Well my highly publicized conversion to Linux is sort of over. I’ve still got Ubuntu installed on my secondary notebook, but I went back to WinXP on my primary notebook. There are some things I want to do, and it’s just a whole lot easier to use Windows (primarily work with videos of my daughter I’ve taken using my camcorder). This doesn’t mean that I didn’t like Unbuntu. I actually really liked it, but it just wasn’t practical for my needs. I’ll still use it, but just not as much.
I recently completed a project at work that included the requirement to monitor data files on 30 or more different Windows NT4 machines for changes. Naturally I thought of using the FileSystemWatcher class in the System.IO namespace. As anyone who has used the FileSystemWatcher has come to realize, it can be unreliable. Specifically, if one of the NT4 machines were rebooted, the watcher would “lose” its ability to capture the file modification events I needed. What was my solution? Well, it’s a bit of a hack. Actually, it’s a really big hack. I used the Timer class in the System.Threading namespace to restart the watchers at a specified interval and to check for changes to the files that I might have missed. The files don’t change very often, so the solution has worked so far. I also can’t install anything on the NT4 machines, so this is what I was forced to do. Come on. I’m not the only one to hack something together like this. Am I?
It looks like the war for high def DVD dominance has finally ended. All I can say is that I’m glad I didn’t get that Samsung HD DVD player I was drooling over a few months ago…
On a personal note, my wife gave birth to our first child Sunday morning at 2:06 am. She’s a beautiful 8lb 9oz 22in long baby girl! The posts to the ScarTech blog might few and far between in the next few weeks while I’m showering love on my little girl.
At work we’ve started a pretty aggressive re-write of our web applications. We’re moving them all to a set of common style-sheets, graphics and master pages as well as putting both our web server and SVN repository into a logical structure. What started as just a few ASP.NET applications, has grown to a jumbled mix of .NET apps, web services and ASP classic applications. Since we’ll be touching a lot of code in this project, we’re going to be taking a long hard look at security. Among other tasks we’re taking steps to prevent SQL injection and we’re making sure we close any cross-site scripting vulnerabilities.
We work on strictly enterprise applications and as a result we’re tucked in behind a nice corporate firewall. This is no comfort though because we have sites all over the world, and there are countless opportunities for attackers to get behind enemy lines. Because I’m beginning to take a more in-depth approach to security and how I write code, I thought I would share some of my lessons here in yet another series of blog posts (like the Second Look at Linux and FLOSS series weren’t enough). My next installment will concentrate on using the Anti-Xss library as well as a few code samples. The library is free to use and provides an easy method for encoding output from untrusted sources (i.e. the user).
After first testing in a virtual machine and then on a secondary machine, I’ve made the leap to running Linux full time on my primary home computer. I’ve been running Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) for about 3 weeks now, and I’ve been loving it. I’ve already detailed how easy the OS is to setup and configure. Since I’ve got a dedicated 3D card in my notebook, I was able to finally enjoy all the eye candy Ubuntu had to offer. Once I installed Compiz and enabled advanced desktop effects I was blown away! I never wanted to shell out the cash for the upgrade to Vista, so after coming from WinXP the difference is huge. Now I know that the eye candy isn’t what makes Linux so great, but it sure makes it pretty.
What I really like about switching to Ubuntu is that it’s something new (at least for me). The saying goes “familiarity breeds contempt”, and that’s how I was beginning to feel about WinXP. I’ve been using it for what seems like forever and Windows for even longer. I now find myself digging around the OS to familiarize myself with it. I’ve got a new system to learn, and I can’t help but think that it will make me a better developer in the long run.
I’ve even gone as far as to install NetBeans and Eclipse, so who knows. I might even begin writing some Java or C++ code in my spare time. I have to remember that there’s life outside the .NET framework.
I finally made it back* from the MacWorld 2008 Expo, and I figured I would share my thoughts on a couple items. First off, the $20 upgrade to the firmware for the iPod touch. Like Johnny Mac once said, “You can’t be serious!” There’s no question that Apple makes great products, but charging for a firmware upgrade seems arrogant to me. Especially considering the fact that the upgrade is free for iPhone owners. Is it that much more expensive to upgrade the iPod as compared to the iPhone? Just another way to squeeze a couple bucks out of the Apple faithful.
Next on the chopping block. The MacBook Air. I love the idea of a sub-compact Apple notebook, but this one is lacking a little. First the good. It’s beautiful, but we’ve come to expect that from Apple products. At 3lbs and 3/4 of an inch at its thickest, I love it. My current notebook is more than twice that. You can get a paltry 80 gig PATA drive or a 64 gig SSD. The solid-state drive comes at a premium price, but that’s to be expected since the drives are so new. There isn’t an optical drive included. In true Apple fashion you can pay an additional $90 for an external drive though. You can also use the optical drives on other machines, but you’re limited to 802.11N speed since there isn’t an integrated Ethernet port. To me, it looks like the MacBook Air would make an awesome second machine. There isn’t enough disk space and it’s missing some things required of my main computer. The real issue is that it isn’t priced like a second machine. Pricing starts at $1799. I don’t know about you, but that’s too much for what wouldn’t make a good primary machine. Put the price point in the $1200 neighborhood, and I’m sold. With the price pushing 2 large, I just don’t think it’s a deal.
* By making it back from MacWorld, I mean that in between work and new baby preparations I’ve caught up on the goings on at the big show in San Fran.
According to this post over at the DomainTools blog, NSI appears to be stealing domain name ideas.
This is what looks to be going on:
- You search (and find) an available domain.
- You don’t buy it right away.
- You go try to buy the domain later, and it’s been snatched up by NSI (who are willing to sell it to you — of course).
Sounds like a way for NSI to make a few extra bucks. Used car salesman style.
Umm yeah. Did I write that I was going to install iTunes in Wine on Ubuntu? Maybe not. It looks like that doesn’t quite work. I was able to install it, but it didn’t work. Not even close. I gave it a shot though…
On a good note, I was able to connect to my printer that’s shared on a WinXP machine. No problems connecting or installing the driver.
Over my Christmas holidays I decided to really get back into Linux. No virtual machines. No live Cd’s. This time I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my older notebook. Just like installing in VMWare, the installation was flawless. I didn’t have to look for any drivers. Not even for my add-on wireless card. I hate to borrow an expression from my Mac friends, but it just worked. After the install, there were a few updates that needed to be installed.
Like some other Linux distros I’ve researched, I had to install the necessary codecs for MP3 playback. It wasn’t difficult, but slightly annoying. Speaking of adding software, I really like the interface for adding software. It’s very easy to discover and install software using the Add Software wizard. I installed several music players, Mono, and NetBeans(among others). I was even able to connect and browse my iPod from Ubuntu. I think that topic will deserve a separate post of its own because it’s one of the main reasons I still have WinXP installed on my primary machine. Unlike a lot of people, I actually like iTunes.
So now I’m actually using Linux on a daily basis (unlike when I ran it as a VM), and I have to admit it’s very stable and the distro I’ve chosen is super easy to use. What’s next? Well, I’m going to try to get iTunes running in Wine and do some experimenting with the Mono development tools.