skoop.dev

Don’t be scared. This is still the same site. I just changed the design… uhm, slightly? 😉

The default Pivot template is, well, a bit boring of course. And one is expected to alter it. And so I did. I based this design on Persian for WordPress. Of course, with Pivot’s slightly different setup, I had to alter it slightly. But it works well imho.

Only thing I know is that in Internet Explorer something is not going well, but that might also be related to the Calvin & Hobbes comic I posted earlier, because the image is a bit too wide for this design. I’ll tweak a bit and see how it works 🙂

Anyway, enjoy 🙂

Ubuntu Linux. A relatively new distribution in the Linux world, with a Gnome desktop. Being the lover of editting configuration files manually and such, I didn’t think it was for me. When my wife wanted linux though, and she disliked Slackware because it wasn’t intuitive enough for a new Linux user (can’t blame her), Ubuntu was my first thought. I’d received a few installation cd’s (you can order those for free!) and thought I’d give it a try.

Wow. I never thought I’d be impressed this much by a graphically oriented distribution. I mean, I also use X, but don’t use Gnome or KDE because I don’t need all the eyecandy, but this is good. Much better than, for instance, the default installation of Gnome that you get with Slackware, which was mainly what I was basing my opinion of Gnome on.

The menu’s are very intuitive, and there’s a lot of graphical configuration tools. Perfect for someone who has just left Windows for Linux. Very, very impressive. And maybe even more impressive is the great support. On the Ubuntu Forums you can already find answers to a lot of questions, simply by searching around a bit. I bumped into some minor issues, but had quickly found all the answers I needed.

Yes, Ubuntu is definately one of the best distributions, especially for people new to linux. There might be some minor flaws, but in general it definately works well and looks good.

I will probably get scolded at from the real Linux people. But after ages of struggling with my wireless network setup, I’ve finally found a solid, stable way to keep my wireless network running. This solution came in the form of the payware software Linuxant DriverLoader.

Now, I know that using their software does not give a good signal towards hardware manufacturers. And if I would’ve had time enough to spend on getting it to work, I would. But all I needed was a good, working wireless network. And I’ve got that, with little trouble, thanks to Linuxant. I don’t care anymore than I have to pay $20 per computer. I don’t care that it’s not Open Source. I’ve got a working network, and thats the most important thing for me.

Now, Bugtraq contains a lot of people that are not that smart. Just for the record, there are also a lot of people there that *are* really smart though 😉

Anyway, I just got pointed to this vulnerability that was recently posted. It seems that in phpBB 1.4.4, there is a vulnerability in the image bbcode.

OH NO!

To explain my … uhm … panicked response for those not in the know: phpBB 1.4.4 is a very very very old version of phpBB, and has been unsupported since the release of phpBB 2.0. That was quite a while ago. phpBB 2.2 is already on it’s way. Yes, it’s THAT long ago.

I frequent quite a few forums, related to different subjects. n5MD is a very cool independent label where good music comes out, and they also have a forum. Today, a wonderful topic was posted on that forum. It gives an interesting alternate view on schizophrenia.

Read it, and think about it a bit more.

A few months ago, through various forums and mailinglists, I was alerted of the presence of a site called JetGroove.com that was selling mp3 downloads of independant artists and labels, without the permission to actually do so. The site currently only has a temporary page telling visitors it’s “down for maintainance”.

In the meanwhile, a forum that I am responsible for got spammed with a promotional message for a site resembling the old JetGroove so much that it couldn’t be a coincidence. It is the exact same site design, and a very very similar catalog of independant music. They only rebranded the site!

So here is my warning. Please, please do NOT buy music from www.audio1.org. Buy the music directly from the labels and artists! They need the money much harder and actually deserve the money you’re spending.