I currently maintain the italian mirror of
the Open Source Initiative web site, and today I
realized that the script I wrote some months ago wasn’t doing its job well..
because the CSS files weren’t downloaded at all, causing a rather unpleasant
rendering of the site.
To mirror opensource org I’m currently using the plain’ol GNU
Wget -r –mirror and so on. While the
good’ol wget downloads each page prerequisite defined in the HTML source,
it doesn’t support @import CSS rules, and doesn’t download images referenced in
CSS with url() rules.
BTW, nothing that can’t be resolved with some regex-fu: that’s why I’m sharing
the script I’m currently using to mirror the
opensource.org web site, hoping it will generate either a new mirror or some
insights on how to do this job better :).
Another spin-off from the www.visitacsa.it website:
a permalink_fu
improvement that allows dynamic permalinks. I know it is an
oxymoron, because permalinks should be
.. well .. permanent! And because search
engines index them, they should never
change. But what happens when you publish something, your permalink is
generated with permalink_fu using the title of your post, and after a couple
of days you want to change the title, and the permalink under which the post is
accessible as well?
Following the
specification, your
app should send out a 301 moved permanently HTTP status when accessing the
old permalink and redirect the client to the new Uniform Resource Locator.
That’s quite the same thing what my modification to permalink_fu does:
whenever your post attributes are changed, the former and new permalinks are
saved to the database, and you can enable your controller to generate 302
moved temporarily redirects when needed. In other words, it checks whether the
requested URL is an old permalink, and automagically redirects the client to
the new one.
Everything is done behind the scenes, and the plugin has also got nifty rake
tasks to set up the Redirect model and associated migrations. And you can
change its name, of course! :)
I recently wrote jQuery plug-in, that allows
AJAX file uploads without using a fixed file input button. It achieves its
goals by installing an OnMouseMove handler over the selected elements, and
moving the input button under the mouse cursor.
The quote that inspired this code is: “If Muhammad won’t go to the mountain,
the mountain will come to Muhammad”, the opposite of the more known
proverb
:).
// ~ JavaScript Kung-FU, with an excess chunky bacon dose! ~
// This plugin allows seamless ajax file uploads without having
// a fixed file input button. It achieves this by installing an
// OnMouseMove handler over the interested elements, and moving
// the input button under the cursor. <<If Muhammad won't go to
// the the mountain, the mountain will come to Muhammad.>> :-).
//
// This approach is needed on the majority of browser, except
// Safari, on which the coder is allowed to trigger a "click"
// event onto an input type=file element. On other browsers,
// you can not, that's why the complicated mousemove approach
// was chosen.
//
// Either way, when the value of the input type=file changes,
// handlers are disabled, and a user-provided callback is then
// called (passed via the "upload" option). Handlers are then
// re-enabled again when the upload succeeds or fails.
//
// IE has additional problems, because, quite unexplicably,
// when submitting a form that causes a page load, the change
// event on the file input is triggered AGAIN, thus triggering
// a new file upload. To circumvent this, you can pass a "linked"
// option, that contains the jQuery selector of the form, and
// whenever an input under this form is hovered, ajax upload
// handlers are temporarily cleared and thus the spurious form
// submission.
//
// The jquery Form plugin is a perfect companion of this one,
// because of its .ajaxSubmit method. Have a look at its home
// page: http://malsup.com/jquery/form/.
//
// Have fun!
// - vjt@openssl.it
//
$.fn.ajaxFormUpload=function(options) {
varpositioning= { top:0, left:0,
position:'absolute', cursor:'pointer', 'z-index':2 };
varform=$(options.form||'#ajax_upload');
form.css(positioning)
varinput=form.find('input[type=file]');
input.css($.extend(positioning, { width:'10px', opacity:0, 'font-size':'0px' }));
varhovering_element=null;
varelements=$(this);
varhandler, event_;
if ($.browser.safari) {
event_='click', handler=function() {
hovering_element=$(this);
input.click();
};
} else {
event_='mousemove', handler=function(event) {
hovering_element=$(this);
form.css({ left:event.pageX-10, top:event.pageY-5 });
};
}
functionenable() { $(elements).bind(event_, handler); }
functiondisable() { $(elements).unbind(event_, handler); }
input.change(function() {
varelement=hovering_element;
if (!element) return;
disable();
options.upload(element, form);
enable();
});
enable();
if (options.linked) {
$(document).ready(function() {
$(options.linked).find('input').mouseover(function() { hovering_element=null; });
});
}
};
When you install the developer beta of Windows
7, after the
usual 3 reboots cycle, you are greeted with the following image:
It is the Siamese fighting fish, a
beautiful tropical fish, but with an interesting characteristic: it is
extremely aggressive. It is popular belief that two males fight themselves even
in the wild, but that’s not quite true. This belief descends from the behaviour
of the fish into an aquarium, where the victor continuously attacking the
loser, eventually causing the loser’s death.
Now, think about the software ecosystem as an aquarium. And think about
Microsoft into this aquarium. The latest release of Microsoft OS has an
aggressive fish as its default skin, and it is alone in this aquarium. And
there’s no place for anyone else: they’ll fight whoever adversary, even if it’s
from the same species.
What’s uncertain is .. they’ll succeed, or not? :). We’ll see!
The right session shows a document open on an aggregate audio device between soundflower (2ch) and a Creative SBLive with 6 channels: the flower receives sound input from iTunes and routes it to the card channels, using all the 6 speakers.
Effects have been added to improve the audio experience (details here: http://www.rottenbrains.com/?p=232). The right session also uses AUNetSend to stream audio onto the left session, connected to the built-in speakers of the macbook.
Result: stereo audio being played on eight channels. Audio Units are a really powerful instrument, well coded and well working.
[tks nextie for telling me about AUNetSend and AUNetReceive]
UPDATE 19-12-2008
Improving: there is no need to use NetSend and NetReceive to play on 8 speakers: an aggregate device composed of Soundflower 2ch, the USB 6ch SBlive and the Built-in output is enough!
Also, note the new bus: it’s required because the AUMatrixReverb effect added to the center channel to improve the audio stereophony actually takes two channels, so it overlaps with the following one (the LFE). But applying the effect to a bus does not exhibit this side effect.
When we reach the point where online anonymity has ended, instead of getting
to be who we really are, the fact that we’ve become so aware of the fact that
we’re always being recorded, photographed, tracked, and traced, will have
actually created a slightly altered personality instead. Like reality TV show
contestants, the act of being observed will change our behavior. Our personal
brand image will become our public identity and therefore our identity.
I’d think these describe exactly the “facebook effect”.
If you’re wondering why the CCacheServer daemon, that caches in memory
Kerberos tickets obtained via kinit(1) is NOT starting .. that’s because of a
strange bug regarding the LimitLoadToSessionType specified into the agent
.plist, located into
/System/Library/LaunchAgents/edu.mit.kerberos.CCacheServer.plist on OSX 10.5
systems.
CCacheServer will then be instantiated when you do a kinit:
$ kinit
Please enter the password for vjt@DOMAIN.LOCAL:
$ klist
Kerberos 5 ticket cache: 'API:Initial default ccache'
Default principal: vjt@DOMAIN.LOCAL
Valid Starting Expires Service Principal
11/12/08 20:59:35 11/13/08 06:59:14 krbtgt/DOMAIN.LOCAL@DOMAIN.LOCAL
renew until 11/19/08 20:59:35
The bug is strange because the LimitLoadToSessionType key actually should
instruct launchd to automatically start up the daemon and run it once for
every logged in
user,
when kinit asks its services. But, if the key is set in the .plist, a
launchctl load on it fails with “nothing found to load”. Weird!
If you use github-provided lighthouse integration, from the “Admin” pages of
your git repository, you may have stumbled upon on a glitch: every changeset on
lighthouse appears as done by the lighthouse user that configured the
integration on github.
This happens because lighthouse uses the API token to link changeset authors to
LH users, and that’s not good when you’re not alone committing :-).
A simple solution is to use a post-commit hook, as described
here,
but that’s not satisfactory because it means that every time you issue git
commit on your console, the commit message will go public, and if you --amend
or reset --soft the index you’ll have to browse to lighthouse and delete the
changeset.
A much smarter solution is to push all changed revs when pushing them to
github: I modified the original post-commit
hook and installed it alongside the git
command in $(dirname which git)/git-lh.
This gives me a new git lh command that fetches the current HEAD revision
from github using refs/heads/master and POSTs every changeset between that
rev and the current tip in the working tree to lighthouse.
So, if you issue git lh before issuing git push, every change you’re
pushing to github will go to lighthouse, too.
UPDATE: A simple bash script like:
#!/bin/bash
git lh && git push
saved as git-lh-push saves you from typing two commands when you want to push
:).
“Quando ti sembra di avere troppe cose da gestire nella vita, quando 24 ore in
un giorno non sono abbastanza, ricordati del vaso della Maionese e dei due
bicchieri di vino…”
Un professore stava davanti alla sua classe di filosofia e aveva davanti alcuni
oggetti.
Quando la classe incominciò a zittirsi, prese un grande barattolo di maionese
vuoto e lo iniziò a riempire di palline da golf. Chiese poi agli studenti se il
barattolo fosse pieno e costoro risposero che lo fosse.
Il professore allora prese un barattolo di ghiaia e la rovesciò nel barattolo
di maionese. Lo scosse leggermente e i sassolini si posizionarono negli spazi
vuoti, tra le palline da golf. Chiese di nuovo agli studenti se il barattolo
fosse pieno e questi concordarono che lo fosse.
Il professore prese allora una scatola di sabbia e la rovesciò, aggiungendola
nel barattolo; ovviamente la sabbia si sparse ovunque all’interno. Chiese
ancora una voltase il barattolo fosse pieno e gli studenti risposero con un
unanime “Sì!”.
Il professore estrasse quindi due bicchieri di vino da sotto la cattedra e
aggiunse il loro intero contenuto nel barattolo, andando così effettivamente a
riempire gli spazi vuoti nella sabbia. Gli studenti risero.
“Ora”, disse il professore non appena la risata si fu placata, “voglio che
consideriate questo barattolo come la vostra Vita. Le palle da golf sono le
cose importanti: la vostra famiglia, i vostri bambini, la vostra salute, i
vostri amici e le vostre Passioni; le cose per cui, se anche tutto il resto
andasse perduto e solo queste rimanessero, la vostra vita continuerebbe ad
essere piena. I sassolini sono le altre cose che hanno importanza, come il
vostro lavoro, la casa, la macchina… La sabbia è tutto il resto: le piccole
cose.
