Recently I noticed a problem with Firefox, and LJ was one of the culprits. Symptom: Some time after opening Firefox and my usual plethora of tabs, Firefox would stop making new connections to websites. It'd sit there trying to load, and eventually time out. I couldn't connect to anything.

Solution for non-technical, get-to-the-point folks: ( Read more... )

Welp, my supposedly reliable, unmodified daily driver (the 2005 G6) has decided to head for the parts bin in the sky. At the very least, the engine did. Whatever it was that failed (bearing, perhaps?), mechanic says the clank we're hearing is most likely connecting rod to crankshaft, and I'm looking at either rebuilding or replacing this engine ( Read more... )

My VPNC connection has driven me nuts for a very long time. Sometimes it stays up for a couple days, sometimes it drops within minutes. I could never figure it out. I even built my own copy and started running it in GDB to see if I could find and fix the problem. There was something going on with Dead Peer Detection (DPD), but I didn't know ( Read more... )

I am posting this for chrispee42's benefit. *innocent smile*

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chrispee42: "Seriously, you can't eat just 5!"

(Note: This post has nothing specifically to with Ubuntu or Linux. It's more about what naming conventions actually work best for me versus everyone else ( Read more... )

( Click here only if you know and/or care anything about Ubuntu and Pidgin )

So, I finally bought the makings of a new computer to replace 'metal,' the venerable machine that eventually was haunted by the Ghost of Jack Daniel. (The rest of the details I'll have to tell another time.)

(Edit: Here's part of the story. Even after solving the power-switch problem, the machine never behaved quite right. After my chipset fan ( Read more... )

Ok, so I'm trying to get our team moved off a "home grown" version control system that really sucks balls to something a little less buggy (ie. doesn't core dump if you have an apostrophe in a commit message) and a little faster (takes less than 5 minutes to check in a dozen files). And no, I'm not exaggerating. It really is that bad ( Read more... )