Category Archives: Uncategorized

Microsoft: Hijacking Your Data 0

I recently read this story on Slashdot:
Microsoft Seeks Patent On Shaming Fat Gamers
The idea is that Microsoft wants to create a system whereby it will gather physical statistics on a user and alter the game play around those characteristics. For example, as the article mentioned, an obese player may be cut off from playing. I [...]

Grub 2 Hangs on Boot 0

When BETA testing Ubuntu Karmic (9.10), I noticed that the whole boot process wasn’t so fast. This was primarily due to Grub 2 hanging for nearly 35 seconds each boot.
I haven’t the time to figure out what Grub is trying to do in that amount of time, but I did notice a solution. I have [...]

ssh-copy-id and sshd port 0

For security purposes, I don’t run sshd on the default port (22). This gave me some problems when attempting to use the command ssh-copy-id. Ideally, you’d expect the following to work:

?View Code BASH1
ssh-copy-id -p XXXX -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@host

However, that didn’t do anything but output an error:
Bad port ‘umask 077; test -d .ssh || mkdir .ssh [...]

gnome-screensaver: What happens when you can’t unlock your PC. 0

This is an issue that has irritated me enough that I feel I should post my work-around. On Ubuntu (I’m not sure since what version – I’m currently using 9.04 Jaunty), I’ve noticed that every once in a while, gnome-screensaver would hang when I tried to log back in. Let me clarify a little. When [...]

compgen -d: No such file or directory 1

For a while, I was having a problem on my Ubuntu server. After creating a user, I noticed that tab completion didn’t work properly. In fact, it went so far as to output an error:

Defend Your Liberties – Speak Against ACTA! 0

“ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a proposed enforcement treaty between United States, the European Community, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and Mexico, with Canada set to join any day now.” – More information here
The name of the treaty sounds innocent enough, but what are they not telling you? This is [...]

RaLink Wireless – Random Disconnects (No ProbeResp) 0

Some time ago, while using Gentoo, I modified the kernel to stop a wireless problem I had been having and forgot to make a post about it. Now, I’ve switched by to Ubuntu (didn’t have time to administer Gentoo and compile everything, and I missed Ubuntu). Luckily, version 8.10 BETA was released just a few [...]

Warmer Weather 0

Ah – the weather in NY is finally starting to look up. I’m sure it’ll be a while yet before it is consistantly warm, however it gives me a wonderful glimpse of how things will be. In spring/summer, the quality of my work (as well as quantity) tends to increase. Hopefully this means MyCustomBB will [...]

FSF Membership 0

A few days ago, I received my FSF membership goodies in the mail. Among these things were a bootable GNU/Linux membership card / CD-ROM, utility flash drive, a CD containing the source code for the files contained on the membership card, a small collection of articles and a very generous amount of creative stickers [...]

Supporting Free Software 0

In an effort to give back to the open source and free software communities that has so positively affected both my life and career, I have become an Associate Member of the Free Software Foundation to provide my support. I encourage other open source supporters to do the same, or make a small donation toward [...]