What is to become of Computer Science?

November 30th, 2011

I don’t do IT. I’m a computer scientist. But when I retire, who will take my place?

IP Expo 2011 – what was fun

November 16th, 2011

That’s IP Expo over with for another year. I’ve never quite get what the show is about, but it’s one I seriously consider attending. It’s lack of focus is probably what makes it intersting. I’ve always suspected that some exhibition organiser kept reading about IP and decided it was a buzzword lacking its own show [...]

PAM authentication in PHP on FreeBSD

October 30th, 2011

You can authenticate users in PHP using PAM by means on the module pecl-pam, available as a FreeBSD port. However, if you’re thinking of doing this using a PHP script as part of a web site, think again. First off, it doesn’t work (on FreeBSD, at least) and secondly, if it did work it’d be a security nightmare. And there are alternatives.

Kindle not on Fire

September 29th, 2011

Amazon has just launched a Kindle for £89 in the UK, beating the price of its previous model by £20. It’s not cheap, and might explain why they’re not even bothering to launch the Kindle Fire (a low-spec Android tablet for the same price as an iPad2) in England.

PHP PDO driver missing on FreeBSD

September 26th, 2011

If your FreeBSD Apache web server doesn’t like PHP PDOs when you upgrade to PHP 5.3, here’s why – and how to get them back,