BIND to the Rescue

I have been too busy to do much development on my own stuff with Barcamp Bangkok taking up most of my free time lately. But I am ramping up for some serious development time after Barcamp finishes.

The fact that Microsoft hosed my hosts file has meant that I cannot access my SVN repository from my desktop development environment–the only one that is on a fast computer. So I have installed BIND to run DNS on my development network. Yes, running and maintaining a DNS server is probably overkill, but MS forced me onto this corner.

BIND to the rescue! Yay! Now I have to spend a bit of time to remember how to write zone files–not that hard as I recall. There’s probably a lot of sample zone files out there already–I should search for one and set up DNS while I am on the train.

I wonder how often people have set up DNS servers while on the train from Laos to Bangkok? Probably not many. It may be a world first.

Lao and Back

Quick trip to Laos to get the visa sorted; leave Monday night and back Thursday morning.

At the Lao border crossing.

Not the best time with Barcamp Bangkok around the corner, but there was no other date I could do it. Luckily, everybody working on Barcamp is wired so as long as I have an Internet connection, I can do as much as if I were still in Bangkok.

Vientiane is changing fast. More tourists every trip, more guest houses and upscale eateries, more paved roads. Still, it has it’s charms. Slow pace. Tree-lined streets. I love the cafe society here; lots of cafes and coffee houses and people are there with books and laptops thinking, dreaming, meeting, working. You don’t see that much in Bangkok, sadly.

Prices on the rise in Vientiane as well. I am not sure if it’s the high season so prices are up or it’s that demand is outstripping supply, but a room that is a box with a bed and nothing else is now pushing B300 a night. Pretty pricey by SE Asian standards.

But the highlight is still the food. Foot-long sandwiches on crispy baguettes that are stuffed with red pork, pate and bologna for US$ 1.60. Vietnamese Pho and Bun. Swedish bakery. Cheese. Wine. BEER LAO.

Every time I have a Beer Lao it strikes me that it really smells and tastes like a lager beer. Yum.

Two days here is too long to be away with Barcamp coming up, but not long enough to eat everything I want to eat.