Kolbu

I was recently reminded about an excellent Fantasy/SciFi book called Keeping It Real, by Justina Robson that I read last year. It’s worth bringing up now as the paperback is due out on the US in 3 three days. If you haven’t read it, put it on your short list. Cover shot below, hit it to purchase at Amazon or memorize the image so you know what to look for if you’re the bookstore kind of person. The UK cover is similar, but with a greenish background. The plot is the usual girl meets boy. But the girl in question is a cyborg secret agent and the boy is an elf rock star and they must do a bit of dimension hopping to solve their problems. But it really is much better than it sounds, honest. As an added bonus, it’s the first of in a new series called Quantum Gravity and the second book called Selling Out is due this spring. So if you like it as much as I did, you don’t have to wait long for the next installment.

For a strange tie in with the series, check out the website of the elf’s rock band. The No Shows. They’ve even released a song you can listen to, with a little help from a more earthly band, Cynic Guru. Much in the same manner Mucky Pup helped Deathtöngue/Billy and the Boingers a couple of decades ago.

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So you want to be a hero. Well, at least you want to be able to run the latest and greatest Ubuntu version. Perhaps you’re a Gentoo convert like me, who miss being able to update your system at least four times a day. Just to get that fix. It’s like going 10 minutes without getting an email, you send one to yourself just to see if the system is working…

Aaaanyway, there is really nothing to it. Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list and change all references to edgy to feisty. I.e. replace edgy with feisty throughout the file. Then run apt-get update and  update-manager -c, both as root. You may have to say yes to one or two "are you sure you’re willing to destroy your system"-questions, but what the hey. After that, you’ll be the proud owner of a bleeding Ubuntu system and you’ll be able to do an apt-get update as often as you wish and more or less be guaranteed to get an update every time. Upgrade bliss.

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For some strange reason, none of my Ubuntu 6.10 installations have included NTP (Network Time Protocol) by default. No idea why, but here is how you make sure the clock your Ubuntu box is staying in sync with the rest of the world if the same thing happens to you.

 # sudo apt-get install ntp-server

This is technically it, but the stock installation does not adjust your time right away if it is way out of sync. So we just do this to make sure we’re correct from the start:

# /etc/init.d/ntp-server stop
# ntpdate -s pool.ntp.org
# /etc/init.d/ntp-server start

There, you’re in sync and will stay in sync from now on.

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Growing RAID5 sets under Linux by adding new disks on the fly has been possible for some time now. However, the kernel that comes default with Ubuntu 6.10 does not appear to contain all the needed support to do this. So if you need to do this, as I did, you first need to boot a newer kernel than the one available. I picked 2.6.19 and compiled it using these instructions. That took about five commands in total to do, so I won’t repeat those instructions here. Note however, that I had to specifically add support for both RAID5 and my various SATA-cards to the kernel configuration (the make menuconfig part of the instructions). Your mileage may vary.

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Picking an engine for your web site can be tricky stuff, especially for the unsavvy. Getting it right the first time isn’t easy. But don’t let that stop you from experimenting. There are tons of free and not so free software packages out there that once installed and configured will let you produce content without worrying about the underlying nitty gritty.

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Time flies like a pear shaped banana. I recently looked at my web site and realized it had been over three years since the last update. That’s like 347 Internet years, or there abouts. It didn’t look good, didn’t have a lot of information and what was there was decidedly last century. But amazingly enough, a fairly steady number of page hits despite it all. So I figured I’d throw up a new one, using a “proper” blogging/publishing tool for a change. Who knows, perhaps the ease of use of such a system would trigger a more frequent update cycle. I’ll start off with porting the old content though, should take about 20 minutes…

Four days left of 2006, and next year has just been described as the year the blogging fad blows over. Leaving just the well established and the die hards.

Sounds like a good time to start.

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