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Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.. |
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June 10, 2001 - Updates at 0730
Good morning. Happy Monday. Last weekend (over the first couple days of June), there was a B-24 circling around the South Bay, staging out of Moffett Airfield. I thought maybe an airshow was in town, or some such. Nope. It was The Collings Foundation. They'd brought their B-24 and B-17 to town, selling rides (at $350 a pop, according to my friend Scott). Had I but known, had I but known. Here's a page of pictures from their visit that Scott sent to me. Scott said that just as he and Jan were leaving, the P-51 showed up, and started taking people up, one at a time. WOW! There'll be another opportunity someday.
I'm beginning to get latched into the LUGs (Linux User Groups) in the Maryland area already. That's a good thing - there's a not-insignificant amount of networking that goes on, and honestly, LUG people are just plain nice folk, everyplace I've ever looked! There are at least two close to where we'll be once we're moved: CALUG and the Laurel-Beltsville LUG.
I have some pictures to pull off the camera from yesterday's trip to visit with my folks and my sister's family, up in Orinda. There may be one or two there, fun enough to post later on. But now I'd best get with the program. I've got a post to write up for LinuxMuse, some pre-moving chores to attend to, and any variety of other things to keep me busy. Hang loose, I'll be back later!
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June 11, 2002 - Updates at
Good morning. Well. The big news is the heat wave is back, here. It only hit the low 90's yesterday, but the heat lingered late into the evening. It became rather unpleasant to sit here surrounded by heat sources, so I didn't. I did chores instead, and a bit of gardening once the sun was off the yard. We did get a meal of pole beans and fresh carrots last night, fruit of our labors in the back yard. Absolutely yummy.
I'm also in the midst of writing, for LinuxMuse, an article on the in's and out's, tips and tricks of using OpenSSH with Linux. A day or so should see it written and posted - I spend a lot of time working in SSH anyway, so this is mainly a matter of crafting language to explain what I already pretend to know. As with most of my writing, I end up learning much more as a result of the effort (and it blows out every realisitic writing time estimate, but I will have this done, this week. Promise.
There's been a bunch of noise recently about the suitability of "Open Source" software, most explicitly GPL covered software, for any variety of tasks. From threats to national security, to attacks on Intellectual Property and costs of commerce, there are many groups bad-mouthing the software that I use every day. Also extant are excellent refutations of these sowings of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. I'd imagine that there are two prime motivators right now, pushing the leading software firm to beef up it's campaign against Open Source software. First, Jim Allchin made an odd admission in court, about how fundamentally insecure Microsoft software is, so bad that the source CANNOT be revealed for National Security reasons. Mmmm. Ooops. Then our new friend Dr. Eduardo Villanueva sounded a new call to arms, as he destroyed Microsoft's marketing arguments, one at a time, to devastating effect. These are not advertising, but news. All that the Beast uses to fight with is Lies. Honestly, I think it will be their downfall. MS does have some good software, why not improve it and sell it at reasonable rates. Any way you look at it, they can't maintain their stock growth forever.
Gosh. I almost want to rant about it. But Mickeysoft's efforts are being deconstructed so easily that it's hard to work up a proper froth these days. Ah, well. I'll go do something else instead. A quick pass through the Distro and Security sites for a post to LinuxMuse, then back to the SSH article for me. See you later!
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June 12, 2002 - Updates at 0630
Howdy. Wow, middle of the week already? I banged out about 3500 words on SSH yesterday, I have about 2000 to go, so tomorrow seems reasonable for the article to appear on LinuxMuse. The other good news is the heat is departing. We should only hit the low 80's today, and I'm pretty happy about that. Light email this morning, my coffee's half gone... I guess I'll get my morning sites out of the way, grab some breakfast and a shower, then get to work. See ya when there's something interesting!
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June 13, 2002 - Updates at 0713
Good morning. The OpenSSH article is now up on LinuxMuse. I posted it late last night. I wrapped it up at about 6200 words and have quite a bit yet to write on advanced features, GUI tools, port forwarding and more, so there's going to be a part two to this one. However, it'll require a bit more time, since I have to set up GUI clients, take screenshots and so on. Should be fun, though.
I'm starting to plan our one-way cross country drive, using the AAA trip-tiks system. As I lay out routes and distances, the system shows me lodging AAA-approved (and discounted) lodging, restaurants, and more. It's very cool. We'll stage out of Sacramento at my sister's house, the first night after our stuff gets on the Movex truck. That gives us a three to four hour head start on getting out of Dodge on August first. Just getting out of the Bay Area by freeway on a weekday can be like driving across one or more whole states in other parts of the country. We should be able to do the rest of the run in 5 driving days. The long run will be the first, about 650 miles from Sacramento into Salt Lake City. I may back that down, because it's a long run through mountain terrain. Perhaps we'll stop in Elko, Nevada, instead. Our overall goal is about 600 miles/day. That should be easily doable, at reasonable speeds and stress levels.
Here's a fun link: A Salon interview with economist Stan Liebowitz. Stan, who authored the Cato Institute paper (published back in May) that supports the "downloading hurts CD sales" theory, is now backpedalling like crazy. According to the renowned professor, he now sees what we have all along: CD sales aren't actually reflecting a drop that can be blamed on downloads. There is a mild recessional effect, but nothing like he'd have expected. And as he notes in the interview, "And when the theory says one thing and things don't work that way, then I say something's missing in the theory." Well, duh! Thanks to Slashdot for that linkage.
I suppose that I'd best get to work on whatever's next. See you soon.
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June 14, 2002 - Updates at 0723
Wow. It's Friday already? I've had a busy week. I wrote a total of 10K words on SSH in the last three days, including the whole second article that is just about ready to post over at LinuxMuse. This one covers the cool and special things that I use SSH for on a regular basis, like port forwarding and related topics. Additionally, I've reviewed GUI tools that front-end SSH connections, both in Windows and Linux. It isn't all Klingon, after all!
After giving that article a final read and posting it, I'll finally be doing the trip planning for our actual move back east. I've gotten some very nice email from several of you, with information, tips and ideas about traveling by car across country with a pet. Also there's loads of good information coming into my inbox about the Maryland area, where it's good to live, how to find fun and interesting things to do (one word for me: Smithsonian), all kinds of stuff. You're all wonderful ... Thanks!
How many of you have heard about Safari? A goodly percentage, I would imagine. For those that haven't, here's the drill: http://safari.oreilly.com/. As of this morning, they have 733 books available for online subscription. Over 200 O'Reilly books, and titles also from these publishers: Addison-Wesley, Adobe Press, Cisco Press, New Riders, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, Prentice Hall PTR, Que, and Sams Publishing. The minimum subscription is just under $10US per month, and gives me 5 "points" worth of books on my online bookshelf at any given time. Most of the books are 1 point, so the math is pretty easy. The best part is that I can rotate books once every month or so. If I read fast, and don't need to keep books on my bookshelf, then theoretically, I can get 60 technical books under my belt for less than $120 each year. By way of comparison, most computer titles come in dead-tree format for between 30 and 60 bucks, right? So I can buy between two and four permanent books, or I can have between 5 and 60 online books this year. And if I come across a book I have to have as a permanent reference, then I can buy it in paper. How cool this is! Right now my Safari bookshelf is full of MySQL and PHP.
I really need to take more time reading and learning... in fact, I think I will. See you later!
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June 15, 2002 - Updates at 1000
Good morning. I'm a slow starter today, and I haven't much to say at the moment... Wait, there was this:
IN AN INFORMAL poll conducted by InfoWorld this week, 42 percent of respondents said that even though they currently use Microsoft servers they are planning to switch to non-Windows software on the server side because of discontent with the company's controversial licensing plan for desktop products.
Here's a link to that Infoworld story. I'll go check my email and do the Saturday morning thing now, you know, be a lazy bum. See you around.
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June 16, 2002 - Updates at 0900
Well, 0900 or thereabouts. Good morning. It was a late-ish night for us, in bed past midnight. We went out to friends over in Tracy, to celebrate the graduation of their daughter from high school. A good time was had by all. But of course, this morning the dog had to be up and out frantically at about 0630, headed out the back door (with my assistance) to chomp down a large hunk of lawn. She occasionally does this to stave off some form of stomach upset. But by the time all the running about and shouting was over, I was up. So I whiled away a fun little while reading the Secret Diaries of Cassandra Claire. It's a more than slight sideways turn in the story of Frodo and the Fellowship of the ring. I was turned on to this site by the ever-helpful Dave Markowitz. Mmmm, in this context perhaps "turned on" isn't the appropriate phrase... Well, go read them, then you'll understand. I laughed my ass off (and a good thing, too. I can stand to lose the weight).
Speaking of Dave, he's gonna be a dad! Huzzah!!! And Huzzah to my Dad, and all the other dads out there today, working their butts off trying to pretend like they're relaxing on this Father's Day, agonizing as the kids burn a perfectly good steak on the grill, mow the lawn (and the flower bed) within inches of their respective lives, and generally create enough havoc that it'll take a month of Sundays to make up for this one.
As we get into travel and moving mode, I've got to remodel Gryphon the Acer Travelmate into a box that does what we need for pictures, writing and connectivity. I've been using the laptop as a testbed for a variety of things, from Red Hat 7.3 to Slackware. Now it's time to head home to Gentoo, get things setup and locked down properly, and start organizing this place for a move.
Mmmmm. Just walking away without saving or publishing again, huh? Sigh. Here you go. See y'all later!
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
All Content Copyright © 1999-2002 Brian P. Bilbrey.
