Over on his blog, Raphael Pinson has a post about creating a package with “minimal dependencies.” In short, make the dependencies of the package the “real” dependencies, not just the latest and greatest version of the package you rely on.

I have been waiting way too long for someone to …

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Last January, coming home from my Boston trip, I was sitting in Chicago O’Hare aiport, desperately searching for free wifi, when I looked at my kernel log messages. But, what to my frustrated eyes should appear, than another example of the humor of Open Source developers, specifically, the developers …

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I recently had the task of building Python Eggs on Windows that had C extensions. I did the usual googling, and found a few HOWTOs, but nothing I could find was very concise and straightforward. So, I present to you a very concise, very straightforward guide.

Setting up the Build …

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It’s amazing the things that can cause a lump in your throat. Say, for instance, your computer not booting.

Tonight I was trouble-shooting a trackball I thought to be dead, and I went to plug it in to a USB port on the front of my work computer. I …

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After being out of full-time work for 17 business days, I’m starting up a full time job! I’m going to be doing, as I have been for the past 2.5 years, programming and system administration. My title is still in flux, but my duties will be a …

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Cilk Arts is very close to releasing their multi-core programming library called Cilk++, and with it, a new license, the Cilk Arts Public License. Using this license, they attempt to close the “IDO [Internal Development Organizations] loophole” they believe exists with the current GPL. Namely: an organization can take a …

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Yet another reason I will avoid PHP at all costs. The head developers of PHP have decided, after much discussion, to make the back-slash the name-space separator when referencing classes. Thats’s right, this\is\a\tree\valid\variable. I’m sorry, a back-slash? This will create no end of …

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So, due to lack of projects at my current employer, I might be getting laid off come Wednesday. Not the news one wants to hear. :)

If anyone has any leads for telecommuting tech jobs, please let me know. There is a link to my resume at the right of this …

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As part of yearly compliance, I have to go through some sort of training on sexual harassment. (Yes, even though I work at home and can’t really harass anyone.) I don’t particularly mind, it’s not that onerous. What I do mind, however, is having to redo sections …

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Passwords are a part of life. They’re needed, but they’re a pain. But their ubiquity often leads users to create short, or otherwise easily-guessable passwords. Not good.

I recently signed up for an account on oDesk, a site for connecting IT free-lancers and service-providers, and those looking for …

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