Dec 7, 2007
I recently tried to get compiz working on my laptop; a Toshiba u300 running Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”. The Toshiba U300 uses the Intel 965GM chipset which doesn’t seem to be compatible with compiz. After some digging I discovered a repository that contains a modified xorg-xserver-video-intel package. This combined with the 915resolution package allowed me ues the native 1280 * 800 resolution, and enable compiz desktop effects.
# as root / sudo
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kyle/ubuntu gutsy main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
One reboot later and all was well.
Nov 20, 2007
A simple shell script that can be used to run a diff between local and remote files using scp.
Code (bash)
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# A simple script that runs diff remotely using scp.
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# Parameters should use scp syntax, i.e.
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# [[user@][host:]]/path/to/file
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#
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#!/bin/sh
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if [ "$1" = "" -o "$2" = "" ]; then
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echo "Usage: `basename $0` file1 file2"
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exit 1
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fi
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scp $1 rdiff.1 >& /dev/null
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scp $2 rdiff.2 >& /dev/null
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diff -b rdiff.1 rdiff.2
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rm -f rdiff.1 rdiff.2
Nov 19, 2007
By my reckoning, my current contract is nearly up which means I should be eligible for a free phone upgrade. I phoned a week ago to find out if that was the case and was told that yes, my contract was due for renewal in a few months so I could renew it and get a free phone upgrade on 15 November.
I phoned up earlier today to try and arrange this, and was told that I would have to pay £150 for the phone I wanted (the Nokia N95) since my contract was apparently due for renewal in August of next year. Contrary to my memory and my phone bill, Orange insisted that my contract was for two years. In order to get out of this I would need to buy out the contract or go back to the shop I originally purchased the phone from and get written confirmation of my contract period.
This would be pointless. The only signed document I have was for the initial 12 month contract over three years ago. Since then all renewals and upgrades have been done through the Orange web site. Two of the three representatives I spoke to were most unhelpful and bordering on being down right rude. However, I have been a loyal Orange customer (both PAYG and contract) for over five years now and for the most part the customer service has been fine. After 40 minutes of what seemed like haggling on the phone we eventually reached a compromise.
Unfortunately this experience has left me disappointed with Orange and I shall have to seriously consider switching providers should this performance be repeated in the future.
Nov 19, 2007
As part of 
my birthday present to my Jo, I took her to see The New Pornographers at Oran Mor in Glasgow on Sunday night. I saw Neko Case there last year on Jo’s birthday and it is a fantastic venue. It’s not too large and the sounds is brilliant.
This was my first time seeing The New Pornographers live and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Jo saw them a few years ago, but unfortunately Neko didn’t join the band on either occasion. This meant they didn’t perform “Fail Safe”, one of my favourite tracks from the new Challengers album (as Neko and Kathryn perform wonderful harmonies on this track). Nonetheless I enjoyed the concert very much!
There was a good mix of the old and new, although no sneak previews of upcoming material. They performed a number of tracks from their latest album, as well as a great selection from previous albums: “Sing Me Spanish Techno”; “Bleeding Hearts Show” and “The Laws Have Changed” to name but a few. And just when we thought it was over, they came back on stage to do a good few songs for the encore. All in all, a brilliant concert even if Neko didn’t make an appearance!
Nov 3, 2007
On Thursday 01 November I gave a brief talk titled “An Introduction to OpenID” at the monthly EdLUG meeting. The slides for the talk are available on Slideshare. It seemed to go well despite my fear of public speaking. A few questions were put to me; some of which I could answer.
The few I couldn’t answer were mainly regarding the specifics of the OpenID authentication process. Perhaps it was nerves, but in hindsight I realise I knew the answer all along. I was asked if OpenID could tie into Kerberos or PAM. This is really down to how one chooses to implement the standard.
The OpenID specifications state that at at some point authentication must be performed with the Identity Provider. However, the details of how this authentication must be performed are purposefully not specified and instead left up to the implementor. So in answer to the questions, yes you can use Kerberos or PAM in the authentication process, but it’s up to you to tie it all together. In fact, traditional username/password combinations need not be used. If one so chooses secure fobs or biometrics could indeed be used; it’s up to you!
Oct 27, 2007
It’s official; on Thursday 01 November, I will start my new job with Edinburgh based Valley Technology. Unfortunately that means saying goodbye to my friends at the Crown Office but with any luck I’ll still see them now and again. And talk about jumping in at the deep end… on my first day I’ll be giving a brief five minute talk on OpenID at the EdLUG meeting that evening. As crazy as it sounds I’m doing it mainly for my self-confidence; I’ve never been a fan of public speaking but with any luck this will help me improve. I’ll post the slides up when I’m done.
Oct 2, 2007
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Please help raise awareness by placing an image on your site. Some people are changing their whole colour schemes to pink; if I had more free time I would join in too! You can find out more at Go Pink For October. Thank You.
Sep 23, 2007
As some of you might be aware, I have rencetly been having some problems with my web/development server. It’s a Fedora 7 machine with a LAMP install, Java 5 and a few other odds and ends, and although I appreciate that Fedora tends to be an experiment vehicle on which Redhat tests new bits-and-bobs I was a little put off when I discovered problems with my network after updating the kernel to 2.6.22.4.
Essentially, everything seemed to be working okay, but for some reason I couldn’t ping any other computer on the network from the web server; nor could I ping the web server from any other machine on the network. The eth0 interface was up; I could ping localhost, and the static IP address I’d assigned the NIC; the Ethernet cable was good (I tried two cables, both of which I was certain were good). However, the LED on the hub was constantly on for the web server connection, and ‘ethtool etho’ indicated that there was no link.
After several days of trying to fix the problem, I tried building an older kernel to use. It was the first time I had tried this, and it all went well - however, this did not fix the problem. It would seem that my initial assessment that the kernel update was causing the problems was incorrect.
Then I came up with the solution. Prior to the problems, I had been using the onboard NIC, a SiS900 based interface. I disabled the onboard, and put in a PCI SiS900 based NIC. This solved the problem and all was well. I still can’t think what the problem was - and don’t have the expertise to go through the logs and reverse the updates. For some reason - beyond my ken - updating the system interfered with the onboard NIC, but a PCI NIC with the same chipset worked fine. It wasn’t the kernel because I reverted that to the version prior to the update.
All’s well that ends well as they say… I now have my web server up and running. Well, almost. I used to do a lot of coding and administration using FreeNX over SSH to get a desktop. FreeNX has now stopped working! I’ve won the battle, but still the war goes on!
