One of the best things about Mozilla Thunderbird is that it runs on a variety of operating systems. Another is that its extensions are also cross-platform, so if you switch operating systems (say, from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux), you can simply re-install the extensions you know and love.
I decided I might as well take [...]
From the FAS Computing Knowledge Base: Am I allowed to set up my own wireless access points on the FAS Network (in my room, office, etc.)?
Students and residential affiliates are not permitted to connect wireless access points (WAPs), including Apple AirPort base stations, to the FAS Network. Connecting a WAP to the network is a [...]
From a New York Times article on Christian video games:
"When I became a Christian in 1992, I still wanted to play, but it was hard when the best-quality games out there were Doom, Quake — Satanic stuff, you know? Stuff that if I went to church on Sunday and came home and wanted to play [...]
Recently, a couple of readers have commented to me that they are unhappy with this blog's content. Unfortunately, the current mix of tech, politics, and random articles I think are funny just is not enough for them. Here are a couple of the complaints I have heard:
One thing that has bothered me lately is the spelling of grey. Traditionally, I have always spelled it "grey" with no problems with any electronic spellchecks. Unfortunately, for some reason the Unix American English dictionaries do not include "grey" in their listings, preferring instead "gray." While my mind has no problem recognizing both of these [...]
Outfoxed looks really cool (via Waxy Links), but unfortunately, Outfoxed only runs on Windows (since most of Outfoxed is a Firefox extension, the user interface works, but the MDDB server needs to be built if you are using Linux, which is annoying to those used to the traditional fire-and-forget method of installing Mozilla extensions. If [...]
The RSS feeds are not working, but hopefully this post will fix it. I will probably have to make a comment to fix the comment feed. This is annoying, but life could be worse, I guess.
UPDATE: Uploaded a patch from the bug page previously linked to which should provide a more permanent solution.
I would describe my relationship with sleep as adversarial; I do not really like it, and I am convinced it does not like me. There is something about it that reeks of wasted time and missed opportunities, two things which I feel I have more than enough experience with during my waking hours.
Part of my [...]
From Cringley's May 5 column (link mine):
And 10.4 gives us a peek at another evolution of iTunes, which is the inevitable expansion of the system to carry additional audio file formats. Looking at the unused iTunes icons that shipped with your new version of 10.4, you'll notice icons for currently-not-supported ogg vorbis and Windows Media [...]
If there is one lesson that everyone should learn about computers, the title of this post is it. I do not really want to leave Linux again, but I feel that it is the right thing to do at this point in time. I may very well return to Ubuntu at a later point (I [...]
The Ubuntu 5.04 LiveCD is great, but it has one fatal flaw: the screensaver prompts for a password. Luckily, using the magic of Unix TTYs, you can get around this.
Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to tty1.
Run "sudo -s" to switch to root, the superuser. Unlike normal sudo commands, you do not have to enter a password [...]
The New York Times has two articles in today's paper about the turmoil in the Ituri region in eastern Congo, where more than 50,000 people have died. Currently, about 17,000 UN peacekeepers are stationed there as part of the MONUC mission, in an attempt to restore peace and order to the region.
Helene Cooper's Op-Ed [...]
From Boing Boing comes Loic Le Meur's post on the official French word for blog: bloc-notes, or bloc for short. I am not sure how useful creating different words for already-established terms is for the preservation of the French language, though. For example, I doubt that Le Monde will change the name of its Blogs [...]
One would think that the Nokia 770 (announced last week) would be right up my alley. Among its features:
Wireless internet (802.11b/g)
Bluetooth
The open-source goodness of Linux
However, its lack of a QWERTY keyboard and short battery life make it unattractive to me. I hope it succeeds, but I will be holding out for the Nokia 780.
A New York Times article from today's edition talks about the travails of Iraqi doctors, which include kidnapping and revenge killings when their patients croak. Never fear! The new Iraqi government is here:
The Ministry of the Interior has already responded to the threats: it simplified gun license procedures for doctors, allowing them to get licensed [...]
It would be difficult for me to judge what conditions are like on the ground in Iraq (receiving all my news for various large media outlets), but based on its Internet topography, Iraq is not doing too well. While searching for the official government's website (since the CPA disbanded, they decided to stop updating their [...]
I replaced wp-comments-post.php, which forced previews of comments in an attempt to get rid of comment spam with two Wordpress plugins: Brian's Threaded Comments and Live Preview for Comments. If I see a uptick in spam comments (I have not received any in the past few months), I might switch to this Comment Validation plugin [...]
AppleInsider reports that Apple will release a second update to version 10.4 of Mac OS X (popularly known as "Tiger"). Tiger was released a little over a month ago.
Already sources say the current build of Mac OS X 10.4.2 includes well over two-dozen new bug fixes to Tiger, in addition to those delivered in the [...]
When people asked why I bought my behemoth of a laptop instead purchasing a nice, svelte Thinkpad, I would look them in the eyes with a straight face and tell them that it was because the Thinkpad did not have a Windows Logo key (which true to its name, is a key that displays the [...]