We needed to find out how to define templates in OOo as we’re going to produce some PDF documents (courtesy of the very handy “Save As PDF” option!) from OO Writer. TBH I’m mostly clueless when it comes to this sort of thing but this site looks like it has the answers to our questions!
Author Archives: Donncha
A visit from the FBI
A visit from the FBI – to a school to give a talk on security. Good entertaining read!
Well, it finally happened. Right before Christmas, I had a little visit from the FBI, writes SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman. That’s right: an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to see me. He had some things he wanted to talk about. He stayed a couple of hours, and then went on his way. Hopefully he got what he wanted. I know I did.
Let me explain. I teach technology classes at Washington University in St. Louis, a fact that I mentioned in a column from 22 October 2003 titled, “Joe Average User Is In Trouble”. In that column, I talked about the fact that most ordinary computer users have no idea about what security means. They don’t practice secure computing because they don’t understand what that means. After that column came out, I received a lot of email. One of those emails was from Dave Thomas, former chief of computer intrusion investigations at FBI headquarters, and current Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the St. Louis Division of the FBI.
Dave had this to say: “I have spent a considerable amount in the computer underground and have seen many ways in which clever individuals trick unsuspecting users. I don’t think most people have a clue just how bad things are.” He then offered to come speak to my students about his experiences.
Bad, bad Apple!
My apologies to the owners of this site but it’s going under “Humour” here. Read the following extract and you’ll see why!
Take for example Apple Computers, makers of the popular Macintosh line of computers. The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (MacOS X) is called… Darwin! That’s right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don’t advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an “Open Source” license, which is just another name for Communism. They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, “lickable” buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism.
(via jofny_ on #LUNI in Chicago)
My Settop Box – Easy Linux PVR
This project looks promising. It’s an attempt to make MythTV easier to install by supplying it with Knoppix. AFAICT you install the backend on your server and it’s even possible to run the frontend from the Knoppix CD on a different machine. Unfortunately the recommended hardware spec is well beyond any of the machines I own. That said, I’ve downloaded the ISO so I’ll certainly give it a go!
Kerried Away
Here’s an interesting remix of a John Kerry picture. You could call it the “Janet Jackson mix” I guess. heh. (thanks Firebird for the link!)
Data Recovery from a Hard Disk
Some of you may remember my bad luck with hard disks during the summer. One was a Fujitsu drive that died hours after I plugged it in when I got home. I lost a month’s worth of photographs from Chicago and that was obviously upsetting. Of course, after the rest of what’s happened it’s small change in terms of the bad year that 2003 was for me!
Anyway, it’s 2004 and there’s a possible solution to the drive problem!
Here at work another Fujitsu HD died yesterday morning but this time I had more success recovering data from it. I asked on #linux, the ILUG IRC channel, and Christian suggested Parted, while Liam suggested using Gpart. Gpart is on the ILUG BBC and a quick search found this description of how to use it!
I can happily say that gpart worked perfectly! It detected the partition table and I was able to write it to the drive again. A quick reboot and I was able to copy off the important data! Other stuff can wait but gpart turned out to be a life saver here. 🙂
Of course, this is only usefui if your BIOS and Linux/*BSD can see your HD.
I have my fingers crossed that I can do the same on the HD at home. There’s a lot of photos I want to recover!
Down Town NYC
I remember the view in this photo well. I’ll be back there someday!
New Photography Articles
Nature Photographers Online Magazine has been updated with the February issue. I’ll get stuck into it later tonight. Looks like some good reading!
Is digital ready for the wilds? Fascinating article about bringing a digital camera into the wilderness for 3 weeks. I don’t think I’ll be following in his footsteps any time soon however!
CSS on mouseover Drop-down Menu
Here’s a nice example of a drop down menu using nothing but CSS styling. The author has tested it in several browsers and it works fine in Mozilla Firebird 0.7 here. Lovely!
How To Survive IKEA
Here’s a very good walk through for those of you heading to IKEA next weekend. We in Ireland are lucky, legislation doesn’t allow such large stores to open here yet, but I guess it also applies to Woodie, Atlantic Homecare and other DIY shops too!
One to print out and take with you.