Hacker's Log, January 11, 2013

After a good afternoon on campus yesterday afternoon, I’ve been doing a little work around the edges from my downtown office.

• I got my authorization from IT Support & Services for VPN access to my virtual server. The instructions they provided for setup on Mac OS X were clear and concise, and worked without issues: connecting is now as simple as setting up a VPN tunnel via Tunnelblick and then SSHing in as I normally would to a remote host.
• I did a little aesthetic finessing on this site, installing the Premium Responsive theme to experiment with and throwing together a preliminary visual identity for the Hacker in Residence project (aided by the Integrated Communications Visual Identity Download Centre).
• Used Integrated Communications’ business card ordering site to order some Hacker in Residence business cards; then asked for permission to order business cards (and offered to pay the $60 cost myself if permission wasn’t granted; fortunately, it was).
• Ran into some issues with the virtual server and permissions: I wasn’t able to create files in my home directory (/home/prukavina), which meant that I couldn’t set up passwordless SSH authentication. Contacted Peter Lux at Robertson Library Systems and he corrected some issues with mounts to make it work.
• In response to my query to Chartwells about the lack of espresso on campus received a helpful reply: Currently there is no espresso machine on campus, but we have one on order with Vanhoutte, it will be put in Samuels sometime next month. I hope against hope that they’re talking about a bona fide coffee machine, and not a “cappuccino in a box” Irving gas station-style instant coffee maker.
• Finally, last night I went out to Staples and bought another trusty Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 for my UPEI office: I couldn’t handle another day of typing on my tiny MacBook Air keyboard.  Also picked up a 32GB Lexar USB stick (on sale for $19.99) to let me use the various USB-stick-requiring devices in the library.