Add security to your desktop by automatically locking and unlocking the screen when you and your phone leave/enter the desk. Think of a proximity detector for your mobile phone via bluetooth.
Category: Linux
Linux is my primary operating system. I used it on the servers, desktops, laptops, netbooks, and even mobile phones since approximately 1997. I’ve tried a number of distributions over the years, and even created a couple myself. I still look around sometimes to see what others are up to. But most of my machines are running some sort of Red Hat – either a quick and easy Fedora Linux, or a stable and secure Red Hat Enterprise Server, or a cheaper CentOS alternative.
And while by now I am very comfortable in the Linux environment (both graphical and command line), I still discover a lot of new and interesting things about it. When I come across something worthy, I usually share it with the rest of the Open Software world, using this category.
Fixing MySQL error “Cannot load from mysql.proc. The table is probably corrupted”
Fixing MySQL error “Cannot load from mysql.proc. The table is probably corrupted”
After a recent upgrade of some of my CentOS 6.3 servers to MySQL 5.5 from the Remi repository, I started noticing errors like this one in the logs, especially during backups:
MySQL: SHOW FUNCTION STATUS WHERE Db = ‘name’: Cannot load from mysql.proc. The table is probably corrupted
A quick search revealed that this is do to ‘mysqld_upgrade’ script not being run automatically against the existing database. A quick and simple solution is to just run the script manually. Of course, a full database backup is recommended before doing so. Mine worked just fine though.
Linus Torvalds answers Slashdot questions
Linus Torvalds answers Slashdot questions
Once in a while Slashdot runs a story to collect and vote questions to be asked of a person of interest. This time, it’s Linux kernel’ father – Linus Torvalds. As always with Slashdot, the questions are on a variety of subjects – Linux kernel, git, books, copyrights, and so on – and, as always with Linus, the answers are to the questions – nothing simple-sentenced or automated. Some answers are just pointers to history, others are thoughts “as of this moment”, and yet others are reflections generalized much further than source code.
Btw, it’s not just microkernels. Any time you have “one overriding idea”, and push your idea as a superior ideology, you’re going to be wrong. Microkernels had one such ideology, there have been others. It’s all BS. The fact is, reality is complicated, and not amenable to the “one large idea” model of problem solving. The only way that problems get solved in real life is with a lot of hard work on getting the details right. Not by some over-arching ideology that somehow magically makes things work.
Proper email client
I had a brief discussion with a colleague at work today about email clients. Once again I had to say that I do miss Mutt. Gmail is pretty good, but it still lacking a lot of Mutt’s functionality. And that thing that Outlook and Web Outlook thing that they force us to use at work, is horrible, no matter what you compare it to.
As I was going through the things that I love in Mutt, I mentioned the threaded discussions and quoting. It was a bit difficult to describe the details, so I quickly searched for a screenshot. Here’s one.
Unlike grouped replies in MS Outlook and Gmail conversations, here you can clearly see which email is a reply to which email. Once you get into group discussions, with multiple participants dragging the conversation into different directions, this kind of discussion view becomes extremely useful.
And one other thing is about quoting. Gmail at least tries to be useful. MS Outlook is completely horrible in this department. It quotes full messages UNDER the replies. So if someone forwarded you an email with quotes from a long discussion, you’ll spend a day reading it. You’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the message, then scroll up a bit to read the first message in the discussion. Then scroll up to the second message, and scroll down while reading it. Then scroll up again to the third message, and scroll down while reading it, and so forth. I get dizzy just by thinking of that.
Mutt users are from a different culture though. (Truth be told, not only Mutt users – this culture comes from many years ago, from the times when bandwidth was expensive, rules were strict, and people respected each other’s time.) In the image above you can clearly see the part of the original email to which the reply was done, and all the other bits of the conversation necessary to understand the current state of discussion. In fact, the message above includes relevant details from four messages (!!!). And one look at it is enough to tell who wrote what and when.
Just that screenshot alone makes me want to go back. And, in fact, given how things have changes since my last thoughts on that, maybe I will. I won’t get rid of Gmail, since it is mighty convenient to have access from everywhere and good integration with even my mobile phone. I also can’t imagine the life without Gmail’s SPAM filter. But, maybe I can find some middle ground and configure Mutt on my hosting server to access Gmail via IMAP. I’ve done it before, I think it might be time to do it again.
An Interview with Brian Kernighan
An Interview with Brian Kernighan
John Wait: Many popular newer programming languages trace their roots to C. Unix has had direct and indirect influence on many newer operating systems. To what do you attribute the longevity and popularity of both C and Unix?
Brian Kernighan: Both C and Unix strike a very good balance among expressiveness, efficiency and economy of means. That means that they are a good base to build on: the good ideas are worth stealing and the efficiency sets a standard of comparison. It’s also easier for people to make a transition from something familiar than to make a big change, so a language or system that has significant elements of familiarity is more likely to be a success.
Via LWN.