Musings

I know and write in way to many languages. Specifically in computer languages. Over the years I have written code in C, C++, Java, JavaScript, LotusScript, LotusFormulas, Smalltalk, Perl, Python, Ruby, Pascal, Modula-2, APL (read only, thanks god), 8051 Assembler and probably a couple of things I have hidden from my conciousness. I love languages. But I hate writing them. I’m constantly switching between languages (at the moment: LotusScript, JavaScript, Java and Perl) and I always get the small things wrong: ...

I moved my Linux Home Server from a Sereniti 2000 case (which is a hopeless piece of crap, cheap metal, had to hammer one screw through the aluminium because it was stuck and the screwdriver literally screwed it, and noisy as hell) with a smaller Morex 2688 which sports a lot less space inside but has no fans! Ahh - a quiet server - unless it’s accessing the harddisk… This will go in a closet soon and serve my music and my videos and backup my Windows PC’s here at Chaos Central. ...

The first backup with BackupPC has finished - faster than I expected. When I checked the backup set, I saw, that the /Windows and /Documents and Settings directories didn’t get backed up…. Hmm - looking at their properties, I found that there were not shareable because “the operating system needs them”… What? A bit of searching on the mailinglist of BackupPC found someone with a similar problem and with the solution: There’s a “simple sharing” option in Windows XP - a dumbed down version so to speak. Switching it off is described in the MS Knowledgebase. ...

A while ago, I was listed on the Swiss Weblogs Wiki and had a chance to update my profile. Stephanie who runs the list, mailed me and asked me to provide some keywords to go with my entry. I couldn’t think of any, so I let the matter rest. After a couple of weeks, she caught up with me on IRC at #joiito and insisted ;-) on me providing keywords. So I did - and I’m unhappy with the result. ...

While installing BackupPC I found the Debian Reference Manual which I didn’t know… Handy to have laying around

I had a go at installing BackupPC on a smallish personal server I built for a project that didn’t take off. The machine is a Via Eden board (with a high-performance C3 500 Mhz CPU :-) ) and a 120 Gig Harddrive. There’s a Debian Woody installed and I used this lazy afternoon to convert it to my home server. It already has 40 Gigs of my music and now it’s backing up 30 Gigs of data from this laptop. ...