Last friday, i reconfigured the swt (netsight test server) to point to the antioch test database.
the process seemed to be pretty simple, and took little time.
I had a few complications with compiling the xml screens, with the new server configuration, but eventually found the problem, and successfully compiled.

in a few weeks, a the rest of the netsight servers will have to be upgraded to Ifas 7.3. this might be a bit more of a challenge as this involves an upgrade instead of a fresh install. I guess we'll see what happens when we get to that point.

I spent sometime figuring out how RSS feeds work since they've been getting pretty popular lately.
so I installed a reader from http://www.rssreader.com, and it seems to work very nicely. I recommend it if you want to stay updated on any blog content.

I upgraded aslan.apu.edu this morning: IBM x335 2x2600 mhz, 1500 M RAM RedHat Enterprise Linux AS 3 PostgreSQL 7.3 Redhat Edition There have been some minor syntax issues with multiple sites, including some pear issues with this one.

The following useful modules aren't working with Drupal 4.3.2 and PostgreSQL

• Subscriptions - allows users to subscribe to topics or specific articles to be mailed if there are new posts.
• Notify - like subscriptions except that its a simple yes or no to be notified for any content updates site wide.

One or both of these modules would help AWG members keep informed and participate in discussions on the site. The other alternate is of course RSS with a feed reader, but I am not sure if that will include comments.

I have posted bug reports on each of these two items. I will include them below and then will update with any troubleshooting.

Notify Bug Report

Subscriptions Bug Report

Okay I worked with Adrian, the postgres drupal maintainer, and the first problem with the susbcriptions module is that no .pgsql table creation was included. So Adrian gave me a dump to use.

CREATE TABLE subscriptions(
  sid      integer not null,
  uid      integer not null,
  stype    text not null
);

The table was created and I was able to enable the module in the web based module administration tool. But when enabled pgsql errors showed up in the browser. So my guess is that the module itself modules/subscriptions.module has some mysql specific calls that need fixing.

Jabber, Inc. has announced a suite of wireless clients for RIM, PocketPC, Smartphone, Symbian and J2ME devices, as well as gateways for WAP and SMS.

Apparently they are currently available for testing, but will be released April 1st.

See the Press Release.

IMT developer Melissa Kadera has put up a weblog, and has recently discovered the joys of RSS feed readers or news aggregators. She wrote up some good information on resources for getting started in this space.

What is the Semantic Web you ask?

The semantic web is a universal medium for the exchange of data... smoothly interconnecting personal information management, enterprise application integration, and the global sharing of commercial, scientific and cultural data.

The principal technologies of the Semantic Web fit into a set of layered specifications. The current components of that framework are the RDF Core Model, the RDF Schema language and the Web Ontology language. These languages all build on the foundation of URIs, XML, and XML namespaces.

For more information, see the W3C's Semantic Web Activity Statement.

Ran across a new Linux News site today. LXer, (pronounced Elexer).

Why another news site? Well this ones attempts to be unique according to the editor, who isn't new to the scene:

I am Dave Whitinger. I worked for Red Hat in 1997, and in 1998 I co-founded Linux Today with Dwight Johnson. After selling Linux Today to internet.com, I worked with Atipa in their web services department until everyone was laid off. For much of 2002, I worked for the good folks at LWN.net, helping them with business development issues after their unacquisition from TUCOWS.

I patiently waited for this day for a long time. January, 2004 marks an important milestone in my history with Linux news, and this is the month that I have been planning my re-entry into this field.

So what makes it different?

1. Driven by an editor who knows and cares deeply about this community.
2. Has a minimum of advertisements, and the few that it has should be relevant to Linuxers. Related to this is that the site should have a very clean and simple layout without any fancy graphics or formatting.
3. Is frequently updated with useful and interesting stories, announcements, reviews, security alerts and editorials.
4. Has a plethora of useful features to make access to the news easy in a variety of ways.
5. Has easy community participation - discussion forums and moderated story submission.
6. Has an open database - our news (including external links) that we are accumulating is available in XML format and readily accessible to anyone who wants it.

I have added LXer to the News Feeds on this site. Its articles will appear in the "Platforms" subject, as well by source.

Jabber has announced the availability of a new major release of their eXtensible Communcations Platform, XCP 3.0.

New Features

• improved hooks for standard SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) monitoring
• support for SASL (Simple Authentication and Security Layer)
• internationalization features that make XCP ready for localization out-of-the-box
• a graphical controller for configuring the Jabber XCP server

The story was announced yesterday, but I still don't see the files available on our support page. So I can't read the more detailed release notes. I am curious as to how much of the XMPP Core and XMPP IM IETF Proposed Standards they comply with.

Xeon vs. Opteron Performance Benchmarks - QuickSand writes "Anand got his hands on some of Intel and AMD's enterprise processors including 4MB L3 Xeons, and put them to the test. Results were a little varied as 4-way Opteron systems seemed to fare the best, although dual Xeon configurations almost always beat dual Opterons. The exact benchmarks are here." slashdot.org I haven't followed hardware in a while, but it seems to me from reading AnandTech's article, that AMD Opteron's bus speed and performance, especially considering the clockspeed, smokes Intel's Xeon.

There is a quirk on the site where the tracker module aka "recent posts" or "what's new" is displaying unix epoch instead of actual post dates. The tracker is the easiest way to see a list of newly posted content on the site. I have posted a bug report on drupal.org. My theory is that it has to do with some bug with PostgreSQL which less people are using with drupal than MySQL at this point. Update: Found a dupe of the bug here.