Very often, I find myself needing to quickly host a file, somewhat temporarily, for use in a forum post or on IRC. My usual approach has been to mount a directory from my web server on my desktop, over ssh. However, I recently started using Dropbox for more »

I originally wrote this howto for Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) a few months before Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) was released. I happen to have a spare system lying around, so I figure I might as well update this for 9.10! Enjoy. FreePBX is a popular front end for… more »

I do stupid things sometimes.On a Linux system (and most other Unix-like systems), the /etc directory holds most of the fundamental system configuration files. Within its hierarchy lies a number of very important nuggets: /etc/passwd and its… more »

As you might expect, I have a lot of stuff to keep track of in my life.  From my househusbandly duties to my schoolwork, there's a lot to do.  Over the years, I've developed a good collection of systems to keep track of it all. The most important of… more »

When Mark Walling created his Twittering dehumidifier, I decided to kick things up a notch by monitoring the actual level of the water. This is actually a fairly simple thing to do, electronically, but it still took me awhile to actually get a sufficien… more »

FreePBX is a popular front end for the Asterisk PBX system written in PHP. It adapts the complex yet very flexible Asterisk configuration system into something easier to use (yet still very extensible). When I worked for a business-class VoIP provider… more »

For awhile now, I've had that paranoia kicking in about my online data. Almost all of us have a lot of useful information out there that is entirely under someone else's control: if someone messes up, or the wrong component fails, or the wrong business… more »

A couple days ago, a brief IRC discussion ensued on the topic of cable modems, oversubscription, power levels, etc. Someone mentioned that they noticed their transmit power level increasing during peak hours, perhaps due to heavier traffic. I thought t… more »

The need for this will hopefully go away soon, but until then...After moving from Apache to lighttpd 1.4 on my Ubuntu 8.04 LTS system, I noticed that the thing that automatically posts photos from Flickr to my blog stopped working. This went on… more »

I have a few scripts that use the Google Data APIs to retrieve calendar information. One prints out a text agenda in a condensed format, perfect for carrying in a pocket; the other lets me retrieve all events on a particular date from my cellphone. Tha… more »