• The acceleration of addiction
• Technology is heroin
• Tradeoffs (an interview about The Shallows)

Released aasms 0.6 with a few bugs fixed, and support for the new iccid based direct-to-SIM stuff.

More aasms hacking, v0.4 can now get the username and password from a config file, so you don't have to have them in the process name. (which is more or less why I started the whole exercise)

Finally setup my aasms module with nagios, which was really the point of the whole exercise.

First, define some new notification commands more or less like this:

define command{
	        command_name    notify-host-by-sms
			command_line    send-aa-sms --file=/etc/nagios3/aasms.config -d $CONTACTEMAIL$ -m "***** Nagios *****Notification Type: $NOTIFICATIONTYPE$ Host: $HOSTNAME$ State: $HOSTSTATE$ Address: $HOSTADDRESS$ Info: $HOSTOUTPUT$ Date/Time: $LONGDATETIME$"
}

# 'notify-service-by-email' command definition
define command{
	        command_name    notify-service-by-sms
		    command_line    send-aa-sms --file=/etc/nagios3/aasms.config -d $CONTACTEMAIL$ -m "***** Nagios *****Notification Type: $NOTIFICATIONTYPE$ Service: $SERVICEDESC$ Host: $HOSTALIAS$ Address: $HOSTADDRESS$ State: $SERVICESTATE$ Date/Time: $LONGDATETIME$ Additional Info: $SERVICEOUTPUT$"
}

/etc/nagios3/aasms.config should be replaced with an appropriate config file for aasms readable only by nagios. Then define a new contact:

define contact{
		contact_name                    mstevens-sms
		alias                           Michael Stevens (SMS)
		service_notification_period     24x7
		host_notification_period        24x7
		service_notification_options    w,u,c,r
		host_notification_options       d,r
		host_notifications_enabled      1
		service_notifications_enabled   1
		service_notification_commands   notify-service-by-sms
		host_notification_commands      notify-host-by-sms
		email							your_mobile_here
}

Just add this contact to appropriate groups, and you should now get SMS notification of outages.

The key advantage of all this over the curl example on the A&A site is that you don't have to put your account details in the process name, and they can live privately in a nice config file instead.

Very minor tweaks to Proc::InvokeEditor, created a github repository for it, and uploaded the shiny new to CPAN.

While I was there, noticed some very old versions of some modules I had on CPAN, and deleted them.

Hooked on gadgets, and paying a mental price

(the cynic in me suggests the recent surge in articles on this topic is related to the forthcoming book from Nicholas Carr)

Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains

Further SMS hacking, added a command line script, now available at aasms 0.2.

How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking

(Yes, I know I keep going on about this every 5 minutes to anyone who'll stand still long enough)

Hacking a bit on some Python code to talk to A&A's SMS service.

Doesn't really do much yet, but put up a github repo to play with at http://github.com/mstevens/aasms.

After many years of membership, first of Amicus, then of Unite, I've now left and am no longer a union member.

I like the idea of union membership to some degree, but I thought, amongst other things, the phone call telling me to vote for Gordon Brown was the last straw.

Been fiddling with the home network / general computing environment the last few days out of a general plan to make things cooler and also have more reliable internets.

Done so far:

• New 5 port gigabit switch for connecting desktop and phone and anything else that comes along
• Got VoIP phone from A&A installed and setup.
• Switching to running the ADSL on a phone line managed by A&A in order to have a single point of contact when it doesn't work. Line installed, waiting for them to sort out providing ADSL over it.
• Got the final bits to setup the new OpenBSD router, in particular a USB to serial adapter.
• Spent a while trying to build a new image for my Nanonote. Got it building now, and reported a couple of missing dependencies in the build process.
• Acquired a USB to micro-SD card adapter and copied all my music onto a micro-SD card for use in the nanonote.

I was amused to note it took a guy from BT Openreach about 2.5 hours to install a phone line. And he went to the wrong street initially. Still, he did turn up quite early, which is a positive.

Stuff I'm still working on:

• Waiting for BT to actually provide the ADSL on the new phone line they're supposed to. Apparently there's a "line plant" problem.
• Actually building the new OpenBSD router, rather than just owning the pile of bits.
• Waiting for the new 8 port gigabit switch for another room (with more computers) to arrive, and installing it.
• Installing new mattress (okay not strictly computer related).
• Doing a bit more hacking on the Nanonote to get it going as a media player.
• Fixing the broken bookcase whose brokenness I spotted whilst moving things around so the BT guy could install another line.

I am very pleased with the VoIP stuff so far and can't recommend A&A as suppliers enough.

Ars Technica have, as you might expect, reviewed the iPad.

Actually kinda puts me off the thing, although a lot of the problems sound like 1.0 issues.

The Pen Addict is giving away free pens

I love Linux, it's so great. Output from the mount command...

//server.example.com/mstevens on /export/mstevens type cifs (rw,mand)
//server.example.com/mstevens on /export/mstevens type cifs (rw,mand)
//server.example.com/mstevens on /export/mstevens type cifs (rw,mand)
//server.example.com/mstevens on /export/mstevens type cifs (rw,mand)
//server.example.com/mstevens on /export/mstevens type cifs (rw,mand)

• xkcd have gone command line
• A&A drop that nasty legacy "IPv4" protocol
• Google launch new animal translation service
• Google Docs launch some new features
• Charlie Stross announces new literary direction
• More Charlie Stross news
• The iCade, a great new iPad accessory
• Google choose new name
• New video format from YouTube
• kernel.org move to australia
• Exciting new Starbucks offerings
• The true perspective on atheism
• New direction for PostgreSQL
• Apache Software Foundation sell to Oracle
• New use for Circle Line

More on the day as it develops.

My ISP have just started providing IPv6 Coffee. Excellent.

Keeping computers from ending science's reproducibility

I think this is a hugely important issue that doesn't get enough attention.

Modern procrastination

Started the setup on the new etla.org server, now to be called eris.etla.org. Hoping to get people and services moved over in the next week or two.

All must watch zefrank!

My Wikireader arrived.

Had to stop using the spam filtering service I was using for etla.org, so I now expect to get drowned in the stuff.

My Life Offline - interesting article, fits in well with my frequent anti-internet moods lately.

Rejecta Mathematica is a real open access online journal publishing only papers that have been rejected from peer-reviewed journals in the mathematical sciences.

Someone's collection of links to online CS courses.

I don't remember exactly where I found it, I think Hacker News

I went to Brussels at the weekend!

I'm too lazy to write it up properly, but you can Look at the Photos.

After thinking about doing it for ages, webmail on etla.org should be working again.

The CPAN mirror at cpan.etla.org is temporarily broken, as it's having trouble rsyncing updates. I'm investigating as much as I have time for.

In the Long Run We're All Mice

Chocolate cake in 5 minutes

The Underground History of American Education - looks like it could be interesting reading, although I don't have time to actually read it at the moment.

Stoooopid .... why the Google generation isn't as smart as it thinks

Disconnecting Distraction

I've been using my mac mini as a backup server for ages. Over the weekend it died. I'm almost certain it's the hard drive.

I'm going to attempt to replace the hard drive, and I should even get some extra space if it works, but I'm thinking it may be time to upgrade my storageness.

At the moment I'm tempted by the ReadyNAS Duo. Lots more storage, RAID, hopefully less to manage, and I'm told it probably does the rsync things I use at the moment for backups.

Been trying gnus for email a bit.

Seems better than I remember it. IMAP support works nicely, although I didn't try SSL, which I remember being the tricky bit. Spent a while with it mysteriously showing mail in folders where I know I'd deleted it. I don't know what the actual cause was, but disabling the "agent" seems to have fixed it.

Got bbdb installed and integrated nicely, need to have a look at one of the nicer quoting packages.

Low cost laptop cheat sheet. Personally I like the look of the Asus 901, although it's a bit expensive. And not actually available yet.

(Sourced from Roger)

I found stickK in the Economist this week. It seems like an excellent idea - motivate yourself by contracting to pay out if you don't meet personal goals.

Thunderbird is leaving the mozilla project

A depressing article on the state of GCSE Physics courses