Maintenance

To create a visualization with gource (on Linux), first install gource (it's in the Ubuntu repo), then:

cd [the SVN directory you want to work on]

svn log -r 11019:11452 --xml --verbose --quiet > svnlog.xml
[Choose the revision numbers you want.]

gource -1280x720 -o - svnlog.xml | ffmpeg -y -r 60 -f image2pipe -vcodec ppm -i - -vcodec libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 1 -threads 0 -bf 0 video.mp4

The Colonist crew needed a reliable backup.
I've got TSM installed in their VM and configured to only back up their stuff.
For future reference
1) The opt file that you get from the helpdesk is intended to provide complete backup for an entire machine. We only wanted to back up a single user's directory. I edited the opt file to accommodate this requirement.
2) If TSM is installed by an admin, but the backup application is going to be run by a non-admin, the app will complain that the non-admin user cannot write to the error log, and the app won't run unless the error log is writeable. So, move the error log.
3) Some files cannot be backed up while the user is logged in. Fortunately we don't care about backing up such things as NTUSER and so forth. Remove them.

Note: includes and excludes can be managed in the preferences editor in TSM. You can also edit the dsm.opt file directly (it's in the 'baclient' folder of TSM's install directory.
I removed all of the end user settings provided by the helpdesk's file and replaced it with this:

* ==== END USER SETTINGS ============================================
SKIPNTSECURITYCRC YES
SKIPNTPERMISSIONS YES
ERRORLOGNAME "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\tsmerror.log"
EXCLUDE "*:\...\*"
INCLUDE "C:\Documents and Settings\WorkerBee\...\*"
Exclude "C:\Documents and Settings\WorkerBee\NTUSER.DAT"
Exclude "C:\Documents and Settings\WorkerBee\NTUSER.DAT.LOG"
Exclude.Dir "C:\Documents and Settings\WorkerBee\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft"

The edits should be self-explanatory.

Some notes on how to configure Gnome 3, in preparation for trying to roll it out to the lab machines:

• Install gnome-tweak-tool.
• Get buttons on window title bars: gnome-tweak-tool / Shell / Arrangement of buttons in the title bar / All.
• My installed extensions:

  advanced-settings-in-usermenu@nuware.ru              places-menu@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com
  apps-menu@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com  RecentItems@bananenfisch.net
  force-quit@xtranophilist                             Shut_Down_Menu@rmy.pobox.com
  nohotcorner@azuri.free.fr                            panel-docklet@quina.at
  workspace-indicator@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com
  

  These are in ~.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions.
• Settings also seem to be stored in ~/.gconf.
• Showing date on Gnome 3 panel:

  gsettings set org.gnome.shell.clock show-date true

Having built the Macs from a 32bit image I find that they are running in 32 bit mode. No surprise, but it *is* reversible. Run this in the terminal sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64" and reboot. The machine should run in 64 bit mode from now on.

SM working on MoL has been seeing LibreOffice Writer crash frequently when editing a complex document with comments. I've worked with similar documents without problems, though.

I looked around for alternative word-processors, but neither Calligra Words nor AbiWord handle comments. Noting that Writer works fine for me on Precise + Gnome 3, and fine for CB with Gnome 2, I've now installed Gnome Shell on Radish, and we'll see if that solves the problem. Never liked Unity anyway.

In the process of doing this, I noticed that an HCMC style deb is failing to update itself when doing apt-get upgrade.

To easily edit docs inside of a running eXist DB
Two step process: (1)add a data source; (2)add a connection
1.1) Go to Options -> Preferences -> Data Sources
1.2a) Add a new data source in the top panel (titled Data Sources)
1.2b) Type: eXist (add the following driver files from the WEB-INF directory of your eXist instance: exist.jar, ws-commons-util-1.0.2.jar, xmldb.jar, xmlrpc-client-3.1.3.jar, xmlrpc-common-3.1.3.jar)

2.1) Choose the just-created Data Source
2.2a) Add something like this to the XML DB URI field: xmldb:exist://localhost:8080/exist/xmlrpc
2.2b) Add login info to User and Password fields
2.2c) Provide an internal path to your collection (like "/db")

Use Window -> Show View -> Data Source Explorer to browse the db.

At the end of the day, NVivo froze while shutting down. This meant that none of the day's changes were written to disk, because apparently it stores them up and writes them at the end of the session. We found a .tmp file in docs and settings -- can't remember the exact path, but it was named like the actual data file -- and this turned out to be a complete copy of the altered data, with the exception that the dates of recent changes had not been recorded. Backed up the original day-old file as "...last known good", then copied the tmp file over to the original filename, and everything should be good to go, but when M comes in next, she should have a good look to make sure nothing else has been lost.

To access taporshare on the MacOS:
command-k to open the dialogue
URI - smb://taporshare.tapor.uvic.ca/<sharename>
Username - uvic\<netlinkId>
If you forget the "uvic\" in the username field the authentication will fail.

I had to find a file that had changed recently in order to track down a configuration file location.
The code is straightforward, but impossible to remember.

Run this:

find . -type f -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TT %p\n' | sort | grep '2010-09-23 11:09'

and it will return something like this:
2010-09-23 11:09:24.6718347970 ./.cache/ubuntuone/log/syncdaemon.log
2010-09-23 11:09:43.0224589250 ./.cache/google-chrome/Media Cache/data_1

Greg and I spent a little time looking at options for an online booking system that Judy can use to handle booking of the lab workstations. We settled for the moment on MRBS, and open-source PHP/mySQL system which seems simple and easily configurable. We set it up and started testing it. It's intended to be used for room bookings, with rooms divided into areas, but since all the text on the pages comes from a language file we were able to customize it to handle computers in rooms instead of rooms in areas, very simply, just by editing the language file. The resulting booking calendar seems to be nicely printable, and the CSS is centrally configured via a PHP system which abstracts the settings into variables which are used to construct the stylesheet. We'll probably want to write our own stylesheet when we get comfortable with it, because it's not terribly pretty, but it's certainly usable out of the box.

Pros:

• Lovely clean code.
• Really well commented.
• Documentation is sufficient and clear.
• DB structure is very straightforward.
• UTF8 support.
• Good separation of concerns (page generation, CSS, GUI strings, etc.).

Cons

• HTML 4.01 (could be rewritten in XHTML, but would be tiresome and provide little benefit).
• Not so pretty (yet).