Monthly Archives: June 2005

Missed it by that much

Posted on June 24, 2005 by Kelson

I recently picked up a new domain name for a stand-alone website I’ve been working on. Since I got a good deal from Yahoo last March when I registered googolplextheaters.com for $5/year, I went with Yahoo again. I was slightly annoyed to see the price was now $9.95, but I remembered $4.98 had been a promo price, and $10/year is still not bad. Heck, I remember when then-monopoly Network Solutions dropped the price of a domain name from $100 to $70.

Anyway, it seems that Yahoo still offers $4.98 domains—depending on how you get there. Some of their ads offer the lower price, and if you come into the service through the ad, you get the discount.

It’s kind of like an automatic coupon.

It’s also a bit annoying that I could have spent half as much if I’d clicked on a different link.

Still, it’s only a $5 difference. I spend that much on lunch.

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Reinventing the Upgrade Wheel

Posted on June 23, 2005 by Kelson

The internet is a hostile place. Viruses, worms, and worse are constantly trying to break or break into your computer. Software developers are constantly fixing the holes that can let them in. It’s become critical to keep your system up to date. Unfortunately this can be very frustrating, even for a power user, for one simple reason: you have to keep track of each program individually.

Sure, the operating systems have their own centralized places. Microsoft has Windows Update, and Apple has Software Update. But every application that exposes itself to the network directly or opens untrusted files has to be updated, and there are many that aren’t part of the operating system.

So Symantec has Live Update. Real Player has its own updater. iTunes and QuickTime for Windows can update themselves. Adobe Reader has an update function. Firefox is redesigning its update system. Games check for updates when they connect to the network.

But wouldn’t it be nice if Windows would grab the Acrobat updates overnight, instead of waiting until the next time you launched it? Wouldn’t you like to be able to patch everything on your system at once and just not worry about it? As a software developer, wouldn’t you like to be able to let someone else deal with the update problem instead of re-inventing the wheel yet again?
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Posted in Annoyances, Computers/Internet | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Devoured by the Mandriva

Posted on June 23, 2005 by Kelson

The Mandrake/Conectiva merger has had a chance to sink in. I’m almost getting used to the name Mandriva. But I’m still trying to figure out last week’s announcement that Mandriva has bought Lycoris—or rather, has “purchase[d] several assets from Lycoris.” The big news is that they’re combining Mandriva Discovery (their entry-level desktop OS) with Lycoris Desktop/LX.

The main thing is, I can’t make out just what Mandriva has and has not bought. I can’t figure out whether there’s anything left of Lycoris, the company. Their CEO is moving to Mandriva to head up the new product. Their software collection and user forums are moving to Mandrake Club. Their flagship product is being merged with one of Mandriva’s. But the wording of the press release implies that they haven’t bought everything. If I were to guess, Lycoris might start focusing on their Tablet PC line.

What does seem to be happening is that Mandrake has begun collecting a number of the smaller commercial players in the Linux arena. Who knows? They may be in a position to challenge Red Hat and Novell soon.

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Resolving SELinux audit errors on boot in Fedora Core 4

Posted on June 22, 2005 by Kelson

I’ve upgraded two systems at work from Fedora Core 3 to Fedora Core 4: a desktop using the normal installer, and a test server upgrading with yum. The yum upgrade worked well except for two snags. The first was a conflict with the old kernel-utils package. I followed the recommendation by installing the new kernel first, rebooting, then removing the old kernel.

The second was that SELinux denied access to about a dozen services on start-up. It was in auditing mode, not enforcing mode, so the services still worked, but I wanted to be able to start enforcing the policy once I resolved some other issues.
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Dark Angels

Posted on June 21, 2005 by Kelson

Two bits of news on some of the less conventional “Angels” of comics.

Fallen Angel artwork by J.K. WoodwardWriter Jeff Mariotte reports that Joss Whedon and Fox have approved a second Angel comic book miniseries to come out late this year, which may interest fans of the show who want to know what happened after the final episode:

While The Curse is strictly an Angel solo story with the other characters just showing up in flashback, this one will include most of the gang (those who survived NFA, anyway)—although some of them in unexpected ways. More than that I will not say. It’s the only approved, official continuation of the TV series, though

Meanwhile, Peter David has confirmed that the new artist on Fallen Angel is J.K. Woodward, and posted this sample of his art style. This isn’t just a cover—this is what the interior art will look like!

Posted in Buffy/Angel, Comics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Spinning Beach Balls of Death!

Posted on June 21, 2005 by Kelson

The Mozilla-based Camino web browser for Mac OS X has just launched 0.9 alpha 1, and the release notes* include this item:

Rarely see “beach balls of death”.

I don’t remember whether I’d heard the term before (I recall the “spinning pizza of death,” or maybe of doom), but I knew exactly what it meant.

*In spring 2007, they restructured the website. The release notes for the 0.9 series have been incorporated into the notes for 1.0.

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A Visit to Kilauea

Posted on June 20, 2005 by Kelson

Picking up the oft-delayed vacation photos series, here’s the first half of our trip out to Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park and the volcano Kilauea.

Kilauea is often referred to as the most active volcano in the world. To give you an idea why, its latest eruption started in 1983… and is still going!

We got to the park fairly late in the day, partly because we underestimated the amount of time it would take to drive there from Kailua, and partly because we stopped at various points of interest along the way. It was mid-afternoon by the time we got to the visitor’s center, where Katie stood transfixed by the lava videos and I checked out the maps.

We stopped for a late lunch at Volcano House, an old hotel built on the edge of the Kilauea Caldera. Check out the view! (The image links to a slightly larger copy.)

View of Kilauea Caldera from Volcano House

The crater Halema‘uma‘u, which contained a boiling lava lake from 1823–1924, is visible near the center. The southern slope of Mauna Loa rises in the background. The whole caldera is roughly elliptical in shape, and Volcano House is one end of the longer axis. I don’t remember exactly how far it is from one side to the other, but judging by the map I’d say it’s about 2×3 miles.

Off to the right, behind a tree in the panorama, are the steaming bluffs. Groundwater gets heated by the magma below the volcano and seeps out through cracks all over the caldera.
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Posted in Hawaii 2005, Photos, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Opera and Acid2

Posted on June 20, 2005 by Kelson

The WaSP Buzz writes that once the Opera web browser passes the Acid2 test on the desktop, the mobile version will pass it too.

OK, that makes sense. AFAIK they have one rendering engine that they use across platforms. If the Windows, Linux and Mac versions display sites identically (aside from fonts and form controls), there’s no reason to assume that the version for cell phones and PDAs will be any different. What’s interesting here is the link to a forum thread on Opera’s Acid2 progress.

Posted in Opera, Web Design | Leave a comment

The Perfect Couple

Posted on June 19, 2005 by Kelson

A perfect pairing on a movie marquee:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Honeymooners

Posted in Signs of the Times | Tagged , | Leave a comment