Author: Dave Farquhar

Update your BIND servers

Dave Farquhar Linux , , , , ,

A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in a large number of versions of BIND. CERT released an advisory over the weekend. I haven’t seen this on most news sites yet. Read more

An easy way to get Debian 3.0 before you can buy it

Dave Farquhar Linux , , , ,

Debian 3.0 hasn’t officially been released yet, but that hasn’t stopped people from making unofficial installation floppies and CDs.
I just built a Debian 3.0 system that will be hosting this site and another (I’m not going to talk yet about the other site, but it won’t be hosted by R. Collins Farquhar IV–do I hear cheers?–and it won’t be fiction). I used this 185 MB CD image to do the install. The system used up a whopping 88 megs when I finished initial installation. After I installed Apache, MySQL and PHP4 to make a usable web server, disk usage rocketed to 118 megs. Not shabby at all in this era of multi-gigabyte installs. Read more

How to pray

Dave Farquhar Christianity

I’ve had a number of conversations the past couple of weeks, and the most common theme, by far, has been prayer. Not so much “will you pray for me?” or “should I pray for you,” but more asking how to pray.
People just don’t know how to pray, mostly because nobody ever taught them. Read more

Possibly the first Apache worm

Dave Farquhar Linux , , ,

I just found this article describing a worm that attempts to infect vulnerable Apache servers running on FreeBSD.
This doesn’t have much effect on Linux or other Unix variants (other than probably crashing lots of Apache sessions, which the machine may or may not recover gracefully from) but chances are this is just a harbinger of things to come.

You should upgrade to Apache 1.3.26 or Apache 2.0.39 immediately to avoid any problems, especially if you use FreeBSD. I’ve been running version 1.3.26 on Debian here for about a week without any issues, as I’ve come to expect from Apache.

The craziest thing I’ve read in a long time

Dave Farquhar General , , ,

I thought the craziest story I’d read this year was a UFO enthusiast’s account of his hunt for a wrecked 1960s vintage spyplane so top-secret you’ve probably never heard of it.
Then I found a link to the story of a teenager who had plans to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard. (Click the printer-friendly link at the bottom of the first page if you want to read it.)

I lived such a sheltered life… Read more

Palladium and You

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , ,

There’s been a lot of talk on the Web lately about Palladium. If you don’t have strong feelings about it, it’s probably because you’re not a bleeding-edge computing enthusiast. That’s OK. You’ll hear about it in time.
Basically, Palladium is Microsoft’s initiative to reinvent the PC and make it more secure. There’s a big uproar about it because it reeks of ulterior motives. Some fear Palladium means you will surrender all rights to your PC and cede them to Redmond.

I’m not totally convinced this is a bad thing. Read more

And forgive us our trespasses…

Dave Farquhar Christianity

Our first adventure in Belle Glade happened before we could even see the town. To get our attention, God used one of the most powerful forces in the known universe: a dozen bored teenage boys seeking amusement.
We spent our first night at Wellington Presbyterian Church, about 30 miles from our destination. The next morning, after a very brief (and very cold) shower and a shave, I returned to find a couple of them playing with the classroom intercom. They’d push the button that paged the office, then they’d listen to the beep and the system kicking on and then back off.

I’m sure there were more amusing things in the building than that, but at 8 in the morning they hadn’t found it. Read more

They don’t make ’em like Lyman Bostock anymore

Dave Farquhar Baseball , , , , , ,

Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly:
Wouldn’t you love to see, just once, before you die… a major league player call a press conference to demand the club negotiate his contract — downward? “I’m barely hittin’ my weight,” he’ll say, his agent nodding by his side. “Either start paying me a whole lot less or I’m leaving for Pawtucket right now!”

That almost did happen. In 1978, a young, hard-hitting outfielder named Lyman Bostock became one of baseball’s first big-money free agents Read more

Long day.

Dave Farquhar General ,

I’m still not completely recovered from the trip. I find myself running out of gas around 5 pm and needing a half-hour nap to make it to 10-10:30.
I did some PHP maintenance coding at work today. It’s definitely not pretty but it mostly works. I’m hoping to finish that project up tomorrow sometime.

I played my first softball game in my work league last night (I missed the first game of the season). We won, which was nice. I’d forgotten what it feels like to win a ballgame, since my church team is 0-3-1 with me in the lineup. I missed a total of three games while I was gone. But last week was worth a lifetime of softball championships, so I don’t care too much.

I went 0-for-2 with a run scored. I was too eager to swing the bat. The opposing pitching had a really hard time throwing strikes, so I should have just taken the walks rather than trying to hit the best pitch I could find. I’m not a doubles hitter this early in the season.

On the plus side, I made two putouts in left field and mostly looked like I knew what I was doing, at least on those plays. I misplayed the first two grounders to me, but on the third one I nearly threw out a runner at third. Aside from a couple of innings in left last year, I haven’t played there since high school gym class. It’ll come back to me. Just like my bat will.

Ten Years of Life

Dave Farquhar Human Interest

Sometimes it seems like life’s problems are about to swallow us whole and we wonder if we’ll survive. Then we meet someone who has real problems.
I met Mark in the summer of 1983. He was 21 then, and seemed ancient to me at the time. But he was one of the nicest guys I had ever met.

He was also one of the most unlucky. Read more