iNode: Nota Bene

I'm feeling a little virtuous at the moment. Worik on the DUNLug mailing list asked how to delete a user and eradicate all their files. I said “ deluser –remove-all-files ”. Worik said that didn't work.

Rather than assume that he'd made a mistake, I tried it. It doesn't work, just like he said. A bug!

We're both using Ubuntu, so I turned to the Launchpad and checked for bugs on the adduser package. There was a “fixed” bug that said it fixed a specific failure, the inability to remove the Ubuntu default symlink ~/Examples, in 2006. I checked my test machine, and this was exactly the problem I was seeing – everything except ~/Examples had been removed OK.

Further testing showed that the --remove-home option worked just fine. Hmmm …

Luckily, deluser isn't an executable, it's a perl script. So I was able to do some digging, even though my perl is quite rusty (thanks http://perldoc.perl.org/ !) I added some debug comments and managed to categorise the problem … which lead to a fix … and a small patch file, all submitted onto the launchpad bug.

Usually I stop at the categorise-and-report stage. It's nice to be able to propose a fix too :-)

Yeah, I know I like finding fault with MS … but I have to work with their tools, too.

I have an Excel spreadsheet, with some currency values formatted as “Accounting”, which provides nice alignment of the currency symbol and decimal point.

When these cells are cut/paste'd into Word, the presentation of these cells is “preserved” by simulating the alignment with multiple spaces … but actually these cause the presentation to break, and the cell contents split onto multiple lines, and no longer align.

So, the hack would be to replace all those extra spaces, wouldn't it? Except MS Word doesn't have greedy matching! You can't replace, say, 8 spaces with a pattern of <space><star> … or even <space><at> (which is the “one or more” operator). You have to manually repeatedly do replace-all for decreasing explicit numbers of spaces; e.g. repeat “replace-all <space>{8} with <space>” until there are no matches, then repeat “replace-all <space>{4} with <space>” until there are no matches, then {2} …

There has always been a conflict between my personal and working life over the subject of a mobile phone. My employer needs me to have a mobile phone, and provides it (well, at least the SIM! And a ‘free’ handset to a reasonable value too). I also value having a mobile phone of my own; but I don't want to carry two.

Therefore I have to use just the one incoming number – it belongs to work, not me. And my outgoing personal calls have to be separated out from the work ones for expenses purposes, too.

I've been waiting for the sensible option – a phone that can hold two SIM cards at the same time. That way, you can differentiate between personal and work calls both incoming and outgoing; and if you change employer you don't lose all your contact data and have to change your number!

While reading a post about the OpenMoko GTA02 getting into production, I spotted a google ad for “Dual SIM phones”, and ended up on a page from a Malaysian company, DuoSIM. It looks like the world is finally catching up on what people really need from their technology, eh?

(Now, what will be more fun? An OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner or the new iPhone? Both with Wifi, touch screen, bluetooth, GPS, accelerometer, similar battery life; the iPhone has significant data storage that the Neo doesn't (but it will take microSD), but has a mostly-closed development environment …)

In September 2000, on the comic strip Schlock Mercenary we saw inside the workshop of Commander Kevyn Andreyessand …

The worrying safety warning signs on the wall was part of the inspiration for Anders Sandberg's article Warning Signs For Tomorrow …

And now … (well, soon) you can get your hands on your very own set of Schlock Mercenary Magnetic Miniature Warning Signs !! Dust off that credit card and haunt the Schlock Store …