Rian's Really Good Technoblog!

Kohana and Spam Sandwich

by rian on Jan.19, 2010, under Web Development

Firstly, let me apologize to anyone who may have left a genuine comment on the site.  The level of spam that I get in comments… is stunning.  Hundreds and hundreds every day.  And those are the ones that the automated filter doesn’t pick up.  The latest thing is to post something innocuous that ALMOST relates to the post… in the hope that I’ll just blindly approve it.

Spammers, call yourselves buzz marketers if you like, but there is a spot in hell with your name on it.

Anyway, I’m sure there were some genuine comments in there.  I just don’t have the time to trawl through them.  I’ll keep looking for a better way to manage that.  Comments are my favorite part of blogging.  This is like having a dinner party, and people keep showing up at the door dressed like the UPS man to say ‘Hi, your house very nice.  I appreciating it all time, dude. Buying V1aGr4 very cheap!!!’  Slam!

Now… on to technojunk!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I have been thrust back into the world of PHP for a current engagement.  Without going into the pros and cons of PHP (truly, it has both), let’s just say that I’ll be using it.  That being the case, I’ve had to rather quickly decide on a development framework for the app… and boy howdy, are there a bunch of them these days. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , , , more...

You’re Catholic? Hah! Fear and Loathing in Computer Operating Systems

by rian on Jan.11, 2010, under Useless Rant

Just a quick note to memorialize a recent client visit during which my use of a MacBook was mocked no less than half a dozen times. The very few times that my regular use of Linux as a desktop operating system was mentioned, it was similarly ridiculed.

And then I was handed the corporate-issue Windows XP laptop. Hm. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , more...

The Brother MFC-8890DW

by rian on Dec.21, 2009, under Equipment

I’m on this organization kick lately.  Long story, but let us just say that I have recently been taking steps to address a bit of a Disorder due to a Deficit in Attention.

Anyway, one of the characteristics of this “disorder” is the inability to throw junk away.  Instead, I *used to* keep it.  It could be broken (as in “garbage”) or semi-functional (as in “garbage”).  Broken stuff would get put away for the day that I’d need the parts or fix it (as in “when hell freezes over”).  Semi-functional stuff would stay out to be used once, frustrate me, and then collect dust until the next time I consider throwing it out.  Use once, frustrate, collect dust.  And repeat.

A variation on this theme is stuff that is completely functional but doesn’t meet my needs or perform at the level I’d like.  I’d had just such a situation with my laser printer and fax machine/scanner.  While they worked OK, they were both starting to lose their quality mojo.  Also, they were separate components and required an additional box to enable them to be put on my wireless network.  The last little annoyance was that the printer did not do full-duplex.  Often, I’d print out long documents, and to save paper, I’d manually divide the job and flip the sheets over.  Eesh. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment more...

Hey, Me! Stop Procrastinating! Fix Your Backups!

by rian on Dec.04, 2009, under Disaster Recovery, Infrastructure

Not too long ago, I, Mr. Check-me-out-I’m-so-technical-and-cool, had a catastrophic data loss.  As implied by the use of the word ‘catastrophic’, I lost some stuff that… I did not want to lose.  At all. Lost, lost.  Too bad.  Sucks to be me.  How could this happen to a guy who does this for a living?  I’ll tell you how: procrastination.

I knew that off-site storage was necessary.  I have space on remote servers in secure locations… one of these days, I’m going to figure out a good way to, uh… hey, I gotta go pick up the pizza!

But, it’s worse than that.  I actually have a mirrored-disk, network-attached storage (NAS) box specifically for backups.  I have external drives specifically for making local backups, too.  So, short of my office burning down, I should be covered, no?  Uh… no. (continue reading…)

2 Comments :, , , , more...

VirtualBox: Great Thing… or… nevermind…

by rian on Nov.17, 2009, under Infrastructure

Let me start by saying that I hate Windows. The Microsoft product. I don’t hate Microsoft. I don’t hate Bill Gates, but I hate, hate, hate Windows. This is not a religious thing, either. I have had that operating system break my spirit more times than I care to think about (and I’ve been at it since… Windows 3.0?). Between the blue screens of death, weird distrustful activation schemes, arbitrary proprietary methodologies, and horrible security record, I just can’t stand the operating system itself. And I’m staring at two copies of Vista on my shelf that I can’t use because they suck. That’s about $600 sitting there. Sucking.

Having said that, I also know that I can’t run everything that I’d like to run in Linux. And as much as I love my MacBook, I don’t think I care to buy all my software over again for the Mac, thank you very much.

No, for better or worse, I’m a Linux guy. Note that I am NOT recommending that ANYONE in their right mind switch to Linux for their desktop. I have a propeller on my beanie the size of a helicopter blade. If you’re starting out and can afford it, go Mac. If you can’t afford that, go Windows 7. If you’re a total geek who sits in his (or her) underwear until three in the morning trying to get a cron job to be able to get a custom kernel to build so you can hook up your old radio-controlled light-switch-remote to your machine… Linux is for you. Now, go take a shower and go to bed. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , more...

Routing Over PPTP VPN

by rian on Nov.16, 2009, under Infrastructure, Remote Access

Granted, I tend to be a little… extreme… in the oddly setup network scenarios. Still, there are times when I need to make my freaky little combination work with a client’s environment without reconfiguring their network to meet my own needs.

I have a client that has a PPTP-based VPN solution in place. While I prefer a more robust SSL or IPSec VPN– this isn’t about me. That’s what they have, and it works for them. I needed to make my tools work with that situation.

On my end, though, I run a Linux desktop with virtualized (ask me later) instances of client servers or development environments. In this case, I had a Windows XP guest system running, but I needed to be able to access my Linux system as well on their network. So, while Linux’s NetworkManager would happily make a connection to their relatively oldish VPN server device, I couldn’t make another from the XP client at the same time.

What’s more, their VPN server device was having no part of routing my network’s traffic. (Note: I am not specifying the parts involved here because I don’t want to start a ‘you should have done THIS!’ discussion. I’m very much a ‘get it working and move on’ person.)

(continue reading…)

1 Comment :, , , , , more...

NX: Great Thing or The Greatest Thing

by rian on Nov.03, 2009, under Infrastructure, Remote Access

If you’re like me and have more than one machine to worry about, you’ve no doubt tried to remotely access one from the other.  There are times when you just can keep getting up to go over to the other machine just to enter some command or see how something’s running.  Then there are times when one machine is in a colocation closet in San Francisco, and you’re living in, say, Japan, like I was.  Or maybe your mom can’t get the 12:00 to stop blinking on her VCR (and she still has a VCR), and now she’d like you to figure out why “the Internet is broken.” (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , , , more...

More Backing Up MySQL: Know Your Cat: Storage Engines

by rian on Nov.02, 2009, under Databases, Disaster Recovery, Infrastructure

Last time, I wrote about options for backing up MySQL, but I talked about them as though there is one kind of database, the MySQL database.  However, that’s not at all true.  There are two main types of storage engine used in MySQL– MyISAM and InnoDB.  In fact, there are many more, but these are the two most commonly used without special requirements. This is about the point where those of you not interested in the more, well, “technical” aspects of databases might want to go outside for a walk. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , , , , more...

Backing up MySQL: More than one way to skin a cat.

by rian on Oct.31, 2009, under Databases, Disaster Recovery, Infrastructure

Moving to MySQL

I’m currently involved in moving an application from SQL Server (2000) to MySQL.  The reasoning isn’t terribly relevant, but primarily it’s an open source v. closed source issue.  This (aging) J2EE app required a proprietary bridge between the application server (Java on Linux) and the database (SQL Server on Windows 2000 Server).  That odd adapter has caused us all stress over the years.  Being proprietary, we didn’t know exactly how it worked nor whether it would be around tomorrow. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , , more...

Starting a Really Good Wordpress Technoblog

by rian on Oct.31, 2009, under Uncategorized

Meet the new blog.  Same as the old blog.

Not really.

I find that I get a lot of use out of my own notes (kept in Zim!) and the blogs of other propeller-heads.  I’ve stopped writing in my other blog for the time being for reasons I won’t go into, but I feel the need to write about… something.  There’s two things that I know much about: backyard farming and technology.  I’ve been a computer dork literally since programs were stored on rolls of paper, paper cards, and formatted graph paper looking stuff (RPG FTW!). (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment more...

Looking for something?

Use the form below to search the site:

Still not finding what you're looking for? Drop a comment on a post or contact us so we can take care of it!

Visit our friends!

A few highly recommended friends...

Archives

All entries, chronologically...