Monthly Archives: May 2009

Weird MediaWiki/Chrome Problem

Posted by Eric Shull on May 28, 2009 None comments

I have MediaWiki installed on my computer using Xampp. It’s good for brain dumps and organizing information easily.

This evening I encountered a strange problem. For some reason, when editing the page, clicking “Save Page” doesn’t make any difference to what’s shown. Going back to edit, though, shows the right content, but it isn’t reflected when the page is rendered. Clicking “Preview Page” will render the updated contents, but Save Page gives nothing.

It seems to be a problem with Chrome, which has been working fine with MediaWiki for months. When I loaded the wiki up in Firefox, it was rendered right and edited like it used to.

Update: Okay…it was clock issue. For some reason my computer set itself three hours behind. When I corrected it, the wiki worked fine, probably due to MediaWiki’s version control. It was giving me the content from three hours ago (I guess).

Windows 7 RC – Update

Posted by Trevor Dennis on May 28, 2009 None comments

After a couple weeks of using the RC I’ve gone back to Vista. That’s right, Vista at this point in time is better. I would rather be running the Beta of 7 than the RC. Don’t get me wrong it looks promising but it’s just not functional. Well it is if you don’t plan on using any new devices or plugging you keyboard or mouse into a different USB port. The RC has problems recognizing new devices or devices that were not plugged in when the OS was installed. For example, I tried plugging a USB Flash drive in so I could get some drivers for another computer so I could finish setting it up. I put the flash drive in and waited and waited and waited…. Nothing, Windows just sat there trying to install the device. I then tried it on another RC machine same thing. Needless to say I was annoyed and put the project on hold for a while. I continued doing other work for about 45 minutes when I was alerted by Windows that my device was ready to use. Forty-Five minutes!!!

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Microkernel

Posted by Eric Shull on May 27, 2009 None comments

I’ve been reading the MINIX textbook, which is on occasion somewhat amusing. The main focus is on microkernel OS design, the idea being that a tiny kernel is easier to maintain than a large kernel. As an example, the authors mention that MINIX 3 has about 4,000 lines of code in its kernel, which is much easier to eliminate bugs from than the millions of lines in a monolithic kernel, which makes sense.

You might think a couple of million lines of code would be impossible to maintain, and I expect you’re right. How about a couple hundred million? Microkernels really seem like the right direction to go if this is the direction monolithic kernels are going. What do you think?

Podcast Episode #6 – Way behind Schedule

Posted by Tom Schultz on May 26, 2009 None comments

Well we are extremely behind in recording these.  I hope to get caught up at some point.

Here’s some of what we talked about…

  1. Topics
    1. Win 7 RC – is it worth getting hyped up for, windows mobile sweetness – gAlarm
    2. Agile/processes – New toys (Macbook Pro, Nokia BH-503), boxee
    3. OS X Java Vulnerability
    4. IT Conversations (Stackoverflow)
Pointless Rants Episode #6 [ 40:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Installing and Configuring ircd-hybrid on Ubuntu 9.04

Posted by Tom Schultz on May 20, 2009 10 comments

So, the other day I was trying to setup an irc server for department communications and was having a lot of trouble getting it to accept connections from outside of localhost.  I’m using ircd-hybrid on Ubuntu 9.04 and I messed with this for hours.   I went through the ircd.conf and I kept changing the “host” parameter and different things but I finally figured out how to get the server to accept outside connections.

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On Wasting Time

Posted by Eric Shull on May 20, 2009 2 comments

Well, it’s been a while, but that’s not to say I haven’t been thinking about some things. In particular, I’ve been thinking about unproductive computer time. No, I’m not talking about playing games, I’m talking about things you have to do with your computer that you don’t want to, namely searching for files or organizing files so they’re easier to find when you want them.

Tom once told me that if he can’t find a file on his computer in five minutes, he’ll just download the file again if he can, the end result being the same file in several places. I’ve had a related issue in real life: I put important forms (like tax forms) in safe places until I need them, but when the time comes to find them, I’m not as smart as I was when I put them away. Consequently, I end up hunting in all the obvious places, having completely forgotten what the safe place was.

So the question: how do you organize your files so you don’t fall prey to duplicating files or outsmarting yourself? What do you do to reduce how much time you waste dealing with files?

My Experiences with the Jaunty Jackalope

Posted by Steve Oxley on May 5, 2009 4 comments

I wish I could say that Ubuntu was all fun and games. I really want to love it with all my heart, but, unfortunately, just like with any relationship, sometimes it sneaks up on you and stabs you in the back (maybe that speaks to my relationships). For me it happened with my upgrade to the latest distribution upgrade: Ubuntu 9.04.

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