I’m doing some Plone work for Honda for the last few days. I wrote the site but haven’t touched Plone for a few years. It’s like re-learning it all over again, and time learning isn’t billable, DOH!!!

I beat my self up over this error today:

# obscure plone error
Error Type
    UnpickleableError
Error Value
    Cannot pickle objects

I was trying to get the request to persist across a few pages by adding it to the session, I was ALSO adding a database result set to the request.

You can add simple python structures to the session but not objects, like database result sets.

I changed the order of a few lines of code and all was happy.

I’ve been following the latest round of Wall Street failures, and how the CEO level guys get reprimanded then handed HUGE bonuses.

This brings me to my favorite calculation for these guys, I made it up a while back under a particulary egregious case.

Dollars per Dumptruck == $6,770,646

Figured out:

Volume of Standard Dumptruck = 10 cubic yards

Cubic inches per Cubic yard (36 ^3) = 46,656

Volume of US Dollar
2.61 inches wide X 6.14 inches long X 0.0043 inches thick = 0.06890922 cubic inches

## TOTAL
((36^3) / .06890922) * 10 = $6,770,646 per dumptruck

Now you know

Tzones $5.99 iphone plan fix backround

My $5.99 dataplan stopped working.

I jailbroke my iphone with ziphone, and have version 1.13 installed.

I used the T-zones hack 1.14 via the installer application which ziphone uses. This hack installs a proxy file which your phone needs to use the internet via the $5.99 plan.

Tmobile changed the subnet of their wap services with the 3g rollout. So you will have to change them too.

The proxy.pac file, installed by the T-zones hack, doesn’t take the recent changes into account. You need to fix that file.

Instructions

### login
Turn your phones wifi on.

Once you are connected to the wifi point,
click the right arrow for your access point on the wifi screen
(Settings:wifi:right arrow).

Note the IP address

Go to your Settings:General:Auto Lock; change to never 
( until you are done with ssh )

ssh into your phone, using putty on windows, or ssh in terminal on osx.

the command to ssh is:
Open up terminal in OSX (Applications:Utilities:Terminal)
ssh root@<your iphones ip address>

password=alpine

### edit the proxy.pac file
nano /private/var/preferences/proxy.pac

change 10.0.0.0 to 25.0.0.0

save  (ctrl + x)

### cleanup
logout (ctrl + d)

restart the phone


Done.

I upgraded the the new powerbook with more ram; 4gb of CAS4 ram replaced the stock 2gb of CAS5 ram. It took the same time to boot, but seems more responsive when restarting apps. I upgraded because it was cheap, and every so often, a few times a month 2gigs wasn’t enough and the whole system came grinding to a halt. I took the old ram and upgraded Marijo’s Macbook, going from 1 to 2 gigs, she noticed a dramatic speed increase. The funny thing is her computer boots in 27 seconds, using Tiger. While mine ( faster, more ram, more video mem ) takess 47 seconds to boot. Maybe a memory check is part of the boot sequence? Who knows, either way I still recommend the upgrade.

I just had to redeploy a rails site I wrote for Ameriprise to a different server. Originally I used Mongrel, then Mongrel Cluster, behind modproxybalancer, It was deployed on Ubuntu 7.10.

The new server is Ubuntu 8.04. Since it was a different version of Ubuntu, I couldn’t just tar up the /etc/apache2 directory, I had to redeploy. I had some maintenance issues with the old Mongrel cluster setup, specifically when other people screw with the server and mess up Mongrel. I heard about passenger or ”mod_rails” and thought I’d give it a try.

It was a breeze to set up. And worked as advertised, rails apps deploy as easily as a php app. Just point the virtualhost DocumentRoot to the /app/public and you are done.

It’s as fast as Mongrel and WAY WAY easier to use. I think this will be THE lynch pin that will really let the rails get big.

People don’t give enough credence to easy setup. I’ve worked with server apps that take WEEKS to get set up, and even then, you don’t really know if it’s done correctly. Difficult to setup, simply means difficult to setup, not better. I can battle with a server for 2 weeks and get some pride that I did it, or set it up easily and play with my child, and get pride in that.

Thankfully Rails in general isn’t that difficult. I’ve been coding rails since version 0.7 or so, there have been alot of different server configs to learn, each better than the last in some way. My take on the whole evolution of rails deployments is this: Even if performance is slightly LOWER, I will choose ease of use any day, mod_rails is that choice.

People really like scooters, mine in particular. Over the last week, I had a little old lady sit on it at Mississippi Market, then dump it. She ran inside and I never saw her. I was fiddling with the mirrors and some bar patrons from across the street came over and told me about it The chrome was scratched and some other minor damage, but it's drivable.

Last night someone came and tried to cut the 20mm braided hardened steel lock off of it. They tried a saw first, then a torch. But the cable was too much. What a pain. I called the police and a really nice officer came over. The officer complimented the lock, and said that there are a tonne of scooter thefts in the last week, and the most bike thefts in the officer had ever seen. The officer said that the police department had intelligence that scooter thefts were from protesters who are going to demonstrate at the RNC, they need quick, nimble, fast transport to avoid imperial entanglements ( My words, I can't picture a Wookie on a scooter however).

Maybe, maybe, that's the reason for the scooter thefts, the convention IS at the foot of a huge hill, and that hill would limit protesters ability to move quickly. I don't know how much credence I give the theory. I think the more likely reason is that gas is expensive.

If you know me you know I use a Macbook pro as my main computer. At home I plug this into a 30” monitor. At work, whatever is available. I always get the extended warranty, but usually debate whether I should or not. The last 3 laptops I have had have been replaced under warranty.

A few weeks ago the cooling fan on my gen 1 macbook pro started making noise, the playing card in spokes type of noise. I installed iStat pro widget to monitor the fan speed. About two weeks ago the noise went away. I checked the iStat and found the fan had died. Went to the apple store, to have them replace the fan. The tech there ran some scripts ( while true; do true; done; ( twice) ) to heat up the computer so the fans would turn on. I had iStat running but the temp was in Celsius. I started getting nervous when it went above 100 and said something at 130, he thought it was in Farenheight, then confirmed that the fan was toast. About a week later, I got a call from Apple, they couldn’t fix the problem, and were giving me a new laptop. Sweet. It’s a 2.4 ghz 15” macbook pro, The ironic thing is I was planning on getting a new one pretty soon. After a few days of reloading software, setting up servers and general moving in. I am getting to like the new machine alot. Apple was really cool with honoring their warranty.

The only gripe about it is headphone audio out line noise. There is a intermittent noise of 4 distinct really high pitched sounds and an omnipresent high pitched static. I can only hear them with my Shure e5c sound isolating canalphones, they are much more efficient than large cans so the quiet high pitched sound is really obvious. This is a known bug and most likely hardware. so I soldered a new 1/8th plug on my old trusty Sony mdr v6’s and am happy with the sound.

I went to the annual “Gardner Hardware Anvil Drop” on Washington ave. The band was “Savage Aural Hotbed” one of my favorite local bands.

They dropped an anvil off a 5 or 6 story building onto a car, a watermelon, and a bicycle.

Video

Site

It makes me rethink the entire Coyote Roadrunner thing.

Ikea glasses are weak. We bought a dozen small juice glasses last week, so far 4 have chipped lips. I find out they have chipped lips when I cut my knuckle trying to clean the bottom of the glass when doing the dishes.

Bandages don’t stick to knuckles. However Nu-Skin does. It’s like crazy glue with antibiotic mixed in. Trouble is, it likes to peel off and will only last a day at most. I took some 3m skin tape and placed it on top of the Nu-Skin liquid bandage. The skin tape absorbed the liquid making the bandage much more durable. I felt like I was fiberglassing my knuckles, but it works well, and is mostly transparent.

I recently made “Holy Basil Supreme” by guessing what was in it. I got pretty close and I wanted to check a recipie and see how close. When I looked online, I found THE recipie from my favorite thai restaraunt. The recipies used to be on the public website, in Thai Food Kits they used to sell. Now they reside in a disused “old-website” directory I grabbed all the recipes I could find. Read on for the recipies.