Plantagenet Penguinista

I have an application, written (by someone else) in C, running on SCO OpenServer 5 Unix, which I need to convince that Linux is a better thing to do — amongst other things, it is much easier to find people to maintain such a system, plus significantly easier to find matching hardware with drivers. Plus when SCO finally bites the dust, major support questions arise. It is written, mostly , in very old-style C. No function protoypes at all. It was compiled, it seems, with an ancient version of gcc, which should make things easier. The compile shell-scripts are a bit cumbersome, don’t refer to any particular breed of shell, have about zero error checking, use obsolete/defective options. Never mind. Some definition files were copied in wholesale from the SCO Unix system files. Never mind about copyrights. Erase. We’ll use modern, intrinsic-to-system ones. Terminal (text screen) handling is absolutely hard-wired into the code [ printf("\33[%d;%dH", row, col); ] for a VT-10...

In an ongoing sign that our government has no clue, especially during times of recession, they have still failed to return funding to the Belmont Business Enterprise Centre . At their monthly get-together last night, I won a neat little book: Small Business, Big Opportunity . Numerous small businesses are nurtured by BEC; for example I am giving a free consult to an inventor this morning, last night met an IT consultant who uses their services, originally based his consultancy on my ideas. The rest of my life has been... interesting. Much unrelated trauma amongst friends, some very good (hello G & E O), some very bad (hello, K & S D). The best woman in the world is struggling to get a short sale completed but is otherwise irrevocably cute. Accommodation is a bit dodgy-future but looking good at the moment. I should have my MDL back next week (courtesy of an RPH Neurologist, my GP & the DPI, is that enough acronyms?). My son turns 10yo next month, it would be good if I get a...

I’m currently looking at ramping my consulting business back up again, then at developing & extending it in different ways, perhaps into different areas. The business has featured outright programming, plus installation & support of Open Source systems (often servers). It is amazing how much a Linux-based server does not cost when compared with an MS-Windows-based server, even when dedicated entirely to providing MS-Windows focussed file & print services ( SMB ). It is also amazing to behold how little maintenance & support is required for a Linux-based workstation, either simple web/office functions or operating MS-Windows-aimed (or even MS-DOS) applications through WINE . A major advantage is, of course: no viruses. At all. Nor spyware. Plus the option of automatic updates. Applications typically included out-of-the-box will amount to the equivalent of at least hundreds of dollars’ cost in non-Open applications. For larger networks, it is quite simple to m...

That’s the cost here in a small town in Wisconsin (really, USD$2.39 per gallon). Prices are a bit different to Oz, often much cheaper (like the fuel), sometimes much more expensive (e.g. mushrooms, AUD$18.87/kg). It’s been an adventure. Being with someone I can trust (absolutely, in every area), with a great sense of humour, great legs, much understanding, much to share has been a beyond-awesome experience by itself. Seeing SummerFest then the County zoo (they had a walk-in Oz bird display on the day including budgies, weiros, rosellas) at Milwaukee was a blast. The Dells , with their near-unique sandstone layers ex the Missoula mega-flood was also highly memorable. About a quarter of the number plates said Illinois, about another tenth said Minnesota. I’m getting to know Interstate 94 quite well. (-: I got to walk through the Wind Point lighthouse in Racine, kept by mine host’s paternal grandfather for 34 years. I got to eat lunch at Fred’s , a great...

Start dhcpd on laptop, plug USD$29 wireless router in, read logs, point Firefox at resulting address, switch on WPA2 for security, give fixed external address which matches RoadRunner/Time-Warner cable modem’s expectations, set DHCP on router to hand out addresses in that range, save-n-reboot router, plug router into cable modem, plug original XP desktop into one of router’s switch ports, all systems go, run Mandriva’s wireless config thingy, 4 clicks, one WPA2 key password, done. Quotaless cable connection (through which this post is happening) now works. Permanently. Without disturbing existing PC. From anywhere in the house or yard, including sunbaking on the swing-seat or grilling at the BBQ Grill, or seated in the Kia Sedona within the basement garage. SSH empowerment permits remote management of machines in Melville, Carlisle, Northbridge, Brisbane. Would need a green card to work on a machine in nearby Chicago.

...is easier than I thunk it’d be. I am a dual Canadian/Australian citizen, but needed only an Oz passport to travel to the USA (& to qualify for a waived Visa ). All of my electronic gear, it happens, runs on 100-250V, so all I needed was an adaptor plug. I also grabbed a 4-way power board, so I can run my laptop, battery charger, camera charger & one spare all at once. An Oz cit can drive in the US on their existing licence, direct from the lips of their DMV, which is simpler than the form which the written docs require one to obtain from the RAC. So I’ve had fun poling a Kia Sedona (nearest Oz equivalent is the Carnival, the Sedona in Oz is only the smaller of two US variants) mini-van around. Flying over did weird things to my circadian rhythm: in 33½ hours, I flew from 5:45AM in the morning to 5:38PM in the afternoon of the same day via a ≈5hr mini-night en route past Hawaii. Before complaining about Aussie roads, drive on a few in the USA. They m...

...on the ’phone with a girl, in intelligent conversation, & getting good practical results, does that mean thimgs are getting serious? (-:

It looks like I will be visiting the USA shortly (bouncing through Sydney en route ), & will only require about one suitcase full of gear. The airline says that I’m allowed 2 such, total mass 23kg (50lb) for each case. So... convince me! Make an offer! (-:

(plus a 40c flagfall?) Try fring , which installed & works on my (Symbian OS) Nokia E63, then open your Skype account through it. Skype calls to US cell-phones are 2.7c per minute. My Virgin $29 cap includes only 20MB of data per month for the ’phone itself, which is not an enormous amount of talking, but OTOH, the most I’ve used in a month sans fring/Skype is 1MB, & I can boost that quota by 50MB for $5 (or 300MB for $10). Pull a figure out of the air, & call that 4200 kilobits per minute, so about 90 minutes of talking for $5, or 5.25c per minute for data, plus 2.7c for Skype time, gives ≈8c, which certainly beats 180c per minute. If I wanted to yak for 9 hours a month, that works out to 4.45c per minute. The wonders of modern technology... (-:

I’ve been watching air tickets this week, ’coz I need to take a trip to the ’States. I lined up a deal I liked on Monday, but didn’t have $$$ available. On Tuesday, the flight was going to be $600 more, but by shifting it away 2 days, I could contain the increase to $100. Money was made available, appeared in the account 9PM Tuesday — by which time the price had risen another $100 or so. So I bit. By “risen another $100,” that refers only the main drag on United. Qantas, in second place, had risen over $200. Canadiar, ex 3 rd place (now 5 th ) had risen $350. Was SMSed this morning to be told that the transaction had bounced. Grrr. Rang up, queried, the support girl retried the transaction. It worked. The price had not changed overnight. Yay! Around noon today, the United price fell $280. Nih! )-: Meanwhile, Qantas has risen another $100 (by about $300 for 3 rd & 4 th slots), Canadair had escalated another $500. Skype: this has been fun,...

Why, Albany, of course! No, not Albany, state of New York. Albany, state of Western Australia. There were also sundry Cortinas buzzing around on Sunday, even a Jaguar sedan, plus some seriously antique rally cars. Girlfriend would have liked it, born in the Year of the Tiger (like me, Leon the Lion), drives on the wrong side of the road (as for York Street here, other streets they used both sides), has Jaguar Avenue running west from the town of Leon, which is 150km NW of her town (about half a Geraldton but a bit more spread out, has some excellent lakes, less sand, less double-gees, fairly close to the other side of the planet from here). If you like coincidences, she was born one day after & two timezones east of me. The Albany Car Classic started off a bit damp, but it had stopped raining, was sunny & nearly dry by noon. Wasn’t today a miserable winter day? Bright sunshine, 19.7°C... (-:

When designing (RAPS) remote area power systems (which gains new importance when considering a US financial expert’s recent advice on LateLine: “Now is the time to get a farm & a gun.”), the single biggest load is invariably refrigeration (often more than half of the entire demand). UK researchers have discovered new properties of magnetic refrigeration cores which are typically 20-30% more efficient than traditional adiabatic methods. On top of this, the development of a “ spin battery, ” which captures energy using Magnetic Tunnel Junction devices — which can be built precisely enough to potentially replace computer hard drives — may have decimated the single most expensive & difficult-to-manage (& heaviest) component of a RAPS. There are a number of other developments in wind-power systems (particularly the rotors, implying that these improvements require no changes to or replacement of generators or towers) which hint that a dist...

After discovering that ADRs cost more to treat than the original medications, that they are the prime cause of malpractice suits, & the 4 th most common cause of death, I ran across this David Gerrold statement: Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order. ( A dverse D rug R eactions)

I recently uncovered a couple of Personality Disorders (which, unfortunately, are not yet safe to explain in detail). You could summarise them in vaguely slangish terms as “Control Freak.” One of them (possibly both of them) results in fear of intimacy (yes, genuine intimacy, not mere sex). I have watched another person with the same Disorders drive their spouse to suicide, trash the lives of at least 3 other people (driving one of those to prepare for suicide twice), basically because they dread intimacy, so are more than willing to lie about stuff to protect themselves against the possibility of experiencing real intimacy. Another probable symptom is frequently speaking ambiguously or cryptically, which breeds insecurity in their victims. Chronically being late or forgetting things is a slightly more subtle way of asserting control. Ironically, another prevalent symptom is acting the victim — utterly failing to recognise their own responsibility, so blaming others fo...

From the Apache logs: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE63-3/100.21.110; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413 This was using the web browser between Burswood & Vic Park stations. The phone was included with a Virgin contract, is full QWERTY keyboard, good (for a plastic brick) sound including MP3, fairly good colour video. Their broadband USB thingy works fairly well in my laptop. I did a little wvdial setup akin to Pia’s, which was klunky & slow on Day One, but fine afterwards (including Sunday afternoon). The ping times suck, as you might expect (≈500ms) but the actual throughput (including on sites highly unlikely to be cached for the general public by Virgin) seems to be fine. Their 5GB a month is a fairly reasonable quota ($34 on top of a phone plan) even for most ADSL these days, & they clamp it to ≈128kb rather than charging you for excess traffic.

A little boy went up to his father & asked: “Dad, where did my intelligence come from?” He replied, “Well, son, you must have got it from your Mum, ’coz I still have mine.” A doctor examining a woman who had been rushed to Emergency at hospital, took the husband aside & said, “I don’t like the looks of your wife at all.” “Me neither, doc,” he said, “But she’s a great cook & really good with the kids.” An elderly man seeks a wizard to ask him if he can remove a curse he’s been living with for the last 40 years. The wizard responds, “Maybe; but you’ll have to tell me the exact words that were used to put the curse on you.” The old man replies with no hesitation, “I now pronounce you man and wife.” [the laugh of those who have suffered time with a passive-aggressive personality disordered (PAPD) spouse will have a thoughtful tone to it, ditto the next one] Moe: ...

Want to grow your own food with out using nasty chemicals & pesticides? Want to adopt a more eco-friendly lifestyle? Want to meet & connect with people interested in creating a sustainable future? Heard about permaculture & want to know more? What is Permaculture? Permaculture is a worldview which opens people up to the vision of a sustainable future. In this introduction you will learn about intelligent organic gardening & design principles as well as issues surrounding sustainable behaviour! Permaculture is much more than just growing your own food, it is about skill sharing, using resources wisely & connecting with your community. It incorporates everyone, & encourages diversity, whilst empowering individuals into self sufficiency & resilience. This info session runs this weekend (25/26 April) at CityFarm Perth, adjacent the Claisebrook train station in East Perth , or 11/12 July, running from 10AM to 4PM in either session. Cost is $80 for concession, $1...

If you live in or about Perth & have a definite use for a free PC, a number of them will become available this week. All will have CRT (not flat/LCD) screens; Available processors vary, from about 600MHz up to about 2GHz; Available RAM varies from 128MB to 512MB, mostly DDR2 (retails for $15/24/35 for ½/1/2GB) Available hard drives (all IDE, 160GB for $85) vary from a few to a few tens of GB, will arrive with a clean KUbuntu 9.04 installation; All will have keyboard & mouse; Email me <leon at cyberknights spot com spot au> if interested.

There is a supermarket & coffee shop in South Perth, at the corner of Angelo & Coode Streets named “Scutti, a taste of Europe.” I was pleased, after wandering in there one day while waiting for a bus, to find good-quality hot chocolate on the shelves, at slightly better than Woolworths/Coles/IGA prices. Vittoria Dark Chocochino . I was even more pleased, while examining it, to be told by the supermarket staff that this was used by the coffee shop. Making some up is simple, as the container has a spinnable shut/shake/open setting, so one simply shakes enough into a mug, adds hot water, then white stuff. When I use Harvey Fresh whipping cream, the result is a pleasantly “American” creamy chocolate taste. Yum! Use & recommend! (-:

The word in question is WAIT. I needed to update OpenOffice Writer on two MS-Windows 2000 Pro machines today, from 2.2 to 3.0.1 in order to take advantage of a particular corrected feature which makes 3-fold brochures possible (almost easy) when printed out on an ordinary A4 printer. Because MS-Windows software has intermingled sort-of dependencies, I first needed to update a virus scanner version, then (on one machine) Java, then OpenOffice. While I was there, I updated (on one machine) or added (another machine) The GIMP. The virus scanner update failed on one machine. The machines are same make, model & specifications. The error message (at least there was one) was singularly useless. Running an MS-Windows workstation on-line, sans virus scanner, is essentially software suicide. So I hunted around to find another suitable virus scanner. 20 minutes after finding it, all done. Then I updated Java, which would not start until after the scanner update. Then I updated/installed The ...