Well, that was easy!

I haven’t the time to write out a big fleshy post atm, so I’ll post the short story.

I was trying to set my Ubuntu 8.10 VPS up with a fresh Ruby/Rails install to host some webapps I’m working on. Rather than apt-getting my way to glory, I decided to build Ruby 1.9.1 from source, the main reason being that the version available through apt is only 1.9.0 and I’m working with 1.9.1 on my dev machine.

After building/installing Ruby, I started installing rails, rake, rack, etc… via RubyGems. I knew that I couldn’t install the standard ‘mysql’ gem, as it hasn’t yet been updated for Ruby 1.9, so I added http://gems.github.com/ to my gem sources - if you don’t know how to do this, the command is:

gem sources -a http://gems.github.com

…and proceeded to install kwatch’s mysql-ruby gem.

To my surprise (as it had worked under OSX on my dev box), I got the following message:

plasma@syn-app01:~$ sudo gem install kwatch-mysql-ruby
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing kwatch-mysql-ruby:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/local/bin/ruby extconf.rb
Trying to detect MySQL configuration with mysql_config command...
Succeeded to detect MySQL configuration with mysql_config command.
checking for mysql_ssl_set()... yes
checking for rb_str_set_len()... yes
checking for rb_thread_start_timer()... no
checking for mysql.h... yes
creating Makefile

make
gcc -I. -I/usr/local/include/ruby-1.9.1/i686-linux -I/usr/local/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby/backward -I/usr/local/include/ruby-1.9.1 -I. -DHAVE_MYSQL_SSL_SET -DHAVE_RB_STR_SET_LEN -DHAVE_MYSQL_H -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -I/usr/include/mysql -DBIG_JOINS=1 -fPIC -fPIC -O2 -g -Wall -Wno-parentheses -fPIC -o mysql.o -c mysql.c
In file included from /usr/include/stdlib.h:320,
from /usr/local/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby/ruby.h:50,
from /usr/local/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby.h:32,
from mysql.c:6:
/usr/include/sys/types.h:151: error: duplicate 'unsigned'
make: *** [mysql.o] Error 1

Gem files will remain installed in /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/kwatch-mysql-ruby-2.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/kwatch-mysql-ruby-2.8.1/ext/gem_make.out

Instructions on fixing the issue and installing the gem after the jump.

Torrent-X is a plugin for XBMC that allows you to scan through well-known RSS torrent feeds from sites like Mininova, EZTV, etc… and pipes the torrents you choose through to your torrent client of choice via (usually) it’s web interface. Problem is, it doesn’t work OOTB with the Windows version of XBMC. Here’s how to fix it.

1. Edit the shortcut to XBMC and remove the ‘-p’ from the command. This will make XBMC save user data into the installation folder, and make it accessible to scripts via the internal Q: drive. This solves the issues the script has with opening the guisettings.xml file.
2. Edit the default.py file for Torrent-X and change line 1127 as follows.
   Change it from:
   MyDisplay = GUI( "skin.xml", ResPath , "Default" )
   To:
   MyDisplay = GUI( "skin.xml", os.getcwd() , "Default" )

You should then be able to open the script from within XBMC.

- NM

PS: I’ll be posting soon on the subject of my recent trip to Singapore, specifically, what a geek can do in Singapore. I’ll also be posting on how to make a cheap, feature-packed media box.

First thing I see in the morning is an email from GFI saying “YOU HAVE A FREE UPGRADE ZOMG!”. Mailarchiver 6 is out, and it boasts quite a few new features, none of which are documented yet - they still only have the MA5 manual up on their site. I download the update, schedule an outage (it’s not really used by anyone apart from us, the IT department), and start the upgrade. I get to the ‘You need to update your auditing database by doing this chant/sacrifice:’ part, and the next button proceeds to do sweet f–k all. The installer doesn’t lock up, I can still click back, just not next. How’s that for an error message? The error, in fact, is that MA5 needs to be upgraded with the latest updates before you can upgrade. If you’ve come across this issue, here’s the link to the file you’ll need to install in order to progress any further: http://kbase.gfi.com/showarticle.asp?id=KBID003336 Now all I need is some documentation on the new features. It appears that an outlook plugin they’ve made (which I can’t find) allows users to mount their archive in their outlook. If this also allows them to move things to the archive, say, old emails from their 20gb+ worth of PSTs, then this will save admins a lot of time. I’ll find out when I get time. - NM

So, I’m trying to start developing synflare.com, using my MacBook and OSX as a development platform.

I need GD for PHP, and I can’t be screwed compiling it from source (that’s why I’ve also moved from Gentoo to Ubuntu. Binaries make life easier). Fink is a brilliant service that provides an almost ‘apt’ way of getting and installing software. With Fink, I can issue a single command in terminal and have GD install itself.

My problem, however, was that Fink wasn’t installing. At the install volume selection screen, I wasn’t able to select my root volume. It’s reasoning was: “You cannot install Fink on this volume. Cannot perform symlink test on this volume because of a permissions problem. Try performing the “Repair Disk Permissions” function in Disk Utility”.

After several Verify and Repair permissions commands, I still had no joy. I noticed that the Disk Utility log was spouting the line: “ACL present but not expected for…”. After some investigation, those lines are merely informational. As Fink still wasn’t installing, I decided to fix them by running ‘chmod -a# 0’ on the directories affected. This still didn’t help! I was at breaking point.

I decided to fix it my way (read: quick and simple).

Entering the Fink Installer Package (right-click, Show Package Contents - in Finder), I could see three scripts in the Resources folder, one of which was VolumeCheck, which basically tells the Installer if you have permissions to the Volume in question. Editing this script, I made sure it did nothing but return an exit-code of ‘0’ back to the installer.

Hey-presto, it works, and there’s no noticable issues with Fink. GD installs perfectly.

In a nutshell:

1. Copy the Fink Installer Package out of the DMG and into your home folder.
2. Go into the folder where you copied the package, right click on the package and click ‘Show Package Contents”
3. Navigate to the Resources directory, which resides inside the Contents directory.
4. Delete the existing VolumeCheck script.
5. Download this file - volumecheck - and extract it into the Resources directory in the package.
6. Run the installer!

If you have this problem, and this fix works for you, be sure to post a comment - I’m interested to see how many people this happens to.

- NM

Back in the day, when mIRC and NoNameScript were my friends, I used to have a CTCP trigger set up that gave people DCC leeching from me the ability to resume transfers if they disconnected for some reason, amongst other things. Now that I’m all Mac, I’ve been using Colloquy, and haven’t started looking at scripting for it - that is, until today. Austnet are now blocking all DCC by default, and the only way to allow someone to send you a file is to issue the user command /dccallow +User <timeout> - adding them to a temporary Allow list. This, of course, only works if your nick is registered and you have identified with /nickop. In order to save time and allow for the receiving of DCC file sends while I’m AFK, I did some research and found that Colloquy Plugins are the method of choice for handling CTCP requests. Plugins can be created in a variety of programming languages, like Obj-C, Applescript, F-Script, Javascript, Python and Ruby. I decided to do mine in Applescript, mainly because there’s a lot more support for Applescript plugins over the others. You can download my script here: Austnet DCC Allow CTCP Trigger Script Extract the script and place it into your ~/Library/Application Support/Colloquy/Plugins directory, then issue a /reload plugins in Colloquy if it’s already open. People can then use /ctcp <Your Username> DCCALLOW to allow themselves DCC access to your username for 300 seconds. Additionally, if you want to auto-accept DCC requests from strangers, you’ll need to modify your Colloquy settings to allow it. Full code after the jump. - NM

You’re a senior systems administrator on a very active and challenging contract for a global consulting and outsourcing company. You get a very decent salary, job security, paid training and the ability to dabble in other areas of IT. So, why do you feel the need to move on? Maybe because you don’t get the level of respect you think you should get. Maybe because you don’t find your job as interesting and as challenging as what it once was. Either way, you want to find something new and interesting. I find the best thing to do is to voice your feelings to your superior. If he doesn’t take you seriously, then you shouldn’t be there. You know you’re worth more than that. If nothing changes after a month or so, start looking for a new job. Make sure you don’t break any rules though - working for or taking clients may get you into legal troubles. Try making a name for yourself, do something extraordinary (it’s not hard to do in IT) and you’ll find jobs will come to you. Otherwise, just start looking at seek (or a job search site of your choice) and apply for things that sound challenging. - NM

I have finally created a CodePlex project for the feature I created that will update document properties with version history (for adding into documents via fields). You can get to the project via this link: http://www.codeplex.com/SPDocVersionExport If you think you can help me with finding a better way of doing this, let me know and join the project. Cheers, - NM

At the course now. Hooray, 2 days worth of stuff I already know before the real stuff… Girl here from Fujitsu, dealt with her at Woodside when I needed some search scopes created, very helpful. Her blog here, some very useful posts here: http://mossipqueen.wordpress.com/ - NM

So, we had a QA audit come up at work. One thing that QA loves is the presence of version history inside of the controlled document. There’s good reason for this, but apart from it becoming tedious on regularly edited documents, it’s also quite unreliable as some people may just forgo updating it. If you’re going to store your documents in a Sharepoint Document Library with version recording, why not just put that info inside your document? Well, there’s probably a few ways to do this, but I opted to use document properties to get the info into the documents. http://www.codeplex.com/SPDocVersionExport Edit: Well, I decided that using the document properties isn’t the best way of doing this, it’s much more trouble than it’s worth. I am in the process of building a Word add-in that will allow you to drop in a document’s version history and update it whenever the document is updated. - NM