Gone are the days when I used to be able to keep my Linux server up and running for upwards of 150+ days. These days updates are so frequent that I just about manage a month before the next set are released.
It’s not just my server either, the same is true of the servers I used to look after in previous jobs. These weren’t just exclusively Windows or Linux servers either, it was a mix of both.
Some people take the view that don’t need to apply an update if you don’t use that particular bit of the system, but I’m in the opposite camp. What happens if one day you install a piece of software that uses that bit of the system that you’ve never updated…
On Windows it’s rare to apply and an update doesn’t require you to reboot after applying it, while on Linux it’s often easier as you can just restart the service that you’ve just updated. This can lead to bigger uptime for Linux, but these days Linux systems are so complex and the kernel updates are that frequent that I tend to reboot after most major updates (unless I’m 99% sure that I don’t need to).
Getting that 100% uptime is becoming harder and harder.
I think the title just about says it all! See you in 2008.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I’ve no real excuse other then laziness. But that’s not to say I haven’t been doing anything with my time. Far from it, this is the first weekend that I actually have nothing specific to do.
So what have I been doing, I’ve been to two weddings, two weekends away for meetings, a weekend in Cumbria for a fiends birthday, trip to Sheffield to go climbing, many parties in and around York, across to Leeds for the fireworks, family birthdays combined with a geeky weekend. And oh yea, I quit my job and got a new one (more on that later).
As my Mum so delicately put it “You get around”.
Unfortunately it’s raining today, otherwise I would be in town to pick up a few bits and bobs.
Hard disk are about one of the more power hungery components of any computer system. This isn’t normally an issue when the hard disk is inside your computer where it can pillage as much electricity as your power supply can manage. But take a hard disk outside your computer and the story is different. Think along the lines of a USB external hard disk, with a power supply of course.
Now I use one of these as part of my backup system. Not perfect (what backup system is), but for the most part it works. That is until the electronics inside the enclosure decide not to provide enough power to the disk. Take the disk out of the enclosure, plug it into your computer and you can hear it spin up when the pc is turned on. You can even read data from it so you know it works.  Put it back into the enclosure and turn it on. What do you hear? A little ticking noise as the disk tries to power up and spin but doen’t have enough power.
Happened to me twice now. Two separate disk, two separate enclosures, two different power supplies. 
I distinctly remember reading about SCO v. Novel when I started my university placement in summer 2003. At the time I talked with a long term unix user and colleague who hadn’t seen the news. While I don’t remember what my colleague said I do remember that the general opinion from Linux users around the world was that SCO couldn’t win – and that it would damage SCO badly.
 Well it did damage SCO badly, especially when they lost the court case. But today comes the ultimate news: SCO files for US bandruptcy protection
Good bye SCO.
It’s my new budgie. I took the opportunity of being able to drive Mum’s car last weekend and went to the local pet store to select a budgie and bring him/her back in relative comfort – the alternative being on my (push) bike.
No name or pictures yet, I’m not even sure on the sex as he/she is only 6 weeks old.
Came across a tip last night that shows how to make all your web browsing about as private as reasonably possible when at work/school.
Most techies know how to hide your web browsing habits using ssh as a proxy server, but some might not realise that clues can still be found in your dns requests. Basically while the actual web traffic (http and https) go over the ssh/proxy tunnel, the dns requests to those web site are still made to your local dns server. It wouldn’t take that much effort to work out which servers you were visiting by the dns requests.
However there is a solution if you are using Firefox. Type about:config into the address bar then search for ‘socks_remote’. By default this value is set to false, double click to change to true. Now the dns requests that Firefox makes will also go over the ssh/proxy tunnel.
It worked for me last night with no real problems, but I’ve not tested any complicated web sites (read: web sites that pull from different servers and domains). I also have no idea if this setting should be turned to false when not using the ssh/proxy tunnel, I shouldn’t think so but I’ve not tested this.
Tonight my server is being turned off until I get a connection sorted at the new house. Until such time e-mail and this web site are temporary located on a shared server.
I’ve moved the home page, blog, and a few others bit ‘n’ pieces, the gallery is 978MB is size so I’ll move that later (if at all). The shared server includes webmail so I’ve not moved roundcube over either.
All other services (test areas, other web sites, music etc) will stay on tuxx and will just be unavailable for the time being.
Just discovered FoxyTunes. If you listen to music and always have Firefox open as one of your major application then I suggest you take a look.
Why?
Why does [Windows] program X need to run as the administrator? Does it need to access the registry – No. Does it need low level access to a piece of hardware – No. Does it need to write to a special area on the disk – No. So why then for the love of all things do so many Windows programs need to be run as the administrator?
I’m looking in particular at you Sage Accounts and Lloyds Telepay.
Sage Accounts needs to be run as the administrator to ‘Save and Update program options into the registry’, write to a file in the windows\systems32 directory and possibly some other files that I’ve missed. In the UK if you are serious about accounting (or payroll for that matter) then Sage is the product you want. From what I’ve seen and the contact I’ve had with Sage they are not only on the ball, but a pretty decent company. So once again, why do you need to run as administrator? Need to save some settings for all users in the registry, don’t use a protected area of the registry. Need write access to a file, then don’t put it into the systems area on the disk. Better yet, use the users own home directory and registry settings. That’s what it was designed for.
For such a critical package as Sage Accounts it’s just dumb creating all that security within Windows and the network, and the leaving the back door open. Crazy.
The same goes for Lloyds Telepay. On the front it looks a simple program that reads and writes to some flat files, then dials up the bank with payment instructions. And for this you need to run it as the administrator. Where as Sage Accounts will at least run with minimised functionality, Lloyds Telepay actually crashes if you try and run it as a normal user! Not even the so called ‘Power User’ works.
It’s not just limited to these programs either, a quick google brings up plenty of people fighting different software with this same problem (and possible solutions). At the risk of repeating the paragraph above, what is the point of securing the infrastructure and restricting what can happen if we are then forced to run as administrator which ignores all security and access restrictions.
Why?
