techie

Snipping Tool on Vista

Posted Tue, 02/03/2009 - 19:16 by garan

I wanted to take a screen shot of part of a website that I'm building at the moment. Googled around for 'Vista screenshot' and discovered the Vista Snipping Tool. Type snipping tool into the Command Bar on the Start Menu and away you go. The only thing I don't seem to be able to grab is the Command Bar on the Start Menu. Ha ha ha.

Yes Yes Yes Yes!

Posted Tue, 02/03/2009 - 19:06 by garan

I've been doing this unix lark for a pretty long time now but I'm never afraid to learn something new. Today's lesson.. the 'yes' command.

Part of the gnu coreutils, it echos a 'y' into your script (you can alter the string to a different character or a word too). So you want to install 500 packages and it's asking you to say yes to them all? Try something like this:
yes | pkgadd -d /cdrom/Solaris_10/Product `cat pkg_list`

Data centre cabling

Posted Wed, 10/22/2008 - 08:37 by garan

I'm always amazed at the nests of cables that are created in switch rooms. People start off with the best intentions in the world but eventually it ends up in a big tangle. I've had to bend tempered glass cabinet doors to get them closed in the past. Came across this example that made me go 'wow':

This is how you do it properly:

Photos were borrowed from this article:

http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/01/24/when-data-center-cabling-becomes-art/

Check out the Android!

Posted Mon, 10/06/2008 - 09:35 by garan

Google have taken another step towards total world domination through the introduction of their new mobile phone OS. With the recent spate of Apple's lack of consistency with regard to what is and what isn't allowed on the App Store swiftly followed by extension of the developer non-disclosure agreement to stop folk publishing their rejection letters, maybe Android is the way to go?

Whilst I mull this over I think I'll have a play with the HTC Android emulator:

http://tmobile.modeaondemand.com/htc/g1/

App Store Rejections:

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/13/apples-app-store-rejection-policies-...

App Store Rejection Letter NDA:

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/23/apple-extends-non-disclosure-to-app-...

Google Reader

Posted Wed, 10/01/2008 - 21:54 by garan

I've been using Google's RSS Reader recently to organise some of the stuff that I regularly look at on the wubbleyou wubbleyou wubbleyou. I'm using Google Reader to manage my subscriptions but exporting the OPML file so that I can use the Newsstand iPhone app to read when I've got a few minutes to spare. It seems to be working well.

I've exported some of my 'blogrolls' over there on the right. I can change what appears on this site by simply changing the tags on the Google Reader app.

I've exported the blogrolls with no title and no formatting so that I can control the look and feel myself by creating drupal blocks for each of the rolls. The only thing that I'm not able to control is the order. It's alphabetical.

Steam Locomotive

Posted Wed, 09/03/2008 - 11:29 by garan

Just come across a great package on Ubuntu. sl stands for Steam Locomotive and if you type sl instead of ls you get an animated steam train flying across your screen.

Some people have too much time on their hands and long may it last!!

Package details can be found here:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/sl

Screen and irssi

Posted Mon, 06/16/2008 - 11:27 by garan

I'm using Screen a lot these days. It's something that I used to use at Aber all those years ago to create virtual tty's when we only had a single screen to use. These days I use it to "background" my sessions so that things can run in the background and I can easily re-connect to my session at a later date.

I've recently switched from using the bitchx irc client to using irssi. I've found a great resource for using screen and irssi together. The hilight window is really good when you've got many connections open.

Here's the guide: A Guide to Efficiently Using Irssi and Screen

Bitlbee

Posted Mon, 06/16/2008 - 09:51 by garan

Several places I've worked have, for various reasons, blocked access to Microsoft Messenger and other chat protocols. For various reasons of my own I want to use Messenger and therefore have various methods for accessing the service.

My latest way of doing things is to run a Bitlbee daemon that presents various chat protocols, including Messenger, as irc channels. This means that I can connect using a terminal irc client, accessible via ssh.

Bitlbee has a limitation that it doesn't currently support file transfers for the Messenger protocol (it does support file transfers via DCC for several other protocols) and obviously smileys, winks and nudges don't work.

Overall it means that I can communicate with people and that's the key.

Oh and I nearly forgot - Mark there's an Amiga port so there's another use for that old kit!

iPod touch

Posted Tue, 03/25/2008 - 11:31 by garan

My neighbour's just bought himself an iPod touch. Wow! It's a lovely piece of kit. Paired up with a wireless connection it does a lovely job of displaying the BBC's iPlayer content. Very impressive. One day when the iPhone has 3G+ data speeds I may be tempted..

Openid

Posted Tue, 03/11/2008 - 21:12 by garan

Drupal 6 now includes support for OpenID logins so I've been having a nosy.. My understanding at the moment is that you need to either setup your own OpenID server or use someone elses who is willing to vouch for you. I've signed up with https://www.myopenid.com/ which got me part of the way there. But to stop myself being tied into them I have delegated MyOpenID to vouch for 'garan.org' by adding some header tags into the front page of this site.

More detail here:

http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2007/01/03/OpenID-for-non-SuperUsers
http://wiki.openid.net//Delegation

and here's a link to the drupal module:

http://drupal.org/project/openidurl

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