...

Fedora Core torrents

Bittorrent for torrent.linux.duke.edu

Core 3 Test 3 and Core 2 isos can be downloaded here.

BitTorrent Linux Mirror

BitTorrent Linux Mirror

Yay. Slashdot mentioned this, and now I find that there is a real reason to use bittorrent. Aside from downloading Knoppix iso's and gutenberg texts.

Google Search: filetype:torrent debian

Google Search: filetype:torrent debian

Wow I can google for torrents?! What is this world coming to?

Golomb Rulers - The Search For 20 and 21!

Golomb Rulers - The Search For 20 and 21!

For the true geek in all of us

www.rpgmp3.com Yes, you too can listen in on a Dungeons and Dragons session. At least that is what they are advertising and they are saying that they are running through the world's largest dungeon. That ought to be interesting.

I told ya, I told ya

World's Largest Dungeon: AEG Shop

Oh and it's an interesting thing that AEG has their own store. Sure this isn't tech. Sue me.

Alderac Entertainment Group -- World's Largest Dungeon

Alderac Entertainment Group -- World's Largest Dungeon

Yeah it's a brute of a dungeon. 100 maps and it's just big. Sadly, it costs 100$. :(

Thursday, November 04, 2004

DooBar - Disk Usage Browser

It's only for the Mac, but it is still a nice idea in general.DooBar - Disk Usage Browser

Browse directories and find out where exactly the big chunks are. I know this would be handy for me, since I tend to need to find space in a hurry.

Thunderbird : Message Grouping

Thunderbird : FAQs : Message Grouping - MozillaZine Knowledge Base: "Message Grouping (Group by Sort) feature lets you organize messages in the message list into self-contained groups according to attributes such as date, sender or priority. For instance, if you set your Inbox to group messages by date, the messages will be organized into folder-like groups labelled Today, Yesterday, Last Week, and so on. You can expand or collapse each group by clicking on the small /- mark next to the group label"

Thunderbird : Saved Search

Taken from the Thunderbird : FAQs : Saved Search - MozillaZine Knowledge Base. In short, thunderbird allows a person to make a folder that have messages from people or subjects or even dates in 100 different folders. IE I can have a Joe folder, a James folder and a Mom folder, and still have a 'Family Search Folder' that combines all of them. That way I could read just Joe's email or if I wanted to see something the entire family is talking about I could switch to the 'Family Search Folder'. Neat.

Citadel BBS Software

Granted they are not trying to pimp themselves as a groupware solution for the modern era. Which is kind of funny in it's own way .It's an industry buzzword and yet it is completely accurate.

Citadel

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

JSF :: JabberStats

JSF :: JabberStats for those of us that use the jabber.org server for our main talking server, this is a handy site to see if the downtime is us or them.

Chatopus - Palm OS Instant Messaging Client For XMPP / Jabber

Keep in mind that even if you don't have a jabber client you can still use the bots to get interesting information.

Chatopus - Palm OS Instant Messaging Client For XMPP / Jabber

Slashdot | Live CD for PPC?

Interesting discussion. Blogged so I can read it more when I'm not at work.

Slashdot | Live CD for PPC?

Vendetta Online

Yet another MMORG. This one is more of a run and gun game though. It's for LInux/Mac/Windows and seems to have some really nice graphics. On the other hand, it is a freshman effort by this company so it may not do as well as it could.

Vendetta Online - Vendetta Online

Voter Turnout

Notice that in the past few years half of all montanan's don't vote. Sure it makes my vote 2x as important, but how can anyone call it a democracy if everyone doesn't take time to say what they want? It's frikkin ridiculous.

Voter Turnout

Official Election Results for Montana

Official Election Results

Granted it doesn't appear to be overly up to date.

Gallery :: your photos on your website

Gallery :: your photos on your website

Granted it's only in php and requires either mysql or postgresql. And some tricky permissions on occasion.

Boing Boing: Apple to iPod owners: ...

Warning: Adult Language ahead
Boing Boing: Apple to iPod owners: ....

Needless to say, I'm starting to agree with this guy. And that bothers me.

HOW-TO: Get music OFF your iPod - Engadget - www.engadget.com

HOW-TO: Get music OFF your iPod - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Yay for slashdot. Makes Mac nerds happy.

Friday, October 29, 2004

Search on Blogger

It seems to be broken. Go ahead search for 'caveat' or 'orison'. Both should turn something up, but both don't seem to quite cut it.

As an aside, you can also post pictures with Flikr And supposedly it's cross platform. I'll have to investigate and get back on this.

Definition of Tied to your Job

Tied to your Job(n): See Me.

Yeah it's kind of scary when you are up at 12:29am and checking email at work so that you can keep abreast of the situation and show up to work in the morning smelling like roses.

With all the diaper changes however, I doubt that is what I smell like. Man crying babies are cute. Sort of. Well, when they are yours. Other people's children aren't nearly as adorable as mine when they are wailing like a banshee. Or is that beaun sidhe?

Pipe Mud

Sometimes a corn cob pipe or a briar will get a burn out. This is when the fire burns clean through to the outside. Some people then go and throw out the pipe.

Not me.

I take the pipe and fill it with ash and then some water. Make it a slurry and cake the hole up. Suck some flame through it and repeat. It forms a clay plug. Seems to work just fine. Heard of this recipe before in alt.smokers.pipes and it was called pipe mud. Seems appropos. And now my corncob lives to smoke another day.

Ah Hello caveat

Once the pictures are on the blogger server, it appears they are up there forever.....

Example 1

Learning Curves

Learning Curves are the bane of my existence. What is a learning curve you ask? Well it's the time it takes to learn something plotted out on a graph. It's kind of like climbing a mountain. The shallower the slope the easier it is to get up to the summit. Likewise, as time wears on the hill gets steeper and you don't get as far to you goal.

Why do I bring this up? Well applications aim for a shallow learning curve for 90$ of the product. If it takes a long time to anything on the application then there is a good chance that there will be a competitor that makes it simpler or people just won't use the application at all.

My learning curve idiocy today was with Hello. There is a seciont in the preferences as to what size do you want the pictures. I though it meant that it was the size it was going to be on the page itself. Turns out I was wrong (suprise suprise). It is the size that it is stored as on the server proper. While I think that the WebDAV idea is still good, I can now post pictures at a size closer to what I wanted in the first place. And wow, these hotkeys in the editor are nice. Google has got that down I have to give them props for that. Granted saying 'give them props" or "kudos" is sooo 90's.

MSU-Bozeman Classified Position Vacancy Announcement

MSU-Bozeman Classified Position Vacancy Announcement

This is Luke's old job. Scary, eh?

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Hello, again or "My Beef with Hello"

So Hello is a neat program. Sure it's a little feature sparse, but that's due to my not having climbed the learning curve. I think. Anyways, my beef with the photoblogging here is a) there is no linux/unix client b) there doesn't seem to be any opensource way to post new pictures.

Now for some folks this isn't that big of a deal. Especially with the massive amount of windows and macintosh users. But for those of us that don't have either or don't want to push closed source or semi closed source products we are in the cold.

I don't like that. Now, my idea to fix this: Make a webdav server. Keep the quotas low and have a bot scan for new files. Pick new files up, mangle and resize them and then post them to the server. Since jpegs are able to have comments in them, make it so that it reads any comments and uses that as a preliminary blog entry, possibly with ImageMagick. Sure it would have be retweaked for some pictures, but at least then it would be open source protocols and more platform free. And since there is still a way to do this via windows and mac's it would be an add-on rather than having to abandon a useful business partnership. In addition, if it were labelled an 'Advanced Feature' there would less of a chance that the tech support would have to scale upwards to deal with user questions. I know my grandparents would choose the windows Hello client rather than try something that they *know* isn't at their level, yet.

Hello and Blogspot

It's a good idea. On paper. The only problem is that I have some pictures that I *really* want larger than the small size that Hello changes it to before posting it on their server. . . Not sure I really like that.

The Blog that wasn't

You know what is weird. When blogger times out and says that there is a java.io error. I thought this was all written in python. Shows how much I seem to know.