Location of Tomboy notes files on Ubuntu 11.04
I keep forgetting where the location is for tomboy notes on my old ubuntu laptop, and occasionally I need to retrieve them.
They are located in $HOME/.local/share/tomboy/ where each note is in an xml file with a name like 74ce8803-d17a-4537-b502-2a792567828e.note.
Fast and easy way to send Apache logs to syslog
I keep forgetting how to do this and have to look it up every time, so I'm writing it down. 
If you want to send Apache logs to syslog, it really is simple. I'm talking about RHEL/CentOS/Fedora servers with standard packages installed. Follow these simple steps:
In your Apache config where you set CustomLog, make that line look something like this:
CustomLog "|/bin/logger -p local1.info -t apache" combined
ErrorLog syslog:local1
Let's break this down and explain it....
Sagetv, is it doomed or saved?
A few months ago it was announced that Sagetv was acquired by Google. There was a press release, and the hompage of Sagetv was updated, but otherwise it was a pretty quiet and under the radar operation. No one really knows the details of the deal, or what will become of Sagetv.
You can no longer purchase Sagetv or any of its products, as the entire store on their site is gone. The only part of their site that is still operational is the forums, but I've always felt that their forums weren't that helpful.
They did say that for those who own Sagetv can expect the program guide (the tv schedule for upcoming shows and what is on what channel) to still be functional until next Summer. So that means that either they need to provide a new solution for my DVR/PVR/Media center/streaming center/music/photos/etc server or I'm going to have to abandon Sagetv and go find something else.
This really has me worried. I expect good things out of Google, but Sagetv has been as very good product and solution. The next best thing out there is probably MythTV, but the best thing that Sagetv had over Mythtv was the custom made, prebuilt hardware, at an affordable price. There aren't good hardware solutions for Myth that pass the "significant other test", but Sagetv did as soon as I set it up.
Hurumph.
Zorbing
My wife and I went to New Zealand back in 2004 and loved it. LOVED IT! I was looking through some old photos and stumbled across this one:
Becky and me Zorbing in Rotorua, NZ
Ah... good times! It makes me want to go again. I just checked out http://www.zorb.com/zorb/locations/ and found that they have a location in the US! We'll need to plan a trip to Tennessee soon.
If you aren't familiar with Zorbing, the basic idea is that you climb inside a gigantic plastic ball and then roll down a hill. It is a blast.
Newest programming project- Library Queue
A couple months ago I started work on a new personal project: Library Queue. The project is to build a website/webservices that will enable users to manage a queue for checking out movies from their local public library much like a Netflix queue. I'm not sure how other library web sites compare, but at least for the Salt Lake City public library (http://slcpl.org) browsing and searching for movies is not user friendly at all. It really could be soooo much better if they were organized and presented in a UI similar to Netflix or Redbox. And the other aspect is a queue of movies you'd like to watch at some point but don't want to put a "hold" on all the movies right then.
I'm thinking that you will be able to configure the queue system to look at your currently checked out movies and the currently on hold movies and then will only move things from in queue to hold when there is "room" for it. Meaning, if I set a limit to "Number of movies checked out or on hold" to 10, then I can only have 10 movies in checkout status or on hold. As soon as I return a checked out movie or cancel a hold on a movie that will open up a spot and the system will automatically take the next movie in my queue and place a hold on it for me.
Then I am free to browse and search for all the movies I want to watch and throw them all in a queue. The system will work through the queue and track everything.
That's the basic idea. I've started working on prototyping it and building tests for portions of the code. But it's still a long way from being functional. I hope to have something usable for myself in the next month or so. If I can get some help (or enough time) to make the UI decent then I might open it up for anyone to use. Right now, I'm building this with the SLC city library, but also plan to support the SL county library too. I've designed it so I should be able to add more libraries in the future.
An update on books I’m reading
So I'm always reading a book. Or two or three. At the same time of course. However, I'm not a very fast reader, nor am I a consistent reader. So even though I'm "always reading a book", it may take me 4 or 5 months to finish one.
Last year I read probably 3 or 4 books. So far this year I've read two and am almost finished with a third:
- The Fellowship of the Ring (first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy)
- Johnathan Livingston Seagull
- Eragon (almost finished with this one)
They've all been enjoyable. While these are the ones I've finished (or nearly), here are some that I'm still in the midst of:
- The Art of Scalability (about scalable system and business architecture)
- Learning Groovy and Grails
- Myths of Innovation
- 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know
- Oracle Essentials
Blog face lift
I've been using Movable Type for blogging for a long time now, like 2 years. I am now switching to WordPress. Reason being- I did a custom install of Movable Type and I don't really want to go through the effort to upgrade it, or maintain it. My hosting service provider has an auto-install of WordPress with automated upgrades and plugins and all sorts of things that I don't have to manage. Simple enough.
So, I've imported everything from my MT blog over here and think this will be a better long-term blog platform.
Oh- p.s. I changed the name of the blog. Different name, but same concept.
Yet Another Ubuntu Upgrade
So Ubuntu 11.04 was release a few weeks ago and I decided to upgrade this weekend. In prep for the upgrade, I backed up my laptop onto my external portable hard drive that I may need (my home dir, and a few other things in /etc, some cronjobs, etc.). I then did a clean re-install from CD. In the past the ugrade-in-place has taken a long time, and was not completely problem free. Whereas the last time I did a clean re-install it was pretty much problem free- except getting all my personal files/configuration/settings the way I like them all back took some time. So that is the same approach I decided to take with this upgrade.
root@spencer-laptop:~# cat /etc/modprobe.d/wlan.confoptions iwlcore led_mode=1
Saw Paul Simon in Concert in Seattle
My wife and I flew to Seattle April 14-17 so we could go to a concert. :-) We went to see Paul Simon as he kicked off a new tour, and we went to the first concert of the tour. It was at the WAMU theater, which is part of Qwest Field in Seattle (Qwest Field is where the football team Seattle Seahawks play).
crazy love
afterlife
rewrite
love is eternal sacred light
so beautiful or so what
only living boy in new york
I know what I know
that was your mother
father and daughter
50 ways to leave your lover
kodachrome
diamonds on the souls of her shoes
slip slide and away
hearts and bones
the obvious child
train in the distance (? not sure)
gone at last
love and hard times
encore 1:
sounds of silence
(? can't remember)
here comes the sun (beatles cover)
late in the evening
Raising Money for a Film the New Way
The old way of raising money to make a film consisted of one or a combination of all of the following:
- Use your credit cards, max them out, apply for more and max them out. repeat until deeply deeply depressingly in debt.
- Beg family members, close friends for money for you project.
- Lower everyone's expectations of getting paid, if they had any to begin with.
- Search for and pitch like crazy to investors. This requires connections to those with money.
- Apply for some art grants. This may be difficult unless you or your project fit into the requirements for the grant.
- Mortgage your home.
- Sell plasma at the blood bank.