Recently discovered two rather handy little utilities for making C compilations faster … distcc and ccache. You can use distcc to distribute a compilation to a number of different systems – for example, if there are a number of fast machines on your local network, you can use all of them to reduce the compilation… (read more)

My bank, Nat West, now no longer require the use of Internet Explorer to use their service (they used to allow horrible old versions of Netscape too, but they didn’t work very well). They now support all the Mozilla-based browsers too, which is good news and undoubtedly a good security move. I certainly feel happier… (read more)

I actually added this a while ago, but have only just got round to uploading it here – there is now a JPEG image included in my GPG public key. Go to the GPG page for details.

Yet another Internet Explorer security vulnerability – the only twist with this one is that there is no fix! It’s laughably easy to be infected too – you view an infected web site – yes, that’s right, you just visit the site – and you’re infected. The viral code exploits a security hole in Internet… (read more)

New versions of Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird were released this week. I’m using the updated Firefox (we’re now at version 0.9) myself and it’s much lighter and speedier; and I’ve heard plenty of good things about Thunderbird 0.7 too, which is good because I plan to roll this out at work in the next… (read more)

From a recent Slashdot post, it seems that “Microsoft has launched its ‘Get the Facts’ road show — the tech equivalent of a political battle bus — to tour [the UK] and convince the wavering that Redmond is as at least cheap and as secure as its open-source rival and to spread the word that… (read more)

I’ve finally decided to do it. After taking a while trying to figure out whether I should digitally sign all my email or not, I’ve decided that, Yes, I will … I’m using GPG, as should you! My public key is available here and on the key servers. All email you receive from me (as… (read more)

Today I am 21. Well, in hexidecimal, anyway … Nice little present was a key-ring hand-held Space Invaders game … will have to find time to play with that. Also, I should point out that Episode 8 of LUG-Radio is out – thanks to Sparkes for giving my birthday a mention, too 🙂

Server ‘uptime’ refers to the length of time a server has been running since its last restart or reboot. Generally, people like to brag about “long uptimes” for their systems. Yesterday, I saw an article about ‘uptime’ and decided to check the uptime on some of our servers here … This is normally considered Tempting… (read more)

Our local MP, Dr Evan Harris came round last night, basically canvassing for the forthcoming local council elections. Given that the Liberal Democrats are about the only political party who have talked any sense on the National ID cards issue, I decided to have a chat. I mentioned that “we had been discussing National ID… (read more)