Sun, 21 Aug 2005
Planning to Fail - Projects Beyond Your Ability
Do Cool Shit
Every Damn Day
Or Die Trying
From
Tom Peters.
In an attempt to do just that, well the first two bits anyway, I'm currently planning my next project; this one is a little different, I know I'm going to fail. It's not very often you embark on a project not to succeed but to see where and how you screw it up. Sometimes a challenge is just too big and outside of your area of expertise. It makes sense to try with a realistic expectation, limited investment, a strict time limit and treat the whole thing as a learning experience rather than either waste resources or not attempt it at all.
While this isn't a situation I ever want to be in as an employee, I'm quite looking forward to learning how far I'm going to get before I lock myself in to a corner and have to call it a day. The excitement of trying something new is always welcome. And it will be (IMHO) cool.
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Posted: 2005/08/21 23:56 | /nottech | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Vim URL Shortener Update
I've made a couple of small changes to my Vim URL Shortener
script. It now uses WWW::Shorten instead of WWW::MakeAShorterLink,
it's documentation has been tided up a bit and the vim script now
replaces all occurrences of the selected URL in a single sweep. It's not a major
upgrade so don't rush to update.
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Posted: 2005/08/21 23:35 | /tools/commandline | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Blosxom TagCloud -- Initial Release
Ever wanted a tag cloud of your Blosxom posts? With just this
blosxom_tagcloud.pl
script (and three Perl modules from CPAN) you can have one that
integrates itself with your Blosxom footer and even allows easy merging
of the tag cloud and any static text/HTML you've used in the past.
I've uploaded the initial version of the code and I've put up a Blosxom TagCloud page with some more information.
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Posted: 2005/08/21 00:26 | /tools/commandline | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sat, 20 Aug 2005
CPAN Search - 100 results per page Greasemonkey Script
I've put another little chunk of JavaScript up in the Unixdaemon Greasemonkey
Script repository. This one has makes the CPAN search show 100 results per page. The
full CPAN
Search - 100 results per page script is now available under the GPL.
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Posted: 2005/08/20 18:55 | /tools/online | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Thu, 18 Aug 2005
Geo::Google -- Pretty Good
I've been having a fiddle with the Geo::Google perl module
today, the simple explanation is that the module performs geographical
queries using Google Maps. And it works well. Just it's not very
accurate...
Geo::Google takes an address and returns a longitude and latitude from Google Maps. With these you can create points on your own GMap applications. After feeding it a dozen addresses with different levels of completeness (full postcode, partial postcode, city and town, just city etc.) I'm not that impressed with it's accuracy when putting locations on the map. I'm not sure if it's my sample data set or just that the UK data isn't that great but every location I've passed in has been it's off by a fair way. Still that's a GMaps problem, the module itself works fine.
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Posted: 2005/08/18 23:40 | /tools/commandline | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Unixdaemon.net Upgrades
I've just finished upgrading the server that hosts my mail and websites
from Debian woody to sarge. The upgrade itself was pretty painless (except
for apache vanishing...) and should now allow me to install modern perl
modules without a lot of messing around. If you've tried to mail me and got
a bounce then please retry, everything should be working again now. Of
course if it isn't then you can't email me to let me know anyway ;)
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Posted: 2005/08/18 18:29 | /meta | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Mon, 15 Aug 2005
Redirect SecurityFocus Articles to Print Version
I've added another little Greasemonkey script, this
time for SecurityFocus. If you navigate to an article it'll notice and
shunt you to the printer friendly version instead. This way you get the
whole thing on one page and drop the adverts. It's called SecurityFocus
PrinterFriendly Articles and it's ready for use.
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Posted: 2005/08/15 20:49 | /tools/online | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
All About The Girl
This isn't one of my usual postings, if you're here just for the tech then
hit delete now. You've been warned.
Every now and again you meet someone that simply shines. A person that makes your spirit soar by walking in the room and can brighten your day with but a casual smile. If you're very fortunate, you'll spend time together and she'll be someone who continues to grow in your estimation while you worry ever more about how you appear in hers. It's the spending time together part that makes things different. With enough effort and motivation anyone can be made to appear pretty, but it's the rare few who, under close scrutiny, are as beautiful inside as out. And those few are truly gifts to us.
If you're really lucky then you'll be blessed with two things, besides meeting them at all. Firstly you'll notice the person and realise what a pleasure spending time with them is while you're still in a position to enjoy it. Secondly, she'll feel the same. This one's the rub, does she feel the same? Who knows! Who cares? Everyone likes to be told how wonderful they are don't they? But what if it's all one way? Will I screw the friendship up by being selfish and spilling my guts? Can a friendship survive one party wondering what if? Will she just feel awkward afterwards? Is the risk of not spending any more time with her worth the risk of finding out?
My advice? Say something. Anything! But never let the chance slip through your fingers due to your own insecurites and uncertainties, it'll bug the heck out of you. I did that. I'm an idiot. But we knew that.
This post might explain why my productivity has taken a bit of a dive lately, my hearts not really been in the technology. Hopefully normal service (with all the usual grammatical errors :)) will resume shortly.
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Posted: 2005/08/15 00:21 | /nottech | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 14 Aug 2005
O'Reilly Advocating del.icio.us?
I'm a big del.icio.us fan, it's saved me storing my bookmarks in three
different formats and provides easy access from anywhere; all for free.
I was however surprised to see "Bookmark with del.icio.us" links in the
articles on both
O'Reilly's ONLamp and perl.com sites. Still anything that gets the
service more exposure can't be a bad thing.
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Posted: 2005/08/14 20:49 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
use.perl.org Nesting Comments Using Greasemonkey
I like use.perl.org and mostly use it
to read the journals. I don't like to login in and I don't like having
to expand the comments so I can see them all in one page. So I wrote the use.perl.org nested
comments greasemonkey script. And now I don't have to :)
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Posted: 2005/08/14 20:47 | /tools/online | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sat, 13 Aug 2005
O'Reilly Articles - Print Friendly Version and Greasemonkey
I've been doing some fiddling with Greasemonkey recently (I need to
buy a modern book on JavaScript, mine are all four/five years old and the
landscape has some what changed!) and I've found some quite useful user
scripts. My favourite one so far is a mostly innocuous script called theO'Reilly Network
Printer Friendly Redirect. It does pretty much what you'd expect,
instead of getting an article cut across four or five pages it shows the
complete version in a single page. Simple, free and damn neat.
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Posted: 2005/08/13 12:06 | /tools/firefox | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Thu, 04 Aug 2005
Linux Emporium Visit
For years now when I've needed a bundle of CD's done quickly and I can't
be bothered to do the whole thing myself I've used the Linux Emporium.
They are cheap, quick and know their market. Today I was lucky enough to
meet the man who runs it and see part of the operation (a pretty big CD
duplicator!)
Steve is doing a lot of the thankless leg-work and maintaining the infrastructure we're going to be using (including the wireless network I'm posting this through) and he deserves some kudos for his efforts. Or failing that just buy things from him!
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Posted: 2005/08/04 23:59 | /events | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
The (Almost) calm before the storm.
The UKUUG tutorials are usually both top notch and start too early for
most people to travel to the venue on the day. At every conference past
the first one attended the people with more understanding bosses, or in
my case holiday time, travel up on the day before and camp down for an
early start. Or at least that's the plan...
After being given the run around by some well meaning but uninformed staff, "I'm here to register for the conference." "How is it?" "Um... I'll let you know. WHEN IT'S OVER!", and finding our cell like rooms (they're cheap, have beds and showers so they'll do) a group of about a dozen people headed off to discover wireless internet access. And then gave up and went to the pub instead.
The pub conversations at the start of the conference are always a laugh, the topics vary a lot, personalities shine through and the Debian people prove they can handle their drink. Again ;) The next four days should be interesting.
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Posted: 2005/08/04 13:53 | /events | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Mon, 01 Aug 2005
EuroOSCON - Not on my Budget!
OSCON in the US is one of the premier OpenSource events. While I've
never actually been to one, it seems to attract a lot of top notch
speakers and, judging from the blog posts written in the aftermath, an
interesting and diverse audience of smart people. I was seriously
considering going to the US version this year (the dollar vs sterling
exchange rate is very favourable at the moment and I've never been to
the US) but I decided to hold out for the European OSCON instead. I
think that was a mistake.
First up lets look at *the* most important factor, the cost. The hotel is 190 euros a night. I can deal with that; just sleep in a hostel like we did at the first FOSDEM ;) Hell one of the big Linux Conferences rented a hall people could put sleeping bags in to keep it cheap. Next up is the conference itself; 1120.00 euros for the convention sessions and two tutorials. Now I've got two issues here and I'll approach them separately .
First up is the cost of attending a conference most of the European OpenSource people don't know that much about. Will it be good? Probably. Are you willing to bet over 2000 euros on it? Will it be 2000 euros good? I understand and appreciate that hosting an event is a lot of work and costs a fair bit (I only organised two GLLUGs of about 60 people each and I needed a break afterwards!) but I'm a believer in building things up, by making the (monetary) barrier to entry so high a lot of the more interesting people won't be able to afford it. LinuxTag is a good example of a huge conference that manages to keep things cheap. It's also one of the few European conferences that's as big as OSCON in the US.
Secondly what's the hook that makes me want to pay out that much money? Now I can understand that as an OpenSource person that doesn't work for a big company I'm not the ideal target market, I guess they want more business backed people as attendees rather than grassroots, but there should still be a draw. They have a number of good speakers. A lot of whom I've seen at other, more grass root events. As I've not been to an OSCON in the US I might be missing something but from the conversations I've had with people from different Linux, BSD and Perl user groups both on and off-list they're missing it as well. And that's not a good sign.
Each year I normally attend the UKUUG Summer Linux conference, the UKUUG Winter Conference, FOSDEM, a couple of one day shows like Linux World, the London Perl Workshop and OpenTech, and I try to get to YAPC::Europe. The scary thing is all those together cost less than EuroOSCON would (I admit a number of those are in London but the events cost about 250 a time including accommodation; the UKUUG are excellent at this. Even including more travel costs it's still pretty reasonable. As for the first ever EuroOSCON it looks like I'll have to read the posts that come out from the audience and hope it gets cheaper.
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Posted: 2005/08/01 19:43 | /events | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
AJAX Blogpost Title Search
As an experiment I've put together a simple AJAX(ish, it uses '|' separated
values) based search tool for finding words I've used in the title of my
Blogpost. The beta version can be found on the Blog Title AJAX Search
page.
If you type in a couple of letters, such as ope, then it should (it's case-insensitive) match anything with the word open in it for example. The results will then be shown as hyperlinks on the same page without forcing a refresh. If you add or remove letters then it'll update the matches as appropriate. Please note it's a little slow as it's doing a lot of look ups at the back-end. That's a known problem with my example. Still it does what I wanted and it introduced me to AJAX so I'm pretty happy with it.
If you don't run JavaScript or you press return then it just runs the query through google, limiting the results to unixdaemon.net, as usual. That should guaranty that older browsers can still use the page, just in a limited fashion.
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Posted: 2005/08/01 10:35 | /unixdaemon | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
O'Reilly Text ISBN to Amazon.co.uk Linker -- Greasemonkey
I got bored of having two windows open and having to copy the ISBN from
the O'Reilly site, tab to the amazon.co.uk window, paste in to the search
box and press return. And when I was looking at more than a single book it
got worse... So in a fit of laziness that cost me two hours I wrote my
first Greasemonkey user script; which I called O'Reilly
ISBN Link2Amazon.co.uk. The script is pretty simple, it replaces the
plain text ISBN on the O'Reilly catalog pages with a link to the book at
Amazon.co.uk
My JavaScript is terrible and so it took way too long for me to put together and it's got a very hacky ISBN extractor. It'd be better with a two phase approach, the first one with something like ([\w|\d|-]*) and then the second one to remove the hyphens. But I couldn't get that to work. I'll go back and tidy the regex up when I work out enough of the language to make it do The Right Thing. Oh for a perl interpreter...
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Posted: 2005/08/01 00:23 | /tools/online | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Copyright © 2000-2005 Dean Wilson
