jlmeredith's blog

A Jolly Great and JollyFast VNC Client Software for Mac OS X

One of the most frustrating things about doing basic sysadmin work is having to move from one computer to the other in order to take care of updates and various configuration items. For a long time I have relied on software like Apple’s Remote Desktop application to give me the access I needed. But after years have either paying for or having access to a Remote Desktop license, I have recently found myself without.

Fortunately, most all servers support the VNC protocol for remote desktop work including Apple. Unfortunately there have not been any great VNC client out there that were either free or low cost - until now.

Plans for Building out a Better "Notable Drupal Powered Websites" List

Ok, so the recent influx of web traffic to the Notable Drupal Powered Websites posting has made me realize that maybe there is a need for a very simple, very A-List build out of websites. There are multiple other websites out there which list Drupal sites, but I think where many fail, is the ranking based on not just voting, etc, but also on the objective classification of of the sites themselves. More than just things like industry, tone, etc. I am talking more about what sites can be presented as the masterpieces of the Drupal world or at least the ones that are more than a modified theme (though I have seem some of those that were really good too).

Photographers and the Law

20080504-16-23-18Caught a post today about the infamous photographer Thomas Hawk being ejected from the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art and it made me think about my recent run in with art folks at Tennessee Association of Craft Artists (TACA) here in Nashville where I took some photos only to have many of them tell me I was “Not Allowed” to take pictures of their work even though they were being displayed at a public venue. The most annoying was the artist Asia Mathis

Totally bent at the stupidity of Digg

[img_assist|nid=84|title=Stupid Digg Error Message on Password reset!|desc=|link=node|align=center|width=425|height=159]So I have a story that I wanted to Digg today and when I went to sign-in I apparently have forgotten my password. Not unusual since I regularly change my passwords like a good geek should. I happily look for the “Reset/ Retrieve your password here” link. Enter my email, wait 5 minutes and then check my mail. Link received as expected! Cool!

Click the link and I am greeted with the message on the right! WTH! I try resetting it again. Same message. This is the kind of thing that ultimately will keep a user from returning to a site and for me is something I will not waste any more time on today.

Angela Byron of Lullabot fame hits the front page of Techmeme via Linux.com

A great writeup was just posted over at Linux.com featuring Angela Byron from Lullabot. Check it out! http://www.linux.com/feature/143415

The Love Drums Community Drum and Dance WhizBang #51

20080503-21-17-31 There are times in life where you just have to sit back, keep your mouth shut and take in the glory of humanity. Last night was one such event.

I had the honor of photographing a monthly event here in Nashville called The Love Drums Community Drum and Dance WhizBang held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church. I wish I could tell you about the history of the event or even something about its founders. But I cannot. Maybe this will come in some future post. For now, here is are the photos!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/themacgeek/sets/72157604870089798/

Drupalcon Videos - Drive #1 Is Complete

The first Drive from Safe and Sound Video has arrived here in Tennessee. I will be scrubbing through all of it too make sure that everything converted properly and will make a few notes for post production. Then the drive will be packed back up and sent on to OSLOSU where it will be dropped into the Drupal.org servers.

If you would like to follow the progress or if you are interested in helping with the post production, please see this thread over at G.D.O.: http://groups.drupal.org/node/9553

Plaxo and Gmail calendaring stop working with one another

[img_assist|nid=87|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=640|height=258]
__UPDATE__
This appears to be fixed now! Great work to Plaxo for getting this fixed!

__ORIGINAL POST__

Today I went to re-setup my Plaxo syncing with Google Calendars, only to find that Plaxo is unable to authenticate against my Google account. I fired off a message to Plaxo explaining that it was not working and they promptly responded:

Hi Jamie,
Thank you for contacting Plaxo Customer Care.

As I understand, you are unable to sync Plaxo with Google as you are seeing an error message stating that it is invalid. This is a known issue and our engineers are working on it. We appreciate your patience.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Thank you.
Ricky
Plaxo Customer Care

Doom and Gloom! Oh My! Linux Kernal in Trouble?

[img_assist|nid=86|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=178|height=320]Nothing like a little doom and gloom to start the morning! The folks over at PC World think the sky is falling. It is being reported that there is a major exploitable bug in the Linux Kernal. Apparently, the bug is said to affect all versions of the Linux kernel up to version 2.6.24.1. According to PC World, distributions such as Ubuntu, Turbolinux, SuSE, Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian and others are affected. The problems are within three functions in the system call fs/splice.c

At first I as taken by surprise with this news, but then, fortunately a very witty commenter by the name of Evildave came to the rescue.

I read the comment by Evildave and my world view returned to normal. The sky is not in fact falling and all is well in the nix world. It is always funny to see how things are spun in the glorious publishing world. I wonder how much Microsoft paid PC World for this post.

Adding A Drupal.org Search Type to FireFox

I have submitted a search button to Google for Drupal.org. This button will allow a user to search Drupal.org from the Google Toolbar search field. Just click the Add Search Type from the dropdown in your Firefox/Google Toolbar and then type in Drupal. Your Drupal search type will be added.

You can also add this search type by clicking the link below:
Click Here To Add This Button Now

You can also search the Drupal.org site via Google with this search type:
Click Here To Add This Button Now

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drupal-search.xml7.63 KB
drupal-goo-search.xml2.24 KB