Theoretically, China blocks a lot of pages with its great firewall. I couldn’t find problems with the sites I usually visit (wikipedia, youtube, Unix/Linux). Also the usual surfing was no problem at all.

But, they are blocking sites - no discussion! One example: there is a German freemail- and internet-provider. freenet.de. Well, this name implies some problems with freedom - you might think so at least, if you can’t read the German things, which are to be found on their homepage.

As a result, you can not contact freenet.de from China. This is proved by the following hardcopy:

Traffic rules are somewhat different to the German ones. First of all, what counts is the survival of the fittest - Mr. Darwin sends his regards.

Trucks and busses - the ultimate winners
Cars - second place
Motorbikes and bikes - third place
Pedestrians - priceless losers

OK, I was a pedestrian all the time. So, you can call me a loser. But, whatever - I am used to it anyway :-)

You can pass left, right and on the hard shoulder. Nobody cares. As a pedestrian, you have to get used to the fact, that you could be run over, if you cross the street at a green traffic light. Every vehicle, which turns right or left has priority. So I suggest: don’t use iPod & Co. Keep all your attention to the other people on the streets.

Last thing: They use bikes with electric motors and batteries. These are very dangerous. You can’t hear them, but they are fast. And: you don’t need a drivers licence for them. As a result, they are called: silent death…

I think it’s something like a culture-shock. As you can see in the pictures below.

Conclusion: I will have problems in organizing my life, back here in good old Germany. It’s totally different. In China everything is easier. And in the same moment - more complicated. This makes it a very tasteful mixture.
Germany is unfortunately very structured and organized. In China, everybody goes his/her own way. I am not sure, whether anybody cares about it. If you need a bridge - hey, get it built! No more discussion. Any birds which are in danger of dying out? Fuck man, there are lots of birds left. (As you can see, I don’t like birds. Maybe I envy them somehow - they can sing, I can’t)

You can easily apply quota for an ftp-Server. In the following lines I will describe how to do it for proftpd.

1. Activate mod_quotatab.c in proftpd.conf

QuotaEngine on
QuotaLog /var/log/ftpd/quota.log

QuotaLimitTable file:/etc/proftpd/ftpquota.limittab
QuotaTallyTable file:/etc/proftpd/ftpquota.tallytab

2. Download ftpquota-tool. Then use it for creating both files

ftpquota –create-table –type=limit
ftpquota –create-table –type=tally

3. Apply the quota as you like it like this (2Gb Download for user username in this case)

  ftpquota --add-record --type=limit --name=username --quota-type=class \
    --bytes-upload=0 --bytes-download=2 --units=Gb --table-path=/usr/local/etc/ftplimit.tab

4. Maintain your quota like this:
Show the entries:

ftpquota –show-records –type=limit

Change the entries:

ftpquota --update-record --type=limit --name=username --quota-type=user \
    --bytes-upload=0 --bytes-download=2 --units=Mb

Show the used quota:

ftpquota –show-records –type=tally

That’s it.

You are looking for an Open Source alternative to Microsofts Sharepoint? There are several ways to accomplish this:

1. Use a DMS. The best I’ve found while google-ing was OpenDocMan. It is mainly for sharing files. But you can also create new users, give permissions for reading or writing. Systems like this can create archives as well. So you can easily keep your overview over all the changes, which has been made to certain files.

2. Use a CMS, Joomla for example. With a system like this, you can not only share files, but also information and even create a whole website.

[Update: 10-25-2008]: There are two comments. The last one suggests:
o3spaces or alfresco.
Both of them are solutions, which I did not think about! Thanks for the suggestions!

This entry is dedicated to my faithful neighbors. First of all, I want to thank you for being patient with me. For nobody complains about the noise great music, which is coming out of my flat from time to time, I think nobody really cares. Wonderful.

But in the end, I want to point out: