Just noticed today that Certification Magazine is a free subscription. Also, Sys Admin magazine isn’t distributed to retail stores any longer; you have to subscribe and get it mailed to you.
Archive for April, 2007
Internet Appliances haven’t hit the mainstream yet, and I don’t know why. The constraints are simple: I want a web browser that has no moving parts and makes no noise, so it can go in the bedroom and not annoy me. Back in the day, I had great hopes for the BeOS-based Sony eVilla and was the only person, I think, who liked Be’s focus shift to BeIA. The wife and I recently experimented with an MSN tv 2, which lasted all of one day — it was difficult to read and cumbersome to navigate.
The present setup pleases me. I picked up an NCD nc900 X terminal on eBay for $50, and I picked up a 17″ flatscreen at CompUSA for $130 after rebate. It just runs X sessions off an OpenBSD box in the basement. In theory, I could have just run a KVM extender cable down to a Windows PC, but there is the geek factor…. NCD is out of business, by the way.
The OpenBSD box runs a tftp server that serves up the nc900 boot file (p4v4013.tar.gz is the latest — os.900 is the operating system file, and you’ll want the newest boot_mon.900 you can find to update the flash). It also runs X with xdmcp, xfce, and FireFox (only because IE7 isn’t available). It took a little bit to get running. For instance, it took a while to figure out to set root_depth to 24 in ../config/xp.cnf to get 24-bit video. And it really took a long time to figure out how to change the resolution on the terminal (“BOOT> selftest monset” –> for instance, mine is monset 121 [1024x768 at 70Hz at 17"]). Here’s a somewhat related FAQ.
Works splendidly.
When you get bored talking to tech support and have to read off serial numbers….
A again
B back
C champagne
D double
E eye
F finally
G gnaw
H heiress
I ink
J Jose
K knife
L line
M mnemonic
N number
O over
P phantom
Q quiche
R repeat
S skip
T triple
U unreadable
V verbose
W wrong
X Xerox
Y yes
Z zed
“F” was “five,” but I reconsidered that cheating and changed it. The basic guide is that the initial letter shouldn’t sound like familiar sounds for that letter (“P” = “phantom”), no foreign words (“Jose” is acceptable, though, by fiat), and if those aren’t possible, then just make it as confusing as possible as though you were reading a serial number (“T” = “triple”).
So MIDYE5I2USS becomes: mnemonic ink double yes eye FIVE ink 2 unreadable skip skip. You get your fun where you can.
As stated in Choco’s User Guide, “Constraint programming represents one of the closest approaches computer science has yet made to the Holy Grail of programming: the user states the problem, the computer solves it. (E. Freuder)” Constraints are limits on something: you must be at least 48 inches tall to ride the roller coaster; you have to deposit the check before the bank closes at 5:00; only five adults will fit in the car; and so on. The most that people are consciously aware of solving constraint problems are when budgeting money or planning errands. Or doing laundry: after doing a load of socks, do towels, because they’re quicker to fold, and matching socks takes a long time.
Choco is a Java implementation of constraint satisfaction programming. In my opinion, it’s one of the world’s most underrated software packages. I’m surprised it doesn’t get more attention, and I’m surprised that there isn’t at least a C# port. It’s BSD-licensed, so it’s business-friendly.
If you’re charged with time, materials, and resource planning, give Choco a look.
See: Roman Barták’s “Constraint Programming: In Pursuit of the Holy Grail.” (PDF)
See: Markus P.J. Fromherz’s “Constraint-Based Scheduling.” (PDF)
See the Rocky Mountain Institute’s “Home Energy Briefs” (nine PDF’s) for information on making your home more energy efficient. No tree-hugging, weak-minded, stark-raving-mad, nonsense.
I’m considering doing some independent contracting, and am looking at lowering the upfront costs for software.� As an exercise, given quality commercial software, what are the most viable free (beer) alternatives?
- General Productivity: Microsoft Office  (Office 2007 rocks) -> OpenOffice�(note from OpenBSD portathon�- “many stupid bugs fixed, amazing it works on linux (as usual, by luck).”
- Diagramming: Microsoft Visio -> Dia and Graphviz. Â I do love Graphviz…
- Video Documentation: TechSmith Camtasia Studio -> Wink.
- Documentation Repository: Microsoft SharePoint -> Wordpress (maybe Docuwiki). As an aside, if  Wordpress and WordPress MU started including LDAP support in base, adoptability would jump overnight, since Windows Active Directory (and other, lesser LDAP) environments could instantly use it.  As another aside, why didn’t the Dublin Core people release a reference implementation in SQL-92, which the whole world understands?  Dublin Core would be ubiquitous now….  Honestly, in Qualified DC, can you have an Alternate Title without a Title?  How would that happen?  Can you have a record consisting of only a date? Where was I?  Docuwiki frustrates me, but it’s the standard wiki for doc.
- Host Monitoring: For smaller environments, commercial options include IPSwitch’s What’s Up Gold and IP Sentry, among others.  The free monitoring option of choice would be Nagios, whose simplicity is its brilliance. Note to self: investigate Fruity.
Authoritative nameservers should never be recursive (caching). Â Never run both types on the same IP.
See:
An inspiring story, to be sure. Wikipedia has everything. It would have been better, though, if Will Smith had one of those memory-loss-inducing lights like he had in Men in Black. This should be, “Were you in the street….”
This is something of a strange pasttime, I admit, but I get disappointed when I watch a movie that doesn’t have a mistake in the subtitles. I’m really disappointed when they don’t have subtitles at all, like one of my favorite movies, “Session 9.“
Alvin Fernald lives! Â Get thee to an order form and pick up Alvin’s Secret Code, by Clifford B. Hicks. Â Fond childhood memories, there. Â All the Alvin books rock.
Well, here’s a quick Perl script to decode the Subject: lines in archived maillogs from Borderware MXtreme mail firewalls. Â Simple substitution. Â Nothing fancy. Â Adjust to taste. Â Doesn’t do any MIME decoding.
mxdecpl.txt (rename to mxdec.pl — added .txt extension because I’m too … to fight WordPress’ security settings)