Ry4an's Un-Blog

UnBlog/2010-04-15

2010-06-08T04:36:06Z

correct host key this time

== Mercurial Remote Test Runner via Push ==

I heard someone in IRC saying that the mercurial test suite was bogging
down theirlaptop, so I set up a quick push-test service for the mercurial
crew.  If you're in crew and you do a push to
{{{ssh://hgtester@ry4an.org:2222/}}} these steps
will be taken:

 1. a local clone of the crew repo is updated from intevention.de
 1. a new, disposable local clone is created from that crew clone
 1. your csets are pushed to that new clone
 1. the working directory is updated to 'tip'
 1. a build is done
 1. the test suite is run
 1. the build and results show up in your stdout
 1. the new clone (and your pushed csets) are deleted

It's on a reasonably fast, unloaded box so the test suite runs in about 3
mins 30 seconds.  Thanks to ThomasAH for providing the crew pubkeys.  If
you're not in crew and want to use the service please contact me and
convince me you're not going to write a test that does a "rm -rf ~",
because that would completely work.

Unfortunately, the output is getting buffered somewhere so there's no
output after "searching for changes" for almost 4 minutes, but the final
output looks as attached.

The machine's RSA host key fingerprint is: ac:81:ac:0b:47:f4:20:a1:4d:7e:6a:c5:62:ba:62:be. (updated 2010/06/07)

The scripts can be viewed here: http://bitbucket.org/Ry4an/hgtester/

If all that was jibberish, we now return you to your regularly scheduled
silence.

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  output after "searching for changes" for almost 4 minutes, but the final
  output looks as attached.
  
- The machine's RSA host key fingerprint is: 82:b7:1a:26:aa:1d:95:1e:e8:af:7c:e4:21:13:ae:18. (updated 2010/06/07)
+ The machine's RSA host key fingerprint is: ac:81:ac:0b:47:f4:20:a1:4d:7e:6a:c5:62:ba:62:be. (updated 2010/06/07)
  
  The scripts can be viewed here: http://bitbucket.org/Ry4an/hgtester/

UnBlog/2009-09-17

2009-11-09T21:12:20Z

typo (thanks pmezard)

== Remote Repository Creation for Mercurial Over HTTP ==

I park in the {{{#mercurial}}} IRC channel a lot to answer
the easy questions, and on that comes up often is, ''"How
can I create a remote repository over HTTP?"''.  The answer is:
''"You can't."''.

Mercurial allows you to create a repository remotely using ssh
with a command line like this:
{{{
hg clone localrepo ssh://host//abs/path
}}}
but there's no way to do that over HTTP using either
{{{hg serve}}} or {{{hgweb}}} behind Apache.

I kept telling people it would be a '''very''' easy CGI to write,
so a few months back I put my time where my mouth was and did it.

{{{
#!/bin/sh

echo -n -e "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n"

mkdir -p /my/repos/$PATH_INFO
cd /my/repos/$PATH_INFO
hg init
}}}

That gets saved in {{{unsafecreate.cgi}}} and pointed to by Apache
like this:

{{{
ScriptAlias /unsafecreate /path/to/unsafecreate.cgi
}}}

and you can remotely invoke it like this:

{{{
http://your-poorly-admined-host.com/unsafecreate/path/to/new/repo
}}}

That's littered with warning about its lack of safety and bad
administrative practices because you're pretty much begging for
someone to do this:

{{{
http://your-poorly-admined-host.com/unsafecreate/something%3Brm%20-rf%20
}}}

Which is not going to be pretty, but on a LAN maybe it's
a risk you can live with.  Me?  I just use ssh.

At the time I first suggested this someone chimed in with
[http://paste.lisp.org/display/80442#2 a cleaned up version]
in the original pastie, but it's no
safer.


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  and you can remotely invoke it like this:
  
  {{{
- http://your-poorly-admined-host.com/unsafecrete/path/to/new/repo
+ http://your-poorly-admined-host.com/unsafecreate/path/to/new/repo
  }}}
  
  That's littered with warning about its lack of safety and bad

UnBlog/2008-09-01

2008-09-01T06:00:28Z

== Grand Central Direct Dialer ==

I'm a huge fan of [http://grandcentral.com Grand Central]'s call
screening features.  It's irksome, however, that they make it hard
to dial outward -- sending your GC number instead of your cell
number as the caller id.  To do so you need to first add the target
number to your address book, and often I'm calling someone I don't
intend to call again often.

I started scripting up a way around that when I saw someone
named Stewart
[http://groups.google.com/group/grandcentral-help-poweruser/msg/cd920e04d8a70de0 already had].

I wanted to be able to easily dial outbound from my cellphone, so I created
a [http://ry4an.org/gcdial mobile friendly web form] around his script.
The script requires info you should never give out (username, password, etc.),
so you should really [attachment:gcdial.pl download the script] and run it
on your own webserver.

It also generates a bookmarklet you can drag to your browser's toolbar
that will automatically dial any selected/highlighted phone number from
your GC Number. 

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UnBlog/2008-08-10

2008-08-10T22:25:36Z

== Sasha Megan Bauer Brase ==

On July 29th, Kate gave birth to Sasha Megan Bauer Brase.  Details and
photos are on [http://sasha.brase.com her site].

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UnBlog/2008-05-31

2008-05-31T21:53:05Z

== Home Carbonator ==

Last year I [http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001818.php read about home carbonation],
and looking at the amount of club soda Kate and I buy it made sense.  The only unknown
was where to put the ugly tank that would be out of sight yet still convenient to use.

Months later coworkers and I were at the [http://www.redstagsupperclub.com Red Stag],
which carbonates their own sparkling water, and talked about doing the same at the office.
I still didn't act until a friend got a [http://www.sodaclub.com soda club] machine as
a gift.

This weekend I (or actually Kate since I was running late) went to
[http://www.northernbrewer.com Northern Brewer] and picked up
parts {{{K003}}}, {{{KX03}}}, and {{{K026}}} to build the setup below.  It really
does work as easy as the first article promises, and the price including the purchase
of a tank came to $200 total.  So far the best thing we've carbonated was orange juice,
but I'm looking to try some fruit purees soon.

attachment:carbonator.jpg

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UnBlog/2008-01-18

2008-01-18T07:35:08Z

== Misc. Projects Including A Baby ==

To look at this long neglected unblog one would thing I've stopped doing
things, but quite the contrary there's been so very much doing of things
that there's been no time for posting.  In no particular order we
have:

 * ''Installed a home security system'' -- No particular need, but I've always enjoyed alarms and now our home has an RSS feed
 * ''Installed an electric garage door opener'' -- No more brushing off the car in the morning after a snow.  Granted it's still powered by an extension cord running from the basement, but hey so goes it.
 * ''Installed nifty [http://ibuttonlock.com iButton electronic locks]'' -- Now the same key opens every door to which I've got access including the Swarmcast offices.  
 * ''Un-finshed the basement'' -- wool insulation and moisture: a winning combination.  The project included a fun trip to the city trash transfer station.
 * ''Remodeled the kitchen'' -- I did almost no actual labor on this excepting some tile installation with Kate, the adding of rolley shelves in the pantry, and having to eat out for four straight months.

Add to those minor projects some time spent on general upkeep of an 85 year old
home, scouts and a decidedly non-zero number of hours spent at work, and it
becomes clear that what Kate and I need is a baby.

Kate's due on July 28th, and we're very excited.

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UnBlog/2007-06-19

2007-06-19T16:46:32Z

== Autobahn Accelerator for iTunes ==

My company, [http://swarmcast.com Swarmcast], announced one of our first public releases today.  Previously we've been primary selling to content providers, but now we're putting out a user facing free release.  If you download our [http://getautobahn.com Autobahn Accelerator for iTunes] you'll find your purchases from the iTunes music store come down three to ten times faster than they did before.  We'll be adding support for lots of other sites (you tube, etc.) in upcoming weeks.

Sadly we've got a MacOS version done, but the installation was deemed too clumsy for the polished Mac experience, so we'll have to wait a few weeks to get that out.  Windows only for now (says this Linux user).

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UnBlog/2007-02-22

2007-02-23T04:36:35Z

== Customer Service Call Log ==

Between telecom troubles, warranty repairs, botched on line orders,
and marriage related changes in insurance, mortgage, and bank accounts
I've spent a lot of time on the phone with customer service
representatives lately.  Few issues get resolved in a single call and
even fewer without a transfer to another office.

I put together a sheet to keep track of who I spoke to, when, how to
get back to them, and what they promised me.  Now I grab one whenever
I'm about to dial a 1-800 number to talk to the almost-friendly,
nearly-helpful people on the other end.  Besides the convenience of
being able to say "On January 21st at 3pm Janice, CSR number JA5692,
told me she'd ship the replacement !FedEx overnight," representatives
seem on their best behavior when you start out every interaction asking
for their name and customer representative number.

[attachment:customer-service-log.pdf printable form]

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UnBlog/2007-02-14

2007-02-14T06:33:55Z

== View Any Simon Delivers Order ==

I forwarded a Simon Delivers order receipt email on to a friend, and
he was able to view the order without being logged in as me.  Turns
out that if you have a Simon Delivers account at all they let you view
any order.  I created a [http:/simon/view quick web form] to let
anyone view any order using my account.  Here's my favorite order so
far:

|| Qty|| Item Name|| Each||
|| 1|| Cetaphil Moisturizing Lotion|| $10.99||
|| 2|| Coke Diet - 24/12 oz. Cans|| $7.49||
|| 2|| Dr Pepper Diet - 24/12 oz. Cans|| $7.49||
|| 2|| Hershey's Milk Chocolate Candy Bars - 6 ct.|| $3.49||
|| 2|| Life Savers Wintergreen Flavored - Individually Wrapped - Bag|| $1.89||
|| 1|| Nabisco Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies|| $3.79||
|| 1|| Nestea Cool Lemon Iced Tea Fridge Pack - 12/12 oz. Cans|| $4.19||
|| 2|| Pepsi - 24/12 oz. Cans|| $7.49||
|| 2|| Pepsi 8/12 oz. Bottles|| $3.69||
|| 1|| Seven-Up - 12/12 oz. Cans|| $4.19||
|| 2|| Seven-Up Diet - 12/12 oz. Cans|| $4.19||
||<-3)> Sale amount: $87.62||
||<-3)> Sales tax: $6.81||
||<-3)> Total: $101.43||

I'm sure fixing this problem is simple as adding whatever the .asp
equivalent of this is:

{{{
if (currentUser != order.user) {
    return;
}
}}}

Funny, though.

If you [http:/simon/view try you own] and stumble across any funny ones
put the order number in the comments.

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UnBlog/2007-02-11

2007-02-12T06:09:07Z

== Alarm System ==

My favorite book in the Wren Hollow Elementary school library was
''The Gadget Book'' by Harvey Weiss.  I must have checked it out a
hundred times during the second and third grade and tried to build
most of the half-practical projects it detailed.  The best among them
was the burglar alarm.  It used wooden blocks, a door hinge, and a
strip of metal to make a simple normally-open contact switch.  It was
the first electrical work I ever did and almost certainly shaped my
interests and career path.

As a winter (read: indoor) project I decided to install a security
system.  Our system at the office uses [http://dsc.com DSC] components
and works well enough, so I used the same.  I bought a Power 632 panel
[http://homesecuritystore.com/ on line] along with some wired and
wireless contact switches, and keypad.  The only difficultly during
installation was routing the wire for the keypad from upstairs to
downstairs where it couldn't be seen.  Programming was nothing like
modern computer programming.  Bits and bytes were entered directly
into numbered memory registers by toggling boolean flags and entering
hex characters on the keypad.  It was oddly fun.

Everything's working quite well.  We've got a bevy of contact, motion,
and temperature sensors.  We can arm/disarm from the keypad or using
the wireless remote keys on our key chains.  For monitoring I went with
[http://nextalarm.com next alarm] and they even make an RSS feed
available (though only through yahoo, so I had to fake the User-Agent:
HTTP header);

attachment:alarm-rss.png

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UnBlog/2007-01-22

2007-01-23T04:15:35Z

== Trash Can Snorkel ==

This one's dumb.  We've got the same trash can that everyone who shops
at Target has.  The inner removable pail is handy for keeping spills
from pouring out the foot pedal hole, but its air-tight nature creates
quite the vacuum when you're trying to pull the bag out.

[http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-11/qid=1169524414/ref=sr_1_11/602-0868447-3796659?ie=UTF8&asin=B000JT7N7A http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000JT7N7A.16._SCLZZZZZZZ_SS260_V38540904_.jpg]

After ripping the handles off yet another Glad bag trying to get it out
of the pail I went to get a drill to poke an air hole in the bottom --
leak proof be damned.  Next to the drill I saw a piece of 3/4" plastic
tubing, which I ran from the top of the inner pail to the bottom.

[http://ry4an.org/pictures/web/cimg0280 http://ry4an.org/photos/web/cimg0280.thumb.jpg]

After a trash day that left the bag handles intact I can report that the
hose allows air in without requiring new holes.  Future trash pails
should have top to bottom air ducts molded into them.  Trashcan
manufacturers please to be getting on that right now.

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UnBlog/2006-12-07

2006-12-08T06:24:29Z

== The Death of the Har Mar Theater ==

Years ago I had a bad movie viewing experience I can't actually recall
at Har Mar Theater in Roseville.  As an experiment in how rumors spread
and as mild revenge I decided that every time someone mentioned the Har
Mar Theater I was going to let them know that once a rat ran across my
foot while I was watching a movie there.  It's not true, but I figured
it was a story that people would pass on to friends.

In six years of spreading that story at least fifty times I'm sad to say
that I never once heard about rats at the Har Mar Theater from anyone,
nor did I ever tell someone my story and have them mention they'd heard
a similar story elsewhere.

Still, in the end I'm victorious.  As [http://mcgoose.com Sarah] let me
know yesterday,
[http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/16171478.htm the Har Mar Theater is closing].
I'm pretty sure that I (and not the new megaplex opening across the
highway) am singularly responsible for this happy turn of events.

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UnBlog/2006-11-28

2006-11-29T01:32:05Z

== Whole House Humidifier ==

This weekend I put in a Honeywell 360A whole house humidifier.  The
instructions said it should take an hour, and it only took me four.
Nothing went wrong, which what you hope for when a project means
cutting holes in your duct work, tapping into your water, and some
wiring.  Now when we wake up our throats don't hurt.

attachment:IMG_1153.jpg

attachment:IMG_1154.jpg

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UnBlog/2006-10-27

2006-10-27T22:21:33Z

fixed links

== The Wedding Planned With Bugzilla ==

If things have been a little sparse around here over the last year or
so it's because outside of work the bulk of my organizational and
creative energies have been going into the planning of our wedding.

The wedding was this weekend, and everything was spectacular. Photos
and details can be found on the
[http://kateandry4an.org wedding website].

I've come away from the wedding planning experience with this advice
for guys: Don't bother helping; no one but your finance/wife will
believe you've done anything, and she's already in love with you.

Kate and I got no end of comments and jokes predicated on the notion
that the guy never does anything to help with the wedding, and despite
her earnest protestations to the contrary, you could tell that people
came away with a belief that at most I probably helped pick the cake
or something.

That assumption was all the more maddening because, in fact, my
tendency to over plan events was perfect for a wedding. I'd been
waiting for just this sort of opportunity to plan a large event and in
doing so to put a record keeping theory to the test. -- By now it
should be obvious that Kate, my wife, is a very patient woman.

For years I'd watched an event planner who worked out of the same
coffee shop I did practice her trade. So nearly as I could tell she
lived entirely in a world of post-it notes and phone calls. On any
given day I'd watch 500 different pieces of information flit before
her mental windshield with no discernible organizational system I could
recognize. It drove me crazy. I wanted to offer to help her come up
with a computer based solution that would patch all the holes in her
process I was sure had to plague her on every project.

Meanwhile, I was sitting next to her working on computer software,
which for any project of reasonable size includes tracking thousands
of details. Among those details are defects, bugs, and any team with
any hope of success uses a bug tracker system to keep them documented.
The most popular, but certainly not the most user-friendly, bug
tracker is [http://www.bugzilla.org/ Bugzilla]. I like it a great
deal.

I became certain that more than a spreadsheet or calendar or MS
project, event planning required a bug tracker. I was pretty sure that
Bugzilla could be put to work to keep good logs of tasks, dependences,
and details in exactly the right fashion.

As alluded to previously, Bugzilla has a user-interface that only a
software developer could love. Kate's not a software developer, so
there was some initial resistance, but she's a trouper and took to it
eventually. File attachments held contracts, and comments included
phone logs. We were planning the wedding long distance so most
communications were electronic.

In the end it worked well -- no details fell through the cracks --,
but it was probably overkill for a two-person project. Something like
[http://www.basecamphq.com/ basecamp] is probably a much better fit.
Bugzilla does have some nearly useless charts that allowed me to
produce the horrible dependency graph below:

[http://ry4an.org/unblog/UnBlog/2006-10-27?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=wedding-dependencies.png http://ry4an.org/unblog/UnBlog/2006-10-27?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=wedding-dependencies-thumb.png]

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  Bugzilla does have some nearly useless charts that allowed me to
  produce the horrible dependency graph below:
  
- attachment:wedding-dependencies.png attachment:wedding-dependencies-thumb.png
+ [http://ry4an.org/unblog/UnBlog/2006-10-27?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=wedding-dependencies.png http://ry4an.org/unblog/UnBlog/2006-10-27?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=wedding-dependencies-thumb.png]
  
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UnBlog/2006-09-04

2006-09-05T04:21:31Z

== Motion Lights and Silliness ==

We've got an old lighting fixture for our front porch, which we didn't
want to replace with an ugly motion light.  I tried putting a socket
adapter in-line with the bulb, but it wouldn't fit in the globe.

More time spent staring at the lighting offerings at Home Depot turned
up a workable, if convoluted, solution.  An external motion detector
sends a wireless signal to a replacement indoor light switch, which
then turn on the external light.  To make what should have been a ten
minute project even sillier, I should be able to control the remote
switch from the
[http://www.acura.com/index.aspx?initPath=RL_Learn_FeaturesOptions_SafetySecurity_Security_HomeLink home link]
button in my car.  Heh.

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