April 2006 Archives

29-04-2006 18:15

How to backup installed package list on Debian based systems

dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt save the .txt file to a safe place then once reinstalled dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt followed by dselect update and apt-get dselect-upgrade should give you back your installed packages

Posted by DaveQB | Permanent Link

17-04-2006 09:25

Easter 2006 Moss Vale trip

Here is the link to the gallery of photo's from the trip. Gallery

It was an great weekend away. Good to get out into the country away from the city and spend some time with loved ones. The way life has been lately for me, its what I needed. My girlfriend and I went down on Thursday night. Friday my sister and her son came down. We went for lunch in Bowral and then came back to the house and got the fire place cleaned so as to play around with that. My sisters son was very amazed by the fire place. We then went into Moss Vale to a Chinese resturant and had dinner there. Got the fire started when we arrived back at the house and chatter til bed time.

Saturday morning my girlfriend and I slept in til 10. We all piled into my sisters car to go to the Birrawang Easter Markets. That was an interesting time looking at stalls selling typical country made items. I had one of the best ice creams one could imagine. Ice cream mixed on the spot with fresh strawberries to give it the stawberry flavour and taste. Awesome! My sister had to return to Sydney to go to work that afternoon. We stayed on and went into Bowral again to have dinner at a pleasant hamburger shop and then went onto the movies to see 'V for Vendetta', which is one of the best movies I have seen. The weekend wrapped up with us returning home around 1 pm Sunday.


Posted by DaveQB | Permanent Link

16-04-2006 23:09

The Importance of Open Standards

Here are 3 ways to explain the importance of open standards to non-techies.
  • Imagine only being able to take your car to the place you bought it for service. I understand this is somewhat happening now with the advent of computerised cars to an extent that only the makers can fix them as the equipment to purchase to work on each individual makers' computer systems cost too much to make it worthwhile for independent mechanic's. I know this as my father was a mechanic and this is the reason why he couldn't [as an independant mechanic] afford to service new cars; only old ones.
  • There are some companies now trying to make seeds for growing vegetable that dont allow for re-procuing and then put a patent on them. This is a result of a capitalist society we live in, but imagine if it came to that and we had some sort of catastrophe that left these makers unable to produce these fruits and vegetable ?? We, as regular "joes", could not grow our own food.
  • There is an example of a 1904 fire in Baltimore. Firefighters were called in from all the surrounding states. But all they could do was stand and watch the building burn, because their firehoses would not fit on the fire hydrants. A standard fire hose coupler could have prevented much of the destruction.

Posted by DaveQB | Permanent Link