Author Archives: ward

Irish Swiss cheese

Posted on August 22, 2008 by ward

This country never ceases to amaze me. Everything is standardized – down to the kind of cheese you get when you order a sandwich. There’s American, Swiss, Cheddar, Provolone, etc. Somehow Emmentaler, Gruyere and the many other cheeses from Switzerland … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal | Leave a comment

Free the Airwaves

Posted on August 18, 2008 by ward

Via the Google blog: the FCC is set to rule shortly on the unused ‘white spaces’ – parts of the spectrum between broadcast TV channels that currently goes largely unused. Google’s launching Free the airwaves – a campaign to make … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadband | Leave a comment

price comparison: Dell XPS M1530 with Ubuntu vs. Windows

Posted on August 8, 2008 by ward

Dell announced that a few more models are now available pre-installed with Ubuntu: the XPS 1530n and the Studio 15n. I configured an XPS 1530n with the following specs, which are available both with Ubuntu and Windows: SYSTEM COLOR Tuxedo … Continue reading →

Posted in Free Software/Open Source, Hardware | Leave a comment

kexec’ing into a Xen kernel

Posted on August 8, 2008 by ward

I’ve got a number of servers that run coreboot + Xen. I like to run coreboot with a linux-as-a-bootloader (LAB) payload. That means that coreboot, after bringing up the machine, boots into a small linux kernel + busybox environment, entirely … Continue reading →

Posted in coreboot, Xen | Leave a comment

my apartment needs a tail

Posted on August 1, 2008 by ward

Ars Technica describes a pilot project in Ottawa that puts a new twist on telecommunication infrastructure: the customer-owned last mile. From the article: A private company has recently completed a project to string dark fiber from a colocation facility under … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadband | Leave a comment

upgrading from dapper to hardy: ‘Hash Sum mismatch’

Posted on July 31, 2008 by ward

So you’ve done quite a few dapper to hardy upgrades, and you’re ready for the next one. You apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get install update-manager-core and then do-release-upgrade -d You go get a cup of tea, and come back to … Continue reading →

Posted in Free Software/Open Source | 3 Comments

new coreboot logo

Posted on July 1, 2008 by ward

It’s official – we have a new logo! Many thanks to the folks who made this happen: * Konsult Stuge * coresystems GmbH * Kitchener Waterloo Linux User Group and Richard Weait * Breakfast Design

Posted in coreboot | Leave a comment

misleading mongrel errors

Posted on June 18, 2008 by ward

So you’re happily developing a rails app, and for whatever reason need to restart your devel server. And then you get this (paths removed to improve readability): $ script/server => Booting Mongrel (use ‘script/server webrick’ to force WEBrick) => Rails … Continue reading →

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ftp.us.debian.org

Posted on June 4, 2008 by ward

$ host ftp.us.debian.org. ftp.us.debian.org has address 128.30.2.36 ftp.us.debian.org has address 64.50.238.52 ftp.us.debian.org has address 64.50.236.52 ftp.us.debian.org has address 35.9.37.225 $ telnet ftp.us.debian.org 80 Trying 35.9.37.225… Connected to ftp.us.debian.org. Escape character is ‘^]’. HEAD / HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.0 200 OK Connection: close … Continue reading →

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NPR on ogg vorbis

Posted on June 1, 2008 by ward

WBUR, one of the two NPR stations in Boston now streams in unencumbered and patent-free Ogg Vorbis! Check out the WBUR listen page. Here’s the direct link to the m3u. Also see the FSF press release about this.

Posted in Open Standards | Leave a comment