introducing sshfs

fuse and sshfs are useful tools to mount file systems across computers that have ssh installed. 
on FC5, simply do 'yum install sshfs'. Client system (exporting mounting points) needs to have 
the following entries enabled in sshd_config:

-> Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server
-> TCPKeepAlive yes

source code auditing and profiling

I've recently stumbled upon this source code auditing software called splint ( http://www.splint.org/). It can be used to identify many security related issues statically at source code level. The manual is very comprehensive.

There is also a very good profiling software called oprofile (http://oprofile.sourceforge.net) with decent performance and profiling capabilities. I used to use histx on itanium2 based hardware. These softwares provide similar functions (namely sampling and reporting of hardware events)

Together with valgrind, these tools can be very valuable to identify software problems, security, performance, memory leak etc.

HOWTO: install 64 bit linux on Dell Inspiron 1501

 There are only 2 fine details to know as of Jan. 2007 to install 64 bit linux on this fine Laptop. 1) Append pci=nomsi to the kernel parameter list when booting from a installation CD (I used FC6-x86-64, partly because I use FC at work on my desktop. Gentoo, Ubuntu, openSUSE distributions all work with the magic kernel paramter added).
2) Follow this fine HOWTO found on ubuntu website: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=297092 to setup wireless.

Other devices are automatically taken care of after fc6 installation. Welcome to the world of 64 home computing.

So it's year 2007

There are a couple things that I need to finish up with my house. It's showing its age and lots of repair work needs to be done. Try to facilitate my computer skills, I am shopping for a good home inventory software. I am also getting very comfortable with gentoo Linux, it's like slackware on steroid. It's tiny and very manageable.

I've also learnt a few new tricks with Kerberos and LDAP. Getting comy with PKI (public key exchange infrastructure), SSL, etc.

I may be expecting a baby this year. He/she shall grow up playing soccer with me. :)