Wowzers. A month it has been. Been a little busy, to say the least; the BigCo media conglomerate that I work for has a very high-profile website and on-air presence that was impacted by War traffic/coverage. The importance of maintaining 100% uptime for both sent our production administration into “lockdown” mode…ALL migrations to production went far up the CoC and were subjected to high levels of scrutiny. The projects that I admin for were not directly impacted (only one supported on-air directly, and it was minor), but everyone was impacted at least indirectly. Making a long story short; it’s been a stressful month in Kenland.

DebianPlanet: kdenetwork and kdepim accepted in sid Excellent! I have knotes and korganizer back. Life is good.

This is cool looking: What is pGina? As it stands, the Microsoft Windows 2000 client operating system only provides a single method of user authentication…. Through the creation of a substitute GINA that can dynamically load plugins, where a plugin can be created to use ANY method of authentication, we propose that it is possible to systematically, and simply, provide for the authentication and login of a user via many different methods. Dudes…this is pretty interesting. It customizes the Windows authentication library, and let you plugin arbitrary methods. Heck, they even whipped up a Slashdot account plugin…(which ensured their posting there *grin*)

Also on /.: Bioware Releases Neverwinter Nights Linux Client Beta Sweet!! I may just toss this thing on my box.

All hail k3b and transcode . Ripping…is working! Of course, I have only one DVD. But it’s…um, backed up now!

THIS is reassuring. NOT.: Guantanamo appeal denied —
Handing a major victory to the Bush administration, the judges said suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters held at Guantanamo Bay were aliens outside US sovereign territory and were not protected by the US Constitution.

Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot…?: Benetton clothing to carry tiny tracking transmitters — In a scenario reminiscent of the personalized advertising seen in the movie “Minority Report,” an RFID tag could be programmed to store information about, say, the person who bought a garment. It could allow a retail chain to take note each time that garment was worn into a store

I need to do more research, but I like the idea: How Hydrogen Can Save America — The cost of oil dependence has never been so clear. What had long been largely an environmental issue has suddenly become a deadly serious strategic concern. Oil is an indulgence we can no longer afford, not just because it will run out or turn the planet into a sauna, but because it inexorably leads to global conflict. Enough. I couldn’t agree more, at least on first glance. We’re entangling ourselves into a horrible hornet’s nest, and IMO, a large part of the reason is oil. Not just oil as energy; oil as power. Oil as control. Screw that…let’s bust our dependencies, so we can go find things more interesting to do, like mine the asteroids or something.

My first Debian bug report I am such a freakin’ nerd…I actually think this is cool

This is pretty damn funny: Switch to Web Services . Hmmmm…now that I’m on their website (…again…I remember being here awhile back), I’m finding some interesting goop: A Comparison of Service-Oriented, Resource-Oriented, and Object-Oriented Architecture Styles ( A compare/contrast of the three common software architecture styles used in distributed systems and XML Web Services). These guys are Web Service weenies. But that’s ok…some of my best buddies are Web Service weenies (hi, Mark! *grin*)

Exxxcceelllent. I did some more work on the site. My reading list has returned, among other things. I know you’re excited.

Ah. Relaxing a tad. Long day, but I got a lot done. I consciously tried to apply (what I can) from Ole Eichhorn’s The Tyranny of Email . I can’t go whole hog, simply because of my adminstrative-type position.

OK! Starting to groove a little now. My “bloglist” url (recent blog entries) is working again, though for now it’s “hacked” (basically hard-coded, but since I have the only blog, that’s not a super-big deal. I will fix it, though!)

Trying to get back in the groove, so I’m posting even though:

• I’m dog tired
• The “Recent Entries” bloglist is hosed, so no one can see this!

Ah well. Still, things are going decently. The python module for the blogger API is very cool, and works well. I’m using it to at least start most of these entries, though I sometimes finish them up through the management interface.

Work good. Keeping busy. I’ve set up a Plone site at work as well…the DBA group is probably going to start using it for our group stuff. Already have the basic site and weblog installed (I’m using weblog for daily notes)…we’re also going to try and use CMFCollector as an low-end issue tracking tool.

OK…I give. I’m exhausted. But things are coming along. More later.

First post!

Well, believe it or not, I think it’s starting to come back. I’ve managed over the past few days to screw up, rebuild, break, and fix again the site several times. But I THINK we’re getting somewhere now. And as for Plone and Zope … I LIKE IT!