Author: 1

sysdeputil.c:162: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘…’ before ‘capset’

linux technology

I have no freaking clue what I am doing. So be careful just following this blindly.
When I initially googled for this issue I did not find this specific solution:

When tried to install vsftpd.2.0.7 from source on a centos 5.2 64 bit machine I get the error:

sysdeputil.c:162: error: expected declaration specifiers or '...' before 'capset'

Followed by allot of similar errors. I was able to address this by


yum install libcap-devel.x86_64

At which point the linker complained:

/lib/libcap.so.1: could not read symbols: File in wrong format

I had to actually commend out the line

locate_library /lib/libcap.so.1 && echo "/lib/libcap.so.1";

in vsf_findlibs.sh. After that it compiled and seemed work.

1080p

technology

Since I don’t watch TV just some DVDs I was quiet happy with the decent Sony Tube thing making the pictures. Yesterday I wandered over to the the going out of business sale public viewing of Circuit City. Which I can not recommend: 10% off all items that have not been marked down already. And the staff is as motivated as it was in the last year when it’s own purpose seemed to have been to avoid customers.

Standing in front of a panasonic 50″ with 720p and 1080p I was wondering if I should spend $1100 or $1500. I did do the right thing: Not getting either. Of course the store feeds the screens crappy std-def TV signals. But it made me curious. This week I also had another look on a specific 65″ 720p panasonic plasma from 2005. And subjectively a blue-ray DVD looked great.

I collected a couple of resolutions of devices and aligned with viewing distances. My conclusion is that a 50″ with 720p is more than enough: In order to be able to experience the higher resolution of the 1080p device I would need to sit ridiculously close to it. Even a 65″/1080p would have move me much closer than I usually watch in order to match resolutions that I am accustomed to and experience subjectively as a good picture. That -of course- will not stop vendors to make 1080p 42″ devices. And people will buy them as much as they bought cameras based on their megapixels years after more megapixels actually meant better images.

So I am roaming Craigslist now for 720p plasmas as big as possible. I will loose out on the improvements in plasma pixel technology (live, contrast ratio, coating). But I certainly don’t need to wast any money on a 1080p since they simply don’t make them big enough. Maybe I should get a projector after all …

i’ll wait for word then

Apple

Just a few weeks ago I bought iWork08. It would cost me another $100 to get the recent iWork09. That ‘Numbers’ is pointless I already realized. I hear keynote is alright, have not used it. I just tried to use Pages. Again. Making something as fancy as a ‘table’. Oh, boy! Annoying and stupid. But then I wanted to enter “99.999%”. The INTERDUBS uptime. Leaving the input focus of that field “Pages” decided to change that it to “100%”. No, really. Kid you not. Had to do it thrice to believe it. I am sure there might be some preference somewhere. But Pages has wasted enough of my time already. Amazon is shipping Mac office any day now. I can wait for that. Waiting happily to use a Microsoft software. What has the world come too!!

how easy was that!

internet linux malware

While trailing the log files this messages showed up:


Jan 12 16:49:13 andreaswacker vsftpd(pam_unix)[20094]: authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost=74.141.98.100

turns out some bot/script etc from 74.141.98.100 was trying to find an ftp user with a stupid name. Would have had no luck, but I don’t like my log files to be cluttered. So it turned out that a simple


iptables -I INPUT -s 74.141.98.100 -j DROP

blocks that IP address from now on. Nice. I think I will use that often now. There are lots of misconfigured systems out there. Like that Windows 98 computer in the philipines downloading the same file 5000 times yesterday. Thank you iptables.

I am sure Fios is awesome

internet marketing technology

Just too bad that Verzion isn’t. So I think I could use FiOS. The Verizon website however has a problem with the address that I happen to have. A message then claims that I could call to find out if Fios is available. Calling that number I just go through 5 menus only to be disconnected when the system tries to hand me over to the next station. On the internet that’s called a broken link. I am sure Verizon has spent some money on marketing to make me aware of Fios. They also have spent money to put the actual thing in place. Too bad that they are unable to make a sale since their sales tools just happen to be broken. I guess they need a bail out too pretty soon …

os x: don’t crash and bother

Apple OSX

When a program crashes under OS X then it displays a dialog asking if the info should be sent to Apple. If you never do that then you can disable this dialog by typing:


defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType Server

in a terminal shell. So says the C’t.

thousand updates

interdubs technology

The code management system I wrote for INTERDUBS happens to also count the number of updates that I publish to my clients. It just hit 1,000. Of those about 10-20% were cosmetic updates. Like typos or smaller changes in the html to make things more readable etc. Luckily less than 5% were bug fixes. I code in small chunks and those extensively. And maybe it is also a matter of routine. I hope I know what I am doing, and where changes would jeopardize the system. Of course stating this is inviting trouble. A thousand times I changed the running INTERDUBS. While it was in use by clients and admins. And: nobody ever noticed. Flying the airplane and fixing it. I really love this part of the project: Somebody has an idea. I look at it, and can tell them right away how doable it is, or in the best cases the reply email is as terse as “good idea! done”.

The fast majority of all the good things that came in those 1,000 updates were actually customer ideas. The people using the system know best what they need. It is really great being able to listen to them and to implement what they want.

change comment colors in vim

technology

Syntax coloring in vim is pretty awesome. Comments however are by default blue. A color that is hard to read if you have a black background on a LCD screen.

It turns out that this pretty easy to change. For perl you would simply do:


mkdir -p ~/.vim/after/syntax/
echo highlight perlComment ctermfg=DarkGreen guifg=DarkGreen >> ~/.vim/after/syntax/perl.vim

This worked right away after adopting the C example of the documentation. I am sure that php etc will work similar.

numbers: don’t count on it

Apple M$ technology

I am an casual office software user. I write things in vi or text edit. And yes, that’s how they sound. I never was that big in to spread sheets. But graphing solutions I need. I had written my own things for SGI, but even though OS X is OpenGL as well, it is just too much work to maintain.

Since my kids now start using office software I thought I’d get them iWork. Big mistake. Pages is ok (compared to vi and text edit). Numbers however is just outright lame. I hate the fact that Apple is able to pretend that this pile of junk is software that you can make an attempt to sell. Trying to graph anything in this turd of a bloatware reveals how 0.5 ass this thing is. The problem is that crappy software is worth negative money: It took me hours to figure out that it was actual this ‘spreadsheet application’ that was just unable to do even simple tasks.
“Numbers” has no understanding of time. I will download now Mac Office 2008. Which is even reasonably priced these days. Looking forward to use Microsoft software. How weird is that!

iDidntForget (stupid!)

Apple internet misc

Apple makes awesome products. Since years I spend most of my waking hours on their respective recent laptops. That part works so well. The iPhone is alright. I had better phones that worked much better as a phone. But that might be AT&Ts issue. And it kinda works.

Apples online user management is ridicolous though. I keep lots of passwords to lots of sites. And nowhere do I have the amount of trouble that Apple gives me. It never is clear if their different services share the same credentials. Changing / retrieving it is a nightmare. The whole user experience is just broken. I think that happens if you have one part of your business doing really well: You can afford to be sloppy in another. And I am sure that Steve never has to reset his password. And many people are having trouble managing their passwords. So they will not blame Apple for their broken system. I can, since things work on all other major sites and system for me. But not in Apple Land.

I never was intrigued by .mac and so I skipped looking at MobileMe. Which turned out to be a good thing. I wonder if Apple will be able to turn this around. But looking at their websites and it’s vast collection of broken links and outdated developer documentation I have serious doubts that this will be ever better.