Cinnamon; adding needed spice to Gnome 3
Ok, so I used Gnome Shell before it was officially released. I stopped using it because I thought it was intriguing, but awkward to use in its beta stages. Then Gnome 3 was released and gnome-shell was no longer an interesting option, it was the compulsory way to use the operating system; and I wrote […]
Life after the tomb: minidlna
Last Sunday morning I tried to access my mediatomb UPnP music server using the radio in my kitchen to be told it was offline. After messing around at the radio end a bit, I went to check on the actual machine, and found that mediatomb was not running. Attempting to restart it looked OK, but […]
Gnome 3, or Gnome Shell issues
I use the Debian operating system on several computers. My "main" computer (Imladris) runs Debian unstable (Sid) while the others mostly run on testing. I've been anticipating the Gnome 3 upgrade for some time, mainly because of the switch to Gnome Shell which is a completely new way of using the desktop. I had played […]
Multi User Sound in GNU/Linux
For some years now, basically since Aimee became old enough to use a computer, I have had a need for decent multi-user sound. Specifically I would often have intricate work open in multiple work spaces on my desktop, and Aimee would want to do some artwork. I guess Aimee was about two when she started […]
Virtual folders with Dovecot and Debian
I use client side virtual folders a bit for my mail. Specifically, I tag messages with IMAP flags like todo and important, and then in Icedove / Thunderbird, I set up a special folder as a saved search which shows message that are either unseen, or marked todo in my inbox. It works rather well, […]
Mono in Debian
I note that the controversy of Mono in Debian which reached fever pitch with the inclusion of Tomboy as part of the default Gnome applications rages on, and now RMS has entered the fray. I respect Stallman a lot. I'm a fellow of FSFE. His positions are usually well thought and argued, though I can't […]
Note to self: Why I dislike Windows
I am not a fan of Microsoft Windows, most people who know me appreciate this to be a slight understatement. But I've used Microsoft's products. Like many people I've often had no choice. I actually use Microsoft trackballs. It's quite an irony that the best thing I can say about the world's largest software company […]
My first Munin plugin
Munin is a great, really useful project for monitoring all sorts of things on servers over short and long term periods, and can help identify and even warn of undue server loads. It is also appropriately and poetically named for one of Odinn's crows (so I suppose I should have written this on a Wednesday). […]
Patent issues with card storage
I read from Slashdot that Microsoft is taking legal action against TomTom over a number of alleged patent violations. Three of these are apparently targeted at the Linux kernel in use by TomTom. Much of the focus of the discussion revolves around the use of FAT and FAT32 storage systems on media cards, and I […]
Importing data from lots of systems with PHP and Regular Expressions
Preamble: I found this article sitting as a draft for several years (2009), so the software release it mentions was years ago! But I figured I'd finally proof read and release the article since the problem it addresses is still a real one. On Friday I released version 4.1.0 of OPUS which has been in […]