Rainbow Tux

Tumbleweed tumbles from my computer

2012-12-13T18:41:00.000+01:00

Several years ago, SUSE 7.2 was my first Linux experience and with openSUSE 11.4 I have returned to the SUSE community. One of the things I liked about it, was the idea behind Tumbleweed: having a rolling release. It worked nicely and after the release of openSUSE 12.1, it was able to pick up the pace rather quickly, but with the release of openSUSE 12.2 I have felt the need to leave Tumbleweed.

"Stadsklap" at Het Roze Huis

2012-12-02T18:34:00.000+01:00

In the last two weeks there was twice a "Stadsklap" (City talk). It is part of an integration course where people new to Belgium have the opportunity to talk to people of several organizations. Het Roze Huis is one of those organizations, but there is also a Stadsklap with an orchestra for example.

Privacy on the Internet: Tracking your browsing history

2012-11-11T15:58:00.000+01:00

In a previous article, I gave an introduction to some privacy concepts. As always, it is important to know your enemy. Therefor in this article I will present a few tools and services concerning tracking browsing history. Do Not Track (DNT) tries to prevent tracking when cookies are enabled and Collusion shows you who is potentially tracking you with cookies, through web bugs, etc. Panopticlick demonstrates that it is even possible to track you on the Internet without cookies.

Privacy on the Internet: an introduction

2012-11-03T14:49:00.001+01:00

Each time you surf on the Internet, information is being exchanged. You get a lot of great services, many of them for free, but what about your privacy? Do you check what will happen with the information you provide? Which information do you provide unknowingly? This article gives you an introduction to some Internet privacy concepts.

SCTP multi-homing with dynamic address reconfiguration

2012-10-27T15:08:00.005+02:00

In the previous article, I have introduced SCTP, the Stream Control Transmission Protocol. In this article I would like to get more technical and explain how you can create SCTP multi-homed connections with dynamic address reconfiguration in C/C++ in a Linux environment. All in all it is fairly easy, but the hard part was to find all pieces of the puzzle, so I have put them together for you.

An introduction to SCTP

2012-10-21T12:52:00.000+02:00

In every modern network, TCP/IP is used. Traditionally this refers to the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) running over Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). In terms of computer science, both protocols are ancient, dating respectively from 1974 and 1981.

At the Network Layer, we see currently a change of Internet Protocol from IPv4 to IPv6, mainly driven by the shortage of addresses in IPv4, but the new protocol, published in 1998, offers also better features concerning mobility, security etc.

At the transport layer, TCP and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP, from 1980) have some successors but none of them breaks really through. Perhaps the most well-known is the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), defined by the IETF SIGTRAN group in 2000.

To go forward, you must backup: luckyBackup

2012-10-07T19:48:00.000+02:00

Everyone needs backups, but what is the right tool for the job? There are not that many good backup tools for Linux on the desktop.

What I expect from a backup tool is the following:

An open format, easily recoverable even when the backup tool would fail.
Incremental backups
Both local and remote backups
Ease of use

In the course of the last 10 years, I have used three different backup tools:

Android fixed it!

2012-09-29T14:28:00.001+02:00

As you have probably guessed from the title and the picture, I am an avid Android user. So it was very hard to resist this t-shirt when I saw it in an ad.

I had never heard of getDigital.de before, but they seemed to have lots of fun stuff and I decided that resistance was futile. I ordered the t-shirt and the free bottle opener ring.

Btrfs: the good, the bad and the ugly

2012-09-26T18:17:00.000+02:00

I have been testing btrfs on openSUSE 12.2 for nearly two weeks now, using it on my laptop daily and it seems to be nearly ready for use. There are however some things you have to take into account or everything can go wrong. I also encountered a bug, which I shall describe in this article.

Day of the volunteer at Het Roze Huis

2012-09-23T14:20:00.002+02:00

Saturday was the 'Day of the Volunteer' at Het Roze Huis (The Pink House). Since I am a volunteer there for little more than a month, I thought it would be a good moment to get to know other volunteers, and it was!

Het Roze Huis has approximately 120 volunteers, 20% more than last year and 50-60 of them were present. A group with great diversity, young and old.

Fun on the Internet

2012-09-22T11:48:00.000+02:00

As you probably already discovered, not everything on the Internet is serious, some websites are worthless but other sites are creative and funny jewels. Now and again I shall try to highlight some of these.

To btrfs or not to btrfs?

2012-09-04T22:48:00.000+02:00

With the new release of openSUSE 12.2, there is an important choice to be made when updating: to stay with the ext4 file system or make the leap ahead with the btrfs file system. While ext4 was a rather minor upgrade of ext3, which in its turn was an upgrade of ext2, btrfs is an entirely new file system. It was originally proposed in 2007 and offers a lot of new features. It is based on B-trees and offers copy-on-write.

Het Roze Huis at the Culture Market in Antwerp

2012-08-26T18:14:00.000+02:00

It is only two weeks after the Antwerp Pride and a lot has happened since then. At the closing festival of the Pride, I talked there to a friend who is already a volunteer for Het Roze Huis (literally 'The Pink House'). Het Roze Huis is an umbrella organization for LGBT organizations and groups in the Antwerp area, housed at cafe Den Draak and a daughter of the national LGBT organization Çavaria.

The quest for the perfect Linux distribution: an ongoing journey

2012-08-19T12:37:00.002+02:00

In the following article I will give an overview of the journey I have already made through the land of Linux distributions. It contains my personal view, colored by my love for KDE and eagerness to try new software. I hope it contains some useful information for you, whether you are a long-time Linux user or are new to the operating system.

A new beginning

2012-08-18T15:52:00.000+02:00

Dear reader,

After giving it some thought, I have decided to take up blogging. I have never felt, nor do I feel now the need to keep a public diary. You will not find an article here every day, not even every week probably, but sometimes there are topics I feel like writing about, topics concerning Linux, networking, general computing and topics I care deeply about like gay rights and gay life.

On these topics you will find a variety of articles in the future, so if you are interested in any of those, please start following me today! :-)

Happy reading!

Erwin

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
- Terry Pratchett