A year on without Lady

Posted about 4 months ago on: 23/10/2009 - 1 comment
Tagged in: lady.

So today it's been a year since I had to put my dog to sleep. I think about her everyday and miss her terribly. I think it's easy for anyone to understand that if you spend the amount of time I did with your dog then it does leave a massive hole in your life when they're gone.

Simple things like being used to being greeted and knocked over when you come home, the interactivity, the level of trust and responsibility you feel, the loyalty, the knowing no matter how shit you feel they always seem to cheer you up. I can't really get it across in words very well to be honest. All I know is her being gone leaves a gap that won't be filled. I spent the entire of my adult life with her, the up and the downs. She wasn't an ordinary dog in any sense. Fiercely loyal to me, wasn't frightened of anything or anyone and had tenacity in buckets.

I still have her daughter, who hasn't been the same since, she still looks for her mum from time to time and strangly enough she's been quite quiet the last few days, maybe she's picking up vibes from me or she actually remembers; I don't know.

You're not forgotten Lady and sorely missed by not just me :o(


x

I love freedom of speech

Posted about 4 months ago on: 21/10/2009 - 4 comments
Tagged in: censorship, bnp, labour, bbc, question time, hain.

With all the media frenzy about the BNP being on Question Time it has gotten me thinking, a lot. Personally I can't stand, no, HATE the BNP. I've spent a lot of time at anti-fascist protests in the past and I don't mind admitting I've had my fair share of scuffles with right-wing muppets.

I'm however quite shocked at the level of media coverage of Mr Hain and his insistence on not letting the BNP on Question Time because he argues that the BNP is illegal because it does not allow ethnic minorities to join. Does that mean we'll not ever allow ANY of the people who claimed for stupid things and took tax payers money because they committed fraud? I want the BNP on Question Time and I'll tell you why, I want Griffin to make his own noose and hang his party on TV, hopefully with the help of Jack Straw. I also think that to try and censor them is more abhorrent to me than listening to them. I'd like to keep the freedom of choosing not listen, rather than have that choice made for me.

Like I say, I hate the BNP but I hate censorship through political arguments a LOT more. I'm quite aware I'm generalising here and this post is more a brain fart than anything else so feel free to flame away.

On a more tongue in cheek note; could it be argued that because of the idiot leadership of New Labour that in itself is the reason that the BNP got votes in the first place, have a seat; and are appearing on the TV?

Visit Hope Note Hate and get involved if you really hate the BNP, just remember when it comes to silencing people, who knows when you'll be next eh?

Nice try idiots

Posted about 4 months ago on: 20/10/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: idiots, spam, bot-net, windows, microsoft, phishing.

From: no-reply@tek.org.uk
To: tek@tek.org.uk
Subject:A new settings file for the tek@tek.org.uk has just been released
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:15:49 +0530 (08:45 BST)


Dear user of the tek.org.uk mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (tek@tek.org.uk) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:

http://tek.org.uk/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=tek@tek.org.uk&from=tek.org.uk&fromname=tek

(which was actually http://tek.org.uk.ttl1lll.net/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=tek@tek.org.uk&from=tek.org.uk&fromname=tek)

Best regards, tek.org.uk Technical Support.

Nice Try, shame I am the admin, user and owner of the box and domain eh?

When will these pricks learn.

Edit: Since this post I am now getting a massive amount of them from different "accounts" @tek.org.uk all targeting my tek@ account, it is amusing and ANNOYING at the same time. Every single email suggests they're being pumped out of a bot-net and each box is, funnily enough, using Outlook to send them. It's at times like this that I hate a certain OS vendor.

GDM Greeter Builder

Posted about 4 months ago on: 19/10/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: gdm, gnome, builder, web-app.

I've been building & testing some code recently. I'll get what I've been working on up sometime tonight. Basically I have been making a web-app that you can make GDM Greeter Themes with. GDM is the logon screen for GNOME if you aren't aware. So.. You upload a picture of your choice, fill in some other details and you have a greeter.tar.gz file spat back at you which you can use to install the theme.

So far it's quite basic, you can choose colours and upload a background image; but that is all. The idea is not to create visually stunning themes with multiple images, but allow perhaps the less technical users a chance at having a more personal login theme.

Edit: Obviously I didn't get chance to put the GDM Builder up, I was way to busy reading through the Twitter API and messing about with it. Sorry.

BrightKite and the XFCE Dusk Theme

Posted about 4 months ago on: 15/10/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: greasemonkey, brightkite, script, xfce.debian, iceweasel, firefox.

I use a dark theme on my notebook (XFCE Dusk) and with the new BrightKite the text areas for comments have been given a background colour (background:) of white, but the foreground (color:) doesn't seem to be set or my theme is overriding it in IceWeasel (The Debian version of Firefox).

So I decided to make a simple GreaseMonkey (developer site is here) script to correct the problem for me. If you've never used GreaseMonkey it's a brilliant add-on for Firefox that allows you to automatically affect the DOM (the web page you've loaded) so you can remove or even add elements to the page, add or remove CSS and pretty much anything else you want to do.

You can download the script here.

Vanishing Bees

Posted about 4 months ago on: 13/10/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: bees, vanishing, colony collapse disorder, varroa, economy.

In the UK, around one fifth of honeybee hives were lost in the winter of 2008/09. Bees pollinate a third of the food we eat, and this contributes £200million a year to the UK economy.

Vanishing of the Bees, is an eye-opening account of the shocking truth behind the declining bee population.

See more at the Vanishing Bees website.

Smart meters No thanks

Posted about 4 months ago on: 12/10/2009 - 4 comments
Tagged in: big-brother, privacy, insane, smart meters, .

Wow, this country is just getting (gotten?) over the top.

The devices, which the government plans to install in every home by 2020, will also tell energy firms what sort of appliances are being used, allowing companies to target customers who do not reduce their energy consumption.

Privacy campaigners have expressed horror at the proposals, which come as two million homes have 'spy' devices fitted to their rubbish bins by councils who record how much residents are recycling.

It's just insane. Read the rest here.

Things are likely to be b0rked

Posted about 4 months ago on: 12/10/2009 - 2 comments
Tagged in: note.

As you can see new look, I'm sure things will be broken all over the place. I have put in place mod_rewrites to hopefully ensure that none of the permalinks are broken but you never know.

If you see anything stupidly broken please get in touch via comments on this post or by any other means you know.

UK trade unions pass boycott vote

Posted about 5 months ago on: 19/09/2009 - 1 comment
Tagged in: israel, trade union, palestine, boycott.

In a landmark decision, Britain's trade unions have voted overwhelmingly to commit to build a mass boycott movement, disinvestment and sanctions on Israel for a negotiated settlement based on justice for Palestinians.

Read original article here.

Quote of the day

Posted about 6 months ago on: 08/09/2009 - 2 comments
Tagged in: quote, george.carlin.

"Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man... living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But...he loves you." ~ George Carlin

Debian and my Toshiba R100

Posted about 6 months ago on: 01/09/2009 - 4 comments
Tagged in: blog, toshiba, r100, debian, gnome, xfce.

I recently had a hard drive failure on my laptop which was quite annoying for several reasons. Not least since Toshiba don't make the drive anymore and the fact it's about 3 inches long and thinner as a Swan Vesta matchbox. To quote the guy at a shop, "I've never seen a drive that small and I don't think you're going to be getting one through us." - He wasn't kidding either. This drive has been a royal pain to try and track down.

In the end Steve Jobs came to my rescue.

That's correct; Apple Inc. came to my aid. You see it turns out that this drive is also the very same drive that went in to the first and second generation iPod. Apple had Toshiba make the drive and then Apple just stuck a sticker on it.

So I ended up getting one and to my relief it does actually fit perfectly and better still, it works. The only issue is trying to get rid of what I believe is a hidden partition on the drive, which presumably holds some information for the embedded iPod software. It seems I have lost about 5 gigs from a 20 gig drive. Anyway, I'm not too bothered as I tend to use removable media for most of my storage needs. 15 gigs is more than adequate for the OS, a simple home mount point and some swap.

Getting Debian on to this laptop the first time was a pain (BIOS is so old it won't boot from USB), I had to use a PXE server to get the net-install ISO running and then go from there. Quite simple with my network but I am lucky that I know what I am doing. I'm part way through a simple instruction list to post here for anyone else like me that makes use of older hardware and I'll have that up shortly.

Trying a different desktop.

For I don't know how long I have been using XFCE as my main desktop manager. On this new install I was busy with other things while the installation took place so I decided to default everything and GNOME was installed. I've decided to try GNOME again, I've not used it in anger since about 2003; so let's see if it can do the job. Of course I have already installed XFCE as a back up should I need to instantly feel at home ;-)

I'm already seeing that GNOME has come a LONG WAY since the last time I used it properly. It seems quite extensible now compared to when I first used it and also it doesn't seem as "heavy". Who knows, maybe I'll become a convert in time. Some of the defaults have already had to be changed though. I'm not really a fan of the default icon set, nor most of the themes available. Easy to change though and a lot better than XFCE for managing them to. I had a quick look at gDesklets and was quite impressed, but sadly I am not a huge fan of Python, so it's unlikely that I will be developing any of my own (unless I can use PHP or Bash instead? Can PHP-GTK be used instead of Python? Anyone know?).

It's taking some getting used to because I am used to having the bars the opposite way round and I've resisted so far in moving them about. This is to try and see if it makes more sense to have them this way around. So far I am not finding it as intuitive a setup as XFCE, maybe this is just because I am used to XFCE.

The next thing is to find replacements for all the apps I used to use in XFCE. I'll post some more about my experience as time goes on.

Need to reclaim the good old days

Posted about 6 months ago on: 17/08/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: thoughts, micro, blog.

That is all.

Layout changes coming soon

Posted about 6 months ago on: 11/08/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: layout, blog.

Although I like this layout it's annoying me. So expect the site to go back to it's more simple look and feel shortly...

Dear Israel

Posted about 7 months ago on: 31/07/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: israel, media, wp, gaza.

Israel has admitted to using white phosphorus during its war on the Gaza Strip earlier this year, but says it did so in accordance with international law.

The admission came in a 163-page document published by the Israeli foreign ministry on Thursday ahead of a UN report next week.

The Israeli army "used munitions containing white phosphorus" in Gaza, the document said, but it denied violating international law, saying it had not fired such weapons inside populated areas.

Cite: original story

Dear Israel,

Please see the below photographs. I think it's unlikely you can EVER say you didn't use them in areas populated by civilians.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

So stop trying to lie to yourselves.

Free QR Code Generator

Posted about 7 months ago on: 14/07/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: qr codes, qr, generator, free.

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The "QR" is derived from "Quick Response", as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes. Moreover, most current Japanese mobile phones can read this code with their camera. (Wiki Page)

I decided to make this QR code generator, mostly to add the functionality to my own blog so people can scan the QR code and get the URL for later browsing. I also made it just for the laugh, I'm funny like that.

Thought I'd throw it out there for a few people to test and let me know if it works as expected.

If you do use the codes generated somewhere then a link back would be nice.

QR Code Generator (http://tek.org.uk/qr)

Good resource for QR Codes and phone software to read them: www.mobile-barcodes.com (thanks to: guriben :o)

Quick thoughts on Google OS

Posted about 8 months ago on: 08/07/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: GoogleOS, blog, privacy, security, Microsoft, Google.

Google is developing an operating system (OS) for personal computers, in a direct challenge to market leader Microsoft and its Windows system.

Source: BBC News.

Interesting, could a large blow for Microsoft? I think that's unlikely, it's more likely to affect us Linux folk a lot more. My personal view is that Google should have backed a major Linux OS, but hey that doesn't play well with there world domination plans now does it. I'm pondering things like, if the Google OS will present a whole new set of attack vectors for malicious crackers. What about privacy? That's something that's always been on the field with Google for a long time. How much will this OS want to call home like Chrome does?

The more and more we move to "the cloud" the less and less control individuals have over there own data and therefore there privacy too. If you've ever bothered to read the small print regarding Google Docs you'll know what I am on about. People worry about CCTV, linked with databases, linked with registration plate recognition and so on... Consider the idea of knitting together a phone, an OS, with all the apps, search and so on in "the cloud" - not a single aspect of your digital life not exposed to something Google has made. Does this not strike anyone as a little 1984? What about Anti Trust? We hung Microsoft out to dry because of bundled browsers; will we be able to run anything else on this Google OS? Only time will tell...

Up and testing, expect b0rked stuff

Posted about 8 months ago on: 05/07/2009 - 1 comment
Tagged in: blog, site, hosting, testing.

Parts of the system are back up, bits are not; not everything is working. Some of you might know and others don't that I had to move hosts recently - that's done and I decided to get the site back up mostly to test the new host (which I might point out we're really prompt at getting this box up and sorted for me, thanks KimiSurf).

One of things that I have in beta is my lifestream plug-in that will pull feeds from all the social networking sites I use and integrate them in to my site here in chronological order - I plan on rolling that out sometime later this week. It wasn't that hard to put together but my choice to use UNIX timestamps in my database has caused some problems for me in getting relationships between the various incoming feeds a little harder; if only I had used the MySql data function eh?

The idea is quite simplistic, get everything in to arrays and merge them all. The hard part is using the date as pointer across them all. One of the things I found was server times were different and of course I had added fixes for GMT which through everything out that I pulled from my blog by an hour. The sooner the world moves to UTC the better in terms of coding, not sure I'd like the lack of sunlight though.

I have to put a fix in for all the old linking structure, that's going to be a whole lot of FUN, honest.

Edit: Also I've decided, like a lot of other developers, to bin support for IE6; the sooner someone takes that browser around to the back of the shed and does the right thing the better.

Five geek things to get done in 2009

Posted about 1 year ago on: 17/01/2009 - No comments
Tagged in: list, meme, blog.

1. Build a new server
2. Get a new laptop
3. Sort out a wireless router at home
4. Re-write tEngine (partly started)
5. Try a new Linux distro that isn't Debian based

I'll throw this one to Skeddy, Caolan, Guri and Narelle as it would be interesting to know.