Chi Bol Galtzo

Atheism

2010-09-27T22:31:00.000-04:00

Just letting the world know: I am now an atheist. I will expand this post later with reasons why, but I have recanted all my former beliefs I held as a Mormon.

I joined Twitter

2009-06-06T03:06:00.001-04:00

http://twitter.com/galtzo

I'm twittered.

2009-04-15T12:51:00.000-04:00

From boortz.com comes some sanity:

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... You never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?

It's quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about....

Signed,

Your boss

CSV Pirate

2009-03-04T01:07:00.008-05:00

I needed a way to handily create CSVs anytime I want to because I have clients that ask for reports of data all the time. So I wrote a plugin and then turned it into a gem!

The source is written in Piratey Ruby.

So check my source =)

http://github.com/pboling/csv_pirate

Sanitize Email: Never worry about sending email in development again

2008-11-05T17:49:00.006-05:00

SanitizeEmail
=============

This plugin fills a gaping hole I have found in every one of the Rails projects I've worked on.

SanitizeEmail allows you to play with your application's email abilities without worrying that emails will get sent to actual live addresses.

This is the problem I have with site after site:

1) I have a production site with live data.
2) I dump the live data and securely transfer it to another machine (rync -e ssh), and import it using scripts that I will soon open source
3) On this separate machine (staging, or development) I run tests, and test various features.
4) I usually want the emails to get sent from these non-production evnironments so I can verify what they look like when sent,
but I don't ever want to risk them getting sent to addresses that are not mine.

So I wrote this plugin! :P

It is an "install it and forget it" type plugin that requires very little setup. It includes some very innocuous monkey patching of ActiveRecord::Base to work its magic.

Install
=======

./script/plugin install git://github.com/pboling/sanitize_email.git

Setup
=====

It only requires a few lines of configuration:

Rails 1.x:
Add to bottom of environment.rb

Rails 2.x:
Use an initializer, stick it in any initializer file, or create a new one for sanitize_email

Add this bit and customize for your app:

    #Settings for sanitize_email plugin:
    #Overrides the recipients of all outgoing mail in local environments
    ActionMailer::Base.sanitized_recipients = "developer@example.com"

    #Overrides the BCC of all outgoing mail in local environments, 
    # but only if a BCC is specified on the message
    ActionMailer::Base.sanitized_bcc = "developer@example.com"
    #Or you can override bcc's with a nil value thereby ignoring the bcc in mail sent from the local_enviroments
    #ActionMailer::Base.sanitized_bcc = "developer@example.com"

    #Overrides the CC of all outgoing mail in local environments, 
    # but only if a CC is specified on the message
    ActionMailer::Base.sanitized_cc = "developer@example.com"
    #Or you can override cc's with a nil value thereby ignoring the cc in mail sent from the local_enviroments
    #ActionMailer::Base.sanitized_cc = nil

    #These are the environments whose outgoing email BCC, CC and 
    # recipients fields will be overridden!  All environments not listed will be treated as normal.
    ActionMailer::Base.local_environments = %w( development test )

But wait there's more:

Let's say you have a method in your model that you can call to test the signup email.
You want to be able to test sending it to any user at any time... but you don't want
the user to ACTUALLY get the email. A dilemna, yes? Not anymore!

All your mailers get a force_sanitize clas method which takes precedence over the environment override.

When force_sanitize is nil it will not be used by sanitize_email to detrmine if it should override the recipients, bcc, and cc

Example
=======

So here's how you can use force_sanitize to override the override.

Even if you set:
ActionMailer::Base.local_environments = %w( development )

And are in the development environment, you can override the override anywhere in your code.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  def test_signup_email_me_only
    UserMailer.force_sanitize = true
    UserMailer.deliver_signup_notification(self)
    UserMailer.force_sanitize = nil
  end

  def test_signup_email_user_only
    UserMailer.force_sanitize = false
    UserMailer.deliver_signup_notification(self)
    UserMailer.force_sanitize = nil
  end

  #this third method would conditionally use the overridden recipients based on current Rails environment
  def test_signup_email_environment
    UserMailer.deliver_signup_notification(self)
  end
 
end

Load the console with ruby script/console and regardless of what environment you are in:

User.find(4).test_signup_email_me_only

and the email will have it's recipients, bcc, and cc overridden to be whatever you set the sanitized values to be.
Then if you want to send it to the actual user, instead of yourself

User.find(4).test_signup_email_user_only

That's it! Enjoy!

Copyright (c) 2008 Peter H. Boling of 9thBit LLC
Released under the MIT license

BrowserWar (or how to fight IE*)

2008-10-30T12:51:00.015-04:00

A BrowserWar is coming soon to an interweb near you!

The source is available on Github, or there's my fork of it.

Matt Long, of Sagebit, and I wrote it over the past few days. It will kick crappy browsers right in the face!!!

Fork and tweak to your heart’s content! Please send pull requests if you find any bugs or new features.

It is the first open source project Sagebit has released on our new website.

Soon we'll release a Ruby on Rails plugin that gives you a neat helper method to set up a browser war in your view templates to fight IE, or whatever other browser you have a vendetta against.

Example usage (edit bottom of browserWar.js, or can be called within a

tag in HTML files):

browserwar.setup();
browserwar.klass('', 'browser_warning', true);
browserwar.message('You are using ' + browserwar.browser_display_name + " " + BrowserDetect.version + '. To get the best experience from this site we suggest you upgrade your browser.');
browserwar.position('90px','0px','200');
browserwar.linkcolors('blue','red','purple')
browserwar.style('200px','20px','8px ridge #CE8DAD','#fff','#000');
browserwar.fight('Explorer', 6);
browserwar.fight('iCab');
browserwar.run();

Sweet! IE will lose the war!

Barack Obama is wrong on taxes

2008-10-21T00:34:00.002-04:00

I believe that Obama's ideas, even if plainly stated, are much worse than McCain's.

What you've heard about Obama only raising taxes on the rich is out of line with reality, and that's because you probably heard it 'from' Obama, or one of his supporters.

The wealthiest 10% of America pay 70% of the tax burden.
The bottom 50% pay only 3% of the tax burden, and the majority of those end up having a net gain from the government (meaning they benefit more than they pay - medicare / social security, etc)

Obama intends to raise many taxes, including ones that will hurt the 'everyman', like the capital gains tax. Know anyone on a pension? They'll get hurt. Know anyone with any kind of retirement plan? (401K, IRA, etc) They'll get hurt. By hurt I mean they'll pay higher taxes.

Oh and for all of Obama's talk about McCain wanting to lower the taxes that Oil companies pay, (which would help make more US based reserves, like oil shale in the rocky mountains, economically feasible for production)... what no one is saying is that they are giant benefactors of our government. Let's take just one of them:

ExxonMobil:
http://www.prodromus.com/2008/08/01/exxonmobil-pays-world-record-32-billion-in-taxes-during-q2

They are on track this year to break the record 100 BILLION dollars in taxes they paid last year. HOLY WOW!

Here's a pertinent quote:
"Newsmakers were quick to point out that the amount of taxes that ExxonMobil paid works out to $4,114 in taxes per second. And, every American would have had to pay an extra $100 last quarter if ExxonMobil did not pay their fair share of taxes.

Due to the high level of taxation, capital and exploration project spending only increased to $7 billion in the second quarter. Given the heavy tax burden, the company stock price slumped another 2.7%, causing losses in millions of 401K owners portfolios. Over $10 Billion in value was wiped out of stock investor’s holdings after this announcement. Individual investors are calling for tighter regulations on Big Government, demanding new WindFall Tax protection."

In other words they already pay too much, and Obama wants them to pay more. They are currently paying more than 50% of their net income before taxes in taxes. More than 50%. Wait read it again. More than 50%. One more time. More than 50%.

So yeah I'd be glad to loosen their collar a bit. This country needs energy sector innovation... not to be drilled into the ground by taxes.

So I'm voting Nobama in two weeks... i.e. McCain.

Barack Obama sells snake oil?

2008-10-21T00:02:00.004-04:00

Obama is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He is selling snake oil to the poor: social services, and government handouts. He's paying for it by taxing the rich, killing innovation and sending more Jobs overseas to countries that have lower business tax rates. McCain's talk about the US having the second highest biz tax rate in the world, isn't fluff, it's an important factor of deciding where to build factories and employ people!

It isn't class warfare, it's CLASS WARFARE. Since I want to live the American Dream and become rich and employ others, I am appalled by everything Obama stands for. And what he would do to the supreme court would be an atrocity. "Legislation from the bench" from liberal judges is probably one of the biggest, and most underreported issue of our time. Obama would not put people on the Supreme court who care about the constitution.

Obama himself said that he thinks Health Care is a right. It is not a right. It is a priviledge. It is not something that all people are entitled to. It DOES cost money, and someone has to pay for it. Only in a communist / socialist society do all sorts of privileges become rights. The constitution has well defined rights. And NOWHERE does it mention health care.

It sounds good to the poor, and makes Obama look like a "good samaritan" to say health care is a right. But that doesn't change the fact that he is lying.

No, health care is not a right. Imagine there is no health insurance company. Imagine you live in the Amazon rain forest. Imagine you get sick and need modern treatment. Should you get flown to a hospital somewhere to be taken care of? Are the airlines going to offer free tickets to sick people now? They would have to if it were a "right". Well it sure would be nice, and there are a few cases where this does happen internationally, BUT it is not a right. It depends on the kindness of others, and to be sure there is no way on earth that all who need hospitalized care can possibly get it. Hosptials are businesses, and cost money to run. If hospitals can't pay for medicine, and doctors, then hospitals close. If we shipped all the MILLIONS of AIDS victims in Africa, who are not being treated, to the US for care then the hospitals would close down. They would not be able to handle the influx of patients, or make money. You have to take your ideas to their logical conclusion, don't stop halfway in a "wouldn't it be nice 'fantasy'".

Yes, some benevolent doctors go to Africa and help over there, but they can only treat a minor portion of the need. And they are following Christ's footsteps when they do. And those who receive the care are privileged. It is not their right. I would agree that it is everyone's right to be treated with decency, and kindness, and therefore the best care available should be given. BUT that's the point, actually. All you can offer is the best available. Not every heart surgery patient can be operated on by the best heart surgeon in the world. The point is that having a free market health care system has made ours the best in the world. Canada's health care is atrocious. Do your homework. People have to wait in line for months to get surgeries completed... or if they are rich they fly to the US and are operated on immediately... AND PAY FOR IT.

In fact every country with socialized health care has major health care problems. Not the least of which is retaining talent. Great Britain is another great example. Government officials of countries with socialized health care do not get care in their own country... makes you think... (I hope)

That's as nice as I can be considering the fact that we are poised to have Obama destroy our country. I'm probably being too nice. People have died for our freedoms, and all I am doing is waging ideological war trying to keep them from disappearing.

The only good thing about an Obama win would be in four years (the next election) it would be a landslide back to conservative principles, and away from socialism/communism.

If you're wondering about how amazing socialized health care is:
regarding waiting lines for surgery in Canada:
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/healthcare/wait.html
or here's more:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001977834_cihak13.html

Here's an actual scientific study done on wait times for surgery in Canada between 1991 - 2000. This one will chill your bones:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1079832

Pertinent quote:
"Of 8,756 patients who left the [wait] lists within 52 weeks: 7,991 underwent surgery; 90 died while waiting;"

"died while waiting"... I think I'll stick to the US' capitalist system health care, thank you.

Please do not believe socialist propaganda... :)

Annibelle Collette Boling

2008-10-13T16:38:00.005-04:00

A new baby girl is exactly what the world needed last Wednesday at 3:31:14 PM.

She is beautiful, and Mindee and I get to keep her! She was born at Clarian North, and we think she weighed about 6lbs, 4oz. The scales in the delivery room were way off, the numbers they gave us are impossibly unreliable (5lbs, 13oz). Their measuring stick worked a bit better though, and we're pretty sure that she was 19 inches long.

She has a congenital heart disease called tetralogy of fallot, and will need open heart surgery when she is about one year old. After the surgery she will be able to live a mostly normal life, for which we are very grateful!

Being a parent is very tiring!

ActionView::TemplateError (frozen? is defined by ActiveRecord) on line

2008-07-17T10:04:00.003-04:00

After upgrading a project from rails 1.2.6 to rails 2.1 I ran into a few troubles.

A few notes:
I got this error "ActionView::TemplateError (frozen? is defined by ActiveRecord) on line ..." and fixed it with a migration like this:

  def self.up
    rename_column :accounts, :frozen, :iced
  end
  
  def self.down
    rename_column :accounts, :iced, :frozen
  end

Moved to mislav-will-paginate gem (replacing the old plugin).
Installed new version of GeoKit plugin.
Removed resource_fu, easily_migrate and acts_as_comparable plugins as I think most of what they do is now built into rails.

Copy of Tim Dysinger's Git Setup

2008-06-07T15:03:00.005-04:00

Copy of Tim Dysinger's Git setup from this post (with corrected characters - I hope! and slightly modified PS1 definition)

cat >> ~/.profile << \EOF
alias g='git'
export PS1='$(git branch &>/dev/null; if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then \
echo "\[\033[00m\]$(git branch | grep ^*|sed s/\*\ //) "; fi)\$\[\033[00m\] \W \! $  'EOF
source ~/.profile

# whoami
git config --global user.name "peter.boling"
git config --global user.email "peter.boling@somedomain.com"

# colors
git config --global color.diff auto
git config --global color.status auto
git config --global color.branch auto
git config --global color.interactive auto

# shortcuts
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.ci commit
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.br branch

# if you ever have conflicts you can type git-mergetool
# to use Apple opendiff (FileMerge) for resolving conflicts
git config --global merge.tool opendiff
# Whenever we merge provide a summary of commits
git config --global merge.summary true

# globally ignore some cruft files
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore
echo "*~" >~/.gitignore
echo ".DS_Store" >>~/.gitignore

# setup nice fonts on gitk
cat >~/.gitk <<\EOF
set mainfont {Monaco 10}
set textfont {Monaco 10}
set uifont {Monaco 10}
EOF

Capistrano Mailer Released!

2008-02-06T17:41:00.000-05:00

Here's the home page:
http://code.google.com/p/capistrano-mailer/

Here's the release announcement email:
http://groups.google.com/group/capistrano/browse_thread/thread/543257d2288884d2

I won't copy the README here, but I will tell you how awesome it is, and then you can go to the homepage and check it out.

Basically it allows you to setup Capistrano to email you whenever certain Capistrano tasks are run, and it tells you which task was run, what server it was run on, and a slew of other info.

So this is the first plugin that I wrote entirely on my own (though I have contributed to others).

It is totally Saucesome. Can I coin that word?

Ruby One-Liners

2007-11-12T15:23:00.001-05:00

#removes double quotes at beginning and end of string
some_string.gsub!(/\A"(.*)"\z/m, '\1')

#turns ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound into active_record_not_found
Klass.to_s.delete(':').gsub( /([A-Za-z])([A-Z])/, '\1' << '_' << '\2' ).downcase

Easy Import from CSV or PSV to ActiveRecord

2007-11-09T07:39:00.001-05:00

More late night coding has produced...

A mixin to help me import data from a KnowWho data export of legislative data!

The KnowWho flat files are either CSV or PSV. I used rake tasks to do the import. Here's the rake task for the house:

  #The column order in the KnowWho CSV/PSV file
  #"ZipS"|"ZipL"|"LowS"|"LowL"|"HighS"|"HighL"|"District"|"DistrictDesc"|"Member"|"Prefix"|"FirstName"|"MiddleName"|"LastName"|"Suffix"|"Tag"|"PartyDesc"|
  # 0      1      2      3      4       5       6          7              8        9        10          12           13         14       16    17         
  #"Room"|"Building"|"Street"|"City"|"State"|"ZipCode"|"Telephone"|"MemberID"|"PersonID"
  # 18     19         20       21     22      23        24          25         26       
  desc "import KnowWho House PSV"
  task :house_psv => :environment do
    day = "2007-10-08".to_date
    yell_psv("rake import:house BEGINS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p"), day, "House")
    puts "rake import:house BEGINS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p")
    require 'fastercsv'
    file = "#{RAILS_ROOT}/lib/psv/" + day.strftime("%Y_%m_%d") + "/Zip9Digit_USHouse_PSV_100807.txt"
    yell_psv("Importing file: " + file, day, "House")
    count = 1
    arr = Array.new
    
    #Optimize the party query
    parts = ["Democratic Party","Republican Party"]
    parties = PoliticalParty.find(:all, :conditions => ["name in (?)", parts])
    
    FasterCSV.foreach(file, :col_sep => "|", 
                           :headers => :first_row,:return_headers => true,
                           :skip_blanks => true ) do |row|
      puts "CSV ROW: #{count.to_s}"
      unless row.header_row?
        if row['LastName'] == 'Vacant' && row['FirstName'].blank?
          yell_psv("Vacant!", day, "House")
          puts "Vacant!"
          leader_id = nil
        else
          party = parties.select {|x| x.name == row['PartyDesc']}[0]
          political_party = party.blank? ? PoliticalParty.find_or_create_by_row(row, day) : party
          leader = Leader.find_or_create_by_row(row, day, political_party.id)
          leader_id = leader.id
        end
        district = HouseDistrict.find_or_create_by_row(row, day)
        zip_range = ZipRange.find_or_create_by_row(row, day, district.id)
        position = Position.find_or_create_representative(row, day, district.id, leader_id, Department.find_by_name("United States House of Representatives").id)
        addr = Address.new(:street1=>row['Building'],:street2=>['Room'],:city=>row['City'],:state=>row['State'],
                            :postal_code=>row['ZipCode'],:country=>'USA')
        phone = row['Telephone'].blank? ? nil : PhoneNumber.new(:number_type=>"default",:number=>row['Telephone'])
        position.addresses << addr unless addr.nil?
        position.phone_numbers << phone unless phone.nil?
      else
        puts "This is the Header Row"
      end
      count+=1
    end
    yell_psv("rake import:house ENDS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p"), day, "House")
    puts "rake import:house ENDS at " + Time.now.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p")
  end

As you can see I am importing a single flat file of data into many different tables.
As an example here is my Position class:

class Position < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates_uniqueness_of :name
  validates_uniqueness_of :house_district_id, :allow_nil => true
  validates_uniqueness_of :senate_district_id, :allow_nil => true
  validates_presence_of :name, :department_id
  acts_as_addressable
  acts_as_phoneable

  belongs_to :department
  belongs_to :house_district
  belongs_to :senate_district
  belongs_to :leader

  # Add methods from ImportObject as class level methods (for instance level use include)
  extend ImportObject

  #"District"|"DistrictDesc"|"Room"|"Building"|
  # 4          5              14     15        
  def self.find_or_create_senator(row, day, district_id, leader_id, department_id)
    i = row['District']
    obj = self.find_by_name(i)
    hash = { "room" => row['Room'], "building" => row['Building'].split('- ')[1], "building_cd" => row['Building'].split('- ')[0], 
              "name" => row['District'], "department_id" => department_id,
              "office_name" => row['DistrictDesc'], "senate_district_id" => district_id, "leader_id" => leader_id, "enabled" => true, 
              "data_date" => day, "data_source" => "KnowWho"}
    del_arr = ["name", "data_source"]
    return self.import_object(row, day, obj, hash, i, del_arr)
  end

  #"District"|"DistrictDesc"|"Room"|"Building"|
  # 4          5              14     15        
  def self.find_or_create_representative(row, day, district_id, leader_id, department_id)
    i = row['District']
    obj = self.find_by_name(i)
    hash = { "room" => row['Room'], "building" => row['Building'].split('- ')[1], "building_cd" => row['Building'].split('- ')[0], 
              "name" => row['District'], "department_id" => department_id,
              "office_name" => row['DistrictDesc'], "house_district_id" => district_id, "leader_id" => leader_id, "enabled" => true, 
              "data_date" => day, "data_source" => "KnowWho"}
    del_arr = ["name", "data_source"]
    return self.import_object(row, day, obj, hash, i, del_arr)
  end
end

And here's the all important mixin which gives each of my classes the ability to seamlessly import the ActiveRecord objects. I've imported several hundred thousand rows this way and nary a problem! This goes in a file called ImportObject.rb in the lib/ directory of the project, and is extended/included on a per model basis.

module ImportObject
  def self.included(base)
    # Initialize module.
  end

  def import_object(row, day, obj, hash, lookup_key, del_arr, skip = false)
    klasss = self.to_s
    if obj.blank?
      yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} not found, creating new:", day, klasss)
      puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} not found, creating new:"
      obj = self.new
      obj.attributes = obj.attributes.merge(hash)
      if obj.save
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} created"
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} created.", day, klasss)
      else
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} falied to create."
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} failed to create.", day, klasss)
      end
      return obj
    elsif obj.data_date.is_a?(Date) && obj.data_date < day && !skip
      del_arr.each {|x| hash.delete(x)}
      obj.attributes = obj.attributes.merge(hash)
      if obj.save
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} updated.", day, klasss)
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} updated."
        return obj
      else
        yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} failed to update.", day, klasss)
        puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} failed to update."
        return nil
      end
    else
      yell_psv(klasss + " #{lookup_key} skipped update.", day, klasss)
      puts klasss + " #{lookup_key} skipped update."
      return obj
    end
  end
end

Oh and for some Stupid Simple Logging of the import I created a yell_psv method in environment.rb:

def yell_psv(msg, date = Date.today, filename = "") 
  # stupid simple logging:
  f = File.open(File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/../log/" + filename + date.strftime("%Y_%m_%d") + ".log"),"a") 
  f.puts msg 
  f.close
end

How 'bout them apples!

Where's Peter been?!?

2007-11-07T22:57:00.001-05:00

I have been in front of my computer most of the time. I have been writing web apps almost non-stop for a while now.

The newest I cannot yet reveal, but I hope to be able to soon, when it launches.

I have also been contributing heavily to RVideo, and am working at my day job on some projects that will soon be open sourced which are based on RVideo. We've extracted them from some commercial apps we're doing.

Watch this space!

ResumeOnRails: Version 2 Released!

2007-09-09T18:34:00.001-04:00

[Updated] ResumeOnRails v2.1.1 has been released! Download it!

It is a complete rewrite of v1.0, which was never released as a tarball download.

There is a demo of the application running at http://resume.peterboling.com/

The goal was for it to be my own resume (in progress). :) But before I really made it my resume I got so much work I no longer needed it!

So... it is what it is.

Homepage is here:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/resumeonrails/

Rails Tidbits

2007-09-06T23:50:00.001-04:00

I have been doing what seems like 24x7 rails development for many months (years?) now and have gathered up some useful tidbits that I don't want to forget.

The most recent I've just written tonight.

I needed a way to send myself an email containing the cause of the error when a user tried to change their profile, reset password, etc, and the update failed due to a validations error.

So I wrote a little helper method for my application_helper.rb:


  def human_readable_errors(errors, col_names)
    arr = Array.new
    for name in col_names
      if errors[name] && errors[name].is_a?(Array)
        arr << name + ": {" + errors[name].compact.join(', ') + "}"
      elsif errors[name]
        arr << name + ": {" + errors[name].to_s + "}"
      end
    end
    return arr.to_sentence
  end

Now in my mailer model I can send emails with this lovely line:


  def profile_update_failure(user, original)
    @recipients = "no-spam@peterboling.com"
    @from       = "Admin "
    @subject    = "[ERROR] Profile Update Failure (#{user.login})"
    @sent_on    = Time.now
    @content_type = "text/plain"
    @body  = { 
              :name => user.name,
              :login_name => user.login,
              :message => "Profile was NOT updated.\n\r" + get_object_diff(user, original),
              :date => Time.now.to_date.to_s,
              :time => Time.now.strftime("%I:%M %p"),
              :errors => "Profile update failed because:\r\n\r\n" + human_readable_errors(user.errors, User.column_names)
             }
  end

And I will get an email with some lines like this:


Resetting password failed because:

login: {is too short (minimum is 1 characters), can't be blank, can't be changed ... ever} and last_name: {can't be blank}"

You may have noticed the get_object_diff method call. That's the easiest way to see if the user has changed anything, and what EXACTLY they changed. This way I have a record of all the changes in email (which I prefer to storing this sort of thing in a database. I use the email history as the record of what changed when.)

So I put the get_object_diff method in my mailer_helper.rb because I only use it when mailing... (Oh and the object class must be acts_as_comparable)


  #Object class must be acts_as_comparable
 def get_object_diff(first, second)
    i = 0
   j = 0
   diff = first.differences(second).to_a
   d = String.new
    up = String.new
   for p in diff
     i += 1
     if p.is_a?(Array)
       for s in p
         j += 1
         if !s.is_a?(Array) && s != :updated_at
           d += s.to_s.humanize + ": "
         elsif !s.is_a?(Array) && s == :updated_at
            up += s.to_s.humanize + ": "
          elsif p[0] != :updated_at
            d += s.reverse.to_sentence(:connector => 'changed to', :skip_last_comma => true)
            d += "\n\r"
          elsif p[0] == :updated_at
            up += s[0].to_s
            up += "\n\r"
         else
           d += "and " + s[0].to_s
           d += "\n\r"
         end
       end
       j = 0
     end
   end
   return d + (up || "")
  end

The output of this method generates somthing like this example:


The following things were updated in your profile:
        
City: Pickadilly changed to South Bend

Address1: 597 N Fizzling Sticks Ave #42 changed to 653 E 6th Ave

Postal code: 47304 changed to 22222

Phone: 555-555-1234 changed to 

Email: no-spam@peterboling.com changed to please-spam@yahoo.com

State: MO changed to NY

Updated at: Tue Aug 28 14:51:36 UTC 2007

If you did not initiate this request, please notify us immediately.

Learn Ruby & Rails

2007-07-07T12:26:00.001-04:00

Install:
http://hivelogic.com/narrative/articles/ruby-rails-mongrel-mysql-osx

Learn Ruby:
http://tryruby.hobix.com/
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/
http://ruby.on-page.net/

Watch some VIDEOS!
http://railscasts.com/

Move it on up to Rails:
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/learn-ruby-on-rails
http://6brand.com/beginning-ruby-on-rails

Documentation:
http://www.noobkit.com/
http://railsmanual.org/

Wedding... whoops!

2007-06-07T12:32:00.000-04:00

Where does the time go?

I got married on the 30th of April to Mindee M. Cosman. She's 24 and beautiful, and now she's my wife! We were married in the Nauvoo, IL temple. We had a reception in Zionsville. We now live way up north of Indy in the vicinity of Westfield/Carmel. We recently celebrated one month of marriage by going to Kona Grill. Great food!

So.. I have to get back to work (of course)...
To all three of my friends who read this blog... I will at some point in the next few weeks catch up on my website development to the point where I will be able to come out of my hole and get some sun!

Until then... ciao

FTGU - Rails on Windows - Single Sign On (SSO)

2007-03-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

The name of the example rails application throughout this tutorial is "myapp", and there are several assumptions I make. You already have your project deployed to a production Windows Server running IIS and have a setup similar to the one I outline in my previous post on how to deploy Rails to Windows & IIS.
This example shows how to set up an intranet site to have integrated Windows domain Single Sign On (SSO).
Versions I Used

Windows Server 2003 IIS 6.0 Rails 1.2.2 Ruby 1.8.5

ISAPI_Rewrite
I use the full version in my setup. The cost was $99 (and definitely worth it).
I assume your app is already running and you have already configured ISAPI Rewrite
Integrated Windows Authentication
Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
Open (local computer) and right click on "Web Sites". Go to 'Properties'.
In the "Directory Security" tab under "Authentication and access control" click on the "Edit" button.
Uncheck "Enable anonymous access", and check "Integrated Windows Authentication".
Open the "Services" Control Panel under "Administrative Tools".
Restart "IIS Admin Service", and answer "Yes" at the prompt.

ON MACHINES ACCESSING MYAPP:
* Internet Explorer: Early versions always enabled NTLM authentication.

Recent versions have NTLM authentication enabled only for computers in the "Intranet" Zone.
So you need to add the URL of your site to the Intranet Zone or Local Sites, and make sure Automatic Logon is enabled for that zone.
Otherwise you might try enabling auto logon globally but this is generally a very bad idea for security reasons.

This option can be found via Tools > Internet Options > Security > Custom Level > User Authentication > Logon
Set it to: Automatic logon with current username and password.

* Firefox: All URLs which support NTLM must explicitly be added to the network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris preference.***

This option is not exposed via the Firefox UI, but can be found in about:config (type "about:config" into the URL feild in Firefox and hit enter).
Modify the preference to be the following string:
http://127.0.0.1/myapp (except make it a real URL, of course)

*** The Firefox fix for SSO hasn't worked quite right for me yet. But I stopped trying a while ago, so YMMV.

You need to download ldap_auth.
Extract it, and put the ldap_auth.rb file in the lib directory at the root of your project.

In your application controller:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base include ConnectionHelper end

Create a new file: app/helpers/connection_helper.rb

module ConnectionHelper require 'ldap_auth' def verify_membership #LDAP connection info host = 'MYLDAPSERVER01' #Your ldap server dn = 'OU=Users,DC=mycompany,DC=local' #This works for me, but the dn may vary based on your LDAP structure and configuration #Credentials of the user we are trying to authenticate debug = false if debug session[:user_name] = 'DEV_TEST' session[:group] = 'sgn1' session[:admin] = 'admin' return true elsif session[:user_name] #already logged in? If you remove this they re-login (albeit transparently) on each trip to the server. return true else account_name = 'username' password = 'password' connection = '' unless LDAP::Auth.authenticate("#{account_name}@mycompany.local", password, dn, host) do |auth_obj| groups = get_group_memberships(auth_obj) if !groups.nil? for group in groups if group.to_s == 'Some_group_name_1' my_group = 'sgn1' break elsif group.to_s == 'Some_group_name_2' my_group = 'sgn2' break elsif group.to_s == 'Some_group_name_3' my_group = 'sgn3' break elsif group.to_s == 'Admin_Group1' session[:admin] = 'admin' end end if !my_group.nil? session[:group] = my_group end end end end end end def get_group_memberships(auth_obj) groups = nil user_name = request.env["HTTP_X_ISRW_PROXY_AUTH_USER"] if !user_name.nil? session[:user_name] = user_name.from(4) groups = auth_obj.groups_for(session[:user_name], 'sAMAccountName', 'memberOf') end return groups end end

And you're done. People will automatically be logged in when visiting your site.
You could put some hotness like this in your layout:

Welcome <%=session[:user_name]%>. <%if !session[:admin].nil?%>Logged in as <%=session[:admin]%> Admin<%elsif !session[:group].nil?%>Logged in as member of <%=session[:group]%> group<%else%>Insufficient access rights<%end%>. <%if !session[:admin].nil?%> <%=link_to("Switch to Admin Console >>", :controller=>'admin')%> <%end%>

Suggestions? Please leave a comment!

FTGU - Rails on Windows - Mongrel Proxied by IIS with Oracle Backend

2007-03-02T12:35:00.000-05:00

The name of the example app throughout this tutorial is "myapp", and there are several assumptions I make. You already have your project in svn somewhere and are deploying it to production. In my case, I deployed an intranet site, and that's why we have integrated Windows domain Single Sign On (for more on SSO see my next post). I also assume you already have your tsnames.ora file which you can copy from somewhere and are deploying with an Oracle database that is already configured.
Versions I Used

Windows Server 2003 IIS 6.0 Rails 1.2.2 Ruby 1.8.5 Mongrel 1.0.1 Mongrel Service 0.3.1 SVN 1.4.2 Reverse Proxy Fix 1.0.2 Ruby OCI8 0.1.16 (mswin32) Oracle Client 10.2.0.1.0 (Administrator Install)

ISAPI_Rewrite
I use the full version in my setup. The cost was $99 (and definitely worth it).
Install
Install: Windows Server 2003
Go to Control Panel -> install additional components. Choose Network Services (includes IIS) (this requires W2K3 Server install disc)
Install: Windows Updates.
Go to Control Panel -> administrative tools. Turn on IIS.

Quad Click Installs***	Notes	Home
isapi_rwf_x86_0066.exe	(or latest version)	Home
ruby185-21.exe		Home
svn-1.4.2-setup.exe	You may want to get a version that is the same as your repository. Be careful! Newer versions will auto-upgrade any repository they touch to the newer format.	Home
TortoiseSVN-1.4.1	Make sure that TortoiseSVN is linked to the same version of svn that you are using. The svn version number is in the name ('TortoiseSVN-1.4.1.7992 -win32-svn-1.4.2.msi') of the file ('...svn-1.4.2...')	Home
jdk-6-windows-i586.exe	Installation Help?	Home
eclipse-SDK-3.2.1-win32.zip	extracted to C:\Programs Files	Home
Oracle Client 10.2.0.1.0	Administrator Install	Home

***Really it's more than a double click install, you click the link to download, then you click to save the file, then you double click the file to install.
Copy your tnsnames.ora file to => C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1\NETWORK\ADMIN
Download: ruby-oci8 from http://rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-oci8/

CLI Installs

ruby ruby-oci8-0.1.16-mswin32.rb gem update gem update --system gem install rails -y gem install mongrel --include-dependencies gem install mongrel_service --include-dependencies gem install mechanize --include-dependencies gem install daemons --include-dependencies gem install fastercsv --include-dependencies gem install fastthread --include-dependencies

Eclipse
Open Eclipse. Change workspace directory to C:\rails, and set as default (don't ask again). Help > Software Updates > Find and Install > Search for updates to Eclipse and install them. Eclipse will likely need to restart. Go here in a new tab of your browser.
Back in Eclipse go back to Help > Software Updates > Find and Install > Enter the Eclipse Update Sites, RDT, RadRails, and Subclispe as "New Remote Sites" under 'Find and install new software'.
Check out the project from the subversion repository.

Bark at the Dog!
Open Command Prompt

cd \rails\myapp

start mongrel server:

mongrel_rails start -p 4001 -e production -c "C:\rails\myapp" -r "C:\rails\myapp" -t 0 -n 1024 -a "127.0.0.1"

Make sure Mongrel is serving myapp correctly by going to http://localhost:4001 in a browser.

Reverse Proxy Fix
Install the reverse proxy fix so that Mongrel can find the files that IIS will be asking for:

ruby script/plugin install http://svn.napcsweb.com/public/reverse_proxy_fix

and the install script will ask you for the base URL! If you're not sure, you can change it later by going here:
myapp/vendor/plugins/reverse_proxy_fix/lib/config.rb

BASE_URL="http://127.0.0.1/myapp"

There was a bug in the version of reverse_proxy_fix which I used. I fixed it by doing the following:
Modify line 21 of myapp/vendor/plugins/reverse_proxy_fix/lib/reverse_proxy_fix.rb

ActionController::Base.asset_host = BASE_URL + '/public'

Setup Proxy for Authentication
Setup the authentication for IIS passed through to mongrel (that's what the ,A,D does on the end of the rewrite line.
First make the file writeable (will be read-only by default).
Add to the bottom of C:\Program Files\Helicon\ISAPI_Rewrite\httpd

# FOR MYAPP APPLICATION RewriteProxy /myapp(.*) http\://localhost:4001$1 [I,U,A,D]

If you don't already have SOS (Single Sign On) authentication set up in your app and you want it then make your way to my next post... :) On the other hand if you are not using IIS for Windows Domain authentication you won't need the ",A,D" at the end of the RewriteProxy /myapp(.*) line above.

Automate Everything!
Then install the mongrel service:

mongrel_rails service::install -N myapp -p 4001 -e production -c "C:\rails\myapp" -r "C:\rails\myapp" -t 0 -n 1024 -a "127.0.0.1" -l "log/mongrel.log" -P "log/mongrel.pid"

Start the service (You can also use the services control panel!):

net start myapp

The myapp web application should now be available at http://127.0.0.1/myapp

Microsoft Windows Vista EULA is EVIL

2007-02-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

Microsoft, true to their nature of being one of the most evil companies in the world, has once again reached new heights of user, consumer and business abuse in the form of the new Vista EULA.

Security Columnist Mark D. Rasch, J.D. is a former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit. He explains the legal problems with the new Microsoft Windows Vista End User License Agreement (EULA). I found particularly funny (or awful, depending on how you look at it) that the EULA is illegal in the state of Maryland, questionable in Virginia and completely unenforceable in Washington state courts (which is ironically where people suing MS about the EULA would be tried). This is because Virginia and Maryland have enacted versions of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA). I wish Indiana would protect its citizens from evil company's evil plans. Oh, well. I guess I just won't buy Vista... oh wait, I was never going to in the first place.

Read about MS EULA legal problems here.

Don't buy Vista without knowing what you are getting yourself into. (Do you like jumping into bubbly vats of super-heated oil made out of decomposing puppies? Because that's what buying vista is like.)

There is a better alternative:

Computer World writer and Windows expert, Scott Finnie, jumps ship to MacOS X, permanently, for home and business use.

Read about his reasons for switching to Macs here.

Engaged

2007-01-27T11:51:00.000-05:00

I recently became engaged to wed Mindee Cosman of Zionsville. We will be married in the Nauvoo Illinois temple on April 30th. We've already picked out her ring, and soon we'll got ring hunting to find one I like. She is the most amazing woman I have ever met. I have no idea why I have been so blessed to find her, but I'm not complaining...

I love her. She makes me laugh.

ResumeOnRails Source Available on RubyForge

2007-01-21T16:59:00.000-05:00

My resume application, ResumeOnRails, is now available on Ruby Forge.

svn checkout svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/resumeonrails

Check it out!

ACLplusRBAC

2007-01-17T15:40:00.000-05:00

To install ACLplusRBAC do this...

(You should install acts_as_authenticated first. Then once you've done that...)

From the root of your project. Use the '-x' if you want to use svn externals otherwise omit the '-x' and checkout normal files. If your project is not an svn managed project you "can't" use the '-x' option.

Step one:

script/plugin install -x svn://rubyforge.org//var/svn/acl-plus-rbac/acl_plus_rbac

cd vendor/plugins && svn checkout svn://rubyforge.org//var/svn/acl-plus-rbac/acl_plus_rbac

You are done. Read the read me (appropriately called "README" located at vendor/plugins/acl_plus_rbac) for the next steps, like migrating the database, and how to best use the new hotness you've just acquired.

I'm doing it again...

2006-11-21T23:46:00.000-05:00

It is now 11:48pm on Nov 21, 2006 and before I go to sleep tonight I am hoping to have another site live.
I am developing a new application based heavily on Eribium and acts_as_authenticated, acl_plus_rbac, and borrowing from some of my other projects, including ResumeOnRails. My app is closed source this time - I gotta make money. I am starting tonight, and I am hoping to finish it in a few hours.

Let the games begin!
---
Update
So far I've had to:
gem install rubyzip (for files tab to work)
gem install bluecloth (for app to load)
gem install redcloth (because I thought I might as well)

ResumeOnRails

2006-10-24T22:52:00.000-04:00

It has been recommended to me that I redo my resume to make it more of a narrative. That got me to thinking... if the purpose of the resume is to get me an awesome job writing rails apps, then why not write a rails app to be my resume. Incidentally he said that my resume made sense from a programmer's perspective, but was a bit confusing as far as telling my story, so I am now going to design in as short a time as possible (think RailsDay - where contestants have 24 hours to design write and produce a working rails app which is then judged) my resume in the form of a sweet web 2.0 application.

Yeah, I'm strutting my stuff...

So part one of this project was to go buy a new computer, as my partner is using the dev machine to work on another project, and my G4 laptop is too slow to write this app with all the speed of a scared cheetah.

So I got home from class at 7:15pm, went to the Apple store, bought the cheapest Mac Mini they had, and brought it home. I set it up and transferred my files from my old Mac. This is the first time I am online with the new computer, and I am posting this as sort of a time stamp for my jumping off point, as I am racing myself to see how fast I can get it done. I haven't setup ruby, rails, or any of that yet.

Adrenaline is pumping. When I am finished with this project, I'll release it OS on RubyForge... ;)

When I am finished with it, my resume will be available here:
http://resume.peterboling.com/

[10/24/06 - 11:06pm] Right after I posted this I saw the softaware update wanted to DL several hundred MB of 'new hotness Apple software' so I am going to DL the ingredients I'll need to bake rails following the Hivelogic recipe while that's going on. In addition I'll need to install XCode 2 from the MacOS X install DVD.

[10/24/06 - 11:40pm] The Apple Software Updates are finished, and the XCode Developer Tools are installed. Now onto the Hivelogic recipe.

[10/25/06 - 12:50am] Hivelogic recipe completed, and development environment (RadRails + Lighttpd + MySQL) completely setup. I have not yet written a single line of code, or any database migrations yet... Engage! (I watched too much Star Trek TNG as a kid)

[10/25/06 - 3:30am] Need sleep, stopping now. CSS Layout is basically complete.

[10/25/06 - 6:15pm] Back at it...

[10/25/06 - 9:45pm] CSS is done. Tried setting up the site on TextDrive, and found their documentation lacking. I'd heard good things about DreamHost, so I just signed up with them for 2 years, and registered the domain peterboling.com. I am now trying to set it up on DreamHost...

[10/26/06 - 12:40am] Color scheme is acceptable. Migrations are done for 13 core tables. I was able to base the entire program structure on a table called "events". Woot!

[10/26/06 - 1:27am] Installed acts_as_taggable and modified heavily. Improved migrations, and made the display of the event columns derive from placement data in the db. Need sleep, stopping now.

[10/26/06 - 10:00pm] Apparently I have other things that I need to do as well, since I am only now back to work on ResumeOnRails. First thing to do: Figure out a 'em' based measuring system for months.

[10/27/06 - 3:05am] I got a lot done. I hope to be able to finish it up tomorrow night! I setup my hosting at Dreamhost a bit more. http://resume.peterboling.com/ will be my resume. http://svn.peterboling.com/ResumeOnRails/trunk will be the project source. I almost have Capistrano setup... but I am going to sleep now. I have to be at work @ 8am!

[10/27/06 - 10:25pm] Just finished creating my 'real' resume in a table layout which I will use to guide me in designing the UI for ResumeOnRails. It must be easier to understand, use, and improve comprehension beyond what an MS Word table could ever do.

[10/28/06 - 2:15am] ResumeOnRails is in a semi-functional state! I have quite a few things working... The login system is done. Admin CRUD is close to done and protected by ACLplusRBAC goodness. I should be able to release it in the morning sometime! But first some sleep. Also new sites are:
Project Homepage:
http://ResumeOnRails.peterboling.com/
Demo:
http://resume.peterboling.com/

[10/28/06 - 9:05am] Back at it. Today will be awesome because I think I should just about have this thing licked by the end of the day!

[10/29/06 - 2:40am] I have gotten out of my chair a few times to make ramen, or spaghetti-o's. So there are a few minutes in there when I wasn't working on ResumeOnRails... so it is really looking good now. The code is progressing at a break neck rate, and I will be at a release ready state soon. Tomorrow [technically today, since it is after midnight] I won't get a whole lot done though due to it being Sunday...
Don't forget about the DST switch. (And add another hour to how long I worked today as well!)

[10/29/06 - 10:00pm] It was a long day of church, choir, home teaching, dinner, and now @ 10pm finally back to code... I really want to release it tonight! I just hope I can polish it up enough.

[10/30/06 - 12:15am] I've only been at this for 2.25 hours, but I am beat, and I did accomplish a lot. I have separated the front end controller (handling all public display requests) from the admin CRUD controller to enter the resume information. The front end is certainly far enough along to release. The back end requires more work... So tomorrow (and when I say that I mean late tonight after I get home from work) if all goes well I will release the front end. It is so gooey, you'll love it... I do.

[10/30/06 - 10:00] Got home from FHE, and am now finishing up work on the app before I send it to rubyforge!

[10/31/06 - 4:05am] Done. Released. Applied for project on RubyForge. Still can't get Capistrano to work. It is refusing my authentication, though when I log into the same servers outside of the Cap'n I can get in fine... so I am cornfussed... But I have to be at work in 3 hours and 50 minutes, and I still need to sleep! So goodnight!

[10/31/06 - 6:00pm] Trying again with Capistrano.

[10/31/06 - 10:00pm] Got Capistrano working! The links above now all work (Homepage, demo, and svn).

Update: I have ironed out a few more bugs, and it is really looking pretty good. Soon I'll get the RubyForge svn working...
Update: Released on RubyForge:
http://galtzo.blogspot.com/2007/01/resumeonrails-source-available-on.html

Setting up Rails on IIS

2006-10-20T14:59:00.000-04:00

I am having trouble getting Rails running in IIS. I will be updating this post as I progress, until I have it working, and have documented EXACTLY how I did it.

My current setup:
Windows Server 2003 with all updates.
IIS 6.0
Rails 1.1.6
Ruby 1.8.4 (One Click Installer)
RubyForIIS 0.1 (The install is broken by default I think... Copy all files and folders from C:\ruby\RubyForIIS to the C:\ruby\lib\ruby\site_ruby\1.8 folder)

Rails apps are currently working using Webrick or Mongrel as the web server. I was also successful in getting IIS to proxy Mongrel. This allowed for SSO (Single Sign On via active directory services) but I was unable to access the request.env['AUTH_USER'] IIS server environment variable from within Mongrel. Since this is a requirement of the app, I have had to start over.

This will be a rails app server purely by IIS... Wish me luck.

I have followed the several tutorials that I have found by searching Google, and all have failed me. Though I did get to a 'Server Error - Cannot connect to FCGI Server' point where it was at least creating Ruby session files.

So for my next experiment I am going to roll my own recipe and bake it til it is golden brown at the edges.

I chafe

2006-09-18T16:58:00.000-04:00

I am just a bit rough around the edges. My grandfather built a tumbling machine to polish rocks. When I was little I loved to watch him play with it. We'd visit and while there I'd put some rocks in it, and then visit again months later, and check them out. They would always become beautiful polished stones. (check out Andrew's fish tank at my house - as I put my collection in there.)

Anyways, the point was that when I would watch the tumbler polishing the rocks I would think about how life was doing the same thing to me... Someday I will be smooth... until then I chafe ;)

Complete Destruction

2006-09-17T10:50:00.000-04:00

safe happens

Yes my Jetta is now toast. It was actually a LOT worse than either of those vidoes.

And the only thing that happened to me was a small bruise on my left pointer finger.

I got a small cut on my knee from my keychain, and a scrape on my left arm which I assume came from the airbag deployment, as they are rather forceful.

My neck hurts a lot, but that is unavoidable in this type of accident.

We both tried to go through the same intersection at the same time. We both thought we had a green light. Nobody got a ticket, as there were no witnesses, although the cops showed up in about 3 seconds, as they were just down the block, and they said they saw 'cars flying everywhere as they pulled up.' Really it was a two car crash, but my car was scattered all over the road. The other car somehow slid between two telephone poles (one steel, one wood) within inches of each, and was stopped by a construction fence.

So my formerly beautiful car is now at the police impound lot. I have no idea what will happen to it, but I'm riding my bike to church today!

Goodbye Microsoft, Pete has left the building

2006-09-12T16:35:00.000-04:00

Amazing post by a guy (coincidentally also named Peter) whose work history closely mirrors mine. I worked for a consultancy and we were seriously hard core Linux people and passionate programmers, but then the money began to become more MS oriented and we acquired middle managers who knew nothing about code, and these same middle managers told us that our customers were demanding that we become MS certified. That was when I crawled into a hole and coded on the Mac until they finally completely lost the start-up spirit and demanded that I work 9 to 5 (I am sure they were under orders to come up with and enforce some silly corporate policy). They actually demanded that I stop putting in 60+ hour weeks (I was salary - no overtime). I decided to test the water and see if they meant it, showing up late for work (half hour once, and 45 minutes once). They threatened to write me up, and wanted me to sign papers affirming that I had been reprimanded for deviant behaviour. I told them instead that they were free to just close my 'personnel file', and walked out. I had taken all of my stuff (dozens of programming books) home the day before, and already cleared out my desk and computer hard drive of personall things, because I could feel the tension rising even then.

They company which I loved at first is now down from a height of around 26 while I worked there to 4 (plus 3 new people they have hired to fill the gaping holes left by attrition). This all happened in about a year's time. In another years time I have serious doubts about whether the company will still exist. Several of the passionate coders who worked there with me have gotten together and formed a startup where we do just as the other Pete is doing in his post. We write Ruby on Rails apps on Macs and Ubuntu, and host them on Ubuntu or Debian.

One main difference between the other Pete and I is that I have hated Microsoft for-e-ver. Started on Commodore in Basic, then to Macs. Solaris in College, with several (ridiculously) mandatory MS Visual Crap courses. Now in the workplace it's Red Hat EL4. At home a plethora (14 total) of Macs (which also run Windows for testing websites in IE!), Debian and Ubuntu machines. In my mind it is open source.

Why are Macs more secure than Windows?

2006-09-01T10:30:00.000-04:00

Hint: it has nothing to do with the 'Security by Obscurity' fallacy. Security by obscurity is just another way for people, who are ignorant of the real reasons, to say, "Macs only have less viruses than Windows because nobody buys Macs, so who why would anyone write a virus for them?" That is a complete lie. Macs are more secure, and if every one used a Mac the truth is there would be far fewer outbreaks of viruses than we currently experience in this Microsoft crazy world.

This article is not long, so if you've always wondered why Macs are better (though without security I don't see how Windows can even be called a 'contender') read the article and you'll understand why Windows is a gaping hole waiting to be filled with malware, and Macs are a stone fortress of security.

You may wonder... could I possibly be any more of a Mac zealot? No.

[Edit] the followup to the original article is just as amazing... "Internet Relay Chat servers [...] are wired with scripts to drive infected systems remotely. SANS makes the chilling statement that it's impossible to tell what the bot is making your server do." Zombies anyone?

JSON has a colon problem

2006-08-04T11:27:00.000-04:00

This fix wasn't working for me. (too easy?)
So I fixed it myself!

The problem:
You install JSON, and try to run the juggernaut push server, and think everything's gonna be cool... but then:

[pboling@host my_app]$ sudo gem install json Successfully installed json-0.4.1 Installing ri documentation for json-0.4.1... lib/json/editor.rb:977:50: ':' not followed by identified or operator Installing RDoc documentation for json-0.4.1... lib/json/editor.rb:977:50: ':' not followed by identified or operator

And get more baffling errors...

[pboling@host my_app]$ ruby script/push_server script/push_server:37:in `require': no such file to load -- json (LoadError) from script/push_server:37

So you fix them!

[pboling@host my_app]$ cd /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ (Some systems may be /usr/local/lib... or something else)

All of your installed gems should be sitting here:

[pboling@host gems]$ ls actionmailer-1.2.3 activerecord-1.14.3 json-0.4.1 rails-1.1.4 actionpack-1.12.3 activesupport-1.3.1 mysql-2.7 rake-0.7.1 sources-0.0.1 actionwebservice-1.1.4 fcgi-0.8.7 rubygems-update-0.9.0 [pboling@host gems]$ cd json-0.4.1/lib/json/

There's the offending editor.rb file!

[pboling@host json]$ ls Array.xpm FalseClass.xpm json.xpm NilClass.xpm String.xpm editor.rb Hash.xpm Key.xpm Numeric.xpm TrueClass.xpm

Edit it and remove the offending colon:

[pboling@host json]$ sudo vi editor.rb +977

Change this:

@treeview.signal_connect(:'cursor-changed') do

to this (delete colon):

@treeview.signal_connect('cursor-changed') do

and save... (:wq)

[pboling@host json]$ cd ../../

There's the install file!

[pboling@host json-0.4.1]$ ls bin GPL lib linecover.db README TODO CHANGES install.rb linecover_config.rb Rakefile tests VERSION

Run the install file:

[pboling@host json-0.4.1]$ sudo ruby install.rb

It will do this:

cd bin install -c edit_json.rb /usr/bin cd - cd lib install -c json.rb /usr/lib/site_ruby/1.8 mkdir -p /usr/lib/site_ruby/1.8/json install -c json/editor.rb /usr/lib/site_ruby/1.8/json install -c json/json.xpm /usr/lib/site_ruby/1.8/json cd -

Then start your Juggernaut push_server:

[pboling@host igacc]$ ruby script/push_server Starting server... Server is on... IP: 0.0.0.0 Port: 3100 Computer Name: 0.0.0.0 Allowed IP for rails: Serving...

And you are now much more awesome than you were 2 minutes ago!

Seems a little contrary...

2006-06-20T21:40:00.000-04:00

When I look at my blog I sometimes wonder why I haven't posted in so long. Then I think, "I guess I just haven't done much lately." But then I realize that is totally crazy, and the reason I don't post much is because I am so crazy busy.

So here are some of my 'free-time' projects (now maybe the next time I look at this I'll be able to say to myself... Oh, I don't have time to post anything, I still haven't finished project 'x' 'y' OR 'z' yet):

1. Lead tracking system
2. Time tracking system
3. Fantasy sports site
4. Various open source projects

Domain names are already registered for #2 and #3. #1 is pretty far along in the coding and #3 is now entering the design phase. The baasic algorythm that will drive #2 is finished, but coding has only just begun.

Whew... Now I see where all my time goes.

On top of that is my DJ business...
1. Create a mixtape for a dance team to use at the upcoming Black Expo festival.
2. Prep old school playlist for a 10 year H.S. reunion.
3. Prepare for a wedding reception or two (or three).

And then besides that I have to finish building my house...

I'd better get to work... Oh but then there's the most important thing of all! I need to ask a girl on a date. Who, what where, when, and how are the key concepts here...

Google for "Peter Boling"

2006-03-22T01:34:00.000-05:00

Have you ever googled for yourself?

Well I have several times. And a whole bunch of high profile Doctors have always come up in the past, with me never making the top ten.

But then something happened (and I have no idea what it was) and now I am:

#1

So that is just awesome.

My blog is #8 when you google for my name.

When you google for my alias 'galtzo' I am most of the top ten. My blog used to be number one, but now it is #2, and my macosxhints profile is #1. Wierd.

Our new company, PanEther (see my previous post), doesn't even register on the google radar yet. Probably not a bad thing since it still needs some work :)

Anyways... I was just excited that I am the #1 Peter Boling in the world according to Google. Talk about an ego booster. What does it say about my geekiness that I think it is cool to be rated number one by google? Volumes.

PanEther

2006-03-22T01:23:00.000-05:00

PanEther (http://www.panether.com/) is now live!

It is a new company started by some former coworkers and I. It is a completely novel and new approach to web development. Take a look at the site and let me know what you think. We are currently working on the first redesign. It will likely change often as we will be adding more to it.

For now there is some cool stuff you can buy if you head to our products page. Swag. Yeah, it's swag... PanEther swag. After I saw the dog t-shirt with our logo on it, I wanted to run out and buy a dog!

Seriously though, let me know your opinions and give honest critiques... We've recieved quite a few already and they've been very helpful.

Audio file meta tagging

2006-03-15T22:08:00.000-05:00

Very cool article about Digital Hub, Music Server, and audio file meta tagging.

The entire thing is really interesting but I actually learned a lot from what he had to say about tagging audio files.

The author notes some common mistakes, and I'll reprint them here, in the hopes that you will no longer make these mistakes after reading this. Let's keep the GraceNote CDDB clean and we all win!

* Misuse of the compilation flag. A compilation is a CD by various artists. When iTunes imports a compilation CD, it doesn't create a folder of one song by each artist, it creates a folder for the CD in the compilations folder. Now, if you tag a normal CD with the compilation flag, the CD does not go into the artist folder, it goes into the compilations folder. The compilation flag is only for various artists. It isn't for a single artist, even if it is a 'best-of' compilation.
* Graphical design translated literally into body text. All caps or all lower case on the cover of the CD does not mean the song is spelled that way. It is a graphic liberty. Standard title convention should be used on all songs. An on-line friend pointed out that this may be the way the artist wants it spelled, but I think this represents an insignificant fraction. What is the excuse for MOZART? None. Imagine if every book at Amazon translate the title graphically. HALF THE BOOK TITLES WOULD BE IN ALL CAPS.
* The title of the song is only the title of the song. It does not include the words "featuring guitar solo by Joe Blow" The title of the song is sacrosanct because it exists independently of the artist. If you must, use the comments field.
* Year. Should be the original release date, not the release of the CD. Year should be a track attribute for compilations, and the CD itself should have a release year.
* Classical music tags are a mess. There are artists and composers and movements. To compensate, some serious liberties were taken with the tags designed for pop music and now it is a disaster. On my iPod or Roku, if I browse by artist, the first thing I see is a long series of "1. Allegro." ARRRRGH. (Hint: on the Roku, use the right cursor button to advance alphabetically - why doesn't the iPod do this?) iTunes has tags to deal with all this appropriately, but the full song title should be Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major: I. Allegro. Typically, the next song is labeled: II-Adagio which is probably how the liner notes list it, and makes sense in the greater context of the CD, but makes no sense at all in a huge iTunes library in shuffle play. Each song should restate the full name. This is a combination of literal interpretation, laziness, poor foresight and bad software.

For more cool info read the article...

Setup single or multiple RoR applications on an Apache2, FastCGI, Debian Sarge linux server

2006-03-14T12:37:00.000-05:00

This blog is about to take (yet another) technical turn. I have been eating, breathing, and sleeping RoR (Ruby on Rails) and have found dozens of helpful tutorials. Using many of these tutorials I was able to figure out how to setup single or multiple RoR applications on a Debian Sarge linux server.

Why Did I Make This? Does it Really Work?

This is what worked for me. I've used it three times so far. (and it gets better and more correct each time!) It may not work for you. You may have to modify some things to get it to work. If you have any ideas on how this howto can improve please comment. This is posted for the good of the RoR community. I have learned that many (including me) have found it difficult to get RoR working on Debian with Apache2 with FastCGI. I make no assertions that these methods will help you. I cannot be held liable for any damage they cause. You follow them at your own risk. I started with a clean install so that no customizations get in the way. Theoretically if you flatten a box and follow these steps you'll have a working Rails server soon.

WARNING: I have not addressed security at all (such as setting a MySQL root password). You have now been warned.

My Environment

The webserver is named 'webdemo', and the client machine is named 'galaxy'. Both are running Debian Sarge, though the client machine just needs a web browser, so OS is irrelevant.

For this demonstration I am using the source for SimpleTicket, an open source GPLed ticketing system on rails. It is currently two rails applications which both need to be served by a CGI enabled webserver. The two apps are named "stadmin", and "tt". See http://www.simpleticket.net/ for more info.

It Doesn't Work!

I am aware that for Debian on platforms other than i386 this howto needs some modification. I am working on making it work for PowerPC right now.

Start your Engines
(a.k.a. turn on the computers)

Perform a stardard Debian Sarge 'netinstall'.
Choose the "Web Server", and "SQL Server" setup options.
A GUI is not required.

For good measure:

webdemo:~# apt-get update

If you like nano (or some other text editor) better than vim then everywhere you see vi or vim instert your favorite text editor. I'll be using vim since that is what I grew up on.

Install Packages

webdemo:~# apt-get install ruby libzlib-ruby rdoc irb curl libapache2-mod-fcgid libfcgi-ruby1.8 libmysql-ruby subversion ruby1.8-dev vim

Install MySQL 5

The next few steps will only work if there are unofficial .deb's for MySQL 5 for Debian on your specific processor. If your processor doesn't have the .debs, like the PPC processor family, fear not, there is another way (and it might be easy!) - skip to "Install MySQL 5 on PowerPC and other non-monopoly chipsets".

Add two or three lines to /etc/apt/sources.list (for more info on why this must be done see: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/357/print):

webdemo:~# vi /etc/apt/sources.list # Use dotdeb.org for LAMP related packages not available in Sarge deb http://dotdeb.pimpmylinux.org/ stable all deb-src http://dotdeb.pimpmylinux.org/ stable all

Update apt with the dotdeb's:

webdemo:~# apt-get update

Install MySQL 5:

webdemo:~# apt-get install mysql-server

When you are done you may want to remove or comment out the lines you added so you don't mess up other installations with non-Debian approved packages:

webdemo:~# vi /etc/apt/sources.list # Use dotdeb.org for LAMP related packages not available in Sarge #deb http://dotdeb.pimpmylinux.org/ stable all #deb-src http://dotdeb.pimpmylinux.org/ stable all

Update apt without the dotdeb's:

webdemo:~# apt-get update

Install MySQL 5 on PowerPC and other non-monopoly chipsets

Replace the MYSQL-VERSION-OS with your own MySQL, Version, and OS. In this example I am using 5.0.19 and linux-powerpc:

webdemo:~# groupadd mysql webdemo:~# useradd -g mysql mysql webdemo:~# cd /usr/local webdemo:/usr/local# curl -O http://mysql.mirrors.hoobly.com/Downloads/MySQL-5.0/mysql-max-5.0.19-linux-powerpc-glibc23.tar.gz THEN THIS (If you downloaded the file into some other directory) webdemo:/usr/local# gunzip < /PATH/TO/MYSQL-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf - webdemo:/usr/local# ln -s /PATH/TO/MYSQL-VERSION-OS mysql OR THIS (if you did as I did) webdemo:/usr/local# tar -zxvf mysql-max-5.0.19-linux-powerpc-glibc23.tar.gz webdemo:/usr/local# ln -s /usr/local/mysql-max-5.0.19-linux-powerpc-glibc23 mysql CONTINUING... webdemo:/usr/local# ln -s /usr/local/mysql-max-5.0.19-linux-powerpc-glibc23 mysql webdemo:/usr/local# cd mysql webdemo:/usr/local/mysql# scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql webdemo:/usr/local/mysql# chown -R root . webdemo:/usr/local/mysql# chown -R mysql data webdemo:/usr/local/mysql# chgrp -R mysql . webdemo:/usr/local/mysql# cd ~ webdemo:~# vi .bashrc # add the following lines (to whatever is already there) save and quit (type ":wq" after editing): PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin" export PATH Then source the .bash_rc (or log out and log back in) webdemo:~# source .bash_rc Start the MySQL server! webdemo:/usr/local/mysql# bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

Install and Setup Rails

webdemo:~# curl -O http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5207/rubygems-0.8.11.tgz webdemo:~# tar -zxvf rubygems-0.8.11.tgz && cd rubygems-0.8.11 && ruby setup.rb all && cd .. webdemo:~# gem install rails feedtools --include-dependencies webdemo:~# wget http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/fcgi.tar.gz webdemo:~# tar -zxvf fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz && cd fcgi-2.4.0 && ./configure && make && make install webdemo:~# gem install fcgi --include-dependencies && cd .. webdemo:~# mkdir /var/rails && chown -R www-data:www-data /var/rails &&chmod -R g+w /var/rails && chmod u+s,g+s /var/rails && cd /var/rails

Get Source Of Your Rails Application

Somehow get your Rails source into this directory or create your own rails app by doing one of the following 3 things (my example uses SimpleTicket):
1)
do this:

pboling@galaxy:~$ scp SimpleTicket.tar.gz root@webdemo:/var/rails

or this:

webdemo:/var/rails# wget http://superb.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/simpleticket/SimpleTicket.tar.gz

then this:

webdemo:/var/rails# tar -zxvf SimpleTicket.tar.gz

webdemo:/var/rails# mkdir /var/SimpleTicket && cd /var/SimpleTicket && svn co svn://project.simpleticket.net/trunk && mv stadmin ../../rails/ && mv tt ../../rails/ && cd /var/rails

IF you chose the third mothod, then you need to think of 'myrailsapp' wherever simpleticket is mentioned.
3)

webdemo:/var/rails# rails myrailsapp

Import the SQL Dump

Now might be the time to create one if you don't have one!

IF your db is NOT created and selected by the sql dump/import file:

webdemo:/var/rails# mysqladmin -p create simpleticket && mysql -u root -p simpleticket < /var/rails/stadmin/db/ttdb.sql

OR if your db is created and selected by the sql dump/import file:

webdemo:/var/rails# mysql -u root < /var/rails/stadmin/db/TimeTicket.sql

Explain the Database Connection to Rails

webdemo:~# vi /var/rails/stadmin/config/database.yml development: adapter: mysql database: simpleticket port: 3306 socket: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock host: localhost username: root password: # Warning: The database defined as 'test' will be erased and # re-generated from your development database when you run 'rake'. # Do not set this db to the same as development or production. test: adapter: mysql database: simpleticket port: 3306 socket: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock host: localhost username: root password: production: adapter: mysql database: simpleticket port: 3306 socket: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock host: localhost username: root password:

If the same database is used by multiple applications (as in this example) then you can copy the database.yml file to your other apps using the database.

webdemo:/var/rails# cp /var/rails/stadmin/config/database.yml /var/rails/tt/config/database.yml

Setup Apache to Serve Your Rails Apps

webdemo:/var/rails# vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/default webdemo:/var/rails# cat /etc/apache2/sites-available/default # The IP should be the IP of the server hosting this/these site(s). After the colon, ':', is the port you have Apache2 running on. Normally this is 80. NameVirtualHost 192.168.160.189:80 (less than sign)VirtualHost 192.168.160.189:80(greater than sign) #This is the web address that you will access the site with. It helps if this address is in DNS already, but adding it to your /etc/hosts file will allow you to access it as well. ServerName simple-ticket-admin-demo.somecompany.com DocumentRoot /var/rails/stadmin/public/ CustomLog /var/log/apache2/referer_log combined # Note that you can't put this in the .htaccess DefaultInitEnv RAILS_ENV production (less than sign)Directory /var/rails/stadmin/public/(greater than sign) Options ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All order allow,deny allow from all (less than sign)/Directory(greater than sign) (less than sign)/VirtualHost(greater than sign) # If you want more virtual hosts (with name-based routing) then repeat everything in (less than sign)VirtualHost(greater than sign) tags for each host (i.e. do not repeat the first line of the file that says "NameVirtualHost 192.168.160.189:80" # For example if you have another rails app, (like 'tt' in SimpleTicket version 1) you would add (uncommented) the following: #Notice the IP is the same as for the site above. This is name-based routing. #(less than sign)VirtualHost 192.168.160.189:80(greater than sign) # ServerName customer-ticket.somecompany.com # # DocumentRoot /var/rails/tt/public/ # CustomLog /var/log/apache2/referer_log combined # # # Note that you can't put this in the .htaccess # DefaultInitEnv RAILS_ENV production # (less than sign)Directory /var/rails/tt/public/(greater than sign) # Options ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks # AllowOverride All # order allow,deny # allow from all # (less than sign)/Directory(greater than sign) #(less than sign)/VirtualHost(greater than sign)(less than sign)/blockquote(greater than sign)

Setup Apache's Access Rules

webdemo:/var/rails# vi /var/rails/stadmin/public/.htaccess webdemo:/var/rails# cp /var/rails/stadmin/public/.htaccess /var/rails/tt/public/.htaccess webdemo:/var/rails# cat /var/rails/stadmin/public/.htaccess RewriteEngine On # General Apache options #AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi #AddHandler cgi-script .cgi AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi Options +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI # If you don't want Rails to look in certain directories, # use the following rewrite rules so that Apache won't rewrite certain requests # # Example: # RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/notrails.* # RewriteRule .* - [L] # Redirect all requests not available on the filesystem to Rails # By default the cgi dispatcher is used which is very slow # # For better performance replace the dispatcher with the fastcgi one # # Example: # RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L] # If your Rails application is accessed via an Alias directive, # then you MUST also set the RewriteBase in this htaccess file. # # Example: # Alias /myrailsapp /path/to/myrailsapp/public # RewriteBase /myrailsapp RewriteRule ^$ index.html [QSA] RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [QSA] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f #RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.cgi [QSA,L] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L] # In case Rails experiences terminal errors # Instead of displaying this message you can supply a file here which will be rendered instead # # Example: # ErrorDocument 500 /500.html ErrorDocument 500 "Application Error. Rails application failed to start properly"

Link FastCGI Modules to Apache

webdemo:/var/rails# cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled && ln -s ../mods-available/fcgid.* . && ln -s ../mods-available/rewrite.* . && cd /var/rails

Restart Apache

webdemo:/var/rails# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now you should be able to access your webapp at the web address you chose, as long as the SeverName set in the sites-available directory is in DNS. Otherwise you'll need to add it to your /etc/hosts file (this is useful for development, but not for production!). Here are some parts of my /etc/hosts file (NOT the /etc/hosts file of the webserver, but of the machine that will be accessing the webserver):

pboling@galaxy:~$ cat /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost galaxy ########################################################### # Development Sites on my Webserver ########################################################### 192.168.160.189 simple-ticket-admin-demo.somecompany.com simple-ticket-admin-demo 192.168.160.189 customer-ticket.somecompany.com customer-ticket # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback fe00::0 ip6-localnet ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

How to Make Wealth

2005-12-28T13:05:00.000-05:00

this is a must read. he basically explains what i am currently trying to do.

even if this is the only thing you do today... you need to read this article.

I wish

2005-12-19T15:21:00.000-05:00

I wish I knew more than I do.

I'm going to get to work on that right after I finish this post. ;)

We finished insulating the attic a while ago... I guess I don't update this enough.

We can't put up any more walls in the basement because the cement block sealer needs to be applied when the walls are above 40 degrees. And they are so not hot right now. We are contemplating a massive buyout of all the space heaters in Indianapolis to aide in this endeavor but finals plans have yet to be approved... ;)

My fam is moving to Waterford, Michigan TODAY! The furniture doesn't arrive until Thursday though. So they'll be sleeping on hard floors and cleaning/painting everything. I should be up there sometime this weekend.

Oh... thanks for reading my blog :-P I know you have better things to do with your time, so it means a lot to me that you do. I don't even know who I'm talking to, since only like two, or an occasional third, read it... Maybe if I wrote more interesting stuff... and more often. Gosh.

The Dead Week Approaches

2005-11-30T01:27:00.000-05:00

This semester is almost over!!! I am so done with it! I have 9 more classes to take before I can graduate! But I still feel so far away... It is taking me so long. Well I like dead week because there is often little to no homework, and so I can get other stuff done. Maybe I'll build more walls in my basement! Yay for insulated walls in the winter! It is seriously getting cold down there. I think I'll finish the insulation in the attic too! Yay for insulated cielings in the winter!

I have had many thoughts recently. I can't remember them at the moment though. I need to get some sleep!

Found! Dravidian, the original language of earth-dwellers

2005-11-14T17:28:00.000-05:00

Or at least one of the first. Those fond of etymology, and especially philology will find this very interesting.

The basic idea is that Greek, Latin, German and Sanskrit, and all of their derivations come from an original mother tongue. This mother tongue is referred to as Indo-European, or Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It is oft regarded as a mystery as to who the people were that spoke this mother tongue and therefore influenced, or are the ancestors of, most ancient, and modern, civilizations. The reason Indo-European hasn't been known until recently is that it was in use before recorded history. In other words we didn't know anything about it because there is no record of it. But by comparing similar words in derived languages, and by following well-established rules of how diction tends to change in a society over time they have come up with a list of root words that most of the millions of words in use today in most every nation derive from. And then someone compared this list to a language family which previously had no known connections, in structure or phonetics, to any other language or language family, and found that they are one and the same (nearly). So a language that was an orphan in the language tree has been found to be the mother of (almost) them all... Chinese and Japanese (but not Korean) are the only two families of language that appear to be in a different tree. This 'original language' is living in it's modern form among 27 dialects of the DRAVIDIAN family of languages spoken in various parts of India.

The history surrounding all of this is so interesting because it shows where people came from and offers glimpses of why words are what they are, and what they really mean.

"Pirk id". That means "to flatulate noisily" in one of the DRAVIDIAN dialects. Do you see why learning this is so useful!??!?

It is a long thesis, but so SO interesting. I have no idea how recent this news is... but it was new to me when I found it :) and I thought it may be new to others!

Heavenly Mother

2005-11-13T12:44:00.000-05:00

This will spin your mind around. I have studied a lot of stuff relating to this topic, and found it incredibly interesting that someone without the benefit of modern revelation has rediscovered that there is a Heavenly Mother. I say 'rediscovered' because all ancient peoples, of which I am aware, believed in a Heavenly Mother. It is only relatively recently that society at large has forgotten about her. (I am assuming the author isn't basing her writing on revelation since it is a very scientific piece.) It's very exciting really. I want to go to Palenque even more after reading this (An abandoned city of the Lowland Maya, claimed by the jungle for hundreds of years, and has yet to be explored). And many other places as well. The 'ancients' are so fascinating. All in good time...

Surprise!

2005-11-13T11:50:00.000-05:00

Contrary to my long-standing theory on aging, I did not explode in my sleep last night. OK, so I made the theory up yesterday, and had no basis on which to suppose that it might actually happen. So I guess technically I can't even call it a theory, since it was based on no observation, and had no experimental background.

But the main point is that since I did not explode, I have made it to the ripe old age of 2wenty-six. Now I know what you're thinking, ("That's like the oldest thing I've ever heard") but you err in your thoughts. You can't hear me. So it ought to be, "That's like the oldest thing I've ever read".

OK you know what really bugs me about my age... people care about it. I only care about it because other people put so much weight, and importance on it. Like if I ask a girl on a date she'll often ask how old I am. Why does that have anything to do with going on a date? We all know people who have dated married people much older/younger than them, and in most cases if the relationship works it has nothing to do with their age. Likewise if the relationship fails, it has nothing to do with their age. I differentiate, of course, between age and maturity. So why does my age matter? Why is there a stigma attached to it?

It is so depressing to be labeled by my age, since that is the ONLY thing about me that I cannot change. Anything else I could modify to suit what a girl might want me to be, such as: hair style & color, muscular fitness, field of study, occupation, location, cell phone provider, preffered grocery store, clothing style, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, cologne. You name it I can change it.

Well I guess I can't change my family either, but I would never want to do that, and they are a bonus anyways, girls are all the time wanting to marry me just to be a part of my family. :) Seriously though, age is so sad. Just cry with me on my birthday for a moment... Ok that's enough.

If I write too much I am always afraid that people will stop reading what I write (actually I doubt anyone even made it this far)... so I'm done (though I do have more to say - maybe next year :)

Overwhelmed

2005-11-10T00:05:00.000-05:00

I feel like I have so much stuff to get done. So I decided to write in my blog since that is not one of the things I need to get done. I know it makes no sense, but my cat is sleeping on my stomach (one of his favorite spot sto take a nap) and so I really am incapacitated. Anyone who owns a (friendly) cat knows what I mean. Disturbing him is out of the question. I guess I should be thankful I can still type.

So what is really going on in my life?

I finally finished the project I was working on at work today. It is a Java progem that monitors/tests websites to make sure they are functioning properly. I sent it in for 'review' today. It is really cool. So now I am continuing to work on the company website, and I am learning a great deal about how to make them look snazzy. The site currently on the web was done by a different company, and it is my job to modify, update, and improve it. www.optivel.com is the site but my changes aren't there yet.

OK... so here's the real scoop. I turn 26 in a few days. I never thought I would still be single at 26, but it sure is looking like I wil be :) barring any last minute shotgun weddings to a girl I haven't met yet who might fall instantly in love with me.

I have been thinking about my approach to females recently (for about the last 12 years or so). I have recently begun attempting to have an attitude that girls want a guy to chase them. If I were a girl I would probably be in the "if he doesn't think I'm worth chasing, then he doesn't really want me" camp. This poses a problem, however. How do I know when girls want to be chased, and are running away from me to encourage me to run after them (figuratively speaking), or when they are genuinely not interested, and I am just irritating them by chasing them around? Maybe there is no way to tell the difference without actually irritating people, and they eventually tell you to take a hike. I know I have chased with success in the past, and I have had good relationships, though the girls I've dated have mostly married the very next guy they dated - so I guess I'm good at getting them ready :-P Maybe I am just grouchy because I am single. I shouldn't complain. It isn't meant to be easy... just worth it. Gosh I hope so ;)

Michigan

2005-11-08T20:01:00.000-05:00

I love Michigan.

I lived there as a kid. Some would use the phrase "grew up there", but since that is debatable in my case, I'll refrain from making that claim. I finished fourth grade there, and then did 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades in Grand Blanc, MI.

When my family moved back from Brasil to the United States we were able to choose where we lived (well the choices were limited to certain locations). My parents chose Indiana in the end, though I really wanted to move back to MI.

Well Now I Get To!!! OK not really... but my parents are moving back up there. This time a few miles south east of GB to the Waterford/Clarkston area. I love everything about Michigan, and really have enjoyed visiting up there the past few weekends as my parents search for a house to buy. It makes me want to buy a house up there. Once I finish building the basement in the house I just bought in Indy, I might consider moving up there. It would set my schooling back yet again... and that's not cool. I only have 9 more classes!!! I wish it were over! I abhore school. Not learning, but the institution of learning in its current form doesn't jive well with me. I am constantly studying things... but not for school. It has been a long time since I actually learned anything in school that I wouldn't have learned on my own anyways. They aren't teaching me novel things... just regurgitated things that I could read about in Wikipedia. I want to learn how to think better, but they'd rather teach facts and figures. I guess I have a problem with the cookie cutter approach to learning. Schools want perfectly molded, stamped out graduates that come off the press and walk in step to their fight song. Meh. Blehch even.

So why do I have time to update my blog you ask... I went to class and paying attention is out of the question :) We spend 3 or 4 weeks studying how to do something that takes me 20 minutes to do. I guess that's why professional developers shouldn't take beginner's programming courses... but it is on the 'list' of classes I need to take to get a degree (from Purdue at least - I had the req filled at BSU)... so here I sit. So again... meh

Sorry - if my rant sounds like a pompous 'I am better than this' speech... it sounds that way because it is. ;P They don't teach humility in school either though :)

Me News

2005-10-14T12:22:00.000-05:00

I am learning some great things about website testing with HTTPUnit.

I am learning some very cool things about bash scripting. So powerful...

I will begin using my spare time (did I just say that?) to begin programming computer games. More on that later. I am pretty sure I can make the BGE (Best game ever).

Is it bravado or hubris?

SPAM comments... so wierd

2005-10-03T10:09:00.000-05:00

I have several posts about a%d&w*a@r#e.
The must search for the word above with the odd characters, and then post their crappy spam to any post containing that word.

In the past three days I have gotten 10 posts that are spam to blog posts that are around a year old. So dumb! I would go and delete them but I don't care enough to get them out of my archives. It would take a few minutes, and I still need to eat breakfast...

Official "Talk Like A Pirate Day"

2005-09-19T15:21:00.000-05:00

So take a minute out of your busy ponderance on His Noodly Appendage, and talk like a pirate!

I plan to.

Because I can!

(September 19 is the official talk like a pirate day)

A thought I just had

2005-09-15T13:47:00.000-05:00

Me: "That would cost way too much"
Alter-ego: "Then it shall be avoided at all costs"

I thought I ought to write it down before it got filed in the 'never-open again' cabinet of my mind.

Mood: Brainwashed. I need to rock out. I've been in this hazey hip-hop funk lately. Not purple haze, but hazey just the same.

Somebody grab those tweezers!

New Spats

2005-09-08T11:49:00.000-05:00

I leased a new 2006 Jetta TDI on Saturday. And I love it.

Then on Wednesday Apple announces that in November Volkswagens will begin offering factory iPod connectivity as an optionon 2006 VWs. Everytime you buy something they come out with something newer ten seconds later. Everyone knows that... but I am not ruffled about it this time. I realized that with the money I will save in fuel costs by driving the Jetta (50mpg) until November over my Blazer (17mpg) will more than pay for any device I need to buy to connect my iPod to the factory stereo. And to my surprise there are many options to connect an iPod to a factory stereo... And I am not talking about those crappy FM transmittters.

These sites are impressive.

http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipodyourcar/

http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipodyourcar/accessories.html

I am very excited about the possibilities :)

While surfing arounf the links there I found a way to add RCA in's and out's to a factory stereo as well. Throw that amp in the trunk!

Why do I do this?

2005-08-31T11:24:00.000-05:00

Sometimes we need to ask ourselves this question... and sometimes I ask it when posting. I know that very few people read my posts... so I think my best answer is: I do it for myself. I need to write things down sometimes... and it is especially healing for my soul to do it in a public way. Even though the public doesn't all have access to this site, and most don't know it exists... it still feels public.

On to News:
I bought a house. It is at 910 N Traub Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46222. You should come visit. You can help me drywall the ceiling in the basement! We have been building walls, hanging doors, drywalling, insulating, etc. like crazy for the last few weeks.

I enrolled at IUPUI. Tuition is now almost exactly double what it was when I began my CS degree @ BSU in 1997. Crayzie.

I DJed a huge 15 stake singles dance on a boat in Lake Michigan. It was very cool, and a lot of fun! (though if they want me to do it again next year, they will have to pay me, as I cannot afford freebies anymore)

Rankle of the day: It really makes me sad how unrespected the profession of DJing is. The reason one can rarely make a living at it is because most people do not appreciate the skills of a DJ, or the cost of running his business. A bad DJ can make an otherwise nice wedding reception into a horrible evening for all. Same with any dance, party, or activity where music is involved. Good DJ's are transparent... people don't think nearly as often, "this DJ rocks" when a DJ is really good, as they will think "this DJ sucks". So I think people are wary of DJs, and wary of paying a professional expreienced DJ what he is worth. How to they know he is any good? DJing is incredibly difficult and expensive. People will pay a plumber a load of money for a few hours work, and then balk at spending a the same amount for a wedding reception. Why?!? Well I have a new rule for myself. If you are not a church having a non-profit activity, then I will charge you what I am worth. I have lost money DJing for 7 years, and I can't support the hobby anymore. It needs to generate income. That's enough for now I guess.

Officially lose touch with reality.

2005-07-25T17:40:00.000-05:00

To officially lose touch with reality I believe there is a requirement to have touched it first. So I guess that lays the question of "Have I lost touch with reality?" to rest.

OK I'm joking of course. In Fact, I am reality incarnate - so if you want to stay in touch with reality you must stay in touch with me.

I expect to get poked a lot during my sojourn on Earth.

Keyboard

2005-07-14T13:28:00.000-05:00

This keyboard design is the new object of my technolust, and it is only a prototype. Egads, what will I do? It is really geeking me out...

Elsewhere in Puddleby (The town where one of my old MMORPG charsacters lived) ...

I got approved for a loan on a house... now to find the house. There is one I thought I wanted, but now I am not so sure after finding several problems with it upon my last visit.

I am DJing a dance for young singles in Indy at the White River building on Friday (tomorrow). Starts at 8PM, and goes until midnight. Dress is casual, theme is Western. Please come get your shine on everyone!

Technical difficulties

2005-06-29T12:16:00.000-05:00

Due to me saving money to buy a house, my homepage has expired. It may be ressurected at some future date.

Watched Better Off Dead last night. I think I was asleep the last time I watched it. Or not paying attention for some reason, because I thought it was way funnier this time, than last time.

So my old email has also expired, galtzo@mac.com is no more... (though it may also be ressurected)

Please everyone calm down. You can still get ahold of me.

galtzo@spymac.com

It is the same as the old one except for the 'spy' right before the 'mac'. Those extra three letters make the address free to use rather than $100 a year.

For those of you wondering "Why all this change?" explanation follows - I let my .Mac subscription run out. If I renew it will be the 5 user version, because it is more economical. $179 for five users.

Oh. I posted again.

2005-06-23T16:44:00.000-05:00

I had McDonald's for lunch today. I got a chocolate sundae. I don't think I have had a chocolate sundae since I lived in Brasil. It tasted just like I remembered. It reminded me of one of the best speeches I ever gave in a McDonald's. My friend Ryan was trying to decide whether he should branch out and try something new, which in this case was the caramel sundae. We went to McDonald's most days after school, and he ALWAYS got the chocolate sundae with nuts if memory serves correct.

So this one day he went in there and he announced that it was a big day and there was reason to celebrate, either that or something had gone horribly wrong and he needed consolation, but in either case it had to do with a female, and he needed a sundae. So he was deliberating for quite a while about which sundae he should get.

He knew, of course, that if he ordered what he always did he would get what he always got, a tasty sundae. The unknown was knawing at him though. Would a caramel sundae be better? Should he risk it? And with or without nuts? So I had to help my friend in time of need, especially because I wasn't going to order until he did and he was taking forever. So I released a tirade of pithy platitudes that were trivial when taken individually but together mounted a massive flotilla aiming motivational cannons at my friends dilemma. I continued to hammer him with my eloquence and expounding the unknowable import of this unsung moment at Mcdonald's.

After my speech on: chilled, almost dairy, dessert known as the McDonald's sundae, ordering -probabilities and ramifications, and the deeper significance of trying new things, he often asked me to give the speech on subsequent occassions when he needed to make a decision about trying something new. Word spread of my new found super-power for influencing decision makers and eventually I became known as "the Petris". You may have heard of me. :) Man, I miss high school.

Seriously though... I did repeat the speech more than a couple times at the request of my friends. Sadly I no longer remember it. Well I still got the jist of it. I always order something new! I'll advize the same for you.

Yukablik

2005-06-12T22:03:00.000-05:00

I had a friend a long time ago that used to say yukablik all the time. What a great word. What to say? The moving to Indy bit is moving right along. My parents will be moving back to Michigan around the end of summer to the Troy, Michigan area. So we have the house we want picked out, and are lacking all the paperwork and money/keys changing hands to be able to move in. Hopefully that will happen soon. In other news... I love my job, it is great fun. It makes my brain work... and I like that. I am learning a new programming language, PHP. It is very cool. And the website we are working on is totally awesome.

Oh big news... Apple is moving to Intel chips. If you heard it here first you don't digest the news very much. This bit of news is akin to a tidal wave. Anyway - I won't discuss that much here, because everyone is talking about it and though I am very exited about it, and it is very interesting, it is somewhat beaten to death.

Other big news. My sisters live in Maine. My brother lives in a forest. Sisters are working in Bar Harbor for the summer, one in a greenhouse/nursery, and the other in a camera shop. Dan is working at a scout camp. I still work in an office with comuters!

More big news. I am still single! Um... it's not really all that exciting. The word that sums it up best right at the moment is "Huh?" Had some pretty great conversations today though. A girl confronted the YSA guys and asked us why we didn't ask girls on dates. I do ask girls on dates actually... then I find out later that the girls have no interest in going on another one. This has happened multiple times. I don't mind though it makes it easier for me to decide if I want to go on another one with them. Because if they aren't interested - neither am I. I am going to be positive now! I just ate some really good chili that Earl made :)

Utah, Maine, Indiana

2005-06-01T11:30:00.000-05:00

I have been doing a lot of travelling. Two weekends ago I was in Utah for two of my cousins' weddings. That was a great deal of fun. Then Yesterday at noon I got back from Maine. I went up there last Thursday with my momma and Landon. I saved his life while we were there climbing on the rock cliffs by the ocean on Mt. Desert Island (Bar Harbor). The story of what actually happened will probably be part of the next talk I give in church whenever that may be. It was way cool/scary, and I am so much more manly now! JK. Most of the credit goes to God this time I didn't really know what I had done until after I did it. I ate Lobster. We visited a bunch of awesome places. So everyone needs to go to Maine! I watched the sunrise at 4:55AM on Cadillac Mountain (named after the same guy that the automobiles are named after). the top of Cadillac mountain is the first place in the United States where the sun's rays make landfall each morning. I was there. The sunrise was a bit cloudy but still beautiful - the birds were singing. Lots of great times. Last night I went up to Lafayette and found out that institute was happening. So I went. Amazing. I have never seen an institute class so packed in my life (and I have been attending institute for a while). So there were a lot of girls there and one in particular that I find quite interesting - and good looking :) After institute we went to Stu's house to watch a movie (Boogeyman) and she went there too. Too bad she's planning on leaving at summer's end to go back to BYU. Why plan for something like that so far in advance? Don't girls realize they might meet me? :) hehe.

Working late.

2005-05-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

Here I am at work. Late. Again! I am making up for time I missed when I went looking for houses with A-Town this morning. It was fun. We found a couple that are really cool. I have been in a really down mood for the last few weeks. It isn't fun at all, so I think I will get over it when I am in Utah. Or maybe when I go see Star Wars III on opening morning at Midnight ;)

I seem to be very unready to meet the girl of my dreams, and yet I would really like to anyway. Just so I can destroy any chance of her being interested in me. The two weddings I will be attending in Utah this weekend, for two of my cousins, are going to really help my feelings of inadequacy too! How do my relatives find people so wonderful? I guess they do live in Utah. I really like believing that it is possible for me to find a woman to marry in Indiana, so I will continue believing that, at least for another little while anyway. I have a bunch of friends that succeeded in that very thing. Apparently I didn't watch their examples closely enough to be able to discern where I am going wrong. Or maybe I am doing OK and the girls are all just crazy? I'd like to believe that too, but I think I deserve blame. So welcome to my pity party!

OK enough pity.

I am happy to be alive. I'm going to celebrate by eating a handful of M&M's. Woot!

Woah.

2005-05-13T08:56:00.000-05:00

OK so I haven't posted in a while. That's because last week was finals week. And at the same time we've been doing a HUGE project at work. I actually worked for 20 hours on Friday, and like 18 on Monday. And I live in an emotional thundercloud. So that's a bit strange. Anyway. I will try to write more. My readerbase can't survive the dearth of writing forever.

Crisis

2005-04-25T10:35:00.000-05:00

So there was a mini crisis at work when I stopped by the office on Saturday. I was in Indy looking for a house to move into this summer. I stopped by the office because I knew my boss would be there and I needed to talk to him about one of our servers. When I got in he said, "Just the man I wanted to see!" And I thought "Not good!". After many hours of trying to figure out a problem we were having with a graphic driver update that was borking everything it touched I had made no progress. So I just told everyone not to update in the morning when they came in on Monday.

So Monday morning is here, and I turn on my computer, and unbeknownst to me my own laptop has also been borked. Woohoo! So in the end the problem was encountered... the Debian update conflicted with a separate update we had applied a while back, so uninstalling both and reinstalling the Debian update fixed it. I tried this several times on Saturday... but I guess I never quite got it right.

Arg.

so tired.

2005-04-24T23:53:00.000-05:00

Wow. Life is wearing me out. The baptism was awesome! It is really
fun to have my 'lil sis around! The preparations for Saturday are
progressing nicely :) So sweet. And JIC anyone needs my contact
info... there it is:

(***************************************************

* Peter H. Boling

* Network Systems Developer | DJ

* Optivel, Inc. | GalacticDJs

* http://www.optivel.com/

* Home: 765-289-2387 Home Cell: 765-760-2012

* Work: 317-524-1747 Work Cell: 317-809-0245

* Email: galtzo@mac.com
AIM: DJPetePlzDance

* Blog:
http://galtzo.blogspot.com/

* Homepage:
http://homepage.mac.com/galtzo/

* Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese

***************************************************)

Listen up...

2005-04-22T11:19:00.000-05:00

Here's the deal. My cousins, E-boy and A-town, and I are going to build a prototype dance floor for the club just to see what difficulties we run into and how much it costs and to make sure our design works. OK... that's not the real reason. We're actually building it for a triple (maybe quadruple) date we'll be going on. None of us know what girls we'll be asking... because there aren't really a plethora of girls we're interested in... But we'll find some. The date is going to be a lot of fun though whoever is on it. It will surely be the most elaborate date I've ever been on. And the floor we are building so we can do a little dancing after the dinner that we prepare. Right now we're thinking it'll be a several course meal, we're going to try and get some china from somewhere and serve some type of steak and some type of chicken, among other things. Desert may be some lovely cheesecake. Am I making you hungry? I will be picking the girls up in my newly pimped out ride (some friends and I decked it out for one of my friends to borrow for prom). So we've got a long rope light that has a sensor that makes the lights beat with the music. And then there's a blacklight in the front passenger foot well. Two blacklights under the rear seats, and three blacklights in the back. Crazy cool. We so much stuff up our sleeves... So if you are female and reading this... I know you wish that you could come on the date. But you'll just have to wait in line :) OK... so there's only one girl (excluding my sisters) that reads this blog... I do like to imagine that I have a great audience when I am writing though - so bear with me.

Life's Ebb

2005-04-19T19:35:00.000-05:00

I feel like I ought to write down some of my feelings. So I take to the keyboard.

There is a phrase parting is such sweet sorrow... it is interesting. Especially right now. The group of people that I do things with is fairly small, fairly young, and all single. So hormones are pretty much off the charts, and feelings get hurt and mended on an hourly basis. The drama is intense. I really don't like being a part of it, and so I shy away from it. I lurk in the shadows of the great brouhaha unfolding within my circle of friends. The summer friends are going to be returning from out west (BYU & BYU-I) this week, with my sister flying in on Thursday! The friends of fall & spring are preparing to leave as school ends. So everything is in commotion. I'll get more to the point... Actually I've run out of time... But I will continue to research this later. Interesting times - no doubt.

From deep

2005-04-19T19:20:00.000-05:00

From deep within the nested folders of my /home folder comes a gem from years gone by that I saved because it is just that funny:

In case you needed further proof that the human race is doomed, here are
some actual label instructions on consumer goods:

On Sears hair dryer:
Do not use while sleeping.

On a bag of Fritos:
You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.

On a bar of Dial soap:
Directions: Use like regular soap.

Some Swanson frozen dinners:
Serving suggestion: Defrost.

On a hotel-provided shower cap in a box:
Fits one head.

On Tesco's Tiramisu desert:
Do not turn upside down. (Printed on the bottom of the box.)

On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding:
Product will be hot after heating

On packaging for a Rowenta Iron:
Do not iron clothes on body

On Boot's Children's Cough Medicine
Do not drive car or operate machinery

On Nytol (a sleep aid):
Warning: may cause drowsiness

On a Korean kitchen knife:
Warning keep out of children

On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights:
For indoor or outdoor use only.

On a Japanese food processor:
Not to be used for the other use

On Sainsbury's Peanuts
Warning: contains nuts

On an American Airlines packet of nuts:
Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.

On a Swedish chain saw:
Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands.

I write

2005-04-17T14:09:00.000-05:00

So I have written things over the course of life and I think I ought to share them with a wider audience. I understand that posting them here really only increases their exposure by an order of magnitude (from 0 to 1) - but hey... gotta start somewhere :)

So this is a poem I wrote in tenth grade while I was in Brasil. I have always been very against littering, and was feeling particularly fervent when I wrote this. I don't know how to format this the way I meant is to be and the way I wrote it originally - all of the lines are supposed to casade in varios directions like an aluminum can tossed from a car window tumbling down the highway:

Aluminum Can By Peter Boling

The aluminum can whipped past the shaded interior of the fast moving car
It spreads two wings lifts and flies airborne
but for a mere simple instant

Suddenly dropping

Spinning in tightening revolutions
Floating hopping and skipping
on the cold air
It jumps once and then falls
the elapse of its short flight
comes to an end

Hits the pavement Chooses to rest

The silver can rolls The mangled can

Bounces over pebbles By scrub bushes
The hollow ringing dies lifeless on the highway

Life is good

2005-04-17T13:14:00.000-05:00

So I was the best man at a wedding yesterday. Tim and Nikki got married. I could see it coming a while ago. Congrats to them! So weddings always make me think about girls... funny that - you'd think they would make me think about cake... but no - just girls.

So the truth is that I love women. But I would really like to just love one woman :)

I mean hanging out with girls is cool... but dnagbaggit (new word - just invented by me!)... it sure would be nice if I could like one that liked me back...

So to make the time pass I think about technology, and I am quite hyped up about Tiger (MacOS X 10.4). Yes, I already preordered it.

So back to the girls... (I can only keep them off my mind for short periods of time)

SJ is going back to UT soon, as in less than 100 hours. She has become like my best friend... kinda strange, not really sure how it happened. I really enjoy talking to her. I really feel like I can be myself. There is a great deal of drama with her leaving... Taking a step back and watching is somewhat humorous. I am sure it won't be over until she is gone. Anyway she's a cool girl, and she's thinking about going on a mission! So exciting!

I do have fun doing things with some of the other girls here in the YSA as well! (do any of you read this? ... didn't think so) A new girl is getting baptized next Sunday! Her name is Allison and she is very cool. She likes cream of broccoli soup in bread bowls. mmmm. so good.

So then I have been spending a lot of time talking to a girl in Brasil, we'll just call her Luka since most Americans have trouble rolling the 'rr's... I am actually chatting with her online right now :) She is really cool. Amazing actually. I'd like to meet her, and I've been talking with another friend in Brasil about coming down to visit, so it could happen. She's probably going to read this in a minute or so, so that's strange to think about. The internet makes communication very interesting indeed. Her blog is linked to the left there in my sidebar if you wanna check it out. Only some of it is in English though :)

No seriously life is supposed to be fun. Stop reading my blog and go have some! Well okay maybe just one more entry :)

The one where I wax eloquent...

2005-04-10T13:14:00.000-05:00

Some advice that I would like to give to the ladies and to the guys (though this is directed at the ladies):

Now about the guy thing. There are several way to lick the pudding from this bowl.
1. If I am interested but the girl has no interest in dating me:
My past history says that girls say no 100% of the time. (Update: I was exaggerating - I do go on dates sometimes) Now is that what I would prefer? No, I would, of course, like the chance to woo them and help them fall in love with me. Problem is that if they had said yes (even though still uninterested) then I wouldn't know that she just as well could have said no. So I am at a disadvantage, knowing too little about how the girl feels about me for me to be able to make an intelligent judgement on whether to spend time & money getting to know this girl. I may be led on. So even though it stings at first if you really have no interest in dating someone I recommend saying no. Unless you think that even though you're not interested now, you may be in the future, in which case developing a friendship with him may be a good idea. In that case it would also be a good idea to tell him directly I am only interested in you as a friend, possibly adding, 'at this time' if you want to give him hope.

2. So that was a tangle, this one may straighten it out. Look at each relationship 'possibility' as a doorway. Ask yourself with each guy, "Is this doorway closed?" The doorway can be closed by you, or closed by him. If the doorway is closed because one of you has decided that you're not interested in any relationship then don't bother dating, or accepting invitations that sound like dates, like the "go with me to the dance" trick. If the doorway is open then dating is a good idea. Maybe not sequential dating, but at least giving people a try. Take my sisters for example. Mimi is dating lots of guys. One time each. She isn't interested in a relationship at all. Well her heart probably is, but her mind says, "not now". So she goes on lots of dates and has lots of fun. Amy is also not interested in dating at all. She says no a lot, but sometimes she will say yes, and then usually makes it known that it is to be just as friends. The phrase "just [as] friends" is very disheartening to a guy. But it is better that way in the long run (I did not used to feel this way, but I think I am wiser now), because it lets them know they can keep looking for someone who is interested.

3. The crockpot. This is HUGE people! Guys who know how Amy is (see above) just ride the 'friend' train into town and become good friends with her. Even to the point where they are basically dating, doing things together alone, talking on the phone for hours, etc, but Amy doesn't realize that she has a 'psuedo-boyfriend'. This method of winning the girl's heart is called crock-potting, or putting the girl in the crock pot. It is a very successful way to win girls who aren't interested in dating you. They will play on your team as long as you are a good cook. Basically you just leave the roast (a.k.a 'the girl') in the crockpot feeling all nice and warm and 'friendly'. She is slowly cooked to the point where the meat just falls off the bones, and when you kiss her she realizes that she can't live without you. Then you live happily ever after. So to insert the crockpot into the door analogy - It is like knowing that the door will be closed if you ask her out. So instead you wedge something in the doorway and then she can't close it. Then you move in slowly, imperceptibly.

4. Maybe I am getting away from the original question... (Oh you don't know what the question was do you? hmm... the question is how do you get an 'A' when this question is on the test: boy + girl = ?)
In my case:
I would rather that a girl let me know she is not interested. The door is closed. That doesn't mean that we can't still be friends of course, though this is often hard for the guy to do after the rejection if he was really interested. What can I say... only the strong survive. :)

5. I am usually led on by every thing a girl does if I like her. If I like a girl then I will see 'signs' that she may be interested in me all over the place. Usually this is before she knows I like her and so she is just acting normally and doesn't realize I am seeing signs. Once she realizes that I like her then she rejects me when I ask her out and I begin to interpret the same actions, which I had before thought were 'signs', as normal behaviour. Perspective people!

6. In my mind there are a lot of closed doors and a lot of open doors. Many girls have had their doors closed by me and many others have closed it themselves. All the girls I haven't met yet have open doors. Lots of the girls I know have closed doors. Of course the part I left out is that these doors are glass, so unless you inform the person on the other side that it is closed, they may stand there all day gazing through it at you. Then one day they may decide to try and walk through it and realize that it is closed when the hit walk face first into the glass 'rejection' door. So oftentimes the only way that you can tell of a door is open is by trying to walk through it (asking the person out). Sometimes you'll bump your forehead. So even though I wish that the girls wouldn't reject me, really it is best when there is no possibility of interest.

Personally my policy on closing doors is something like this...
If:
- The girl has many personality traits that I find hard to deal with or annoying
- The girl has many ideological differences that I have trouble identifying with. I don't have to agree with her on everything, but I like to be able to identify with her reasoning. If someone feels a certain way about somthing I can appreciate it when they can logically explain why. At that point I can identify with them and understand their point of view.
- The girl is a man. (Haven't had to use this one yet)
- The girl has no sense of humor.
- The girl cusses (or is otherwise obviously and outwardly disrespectful of LDS standards).
- The girl is not LDS. Sometimes this is a hard door to close. Sometimes I try to help them overcome this obstacle in their progression. "flirt to convert, baptize to celetialize".
- There may be more, but I have a lot of homework to do and I've never put this list together before, so it is kind of hard to think of all the reasons I close doors.

I hope this is of some help to all the ladies who read my blog... Who am I kidding? I really wrote this for a friend... and just posted it here so that I could use it as a ready reference because no girls read my blog!! :) Anyways girls - I say continue to reject him (me? hehe) if you're not interested. Or if you want to have fun with boys and risk having twenty of them fall in love with you for the next 5 years of their lives then live like Mimi and date lots of boys. Having fun with boys isn't a bad thing. Some hearts may get broken, but that is life, and everyone needs to experience that. Then there's the type of woman who is a Man H8er - they love watching men smash their faces into the glass door, and revel in their pain.

DUmb

2005-04-08T13:51:00.000-05:00

Blogger won't let me update my profile, and therefore I cannot update my picture.

AAAAaaah! Frustrating.

On a brighter note... planning of the club is progressing at a very fast pace.

Fresh

2005-04-08T12:07:00.000-05:00

Old.

Time for a new picture. Change is good people. (Oh wait only one person reads this...)

Dance like a dervish :)

2005-03-25T13:26:00.000-05:00

I saw this in someone's profile somewhere and love it:

Anthony Hopkins & Claire Forlani in Meet Joe Black: **AH: Do you love Drew? --CF: You mean like you loved Mom? **AH: Forget me & Mom. Are you going to marry him? --CF: Probably. **AH: Listen, I'm crazy about the guy. He's smart, he's aggressive..--CF: So what's wrong with that? **AH: That's for me...I'm talking about you. It's not what you say about Drew, it's what you don't say. --CF: Maybe you're not listening. **AH: Yes I am! There's not an ounce of excitement, not a whisper of a thrill. This relationship has all the passion of a pair of titmice. I want you to get swept away out there. I want you to levitate. I want you to sing with rapture & dance like a dervish. --CF: Oh, that's all? **AH: Yeah, be deliriously happy or at least leave yourself open to be. --CF: OK. Be deliriously happy. I shall do my utmost. **AH: I know it's a cornball thing, but love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. Fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy & who'll love you the same way back. How do you find him? Well, you forget your head & you listen to your heart. 'Cuz the truth is, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love...you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, 'cuz if you haven't tried, you haven't lived. --CF: Bravo! **AH: Oh, you're tough. --CF: I'm sorry. Give it to me again, the short version this time. **AH: OK. Stay open. Who knows? Lightning could strike.

Postit

2005-03-21T14:25:00.000-05:00

I looked at my desk this morning and realized I've become somewhat of a postit junkie. My desk is now yellow. Of course I am kidding, but part of it really is yellow. :)

So truth be told I have been excruciatingly busy lately. I am actually planning on opening up a club of my own (sort of... I guess I'll be sharing with others). I am very excited about it. I need to make so many phone calls it is rather silly to think about. For those interested the club will be in Muncie less than 2 miles from Ball State campus.
More on that later...

Hate Hollywood!

2005-02-22T15:19:00.000-05:00

As of July 1, 2005 HDTV signals will be DRMed so badly that the devices themsleves will be crippled. Open source drivers may not be able to be written for hardware. Output on HDTV devices will be restricted to less than 1/4 HDTV capability (740X480). Nowhere will the direct digital stream be accessible. That way you cannot record your favorite shows and play them back at full quality. Think TiVo. Anyway the idea is that everyone should get whatever HDTV equipment they want before the legislators with greedy pockets turn digital freedom into a prison.

The above link explains the problem much better than I have. Please read it. This is important.

Several solutions for computers that are not yet DRMed (handcuffed).
For Mac:
El Gato's Eye TV
For Linux (PC):
pcHDTV This website is a bit slow for me :(

Unintended.

2005-02-15T15:30:00.000-05:00

I really didn't mean for this weblog to turn into an anti-MS railing, but Gates and Co. are so proficient in being evil that I cannot help it. If your government is being blackmailed by MS how can you trust them to make decisions in your best interests? In this particular instance MS is screwing the people of Denmark. MS is too powerful. Do you realize how much they control our lives, freedoms, governments the world over? Please never give them another penny. Much Thanks. One thing China is actually doing right... Linux (an open source, global initiative). They have basically flat out rejected any involvement with MS from day one. Go China!

How would you feel if you were Danish and MS was controlling the decisions of your government?

How many other countries does MS blackmail? Anyone ever wonder why MS got a slap on the hand after being found guilty in the DOJ vs. MS case of a few years back?

How would you feel towards the US, which is one of few countries with enough heft to really dish out a strong blow to MS, but instead encourages it to march forward spreading MS lisences everywhere?

Should there be a punishment for threatening to crush countries, lives, hopes, dreams, ideals?

Anyways... playing with the fortunes of 800 people as a bargaining chip, threatening them with loss of employment unless Denmark bends the knee to MS... Well it just makes me mad and it should make you think (at least) twice the next time you boot Windows.

Simply marvelolus

2005-02-11T17:30:00.000-05:00

To quote for those who'd rather not read the full article:

Microsoft has been found guilty by the EU of abusing its monopoly position. It has been told to redress the damage in part by making its protocols available to competitors. It has chosen to do so by charging large licensing fees and excluding open source development -- its primary competitor -- while simultaneously complaining that open source software lacks interoperability.

It would take a team of geologists many months to dig through the multiple strata of irony in this case. The protocol Microsoft is so jealously guarding was invented at IBM and has been widely adopted across the industry: Server Message Blocks was intended to be and has been used as an open, extensible networking system. Only Microsoft has taken it and created undocumented proprietary extensions, renaming it the Common Internet Filing System along the way. As was the case with the Holy Roman Empire, it is none of the things in its name.

Once upon a time...

2005-02-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

back in 1989, Matt Groening (creator of Simpson's) did a brochure for Apple. Pretty funny.

Are you on the right boat?

2005-02-04T11:52:00.000-05:00

This is funny. Thankfully I pass this test.

Mac Mini Review (Joke)

2005-02-04T10:15:00.000-05:00

This is very funny stuff. The author really put this together well. This is my favorite part:

The Mini has got some built-in software for basic computer functions, but it can’t do many common things as well as its grown-up brothers in the Windows world can. The little things can add up to big frustration for someone who might accidentally buy a Mini expecting it to be just like Windows. For example, there is no Outlook Express for email, but Apple includes a program called Mail, which is like a stripped-down email client that can’t execute scripts or open attachments without user intervention. Personally I find it annoying, but if someone doesn’t depend on emailing their coworkers vbscripts like I do, they might be able to get by with it. Secondly and possibly even more glaringly, there is no antivirus program shipped with the Mac. In today’s climate of non-stop worms, trojans and viruses, releasing a computer with no virus removal software is irresponsible on the part of Apple. The OS X comes with some system maintenance utilities, but essentials such as a defragmenter or a registry cleaner are notably absent. I would expect a Mini to get really slow and unstable within a couple months if you can’t perform any routine maintenance tasks on it.

Most of the article is misinformation, falsehood, lies, stereotypes, generalities, and half-truths, and very little of it is actually true, but it is hilarious.

80% of 80% of Microsoft employees use iPod

2005-02-02T15:20:00.000-05:00

This is sad and funny and awesome all at the same time.

Hide Your iPod, Here Comes Bill
or
Quick! Cover up the evidence, Ballmer's just around the corner!

The article is an incredible insight into how much faith Microsoft's own employees have in their own digital media format. Microsoft's 'PlayForSure' is certainly not the choice of Microsoft!
Seriously. M$ people don't even use their own format, WMA, and all the crappy devices that use that format. 80% of M$ employees who use Mp3 players (estimated at 80% of M$ employees,or 16,000) use the iPod. Bad Omen for M$?

**edit fixed the title

**edit The one good thing that can be deduced from this is that they can think for themselves and are able to distinguish a superior product/technology/format when it broadsides them at 4PM on some idle Tuesday. So there is hope for them I guess. I bet 100% of the M$ Mac BU use the iPod :)

Find your colors

2005-02-02T15:01:00.000-05:00

Found a cool site thanks to Meems.

This is what I scored:

Primary Answers
---------------
Red - 6
Blue - 16
White - 13
Yellow - 10

Secondary Answers
-----------------
Red - 3
Blue - 8
White - 13
Yellow - 10

Use the link above to find out what that means. But I am almost evenly split Blue, White, Yellow, witha bit o' Red. So I am one mixed up cat.

coloring

2005-01-31T13:08:00.000-05:00

So my 'lil sis just posted about the color test. So cool. Last time I took it was when I lived in Brasil, so it has been awhile. Hmmm... maybe 8 or 9 years. If I remember right I was varying degrees of blue, yellow and red (I think I was 50% blue, 25% red, and 25% yellow). I'll have to post later if I find a link to take the color personality test. It is fun.

Weekend

2005-01-28T16:36:00.000-05:00

The weekend is about to start.
People are clearing out of the office.
I am planning on partying a lot on Lafayette with some pretty cool skeezers.
Linux still rocks, and I have had an epiphany... whenever possible from now on, when people need technical assistance with computers that have given up the ghost, and I am to raise them from the ashes, I will do so with Debian GNU/Linux. I can install my secure key and SSH into their machine's whenever they have trobules, and it's very stable, no viruses, or other malware threats, and unless they care about games very useable for most everyday tasks. I am excited about it. I think I will like being a Linux evangelist on top of being a Mac evangelist. If they are stuck with x86 hardware, and can't afford a move to Mac, then they get Linux. That way I get around having to pay for Windows licenses. I'll be redoing a computer this weekend for a cousin, and I think it will be a prime time to start my plans for *nix world domination! Mu-Wahahaha

Delete me!

2005-01-25T13:28:00.000-05:00

Hilarious.

This will either hit too close to home (XP anyone? - pun intended) or it will be really funny. Sweet. You can even make your own!!! Please click here to enter error heaven!

Smash's World

2005-01-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

This kid is 17. His blog rocks my socks. Even the ones at home in the dresser drawer. Dag yo.

Awesome Commentary

2005-01-17T15:48:00.000-05:00

Some of those who think they know me, and everyone who really does, know that I have a deep hatred of Microsoft. Extremely deep. Most people cannot understand why. I mean they are bad, but are they that bad? Well this is a very well-written commentary written after the MS Halloween debacle of '98. (See: http://www.opensource.org/halloween/ for Haloween I through XI. A very interesting read if you want the full story on the Halloween fiasco).

But a simpler read on why you should hate Microsoft if you are lazy and don't really want to take the time to learn how evil they really are would be:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/not-the-osi/halloween-rant.html

Monday Morning

2005-01-17T11:38:00.000-05:00

Life is great.

How often do I feel this way on Monday monrning? Not often. But today is a happy day! I don't really know why, it was just on the calendar...

Don't get polyurethane on your clothes!

Don't spill ketchup on wool!

Don't trip on CAT5 ethernet cables!

...And... I'm done

Steve Jobs is a Genius

2005-01-12T13:13:00.000-05:00

So the above link basically says all I have to say right now. Everyone should buy a Mac mini. $500. And I never knew I needed an iPod shuffle, but now I know that I do. The article explains why. Please skip over the author's bad language in the title.

Photogs

2004-12-30T20:45:00.000-05:00

I went on a date last night with a really cool girl.

She said something funny. Afterward she asked me if I was going to put it in my blog. Guess I better actually put in in my blog. :)

The convo went something like this (some paraphrasing has been used to protect the identities of innocent parties):
Her: What do you do exactly? At Work? School?
Me: Basically study computers at school and how to program them. At work I study computers and program them.
Me: What do you study at college?
Her: Photography.
Me: Interesting. Why did you decide to go into photography?
Her: I felt it was the only skill I could develop.

Hopefully she will develop well as a photographer. (get it? - I hope so... that's pretty low hanging fruit there)
Hopefully I will develop well as a 'developer'.
Funny. That is actually my title at the office. I am a developer/linux administrator. Sounds cool. And linux - as I have said before - is cool.

I am actually mostly doing simple html in our internal wiki so far though.

Enough. I must get back to work.

Dynamite

2004-12-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

Just bought Napoleon. Watched last night. Laughed. It was at least 3AM. There were a bunch of girls at my house. :)

Speaking of girls...

Let's not go there.

Alias

2004-12-26T01:51:00.000-05:00

My family just got addicted to Alias (the TV show). It is pretty butt kickin'. I must admit that Jennifer Garner is awe inspiring with some of her moves. I think we will have watched all episodes of all three first seasons in less than 40 hours. Correct me if I am wrong. When I say we, technically i must exclude myself as I missed many of the episodes having to work - as I am right now, and the rest of 'we' is at home watching alias.

linux

2004-12-22T17:57:00.000-05:00

I learned a lot about linux today. Performed a network install on a new box 'almost' singlehandedly.

Linux is way cool.

I need to get some of this at home. I want to go home and install linux on one of our Macs.

That would be soooo cool.

I need to drive home.

Laptop

2004-12-21T16:14:00.000-05:00

My laptop arrived today.

Dude I am getting a Dell.

Right now the boys are castrating Windows and installing debian Linux.

Newbie

2004-12-20T17:08:00.000-05:00

I started my new job today. The company began 26 months ago with 2 employees. I am employee #17. They want to have 20 employees by January, and have been growing 25% every quarter. I am a Developer for the time being. I will be working on several projects which I am still unfamiliar with. So far I have been looking at 'bugz'. :)

I got a company cell phone.

It is a video phone with walkie talkie, Sprint PCS. They set me up on a new Dell desktop running Debian linux (the sarge beta). There is absolutely no M$ on it at all!

Soon I will be getting my laptop (also a Dell running Debian linux, either woody or sarge). I am posting this from my Linux box here at work! It is really cool, and has a dictionary on the toolbar. Well it didn't at first... but I put one there. MacOS 10.4 Tiger is purported to have a similar feature.

Well I must now go outside and brave the cold... I actually get off work now at 5PM... amazing.

New job

2004-12-15T01:27:00.000-05:00

I just got a new job. I am now a web application developer at a really cool (and small) company down in Indy. I'll be a normal M-F 9-5er. I will still work the old job on the weekends at night probably.

I am very excited about this. I can finally make a dent in my debt!

Update your tags

2004-12-15T01:23:00.000-05:00

So Zimm and I were talking several days ago about how to easily update your tags after ripping a CD that wasn't found on the CDDB or that you ripped while offline. So I've been digging and found the holy grail of tagging. It does most common formats, mp3, m4a, wav, and aiff. It compares a fingerprint of the song based on the audio to a fingerprint database, and then gives you the option of updating the tags. The Mac version is like an iTunes helper app. It integrates with the iTunes database. Not sure exactly how the PC version works, but it sounds cool. So Zimm - this is your lucky day.

I am no girl

2004-12-11T22:22:00.000-05:00

I am not a girl.

Sometimes I like to remind people. Especially in this age of internet personas who really knows anymore?

So anyway the blind date was fun. She is a cute country girl. Only bummer is that she's not a possibility for me. So yeah, it was fruitless from the beginning. But fun. So now what do I do with myself?

I had an interview yesterday. That was awesome. The company has a totally cool atmosphere, the people are all really cool geeks, and it is basically the best work environment you could possibly imagine. It is small, maybe 10 people. So I am really hoping they give me a call and offer me a job.

Problems.

2004-12-07T15:19:00.000-05:00

There is no end to problems. I try to love them though. They're so good for you. So I guess I love today a whole bunch.

On a brighter note. I have a blind date on Thrusday. I guess you could even say that I met her over the internet, though technically that's only partly true. Anyways - I am excited, and it's all because of Applebee's.

This month is going to be a rollercoaster. Right now is the slow menacing ascent! Get _____! Check!

Freeciv

2004-12-04T13:26:00.000-05:00

This is exciting. For all those who loved Civilization, and Civilization II, and maybe even a little Civilization III, this is an open source sort of conglomerate version of those games taking the best from each and improving upon every area. It is under constant development and the next major revision is about to leave beta. It is fully multiplayer over LAN or world-wide internet. It is available for most systems I have ever heard of (including my lovely Macs). Did I say it is way cool? If you need help figuring out how to install and get it running let me know. It can be a bit complicado on the Mac as it runs in Unix and X11 (X Windows envoronment of Darwin). Don't worry though it's nothing scary. The version 2 currently in Beta should be a double clickable application on the Mac, but for now we have the command line as the game is a Unix game. For Windows it is already a double clickable beast (er I mean binary).

So it's been a while.

2004-12-04T13:19:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened, and this is the reason I haven't posted. All during Turkey Break I spent day and night fixing up a rental apartment I manage. I wasn't alone either, various of my cousins and family members helped. And a lot of us worked 24/7 day in day out to get it done by the time the new tenants signed the lease on the first. Finished that on Wednesday morning at 7:10AM. Not wanting that to be the end of being dirty I went to my uncle Steve's house and helped him install his subfloor installation and teh floor itself. Learned some stuff about that. Also got a call from a guy who wants me to come see him next Wednesday about a new job which I am very excited about. More about that if I land it. So I have been very tired, very little sleep and my classes have been suffering. I truly dislike classes with stupid teachers. As well as classes that are butt crack of dawn early. Maybe I am just bitter.

So I Kicked it

2004-11-22T10:17:00.000-05:00

My profile container in the sidebar broke. So I have replaced it with my own crappy version. You may notice that the pic of me is much larger than before. If that is disturbing and distracting as you (don't) read my blog well I am sorry. Let me offer my condolences. Here they are...

Take all of them.