DevelopingChris

Ubuntu decided to put its buttons on the left. They have chosen their side in PC vs Mac. In any case you can run 1 command to get them back. Only some apps are affected, making it really awkward to have any windows with the x on teh left.

gconftool-2 –type string –set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout “menu:minimize,maximize,close”

Run this command in your terminal and it puts them on the right, in the same order min max close, as windows uses. Just one of the few things I’ve had to do more than 1 time in my upgrade of a few machines to ubuntu.

Hopefully its easier to find later.

Many php applications have compatibility issues with php 5.3.1. Unfortunately in that is the only version currently available in the aptitude repositories for the latest version of Ubuntu.

Once you have either freshly installed Ubuntu and php, or after you update just your distro and do an apt-get update, you will be on 5.3. There are lots of people with this problem. Many of them have solutions. Most involve running lots of terse commands. Then I ran across this shell script that once you have everything installed for php 5.3 will downgrade your stack to 5.2.10 for you. Since I’ve had trouble finding the original source after a few days, here’s the source in case you need it.

#! /bin/sh
php_packages=`dpkg -l | grep php | awk '{print $2}'`

sudo apt-get remove $php_packages

sed s/lucid/karmic/g /etc/apt/sources.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/karmic.list

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/preferences.d/

for package in $php_packages;
do echo "Package: $package
Pin: release a=karmic
Pin-Priority: 991
" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/preferences.d/php
done

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install $php_packages

Copy this script into a file in your home directory, make it executable and then run it. It set everything up for me really well.

I’ve been in search of a new laptop. One of the things I wanted was linux as the primary boot OS with windows as either a dual boot or a VM.

In my search for the appropriate configuration I’ve played with Ubuntu 10.04 Long Term Support release. It fixes most of my problems with earlier releases, except when the laptop wakes up from lid closing, it refuses to not only connect to wireless networks, it tells me there is no wireless devices. At this point the light that tells you your wireless is off/on, is stuck at on, and can’t be changed.

I’m looking into possible solutions. Many people in the know say that open Suse has much better support for laptops, including lid closing. I have to get this solved ASAP, I’ll update this post with my findings.

UPDATE: It turns out to be a network driver issue with this model of hardware. If you are looking at a machine with Atheros networking, just don’t. Also if you don’t have a sufficient swap file suspend and hibernate get even weirder. Maybe I’m just a newb on how hibernate/suspend work but that was news to me that having a swap file, larger than your ram was required.

So I search for random stuff a lot. There are just some things I find myself searching for multiple times. I’d like to see myself on the list when I search for them again. Its kind of like leaving yourself breadcrumbs. So here is the list for the last few weeks. I hope to continue this as a series.

1. T-SQL that strips the time off a date and gives you a 00:00 date time.

   SELECT DATEADD(dd, 0, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, GETDATE()))

2. The name of the chello artist on wync radio show I heard
   Zoe Keating – she is amazing check her stuff.
3. What is the open source name for google analytics
   Urchin
4. Ninject Dojo and project links
   Dojo, Github, web extensions, good tutorials

So in the last couple weeks, I’ve been evaluating new IOC frameworks, and doing so to fix some sql issues, while writing some date based reports. Thinking of putting analytics on my server, instead of having it be cloud run, or at least replicating to get reconciliation of client contact with GA in the cloud. Zoe has provided thought provoking music throughout. I first hear her while listening to Radio Lab, and couldn’t really find her easily. Her first name has umlauts on the e, so its a bit hard to find her even in my itunes library, but her last name is easier.

I’ll try to make this a regular post, and really start getting more regular on the blog in general. Its not a new years resolution, since its not different that I want to start blogging.

I’ve recently started on a project that has been using web deployment projects. These things are an animal all their own.

There are so many problems that we ran into, I’m just going to list a few.

1. You need to create deployment projects for each environment to get config section replacement to work properly
2. It  locks the files in the source and target directories, if for some reason it fails, sometimes you must restart your box to get them back.
3. There is no way to just exclude a directory in the setup of the project, you have to close your solution and backdoor edit some xml to accomplish this.
4. You have to add projects to your solution, which basically slows down all your actions throughout the day.

These projects are awesome if  you are in a large enterprise where you need to just hand an installer to your web people and get it on the server. However, if you are a multi dev shop that needs automated deployment to a test server, save yourself the trouble.

I have a few posts on deck explaining how I use alternative tools to accomplish this. I’ll have examples in Nant and msbuild, and maybe even in ruby(rake) or python (straight up). Currently I use Cruise Control .net in order to trigger and run the scripts. I’ve been told that Hudson is a viable alternative. If enough people want to see it I’ll gladly try it out and see if its easier to setup and get running.

So if you are starting a project, just say no to web deploy projects, just write a build script in whatever language you know and don’t bother with the headaches of web deploy projects.

Alternatively, if you think that they are the bees knees, I’d love to hear how you get around my problems with it.

So I was introduced to Launchy the other day.

Its pure awesome to be back into the mode where I can use the keyboard for almost everything.

If you are hurting your brain, trying to stay on your keyboard more moving from ubuntu, windows, mac os, and back to windows. Look no further, launchy works on them all, but even better, its so closely related that if you already have krunner, quicksilver, and now launchy, you won’t miss a beat, or remember its there.

If I find any cons with it I’ll keep this post updated, for now, I’m back in keyboard only launching without arrow keys, or pulling of hair.

Its also on hanselman’s tools list, a must read.