blog.dknowles.org

Maybe one day, I’ll convince myself that using MySQL transactions is a good idea, and start using them whenever I do SQL writes.

In related news, I just NULLed out all my coverdata fields in my mythTV’s mythvideo table. Regenerating all of that crap is really tedious, as the website’s API I use gets flaky after I hit it with a few hundred requests in a matter of minutes. :(

Sigh.

Update:

All fixed.   Took ~90 lines of python.  Good script to have around anyway:  looks for entries with no/missing/invalid coverfile and tries to re-fetch it from thetvdb.com.  One day I’ll get all this crap into SVN.   I’m getting quite the collection of these handy scripts. :)

I’ve come to the conclusion that I hate all blogging software.  It all sucks.  None of it fits my specifications, but I’m too lazy/busy to write my own.  For now I’m settling with WordPress, but I’m not completely satisfied.  I was fairly okay with Movable Type for a while, but I got really frustrated with its admin interface.  It’s really slow.  And I tried to set up dynamic page loading (lets face it, I’m not getting enough traffic here to take down my shared host), but then realized it wanted to use PHP for some ungodly reason even though the rest of the app is written in Perl.  (Yaay consistency!)

I’m hoping I’ll be more satisfied with this WordPress nonsense, but I’m not optimistic.  (Well, as optimistic as one can be about a PHP app)

I wish there was a good blogging solution written in Python.  Then again, python support on shared hosts isn’t all that great.  And likely more work than I’m willing to put forth.

As for the love part of this, OpenID gets my thumbs up.  I’ve been a fan since brad first posted about it way back when. I’ve never done much with it until now, though.  I get a free identity with my livejournal account, but I’m really not a fan of having my old whiney LJ entries be the face of my identity.  So I set up an account with myopenid.com, which seems pretty solid.  And I set up dknowles.org to be a delegate for the identity.  I’m pretty sure I could do the same thing with LJ serving my identity instead, and dknowles.org would show up in comment posts and what not; but I’m mostly over the LJ thing anyway.  I should probably just subscribe my few remaining friends that write there to my google reader.

I installed Leopard on my work Macbook Pro on Friday. Other than some corporate image wonkiness (there’s always something…) it’s been an incredibly pleasant experience thus far.

At first, I wasn’t a huge fan of the new dock UI. It’s growing on me, though. Mostly it’s probably because I made it even smaller than it used to be, so the bright light things that show when an application is open isn’t so offensive anymore. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.

Stacks looked like nice eye candy at first, but not so useful. But I’ve come around. Adding my downloads folder & my applications folder to my dock is a really handy, quick way to access those things. (Of course, I usually default to quicksilver keyboard shortcuts for applications)

Spaces is by far the best virtual desktop implementation I’ve seen yet on mac. It’s still lacking a few things: a keyboard shortcut to move windows to different desktops, proper option+tab app switching behavior, maybe screen edge triggers for moving windows to other desktops. But once I figured out how to have firefox windows on multiple desktops, I was sold. That was always my biggest shortcoming with virtue/desktop manager/any other solution I’ve tried in the past.

The new terminal is wonderful. I spend a lot of my time (at work & at home) inside a terminal session, so having a sane implementation is a godsend. (Although iTerm has become a really good drop-in replacement lately) Built-in tabs, better/more configuration options, proper keybindings are all great additions. The only thing I’ve had a hard time adjusting to is the lack of select-to-copy. Between my linux sessions & the old iTerm functionality, that’s going to be a hard habit to break.

From a work point-of-view, I’m enjoying filevault not taking a shit every few days. I’ve had it want to clean up once or twice now, but it did it automatically and didn’t take very long. It’s about freaking time.

Autofs + kerberos nfs is great. I can access all my work auto shares from terminal without any wacky configuration nightmares. It just works.

Likewise, the new mobile account option is really nifty. Lots of things are auto-syncing from work when I’m there (or VPN’d in) which makes my life easier.

There’s also a lot of small UI tweaks that I really like. An example: the networking pane in system preferences is pretty. Showing a lock next to secured wireless networks in the tray menu. The new finder look. All good things IMO.

Now for my biggest gripe thus far:

The translucent menu bar is really ugly. I really like blue backgrounds (the tiger default background anyone?) and the translucent menu bar turns a pastel blue with this configuration. Bad move, apple. You’ve been known for that glorious grey menu bar for years. Why change now?

All in all, I’m really happy with my Leopard install. Between Apple & Google’s macops team, I’ve got a really awesome cutting-edge OS on my laptop. And it’s pretty. And I like pretty things. :)

New personal goal: update this thing more regularly.

Earlier tonight, I was on gTalk talking to one of my friends/coworkers, and Sarah decided to start typing random characters at him. “ddrtggtfrg” is what came out, and my coworker thought it was an acronym for something. He made one up and submitted it to urban dictionary. Unfortunately, it’s still pending editor approval, but you can view the preliminary entry. (hopefully that’s not cookie-based or anything)

I signed up as an editor in hopes of seeing our entry quickly, but instead I ended up editing 80+ random new entries. Most looked like they were written by 13 year olds pissed off at their friends or teachers, but there were some gems in there. Maybe I should make moderating urban dictionary a weekly task of mine. :)

Sarah and I wandered over to Oakland Cemetery yesterday afternoon for their Sunday in the Park festival. There was rumor of food and beer. (All you need to tell me) You can throw a rock at the cemetery from our place and it was gorgeous (although a bit hot in the sun) outside, so there was really nothing to lose.

All in all, I wasn’t too impressed. Maybe it’s because we showed up a bit late, but there wasn’t a whole lot going on. There were only about 10 booths total, the only food was from The Varsity and Six Feet Under, and the only beer was from a Budweiser truck. (no support from local breweries?) There were a fair number of people out there, though, and we did get to see the inside of some of the mausolea. (they’re typically not open) There’s always next year…

What was pretty amusing, though, is that when we walked outside our loft, our apartment manager (he lives down the hall from us) was standing outside watching people get stuck in our gated parking lot. Priceless.

Oakland is also having a nighttime guided walking tour for Halloween. That sounds pretty awesome. Too bad it has a $15 admission fee. Seems a bit steep if you ask me, although the money does go to the good cause of cemetery upkeep.

I’ve been trying to get a grasp on this “blogging” thing since somewhere around 1999 or 2000. You could say I’m an early adopter, I’d say I’m bad at being consistent (or good at quitting). But here’s another try. I’ve had my fun with livejournal over the years, but my friends have all moved on and I figure I should grow up and play with bigger and better toys too.

My goal here is to give some of the random tidbits of useless (or, unlikely, useful) knowledge accumulated in my head back to the wonderful blogosphere community that so often feeds my desire to waste time or solve some weird problem. Common topics ahead include: atlanta, linux, mythtv, the internets, technology, and the occasional bit of politics.

Godspeed, fair readers.