Previously, like probably 80% of other users, I had only used Putty as a ssh enabled terminal emulator. However after my adventures with emacs I’ve come to realise what a great tool it is, including it’s support for comand line use.
If you are stuck using Windows without OpenSSH (e.g. not using Cygwin) then I recommend you get Putty.
Some of it’s features are:
Key generation and management (including import/export of OpenSSH keys)
A key caching utility (so you don’t have to keep typing the key passphrase)
command line ssh support vi plink
support for scp and sftp (pscp and psftp)
Every time I’ve used it it’s been rock solid and handled everything thrown at it (including things that OpenSSH had trouble with — although to be fair that was probably not OpenSSH’s fault)
I am using emacs with the tramp extension to edit files on a remote server using ssh. I had to pull in various hacks to get it to work so I hope these notes might help others.
There are also other free of cost options you may care to consider first:
Both Filezilla and WinSCP have options to edit a file from the remote file system which then invokes a local Windows editor of your choice.
jEdit has an ftp plugin that supports sftp and bookmarks
Test ssh again to see if public authentication works (it did not for me because it had been disabled by the UNIX admin)
Configure emacs to use tramp
Start emacs and test connection using cygwin ssh/scp/sftp. If it works skip to step 13 (I think the reason it did not work for me was that the remote host displayed a security banner)
Currently I am feeling very cut off as the latop is at the menders having it’s drive electronics diagnosed. However as soon as it gets back I shall be off to the land of Git after re-reading Sam’s updated (and excellent) git-svn tutorial. Git is designed for distributed use, is fast and I’m assured very flexible…
Of course I may not wait that long as I’m being tempted to purchase an HP 2133, despite it having a Broadcomm wireless adaptor and all the bloody aggro that entails.
Get a LinkedIn account — it’s not facebook and has a lot more gravitas; but at least you have an online presense. Spend some time making the profile reflect you and your experience
Use an RSS reader (e.g. Google Reader) to read blogs and news that interest you. It saves a lot of time
Start a blog — you don’t need to post every day, but it’s a good place to put down all the lessons you have learned where they will be useful to others
Try and stop snarling at the young people. Apparently we were like them once (so they tell me)
I often enjoy watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and I’ve wondered if his approach could be used to illustrate common problems with software development.
Know what your customers want and will pay for: i.e. Get the requirements right
Lack of training and experience can be fatal
Don’t expect kids with 6 months experience in only one language to implement large complex systems without significant supervision and mentoring
There is no substitute for passion and hard work
Success comes from the whole team working together
Keep things as simple as possible
Ensure equipment is clean, working and eliminate ‘bad smells’ from the materials
Version control
Build environment
Refactor
Test planning and infrastructure…
Some come on people, it’s not exactly fucking rocket science is it?
First off I’d like to thank Broadcomm for being such a bunch of peasants as to make life hard for people not running operating systems from the West Coast USA.
Here is my contribution to the many, many, comments on the web on how to get the bmc wireless hardware working. Note that there seems to be a lot a variation in peoples’ experience — you would probably be advised to slaughter a chicken and sprinkle the warm blood over your laptop first (it can’t hurt) ndiswrapper I used the ndiswrapper route as the native OSS driver did not work for me. Also note that I am running KDE (kubuntu)
Download the latest driver package from hp.com. NB This is distributed as a Windows exe file but you can extract it using wine (sudo apt-get install wine), the file will end up in somewhere like ~/.wine/drive_c/SWSetup/SP34152A/
Make sure the native driver is disabled (instructions on URL above)
Run ndiswrapper -i … (as explained in URL above) but use the HP driver package you downloaded
In System settings/Network settings/ make sure the eth1 interface is configured for dhcp and then disabled.
Use kWifi Manager to confgure your WiFi connection and then activate it.
Please note that I did not follwo such a direct route so I have limited confidence this would work exactly as documented. I took me 3 days of fiddling around so please be patient.
…many of us are becoming technology nomads, carrying less and less with us in our daily travels because we know where the oasis (of WiFI rather than water)…
Oh if only it was that easy in Australia. There are so few open WiFi spots here (mainly because if the high cost of net access) that it’s a real struggle to wander and work. There are a few pay per use services (e.g. Telstra) — however they can be very expensive. We are seeing a lot of 3G wireless services being pushed as well, but cost is again an issue and they are limited to business use.
Maybe one day we’ll get cheap pervasive networking here (I know it’s better that many places in the world, but for a modern economy it’s pretty poor)
Police in Canberra have been given extra powers to search people and seize items during the Olympic torch relay next week. The ACT Government has made declarations under major events security laws, designed to prevent dangerous items from being brought into the torch relay area. Police will have greater authority to search people and to seize items, including eggs,…
When we will get warnings on the egg cartons and the public education program?
(I don’t usually do politics here unless there is a technology connection, but I couldn’t resist this.)
Software geeks often want to display code in their presentations. However there are a few problems
Displaying code can be a confusing amount of low level detail when you are really trying to make sure people remember a few key concepts and ideas. You risk your message getting lost as people change gears and attempt to analyse what they are reading.
The format of the presentation slide does not make is easy to present anything substantial (over 5 statements?) in a coherent fashion. Visual layout, font sizes and a need for consistency make it hard to present much code in single slide
In some presentation presenting ‘canned’ code looks fake and casts doubt on how genuine it is (e.g. when showing how to write code for a new framework)
What are some of the ways if getting around these issues?
Don’t use code at all. Refer the audience to examples they can examine later if required
Split the code into very small pieces (1-5) lines that can be used on a single slide to explain a concept (e.g. how to connect to a specific remote data source). Refer the audience to the complete examples they can examine later if required
Change the format of the presentation completely for the presentation of more substantial code. This can be done in one of two ways:
Presenting the material in another program such as a text editor. The editor should be pre-loaded with the code before the presentation starts
Changing the slide layout to help display code. e.g. remove all background, reduce the font size (carefully), use large margins so that the shorter lines look more natural, change font, change background and font colours to improve contrast
Type the text direclty into a text editor for demonstration purposes. Not recommended unless you are a very good typist or ‘dummy it’ using a tool such as IO::Prompt
Sex offenders’ e-mail addresses are to be passed to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to prevent them contacting children.
As a parent of two young children and someone who has worked with survivors of childhood sexual assult in the past I am 150% behind measures that will provide protection to the young. However someone needs to educate polititions on what is effective, as opposed to measures designed to chase votes and lull people into a false sense of security.
All measures such as filtering, blocking email addresses etc. can be easily circumnavigated. They only effective protection is to physically ensure the children are safe at the point of delivery (i.e. the child’s computer). In the same way I don’t let my young children wander onto the road or alone into potentially risky situations, I make sure that I know (see) what they are doing online and educate them on safe internet practices.
As you can tell naive ideas as the one outlined above annoy me intensely.
My smartphone is at the menders (I walked on it and broke the screen!) so I bought a cheap phone until it comes back. However at AU$80 I feel ripped off. The phone has lots of neat features (email, camera, browser,…) which are all so badly done as to be unusable. Plus the connection software only works on bloody Windows!
I considered the EEE PC some time ago and decided that it was not really for me because of storage and screen limitations. However the new 900 has a 1024×600 display and 12Gb flash drive. With USB ports for mouse & keyboard and a monitor port plus storage expansion via SD and USB could this become a serious machine?
the rumor mill churning over 3G iPhones coming soon.
Along with the updated software roadmap announced last month (enterprise email, SDK etc etc) the iPhone is starting to look like a worthwhile appliance for serious people instead of a toy for Mac fanboys and girls. My current handset contract expires in 18 months so I’ll look forward to considering it then — provided it’s arrived in Australia of course…
I have recently been setting up an old PC as a backup system for my office enviroment. However 10 year old hardware does have it’s limitations so I had to go through a few hoops to get it to my liking.
Install latest Debian as Ubuntu got a little upset with the old BIOS and disk drives
Make sure that the system has sshd installed, i.e. apt-get install ssh
Stop the graphical login running by executing update-rc.d -f gdm remove
Install xfce4 (it uses less resources than KDE or GNOME), apt-get install xfce4
Make xfce4 the X window manager by creating a file ~/.Xsession with the line ‘exec xfce4-seesion‘
Now you can log onto the Linux console and type startx or use a remote X server display, e.g. X11 on OS/X using ssh X tunnelling.
e.g. ssh -X -l <userName> <machineName>
When using a remote X server there can be problems if you do not start some programs in an X term displayed by the X server and for which you started your X tunnel. e.g. xclock does not care, GNUCash crashes the X server. So make sure your X server displays an X term of some description.
Alec’s warped view on the world of software and sometimes life in general. Pithy, germane, comments are always welcome.
This content on this site is copyright Alec Clews and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License unless otherwise stated.
N.B. Postings on this site represent my personal opinion only and many factors specific to your environment may invalidate this information. You should check before relying on anything I say or quote here.
