When trying to connect to a mysql database using oracles sqldeveloper on a slackware64 13.0 system, you will keep getting an error read “Communications Link failure” when trying to connect. This is due to a security setting in /etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld, do a search on this file for “skip-networking” and you will come to a paragraph, now the weird thing about Slackware here is that you need to comment out this line in order to enable it, it seems kind of backwards. Once I did this, I had a perfect connection to Mysql via Oracles Sqldeveloper

Well, many people have resolutions for the new year, and I’m no different. When I quit smoking I gained a lot of weight, so now I’m going on a diet, don’t plan to stop until I reach 200, which is 90 lbs away, at my best rate I have lost 5 lbs per week, so it should take me 18 weeks,  which, if everything goes according to schedule, should be in mid-May, but I’m giving myself till July. I have had a lot of addictions, and it has been a struggle to overcome many of them, and I’m throwing a few more of those out now too.

I hope everyone has a happy new year, and remember to be safe. I do plan to go out tonight, tired of just falling asleep on new years eve, all work and no play…

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, and that everyone takes this rare opportunity to embrace what Christmas is really about. I know it’s been tough lately for everyone, but I think that will only make us stronger as families and as a nation. Always remember, when you have a pure heart and a clear mind, nothing can defeat you.

It seems that the Nevada DMV has decided to give itself yet another unscrupulous raise. During the last year the NVDMV has adopted (intentionally?) the policy of sending renewal tags to old addresses, I know this practice is not just an office mix up because the last time they did this to me they sent it to an address I hadn’t lived at in over 5 years even though I had updated my address with them to my current one the same year. When you go into their office, to fix this situation, they apologize and tell you they can fix all of it if you would be willing to pay a $5.00 additional paperwork fee, I was mad as a nest of hornets, but agreed. Then I started hearing from friends, family, and co-workers about the same thing happening to them, and I knew it was a state sanctioned scam, that cuts in the DMV’s favor to the tune of $5.00 per citizen, quite a nifty under the radar tax.

The power is off right now, on a cold rainy night in las vegas, I am reading “Germinal” by Emile Zola, and it’s actually nice, although I can still contact the good old www by my phone, and just to prove it, here is a photo I took while exploring last week, its of a solitary building, I took its picture because it’s solitary “cubeness” struck me as interesting –woh3

This is a test of email posting from my cell phone, like subject line says

I just compiled and installed the music player “GOGGLES” by the people who work on open source projects at GOOGLE. I got tired of the over managed Linux distributions like red hat and Ubuntu, although they are excellent products and very good for beginners and general users, they lack the power and subtlety I prefer in a distro. I use Slackware64 13.0 and will never go back. Since I made the switch I have struggled with music players, the boneheads at Amarok have completely screwed the pooch on their new design, and taken a wonderful player and made it almost unusable. I tried the gnome alternatives like banshee and rhythmbox, which are fine, but riddled with problems like not being able to get album art or download podcasts. Then I found GOGGLES, and I would like to take this moment to praise the geniuses at Google for following the prime directive of open source technology, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. All the power and usability of this wonderful little program derives as a direct consequence of its simplicity. I recommend an immediate jettison of any other music player you have right now, go get the source code and compile this.