Factoring exteremely large numbers

Written by Adrian Pavone

EFF are running a long-standing competition whereby they will pay large sums of money to the first person/group to find prime numbers of exteremly large numbers of digits. The first prize awarded was for finding a one million digit prime number, and was for $50,000. This award went on Apr 6, 2000. However, the 10 million digit award of $100,000 is still up for grabs, and hence that is what I am working towards.

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IRC is a waste of time

Written by Adrian Pavone

For the past year, I have been idling (sitting connected but not doing anything actively) in the #archlinux channel. Originally, I was a newb, asking all sorts of questions about things that I was unsure about (I had previous linux experience, but archlinux has a way of doing things just a little bit different to all the other distros). I then moved on to idling so that I could help other people when they had problems. I then followed the natural progression from that stage to trolling, while still giving the occasional solution to a problem so as not to just be ignored/kicked. Then I moved to giving sureal answers to questions, which was a lot of fun. But finally I got to perma-idling, which is where you sit with the channel window open at all times, just reading what is going on, only occasionally jumping into the conversation.

Now, perma-idling doesn't sound so bad, until you figure out how much time it actually wastes.

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Search for files using Perl

Written by Adrian Pavone

I had to try to find a file in my eBooks collection, but due to various issues, this eBooks collection is only half organised at this point. I tried to search for the files using the Vista Search dialog in the top right corner (stolen right from Mac OS), but due to the fact they were on a mapped drive, this search functionality would not work (Worse, it was returning "No items match your search" rather than admitting it couldn't work). So I decided that I needed to write a Perl script that would allow me to search for files with a keyword in their filename.

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Free Link Directory

Written by Adrian Pavone

There is a free link directory that provides links provided you put a reciprocal link on your site as well. You can also pay to have your site added without providing the reciprocal link.

Inbound links are an important part of your Google Page Rank, and so I recommend adding your site URL to as many locations that you can outside of your own site (legally).

The site I am talking about in this posting is: Link Directory