Running Wireshark as a non-root user

Ubuntu laptop lost the "wireshark as root" menu item.

Rather than create one I did this:

sudo chgrp admin /usr/bin/dumpcap
sudo chmod 750 /usr/bin/dumpcap
sudo setcap cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+eip /usr/bin/dumpcap

Works now as me.

[the debian package is using (almost) pam_cap ]

Silly software patent idea

1) produce a device with a realy nice user interface.
2) patent it as a "new" invention.
3) advertise it as "intuitive"
4) sue anyone who also thought it was "intuitive" (and obvious, but waited untill the hardware was up to it) and implements it..
5) claim in court that your "intuitive" interface didn't exist until you invented it.

Oracle buy Sun ... then

Java: let's sue
OpenOffice: forked. LibreOffice
OpenSolaris: forked
MySQL: several forks. Official support prices go up (a lot).
Hudson: forked to Jenkins, then handed to the Eclipse Foundation

Do Oracle understand the FLOSS concept ?

Corporate Bullshit

[from 18 May 2010]

The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit
http://corporatebs.com/intro.php

Bullshit Bingo - card generator
http://www.snyderfamily.com/cgi-bin/corpbingo

Over-used Buzz Words & Buzz Phrases
http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/buzz.html

Buzz Words - A letter guaranteed not to give you the warm and fuzzies
http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/buzz2.html

Are you going forward? Then stop now
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7453584.stm

HP printers and OS-X

[from 18 Jun 2010]
Another pain installing a printer.
This time an HP Color LaserJet 3600n on the mac network.
The official drivers work fine with BonJour and appletalk, but WILL NOT work with any sensible IP connection. (and it's an install program)

Answer:

1. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/macosx/hpijs
2. download all three images
3. open each image and get the installer package out.
4. use remote desktop to install all three (hpijs last) on the server and each workstation.
5. install the printer - as a printer ! - on the server - It should auto detect the driver now :-)
6. use Server Manager to add the IPP and LPR sharing options to the queue
7. use Workgroup Manager to assign the printer to the computers
8. test

The three parts are:

1. HPIJS for Mac OS X
2. Foomatic-RIP
3. Ghostscript for Mac

Quote from the site above:

Package Description

Release Date: February 26, 2009
The HPIJS driver is the first free, open-source driver issued by HP for their DeskJet and LaserJet printers. For most supported printers, this driver produces output quality equivalent to the proprietary HP drivers. In photo mode, with photo paper, the output quality is very high, especially for the HP DeskJet 990C and later models, which auto-detect the paper type in hardware. Photo printing is fully supported in the newer 6- and 7-ink models.
A major advantage of using this driver over those supplied by HP is the direct interface between HPIJS and the native CUPS spooler, which allows printing from any printer over any available connection such as USB, AppleTalk, TCP/IP (via LPD and IPP), HP JetDirect, and shared windows printers via SAMBA. Additionally, this driver utilizes the existing Mac OS X USB "backend" and thus does not install any software that might interfere with standard USB operation.

Old Debian Etch - archive sources

#
# etch
#
deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/debian etch main contrib non-free
deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/debian-security etch/updates main contrib non-free

Policy descision

Since I'm unlikely to post regularly, and Facebook is there for social stuff, I'll (probably) be posting topics and then editing them to turn them into something more readable than simple "notes to self".

We'll see how long I keep that up and how far I get using MaStory on my N900.

Streaming the new style BBC radio links

[Late repost from 10 Jun 2010]

The real audio links got replaced recently and my links for Radio 4 stopped working.

Rather than mess about simply use the file the BBC hands out as a playlist.

mplayer -playlist http://bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4.asx

http://bbcstreams.com/ contains a list of similar address

Buffalo WLI-PCM-L11G Wireless card

[late repost from 26 May 2010]

It's this driver you nead to use to get this old card to work with WPA under XP.

http://drivers.softpedia.com/progDownload/Agere-Wireless-LAN-driver-782-Download-17921.html

 

Buffalo haven't bothered to update their drivers (even if you can find the "legacy" site)

 

Unzip the driver collection to a temporary location.

Open Device manager with the card inserted, change driver, browse to location. Install it.

 

PS any button on softpedia that say "Download Now" is an advert link !

Finally created a blog

Got arround to creating a blog at last.
I expect I'll just be using it to note technical things that I want to keep for reference.
Added then edited using MaStory on my N900.