Generally I like to keep Linux servers text-only, to save on disk-space and memory, however it is sometimes useful to be able to administer a server remotely using a GUI, e.g. if you need to run a web browser. Therefore I came up with this procedure for a minimal graphical desktop using openbox and various lightweight utilites, accessed remotely using NoMachine’s FreeNX server.

This guide has been tested on Ubuntu Server 7.10 and 8.04.

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I’ve not posted anything for a long time now, so I have many bits of news, some important, some not.

Alexander

The most important news is this little man (previously referred to as Project Thor). Alexander Perrie Atkins was born on 11th February 2008, and has spent most of the time since eating, crying, gurgling and making much mess. He is also absolutely fantastic.

Blog

I grew tired of the shared web hosting at Dreamhost, especially after the incident when they accidentally billed their customers a total of several billion dollars due to a typo, then treated the whole thing as a joke. As a result, this blog is now running on a Virtual Private Server hosted by the lovely people at BitFolk. Because this is my server it allows me more freedom in the config, so if it blows up it’s also all my fault.

The blog has also been migrated to Wordpress 2.5, which means nothing to anyone except me, as it now has a nicer admin interface.

I’m going to try and post a bit more often from now on, which is great news for my regular reader, if he or she exists. One thing I want to do is a few technical posts on how to do various things under Linux. Once I’ve worked something out I need to make a note of how I’ve done it, and if I do that here then it may be useful for someone else, but if not then at least I know where to find my notes.

I think that’s about everything for now. Keep ‘em peeled…

It took me a while to get this scanned, because I had to plug the scanner in and I’m lazy. Anyway, this is the latest news on Project Thor (working title).

The site has been updated to Wordpress v2.3, and I made a few changes while I was here:

• There are now two sidebars, which means I don’t have to scroll any more to get to the login link.
• I’ve removed the photos page as the plugin that generated it kept breaking with wordpress upgrades. All the photos are still on flickr.
• Since removing the flickr plugin also meant I lost the little box in the sidebar that showed random photos, I’ve found another plugin that does the same thing, except you can now choose which photosets you want to see pictures from. You lucky people.
• The picture at the top is smaller, so you now see more of my wise words when you visit the site (not that anyone really does…)
• I added a page for Terrance the Shoe, just for John.

I’ve finally finished uploading all the pictures from my birthday holiday in Rome. The can all be seen on my flickr page.

We’ve been working on this for a while now, and have finally got hold of the first picture. There’s still a lot of work to do (for one of us at least), so the project probably won’t be completed until early February.

After a month of non-stop hard work on the photos (apart from the time I spent eating, sleeping, working, and doing other things entirely), my album of photos from Paul and Vickie’s wedding is finished. They can be seen on my flickr page. Feel free to add comments, amusing captions, insults, etc. Click here for a nice slideshow in a new window.

These were the first pictures I took with my new Nikon D80, using the 18-135mm kit lens and a SB-600 Speedlight flashgun. All pictures were shot in RAW format and processed in Bibble Pro, with a few receiving further editing in the GIMP.

I’ve finally finished uploading the b&w pictures from our honeymoon. My favourite ones are below and the rest can be seen, as always, on my flickr page. Time to take a deep breath - only one more film to go…

After deciding to move my web site from my home server to dreamhost I took the opportunity to start afresh, with a new domain name and everything. When I get the time I’ll be adding photos (some of which can already be accessed on the Photos page), as well as other random thoughts from my brain.