Free software Feed

UK Postcode Lookup - My First Drupal7 Module

2012-02-26T17:29:16Z

Update 2012-02-26 I updated this module in a few ways. It now uses the Drupal presave hook rather than the form_alter hook -- meaning that if there is a postcode and no lat/long it will always look up your postcode. That is a much better way to do it in my opinion. I’ve also changed the default lookup code to use Google’s geocoding rather than openstreetmap’s. This is mostly because we needed to look up non-uk addresses. I had had great hope for the lovely open, non-corporate Geonames service, but unfortunately it doesn’t do lookups of addresses in Israel. I am keeping an eye though. I’ve not changed the writeup below, so it will be out of sync with the actual code.

Iceweasel/Firefox 4 or 5 on Debian Squeeze

2011-07-08T08:43:21Z

I don't know if you heard about it but Fabrice Bellard recently made a Javascript PC emulator that could boot a full linux with emacs and vi and even a c compiler. Which is insane. I wanted to check it out, but the core Iceweasel on Debian Squeeze (3.5) isn't up to the job, Fabrice has coded it to work on chrome or FireFox 4 or greater. Now, I've compiled my own Firefoxen in the past and its a faff, especially when it comes time to upgrade. Fortunately the Debian Mozilla folk have made a nice tool to help you import a lovely Deb of iceweasel or icedove for your Debian system. Its just a matter of choosing your Debian version, and following the instructions. Here's a video.

Debian Tip: Get Adobe Air working on 64-bit Squeeze

2011-06-17T08:15:21Z

Lots of people seem to want to develop applications on the decidedly unfree Adobe Air platform. They provide a .deb for 32 bit systems but not for 64 bit systems. I wanted to check out some software from the dark side, and took a while to suss out what the provided deb needed to make it run. It was the ia32-libs of course! I'd forgotten I don't have them on my work machine since upgrading to Squeeze. In the end, this worked.# aptitude install ia32-libs ia32-libs-gtk # dpkg -i --force-architecture adobeair.deb

Backtrack5, on an encrypted USB filesystem and nouveau driver

2011-05-18T21:45:02Z

Backtrack Linux has become increasingly useful to me over the last few months. The latest release Backtrack 5 came out on 10 May, so I, of course wanted to have a play. Just a little background on Backtrack. Its specifically aimed at security professionals and hackers and has everything that you might need to do information security work, digital forensics, pen testing and so on. The new release brings a GNOME desktop – the previous version was a KDE-only distro – which is a big deal for me. Its got the shinyness of Ubuntu with the focus of a proper infosec distro. Very, very good.

Collaborative pornography and making Windows 7 rsync

2011-05-14T22:51:03Z

This should be an unusual blog. I'm attempting to combine a belated shoutout for nor's collaborative porn project, OpenSauce with a howto guide to making rsync work on windows. Lets see how it that works out. The OpenSauce Project

Video: Richard Stallman - A Free Digital Society

2011-03-14T14:31:00Z

Richard Stallman is something of a legend. He singlehandedly launched the Free Software movement, and the GNU project and has been campaigning for software freedom for almost as long as there have been usable home computers. I jumped at the opportunity to see him talk at the Institution of Engineering and Technology. His topic was "A Free Digital Society", and he spoke on the various problems — nonfree software, software as a service, invasion of privacy, and such — that are often ignored by the discourse of digital inclusion.

Vimperator Tip: Cut and paste with ctrl-c/ctrl-v

2011-02-15T21:51:59Z

I'm a huge fan of the Vimperator Firefox plugin. It works just like you'd want it to and doesn't break much. Well, it breaks one useful thing, which is the almost universal ctrl-c/ctrl-v cut and paste shortcuts. So, I was well chuffed to find a Vimperator cut and paste tip on superuser. I've extended the tip so that it works in all of the Vim modes.

Thunderbird/Icedove sort order and delete order on Debian Squeeze

2011-01-16T15:55:56Z

Its true. By default Icedove (that's Thunderbird to non-Debianists) puts the newest emails at the bottom of the message list. This is wrong and evil (I may be exaggerating). It took me a while to find the proper solution and then a bit longer to figure out I needed to delete the .msf files from my ~/.icedove/123xyz.default/ folder to stop the old sort order from staying put. And then a bit longer again to have the correct email be selected after I deleted one. You probably want to back up your profile before trying this. First we open Edit | Prefs | Advanced | General | Config Editor . You might get a warning if you've not been there before. The preferences you'll need to set are these: Key Set it to mailnews.default_news_sort_order 2 mailnews.default_news_sort_type 18 mailnews.default_sort_order 2 mailnews.default_sort_type 18 mail.delete_matches_sort_order true The final step is to stop Icedove and then delete any .msf files from your ~/.icedove/xxxxxxxxx.default folder. These cache folders and hence won't reflect your changes. WTF? Why did that work?

Debian Tip: Get a list of all installed packages with dpkg

2011-01-03T15:58:05Z

I like to make sure that I always have a listing of all the files I have on my Debian boxen. Fortunately dpkg has a quick way of doing just that. # dpkg --get-selections > /path/to/mybackup.txt I run that once a day or so as a cron job dumping to a file, that file will be in my usual rsync backup. That means that if my harddrive dies I can simply # dpkg --set-selections < /path/to/mybackup.txt # apt-get -u dselect-upgrade to have a full restore of all my packages.

BarnCamp 2010

2010-05-01T22:23:18Z

BarnCamp 2010 was two days of workshops on topics ranging from renewable energy to foraging for food to citizen journalism to using free software for activism, three nights of camping, open space sessions, evening entertainment, great food at Highbury Farm, a beautiful farm co-op high in the Wye Valley. Personal highlights Sunshine Meeting the other ciderpunk Learning how to be a citizen journalist Learning that Cornish folks come North in the Summertime for direct action and riots Drinking ace cider Nicest train conductor ever The nerd block -- for people going off on a geek rant that no-one else can understand The Linux Lord's Prayer

Windows Vista - Time to Jump

2006-10-13T10:00:00Z

Windows Vista will profoundly downgrade your ability to use your computer as you see fit, rather than as Microsoft and the corporate media see fit. It will operate inefficiently, forcing users to upgrade to expensive and power hungry new hardware which will be bad for the environment, especially hard hit will be poor countries. It will work badly for gamers and it will lock you in to Microsoft's troubling vision of the future. So, I am supporting the BadVista campaign to oppose the adoption of Vista, and to encourage software freedom not software feudalism. I urge you not to let Microsoft take away your freedom. Resist Vista and jump now!

Free Software as DIY Culture

2004-12-22T13:07:44Z

This is my essay for a course I'm studying online with the University of Gotberg, in Sweden. I'm trying to draw parallels between the 'DIY Culture' concepts like direct participation, gift exchange, and mutual aid and Free Software practices. Essentially the Free Software culture can be seen as an example of DIY in action. Also available in PDF format