Firefox

This was going to be a really quick post yesterday, but I’ve spent the guts of a day (between actual work) just getting the simplest bit of this working. The intent I was silly enough to say this to someone recently in work: It’s a good day when I end up with fewer firefox tabs open than when I started And a plan was hatched; Find API to query Firefox for current number of open Tabs across all window instances Send that value to my internal MQTT node (that has telegraf, influx, home assistant and grafana integrations too) Repeat Spoiler alert, number 3 was the bastard ...

Ubuntu is one of those polarising technologies; Its really easy to use on a recreational basis, or as part of a institution/business wide rollout, but heartbreakingly awkward to use ‘alone’ within an entrenched business setting. One such setting is that of Queen’s University; the only form of secure remote access that is made (quietly) availiable is through a Citrix XenApp gateway. Great in theory; everyone can take a slice of a virtualized desktop, do whatever they need to do, and that processing power and memory can be easially reappropriated when they’re done. Unfortunately, in an effort to be ‘secure’, you HAVE to use Windows, and you HAVE to have Internet Explorer installed, and you HAVE to install the propitiatory XenApp client. ...

Folks, we’re basically screwed; The Digital Economy Bill recieved Royal Accent on April 9th and is officially now Law. So after barely three days of parliamentary ‘debate’ where only 20-ish MP’s actually spoke on the subject (but somehow 189 MP’s decided it was a good idea anyway), our civil rights have been sacrificed infront of the alter of copyright. Many sites have a much more indepth tretise on the subject than I could do so I’ll keep this short. ...

Yeah, suprise suprise, I’m actually gonna try and keep this up. One of the major reasons for the delay since my last documented fiddle as been job hunting for a placement year next year, but I’ve wonderfully secured a position with Ericsson Ireland in their Athlone R&D centre. Pays good, experience is even better. Beyond that a few other things have been making things hectic, not least of which is the impending Examination period so about the only techy thing I’ve been able to come up with has been a wipe and reinstall to upgrade to Hardy Heron (8.04) (I didnt update because i dont trust dist-upgrade’s ability to do things my way, also meant i could blow out the cobwebs in my filesystem.) ...