Just figured out how to get Twitter update the pidgin status (e.g. GTalk, Jabber, ICQ, MSN, etc.). For that, you need to install a pidgin plug-in written in Perl. Here is a small howto about it (as the Perl stuff was a bit tricky):
), install Active Perl version 5.8.8.X. Don’t take the last one, the 5.10.0, as Pidgin does not support it yet.Testing the wordpress application on the iPhone. It seems quite easy to post something. Apparently it works also on a self-hosted wordpress instance.
Just trying the Flock browser for posting a blog news. It’s great. It’s about like writing an e-mail, with a good blog integration, where you can define tags, categories and that kind of news-related things. Really cool. Much quicker than the web interface.
I published some time ago a news regarding reducing the power consumption of my home server to 53 W. There was some open issues like how to reduce the consumption further.
Regarding this, I finally simply decided to switch off the server automatically every night using a Cron job. This is an elegant solution, as I am not hosting anything on this home server, other than stuffs I am using at home. Everything else is on my dedicated server.
This solution has the following two advantages:
What I can still improve:
Will check this out.
Update: I actually activated wake-on-lan. This is really handy. I did a small script on my mac, which uses the utility ‘wakeonlan’ (installed through fink). That way I can confortably switch on the server remotely from my laptop when I need to. (The wake-on-lan option must be activated in the BIOS.)
The small script that I use (this will only work if the server is in the LAN):
#!/sw/bin/bash /sw/bin/wakeonlan [server mac address]
Something I wanted to do since ages. My wireless router WRT54GL running the Tomato firmware has a button on the front, which can be used to toggle WIFI on and off. The router has also a rather visible LED indicator, behind the button, that is unfortunately not used to show the WIFI status. (Originally, the wifi status is just shown by a tiny LED, that is just visible when watching closely the device).
It’s easy to fix that. Using the web interface, go to the ‘Administration’ > ‘Buttons / LED’ page. Replace the custom script by the following code:
# status: 1: wifi on, 0: wifi off
status=$(wl -a eth1 dump | grep associated | cut -d " " -f 2);
# toggle wifi & amber led
wl -a eth1 $([ $status -eq 0 ] && echo up || echo down)
led amber $([ $status -eq 0 ] && echo on || echo off)
Then change the setting for ‘0 – 2 Seconds’ to ‘Run Custom Script’. That’s it. Now when we press the button, the wireless is toggled and the LED switches itself accordingly.
Tested with Tomato 1.19.
According to the free newspaper “news” of today (Zurich, Switzerland) page 15, the computer-science Professor Kieron O’Hara, which is concerned about the loss of privacy in the internet age, is advising the editor in the interview to “google regularly one’s name, phone number and credit card number”, to see if this information is to be found somewhere on the net. OMG. I am wondering where this crap comes from. Either is this professor as intelligent as my banana tree, or the editor writing this did the interview in Esperanto, which neither of the two are understanding.
Why is it a bad idea to google one’s credit card number? Just in case you don’t know.
I have watched this talk a couple of days ago. It is really interesting so I am posting it hereafter.
[youtube Z4PwHD7XKj0]
I like particularly the TED talks. They are creative, expose innovative ideas in the fields of science, art, education, technology, design and even spirituality. It is a great source of inspiration. Now with leopard I can also watch my TED podcasts on TV using the new frontrow application. This is awesome.
In The following talk, Ken Robinson talks about creativity and education in “Do schools today kill creativity?”.
[youtube iG9CE55wbtY]
I just stumbled upon that video of Justice on Youtube. There is definitely something interesting there!
[youtube 2yHf-8gmJwA]
I just put a new mix in the sound section, so check it out! The mix is encoded at 256 kbit/s, I hope that’s OK for streaming. It should be, at least with the present band width we have.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Last week I bought a consumption measurement device for 20 bucks. I wanted to know how much current is needed for various electronic devices I use at home, some of them on a 24/7 basis. I have got a home server running Linux, that I use as a NAS, print server, slim server (for streaming mp3 files to an mp3 device) and for experimenting a bit with Xen and Ubuntu. I have got also some other devices like a wireless access point (WRT54GL running Tomato), a cable modem, an external backup hard disk, a b&W laser printer and a few other electronic devices.
Of course, one of the most energy hungry device I have is the server, which is always switched on. I was expecting a consumption of about 60 W, because I tried to choose efficient components, some of which were listed on a review regarding a green computer consuming 54 W when idle. My hardware configuration is the following:
So I shut downed my server, plugged it in the measurement device and booted it. The value I could read on the device, after the reboot was finished and the server was idle, was higher than expected: 85 W. I was not very happy with that value and began to try to optimize it.
hdparm -S 60 /dev/sda hdparm -S 60 /dev/sdb
which spins down the two disks after being idle for 5 minutes. I was able to grab a few watts and get down to 60 W, which is not too bad. I added the two commands in /etc/rc.local so that it gets executed automatically on boot.
apt-get install cpufreqd
and then edit the file /etc/default/cpufreqd and insert “powernow-k8″ in the option CPUFREQ_CPU_MODULE (you can check which module you need to use here). With these two operations, the BIOS upgrade and the cpu frequency scaling, I was able to grab a few watts, getting down, when the server is idle, to about 53 W, which is already a lot better than the 85 W I was getting without tuning.
The options I might consider now are the following:
Additional links:
“Un style, plus qu’un parti, a triomphé le 21 octobre: l’autoritarisme émotionnel, dont un bon exemple nous vient de la Russie.”
Article intéressant sur largeur.com au sujet des élections du week-end passé. Je vous en conseille la lecture.
I just stumbled upon that video giving an update about the bug catching tool goanna, project on which I worked in 2005-2006. There is apparently now a nice integration within the Eclipse IDE.
Let me just comment what happened this week-end in Switzerland through a couple of quotes from international newspapers.
Le Monde, Paris “La droite ultranationaliste renforce sa position dominante aux élections législatives en Suisse” (“The ultra-nationalist right-wing party reinforces its position at the legislative elections in Switzerland”).
El Pais, Madrid “La derecha xenófoba suiza gana las elecciones con el 29% de los votos” (“The xenophobic right wing movement wins the elections with 29% of the votes”).
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt “Leichter Ruck nach rechts” (“Slight hitch to the right”).
The Times, London: “Billionaire inspired by ancient martyr, Christoph Blocher of the Swiss People’s Party led his party to victory after a campaign with a trident anti-immigrant tone“.
Small summary of a couple of projects seen during the second conference day:
I guess, that’s it for this year. More information can be found on the Eclipse Summit 2007 website.