Geek Stuff category archive

When entering the command

mysqldump -u [username] -p[password] –opt [databasename]

Man, I hate trouble-shooting SQL.

Now, I know more about SQL than most computer users. A good part of my work at Checkpoint involved supporting SQL databases, both in Crystal Reports and in M$SQL (I preferred Crystal). MySQL is not all that different. Structured Query Language is, after all Structured Query Language.

But what I know how to do is change the oil and check the fluid levels. Fuel injection is a mystery to me. So are the inner workings of SQL.

When I have fuel injection problems, I take my vehicle to Jack Smith’s; I know Donnie will get it right the first time and fix the problem.

I got no Jack Smith’s for SQL.

When I have to shoot this kind of trouble, it’s like reading a Proust novel in French using a French-English/English-French dictionary.

Oh, well. I’ll figure it out. I always do.

And when I do, I’ll write a script (it’s actually half-written) that makes a folder over there
—–>,
on my second hard drive, named with today’s date (year-month-date-hour-minute) and backs my database up to it. Then I’ll make the script a cron job so it runs every night.

No more three months of lost blogging for me.

(I know that Opie is the only regular I have who’s going to have any idea what the heck I’m talking about. That’s why all the links. We were all newbies once.)

Click to read the updates.
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From time to time over the next few days, I’m going to be working on my firewall. While I’m messing with it, you’ll probably get a 404.

About the onlu thing I can’t reliably do on Linux that I can do on Windows is play Windows media files, the ones with the extensions *.wmv and *.wma.

This has nothing to to with Linux. Rather, Microsoft, in typical Microsoft fashion, keeps messing with the codec to keep those files proprietary in the hopes of further enslaving users to Windows.

Now, I can play some older *.wm? files. Both mplayer and VLC are capable of doing that.

Normally, this doesn’t bother me. I either ignore *.wm? files or stream them over the network to a Windows box.

But I finally got tired of commuting into the next room to watch the occasional video, did a quick webseach, and test drove Crossover Linux from Codeweavers, which uses Wine to run Windows programs on Linux or Mac boxes.

I could have set up Wine myself, but I didn’t want to learn anything; I just wanted the watch the darn video. After testing Crossover Linux for almost two and a half minutes, I went back to Codeweavers and registered the product.

Here’s picture of the result: That’s Windows Media Player v. 9 on the left, the Midnight Commander file manager on the right, this website viewed in the venerable Lynx text-based web browser at the bottom, of course, a shameless plug for the Linux Distro of Iron in the background.

This time it was getting the new Windows box on line, setting up the firewall, and verifying that it works properly as a print server for my network.

I also did a few things I always do to Windows XP computers.

I went into Control Panel–>Administrative Tools–>Services and disabled the “Security Center” nagware service. I have a firewall and I have an antivirus. If Microsoft “Securty [gag] Center” is too stupid to recognize the existence of the NetDefense firewall, it can go pound sand.

I went into Control Panel–>System–>Advanced–>Error Reporting and turned off Error Reporting. I have no interest in telling Microsoft anything about my computer usage. Goodness knows, they do enough sniffing on their own.

I went into Control Panel–>Date and Time–>Internet Time and changed the time server from Microsoft to a U. S. government server, although, heaven knows, the U. S. goverment has no more scruples about spying on citizens than does Microsoft.

My brain is tired.

Regularly scheduled imprecations and invective resume tomorrow.

At Tangier, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, at 6 p. m.

Briefly speaking, my database went kerfluie. My two or three regular readers will remember a short period during which posts were appearing twice.

It mysteriously started and mysteriously went from every post to occasional posts. I checked the database using the admin tools, and they found nothing wrong, but I think that was when the problems started.

You will note that I’ve had to drop back quite a while to find a valid backup. I did try to muscle the current database into MySQL, but it was too far gone.

I don’t kid myself that my drivel is all that important, but I apologize to those who have put time and energy and thought into comments and whose comments are gone.

I’m still have some tweaking to do and you may see some minor changes in performance over the next few days, but pretty much what you see is what you’re gonna get.

For the geekily inclined, the gory details are below the fold.

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Five steps to resurrect that old laptop.

Via GNC.

That dirty word is, of course, clunky.

The new version of Opera (9.50) landed today. Video works again and all is right with the world.

I have mentioned from time to time getting software for my cell phone. Most of the commercial software is sold under a modified shareware model: There is a trial period; when the trial period expires, you have to license the software or it rolls over, sticks its little legs in the air, and plays dead.

I’ve gotten most of the software through Handango, a clearinghouse for cell phone programs.

I recently installed an ebook reader (you can read about it here). Unlike for most previous purchases, for which Handango can generate the license, the license for this item was to come from the developer directly.

Well, it didn’t come. And didn’t come. My attempt to send an email to developer’s email address as specified in the confirmation of sale email failed, with an “unknown or malformed domain” error (in other words, there was no there there).

A week ago Saturday, I went to the Handango customer service page and filled out the form asking for assistance. The customer service page promised a response within two business days; there was a response waiting for me Sunday morning.

Handango and I made several more attempts to contact the developer. No luck (it’s probably a one-person outfit; in such cases, my first worry is not fraud–not at $13.00 a pop–but that something has happened to the programmer).

At this point, Handango has refunded my money and I’ll be searching for a new ebook reader (which I find disappointing, for the little program I had tried to buy was really good–easy to configure and use and reliable!).

I have only praise for Handango’s customer service. When they told me to do something and wait two days and the two days expired, they followed up with me asking what happened before I could follow up with them. They stayed on top of my trouble ticket better than I did.

Sure, they have a computer program to remind them to do things. But the thing is, a program is just ones and zeroes. It takes people to make it work.

Later on today, I’ll be looking for a new ebook reader.

And I’ll be looking on Handango.

Addendum, Later That Same Day:

I ended up with this. More complicated to configure than Easy Reader, but it works.

Linda was saying she preferred a physical book to an electronic one. I do also.

But, when stuck in a long, unexpected wait, it’s nice to be able to whip out the cell phone and have something constructive to do, in place of surfing the web. Currently, I’m working on Samuel Pepys’s Diary.

. . . sucks is less than desirable.

I described earlier why I started using Firefox.

Jeez oh man it is so klunky and unreliable. I will allow that it does load certain websites faster than Opera, and it is more tolerant of sites that are not W3C compatible (but, frankly, Opera’s insistence on W3C compatibility is one of the things that has endeared it to me over the years). But Firefox sucks is less than desirable.

I’d start using Konqueror but for on thing: Mouse gestures. Firefox has an addon that lets me use them, though it has nowhere near Opera’s mouse gesture capability.

When I’m writing a blog post, it does funny things to my highlighting; it gives me problems I’ve never had with a real browser. (If you saw the “Milestones” post before I fixed it, you know what I mean.)

I can’t wait till I have to time to rid myself of this beast.

There is now an AIM for Linux.

Of course, I wouldn’t use it on a bet.

Why should I, when I can use Kopete, which does AIM and almost everything else?

I was using Pidgin, which used to be GAIM, and which I have used for years in both Windows and Linux versions, but it broke my Opera.

Yes, it did. I opened it up to send an IM to Second Son, which is the most reliable way to reach him, then I left the house.

When I got back, X had crashed with a message that said, loosely paraphrased, “Pidgin did it. It wasn’t your fault. Send a message here.”

Since I wasn’t present when X crashed, there was no point in sending any message anywhere, because I didn’t have anything to report. Ever since then, Opera has been unable to display anything Flash (such as You Tube videos). There’s just a big hole where the video should be.

I tried removing and reinstalling Opera, but nada. I’m hoping that the next Opera upgrade overwrites whatever was torqued.

Since I haven’t had the energy to rebuild the computer–I’m saving that for the next version of Slack–I’ve been mucking about with Firefox and Thunderbird.

I’m not particularly impressed with Thunderbird; it’s just another clunky mail client, better than MS Lookout (but then what isn’t?), but not as good as Eudora or Pegasus, and its handling of newsgroups leaves a lot to be desired (for instance, there doesn’t seem to be a way to delete individual articles–you have to wait for them to expire, though you can set the expiration rule), but I have to say that Firefox is a nice piece of work.

In other news, I’ve followed the example of John Cole of Balloon Juice and included my AIM name on the sidebar. Now my two or three regular readers can harass me in real time, should they so desire.

I’ve also added the Phillies to my sidebar. Live with it.

On my Windows box, I recently tested two pieces of software.

• FoxIt Reader, a PDF reader that is blazing fast and very small, without the bloat of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Real Alternative, which reads Real Media files without either the bloat or the spyware or RealPlayer.

If you use Windows, I hearted recommend both of them. They both taste great and are less filling (of your hard drive, that is).

I killed a post that I made earlier today, primarily to link to this video.

I killed it because there was something it the video embed that made everything following it–including all previous posts–become centered and consequently toasted the formatting of my theme. I parsed the xml as closely as I could and I’ll be damned if I have a clue what went so screwy.

Just go watch the video, and consider what a flip-flopper really looks like.

I have been messing with my RSS feeds tonight.

I have added some of my favorite local blogs, to join other favorite local blogs that were already there.

I have, with sadness, removed a blog that for a long time was one of my favorites, but has become rather weird in the last couple of months. With sadness, because that blogger has taught me a lot through example and has long been a favorite read. Nevertheless, that blog has lately lost any grounding in reality or in fact-based discourse.

(Yeah, I know. Most of what I deal in is opinions. Opinions, though, must bear some at least tenuous relationship with facts–unlike Bushie policies, which are in a whole nother world–but I digress. Otherwise, there is no fun in sarcasm and name-calling. I can, however, tolerate only a limited amount of complete and total detachment from the real world before I have to say, “Enough.”)

If you want “unbiased” comment–meaning comment that balances one opinion with another opinion, as if there were no truth, as if there were only competing opinions and no facts, go somewhere else.

If you want striving towards truth (he said self-importantly), stay here, follow the RSS feeds, and read the blogroll.

Here, you will find fact-based bias.

If you go to the Window$ Update site with a real browser, such as Opera, the ultimate Internet experience, the website refuses to work for you until you fire up the World’s Worst Internet Browser(tm).

Gosh, I don’t know how I live without these:

• That silly animation that runs while Windows is copying a file, together with its wild estimations of time to complete: 30 seconds remaining, 2 minutes, 9 minutes, 25 minutes, 37 minutes, 30 seconds.
• The registry
• Virus checking software
• The window that comes up when a program crashes and sends the crash dump to Redmond, to give them a much needed laugh. Linux programs instead lay a small binary turd file in situ. After a while you end up with quite a large collection of these, decorating your directories.
• Automatic updates fixing vulnerabilities in Outlook Express. Who uses Outlook Express these days? Why?
• Windows genuine disadvantage
• The Windows pause, by which I mean that increasingly prevalent nothing-happening-for-no-reason delay that intrudes between the user poking and the software flinching.

From Geekazine.

Sync.

Yeah.

Right.

And what happens when it crashes?

Which it will.

After all, it’s from MickySoft.

I just ssh’d into the server and edited my sidebar.php file with vi.

Sometimes I scare myself.

My Opera scored 46 out of 100. And my two or three regular readers know what a rabid Opera fan I am.

You can test your browser here.

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) has released its latest browser standards compliance test – Acid 3 – and every browser that WaSP tested failed. IE 8 is, of course, not available for test yet. But given the abysmal performance of IE 7, Microsoft developers have a lot of work to do.

Acid 3 surfaced in January and aims to set a more rigorous test of how browser software complies with web standards. It includes 100 checks focusing on areas such as DOM2 and ECMAscript, and tests a browser’s ability to handle “Web 2.0 dynamic web applications”.

In an informal Reg Dev test of IE 7 and Firefox using Acid 3 [warning: this could choke your browser – ed] both browsers failed. Firefox at least managed to get half way through (50 of the 100 tests) before falling over. But IE 7 managed only 12 before giving up.