NHS IT Systems

Posted on Mon 10 August 2009 in misc • Tagged with politics

Uber-systems don't work. The internet is testament to the value of having a distributed system built with components from multiple vendors inter-operating through common protocols. With that in mind I was happy to see the Conservative response to their independent report on NHS IT. While I haven't finished reading the …


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Using daemon mode

Posted on Sun 09 August 2009 in misc • Tagged with emacs

Now the Fedora 11 has pushed Emacs 23 into it's testing repository I can now have 23.1 goodness on all the machines I regularly interact with (although having checked my Gentoo box is still 23.0.96.1, must fix that). I've previously implemented rather painful hacks to make …


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Microsoft vs Google, who will win?

Posted on Wed 08 July 2009 in misc • Tagged with development

There was a slightly hyperbolic BBC article describing Google's Chrome OS announcement. Apart from the obvious significance of the two largest tech behemoths going head to head the BBC did wonder if it would spell the end of the push for Linux on the netbook platform. Of course they didn't …


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Cryptographic Hashes

Posted on Fri 26 June 2009 in misc • Tagged with development

If your new to cryptographic hashes or simply want an intro that isn't overly heavy detailed maths then I can recommend The Code Monkey's Guide by kernel hacker Valerie Aurora.


Turning off the internet

Posted on Wed 24 June 2009 in misc • Tagged with politics

looking at the difficulties Iran is having in turning off it's
internet. While countries like Iran and China have some very
sophisticated filtering solutions to limit what their own citizens can
see …

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