Jan 23 2010
I own a bunch of different domains and run a mail service on all of them. In the past I have used a variety of different ways of providing mail, from simple pop/imap using dovecot and postfix, through to using the database driven mail service in egroupware. Recently I have consolidated mail for several of …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2010/01/23/life-is-too-short-to-use-horde/
Dec 30 2009
Well I finally cracked and ordered an N900 on-line just before Christmas. Nokia had been promising since about August of this year that the device “might” ship in the UK around October. Since then, the release date has slipped, and slipped, and slipped (much to the amusement of an iPhone using friend of mine who …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/12/30/shiny/
Nov 15 2009
A while back a friend and colleague of mine introduced me to the server monitoring tool called munin which he had installed on one of the servers he maintains. It looked interesting enough for me to stick it on my “to do” list for my VPSs. Having a bunch of relevant stats presented in graphical …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/11/15/system-monitoring-with-munin/
Nov 11 2009
Since I first read that Nokia were adding much needed telephony capability to their N8x0 range of internet tablets I have been watching the development of the new Nokia N900 with much interest. It looks to be potentially the sort of device I would buy. Despite all the hype around the iPhone, I really dislike …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/11/11/oss-shouldnt-frighten-the-horses/
Oct 18 2009
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 03 2009
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/
Sep 12 2009
I have commented in the past how I prefer lighttpd to apache, particularly on low powered machines such as the slug. I used to be a big apache fan, in fact I think I first used it at version 1.3.0 or maybe 1.3.1, having migrated from NCSA 1.5.1 (and before that Cern 3.0) back in …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/09/12/wordpress-on-lighttpd/
Sep 09 2009
As I mentioned in the last post. I decided to move trivia from its old home on a shared hosting platform to my own VPS at bytemark. I also mentioned that this was proving trickier than it should – for no real good reason. However, the move is now complete and the blog is now …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/09/09/weve-moved/
Aug 26 2009
As is common with many blogs, my public ramblings on this site are made possible through the ease of use and flexibility of the mysql/php based software known as wordpress.. And again, as is common to much php/mysql based software, that package has vulnerabilities – sometimes serious, remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. When vulnerabilities are made public, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/08/26/wordpress-woes/
Aug 02 2009
I really missed the old phrack magazine. Some of the “loopback” entries in particular are superb examples of technical nous, complete irreverance and deadpan humour. One of my favourites (from phrack 55) appears in my blogroll under “network (in)security”. I am particularly fond of the observation that details of how to exploit old vulnerabilities are …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/08/02/zf05/
Jul 05 2009
This post is partly for my own benefit. It records some of the most useful references to bios updates for the AAO. My own AAO is actually running a fairly early bios (3114) and deliberately so. I upgraded to 3309 in (yet another futile) attempt to get sony memory sticks to work but found that …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/07/05/aspire-one-bios-updates/
Jul 05 2009
I value my privacy – and I dislike the increasing tendency of every commercial website under the sun to attempt to track and/or profile me. Yes, I know all the arguments in favour of advertising, and well targeted advertising at that, but I get tired of the Amazon style approach which assumes that just because …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/07/05/tor-on-a-vps/
May 12 2009
My daughter saw my netbook the other day and decided that she wanted UNR on her Tosh laptop to replace the 8.04 hardy I had installed for her (no-one in my family is allowed a proprietary OS – this occasionally causes some friction). Anyway, the old Tosh she uses (which has seen various distros during …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/05/12/jaunty-netbook-remix-dvd-iso/
Apr 12 2009
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had recently acquired an Acer Aspire One (AAO) netbook. I chose the AAO in preference to any other of the netbooks on the market for two reasons – firstly it looks a lot cooler than most of the competition (particularly in blue – see below), but secondly, …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/04/12/acer-aspire-one-a-netbook-experience/
Mar 16 2009
Having just invested in an Acer Aspire One (which I’ll write about later), I also enjoyed this FAQ from el Reg. Nice chart.
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/03/16/so-what-is-a-netbook/
Mar 01 2009
My ever growing DVD collection has been taking its toll on my disk storage. Despite the fact that ripping a DVD to PSP format typically shrinks it to between 300 and 500 MB, that still means that I have over 300 GB of videos on my PC. Add to that the OGG vorbis audio collection …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/03/01/upgrading-the-slug-a-lesson-in-addresses/
Feb 13 2009
Unix geeks the world over today celebrate the passing of unix time = 1234567890 at 23:31:30 GMT on friday the 13th of February 2009. Personally I’ll be asleep.
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2009/02/13/party-like-its-1234567890/
Dec 27 2008
Much as I love my slugs (and low power consumption coupled with almost completely silent running means I love them a lot) I do sometimes need just a little more “grunt” than they offer. I have been running a PHP based webserver together with postfix on an old (actually very old) Compaq Armada 4160T (that’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2008/12/27/small-doesnt-have-to-mean-slow/
Dec 27 2008
I have recently built an egroupware system to be used as a social networking site. The application suite itself is relatively easy to install and configure, but the webmail system it offers (a fork of squirrelmail called felamimail) is rather poorly documented. It took me some time to figure out how to authenticate mail users …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2008/12/27/dovecot-and-postfix-on-debian/
Sep 12 2008
I have just built myself a new intel core 2 duo based machine to replace one of my older machines which was beginning to struggle under the load of video transcoding I was placing upon it. The new machine is based on an E8400 and is nice and shiny and fast. Because it is a …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2008/09/12/webanalytics-just-say-no/
Sep 12 2008
In an earlier post I speculated that the CherryPal PC might be a possible option for users considering replacements for the slug. But that device has still yet to hit the streets and is beginning to look suspiciously like vapourware. However, linuxdevices, the site devoted to linux on embedded devices, wrote about the interesting looking …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2008/09/12/french-slugs/
Aug 20 2008
Have you ever wondered what was eating your network? Would you like to be able to check exactly which application was responsible for that sudden spike in outbound traffic? NetHogs might help. This neat little utility calls itself a “small ‘net top’ tool”, and that is exactly what it is. NetHogs groups bandwidth usage by …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2008/08/20/where-did-my-bandwidth-go/
Aug 10 2008
Dan Kaminsky has (quite rightly) been hitting the press a lot in the weeks since 8 July when he announced the work done to fix a flaw he had discovered in DNS. The vulnerability itself was new, but its impact (cache poisoning) was not. Indeed, we’ve known about the dangers of poisoned DNS caches for …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2008/08/10/trusting-dns/
Jul 26 2008
I noted in an earlier post that Linksys were ceasing production of the NSLU2. There are now a variety of NAS systems coming onto the market which might make good replacements – but most of them look expensive when compared to the slug. However I’ve just seen a review of a box which looks as …
Permanent link to this article: https://baldric.net/2008/07/26/replacement-for-the-slug/