As many people know I usually use a GNU Linux desktop environment, and have for a few years. I have previously had to use Windows during stints at large Engineering orgs, but most of the time, I was able to setup a second computer with Linux on it for day-to-day tasks. I’ve also used macOS/OS X a few times in the last few years, and I’ve got pretty frustrated with it. Read more

About 6 months ago our car (2008 Nissan X-Trail) started to have it’s AirBag light flash. This could be a worry we thought. After some googling we found a way to reset or go into a new diagnoses mode. This involved carefully timed ignition key turning with the airbag light showing up on the dash. (as it turns out there are at least a couple of these combinations which interact with various systems in the car) Read more

I have been putting a lot of thought recently into how the Australian and NSW government are pouring money into road infrastructure in Sydney. I think they are about 20 years too late, and believe they should stop throwing that money away and change directions. We are living in a world where telecommuting is a reality. I am fortunate enough to work for a great company where I can do that. Read more

I upgraded my laptop to Trusty Tahr today. One thing that didn’t work immediately was the Crashplan GUI. It crashes with a SIGSEGV. In summary “C [libsoup-2.4.so.1+0x6c2a1] soup_session_feature_detach+0x11”. I managed to find this bug, and then I found /usr/local/crashplan/bin/run.conf** ** which has a variable GUI_JAVA_OPTS. Adding ” -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.DefaultType=mozilla” to the end of that variable, and the GUI starts without fail. Win!

I was about to spend $500 to upgrade my existing D630, and then I found out that my $dayjob gives us $1K to buy our own laptop. I threw my hands in the year and decided I would buy a new laptop. Lots of back and forwards on whether I would go back to a Mac or buy the best Intel based laptop I could and run Linux on it. I am already pretty happy with my Dell and their enterprise range are usually well built. Read more