Coredump

I’m here in a new workplace. The work is okay, so far (going on one and a half months now). Got several machines to tinker with. Oh, I do get to fuddle with Linux (Red Hat and Suse Enterprise, with Centos, Fedora Core, and Debian thrown in the mix), but not as full-time as before.

So, in one of my Windows boxes, I got me:

• Bash for Windows;
• Wget for Windows; and
• of course, Vim for Windows

I.T. policies are not that strict when it comes to what we can install in our machines, but there are obligatory software, on top of the only supported OS (Windows 2000 Professional and XP Professional) — Outlook, for one. I have yet to find a way to get Thunderbird to authenticate via the company’s Active Directory.

I’ve installed several open source software. Scintilla text editor works great (they prefer UltraEdit), but I miss the command line so Vim was it. I’ll be doing lots of IM so I got me Gaim for Windows — what better way to integrate all those protocols (I have accounts in AIM, Yahoo!, GTalk and MSN). Too bad, there’s no integration for Skype yet. Of course, there’s the ever trustworthy Firefox. FileZilla is in the mix, too, and so is Ethereal.

Now, I’m a bit more comfy in my cube. Back to my reading…

Via Boing Boing:

At the recent KinnerNet 2005 [Israeli version of Foo Camp], [co-founder Yossi] Vardi and his pals Shimon Schocken and Ami Ben-Basat demonstrated that snails can be faster at data delivery than both ADSL and pigeons.

Called SNAP (SNAil-based data transfer Protocol), the system uses “biological carriers, and, for the first time, taking advantages of the unique merits of the wheel for data transfer.” Test results showed that SNAP (at 37,000 kbps) is significantly faster than ADSL (1,500 kbps) and WiFly TCP (Transmission by Carrier Pigeons, also known as “IP over Avian Carrier”) (2,270 kbps), which has a glaring limitation of not being able to “fly through Windows”.

A distinct disadvantage of SNAP is the risk of DOS (denial-of-service), “most notably in France, (where) culinary habits may pose a risk — French users will have to choose whether they want to be served data-ex-cargo or an escargot.”

Wanna learn how to make a PC out of gingerbread? This Swedish site shows you how. Time to crank up Babelfish. UPDATE: Alas! Babelfish doesn’t do Swedish. This other translation site spews rubbish as well. *Sigh!* Good thing there are pictures. [via Boing Boing]

Warning: don’t try these at home.

These and more, over at TechRepublic.

Geeks do fall in love.

Watch the video. Hear the music. Read the lyrics.

Some bits:

I’ve proved my proposition now, as you can see,
so let’s both be associative and free
And by corollary these shows you and I to be
Purely inseperable, Q. E. D.