nullis.net

A lot has changed in 2007, for me, and everyone. So I figured it was time for a review (and hey, everyone else tries to do one...).

The year started off with me moving to a faster internet service (ie ADSL2), with iiNet, which made things much easier, becuase unlike 2 years before it, 512/128 just did not cut it anymore. But while I celebrated for speed, others celebrated for a totally different reason, but that didn't last long.

In March, Sydney decided to put the environment before itself, and together, we turned off our lights for an hour, and saw drop in usage of about 10%!

In April, America yet again came into the spotlight, when it proved that its Gun Laws really do need a review, when a student at a American University killed 32 people. Unfortunately, violence sometimes comes to play very close to home.

In July, I put the pen down for the last time, as I completed my final exam required to complete my Bachelor of Computer Science. Also in July, I was able to work at and enjoy the atmosphere of Live Earth, Sydney, which ended up not being too bad at the end of the day. Oh and who can forget that also in July, smoking was finally banned in pubs and clubs in NSW and Victoria. Making these places more appealing for non-smokers.

In September, after having received my results for everything, I graduated! In 2007, I was also able to grow some bad habits, which have unfortunately not been able to shake yet. Tho, maybe that is for the best.

In October, I went away with work to at the Bathurst 1000. Fun times were had, and I will never look at a car race the same way again. It is just a tad different to watching it on TV, when you can hear, and smell the atmosphere. Even the toughest of critics may be swayed. It was also in October, that Australia was fasinated by big flying things.

In the lead up to the end of the year, unfortunately this happened. Saddness broke out everywhere, even in Australia.

In the home straight of the year, I was offered a position at work, that I had applied for, and started in early December, and have almost racked up 4 weeks there! :) And I got a PSP (but thats a story for another article :))

In Politics, we saw a few common names go, and new ones come (finally) and hopefully bring about a needed change.

So, like most years, while there was a bunch of good, I sometimes did make a silly decision or two, but in the end, I did achieve some really big goals. Lucky I didn't make this mistake.

To finish off the year in review, a look back at some of those faces that we will no longer see anymore: Anna Nicole Smith, Billy Thorpe, Boris Yeltsin, Bobby Pickett, Stan Zemanek, Benazir Bhutto.

I know I have most likely forgotten some really important parts of 2007, but that will do for now. I know for sure tho, that next year will contain something about this.

I leave you with a song that made 2007.

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So I noticed tonight that I haven't blogged in over a month, and decided it was about time I did.

Lately I have been working quiet a bit, especially now that I've finished Uni, and have lots of free time. In the other time, I've been working on implementing some changes for an IRC network, as well as test and try to document and get things in order.

I have started using del.icio.us, when I remember atleast, to record some of those sites which contain facts that you really want to store. I also wrote a importer and application so this can be viewed (and commented on!), on this site. You can view it at [HTML_REMOVED]www.nullis.net/links[HTML_REMOVED], tho it does not look very pretty.. yet!

Speaking of Uni, my graduation has been finalised and I am able to add B.CompSc. to my name after the 25th of September! Mind you, I am going to end up spending more than $150 on just plaque and photos from the graduation. But they do look good!

Meanwhile, DNS for all my domains, (except this one ironically), has been switched over to being hosted by myself. For some of the sites, I am using ZoneEdit still as backup nameservers to increase reliability.

I also recently got the Die Hard Game for the XBOX. Graphics suck. When I put it on to play, I had to check I wasn't playing the SEGA...

Also, Facebook is rather addictive! That is all..

So, after some comments of encouragement, I finally got the proverbial finger out, and made enough changes so my new site is now ready for the public.

There are a few things that I know still need to be fixed, and coming soon, but this will occur with time.

If you do notice any bugs, please leave them as a comment on this entry, or if you feel it better to email, then send an email off to praetorian at this domain.

Thanks!

With my last blog entry being back in March, back when I was just starting my last semester of Uni, a lot has changed, and that semester of Uni is now over, so I thought I would give a kind of status update.

University

The current semester is over, and it will most likely be my last semester at Uni at this time. I did my last 40 credit points (4 units), this semester, so now I just need to wait on results, and make sure that I have passed everything. If I didn't, I am going to have to go back for another semester, but at this stage, everything looks good. fingers crossed.

Work

Still working with the same company, and still enjoying it. Just last weekend, we had the Guns 'n Roses concerts in Sydney, which were an interesting night, but fun none the less. On Saturday is Live Earth, which means a full day for me, hopefully without too many dramas.

Coming up in the next few weeks is Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and Disney on Ice. August is set to be big as well, and most likely will be a busy end of the year.

New Phone

I made mention to a friend a while ago, that I would discuss my new Phone, so now's the time.

Just before the Sydney Royal Easter Show, my Motorola V3, which I had for almost 2 years, suffered a painful death after a night alone with the condensation off a McDonalds drink container.

But thankfully for insurance, I was able to get the same phone, but in black for $0, or pay the difference in cost between that phone and a phone I wanted, and get that instead.

So, naturally, I chose the later, and for now almost the last 3 months, I have a Nokia E61, a great Phone/PDA.

While it does have a few quirks which I can easily live with, it does make a great phone for someone continually on the go. ATM I use it to store rosters for work (as the .xls it comes as, as well as in the calendar), documents and contact info.

I also have PuTTy for Symbian loaded on to it, so i can use its inbuilt WiFi to connect to a box at home, or elsewhere, if I have internet access. Saves carrying a laptop in case a server dies.

The phone also has a SIP Client by default, which means it can also do VOIP calls. I have it set up at the moment, to be a client for my asterisk box at home, which it connects to over the wireless. This means I always can have my Phone book in one place, and with me. Security is not a problem for the WiFi, as it has support for WPA, which I use for all communications.

The keyboard did take a bit of getting use to, but it really is quite easy and friendly, once you use it for a bit. And boy does it make typing a SMS fast. The wide screen is great for playing games (while travelling on trains), and surfing sites (tho that is still costly to do all the time).

It has a Mini-SD card slot for storage, apps or files, and also has a movie and media player, as well as voice recordings.

I really love the phone :)

SCM

Source Code Managment rocks. I don't know why I didn't set one up earlier, as it has really helped with me being more energetic to get this new site up and running. Not sure why, but it just has, and that is for the better.

*

As mentioned above, I set up a asterisk server recently, and It now handles incoming and outgoing calls for both my VOIP line and PSTN line. Wasn't easy to get started, as came to a few problems with Arch Linux's asterisk packages, not really being up to date, or complete. I tried out both TrixBox and Elastix, neither of which I liked, and in the end, installed Ubuntu Server, and tried again with what on Arch Linux, and it worked, first time.

Future

While I am still doing my casual work, as noted above, it is almost getting to the stage, especially once my grades come out for this semester, and I graduate, that I will need to start looking around for full time work, hopefully this can be in the same industry/employer as at the moment, tho I feel that I may need to look outside it.

I am looking at getting some of my projects which I had planned under way, hopefully including some stuff which may generate income.

That is enough for a recap for now, does feel good to blog again, and to have the new site up and working (which you should check out if you are reading this via a RSS Aggregator - www.nullis.net[HTML_REMOVED].

Having been working on my [HTML_REMOVED]django[HTML_REMOVED] based blog for some time now, (when I haven't been busy), I have finally gotten to the stage where transition is almost upon us!

I am yet to properly finish the comments system on it, as I am still unsure how to go about this, but everything else is in place, from the design, to the conversion script. The conversion script is actually quite neat. From a SQL Dump of a wordpress blog, it can successfully transform it into a python list of tuples, from which another script reads this into django.

In other news, [HTML_REMOVED]Linode[HTML_REMOVED] improved their value for money, so I went out and got myself one. Maybe thats where the new site will be in future :-)

I remembered an old site of mine the other day, and on closer inspection, it could be said, that I was blogging for longer than I thought I was.

[HTML_REMOVED]See the old site here at the web archive.[HTML_REMOVED]

Mine you, I had a long sabbatical between the end of that one, and the start of this one ;-)

In other news, the Wii is setting itself up now .. mind you a few updates to install first.

Also, Merry Christmas all!

So, I thought I better make a entry to note that I am finally on [HTML_REMOVED]STUVAC[HTML_REMOVED], and with only two tests (and one presentation) this semester, it should be a rather easy, but still study-full end of semester.

Mind you, besides for the above, I have some really interesting shows/concerts coming up, which will be fun to work at, including such as: Pearl Jam, U2, AFI & Billy Joel.

Today, mum flew out to see her sister ... well eventually ... the flight was nicely delayed (thanks Qantas!). But I do guess safety is their main concern.

The good thing tho, is that after my exams, I am on holidays till next year... which means that I can finally put some time into getting my [HTML_REMOVED]new site[HTML_REMOVED] up and running.

For now, Study and Presentation readiness time.

Another point release and as such a security release of WordPress is out (go go PHP web apps!), 2.0.4.

I've upgraded, hope others are doing so while reading this ;-)

Figured that I may as well make a blog post, the night before my first exam, as I hadn't done so in over a month. The content of the post, I am making up as I go, so lets see.. what has happened lately:

I upgraded this WordPress install from 2.0.2 to 2.0.3 - Everything seems to be continuing to run perfectly fine.

I am considering changing a Debian Stable (sarge) box to either Ubuntu or Debian Unstable. Or possibly just changing it over with a reinstall to Gentoo. Been putting all of it off, as I don't know how well the Debian Stable to whatever dist-upgrade will go, and a reinstall means reconfiguring the box, something that I should do after exam period anyway. If any one has any HOWTO's or information on the dist-upgrade stuff, would be great if you could leave a comment or email me. (or even if you have done it previously and it worked fine!)

I have started work on some IRC related stuff in Python. Shall put it up on a svn/bzr repo as soon as the above is worked out.

Work has been interesting, especially given the fact I have been working at a number of locations. Should be interesting when the Ashes tickets go on sale to the general public on Monday (19th).

That's enough for now - More once exams are over and the above is resolved.

Happy Birthday to me!

Going out to dinner tonight to celebrate the occasion of no longer being a teenager.

While working at the show yesterday, I ran into Supermodel Elle Macpherson, when she was entering/exitting the Royal Easter Show.

The first time she was leaving with her kids, nanny, boyfriend and such, then later on came back to go back into the show without the nanny and kids.

The nanny (referring to the person looking after her kids) was not a bad looker if I must say so :-)

It is mentioned she was at the show here: [HTML_REMOVED]http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,18873556-5001025,00.html[HTML_REMOVED]

For those who haven't noticed (as everything is still redirected from the old address), The URL of the blog has changed, and this blog has changed and is now [HTML_REMOVED]http://www.nullis.net/blog/[HTML_REMOVED].

The move was one which was a long time coming, but finally done. The rest of the nullis.net site hopefully will be up shortly, as well as a new blog theme.

But everything in small steps ;-)

So, update your links/rss feeds if needed.

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In news that can only be classified as "now I really am mobile", I took the plunge and set up [HTML_REMOVED]moto4lin[HTML_REMOVED] on my desktop, and now I am able to browse the contents of my mobile phone [HTML_REMOVED] excellent!

While it may take a bit longer to actually for me to actually live the dream of my phone's address book syncing with my desktop version, its definately a step in the right direction. So stay tuned for what that unfolds.

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... and a Happy New Year.

:-)

Given the idea by Tony, I hoffed up the SLUG logo.

Apologies to people subscribed to the Planet Atomic RSS Feed (either RSS 1 or RSS 2).

A unescaped string in the default planetplanet config for both rss types caused post titles with an ampersand (&) in them, to cause the document to not parse correctly.

This has now been fixed. :-)

It's about time I really got into the blogging scene. Not just to be cool, but because there is often thoughts on my mind, which I want to write up.

So now, with my new webhost coming into play, I have decided to set up Wordpress so I can blog to my hearts content.

Of course, the content which is going to be posted on here, will be varied... even I don't know what I will start posting yet. All I can guarantee is that there will be things related to Programming, Linux, and all things nice.

Hope you have a read every so often, might read something interesting one day.