The musings of Erik Karulf
Sometime last night Google unveiled IMAP support for Gmail (and Google Apps). This is huge. This makes Google Apps a viable business solution and it makes Gmail a great email aggregator. Here is what this means for me :
One of the greatest things about blogs and search engines is that for 90% of the things you want to do, someone else has already done it and blogged about it. Today’s post is on trac, postgres, and sqlite.
Backstory: As a part of the research I do in the Aerospace Systems Laboratory, I run a mid-sized Subversion repository and trac project so we can keep all the 100-something people involved on the same page. When I setup this giant system, I decided to use postgresql as the trac database backend (as postgresql is my database of choice).
The Problem: trac + postgresql = chaos
The database frequently double inserts rows, has odd issues with keeping the revisions in sync with Subversion, and general stability issues (due to the python library they are using).
Solution: trac + sqlite3 = well supported
sqlite seems to be the preferred database by the trac developers. Sadly, there is no way (documented or otherwise) of backing up / restoring a non-sqlite trac database. Read on for the steps to hand migrate.
Very rarely do I get to blog about things of real importance. My constant struggle to find the right email system, programing tricks, and occasional operating system things occupy the majority of my writings.
This post has to do with a video that has been running around the internet the past few days. For those not deeply entrenched in computer science circles, you might not be aware of it. The video is the last lecture given by Dr. Randy Pausch, a 45 year old Computer Science professor at Carnegie-Mellon University. Dr. Pausch is a pioneer in Human-Computer Interface (a field that includes virtual reality). Unfortunately Dr. Pausch has terminal pancreatic cancer, a disease he has been fighting for the past 2 years. He wanted to give one last lecture as his farewell to CMU (and the entire Computer Science community).
The video is a bit long (just under two hours) and it requires Flip4Mac to watch on Apple computers. I sincerely believe that it is worth the time.
Links :
Today Jack Thompson filed suit against everybody but Santa Claus. Rumor has it Santa narrowly escaped despite his pro-video game history and lax distribution policies.
I knew the guy was a few burritos short of the combo platter, but I didn’t realize the extent of it. It seems like his grasp on reality is fading. In a way, I’m not sure if I should feel bad for him, or if I should laugh at what looks like a frantic last grasp at an agenda that nobody agrees with.
Unfortunately, this probably means that we as a video game community will have a new voice against us to deal with. That’s fine. In the interim, I could use the rest. My only hope is that the guy who replaces J.T. will be equally ineffective and comical. The second part is hard to top though, Jack set the bar pretty high by starting his career in the public’s eye calling Janet Reno a “closet lesbian.” (wikipedia)
Well, I did it. I bit the bullet and turned my gmail account into a meta-account managing all my other email addresses. The experience has left me feeling happy, yet still strangely wanting more. You can read about my impressions of Gmail in my next post.
I’m slowly thinking about transitioning the karulf.com domain from dreamhost to Google apps. For those not in the know, Google Apps lets you run run any or all of Google’s “applications” on your own domain. There are a few differences, but the accounts basically act like a GMail account. This would be a welcomed change from Dreamhost, where the servers are flaky at best. I’d be fine moving over to Google Apps, the problem is, I don’t want to transfer all of my domain, just… most of it.
Here are the services I would move
Here are the services I am keeping on dreamhost (or personal servers)
After some research, I found out how I would do it. This post is probably only useful to me, but to that end it will be invaluable.
Configure Dreamhost’s DNS servers with the following values
| MailServer Hostname: | Priority |
|---|---|
| ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. | 10 |
| ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM. | 30 |
| ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. | 50 |
| ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM. | 70 |
v=spf1 include:aspmx.googlemail.com ~all.
_xmpp-server._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com. _xmpp-server._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com. _xmpp-server._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com. _xmpp-server._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com. _xmpp-server._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com. _jabber._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com. _jabber._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com. _jabber._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com. _jabber._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com. _jabber._tcp.karulf.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.
I do apologize, I know this blog must feel like it is entirely about my email habits (or lack thereof). In a previous post of mine, I talked a lot about rolling my own mail synchronization system. It involved either a complex series of small scripts, something hideous like LDAP / imap relaying, switching to mutt, or a combination thereof. Now I’m thinking about a new option. Gmail.
Gmail is great. I love Gmail, especially for the publicity and adoption it has given to jabber. That said I have several issues with Gmail. Here are my the big ones (in this order):
Recently Google has been unveiling a lot of really awesome announcements. I’m in a list mood tonight so lets go with another list.
Combine this with their keyboard shortcuts, mobile interface, and api interfaces and I’m sold. If I do this, I have to go all out, and what I’m worried about is that I will lose the data when I leave Gmail. I still would like to roll my own solutions, mostly because I think my idea is better than Google’s, but several billion dollars and collective of thousands of the best minds might just beat me to it. We’ll see. In the interim, I need to sleep on it before dropping $50 for a “premium” account at Google for karulf.com and converting all of fort-awesome from dreamhost.
I recently stumbled upon a great movie on YouTube (and I’m not talking about Pimp Vs. Karate Expert). I am talking about The Machine is Us/ing Us.
The video is by an anthropology professor at KSU, and he hits on a bunch of topics that are really hot right now. The exciting one for me is splitting the view layer in half, form and content. Anyway, take a look at the link above, otherwise I have a local mirror here.
Hope you like it!
In my revitialized quest for email that doesn’t suck, I have come to the harsh realization that my webmail most definately sucks. I have two options.
For a long time, I would sit down and drop in a new version of webmail, probably horde’s imp. I still might. What I want is one place I can go to check all my email. The key here is encryption, not of all my email, but of the one password that lets me in. OpenID comes to mind immediately.
The unfortunate later part of the line is “and in the darkness bind them.” My idea could be the single greatest idea I have had yet, or the single point of my downfall. The idea is simple. Open up SSH access into my MacPro. This is a little scary for me as a security idiot conscious user, but it might be worth it.
The other downside to my personal box, is that at any given time it sits behind 2-3 firewalls. Yuck. Thankfully SSH (my networking Swiss Army knife) has me covered in one palletable command.
ssh tunnel@erik.karulf.com -fNg -R 2222:spekkio.fort-awesome.net:22
The downside is it binds to port 2222 (without opening serious holes in your security, users can not bind to ports < 1024) This is not too big of an issue, as I just redirect port 443 -> 2222. This lets me access my site through almost any internet accessible computer, as even the most draconian of administrators does not close off port 443 (https) and the traffic looks almost identical to the encrypted traffic you will see from a regular https website. The last hurdle is a tough one, how to SSH from a public kiosk. Well I generally drag around PuTTY and Terminal.app on a USB stick. However, the classy gents at JavaSSH also have a client that will run through a web browser.
When I work, I am fairly picky about my music. Most of the time, I don’t like hearing a lot of words. The exception being for tracks I know very well. As a college student, sometimes I end up working late at night. I turn to anything I can to keep me awake through these hours, caffeine, hot pockets, and music. Usually my choice in wordless, high energy music has been restricted to my digitally imported subscription and what copies of A State of Trance I have found in my travels. I was in hour 36 of a 48 hour homework binge, and I desired something more. I longed for something orchestrated, perhaps another video game soundtrack or something epic and operatic like Carmina Burana. I was luck as Apocalyptica’s second CD Inquisition Symphony was there to slake my thirst. I have to say it is well worth the money. My thanks go out to Apocolyptica, as I am safe from another night of that pesky sleep.
I am officially giving my blog an IOU in the vain attempt I might actually listen to myself. So, here it goes…
I need to write a blog post about Comcast being a ripe with idiocy, if for nothing else but to have a place to point rather than tell the same story ten times.
I need to change my blog software. Atleast give it a shot. Wordpress rocks, it just doesn’t match my style. I’m thinking of getting a blog/wiki hybrid. Here is the list as far as I have it.
Instiki is also in the running, though as a pure wiki. The idea is fairly simple, once I have a hybrid, I can use the blog part to post complete thoughts and the wiki part to jot down ideas and quick notes.
For starters, I’d like to get my FreeBSD thoughts written down. Config files, bootstrapping process, ports. I’d like to be able to use my blog as a personal search engine. It’s an interesting concept to be sure, and as funny as it sounds, I think other people might be able to use it too. To be honest, I’d be willing to move this whole thing over to the Fort Awesome website and have others contribute. I’ll bring up the idea with the other Fort Awesome people. The biggest loss would be my site would be tough to navigate and uglier. I like the current site because anybody can navigate it and it is really nice to look at thanks to my awesome theme. I’ll sleep on it.
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