I recently started having trouble with APT transactions on my Kubuntu desktop. "apt-get update" would fail for some source entries with the error "The HTTP server sent an invalid reply header". I thought it was something specific to (K)Ubuntu, but when I had the exact problem on my NSLU2 running Debian I figured the problem … Continue reading Trouble with apt-get and Squid
Author: Vic Cross
We watched WALL-E the other day. A bit of trivia for Apple Mac fans (if you didn't already know) is that WALL-E's startup sound — heard when he's finished his solar recharge — is that of a post-1997 Mac computer (with Steve Jobs on the board of Pixar and Disney, WALL-E was never going to … Continue reading Classic Mac sounds on my mobile phone
Observant readers will notice that they are no longer able to respond to posts. The blog-spammers have won the battle but, as they say in the classics, they will not win the war…I've turned off the comment capability, until I can get something in place to bring the rubbish under control (a recent update to … Continue reading Comments and Downtime
I'm taking a bit of time off. There's a few projects going on around the house, plus I've been letting a few things get to me recently and I think I need a break from work. A couple of weeks off, with a few days on the Sunshine Coast to unwind, could be a good … Continue reading Time off from work
S went to print some photos the other day, and what was supposed to have been a simple exercise turned out to be a very frustrating one for both of us. I was utterly amazed to discover that even on the eve of 2009 there are web sites that think the world is only viewed … Continue reading Photo printing pain
I've written an XML app to display rain radar images from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology on the screen of a graphics-capable Cisco IP phone. It seemed like it would be simple to do, and I couldn't work out really why no-one had done it. Well it wasn't hard to do, but I can see … Continue reading BOM Radar for Cisco 7970
I held out for a long, long time. I'd even talked myself entirely out of getting one. Like they say in the classics though, "you think you've escaped, but they pull you back in". I now have a 32GB iPod touch and it's doin' alright, even though it took me nearly a week before I … Continue reading Living with an iPod touch
Newcomers to UNIX-like operating systems are often confused by the difference between the shell operations pipe and redirection. The difference is easily explained with an example, in the context of web development. The shell command echo "st=1" | ./lifeswork.pl shows how a pipe is used to supply command line input to a script usually invoked … Continue reading The difference between pipe and redirection
I was about to post about how pleased I was with Synergy in helping me tidy up my desktop clutter (by removing a keyboard and mouse from the surface). Ironically, I'm instead posting about a problem with the configuration that will cause me to throw it out and look for something else. Why the title? … Continue reading Security blows
To our beautiful baby girl, the warmest and fondest welcome! The post I made here last night was going to be a comment about how ironic it was that we didn't want to know our baby's gender and yet the time of the birth was known. Well as fortune would have it, I would have … Continue reading We finally meet K (a.k.a. Clinker)
Crossed Wires 