The old saw about “real” programmers versus the rest (known as “quiche eaters”) was originally summarised beautifully in the classic letter to the editor of Datamation in July 1983 entitled “real programmers don’t use pascal”. Similar religious (i.e. irrational, but deeply held) positions are taken around various other “lifestyle” choices, such as the equally classic …
October 2009 archive
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/10/29/call-me-by-name-or-call-me-by-value/
Oct 28 2009
handbags
It would appear that I may have been unnecessarily concerned about the accuracy of the profiling data held on me by the commercial sites I use. In my inbox today I found the following email from Amazon: “As a valued Amazon.co.uk customer, we thought you might be interested in visiting our website dedicated to shoes …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/10/28/handbags/
Oct 18 2009
logrotate weirdness in debian etch
I have two VPSs, both running debian. One runs lenny, the other runs etch. The older etch install runs fine, and is much as the supplier delivered it. Until now I have not had cause to consider the need to upgrade the etch install to lenny because it “just worked”. But today I noticed for …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/10/18/logrotate-weirdness-in-debian-etch/
Oct 15 2009
where has my money gone
Like most ‘net users I know these days, I conduct most of my financial transactions on-line. But on-line banking is a high risk activity, particularly if you use the “default” OS and browser combination to be found on most PCs. I don’t, but that doesn’t make me invulnerable, just a slightly harder target. So attempts …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/10/15/on-line-banking-security/
Oct 03 2009
debian on a DNS-313
I bought another new toy last week – a D-Link DNS 313 NAS. Actually, this was a mistake because what I really wanted was the DNS-323. I just wasn’t careful enough at the time. Quite apart from having space for two 3.5″ SATA hard drives instead of just one, the 323 is a very different …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/10/03/debian-on-a-dns-313/
Oct 03 2009
debonaras demise?
Sadly it seems that the debonaras wiki is no more. Rod Whitby had done some excellent work in pulling together a site which consolidated useful information about low cost network storage devices (alternatives to the slug) which could be made to run Debian. Unfortunately the site was a continual target for wiki spam bots and …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/10/03/292/