Most of the instructions are available in Ubuntu’s documentation for FreeNX. First, add the repository, update the package listings, and install the FreeNX package:

add-apt-repository ppa:freenx-team
aptitude update
aptitude install --quiet --assume-yes freenx

Finally, set up FreeNX. I opt to use the default SSH key pairs (“–setup-nomachine-key”) because it doesn’t require additional configuration for the client to connect. I added the “–clean –purge” to fix authentication errors that I began having after I upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10.

/usr/lib/nx/nxsetup --install --setup-nomachine-key --clean --purge

After I install a client, I can connect to my computer from anywhere and use it as though I were sitting in front of it.

Bottom line: Lake Erie Systems delivers their products promptly and as advertised. Their customer service is attentive and accommodating.

Ubuntu 9.10 works well, but I have discovered a few unresolved bugs that have proven to be annoyances. I’ve resigned myself to not being able to burn optical discs under Karmic because of a bug. This extends beyond Brasero to include the Wodim command line burning tool. After I upgraded, I switched from Rhythmbox to Banshee because it has better iPod syncing capabilities. However, those capabilities are a bit flaky, and I had to use this hack to make things work.

Regardless, it was a helpful and necessary upgrade. I look forward to the Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx update in April.

According to the “/var/log/OSInstall.custom” log, “Native install completed 2005-08-14 18:55:58 -0700,” which is just under four and a half years ago. I have finally migrated all of the data and functionality (print, file, and LDAP) from Lund File Server 2 (LFS2) to Athos. LFS2 held up surprisingly well considering it was only a 533 MHz G4 with 768 MB RAM. When I set it up, I installed three used 120 GB Western Digital hard drives. After four and a half years of running continuously, all three drives still appear operational.

If there were any doubts that Verizon has helpful dedicated people, this experience put them to rest. Unfortunately, I know that I’ll never encounter any of them the next time that I have a problem that requires me to dial in to the standard tech support line.

I rarely encounter competent technical support, whether it is at Embarq/CenturyLink, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, or Apple. What should take five minutes regularly takes multiple calls and even more tech support agents. On occasion, I do get someone helpful, but it is unfortunately not the norm.

I started by changing my “.procmailrc” to deliver spam messages to a different mailbox that Mutt does not check.

MAIL=`echo $HOME/Mail`
[...]
:H
* ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
$MAIL/delay_spam
[...]

Then I created a new procmailrc file called “spam.procmailrc” that would deliver mail to my checked spam mailbox.

MAIL=`echo $HOME/Mail`

:0
$MAIL/spam

Next, I wrote a short Bash script to use Formail and Procmail to deliver all of the messages in the delayed delivery spam mailbox to the normal spam mailbox.

#! /bin/bash

FORMAIL=/usr/bin/formail
PROCMAIL=/usr/bin/procmail
PROCMAILRC=$HOME/.procmail/spam.procmailrc

MAIL=$HOME/Mail
DELAY=$MAIL/delay_spam
TEMP=$MAIL/.spam
LOCK=$TEMP.lock

# Make sure there is delayed mail and we can get the lock (retry once)
if ( test -s $DELAY && lockfile -r 1 $LOCK 2>/dev/null ); then

    # Add the delayed mail to the temp mailbox and empty the delayed mailbox
    cat $DELAY >> $TEMP && cat /dev/null > $DELAY
    # Process each delayed message
    $FORMAIL -s $PROCMAIL $PROCMAILRC < $TEMP && rm -f $TEMP

    # Delete the lock now that we are done
    rm -f $LOCK
fi

Finally, I set the script to run daily using Cron. Now I am only interrupted by spam when I choose to be instead of every time a new message arrives. I have used the same technique to delay the delivery of emails to unimportant mailing lists so I only read them hourly instead of every time a message arrives.

$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
$wgWhitelistRead = array (
    "Special:Userlogin",
    "MediaWiki:Common.css",
    "MediaWiki:Common.js",
    "MediaWiki:Monobook.css",
    "MediaWiki:Monobook.js",
    "-"
    );

The problem with this is that I want to be able to monitor these private wikis in my RSS client. Therefore, I added another two lines to the configuration to allow my desktop unauthenticated access to the recent changes RSS feed on my wikis. This could be changed to make it easy to punch a hole for multiple clients. The additions are shown below.

if ($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == "192.168.1.42")
    $wgWhitelistRead[] = "Special:RecentChanges";

Now I can monitor both of my private wikis from my RSS client on my desktop computer. However, all other machines will still require authentication to get to the wiki.

I use a command called “hc12-console” to connect to 68HC12 microcontrollers over a serial port. The command takes two arguments: the name of a microcontroller to connect to and a file to load. I only have two microcontrollers called “dragon1″ and “dragon2″. Therefore, I want to be able to tab complete the first argument to one of those values only. The second argument should be the name of a file that ends in “.load”.

I do this with a function that checks the argument number and then completes it based on a specified list or by limiting the types of files that will be listed.

_hc12console ()
{
	local cur

	COMPREPLY=()
	cur=${COMP_WORDS[COMP_CWORD]}

	# First argument completes with either dragon1 or dragon2
	if [[ $COMP_CWORD -eq 1 ]] ; then
		COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -W "dragon1 dragon2" -- $cur ) )
		return 0
	fi

	# Second argument completes with only files matching *.load
	if [[ $COMP_CWORD -eq 2 ]] ; then
		COMPREPLY=( $( compgen -f -X '!*.load' -- $cur ) )
		return 0
	fi

	# All other arguments will not auto-complete
	return 0
}
complete -F _hc12console hc12-console

I added the script above to a file that my bashrc sources. It associates the function with the shell command, and then instead of manually typing out:

hc12-console dragon1 file.load <enter>

I can type:

hc12<tab> <tab>1 <tab> <enter>