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Michael Still
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Fri, 30 Dec 2005


Python DNS modules

posted at: 17:07 | path: /python | permanent link to this entry


Talk about a support life cycle...

posted at: 17:04 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 26 Dec 2005


Figures from chapter 1 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 1 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 1-1
    Figure 1-2
    Figure 1-3
    Figure 1-4
    Figure 1-5

    Figure 1-6
    Figure 1-7
    Figure 1-8
    Figure 1-9
    Figure 1-10

    Figure 1-11
    Figure 1-12
    Figure 1-13
    Figure 1-14
    Figure 1-15

    Figure 1-16
    Figure 1-17
    Figure 1-18
    Figure 1-19


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 11:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 2 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 2 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 2-1
    Figure 2-2
    Figure 2-3
    Figure 2-4
    Figure 2-5

    Figure 2-6
    Figure 2-7
    Figure 2-8
    Figure 2-9
    Figure 2-10

    Figure 2-11
    Figure 2-12
    Figure 2-13
    Figure 2-14
    Figure 2-15

    Figure 2-16


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 10:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 3 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 3 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 3-1
    Figure 3-2
    Figure 3-3
    Figure 3-4
    Figure 3-5

    Figure 3-6
    Figure 3-7
    Figure 3-8
    Figure 3-9
    Figure 3-10

    Figure 3-11
    Figure 3-12
    Figure 3-13
    Figure 3-14


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 09:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 4 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 4 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 4-1
    Figure 4-2
    Figure 4-3
    Figure 4-4
    Figure 4-5

    Figure 4-6
    Figure 4-7
    Figure 4-8
    Figure 4-9
    Figure 4-10

    Figure 4-11
    Figure 4-12
    Figure 4-13
    Figure 4-14
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 4-15

    Figure 4-16
    Figure 4-17
    Figure 4-18
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 4-19
    Figure 4-20

    Figure 4-21
    Figure 4-22
    Figure 4-23
    Figure 4-24
    Figure 4-25

    Figure 4-26
    Figure 4-27
    Figure 4-28
    Figure 4-29
    Figure 4-30

    Figure 4-31
    Figure 4-32
    Figure 4-33
    Figure 4-34
    Figure 4-35

    Figure 4-36
    Figure 4-37
    Figure 4-38
    Figure 4-39
    Figure 4-40

    Figure 4-41
    Figure 4-42


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 08:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 5 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 5 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 5-1
    Figure 5-2
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-3
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-4
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-5
    (Click to see all the images)

    Figure 5-6
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-7
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-8
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-9
    Figure 5-10
    (Click to see all the images)

    Figure 5-11
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-12
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-13
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-14
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-15
    (Click to see all the images)

    Figure 5-16
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-17
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-18
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-19
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-20
    (Click to see all the images)

    Figure 5-21
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-22
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-23
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-24
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-25
    (Click to see all the images)

    Figure 5-26
    (Click to see all the images)
    Figure 5-27
    Figure 5-28
    (Click to see all the images)


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 07:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 6 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 6 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 6-1
    Figure 6-2
    Figure 6-3
    Figure 6-4
    Figure 6-5

    Figure 6-6
    Figure 6-7
    Figure 6-8
    Figure 6-9
    Figure 6-10

    Figure 6-11
    Figure 6-12
    Figure 6-13
    Figure 6-14
    Figure 6-15

    Figure 6-16
    Figure 6-17
    Figure 6-18
    Figure 6-19
    Figure 6-20

    Figure 6-21
    Figure 6-22
    Figure 6-23
    Figure 6-24
    Figure 6-25

    Figure 6-26
    Figure 6-27
    Figure 6-28
    Figure 6-29
    Figure 6-30

    Figure 6-31
    Figure 6-32
    Figure 6-33
    Figure 6-34
    Figure 6-35

    Figure 6-36
    Figure 6-37
    Figure 6-38
    Figure 6-39
    Figure 6-40

    Figure 6-41
    Figure 6-42
    Figure 6-43
    Figure 6-44
    Figure 6-45


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 06:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 7 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 7 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 7-1
    Figure 7-2
    Figure 7-3
    Figure 7-4
    Figure 7-5

    Figure 7-6
    Figure 7-7
    Figure 7-8
    Figure 7-9
    Figure 7-10

    Figure 7-11
    Figure 7-12
    Figure 7-13
    Figure 7-14
    Figure 7-15

    Figure 7-16
    Figure 7-17
    Figure 7-18
    Figure 7-19
    Figure 7-20

    Figure 7-21
    Figure 7-22
    Figure 7-23
    Figure 7-24
    Figure 7-25

    Figure 7-26
    Figure 7-27
    Figure 7-28
    Figure 7-29
    Figure 7-30

    Figure 7-31
    Figure 7-32
    Figure 7-33
    Figure 7-34
    Figure 7-35

    Figure 7-36
    Figure 7-37
    Figure 7-38
    Figure 7-39
    Figure 7-40

    Figure 7-41
    Figure 7-42
    Figure 7-43
    Figure 7-44
    Figure 7-45

    Figure 7-46
    Figure 7-47
    Figure 7-48
    Figure 7-49
    Figure 7-50

    Figure 7-51
    Figure 7-52
    Figure 7-53
    Figure 7-54
    Figure 7-55

    Figure 7-56
    Figure 7-57
    Figure 7-58
    Figure 7-59
    Figure 7-60

    Figure 7-61
    Figure 7-62
    Figure 7-63
    Figure 7-64
    Figure 7-65

    Figure 7-66
    Figure 7-67
    Figure 7-68
    Figure 7-69
    Figure 7-70

    Figure 7-71
    Figure 7-72
    Figure 7-73
    Figure 7-74
    Figure 7-75

    Figure 7-76
    Figure 7-77
    Figure 7-78
    Figure 7-79
    Figure 7-80

    Figure 7-81
    Figure 7-82
    Figure 7-83
    Figure 7-84
    Figure 7-85

    Figure 7-86
    Figure 7-87
    Figure 7-88
    Figure 7-89
    Figure 7-90

    Figure 7-91
    Figure 7-92
    Figure 7-93
    Figure 7-94
    Figure 7-95

    Figure 7-96


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 05:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 8 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 8 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 8-1


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 04:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 9 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 9 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 9-1
    Figure 9-2


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 03:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 10 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 10 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 10-1
    Figure 10-2
    Figure 10-3
    Figure 10-4


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 02:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Figures from chapter 11 of ImageMagick, the definitive guide

    Here are the thumbnails for the figures from chapter 11 of ImageMagick, the Definitive Guide:


    Figure 11-1
    Figure 11-2
    Figure 11-3
    Figure 11-4
    Figure 11-5

    Figure 11-6


    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S) figures(S)

posted at: 01:00 | path: /imagemagick/book/figures | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 25 Dec 2005


How come I don't blog any more?

    It's not intentional, I think it's more that I haven't had anything interesting to say since I moved to the US -- all of my time has been devoted to training at work, moving into houses (two now, no more of that please), and sustaining the other two activities by going shopping. I promise now that most of that is done that I will be 100% excitement from now on.

    In fact, I'll take my camera to Andrew and Sarah's Christmas lunch, and then post some pictures online... Promise.

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: As pointed out by a friend at work; Christmas morning; I like Christmas

posted at: 10:13 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 20 Dec 2005


First commute to work

posted at: 09:21 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 19 Dec 2005


Back on the road again, nearly

    Andrew and Sarah's air freight arrived on Saturday, and thanks to their kindness that means my bike arrived too. I reassembled it on Sunday, and went for a short test ride, which was a mistake as it reminded me how much fun riding is. Now I need to find time to ride here, despite the fact that it appears to want to rain all of this week.

    I'm considering bike commuting and just getting wet.

    Tags for this post: bike(S)

posted at: 13:11 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 16 Dec 2005


About to resize my LVM

    When I created my USB2 mirrored LVMed disk array I go asked a few questions about performance of the disks, how long it took to setup, and stuff like that.

    At the time it was too late to get that data as I already had things I cared about on the disk array. Now it's time to grow the array so I've picked up two more disks. I've collected some data, so I now have data on the setup process for a new LVM from two USB 2 disks, and bonnie results for the filesystem on those disks. I don't have the date with me though, so I will write it up in the next few days.

    Is there anything else people would like to know before I put these disks into action?

    Oh, and yes this does mean that there is now a terrabyte of disk in that array. That brings the total amount of storage I have online at my house to 1.2 terrabytes. That doesn't include the old disk array still running in Australia either. Fun fun fun.

    Tags for this post: linux(S)
    Related posts: Building my new disk array; Adding space to the disk array; Large inodes = faster samba; Linux USB quandary

posted at: 09:28 | path: /linux | permanent link to this entry


The environmental friendliness of shrimp trawling?

    I've been setting up MythTV, and my test show was an episode of "Dirty Jobs" which I am watching now. The process for shrimp trawling is the current victim, and it seems to involve grabbing everything from the bottom of the ocean, and then throwing the vast majority of it back while looking for the relatively small number of shrimp in the catch.

    So, does this suck environmentally or not?

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Extreme Machines: Eirik Raude; More on burial methods

posted at: 09:22 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 11 Dec 2005


Update on the Dell

posted at: 14:21 | path: /diary/toys/dell/e310 | permanent link to this entry


I like Christmas

    I spent some time this morning wrapping the presets for the kids. They get two Christmases you see -- the one in Australian, and then another smaller one when they get to the US. Now, it might be the nostalgia speaking, or the fact that I haven't seen my family in nearly a month, but it occurred to me that I really like Christmas.

    Or to be more precise -- I really like giving my kids stuff. Although, it turns out that I am crap at wrapping. There is something really cute about the kids being excited to be moving to the US -- because daddy said there were presents waiting for them. That's cool.

    Oh, and next time I'm only going to buy rectangular presents so I stand a chance of being able to wrap them. Ever tried to wrap a stuffed toy?

    Tags for this post: christmas(S)

posted at: 10:06 | path: /christmas | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 09 Dec 2005


Installing Linux on a Dell Dimension e310

posted at: 22:06 | path: /diary/toys/dell/e310 | permanent link to this entry


Errata from the book

    The Definitive Guide to ImageMagick arrives in bookstores 26 December 2005, but Apress has already started sending out PDF versions of the book to some reviewers (let me know if you're interested in doing a review and I will see what I can do), and there is a sample chapter available for download from the Apress site.

    We worked hard to make the book as good as we could, including having a technical review team, several layers of editors, and me reading all of the chapters more than I would like to admit. That doesn't mean that it's impossible that errata slipped through though, so if you see something like that then please send either me an email, or even better send an email to the address reserved for such things.

    Each error found, if I agree with it, will result in a thank you email, the error being corrected in any future editions, the error being listed online (I don't know where yet though), and a credit in future versions of the book.

    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S)
    Related posts: Errata: Tweak to homework, new VMWare image

posted at: 07:38 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 02 Dec 2005


Building a stack of images from thumbnails

    I have a directory full of thumbnails of the rental tour I went on the other day while looking for a new apartment, and I want to put them online. Instead of putting each photo online, which I thought might be boring, I wanted to build a stack on images on a background.

    I'm not really describing the effect well, so here's the output so you know what I mean:



    This was remarkably easy to create with a simple script that uses ImageMagick. Here's the code: 

      
#!/bin/bash

# Setup the random number stuff
LOBOUND=1
HIBOUND=600
RANDMAX=32767

# Create a white image to start with
convert -size $HIBOUND"x"$HIBOUND xc:lightgray output.png

for img in img*jpg
do
  echo "Processing $img"

  # Rotate the image if needed
  rotate=""
  if [ `exif $img | grep Orientation | grep bottom | wc -l | tr -d " "` -gt 0 ]
  then
    convert -rotate -90 $img img.png
  else
    convert $img img.png
  fi

  imgwidth=`identify -ping img.png | cut -f 3 -d " " | cut -f 1 -d "x"`
  imgheight=`identify -ping img.png | cut -f 3 -d " " | cut -f 2 -d "x"`

  # For more information on bounded numbers with bash, see
  # http://www.stillhq.com/bashrand/
  x=$(( $LOBOUND + (($HIBOUND - $imgwidth) * $RANDOM) / ($RANDMAX + 1) ))
  y=$(( $LOBOUND + (($HIBOUND - $imgheight) * $RANDOM) / ($RANDMAX + 1) ))

  # Put the image on top of the accumulative image
  mv output.png input.png
  convert -draw "image atop $x,$y $imgwidth,$imgheight img.png" input.png output.png
  rm img.png
done


First the script creates an empty image to place the thumbnails over. Then for each image it checks if the image needs to be rotated, and what size it is. I use the size of the image to determine what the maximum value for the two random values I need are (the random values from the coordinates of the top left of the thumbnail image, and I don't want any images falling off the edge of the new image). The the image is placed on top of the accumulating image.

It's just a little ImageMagick hack I thought I would share.

Tags for this post: imagemagick(S)
Related posts: Solar panel reflection effects in satellite imagery

posted at: 17:25 | path: /imagemagick | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 28 Nov 2005


Sin City

    I'm in a temporary apartment at the moment, and the nice previous occupant appears to have DVR'ed Sin City for me from Comcast pay per view, so Andrew and I sat down and watched it last night. I must say that I liked it, in a Pulp Fiction kind of way.

    Put it this way -- I wont be able to take Rory in the Gilmore Girls the same way any more.

    Yeah, I liked the movie a lot. Now I need to decide if I will recommend my wife see it...

    Tags for this post: blog(S) movies(S)

posted at: 11:40 | path: /diary/movies | permanent link to this entry


Example 2.1 from Dive Into Python

    I've just started working through Dive Into Python, so I don't really have an opinion of the book yet. I did notice that Example 2.1 produces different output on my machine than from the example...

    The example says I should get: 

      server=mpilgrim;uid=sa;database=master;pwd=secret


    I get: 

      pwd=secret;database=master;uid=sa;server=mpilgrim


    It's interesting that this is exactly the reverse of what the book says I should get. I have no idea why, as I can't read Python yet, but there you go.

    Tags for this post: python(S) diveintopython(S)

posted at: 11:16 | path: /python/diveintopython | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 24 Nov 2005


Adventures in Ubuntu Breezy Dovecot

    I mentioned the other day that I am having problems with Dovecot on Ubuntu Breezy. Now's the time to debug it, and here are my notes...

    No inetd.conf 

      sed: can't read /etc/inetd.conf: No such file or directory


    This first error is because of this poorly implemented test: 

      # The init script should do nothing if dovecot is being run from inetd
for p in `sed -r "s/^ *(([^:]+|\[[^]]+]|\*):)?(pop3s?|imaps?)[ \t].*/\3/;t;d" \
  /etc/inetd.conf`
do
  for q in `sed -r "s/^ *protocols[ \t]*=[ \t]*(([^\"]*)|\"(.*)\")/\2\3/;t;d" \
    /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf`
  do
    if [ $p = $q ]; then
      exit 0
    fi
  done
done


    You can see from the comment that the intention is that the init script doesn't do anything if dovecot is running from inetd. The error message is kinda bogus though, in that the code keeps executing after that failed line with the sed call in it. If you find the error annoying, then make it go away: 

      touch /etc/inetd.conf


    In a perfect world, you'd hope that the packager would change the script to do something more like this: 

      for p in `sed -r "s/^ *(([^:]+|\[[^]]+]|\*):)?(pop3s?|imaps?)[ \t].*/\3/;t;d" \
  /etc/inetd.conf 2> /dev/null`


    Moving right along...

    It doesn't start the service

    I had enabled the imap_listen variable in the dovecot.conf file, but not put it in the protocols variable. The init script checks this, and bugged out without an error message. I would think an error message would be nicer.

    And now it works.

    Tags for this post: linux(S) ubuntu(S)
    Related posts: Ubuntu Breezy and Dovecot hate me; Dovecot index cache problems

posted at: 20:40 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry


Stuffit expander for linux, but open source

    I've been working with publishing people recently, and they're all Macintosh users. There is a trial version of Stuffit expander for linux, but they really want me to give them money after 15 days... I've googled for an open source alternative, but can't find one. Is that because one doesn't exist?

    Tags for this post: linux(S)

posted at: 14:30 | path: /linux | permanent link to this entry


On home sound systems

posted at: 13:25 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Mikal, the massive domain squatter

posted at: 12:51 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


What do you do on days as a bachelor in a strange country?

    Well, for me it was a cooked breakfast before getting the house work done. Instead of writing an exciting blog post about the fact that the bed here comes up to my belly button and it's sheets needed washing, I thought I would comment on American bacon.

    As the people who I hang out with will know, my wife is allergic to all forms of pig. In a no longer breathing way. I happen to love pig, so when she's not around I tend to go a little wilder with it than I probably should. So, when I went shopping for the first time here the other day I picked up some eggs and some Safeway bacon just in case my arteries needed hardening.

    It was a good thing too, because I have a medical need to eat bacon to help me with the after effects of the Coronas this morning. I'd already done one cooked breakfast here, so I have already discovered that American bacon (based on my extensive sample of one) appears to be 50% fat. It took me about ten minutes to trim off enough fat to approximate Australian bacon quality.

    After that it was quite nice. The point of this post though? Is all American bacon so terribly fatty, or is the Safeway stuff just terrible? Is this why Americans seem to eat Canadian bacon instead (think ham steak)?

    Tags for this post: travel(S) usa(S)

posted at: 12:09 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 23 Nov 2005


Ubuntu Breezy and Dovecot hate me

posted at: 14:54 | path: /linux/ubuntu | permanent link to this entry


Learning Python

posted at: 14:37 | path: /python | permanent link to this entry


New laptop

posted at: 09:16 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 22 Nov 2005


JVC utilities for changing the images and movies on my head unit

posted at: 10:53 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 20 Nov 2005


Australian's say the darndest things

posted at: 05:51 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry


Top resale value cars

posted at: 05:42 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Hybrid buyer's guide 2005

posted at: 05:38 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Jet lag

    Apparently I'm not over my jet lag just yet, as it's 5:30am and I can't get back to sleep. I've been up for about an hour now. Oh well.

    Tags for this post: travel(S) usa(S) california(S) santaclara(S)
    Related posts: It's not that Matthew is tired...

posted at: 05:35 | path: /travel/usa/california/santaclara | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 19 Nov 2005


The book

posted at: 16:32 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry


Arrived yesterday

    So, Andrew and I arrive in Santa Clara from Canberra yesterday. It took about 24 hours of travelling, and a lot of queueing to make that happen, but we're here finally. I must admit I'm really liking things so far, I was a bit worried about the expense of rent until we went and saw am apartment complex this morning, and I'm not worried about that now.

    The mall is nice (the local one that is), the temporary apartment is nice (photos soon), and the rental car is crap, but that's ok.

    On a musical note I only just recently discovered the Black Eyes Peas, so I picked up Elephunk this morning. Damn that's a good album -- it's rare for me to find a disc that I like every track on, but this is one of them.

    Anyways, here. Alive. In Santa Clara for now. Must wander off now...

    Tags for this post: travel(S) usa(S) california(S) santaclara(S)
    Related posts: Dragonsinger; Dragondrums; On home sound systems; Dragonsong; The Ship Who Sang

posted at: 16:17 | path: /travel/usa/california/santaclara | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 16 Nov 2005


Recursive linkage zen

posted at: 15:00 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Procrastination

posted at: 04:59 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Packing

    Someone at university once told me that you remember things best when you're in the state that you learnt them in... You recall things about driving best when in a car, how to yell at your boss when stressed, and how to code while highly caffinated.

    That's why he always showed up to exams in the same state as he had studied for them -- stoned.

    I guess this means I'm going to have to unpack (and remember where I put everything and why) when tipsy. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

    Tags for this post: blog(S)

posted at: 03:31 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 15 Nov 2005


Stilly, the lump of meat

posted at: 14:00 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 14 Nov 2005


Giving Google Analytics a go

posted at: 02:43 | path: /google | permanent link to this entry


I should quit TOWER more often

posted at: 01:57 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 13 Nov 2005


Linux USB quandary

posted at: 02:07 | path: /linux | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 12 Nov 2005


Building an answering machine using a $10 winmodem

posted at: 21:51 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


At least I wont starve

    A good breakfast will hopefully stop me from starving during my bachelor phase in the US.

    Tags for this post: work(S)

posted at: 19:52 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


SMART and USB storage

posted at: 00:27 | path: /linux | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 11 Nov 2005


Unemployed Bum

    So, I am an unemployed bum by the way. Yesterday was my last day at TOWER, today is our family's meta-Christmas, and then I have a little under a week to pack my stuff and help start packing everyone else's stuff before I fly off the Americania to start work with the G thing. So, now I just need to slot some good solid panicking into my schedule, and all shall be well.

    Tags for this post: work(S)

posted at: 23:33 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


Adding space to the disk array

posted at: 21:21 | path: /linux | permanent link to this entry


Packing

posted at: 21:14 | path: /travel/usa/california/mountainview/relocation | permanent link to this entry


Working on the site layout again

    Test 1... 2... 3...

posted at: 16:18 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 09 Nov 2005


Test 1... 2... 3...

    Twiddling page layout style...

posted at: 16:13 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 08 Nov 2005


TrackBack pings

posted at: 22:47 | path: /blosxom | permanent link to this entry


Ok, where does one buy PCs in the US?

posted at: 22:40 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Microsoft Australia's profit

posted at: 21:47 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 07 Nov 2005


Underground Kent

posted at: 01:53 | path: /travel/uk/kent | permanent link to this entry


People sneak into Google for lunch?

posted at: 01:52 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Gordon get's quoted by the Fortune blog

    Gordon's blog gets quoted by Fortune, which is really cool, although it does worry me that Fortune seems to think that journalism is blogging about other people's blogs. Does this mean that real journalists have abdicated their responsibility to collect new information?

    Tags for this post: link(S)
    Related posts: Interesting quote; Quote

posted at: 01:52 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 04 Nov 2005


ThinkPads return to bricks and mortar retail in the US

posted at: 01:51 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 03 Nov 2005


Giving bloglines a try

posted at: 19:03 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Life hacking

posted at: 16:26 | path: /lifehack | permanent link to this entry


All racehorses descended from 28 horses

posted at: 16:17 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


What's happening with frozenchicken.com?

    Gordon at work asks me what is happening with www.frozenchicken.com. If you hit the site, then you get the Google search interface. This is because of the DNS configuration for the domain: 

      challenger:~# host www.frozenchicken.com
www.frozenchicken.com is an alias for www.google.com.
www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com.
www.l.google.com has address 66.102.7.147
www.l.google.com has address 66.102.7.99
www.l.google.com has address 66.102.7.104
www.frozenchicken.com is an alias for www.google.com.
www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com.
www.frozenchicken.com is an alias for www.google.com.
www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com.


    You can see that www.frozenchicken.com is an alias for www.google.com, which in turn points to what is presumably my local cluster.

    So why do all the links of the Google page then point via www.frozenchicken.com? Well, because they're relative URLs, they use the hostname from the browser.

    Tags for this post: google(S)
    Related posts: Compendium of TLD domain access agreements; Parked domains; Talk about a support life cycle...; Python DNS modules

posted at: 15:21 | path: /google | permanent link to this entry


Bike crash

    More details later, but I had a badish bike crash on Wednesday night, and spent a lot of yesterday at doctors and being xrayed. More details when I get the time to write them up...

    Tags for this post: bike(S)
    Related posts: Adium crashes on launch; My first commuting crash

posted at: 15:12 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 01 Nov 2005


This is a pointer

posted at: 22:25 | path: /pdfomatic | permanent link to this entry


Time to document my PDF testing database

    It seems to me that it might be time to document my database of test PDFs and various parsing results that I have had online for quite some time. This entry is an attempt to do that for the current state of play.

    Adding a PDF to the collection

    You'll need the pdfcollection code (tarball). This is all the code I used to manage the database.

    Run the addpdf script to add a new PDF to the collection. Here's an example: 

    mikal@lapel:~/opensource/pdfcollection$ ./addpdf /home/mikal/pdfa/This\ is\ a\ sample\ PDF.pdf
Where is the PDF database? /home/pdfdb
Publish? (y/n) y
Adding /home/mikal/pdfa/This is a sample PDF.pdf
New object id is 649 (000649)
Moving PDF
Processing PDF
Extracting pages
Number of pages: 0
Extract info
mikal@lapel:~/opensource/pdfcollection$


    The text in bold above is what I typed. The local copy of the PDF database on my machine is in /home/pdfdb/. This command relies on ghostscript, imagemagick, ghostview, and pdfinfo (from the xpdf utilities package) being installed, so make that happen. It displays the PDF with gv, makes sure you really want to add it (i.e. you own enough of the rights to the document to do so), and then does it's thing.

    In this example, ghostscript failed to extract any pages from the document, which is a little sad.

    But I don't want to view the document before adding it

    Then use the --force flag to addpdf and all will go well. Use a command line like this: 

    ./addpdf doc.pdf --force


    Recreating the page count and thumbnails for existing documents

    A lot of the PDFs have been in the database for several years, and in that time I assume that ghostscript's ability to view PDF documents has hopefully improved. You can therefore easily regenerate the page count, thumbnails and metadata for a PDF document with the processpdf command. This command was actually used by addpdf under the hood. Let's give it a go: 

    mikal@lapel:~/opensource/pdfcollection$ for item in `ls /home/pdfdb/ | grep 0`          
> do
>   ./processpdf /home/pdfdb $item 
> done


    This simple script regenerated all of the metadata for all of the PDFs in the database, and hammered my machine while doing it. The command line arguments are the location of the PDF database, and the id number of the PDF to process.

    This command has basically the same dependencies as the addpdf command.

    Conclusion

    I've run out of things to say for now, but later I'll show you how to rerun the pdfomatic regression tests.

    Tags for this post: pdfdb(S)
    Related posts: PDF/A; PDF/A sample documents?; Expect to see some sample documents soon; Trying out the Apress e-book system; Random fact for the day; Thinking about IDL style descriptions of document formats; Recovering lost MythTV recordings; Unjustified fun making; CD ROM; Random idea; This is a pointer; Interesting technique for finding leaks in code; MythBuntu 8.10 just made me sad; Open Source document management from Alfresco; Converting a bunch of TIFF images to a PDF using ImageMagick

posted at: 22:21 | path: /pdfdb | permanent link to this entry


Coffee and beer in one glass

posted at: 21:47 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Expect to see some sample documents soon

posted at: 21:42 | path: /pdf/pdf-a | permanent link to this entry


What's that grinding noise?

    Dad I were riding a week or so ago, and I had just come down a nice hill where I had been going over 50 kilometres and hour... Towards the end the brakes on the rear wheel started to make a grinding noise as I slowed down. I'm a bit of a bike newbie, so it seemed to me that there were a couple of options: my brake pads were worn out; the brakes had over heated; or there was grit stuck under a pad.

    We stopped and had a look, and the pads seemed to have heaps of rubber left on them, so we went for the grit theory. This was reinforced by the ride home, where the grinding stopped after a little while.

    Time passes and I have the same experience last night. Except this time the grinding happens all the way home, so I decided to take the brakes apart when I got home.

    It turns out that the brake pads were worn out, and that I had been damaging the rear rim. I don't think the damage is too bad - -I've probably reduced the life of the rim a little, but it's still usable. The problem was that the break pad has these metal spikes through it to hold it together, and the amount of usable pad is much smaller than it looks from the outside.

    I suspect that the grinding went away the first time because the metal spikes in the pad changed shape as it heated up going down the hill, and then changed back as I rode on.

    So, new bike brake pads today, and you live and you learn.

    Tags for this post: bike(S)
    Related posts: Tick of death

posted at: 18:41 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


CD ROM

posted at: 15:34 | path: /diary/lca2005 | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 31 Oct 2005


Sony's CD DRM acts like spyware on Windows

posted at: 15:57 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Destinator 3 GPS navigation for the PocketPC

posted at: 03:22 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Status of the book

    The book has been written for a while, along with the technical editing and review. The copy edits have been done since last week. There are only two chapters left for page layout. The process has been interesting, educational, and in some parts long.

    The hardest part though? Ironically, it's filling in the marketing questionnaire. I've never done anything approaching sales before, although I have done customer facing work.

    Some parts of the questionnaire are easy... The target audience for instance, a short pitch for the book, that sort of thing.

    What about things like which magazines to ask to do a review? What about people who might be willing to do reviews?

    Got suggestions? Reply in a comment?

    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S)
    Related posts: More reviews; Book reviews; Working on review comments for Chapters 2, 3 and 4 tonight; Review; The Wild Palms Hotel

posted at: 02:50 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 30 Oct 2005


Second beta of linux.conf.au 2005 CD ROM

posted at: 23:05 | path: /diary/lca2005 | permanent link to this entry


Two more weeks to go

posted at: 22:28 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


TODO list pride

    I'm very proud of myself at the moment... For the first time in a very long time my TODO list is short enough to fit vertically on a 17 inch LCD monitor. This might not sound like a big deal to other people, but it is to me.

    Normally what I do is I have all of the things I need to do in tasks on my iPaq, and then have a classification called "today" which is all the stuff I should try to work on today. I do this because otherwise it is too easy to become daunted by the seemingly endless list of things to get done.

    Things have two ways to getting onto the today list... If I am in interrupt mode, as I have been recently, then it is a list of things which really truly need to be done today. If I am in polled mode, then it is the four of five things I can reasonably expect to get done today.

    I often don't manage to clear the list out daily, but it gives me a more manageable feel for what needs doing.

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Life hacking; PDF/A; Historical revisionism; Perl sample source code; Average build time for a PC; Open Source document management from Alfresco; Scott Adam's blog: the boner theory of management

posted at: 22:24 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 29 Oct 2005


Extreme Machines: Eirik Raude

    I'm watching the Discovery channel as I am occasionally want to do, this time instead of working on page layout review for the book, and I am quietly amazed by the commentary. This is a documentary about the world's most advanced oil rig -- the Eirik Raude. It's meant to be complimentary. It's about how cool this thing is...

    The commentary starts "Everyone needs power. Our insatiable desire for oil forces the oil companies to drill in stupider and stupider places." (or something like that). The Eirik Raude is built to drill in deeper water than before, in rougher seas.

    Given that there is general consensus that we're using too much oil, as shown by even this pro oil rig commentary, you'd think we'd start doing something about it. But no...

    Tags for this post: environment(S)
    Related posts: New Orleans and sea level; Kern County oil wells on I-5; What is the point that people's morals evaporate?

posted at: 21:36 | path: /environment | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 25 Oct 2005


Building my new disk array

    I have an opportunity to build a new disk array for when I move house. I made a few mistakes when I built the last one (although perhaps they were because it was the best that could be done at the time), and I don't intend to repeat those mistakes. I put out a call for suggestions a little while ago, and now I've built an array I'm pretty happy with. Let's walk through it.

    First off, let's start with a reminder of the requirements. Here's what I said in the previous post:

    • Reliable: be that mirrored or RAIDed
    • Expandable: I want to be able to drop in a new disc when I run out of space. I don't mind needing to add two identical discs if that makes point 1 easier
    • Rethingable: I want to be able to remove unreliable discs from the set. If there are paired discs, then I can handle having to cycle out both at the same time.
    • Non-sucky


    The hardware

    I now have two identical USB 2.0 external hard disk enclosures, each with a 250gb Seagate Barracuda drive in it. I picked USB 2.0 because I want the disks to be easy to move, and I picked external enclosures in the hope that this would ruggedize the disks for the trip to the US just a little. They'll be travelling in my carry on luggage.

    The mirroring

    Both of the disks are part of a MD mirror pair, and I must say that MD is a lot nicer than last time I played with it. Here's all I needed to do to set it up (sdb2 and sdc2 are the partitions with the MD on them): 

    mdadm --create /dev/md1
      --raid-devices=2
      --spare-devices=0
      --level=1
      /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2

mdadm --detail /dev/md1


    No config files in /etc like you used to. No need to do more configuration. It just works. What happened to the first partitions on the discs? They're each an 8 megabyte FAT partition with nothing in it but a meaningful name. This is so that I can tell which disk is which no matter what if they end up falling out of their labelled cases or something.

    So, we have redundancy... Let's make it expandable and shrinkable

    Then I used LVM to create a volume group and a logical volume on md1, which is where I will store the data. This is so I can expand and shrink the filesystem as my storage needs grow and disks fail. I currently get a disk failure per year with the current disk array (which is currently four disks), and I currently consume a little over 230gb. Yes, I know I'm going to need to buy more disk real soon, but I thought I would wait until I am in the US.

    Creating the LV: 

    pvcreate /dev/md1
vgcreate data /dev/md1
lvcreate -L<size> -ndatalv data
vgdisplay data

mkfs -text3 /dev/data/datalv


    And we're done. Any comments?

    Tags for this post: linux(S)
    Related posts: About to resize my LVM; Adding space to the disk array; A filesystem which will resize over more than one disc whilst being reliable; Large inodes = faster samba; My first interview; LCA CD continues; Mirror traffic during the last day of LCA 2007; We're getting there; Thanks for the kind word Pia; Mirroring the Linux Update podcast; The Linux Australia mirroring project; SMART and USB storage; Linux USB quandary

posted at: 00:49 | path: /linux | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 23 Oct 2005


All airline tickets now booked...

    Not that it was such a pain that I now feel I've really achieved something or anything.

    Tags for this post: travel(S) usa(S) california(S) mountainview(S) relocation(S)

posted at: 22:59 | path: /travel/usa/california/mountainview/relocation | permanent link to this entry


Hacking a webcam to be an IR camera

posted at: 18:59 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Paul Graham pages on startups

posted at: 18:51 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


That's it. HP support rocks

posted at: 17:28 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 21 Oct 2005


TECRA M4 P-M 770 and Ubuntu live CDs

posted at: 04:11 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 20 Oct 2005


So, how am I getting to the US?

    Well, I just booked my flights to the US... The flight there is on 18 November 2005, and goes from Canberra, to Sydney, to Los Angeles, to San Francisco with Qantas. At least I get club access along the way.

    Tags for this post: travel(S) usa(S) california(S) mountainview(S) relocation(S)

posted at: 23:18 | path: /travel/usa/california/mountainview/relocation | permanent link to this entry


I feel a little vindicated

posted at: 18:30 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


HP iPaq GPS FA256A

posted at: 18:01 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 19 Oct 2005


A filesystem which will resize over more than one disc whilst being reliable

    Given I'm moving, I had a great opportunity to sort out my home disc storage. Here's what I want:

    • Reliable: be that mirrored or RAIDed
    • Expandable: I want to be able to drop in a new disc when I run out of space. I don't mind needing to add two identical discs if that makes point 1 easier
    • Rethingable: I want to be able to remove unreliable discs from the set. If there are paired discs, then I can handle having to cycle out both at the same time.
    • Non-sucky


    So what are my options? I'm currently leaving towards two identical discs, with a meta disc that is mirrored between them, and the some sort of filesystem over the top. I suspect that LVM offers something here, but I need to learn more about LVM before I can give it a go.

    I want to have something sorted out by the end of the weekend. I don't mind building something to play with and then tearing it down later it if sucks, but it must be ready to roll within the next two weeks for real.

    So, thoughts people?

    Tags for this post: wanted(S)
    Related posts: Trying out the Apress e-book system; Interesting quote; C sample source code; clusterssh; Building my new disk array; SMART and USB storage

posted at: 21:30 | path: /wanted | permanent link to this entry


Clothing status update

posted at: 17:36 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


What are we doing with the pets?

posted at: 17:31 | path: /travel/usa/california/mountainview/relocation | permanent link to this entry


Posting of private email is fun

    I just got this from a work mate:

    What's going on with you lot?

    I've sat down at my desk for about 15 minutes, and there are NO new blog posts, and no mail.

    You all need to pick up the pace. If you have a blog, you should post to it every day, so that I don't have to start doing any work until AT least 10 o'clock.

    (If you don't have one, well get one, so I can read it.)

    I don't care what crap you post - It's important to my general getting-slowly motivated morning routine

    Now I'm going to have to start 'work' earlier.

    Grrrrrrr.

    That Is all. Thankyou.


    Sorry. I'll work on some sort of inane post now. (Well, it's done in fact.)

    Tags for this post: blog(S)

posted at: 17:14 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 18 Oct 2005


Two weeks of being sick

posted at: 01:44 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 17 Oct 2005


Meet the life hackers

posted at: 22:45 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Spike, skateboards and geckos

    Photos from a recent trip to Sydney with Spike, the kids getting skateboards, and a gecko that Catherine found.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050925(S)

posted at: 16:42 | path: /events/pictures/20050925 | permanent link to this entry


For Christmas

posted at: 04:03 | path: /wanted | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 16 Oct 2005


Matthew on his bike

    Matt has been angling to go on a bike ride with me on the street for a while, so we negotiated to taking a ride on the basketball court at the local school, as I wasn't too keen on being on the rode with a two year old. He's really go and I'm much impressed... He can't handle hills yet, but he can steer and peddle really well.

    All I need to do now is teach him how to use the brakes, which might require some modifications as they're so stiff that I can't use them, and then I can take the trainer wheels off.

    I'm very proud of him...

                 

    Tags for this post: matthew(S) pictures(S) 20051015-mattbike(S)

posted at: 16:59 | path: /matthew/pictures/20051015-mattbike | permanent link to this entry


Lake Tuggeranong

    One of the things I've been liking about my riding is going around Lake Tuggeranong, and the little lake near Point Hut Crossing. I haven't had much of a chance to ride in the last couple of weeks because I've been so sick, but I took these photos before I got ill. They'll have to do to fulfill my lake fix for now.

                                   

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20051015-laketuggeranong(S)

posted at: 16:24 | path: /events/pictures/20051015-laketuggeranong | permanent link to this entry


Grumps, Catherine, Andrew and Matthew came back to Floriade with me

    I went to Floriade 2005 by myself at lunch a few weeks ago, but Catherine and the kids wanted to go along and have a look. My dad (Grumps) came along for the ride too. A good time was had by all...

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20051015-floriade(S)

posted at: 16:17 | path: /events/pictures/20051015-floriade | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 15 Oct 2005


Apple's Safari javascript implementation

posted at: 04:13 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


The Cotter dam and Tidbinbilla deep space tracking station

    I hear that the Cotter dam is 100% full, which is something which hasn't been the case for quite some time, so dad and I ventured out to have a look. Unfortunately the path to the top of the dam is now closed, which we didn't know until we got there. On the way back we dropped in on the Tidbinbilla deep space tracking station, which is a NASA facility. All of this is about a 20 minute drive from my house, not that I timed it.

                                           

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20051015-cotter(S)

posted at: 02:05 | path: /events/pictures/20051015-cotter | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 14 Oct 2005


Bad blog, bad bad blog

posted at: 03:48 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Backing up a disc partition

posted at: 00:10 | path: /wanted | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 13 Oct 2005


Great Googly Moogly

posted at: 19:27 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 08 Oct 2005


A little story from my sickness

    So, now that I am starting to feel a little better, let me tell you of the journey of discovery that was my illness. I didn't know until about two days ago that you can have allergic reactions to anti-histamines (which are apparently the only difference between day time cold and flu tablets and the night time ones). I found out that you can by having such a reaction...

    The first night, I went to bed and spent the first two hours after having the tablets tossing a turning in a hallucinogenic night mare. The topic of the nightmare? ISO standardisation of PDF/A, which is the topic of the standardisation riff I have been on recently (and will continue when better). I certainly care about PDF, but I'm not sure that hallucinogenic nightmares are the right way to deal with the problem.

    The same thing happened the next night, except it was a two hour extravaganza of sweat over how to best run analytics on the 4.2 million lines of Apache web server logs that this domain have created on Andrew's machine since the last box upgrade. More on that later too.

    Anyways, I've returned to sanity now that I'm not taking the night tablets any more and just using day tablets in their place. I think I will be careful around those blue pills from now on. More red pills for me!

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Sick; TECRA M4 P-M 770 and Ubuntu live CDs; More nuclear bunkers; Getting ASP.NET working on Windows XP Tablet PC edition; Thinkpad x41 tablet PCMCIA IO; One thing about Microsoft Tablet PCs that Scoble didn't mention; Excitement in the office; The Greenbrier bunker opens for tours!; New laptop; I didn't realize that the US was a third world country

posted at: 01:20 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Fri, 07 Oct 2005


The book process continues

posted at: 17:11 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry


A first taste of Google blog reader

    So, Google has released a beta of their bloglines equivalent service, and given that Liferea crashes about four times a day for me I thought I would give it a go. Login et cetera is easy, and the user interface is nice and AJAXy. It's fairly intuitive as well, although when I was importing my OPML file from Liferea I missed the message at the top saying the import was in progress as first.

    That said, it's been 30 minutes and it still says it's importing my 460 line OPML file. I just refreshed the page for the import, and the import stopped and said that I now had 54 subscriptions. So, I guess that means I should wait longer for the import. I'm now going to try importing over the top and see if it's smart enough to squelch duplicates.

    Tags for this post: google(S)
    Related posts: Sony Reader (an ebook reader); MythIPTV Beta 2; MythNetTV beta 4; MythNetTV release 1; MythIPTV Beta 2

posted at: 14:35 | path: /google | permanent link to this entry


Sick still

    I thought I wasn't getting any better, but I feel a little better this morning. I'm really hoping to be up to work on Monday. Meh.

    If I haven't answered your email, please be patient, I'm trying to get through them all.

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Australian Health Insurance; Non-budget funded work

posted at: 13:38 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 05 Oct 2005


Photos from the Allete Pro Junior

    While we were down at Freshwater Beach in Syndey, we happened upon the Allette Pro Junior surfing event, which was an excellent chance to play with rapid fire mode and my telephoto lens.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050925-freshwaterbeach(S)

posted at: 05:29 | path: /events/pictures/20050925-freshwaterbeach | permanent link to this entry


Matthew playing on some swings

    Matthew found some swings at the beach, and then showed off his soccer skills.

                               

    Tags for this post: matthew(S) pictures(S) 20050925-freshwaterbeach(S)

posted at: 05:29 | path: /matthew/pictures/20050925-freshwaterbeach | permanent link to this entry


Andrew playing on some swings

    Andrew found some swings at Freshwater beach in Sydney.

                       

    Tags for this post: andrew(S) pictures(S) 20050925-freshwaterbeach(S)

posted at: 05:29 | path: /andrew/pictures/20050925-freshwaterbeach | permanent link to this entry


Winchester Mystery House

    When Andrew and I were in San Francisco recently we ran out of time to see the Winchester Mystery House, a mansion built by the widow of the dude who invested the Winchester rifle. She was convinced that the ghosts of Indians killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her, and modified the mansion to confuse them. Then Boing Boing pointed to this blog about the house which has some interesting photos online. I really must try to make it there sometime.

    Tags for this post: travel(S) usa(S) california(S) sanjose(S)
    Related posts: Steven Colbert, will you marry me?

posted at: 04:26 | path: /travel/usa/california/sanjose | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 04 Oct 2005


Sick

    I've come down with a cold, so I'm going to go quiet for a bit... Somehow I don't think I'll be going to work tomorrow. Exciting topics to be more fully explored when I feel better include: my exciting adventures with a broken laptop; more on that standards riff; how I've just finished the last chapter of the book and now just need to do the front matter and an appendix; and whatever else I think of.

    And now I'm going to bed.

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: I didn't realize that the US was a third world country; A little story from my sickness

posted at: 02:20 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


100km week

posted at: 02:18 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 03 Oct 2005


r51 update

posted at: 00:14 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 02 Oct 2005


So, that was me tempting fate apparently

    So, apparently I tempted fate, just as the CVS commit of the work on the final chapter of the book finished, and I got around to writing the blog post about the machine, it locked up again. What happens is that the screen goes blank (except for some random red and blue dashes this time), and the power and disc lights stay on. The machine doesn't respond to any input.

    I'm wondering if it's temperature related, as the machine worked ok until I went out into the sun to do some work. The machine is out of warranty, and having played around with the memory, and knowing that the disc isn't the problem that really leaves the logic board, which probably means it's not worth repairing.

    I've got an older ThinkPad without a working battery that I can use for now, but I guess it's time to start thinking about a new machine. I really want to get the book out of the way before getting distracted on that kind of stuff though.

    Tags for this post: blog(S) toys(S)
    Related posts: Thinkpad x41 tablet PCMCIA IO; r51 update; New laptop; ThinkPads return to bricks and mortar retail in the US; Pain with the ThinkPad; Alan Cox's IBM ThinkPad explodes

posted at: 18:09 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Pain with the ThinkPad

    I have no problems with my various ThinkPads -- in fact I love them greatly. They're by far the most reliable and well built laptops I have ever owned. That didn't stop my R51 from stopping working on Saturday. I woke up in the morning having had a bad night with Matt who has an ear infection. Anyways, the machine was locked up when I finally got out of bed, which has like the third time in the last couple of days. Repeated attempts to reboot the machine resulted in a laptop which wouldn't power up at all (apart from the disk and power lights turning on).

    To cut a long story short, disassembly and a good solid clean with aerosol freeze spray (the only non-conductive aerosol I could find) seems to have fixed the problem. Odd.

    I'll keep you posed on if it keeps working...

    Tags for this post: blog(S) toys(S)
    Related posts: Thinkpad x41 tablet PCMCIA IO; r51 update; New laptop; ThinkPads return to bricks and mortar retail in the US; Alan Cox's IBM ThinkPad explodes; So, that was me tempting fate apparently

posted at: 17:48 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Frank Arrigo discovers Steve Walsh's free wireless

posted at: 16:54 | path: /travel/australia/canberra | permanent link to this entry


This looks handy, subway maps for mobile devices

posted at: 16:50 | path: /travel | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 29 Sep 2005


What do you do when you care about a standard...

    ...but your employer doesn't? Well, the answer that I've come up with is that standards do matter, and that they shouldn't be controlled by companies for corporate gain. So, I'm going to pursue membership of the standards committee as an individual (which means that I wont be going to any of the meetings I guess), and advocate what I honestly think is the right solution, instead of what nessesarily makes things easier for my employer to implement.

    I'm kinda keen to find some time to implement some tools around the standard too, especially as I am not aware of any implementations online at the moment...

    Tags for this post: work(S)
    Related posts: PDF/A; PDF/A sample documents?; Should small ISVs be involved with the standards process?

posted at: 15:21 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


Robert Scoble is right, Microsoft has abandoned a lot of their developers

posted at: 15:15 | path: /dotnet | permanent link to this entry


Mont 24 hour race

posted at: 03:32 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 27 Sep 2005


Working from home today

    I always find that when I have to work with documentation, that I do it better somewhere quiet. It's hard to think about prose when you have someone else waffling on in your headphones. We don't have enough meeting spaces at work, so I am working from home today... I must admit it is also nice to eliminate the hour commute from my day once in a while.

    Tags for this post: work(S)
    Related posts: JJJ's hack; On home sound systems; Dell e310 upgrade; What are we doing with the pets?

posted at: 15:50 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 26 Sep 2005


75 kilometres last week

posted at: 03:53 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 25 Sep 2005


ImageMagick bug?

posted at: 20:43 | path: /imagemagick | permanent link to this entry


Floriade 2005

    A few of us from work took a lunch time bike ride to Floriade last week. Here are the pictures...

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050925-floriade(S)

posted at: 20:16 | path: /events/pictures/20050925-floriade | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 22 Sep 2005


Should small ISVs be involved with the standards process?

posted at: 16:58 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


Extended Stay Hotels -- shame on you

posted at: 16:50 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 21 Sep 2005


Did you know...

posted at: 16:22 | path: /tech | permanent link to this entry


First beta of the LCA 2005 CD ROM

posted at: 00:33 | path: /diary/lca2005 | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 19 Sep 2005


ImageMagick book - Chapter 4: Other ImageMagick Tools

posted at: 14:18 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 18 Sep 2005


Writely.com is cool

posted at: 16:44 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Samba and MacOS X 10.4 (Tiger)

posted at: 14:16 | path: /samba | permanent link to this entry


Sounds like Andrew's cat is allergic to something in it's food

    Catherine's dog (not the current one, but an older one) was allergic to chicken, and suffered similar symptoms to what Andrew describes for his cat. It took a while to determine the allergy, but it sounds like that might be the next step for Andrew. I'd start with a really simple diet, and build up from there.

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Goat demoted; What are we doing with the pets?

posted at: 02:57 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 17 Sep 2005


A 50km week

posted at: 22:16 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


My first interview

posted at: 03:01 | path: /enclosures | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 15 Sep 2005


If I'm famous, then people have to be nice to me, right?

posted at: 03:48 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Overflow rooms

    (This is only tangentially related to linux.conf.au 2006, I have no idea what they're doing for room allocation). For linux.conf.au 2005 we discussed the use of overflow rooms to deal with having too many registrations. In the end we decided against it, the crux of the logic being sheer logistics, and value for money (if people pay to attend, they should be able to be in the same room). Anyways, Microsoft's PDC has sold out, and they ended up using overflow rooms. It seems to be working for them so far, and the infrastructure sounds interesting.

    I'm thinking this should be seriously considered if we end up with a sellout situation for a linux.conf.au in the future.

    Tags for this post: linux(S) conference(S) opensource(S) lca2006(S)

posted at: 02:24 | path: /linux/conference/opensource/lca2006 | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 14 Sep 2005


Feedster has lost interest in it's top 500 already?

    Each month, Feedster brings you a list of 500 of the most interesting and important blogs. Enjoy browsing to see what people are reading, to find feeds that will bring topics of interest to you on a regular basis, and to discover new voices in the Blogosphere.


    If Feedster is updating the top 500 monthly, why is it still displaying the August results halfway through the month of September? Don't they care about the whole thing any more? If so, it only took them a month to get bored with it...

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Eat my dust, Groklaw!; Feedster Top 500

posted at: 23:35 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


LCA CD continues

posted at: 17:24 | path: /diary/lca2005 | permanent link to this entry


I can't hold it in any longer

posted at: 00:46 | path: /diary/building19 | permanent link to this entry


Learning Ruby

posted at: 00:42 | path: /ruby | permanent link to this entry


TUF 18 conference dinner

    I wasn't going to take so many photos of the conference dinner, but Felicity made me...

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050908-tuf18dinner(S)

posted at: 00:15 | path: /events/pictures/20050908-tuf18dinner | permanent link to this entry


20050908-tuf18dinner



     

    Tags for this post: blog(S) pictures(S) 20050908-tuf18dinner(S)

posted at: 00:15 | path: /diary/pictures/20050908-tuf18dinner | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 13 Sep 2005


Well, that's Google blog search live then

posted at: 23:59 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


My first keynote presentation

posted at: 17:07 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Comparison shopping for books

posted at: 16:12 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 12 Sep 2005


The LCA 2005 conference CD

posted at: 18:33 | path: /diary/lca2005 | permanent link to this entry


Around Guilford

    Guilford is about a 20 minute drive from the Vines golf resort in the Swann Valley just outside Perth. Again I had a dirty CCD, but some of these shots are quite nice.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050910-guilford(S)

posted at: 05:32 | path: /events/pictures/20050910-guilford | permanent link to this entry


Mirroring the Linux Update podcast

posted at: 05:25 | path: /mirror/opensource/linux/australia | permanent link to this entry


We're getting there

posted at: 02:29 | path: /mirror/opensource/linux/australia | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 11 Sep 2005


Shots from around Fremantle and Perth

    Including some beach action, wandering around Fremantle, sunset by the waterside, Lindsay looking majestic, and Perth at night.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050910-fremantleperth(S)

posted at: 18:41 | path: /events/pictures/20050910-fremantleperth | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 10 Sep 2005


TUF18 Swann Valley, outside Perth

    TUF 18 (the TRIM User Forum, our user conference) was held at the Vines Resort, in the Swann Valley outside perth. The resort is nice if your into golf, which I was for a little while, but haven't been recently. High lights include rain, a lake, more rain, Gordon and Anthony in Felicity's spa, and so forth.

    Unfortunately the CCD was dirty for many of these shots, and I didn't realise until it was too late.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050908-swannvalley(S)

posted at: 20:11 | path: /events/pictures/20050908-swannvalley | permanent link to this entry


Back from Perth

    The Vines resort (where the Jonny Walker Classic is played) is nice, if you like early 1990 architecture, and golf. Just don't try to have a shower in your unit, as the hot water system is the size of a thimble. Hire cars are good, because they take you away from the Vines. Freemantle and Perth are both good, with the Halo resturant in Perth being the producer of one of the best meals I have had in a long time. Photos online soo...

    Tags for this post: travel(S) australia(S) perth(S)
    Related posts: Back in Phoenix; Arrived at Disney World!

posted at: 19:43 | path: /travel/australia/perth | permanent link to this entry


Thanks for the kind word Pia

posted at: 06:37 | path: /mirror/opensource/linux/australia | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 05 Sep 2005


CVS digital cameras and handy cams

posted at: 18:22 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Google Pizza Program

posted at: 16:20 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


I like screen oopsies

posted at: 01:40 | path: /travel/usa/airlines | permanent link to this entry


Tour of San Francisco

    Including city skyline views and the bridge. Andrew has his first long island iced tea.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050714-sanfrancisco(S)

posted at: 00:10 | path: /events/pictures/20050714-sanfrancisco | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 04 Sep 2005


Perth for a conference

    The TOWER Asia-Pacific annual conference is later this week in Perth (Wednesday to Friday). I have a couple of free hours here and there, mostly in the evening. If there is anything interesting happening in Perth later this week, could people drop me a line and let me know? Failing that, if you have a free day in Perth, what would you see? Rottnest Island?

    Tags for this post: travel(S) australia(S) perth(S)

posted at: 23:50 | path: /travel/australia/perth | permanent link to this entry


The Linux Australia mirroring project

    Some of you might be aware that Linux Australia recently agreed to support a trial open source mirror project for Australia. This mirror is being run by a sub-committee of Linux Australia, on hardware owned by Linux Australia. The purpose of this post is to remind people of the project, and give a quick status update. It has to be quick, as I'm really busy this week.

    Our hardware arrived several weeks ago, and having been kindly configured by Andrew Pollock was ready for deployment about a week ago. This deployment was held up with some illness amongst various players, but the hardware was deployed to the data center last week by Steven Hanley and myself. We're currently finalising network ACLs for the machine before we can work on finishing off the software configuration.

    At this time I would like to ask for suggestions of projects which would benefit from mirroring. Preferably there would be a clear benefit to the community in Australia from such a mirror, and support from the people being mirrored for the concept. Bandwidth isn't a problem, and disk isn't a big deal as long as the suggestion doesn't need hundreds of gigabytes.

    I'll keep you posted as things progress.

    Tags for this post: mirror(S) opensource(S) linux(S) australia(S)

posted at: 23:23 | path: /mirror/opensource/linux/australia | permanent link to this entry


X.org doesn't support dynamic resize of the screen?

posted at: 18:14 | path: /linux | permanent link to this entry


LCA 2006: CFP closes today

posted at: 17:16 | path: /linux/conference/opensource/lca2006 | permanent link to this entry


Alcatraz

    Photos of the San Francisco bay before the trip to Alcatraz, Alcatraz, and what I thought was a funny photo opportunity at San Francisco international airport.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050714-sanfrancisco-alcatraz(S)

posted at: 17:07 | path: /events/pictures/20050714-sanfrancisco-alcatraz | permanent link to this entry


Pacifying New Orleans

posted at: 14:07 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Why does every man and his dog put man pages online?

posted at: 01:28 | path: /google | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 03 Sep 2005


Photos from the San Francisco gardens

    We only saw a tiny part of the big gardens in San Francisco (which includes a whole bunch of gum trees!) because the tour didn't stop there very long. What we saw was pretty cool though...

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050714-sanfrancisco-gardens(S)

posted at: 22:57 | path: /events/pictures/20050714-sanfrancisco-gardens | permanent link to this entry


A Saturday ride

posted at: 04:16 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Apple update

    Sorry Apple that it took a while to write this, I'm fighting an addiction at the moment, and am a little busy. Apple declared the iBook dead on arrival on Wednesday, and I picked up a new machine that day. They promised to have the old disc in a caddy by the end of Thursday so I could get my data back, which I am still waiting to happen as I write this. I of course had to build a new machine.

    So, what went so wrong here? Well, the initial contact was terrible "ring Apple". Then two calls to Apple with about 20 minutes on hold. Then being sent to a service center which didn't exist. Having to sign a form telling me that they would destroy my machine at will, and being told it would take two weeks for the machine to get assessed. Lack of knowledge on the part of the staff -- they never asked me to boot the machine, and demo the fact that it clearly didn't work.

    If they'd said that it would probably be DOA'ed, and I could have a new machine within three days, all would have been well.

    Why did I get this outcome in the end? Perhaps it's part of the standard deal. Perhaps it's because I'm lucky enough to have a developer relations contact at Apple who I could send a very grumpy email to. Perhaps it's this site and the traffic it gets. Dunno. I would certainly still say avoid ANUtech and Mac1 like the plague, which effectively means don't buy an Apple in Canberra.

    And why is it so hard to put the old disc in a caddy? Lord only knows...

    Tags for this post: blog(S) toys(S)
    Related posts: Let the Apple service ranting continue; More on Apple service; Apparently terrible warranty service is par for the course with Apple; The excitement of Apple service; Did I mention that Apple service sucks?; Buy Toshiba!; Excitement in the office; Apparently I should pay more attention to pingomatic

posted at: 03:51 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


New Orleans and sea level

posted at: 03:36 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 31 Aug 2005


Hetherington, 82, created Mr Squiggle in 1959 - a decade before men without strings landed on the moon

posted at: 23:26 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Addiction?

posted at: 20:05 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Pictures of Mountain View, San Jose and Oakland

    Well, the backlog is getting smaller at least. This photo set includes some more Mountain View, pictures taken when Andrew went on a flying lesson with Marc Merlin (I was elsewhere at the time), pictures from "The Tech" Museum is San Jose, including Segway rides, and some random pictures around Oakland (I think that's where we were...) on the way to and from the Bay Area Debian meeting.

    I like Segways by the way...

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050713-siliconvalley(S)

posted at: 16:33 | path: /events/pictures/20050713-siliconvalley | permanent link to this entry


The cafe downstairs made me a little flat white

    The cafe downstairs at work make me a little flat white with my burger, so I didn't feel left out of the espresso drinking crowd...

                   

    Tags for this post: blog(S) pictures(S) 20050712-siliconvalley(S)

posted at: 00:38 | path: /diary/pictures/20050712-siliconvalley | permanent link to this entry


First photos of Mountain View and surrounds

    Here's the first dump of photos from Andrew and my trip to Mountain View. It's all good now that the image publishing script works.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050712-siliconvalley(S)

posted at: 00:38 | path: /events/pictures/20050712-siliconvalley | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 30 Aug 2005


Some pictures of Andrew

    Just a couple of pictures of Andrew...

       

    Tags for this post: andrew(S) pictures(S) 20050723-pollockwedding(S)

posted at: 22:42 | path: /andrew/pictures/20050723-pollockwedding | permanent link to this entry


Photos from Andrew and Sarah's wedding (finally!)

    It's taken a while to get around to putting my copies of the pictures I took at Andrew and Sarah's wedding up, although Andrew has had copies up for a while. It took so long as I wanted to rewrite the way these images are generated, which I have finally done.

                                           

    See more thumbnails

    Tags for this post: events(S) pictures(S) 20050723-pollockwedding(S)

posted at: 22:42 | path: /events/pictures/20050723-pollockwedding | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 29 Aug 2005


Blogging fire alarms

posted at: 17:25 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


Ssssh, I'm hunting customers

    Scott is a random TRIM customer in Canada, who a couple of us found by having technorati watch lists for the name of our product. I have a policy of subscribing to blogs of users when I find them. It's been educational reading Scott's blog -- not just for us developers, but for the company as a whole working through how to deal with customers having a much more public voice for their thoughts.

    Scott mentions that now TOWER machines are about a third of his subscribers... Let's work out who those people are for a second:

    • Liferea: that one's easy. It's my Thinkpad R51 running Debian Unstable. As an introduction, I'm a senior software engineer in the research and development section of TOWER, and am currently in charge of the TRIM Connectivity Toolkit development.
    • Sharpreader: that will be Little Headed Simon, who is a developer on the TRIM Connectivity Toolkit project. Oh, Simon also prefers the moniker "Normal headed Simon", but that doesn't have the same ring to me.
    • Newsfire: will be Lindsay on her Macintoy (which appears not to have broken Apple like me, not that I'm ranting about Apple service at the moment or anything). Lindsay basically runs our marketing section's day to day operations, but leaves the company tomorrow.
    • And Onfolio: is Gordon, the project manager on the TRIM Context ICE web product team. And apparently Grant, our lead DBA as well.


    Hi Scott.

    Tags for this post: work(S)
    Related posts: On customer support

posted at: 16:42 | path: /work | permanent link to this entry


Let the Apple service ranting continue

posted at: 15:24 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Average build time for a PC

posted at: 13:59 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


More on Apple service

posted at: 05:23 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 28 Aug 2005


Apparently terrible warranty service is par for the course with Apple

posted at: 21:30 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Did I mention that Apple service sucks?

    So, to summarise from my previous post about Apple service, I called the store I bought my iBook from 13 days ago. They said they weren't interested in helping, and gave me the Apple tech support number. I called that number and waited 15 minutes on hold. I was then told that I should try booting off the OS X cds, which were of course at home, despite the fact that the machine didn't boot at all.

    My wife drove the CDs in. The machine is so broken that it wont even suck the disc in when the machine is powered up, so I called Apple again and said so. The dude on the phone said that I am now allowed to take the machine into the nearest service center. How good of him. The nearest service center is of course the store I bought it from, so I jump into the car and off I go.

    When I get there, I'm told that there is in fact no service center there, and the nearest one is 30 minutes drive away (in the other direction of course). I wonder why Apple thinks there is one there then? Anyways, they say that they can ship it to the service center for me, but it will take two weeks for them to decide whether or not to fix the machine. Did I mention the machine is 13 days old?

    I check the machine in for the service, which involves signing this disclaimer:

    Please carry out at my cost as soon as you conveniently can the repairs listed on the job sheet with the corresponding number to this slip and any other work you consider to be undertaken at your current rates for the parts and labour used. You will not be responsible for the loss or damage to the equipment, its accessories, software or data however caused. ...


    I've skipped the rest of the disclaimer, although it did also say that there was a minimum fee of $99 for the service. The emphasis above is mine.

    So, this is my first Apple computer, and it's 13 days old. It's going to take then 14 days to decide what to do to the machine, which is dead, in which time they may also lose the machine, jump up and down on it, or whatever they like.

    This is my first Apple purchase, and I'm thinking it will be my last. This level of service for a brand new machine is simply unacceptable, and I'll be going back to IBM. No wonder Apple doesn't have many corporate customers -- would you put up with this?

    Tags for this post: blog(S) toys(S)
    Related posts: Let the Apple service ranting continue; Apple update; More on Apple service; Apparently terrible warranty service is par for the course with Apple; The excitement of Apple service; Buy Toshiba!; Excitement in the office; Apparently I should pay more attention to pingomatic

posted at: 19:51 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Some pictures of Andrew

posted at: 18:42 | path: /andrew/pictures | permanent link to this entry


The excitement of Apple service

    I bought an Apple 12 inch iBook G4 from the ANUtech Apple Center less than two weeks ago. Last night the machine locked up, so I rebooted it with the power button. After booting, the machine would crash after about a minute with what looks a lot like a kernel panic, saying something about bad RAM. I wondered if I had done something to cause it, but it would consistently happen when I booted the machine and left it at the login screen, without me touching anything.

    I gave up and went to bed.

    This morning, I was hoping the machine was magically fixed, so I tried to turn it on. It didn't boot. So I tried again, and this time it booted, but with a mouse that didn't work. So I tried booting again. It didn't work at all.

    I rang the Apple Center, thinking that a two week old machine is simply a case of swapping the machine over or something. The guy basically told me to go away and call Apple. Something like "Oh, well we can't do anything for you -- ring Apple". This is very disappointing to me, I would expect a lot better from a retailer. Anyways, so I rang Apple.

    15 minutes on hold. Some simple questions. The machine still doesn't boot. Booting with Apple-Option-r-p doesn't help. Now apparently I need to boot with the OS X CD I left home. So I get to call back later after being on hold for ages.

    Two week old machine doesn't make me happy.

    Tags for this post: blog(S) toys(S)
    Related posts: Let the Apple service ranting continue; Apple update; More on Apple service; Apparently terrible warranty service is par for the course with Apple; Did I mention that Apple service sucks?; Buy Toshiba!; Seriously pissed someone off?; Excitement in the office; Apparently I should pay more attention to pingomatic

posted at: 17:13 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Weekend riding

posted at: 05:22 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 27 Aug 2005


LCA 2006 Call For Papers closes soon

posted at: 18:03 | path: /linux/conference/opensource/lca2006 | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 25 Aug 2005


Hamster powered mobile phone charger

posted at: 16:00 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


If you're decisive and you know it, clap your hands

    ...I'm not sure if I should join in the clapping. Perhaps. Perhaps not. It would be a big life change. But I'll always wonder if I should if I don't. Meh. Worst case I can always stop clapping if I don't like it. Ok, I formally accept your offer of clapping.

    /me claps

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Random fact for the day; Hamster powered mobile phone charger

posted at: 14:42 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 24 Aug 2005


A lunch time ride

posted at: 20:48 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Worst timing evar!

posted at: 16:32 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


I wonder if that paraglider has any drugs?

posted at: 16:30 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Hackathons again

posted at: 16:27 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Rides last week

posted at: 05:02 | path: /bike | permanent link to this entry


Interview with Adam Savage

posted at: 01:32 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Must. Overtake. Groklaw.

    I didn't pay any attention to Cameron's press release on the Australians in the top 500 bloggers for August 2005 at first, mainly because it's not the sort of thing I normally pay any attention to. It's not like I'm likely to win any popularity contests or anything. Then my Google Alert for stillhq.com (yes, vanity, all is vanity) went off last night and sent me email. It turns out that I'm on that list of top 500 bloggers.

    Yes, that's right. I am your god. You may commence worshipping me now.

    I'm the 201st blogger in the list. Right after Groklaw. So, I beg that you all link to me gratuitously so that I can overtake them.

    Meh. Just thought I'd gloat. Thanks Frank for pointing this out.


    Update: Feedster isn't linking to the most commonly used form of my RSS feed. You should use one of the links at the bottom of the sites main page if you want to subscribe.

    Tags for this post: blog(S)
    Related posts: Gloat

posted at: 00:59 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 23 Aug 2005


Unjustified fun making

posted at: 17:58 | path: /dotnet | permanent link to this entry


Alternate queries on results pages making it easier for future evilness?

posted at: 01:17 | path: /google | permanent link to this entry


Dovecot index cache problems

    I'm getting:

    challenger dovecot: IMAP(test): Corrupted index cache file /home/test/mail/.imap/netfilter.lists.netfilter.org/dovecot.index.cache: field header points outside file


    In my logs, and Googling doesn't return anything. Does anyone else get this? I'm going to try upgrading to see if that helps.

    Tags for this post: dovecot(S)

posted at: 00:49 | path: /dovecot | permanent link to this entry


Mon, 22 Aug 2005


Where did SUVs come from?

    I've always wondered where the SUV proliferation in the US came from. This article assures me that it's because the US federal government tried to make cars more fuel efficient. Interesting, if it's correct. Nick Hac.

    Tags for this post: link(S)

posted at: 18:30 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Want to be an acquisitions editor on Open Source topics

posted at: 05:00 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


The channel seven defence

posted at: 04:55 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Hackathons

posted at: 04:53 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 21 Aug 2005


Small file open and save dialogs

posted at: 23:02 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Clarke, you need to look into things a little before mouthing off

    Clarke Scott (who once applied for a job as a Microsoft evangelist, although we should note that I don't hold the Microsoft job application moral high ground) blogs about repeats verbatim without verification a post from a Microsoft evangelist based in New Zealand about Linux Australia's support for Linus' trademarking of the Linux trademark in Australia. He ignores of course that Linux Australia has been running one of the most successful Linux community events in the world for the last four or five years, or that Linus is genuinely behind the trademarking effort. He doesn't look into how the Linux Mark Institute (the international body behind the trademark) is structured. Or what their goals are.

    He just comments that the community is less free as a result.

    Windows is a trade mark too. How does having Linux trademarked any more restrictive that Microsoft owning the Windows mark?

    Update: Clarke commented on this post to mention that I had missed that this was a quote from another site, which I am happy to concede. He also suggests the post was tongue in cheek, despite the fact that I can see no indication of that having re-read the post.

    Update: Fixed broken link

    Tags for this post: dotnet(S)

posted at: 22:57 | path: /dotnet | permanent link to this entry


Podcasts and iTunes 4.9 on Mac

posted at: 03:00 | path: /macintosh/osx/tiger/itunes | permanent link to this entry


Automator and iTunes hates me

    I can't see a way to get Automator to change the track rating (called "My Rating" in the iTunes user interface) in a workflow. This makes me very sad. I can't even see a way of running AppleScript as part of a workflow. Am I going blind? Is this possible?

    Tags for this post: macintosh(S) osx(S) tiger(S) automator(S) itunes(S)

posted at: 02:51 | path: /macintosh/osx/tiger/automator/itunes | permanent link to this entry


Sydney Australia in Google Maps

posted at: 02:24 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Interesting technique for finding leaks in code

posted at: 02:04 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 20 Aug 2005


One thing about Microsoft Tablet PCs that Scoble didn't mention

posted at: 07:14 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Thu, 18 Aug 2005


Rave in a village

posted at: 03:45 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Ministry of re-shelving

posted at: 01:33 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry


Wed, 17 Aug 2005


Getting ASP.NET working on Windows XP Tablet PC edition

posted at: 23:34 | path: /dotnet | permanent link to this entry


Code better with a new monitor

posted at: 22:55 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Conference papers now online

posted at: 17:45 | path: /diary/lca2005 | permanent link to this entry


Tue, 16 Aug 2005


Excitement in the office

posted at: 23:49 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry


Feeling lucky

posted at: 18:21 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Sun, 14 Aug 2005


Random segue: how I came up with the original table of contents

    One of the problems I grappled with early on with was how do you come up with a table of contents for a book? It's a complicated process, and it's really important. If the book doesn't flow, then people are left confused about what goes where, and the book is a lot less useful. Additionally, when you sit down to actually write, then you need to know what is covered where so that you can refer the reader to the right place to find out more about a specific topic -- even if you haven't covered that topic yet.

    So how did I come up with the first cut of the table of contents for the ImageMagick book? Well, I started by looking at all of the command line options to the various ImageMagick commands. I wrote this down on a stack of old business cards, and then distributed those cards in logical sounding piles on the floor. Those piles pretty much became the chapters that I originally submitted.



    That's the card mound. Anyway, once that was done, Matt (the editor) and I sat down and worked on the table of contents description until it flowed nicely, covered everything we could think of, and had approximate page counts. It turns out in hindsight that the table of contents wasn't completely correct, but that's ok because I've been tweaking it as I go along, and it was more of a help than a hindrance in that it tells me stuff like which chapter to refer the reader to for certain kinds of information, and that sort of thing.

    So what's the point I'm trying to make here? When you're writing something big, it's important to have a feel for where you're going in the document, the point you're trying to make, and how you're going to get there.

    Update: Fixed my spelling in the title line, as per the helpful comments from Peter.

    Tags for this post: imagemagick(S) book(S)
    Related posts: Chapter seven of the shop manual; When I go to Vegas, I should stay here; Mark is right; Interesting technique for finding leaks in code

posted at: 16:03 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry


The Apress page for the book

posted at: 04:06 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry


Sat, 13 Aug 2005


So proud

posted at: 18:59 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Inflation through stealth

posted at: 18:34 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry


Working on review comments for Chapters 2, 3 and 4 tonight

posted at: 04:25 | path: /imagemagick/book | permanent link to this entry