Friday, November 25, 2005
renewing an expired SSL cert for IMAP
On my host, which is Debian:
I had forgotten how since I did it last almost 2 years ago. I have just been putting up with the annoying warning when I connect to my server. Link here: http://www.knowplace.org/pages/howtos/linux_imapd_with_ssl_howto.php
cd /etc/ssl/certsIt will ask a few questions, give a few answers...Done!
openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -out imapd.pem -keyout imapd.pem -days 365
I had forgotten how since I did it last almost 2 years ago. I have just been putting up with the annoying warning when I connect to my server. Link here: http://www.knowplace.org/pages/howtos/linux_imapd_with_ssl_howto.php
Monday, November 21, 2005
vi on a dark background
I use Vim at least 100 times a day. And I like my terminals set to
light on dark. Over the last 10 years or so you would find me in a dark
office with a dark screen and bright text. I've since moved to a new
office that is a little brighter but I still prefer the darker screens.
With vi, the default syntax highlighting settings are too dark to
actually read the text...the blue's are almost unreadable with
background glare. So, a quick search revealed an option that fixes all
my problems:
set background=dark
Now my text is much brighter and still readable in the brighter office.
More: http://cephyr.cid.net/doc/vim/html/options.html#'background'
light on dark. Over the last 10 years or so you would find me in a dark
office with a dark screen and bright text. I've since moved to a new
office that is a little brighter but I still prefer the darker screens.
With vi, the default syntax highlighting settings are too dark to
actually read the text...the blue's are almost unreadable with
background glare. So, a quick search revealed an option that fixes all
my problems:
set background=dark
Now my text is much brighter and still readable in the brighter office.
More: http://cephyr.cid.net/doc/vim/html/options.html#'background'
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Web Hosting providers
People ask me frequently how to get started with a personal web site. I generally point them to a route that takes them to setting up Apache on a cablemodem connection. But since web hosting is a commodity now and is highly competitive, it's extremely cheap to get a site hosted on professionally run servers and they come with a lot of features. Two that I have seen and would recommend for a personal site:
Dreamhost and Powweb both have plans for $8 a month and include your own domain name, nearly 5G of disk, mail, MySQL and a host of 1-click software packages including blogs, wiki's, forums and other typical website type things. I wouldn't put a business critical or revenue generation website on these low-end services but they work perfectly fine for a personal site. I do see that each of them offer higher end services, but I can't comment on the reliability of those. A friend of mine uses Dreamhost's higher end stuff and it seems to do well for him, buy YMMV.
Funny link of the day: Beef Panties?
"Quaker Maid Meats Inc. on Tuesday said it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef panties.."
Dreamhost and Powweb both have plans for $8 a month and include your own domain name, nearly 5G of disk, mail, MySQL and a host of 1-click software packages including blogs, wiki's, forums and other typical website type things. I wouldn't put a business critical or revenue generation website on these low-end services but they work perfectly fine for a personal site. I do see that each of them offer higher end services, but I can't comment on the reliability of those. A friend of mine uses Dreamhost's higher end stuff and it seems to do well for him, buy YMMV.
Funny link of the day: Beef Panties?
"Quaker Maid Meats Inc. on Tuesday said it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef panties.."
Monday, November 14, 2005
make firefox a little more writer friendly
Geek to Live: Turn Firefox into a web writer - Lifehacker
The rise of the read/write web makes the term “browser” a misnomer. If you use web-based e-mail like Gmail, or if you post to forums or write a blog, you’re using a “browser” to author documents as well as browse them. A plain, tiny web page textarea is not very conducive to writing. If you spend a lot of time writing the web with Firefox, soup up your “browser” with a few extensions that will turn it into a powerful text editor.
The rise of the read/write web makes the term “browser” a misnomer. If you use web-based e-mail like Gmail, or if you post to forums or write a blog, you’re using a “browser” to author documents as well as browse them. A plain, tiny web page textarea is not very conducive to writing. If you spend a lot of time writing the web with Firefox, soup up your “browser” with a few extensions that will turn it into a powerful text editor.
Resizable text area:  | Spell Check:  | Saving forms:  |
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Rodent Patrol
Warning: this may be a little gross for squeamish/PETA readers...
So we have these next door neighbors. And they have a lot of people living in their house. And 4 dogs. And the amount trash they produce as a household overflows from the bins. And that (among other things) has given them a pest problem. Ants, rats, mice, whatever. This spring, his wife made him tear down the shanty/shack he built in the back yard because it was infested with rats. He told me they all ran into my yard. Thanks. The rats made their way to my storage shed, which Tracy discovered a few weeks later. That totally wigged me out to see 3 or 4 rats running around in there, so close to my house. I am like Indiana Jones's dad, I hate rats. After scaring the remaining rat out (and doing a little adrenaline dance when he exited between my legs) I cleaned it out and put out poison. It vanished, they vanished. We also found a few mice dead in the pool. Yuck, but at least they were outside. I've never lived anywhere that rodents were a problem inside or out. I guess in SoCal, the proximity of homes and dense population gives them a little bit better place to survive. Having neighbors with a rodent problem doesn't help either.
So last week Tracy swears up and down she saw something dart across the living room floor out of the corner of her eye, but didn't get a good enough look at it to tell if it was a lizard or a mouse. Yes, we had a lizard in the house once or twice, they like to sleep near the door frame on sunny days. The next day she says she saw it dart around again and said it was definatly a mouse. So I tear up the living room looking for signs of mice and find that the AC intake vent isn't installed properly, leaving a gap which the little bastards could squeeze thru from the airbox. The AC intake bridges the living room and the garage because the airbox is in the garage. So I reinstall properly, closing the gap. I also used some expanda-foam to fill in a bunch of cracks and areas around the airbox. That was last week, no sightings since, even the crickets have disappeared. I figured he found his way out in the middle of the night somehow.
But tonight, after eating a glorious meal of orange peel chicken, I was sitting on the couch using the laptop when some movement caught my eye. The little bastard darted from beside the TV and went under the couch I was sitting on. Two words: heebie jeebies. I whipped out the mag-light and investigated. He must have gone *into* the couch. So I got Tracy to man the hallway with a broom. Didn't want him going into the bedrooms...I wouldn't be able to sleep, might have to burn down the house or something. I armed myself with a broom as well and started trying to get him to exit the couch. I turned it on it's side, nearly knocking down our ceiling fan. I beat on it, I ripped up the bottom and poked around, beat it some more, nothing. At one point, after a hard smack, I heard him plop from one side to another but no exit was made. So I pushed it over and let the whole 3 seat couch nail the ground. Instantly, he darted onto the tile and hid behind the nearby vaccum cleaner. I removed the vac and he took off again in an attempt to run into the kitchen.
Keep in mind that no animal runs well on polished ceramic tile. They just kinda slide. Ever see a dog or cat try to run on tile? Imagine that but shrink it into mouse form and feed it some crack to enduce the amazing 10-direction-changes-per-second running style of a mouse.
I did a quick street-hockey move with the broom and he went flying across the tile and slapped the wall near the front door, stunning him for a moment. Totally unprepared to actually catch him, I ran at top speed to grab some some yard gloves while Tracy (who was until now standing on a chair, screaming) fetched a plastic bag. He regained his composure and started to make his move again so I pinned him with the broom. Haha! Got you now, little fucker! But he was squirming a lot...I didn't want to get bitten in the capture attempt. So I did what any momentairly insane rodent hunter with street-hockey skills would do: dropped the puck. I let him get a few feet away and immediately slapped him into the wall again for a 2nd stun, this time a little harder. Whap! I quickly grabbed him with the gloves, put him in the bag, took him outside and bashed him against the ground a few times before depositing the bloody mousebag of death in the trash.
Holy fuck that was gross. Yikes.
I immediately felt a lot better knowing it was dead/gone, but the whole ordeal put me a little on edge. So I proceeded to place a few traps around to see if there are more that need the kaibosh. Damn dude. Rodents suck.
So we have these next door neighbors. And they have a lot of people living in their house. And 4 dogs. And the amount trash they produce as a household overflows from the bins. And that (among other things) has given them a pest problem. Ants, rats, mice, whatever. This spring, his wife made him tear down the shanty/shack he built in the back yard because it was infested with rats. He told me they all ran into my yard. Thanks. The rats made their way to my storage shed, which Tracy discovered a few weeks later. That totally wigged me out to see 3 or 4 rats running around in there, so close to my house. I am like Indiana Jones's dad, I hate rats. After scaring the remaining rat out (and doing a little adrenaline dance when he exited between my legs) I cleaned it out and put out poison. It vanished, they vanished. We also found a few mice dead in the pool. Yuck, but at least they were outside. I've never lived anywhere that rodents were a problem inside or out. I guess in SoCal, the proximity of homes and dense population gives them a little bit better place to survive. Having neighbors with a rodent problem doesn't help either.
So last week Tracy swears up and down she saw something dart across the living room floor out of the corner of her eye, but didn't get a good enough look at it to tell if it was a lizard or a mouse. Yes, we had a lizard in the house once or twice, they like to sleep near the door frame on sunny days. The next day she says she saw it dart around again and said it was definatly a mouse. So I tear up the living room looking for signs of mice and find that the AC intake vent isn't installed properly, leaving a gap which the little bastards could squeeze thru from the airbox. The AC intake bridges the living room and the garage because the airbox is in the garage. So I reinstall properly, closing the gap. I also used some expanda-foam to fill in a bunch of cracks and areas around the airbox. That was last week, no sightings since, even the crickets have disappeared. I figured he found his way out in the middle of the night somehow.
But tonight, after eating a glorious meal of orange peel chicken, I was sitting on the couch using the laptop when some movement caught my eye. The little bastard darted from beside the TV and went under the couch I was sitting on. Two words: heebie jeebies. I whipped out the mag-light and investigated. He must have gone *into* the couch. So I got Tracy to man the hallway with a broom. Didn't want him going into the bedrooms...I wouldn't be able to sleep, might have to burn down the house or something. I armed myself with a broom as well and started trying to get him to exit the couch. I turned it on it's side, nearly knocking down our ceiling fan. I beat on it, I ripped up the bottom and poked around, beat it some more, nothing. At one point, after a hard smack, I heard him plop from one side to another but no exit was made. So I pushed it over and let the whole 3 seat couch nail the ground. Instantly, he darted onto the tile and hid behind the nearby vaccum cleaner. I removed the vac and he took off again in an attempt to run into the kitchen.
Keep in mind that no animal runs well on polished ceramic tile. They just kinda slide. Ever see a dog or cat try to run on tile? Imagine that but shrink it into mouse form and feed it some crack to enduce the amazing 10-direction-changes-per-second running style of a mouse.
I did a quick street-hockey move with the broom and he went flying across the tile and slapped the wall near the front door, stunning him for a moment. Totally unprepared to actually catch him, I ran at top speed to grab some some yard gloves while Tracy (who was until now standing on a chair, screaming) fetched a plastic bag. He regained his composure and started to make his move again so I pinned him with the broom. Haha! Got you now, little fucker! But he was squirming a lot...I didn't want to get bitten in the capture attempt. So I did what any momentairly insane rodent hunter with street-hockey skills would do: dropped the puck. I let him get a few feet away and immediately slapped him into the wall again for a 2nd stun, this time a little harder. Whap! I quickly grabbed him with the gloves, put him in the bag, took him outside and bashed him against the ground a few times before depositing the bloody mousebag of death in the trash.
Holy fuck that was gross. Yikes.
I immediately felt a lot better knowing it was dead/gone, but the whole ordeal put me a little on edge. So I proceeded to place a few traps around to see if there are more that need the kaibosh. Damn dude. Rodents suck.
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