Upgrade to the Latest Version
If you are bothering to upgrade something, upgrade it to the latest version. If it isn’t the latest version it’s deprecated. Deprecated == needs to be upgraded again, soon. End of discussion.
Outright Rant
Noob Spammers
I’ve been getting a lot of backscatter from spammers lately. One of them was particularly interesting. The spam message was: Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 02:01:24 -0600 From: %FROM_NAME < %FROM_EMAIL> Subject: %SUBJECT %MESSAGE_BODY If you’re going to use my email address to spam at least do a good job of it.
How To Torture Your System Administrators
How to torture your system administrators: a checklist for developers. 1. Insist on using /etc/hosts instead of DNS, because it is more secure that way. 2. Run everything as root, because your application is secure. You’ve heard of no problems with it. 3. Scatter the components of your application into no less than five filesystems. 4. Demand the latest versions of libraries and languages even though the ones that ship with the OS you are on have everything you need. Newer is definitely always better. 5. Treat your database as a flat file (“select * from TABLE”). 6. Use more than one programming/scripting language for a project. 7. Store data in /tmp. 8. Insist that your application needs its own …
Don't Freaking Use /tmp To Store Your Data
“Hey, server X’s /tmp is almost full. Do you know what’s up with that?” my coworker asks me. “No idea.” “Okay, I’ll call the application person and see.” …Five minutes pass… “So, can we start backing /tmp up?” “Why? It’s /tmp. People do not, and should not, store important things there.” “Yeah… this project’s software is keeping a copy of their important documents there.” “Do they realize that tmpwatch removes things left idle more than 10 days?” “Oh, crap….” …Ten minutes pass… “Can we shut tmpwatch down? It’s deleting this project’s data.” ARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Make Your Own Darkroom/Writeroom/JDarkRoom in 60 Seconds
1. If you’re on Windows find a terminal program. On Mac OS X, Linux, etc. open a terminal. 2. Set your terminal colors to green on black. 3. Click the maximize button. 4. Run nano, pico, vi, emacs, whatever. If I see another raving review, blog post (especially Lifehacker), or story about how revolutionary Darkroom, Writeroom, JDarkRoom, or Writer is I think I’m going to explode. I know, I know, Mac users thought of this which means it’s the bomb and all. Pay no attention to the UNIX guys who have been doing it for thirty years… Also, I love how everybody ripped Hog Bay Software off. Apparently Web 2.0 doesn’t include Lawyers 2.0 yet.
When Tech Writers Are Idiots
Dear Associated Press, The article on how “Hackers Attack Key Net Traffic Computers” is one of the dumbest I’ve ever read. When the author can tell us what the difference between a root name server and a router is he can continue writing publicly about networking. Thank you.
iTunes Does Not Work On Windows Vista
Dec. 12, 2007: I just replaced my ATI graphics card with an inexpensive NVidia 8500GT, updated the drivers, and installed the latest DirectX, and that resolved most of my problems. Your mileage may vary. Update: iTunes 7.1 has been released, but does not appears to fix the UI crashing problems. Update 2: None of the iTunes releases, including 7.3, have improved the crashing of iTunes. But, if you want to read the rest of this, feel free: The CD-RW driver in iTunes doesn’t appear to work right, so trying to burn anything will result in an instant crash. Also, letting iTunes stay open for more than about a minute results in Aero freaking out. Microsoft Windows Vista is not supported …
I Don't Like Microsoft Windows Vista
I upgraded my home PC and my work desktop PC to Windows Vista today. My first impressions? I have many. And they aren’t good. There is no flow and no logical layout to anything. It’s a hybrid of Windows XP and the new way of doing things, and it shows. There are 50 control panels, for instance, and it takes me two to three steps to find things I could do with a right click before. Some things look new, some look old, some have new parts grafted on the old parts. It was a design by committee, none of whose members were of the same mindset. It’s buggy. I edit the Start menu and a phantom “Start Menu” folder …
DuPont Invented Solid Surfaces
So, in the course of trying to figure out what surface my new countertops should be made from I discovered that DuPont invented solid surfaces! Millions of years ago is more than 35 years ago… WTF!
Simplification
I am tired of my email. Over the last ten years I have subscribed to many, many mailing lists. I have procmail filters for about 35 of the most active. You know how many of these 35 mailing lists I actively read? None. Zero. My subscriptions exist to annoy SpamAssassin, add load to mail servers, and consume my disk space. I could just search their indexes online if I ever needed anything from them. I get all my news via RSS now. So I’m done with them. Gone. 35 mailing lists, unsubscribed. Bye. Adios. Seeya. Over the last ten years my coworkers and customers have subscribed me to many, many mailing lists, because I’m their sysadmin. “Please don’t add me …
