The long weekend has given me the chance to do some stuff on my computer at home. Here are some of the things I have learned.

I spent some time looking for color profiles to use with the likes of GIMP. I went looking to see if I could find any for my digital camera. Turns out that my camera is so old that it is a museum piece. I spent a couple of hours with Google and could not find an icc or icm file anywhere.

I managed to find some profiles for my monitor by looking in the cab files that contain the software on the driver disc. I have them extracted now.

My monitor also has a non-standard aspect ratio. I tried to set up a new screen resolution but gave up. I did find that I actually have a clearer picture if I set the resolution to the optimum resolution and set the font size larger so I can read everything. I still end up using the compiz zoom feature a lot.

I spent so Christmas money on a new keyboard. The actual keyboard is really nice to use. The extra multimedia keys around the keyboard do not. Actually some of them do, but the one I would like to work does not. That is the zoom toggle on the left hand side. I cannot seem to get anything to register the key press. Even xev does not register it. I suspect there is a low-level something that is missing. Hopefully it will start working as new versions of kernels and other software are available. I am also hoping I can make it scroll, or compiz zoom. The original intention of the keyboard is to increase font sizes.

This keyboard also has an "F-lock" button. Took me ages to work out why the function keys did not work. I have no idea what useful purpose the "f-lock" key serves. If anyone knows, then pass it on.

The keyboard also has a wireless mouse with it too. I must say that I am not very impressed with it. The biggest annoyance has to be the flakiness of the middle button. The middle mouse button gets used a lot, and it is fast becoming annoying. I may end up ditching the mouse in favor of another.

cold and colder

Today was a record breaker here in Bismarck. It was the coldest January 15th on record. This is from the NWS website. I'm going to quote it because I am not sure if the site has a permalink.

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BISMARCK ND
737 AM CST THU JAN 15 2009

...RECORD DAILY MINIMUM TEMPERATURE BROKEN AT BISMARCK ND...

AT 734 AM CST THIS THURSDAY MORNING THE TEMPERATURE AT THE BISMARCK
AIRPORT DROPPED TO -44 DEGREES. THIS BREAKS THE RECORD LOW FOR JAN
15TH OF -36 PREVIOUSLY SET IN 1971.

At work we were discussing whether it was cold enough to spit and the saliva to freeze before it hit the ground. Unfortunately none of us thought to do it at that time. However, one of my colleagues did show me this.

Throwing hot coffee looks like more fun than spitting.

CentOS Security

Over at Planet CentOS there has been a rash of posts about security, here, here and here. Wise words, check them out.

Reading this got me thinking about using the non-standard packages and compiling from source. I think one of the reasons why sys-admins do this is because they are more comfortable with the package they want to use. This may be personal preference, and the preference may be because it is what they know. As a sys-admin, you rarely get to run the software you want. You have to make do with what you have or what others want. The business wnats you to load this software, and thhis software needs this specific app server which is not your favorite, or one you know well.

Like it or not, that is part of the job. On the plus side, learning new softaer gives more knowledge and experience which is only a good thing.