Category Archives: Techie

OSX and Ubuntu- dual boot

After playing around with Ubuntu Live (PPC) on my ibook, this weekend my mission was to get OSX and Ubuntu dual booting on my ibook. Here’s how it went.

  1. Backup some of my important Docs and data from my existing OSX install
  2. Start clean install of OSX, creating 3 partitions, one shared, one for OSX and one for Ubuntu
  3. Continue OSX Clean Install
  4. Once OSx is installed insert Ubuntu Install CD
  5. Choose all default options but when it comes to partitioning, dlete the Ubuntu partition you created earlier. go back and choose to use maximum free space
  6. Ubuntu will continue it’s install and will install a boot manager so you can choose between OSX, Ubuntu or CD on boot
  7. To view the files in the shared partition, I used the following
    sudo mkdir /media/share
    and then
    sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/hda5 /media/share
    I still can’t write to this disk but I am working on it

I now have OSX and Ubuntu running very smoothly alongside each other… let the development begin 🙂

Update
To get the shared partition working you can to sync the two users’ (my OSX user and my Ubuntu user) user ids and group ids (You can change the ID in OSX netinfo manager). Once this was done and the drive was mounted correctly (in /etc/fstab)
/dev/hda5 /media/share hfsplus user 0 0
I could write to the shared drive in both installs but it caused havoc with permission in OSX as the user ID had changed. I reckon I can just give world write access to the drive though and it’ll still work.

ln for windows

While working on a C# project, having to copy the built dlls to the working directory to test the application was doing my head in. Now if I was in linux I would just

ln /dir/sourcefile.file /otherdir/targetfile.file

But can I do something similar in windows?, I didn’t think so but with some digging I found the fsutil comand which I had never used before.

fsutil hardlink create /otherdir/targetfile.file /dir/sourcefile.file

Now when I build my project my working directory is also updated…

Command-line reference A-Z

Python and UML

It’s been a good while since I’ve used any formal methods to plan any coding so it’s been a great using some UML again. It just shows that all that stuff I thought was fluffy bullshit realy does make sense when developing large projects. A few links I’ve found while looking around at Python and UML.

pyIdea is an IDE that generates Python code from UML diagrams.

Lumpy a UML generator for Python.

PyReverse is a set of tools for reverse engineering Python code.

ArgoUML is a modelling tool that helps you do your design using UML.

BlackAdder is an application development environment.

PyUt is a little UML1.3 diagram editor.

Wing IDE is the most advanced Python IDE available today (supposedly).

Stani’s Python Editor with built in UML and auto-completion.

Boa Constructor is a cross platform Python IDE and wxPython GUI Builder.

wxDesigner is a visual development tool for the free cross-platform GUI library wxWidgets.

Version control tips

Using CVS/SVN is great but it can be a right pain in the ass if it goes wrong. I’ve been using it on an off for a few years now. I always stick to these simple rules and very rarely run into any conflicts or difficulties. On the same note, I managed to get CVS working on my Dreamhost account with TortoiseCVS on my machine and viewcvs web front end hosted on Dreamhost. A very nice set up indeed. I’ll post how I went about getting it working another time.

  1. Update frequently
  2. Always update before committing
  3. Always add a meaningful comment to each commit

RAD Frameworks

I’ve been looking and Rapid Application Development frameworks alot lately, there’s ruby on rails and now turbogear. They work super on my dev machine and applications come together super quick but how the piss do I get them running on my shared hosting without jumping through hoops.

I know the projects are still in Beta and I love what they are doing but it needs to be easier to deploy on shared hosting. They are great so do give them a try but be aware that deployment is not the easiest.

If you know different or can give me some tips.. please do.

Update: Non-root installations tutorial

Update 2: I’v also found mpcp @ http://jamwt.com/ which is a simple connector to use CherryPy with mod_python for production deployments… Look promising

Presentation on Content Syndication

Presentation on Content Syndication. My Boss roped me into doing a presentation to the ITWales group I attend on the first tuesday of each month. I foolishly agreed. Today was the day I had been dreading. So in front of about 40 people (probably exagerated), I gave my presentation on content syndication. Mp3s and pdfs downloads below…. and yes I have a nervous disorder which involves clicking my pen incessantly… sorry about that folks. My first public mp3 of voice recording so please refrain from mocking me……… although it can’t be as bad as the time my mates found a cassette of me singing over Bob Dylan (or Nirvana I can’t remember)… very embarrassing.

IT Wales Content Syndication presentation {pdf [1278 Kb]}
On 4th October 2005 I gave a presentation to the ITWales group in Bangor.
Slides for IT Wales Content Syndication presentation {pdf [1437 Kb]}
On 4th October 2005 I gave a presentation to the ITWales group in Bangor. The pdf is the presentation that appeared on the screen.
Podcast for IT Wales Content Syndication presentation {mp3 [32,149Kb]}

On 4th October 2005 I gave a presentation to the ITWales group in Bangor. The mp3 file is the podcast of the presentation. I only rememberrred 7 minutes into the presentation to turn it on…. and the incessant clicking is my pen (nerves I reckon).

Windows File List

Viewing a list of all file in a directory on windows without all the timestamps etc was a pain in the arse untill I looked into it.
dir /b /a-D > filelist.txt
Job Done 🙂