Getting out of a sticky BIND

Dave Farquhar Linux , , ,

Setting up DNS on Linux isn’t supposed to be the easiest thing in the world. But it wasn’t supposed to be this hard either.
I installed Debian (since it’s nice and lean and mean) and BIND 9.2.1 and dutifully entered the named.conf file and the zones files. I checked out their syntax with the included tools (named-checkconf and named-checkzone). It checked out fine. But my Windows PCs wouldn’t resolve against it.
Read more

Trolling ’round the ‘net

Dave Farquhar Society

I’m not feeling nauseous enough so I’ll go troll some news sites and see what I find.
Foxnews: “I think the value of life has been really reduced when a person who strangles their child gets less time than you would for killing a pet.” This person is surprised that there are people who value the lives of our pets more than the lives of our children? The spoils of our past 30 years are coming home to roost. I hope everyone enjoys them, because it’s only going to get worse.

Remember that homo sapien plot to take over the world? No need to worry about it. Even if they do manage to take over the world, they’ll squander it because all they want to do is kill each other.

London Telegraph: Israel arrests and holds 100 Palestinians. Be glad that’s all they’re doing. History will look back at today’s Palestinians as the 21st century’s answer to the Nazis. (Just another case of the homo sapiens killing each other for fun and profit.)

Bah. That’s enough for people to talk about. I’m going to bed.

Wiping a disk securely

Dave Farquhar Linux , ,

Sometimes in the course of work, it’s necessary to securely wipe a disk. A drive containing confidential information may require replacement. Assuming you caught the problem before the drive died for good, you can wipe it before sending it back to the manufacturer.
Programs to securely wipe a drive cost money. Sometimes big money. Fortunately, it’s easy to do it with Linux.
Read more

Let the teens and 20somethings rise to expectations

Dave Farquhar Society

FoxNews ran an editorial about teenagers. Specifically, it was about teenage sex, but for once, someone seems to realize that sex isn’t always just about sex and that teenagers are human beings just like the rest of us.
Author Glenn Harlan Reynolds argues that since society has infantilized teenagers, they’ve sunk to expectations. Given immature activities and no adult responsibilities, it should be no surprise that teenagers smoke and drink and sleep around. They don’t have anything else to do.
Read more