QComicBook - new web hosting, new domain

After two years with rootnode.net and numerous issues with their hosting I finally made the effort of switching web hosting of QComicBook and my home site. QComicbook web site is now hosted on www.a2hosting.com - by the way if you decide to buy hosting there, please consider using this referrer link which will give me a credit for a2hosting services & renewal of QComicBook hosting.
Other then that, QComicBook web site is now available at much more friendly URL: www.qcomicbook.org. The old URL (qcomicbook.linux-projects.net) is still valid, but I may remove it by the end of 2012, so if you maintain QComicBook packages or link to source tarballs for any other reason, I suggest you update your links with next QComicBook release.
Finally, please be warned that there may be some disruptions to the qcomicbook.linux-projects.net website (and possibly qcomicbook.org) in the next few days due to DNS and configuration changes.

Erlang quick reference card

For the last couple of months I've been learning Erlang and doing some Erlang programming for a new project at work. I couldn't find any good quick reference card for Erlang (aka cheatsheet), so decided to create something on my own. You can download it from my github repository.

As I'm a newbie to Erlang and still learning, I'm sure it has some gaps and possibly errors, so any suggestions and corrections are welcome. Also, the document was created with OpenOffice Writer (plus it's available in PDF format for your convienience), which results in not-so-good look & formatting -  my goal was to have something quickly, rather than spending weeks on creating formatting rules in a more suitable tool. My ultimate goal however is to migrate this cheatsheet to TeX (LaTeX) format or similar and find existing macros/rules suitable for quick reference card formating to give it more polished and professional look.  If you know any such solutions, please comment.

I'm going to PyCon Ireland 2011!

I seldomly do Python programming, but when I do, I absolutely enjoy and love it. So I couldn't miss the opportunity to attend Python Conference in Dublin. PyCon Ireland is organised by Python enthusiasts from Ireland, and will be held here for the 2nd time. The schedule looks pretty interesting, it looks like Oct 8-9 will be very fruitful 2 days!

Installing latest Flash Player 11rc on Debian Squeeze

Here is a little HOWTO about clean installation of  the latest release candidate of Adobe Flash Player 11 on Debian Squeeze. It should also work on Ubuntu and other derivatives of Debian.

The method proposed here uses Debian's Alternatives System which makes it possible to install latest Flash Player in a dedicated directory and  switch between it or the default version installed from Debian repository (v10) if needed.

1. Install flashplugin-nonfree (standard Debian repository) or flashplayer-mozilla (debian-miultimedia repository). This will install Flash Player 10.
2. Download latest Flash Player for Linux from Adobe.
3. Unpack it to /opt/flashplayer-11rc1 (or any other directory of your choice).
4. Add entry for Flash Player 11 in the Alternatives System:
   sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/flash-mozilla.so flash-mozilla.so /opt/flashplayer-11rc1/libflashplayer.so 0
5. Switch between installed Flash Player versions (will launch interactive menu):
   sudo update-alternatives --config flash-mozilla.so

Please note that  Flash Player tarball contains a few other files that you may find interesting - such as flash-player-properties configuration tool. They won't be automatically picked by the above procedure, as update-alternatives for flash-mozilla.so maintains plugin symlink only. See man page for update-alternatives for more information.

Stack smashing protector accepted in Arch Linux!

If you visit my blog you may recall I blogged about feature request for enabling stack-smashing protection in Arch Linux. I had created feature request in Arch Linux bug tracker in March 2010. As you can see this initiated some discussions and finally, after almost 1,5 year they decided to go for it! The default compilation flags have been changed to use stack protector and main toolchain packages were recompiled; other packages will follow with new releases. For now the change is in [testing] repo and should become available in [core] in a few weeks.

So, rejoice Arch users! Unfortunately me personally will not benefit from it since I stopped using Arch some time ago - GNOME 3.0 release (which ruined my desktop experience) and power-off issues caused by updates made me look for a more reliable system (which is Debian Squeeze at the moment). I must admit however that I miss Arch a lot, and the acceptance of stack protector reminds me of it...

BTW, Debian still doesn't take advantage of GCC's stack protector, which is a pitty. Fortunately, Debian security team is aware of this and they plan to enable hardening features in Debian Wheezy.

Support QComicBook - buy an ad!

QComicBook is a free software that doesn't bring me any profits (well, except for fun of course) - actually it costs me money on web hosting. Here is a new way for you to support QComicBook website & development: if you want to promote your business or a website on QComicBook website, buy a banner for as little as 5-10€ per month (non exclusive banner) or 50-100€/month (exclusive banner - always visible). Get your website advertised, and support opensource at the same time! Please contact me directly for more details.

My dotfiles are on GitHub

Since I wanted to have consistent configuration across all the PCs I work on, I've created a git repo with most crucial dotfiles (such as vim config or openbox files). My dotfiles can be found here.