Firefox in Ubuntu 8.04

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

Using mDNS / Zeroconf / Avahi and Firestarter Firewall on Ubuntu

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

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

• apr-0.9.12-2.i386.rpm

• apr-util-0.9.12-1.i386.rpm

• subversion-1.4.6-1.i386.rpm

• ./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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is an excellent plugin to do all the magic.

URLs With file_column

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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