Welcome to PreshWeb

Thanks for visiting PreshWeb, my own little corner of the web.

This site contains some permanent content, but a lot of new content that I create gets posted to my Wordpress-powered blog, and on my wiki for technical notes etc.

Linux Stuff - I've become a great fan of Linux and Open Source software in general, using it extensively both at work and at home. In this section of my site, I'm going to gather together a lot of useful information, guides, scripts and tools etc. Basically, I want to give back whatever I can to the Open Source community.

My online Photo Albums - I've got quite a few photos online already, and I'll be adding more as I take them, and more older photos as I get time to scan / upload them.

Latest Blog Posts

• HTML::Table::FromDatabase released
  

  I’ve just released a new Perl module to CPAN, HTML::Table::FromDatabase. It’ll hit CPAN mirrors soon.

  It subclasses HTML::Table, and its purpose is to simplify a fairly common task, of taking data from a database query and d

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• Big fire + explosions in Ontario
  

  Apparently a big propane depot in Ontario exploded early this morning (around 3.30 am EST) - check the explosion in this video shortly after 1:50 -

  Reports I read said that there has been just one casualty, a fireman who died of “no

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• This country is going fucking crazy
  

  Nothing the post title doesn’t cover - over 500 police staff to take training to understand sex-change weirdo.

  Seriously, WTF?

  
  
• xmkmf missing - install imake
  

  I was installing a fairly old piece of software on Arch Linux, and it was failing because I didn’t have xmkmf installed. After some longer Googling than would be expected, I found that xmkmf is part of imake (which was distributed wi

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• KDE 4.1 - very nice
  

  KDE 4.1 was released today, and is already in Arch Linux’s repos, so I decided to update and give it a try.

  First impressions - pretty slick indeed, especially after turning on proper compositing support for various funky effects incl

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• Economic Models and Business Strategies explained with Cows
  

  Shamelessly robbed from Metcountymounty’s post on Sheepdogs & Wolves (but also seen several times on other sites… yes, it’s an old one )

  I think Britain most definately fits under the Socialism description here.

  COMM

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• Facebook Chat for Pidgin
  

  Just found Facebook Chat for Pidgin - a plugin for the popular Pidgin (formerly Gaim) multi-network IM client.

  It allows you to chat to your friends on Facebook using Pidgin rather than the little chat widget on the Facebook site, and supp

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• Free music from independent artists
  

  Just a quick post to mention Jamendo - a site I discovered a couple of days ago offering lots of free music from various independent artists.

  So far I’ve downloaded several albums and a handful of EPs, and I’m impressed - some o

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• Why men don?t write advice columns?
  

  It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything, so here’s a quick post blatantly robbing a post from a friend’s blog (original post on Sarah’s blog here)

  Dear Walter:
  I hope you can help me here. The other

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• New bike: CBR600FV
  

  Been a while since I blogged anything, so just a quick post to say I have a new bike

  My poor old GPZ was getting a bit tired, so I’ve now got a nice black 1997 CBR600FV. It’s a lovely ride, and a lot more powerful than the GP

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• Wordpress updated
  

  It’s been a little while, but I finally got round to updating Wordpress again.

  My copy of WP is checked out from Subversion so it’s nice and easy to update - I’m now running 2.5-RC3, and it’s quite slick (although it

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• Cunning advert
  

  An advert from a flooring company, looks quite innocuous at first glance:

  But, look at it upside down, cover the lady’s head and glass, and it takes on a whole different meaning….

  It looks like this must have been done on purpo

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• Friday fun post 2008/03/12
  

  OK, finally doing another Friday fun post!

  Husband says; “When I’m gone you’ll never find another man like me”.
  Wife replied; “What makes you think I’d want another man like you!”

  When I was young I

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• Prick with a fork?
  

  Have to repost this from today’s DailyWTF.

  This is suppose to be a real product packaging for some sausages for a supermarket in Ireland, before the supermarket relised the problem and withdrew the product.

  Background: Ainsley Harri

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• Family (mis)-fortunes
  

  OK, these are old, but they still gave me a chuckle.

  Contestants from the ITV (UK) Family Fortunes game-show are asked to guess the most popular answers to questions posed in a survey. These are some of the answers given.

  I particularly li

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$ grep "beer" /dev/fridge > mouth