Pixels and Politics

Netbeans Won't Debug Rails Project

2011-01-18T15:18:00.002-06:00

If the Netbeans says it "can't contact the web server" when running "Debug Project" there is likely an issue with the debug gems that the IDE installs itself. To correct this problem:

Exit Netbeans
$ gem uninstall linecache
$ gem uninstall ruby-debug-base
$ gem uninstall ruby-debug-ide
$ gem install ruby-debug-ide
Start Netbeans, and "Debug Project"

Please note that I am using MRI (native Ruby), not JRuby.

Netbeans 6.9.1 (Linux)
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-12-23 patchlevel 330) [x86_64-linux]
RubyGems 1.4.1
linecache (0.43)
ruby-debug-base (0.10.4)
ruby-debug-ide (0.4.16)

Per Host SSH Key Configuration

2010-12-11T13:27:00.004-06:00

You can automatically specify an SSH private key, via local configuration, when connecting to SSH hosts. This is especially helpful when using Git to connect to multiple repositories which require different SSH keys.

On a Unix client (or compatible shell such as cygwin, Xming, or msysgit ), create/modify ~/.ssh/config

Host HOSTNAME_OR_IP
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/OTHER_ID_RSA

How to Enable Aero on Windows 7 N

2010-06-16T08:13:00.002-05:00

To enable the Aero UI enhancements in Windows 7, you must "rate" your computer using the Performance Information and Tools panel. If you receive the error: "This system does not have the necessary multi-media support to run the requested assessment", you may not have Windows Media Player installed (especially if you are running Windows 7 N). Download and install Windows Media Player at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx and try again.

Convert a Hash to a Query String or Parameter String

2010-03-02T12:04:00.002-06:00

I Rails, to convert a Hash object into a query string or parameter string for use in a url:

opts = {:a => 1, :b => 2}
params = ActionController::Routing::Route.new.build_query_string(opts)

Params => "?a=1&b=2"

Ruby Multithreading with a Thread Size Limit

2010-02-05T10:23:00.002-06:00

I wrote this class in the process of writing a multithreaded Amazon S3 key migrator. S3 doesn't like that, so don't even bother.

You will want to use this with a thread-safe process block.

My .irbrc Ruby irb and Rails console configuration

2010-01-19T15:14:00.002-06:00

Here is my customized configuration file for Ruby irb and Rails console. You will need to install the wirble and hirb gems for full functionality.

Compile FFMPEG from Source with x264 Support

2010-01-18T18:01:00.001-06:00

Here are my notes for compiling FFMPEG from source with x264 and Xvid/DivX support on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

Your milage may vary!!!

Change Default JVM on OSX

2009-10-30T14:51:00.002-05:00

If you install the Java 1.6 JRE on OSX Leopard 10.5 and want to make it default:

open /Applications/Utilities/Java\ Preferences.app

Giving Up on Windows 7

2009-10-24T20:34:00.003-05:00

For some wonderful reason, Windows 7 takes eight minutes to boot on my desktop machine. This is an Intel Core2Quad with 4GB of RAM. Not a speed demon, but no slouch. I have been in *Nix land too long and can't figure out what hardware is stalling the boot process. Horrifically frustrating.

I am not used to not being able to figure things out, but I have reached the point of not caring anymore. Windows is just a game platform for me and I get real work done in Linux or OSX.

Windows XP will play Left4Dead just fine.

Set Default Terminal Size in Gnome

2009-09-22T20:21:00.002-05:00

This was difficult to find. You CAN set the default size of Gnome Terminal. The following instructions apply to Ubuntu 9.04, so your milage may vary:

Open /usr/share/vte/termcap/xterm:
sudo gedit /usr/share/vte/termcap/xterm
Find the line containing :co#80:it#8:li#24:\ (line 10 in Ubunto 9.04)
Replace the 80 with desired column width, and 24 with the desired row height.
Save and close all terminals.

Lone Star Ruby Conference 2009

2009-08-30T08:39:00.002-05:00

I must say that the conference this year was amazing. This is the first time I have been to a Ruby conference. Though I could have easily learned any of the subjects presented myself, the insight and enthusiasm from the speakers gave me better ideas for implementation and more excitement to actually do something.

I have been inspired and now I want to give a talk next year.

I am still stoked from the experience.

De-Interlace Video in AcidRip

2009-08-16T13:59:00.002-05:00

To enable deinterlacing of video when converting DVD video with AcidRip, add the following to the "Post Filters" field under the "Video" tab: "pp=lb"

Apple Exploits

2009-08-01T21:59:00.002-05:00

Hackers are having a seeming field day with Apple products. Between the Apple Keyboard Firmware hack, the Intel processor firmware hack (this one is OS agnostic), and the iPhone SMS hack it's a bad day to be an Apple fanboy or user.

I'll stick to doing my online banking on my Linux machine.

Must Read Book for Web Developers

2009-07-19T12:38:00.006-05:00

Today I got my copy of Programming Collective Intelligence and I wish I had bought this book back when it came out. In my day job, I am developing mostly social networking type sites, and I could have saved days of hair pulling.

Some days it seems as if I am just writing the same old "dumb" web-sites, and I never really understood how other programmers integrated the massive amounts of data we collect every day into a usable and actionable form, both for user and stake-holder. I figured it involved complicated maths that I either don't remember or never took (dotcom college dropout here). Tobey Segaran puts data mining concepts into readable English and sample code.

I never post book reviews, but I am only 3 chapters in, and I love it.

Adium won't connect to Yahoo Messenger

2009-06-22T13:13:00.004-05:00

Do you have Yahoo Messenger connection problems with Adium or Pidgin. The Adium 1.4 beta fixes the issue. beta.adium.im

More here.

View Contents of SSL CSR

2009-06-10T10:53:00.001-05:00

openssl req -text -noout -in host.csr

Pushing to a Gitosis Git Repo for the first time

2009-05-25T11:03:00.000-05:00

git push origin master:refs/heads/master

Errors when Running GWT from Eclipse

2009-05-09T16:24:00.003-05:00

I was able to get a preview release of the Google AppEngine SDK for Java last week, and finally had an opportunity to play with it. I installed Eclipse on my 64bit Ubuntu Linux box and all the plugins as suggested by Google's Java docs. Everything worked great until I tried to debug the default app as generated by the Eclipse Plugin.
I got an error in the GWT (Google Web Toolkit) packages saying (among other things)

libswt-pi-gtk-3235.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32 (Possible cause: architecture word width mismatch)

With a little digging, I found that this was related to 32bit compiled java libraries being run under the 64bit Java runtime. The solution is to install the 32bit Java runtime binary, and instruct Eclipse to use it.

#From Terminal
sudo apt-get install sun-java-6-bin ia32-sun-java6-bin
sudo apt-get remove gij
sudo update-alternatives --config java
# Select the 32bit runtime

From Eclipse go to Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Installed JRE's -> Add -> Standard VM and use the path /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun-1.6.0.13

Now you can Run -> Debug As -> Web Application

Rails and form_for() within Partials

2009-04-21T11:55:00.002-05:00

This one tripped me up for almost 2 hours.

When using form_for() within a partial, use the variable reference instead of a symbol when specifying the form object. i.e. Use form_for(@user){|user_form|}, instead of form_for(:user){|user_form|}

I was creating a multi-model form with nested attributes using the new Rails 2.3 fields_for semantics, and the nested model field id's didn't have the numbered "*_attributes_0" suffix string. Ruling out syntax errors, I inspected the nested form objects and found that my user_form.object was nil, and thus the form_for method was not assigning the form object. When led me to find that my use of form_for(:user) was broken. form_for(@user) worked perfectly.

My conclusion may be incorrect, but it appears that using a symbolic reference as an object attribute for form_for() within a partial is broken.

The moral of the story is, just use the variable reference.

Capistrano deploy.rb for Git and Phusion Passenger

2009-03-28T16:12:00.002-05:00

Here is my Capsitrano deploy.rb script/recipe for use with Git repos on servers powered by Phusion Passenger (mod_rails).

http://gist.github.com/87207

Telnet SMTP Escape Character

2009-01-09T14:36:00.005-06:00

When connecting to an SMTP server via telnet (i.e. telnet mail.example.com 25), you will be informed that "Escape character is '^]'." This means you need to press CTRL-] (control plus right-bracket)

I am embarrassed how long it took me to realize that.

MySpace Mobsters Calculator and Strategy Helper

2009-01-04T22:00:00.003-06:00

I wrote a Mobsters helper this weekend to help in choosing the best weapons configuration. Enjoy!

I am liking Google AppEngine so far, and this weekend project has really put me onboard with jQuery.

Error Updating RubyGems

2008-12-05T13:45:00.005-06:00

If you get the following error:
undefined local variable or method `remote_gemspecs’

Then run:
sudo gem install rubygems-update
sudo gem update

Set JAVA_HOME on Mac OSX

2008-12-05T13:33:00.002-06:00

If you want to install the rjb Ruby Gem, you will need to set the JAVA_HOME environment variable.

Add the following line to ~/.login or /etc/profile and restart your terminal.

setenv JAVA_HOME /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home

Rails Application in A Subdirectory

2008-10-21T13:04:00.002-05:00

If you want to have a Rails application work under a subdirectory, as in http://www.example.com/rails_app , then add this line to your config/environment.rb.

ActionController::AbstractRequest.relative_url_root = "/rails_app"

Using Ruby Java Bindings on Dreamhost

2008-10-16T16:39:00.004-05:00

Getting rjb, also known as "Ruby Java Bindings' to work in a Dreamhost account can be somewhat problematic. Fortunately, it is also fairly straightforward. You just have to install all the dependencies in the user directory.

In my case, I was setting up a Rails Application that used the iText Java library to fill in PDF documents for user download. Of course, the server environment was not using Sun Java and the Java headers were not present, so gem install rjb failed. Joy.

The first course of action was to do a local install of Java.

Download jdk-6u7-linux-x64.bin and jre-6u7-linux-x64.bin from the Sun Java site. Then create an ~/opt directory and extract the JRE and JDK (you will need to chmod u+x both files then call them from the command line). Move the resulting folders to ~/opt . I renamed the folders to jdk and jre for simplicity.

Now you ensure that user gems are enabled in cPanel. Then add the following 3 lines to ~/.bash_profile

export JAVA_HOME=/home/username/opt/jdk
export GEM_PATH=/home/username/ruby/gems
export GEM_HOME=/home/username/ruby/gems

Run source ~/.bash_profile to load the paths.

Now you can run gem install rjb without any problems. You will likely have to re-install Rails and other gems because we will be telling our Rails app to load gems from the user directory. Just use the regular gem install syntax.

Add the following 2 lines to your config/environment.rb at the top

ENV['GEM_PATH']='/home/username/ruby/gems'
ENV['JAVA_HOME']='/home/username/opt/jdk'

That's pretty much it.

I will concede that these probably aren't the best instructions, but this is the real meat of the solution. If you keep getting "no such file to load" errors, you will need to extract the gems to the vendor/plugins directory. cd RAILS_ROOT/vendor/plugins and gem unpack gem_name for each problematic gem. I believe this is an issue with Passenger.

Please correct me if I am wrong about any of this, it was a very long day!

A big thank-you to the Planet

2008-10-16T15:58:00.002-05:00

Thanks for getting hacked, you made my day a whole lot more interesting!

Problems with IE7 Sessions Not Saved in Rails or PHP

2008-09-27T22:48:00.004-05:00

If you are unlucky, your login routine will work in Firefox, Internet Explorer 6, Safari, Opera, or whatever, but it won't persist in Internet Explorer 7. x

I spent days on this one: Login worked great in Firefox, but in IE7 the same credentials resulted in a page that looked like I never attempted to log in. The logs showed me that the user credentials were accepted and the page redirected as expected, but the subsequent page load was absent any sign that I logged in.

Well, check your subdomain. You can't have an underscore in a subdomain. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909264

In this instance, IE7 is inconsistently supporting standards. The browser will accept a badly formatted domain and show you the page in your browser, but will refuse to set the session cookie. Firefox and Safari are not quite so strict.

Rails: Get controller route hash from url string

2008-07-03T10:55:00.005-05:00

This is somewhat uncommon, but to get the routing hash from a URL string:

ActionController::Routing::Routes.recognize_path('/users/1')
# => {:controller => 'users', :action => 'show', :id => '1' }

Firefox in Ubuntu 8.04

2008-06-07T10:01:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or is Firefox 3 Beta unusably unstable???

Using mDNS / Zeroconf / Avahi and Firestarter Firewall on Ubuntu

2008-05-17T18:37:00.009-05:00

About Multicast DNS
Multicast DNS (mDNS) allows machines on a local network to connect by name without the need for a local DNS server. Each machine must have a hostname set, and a mDNS client/server installed. Macs have it preinstalled (being called Bonjour), as well as modern releases of Linux including Ubuntu(called avahi). Windows clients can download and install Bonjour for Windows from the Apple website. It seems most modern printers use mDNS for easy printer setup. Even though I run a local DNS server using dnsmasq, mDNS makes DHCP client access easy.

The Problem
Long ago I installed Bonjour for Windows so I could access the machine via mDNS (multicast DNS). Today, my Ubuntu 8.04 machine would no longer connect to my Windows printer share. It turns out that Firestarter on the Ubuntu machine was the culprit. mDNS requests were being blocked regardless of my Firestarter config. So here is the fix:

sudo gedit /etc/firestarter/user-pre

Add the following two lines and save:

$IPT -A INPUT -p udp --dport 5353 -d 224.0.0.251 -j ACCEPT
$IPT -A OUTPUT -p udp --dport 5353 -d 224.0.0.251 -j ACCEPT

These two IP tables rules allow the mDNS requests in and out, and override any GUI configuration in Firestarter.

Restart avahi, then restart firestarter:

sudo /etc/init.d/avahi-daemon restart
sudo /etc/init.d/firestarter restart

If you are still having trouble, look at /etc/default/avahi-daemon and make sure it says: AVAHI_DAEMON_DETECT_LOCAL=1 . Also run sudo netstat -ltunp to verify that avahi-daemon is listening on port 5353.

Found here.

UPDATE: apparently this doesn't work for some.

Compile And Install FFMPEG on Redhat RHEL4

2008-03-18T14:31:00.007-05:00

I just had the wonderful opportunity to set up a video sharing site on Redhat Enterprise Linux 4. Yeah. Four.

The worst part was getting ffmpeg to work, so here are my notes.

Requirements
(download, extract, etc.)

faac

./bootstrap && ./configure && make && make install

faad2

./bootstrap && ./configure && make && make install

lame

./configure && make && make install

libtheora

./configure && make && make install

libvorbis

./configure && make && make install

xvidcore

cd build/generic; ./configure && make && make install

x264

download and install latest subversion

./configure --enable-shared && make && make install

Configure, Compile, and Install FFMPEG

./configure --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libvorbis \
--enable-libxvid --enable-shared --enable-libfaac \
--enable-libfaad --enable-gpl --enable-libtheora \
--enable-libx264
make
make install

Create Symlinks

ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavformat.so.50 /usr/lib/libavformat.so.50
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavcodec.so.51 /usr/lib/libavcodec.so.51
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavutil.so.49 /usr/lib/libavutil.so.49
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libmp3lame.so.0 /usr/lib/libmp3lame.so.0
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavformat.so.51 /usr/lib/libavformat.so.51
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavformat.so.52 /usr/lib/libavformat.so.52
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libavdevice.so.52 /usr/lib/libavdevice.so.52
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libx264.so.58 /usr/lib/libx264.so.58
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libtheora.so.0 /usr/lib/libtheora.so.0
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libfaad.so.0 /usr/lib/libfaad.so.0
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libfaac.so.0 /usr/lib/libfaac.so.0

If you don't create these symlinks you will get errors like:

ffmpeg: error while loading shared libraries: libavdevice.so.52: cannot open shared object file

Done.

Run ffmpeg and it should spit out that insane list of options, wihout any errors.

Online Flashcards and Quizzer

2008-03-01T17:34:00.003-06:00

I just launched a new online flash cards and quizzing site called FB_Quizzr. The site is primarily intended to be used as a Facebook application.

How to Disable Asset Timestamps in Rails

2008-02-27T10:07:00.002-06:00

By default, Rails appends a timestamp parameter to asset urls to aid in cache management. If you need to disable this, simply add the following line to your config/environment.rb

ENV['RAILS_ASSET_ID'] = ''

Advanced puts Syntax in Ruby

2008-02-26T09:32:00.002-06:00

The "puts" command can be used with sprintf syntax using the percent (%) sign as follows:

puts "ABC %2.2f" % 3.567
=> "ABC 3.57"
puts "ABC %2.2f DEF %5s" % [3.567, "abcd"]
=> "ABC 3.57 DEF abcd"

Load Balance Rails Mongrel Clusters With Apache

2008-02-16T15:31:00.003-06:00

A simple solution for load balancing a Ruby on Rails Mongrel cluster with an Apache front end is to use the randomizing feature in Apache module mod_apache’s rewrite map feature. Say, for instance, you have 3 Mongrel servers, running on ports 4000 to 4002 on localhost. First create a file map.txt containing these numbers:

ports 4000|4001|4002

Then ensure the following directives are present inside the VirtualHost stanza in your Apache configuration:

ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4000/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4001/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4002/
ProxyPreserveHost On
RewriteEngine On
RewriteMap servers rnd:/path/to/your/map.txt
RewriteRule ^/(images|stylesheets|javascripts)/?(.*) $0 [L]
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://localhost:${servers:ports}/$1 [P,L]

Restart Apache, and that is it.

I have had great success using both the Pound load balancer, and Nginx, which I suggest highly, but Apache does a great job when necessary.

Using :db_file with attachment_fu

2008-02-13T17:57:00.009-06:00

The README for attachment_fu says that accessing data using the :db_file backend is outside the scope of the document. Well here is my take on it. You will also need the "mimetype_fu" plugin. Follow the instructions with attachment_fu as usual, and do the following.

Assuming that your attachment model is called "Asset" add the following line to "config/routes.rb":
map.asset_data '/asset/:id', :controller => 'assets', :action => 'show'

Create an AssetController containing at least the following:
(The thumbnail of the original image is found if necessary, and mimetype_fu is used to determine the mime-type sent to the browser)

class AssetsController < ApplicationController
  def show
    asset = Asset.find(params[:id])
    if params[:thumbnail]
      data = asset.thumbnails.find_by_thumbnail(params[:thumbnail])
    end
    data ||= asset
    send_data (data.db_file.data,
        :filename => data.filename,
        :type => File.mime_type?(data.filename),
        :disposition => 'inline')
  end
end

Add this method to app/helpers/application_helper.rb

  def assetpath(asset,thumb=nil)
    "#{asset_data_url(:id => asset.id)}#{thumb.nil? ? '' : "?thumbnail=#{thumb.to_s}"}"
 end

So now you may use the helper in your views (i.e.):

<%= image_tag(assetpath(asset_model_instance)) %>
<%= image_tag(assetpath(asset_model_instance,:thumb)) %>

Rails Multi-Model Forms

2007-12-14T12:20:00.000-06:00

Here is an excellent plugin to do all the magic.

URLs With file_column

2007-12-14T11:59:00.000-06:00

This patch modifies the Rails file_column plugin so that it may download a remote file via HTTP in addition to using uploaded data. Now you can specify a string with a full valid URL.

Run it against lib/file_column.rb

Enjoy! file_column patch.

Rails 2.0 Screencast

2007-12-13T12:19:00.001-06:00

He goes a bit fast:
http://www.akitaonrails.com/2007/12/10/the-first-rails-2-0-screencast-english

Direct links to the text versions:
http://www.akitaonrails.com/2007/12/12/rolling-with-rails-2-0-the-first-full-tutorial
http://www.akitaonrails.com/2007/12/12/rolling-with-rails-2-0-the-first-full-tutorial-part-2

Getting Rails 2.0 Running

2007-12-13T12:00:00.000-06:00

So, Rails 2.0 has finally been released. It was a bit of a pain getting all my Ruby Gems updated for some reason. Please keep in mind that the MySQL path is specific to OSX 10.5.

$ sudo gem update sources
$ sudo gem update --system
$ sudo gem uninstall mysql
$ sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql
$ sudo gem update -- --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql
$ sudo gem install rails --include-dependencies

I know there is a bit of duplicated effort there, but I had issues with that MySQL gem.

Finally Rails 2.0 joy. Now to fiddle around with it before starting a new project...

Installing the MySQL Ruby Gem for Rails MySQL Support on OSX Leopard

2007-12-13T11:41:00.000-06:00

Some special command line magic is required to install the MySQL Gem on OSX Leopard (10.5).

$ export ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386"
$ sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql

I got this information from http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/ruby/wiki/Troubleshooting.

Netbeans 6 Final

2007-12-05T22:16:00.000-06:00

Finally released! There's not many pieces of software I will actually use in beta, but. Wow. Amazing IDE here. I wish there had been nice open source IDE's like this back in the day.

Rails SQL Optimization

2007-11-21T22:09:00.001-06:00

In order to automate the optimization of SQL queries in Ruby on Rails, I wrote this script to parse the output of the logs. It finds all the unique SQL queries made by different controllers, and runs an SQL EXPLAIN for each. This is really good for finding missing indexes and large table scans.

I have only tested this on Mac/MySQL, so your mileage may vary (it uses *NIX file paths). This script has saved me MUCH time. Of course, when optimizing queries, don't go overboard on eager loading. ActiveRecord eager loading can be slow if you use multiple nested includes.

Just run this script within your Rails application root directory, and it will create a file named explained.html. You may set the RAILS_ENV environment variable to specify production mode. The script automatically loads your database configuration from log/database.yml

Oh, and there needs to be at least 2 pageloads in your log. I haven't bothered fixing this bug.

So here is the script.

UPDATE: I came across some good tips for additional optimization here.

Dynamic DNS Setup In Ubuntu Using DynDNS

2007-05-04T10:00:00.001-05:00

I use Dyndns.org for dynamic domain services. There is easy setup and you can update your IP via a web browser, or schedule an application to run on a regular basis. Updating your IP address is important because you will lose your domain if you don’t update your record every 30-35 days. Here is a basic guide.

In Debian/Ubuntu you can install the updater via apt:

sudo apt-get install ipcheck

Create bin directory, dyndns directory and updater script:

mkdir ~/bin
mkdir ~/.dyndns
touch ~/bin/dyndns-update.sh
chmod 700 ~/bin/dyndns-update.sh
vi ~/bin/dyndns-update.sh

#!/bin/sh

USERNAME=yourusername
PASSWORD=yourpassword
HOSTNAME=your.domain.name

cd ~/.dyndns
if [ -f ~/.dyndns/ipcheck.dat ]; then
  /usr/sbin/ipcheck -r checkip.dyndns.org:8245 \
 $USERNAME $PASSWORD $HOSTNAME
else
  /usr/sbin/ipcheck --makedat -r checkip.dyndns.org:8245 \
 $USERNAME $PASSWORD $HOSTNAME
fi

Edit your crontab:

crontab -e

Add the following line to your crontab to run the script daily.

* 6 * * * /home/username/bin/dyndns-update.sh

User Driven Sites

2007-05-01T22:52:00.000-05:00

Today digg.com was completely spammed by user submitted articles about the HD-DVD media access key. Digg admins rightly decided to censor and ban users posting the number to avoid legal consequences. I only hope that the community driven site I am making doesn’t suffer from similar problems.

A Server Monitor

2007-03-22T23:02:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that I haven't been doing proper server monitoring. Well, that had to come to an end. I didn't like any of the monitoring apps out there and I did as a good code primate should and wrote my own. Here is my own server monitor and module written in and for Ruby. It outputs in XML format.

You write a simple XML configuration file, and call the app via the commandline specifying where the config, output, and XSL template are (cross-domain issues with XSL are fun!).

What are you waiting for?

http://code.google.com/p/rubyservermonitor/

Tabbed Pages with CSS and Javascript

2007-03-22T22:51:00.000-05:00

It's been done before many times, but here's my stab at it. This took me far too long, as my javascript and CSS skills are severely lacking (I like backend stuff better, what can I say?).

What we have here is a horizontally styled list acting as a navigation bar, and a set of hidden divs shown when appropriate.

Source here.

Must-Have DVD Apps

2007-03-05T17:32:00.000-06:00

DeVeDe: DVD Authoring Tool
k9copy: DVD9 to DVD5 copier
Thoggen: Rip DVD to OGG video

Hard Drive Performance and hdparm

2007-03-02T10:50:00.000-06:00

Ok, I don't invest that much cash into my computer. Heck, I haven't purchased new (or used) computer hardware for myself in almost 2 years. My computer is at least 6 years out of date. Its slow.

Well, a RAM stick went out and I am down to 512MB, can we say SWAP???. So I checked out the ouput from hdparm and I had a nasty surprise. 8.59 MB/sec!!!

hdparm to the rescue.

$ hdparm -c3 -m16 -d1 -u1 -X70 -k /dev/hdb

37.99 MB/sec!!!

That should improve performance significantly!

Note: These settings are for a Seagate Barracuda 80GB

$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/hdb
...
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: ST380021A
Serial Number: 3HV291LP
Firmware Revision: 3.19
...

Gnome Startup Programs Bug

2007-02-16T10:57:00.000-06:00

If you specify additional startup programs through the Gnome Sessions application, and your changes won't save, it is likely that "~/.config/autostart" has the wrong file ownership. Sometimes installation of Beagle will screw things up.

To correct:
sudo chown -R username:username /home/username/.config

Ruby HTTPS with HTTP Basic Auth

2007-02-09T12:10:00.000-06:00

Fetching HTTPS data with Ruby using HTTP Basic Authorization

require 'net/http'
require 'net/https'

def get_feed(server,path,username,password)

http = Net::HTTP.new(server,443)
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(path)
http.use_ssl = true
req.basic_auth username, password
response = http.request(req)
return response.body

end

Complicity in Murder

2007-01-31T09:59:00.000-06:00

This would have been more topical awhile back, but considering
Saddam Hussein's execution is still in very recent memory it is
worth remembering that the United States government has long been aware of the crimes that Saddam committed, and to a certain
extent complicit. A key quote from Barry Lando:

The US gave satellite information, more to the Iraqis, enabling them to target Iranian troop concentrations, even though the US knew that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons.

Follow the link for an enlightening interview with a former 60 Minutes producer.

SSH Public Key Authentication

2007-01-22T10:39:00.000-06:00

SSH Public Key Authentication
(password-less SSH authentication on *nix systems)

Its a pain to enter in passwords all day. If you are like me and have a dozen or more machines and accounts to maintain, password management gets ridiculous. A great solution is public key authentication. You create a public key and a private key on a client machine, and distribute the public key to the various accounts and servers you need to access. The public key identifies you, and your private key verifies your identity. You only create your key pair once, and place your public key on all the servers you want to configure for password-less login. If you do create another new key pair on the local machine, you will again have to follow the steps for configuring the remote machines.

Keep in mind, the idea is to have a key pair for a specific local account on a specific machine. If you want to be able to use password-less login from another machine, you should create a new key pair on that machine. DON'T simply copy your key pair to another machine.

Public key authentication also makes scripted remote management possible, but thats beyond the scope of this mini-article. So let's begin:

On Local/Client Machine
# Create .ssh directory unless it already exists

mkdir ~/.ssh
cd ~/.ssh

# Create your keypair. Specifying a password will protect your private key even if the private key file is compromised. Remember, the private key file identifies you, and if that file is compromised, the server is compromised as well. Regardless of password security, set secure permissions for this file.
ssh-keygen -t dsa
chmod 600 id_dsa

# Copy your public key to the server, specifically your remote user's home directory.
scp id_dsa.pub remote_username@example.com:/home/remote_username

# Now login to the remote machine via ssh

On Remote/Server Machine

# Create the .ssh directory unless it exists

mkdir ~/.ssh
cd ~/.ssh

# Create the authorized key file unless it already exists
touch authorized_keys2
chmod 600 authorized_keys2

# Append your public key to the authorized key file. Directly editing the key file is generally a bad idea. Then delete the public key file you copied to this machine.
cat ~/id_dsa.pub >> authorized_keys2
rm ~/id_dsa.pub

You may now logout, and log back in. This time you should be automatically logged in without a password prompt.

If you mess up, or your private key is compromised, there is a small amount of cleanup involved. On each of the configured servers, delete the line in the authorized_keys2 file that corresponds to your public key, and delete your local key pair as well. You can then start over.

Strip HTML Tags

2007-01-22T10:15:00.001-06:00

It's trivial really...but regexp's are a bitch.

#!/usr/bin/ruby -n
puts $_.gsub(/<\/?[^>]*>/, "")

Edit A Webpage in Place

2007-01-21T13:01:00.000-06:00

This works for Firefox. Enter the following into the address bar.

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

This is an interesting hack. It is nothing of immediate utility, but combined with some other functionailty...

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

2007-01-18T22:29:00.000-06:00

A quote from today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.

Specter: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in the case of invasion or rebellion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus?

Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn't say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn't say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/18/15219/0788

Apparently our ATTORNEY GENERAL doesn't understand the fundamental premise of the Constitution, that ALL rights not EXPLICITLY given to the government are retained by the people.

Ruby Cheat Sheets

2007-01-18T14:37:00.000-06:00

I found a handy ruby gem that makes reference very easy. gem install cheat to install the gem, then run cheat sheets to get a list of available cheat sheets. Run cheat cheat_name to display useful info.

United States Activities Inside Iran?

2007-01-14T12:48:00.000-06:00

This morning, national security advisor Stephen Hadley spoke about US engagement of Iranians aiding insurgents in Iraq.

When asked whether U.S. forces would cross into Iran to pursue those aiding Iraqi insurgents, he said: He said the priority "is what's going on inside Iraq. ... That's where we're going to deal with his problem." and, "Anytime you have questions about crossing international borders there are legal issues. ... We intend to deal with it by interdicting and disrupting activities in Iraq sponsored by Iran."

This response raises several questions as to whether the U.S. IS currently operating inside Iran. This administration has had a pattern of operating outside of established legal precedent (NSA wiretapping case, abuse of prisoners, suspension of habeas corpus, extraordinary rendition, etc, etc.), then dealing with the consequences (or lack of), later. In my mind, these aren't questions, but rather indications, but there is the cynicism and pragmatism.

Don't get me wrong, if people are assisting insurgents in killing our troops, they should be taken care of. Yet military incursions into a sovereign country against citizens of that country is an act of war, and war must be declared by Congress. Hence the "legal issues" mentioned by Mr. Hadley. Regardless, it has been apparent for some time that the administration's mind and direction are already set.

Just last Thursday, U.S. forces captured and detained 5 Iranian officials of relatively high rank. It has become obvious, that Iran is supporting at least the Shia side of the insurgency, and is establishing a political and military toehold in the power vacuum of Iraq.

War with Iran has already started. With politics, and on a small scale (on our side), soldiers. The battleground just happens to be Iraq.

References:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/14/ap/politics/mainD8ML45IO0.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011100427.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2157489/fr/flyout

Disable Low Disk Space Notification in Windows XP

2007-01-12T10:56:00.000-06:00

1.	Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2.	Locate and then click the following key in the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
3.	On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4.	Type NoLowDiskSpaceChecks, and then press ENTER.
5.	On the Edit menu, click Modify.
6.	Type 1, and then click OK.

7. Logout.

From http://support.microsoft.com/kb/285107

Rails Development Using Vim

2007-01-03T20:22:00.000-06:00

Rails developers fortunate enough to run OSX have raved to no end about TextMate, but what do the rest of us, being *Nix and Windows users, have available? RadRails is an EXCELLENT IDE, and I have used it almost exclusively for nearly a year now, but as an editor, like all software, it has severe limitations. It's a bit slow and too much of a memory hog for my taste, and not nearly as easy to extend as I would like.

In my experience as a Linux administrator and desktop user, I have learned to appreciate, and now love the Vi editor. Well, more accurately Vim. If you are using a GUI, Cream is an excellent set of customizations for GVim that make Vim more accessible to the new user.

To improve the state of affairs even further, there are various Ruby and Rails specific extensions and customizations that bring Vim to the point of being nearly as good, and better in some ways, than TextMate or RadRails. We're talking autocompletion, autoindention, syntax highlighting, abbreviations, and much much more. See this post (so useful to me that I mirrored it here) for how to tweak Vim for Rails development.

Ugly fonts in GTK 1.2 Apps

2006-12-30T13:41:00.000-06:00

In Ubuntu (and perhaps other distributions), the menus in GTK apps may have a huge, ugly, and nearly unreadable font.

To somewhat fix this, edit /etc/gtk/gtkrc.utf-8 and change the fontset definition.

style "default-text-better" {
fontset = "-bitstream-charter-medium-r-normal-*-*-100-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1,\
--bitstream-charter-medium-r-normal-*-*-100-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1"
}

class "GtkWidget" style "default-text-better"

This will fix the menus, at least.

Blogger Out of Beta

2006-12-29T23:36:00.000-06:00

At long last, labels! Now posts can actually be categorized! The blog layout designer is very nice as well.

The suite of applications now offered by Google is amazing. They are all well written, simple, and user friendly. I have only two more wishes. The ability to back up account data, and public key encryption for GMail.

RubyGems Error

2006-12-01T12:34:00.000-06:00

If you get this error when trying to install a gem:
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133: [BUG] Segmentation fault

Run "gem environment" to find the "gem path" (i.e. /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8 ) and delete the "source_cache" file located in that directory.

Work Timer

2006-11-13T10:50:00.000-06:00

I scratched an itch. Here's a simple task and time tracker written in Ruby.

Election Day Followup

2006-11-13T10:33:00.000-06:00

It is great to be a cynic and have fears proven to be false.

Election Day

2006-11-07T09:36:00.000-06:00

This is perhaps the most important day in recent memory. The results of today's election will affect the course of this nation and by proxy the world. Actually...one can only hope.

It is unfortunate that an opaque and untrustworthy voting system negates the democracy of the process. There are reports from Texas and Florida (go figure) about electronic voting systems switching Democratic votes to Republican. That's one hell of a bug, especially one-way. Not to mention that exit polling is not being done in many areas.

They say never to attribute malice to incompetence or stupidity...but yet again, cynicism colors my perception. I think it quite unlikely that the Democrats will win overall this election. Not that I particularly like the Democratic party, but the Republican party has done more to destroy the liberty of the American people than any of the enemies it has sworn to protect us from.

PHPMyAdmin Authentication Error

2006-11-06T12:43:00.000-06:00

Error: PHPMyAdmin - Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client.
Explanation: The user's password is stored on the server in the new password format.
Solution: In the server MySQL console: set password for user@host = OLD_PASSWORD('the_password');

Fedora Core 6

2006-11-05T01:18:00.000-06:00

I decided to give Fedora Core 6 a go since I had to reinstall Linux anyway.

My First Thoughts:

Installation isn't too bad...much better than the slow Ubuntu LiveCD
I've got a lot of tweaking to do.
These icons are HORRID!
Where are my Nautilus bookmarks??? Where is the side panel???

I went the whole way and installed my entire toolset, here's to trying this out for a bit. My install notes are here.

Hard Lessons Learned...again

2006-11-03T01:59:00.000-06:00

So yeah...I was trying to set up a VMWare virtual machine, and no matter what OS I tried to install, I would get errors. I poked around and noticed that a file in my /tmp directory was eating up ALL my disk space. A file with no owner...

Well, I can't delete it, so I go to single user mode...and still can't delete it. Oh joy!

Time to bust out the trusty Knoppix boot DVD. I run reiserfsck and find errors. Big surprise there. I run it again to fix and proceed to corrupt the partition even more. (Oh, by the way, this is my / partition, which is separate from my /home partition, thank god!!!). Of course the on-screen instructions DONT TELL YOU to --scan-whole-partition when you run reiserfsck --rebuild-tree ( it should be reiserfsck --scan-whole-partition --rebuild-tree /dev/hda1). So I proceeded to fubar my root partition beyond all recognition. Guess who didn't make backups???

I managed to clear space off my trusty 40GB IBM SCSI HD, and try to install Ubuntu Edgy Eft. 6 attempts later...I give up (due to some horrific installer bugs) and try Dapper Drake. I don't know what the hell is wrong with my box...but only the Xubuntu 6.06 installer worked. All the other installers hung at some point. Hey, maybe my RAM is bad. I'll start Memcheck before going to bed.

But anyway...my rant is coming to a close. Lesson learned...BACK UP YOUR SHIT. I had tweaked this box for almost 2 years running (thank you Debian/Ubuntu for in-place distro updates!) and I lost a LOT of config files...not to mention weeks of work logs, journal entries, and wiki entries stored in my /var/www folder.

Today sucked.

UPDATE: It was bad RAM.

The Joke of Airline Security

2006-10-29T01:07:00.000-06:00

From Wired:

Security researcher Christopher Soghoian created the Northwest Airline Boarding Pass Generator in the hope of spurring Congress to look closely at the nation's aviation security policies, which he calls "security theater."
The site lets anyone create a facsimile of a Northwest Airlines boarding pass, with whatever name they choose.

On Friday, Congress heard Soghoian's message loud and clear. But instead of promising to reform broken airport security procedures, Rep. Edward Markey (D- Massachusetts), a member of the House Homeland Security committee known for his defenses of privacy, wants the site shut down and Soghoian arrested.

A warrant was submitted, and the Feds broke down his door taking computers, etc. I guess it is a crime to point out that the emperor has no clothes. This "fake boarding pass generator" had nothing to do with computer security. Any 6 year old that can type on a keyboard could edit the HTML of an internet issued "boarding pass" and reprint it.

My point here is that the government really doesn't care about security. A state of fear is to be instilled in the populace, and limited token steps are taken to give the impression of security. Not only does this create a cycle of dependence on the powers that be for security, it is a slow path to the elimination of freedoms of the public and empowerment of the establishment.

Maybe I am just a cynic and see pretense and dissimulation in the place of stupidity, shortsightedness, and incompetence.

Merchanthound.com

2006-10-28T00:08:00.000-05:00

The Merchant Hound site is coming along quite nicely. Fun Ajax action, and very aggressive caching make for a fast enjoyable experience. I'd use the site myself if I bought anything online anymore. I am still working out some of the kinks in the page and database cache, so performance can be spotty at times, especially when I am committing changes for the day.

I fixed the XML product feeds today. They look beautiful on the Google feed reader.

Installing Java, the Ubuntu Way

2006-10-27T00:08:00.000-05:00

sudo apt-get install fakeroot java-package java-common
fakeroot make-jpkg --full-name "My Name" --email "me@example.com"
sudo dpkg -i sun-j2re1.5_1.5.0+update05_i386.deb
sudo update-alternatives --config java

Italian Sausage Soup

2006-10-27T00:07:00.000-05:00

Ingredients

2lb. italian sausage
1 onion sliced
2 cans stewed tomatoes
1 12oz can tomato sauce
3 raw potatoes julienne sliced
1 bag frozen vegetables (asian blend)
1 tsp. basil
3 tbs. parsley
1/4 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. onion salt
1 tsp. sugar
3 bay leaves

Directions

Brown meat
Combine ingredients in large pot
Add water to 1 1/2 in. of top of pot.
Bring to boil.
Simmer covered for 45 min. to 1 hr.

Serves …a lot of food

Quotes

2006-10-27T00:02:00.000-05:00

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-Theodore Roosevelt

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
-James Madison

Late Night Rambling

2006-10-26T23:52:00.000-05:00

There is far too much information, and far too many ways of storing it. I have a local blog and wiki, for sake of data ownership, but I would like to push data to the wider net as well to give back.

Everything I could possibly care to know and more is available due to the work of others, and it is a small effort to return the favor.

Cannot Install any Ruby Gems

2006-10-26T23:41:00.000-05:00

Problem: Error trying to install ANY gem.
Error Message:
ERROR: While executing gem … (Gem::GemNotFoundException)
Could not find rubyzip (> 0) in the repository
Solution: Delete source_cache file (run gem environment to find the Gems install location)

Rails Setup With Mongrel and Apache mod_proxy

2006-10-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

I set up Apache to proxy requests to the 3 Mongrel servers providing blogging, wiki, and todo list functionality.

This setup is for local access only.

Create mongrel system group and user

Place Rails applications in /var/www/mongrel

chown -R mongrel:mongrel /var/www/mongrel

Create mongrel initscript: /etc/init.d/mongrel and symlink to /etc/rc2.d/S99mongrel

#!/bin/bash
case $1 in
    start)
        port="12000" 
        for appdir in `ls /var/www/mongrel`; do            cd /var/www/mongrel/$appdir ;           echo " * Starting $appdir on port $port." 
           mongrel_rails start -d -e production -p $port                --user mongrel --group mongrel -a 127.0.0.1 ;            port=`echo "$port + 1" | bc`
        done
    ;;
    stop)
        for appdir in `ls /var/www/mongrel`; do            cd /var/www/mongrel/$appdir ;           echo -n " * Stopping $appdir..." 
           mongrel_rails stop ;         done
    ;;
    restart)
        for appdir in `ls /var/www/mongrel`; do             cd /var/www/mongrel/$appdir ;            echo -n " * Restarting $appdir..." 
            mongrel_rails restart ;         done
     ;;
esac

Start mongrel service and test

Add entries for 127.0.0.3 blog.localhost, 127.0.0.4 wiki.localhost, etc. to /etc/hosts

Enable mod_proxy (sudo a2enmod proxy)

Allow local proxy requests by modifying the /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/proxy.conf (Allow 127.0.0.0/255.255.255.0)

Add Listen 127.0.0.3:80, etc. to /etc/apache2/ports.conf

Create VirtualHosts entries for the servers in a new sites-enabled file (I used proxy)

NameVirtualHost wiki.localhost:80
<VirtualHost wiki.localhost:80>
    <Directory "/">
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    ProxyPass / http://localhost:12000/
</VirtualHost>

Restart Apache

Ruby on Rails

2005-12-28T14:43:00.000-06:00

...but still here.

My latest interest is Ruby on Rails. From a complete Ruby on Rails n00b to a custom, from scratch, multiple bank account balancing web app in less than 9 hours. Yeah, thats 9 hours INCLUDING reading, learning, debugging, etc. WOW!

The framework seems to be worth the hype.

VNC Server Setup on Ubuntu 4.10

2005-10-16T00:09:00.000-05:00

VNC Server Setup on Ubuntu 4.10
=====================================
$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.lst
# uncomment the unverse repository
$ sudo apt-get update && apt-get install vnc4server
$ sudo vi /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config
# change
allowed_users=console
to
allowed_users=anybody
$ sudo vi /etc/vnc.conf
# change
$XFConfigPath = "/etc/X11/XF86Config"
to
$XFConfigPath = "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
$ echo "gnome-session &" > vi ~/.vnc/xstartup
$ vncpasswd
# set password here
$ vncserver -geometry 1024x768 -depth 24 :1
$ vncserver -kill :1
# to kill vnc

VMware Error

2005-09-30T21:44:00.000-05:00

"Unable to change virtual machine power state: Failed to connect to peer process."

chmod o+x /opt/vmware/lib/bin/vmware-vmx

Perl Script to Convert CSV to Tab Delimited

2005-09-16T17:59:00.000-05:00

Converting commas to tabs is trivial: print s/,/\t/g;

Now, handling quoted commas makes it interesting, especially when the quotes are only present when necessary. I wrote this today as an exercise. Perl r0XX0r5!!!!

###
# csv2tab.pl
# Converts comma delimited text to tab delimited text
# Input from STDIN, output to STDOUT
# Note: any pre-existing tabs are converted to commas

while (<>) {
s/,/\t/g;
while (m/"[^\t"]+\t[^\t"]*"/g)
{ s/("[^\t"]+)\t/\1,/g; }
print;
}

###

Video Problems

2005-09-13T12:55:00.000-05:00

Apparently, there is a bug in old AMD implementations of the AGP specification, leading to instability and crashes. For example I have an ASUS A7M266 mobo with the AMD 760 Northbridge and the VIA VT82C686B South Bridge and an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4Ghz processor. This hardware combination prevents 3D games from working properly or at all without driver updates.

To fix, install: the latest BIOS, the VIA 4-in-1 chipset drivers (do not install the AGP driver), and the AMD AGP Miniport Driver.

This fixes problems in Windows, but in a linux install, you seem to be out of luck.

Parthenogenesis

2005-09-12T14:56:00.000-05:00

The Roslin Institute announced the creation of a human embryo without male genetic material.

Keep up the good work! It is a pity that so many people see an ethical problem with genetic and reproductive research.

Culpability

2005-09-12T14:01:00.000-05:00

Many people are blaming President Bush for the bungled response to the Katrina disaster for really stupid reasons. Here is a real one: his appointment of Michael Brown as FEMA director, a man with absolutely no disaster management experience (he was formerly the "Judges and Stewards Commissioner" of the International Arabian Horse Assoc). Mr. Brown resigned today in the face of his incompetence.

One must ask oneself how concerned our President is with the security and well being of the American people when he appoints such incompetents to important posts. Obviously Bush relies completely on the suggestions of his advisors. The blantant corruption and pork-barreling of the Administration is sickening and should be frightening to everyone. As they say: "If You're Not Outraged, You're Not Paying Attention!"

The culpability of the President of the actions or inaction of his appointees needs to be addressed.

A few words on the political spectrum...

2005-09-02T15:27:00.000-05:00

On one side lies the liberals, who want a federal government that cares for them, provides for them, and tells them no when they make fun of their friends, graciously relieves them of their dirty evil money to fund massive social programs, and has laws on the books for just about everything. The interests of individuals trump business, and the state always knows best regulating every last minuitae of business and private doings.

On the other side lies the conservatives, who want a government with few laws but those laws are enforced in a severely draconian fashion. This is a government with low taxes, but spends freely in overseas military and police action to impose the freedom of "Democracy." Business interest trumps individual, and in practice business runs the state.

Somewhere completely off on a tangent lies the libertarian who wants a very small government. One with minimal involvement, existing merely to facilitate the contruction of infrastructure and organize a militia to defend life, property, and borders. Taxes are negligible. In practice, business trumps all.

Of course this is theory and idealism. A more pragmatic point of view incorporates a little of all three.

Myself...I lean toward the latter.

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

New Orleans is in chaos. I can't say that I wouldn't be looting for supplies and guns myself, stuck in a flooded city without water, electricity or other means to acquire food. I would rather be out there than in the Superdome packed like sardines with 25,000 other people. The reports coming out of the Superdome seem quite dire as well. Not enough food, 2 bottles of water a day, no electricty or running water. One can only imagine the stench of 25,000 people in the humid New Orleans summer heat. It has been about 4 days these people have been stuck there. Gunfire has stalled evacuation from the Superdome.

Gas Prices

2005-09-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

Premium is over $3/gal. now, and unleaded at $2.95.

I told all my friends at the beginning of the year that we would be seeing this by years end. I wish I hadn't been right, I didn't think I would be right so soon.

Economically and politically, the United States is experiencing a "perfect storm." I just wonder how worse it will get, and I don't want to know. I am hating driving my V8 truck 20 miles to work and 20 miles back every day, it really hurts the wallet.

Where is our nuclear/hydrogen economy? That is the only sustainable solution for energy, as far as I see. I see banks of wind generators at sea powering the electrolysis of sea water supplementing nuclear power plants. Electricity for the home, hydrogen fuel cells for autos. Ship the nuclear waste to Antarctica.

Opera

2005-09-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

Opera was having their 10 year "anniversary party" and offered free registration codes for their browser. I took up the opportunity and installed Opera in Windows and Gentoo. WOW, I am a convert! This a a brower for a power user! The functionality built into this app is quite impressive. Normally I would consider this bloat, but the memory footprint of Opera is actually the same or less than Firefox!

The email client can be confusing at times, but I am now using it on my Gentoo box to check system mail, I am not fond of KMail. (Side Note: Opera does not support local maildir or mailspool so installing a local IMAP server was necessary. Courier-IMAP would not give me joy and I had little patience to fiddle with it, so Dovecot saved the day. Courier-IMAP is a powerful and extremely flexible IMAP server, but Dovecot "just works" with very very little configuration)

I never bothered trying Opera because I hate ads, I see now that I really wouldn't have cared.

From a Whitewash to Finger Pointing...

2005-08-26T16:23:00.000-05:00

A highly classified report was released detailing failures within the CIA before 9/11. At last there is some semblance of accountability, but who knows if the fingers are pointing in the right direction. More misdirection as I see it.

"...But a former intelligence official close to Mr. Tenet said Mr. Helgerson's team had failed to interview policy makers and intelligence officers outside the agency or to note that the agency was more focused on Al Qaeda than any other arm of government was before 2001." (article)

Google Earth

2005-08-26T16:17:00.000-05:00

I FINALLY got around to installing Google Earth on my WinXP partition. Simply amazing. The first time you zoom in on your house from space is mind-boggling. The community is amazing as well. I spent most of last night sight-seeing. =)

FedEx Furniture

2005-08-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

Furniture made from FedEx boxes... Wouldn't it be cheaper to go to a garage sale or goodwill. Cool nonetheless.

link

Thoughts on MS Vista

2005-08-26T11:57:00.000-05:00

Considering the hardware requirements of Vista, the majority of installations of the new Windows release will be preinstalled on new computers, rather than upgrades. An entrenched monopoly like Microsoft will have the upper hand here, an 800-ton gorilla upper hand

As for Linux competition with those taking the XP to Vista upgrade, Microsoft will need to flex its lock-in muscle. Such as with Vista-only IE feature updates, cooperation with online media outlets for Vista-only DRM, and incompatibily/reduced performance with OpenGL for games. Considering the high hardware requirements, again it seems that a consumer eying an upgrade to Vista will most likely purchase a new computer, as it will be a better value proposition. Of course the power user and enthusiast will mostly likely have the required hardware already and is probably dual booting with Linux.

Those that cannot afford the inevitable hardware and software upgrade for Vista will find Linux a very affordable and functional route.

The funtional improvements in Vista seem very debatable at this point. Businesses will ask themselves what ROI will materialize from an upgrade. Many business have not migrated from Windows2000 to XP as of yet. Case in point, I am writing this post from a Win2k machine, and there isn't a single install of XP at my business....by choice.

So in summary, my $0.02 is that the outlook for Linux migrations look quite rosy, and the majority of MS Vista installations will be new computer purchases. I forsee retail sales of Vista to be very disappointing.

Iran and Nuclear Power

2005-08-25T14:50:00.000-05:00

An interesting article about Iran pursuing nuclear energy. You might as well call this "The Economic Case for Nuclear Energy in Iran." Here is a nice quote from the article.

David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, speaking in November 2004 at a forum sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies said:
The first thing - of what we do know, and it's amazing how many Americans seem to skate over this - the first nuclear reactor given to Iran was given by the United States in 1967 - a five-megawatt trigger reactor, research reactor, under the Eisenhower Atoms for Peace Program. Still operated ... The other thing that Americans forget is that in 1974, the shah announced a policy of 23,000 megawatts of nuclear energy in Iraq. The US reaction? [Former US national security adviser and secretary of state] Henry Kissinger beat down the door to be sure that two US constructors, General Electric and Westinghouse, had a preferred position in selling those reactors. We did not say, "it's a stupid idea, why would you want to do that when you are flaring gas and you have immense oil reserves?" We said, "That is very interesting; it's an example of how the Iranian economy is moving and becoming modern." Imagine in Iranian ears how it sounds now when we denigrate that capacity. They remember. We were sellers of nuclear reactors and wanted to be sellers of nuclear reactors to the shah.

The Administration is showing the same kind of hypocrisy shown towards Iraq and it's "WMD"'s which were provided in-part by the US during the Iran-Iraq conflict.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program, CDC and congressional records from the early 1990s show. Iraq had ordered the samples, claiming it needed them for legitimate medical research." --USATODAY.COM (Another article here).

Google Talk

2005-08-25T08:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Google announced its "Google Talk" IM service which also offers voice communication. The service is Jabber based, no big surprise there. Finally an IM service I can depend not to break 3rd party client compatibility. I run Gentoo Linux, so have not tried the Windows native client, but Gaim works perfectly.

The service is obviously still in beta, so new features are bound to come. This will be necessary if Google wants to differentiate its service and expand its user base.

I would put money on that Google plans to place targeted ads in the chat window when the service comes out of beta.

US Pressure on Iran

2005-08-24T15:57:00.000-05:00

"The United States said that Iran should not be let off the hook although an independent probe has reportedly showed no evidence of clandestine atomic weapons activities in the Islamic republic."
Yahoo News

Here is more BS coming from the State Department. Iran's nuclear program is merely an excuse for war against Iran. Just as WMD's were for Iraq. An excuse and tool to instill fear and forward a neocon agenda. The US securing its worldwide interests is good and all, but the current implementation is unsustainable. Not to mention that the rhetoric is quite transparent.

Undoubtedly, Iran wishes to develop nuclear weapons. Just as Saddam desired to. What soverign nation wouldn't? (Key word here: sovereign) The US won't attempt to militarily intervene against a country with nukes. Case in point: North Korea. The problem in this case is that the US has little economic clout over Iran.

friggin SPAM!

2005-08-24T15:40:00.000-05:00

...I knew it would happen eventually.

A piece of spam made it into my inbox through the to-date quite excellent combination of postfix, procmail, clamav, spamassassin, and rules de jour. The culprit: the origination address was forged to be from my account! Well, it probably would have been marked as spam if I had not whitelisted my own domain.

...reasons for existence

2005-08-24T15:20:00.000-05:00

1. To archive opinions, news, tip-and-tricks.
2. Myspace.com sucks.
3. Pretty...so very pretty.

first post

2005-08-24T15:15:00.000-05:00

FIRST POST!