As many of my friends know, I installed Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 aka Woody on my IBM ThinkPad 760ED (Pentium 1, 133 MHz, 48 MB RAM, 1 GB HD) named bijou at Chemnitzer Linux-Tage this spring. Although many helped me trying to configure X, I didn’t get rid of the LCD “forgetting” more or less pixels each row so that the picture got blurred towards the right rim. During Berlinux, a not so convinced Linux user (he told me he likes the feeling of Windows, but got stick with Debian because his modem just didn’t work with Windows) told me that he had similar problems with a graphics card with similar chips as the ones in my ThinkPad. Since I never was sure, if my problem is a hardware defect, a driver or a configuration problem (but I tended to hardware defect or a not supported chipset, since I read about several Trident 96xx and 98xx chipsets to be unsupported under Linux), his comment was a ray of hope to me. He told me he found the solution on Werner Heuser’s TuxMobil website, whom I showed my X problem also Berlinux but who hadn’t an idea what it could be. He also told me, that XFree86 4.x doesn’t support this graphics chip, but XFree86 3.3.x does. But somehow I had forgotten that TuxMobil not only has informations about Linux on laptops but also a big bunch of links to pages which deal with specific models. I can’t remember, if I looked there already back in March, but it felt like I didn’t although my own small text about bijou is linked there, too. I looked through the other 760/770 ED/XD pages and on the second or third I found someone who seems to have had the same problem and also with a 760ED. He wrote, someone else has gone down that path already so he linked directly to the XF86Config he found elsewhere. That sounded like an easy earned money so I followed the link — 404. Shit! For luck a few lines down he linked also his own XF86Config, so I grabbed it, uncommented everything unnecessary and put in the essential parts of his XF86Config of which the most important parts probably were the modelines. The one for 1024×768 was commented as the only one working, those for 800×600 and 640×480 were commented out. Then I downgraded X to XFree86 3.3.6. It didn’t work as expected. The display stayed black which was less than I had accomplished before. Shit! But giving up is not my style. So first I reduced the color depth. No change. Then I started with reducing the resolution. With 800×600 and 16 bit color depth, it finally worked. No hardware defect, no unsupported graphics chip. Just not the right modelines. That was all. YESSS! I guess the guy whose XF86Config I used didn’t have a 760ED but a similar model with a LCD with higher resolution. because my 760ED definitely has no 1024×768 resolution because 800×600 fills the screen completely. Still leaves the problem with the svgalib: The system just freezes with a black screen if I start a svgalib application like e.g. zgv. First I found out, that svgalib indeed has a configuration file which (at least under Woody) can be found at /etc/vga/libvga.conf. Copied the modelines from the now working XF86Config, configured the mouse and tried again. Freeze. Hmmm, in the config there is mentioned that if svgalib doesn’t correctly recognise the graphics card’s chipset, you can hardcode it with a configuration directive, e.g. “chipset VGA” for otherwise unsupported chipsets. And that worked, although only with 640×480 yet. So I tried the only setting for Trident cards found in the list of supported chipsets. And what happend? Right, the system froze again. So svgalib probably recognised the card as Trident and used the only available Trident driver which was obviously the wrong one. So here are my XF86Config and my libvga.config working on the IBM ThinkPad 760ED. But nevertheless — this 0€ laptop has just proven that it can be even more useful than it already was with text mode only. I also already played Frozen Bubble up to level 25 or so on the train back from Berlin. Old hardware rules. But I now also have another problem (again): Since X works now, I can run Galeon 1.2 on the ThinkPad, but GTK 2 respective GNOME 2 are much slower than in the 1.x versions and also need much more ressources, which the laptop just does not have. And since I — as most of the people who read my blog or Planet Debian should know ;-) — don’t like Galeon 1.3, I probably won’t dist-upgrade my ThinkPad to Sarge that fast although I already thought about it. XFree86 3.x isn’t in Sarge either IIRC but this should be no problem since the Woody packages are said to work under Sarge, too. Well, still yet another reason for forwardports.org… ;-) Or maybe I can get Kazehakase running on Woody so I can drop at least the whole ballast GNOME 2 comes with. We’ll see…

A surprisingly high proportion of ex-UEA people stay in the area after finishing at UEA. Over 40% want to, according to the local chamber of commerce. Eventually, that number falls: with John and Brett leaving, I think I can now count on one hand those from my Norwich years (1994-1998) who I know are still here. Most left some time ago. Why? Small place syndrome? Underpaid work? Both? Possibly. It feels like only in Norfolk could the train station start to expand its car park to cope with demand and the same week most train services to it are cancelled because a Cambridgeshire farmer drove onto the single line stretch, was killed and it takes at least a day for access and safety checks in this sparsely-populated area. From the BBC's picture, the unit involved was one of the commemorative King's Lynn "picture trains". You seldom hear what happens to the damaged trains and injured drivers. I guess the railways and the media doesn't like to worry passengers. Even the Potter's Bar investigation ending only got brief mentions that I saw. Also at the train station, local police put out a picture of people they would "like to interview" about the spate of recent bike thefts. Possibly as a result, they've charged one man. Someone I know had a bike nicked, which meant a long walk to/from work until it was replaced. Very annoying. The sort of petty bike vandalism/theft which annoyed savs is also on the increase here again. I'd've expected nicked bikes to sell better in summer, but maybe the local crims are thick or there are more easy-to-nick bikes in September. At least it's not Fakenham, (which is one of the most boring places on earth, you may remember - original source ) where the headline story is that the kerbs are too high. I'm sorry someone was hurt, but kerbs here seem tiny compared to the ones in Northamptonshire. Probably they've all been lowered for safety there too now. As a result of adding Dave's blog to Planet ALUG, I noticed BritBlog for the first time. I spent a while browsing the other Norfolk-based blogs on it one evening. Unsurprisingly, I knew about most of the ones I found interesting already, apart from Ztroller who links to me... erm, why? Does he read this? Most listings are from blogspot and I still won't add Atom support to my blogging software - I want to read, not edit, so Atom is mostly extra cache filler. I only added Really Simple Syndication as well as RDF Site Summary because it was fairly cheap to do and I didn't know about the obvious way to get RSS 1 from Wordpress. Finally, in local(ish) concerns, Northern Ireland, from Noodles' emptiness:

"while I'm ranting, why is the adjective for someone from the UK "British"? Britain doesn't cover all of the UK. I wasn't born in Britain yet I'm British. Can't I be UKish or something?"

I'd hate to be called UKish. I don't have any particular affection for this Kingdom's political boundaries. If the UK ended tomorrow, would anyone besides its rulers mourn? I'll not thank you if you call me British. I'm English, a midlander and Towcestrian. British nationality is a side-effect. (And why is it so hard to get .gb domains anyway?) It's odd that there's such argument over England's anthem. So there is imagery or irony involved in Jerusalem, depending how you want to view it: who cares? It's rousing (unlike the UK dirge) and mentions England past. Yikes, I've just discovered I'm agreeing with Billy Bragg of all people. As for the UK, why don't we work together with others when we agree and work independently when we don't agree? Unfortunately, few politicians advocate English self-rule, apart from racist bigots and English imperialists. The really depressing thing is that those sort of people would probably easily get a majority in any English legislature, if backed by the mess media. Maybe Britain is diverse enough that it balances the extreme English... diverse we are or de verse it gets... (ouch)

The Internet Advertising Bureau thinks the UK spend could be over a billion for the first time. It's now 5.8% of the national advertising spend and is growing at a pretty remarkable rate. Is Christmas coming early for online? OSCommerce - the future will be templated. We're doing more OSCommerce work and 2.2 MS2 is a fairly typical PHP application, with some structure, but also lots of spaghetti code. The next version is looking a lot better, including this announcement from the lead developer. Templating and styling has to be the most-requested work. I find it a little worrying that OSCommerce is not more openly developed, but it'll be good when the new release ships. Jakob Neilsen has announced the top ten web design mistakes of 2005 and "Legibility Problems" are number one. This isn't a surprise to me. Many websites, including some big names, are totally broken if your browser defaults are light text on a dark background, because that's easier on your eyes. I once spotted the Disability Rights Commission getting this wrong. Even planet.debian.org is missing a:link color: ... . The second top mistake is bad linking, including:

"In particular, don't open pages in new windows"

.which is another thing which I find irritating on many sites. If I want a new window, I'll pick the link for a "new window" from the context menu, or by shift-clicking. Does Mozilla or Firefox or something have an "ignore _blank link targets" option yet? It's only a matter of time. My own company's web site has been updated and I've tried to take these on board. We don't do any of the worst things, but there are always things we can do better. Our site isn't that high a priority - there's so much else to do. The W3C's internationalisation working group has issued a note on working with time zones. I get a lot of unusual time zone requests while programming, but I'll remember these explanations and I think I usually follow the recommendations in s1.5 anyway. Also from W3C is a Working Draft of "Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0" which they'd like feedback on, if you use or develop for mobile web devices. At first glance, it seems that many of the items are stronger versions of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. PlayStation chipping is legal in Australia but not in the UK, where it was ruled illegal last year. Chipping is the practice of adding a part to the games console so that it can play imported titles. If the chipping and the risk of breaking it costs less than the difference between imported and domestic releases, some people will want to do it. It's competition between markets. I remember similar things for the old cartridge-based machines of my youth. UK law-makers seem to be trying to kill off that trade in favour of foreign companies that want to tightly control the consoles long after they've been sold. The ruling from Australia might bring the start of a backlash against the increasingly restrictive UK laws, but it's more likely that the EU, US and others will press Australia to fall into line. Copyright seems to be one of the few areas where free trade is being reduced, rather than increased. And finally, I remember the feeling of getting sparc32 Linux working.

Daniel Burrows mentions how he hasn't gotten any reply from potential employers where he sent cover letters that are written like the Rules require. Reading that reminds me how I never ever got hired after writing such a letter myself, either.

• My first job after graduating was at DHL. I got there because I had listed myself on stepstone, a Belgian career site that (at the time, dunno about now) featured a very detailed list of abilities you could claim your knowledge of. Someone at an interim office needed someone for DHL who could work with UNIX and Oracle (both of which I claimed knowledge on that site), so she contacted me; a few days later, I was working at DHL's global headquarters.
• My next job was at a small company in Leuven. I was, in fact, their first employee. I got there after reacting to one of the employers' statements in their .sig on usenet that they were looking for a new employee. A few days later, we met in a bar somewhere in Leuven for a drink. We've had a few more of such meetings, until I was hired.
• Next, I worked at Template. This one was very nice—one of the people who work there, who would eventually become my boss, sent me a private email asking whether I knew someone who could set up an email server and a firewall under Linux. Uh, me?! Turns out he'd been googling a bit, found quite a few postings from me on be.comp.os.linux, and was rather impressed by my knowledge. I didn't have to convince him that it was a good idea to hire me.
• Next I co-founded NixSys. Which obviously doesn't involve job applications, though it is otherwise quite stressful.
• My most recent job (even if only a part-time one) did involve something close to one of those formal letters (not an actual one; but still the first one I ever wrote, actually), though only indirectly; I applied for a job at the department where I graduated first, but didn't get hired there; however, a few weeks later I received an email from someone at a different department (which, obviously, also means a different job). That's about two weeks ago now, and she didn't need any explanation either...
All things considered, I do think the value of such cover letters is highly overrated. Not only do most employers not really care about them; one could also wonder whether you would want to work at a place where paperwork is so important that you couldn't get hired if you're the best guy for the job, but you made an error in the paperwork...

Meme time again. Let's ask google what I need...

• erich needs to leave -- true
• Erich needs something to get back into this match -- which match?
• Erich needs suppressing fire -- yeah, I'm so HOT, I need to sppress fire
• Erich needs to strongly reconsider her approach on the beer/lemonade thang -- except that I'm not a 'her', I do drink too much lemonade.
• Erich needs the names, social security numbers, and pay rates of returning and new students currently on Preservation funds. -- ??
• Erich needs to Be a little less self conscious. -- yeah, inconsciousness rules!
• Erich needs someone, too -- yeah, I do.
• erich needs a room/place -- well, not need, but I'd like to have a place inside munich
• Erich needs friends, ex's, maybe a girl for his looove interest. -- "maybe a girl"? oh, I'm pretty sure about that...
• Erich?????Needs a nose, indeed -- uhm, what about the big thing in my face?
• erich needs to get over his feeble little infatuation with jill -- first I need to find out who this jill is
• Erich needs bad spanking. -- no, not exactly...
• Erich needs an assistant to come and help him with this London thing -- uhm, which london thing?
• Erich needs to be fed. -- Well, I'm underweight, so I hear that often.