[image above from http://chloescheffe.github.io/trust.html%5D Last Friday, 19th June 2020, I was part of a group of four from the local open source hacker community to tear down the proposed TraceTogether token. This was by invitation […]
Category: free software
Seriously? NRIC for TraceTogether?
[Image from https://www.solarwindsmsp.com/blog/what-pii-and-phi-and-how-do-you-secure-them and added NO to it using gimp.] I wrote earlier that asking for a phone number when registering the TraceTogether app on the mobile phone was about the only useful and barest […]
Looking forward to a recyclable, open sourced, wearable, contact tracing device
So, the other shoe is about to drop. Gov is planning on providing everyone a wearable contacting tracing device to counter the limitations of apps that run in mobile phones (from the Apple ecosystem) – […]
A flawed idea. Zoom does not get it (or maybe they are pretending).
Earlier this week, a report came out that the video conferencing provider, Zoom, would be providing End-to-End-Encryption (E2EE) but only for paying customers. They’ve made a case that because “bad” people would use encryption to […]
Curated playlist of videos
I did not realise that there are plenty of videos of events at which I spoke, interviews I gave and panels I was part of. For my own purposes, I thought it is best if […]
Working Remotely with FOSS tools
These last few months have been really wonderful in enabling me to catch up on making sure that as much of the technology that I use to be working online is indeed free and open […]
Jit.si if you care and Zoom if you don’t.
So, last week, from 8th April onwards, the Singapore Government imposed a partial lockdown (PL) – or as they say euphemistically “circuit breaker” (CB). The Singapore Ministry of Education introduced Home-based Learning (HBL) that they […]
A tip to play audio (and video) in a browser
So, the teacher in the house, aka my wife, asked me to help with the online teaching she has to do specifically with being able to play audio tracks for her students. She uses Fedora […]
No. Internet voting is still a No Go.
I was asked by a friend why is it that we can’t do voting over the Internet. With all of the digitisation being done globally, and the ongoing COVID-19 issue, shouldn’t Singapore – the Smart […]
BuildTogether – data, code, people for the world
The Singapore Government Technology Agency released, at the end of last week (Friday 20 March 2020) a mobile phone app, called TraceTogether which uses the bluetooth of the mobile phone to establish tiny database with […]
Of NUCs and Bastions
[image above from https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/ssh-proxy-bastion-proxyjump%5D Just documenting the systems I have on my home network so that I know what to do next time as well as being a repository of tips and tricks for anyone […]
xrandr – note to self
This is really a note to self because every now and then, the external monitor at my desk, a Dell 27″ monitor, gets confused. My laptop – a Lenovo T450s running either Fedora 31 or […]
Handwaving. No surprises.
So, the Singapore Parliament and the Ministry of Communication and Information replies to my question about the plan to track MPs in parliament. This reply appeared in the 22 November 2019 of the MSM. Many […]
Two statements that I live by
Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think. I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
Fa(r)cial Recognition + Parliament = Smart Parliament?
If the Singapore Parliament aspires to be a smart Parliament, it should live stream proceedings in full on the Internet with no delay (Facial recognition system to track MPs’ presence in Parliament, Nov 8). By doing that, MPs’ attendance can be tracked using software that is already available.
Standard C150 handheld – manual and schematic
I am just putting this here more for archival purpose than anything. I have a Standard C150 handheld transceiver that I have used when I first bought it but have not been for the last […]
The Enormous Empowering of Free and Open Source Software Ecosystem
It is quite disappointing to see the escalation of bad behaviour on the part of some of the partners in the technology industry legally pushed on by US politicians who have no idea what they […]
Good bye and On on!
Today, a second person that I know, decided to be euthanised. He was suffering from a very rare brain tumour that was operated on a few years ago and made recovery. Over the last few […]
Start-ups and patents
I have been part of a few start-ups and there has always been the conversations around “are we patenting our ideas?”. I understand the nature and purpose of a patent and the lofty principles behind […]
Congratulations to the new SCS president and council
I have been in the SCS executive council for many years. I am deeply thankful for the camaraderie and friendship of the numerous committee members. It was a pleasure serving with all of you for […]
Why am I running for the presidency of the SCS?
Yes, I’ve decided that I will run for the post of the President of the Singapore Computer Society. The Annual General Meeting of the SCS will be held later this month on 28th March 2019. […]
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal
This. There was a time when I was so happy to be able to connect to the Internet with my mobile phone by dialing-in into the ISP. I remember on a trip to Tel Aviv, […]
Electronic voting and trust
There was s series of letters published in one of the daily papers here in Singapore about the apparent anomaly that we do lots of stuff electronically, but voting is not one of them. There […]
Simple life hack
Turn your mobile data to the OFF as a default when out and about. Why? Read on. Since about October 2017, I’ve been quite conscious about how my phone connects to the data network via […]
Working around censorship
The Internet is a wonderful and absolutely essential resource that needs to be looked after, managed well and secured so that it can deliver the vast benefits to humanity and more. But along with that […]
NASA Space Apps Challenge 2018 – Singapore
It was wonderful that Red Hat’s Open Innovation Labs is a sponsor of this year’s NASA Space Apps Challenge event that is being held in Singapore. It was held at LEVEL3‘s offices at the Mapletree […]
Not allowed to code? Really?
[image from: http://cdn.blog.safe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/no-coding.png%5D Lots of interesting, but not surprising, information is being made public about the Singhealth data breach. The Commitee of Inquiry has been told that there was an IHIS employee who found a […]
Happy 35th Birthday GNU!
The GNU project was officially announced on 27 September 1983 by Richard Stallman. Thirty-five years of a project that has now become the fundamental building block of everything we use and see in technology in […]
A healthcare IT foundation built on gooey clay
Today, there was a report from the Solicitor General of Singapore about the data breach of the SingHealth systems that happened in July. These systems have been in place for many years. They are almost […]
What I’ve learned in 15 years at Red Hat
[image credit: https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Spock-shades.jpg%5D In September 2003, I was asked by Gus Robertson to consider joining Red Hat – essentially to kickstart the Red Hat office in Singapore/ASEAN. I was at that time running my own […]
You gotta love the UNIX way of doing things
A colleague was asking for some help in a demo he was planning on that would involve him editing a spreadsheet in LibreOffice on his laptop and then the spreadsheet to be saved to a […]
My updated GPG keys: 0x61AFA27B
I have just updated my GPG keys. The fingerprint is: 0x61AFA27B And my public key is: —–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—– mQINBFtV24ABEADERsMgNNOOFpzfaYxrmlmYPd0IOjFn3iIba38SvqVyWJxLmuvc[…]
SingHealth, PDPA, Smart Nation, sigh!
Looks like I am clear from the data breach at SingHealth. My Mom’s data, however, is not. This is the SMS received: Yes, I’ve redacted her name, and yes, I use Signal as my SMS […]
ssh tunnel via userspace systemd service
[image above is a screenshot of 0pointer.de – in place of a systemd logo] This is short how-to on setting up a systemd service that is run from a user account. In the /etc/systemd/system directory: […]
And, they are online now
Over a week ago, I was pinged by @l00g33k on twitter with a picture of a description of a piece of code I wrote in 1982. That lead to a meet up and reliving a […]
You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep**
Lots of what we take for granted found expression in the thoughts and writings of John Perry Barlow. He crafted “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” back in 1996. It held lots of truths […]
Seeking a board seat at OpenSource.org
I’ve stepped up to be considered for a seat on the Board of the Open Source Initiative. Why would I want to do this? Simple: most of my technology-based career has been made possible because […]
Wireless@SGx for Fedora and Linux users
Eight years ago, I wrote about the use of Wireless@SGx being less than optimal. I must acknowledge that there has been efforts to improve the access (and speeds) to the extent that earlier this week, […]
Three must haves in Fedora 26
I’ve been using Fedora ever since it came out back in 2003. The developers of Fedora and the greater community of contributors have been doing a amazing job in incorporating features and functionality that subsequently […]
Quarter Century of Innovation – aka Happy Birthday Linux!
Happy Birthday, Linux! Thank you Linus for that post (and code) from a quarter of a century ago. I distinctly remember coming across the post above on comp.os.minix while I was trying to figure out […]
This is quite a nice tool – magic-wormhole
I was catching up on the various talks at PyCon 2016 held in the wonderful city of Portland, Oregon last month. There are lots of good content available from PyCon 2016 on youtube. What I […]
UEFI and Fedora/RHEL – trivially working.
My older son just enrolled into my alma mater, Singapore Polytechnic, to do Electrical Engineering. It is really nice to see that he has an interest in that field and, yes, make me smile as […]
A blast from the past
I was searching for advertisements that I recalled seeing in the Linux Journal back in the mid 1990s that was put out by Red Hat about their upcoming release of Red Hat Linux. Fortunately, I […]
Getting a good grip on the haze conditions
I feel that with DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s speech this past Monday, June 17 2013, at the eGov Global Exchange event about the Singapore government going whole hog with 100% machine readable data on the data.gov.sg, […]
This is too cool!
[harish@phoenix ~]$ traceroute 216.81.59.173 traceroute to 216.81.59.173 (216.81.59.173), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 registerlafonera.fon.com (192.168.10.1) 2.473 ms 2.937 ms 3.902 ms 2 cm1.zeta224.maxonline.com.sg (116.87.224.1) 15.342 ms 15.664 ms 16.515 ms 3 172.20.53.17 (172.20.53.17) […]
In a word, wow!
I am not sure if this is a report that contains stuff taken out of context, but if its true that PM Lee thinks that his government did not have clarity in vision, what does that […]
Doing the right thing and a proposal
I am glad to read the the Prime Minister has decided to probe the sale the applications (built and paid using tax dollars) by the PAP Town Councils to the PAP-owned company AIM. <stand up> […]
It’s not a contest per se, it’s a Sahana-moment!
So, my 3 am post from January 3rd 2013 is now on http://www.tremeritus.com, probably not a good thing, but then this is the way things move. For what it’s worth, going by the comments in that post, […]
Why Open Standards and Open Source Matters in Government
I have offered to the powers that be (TPTB) running the various Town Councils in Singapore an opportunity for the open source community to help build an application to manage their respective towns following the […]
My Conscience Is Bugging Me
I cannot let the media statement put out by the “Coordinating Chairman of the PAP Town Councils” regarding the sale of the town council management software system to a ex-PAP MP-owned company be left alone […]
Software for Public Sector Applications
The ongoing egg-in-the-face of the PAP over the “tender” (thanks to Alex for posting it via an anonymous source) awarded to AIM over the acquisition of a piece of software created for the use of the Town […]
A helper note for family and friends about your connectivity to the Internet from July 9 2012
This is a note targeted at family and friends who might find that they are not able to connect to the Internet from July 9, 2012 onwards. This only affects those whose machines were are […]
And it’s live now – SCO Open Server 5.0.5 running in a RHEL 6 KVM
As promised earlier, the final bits of getting an application that runs on the old hardware on to the VM is now all done. I tried to install the app but, I really did not […]
Fedora 17 before it is released
I decided to take the plunge and run Fedora 17 before it’s officially launched in May. My system has been running Fedora 16 x86-64 since the launch last November and I must say that it […]
ACTA 2.0? Are more secret negotiations underway?
So, is the ACTA now failing and governments secretly doing a version 2? I don’t know and the fact that the 1st version was not known until leaks happened, it is hard to tell if […]
Microsoft’s “open technology” spinoff
While I would like to stand up and cheer Microsoft on them setting up the “Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc”, I am not convinced that they are doing this in good faith. Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, […]
Exposing localhost via a tunnel
I came across this tool, localtunnel, that offers a way to expose a localhost based webserver (for example) to the internet. It is a reverse proxy that brings you to your machine way behind a […]
What does it take?
I am an organizer of a programming contest that will be using some really cool technologies (HTML5, Python, OpenShift, just to name three). This will be a contest open to anyone but we would need […]
The Value of being Heard and Consulted
Some of you would know that I am employed by a company called Red Hat since September 2003, it will be nine years with the organization. That’s longer than I have been with any of […]
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 comes to the rescue of SCO Open Server in a VM!
After about two years ago to the day (plus or minus), I’ve finally gotten around to moving a friend’s ancient SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 to run on a modern operating system within a virtual machine. My […]
Cool tech tip
Saw this on identi.ca feed: “@climagic youtube-dl -q -o- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zscrs94_pFc | mplayer – cache 1000 – # Watch youtube streaming directly to mplayer” So, do yum install youtube-dl mplayer on your Fedora machines, then you can pull […]
OSCON 2011 – Tuesday July 26
Finally, I’ve found time and motivation to attend the O’Reilly organized Open Source Convention 2011 in Portland, Oregon. It has been many years since I was in Portland – in fact, the times I spent in […]
Change and Opportunity
Change and evolution are hallmarks of any open source project. Ideas form, code gets cut, repurposed, refined and released (and sometimes thrashed). Much the same thing happens with teams of people. In the True Spirit […]
Now all machines at home are on Fedora 15!
I spent 30 minutes this morning upgrading my sons’ laptops to Fedora 15. I used a Fedora 15 LiveDVD (installed on a USB) that I had created that included stuff that the standard Fedora 15 […]
Printer/cups tip
Every time I update the OS on my laptops, I have to add the CUPS printer settings for the in office systems. It used to be that there was an internally usable RPM to do […]
Early thoughts on GNOME 3
I must admit, the first time I installed Fedora 15 alpha, I did it only to test out what GNOME 3 was all about. It looked like an interesting interface that would work on a […]
My must-haves on any new Fedora installation
So, I’ve taken the plunge and gone ahead and updated my Fedora 14 to the next rev of Fedora 15. F15 comes default with GNOME 3. I am still finding my way around it, but […]
Is Vietnam blocking Facebook?
I am sitting at a lounge in Ho Chi Minh City’s international airport and connected to the wifi. Interestingly, I cannot reach facebook.com. Here’s the dig and traceroute info: $ dig http://www.facebook.com ; <<>> DiG […]
Managing open source skepticism
I had an opportunity to speak to a few people from a government tender drafting committee on Wednesday. They are looking at solutions that will be essentially a cloud for a large number of users […]
Glad to have participated in the Cloud Workshop in Penang
I am pleased to have spent two days at the National Cloud Computing Workshop 2011 held in Penang, Malaysia April 11-12 2011. Targeted at the Malaysian academic community, it offered some insights to the initiatives that […]
Cloud for Academics
I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak from both a Red Hat and an open source presective about cloud technologies to the academic community in Malaysia. Clearly there is a lot to […]
Believing in your own BS
I spend pretty much 100% of my waking hours in the IT world. A world that changes and evolves rapidly. This results in a massive amount of churn in ideas, methods and processes. Some of […]
True Leadership and The Open Source Way
I live in the Free and Open Source World. A lot of what the FOSS movement’s ethos and principles are quite core to me. I think this webinar featuring Charlene Li is a required viewing. […]
NASA’s inaugural Open Source Summit
I missed the live streaming of the NASA OSS Summit but it is mostly all captured and available on ustream.tv. These are the links to the recordings: Day One: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13644010 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13644386 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13647514 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13650365 Day Two: […]
Taking the higher ground
I am disappointed with the kinds of ad hominem attacks being made at the person from the PAP who is being labelled as the PAP’s youngest candidate to be introduced this time around. It is one […]
Interesting post from a non-techie moving to Fedora
A good friend of mine sent me a note about his friend’s experience in moving to a Fedora and Red Hat desktop environment. That person is a non-techie and this is his report – all […]
RMS in Singapore
I was invited by the Singapore Management University to be a participant at a talk by Richard M Stallman of the Free Software Foundation. It was held on November 1st at the SMU Auditorium. RMS […]
