Monthly Archive for July, 2004

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3

Published on July 31, 2004 in Linux. 0 Comments

… for the sysadmin who would much rather be running Windows NT 4.

A month after we all agreed to standardise on Zope as our content management system, One of my clients (for some inexplicable reason), has decided to standardise on RHEL3 as the company-wide Linux platform. That would be just great were it not for the fact that no Red-Hat distribution ever (even Fedora) has ever supported any version of Zope, or endorses the use of the Python programming language for anything other than their own up2date rpm management utilities.

Just what is it about RHEL that companies value? If you ask the IT manager, they will normally say ’stability’ - but what exactly does that mean? I run Gentoo Linux on my servers which is (allegedly) the least stable linux distribution. On the whole, I would say the RHEL servers are no more reliable than the Gentoo servers (assuming that both are well-managed). What red-hat mean by stability is that they tend not to update packages for a particular distribution release, only apply internally developed patches as bugs are fixed.

After a few years of running RHEL, you could have a GNU/Linux operating system with most of it’s major packages in a non-standard configuration. If you had been running Gentoo, FreeBSD or Debian most of your packages would be as their authors originally intended. When yor distro is EOL’d, and you have to migrate to a new server, the chances are that your applications would be just as broken as if you had run a more advanced disribution.

I’m not so naive that I cannot see the value in a very stable (in the sense of lack of change) distribution; but those benefits are utterly voided by wanting to run a package like Zope, which by sheer force of it’s development community is a rapidly developing tool. In order to install Zope on RHEL you need custom compile a large number of packages, and if running Zope was the server’s primary function, you have now lost the benefit of your RHEL subscription for all but the basic components of the server’s operating system.

In my opinion, people who like RHEL would probably be much happier running Windows 2003 server. For everybody else, I suggest considering wether you value stability (lack of change) more than stability (reliability), and if not consider less sluggish distribtions.

Three Careers, Ruined

Published on July 30, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

I cannot sit idly, and watch three friends waste their potential. They say that you must follow your dreams but those who say it are the lucky few (or dreamed of becoming a tax consultants). I must name and shame - I hope by making this issue public they will recant their frivolous ways.

The three I am talking about are Mark, Dan and Nick - formerly known as ‘The Pox’ - a disgusting name which correctly implies their collective lack of morals and backbone. And now, I shall take each of you to task for your frilly-shirted dandyish ways:

For starters, let me consider Mark: Five years ago you were destined for the top of your profession. As an apprentice to one of the most brilliant minds in planning, People traveled from around the world to learn your advanced marketing techniques. In a few years time you might have been a head of planning in a regional office. You might even have started your own ad-agency. Think of the good to industry, and therefore society that you will never achive, and all because you wanted to ‘write’.

And now Nick: You were allways the most tallented of the group. Your glittering career in retail was cut short. 5 years ago, you were mingling with the cream of Westminster. Every day you would rise, bright and early and tackle the challenges of growing retail / catering business, of which you had recently been appointed manager. Had you stuck with it, you might be a regional co-ordinator for a chain like Starbucks or Borders. Unfortunately, like the others, you fell for this most compelling dream. Do you truly feel more accomplished now than the days when you mingled with Anne Widdecombe and Neil Hamilton?

The third, but by no means least of the tragic is Dan. Recogning your visual skills, your services had been retained by SilverTech - one of the Brighton Area’s best CAD firms. I know you got a thrill from knowing that the safety systems you drew would be saving the lives of oil-rig workers and trawler operators, but one day you quit and took up animation. Who would perform the daily ‘config-update’, and what is to become of our nation’s merchant navy as you doodle?

To all of you I say “Buck your ideas up”, you may have achieved fleeting sucsess with your 70 part animated series, film commission and a string of awards and nominations, but big deal. Now that two of you are married men, perhaps you should reflect for a moment and consider where you all want to be?

I would not make a very good…

Published on July 29, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

Inspired by the signature of an email* I recently received, I have made this piece of oddly coloured whimsy.

*The signature in question is:

   I cannot...
      lift around 80 times my own body weight.
   Therefore I would not make a very good...
      ant.

When the going gets tough

Published on July 26, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

We all have times of crisis in our lives - it’s all part of this messy business of being human. Whenever I’m struggling, there’s one person in particular that I turn to. I ask myself, what would He do?

‘Jacko’ — the central character in the BBC TV series Brush Strokes — has been a powerful guiding force in my life from the time when I first gazed upon his benevolent, beaming face. Perhaps he can help you and your loved ones too.

SCOX recive official ‘Roughing Up’ in Michigan court

Published on July 22, 2004 in Linux. 0 Comments

Litigious Bastards, the SCO Group, recieved a summary slapping from Judge Chabot, in her Michigan court. All counts of SCO Group’s case against Daimler Chrystler Corporation have been dismissed except one; was it appropriate for DC to take more than 30 days to respond to a request to certify use of a product that DC had abandoned more than seven years ago; the request having been sent to the wrong person at a building that no longer exists. I wish the SCOX group the best of luck addressing that claim.

In their original complaint, SCOX complained that despite DC having informed them that the machine originally certified for System V UNIX was put out of use a long time ago, they still demanded a list of certified machines, and in any case they took too long to reveal this fact.

DC Responded by explaining that it is not possible nor even relevant to provide a list of machines, and that their certification was valid because they have correctly informed SCO Group of the status of any machines licensed to run the product. An empty list is still a list.

Could this be the frequently predicted (but often delayed) ultimate doom of the SCO group? Is this the beginning of the end? Of the five main court-cases involving the SCO group and Linux related matters one has been lost, two are suspended (Redhat, Autozone), and two appear to be turning sour for SCO (IBM, Novell).

Meanwhile, SCO remain chipper in the face of almost certain doom. In an almost complete reversal of his commengts from a week ago, Blake Stowell said: “‘We’re satisfied that DaimlerChrysler did finally certify their compliance with the software agreement, but we are still interested in gaining some information on why they didn’t certify within the allotted time. [The Case] is not completely over yet, because the judge still held out the possibility that we could pursue trying to find out information from DaimlerChrysler on why they took so long to certify.’”

Barry Du-Crow: Casemodder

Published on July 22, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

(Techangel) “Barry won the Readers Drives contest with a rather unorthodox case mod involving a Barbie doll! The Barbie case was at the show for all to see and was quite a draw due to it’s sheer wackiness! The most interesting feature is that to open the CD-ROM tray takes a squeeze of Barbie’s hand, which pokes through the side window. Barbie sits on a 40GB IDE swing, supported by two LED-lit rods.”

The Avenging Apes: Inspired by GOD

Published on July 22, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

12 years ago, Christopher Turner recieved a holy vision in a dream: “Go Ye, and learn the art of animation”, spake the lord. “That thou mayest pitch and henceforth animate a 37 part series featuring vengfull gorillas, so world may know my wrath” - and lo, obedient Christopher dedicated his life to animation and from his ispired imagination issued forth The Avenging Apes of Africa.

This has to be the best eco-toon since Captain Planet, a product of the famously eco-friendly Turner media conglomerate. The Apes are an independant production, and you can tell because it’s authors have been able to push the boundries of plot and characterisation in a way that a major studio would never allow. Starting with an original concept: Mutated animals and their human buddies battle the forces of eco-evil, set amdist the tropical Congo rainforests. How did they ever come up with an idea like that?

The greatest mystery of this show is that it has not yet been produced; One would expect with brilliant ideas and god on his side, this series would be optioned in an instant, however it seems that TV companies would far rather commission godless piffle like this. Apes, I shall pray for you.

Netstumbling: Crouch End

Published on July 18, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

A couple of hours ago as I was configuring a wireless access point to act as a relay so that my entire flat could be bathed in loving 802.11g, I noticed something odd: There appeared to be twice as many devices on my home wireless network ‘30apr’ than I had expected to find. Since all my wireless kit is made by Linksys or Netgear, it was plain to see that these other two computers were intruders.

Despite the fact that my wireless network was encrypted with 64bit WEP, this protection was possibly broken, and I can assume that one or two people were benefiting from my bandwidth. All my wireless gear is less than 2 months old and is loaded with the latest firmware, so if this article is to be believed I ought to be quite safe from standard WEP cracking attacks.

It is possible that the intruder never actually got into my system; The fact that their computers appear to be set to ‘peer’ (a.k.a. ad-hoc) mode implies that they were not able to join my network, but perhaps they were just trying? In any case, I have shifted all my equipment onto a different channel and changed my keys to 128bit - in theory the extra key-length makes a brute-force cracking attempt 2^64 times harder.

In an effort to detect which home the intruders live in, I took a walk around my block; You can see two nodes belinging to me (ssid=30apr, vendor=linksys), plus two nodes also claiming to belong to 30apr but with a concealed vendor id. Without a GPS module I was unable to corelate the strongest signals with actual households, however I did find 9 other WEP encrypted networks and 6 networks that were completely unsecure.

Xylophone man dies, Age 73

Published on July 17, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

Frank Robson, Nottingham’s most enthusiastic busker died this week of a heart attack. Frank could be seen busking approximately half way between the Broadmarsh and Victoria shopping centres. His instrument was a rainbow-coloured childs’ Xylophone, which he would strike randomly with a toy-mallet.

The 73-year-old, who lived in Cotgrave, collapsed on Sunday and was pronounced dead at the Queen’s Medical Centre later that evening.

Google’s daft linking policy for Picasa

Published on July 16, 2004 in voffle. 0 Comments

By linking to the Terms and Conditions of Google’s Picasa photo-purchasing client with this automatic hamster hyperlink, I am violating those Terms and Conditions. Odd eh? Supposedly I may only link to the home page, and only using the terms ‘Picasa.com’ or ‘www.Picasa.com’. I wonder if they would be angry if I linked to them with the less embellished ‘www.picasa.com’?