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# Musings of an Anonymous Geek

Made with only the finest 1's and 0's

## Posts

- [What AI Portends](https://protocolostomy.com/2026/02/10/what-ai-portends/) - It's funny how humans have the same conversations over and over again across generations. When I was a kid in the 70s, the old folks talked about kids watching too much TV and it turning their brains to mush. In the 90's parents talked about kids being obsessed with Gameboys and consoles and it turning
- [AI Means Changing Your Sales Approach](https://protocolostomy.com/2026/02/10/ai-means-changing-your-sales-approach/) - Three weeks ago, I made an appointment to get a demo of a product I already knew I wanted to buy, because I had used it at another employer. No matter, the site would not let me sign us up until I got a demo and spoke to a sales drone. Last week, before that
- [Auditing Your Data Migration To ClickHouse Using ClickHouse Local](https://protocolostomy.com/2024/01/21/auditing-your-data-migration-to-clickhouse-using-clickhouse-local/) - I've been developing a quick and dirty data migration routine to get terabytes of data stored in AWS S3 as parquet files into our ClickHouse Cloud cluster. I'm really happy that I took some time to read up on the clickhouse local command, which is included in any installation of ClickHouse. Not only was this
- [ClickHouse Cheat Sheet 2024](https://protocolostomy.com/2024/01/17/clickhouse-cheat-sheet-2024/) - For the past 4 months, ClickHouse has been my life, full time. I've been vetting it for production use and learning all about it in the process. Since my memory has always been notoriously poor, I take a lot of notes (in fact, that was the original reason for this blog's existence). So, while I'd
- [User Activation With Django and Djoser](https://protocolostomy.com/2021/05/06/user-activation-with-django-and-djoser/) - Depending on the project, Django and Djoser can go really well together. Django provides such an enormous feature set as a foundation, and such a modular platform, that tools like Djoser can provide enormous value while still staying out of the way of the rest of your application. At the same time, the whole solution
- [Python Selenium Webdriver Notes](https://protocolostomy.com/2020/12/22/python-selenium-webdriver-notes/) - python selenium webdriver hints and tips for getting started or to get your website automation project up and running quickly
- [On Keeping A Journal and Journaling](https://protocolostomy.com/2014/01/01/on-keeping-a-journal-and-journaling/) - I've kept a journal since I was 11. That was in the mid 80's. I hadn't heard the word "journaling" until about a year or so ago, and lately it appears that giving advice and howto information about journaling is a bit of a cottage industry. I had no idea so many people were in
- [The Bandwidth Delay Product](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/01/08/the-bandwidth-delay-product/) - I've actually needed to perform this calculation in the past, but never knew it had a proper name! The value produced by this simple calculation will tell you how much of your network pipe you can actually fill at any given point in time. To figure this out, you need two values: the available bandwidth,
- [What Geeks Could Learn From Working In Restaurants](https://protocolostomy.com/2012/09/04/what-geeks-could-learn-from-working-in-restaurants/) - I spent a long time in my teens and early 20's working in restaurants. To be honest, I loved just about every minute of it. It's exciting, you're never idle, and it's usually not boring: you either get immediate gratification from happy customers leaving a nice tip, or you're on the defensive, thinking on your
- [What I've Been Up To](https://protocolostomy.com/2012/08/05/what-ive-been-up-to/) - Historically, I post fairly regularly on this blog, but I haven't been lately. It's not for lack of anything to write about, but rather a lack of time to devote to blogging. I want to post at greater length about some of the stuff I've been doing, and I have several draft posts, but I
- [PyCon Talk Proposals: All You Need to Know And More](https://protocolostomy.com/2012/08/05/pycon-talk-proposals-all-you-need-to-know-and-more/) - Writing a talk proposal needn’t be a stressful undertaking. There are two huge factors that seem to stress people out the most about submitting a proposal, and we’re going to obliterate those right now, so here they are: It’s not always obvious how a particular section of a proposal is evaluated, so it’s not always
- [Sending Alerts With Graphite Graphs From Nagios](https://protocolostomy.com/2012/02/24/sending-alerts-with-graphite-graphs-from-nagios/) - Disclaimer The way I'm doing this relies on a feature I wrote for Graphite that was only recently merged to trunk, so at time of writing that feature isn't in a stable release. Hopefully it'll be in 0.9.10. Until then, you can at least test this setup using Graphite's trunk version. Oh yeah, the new
- [The Python User Group in Princeton (PUG-IP): 6 months in](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/11/02/the-python-user-group-in-princeton-pug-ip-6-months-in/) - In May, 2011, I started putting out feelers on Twitter and elsewhere to see if there might be some interest in having a Python user group that was not in Philadelphia or New York City. A single tweet resulted in 5 positive responses, which I took as a success, given the time-sensitivity of Twitter, my
- [The Happy Idiot](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/11/01/the-happy-idiot/) - Today is November 1st, and there's an event that takes place every November called National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I don't believe I have the ability to really write a novel, and have no reason to think anyone would read it if I did. But I would like to make an attempt to write a
- [pyrabbit Makes Testing and Managing RabbitMQ Easy](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/10/23/pyrabbit-makes-testing-and-managing-rabbitmq-easy/) - I have a lot of hobby projects, and as a result getting any one of them to a state where I wouldn't be completely embarrassed to share it takes forever. I started working on pyrabbit around May or June of this year, and I'm happy to say that, while it'll never be totally 'done' (it
- [Shhh... I'm Hunting Talks](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/10/13/shhh-im-hunting-talks/) - Well, it's that time of year again. The PyCon 2012 Call for Proposals has ended. This means it's time for the Program Committee to spring into action, evaluating all of the proposals, preparing to champion their favorites, and participating in the interactive meetings that eventually decide the fate of PyCon 2012's slate of talks, tutorials,
- [Thoughts on Python and Python Cookbook Recipes to Whet Your Appetite](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/06/09/thoughts-on-python-and-python-cookbook-recipes-to-whet-your-appetite/) - Dave Beazley and myself are, at this point, waist deep into producing Python Cookbook 3rd Edition. We haven't really taken the approach of going chapter by chapter, in order. Rather, we've hopped around to tackle chapters one or the other finds interesting or in-line with what either of us happens to be working with a
- [Book Review: Python Standard Library by Example](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/06/02/book-review-python-standard-library-by-example/) - Quick Facts: Author: Doug Hellmann Pages: 1344 Publisher: Addison-Wesley (Developer's Library) ETA: June 5, 2011 Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Python-Standard-Library-Example-Developers/dp/0321767349/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307109464&sr=1-1-spell What this book says it does: From the book's description: This book is a collection of essays and example programs demonstrating how to use more than 100 modules from Python standard library. It goes beyond the documentation
- [Slides, an App, a Meetup, and More On the Way](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/06/02/slides-an-app-a-meetup-and-more-on-the-way/) - I've been busy. Seriously. Here's a short dump of what I've been up to with links and stuff. Hopefully it'll do until I can get back to my regular blogging routine. PICC '11 Slides Posted I gave a Python talk at PICC '11. If you were there, then you have a suboptimal version of the
- ['Grokking Python' Going to PICC Conference!](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/04/07/grokking-python-going-to-picc-conference/) - In conjunction with my involvement as co-author of the upcoming Python Cookbook, 3rd Ed. (not yet released), a tutorial at this year's PyCon in Atlanta, an internal (and ongoing) lunchtime seminar series entitled 'Snakes On a Plate', and other recent Python-related projects, I've also been refining and revising what I can now call a completely
- [Lessons Learned Porting Dateutil to Python 3](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/02/25/lessons-learned-porting-dateutil-to-python-3/) - The dateutil module is a very popular third-party (pure) Python module that makes it easier (and in some cases, possible) to perform more advanced manipulations on dates and date ranges than simply using some combination of Python's 'included batteries' like the datetime, time and calendar modules. Dateutil does fuzzy date matching, Easter calculations in the
- [PyCon 2011 Predictions](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/01/28/pycon-2011-predictions/) - PyCon 2011 is right around the corner. Are you going? You should. The talks are sick. You can still register -- it's too late to be an early bird, but registration is still open! Well, I am, and I'm here to get the rumor mill started by sharing some predictions for this year's PyCon. Packaging
- [Python 3: Informal String Formatting Performance Comparison](https://protocolostomy.com/2011/01/02/python-3-informal-string-formatting-performance-comparison/) - If you haven't heard the news, Dave Beazley and I have officially begun work on the next edition of the Python Cookbook, which will be completely overhauled using absolutely nothing but Python 3. Yay! Right now, I'm going through some string formatting recipes from the 2nd edition to see if they still work, and if
- [The Makings of a Great Python Cookbook Recipe](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/12/20/the-makings-of-a-great-python-cookbook-recipe/) - I've seen some comments on Twitter, Buzz, Reddit, and elsewhere, and we've gotten some suggestions for recipes already via email (thanks!), and both Dave and I thought it'd be good to present a simple-to-follow 'meta-recipe'; a recipe for making a great recipe that has a good shot at making it into the cookbook. So let's
- [Good Things Come in Threes: Python Cookbook, Third Edition](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/12/16/good-things-come-in-threes-python-cookbook-third-edition/) - It became official earlier today that David Beazley and myself will be co-editing/co-curating the next edition (the Third Edition) of the Python Cookbook. That's really exciting. Here's why: It's Python 3, Cover to Cover Go big or go home. The third edition will be a Python 3 Cookbook. This by itself makes this a rather
- [Nose and Coverage.py Reporting in Hudson](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/12/02/nose-and-coverage-py-reporting-in-hudson/) - I like Hudson. Sure, it's written in Java, but let's be honest, it kinda rocks. If you're a Java developer, it's admittedly worlds better because it integrates with seemingly every Java development tool out there, but we can do some cool things in Python too, and I thought I'd share a really simple setup to
- [Python Packaging, Distribution, and Deployment: Volume 1](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/12/01/python-packaging-distribution-and-deployment-volume-1/) - This is just Volume 1. I'll cover as much as I can and just stop when it gets so long most people will stop reading :) I've been getting to know the Python packaging and distribution landscape way better than I ever wanted to over the last couple of weeks. After 2 or 3 weeks
- [PyCharm is My New Python IDE](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/11/26/pycharm-is-my-new-python-ide/) - Friends, family, and maybe regular readers know that I'm more likely to publicly Regular readers know that I've used a large number of IDEs over the past several years. They also know that I have, in every single case, returned to Vim, and I've spent a lot of time and effort making Vim be a
- [Number Spiral Fun](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/09/23/number-spiral-fun/) - I love puzzles, and I came across the Oblong Number Spiral challenge on Code Golf over the past week and dove in. Here's the basic idea, from the challenge at Code Golf: This challenge involves you having to create a number spiral such as : 1 2 3 10 11 4 9 12 5 8
- [Wonky Bunny Issue "Fixed"](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/07/19/wonky-bunny-issue-fixed/) - For those who don't know what the headline means: Bunny is an open source command line utility written in Python that provides a shell for talking to and testing AMQP brokers (tested on RabbitMQ). AMQP is a queuing protocol. It's defined as a binary wire-level protocol as well as a command set. The spec also
- [Python Date Manipulation](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/07/06/python-date-manipulation/) - This post is the result of some head-scratching and note taking I did for a reporting project I undertook recently. It's not a complete rundown of Python date manipulation, but hopefully the post (and hopefully the comments) will help you and maybe me too :) The head-scratching is related to the fact that there are
- [Brain Fried Over NoSQL](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/06/26/brain-fried-over-nosql/) - So, I'm working on a pet project. It's in stealth mode. Just kidding -- I don't believe in stealth mode ;-) It's a twitter analytics dashboard that actually does useful things with the mountains of data available from the various Twitter APIs. I'm writing it in Python using Tornado. Here's the first mockup I ever
- [Why Open Shop In California? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/06/03/why-open-shop-in-california/) - DISCLAIMER: I live on the East Coast, so these are perceptions and opinions that I don't put forth as facts. I'm more asking a question to start a dialog than professing knowledge. So, I just heard a report claiming that there are more IT jobs than techs to fill them in Southern California. Anyone who
- [Python IDE Frustration](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/05/13/python-ide-frustration/) - I didn't think I was looking for a lot in an IDE. Turns out what I want is impossibly hard to find. In the past 6 months I've tried (or tried to try): Komodo Edit Eclipse w/ PyDev PyCharm (from the first EAP build to... yesterday) Wingware Textmate Wingware First, let's get Wingware out of
- [Per-machine Bash History](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/05/10/per-machine-bash-history/) - I do work on a lot of machines no matter what environment I'm working in, and a lot of the time each machine has a specific purpose. One thing that really annoys me when I work in an environment with NFS-mounted home directories is that if I log into a machine I haven't used in
- [Nose Hates Me](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/04/30/nose-hates-me/) - I easy_install'd nose on my iMac some time in the last month, and tried to use it with options for the first time today, and I've found that a good number of the ones shown in 'nosetests --help' are actually not recognized when I run nosetests. Meanwhile, running nosetests with no options still works fine.
- [PyTPMOTW: PsycoPG2](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/04/21/pytpmotw-psycopg2/) - What is this module for? Interacting with a PostgreSQL database in Python. What is PostgreSQL? PostgreSQL is an open source relational database product. It has some more advanced features, like built-in networking-related and GIS-related datatypes, the ability to script stored functions in multiple languages (including Python), etc. If you have never heard of PostgreSQL, get
- [PyTPMOTW: PyYAML](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/04/12/pytpmotw-pyyaml/) - What's This Module For? Reading and writing files formatted using "YAML Ain't Markup Language"" (YAML), and converting YAML syntax into native Python objects and datatypes. What is YAML? According to the website which houses the YAML Specification: YAML™ (rhymes with “camel”) is a human-friendly, cross language, Unicode based data serialization language designed around the common
- [Tornado's Big Feature is Not 'Async'](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/04/04/tornados-big-feature-is-not-async/) - I've been working with the Tornado web server pretty much since its release by the Facebook people several months ago. If you've never heard of it, it's a sort of hybrid Python web framework and web server. On the framework side of the equation, Tornado has almost nothing. It's completely bare bones when compared to
- [PyTPMOTW: py-amqplib](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/04/03/pytpmotw-py-amqplib/) - What's This Module For? To interact with a queue broker implementing version 0.8 of the Advanced Message Queueing Protocol (AMQP) standard. Copies of various versions of the specification can be found here. At time of writing, 0.10 is the latest version of the spec, but it seems that many popular implementations used in production environments
- [PyTPMOTW: First Post! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/03/26/pytpmotw-first-post/) - Doug Hellmann's excellent PyMOTW series started 3 years ago yesterday, and I've loved every minute of it. His sheer commitment and dedication to his craft is to be commended; it's not easy to find the discipline to sit down every single week and commit the time and research to carve bits in such a way
- [Generating Reports with Charts Using Python: ReportLab](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/10/22/generating-reports-with-charts-using-python-reportlab/) - UPDATE (Mar. 26, 2010) Just realized I never posted the link to the PDF the code here generates: here it is. My bad. I've been doing a little reporting project, and I've been searching around for quite some time for a good graphing and charting solution for general-purpose use. I had come across ReportLab before,
- [Python Testing Beginner's Guide: The Review](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/03/18/python-testing-beginners-guide-the-review/) - I try not to make a habit of reviewing technical books. I own more than my fair share of technical books, and I've been involved in publishing and even wrote a book myself. Most technical books, on the whole, are pretty bad. So, there's Disclaimer 1: you know the mindset I'm starting with. I'm a
- [Programmers that... can't program.](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/03/15/programmers-that-cant-program/) - So, I happened across this post about hiring programmers, which references two other posts about hiring programmers. There seems to be a demand for blog posts about hiring programmers, but that's not why I'm writing this. I'm writing because there was this sort of nagging irony that I couldn't help but stumble upon. In a
- [Quick Loghetti Update](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/03/15/quick-loghetti-update/) - For the familiar and impatient: Loghetti has moved to github and has been updated. An official release hasn't been made yet, but cloning the repository and installing argparse will result in perfectly usable code. More on the way. For the uninitiated, Loghetti is a command line log sifting/reporting tool written in Python to parse Apache
- [Released django-taxonomy on github](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/02/14/released-django-taxonomy-on-github/) - Hi all, I did a post several months ago about creating a generic taxonomy app for Django that was loosely coupled, unintrusive, and could evolve with an app that needed categories today, but then tags later, or labels later, or some other classification mechanism later. I wanted one app to just be generic enough to
- [Seeking Elegant Pythonic Solution](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/02/01/seeking-elegant-pythonic-solution/) - So, I have some code that queries a data source, and that data source sends me back an XML message. I have to parse the XML message so I can store information from it into a relational database. So, let's say my XML response looks like this: Brian Jones M 777
- [Intro to Python 101 For Beginners](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/01/21/intro-to-python-101-for-beginners/) - If you code Python already, go somewhere else. I'm only talking to complete and total newbies to the language right now. I want to show them the stuff that I wished someone had put in one nice, neat blog post for easy consumption when I got started with the language. If that's what you're looking
- [What "Batteries Included" Means](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/01/22/what-batteries-included-means/) - When I first got into Python, I read lots of blog posts that mentioned that Python was "the batteries included language", but those same posts were short on any explanation of what that really meant. A few years and lots of projects later, I think I'm now qualified to at least give a beginner a
- [If You Don't Date Your Work, It Sucks. ](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/01/18/if-you-dont-date-your-work-it-sucks/) - I probably get more upset than is reasonable when I come across articles with no date on them. I scroll furiously for a few minutes, try to see if the date was put in some stupid place like the fine print written in almost-white-on-white at the bottom of the post surrounded by ads. Then I
- [Head first into javascript (and jQuery)](https://protocolostomy.com/2010/01/12/head-first-into-javascript-and-jquery/) - So, I had to take a break from doing the Code Katas just as I was getting to the really cool one about Bloom Filters. The reason for the unexpected break from kata-ing was that I had a project thrown into my lap. I say "project" not because it was some huge thing that needed
- [2009 Python Meme](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/12/29/2009-python-meme/) - Heard about this from Tarek, and you can find more of them on Planet Python (where I found Tarek's post). What’s the coolest Python application, framework or library you have discovered in 2009? Probably Tornado. Tornado is an interesting application, because it blurs the line a bit between a framework like Django and a traditional
- [CodeKata 4: Data Munging](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/12/28/codekata-4-data-munging/) - I'm continuing to take on the items in Dave Thomas's Code Kata collection. It's a nice way to spend a Sunday night, and it's a good way to get my brain going again before work on Monday morning. It's also fun and educational :) CodeKata 4 is called "Data Munging". It's not very difficult data
- [PyYaml with Aliases and Anchors](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/12/22/pyyaml-with-aliases-and-anchors/) - I didn't know this little tidbit until yesterday and want to get it posted so I can refer to it later. I have this YAML config file that's kinda long and has a lot of duplication in it. This isn't what I'm working on, but let's just say that you have a bunch of backup
- [Python Code Kata 2: Karate Chop (Binary Search)](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/12/13/python-code-kata-2-karate-chop-binary-search/) - I've decided it'd be fun to go through the Code Kata put together by Dave Thomas, co-author of The Pragmatic Programmer, and co-founder of Pragmatic Programmers, LLC (publishers of the finest tech books on the market right now; they can't expand their selection fast enough for me). Anyway, the first Code Kata, while being truly
- [Python, PostgreSQL, and psycopg2's Dusty Corners](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/12/01/python-postgresql-and-psycopg2s-dusty-corners/) - Last time I wrote code with psycopg2 was around 2006, but I was reacquainted with it over the past couple of weeks, and I wanted to make some notes on a couple of features that are not well documented, imho. Portions of this post have been snipped from mailing list threads I was involved in.
- [A Couple of Python Tools for Tornado or AMQP Users](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/11/23/a-couple-of-python-tools-for-tornado-or-amqp-users/) - Hi all, Not lots of time to blog since starting my new gig as Senior Operations Developer at MyYearbook.com (which is pretty awesome, btw), but wanted to let anyone who's interested know about a couple of tools I've released on github: bunny is a CLI tool for doing quick tests and simple operations on an
- [Way Better Python Indentation In Vim](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/11/13/way-better-python-indentation-in-vim/) - Just wanted to share this tip I just stumbled across: If you code in Python, and in your ~/.vimrc file you have 'set smartindent', change that to 'set nosmartindent' and add the following two lines (I'm told it can be combined into a one-liner, but I use two lines, so...) filetype plugin on filetype indent
- [Python, Creating XML, Recursion, and Order](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/11/04/python-creating-xml-recursion-and-order/) - I love being challenged every day. Today I ran across a challenge that has several solutions. However, most of them are hacks, and I never feel like I really solved the problem when I implement a hack. There's also that eerie feeling that this hack is going to bite me later. I have an API
- [It's so much easier now](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/11/01/its-so-much-easier-now/) - The information superhighway's construction has benefited me in ways I've only been made conscious of this weekend. I've had a lot of time to myself this weekend, and decided to spend a few solid 1-hour blocks playing guitar. Oh, I still play around the house here and there, but usually if I can get in
- [Python Quirks in Cmd, urllib2, and decorators](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/10/28/python-quirks-in-cmd-urllib2-and-decorators/) - So, if you haven't been following along, Python programming now occupies the bulk of my work day. While I really like writing code and like it more using Python, no language is without its quirks. Let me say up front that I don't consider these quirks bugs or big hulking issues. I'm not trying to
- [New Job, Car, Baby, and Other News](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/10/22/new-job-car-baby-and-other-news/) - New Baby! I know this is my geek blog, but geeks have kids too, so first I want to announce the birth of our second daughter, Sadie, who was born on September 15th. She's now over a month old. This is the first time I've stayed up late enough to blog about her. Everyone is
- [Sys/DB Admin and Coder Seeks Others To Build Web "A-Team"](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/09/09/sysdb-admin-and-coder-seeks-others-to-build-web-a-team/) - UPDATE: There's no location requirement. I kind of assume that I'm not going to find the best people by geographically limiting my search for potential partners. :) Me: Live in Princeton, NJ area. Over 10 years experience with UNIX/Linux administration, databases and data modeling, and PHP/Perl. About 3 years experience using Python for back-end scripting
- [If You Code, You Should Write](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/09/09/if-you-code-you-should-write/) - The Practice of Programming Programmers are, in essence, problem solvers. They live to solve problems. When they identify a problem that needs solving, they cannot resist the temptation to study it, poke and prod it, and get to know it intimately. They then start considering solutions. At this point, the programmer is not often thinking
- [Cool Mac/Mobile Software for Sysadmins, Programmers, and People](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/09/03/cool-macmobile-software-for-sysadmins-programmers-and-people/) - I recently upgraded my primary workhorse (a MacBook Pro) to Snow Leopard. Before I did, I decided to go through and take stock of all of the documents and software I'd accumulated. While I was doing this, I simultaneously got into a conversation with a buddy of mine about the software he uses on his
- [Representing Relationships in Django Templates Without Writing Extra Code (RelatedManager and ManyRelatedManager)](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/31/representing-relationships-in-django-templates-without-writing-extra-code-relatedmanager-and-manyrelatedmanager/) - I'm writing an application that deals with some slightly complex relationships. There are several offices, and each office has several workers. Workers can have multiple projects, and each project can have multiple workers. In addition, each project can serve multiple clients. Here's what that'd look like in a Django models.py file: While writing the template
- [Lessons Learned While Creating a Generic Taxonomy App for Django](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/21/lessons-learned-while-creating-a-generic-taxonomy-app-for-django/) - So, when I first picked up a guitar, the first song I sat down to learn, by ear, was Stairway to Heaven, not "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". So goes my experience with Django :) The Background I was humming along on my recreation of LinuxLaboratory.org. I got a simple blog in place in just a
- [Using a robots.txt File With Django and Apache (on Webfaction)](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/18/using-a-robots-txt-file-with-django-and-apache-on-webfaction/) - I've developed in a few different environments, including multi-tier ones with middle tier Java app servers and stuff, but it always seemed pretty straightforward to serve something directly from disk. And in the case of PHP, everything is served from disk. There's no middleware to speak of, so you can throw a robots.txt file in
- [Django Settings in Dev and Production: Why the hoops?](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/17/django-settings-in-dev-and-production-why-the-hoops/) - So, I've taken a break from active development on my project to take a step back and really get a good development workflow together. I've been fighting with various components of my development workflow, and in the end decided to compromise: I won't have something that looks exactly like production, but I'll have something that
- [Django App Design: Extend or Build From Scratch? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/12/django-app-design-extend-or-build-from-scratch/) - Django has proven itself (to me, anyway) as a great tool for the job of creating very robust web applications with lightning speed. In just a week or two, I've created a site that encompasses a blog with an akismet-powered comment moderation system, a code sharing section complete with highlighted code segments (and line numbers),
- [Create a Tagging Index Page with django-tagging](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/11/create-a-tagging-index-page-with-django-tagging/) - For those not following along, I've been recreating LinuxLaboratory.org using Django. It's my first Django project that you could call "real work". I've been using the Django documentation, various blogs, and the 2nd edition of "Practical Django Projects", which has given me a lot of ideas, and a lot of actual code. Some of it
- [How To Get Firefox to Recognize Your Site's RSS Feed](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/11/how-to-get-firefox-to-recognize-your-sites-rss-feed/) - I just implemented an RSS feed in one of my sites the other day, and realized that visiting my site in Firefox did *not* result in the little blue feed icon showing up in the address bar area. Turns out it's not so automagic. You need to do stuff to make it happen. To get
- [The Neverending Search for "Free" Wi-Fi](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/11/the-neverending-search-for-free-wi-fi/) - So, I'm a freelancer. I work a lot on remote machines as a system administrator, a troubleshooter of LAMP stacks and web applications, etc. I also do a little bit of web development (but not design. I'm a horrible designer). I work from home a lot. I used to work outside of the home a
- [My Django Project Update: RSS Feed, "Home" Link, and more. ](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/10/my-django-project-update-rss-feed-home-link-and-more/) - In continuing the rebuild of LinuxLaboratory.org using Django, I'm happy to say that things have moved fairly smoothly. I'm using a good mix at this point of stuff from the 2nd edition of "Practical Django Projects", the Django documentation, blog posts, and docs from other apps I'm making use of. RSS I said in one
- [Django, Pygments, Templates, Code Sharing, and Design](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/09/django-pygments-templates-code-sharing-and-design/) - Welcome to the latest update! I spent a total of about an hour on the "Social Code Sharing" application in the 2nd edition of "Practical Django Projects", and I'm not completely finished with it, but I've got syntax highlighting and the basics covered. I can add, edit, and delete snippets, list snippets, and show a
- [Holiday Project: Plot Google Calendar Events on Google Map](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/23/holiday-project-plot-google-calendar-events-on-google-map/) - [UPDATE: 2009/08/08]: I've now gotten stuck on two separate projects, trying to find a bridge between Python code that generates data, and javascript code that is apparently required in order to present it. I haven't found such a bridge. For one project, I was able to do what I needed with ReportLab (there was no
- [Django RSS Feed Finally Working](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/06/django-rss-feed-finally-working/) - Ok, so now LinuxLaboratory has the following features working: comments (along with comment moderation and akismet support), a WYSIWYG editor for my posts markdown support for comments email notification of errors and new comments a full-blown administration interface that lets me deal with any apps, users, or content on my site, some cheesy CSS (hey,
- [LinuxLaboratory => Django - Now with Comments, Akismet, and 404.html](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/06/linuxlaboratory-django-now-with-comments-akismet-and-404-html/) - I stayed up a little late last night, because I wanted to get comments working on Linuxlaboratory.org. Comments *are* working, and I *do* get email notification of new comments, which is nice. Akismet is installed, and is no longer throwing errors, but to be honest, I'm not quite sure how to test it. I tried
- ["Practial Django Projects", Custom Template Tags, and Updates on LinuxLaboratory](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/08/05/practial-django-projects-custom-template-tags-and-updates-on-linuxlaboratory/) - Hi all, If you've not been following along, I've picked up the 2nd edition of Practical Django Projects, and am using it to help me reinvent LinuxLaboratory.org (LLO). Though LLO is really a documentation site where I republish articles I've written for Linux.com, O'Reilly, and others over the past 10 years, I started out by
- [You Might Be a Freelancer...](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/07/31/you-might-be-a-freelancer/) - If you've ever used your lunch hour to vacuum your pool... If you've ever discounted your rate to work on something really cool... If your spouse has ever complained about the mountain of receipts in the basement... If you work 8 hours a day... and 3-5 hours a night... If you've ever spent an entire
- [LinuxLaboratory.org Django Update](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/07/31/linuxlaboratory-org-django-update/) - Hi all, So, I've begun down the road of reinventing LinuxLaboratory.org using Django. For the moment, I'm mostly starting out using the blog application from the newly released second edition of "Practical Django Projects", and there's no CSS or fancy design going on yet, but I have a nice admin interface for creating posts, managing
- [Awk Idioms: Shorten your pipelines, consolidate your tool set](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/07/27/awk-idioms-shorten-your-pipelines-consolidate-your-tool-set/) - I was lurking around on twitter during my lunch hour (yes, even freelancers need a lunch hour), and @bitprophet tweeted thusly: Get syslog-owned log names from syslog.conf: grep -v "^#" syslog.conf | awk '{print $2}' | egrep -v "^(\*|\|)" | sed "/^$/ d" | sed "s/^-//" Followed by this: (Interested to see if anyone can
- [LinuxLaboratory woes, Drupal -> Django? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/07/21/linuxlaboratory-woes-drupal-django/) - Ugh... So, today I tried browsing to one of my sites, linuxlaboratory.org, and found a 403 "Forbidden" error. Calling support, they said it was a "billing issue". Well, I pay my bills, and I haven't received any new credit cards, so I'm not sure what that's about. Further, they haven't contacted me in any way
- [I'm Offering Pro-Bono Consulting](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/07/20/im-offering-pro-bono-consulting/) - I started my company about a year ago, but I've been doing consulting for a long time. In fact, my first job in the IT industry was working for a consulting firm. Before that, starting as far back as grade school, I was involved in a lot of volunteer civic and community service activities. I
- [Training Patterns](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/07/13/training-patterns/) - So, I've been talking to some friends about training. I work with several firms in various aspects of training. Usually I'm actually delivering training, but in some cases I'm just helping to produce the training content, and occasionally I actually help build a full-fledged internal training regimen. I love doing this work, because it lets
- [Linux/Unix File Copy Trick](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/06/17/linuxunix-file-copy-trick/) - I have a need for this hack every now and then, and I *always* forget it for some reason, so I'm putting it here for safe keeping. I'll start a "hacks" category, too, so I can locate these quickly, and so you can too :) So, here's the hack: [jonesy@cranford testing]$ ls bar foo [jonesy@cranford
- [My first screencast: The Linux Boot Process](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/06/12/my-first-screencast-the-linux-boot-process/) - So, I've taught the Linux Boot Process as part of a couple of different training courses now, and I thought I'd share it with the world in the form of a screencast (it's hosted at my co.'s site). This is also a test to help me figure out how to "do screencasts", generally. The material
- [A Missing Battery in Python: a bash "select" equivalent](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/06/03/a-missing-battery-in-python-a-bash-select-equivalent/) - So, someone showed me a script they were writing in bash. They were doing a lot of manual menu creation, then using "read" to collect input, and manually mapping the input to longer strings, and then doing string manipulation stuff. Trying to help simplify and make things a little more sane and readable, I discovered
- [More Lessons in Freelancing](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/05/26/more-lessons-in-freelancing/) - So, I've been freelancing now for 9 months. I did a post a while back about what was working and what wasn't, and I still stand by those recommendations. But that was over 6 months ago. Since then a lot of things have happened. I'm happy to report that, so far, things are going great.
- [Totally Hooked: 'Things' for Mac](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/05/19/totally-hooked-things-for-mac/) - First, I want to point out the only thing I hate about this application: the name. It's bad for me, it's bad for the developers... it's just bad. If I ever had a problem, how am I supposed to do a search for that? If the developers want to find blog posts like this one,
- ['Beginning Linux Administration', Now With Open Enrollment](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/05/19/beginning-linux-administration-now-with-open-enrollment/) - So, my training business is doing better than expected, which is good news in a tough economy. I've gotten some feedback from readers about my mention of training services offered through my company. My company has historically only performed training at client sites, and some folks had hoped I would expand into offering "open enrollment"
- [What's Missing From the Linux Training Landscape? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/04/29/whats-missing-from-the-linux-training-landscape/) - Everyone please also point this article at the managers who purchase training for your company or team, and other people you know who've had Linux training. So, a very large part of my business is providing Linux training. Up to now, I have performed only on-site training, often times developing custom training content for clients
- [Do I Even Care About the iPhone 3G? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/09/do-i-even-care-about-the-iphone-3g/) - Steve Jobs is one of the best presenters you could ever hope to see. He's great at tapping into that part of your brain that makes you just want whatever it is he's holding. But this time, it was a little different. You see, I already have an iPhone. I bought one in February. I
- [Activity Lapse: I blame Twitter](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/03/30/activity-lapse-i-blame-twitter/) - To all my geek/nerd friends in the blogosphere: I'll be posting updates on Fedora Directory Server, my Linux training courses, and more in the coming weeks, but I wanted to let you know that I've recently been stricken with... umm... Twitter. I'm @bkjones on twitter, so if you're into beer, brewing, billiards, cooking, guitar/music, linux,
- [Two extremely handy geek URLs](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/03/25/two-extremely-handy-geek-urls/) - I know, I know. I haven't been posting nearly enough. But I did come across two URLs that are too handy not to pass on: Command-line-fu: this is a repository of handy one-liners submitted by pretty much anyone. You can log in with OpenID or register on the site itself. I expect this, or something
- [Fedora Directory Server on RHEL 4 and 5, Pt. 1](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/03/11/fedora-directory-server-on-rhel-4-and-5-pt-1/) - The last time I had to do a NIS->LDAP migration, it was in a heterogenous environment with Solaris and Linux boxes, and it was around 2004 or so. Although I hit some rough patches adjusting to changes in how FDS is packaged, the community was awesome, and helped me get back up to speed in
- [Ex-Googlers Score with Likaholix.com](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/03/05/ex-googlers-score-with-likaholixcom/) - Last night I discovered likaholix.com and was able to get an account during their beta phase testing. You can see my likaholix page here, but I thought I'd take a few minutes to jot down some initial thoughts about it, because I do think it's interesting. Likaholix makes it Mind Numbingly Easy™ to quickly "like"
- [Marc Andreessen on Everything](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/02/20/marc-andreessen-on-everything/) - Marc Andreessen was on Charlie Rose last night, and I missed it. A buddy told me about it, and I wanted to watch, but things just got in the way. So here it is. So, this is the very first time I've ever embedded video into a blog post. I couldn't help myself. Why? I've
- [The bash history command](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/02/19/the-bash-history-command/) - Sometimes I run through the search terms people use within my site, or to get to my site, and I see some interesting stuff. Over the years, I've written perhaps hundreds of technical blog posts and articles at various sites and in magazines (and a book), but I have never once touched on the "history"
- [10 Ways Newspapers Can Still Make Money](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/02/11/10-ways-newspapers-can-still-make-money/) - I was following some people who were talking in different forums, on twitter, and on blogs, about Walter Isaacson's cover story in TIME magazine this month. I was pretty harsh in saying that these organizations basically deserve whatever they get, because they refuse to recognize that society has changed in ways that make their old
- [Walter Isaacson: You've got it all wrong](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/02/10/walter-isaacson-youve-got-it-all-wrong/) - I saw Walter Isaacson, former managing editor of TIME magazine, on The Daily Show last night. He wrote a cover story for the current issue of TIME called "How to Save Your Newspaper", in which he illustrates not how print journalism will succeed by overcoming its ails, but how it will fail by the stubborn
- [10 Mistakes in Systems Management](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/01/28/10-mistakes-in-systems-management/) - I've seen the inside of lots and lots of businesses over the past decade or so. Though the technology has changed somewhat dramatically in many areas of the data center, the general, high-level methodologies for building a sane environment can still be applied. While the implementation is typically done by system administrators, it also helps
- [Throw out your Perl: One-line aggregation in awk](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/01/19/throw-out-your-perl-one-line-aggregation-in-awk/) - I ran into a student from a class I taught last summer. He's a really sharp guy, and when I first met him, I was impressed with just how much Perl he could stuff into his brain's cache. He would write what he called 'one-liners' in Perl that, in reality, took up 5-10 lines in
- [Teaching a Course on Profiling and Debugging in Linux](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/01/19/teaching-a-course-on-profiling-and-debugging-in-linux/) - Dear Lazyweb, So, I've been in Chicago for a week teaching a beginner and an intermediate course on using and administering Linux machines. This week, I'll teach an intermediate and an advanced course on Linux, and the advanced course will cover profiling and debugging. The main tools I'm covering will be valgrind and oprofile, though
- [Shell Scripting: Bash Arrays](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/01/15/shell-scripting-bash-arrays/) - I'm actually not a huge fan of shell scripting, in spite of the fact that I've been doing it for years, and am fairly adept at it. I guess because the shell wasn't really intended to be used for programming per se, it has evolved into something that sorta kinda looks like a programming language
- [Heading to Chicago](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/01/11/heading-to-chicago/) - I'll be landing in Chicago tonight, assuming all goes well. I'll be there through Jan 23. If there are any Linux User Groups, LOPSA meetings, Python user groups, or anything else cool (a brewer's club maybe?) then find me on twitter (bkjones), or shoot me an email (same name, at gmail). I'm teaching courses on
- [Advanced Linux Course... In Chicago... In January!](https://protocolostomy.com/2009/01/09/advanced-linux-course-in-chicago-in-january/) - You heard it right, folks. I'll be in lovely downtown Chicago for two weeks. Actually, I'm teaching 4 classes, each one consisting of a week's worth of half-day sessions. 1 beginner course, two intermediate courses, and an advanced course. I'll also be returning in February to do an intermediate and advanced course. This was the
- [2009: Waiting to Exhale](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/29/2009-waiting-to-exhale/) - Lots of blogs list a bunch of stuff that happened in the year just past, and I have done a year-in-review post before, but in looking back at posts on this blog and elsewhere, what strikes me most is not the big achievements that took place in technology in 2008, but rather the questions that
- [What do you find lacking/awesome in tech training classes?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/19/what-do-you-find-lackingawesome-in-tech-training-classes/) - Dear lazyweb, Over the past year, I've spoken to a few clients about performing on-site training for their staff in things like Linux administration, SQL, PHP, etc. I've also gotten a few training contracts as a result, and those contracts have gone quite well, and I have some repeat business already! I really really enjoy
- [What Ordinary Users Think About IE: Debunked](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/17/what-ordinary-users-think-about-ie-debunked/) - Point all of your chain-mail-forwarding family and friends at this post. It's a collection of things people have said to me, or that I've overheard, that reveal little tidbits about what people are thinking when they use IE. I have to use IE - it's my internet! IE is not your internet. IE is what's
- [Open Source Technology US Conference Calendar](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/16/open-source-technology-us-conference-calendar/) - One of the best ways to keep up with your field and network at the same time is to attend conferences. It's one of the things I look forward to every year. After learning that O'Reilly has decided to commit blasphemy and *not* hold OSCON in Portland, Oregon the same week as the Oregon Brewers
- [How Are You Staffing Your Startup?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/15/how-are-you-staffing-your-startup/) - I have, in the past, worked for startups of varying forms. I worked for a spinoff that ultimately failed but had the most awesome product I've ever seen (neural networks were involved, need I say more?), I helped a buddy very early on with his startup, which did great until angel investors crept in, destroyed
- [WordPress 2.7 - Ahhhhhh!](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/11/wordpress-27-ahhhhhh/) - I guess Wordpress doesn't consider the changes they've made in 2.7 (released today) to be big enough to warrant a change to the major version number (which would make it 3.0). However, there are a few features now built-in that I've been dreaming about for so long that simply incrementing the second number seems to
- [Hacking Drupal 6.x's front page (or any other page)](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/10/hacking-drupal-6xs-page-or-any-other-page/) - Drupal themeing is addictive. I've been so busy mucking with the new layout for one of my sites that I still haven't gotten all of the content moved over, categorized, etc. I was really itching to fix "one last thing" on my site, and that was the front page. My new layout uses the litejazz
- [Drupal 6.x Themeing Tips](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/12/08/drupal-6x-themeing-tips/) - I've done some theme customization for Drupal, and I've used drupal as "just a user" for years. Recently, I took on a project to take a designer's theme and make it work with Drupal. I'm pleased to say that, minus a couple of little quirks, it's been relatively simple. Here are a couple of tips
- [What's the newest Python Comp. Sci. Textbook? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/30/whats-the-newest-python-comp-sci-textbook/) - A Computer Science textbook that uses Python as its core language was released, I believe, this year. However, I CAN'T FIND IT! I searched google, amazon, bn.com, and used all the terms you'd normally think of using, and I can't find this book anywhere. The book is black, and has a picture of a snake's
- [Where Can I Go That Isn't Twitter? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/28/where-can-i-go-that-isnt-twitter/) - In the few years since Twitter's launch, they have shrunk the number of ways you can interact with it, shrunk the number of hours in the day when you can reliably get or send messages through it, and, now, shrunk the number of useful web-based services by two, with the announcement that stikkit and I
- [Linux on Laptop = Epic Fail](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/25/linux-on-laptop-epic-fail/) - I brought my MacBook Pro in for a warranty repair yesterday around noon. Since then I've been using a Lenovo T61 to get basic work done, and also to see if any progress has been made in the area of Linux support for my laptop. I bought this laptop specifically because a website said that
- [Help me pick a new feed reader](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/21/help-me-pick-a-new-feed-reader/) - I've been using Google Reader since it was created. I really love the *idea* of Google Reader. I like that scrolling through the posts marks them as read. I like that you can toggle between list and expanded views of the posts. I like that you can search within a feed or across all feeds
- [MacBook Pro: Should I Just Get a Refurb?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/21/macbook-pro-should-i-just-get-a-refurb/) - I hate glossy screens. I've tried them. I don't like them. It's true that it would probably be good for my eyes in some way, since I do a lot of reading on the laptop and things *are* sharper with the glossy screen. However, there's just no way I can deal with having a glossy
- [Boto 1.5b glitch, and workaround ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/20/boto-15b-glitch-and-workaround/) - Boto is a Python library for interacting with Amazon's web services. I've used it in the past, and am currently using it for an 's3get' implementation based on a simple example I found buried in a post on Patrick Altman's blog. While testing my code, I noticed I was getting import errors from boto/connection.py, because
- [MySQL Problem and Solution Posts: r0ck. ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/18/mysql-problem-and-solution-posts-r0ck/) - Taming MySQL is... challenging. Especially in very large, fast-growth, 'always-on' environments. It's one of those things where you seemingly can never know all there is to know about it. That's why I really like coming across posts like this one from FreshBooks that describes a very real problem that was affecting their users, how they
- [On Remote Workers and Working Remotely](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/18/on-remote-workers-and-working-remotely/) - I've been on both sides of the remote worker relationship. On the manager side, I've managed some good-sized projects using an all-remote work force. Indeed, I've hired, managed, fired, and promoted workers without ever knowing what they look like. On the worker side, I do most of my work remotely, and I have for some
- [Reunion with Drupal, Break from Django ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/17/reunion-with-drupal-break-from-django/) - My Drupal Reunion I started using drupal maybe 3-4 years ago. At the time I wasn't all that impressed. I liked it better than Joomla (Mambo, at that time), and it was a little more featureful than PHP-Nuke. But even back then I hated that this thing was really making some sweeping, grand assumptions about
- [To PyWorks Speakers and Attendees](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/12/to-pyworks-speakers-and-attendees/) - I've gotten several emails over the past couple of days about meeting up at PyWorks. This is reasonable, since I was the main engine initiating contact with prospective speakers back in the June-August timeframe. However, much to my disappointment, I won't be attending PyWorks this year. The story is basically that, in September, the startup
- [I'm a Top 25 Geek Blogger... for some value of "Top"](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/10/im-a-top-25-geek-blogger-for-some-value-of-top/) - I'm not someone who wakes up every day and looks at how my blog is ranked by all of the various services. I check out my WordPress stats, but that's really about it. However, someone went and did some of the work for me, and they've decided that, of the blogs that they read or
- [Freelancing: What's working, what isn't](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/11/09/freelancing-whats-working-what-isnt/) - So, I've been a full-time freelance consultant now for almost 3 months, and I'm happy to say that business is going well so far. I'll be coming off of a 3-month contract at the end of this month, and I've already had some success in building the business in that time. I've also had a
- [Stop Doing Things That Don't Work (a.k.a: Excel and Virtual Private Servers are Evil)](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/10/29/stop-doing-things-that-dont-work-aka-excel-and-virtual-private-servers-are-evil/) - Note that I'm talking about using these tools in some kind of professional way, and more specifically, I'm talking about using Excel as a database, and using VPS hosting to host "professional" web sites. By "professional", I mean something other than your personal blog, picture gallery, or other relatively inconsequential site. Excel is not a
- [By popular demand: ReportLab Sample Document](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/10/28/by-popular-demand-reportlab-sample-document/) - I posted here last week about using ReportLab to generate very simple reports with a chart and code sample. I got several requests for screenshots, but what fun is that? Here's the PDF... gfe.pdf
- [When will the iPhone get features other phones have had for years?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/10/20/when-will-the-iphone-get-features-other-phones-have-had-for-years/) - The iPhone's success is somewhat in spite of itself. Sure, you can access all kinds of applications that do all kinds of things, and they've really gotten a few things right, like (IMHO) the phone interface, but some of the things it lacks are starting to become embarrassments. For example, for what, exactly, is the
- [Clone a table in MySQL without killing your server](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/10/09/clone-a-table-in-mysql-without-killing-your-server/) - So, I recently ran into one of those situations where a customer complains that his MySQL database is slow, and "it worked great until about two weeks ago". The first thing I look at in these situations is not the queries or any code, but the indexes. Once I determined that the indexes were almost
- [Practical Django Projects Trouble? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/10/08/practical-django-projects-trouble/) - I picked up Practical Django Projects by James Bennett just the other day. The book walks through the building of a few different projects, and tries to lead you down the path of "best practices" along the way. However, the book's publisher decided to release the first edition of this book on the heels of
- [There's now a #django-newbie chan on freenode](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/10/08/theres-now-a-django-newbie-chan-on-freenode/) - So, I've really just had it with the #django chan on freenode. I've gone there several times for help only to be treated like whale turd, essentially because I'm a newbie to django I suppose. They seem to have an issue with that there. It's not that you can't get answers there, mind you, it's
- [A merger, migration, mysql, python, and more news](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/09/30/a-merger-migration-mysql-python-and-more-news/) - First, AddThis.com (where I was the director of IT) and Clearspring have merged! A side effect of that is that I'm now (happily, on purpose, by choice) a full-time consultant! I'll have a web site up soonish. Until then, check back here for updates. If you're a tech firm who needs help, and don't mind
- [Sustained IO on EBS == No Bueno](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/08/27/sustained-io-on-ebs-no-bueno/) - I have a small EC2 instance running with a 25GB EBS volume attached. It has a database on it that I need to manipulate by doing things like dropping indexes and creating new ones. This is on rather large (multi-GB, millions of rows) tables. After running one DROP INDEX operation that ran all day without
- [More Adventures in Amazon EC2 (and EBS)](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/08/27/more-adventures-in-amazon-ec2-and-ebs/) - Short Version: You can find a fantastic video here about bundling customized AMIs and registering them with Amazon so that you can launch as many instances of your new AMI as you want. The video is so good that I don't bother writing out the steps to do the bundling (it would be pretty darn
- [PyWorks Conference Schedule Posted](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/08/27/pyworks-conference-schedule-posted/) - Hi all, The schedule for PyWorks has been posted! I'm really excited about three things: 1) there are some really cool talks that I'm looking forward to attending. There are a couple of sysadmin-related talks, AppEngine, TurboGears, Django, and an area I've been especially slow to move into: testing (I know, shame on me). There's
- [Why I Don't Write Book Reviews](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/08/08/why-i-dont-write-book-reviews/) - I have a lot of interaction with publishing types. I write a lot, and I edit some, and I do tech reviews and stuff for some publishers, and I co-authored a book, and I've worked on two magazines, and a newspaper, and I'm generally fascinated by the technical book market and stuff like that. I'm
- [Design Patterns in System Administration](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/08/03/design-patterns-in-system-administration/) - Most readers of my blog know that I consult, in addition to usually having a day job. I started my career working for a consulting firm, and couldn't let go of the endless fascinating problems that exist in the "technological landscape", and in addition, the seemingly endless numbers of ways to solve them. I've learned
- [Is it time to switch VM apps on OS X?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/29/is-it-time-to-switch-vm-apps-on-os-x/) - Thought I'd throw this out to the lazyweb for advice. I've been running OS X as my primary desktop OS since I got my macbook pro around May 2006 or so. I installed Parallels as soon as I found it, and it was great. I still have it installed. However, I've found two issues with
- [The promise of Drizzle](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/27/the-promise-of-drizzle/) - I got to actually speak to Brian Aker for maybe a total of 5 minutes after his micro-presentation about Drizzle, which took place at the Sun booth at OSCON 2008. I was a bit nervous to ask what questions I had out loud, because the things I had wondered about were things I really didn't
- [Microsoft Makes Progress, but Still Misses the Point](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/28/microsoft-makes-progress-but-still-misses-the-point/) - I'm still digesting certain parts of OSCON 2008, but I think I've finally settled on a conclusion for my thoughts on Sam Ramji's presentation of Microsoft's contributions to open source projects, and their progress toward rethinking how they do business to be more friendly toward competing platforms and technologies, so that other platforms can integrate
- [OSCON Update: Coverage gets harder as conference moves faster](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/24/oscon-update-coverage-gets-harder-as-conference-moves-faster/) - As expected, the conference really started to deliver starting Wednesday with the opening of the Exhibit Hall, announcements of all kinds from all companies, and parties at every turn. Wednesday also marks the first day of sessions that are only 45 minutes long instead of the 3-hour sessions on Monday and Tuesday. I've attended too
- [OSCON Day 2: Launching a Startup in 3 Hours](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/22/oscon-day-2-launching-a-startup-in-3-hours/) - Launching a Startup in 3 Hours was a great talk given by Andrew Hyde (of techstars.org) and Gavin Doughtie (of Google). Both of the speakers are heavily involved in the recent trend of doing "Startup Weekends", and techstars.org is an organization that hosts startup weekends all around the US (and I think internationally as well
- [OSCON Evening 1 Begins, and More Portland Tips](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/21/oscon-evening-1-begins-and-more-portland-tips/) - The evening plans didn't wait for talks to be done. The IRC channel (#oscon on irc.freenode.net) was alive with talk of prospects for dinner and drinks after the conference. I myself was torn between a group going out for Lebanese and another going to Henry's, but opted to go with my buddies from home to
- [OSCON Day 1 Comes to a Close](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/21/oscon-day-1-comes-to-a-close/) - I think I have pictures of most of the basic parts of the conference at my OSCON Flickr set, and I thoroughly enjoyed day 1 of the conference. Of course, while *day* 1 is over, *night* 1 has yet to even begin. There are lots of BoF sessions, and maybe even more smaller meetups going
- [OSCON Day 1: The BoF Board, for your perusal](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/21/oscon-day-1-the-bof-board-for-your-perusal/) - I've posted a picture of the BoF board for day 1. Click on it to see bigger sizes. The full size image (maybe smaller) is perfectly suitable for reading at your leisure. I'll update this if/when I see significant changes to it:
- [Day 1 progresses... "Python in 3 Hours"](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/21/day-1-progresses-python-in-3-hours/) - The morning session I attended was "Python in 3 hours", which provided excellent coverage of Python for folks who may never have seen it before. Steve Holden, being more qualified than most to present this material, did a stellar job of not only presenting the material, but also addressing questions coming from the attendees. Steve's
- [Day 1 of OSCON Begins, and More Tips for Conference-goers](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/21/day-1-of-oscon-begins-and-more-tips-for-conference-goers/) - I got an early start. Too early. But I'm from the west coast, so my body thinks I slept in. I wandered around a bit, took a few pics which you can see at my Flickr OSCON set, and I discovered a couple of things that might be of interest: The starbucks in the conference
- [A Few Tips for OSCON Attendees](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/20/a-few-tips-for-oscon-attendees/) - If you're attending the 10th Annual Open Source Convention, I've compiled just a few tips for you on this, "day 0" of the event: Don't check bags. Everything is slower if you check bags, and if you're packing more than three shirts, you're crazy, because if history is any indicator, you're going to be bombarded
- [A Quick Look at ElementTree (and a bit about 'sar')](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/18/a-quick-look-at-elementtree-and-a-bit-about-sar/) - I'm working on a new project that will be open sourced if I can ever get it to be generically useful. It's called "sarviz", and it's a visualization tool for output from the "sar" UNIX system reporting utility. I know tools like this exist, but please read on, as I'm looking to do something a
- [Show Me Your Python SysAdmin One-Liners! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/16/show-me-your-python-sysadmin-one-liners/) - Ah, the lazyweb. Today, I'm putting together content for a class I'm teaching on basic Linux administration, but during my meeting with a group of trainees to determine the scope of the course, they requested that I completely skip any coverage of "perl -e" one-liners, and show them the Python equivalents. Of course, I found
- [Ugh - Syndication Gone Bad](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/13/ugh-syndication-gone-bad/) - My apologies to my friends at Planet Sysadmin!! I posted a personal post, did not categorize it as a "systems" post, and it wound up on planet sysadmin anyway. I'm really sorry about that. I *would* try to keep posts like this from being syndicated at *all*, but I also belong to local technology user
- ["High-end" Wegman's is Cheaper! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/13/high-end-wegmans-is-cheaper/) - I am shocked (shocked!) to report that, after doing some comparison shopping today, it turns out that the Wegman's in my area is *cheaper* for *MANY* things than my local Stop & Shop! WTF?! Today, my wife and I took our Stop & Shop receipt from our shopping trip two days ago over to Wegman's,
- [Useful stuff - 2008 - first half](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/11/useful-stuff-2008-first-half/) - Having a Google account is sometimes useful in ways you hadn't planned for. For example, at a few different employers I've been at, I've had to prepare for reviews by providing a list of accomplishments to my supervisor. One decent tool for generating this list is email, though it can take some time. Another useful
- [Cloud computing hype overload](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/07/cloud-computing-hype-overload/) - I've been working with what I used to call "utility computing" tools for about 6-9 months. However, for about the past 2 months, I've been seeing the term "cloud computing" all over the place, and there is so much buzz surrounding it that it's reaching that magical point best described using Alan Greenspan's words: "Irrational
- [This is how I want all project web sites to look...](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/07/03/this-is-how-i-want-all-project-web-sites-to-look/) - My brain has a set of rules that software project websites get tested against. Each time a project site fails to comply with a rule, I get ever-so-slightly more annoyed, and ever-so-slightly less likely to use the software in question (if there are alternatives, this is even maybe not so "slightly"). I thought I'd list
- [Plug-ins: isn't there a better way? ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/25/plug-ins-isnt-there-a-better-way/) - If there's one thing that bothers me about using a ready-made solution like wordpress for my blog, it's plug-ins. I hate software plug-ins. The first question every support engineer for any software product that supports plugins asks in response to a trouble report is "are you using any plugins?" And when you say "yep, I'm
- [PyWorks 2008, November 12-14, Call for Papers Open! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/25/pyworks-2008-november-12-14-call-for-papers-open/) - Yes, the same folks who bring you Python Magazine and php|architect magazine (and several other things, like online training, a full line of books, and more conferences), are hosting our first ever Python conference! You can see more about it, and the Call for Papers, at the conference site. The hotel which once hosted php|works
- [O'Reilly: Give your authors Safari access! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/20/oreilly-give-your-authors-safari-access/) - UPDATE - 2008-06-23 - A member of O'Reilly's editing team commented that this privilege has *NOT* been discontinued, and all O'Reilly authors should receive a free Safari account. Thanks a bunch, Mary, for the clarification (see comments for more). I learned from one of the authors of the recently released second (read: first, squared) edition
- [Why should I pay for this AWS design decision?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/23/why-should-i-pay-for-this-aws-design-decision/) - I was writing a utility in Python (using boto) to test/play with Amazon's SQS service. As boto isn't particularly well documented where SQS specifically is concerned, I also plan to post some examples (either here or on Linuxlaboratory.org, or both). When I had some trouble getting a message that was sent to a queue, I
- [High Performance MySQL on Safari! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/20/high-performance-mysql-on-safari/) - All right! In the past, some books seem to be delayed in getting into O'Reilly's Safari site, but on the day that Baron announces the book's arrival, I find that I'm able to access it in Safari right now! Sweet!
- [For anyone flying to a conference - flyer beware](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/13/for-anyone-flying-to-a-conference-flyer-beware/) - I'm going to OSCON in July, and I know that just about everyone I know who is a participant in this crazy life we call IT (or web 2.0, or whatever it's called now), is flying to a conference or something in 2008. I'm starting to notice more and more posts like this one, so
- [Might as Well Use Python](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/13/might-as-well-use-python/) - One of my jobs after being promoted to Director of IT at AddThis.com is to find a senior PHP developer. I've learned a few things from the search we've been doing over the past several months: What we really want is a senior developer, versed in PHP There are apparently none of those in existence
- [MySQL Data Sharding Toolkit in Python](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/12/mysql-data-sharding-toolkit-in-python/) - This rocks. It's not complete, but Pyshards is the closest thing I've seen to a real attempt at making a more or less generic sharding toolkit, written in Python. This is not just great because it's written in Python or because it helps people who need sharding capabilities in MySQL. It's great because having a
- [Run your own cloud](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/11/run-your-own-cloud/) - What if you're a sysadmin that supports a large development community, or a large systems research facility, or something else that requires you to provision systems that, perhaps, *aren't* cookie-cutter machines? A lot of different solutions actually exist for doing this, with varying degrees of complexity and usefulness. However, in order to give people the
- [I just want to say...](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/09/i-just-want-to-say/) - That my wife, while on the phone with her mom, completely *not* coached by me, used the term "memory leak", correctly, to describe the cause of a technical issue. I knew she was a keeper, but this is above and beyond.
- [Data munging with Vim and AWK](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/06/data-munging-with-vim-and-awk/) - So, I had some data in a file. It was temporal data. It looked like this: 100 4/15 16:50 143 4/15 16:51 121 4/15 16:52 209 4/15 16:53 105 4/15 16:54 321 4/15 16:55 173 4/15 16:56 205 4/15 16:57 197 4/15 16:58 211 4/15 16:59 But I needed it to be in ISO 8601
- [What Makes a Good Sysadmin?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/05/what-makes-a-good-sysadmin/) - I went to the June meeting of the LOPSA-NJ group tonight, where we held a roundtable discussion talking about traits that make a good system administrator. Here are some of the traits we came up with. Adaptability Organizations are not static. Nor are their IT departments. If you're in a big company, being adaptable might
- [O'Reilly OSCON... and Brew Fest! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/03/oreilly-oscon-and-brew-fest/) - I'm going to the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) again this year. I went in 2006 as well, and had a blast, in addition to learning quite a bit, and meeting tons of people whom I've been acquainted with online for a long time. That was 2 years ago. Since then I've been acquainted with
- [Notes on Book Shopping from a Tech Bibliophile](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/03/notes-on-book-shopping-from-a-tech-bibliophile/) - Hi. My name is Brian, and I'm a tech bibliophile. I have owned more books covering more technologies than I care to admit. Some of my more technical friends have stood in awe of the number of tech books I own. I am also constantly rotating old books that almost *can't* be useful anymore out
- [Simple S3 Log Archival](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/03/simple-s3-log-archival/) - UPDATE: if anyone knows of a non-broken syntax highlighting plugin for wordpress that supports bash or some other shell syntax, let me know :-/ Apache logs, database backups, etc., on busy web sites, can get large. If you rotate logs or perform backups regularly, they can get large and numerous, and as we all know,
- [Funny what you learn about yourself when you buy an iPhone](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/03/funny-what-you-learn-about-yourself-when-you-buy-an-iphone/) - This is *not* a ripoff of xkcd (though I read that regularly, and so should you) - this is seriously the best graphic I can come up with, and it does the job. Yesterday I looked at doing all kinds of stuff to my iPhone. I wanted to see if I could get Python and
- [Couple of Python Design Pattern Links](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/02/couple-of-python-design-pattern-links/) - I'm a little relieved to learn that I know slightly more about design patterns than I initially thought. Still, there's tons to learn, and I've been checking the O'Reilly "Upcoming Titles" list to see if "Design Patterns in Python" ever shows up, but I'm always disappointed (if you know of any such upcoming book, let
- [Explosion at The Planet Causes 9000-server Outage](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/06/02/explosion-at-the-planet-causes-9000-server-outage/) - Here's the email I received on Saturday from The Planet, where I have some dedicated servers hosted: Dear Valued Customers: This evening at 4:55 in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no
- [Not that anyone necessarily cares...](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/05/30/not-that-anyone-necessarily-cares/) - But Google has changed their favicon to a lower-cased 'g'. Just sayin'.
- [Scalability Best Practices: eBay](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/05/29/scalability-best-practices-ebay/) - Following a link from the High Scalability blog, I found this really great article about scalability practices, as told by Randy Shoup at eBay. Randy is very good at explaining some of the more technical aspects in more or less plain English, and it even helped me find some wording I was looking for to
- [Make old svn revision the current revision](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/05/29/make-old-svn-revision-the-current-revision/) - I ran across an issue that my google-foo has had some trouble handling. Maybe what I did is the only way to do it, in which case maybe this will help someone in need... but I rather like to think that someone here will have a much nicer solution. I use Subversion at most of
- [Multisourced Production Infrastructure: History, and a stab at the Future](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/05/26/multisourced-production-infrastructure-history-and-a-stab-at-the-future/) - Startups are pretty fascinating. I work for a startup, and one of my good friends works for another startup. I've also worked for 2 other startups, one during the first "bubble", and another one a few years later. Oh my, how the world of web startups has changed in that time! 1999: You must have
- [Social Media, The Future of News, and Data Mining](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/05/16/social-media-the-future-of-news-and-data-mining/) - I went to a very good panel discussion yesterday hosted by the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. There has been a conference going on there that covers a lot of the overlap between technology, law, and journalism, and the panel discussion yesterday, Data Mining, Visualization, and Interactivity was even more enlightening than
- [Get a List of Years and Months in a Date Range with PHP](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/05/15/get-a-list-of-years-and-months-in-a-date-range-with-php/) - I can't find the initial inspiration for this to link to - sorry. I came across a forum post or maybe a blog post where someone needed to do something like return an array of the months (or maybe it was days or something) in a given date range. I had a place where I
- [PHP Object Casting is Cool](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/12/php-object-casting-is-cool/) - I'm from the PHP 3 school of PHP coding. Before that Java was shoved down my throat, and I was happy to be away from project management type stuff and back into Perl and PHP. Doing nothing but procedural coding for a while helped me understand more where an object could really be useful, but
- [Quick CVS Cheat Sheet](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/04/12/cvs-cheat-sheet/) - Actually, I'd love to say that I've moved completely to using git instead of CVS, but the truth of the matter is that, for a recent project where I'm just trying to consolidate a whole bunch of admin scripts, organize them under one (managed) roof, and (most importantly) get a bunch of admins on board
- [Freebase: Your database is ready!](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/13/freebase-your-database-is-ready/) - This is going to be really frickin' cool. There's just no other way to put it. Maybe I'm a little too much of a data geek, because I can't seem to sit still since receiving my email letting me know that Freebase is now in alpha, and the account I requested months ago can now
- [*STILL* No Multiple Inheritance in PHP!](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/04/25/still-no-multi-inheritance-in-php/) - This is maddening. There have been requests for multiple inheritance in PHP since I started using it in mid 1999. Of course, in mid-1999, I didn't really care. There wasn't much written in PHP that was any good, so I was writing little scripts of glue code to tie pieces of HTML together and the
- [Using TRUNCATE to empty a PostgreSQL database](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/16/using-truncate-to-empty-a-postgresql-database/) - This is not something that's any big hack or secret, but emptying a database of all data without dropping the structure along with it is one of those tasks that I do just often enough in my development work to be annoying. If you ask me, there should just be a big ol' "EMPTY" statement
- [Recovering deleted files from an svn repository](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/25/recovering-deleted-files-from-an-svn-repository/) - I know I'm going to forget how to do this, because I only ever need to do it once a year or something, so I'll put it here for safe keeping: To recover a file from svn that you deleted from your local repository, it's first necessary to get the proper name of the file,
- [Holy Crap I'm Busy](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/12/19/holy-crap-im-busy/) - I feel guilty that I'm even taking this little bit of time to post this. I'm *BUSY*. I'm simultaneously: learning how to deploy a fully-virtualized, production infrastructure on a grid using AppLogic planning and scripting the bits and pieces that need to happen to migrate an infrastructure to a grid architecture. Doing code review for
- [How to Build Your Own MySQL 5 Server in AppLogic](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/12/19/how-to-build-your-own-mysql-5-server-in-applogic/) - I'm building an infrastructure on a grid using AppLogic, which is a grid OS that provides both GUI and command line interfaces to build your infrastructure. I use both interfaces, depending on the task I'm trying to perform at the time. One thing I have discovered is that there are a lot of somewhat nebulous
- [Vim messing up indentation on your pasted code?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/04/vim-messing-up-indentation-on-your-pasted-code/) - I've had this issue forever. I want to paste in some code from somewhere else into a Vim session on some random box, but I have to remember to do ":set nocindent noautoindent nosmartindent noreallypleasedontindent" all the time. Well, I finally had some time to google for an actual solution to the issue (I knew
- [A Couple of MySQL Performance Tips](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/05/12/a-couple-of-mysql-performance-tips/) - If you're an advanced MySQL person, you might already know these, in which case, please read anyway, because I still have some questions. On the other hand, f you're someone who launched an application without a lot of database background, thinking "MySQL Just Works", you'll eventually figure out that it doesn't, and in that case,
- [rrdpy - Thanks, Corey! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/29/rrdpy-thanks-corey/) - I have a somewhat unique situation to deal with in terms of monitoring. I need to put a graph a bunch of historical data mined from web server logs. I can get so far with loghetti, which is coming along and is great for certain things, but there's a bridge missing between it and something
- [Ubuntu 8.04 and Python Editors](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/28/ubuntu-804-and-python-editors/) - So I updated one of my laptops to Ubuntu 8.04 pretty much as soon as it was available. I've been using my MacBook Pro laptop for everything for probably over a year now, because I grew tired of the hobby that *is* running Linux on a laptop and getting everything to work. I'll note that
- [Python Magazine April Issue is Out](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/24/python-magazine-april-issue-is-out/) - Hi all, This month's Python Magazine has been released, containing a few really great articles, including on about using the Google API and Google Spreadsheets to create a database "in the cloud". For you scientist types, there's also an excellent article about BioPython. For XCode users, there's an article about scripting XCode with Python, and
- [Spring Means Blooming Flowers... and Ideas](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/21/spring-means-blooming-flowers-and-ideas/) - I seem to have found a pattern in my own internal workings. In the fall, I work furiously and get a lot done. Around the time of the winter holidays, I almost always do major personal web site changes and upgrades according to a mental list I've compiled over the previous year. In the spring,
- [New web host: check! ](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/20/new-web-host-check/) - If you're reading this post, it means that the DNS entries have propagated, and you're viewing my blog at it's new location: WebFaction! Thanks to everyone who left comments in response to my cry for web host recommendations. Almost everyone mentioned webfaction in the comments, and I got a few emails with that recommendation as
- [Can't find the Ruby Kool-aid](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/19/cant-find-the-ruby-kool-aid/) - I picked up the Apress book about Ruby for Systems Administrators, because I plan on learning enough about Ruby to make it a viable tool that I can use if I have to use it at some point. I still plan on doing that, but in reviewing the first couple of chapters, I don't think
- [Open Source, Microsoft, and the Future](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/18/open-source-microsoft-and-the-future/) - Last week, I read a great blog post (and even better comments), and then this week I read something else that made me think more about Microsoft, open source, and Microsoft's direction going into the future. By way of disclaimer, I'm indifferent to Microsoft. I don't use their products if I don't have to, but
- [Is this thing on?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/16/is-this-thing-on/) - Since the recovery from my recent outage, I've noticed that none of the normal feed sites where my posts normally show up caught the last post, so this is a test post to see what's going on, if it was a temporary glitch, or what. If you didn't see the post linked above, please read
- [Need a new web host](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/16/need-a-new-web-host/) - Ok, this blog is currently hosted by 1and1.com, and I think that needs to change, which is sad, because up until recently, I've been pretty happy with the performance. However, I recently had an issue, and some things came to light about my package that I wasn't aware of. First of all, the maximum time
- [Ok, that's it. It's "lose". Not "loose".](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/09/ok-thats-it-its-lose-not-loose/) - Every. Single. Day. This. Happens. I read a *LOT* of online technical documentation. Come to think of it, I read a *LOT* of documentation offline as well. I also occasionally read things like blogs and comments and stuff. In all of my reading, I have found that the most prevalent mistake made by the writer
- [All Linux Distros Suck](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/04/01/all-linux-distros-suck/) - 1. In reality, all Linux distributions suck, some just suck in ways you might not have discovered yet. While I am not the holy master of all that is Linux, I like to think that, having deployed, administered, maintained, and supported a good number of distros (not to mention UNIX variants), in varying environments and
- [Loghetti 0.9 Released: Now worthy of use!](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/29/loghetti-09-released-now-worthy-of-use/) - The first released tarball of Loghetti was called the "IPO" release. This version actually warranted having an actual version number. I chose 0.9, and we'll be moving toward 0.91, in .01 increments to a 1.0 release. Later on I'll try to detail a roadmap, but I haven't had enough feedback for that yet (though I've
- [A simple nanny script in Python](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/29/a-simple-nanny-script-in-python/) - I have a support issue with a provider of mine, but was able to reverse engineer the problem and put in a stop-gap measure to keep it from ruining my weekend. The issue is a misconfigured daemon supplied by the provider, and occasionally, this daemon just goes away. I don't know much about the daemon,
- [A non-degree-holder's view of hiring decisions](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/27/a-non-degree-holders-view-of-hiring-decisions/) - I get a good number of job offers without sending resumes around. I guess my name shows up in enough places, associated with enough buzzwords, that recruiters fire off emails first and read the fine print later. The "fine print" in my case, says that I do not have a college degree. 99.999% of the
- [Amazon Adds Static IP and "Availability Zones" to EC2](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/27/amazon-adds-static-ip-and-availability-zones-to-ec2/) - This is cool. You can now associate a static IP address with your EC2 instances. No more mucking about with 10-minute DNS timeouts or dynamic DNS routines. You can also elect to start certain instances in multiple locations using "Availability Zones" These new features will make it a little easier for people to deploy larger
- [Hadoop, EC2, S3, and me](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/20/hadoop-ec2-s3-and-me/) - I'm playing with a lot of rather large data sets. I've just been informed recently that these data sets are child's play, because I've only been exposed to the outermost layer of the onion. The amount of data I *will* have access to (a nice way of saying "I'll be required to wrangle and munge")
- [The Power of Open Source](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/19/the-power-of-open-source/) - I think my very favorite aspect of the open source development model is that it allows me to practice the philosophies I use in my every day personal life, and apply them to software development as well. In my teens and early 20's I read quite a lot of Aristotle and Plato, and a very
- [Loghetti is now an open source project](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/18/loghetti-is-now-an-open-source-project/) - I was getting feedback about loghetti, and it was all very useful, and it's still coming in, and I can't work full-time on it. At the same time, I'd love for some of the stuff I've read about to be implemented, because I certainly could make use of it myself. So if anyone is interested,
- [A GMail option I'd like to see: "Delayed Skip Inbox"](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/17/a-gmail-option-id-like-to-see-delayed-skip-inbox/) - I use GMail extensively. In my main gmail account, I can send mail using a variety of accounts that I've authenticated to allow sending from. So, for example, mail from jonesy at pythonmagazine dot com is actually sent from a gmail interface, even though PyMag doesn't officially use Google Mail for their domain (not that
- [Feedback and Boredom Result in 35% Performance Boost for Loghetti](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/14/feedback-and-boredom-result-in-35-performance-boost-for-loghetti/) - Well, I got some feedback on my last post, and I had some time on my hands tonight, and Python is pretty darn easy to use. As a result, loghetti is making great strides in becoming a faster log filter. To test the performance in light of the actual changes I've made, I'm asking loghetti
- [Loghetti Beta - An Apache Log Filter](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/13/loghetti-beta-an-apache-log-filter/) - I'm thinking about just making this an open source project hosted someplace like Google Code or something, because there are folks much smarter than myself who can probably do wonders with the code I've put together here. Loghetti takes an Apache combined format access log and a few options as arguments, throws your log lines
- [What I learned about Python Today - eval()](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/11/what-i-learned-about-python-today-eval/) - I was writing some Python yesterday, and came across an issue that I thought was going to send me back to the drawing board. I was using a module that, given an Apache access log, returns line objects with the fields of the line as attributes of the line object. It was certainly usable as-is,
- [Taking Virtualization to the Next Level: AppLogic](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/03/05/taking-virtualization-to-the-next-level-applogic/) - Every now and then, something comes around that is as useful as it is novel. Of course, the notion of virtualized systems isn't new. In fact, systems running something like what we now call a "hypervisor" have existed for, literally, decades. But what about that next level of virtualization? What if you could not only
- [Diving into Django](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/02/27/diving-into-django/) - Yeah, so... Doug said if I was looking to make friends with Python for anything other than systems work, I should probably have a look at Django. Then I found this install on OS X guide the other day, and went ahead and downloaded Django. About 15 minutes later, I was looking at the "It
- [Got a new iPhone](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/02/27/got-a-new-iphone/) - Yeah, I dove into the iPhone after seeing Steve Jobs's keynote where he talked about all of the new features. When I first saw the iPhone, I had no real interest in it, because I didn't like the idea that the only apps I could use were those deemed worthy by Apple. I tend to
- [Python Magazine February Issue Available](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/02/21/python-magazine-february-issue-available/) - Go grab your copy now! If you're not a subscriber, get the PDF or Print+PDF subscription now! This month there's a really cool article about how to take data from a spreadsheet and use it to plot points on Live Maps to provide a useful service to employees in the field. I also chimed in
- [Hadoop introductory video](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/01/31/hadoop-introductory-video/) - This is a great talk with the head of Yahoo's grid team that talks about the open source project Hadoop, which is an open source distributed file system and MapReduce implementation. The video is long and interspersed with Yahoo! specifics you might not care about - but keep watching, because they swing back to talking
- [Python Magazine on IRC](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/01/24/python-magazine-on-irc/) - It occurs to me that lots of people have no idea that Python Magazine has an IRC channel! Since I know a lot of our authors, and even more of our readers, actually use IRC, we've created a channel called #pymag on irc.freenode.net (FreeNode in most clients). The goal of the channel is to be
- [Dear VirtueDesktops Guy](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/01/23/dear-virtuedesktops-guy/) - Note: if you're a Leopard user wishing Apple's Spaces was never invented, and you'd pay to have VirtueDesktops back, please leave a 'me too' post in the comments! UPDATE: See this link to make Spaces not *completely* useless: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2008021122525348 Please pick development back up for VirtueDesktops. Apple's spaces not only falls short, it totally sucks.
- [Sun Acquires MySQL](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/01/16/sun-acquires-mysql/) - I'm pretty sure I'm not pleased about this, but I guess only time will tell. Maybe now my boss will let me move to PostgreSQL :-D See the news release here Blogged with Flock
- [Do You, Um.... Brew?](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/01/13/do-you-um-brew/) - A long time ago, a buddy of mine got me into brewing beer. I'm not talking about buying a can o' syrup and adding water - I'm talking about buying grain, taking it home, milling it, mashing it, hopping it, fermenting it, bottling and kegging it.... *really* brewing beer. Anyway, it turns out that a
- [AppLogic Cheat Sheet](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/01/11/applogic-cheat-sheet/) - I've been using AppLogic for exactly one month today, and I've learned a whole heckuva lot about what it takes to build an infrastructure using the AppLogic grid operating system. One of the very first things I learned is that there is just a TON of documentation, but a very large portion of it is
- [Identifying Database Badness](https://protocolostomy.com/2008/01/02/identifying-database-badness/) - I started my career on the database end of the technological landscape, as a consulting database reporting specialist, then later as a consulting DBA for Sybase. It was there that I discovered that the real fun was in system administration, but I still have a deep love for data organization, modeling, and management, even though
- [Python Magazine's Article Wish List](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/12/30/python-magazines-article-wish-list/) - Welcome to the second occasional PyMag Article Wish List, where the editors of Python Magazine get together to come up with a list of topics that we'd like to see covered, but which currently have no coverage in our magazine. If you're familiar with any of the topics listed below, or you're doing something else
- [December issue of Python Magazine Out, and DRM-Free](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/12/26/december-issue-of-python-magazine-out-and-drm-free/) - After the October and November issues of Python Magazine were both out for some time, I was pretty surprised when I joined IRC channels only to find lots of people who still didn't know about Python Magazine. Well, the December issue has just been released in both print and PDF, and I think it's a
- [The beginnings of a CLI interface to Google Spreadsheets](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/12/19/the-beginnings-of-a-cli-interface-to-google-spreadsheets/) - I'm really re-posting this from an O'Reillynet posting I made a while back in order to test out the code highlighting capabilities of my new wordpress installation. It seems that it's not really working correctly [UPDATE: Seems to be working now :-D]. Anyway, I hate (HATE!) spreadsheets. Even the Google variant. The interfaces to these
- [...So little time](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/12/07/so-little-time/) - I'm not usually this bad about writing on my blog, but the past few weeks have been a little nuts. But it's the 'good' kind of nuts. I'm working on MySQL, memcached, database replication, optimizing SQL queries (and, in one case, the database schema itself), writing Python (using ctypes, and trying to parse the C-encrusted
- [My Python Presentation](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/11/13/my-python-presentation/) - During my last week on the job at GFDL, the manager there asked if I'd put together a presentation about Python, geared toward people who had been using Perl, or people who hadn't done a lot of scripting at all. I said I'd do it so long as there weren't any really advanced coders in
- [I’ve Been Added](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/11/13/ive-been-added/) - Friday was my last day working as a contractor for the GFDL. I had friends there before I ever worked there, so I'm sad to be leaving them, but I'm happy to be moving on to a really exciting opportunity. I'm now an employee of AddThis.com. I'll be able to focus on architecture, and how
- [Deep Thoughts: Printing](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/11/06/deep-thoughts-printing/) - Some day, a language will exist that works as flawlessly across platforms as printing sucks across platforms. That will be a wonderful day (until and unless you have to print something).
- [Python Magazine Defies Skeptics](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/11/01/python-magazine-defies-skeptics/) - I was informed today by the publisher that Python Magazine has been deemed "viable" using all of the important business metrics that they use to evaluate the magazine. This is fantastic news, and speaks volumes about the viability of the magazine in *non* business terms, as well as the model we've been employing at MTA
- [Getting at your Google Spreadsheets columns](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/31/getting-at-your-google-spreadsheets-columns/) - Regular readers know that I've been working on a pet project to build a command line interface to Google Spreadsheets. Basically, I find working in a spreadsheet interface to be clunky and uncomfortable. If I need to put in a new row, I'd rather just be prompted at the CLI for the values I want
- [Python, regex, and IRC](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/26/python-regex-and-irc/) - So, I'm on IRC a lot. I'm on a lot of channels, too. I'm on more than one Python channel. One scenario in these chans that comes up somewhat often is one in which a user converting from PHP, Perl, Ruby, or whatever walk in and want to get a better understanding of how regex
- [PlanetPlanet++](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/25/planetplanet/) - I have to admit that I have not really made friends with Python as a web scripting language. I use it for network, system, and database scripting, and I've done some web services stuff with it, but I haven't been able to use it for things that have, say, a browser interface. Until the other
- [I need a Google Apps Mashup](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/23/i-need-a-google-apps-mashup/) - Google Docs is nice. Calendar is really nice. Gmail is ok, too. The notion that you can more or less use any of the tools without going too far is pretty nice, and they've opened things up with the API just enough to get some useful plugin capabilities, *and* there's a Python client available for
- [“For the Community”](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/21/for-the-community/) - Sometimes people claim they're doing things for the good of the community, but I guess that doesn't necessarily mean they intend to involve the community in the effort :-/ A group of open source/free software users in New Jersey (where I currently reside) learned that the hard way when the maintainer of a web site
- [For my next pet project…](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/17/for-my-next-pet-project/) - Stand back! running install_egg_info Writing /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gdata.py-1.0.9.egg-info brj@dawg:~/working/gdata.py-1.0.9$ python Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, May 2 2007, 16:27:44) [GCC 4.1.2 (Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu4)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import gdata >>> print 'yay!' yay! >>> No good can come of this! ;-P Seriously, though - I really really strongly dislike spreadsheet interfaces.
- [The Technology Behind Python Magazine](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/10/the-technology-behind-python-magazine/) - Hi all, I mentioned to a buddy (who is also an editor) that we used subversion in our editorial process. He didn't know what that was, and said that they used either this big nasty home grown system, or email attachments, to coordinate the editorial process. He was incredibly curious about how we used subversion
- [With Great Funding Comes Great Responsibility](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/08/with-great-funding-comes-great-responsibility/) - For the past ~6 weeks, I've been talking to people, getting buy-in, educating users and administrators, and generating copious amounts of project proposal and six sigma documentation presentig VMware Infrastructure as an infrastructure building and management tool. There's a whole manifesto behind this, but I'll try to boil it down. Basically, this client has three
- [Python Magazine Status Update](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/10/05/python-magazine-status-update/) - First, and most important, Python Magazine's premiere issue has been unleashed! I love this business. Doing all of the negotiations, the communications with authors, coordinating with layout and contract people, web administrators, tech editors, and the like, can get pretty chaotic. It's sort of like managing.... a tornado. And, like a tornado, one second you're
- [My New iPod](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/09/24/my-new-ipod/) - My wife and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. I'm not sure why. I think it started because, for the first couple of years we dated, we were a few hundred miles apart, so we couldn't. Now it's just tradition. Anyway, to make up for it, we go all out on our anniversaries. We had
- [Sometimes it’s just about attitude](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/09/23/sometimes-its-just-about-attitude/) - Today I spent the day completely breaking down and replacing the entire above-ground portion of my in-ground pool's plumbing. I had some problems crop up with my multi-port valve, and I had to take a few things apart to troubleshoot and remove the pump as the source of a pressure problem (namely, there wasn't any).
- [Two ssh-isms I forgot today](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/09/17/two-ssh-isms-i-forgot-today/) - 1. To remove an offending known_hosts key without opening the file or using sed or whatever, you can just run ssh-keygen -R , which will remove any and all keys for the given hostname (see man ssh-keygen for other options like this). 2. To copy files from a local directory with spaces in its name
- [UNIX mtime vs. ctime](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/09/17/unix-mtime-vs-ctime/) - Sometimes I get questions from people about stuff that I've long since taken for granted. One is "what's the difference between mtime and ctime?" The answer is simple, but I wanted to post it here in case it can help anyone. In UNIX: mtime is "modification time", and it is the time at which the
- [New Job!](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/09/07/new-job/) - I started a new job about 6 weeks ago. I'm now doing infrastructure architecture at http://gfdl.noaa.gov GFDL stands for Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab. It's a NOAA site that supports atmospheric and climatology research. So in other words, the work I do supports research into things ranging from global warming to what the atmosphere on Mars
- [Vacation](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/08/17/vacation/) - I relinquished control of my house to my friend and neighbors for the coming week, and I'll be in Martha's Vineyard until August 27th with my wife and daughter, along with my mother- and father-in-law, sis-in-law, and her fiancee. We have lots of activities planned, including tuna fishing (if they're running). So, if you don't
- [My Gatorade Attacked Me And All I Got Was… the thirst quenching of a lifetime?](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/08/15/my-gatorade-attacked-me-and-all-i-got-was-the-thirst-quenching-of-a-lifetime/) - I just want to ask the folks who do the marketing for Gatorade to stop coming up with beverage names that border on being downright threatening. No, really. I went into the refrigerator to look for something to drink just now, and way in the back I noticed a bottle of something I'd never seen
- [Catching up, Part 2: Python Magazine Update](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/08/05/catching-up-part-2-python-magazine-update/) - So, it's been 1 month since we officially announced Python Magazine's existence. I'm very happy (and even more relieved) to report that things are going wonderfully so far. In these early days prior to the actual release of the first issue, the focus is primarily on content development. This is also called "getting articles in
- [Catching up, Part 1: New Job!](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/08/05/catching-up-part-1-new-job/) - Ok, I have lots of blogging to do now. I haven't blogged in at least a week, and plenty is happening. First, I have a new job. For those who didn't know, for the past 6 years I was working for the Computer Science Dept. at Princeton University. I've moved over to work in an
- [Looking for the Twitter Kool-aid](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/07/24/looking-for-the-twitter-kool-aid/) - So, *another* person asked if I'm "on twitter", so I went and got on there. Whatever. As far as I can see, it's a useless distraction, but people seem to be obsessed with it. I'm convinced that these people don't have any real work to do. Once you sign up, the only thing you can
- [Where does that Python DB handle go?](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/07/21/python-database-handle/) - UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long. My solution works, but there's a better way. Create the connection in main(), and create separate *cursors* for each Host. Cursors are cheap, and you reuse the connection. Thanks to Brend on #python (irc.freenode.net) for the enlightenment. Python has been a wonderful language to get to know so far.
- [Why you should write: common myths debunked](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/07/19/why-you-should-write/) - I give a talk that advocates writing. I do this because I owe my career to people who wrote down what they knew and made it available in one form or another; either free on a web site, or in a book that I bought. When I started editing, one of my jobs was to
- [My first interview](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/07/12/my-first-interview/) - I was interviewed by Tony Mobily of Free Software Magazine! You can see the interview here. Also, if you're tired of Slashdot and Digg, Tony also works on Free Software Daily.
- [Python 2.5’s “partition” saves my bacon](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/07/11/partition-saves-my-bacon/) - So I was on more than one IRC channel today asking a question that I got lots of answers to, all of which looked really messy to me, so I dug into the documentation and found that in Python 2.5, strings have a new method, called "partition". Here's the trouble I had, and why "partition"
- [On the demise of SysAdmin Magazine](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/07/06/demise-of-sysadmin-magazine/) - CMP recently announced that they will cut 200 jobs, and shut down more than one magazine in the process, folding their content into other existing magazines. There has been a lot of buzz in the sysadmin community (which I know largely as a loose collection of people who belong to LOPSA, SAGE, USENIX, or local
- [Python Magazine Lives](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/07/03/python-magazine-lives/) - I have a confession to make: For the past 6 weeks, I've been leading a secret double life. By day, I'm a mild mannered system/network/database admin in academia. I also write some PHP, Perl, and Python code. By night, however, I'm an author and editor. My latest project is bigger than most. In fact, it's
- [Winner of the first fortnightly No Bueno(tm) Award: Flickr.com](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/06/13/winner-of-the-first-fortnightly-no-buenotm-award-flickrcom/) - I occasionally make up words. I haven't ever blogged them. I think the last one I made up was "Frauthentic" - a mix of "fraudulent" and "authenticity". I use that term to describe things that come out of places like Pottery Barn that are supposed to look aged, vintage, distressed... you know. Like they come
- [The Zen of Python](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/06/12/the-zen-of-python/) - If you are new to Python, or you're still on the fence, you should probably do this: 1. At a command line, run 'python' 2. At the resulting prompt, type 'import this' and hit enter.
- [family.append(daughter)](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/31/familyappenddaughter/) - So, I took some time off starting last Wednesday. My daughter (and first-born child) was born on Thursday, May 24. It's a completely overwhelming experience. Oh sure, I was like a lot of other guys, thinking I'd pass out at the sight of a baby being born, thinking it would be really cool to have
- [Python: “Which of these variables is None?”](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/22/python-which-of-these-variables-is-none/) - So I'm still getting past the neophyte stage with Python. The good news is that every time I need to apply some programming principle to something I'm doing in Python, it's really very easy. Heck, I practically fell accidentally into OO programming on one of my Python projects, and everything else has been a dream
- [Regular Expressions with Python’s “re” Module](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/18/regular-expressions-with-python-re-module/) - If you're moving over from PHP, Perl, Ruby or something similar, don't be intimidated by all the Python regular expression documentation. It doesn't really have to be complicated or even all that much different from Perl (though it can be, if you want to go there). Here's a search and replace I ripped out of
- [Can Technology Kill the NAR?](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/14/can-technology-kill-the-nar/) - The NAR is the National Association of Realtors. They're the main lobbying interest for pavement-pounding brick-and-mortar real estate agents. Of course, this is problematic for web-based real estate outfits like Redfin, because the NAR has the required influence to get legislation passed that can make life as a web-based real estate sales organization difficult, if
- [A quick overview of common grammatical mistakes](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/09/a-quick-overview-of-common-grammatical-mistakes/) - Part of what I do for a living is write. I've co-authored a book, written a rather large number of technical articles, and I've also done professional editing, tech review, and manuscript review for magazines, newspapers, and publishing houses. Also, my wife is an English teacher. In short, though I make my fair share of
- [Thumbs up for Synergy](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/04/thumbs-up-for-synergy/) - I have heard a couple of people mention this tool on IRC and mailing lists, but I didn't ever make time to try it myself for some reason. That is, until my buddy and coworker Steve gave me a quick demo of its functionality, and told me that it was brainless to install and get
- [The Future of IT and IT Policy](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/04/future-of-it-policy/) - For those who didn't already know, I work in academia. I work in the Computer Science Dept. at Princeton University. Every week I attend the "IT Policy Lunch", which is a gathering of anyone on campus who is concerned with IT Policy. It's hosted by Ed Felten, who heads up research into IT Policy. You
- [Not feelin’ the Joost](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/02/not-feelin-the-joost/) - Joost is getting ready to launch out of beta and unleash themselves unto the masses. I participated in the beta, and I have to say that there are some good things that I think will result from Joost, but I think ultimately Joost will fall from favor within 12 months from their public launch. First,
- [Anniversary: 4 Months, 0 Cigarettes](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/05/01/anniversary-4-months-0-cigarettes/) - My quit date was January 1st, 2007. I haven't had a smoke since. I *have* had the occasional cigar, but I never finish those, and they're a rare pleasure. I can't commit to smoking something for over an hour. That's just too much, and it reminds me of one of the reasons I hate smoking:
- [Cron != Shell](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/04/27/cron-is-not-shell/) - I'm as guilty as anyone of treating cron as if it's "just a shell", and it finally bit me today. I had a quick-n-dirty Postgres backup command that worked wonderfully from the command line: /usr/local/postgres/bin/pg_dumpall -U pgadmin | gzip -9 > \ /usr/local/db/backups/pgsql/pgdump.`/bin/date +"%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`.gz But when I put this into my crontab, I started getting
- [Why Does SourceForge Hate Its Users?](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/04/26/why-does-sourceforge-hate-its-users/) - SourceForge has been a lumbering, slow, clumsy, ugly site for a long time. So-called "improvements" over the past couple of *years* have done as much to hurt performance of the site as it has to make it prettier and (debatably) easy to navigate. In reality, it seems that most of the changes made to SourceForge
- [I’m Now A FiOS Customer](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/04/05/now-a-fios-customer/) - Some people will be shocked to hear that I'm now a FiOS customer, especially if they've read a previous post I made over a year ago now about how FiOS looked like the biggest scam ever. Well, I'm not sure I changed my mind per se, but a number of realizations have been made over
- [Finding Needles With ’sort’ and ‘uniq’](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/30/finding-needles-with-sort-and-uniq/) - I had to do this recently, and so I thought it would be useful to share this for two reasons: Someone else may need to do it and find this technique useful Someone else may know a better way of doing this Quick 'n' dirty explanation: you have two lists. One list is a superset
- [View Vindication](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/29/view-vindication/) - So, about 9 months ago, I worked with a team of researchers. They were building a pretty hardcore global distributed system, and associated management infrastructure. My job was to simply advise them on issues revolving around how they use their database back end. For the most part, I just made suggestions here and there about
- [Three tips to keep you focused](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/24/three-tips-to-keep-you-focused/) - If you've read my previous posts relating to time management, you might realize by now that I tend to approach it from the opposite direction of a lot of other information sources. My philosophy is that it is easier (for me) to identify things that represent a mismanagement of time and find creative solutions to
- [Vi Key Bindings for your Mac Apps](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/22/vi-key-bindings-for-your-mac-apps/) - Well, I found Komodo Editor, and I'm using that right now for coding Python. It's Vi key bindings are a little quirky sometimes because of the interplay with the popup hints and stuff, but it hasn't driven me totally crazy yet. However, I just found out that there's a way to get Vi key bindings
- [Google Calendar Syncing](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/20/google-calendar-syncing/) - So, I'm kinda tired of trying to find a solution to this. What I want is a non-commercial, freely available application (NOT service) that will sync bidirectionally between Google Calendar and Apple iCal, Evolution, and whatever Mozilla calls its calendar today (Sunbird?). I've used Spanning Sync, which worked well enough, but I never liked that
- [Code Editor Goodness: Komodo Editor](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/19/code-editor-goodness-komodo/) - Geez.... for a sysadmin I sure seem to write a lot of code. In the past year I've written an assignment type for Moodle in PHP, cobbled together an API in Perl to manage various LDAP resources, and I've just completed a prototype for an XML-RPC server that will be an interface to our data
- [Trying to make friends with Python… again](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/16/making-friends-with-python-again/) - I like the idea of Python. I have diverse interests, technically, and I like to think that there's a language out there that I can use to write small script, a large website, a stored procedure, or a distributed system. The same language is used to write a very large chunk of systems code on
- [More news for Spanning Sync Refugees](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/14/news-for-spanning-sync-refugees/) - First, there are lots of people who are pretty outraged by the new Spanning Sync pricing of $25/year for a subscription service or $65 for a one-time license. The people who are the most outraged are those who are intimately familiar with how buggy it is because they were beta testers. I'm in that camp
- [Safety Precautions When Using the ‘rm’ Command](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/14/safety-precautions-when-using-the-rm-command/) - Usually, if I have a bunch of files that need to go away, I'll see what I can do to avoid using 'rm'. Many times, I can move a directory containing the files out of the way, or I can make a backup directory and move the files there. However, at some point, those files
- [Now that Spanning Sync costs way too much money…](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/13/now-that-spanning-sync-costs-way-too-much-money/) - I'll be giving gSync a try. Anyone tried it yet? I'll post my feedback, but in the meantime, I invite you to share your thoughts.
- [Can Ubuntu Cut the Gordian Knot?](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/10/can-ubuntu-cut-the-gordian-knot/) - When Windows was released, it united a vast but rather fragmented society around a single philosophy. On the one side, you had end users. They had to get work done, and they needed applications to do that. On the other side, you had application developers, who needed a platform conducive to making useful applications to
- [Saving (daylight savings) Time with ClusterSSH](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/09/saving-time-with-clusterssh/) - That's 20+ ssh sessions being controlled by that little bitty box in the bottom left-hand corner of the right-hand screen. This is why I really like clusterssh. It saves me time because I can do things on a whole bunch of machines all at the same time with zero scripting. All I do is create
- [Rolling Back an Entire CVS Repository](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/08/rolling-back-an-entire-cvs-repository/) - There's someone at Stanford who maintains a whole bunch of awesome tips on using CVS. This is perfect for me because it has all the little things that my brain loses because I don't need to use CVS all that frequently. Of course, not using it frequently also leads to screwups, and I has a
- [Still updating old links](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/08/still-updating-old-links/) - I recently imported a bunch of old blog entries from my old Blogger blog, and there are some old broken links in those old posts. As I find them, I'm fixing them. For example, I just saw in my logs that someone clicked a link to pics of my flooring project, but the link had
- [Dear Wordpress, Please Give Us “Post Widgets”](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/08/wordpress-give-us-post-widgets/) - It seems logical that WordPress.com would see value in having its users promote their blogs with the greatest of ease, thereby increasing traffic, and everything that follows from that. I have to admit, they do make a blogger pretty comfortable, but there's always room for growth and improvement. One feature that I think could be
- [WordPress as OpenID Portal](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/07/wordpress-as-openid-portal/) - WordPress has announced that you can use your WordPress blog URL as your OpenID. If I understand this right, this means you can go to a site that supports OpenID, and log in by entering your WordPress blog URL, being redirected to the login page for your blog, and if that's successful, you're redirected back
- [GCalSync Working on my BlackBerry 7290](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/07/gcalsync-working-on-my-blackberry-7290/) - Well, I had to cobble the steps together from various places on the internet, and do a little twiddling on my own, but here's how I got GCalSync 1.1.1 working on my BlackBerry 7290: I had to upgrade the software. The gcalsync site says 4.0 or later should work, but my old 4.0.something version didn't
- [No Business Left Behind](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/05/no-business-left-behind/) - I have a confession to make. Before my life in computing, I was a stockbroker, and flirted with going into the family business, which is real estate (see a somewhat complete list of jobs I've held here. It's good for a laugh). My father is a certified tax assessor and real estate appraiser who specializes
- [Migrate a NIS password map to LDAP… FAST](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/05/migrate-a-nis-password-map-to-ldap-fast/) - I came across this awk hack in an old code repository today. I slapped it together a couple of *years* ago now, and it was never really worthy of being distributed for general use. However, if you're like me and never made friends with the PADL migration tools and all you need is a quick
- [GCalDaemon Looks Promising](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/05/gcalendar-looks-promising/) - I just came across an article about GCalDaemon, which is a Java-based (meaning it should work on any platform) program to keep any iCal-compliant calendar in sync with your Google Calendar. And yes, this is also a bidirectional sync'ing tool! Technorati Tags: productivity, technology, google-calendar, Social Bookmarks:
- [My Blogger Days are Over](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/04/my-blogger-days-are-over/) - Wordpress.com, at some point over the past few weeks or so (I guess) started supporting the import of blog entries from Blogger.com blogs. This is fantastic, because I was participating in the maintenance of more than one blogger blog and ever since the move from the old Blogger to the new one I've been completely,
- [Flickr Notes is the coolest thing ever](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/04/flickr-notes-coolest-thing-ever/) - I can't believe I've been using Flickr for like, two years, and only just now discovered "Notes". I discovered them when I got a link from Tom Limoncelli's blog to pics of the North Jersey LOPSA-NJ meeting that took place this past week. I stumbled upon this picture that had notes and completely lost my
- [Finally! A Social Bookmark Link Generator for Wordpress.com Users](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/04/social-bookmark-generator-for-wordpress-users/) - If you want to allow readers of your wordpress.com blog to post your entries to stumbleupon, del.icio.us, or whatever, there isn't a sidebar widget or anything provided for you to do that. I consider this a shortcoming of the wordpress.com service, but whatever. I finally found a bookmarklet that will provide some cut-n-paste code to
- [My Google Calendar Wish List](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/03/my-google-calendar-wish-list/) - So I'm still sort of in the process of building my "life management system", the goal of which is to make it completely digital, while also attempting to make it as fool proof as my old Franklin Planner. Google Calendar is, so far, the foundation for this system. I really haven't been using Google Calendar
- [Time Management for *this* System Administrator](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/02/time-management-for-this-system-administrator/) - A fellow New Jerseyan, fellow LOPSA-NJ member, fellow O'Reilly author, and all around good guy Tom Limoncelli wrote a book called "Time Management for System Administrators", in which he boiled down a lot of the concepts and philosophies you'd otherwise have to read multiple tomes to learn about. It's a wonderful book, and it's easy
- [New Word: Blogume](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/02/new-word-blogume/) - I had this really neat idea today, but I don't have time to develop it, so someone needs to go make a million bucks with it and send me like $25,000 for the idea fee. The idea is simple: Create a centralized website that basically hosts or aggregates blogs that are geared toward potential or
- [Web 2.0 As Closed and Redundant as it is Cool and Creative](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/03/02/web-20-as-closed-and-redundant-as-it-is-cool-and-creative/) - I admit that I use, and like, a number of so-called Web 2. 0 applications. The blog you're reading is actually hosted at Wordpress.com. The good folks there let me make it look like it lives somewhere else if I want to, and as an added bonus, Wordpress is a downloadable, open source application in
- [The Vista Verdict: Don’t Bother](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/23/untitled/) - With all of the hubbub surrounding Google Office today I decided to write this blog post using Google Writely, which is an in-browser word processor that is part of the Google Docs & Spreadsheets service. It's pretty nice so far, and I like that it has an autosave feature, because I've made use of it
- [Um… Nevermind](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/23/um-nevermind/) - Ok, so I'm publicly uncommitting myself from the project I committed myself to yesterday. Turns out, Mark Burgess has already done this with a tool called DeliciousSQL Importer. Sure, the data model doesn't stand up to my rigorous normalization standards, but with this, I can get at my data, and do whatever I want with
- [XSLT, SQL, and Delicious Library](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/22/xslt-sql-and-delicious-library/) - Ok, I'm publicly committing myself to this pet project. I'm going to make it possible to take the data in Delicious Library's xml backend and store it in a properly normalized database, so that other useful things can be done with the data. Here's the quandry I find myself in: I have a good number
- [I hate school buses](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/22/i-hate-school-buses/) - I know I'm probably a horrible person for hating school buses, but I do. I can't help it. I hated them when I had to ride them to school, and now that I drive to work, I really can't stand them. I realize there's probably not another solution to the transportation issue. I'm just sayin'.They
- [Safari isn’t that popular, and a neat Google search](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/22/safari-isnt-that-popular-and-a-neat-google-search/) - Some number of *months* ago now, someone tried to justify my supporting Safari in a web application by saying "Safari is the most popular browser on the Mac". That person further asserted that as Macs become more popular, Safari is also sure to become more popular. Now, I use a Mac, and I know lots
- [How to replace a view, a cursor loop, and a few other queries with one SQL statement](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/19/how-to-replace-a-view-a-cursor-loop-and-a-few-other-queries-with-one-sql-statement/) - I had a stored procedure that defined a cursor using a crazy query, and then a LOOP that did a FETCH and went row-by-row and performed updates and inserts to 3 or 4 different tables. I was having some trouble completing the very last thing the procedure needed to do. So I figured I'd take
- [Shell Quoting Conundrum](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/13/shell-quoting-conundrum/) - Somebody on a mailing list asked a question about shell quoting. The quoting issue would not have been so difficult had it not been for the fact that it was a command that was to be run on the other end of an SSH connection. Here's the command he was trying to run: ssh -t
- [How to buy used voting machines on the internet](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/13/how-to-buy-used-voting-machines-on-the-internet/) - There's a really interesting writeup by a Princeton University professor about how he was able to purchase a lot of voting machines on a government surplus site. Interesting highlights: the machine doesn't match the marketing glossies with regard to "security" (surprise, surprise), and there's no qualification process to go through to buy from the government
- [Things to give your Sysadmin for Valentine’s Day](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/13/things-to-give-your-sysadmin-for-valentines-day/) - Ok, well, they don't actually *make* any of these things, to my knowledge, but I was thinking about it today, and thought of this list of stuff that might be cool little thoughtful Valentine's Day gifts for the geek in your life: A heart-shaped USB key that says "All my love are belong to you"
- [Entering SQL Mode](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/13/entering-sql-mode/) - My primary job focus is the design, deployment, maintenance, and support of infrastructure services like web, mail, dns, ntp, nfs, nis, ldap, print, and database servers (this is not to mention the routers and access points, sun rays, lab machines, beowulf clusters, etc that my group also maintains). However, recently I've been doing, well, some
- [Smoke Free, 40 days and 40 nights.](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/12/smoke-free-40-days-and-40-nights/) - So my commitment to be smoke free is proving much stronger than my commitment to keep this blog updated ;-) Sorry 'bout that. I've gained some weight. I've done a lot of things to make sure my mind never wanders in the direction of smoking. It's kind of like a mentality migration. It's hard to
- [My Photo A Day Project](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/02/05/my-photo-a-day-project/) - So I've been trying to take a picture every single day for almost a month now. Most days I take more than one picture. One day I completely forgot to take a picture. This wasn't my creation. My buddy Steve told me about it, and he found it online somewhere else (maybe here). You can
- [How not to manage code](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/26/how-not-to-manage-code/) - I'm a systems guy. The reason I'm a systems guy is because I'm not a fan of long periods of coding. If I was, I'd be a developer. So anyway, I *do* write code, and I maintain a Moodle course management deployment. We needed some local customizations made to the code, and I even wrote
- [Smoke Free, Day 24](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/24/smoke-free-day-24/) - Right. So. I don't smoke. It's a little depressing at times, but that never lasts long. Right now I'm going through my insomnia stage, which I believe will be followed by flu-like symptoms. I'm already coughing up.... stuff. My guess is I have about another month or so where my body decides to do things
- [Will Wikileaks Keep Anyone Honest?](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/23/will-wikileaks-keep-anyone-honest/) - I, for one, am hopeful that it can. Wikileaks is a website that allows anyone to anonymously post confidential information as a means of providing a more permanent, public record of corporate or governmental wrongdoing. Why do people trust Wikileaks? Because it would defeat their own purpose to break the trust of the community to
- [Sys Admins Make the Worst Customers](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/19/sys-admins-make-the-worst-customers/) - It's a vicious cycle: sysadmins can find a wealth of shortcomings in just about any technology that crosses their desk. Vendors completely ignore sysadmins as a market for their technology, in part because they're impossible to please, and in part because it would cost too much money to even come close, which would mean that
- [Embarrassingly Simplified Home Networking](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/16/embarrassingly-simplified-home-networking/) - Tonight I did some rather emasculating things to my home network. I had a pretty nice one. I had my cable modem coming in, then ran a cat5 straight from that to my Smoothwall firewall machine, which had three interfaces - one for the cable modem, one for the internal network, and one for a
- [The iPhone Compromise](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/10/the-iphone-compromise/) - iPhone was announced officially yesterday at MacWorld. I was really looking forward to it. I was 'cautiously optimistic'. If you know me, you know that cautiously optimistic, for me, is pretty damned optimistic. I'm an incurable cynic. I can't help it. So what about this phone stood out to me? What stood out with this
- [Blogger issues continue](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/09/blogger-issues-continue/) - Man, my worst fear has come true. Blogger is becoming *evil* from a usability perspective, and here I am trapped, because if I switch, all of those posts basically go away... or at least the old URLs become completely invalid. Maybe I just chalk it up, import the posts into something that isn't tied to
- [Yes, one Chevy Volt Please](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/08/yes-one-chevy-volt-please/) - I came across this entry on autobloggreen.com about the Chevy Volt, which is GM's latest stab at convincing us that they really do put some effort behind getting an electric car out the door to us sometime in the next millenium. I have to admit that, while I'm wholly *unconvinced* that I'll ever see this
- [More good food in NY - Telepan on 69th St.](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/08/more-good-food-in-ny-telepan-on-69th-st/) - My sister in-law lives with her boyfriend in NY, on the upper west side. I lived in NY for a while too, and worked there on and off for years. My favorite thing about the city is the food. There's a lot of it, a lot of different kinds of it, and a good bit
- [Smoke Free, Day 5](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/05/smoke-free-day-5/) - Well, I think I'm over the hump. Historically, day 4 is a really bad day for me in quitting smoking. Yesterday *did* suck pretty bad, but I'm past it now, and still smoke free. Still lots of cravings, hard to concentrate, fatigued, whatever. Lots of oddball symptoms associated with quitting smoking, but the one fantastic
- [Death to the vacation program](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/04/death-to-the-vacation-program/) - The vacation program is used to make sure that people who send you mail while you're on vacation or otherwise out of the office for extended periods of time get a reply telling them not to expect to hear from you for a while. I personally have *never* liked the vacation program, because people misuse
- [Apple, Laptops, and the outlook for Linux on the desktop](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/03/apple-laptops-and-the-outlook-for-linux-on-the-desktop/) - I should make a disclaimer here that I'm professing no real knowledge here. I'm speculating. And partly, I'm playing devil's advocate. Apple, so far as I can tell, is going pretty much nowhere in terms of server deployments. Oh, they make servers, it's just that I don't see them really going very far. However, with
- [Blogger out of beta…. and into alpha](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/02/blogger-out-of-beta-and-into-alpha/) - So blogger is no longer in beta. In launching their first non-beta version, however, Blogger has actually broken several things, several peoples' blogs, and generally made a huge mess of things.After being prompted by shiny-clicky things to upgrade to the new version of Blogger, a great many bloggers were greeted with error pages, wrong pages,
- [Resolutions](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/02/resolutions/) - I kind of resolved not to make any real resolutions this year. Part of this is because my dark side sometimes gets the sense that my fate is sealed, so why bother? The other part is just that, with me, resolutions are generally things I think up on the first day of the year and
- [TUX shutting down](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/02/tux-shutting-down/) - I've worked for various publishing houses in various capacities. Sure, I write a lot, but I also like to get into the back-end operations when I can. I think publishing is a lot of fun in general. It's also very challenging. So there's this company (SSC) that woke up one day and said "Let's start
- [Back to work!](https://protocolostomy.com/2007/01/02/back-to-work/) - Happy new year, all. Now back to work!Ok, so before I went back to work, I read my buddy's blog (http://onefreevoice.com), and he started a Technorati Profile, which I didn't know existed. I went to check it out, and created a profile myself. Technorati ProfileOk. NOW back to work :-)
- [Heartbreaking screwup. Don’t do this :-(](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/12/31/heartbreaking-screwup-dont-do-this/) - What a dope I can be.So I have this board. It's like, 9"x23". I need to cut it to two boards, each 9"x10 5/8". That's *almost* in half. So, what I did is measured out the 10 5/8, drew a line, lined up the crosscut, and ran it across the table saw. Sounds simple, but
- [Woodworking Progress, and why I hate plywood and woodworking books](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/12/31/woodworking-progress-and-why-i-hate-plywood-and-woodworking-books/) - So first, the progress report:I've had a few days off due to the holidays, and I got a $100 Lowe's gift certificate for Christmas. I requested Lowe's because they have a nicer, and wider selection of wood there for me to use in my small projects. When I get to the larger projects or nicer
- [It’s a Woodworking Christmas](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/12/27/its-a-woodworking-christmas/) - This year, just about everything I got for christmas was woodworking-related, which is wonderful. After a couple of years of mucking with my tools and making a couple of small projects, I'm ready to move on to projects that are still small, but are made of real wood, instead of plywood or 2x4 lumber.I received
- [Great uses for old hardware](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/12/25/great-uses-for-old-hardware/) - A friend of mine has found some good uses for hardware that was being thrown out.... rather prematurely I might add. It never ceases to amaze me what people throw out, and how much usefulness and life is often left in it. One thing I'm doing with my own old hardware is outfitting them with
- [LinuxLaboratory Overhaul and Relaunch Complete](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/12/24/linuxlaboratory-overhaul-and-relaunch-complete/) - So it's all done. LinuxLaboratory.org now runs on Drupal, it runs on a new hosting service, and so far I'm very happy with both. The hosting service is a little more modern than my old one, is slightly faster, gives me access to far more resources than I'm likely to ever use, and costs about 70%
- [New LinuxLaboratory.org Site Live](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/12/22/new-linuxlaboratoryorg-site-live/) - By now, DNS has propagated, and everyone should be able to see the new drupal-ized LinuxLaboratory.org (LLO for short). http://www.linuxlaboratory.org Just about all of the old content that is still relevant has been moved over, and some new content, and a good number of useful downloads have also been added. I've also added another site
- [More CMS Requirements Than I Thought](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/12/10/more-cms-requirements-than-i-thought/) - I thought my needs were simple. When I started LinuxLaboratory.org, it was full of features. User forums, news categories, icons and emoticons everywhere, downloads, interviews... it was really all-singing and all-dancing. It was also too much for one guy to manage. I decided to trim the fat and get back to basics. LinuxLaboratory.org started as
- [Giving a Presentation? Lose the Laser Pointer](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/11/29/giving-a-presentation-lose-the-laser-pointer/) - You heard me. Put down the laser pointer and slowly step away. There are two things that a lot of presenters do that just drive me nuts: Reading the slides to me. I can read. I don't need you to do it for me. And, if every single word you want to say fits on
- [Yet another LinuxLaboratory overhaul in the works.](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/11/17/yet-another-linuxlaboratory-overhaul-in-the-works /) - Well, it's that time again. Time to suck it up and come to terms with yet another "conent management solution" that doesn't fit the bill as far as Linuxlaboratory.org is concerned. The latest system is MediaWiki, and it's not working out. There's about a million things built into MediaWiki that I don't use, and then
- [Cory Doctorow’s toorcon speech](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/11/14/cory-doctorows-toorcon-speech/) - I just wanted to point out this Cory Doctorow blog entry which points to his speech at toorcon. This isn't brand new (post is from Oct 6, 2006), but I only just found it, and figured others may not have seen it yet. Link directly to the video here. The short story is that it
- [When Geek Conversations Go Bad](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/11/09/when-geek-conversations-go-bad/) - There's this annoying trend in the geek culture that I can't help but comment on, if for no other reason than to let people know about geek culture here in the early 21st century. The trend is this: At any given point in time, a group of geeks can be talking about just about anything
- [My LUG/IP Presentation: The Road to Geek Authorship](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/11/09/my-lugip-presentation-the-road-to-geek-authorship/) - A few months ago, Tom Limoncelli (noted author and, now, a member of the Google team) spoke at our LUG about topics from his newest book, "Time Management for System Administrators". It was a great talk, and it's a pretty darn good book as well. Anyway, the point here is that, after the talk, there were,
- [Ironic Email](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/09/26/ironic-email/) - I got an email today telling me that two pictures I took while in Portland, OR for OSCON were selected to be included in this application which shall remain nameless, which maps an area and has pictures of the landmarks like restaurants and bookstores and the like. So, I went to check out the application, and
- [Flying to Paris Tomorrow](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/08/10/flying-to-paris-tomorrow/) - Of course, the day before my flight to Paris, there are 21 arrests in England, as Scotland Yard thwarts an alleged terrorist plot involving liquid explosives, and the airlines. On the one hand, I guess I take some small comfort that these people were caught, that they weren't targeting France, etc. On the other, my wife
- [I once knew a girl…](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/08/06/i-once-knew-a-girl/) - In my younger days, I knew a girl. She was beautiful, and she was wild. She was not the life of the party, she *was* the party. People wanted to be around her all the time. She could lure complete strangers with a wink and a smile. At some point, I guess everyone figured she'd have
- [What it means to "make it your own"](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/08/06/what-it-means-to-make-it-your-own/) - I occasionally give guitar lessons, and certainly I talk to people at various stages of 'guitarmanship'. My younger brothers both play guitar, as does my father, my uncle, 3 of my cousins, and probably some others I'm forgetting. Of these, I think I'm the only person who even *tries* to play *solos* note-for-note - meaning
- […Hippies and Freaks](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/07/31/hippies-and-freaks/) - Many times over the past several years, I've heard the open source community referred to collectively as "hippies and freaks", or "sandal-wearing, long-haired" whatevers. And for a long time I've shrugged it off. However, at OSCON '06, there seemed to be an extremely large segment of the corporate crowd making similar statements... and to a
- [Going to OSCON](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/07/21/going-to-oscon/) - I'm off to Portland, Oregon next week for O'Reilly OSCON 2006. There's so much stuff going on at that conference that I'm not even sure which sessions, tutorials, and BOFs I'll be attending. I'm doing a bit of work with Python lately, but I'm also doing database design, LDAP, PHP coding, Perl, playing with cfengine,
- [Freakin’ HOT](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/07/21/freakin-hot/) - I keep telling my wife that if a whole bunch of tech companies decided to set up shop in, say, Baton Rouge, I'd go in a heartbeat (NOTE: I spent a few years in BR, and it left an indelible impression on my being, but that's another whole collection of posts). Generally, she replies with
- [OK, so I just got my new macbook pro on Monday, an…](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/06/21/ok-so-i-just-got-my-new-macbook-pro-on-monday-an/) - OK, so I just got my new macbook pro on Monday, and it's pretty darn cool so far. I'm having a little bit of trouble getting real work done because I'm a long way from linux-land and am still accumulating applications that I use to do my job. Let's face it, I'm also a little
- [Flockworthy](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/06/16/flockworthy/) - I hate to say that Flock is "a browser". It's true that you can surf the web with it and leave the rest of Flock's features untouched. But I think of Flock as more of a tool to exploit the web; to integrate more of my life and my day's work with the web. In
- [Stop Bookmarking Stuff You Hate](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/06/15/stop-bookmarking-stuff-you-hate/) - I'm a part-time college student. As a result, I have to do research. I'm currently in a public speaking course where, for example, I have to give a persuasive speech. I have no idea what to write my speech on, but my wife did - drink more grape juice! Some number of years ago I
- [Stop Bookmarking Stuff You Hate](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/06/15/stop-bookmarking-stuff-you-hate-2/) - I'm a part-time college student. As a result, I have to do research. I'm currently in a public speaking course where, for example, I have to give a persuasive speech. I have no idea what to write my speech on, but my wife did - drink more grape juice! Some number of years ago I
- [Pandora.com rocks… or doesn’t. Your choice.](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/06/04/pandoracom-rocks-or-doesnt-your-choice/) - Pandora.com is a site that helps you find music you're likely to enjoy by having you enter songs and artists that you like, analyzing the various attributes of your favorite songs and artists, and then creating a radio station made up of songs that match that set of attributes.So, for example, I started out creating
- [House Painting, and Mother’s Day](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/06/04/house-painting-and-mothers-day/) - So the goal was this: get my house painted in time for my mom's visit for Mother's Day weekend. I scheduled the painting so that they would start a little over a week before Mom's arrival, because it was supposed to be a 3-day job, and I wanted to allow for bad weather and stuff.The
- [Beer is your friend](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/06/04/beer-is-your-friend/) - I'm putting a bunch of posts here to catch up with everything that's happened since I last posted two months ago.I should let everyone know that I have yet another blog that I maintain with my buddy Matt called bamfbeer.comThe purpose is to keep up with our adventures in home brewing. There's a lot going
- [Lack of competent Linux admins leads companies back to Windows](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/04/26/lack-of-competent-linux-admins-leads-companies-back-to-windows/) - I was reading on ZDnet about some companies who migrated to Linux from Windows, and some of them migrated back to Windows! I'm not kidding. I was hoping to pull some deep insight from this set of stories about experiences in different data centers, the kinds of logistical problems that crept up, services deployed that
- [My New Personal Analog Assistant](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/04/17/my-new-personal-analog-assistant/) - So I have a buddy who is a gadget geek. He got a Sony Clie when they arrived on the scene, he has an iPod or two (or three maybe), one of which does photos. His Clie takes pictures. He got one of the new latest cameras that fit in your pocket and is 5
- [Berners-Lee Talks Semantic Web](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/04/06/berners-lee-talks-semantic-web/) - Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the person who invented the world wide web, as well as some of the technologies that make it work. That was years ago, and yet a surprisingly large amount of technology that the web runs on is still in wide use today. See that "http://" up in your address bar? That's
- [My yearly Konqueror Browser Test](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/04/03/my-yearly-konqueror-browser-test/) - Well, I'm just trying out using the konqueror browser with blogger to see if it works. Looks like it doesn't. Even when I tell my browser to identify itself as mozilla it breaks. Some stuff works (I can write a post, for example), but I can only get the source view of things -- so
- [My First Sudoku Puzzle](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/03/07/my-first-sudoku-puzzle/) - I have a Sudoku game on my Linux workstation at home, and I just finished my first sudoku puzzle. I'm not sure I really see the addiction, but maybe I'll revisit that in a few weeks. I solved puzzle #36 in GNOME Sudoku in 26 minutes and 24 seconds. I have no idea if that's
- [All of my jobs](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/03/01/all-of-my-jobs/) - Over dinner last weekend, my neighbor pointed out to me that he's pretty sure I've had more jobs than anyone else on the planet, or something to that affect. I've heard that before, but the emphatic words of my neighbor inspired me to list all of the jobs I can remember having. Here goes nothin'...
- [E85 Ethanol: Uncertain at best](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/02/15/e85-ethanol-uncertain-at-best/) - I don't own, and have never seen (to my knowledge) an E85-capable vehicle. The pitch that's being made to the American public by the likes of GM lately is that E85 is an alternative fuel source that can reduce our dependence on foreign oil, provide more horsepower and torque (because E85 is higher octane than
- [Growing Affinity for Hand Tools](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/01/17/growing-affinity-for-hand-tools/) - I bought some kind of special edition magazine about using hand tools in the shop. As usual, I read it cover-to-cover in about an hour, and I've a few articles over since then. I also purchased a really cool book called "Choosing & Using Hand Tools", which just completely rocked my world. I also have
- [Yet another blog service](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/01/16/linux-opensource/) - This is my first post in my WordPress blog. I signed up at wordpress.com and got one. My first blog was at blogspot.com, which is run by blogger.com. That was my first taste of blogging, and it took me a long time to get used to the idea of jotting down my thoughts on occasion.
- [Moodle Course Management: Extending the Moodle base](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/01/13/moodle-course-management-extending-the-moodle-base/) - That's one of my current projects at work. We were using a home-grown course management solution in the Computer Science department, because the faculty here (and elsewhere, I hear) aren't fond of Blackboard, and they also know that there's a good bit of in-house PHP knowledge, so we built our own at first. Unfortunately, they
- [First LUG meeting I’ve been to in years](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/01/11/first-lug-meeting-ive-been-to-in-years/) - Well, the title isn't 100% true: I went to a couple of LUG meetings for the University where I work, but you don't get the same kind of diversity in applications that you do when you just walk into a public meeting at the local library.At the university, there's diversity in terms of department: people
- [Just back from Cancun](https://protocolostomy.com/2006/01/09/just-back-from-cancun/) - I just returned from my honeymoon in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Natasha and I got to practice our Spanish a lot, we swam with dolphins, rode horses, and did a whole lot of relaxing on beaches, at bars, and at pools all over the area. You can see pictures here.I remembered a lot more Spanish
- [New Jersey: A Total Waste of My Money](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/23/new-jersey-a-total-waste-of-my-money/) - I just found this article about how New Jersey is voting on new slogans. They accepted 7800 suggestions, and apparently had the Church Lady Brigade trim the suggestions down to five that we can now vote on. They all suck, but that's not why I'm pissed. I'm pissed because, as it turns out, they paid
- [Just received a copy of my book](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/21/just-received-a-copy-of-my-book/) - Man, this is *cool*!!!I just received the "first printing" of the book, which is due out in bookstores in a week or two or something like that. I'm actually really happy because during the authoring/editing process I didn't get a chance to read Bill von Hagen's hacks in any great detail, and he wrote a
- [The big smoke-out day 4](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/19/the-big-smoke-out-day-4/) - Today is my fourth day without smoking. It's not too bad, really. I had a busy weekend to keep my mind occupied, and work is busy, too. I'm definitely running on a slightly shorter fuse than usual, but I really don't feel actual cravings to smoke.A couple of people have asked, so I'll put here
- [Hello all, and news from yesterday](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/16/hello-all-and-news-from-yesterday/) - Just wanted to welcome my friends and family who are visiting this blog at its new location. I get my blog through a service, so I don't have to write code to have a blog, which is nice. I discovered that they'll let me publish it by ftp'ing to my main website (linuxlaboratory.org), so I
- [Verizon Fios: You must be joking](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/15/verizon-fios-you-must-be-joking/) - About two hours ago, I signed up online for Verizon's new Fiber Optic internet service. About 10 minutes ago, I canceled the order. As it turns out, FIOS is just a really cool shiny thing they hold in front of you so they can get your permission to pull out any trace of copper from
- [Hacked :-(](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/12/hacked/) - It happens to the best of us, and it happened to me. I've run the Linuxlaboratory.org domain for about 5 years I guess or something like that. I've overhauled the site a number of times to improve the look, usability, and maintainability of the site. Over the course of the past few years, I've tried
- [Woodworking Lessons 4: Use more than one source of information](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/10/woodworking-lessons-4-use-more-than-one-source-of-information/) - This rule of thumb comes from just my experiences in the past couple of weeks. It applies to a number of things, actually, but the first things that come to mind are your wood measurements, and your step-by-step guides.I bought a book put out by the publishers of a popular woodworking magazine, in which they
- [Woodworking Lessons 3: Do the stupid beginner projects](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/10/woodworking-lessons-3-do-the-stupid-beginner-projects/) - Oh man, am I ever glad that I'm doing those really stupid beginner projects. Stuff that looks like it would be super easy to do (and probably is for an experienced woodworker) takes me forever to figure out, and then I still get things wrong.Right now, I'm working on a simple SIMPLE simple box. I
- [Blow away your disk partitions? Maybe not!](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/07/blow-away-your-disk-partitions-maybe-not/) - I did something kind of dopy today in my pre-coffee hours. Luckily, my officemate helped me find some clarity in dealing with a bit of a dodgy issue: partition tables.Operating systems like Linux keep track of where different partitions start on your drive by placing "super blocks" at the beginning of each partition that tell
- [Woodworking Lessons 2: Table saw safety is in the details](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/07/woodworking-lessons-2-table-saw-safety-is-in-the-details/) - I have a rather large, hulking, bulky, heavy table saw. It's one that real men generally like to have, because it's big, and it's heavy, and it cuts stuff. However, cutting safely on a table saw apparently is a more detailed operation than I thought.I had a problem where every time I'd rip a piece
- [Woodworking Lessons 1: A matter of trust](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/02/woodworking-lessons-1-a-matter-of-trust/) - I decided to start a little series based on the lessons I'm learning in woodworking. I'm a total newbie, but if I can help other newbies, hey, I'm all for it. So here's the conclusion I've come to after doing just a couple of small projects: it's all just a matter of trust.It seems clear
- [All Linux Desktop Environments Suck…](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/12/01/all-linux-desktop-environments-suck/) - ....Some just look better doing it.Honestly, I'm at the point where I don't even care what desktop environment I use. I use fluxbox at work (mostly), KDE on one machine at home, and GNOME on my laptop. They all suck to some degree, so choice of desktop, if you plan on sticking to just one,
- [Woodworking 101](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/26/woodworking-101/) - In the world of computer programming, there's a sort of tradition which dictates that the first program you ever write in a new language does nothing but print out "Hello World!". Usually, the program can be written in seconds, in only a couple of lines of code. Even this small a program is encouraging to
- [Flock looks sweeeeeeet](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/23/flock-looks-sweeeeeeet/) - Instead of firing up firefox, going to blogger.com, logging in, choosing "create new post" and all that stuff, I thought I give this new thing a try that I've been hearing about. It's called "Flock", and it really just makes a whole crapload of sense if you live half your life in the digital realm.
- [Degree Status](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/17/degree-status/) - I went to speak to my advisor at the community college where I'm pursuing an associates degree in computer science. Some good news came out of this meeting:1. Two humanities classes transferred from the classes I took in, like, 1992. Together with the two that I've taken recently (this past summer), the entire humanities portion
- [I stand corrected](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/15/i-stand-corrected/) - Well, you're never too old to become even more geeky. I was informed yesterday by coworkers that my 32nd birthday is, indeed, significant, because it will take another 32 years before I am again at an age that is a power of 2. Another email said "Happy 2x2x2x2x2nd birthday".For my non-geek family members, most numbers
- [I Turn 32 Today](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/14/i-turn-32-today/) - It's my 32nd birthday today. I had a great weekend with family and friends, but it's time to get back to work. I did no work whatsoever all weekend, but I actually have a lot of it to do. Not only at the office, but at home as well. Our trees are just about bare
- [LAMP CMS Systems frustration](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/10/lamp-cms-systems-frustration/) - I'm never happy with whatever site I'm running or involved with. Evolution of a site is never fast enough for me, never fresh enough for me, and never easy enough to work with. Over the years, I've run test versions of my sites using Mambo, PostNuke, PHP-Nuke, PHP-X, Drupal, ezPublish, and many other LAMP-based CMS
- [More home improvements](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/07/more-home-improvements/) - Well, last week a crew finished up putting a new roof on the house. All's well with that, and that same crew will be back in the next week or so to replace the gutters and soffits (sp?). As it turned out, the gutters were really the biggest cause of roof issues. Due to the
- [Linux as Stock](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/11/01/linux-as-stock/) - I think people relate to money a lot better than they do technology. Money has been around much longer, and knowledge (or perceived knowledge) has been passed down about money for generations, and truthfully, it hasn't changed a whole heckuva lot.Most people know the basics of the stock market. "Buy low sell high", undervalued vs.
- [Coder’s Eyeball](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/31/coders-eyeball/) - I think I have coder's eyeball. OK, so I just coined that term myself, but after weeks of trying to write a rather involved extension in a very large, very convoluted, object-oriented PHP system, I think my eyes are suffering and need a break.For anyone who works with OO PHP projects, I don't personally recommend
- [Nicecast is…. Nice!](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/25/nicecast-is-nice/) - I listen to a lot of streaming music -- especially when I'm on a project where I'm writing code. I go into the office, put on my headphones, plunge into the code, and at the end of the day, I take off the headphones, look at my progress, and I'm usually surprised at how much
- [The debian apt-get utopia myth](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/20/the-debian-apt-get-utopia-myth/) - Debian users love the apt package manager. In fact, I'm pretty sure that *every* time I've asked a Debian user why they use Debian, they've answered with one word: "apt". They take great joy in picking on Red Hat newbies who have no clue what they're doing and are subsequently taking their lumps in RPM-land.
- [Now I’m a Roofer, Too](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/12/now-im-a-roofer-too/) - Ugh.My new wife woke me up this morning with news that a small drip in our roof that was just discovered yesterday had graduated into a larger problem. What we thought we had under control with a simple bucket requires 7 buckets today. Two in the kitchen, and 5 in the crawl space over the
- [Congratulations, Yahoo - I’m sorry for your loss](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/11/congratulations-yahoo-im-sorry-for-your-loss/) - Well, Yahoo just lost me as a loyal user. From now on, my home page is going to be the Google personalized home page (did you know you can create a homepage at google? It's cool). For about 6 years now, I've had a My Yahoo! page. A couple of years ago, they got a
- [Random Stuff, and testing trackback](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/05/random-stuff-and-testing-trackback/) - I'm a blog dope. I don't have a great understanding of what trackback is all about. However, my buddy Steve wrote a sentiment regarding the recent Tannenbaum talk here that we often look at eachother and repeat, so I thought I'd track back to it here. We'll see what happens. 2 mins later: UPDATE -
- [Tannenbaum Speaks at Princeton](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/10/03/tannenbaum-speaks-at-princeton/) - Andrew Tannenbaum is a highly acclaimed lecturer, researcher, and author on various topics in computer science, most notably operating systems. His volumes on the design of modern operating systems are used in many if not most university systems courses. This is not to say he isn't controversial, however. His public debates with Linus Torvalds on
- [Wedding pics starting to trickle in](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/30/wedding-pics-starting-to-trickle-in/) - pose Originally uploaded by bkjones. You can start to check out some snapshots from my wedding that are starting to come in from our friends and family. The professional ones won't be up for (I'm guessing) at least another week. Go here to see them.
- [An old buddy goes to Nashville](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/27/an-old-buddy-goes-to-nashville/) - During the time I spent in Baton Rouge, I worked in an electronics lab during the day, and then played guitar by night. I had been recruited to play in (of all things) a country band, but I decided that it would be an interesting challenge, and (being from NJ), a novel way to be
- [We gotta get outta this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do…](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/26/we-gotta-get-outta-this-place-if-its-the-last-thing-we-ever-do/) - I spent my boyhood in New Jersey, kindergarten through 10th grade. Then I moved to Texas to finish up high school. Since I graduated HS, I've lived in Philadelphia, NYC, went back to Texas, Baton Rouge, and I'm now back in NJ. As a former stockbroker, my clientele spanned the entire country; Minnesota, Hawaii, Florida,
- [I’m a married man](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/26/im-a-married-man/) - On Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005, I got married. That was cool.Everything went pretty smoothly, and everyone said they had a wonderful time. The hotel was really nice, and everyone did their jobs without much drama, from the florist to the photographer, musicians and dj's, everything went off without a hitch.Our photographer was awesome, actually. He's
- [What a huge week](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/26/what-a-huge-week/) - On Tuesday, the book I've been working on for O'Reilly publishing was completed, and put into production, ending the most gruelling 7 weeks of my life. I spent seemingly every waking moment either working at my day job, or churning out content for the book at night.On Friday, I got an email that I can't
- [Free Opera Browswer: Mark My Words](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/20/free-opera-browswer-mark-my-words/) - Opera released a nagware-free, no license fee version of their browser today. So I went to their site to download it. I clicked around in about 12 different ways, and I still have no browser. However, I'm sure that every click on the "Download Now" button was counted, and mark my words, Opera will announce
- [Tired… So Tired…](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/19/tired-so-tired/) - I'm tired of Linux reviews. I'm tired of Linux zealots who say disingenuous things like "if the choice is between Open or Closed Source solutions, the answer is easy" in the context of a discussion about things they have no clue about. I'm tired of hearing about what Linux has to do to "hit the
- [Week of the wedding….](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/19/week-of-the-wedding/) - Well, I'm getting married on Saturday, so of course this week I've been busy answering what must be the single most asked question of grooms on the week of their wedding: "Are you nervous/freaking out?"I'm not nervous. I'm not freaking out. Everything is fine. Of course, the last minute details of a wedding always culminate
- [Email with all caps in the subject bother me.](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/16/email-with-all-caps-in-the-subject-bother-me/) - Does this mean I'm some kind of tech elitist or something? I just don't understand what causes this to happen. I mean, you're sitting there at your desk, and you pop open your email client, and then what? Is there a big decision to be made now? "Gee, do I press caps lock, or just
- [mail.com is absolutely horrible.](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/14/mailcom-is-absolutely-horrible/) - I've been using mail.com as my spam account for quite some time. I did that because, after first opening the account, I realized that it was kinda slow and klunky, so I just used it for registering on websites that require an email address. Plenty of times, those sites sell those email addresses - especially
- [Wedding plans heating up](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/12/wedding-plans-heating-up/) - So the big day is coming up. 9/24/05 to be exact. Just about everything we can think of is in place. We're dealing with political fallout fairly well, I think. I guess we'll see.I was just informed that there were a couple of people missing from the guest list. They weren't invited. Judging by the
- [Blog spam](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/10/blog-spam/) - Should I just turn comments off on my blog? What are you doing about blog spam? Do you know what blog spam is? If you don't, and you have a blog, you should!Here's an example: I posted an entry a couple of hours ago. I just looked at my blog page, and lo and behold,
- [They say Vista will be better](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/10/they-say-vista-will-be-better/) - I just read a PC World article that says, well... this:My PC's firewall, antivirus scanner, spyware remover, pop-up blocker, and spam filter all agree: Windows is sorely lacking in PC security. That situation may not change until Windows Vista (formerly Longhorn) comes out sometime next year.This implies that things will, in fact, get better with
- [The Family in Louisiana is OK](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/09/the-family-in-louisiana-is-ok/) - Well, looks like my brother and stepdad are doing ok. Things are really hectic down there. They live in Baton Rouge, about an hour from New Orleans. I lived in Baton Rouge as well for a few years. I loved it there.The population of Baton Rouge tripled overnight, making it difficult to get much done.
- [My Pool Game is Rotting](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/09/my-pool-game-is-rotting/) - I can smell my pool game from here. It's clearly been tucked into some deep, dark crevice, like between the refrigerator and the cabinets, or under the couch or something.Actually, it's just been shelfed for awhile until this book gets out the door. I shot one rack to give my eyes a rest from typing,
- [Does this get factored into the TCO numbers?](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/09/07/does-this-get-factored-into-the-tco-numbers/) - This morning, I've now spent 30 minutes googling, testing, and troubleshooting for a guy who was having trouble getting outlook to talk to our outbound mail server. I suggested various things, of course asked for more information, and while waiting for responses, went off to see if others had seen this issue. Of course, every
- [I promise to never write in French](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/08/31/i-promise-to-never-write-in-french/) - I read a copy of The New Yorker while I was on a cruise recently, and I'm finally fed up with columnists who write for English-speaking audiences, in an English-language publication, published in and for an English-speaking country, IN FRENCH. I see this trend all over the place, and it's not new. I don't know
- [Cruises are not my cup of tea](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/08/31/cruises-are-not-my-cup-of-tea/) - We (my fiance and I) recently returned from a cruise to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was a short, 5-day cruise, just to see if we even liked cruises. Neither of us had ever been on a cruise. We had a good enough time, but both agreed that we're not likely to ever do it again.I
- [Linux Distributions Suck](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/08/10/linux-distributions-suck/) - Almost all distributions of Linux suck. The good news, though, is that as more people get into Linux, they inevitably ask for things, and they ask for them in larger numbers. Nobody wants to work on a project that is only used by four people in the world, so large groups asking for stuff is
- [Someday I’ll Use My Grill](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/08/10/someday-ill-use-my-grill/) - New Jersey has really been a not so nice place to live this summer. I'm sure this has been true of several eastern seaboard states, but I'm not there, so I can only guess. For the past two months in NJ, it's been either 95+ degrees with 100% humidity, or it's been pouring buckets. Both
- [Just got back from RI](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/08/09/just-got-back-from-ri/) - Natasha and I were in Rhode Island for a few days. Good times. We went to Block Island, which is a really nice place. There's a small town center with shops and stuff, and then a whole island's worth of hiking, biking and all that sorta stuff. They rent mopeds by the beach to ride
- [Anthropological Blues](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/08/03/anthropological-blues/) - I hate my anthropology class. Thank God it's over soon (8/9). I've learned very close to nothing in that class, except for what my "professor" thinks about religion, race, culture, and the bleak future of our economy and society. The entire grade consists of a final exam and a paper which has not seen even
- [I got a book deal!](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/08/03/i-got-a-book-deal/) - You are now reading the blog of the co-author of the next edition of O'Reilly's "Linux Server Hacks". I don't know if that's what it'll be called, but that's the working title. What do you think they should call it? Leave a comment!I'm excited by the opportunity, and have been writing --ALOT-- since things were
- [Free Guitar Tab Sucks](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/07/11/free-guitar-tab-sucks/) - It's true. Anyone who has played guitar for some extended period of time, who cut their teeth on the tablature found in "Guitar for the Practicing Musician", or the later "Guitar One" will note the amazingly huge gap between the quality of those (usually flawless) transcriptions and the ones you find online for free.My guess
- [Will Apple Get it Right?](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/07/07/will-apple-get-it-right/) - I have had a Mac in my house, on loan from work, for a couple of years now. It's a dual G4, and I recently updated it to OS X Tiger. Generally, I use Linux at work as well as at home, but I've slowly grown to love the Mac. It doesn't aspire to run
- [A Problem With Traditional Corporations](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/06/29/a-problem-with-traditional-corporations/) - I'm not faking some deep knowledge of how decisions flow through huge organizations or anything, but I have certainly seen my fair share of middle- and upper-management decision making go on, fairly close up. Also, I'm not, in my little essay, professing knowledge so much as seeking responses from those who might be able to
- [vimOS: the perfect operating system](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/06/13/vimos-the-perfect-operating-system/) - Imagine an operating system that does away with the whole notion of a desktop. Why do we need this whole metaphoric thing applied to our computers, anyway? Sure, I can see why it existed before: we needed a metaphor so that we could teach the world, by analogy, how to think about computing. But now,
- [Um… I’m in Vegas](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/26/um-im-in-vegas/) - I flew into Las Vegas yesterday for one of my best friend's bachelor party. I had no desire to come to Vegas, but I have to say it's cooler than I thought it would be. We're staying at the MGM Grand, and I got to see a few other places yesterday and today. So far,
- [The Media Problem](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/24/the-media-problem/) - As I see it, there's an inherent problem with the scenario that currently exists in the media, whereby people who go to school for... journalism, end up writing about everything else. For example, what exactly qualifies a writer to write about technology? Is it good enough that they once were considered a guru at their
- [Everything on TV last night, summed up in one blog post](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/17/everything-on-tv-last-night-summed-up-in-one-blog-post/) - Drama, drama, scandal, scandal, drama, gasp, teaser, teaser, drama, drama, teaser, scandal, sensationalism, scandal, drama, sensationalism, gasp, oh no!, I pick you, drama, teaser, scandal, can you believe this, drama, we've waited so long, scandal, but before we do that, drama, drama, gasp, teaser, tonight we've seen drama, teaser, scandal, sensationalism, drama, teaser, scandal, goodnight.I
- [Call me Mr. 4.0](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/17/call-me-mr-40/) - Well, I got an "A" in my math class, too! I was expecting a B or maybe an A-, so this is really really good news. My cumulative GPA now (er, with a whole two courses under my belt, mind you), is a 4.0!
- [My comp sci grade](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/16/my-comp-sci-grade/) - Hey all, Good news.My final grade in my Computer Science 102 class was a 99.38, which is an A!! Turns out I got the highest score on the final exam as well - a 100.5 (there were extra credit problems, which account for the .5). I should find out my math scores tomorrow. I'll post
- [The Curse of Geekhood](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/16/the-curse-of-geekhood/) - Being a geek is a blessing and a curse. The blessing part is that I haven't seen any popups, gotten a virus, had a catastrophic desktop system crash, or had any of the issues people complain about every day. It's also nice that if I need software to do something it currently doesn't do, I
- [If you use mapquest, read this](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/04/if-you-use-mapquest-read-this/) - I can see it playing out like a movie. The head muckety-muck over at Google emails the big cheese over at mapquest. The mail says, simply "Good morning. I believe I've just put you out of business. No hard feelings." The big cheese at mapquest runs home, only to be found by his wife later
- [Upcoming Final Exams :-(](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/05/03/upcoming-final-exams/) - Sorry for the recent silence. I've had a rash of smaller tests at school, and now I'm prep'ing for finals. I took two classes this semester. Computer Science 102 (basically, a class in how to program in C++), and College Algebra (er, that's essentially Algebra II). I have an "A" in both classes right now,
- [Opera 8: the "almost soup" release](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/04/21/opera-8-the-almost-soup-release/) - For my non-tech friends: Opera is a web browser, and it runs under Windows, Mac and Linux, and some other stuff, I think. It's a pretty good browser -- certainly better than internet exploder. Some time ago they added a mail client that really rocks, but I tend to really want more out of it
- [Ongoing war with my lawn, and harvesting rainwater.](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/04/13/ongoing-war-with-my-lawn-and-harvesting-rainwater/) - The war with my lawn has resumed with the arrival of weather warm enough to stay outside for more than an hour without various extremeties changing color on me. I was out there all weekend, and discovered that, for each separate area of my lawn, there are different issues. I'm pretty much at a loss,
- [My pool game still sucks](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/04/13/my-pool-game-still-sucks/) - Well, I'm getting a lot of what I lost over the years back, but I still basically suck. I'm back to the point where, in 9-ball, if I can put start the cueball wherever I want after the break, just for the first shot, I can usually either clear the rack, or come damned close.
- [Opacity in KDE 3.4 and NVidia is SWEEEEEEET.](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/31/opacity-in-kde-34-and-nvidia-is-sweeeeeeet/) - I should say up front that I am *not* a slave to eye candy. I'm a system/network admin, so if there's any eye candy around, it's likely to be various monitors that alert me, visually, to trouble of one sort or another. However, I've found a really useful piece of eye candy in KDE 3.4,
- [Excuses for my poor pool game](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/21/excuses-for-my-poor-pool-game/) - Once I had a pool table in my house, it didn't take me long to realize that my pool game is not what it once was. Lucky for me, I have one huge glaring issue I can blame it on: lighting.Most people don't realize when they see pool on tv that a lot of time
- [Laughing in the face of digital danger](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/17/laughing-in-the-face-of-digital-danger/) - A recent BBC article reports that network security researchers have discovered that over 1,000,000 home user PCs have been hijacked by viruses/worms/trojans to collaborate, forcibly, on bringing down websites, spread spam, and propagate viruses. Networks of collaborating "zombie" computers called "botnets" are formed from these machines, the largest of which was 50,000 computers working in
- [AMD64? Why Bother?](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/16/amd64-why-bother/) - First, for the non-technical: AMD is a company. Explaining the "64" opens a whole bucket of technical jargon, and it's a source of confusion even (er, especially) for those who think they're technically savvy (I don't totally exclude myself from that group). Anyway, AMD makes a CPU (just like Intel makes CPUs), and the ones
- [Why Gmail is kicking butt](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/16/why-gmail-is-kicking-butt/) - I have a beef with free internet mail accounts in general. I have one at mail.com and another at Yahoo.com. Both say they do all they can to make my experience wonderful and eliminate spam, but meanwhile, the only part of those services that works flawlessly are the ads. Enter gmail.Yesterday and today, I couldn't
- [Newsflash: Other People Exist](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/10/newsflash-other-people-exist/) - I have to say that I think the level of self-absorption in people has reached new highs, and I can't help but be somewhat shocked. Yesterday, in the waiting room at the doctor's office, a woman was, for a good 5 solid minutes (a long time to deal with it), endlessly pressing buttons on her
- [Google lost my website](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/07/google-lost-my-website/) - Well, they didn't really *lose* my site. What happened is this: I run a site called LinuxLaboratory. Recently, it went through a major overhaul. So major, that I didn't bother even trying to ensure that old links would work. It's been about 6 weeks now, and I'm noticing that I'm not getting very much traffic.
- [NJ Drivers: Kindly hang up your phone](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/05/nj-drivers-kindly-hang-up-your-phone/) - Dear NJ Driver,It would appear as though you are in complete and utter denial of the fact that, when talking on a cell phone, you are unable to pay adequate attention to the task at hand which deserves the higher priority: driving. I will tell you that whether you are a mother, an executive, someone
- [School Daze](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/03/04/school-daze/) - So I never thought I'd say this, but school has been kinda fun so far. It's also been kinda surreal in a way. At the end of the day, I think the best lesson I've learned is that, in order to conquer some of my anxieties toward school, I really need to just forget all
- [Professional Billiards Officially in Shambles](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/02/28/professional-billiards-officially-in-shambles/) - I'm just barely old enough to just barely remember when Minnesota Fats, Steve Mizerak, and Mike Massey did something on TV other than trick shots. They played real pool. They played whatever anyone wanted to play, but mainly, on TV, they played straight pool. They wore tuxedos. They playesd in rather large rooms. They had
- [Skype Pretty Much Rocks](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/02/28/skype-pretty-much-rocks/) - So I heard about this thing called Skype. It's a program that you download, for free, and run on Windows, Linux, or Mac, and it lets you make phone calls over the internet, or talk to any other Skype user for free. My brother-in-law and I tested it out. He downloaded it to a windows
- ["Which distro do you recommend?"](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/02/22/which-distro-do-you-recommend/) - I get asked, by more junior Linux users, and people just looking to try it out, which distribution of Linux I use or recommend. It occurred to me that I never actually published an answer to this question, even though it is, by far, the question I am asked most often. I think my stock
- [Happy level toward redhat on the rise with RHEL4](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/02/22/happy-level-toward-redhat-on-the-rise-with-rhel4/) - Redhat released Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 last week. It was only two weeks ago that I completely slammed Redhat, and for that point in time, I think that was perfectly valid. Now with the release of RHEL4, there are very extremely large changes, and Redhat's intent going forward is solidified and made much more clear.
- [Insanely good day](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/02/22/insanely-good-day/) - Today I conquered a major source of anxiety, fulfilled a wish of mine and Natasha's since we purchased the house, and followed up on a dream I've had for many years now. It was quite productive. First, the major source of anxiety: I'm back in college now, and one of the classes I'm taking is
- [Paying for the privilege of lost productivity](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/02/09/paying-for-the-privilege-of-lost-productivity/) - I think the time has finally come. In the past, we've seen quite possibly hundreds of studies from think-tanks and research firms trying to quantify the cost of viruses, trojans, spam, etc to corporations in terms of lost productivity, downtime, extra FTEs, etc. The costs are astronomical. In the US, these pesky pestilences cost corporations
- [Tired of Redhat’s Crap](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/01/29/tired-of-redhats-crap/) - Redhat has really been grating my nerves as of late. Undocumented features that are advertised but unusable, recommended updates that are thoroughly broken, failure to update packages with high-impact problems, and a poor software packaging and distribution policy have me testing other distributions with a goal of taking my business elsewhere.This heightened level of aggravation
- [Dear Kevin Foreman: Open the Store to Linux](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/01/24/dear-kevin-foreman-open-the-store-to-linux/) - I'm a little pissed. In this slashdot story, Kevin Foreman, GM of Helix RealNetworks, Inc states that Real has paid Thomson for the right to legally distribute an mp3 player for the Linux platform. They then include that right at no cost to the users. He goes on to say, and I quote: "...we are
- [Rant about people who are still using IE](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/01/10/rant-about-people-who-are-still-using-ie/) - There are a great number of people who perceive me to be an anti-Microsoft guy. I guess that's an easy enough conclusion to come to. In reality, though, I feel like Microsoft has its place in the world like any other OS -- it just happens to not be anywhere near anything I'm working with.
- [Angus Young is underrated](https://protocolostomy.com/2005/01/03/angus-young-is-underrated/) - As stocking stuffers, my fiance used magazines covering some of my hobbies. Some on woodworking, some on guitar, and some on computers. Since I had some time off, I decided to try to spend some time with my guitar, so I flipped through and found the music to an AC/DC song - "You Shook Me
- [Big News](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/12/22/big-news/) - Really, there's two big news items. One is... I'm getting married! I got engaged yesterday at a little after 12:00am. Natasha and I are both pretty excited about that. The other big news item is that I'm back in school, going after a degree in computer science. That's all for now, but stay tuned for
- [Dear Linux Vendors: Stop shoving IPv6 down my throat!](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/12/22/dear-linux-vendors-stop-shoving-ipv6-down-my-throat/) - I'm a *nix admin by trade. I work in support of infrastructure services and research at a University. My group also handles issues that grad students have that might be keeping them from getting research done. There are many, many of these researchers using some form of Linux to get their work done, and the
- [Airport Express with AirTunes!](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/12/19/airport-express-with-airtunes/) - I have a Mac at the house. For any mac folks wondering, it's A dual G4 with the mirrored drive doors. I finally found a really great online source for Mac hardware, bought an airport wireless card for my Mac, installed it (all of 30 seconds, by the way), and proceeded to go buy the
- [My new blackberry 7290](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/11/11/my-new-blackberry-7290/) - For non-geeks: a blackberry is a handheld email client. When people send me mail, I have a "recipe" that looks at the email for me before figuring out what to do with it. If it's important, it is sent directly to my blackberry, which is clipped to my belt most waking hours. My old Blackberry
- [What your choice of linux distro says about you](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/11/01/what-your-choice-of-linux-distro-says-about-you/) - So I read this article by Joe Barr, a writer I correspond with often and generally get along well with. Unfortunately, my personal opinion is that an article like that really belongs on a blog, rather than a site with "news" in the name. On the other hand, I have no doubt Joe had fun
- [In a geek’s perfect world](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/10/25/in-a-geeks-perfect-world/) - I'm a geek by trade. If you're a geek, you read geek news sites, which are rich in controversy and debate. Also, geeks are often times pessimists, conspiracy theorists, "realists", and are quicker to point out what's wrong with something before what's right with something. Many times, they don't even offer solutions to things they
- [Novell shows us how to run an open source shop](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/10/19/novell-shows-us-how-to-run-an-open-source-shop/) - Novell appears to be staging a comeback, using Linux as the catalyst to breathe new life into its line of enterprise applications. For some time now, it seems the consensus has been that the Novell app line was wonderful, but they forced you to also run Novell's proprietary NetWare operating system. I don't know if
- ["Cheesiest" pre-talk gathering ever](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/10/14/cheesiest-pre-talk-gathering-ever/) - In the department I work in, we try really hard to come up with enough events every week to keep everybody fed. Certainly, we can't all go to every event, because nothing would ever get done. But we can all meet for 10-15 minutes in the common area to grab some cider and donuts, cookies,
- [Anyone who thinks dell supports Linux doesn’t own an Optiplex](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/10/12/anyone-who-thinks-dell-supports-linux-doesnt-own-an-optiplex/) - I volunteered to set up a Linux desktop machine for someone. They just got a new Dell, so I figured it would be pretty easy, since I've run a Dell on my desktop at work for some number of years now. Besides, Dell loves Linux, right? Our Linux servers are Dells as well, and they
- [Those Tweeter Folks are OK](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/10/05/those-tweeter-folks-are-ok/) - Tweeter is a major high(er) end audio retailer. I wasn't really aware of this when I walked into the place a couple of weeks ago to look at something in the way of what I hope will become a home stereo system. I spent over three hours in there, learning about all of the available
- [Like I need more hobbies…](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/09/29/like-i-need-more-hobbies/) - I have a good number of things to keep me busy. First of all, my favorite hobby also happens to be my job, which keeps me plenty busy. I work in computer systems and network administration. It's kind of addictive, really. If you're someone who will sit down and read about different ways to solve
- [Why Sun Microsystems Will Eventually Go Away](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/09/21/why-sun-microsystems-will-eventually-go-away/) - There's a story on CNET News.com here that talks about Sun's plans for a comeback from the abyss it has fallen into, partly due to major vendor support for Linux. They're viewing this as mostly an OS war, though hardware isn't left out in the cold either. The problem with this plan, and the reason
- [Sybase releases ASE Express for Linux](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/09/09/sybase-releases-ase-express-for-linux/) - See more at the Sybase site. This could be cool. I used to work for Sybase as a consulting DBA (among other things). I haven't seen a real database since then, mainly because I now work in academia where database needs don't really warrant spending thousands of dollars on database software. We get by just
- [Redhat and other vendor certification](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/09/08/redhat-and-other-vendor-certification/) - I'll note a disclaimer which is that I'm a RHCT. I've prepared for other certifications that I never sat for, from Sun, Checkpoint and others. So I have some idea how certification sorta works. I don't so much have a problem with application-specific certifications like CheckPoint or SQL Server. I also don't have a problem
- [Desktop PC Vendors :-(](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/09/07/desktop-pc-vendors/) - I'm really ticked off right now. I really do NOT want to build my next computer. It's a hassle just to keep up with which RAM goes with which front-side bus speed, and which processor goes on which motherboards, etc., etc. "So why not just buy one from Dell, HP, IBM or Gateway?" you ask.
- [Flooring project pics, as promised](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/09/07/flooring-project-pics-as-promised/) - As promised, I've put together some pics of the trials of laying a hardwood floor on your own. If you just wanna see a couple of quick pics of where I'm at now, just scroll down past the pictures of the atrocities I've faced, and the good pics are toward the bottom. Here's the link.
- [The Era of the Great Vibrating Bathroom](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/09/02/the-era-of-the-great-vibrating-bathroom/) - It seems there's no grooming tool of any kind in your bathroom that can't be upgraded to one that vibrates these days. It started with the relatively innocent and luxurious pulsing shower head. OK, I admit it. When I was living in Louisiana, working from 6:30am until it was too dark to work, doing manual
- [Laying my own solid wood flooring](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/08/31/laying-my-own-solid-wood-flooring/) - My friend/coworker, Steve, bought a house about two months before me, and decided to lay his own hardwood floor. Being geeks, neither of us are really the handiest people in the world. So I figured I'd see how his experience went before I figured out what to do with my own neon-blue carpeted living room.
- [Blogger Works With Linux](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/08/26/blogger-works-with-linux/) - First, let me point you to the lovely array of links to the right. I've linked to almost all of the articles I've written for Linux.com. I say almost because I can't even find them all myself. They're working out some kinks in the search functionality. Anyway... The other thing I wanted to point out
- [Figured I’d give this blog thing a try](https://protocolostomy.com/2004/08/25/figured-id-give-this-blog-thing-a-try/) - Well, here goes nothin' So many of my friends have blogs now that I figured I should learn something about them. At first, I didn't get it. Then I started seeing how people were using their blogs to create these sort of virtual idea "threads". PersonA posts their opinion, and other bloggers can post their

## Pages

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