See also my Advogato journal (for technical subjects) and my LiveJournal (for personal subjects).
Recently I've been looking into PrototypesForPython.
Here is a list of UrlsJncThinksAreFunny.
My CellPhoneServiceRant might be helpful if you're trying to pick a cell phone company in Canada.
jnc (2004/05/11): A simple sounding question that nobody can answer:
Q: How do I set my domain name under Debian?
A: You don't.
Q: So, when I type "hostname --fqdn", where does it get the fqdn from?
A: DNS
You might run into this problem when installing something that refuses to start because "You have no domain name" (am-utils, for instance). "hostname --fqdn" will tell you what this program is complaining about.
Just forget about /etc/hostname and other distractions - it's the resolver's job to figure out your domain name. If you're on a LAN with a competent DNS server (notably, if you get your address through dhcp), just make sure your own host is not in /etc/hosts, and "hostname --fqdn" will go ask DNS. If you have a static address (like if you're setting up a home network), just add yourself, domain name and all, to /etc/hosts. If you're getting a dynamic IP but the DNS server isn't giving you the right thing - well, cry, I guess.
jnc (2004/11/13): Hmm, I no longer work for NITI, and thus can't log in to update this page...