T h o u g h t s
Amazon are awesome!
>>Tuesday, July 20, 2010<<
Just after I got my Kindle, I pre-ordered the newest Temeraire book: Tongues of Serpents. It was set to be released in July, and as I love the series so much I put it on pre-order so I'd have it as soon as it was released.
A couple of months later (two months ago), I was looking and noticed that the book was now marked as Not Available for Australian customers. Naturally I was pretty annoyed, as many of the books I want to read are not allowed in Aus and here was yet another one. I blame the stupid publishers who don't understand eBooks - if I can buy an American paper book and ship it over to Aus, why can't I buy an American book and download it in Aus?
Anyway, my pre-order was still in my account so I decided to wait and see what happened. I resolved to call Amazon and complain if it was cancelled.
Last week I was checking my emails, having completely forgotten about the book, when I saw an Order Confirmation from Amazon... That's Odd I thought, as I didn't remember actually buying something. So I opened it and saw Tongues of Serpents listed!! Within seconds I had my Kindle out and found my new book!!
Even though it is still marked as Unavailable in Australia, Amazon honoured my pre-order and sent me the book.
Thank you Amazon, you are awesome.
Tags: kindle
Why I love my Kindle
>>Friday, June 25, 2010<<
Put simply, I love my Kindle. Here are a couple of short reasons why I love it so much...
- I love reading - One of my favourite things to do is read a good book. With my Kindle, I can sit down wherever I am and read. I read on the bus, I read in bed, I read on the couch on weekends... you get the picture.
- It makes it easy to find new books - As much as I love reading, I never managed to get to book stores frequently enough to stop re-reading my favourite books. With my Kindle I can find new books whenever I am :)
- It's nice and light - a lot of the books I read are huge tomes. The Kindle can hold many of these, yet is very small and light. Nuff said.
- I can read PDF's without having to print them - I am currently reading through Stargate Horizon (a Stargate-based Virtual Series), and as my Kindle can read PDF files I can read SGH easily.
- Free Internet Access - With the recent update Australian's were given access to the entire internet for free. Sure, it is slow, black & white, on a small screen, and has very limited formatting, but it is more than adequate for reading articles or checking emails. Try doing that on a Kobo!
- Impressive battery life - with the 3G wireless radio off it will go for weeks between charges. With the 3G wireless on and only basic usage it goes for a week. Heavy 3G usage gets me a few days :)
There are many more reasons than just those 5, but they will do for a start and give you a good idea why I like it so much. Sure, it isn't perfect, but I does what I want and I haven't once regretted getting it.
Simple APT pending update email notifications: apticron
>>Wednesday, April 28, 2010<<
I've been running Debian servers for a number of years now, and one thing that has always annoyed me is I never know when an update is required. I've always liked to keep my servers updated in-case of security patches and the like.
Originally I manually SSH'ed into my servers every couple of days and ran sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, but it took some effort and quickly became very boring and neglected. I've tried a number of scripts for management (i.e. webmin) and monitoring (i.e. munin), but they didn't really do what I wanted.
Then I found apticron - it checks for new APT updates every 24 hours and then sends a notification outlining the updates. I have configured all of mine to email me with any updates.
Installation on Debian or Ubuntu is simple:
sudo apt-get install apticronOnce installed, editing the configuration file is a piece of cake and very self-explanatory as to getting updates emailed:
sudo vim /etc/apticron/apticron.confThere you go, you now have daily notification of pending APT updates :)
Zend Framework: No default module defined for this application
>>Tuesday, April 20, 2010<<
I started work on ACSdb "Pot of Gold", a system I am building for the Yarralumla Uniting Church Arts and Crafts show, today on my laptop. It was a fresh install of Zend Server CE so naturally there were going to be problems...
First up I was faced with:
An error occured while loading the application.
No default module defined for this application
#0 /home/valorin/workspace/library/Zend/Controller/Dispatcher/Standard.php(204): Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Standard->getControllerClass(Object(Zend_Controller_Request_Http))
#1 /home/valorin/workspace/library/Zend/Controller/Dispatcher/Standard.php(238): Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Standard->isDispatchable(Object(Zend_Controller_Request_Http))
#2 /home/valorin/workspace/library/Zend/Controller/Front.php(954): Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Standard->dispatch(Object(Zend_Controller_Request_Http), Object(Zend_Controller_Response_Http))
#3 /home/valorin/workspace/potofgold/webapp/application/bootstrap.php(81): Zend_Controller_Front->dispatch()
#4 /home/valorin/workspace/potofgold/webapp/public/index.php(20): require('/home/valorin/w...')
#5 {main}Tags: annoyances, debug, php, zf
Web Applications I still use: Remember the Milk
>>Monday, February 22, 2010<<
Like most web geeks, I spend a lot of time playing with new and interesting web applications - however I only stick with a few of them for the long run. So to help fill out this blog and find interesting stuff to talk about in here, I have decided to review the ones that I still use.
I figure that there must be something that makes a web application stand out as useful enough to maintain interest even after the initial coolness factor has worn off. For some apps it is simply a case that the coolness factor remains high, even after the initial hype. For others the app is a very useful idea that I find hard to do without.
To help find out what makes these applications so useful for me, I will answer a couple of questions:
Tags: remember_the_milk, reviews, web_applications
