Articles
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Microsoft opens office in Poyais
A few months ago, I woke up after a long sleep-in to find A looking a bit confused. She had just received a phone call from “Microsoft” who had detected a problem with our router. At least, it was a problem on our router, or perhaps a problem from our router. Either way, apparently there was some malicious problem with the computer here — which one, they did not say — and they were apparently calling to resolve the issue; in English, no less!
I shrugged it off as complete and utter bollocks, and life went on.
After speaking with my father in Australia today, it turns out he's received a few of these calls too. For him, it was “Microsoft” on Castlereagh Street in Sydney, although with a terrible phone line and some almost incomprehensible Asian accent it could have been anywhere.
The similarity between the two incidents seemed too much of a coincidence — it seems like our friends from the Republic of Poyais have returned.
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History of the web
The media are abuzz about a new gallery at the National Media Museum in the UK which is opening today. The new exhibit is called Life Online, although they're also referring to it as LOL, probably to keep the kiddies happy.
I'm curious as to how accurate the exhibit is, because museums tend to embellish facts to keep things interesting. If they mention that the Internet was created for nuclear preparedness, I'd walk away. Since the focus is more “web” orientated, I'd probably be a bit disappointed if they didn't mention Gopher as an early iteration of the web.
I'd be really disappointed if they didn't at least mention Doug Engelbart's extraordinary demonstration from 1968, which showed groundbreaking stuff created by him and his team at SRI that we take for granted today (watch it if you haven't)..
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Dear Google
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Neighbourly consideration
🏠Living in an apartment building can be difficult. It's important to get along with your neighbours and respect each other, but everyone has different ideas on just how far that goes and what that encompasses.
Most of our neighbours are lovely people and keep to themselves. Unfortunately a small few just aren't considerate, probably for no reason other than they've never thought about how their actions affect others. To this end, I offer a short list of things you can do to ensure that you are a considerate neighbour for a peaceful coexistence with your neighbours in the apartment building.
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Benespection
Things are going well, albeit slower than I would have hoped. Starting a business in Belgium is a lot more tedious than in other countries, but then again they have a much lower rate of failure for small businesses here.
I didn't manage to post a “benespection” at all last year, and to be honest I've been keeping my head down and getting things done so I haven't spotted much worth taking a photo of, let alone actually taken the photo.
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So long, and thanks for all the fish
After a year (or two) of hand-over, training those around me in the department on everything under my remit, it's time for me to walk away from my job after seven years. It's been fun, and painful, and educational, and torturous. It may not be the wisest decision, or the best timing, but to maintain my own sanity it had to be done.
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London
Aside from the big news, obviously A and I have spent the long weekend in London, an annual event quickly becoming a bit of a tradition.
As with every trip to London, there's a little bit of tourism, a lot of shopping, a lot of slobbing about, and a lot of walking.
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La question à Dinner
A and I have been together for so many years now, the early years are starting to get all blurry. A while ago I had decided it was probably about time to formalise the arrangement with an engagement, as it would mean quite a lot to her. It's been on my mind for quite some time, but the day had to be special. It had to be a surprise. It also had to be relatively low-key, as we're both all about keeping it relaxed and simple.
I've been seeking thoughts casually from friends as to whether or not it was really necessary — do a ring and a legal document really change anything? Or, as John puts it, “does the government really have to be involved?” Eventually I came to the conclusion that it would mean a lot to A, and the family on both sides, and ultimately it would mean quite a bit to me too. It’s a statement of commitment.
So, I suppose you want the juicy details…
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Montréal
A and I have just returned from a week in Montréal. Canada has always been a bit of a curiosity to me and I've wanted to visit for some time now, and after finding some cheap flights with Air Transat and a cheap, central, funky hotel, there was no reason to put a trip off any longer.
As usual, we arrived with not much of a plan beyond general exploration, this time armed with Google Maps on our phones (with an international data plan). I always like to get a feeling of what it's like to live in cities I visit rather than try to put together an itinerary of stuff to see and do.
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La Ronde
It's been a while since I've gone on a rollercoaster binge, and I suspect I'm getting over my rollercoasterholicism (probably because I got annoyed with the whole thing). Being in Montréal though, we couldn't resist (more on that later).
Today A and I spent the day at La Ronde, located fairly centrally within metropolitan Montréal on Île Sainte-Hélène. It's a metro stop or two from the city centre plus a short 15 minute walk through the pretty Parc Jean-Drapeau. With it nearly the end of the season, we had to go and check out this unique park!
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HTTP Strict Transport Security
🔓The observant amongst you will have noticed that this website has become entirely secured by HTTPS.
If you didn't notice, then I've done my job correctly!
By redirecting every page to its HTTPS counterpart, every page you see here will be secured. However, I'd prefer all traffic was secured and reduce the number of redirections from non-secure to secure pages, and that's where HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) comes into play. In this article, I'll explain my motivations, and how to implement HSTS on your own site.
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The flood
A few days ago I ordered some new Lafuma boots from Amazon. My old ones are possibly the most comfortable shoes I've had in years, and having worn them almost every day since I bought them in Chamonix (over three years ago) the outsoles are starting to break down.
The new ones arrived today, and that was pretty lucky as today was the day for my old shoes to prove just how waterproof they are.
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Cooked CPU
Remember my new computer? Well, it's dead. It died a few weeks ago, and after some diagnostics it's clear that the CPU was completely cooked. Yes, the most expensive part of the build is the part that died.
I guess this is all part of the fun of the so-called bleeding edge.
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Progress
Everything's a computer these days, and with so many of these devices being connected to the Internet it seems that engineers are getting lazier. Being a software engineer myself, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't become a plumber.
I worked a full day yesterday despite it being a Saturday, mostly performing code deployment and system maintenance. For those of you who work in the industry, you'll know that it basically means sitting around waiting for progress bars. I've returned home and want to decompress from my day of waiting, only to find more progress bars waiting for me!
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The final pieces of the puzzle
After building the new computer and the arrival of the new monitors, it's been a while since I've been able to complete my “evil plan”. The final pieces of the puzzle arrived today, including a shiny new 30" HP ZR30w monitor (another S-IPS panel).
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Barcelona
A surprised me this (long) weekend with a trip to Barcelona for my birthday. I'd been before very briefly on a road-trip back in 2006 with Scott and loved the relaxed and friendly atmosphere of the city considering the size.
As per usual, no real plan existed for the weekend, so we relied on random wandering and the occasional geocache to navigate to interesting spots, so there's not a considerable amount to say really, and I haven't sorted through the photos yet. I tend to avoid playing the tourist and try to live like a local on holiday, so city trips tend to be more about shopping, eating, and exploring the life within the city, rather than queuing to see monuments.
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Audit season
Ahh, Easter. A time for many — my nieces included — to eat obnoxious amounts of chocolate (thanks, by the way, Datalogic for providing this year's stash).
For others, it's a time to reflect on a guy who was purportedly nailed to a large cross after throwing one hell of a party with lots of booze, but was later found with a traffic cone, at which point one of his mates (Tom) earned himself a nasty reputation for putting his fingers where they don't belong (although he was probably still hung-over).
Many people just see it as time off work.
For me, it's a bit different.
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Finding cheaper flights
✈Looking for cheap flights on the Internet? Yeah, me too. The travel industry seems to intentionally make it hard to find the best prices, so you're doomed to play the game and hope you score a deal when you buy your tickets.
Like a casino, the odds are always in favour of the house, but there are a few tricks I've discovered over the years to try and help beat those prices down. I hope you find some of these tips useful.
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Too long
Apparently the reason I'm so slow to get blog posts out is because my posts are always really long or difficult to assemble. That's pretty much true, so let's keep this one short. Do you prefer quality over quantity, or vice versa? I prefer quality, which tends to become quantity. Woops‽
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SSH key fingerprints in DNS
Secure shell (SSH) is the workhorse of a UNIX system administrator. Due to its ability to secure connections, protect login details, provide authenticity and even tunnel traffic, SSH replaced telnet in the real world many years ago. Authenticity is not guaranteed, and for administrators working with a large farm of servers it's important to ensure you're talking to the server you really wanted, and not something that's moved into its place.
SSH employs a private/public asymmetric keying system, keeping a private key closely guarded and using the public key to not only secure the connection but help prove that you're talking to the right server. Most SSH clients will allow you to remember the public key for a server after your first connection; ensuring subsequent connections are to the same server by revalidating a hash of this key, known as a “fingerprint”. To help validate the fingerprint on your first connection, you can store a fingerprint of the SSH server's public key in DNS for additional verification.
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