D’Arcy Norman dot net

I just finished an initial test deployment of APOLLO, including all frameworks and a sample searching application, on a Solaris server for use by the folks in BC. The install of our stuff was really quite simple - just copy some stuff into the right directories and add a new WebObjects application. Done.

There were only 2 small snags:

• Frameworks need to be installed into $ NEXT_ROOT/Local/Library/Frameworks/ - I had been putting them into the MacOSX-ish $ NEXT_ROOT/Library/Frameworks/. Once I figured out the problem, it took all of 5 seconds to fix.
• The shell in Solaris handles the backspace key differently than on MacOSX - so if I messed up while entering a command (like copying a directory or something), I’d have to control+c and start that one over again. King just suggested setting the “Delete Key Sends Backspace” preference in Terminal.app - that works perfectly. If only I’d have realized that an hour or two earlier…

It’s good to know that the APOLLO stuff really is portable. It wasn’t too difficult to install on a platform that had never seen APOLLO before, and that’s comforting

Some casino spambot pigsucker decided to spam the hell out of my weblog again tonight. Instead of entering into a battle of wits with the script kiddie moron, I’ve cleaned their crap from my home, and temporarily turned off accepting new comments. Casino spambot script kiddie, if you’re reading this: PFO!

I’ll try to tighten commenting up a bit to prevent scum like that from trashing things. Until then, please email me if you have any comments/questions/whatever.

UPDATE: I’ve implemented a couple things that might lock down the scum sucking spamroaches a bit more. Comments are now available both via email and the web interface, depending on your tastes…

- D’Arcy

John Hicks just posted a link to Stand - an InputManager that extends Safari in new and wonderful ways.

The coolest thing it does is give you a new way to quickly access bookmarks - hit F4 and a search widget pops up. Hit some keys, and your bookmarks are filtered on the fly. Very cool. You can even configure it to close the floating widget after opening a bookmark.

It somehow modifies the View Source window, so that source code for a page is properly syntax highlighted (and you can set any font you like as well).

It also does some other useful things, like optionally forcing all links targeted at “_blank” to open in a new tab rather than new windows. It also provides better searching/filtering of browser history (that’s how I quickly found the URL for John’s post - I last saw it this morning and just hit the history search to pull it up quickly).

Stand probably does a bajillion other things. The website looks like it is in Japanese, so I can’t read the official description or changelog, but it works GREAT!

Joel Rennich at AFP548 (a MacOSX Server oriented site) has published a detailed description of the process he went through when installing a new XServe at his colocation facility.

He’s apparently got a much more complicated setup, since there are several steps that we didn’t have/want to do, and his time estimates for others are longer than I’d have guessed. Regardless, it’s good to see another report of just how easy it is to fully configure and deploy these bad boys.

Also of note are his recommendations for backup strategies. I currently use rsync to backup important stuff to another drive on our commons webserver - but the data has gotten so big there isn’t a safe place for it off that machine. This will get better once we have the XRAID hooked up, but still…

I went to Market Mall tonight to kill some time with Evan - they have an excellent play area, and Jugo Juice nearby…

We came in through the Toys R Us entrance to avoid construction, and as we were walking through the mall, I noticed a kiosk with a G4 iMac as a POS terminal. Took a closer look, and the kiosk was a new “iPod Store” - provided by local Mac dealer My Mac Dealer. They had EVERYTHING there - iPods (20GB 3G for $100 less than I paid 3 months ago…), several iPod Mini in stock (or at least the boxes), and all kinds of accessories. It was pretty cool to see this stuff kept in stock (as opposed to the traditional gamble-if-it’s-in-or-place-a-6-week-order-and-wait process.

As we walked by, about half a dozen groups were fawning over the iPods and accessories. I even wound up talking with a nice family about the differences between the iPod and Mini, since the staff were swamped already. Man, we need an Apple Store in Calgary!

UPDATE: It’s still there, just moved into the fancy new section of the mall. They really should have put up a sign saying they moved… My first thought was "oh, crap - it’s closed down!" It looks like they’re doing quite well in the new location (at the far end of the new section - keep walking around, you’ll find it).

Update 2: Nope. It’s gone. Disappeared before Christmas 2004. No idea why. Such a shame.

I’ve just published

Damn you BoingBoing! Must… Have… This…

Cool technique for using your iPod as essentially an IR modem (convert sound to IR beam to control your TV/DVD/whatever). Very geeky. Looks like it requires a PocketPC as part of the process, though…

The little IR doohicky costs $25US

This is an old Builder.com article (from May 2003), but goes into the guts of how to use XML in Flash. Might come in handy for Pachyderm…

On a side note, wtf is up with builder.com? They have a redundant .com in their address (builder.com.com - I assume that means they’re part of CNet, famous for “news.com.com”), and the URL scheme they use is a huge PITA to type in (I had it open on one machine, and needed to get it to the other… Took way too long, and some apparent numerical dyslexia kept getting in my way. Doh.

I just uploaded new source files for the JavaEOXMLSupport framework on the woxmlsupport project on Sourceforge.net.

It’s got support for accessing and editing XML data in documents via KeyValueCoding (although I’ve found a bug - it doesn’t like creating elements that don’t exist, so it’s literally an editor at the moment).

I also uploaded source for a test application (xmldbTester), which uses both JavaEOXMLSupport and JavaXStreamDBAdaptor frameworks. You’ll need your own XStreamDB database at the moment (free for educational users), but it works fine.

I just installed a local copy of the W3C HTML Validator tool on my laptop, thanks to the instructions provided by Apple. That was one heck of a process. Time in CVS checking stuff out, time in CPAN, time compiling stuff, finking stuff. All told, it took about an hour and a half (partially due to my slow internet connection at home at the moment).

Really appreciating the checkbox simplicity of the stuff that ships with MacOSX - I wonder if they’ll ship the validator on Tiger Server?