Congratulations! You have passed part one of the two-part application
process to become a Google Answers Researcher.
I have a feeling it gets harder now . . . . .
ladybug ladybug fly away home
and they did just that. I see very few of them around, no evidence of larvae, and too many aphids. Soapy water will have to do for now until I get more critters. There is a certain visceral pleasure in knocking the little parasites into the air . . . .
it helps to know who to ask
Had some issues with my mrtg monitoring stuff: got a new version from the author.
one benefit to self-hosting
That struck me as odd: what’s a major ISP like Earthlink doing running a 5-year old version of Perl?
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Darwin and Fink
Well, it turned out to be more complicated than I expected. The binary installation I did in Mac OS X failed when some files were moved at Sourceforge. So I had to pull them down by hand: annoying and inconvenient but not a showstopper.
On Darwin — the Aqua-less version — it was worse. Binary installations are not an option, and installing from source was frustrating.
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OS changes
I am going from 3 OSes down to 2.
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so much for handy scripts
feh. These need work, but they are a good starting point. The one to change user password doesn’t work because it doesn’t call openssl correctly. And some special characters can be expanded by your shell and munged as they get encrypted.
I ended up dumping the NetInfo passwd info to an ASCII file, editing it, and then reloading it.
Continue reading “so much for handy scripts”
a handy tool
Mac OS X Server Administration Scripts
I have learned to dislike NetInfo as a system information management interface (ASCII text files are still OK with me). Here are some scripts that management that particular management tool, and allow you to see how it works (I have found RTFM for these to be frustrating).
cast a broad enough net, catch a sucker every time
You’d think no-one would fall for the scam – known as a 419, after the relevant section of Nigeria’s criminal code. But you’d be wrong: a few years ago, the Nigerian government placed ads in the FT, warning people not to be greedy and not to be suckers. If you got trapped, it was your own fault, so don’t go running to the Nigerian government for your money back.
If you have never gotten one of these little gems, you’re lucky. You’d think people would realize it’s a scam. The most recent one I read claimed the money — tens of millions — was the result of overbilled contracts: in other words, fraud. Any sensible person would immediately press “delete.” Not if your greed impairs your judgment, apparently.
now what brings them here?
Welcome to Plagiarism.org, the online resource for educators concerned with the growing problem of Internet plagiarism.
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