Tag: IT

Since version 0.95, grub supports booting a cascade of fallback kernels if the default kernel doesn’t boot correctly:

Gentoo Wiki: HOWTO Remote Kernel Upgrade
Grub manual: 4.3.2 Booting fallback systems

I hope it will work when needed..

Nice to know:

Keeping Your SSH Sessions Alive Through Pesky NAT Firewalls — Steve Kehlet’s Pages.

Putty has such a “keep alive” option too (in the “Connection” category). Had to set it to 100 seconds as the according proxy is very restrictive indeed.

..for a rather strange reason like

>>> md5 src_uri ;-) postfix-2.2.5.tar.gz

mind the following:

* You are upgrading from a incompatible version.
* You MUST stop postfix BEFORE install it to your system.
* If you want a minimal downtime, emerge postfix with:
* `FORCE_UPGRADE=1 emerge –buildpkgonly postfix`; then
* `/etc/init.d/postfix stop && emerge –usepkgonly postfix`
* run etc-update or dispatch-conf and merge the configuration files.
* Next /etc/init.d/postfix start

SugarCRM

I’ve just installed it on this server. The installation procedure is very admin-friendly: 1.) Create a db 2.) Create a db user 3.) Point the browser to the SugarCRM directory. And it’s amazing how many features SugarCRM offers – probably enough for most SMEs.

ZVON.org hosts some very useful XML-related tutorials, among others:

XML Tutorial
Namespaces Tutorial
DTD Tutorial
XSLT Tutorial
XPath Tutorial

These are great tutorials if you like as-concise-as-possible, example-driven learning approaches (rather than reading dry and highly formal specifications) and need to quickly refresh your know-how about XML-related standards.

Here’s the second, completed part of my list about Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird extensions and hints I find very useful for my daily work (and yours too, possibly ;):

Essential Mozilla Firefox extensions

Web Developer
ScrapBook
Flat Bookmark Editing
savegenpage
DictionarySearch
Duplicate Tab
Bookmarks Synchronizer
miniT (drag+indicator)
Copy Plain Text
undoclosetab (undoclosetab.xpi for FF 1.0.6)
Chinese-English-Japanese Character Hint Bar
Digger

Other hints for Mozilla Firefox:

• Click with the middle mouse button to open a link on a new tab
• Click with the middle mouse button on a tab to close it
• Hit CTRL-p to print a page which is loaded in a new window without any menu or toolbar displayed
• How to make Firefox silently display error pages (like in IE) instead of the error dialog boxes: Enter “about:config” in the URL field and change “browser.xul.error_pages.enabled” from “false” to “true” (just click on the entry to switch it)

Essential Mozilla Thunderbird extensions

Enigmail
MinimizeToTray
Virtual Identity
Quote Colors
MessageFaces

Other hints for Mozilla Thunderbird:

• How to make Thunderbird check all IMAP folders for new mail
• Courier-IMAP and “Server XY has disconnected” error messages
• Mozilla Thunderbird and line wrapping

A useful Firefox extension for people who would like to share cached “bookmarks” between several workstations:

ScrapBook – Firefox Extension
ScrapBook @ Mozilla Update

BTW I had a similar idea for a long time. My architecture would be more flexible though, allowing any client (not only Firefox), not require any client-side configuration and provide even more useful features. I intend to implement it as soon as time permits as I really miss such a power app. In the meantime, ScrapBook serves as an interim solution.

If you encounter a message like

grep: /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.3.4/libstdc++.la: No such file or directory.

when emerging php, mod_php or elfutils, take a look at the following page for the solution:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-279020.html

After having read about Gizmo in today’s issue of the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger (article not (yet?) online, unfortunately), I wanted to check it out myself. Downloaded it, installed it, did some echoing tests. Everything fine – Gizmo seems to be a pretty useful VoIP client, even in its early stage (v0.8 beta). It offers full SIP/VoIP compatibility (something Skype doesn’t offer), built-in call recording capability (dito), call in and out as a gateway to the POTS (as usual). As a first impression, Gizmo seems to be equal to or even better than Skype.

Now comes the funny side note: As most other software vendors entering a market where success heavily depends on network effects, Gizmo has a so-called tell-a-friend page. I usually ignore such pages as if, I prefer notifying friends myself (in order to not give someone else’s e-mail address to a potentially sneaky service provider) instead of sending an invitation through a web form. However, by clicking on a GUI element I just happened to be forwarded to this page.
The funny (or strange) thing about that page now is that if you take a close look at the bottom of the page, you can actually spot a picture of the former (and IMHO one of the best ever) president/mayor of the City of Zurich, Josef Estermann! The Gizmo guys were even unknowing or impudent enough to take his picture as a representative for the tell-a-friend message “Blind Date” (note that as far as I know, Mr. Josef Estermann is happily married to Mrs. Maggy Estermann):

I bet there are many ladies (and gentlemen, for equality) who’d like to have a blind date with Mr. Estermann (though it probably wouldn’t be a blind date anymore). I seriously doubt, however, that Josef Estermann agreed to have his picture taken for this advertisement. It might be just an unconscious mistake by Gizmo’s marketing department or the work of careless copy-cats. I guess it’s rather a funny coincidence/mishap than maliciousness, though ;)