Category Archives: software

code is poetry

status

2008.08.03 – 12:37 pm PDT

It’s Sunday not a whole lot going on.  Pretty bored at the moment.  Gotta get to the gym by 3:30pm to get my full routine in.  I didn’t give myself enough time Friday night.  The dog likes me getting up earlier as of lately.  He gets to sun for a couple hours a day.  I’m kind of happy my VPS is back up.  I wasn’t looking forward to having to recreate everything somewhere else.

About an hour ago I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.6, and then fumbled around a few minutes looking for where to turn on Google Gears.  I think they could have put “Turbo” somewhere a little more obvious, maybe even give it an icon to stand out.  So far I guess the wp-admin seems a little quicker.  Not sure what to really test.  Looking at the Apache logs for my website, it definitely saves on server requests/bandwidth, which while isn’t necessary at this point, is still welcome.

I’ve been back to work about 2 weeks now.  Things are ok.  I’ve made a few correctable mistakes, created lots of documentation, tried to update really old software, and started using Microsoft Outlook with Exchange *shiver*.  It’s not that bad when kept in the cage of a virtual machine container.  Oi Vey, so another issue I’ve had to deal with that I’m not to thrilled about is software licensing.  I really just don’t care for it.  It makes things more complicated in that I can’t just install and configure the software I need, to make sure we own it, get the right software media which works for the install key and then input the correct number of client access licenses or processors.  Then of course I had to find and use a 3.5″ floppy disk to install 3rd party drivers to install M$ Server 2003 R2 on a Dell 1750 from almost 5 years ago.  It’s all new hardware to me :) but still seems to have the same M$ quirks I remember from back in the day.

Another new to me thing I’ve had to deal with is Quickbooks, WTF.  File locking, multiple users, slow as molases over the network.  I’ve had to correct the same issue at least 10 times now where I go over to the machine, attempt the task again, fail, then remote to the server, run the Quickbooks server app, find the company database _again_, re-attempt the task, fail, re find the company file, re-attempt the task, possibly succeed, then maybe tell it to stop “hosting” the multi-user access to files which are stored on the remote machine.  It’s messy, and scary to think that 15 years ago it was OK for programs to act that way.  In this day of age, software should just work, and if it doesn’t it should be open enough that someone with the spare time can take a look under the hood to advance things for all to enjoy.

By px | Also posted in WordPress, personal, thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

sox soxio: Failed reading : unknown file type

2008.06.27 – 5:08 pm PDT

I got this error on my Ubuntu system. It stuck me as odd because the script I had made, ran just fine previously.

sox soxio: Failed reading `hello-thank-you-for-calling.wav': unknown file type `raw'

Upon searching, I found that for some reason sox lost all it’s available formats.

$ sox
...
SUPPORTED FILE FORMATS: pls m3u

The following installed all the available file formats.

$ sudo apt-get install libsox-fmt-all
...
$ sox
...
SUPPORTED FILE FORMATS: 8svx aif aifc aiff aiffc al alsa ao au auto avi avr caf cdda cdr cvs cvsd dat dvms fap ffmpeg flac fssd gsm hcom ima ircam la lpc lpc10 lu m3u m4a mat mat4 mat5 maud mp2 mp3 mp4 mpg nist nul null ogg oss ossdsp paf pls prc pvf raw s1 s2 s3 s4 sb sd2 sds sf sl smp snd sndfile sndt sou sph sw txw u1 u2 u3 u4 ub ul uw vms voc vorbis vox w64 wav wmv wve xa xi

Here is the command my script was running to convert a text2wav file into a GSM encoded file for my Asterisk setup.

sox --show-progress -V1 hello-thank-you-for-calling.wav -r 8000 -c 1 -t gsm hello-thank-you-for-calling.gsm resample -ql
By px | Also posted in Ubuntu | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Blogger import

2008.06.20 – 9:36 pm PDT

So today I’ve just been trying to work on importing my blogs from Blogger to here. What a task. It’s a pain to spell check, browse over, then categorize each and every single entry into work comp, pain journal, or other, and there is no shortage of entries. Then try to figure out tagging of each post, if it requires any. I’m not having much luck and have had to restart a few times. Good thing I made a nice clean backup before playing around. Which I will have to create a new one after this post, seeing as it will be lost if I have to restore again.

By px | Also posted in WordPress, blogs | Tagged | Comments (0)

wordpress 2.5 release candidate

2008.03.18 – 1:54 am PDT

A couple hours ago the first release candidate for WordPress 2.5 was released and I felt the urge to test it out on here and write a quick post about it. I like the new color scheme in the dashboard.  Also the ability to add media to a post is quite cool.  Now it’s possible even easier, to link to most media types with a URL. (flickr, youtube, mp3)  Neat stuff!  Sadly attempting to link to a YouTube clip failed for me along with linking to an image URL.  Time to feed the testers mailing list, because the WYSIWYG editor is broken as well when attempting to create hyperlinks and couple other things.  Good thing it’s not difficult to create hyperlinks manually.  :)

2008.03.18 ^ wordpress 2.5_rc1 dashboard Screenshot

update: youtube link worked now after the post has been edited. hmm

super fast driving time

it’d be nice if the *tube/flv automagically embeded with a player.

By px | Also posted in WordPress, thoughts | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Firefox 3.0b4 under Ubuntu

2008.03.11 – 10:15 pm PDT

It’s pretty easy to try out the latest beta for users.  I’m sure it’s just as easy to try it out on other Linux distributions that are up to date.

2008.03.11 ^ Screenshot

Simply choose your language from the Firefox beta download page to begin your download.  Once completed open up a terminal and run the following commands.

# create a temporary directory if you do not already have one.
mkdir -p ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
# un package the tar ball.
tar -jxvpf /path/to/firefox-3.0b4.tar.bz2

Once the tar process completes

cd firefox
# Launch Firefox
./firefox

Or close your terminal session and launch via the ALT-F2 Run Application method.

~/tmp/firefox/firefox

This new instance of Firefox does not use any plugins which may be already installed on your system. You will need to download any plugins you use such as the Adobe Flash player to

~/tmp/firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so

By px | Also posted in Ubuntu, internet | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

OpenID + Wordpress = <3

2008.02.16 – 4:52 pm PST

The pun is a little late for Valentine’s day, but I just noticed and installed it today. There is a working OpenID plugin for Wordpress. My previous method for using with Wordpress failed and stopped working several months ago, I forget when, I even left the plugin sitting there broken and activated until I just now removed it. How bad is that? haha, but anyways. You should also drop any old OpenID related tables from your database before enabling the new plugin. Enjoy the OpenID + Wordpress = <3 and always remember to back your database often.

By px | Also posted in WordPress, blogs | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

transitional title of importance

2008.02.01 – 12:37 am PST

Today I decided that I would import my LiveJournal posts. This process started off with manually exporting each month which contained a post. Taking breaks every 30-40 minutes this took me about 3 hours. The next part of my monumental task of importing took the longest thus far. A reason it took so long though was due to the pinging process happening for each post after it was imported. Once realized and turned off after completing about half of the data set, it only took me another 45 minutes importing each month. Holy crap is it a manual task to get information out of LiveJournal and into something else like Wordpress.

I imported roughly 700+ posts, and now have begun the task of categorization, tagging, spell checking, and filtering. Even if I attempt to break up the task into about 100 posts/day, I expect this to take the longest as there isn’t any quality plugins for mass post property editing in Wordpress. I don’t think it imported any of the comments, which is unfortunate, but fine as I rarely ever received comments.

It’s interesting reading and going over stuff that happened to me so many years ago. The earliest bit of information I now have is from July 2002.

Here is my tip to give to the community.  One key thing to remember is the more plugins you have activated in your Wordpress installation the slower it will function.  Before attempting such a task yourself, disable all unnecessary plugins you have.  This will save a tremendous amount of load time off each page/edit/task you attempt.

By px | Also posted in WordPress, blogs, personal | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Terrific Tuesday, take 4 3/4

2007.12.11 – 9:35 pm PST

This is now the 6th time I’ve attempted writing this post over the last 2 hours not including breaks. I was fighting some bad behavior, a funky Wordpress plugin which had become outdated and needed to be updated.

I had the first post-op visit with my this afternoon. After waiting in the waiting room, and then a briefly some x-rays of my neck were taken, then more waiting. The surgeon, Dr Jon White, came in and took the tape off the wound, and said it looked great, and proceeded to show me the x-rays on his laptop. Very neat. He discussed the hardware that now occupies my neck, and said that I will begin physical therapy soon. I hope soon is the operative word here. Ahh progress is still progress, which is nice. I ask him if I could drive and how much I should move my neck, and was then on my way back home.

A week without shaving left me with a full beard. Shaving with a new thing on my neck was a task to get used to. The wound just feels funny to me, so I avoided it while shaving in the shower with out a fog free mirror.

Outside of my neck feeling a bit stiff, and the low back I’m feeling great.

PS.  I got the new Futurama Movie today in my Netflix if anyone is interested in seeing it on my big screen.

By px | Also posted in WordPress, personal, thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

a switch to ubuntu.

2007.10.23 – 2:31 pm PDT

A couple days ago I accidentally(and I did the first step of it on accident, truthfully. ) switched the on my ’s laptop from Windows XP Home*barf*, to . In that process I later decided to try out the encrypted drive option on the alternative install CD. With little hesitation after I decided on moving my ~/ stuff over from my Gentoo system running on a to the new Ubuntu system I easily setup for my dad. I was running a drive over usb which is only practical for so long, it really makes the drive feel slower to me. The only major configuration issue I had with the move was that not all my buttons were working the way I like them to. With a quick edit, by adding a new Input Device section to my xorg.conf, I was content.

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "USBMouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 8 9"
    Option         "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7 10 11"
EndSection

I wonder why this isn’t standard info for the Microsoft Intelimouse Optical USB/PS2 when it’s found plugged into my system.
I also gave him the Windows XP Home in a innotek virtualbox so he can run a certain proprietary piece of software which he needs.

By px | Also posted in Gentoo, Ubuntu, hardware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

The way home.

2007.09.27 – 4:00 am PDT

Here I am again on the road. Still my dad is driving home. Only 1.5 hours to go. We’re almost to Tuscon. I can tell from the construction on the highway right before it opens up into 3 lanes.

Why does the auto complete want to end almost ever word with a “typing ing”?
ion Completioning typinging almosingredient hmm.
That killed a few minutes. We’re now in Tuscon. Passing exit 248, almost to where the major construction is at. My dad just hit some debris on the road. It scared the crap outta him. ;)

I actually kinda like using this thing to blog while on the road. should try out Maemowordpy, and Canola on his Nokia 800 when he gets his. He got it.(I wonder if he’ll take up my suggestion on the software?)

BTW.. if I haven’t said it all before, I’ll say it again… Someone needs to get a bluetooth headset/headphones working with these internet tablets, then it could be a podcasting blogstation too. Very neat indeeding. Hehe. I bet the sound quality would be quite remarkable with even a crappy headset. I wonder how how long it will be before it happens, it’s only a matter of time as I’m pretty sure it’s already been thought up.

Killing time still… Exit 268 now. Not a lot of traffic. It’s nice. Ok enough random stuff, time to save. Iwish the default save filename for Maemowordpy was better than “File”. If it merely had a date and time and smarter save and re-open process it would be so much more functional for everyday folk. Ok done for real this time… Savinging

We got home about 1/2hour ago. Total trip tine, 36 hours and change. 22 driving. 12 in the hotel. 2 at the doctor’s office. The doctor appointment went pretty good by the way.

By px | Also posted in internet, personal, thoughts, travel | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Yet another reason to visit California

2007.09.24 – 5:28 pm PDT

Current Mood:Important emoticon Important & Sad emoticon Sad

Well I just got the utilization-review back and they only approved surgery for one level in my neck, not the two that was suggested by the 2 independent surgeons I had seen.

I have an appointment with my this Weds at 4:15pm so that means another lovely fast paced 1200+ mile drive to California and back in two days time. *sigh*

I really need to live in California again, this is ridiculous.

My birthday is Sunday the 30th, happy birthday to me.

And on another note, my blog is broken (behind the scenes) thanks to my attempts at messing around with SQL last night, hopefully I will remember to try and fix the issue once Wordpress 2.3 is out.

By px | Also posted in WordPress, personal, travel | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

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