In a new CentOS 5.2 Linux box that I recently set up, the Internet and intranet connections suffered from slow connectivity, with
do_ypcall: clnt_call: RPC: Timed out
messages appearing intermittently in the console, whether from commands executed directly from the command prompt or from windows applications. After tinkering with the firewall, DNS, DHCP and NIS server configurations to no avail, I finally discovered the solution. It was in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file where it the host resolution was looking up the NIS server before the DNS.

Below is the nsswitch.conf file with the change to the host resolution configuration. After making this change, the “do_ypcall: clnt_call: RPC: Timed out” messages disappeared altogether and connectivity was greatly improved. Read more »

car talk cast credits
http://cartalk.com/content/about/credits/credits.html

political cartoons for everyone
http://petals-in-the-dirt.blogspot.com/2008/09/political-cartoons-are-fun-for-everyone.html

pandas
http://www.salomonsnowboard.com/

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/bittersweet-art-of-cutting-up-books.html

http://www.sublackwell.co.uk/gallery.php?id=1&item=30&image=1

If you prefer cygwin over the DOS shell on your PC like me, you’ll soon find yourself constantly being irritated by the Windows beep that gets triggered every time you press the tab button to autocomplete anything in the console. The Windows beep I’m talking about doesn’t come from your audio, it’s from the internal PC speaker, the same thing you might here when your PC boots up. For whatever other reason you may have, should decide one day you need to disable the PC speaker, you can follow what I did. Read more »

skydiving on the edge of the earth

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-369888258105653405

Michael Moore’s latest film is now legally downloadable from the web. It launched on the movie’s offcial website and also was released on BitTorrent as well as Pirate Bay trackers. Its an interesting step…

The official site is here: http://slackeruprising.com/

Those EA Nazi’s are at it again with their anti information campaign. Apparently this time EA moderators started warning users on their official message board with bans if they continued to inform others about their crappy DRM and their use of secruROM. The official post:

“Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.”

They later reversed this, but still that isn’t very cool to begin with…I really hope EA cleans up their act.

An oldie but goodie, The Suffering was a scary shooter/survival/horror game along the same lines as Resident Evil with a little bit of Max Payne style thrown in. The Suffering was developed in 2004 by Surreal and published by Midway. And now the full version of the PC game is available to the public as an ad-supported venture. Don’t miss out on this 1.2GB download. Read more »

defensive cat

http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k5tDWLAYdwsY8BLI2C

japanese girl sensations: virtual boyfriends

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/20/webkare-a-girls-only-combination-of-social-network-and-dating-game-from-japan/

cheerleaders ditch revealing shorts

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3073970/Cheerleaders-ditch-skimpy-outfits-after-complaints.html

short people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NvgLkuEtkA

warioland shake-it Read more »

Griffin Technology has developed an interesting product for your first or second gen iPhone - the AirCurve. Without any electrical or moving parts, this “acoustic amplifier” does exactly that, amplifies through its curvy design the acoustics from your iPhone speaker at the base. By “snapping” in your iPhone onto the AirCurve, the sound from your iPhone speakers are output directly into the AirCurve and the volume is magnified as the sound waves travel through the translucent polycarbonate amplifier. Read more »

Decorate with $10 Sharpies