iandexter tumblog

Wolfgang – Soap

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:31:07 +0000

Wolfgang – N.M.E.

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:27:05 +0000

Wolfgang – Ibrahim

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:23:33 +0000

Wolfgang – R.P. Deathsquad

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:19:59 +0000

View hidden files in Mac OS X

Ian Dexter Marquez — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:19:00 +0000

Just plunk the following in a file:

Change the file's mode to executable, then invoke using

view-hidden.sh yes

Hidden files (including "dot" Unix files) will be viewable in Finder.

Yano – Going Home

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:47:44 +0000

Yano – Me Mama

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:43:08 +0000

Yano – Coño Ka 'Pre

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:40:46 +0000

Yano – Naroon

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:37:46 +0000

Yano – Kaka

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:35:38 +0000

Yano – State u

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:32:48 +0000

Me Grimlock

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 01:44:27 +0000

Drive a MINI around the world

Ian Dexter Marquez — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:27:00 +0000

On Google Maps, that is.

MINImaps is ...[a] multi-player driving experience by MINI France that allows you to join a virtual race around the world based on Google Maps while challenging your friends or complete strangers.

(Weird, though: the Minis appear larger than most cars on the map.)

[via Adverblog]

betterbooktitles: Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of...

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 04:52:16 +0000

Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude

WANT!

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 04:15:07 +0000

wintercool612: MATH on Flickr.

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 04:14:07 +0000

MATH on Flickr.

antlerbrows: Lego Watchmen. Legos are the reason for...

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 08:07:41 +0000

Lego Watchmen.

Legos are the reason for everything. The universe subsists all its true forms on Legos.

Photo

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:43:54 +0000

fuckyeahmath: The Quadratic Equation (The Party) by Shannon...

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:43:45 +0000

The Quadratic Equation (The Party) by Shannon Muramoto

My friend Shannon recently graduated with a B.A in Mathematics. This is for teaching purposes to help students remember the quadratic formula.

Wally’s Workday clock

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:24:26 +0000

hotvvheels: X-Ray Mini

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:41:06 +0000

X-Ray Mini

teachingliteracy: by ~LilAud

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:36:51 +0000

by ~LilAud

bookoasis: (by linniekin)

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:36:39 +0000

(by linniekin)

Photo

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:31:02 +0000

Julian got a haircut

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:33:07 +0000

Lovelock'd and loaded

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 07:43:42 +0000

Asimov: “It isn’t just a library”

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 02:36:54 +0000

Create Kerberos keytab file for single sign-on

Ian Dexter Marquez — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:59:00 +0000

On a Windows 200[38] server:

Book Sale find: Xenocide

Sun, 22 May 2011 13:33:34 +0000

Cars 2 trailer, in LEGO

Ian Dexter Marquez — Fri, 20 May 2011 13:07:00 +0000

ZOMGWTFBBQ! I'm *almost* through in my LEGO City Space collection (just one more set!). Will this be the next one?

PS. Yesterday's post was my 666th. Just saying.

Paean to the letterpress

Ian Dexter Marquez — Thu, 19 May 2011 10:39:00 +0000

(I missed the smell of ink and the sound of rolling presses. Heidelbergs, Bodoni and Blueback are personal favorites. I loved the way I can lay out pages on a grid, and then mess it up by extending beyond the column guides {the old technician laying out the leads always threw a fit!}. Photogravures were "cutting-edge" and novelties. {Yes, Pagemaker was still in its infancy when I started, and I didn't want anything to do with Ventura Publisher.} {I'm showing my age...:P})

Letterpress from Naomie Ross on Vimeo.

Photo

Thu, 19 May 2011 09:02:16 +0000

Photo

Thu, 19 May 2011 08:37:20 +0000

Photo

Thu, 19 May 2011 08:36:26 +0000

Customize fatal error messages in Perl CGI apps

Ian Dexter Marquez — Wed, 18 May 2011 10:35:00 +0000

We all know Carp and CGI::Carp, and they're quite useful when catching errors in your apps. But, the messages are butt-ugly, sorry to say. CGI::Carp to the rescue. It has some nifty functions that can be used to make the error messages friendlier.

To set a custom message when fatal errors are encountered:

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser warningsToBrowser set_message);

### Custom fatals browser message
BEGIN {
sub handle_errors {
my $msg = shift;
my $err_mail = "Error%20message:%0A%0A\
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------%0A\
$msg%0A\
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------%0A";
my $err_msg = "

Encountered an error:

\
$msg\

Click here to send a report.

";
print($err_msg);
}
set_message(\&handle_errors);
}

(Side note: The mailto URI scheme has some great extensions as well.)

Robot Sunday: "I'm doing Science and I'm still alive"

Ian Dexter Marquez — Sun, 15 May 2011 13:12:00 +0000

(Okay, technically, GLaDOS is *not* a robot but an AI, but this is still cool.)

Roll your own package, RPM repo, part 2

Ian Dexter Marquez — Thu, 12 May 2011 11:19:00 +0000

(Part I, building the package, is over here.)

Part II. Create the repository

Prepare the environment in the server where the repository will be stored. Note: All commands from hereon, unless otherwise stated, are by root.
```
mkdir -p /srv/RPMS/{i386,i586,x86_64,noarch}
```

Add the package created from Part I.

cp ~username/builds/RPMS/noarch/this-package-1.0-0.1.noarch /srv/RPMS/noarch/

Generate the repository metadata.
```
createrepo -v /srv/RPMS
```

Sign the metadata and add the repository key.

cd /srv/RPMS/repodata
gpg -ba repomd.xml
gpg -a --export key-id > repomd.xml.key

Add as an installation source. (In this case, I'm using SuSE zypper.) Add the key to the trusted keyring.
```
zypper service-add -t YUM file:///srv/RPMS alias
```
Test by installing the package.
```
zypper in this-package
```

Roll your own package, RPM repo, part 1

Ian Dexter Marquez — Wed, 11 May 2011 17:45:00 +0000

(This is more a note to myself than anything else. Surely, there are lots of references out there on the net... ;))

Part I. Build the package

Prepare the build environment.

mkdir -p builds/{BUILD,RPMS,SOURCES,SPECS,SRPMS}

Add the sources to be built.

mkdir builds/BUILD/this-package-1.0 && cd builds/BUILD
tar czvf ../SOURCES/this-package-1.0.tgz this-package-1.0
cd ..

Write the spec file using the skeleton below.
```
vi SPECS/this-package.spec
```

Build and sign the package.

gpg --export -a key-id > KEYS/RPM-GPG-KEY-username
vi ~/.rpmmacros

%_signature gpg
%_gpg_path /home/username/.gnupg
%_gpg_name User Name (key-id) 
%_gpgbin /usr/bin/gpg

rpmbuild -ba --clean --sign SPECS/this-package.spec

Test and verify.

sudo rpm -ivh ~username/builds/RPMS/noarch/this-package-1.0-0.1.noarch.rpm
rpm -Vp ~username/builds/RPMS/noarch/this-package-1.0-0.1.noarch.rpm

World's largest model airport

Ian Dexter Marquez — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:56:00 +0000

(I'm sure there's a diecast Mini Cooper in there somewhere!)

The world’s largest model airport/railway, the Knuffingen Airport, has gone on display in Germany.

The incredible model is based on Hamburg Airport and features 40 planes and 90 vehicles that autonomously move around the airport.

It took seven years to build and cost a staggering $4.8 million.

...

There are approximately 40,000 lights, 15,000 figurines, 500 cars, 10,000 trees, 50 trains, 1000 wagons, 100 signals, 200 switches and 300 buildings.

Remove version numbers from package names

Ian Dexter Marquez — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:52:00 +0000

/bin/rpm -qa | sed 's/-[0-9].*//'

is wrong.

Use this instead:

/bin/rpm -qa --qf "%{n}\n"

Mad props to ssatoh and rhonda.

That is all.

Check printer status via SNMP

Ian Dexter Marquez — Sun, 01 May 2011 13:31:00 +0000

So we're asked to monitor several "critical" printers. Instead of accessing the printers' administrative console using `curl` (a kludge, yes), we opted for SNMP -- easier, but unfortunately less secure for the printers. SNMP OIDs for the printer are readily available so this looked easy enough.

To get the printer console's display, for example, one just issues:

/usr/bin/snmpwalk -v1 -On -c $community_string $printer_address \
 1.3.6.1.2.1.43.16.5.1.2 | awk -F: '{print $NF}' \
 | sed 's/\"//g;/^$/d;s/^\s//'

Fortunately, most of the steps (getting the OID from the printer MIB, rehashing the output into something usable by Nagios) are already done for use by a nifty little shell script, check_snmp_printer.sh.

pacalin: Minimalist Hobbit & Lord of the Rings...

Sun, 01 May 2011 08:39:10 +0000

Minimalist Hobbit & Lord of the Rings Collection - by jamesydesign

(via minimalmovieposters, marana)

The Moron's Guide to Kerberos

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:28:55 +0000

Creating Makefiles: A Mini Tutorial LG #83

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:28:17 +0000

How to create an RPM package - FedoraProject

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:27:25 +0000

Creating RPMs: An Overview

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:26:44 +0000

Adding a local YaST repo

Ian Dexter Marquez — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:09:00 +0000

Adding a local package repository to be used by YaST is straightforward.

Create and populate the directory tree:

mkdir -p /srv/suse/RPMS/{i586,i686,x86_64,noarch}

Generate the RPM header information using createrepo (from the package with the same name):
```
createrepo /srv/suse/RPMS
```

Digitally sign the header file:

cd /srv/suse/RPMS/repodata && gpg -a --detach-sign repomd.xml

Add as an installation source in YaST:

/usr/bin/zypper service-add -t YUM /srv/suse/RPMS/ repo-alias

Robot Sunday: Assembly-line robots -- LEGO, of course

Ian Dexter Marquez — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:22:00 +0000

Remember this? Well, an AFOL constructed a working model of an industrial robotics line. Now that's dedication.

Space-Earth flute duet

Ian Dexter Marquez — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:44:00 +0000

To honor Yuri Gagarin, astronaut Cady Coleman, aboard the International Space Station, duets with Jethro Tull founder, Ian Anderson, somewhere on Earth, in a wonderful rendition of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Bourrée in E minor".

Rube Goldberg plus LEGO plus balls

Ian Dexter Marquez — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:07:00 +0000

Equals awesomesauciness, or "The Great Ball Contraption" goodness. Whatever you call it, this video is worth the eight minutes.