February 2012
1 post
7 tags
How to fix laptop frequency governor on resume...
If you are using Linux and the pm-utils suite from freedesktop.org to manage resume/suspend, and the chances are you are since most distros use it, then you could benefit from reading a recent post on my other blog.
Pm-utils’ implementation on CPU governor and CPU frequency is broken. If you use the userspace governor with a custom frequency, the frequency does not get restored on...
January 2012
5 posts
1 tag
7 tags
Tcpdump Light-weight Alternative to Wireshark
I went to install Wireshark this morning and realised why I hadn’t bothered before. The source code is 20MB. God knows how long that will take to compile, especially since it seems to use autoconf and generates complex, multi-nested Makefiles many levels deep.
I already had tcpdump installed, so I used that instead. It provided what I wanted quite quickly after a bit of googling to find...
2 tags
Calcc, A Programmers' Calculator
I have been looking for a command-line programmers’ calculator for a while. I needed it to do the usual things like base number conversion, bit shifting and masking, and so on.
I searched for quite a while and couldn’t find anything. Almost all were GUI, which I didn’t want, or were some ridiculous price, which I couldn’t justify being a programmer myself.
Anyway, I...
5 tags
Vi developed for slow (300 baud) connections
Interesting discussion on Hacker News about an interview with Bill Joy, creator of Vi.
Joy mentions that one of the most important use cases was that, in those days, everyone had only a 300 baud connection to the host. That meant the editor had to be efficient in screen repaints while interacting with commands from the user.
You would think that is no longer a consideration. Almost everyone...
Highest Australian Scores in Test Cricket
With India playing Australia at Sydney right now, and captain Michael Clarke on 325, I thought it would be interesting to look at the top ten Australian scores of all time (which Channel Nine has conveniently provided for us viewers).
Matthew Hayden is highest at 380, then Don Bradman at 334 (Leeds in 1930).
Looking further down, Don Bradman has four places in the top ten: 2nd, 7th, 8th and...
December 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Rails Tutorial
Spent the last day or two doing Michael Hartl’s excellent Ruby on Rails tutorial.
I had a vague idea I wanted to learn Ruby, but once I googled for tutorials it became pretty clear that Rails was the way to go for web-based apps. Michael’s tutorial got lots of recommendations, so I jumped right in.
It is very good. I’m an experienced programmer, so the basics of setting up...
First Post
Just a quick post to start things up here. Next is to set up a sub-domain on my domain to point to here, and set up Twitter so my tweets appear here (can Tumblr do that?).