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Peng’s links for Thursday, 10 July
Posted by BostonPeng on 10 July 2008
I have a short set of links for a change. I was holding off posting it to see if I could come across more things I want to share but I’m not seeing any yet.
- moonbeam/ Ubuntu Forums: Regarding Significant issue with recent AWN bzr versions. If you get Avant Window Navigator from reacocard’s PPA you’ll see that the applets broke this morning. That’s because there’s an API change that required the AWN applets be updated. In a nutshell, if your AWN applets show as thin vertical lines, simply deactivate them and reactivate them. Thanks to reacocard for the update in his HOWTO thread.
- Tristan Rhodes: Reminder: Physical access = Root access. Tristan discovered how easily someone can access his Ubuntu profile if they have physical access to the computer. Let’s hope this gets fixed soon.
- Karen Anderson: Lightning Strike Leaves Through Woman’s Nose Ring. This is a story from my local CBS affil, but I just got it in my email and I had to pass it a long.
I got 35 updates, including some proposed updates, this morning, and I was hoping to be able to say that the LA Times RSS feeds no longer cause Evolution to crash, but I just checked and as soon as I tried to add the feed for the Times’ Dodgers stories Evolution crashes. Ouch! At least I did get some good news today. Somewhere between kicking Windows to the curb a year anbd a half ago and installing Ubuntu Hardy I lost several folders of music files, including all but two songs by Daniel Amos. (I know it’s a Christian band, but Terry Taylor and company make some killer tunage despite being Jesus freaks.) Today I wanted to hear “(It’s The Eighties, So Where’s Our) Rocket Pack” from their 1984 Vox Humana album but it was among the missing. I had a feeling I had it backed up so I fired up GNOME Disk Catalog and lo and behold, an entire CD of backed up Daniel Amos tunes from when I was a Windows user. I had to convert them all to Ogg Vorbis files again, but I am happy to say that I have ten complete DA albums available for listening to in Sonata. It just goes to show, making backups is a smart idea, even if you don’t think so at the time.
Mackenzie said
What’s there to “fix” about the physical access thing? It’s a perfectly normal security assumption that if they have physical access, you’re fscked. That’s it. End of story. That’s just how it works. So boohoo they make it so you can’t use passwd from recovery mode (which, by the way, is kind of the point of recovery mode), fine, the jerk that wants into your computer will just boot from a Live CD. Live CDs = root access too. Just chroot in. It’s not hard. If you don’t want someone getting your data, don’t let them get their grubby paws on your box.