2006-10-05

After Many, Many Months...

of leaving my blog unattended, I do swear to start posting regularly again. I know, I've said that dozens upon dozens of times before, but now, i really will.

Why? For one thing, the blog is a perfect emotional dumping ground for when I'm low. It also helps me record some memorable events (both good and bad), as well as gives me some quiet time. This I never realized when I first started blogging.

Anyway, whats been going on lately... for one, Software Freedom Philippines is in shambles... re-organizing and restructuring will be underway soon... and hopefully, we'll get it right this time around. So for, for the reorganizational meet will have a number of attendees that I hope will be sure attendants, as the first thing that has to be, well, reorganized is the core.

Another thing... while my la[o]st job posting was as a System Admin for a small (lousy) company, I just recently started out at Dell Manila as a Tech Support rep. Wierd step you might think, but I've never had this much fun at work before. You want to try it there? Follow the link and apply. :D

Finally, house moving again. In the past couple of years, I have no idea how often I've relocated, but I really hope that this is really the last one. Uprooting yourself and your family is hard, tiring, and most of all, highly disruptive. Again, hopefully, this is the last time.

With regard to open source, my all time favorite linux distro Slackware just released version 11 on October 3... get yourself a copy while its hot! I really wish I had a spare drive to run it with, because right now, I'm still enamored with FreeBSD. I could still run slack from qemu though. Must find time to do so. . . (but first, a total backup of my drive is necessary before moving forward, as my most recent backup dates to around December last year). I also have to get a new HD. 120 giggers are so cheap these days, it hurts being stuck on a 30 gb drive thats almost 75% full.

By the way, FreeBSD 6.2 is already in pre-release right now (which I'm actually tracking at the moment). The new release should be ready in a month or so. Check the release schedule here

Regarding regular posting, I'm hoping I'll be posting at least once a day again, if not, then at least once a week... and an even bigger hope would be that the posts would be meaningful in someway to others.

And so, in parting, I'd just like to share this bit of news regarding that old, old SCO lawsuit against linux... Novell took a swing against SCO this time.

2006-07-27

You really have to hate yourself sometimes.

I saw this nice little photo organizing app called f-spot which I wanted to try out. Now, if I were on linux, it would have been a simple matter of chasing down the appropriate package for me, whether rpm, deb or tgz. But since I moved over to FreeBSD, getting new apps have both been a pleasant and lousy experience at the same time.

Lousy, say I? What about that humongous ports collection? Well, sometimes, somethings just dont work... sometimes, some of them are broken... or sometimes, its just out of date, with the most recent maintainer taking a long leave of absence. But anyway, just for shits and giggles, I thought of making my own port for f-spot. All it needed was Mono and a few gnome libs.

Suffice it to say that I was well into getting that Makefile done, enjoying every step of the way... when i suddenly remember...

$whereis f-spot

to which my terminal responds:


f-spot: /usr/ports/graphics/f-spot



sheesh... oh well... it was a learning experience.

I really should get around practicing coding some more... have to find something to kill time on...

Roll my own blog app? I do have the space available already, anyway...

2006-05-23

Rants and Raves and Gratuitious Advertising.

Lousy, lousy, lousy... I was supposed to be in Batangas last week. Aside from the fact that it was my hometowns fiesta, some former officemates were also headed that way. I was going to hook up with them at the beach... and I was planning to show them around.

Unfortunately, all the best laid plans of mice and men oft do go astray, as the saying goes. And I couldn't leave work. Damn. Damn. Damn.

I wonder if they're going to shoot me on sight if I try to visit them?

Well, doesn't matter, too late now. I do have to go see them soon. I still have unfinished business to attend to - approximately 1500 in debt to pay back - and some gifts to give to the best people I've ever worked with in the 10 years that I've been working already.

Off tangent to the above rants, FreeBSD is teh roxorz!!!!111 I haven't had this much fun since I started with Slackware years ago. I'm actually proposing having these two deployed at our office for our servers.

And on a related note, because of the amount of reading that these two OS's demand of their user, I'm going cross eyed, and slowly going blind.

It makes for a great sleep deprivation experiment though. =Þ

I'll try to put up a more coherent post once I can actually manage to get some sleep back into my timetable.

Oh, and the Software Freedom Philippines site is already up, and SFD is just around the corner. Come on over and visit the site, it's under constant renovation though, so our apologies if something is broken.

2006-05-15

Another Late Update

Well... better than nothing, I always say.

Anyway, I finally got out of the call center bit. I got a call from someone I knew who offered me a position that I just couldn't resist. So, my title is no longer CSR, it is now SysAd... !!!

Anyway... I traded in one lifestyle where I had no time, for another where the day doesn't have enough time for things to do... learning, relearning and prelearning as well as applying what I know to what has to be done.

Best part of all? It's an open source shop!

Ahh... all work and no play makes me a dull boy. But if my work is play, then I can't be dull now, can I? =P

I am now working with whats closest to my heart (next to my son anyway)... and work is never work if you're enjoying it. And work now entails my diddling around all the morbid details and innards of all of linux for the servers, and for me, FreeBSD (which I'm recommending for some of the servers anyway).

Sorry PV,, Slackware will always have a place with me... but FreeBSD is where I really go home to. Now, if I can get a spare drive, I can put a second home inside my box for both!

2006-03-29

More on the Apache Virus. . .

or, how quickly you can make a fool out of yourself when you start shooting off at the keyboard.

I only heard this story, oh three days ago (March 25), and news wasn't anywhere yet. Hehehe... now, three days later (or is it four? I've forgotten to sleep again), the story of Tuttles City Manager is everywhere. And get this, he's demanding The Register to stop the internet (as if The Register was the only place online that carried this story).

So rembember, there is no such thing as a virus or exploit called Apache(none that I recall anyway)

2006-03-25

The Apache Virus!

Some people just can't learn... and some people just dont know how to learn. Check out this story about how an answer can be slapped on someones face so many times, but still won't be picked up. Amusingly enough, it's exactly the same kind of problem I have at work every day. =)

Just an aside, here's the guy who didn't know what apache looked like, and aparrently couldn't even read the text that's displayed on the default screen.

2006-03-22

Ok, Now I'm Serious

After so many months, and only one post in between, what's been happening... oh yeah, I almost get laid off, I move houses (again! Third time in one year) buy a PC (no, not the 64 bit AMD I was planning on, nor the laptop), get broadband, and do a lot of other things.

But I'm too tired to get into details right now. My son is taking up most of my down time, and during daytime, I have work and Software Freedom Philippines to worry about. But since I got broadband, I can finally post whenever I want!

2006-01-30

Finally!

An update at last! I hate peak season, and the holidays are the worst. Anyway, expect frequent updates from now on. This is just to say:



"Hello World!"