HedgeMage's blog

Another set of jabber server fixes were applied today, including:

• A change to the new SSL certs. Clients (including gajim) that became unable to connect as of yesterday can now connect. Be sure to import the CAcert.org root certificate if you have not already done so. The change has also corrected a problem with some server-to-server connections.
• A configuration change that will hopefully put an end to the tendency for certain clients to randomly disconnect when idle.

As always, don't hesitate to contact me with any issues.

--Susan

The jabber.binaryredneck.net server is back up after some brief downtime this evening. I deployed new server certs, as well as a fix that I hope will end the ceaseless problems with our Yahoo IM transport.

Happy Jabbering!

--Susan

The Washington Post reported today that Cisco has purchased Jabber, the open instant messaging protocol used by Google, LiveJournal, MySpace, and many others. Unfortunately, the Washington Post isn't smart enough to discern between the purchase of Jabber.com, a Jabber service company, and Jabber a.k.a. XMPP, the protocol.

Calling all classicists!

There is now a Jabber multi-user chat in classical Latin! Visit classicallatin@conference.jaim.at to learn the language, or exercise your conversational Latin. Latin enthusiasts of all skill levels are welcome.

Not sure what Jabber MUC is or how to get there? Read on...

To get on Jabber IM (instant messenger) and MUC (multi-user chat), you need two things: a client program and a Jabber account.

In response to a forum post on Bookcrossing, I threw together some Ballycumber wallpapers. I'm no artist -- some of these I am happy with, and some I'm not, but I thought I'd share anyway.

This tarball contains several 1280x800px wallpapers, as well as the XCF (GIMP) files I used to create them, and an SVG Ballycumber. Consider this released into the public domain -- do with it what you please.

My name is Susan Stewart. I am a professional web developer; I work from home so that I may spend more time with my five-year-old son. I volunteer at the local elementary school teaching a computer club for junior high school students. I am as nonviolent a person as you could possibly meet, yet my government prevents me from carrying a firearm while violent criminals do so freely.

Today, my mother and I attended voter registrar training at the local NEA headquarters. We can now register new voters anywhere in Illinois.

Several weeks from now, I plan to move my personal web site and associated services to a new server. This means higher reliability for my users (especially jabber users), and some re-organization on my part, as I just realized exactly how many users I have accumulated over time. To help me get things in order before the move, I sent a short questionnaire out to the jabber users for whom I have email addresses. Unfortunately, I only have current contact information for about 1/4 of the binaryredneck.net jabber users.

If your jabber ID ends in @jabber.binaryredneck.net, please drop me an email (using the contact form if you don't have my email address) with answers to the following:

I am almost sorry to see winter break drawing near. For the past two weeks, I've had the privilege of introducing an amazing group of kids to open source software.

Inspired by GHOP, Google's pilot Highly Open Participation contest, I've put together an extracurricular computer club for interested students at nearby Sandridge Elementary. We meet twice per week after school for an hour and a half.

One more thing for my to-do list: learning the dvorak keyboard layout. This post may be a bit short, as I've been on this layout for barely an hour. My first impressions are that all of the key placements seem very natural, except for the 'L' key, which is located under the right pinkee, where the 'P' is on a QWERTY keyboard, and that overall I expect this to be far more efficient.

Wish me luck!