Author Archives: hmallett

My Ideal Operating System

What would my ideal Operating System look like? Really small minimal installation. You know, like OpenBSD. Thorough and comprehensive help pages. You know, like OpenBSD. The ability to simply administer the OS remotely. You now, like SSH on OpenBSD. Excellent, … Continue reading

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The problem with renaming a model in Rails

So you’ve decided to rename a model in Rails. What could be simpler than renaming and editing a bunch of files? You make your edits in development, run migrations and so on. There’s a potential issue you might hit though. … Continue reading

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Renaming a model in Rails

When renaming a model in Rails (2.3), there are a range of files you may need to change: Create a migration to rename the database table: (rename_table :oldname, :newname) Rename the model. Edit any associations in other models. Rename the … Continue reading

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Grumpy Old Men

I’ve long been a fan of BBC’s Grumpy Old Men. Almost everything that is complained about is something you can sympathise with. However, tonight, for the first time I noticed that they class Grumpy Old Men as being from 35 … Continue reading

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Frustrating companies – Cisco

Cisco make plenty of networking hardware, ranging from the small stuff for small business (let’s ignore the Linksys stuff badges as Cisco for now), to the really big stuff, suitable for the busiest networks. Within each product type (routers, switches … Continue reading

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Joomla! is dead! Long live WordPress!

Joomla! is no more here. For a bit of a change I’ve decided to move to WordPress. Why? Easier to keep up-to-date Seems more friendly on mobile devices (both front end and back end) Comments built in A change is … Continue reading

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2 years of the iMac

After 2 years of using the iMac, what do I think of it? Hardware After 2 years I’m really quite happy with the Mac. Hardware-wise, the Mac itself has been fine. The only negatives are that there is a speck … Continue reading

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Installing OpenNMS on FreeBSD

OpenNMS a network monitoring system,and is in some ways a competitor to Nagios. Having been a Nagios user for a while now, I was intrigued to see the alternatives were like. I last tried installing OpenNMS many years ago, and … Continue reading

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Headphones

When I bought my iMac, a year ago, I also bought a new iPod Nano with it. The Nano comes with headphones, but they are really uncomfortable in your ear. So new headphones were required. I have a pair of … Continue reading

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The Newport Branch

The Newport Branch is entirely closed today. It was originally built as a branch of of the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, linking to the Shrewsbury Canal. From reading articles on the web, you might be lead to believe that … Continue reading

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