Sajjad's Blog

Just when I was starting to think the crime rate here was comparatively low. I had just got out of a customer's office and was looking for a cab when these two guys on a motorcycle came out of nowhere and made a grab for the small bag I was carrying.

Didn't lose much except for my beloved IXY digicam, my cheap mobile and the trusty Leatherman, but it was still shocking. I guess they thought it was full of wads of foreign currency, judging from my appearance (yes I was wearing a tie).

Now they tell me that those kinds of bags are usually carried by unsuspecting old cashiers and such and are vulnerable to this sort of attack. So what was I supposed to do? Stuff everything in my pockets? Anyhu, lesson learnt. From now on, I'm implanting everything in my skeleton.

Posted at 20:18pm Comments(1) | ¶

Tim talks about the recent failed attempt to create a stock market that speculates on terrorist attacks and gives a suggestion for a one that serves a more practical purpose:

Some of the previous Tangled Webs articles are also worth a read.

Posted at 22:04pm Comments | ¶

Just when I thought I was safe from quakes. There was quite a strong tremor a few moments ago. It must have been pretty big since buildings aren't designed to sway much, yet this one did.

Posted at 23:20pm Comments | ¶

Ok, not broadband, but it's better than dialup. Two guys came in today to test the phone lines in the office and setup a test DSL account. We've applied for a 64kbps one for now, but they gave us 128 for the 2-day trial. That should spoil me a bit before we go down to the actual 64k next week. Still better than dialup.

Posted at 20:06pm Comments | ¶

This fits in quite nicely with my interest in languages:

When I was working on Bayesian spam filtering, I realised that spam that misspelled words this way could have bypassed the filtering, at least for a while. Even thought of writing an app that did this and selling it to potential spammers. Another missed opportunity to become a millionaire. Well at least I still have my soul.

Posted at 16:27pm Comments | ¶

My company has become the first consultant from Pakistan to be added to Debian's consultants list:

Although I've stayed with Red Hat on most of my machines for quite a while now (yes, being an RHCE played a part in that), some of their recent decisions have earned them some bad publicity in the tech community. Mainly their use of the Bluecurve desktop (which I rather like) and short product cycles (they're stopping support for 7.3 soon) has eroded the goodwill they once had.

I don't see an immediate reason to switch, but may have to if things get any worse. Off course, this won't happen if we decide to become authorized resellers (have the form on my desk now), but is quite likely otherwise or at least on some machines.

Yesterday I got my Knoppix CD that I asked my friend to download and put it on an old 400MHz Dell that I've bought. This caused many oohs and aahs from those around. In case you're wondering what the hell Knoppix is or how it is pronounced, it is a Debian based German distribution that boots from the CD and brings up a full desktop without needing to touch your harddrive. Can't tell ya how to pronounce it, but you should be able to find something on their site.

It took about as much time to boot on this machine as Windows 2000 might have if it was booting from the drive. Impressive. Though the installer, that permanently puts it on the drive, didn't work properly.

Next step, look at other distros. Will need a lot of bandwidth, but that won't be a problem thanks to Shiraz who works for an ISP.

Posted at 14:45pm Comments | ¶

Found this somewhere:

My "Plain Text" site would have said something similar to this if I had had more time to work on it. Sadly, my 2 domains (plaintext.net and plain-text.com) expired last month without leaving any mark.

Posted at 04:13am Comments(3) | ¶

(Warning! The following information should not be read by anyone with an IQ of under 130. Any harm caused will be the reader's own responsibility)

This is just what the industry needs to get back on its feet. Should be really helpful if you like to play with hardware:

Pity they didn't mention how to deal with other components like hard drives and monitors. My advice would be to connect the hard drive without screwing it in, hold it in your hand and turn the power on. As soon as you feel it spin up, twist it around a bit. That should really get the platters groovin. If all else fails, let it slip out of your hand and hit the floor hard, preferably while still spinning.

To get rid of your new Audigy sound card, start your PC and try plugging in the card while the OS is still booting. I tried this yesterday, though failed to cause any serious damage. Maybe you'll have better luck.

I've also seen people attempt to destroy RAM by adding it after the power was turned on, but the effects aren't visible straight away. Good long term strategy though. Our router is still running after a month, but who knows when Mr.Haq will be successful.

Now for the monitors. Can't say much about Windows, but you can effectively destroy a CRT with X (on either Linux or *BSD) by specifying insanely high values for the vertical and horizontal refresh rates. Some distributions do this for you while probing for the monitor so search for a good one before attempting this. I had lots of luck with Red Hat 9 on an old Iiyama 17" which really turned the screen Red the first time it started the desktop.

Feel free to share any additional tips that you may have.

Posted at 16:18pm Comments | ¶

In one of the scenes in "Memento", there is a flashback of Sammy sitting in a mental hospital. Someone passes in front of him and the scene changes back to the current time. Just before the shot changes, there is a flash of Lenny in Sammy's place. I noticed this the second time I saw the movie and guessed that in some way, Sammy was actually Lenny. This page explains the plot in more detail:

Posted at 19:05pm Comments(19) | ¶

Remember this Slashdot article about Alan taking a year's leave from kernel development and RedHat to do his MBA? It was a cover up. The truth is, he's now working as my full time Corporate Affairs Manager. ;-)

Wait till you see who the new SysAdmin is.

Posted at 15:09pm Comments(1) | ¶