techSanctuary

While doing some practice problems for a recent ACM competition, I stumbled across a problem about finding the number of solutions to a Sudoku puzzle. I had never heard of Sudoku but it seemed interesting. Ever since then I've seen it all over the place. Apparently it is the new fad. As something to do during class, I developed a Sudoku generator to explore the problem space.

When I resintalled my laptop, I decided it was time to give genkernel a try. I've been impressed with the hardware detection on the Gentoo LiveCD and knew genkernel was used. I've been happy with genkernel, even with long kernel build times. It gives me nice splashscreens right out of the box. I've tried to get suspend to disk working in the past without luck. It would always hang and having to manually add patches was an annoyance. When I discovered that there was a portage package for a Suspend2 prepatched kernel I was exicted. To top this off, this kernel also has all of the normal gentoo-sources patches. Nice.

After coming across the Seattle Wireless receive sensitivity and hardware comparison, I found THE 802.11b card to fill all of my needs. I was tempted by the Demarc and Senao cards, but NewEgg had the SMC EliteConnect card at the right price of $54.

I came across an article on how to embed a WiFi detector into a backpack or messenger bag. Neat idea.

I've added a polished version of my TiVo/PPP/Gentoo writeup to the Gentoo-Wiki.

After returning to the Humboldt area, I started following the local LUG again. I came across a local project called Humboldt Hookup to get free WiFi in the local towns. Turns out it's my boss's pet project. I plan on donating some time to help the project get some steam. In the mean time, I'm collecting links and information on the subject.

After moving, I decided to forego a traditional landline. With a cable modem and cell phone, it just wasn't needed. Unfortunately, I forgot about my Series 1 TiVo.

These instructions describe how to network a Series 1 Tivo over a serial cable, to a Gentoo Linux machine, using PPP. These instructions are based on those found here. This setup assumes that the Gentoo Linux machine is already properly configured to access the internet over a LAN.

NOTE: I've added a polished version of these instructions to the Gentoo-Wiki.

Here is THE best article on CSS floats that I've found so far.

TerraPass is an economics experiment designed to take advantage of the existing enviromental trading markets. You buy credits equal to the CO₂ output of your vehicle. These credits are then used to reduce the pollution output in various sectors equal to your output. For $80 or less per year, you can help counter the pollution of your gas-guzzler.

I've seen arguments for both. REST is smaller over the wire, while SOAP allows complex types. Obviously each has its place. But when we are talking about web services, isn't standardization key? I'm currently working on a project to build a search abstraction layer. Having to support both protocols is an annoyance. Add to REST and SOAP the possibility of also having to support XML-RPC and things get silly. Personally, I don't mind using a few extra resources for SOAP if it means using one protocol. Computing resources are cheap these days.