Think I've found the problem with mod_php segfaulting every Apache child process.

Using the httpd debugging instructions I ran apache in gdb (oh, of course I had to install gdb first), and located the error pretty quickly.

And just one more little thing... is it too much to ask to have mouse paste (copy/paste using the mouse exclusively) in OS X?

Over the weekend, I spent too much time attempting to restore an Apple XServe which would not boot.

Apparently, and as admitted by Apple Support to me over the phone, the OS X Server disk repair utilities are too "conservative" (I'd say, "woefully inadequate"). In other words, they'll fix simple fscking problems, but if the corruption is more severe, you're screwed.

A summary of my experience with various Linux distributions on an iMac DV SE. It has an ATI Rage 128 Pro card which is not well-supported by the Linux kernel, and in all cases, had to be installed under text mode.

The lack of an automated package management tool on Solaris makes it pretty worthless to me. I know about pkgadd and at one time there was a port of apt-get, but where are the repositories of free software for solaris?

I've used SunFreeware.com for many years, however it is typically months out of date and only offers a fraction of what is available on Linux (or even OS X).

The Oracle Data Dictionary is, among other things, a place to store metadata. You can provide up to 4K comments per object (table, column, whatever).

One way to insert comments is with the COMMENT SQL statement. The format is COMMENT ON TABLE|COLUMN [name] IS '[text]'. Then you can select descriptions out of sys.all_tab_comments and sys.all_col_comments.

Setting up SSL (with a self-signed certificate) in Apache 2 is easier than the docs would have you believe. Basically, it's just two command lines. You don't have to create a shell script.

Before you start, note that the CA name should match your site name. First, create the server key: openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024.

It seems that Moore's Law has hit a slowdown. To boil it down, PowerPoint style:

• It's 2005, where are the 10 GHz PC's?
  • Difficulty decreasing transistor size
  • Means clock rates have stagnated

So I installed Gentoo PPC on my wife's iMac, after trying many other distros over the past year: Yellow Dog, Mandrake, Fedora. This one will stay.

You've got to fight Gentoo to get it installed. Depending on your Linux experience this will be just a matter of whipping out a lengthy series of commands, or a long hard-fought struggle. If you're good, it's like Neo fighting Smith after he's mastered the matrix: just nonchalantly throwing up a hand while Smith batters away at him.

Mildly amusing shell script story today. I share my office space with two co-workers, one who (like me) is partial to tcsh and the other is a bash fan. A particular development task they share only works in the tcsh person's environment, and the bash person is trying to get it to work in his. "But it worked yesterday, I don't understand...", etc. This went on for around 90 minutes, as the possible causes were investigated back-n-forth, spinning out of control. Any programmer will recognize th