Author: bill

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SourceForge Updates

I just finished downloading the new version of TortoiseCVS. A little earlier in the week I downloaded Filezilla. They are both bug fixes that I may update. I do not use either program actively.

I downloaded Eraser from Sourceforge last week to check it out. The problem is how to clean the hard drive on a PC being donated. Killdisk is a fine program that works from a bootdisk. I tested it on my son's PC when I installed W2K/Fedora(dual boot). The free version will rewrite the disk partition with a single pass. The Professional version gives you DoD and Guttman rewriting options. Eraser gives you an Explorer extension that will rewrite a selected file with the DoD and Guttman options. Using just free programs you can use Eraser to selectively erase sensitive files and the killdisk bootdisk to rewrite the partition.

I am hoping to finally download and install phpwebsite on Fedora next week. I think this software has a lot of potential for non-profits and small businesses. I would like to use it for my consulting website.

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Kerberos, Samba, and screwing up my son's computer

Today I got the Fedora computer to talk to my Active Directory. I used Scott Lowe's article(Techrepublic and elsewhere) as the guide. The biggest problem I initially had was trying to find kinit. I figured out that it is not part of the standard Fedora distribution. Once I confirmed that Kerberos was properly configured, I joined the computer to the active directory. My test with smbclient was successful so I rebooted the machine since my son had gotten home from school. I promptly got a logon message complaining about “the system's computer account in its primary domain is missing…”. I tried to fix it on the server without success. Finally I logged into the local machine as an administrator and joined it back to the domain. I think the problem occured because I used the same computer name for Linux and W2K but I will have to research the problem more.

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Fedora is up to date

I finally got Fedora up to date. The kernel update was my last update for awhile. Openoffice and Ximian are very nice and strong competitors to Office and Outlook. I will start reading the Samba documentation tommorrow. I would like to authenticate with my W2K server.

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Fedora, Up2date, and YUM

I installed Fedora on my son's computer on Sunday and for the last two days I have been trying to update the files. I have not gotten the up2date program to work consistently for me. It appears to hang up while trying to download the first 30~50KB. It was giving me gpg errors yesterday. I have had more success with yum. It gets an occasional bad header and restarts but it typically will run to completion if I am upgrading only one package. Fedora is very nice but not quite ready for prime time.

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The Last Word on the Ten Commandment display

The Ten Commandments display was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court building. And, there was a good reason for the move. You can't post Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, and Thou Shall Not Lie, in a building full of lawyers and Politicians without creating a hostile work environment.

unknown

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Wired 12.01: View

In a globalized world, governments become more important than they used to be. You have to think of them not as air traffic controllers but as airport builders.

Lester Thurow

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Fiber Optics Takes the Long Way Home

“The big telephone and cable companies see the rural fiber trend and they don't like it. They want to wring the last drops of profit out of their old lines before spending anything more.“

This is fascinating and sobering article on the progress of updating the telecom infrastructure. Since I live a quarter of a mile from the road and the telephone lines and over 6000 ft from the local exchange, I am still on dialup. I have been looking at installing cable from the road but that is an expensive job. Satellite is an option but I believe it is doomed to be just slightly better than dialup. The sad thing is that if I could get local telephone and internet access via cable I would drop my telephone service in a heart beat.

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Windows 2000 and Fedora dual boot

I finally finished rebuilding my son's computer. We agreed to bid farewell to W98SE and upgrade the operating system to W2K. The computer I had been using W2K on finally bit the dust. The only software he wanted installed on W2K was the Age of Conquerors software. I re-wrote the data on the partitions using KillDisk from www.killdisk.com. Then I deleted the partitions when I installed W2K. While I was working on the computer I switched out the video card and added some more memory. It took me a long time to update the software since I had to download W2KSP4, IE6.1, and Windows Media 9b. After I finished installing the software I installed the Fedora distribution of Linux. The X-server crashed the first time I tried it. The second time it worked but it had a funny mixed screen for about five seconds during the boot and did not like the VNC program on the third install disk. It looks like there are still some bugs in the installation process. Otherwise the desktop and openoffice look really nice. I will play with it some on Tuesday. My schedule for Monday is full.

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Susie Freeman.

In praise of cowboys

One of the accusations aimed at President Bush by his detractors is to call him a “cowboy,” as if this is some mark of shame, implying something sinister or simple-minded. I keep wondering why. Have you ever watched a rodeo?

How many times have you seen an arena full of rodeo fans take to the streets following a competition and set fire to cars or hold an impromptu riot because they felt dissatisfied with the final outcome, as Michigan State students recently did? There is no booing of officials when scores are announced.

I've never heard of a contested call by any competitor, even when it meant the difference between winning and losing…. Cowboys don't whine. Cowboys regularly loan each other equipment and even horses, frequently $50,000 to $100,000 animals, when a fellow competitor's ride didn't arrive in time for tonight's roping or bulldogging or whatever.

When 'The Star Spangled Banner' is played, to a man and woman they rise to their feet and put their hats over their hearts in respect.

They don't wear T-shirts bearing offensive sexual messages.

When a cowboy (or cowgirl) is injured, the rest hold fund-raisers and donate time and money to help him or her and their families through a rough financial time.

Headlines never seem to carry news of a world-champion bull rider or calf roper beating up his wife or being arrested for molesting under-age girls.

And they, too, have their groupies and some even have failed marriages, sad victims of the vagabond lifestyle necessary to follow the rodeo circuit. They seem to know who their fathers are and most often seem to be married to the mothers of their children. They thank their families for their successes. So, I have to ask: What's wrong with being described as a “cowboy?”

It seems to me to be high praise in a world full of folks with questionable moral standards, technicolor hair, bodies adorned with rings and tattoos in startling locations and no respect for anything of value or worth.

It seems our “cowboy” president is in some pretty good company.

Sure beats being a Frenchman.

Susie Freeman [The Braden Files]