The Author – Bart Busschots
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Nov
14
Installing mod_jk for Apache 1.3 on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger
Filed Under Computers & Tech, System Administration | 8 Comments
I’ve done a few previous articles on Apache Tomcat (one for installing it on Linux and one for installing it on OS X), but I haven’t yet mentioned installing the JK Connector (mod_jk) in any environment. For those who are wondering what on earth I’m on about, mod_jk allows the Apache web server to serve your Tomcat web apps so they appear on port 80. There are a number of reasons why you might want to do this. Firstly, it provides a simple and secure way to get Tomcat to respond to requests on port 80 without having to have it run as root. Apache is more efficient at serving static pages so it can help increase the efficiency of your web app, and finally it allows you leverage all the power of Apache’s many features for your Java web app.
[tags]Tomcat, Apache, OS X, Mac, mod_jk, Tomcat Connectors[/tags]
Nov
14
I was horrified to receive an email from my ISP asking me to email them my updated credit card details this morning. Now, before you go saying ‘no ISP would do that, its obviously a phising scam you fool’, it isn’t. I rang them. Since my credit card had expired I gave them my new details first and then complained about the email. The person on the other end of the phone just didn’t see the problem. I proceeded to explain that email is a totally insecure transport medium. She still didn’t see a problem because they were ‘only offering customers an option to email’. DigiWeb are an ISP, people expect ISPs to know how the internet works, and if their ISP says it’s OK to email such things then regular users will probably take them at their word. After all, DigiWeb are the experts right? When it became clear that I was not being listened to I asked to be transfered to a manager or a supervisor but was told that DigiWeb don’t take complaints over the phone. What? You don’t even care enough to talk to your own customers? Yet another example of the utter uselessness of Irish ISPs! To cut a long story short I’ve contacted the Data Protection commissioners and am in the process of lodging a complaint.
Nov
9
The Science Delusion
Filed Under Science & Astronomy, Polemics & Politics | 26 Comments
No, I haven’t gone all anti-science or become a creationist, I just needed to grab your attention to highlight a serious issue I have with supposed scientists like Richard Dawkins. This article has been brewing in the back of my mind for months now. For most of its gestation period it went under the working title ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’, but it was missing a focus to build around, Dawkins provided that focus, and the ten year anniversary of the death of Carl Sagan provided the spark to get this out of my brain and onto ‘paper’ as it were.
I consider myself a scientist, I chose to do a science degree, then chose to go back and try for a PhD in science, and took the time to get myself elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. As such I have a very personal interest and involvement in science, scientists, and the public perception of science. I’ve shared some of my reflections on the nature of science on this blog before (see links below) but those reflections didn’t really get to what I now realize is at the very core of science, knowing that there is a lot that we don’t know, and a need to be open to the possibility that we’re wrong. Science does not move forward by digging its heals in and refusing to accept changes in our understanding of the universe, and science is most certainly not served by speaking in absolutes and making unsupported and indeed unsupportable statements in the name of science.
[tags]Science, Creationism, Dawkins, God[/tags]
Nov
8
Switching to Subversion – First Thoughts of a CVS User
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech | 8 Comments
I’ve been a CVS user for years but have spent most of those years cursing its short-comings. The main reasons I stuck with CVS despite this were:
- Lock-in – there is a lot of code in both my personal CVS repository and the one for the EVE project. If it ain’t broke …….
- Maturity – CVS has been around for donkey’s years. The code is stable, people know how to use it, and there are loads of tools and tutorials out there. Subversion is a lot newer and still changing.
- Inertia – it took a lot of poking and prodding over the years to get people using CVS, people don’t want to have to start the learning curve all over again!
I’ve been reading about how great subversion is for ages but had never quite gotten round to trying it myself. The reason I hadn’t tried it was because I’d never had an excuse to dedicate scarce time to it. However, a few weeks ago people in work started voicing an interest in Subversion so I took that as my cue to finally give it a go.
[tags]Source Control, CVS, Subversion, SVN[/tags]
Nov
1
I got my first good look at the comet SWAN in a few days today and it was far from impressive. Matters were not helped by the fact that a 60-70% full moon was high in the sky but seeing was perfect so I was still expecting a good show. SWAN has moved quite a distance away from M13 at this stage so comparisons are getting harder but the comet is definitely dimmer than it was on October 27th. Then the comet was significantly brighter than M13 (mag 5.9) whereas today SWAN appeared to be somewhat dimmer than the cluster. To try get a more accurate estimate of the magnitude I jotted down the star field and then looked for a star that was about the same brightness as the comet when de-focused to the same size as the comet. There were two bright (in binoculars) stars near the comet, SAO 85028 (mag 6.3) and SAO 85001 (mag 5.6). The comet was definitely dimmer than SAO 85001 and looked to be very very similar in brightness to SAO 85028. This leads me to estimate the magnitude at between 6.0 and 6.5 with 6.3 being my best estimate.
[tags]SWAN, Comet, Astronomy[/tags]
Nov
1
Who Will Prepare Your Kids for the Realities of The Internet?
Filed Under Polemics & Politics, Computers & Tech | 5 Comments
When it comes to safety in the real world kids have vital safety precautions drilled into them. They are warned about the dangers of playing on the road and thought how to cross the road safely. They are also warned about strangers and told not to get into cars with them or anything like that. Hence, despite the fact that there are serious risks out there in the real world, kids generally manage to stay safe. However, the same is not true on the Internet. Many kids are not given a basic education on the very real dangers that exist in cyber-space, or how to protect themselves. As a result they are in real danger as they wander round cyber-space totally un-prepared for the nasty reality that there are very bad people out there who want to harm them. In my view the main reason for this is that many parents don’t understand computers in general and the Internet and the concept of the now all-pervasive social networking sites in particular. Without this understanding they cannot possibly prepare their kids properly so they end up wandering around the Internet un-supervised and un-prepared and become soft targets for pedophiles and cyber-bullies. In my mind this makes a very strong case for teaching children about the Internet and particularly safety on the Internet in school.
This problem was highlighted again today when two of my fellow PhD students in NUI Maynooth (and founders of www.bigulo.com) got some good media coverage for a survey they did of Irish related Bebo profiles. The press-release makes interesting reading and is full of very simple but very effective advice for parents. If you’re a parent I’d suggest you read it, and if you have young siblings who use the net I’d suggest you talk to them or your parents about it. Anyhow, this is an important issue and it needs to be kept in people’s mind so thanks Des and Andy for getting this important issue some much-needed media attention.
[tags]Bebo, mySpace, Internet, Children[/tags]
Oct
30
Tech Podcasts I’d Actually Recommend
Filed Under Computers & Tech | 1 Comment
There are a lot of podcasts out there, an awful lot in fact. The hard thing can be separating the proverbial wheat from the proverbial chaff. I dedicated an entire segment of the IFAS Podcast to good astronomy/science podcasts but I’ve never done a post for tech ones here before. Of all the tech podcasts I’ve subscribed to there are only five I listen to regularly and they are all very different and have different target audiences. Unless you are pretty much my clone you’re not likely to be interested in all five but I’d be pretty shocked if at least one didn’t appeal to you!
[tags]podcast, tech, Apple, Linux, Windows[/tags]
Oct
27
Hidden JavaScript
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech | 2 Comments
This is the long over-due follow-up article to JavaScript – Much more than Java’s Mini-Me which I want to get published now because I’ve just started another JS article that I think needs to come after this article. I want to finish evangelizing the good things about the JS language before I take a look at JS’s dark under-belly. The next article has the working title JavaScript and AJAX on the Web – a Liability? and should be out within a week (at least that’s the plan).
In my previous JS article I discussed fundamental language features that JS has that give it the ability to do things many other languages just can’t. These features give the programmer extra tools that the common high-level languages like Java just don’t have. In this article I won’t be looking at anything as earth-shattering as that, I’ll just be looking at some nice features JS has that tend to get over-looked by JS programmers.
[tags]JavaScript, JS[/tags]
Oct
27
Until today I hadn’t been able to observe the comet SWAN since the 12th of October because of the Irish weather. The last time I observed it the comet was rather low in the sky and easily visible in binoculars but definitely not a naked-eye object. Today I managed to observe the comet again twice, once before the sky was fully dark and then again when it was properly dark. The comet has moved significantly and is now a lot higher in the sky in the constellation of Hercules but what really struck me was how much it had brightened.
[tags]Comet, SWAN[/tags]
Oct
20
Synchronizing Your Bookmarks on FireFox
Filed Under Computers & Tech | 1 Comment
If you have multiple computers I’m sure you’ve often wished you could easily sync your bookmarks between them. I know it’s happened me that I come across something on desktop at home, I book mark it, then a few weeks later I’m out on the road and I really need it but it’s not in the bookmarks on my laptop. Bookmarks Synchronizer 3 is a nice solution IF you have access to a server either via FTP, or HTTP if your server is webDav enabled (like a .mac iDisk).
[tags]FireFox, FireFox Extensions, Bookmarks[/tags]