I have really enjoyed watching the iterative improvements to the original Ubuntu login screen theme. Well, at least until Intrepid, which looked awfully familiar… but the grungy additions kept me attempting to clean my screen in vain. Here’s a slightly earlier variant, quite a few lovely iterations beyond my original implementation (which was entirely too […]
Category Archives: General
Friends, partners, lovers, warriors…
April 17, 2009 – 17:00
Goodness me, Pipka and I were married four years ago today. What an adventure! It’s hard to believe how much we’ve achieved together in the last four years. Some musings…
It feels like ages ago that Pia started a company, named in such a way that I would eventually have to join… and join I did. […]
approx: Package caching for Ubuntu (and Debian) lovers
April 13, 2009 – 04:51
If you have quite a few Debian or Ubuntu machines and you want an easy way to share and speed up package downloads — or reduce your bandwidth consumption — then approx is for you! It’s incredibly easy to set up, but there are a few tricks I’ve learned which can make it especially good for Ubuntu lovers.
I suppose […]
I can finally call my website a blog…
April 11, 2009 – 17:36
… because it includes pictures of dreadfully cute kittens… yay!
This as-yet-unnamed specimen is destined to be a farm cat — yes, shock, a working cat… catching mice, vermin, etc. — but he had some time in between drinking milk and discovering the world to visit us today. There are a few more shots in my flickr feed, but no […]
Slow motion sneeze as scare campaign art
April 6, 2009 – 17:17
Awesome new ad from the South Australian Government that combines artfully executed slow motion video with some of the tell-tale signs of scare campaign advertising tactics…
“There’s a lot of competition to get attention so you need to have a very stark message, a sharp message, and I think this ad, in a very short amount […]
Replacing Apache with nginx for static file serving
April 6, 2009 – 00:31
This chart represents the regular activity of an Apache server from Monday to Thursday — a massive spike of non-idle processes starting around lunch time — and then an eerily quiet Friday. No, it wasn’t a public holiday, it’s just evidence of win. Notice the gaps late on the 2nd and early on the 3rd? Happy infrastructure hacking in […]
Case-insensitive mapping with mod_rewrite’s RewriteMap
March 29, 2009 – 03:40
Sometimes when you need to manage a massive pile of URL redirections — for instance, when you’re playing snatch-the-tablecloth with your web platform — it’s handy to mash them all together with mod_rewrite’s RewriteMap feature.
I hit a frustrating stumbling block with a recent project, however: What happens if you need your RewriteMap key to be case-insensitive? This is incredibly […]
Devils and Penguins
March 18, 2009 – 15:35
Tux passes the baton to Tuz, the hastily-disguised Tasmanian Devil… at least for this release. Great to see one of the more high profile pledges of the madcap, ridiculous, wonderful and incredibly generous linux.conf.au 2009 auction being paid off.
linux.conf.au 2009: Tuz
Impact: help prevent extinction of species
The Tasmanian Devil is a shy iconic Australian […]
Joining the Blackout
February 23, 2009 – 11:42
I’m joining the Internet blackout today, and not just for my New Zealand friends who are combating this draconian copyright fundamentalism… I’m joining it because if this kind of legislation succeeds in New Zealand — who have a pretty good history of sticking it to The Man — it could succeed anywhere.
Here’s a great cartoon about the problematic legislation […]
More mainstream media love for OpenAustralia
December 20, 2008 – 11:15
Totally awesome to see Matthew Moore covering OpenAustralia’s efforts to bring the register of members’ interests to the web:
Given the fortunes spent in the nation’s Parliament, and Kevin Rudd’s professed desired for more transparency in government, it seems absurd that volunteers are left to do the job any self-respecting parliament would have done long ago.
via […]
