Rails, RVM, MySQL, Apache and Passenger on Debian 6

Dec08
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mike

This is a snap, here’s the short short version:

as root (or add sudo to the front of this)

apt-get install curl git-core build-essential libncurses5-dev zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libreadline-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev apache2 apache2-threaded-dev mysql-server mysql-client

System wide rvm install:

sudo bash < <(curl -s https://raw.github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/master/binscripts/rvm-installer )

logout and log back in

rvm install 1.9.2
rvm use 1.9.2 --default
gem install rails passenger
passenger-install-apache2-module

Add lines from the end of that script to apache config /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load

They'll look a little like this depending on current version when you run it:

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/passenger-3.0.11/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/passenger-3.0.11
PassengerRuby /usr/local/rvm/wrappers/ruby-1.9.2-p290/ruby

Then wrap things up:


a2enmod passenger
service apache2 restart

Good admins will then set a MySQL password with

mysqladmin password new-password

Posted in Linux, Tips and Tricks

Gedit indent a block

Oct05
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mike

I searched for this one for a while and it turns out it’s really simple.  If you have smart indent, simply select your block of text you want to indent and hit <TAB>.

Too easy, but I couldn’t find it documented anywhere.

Happy coding!

Posted in Apps, Linux, Tips and Tricks

Where software and hardware hackers collide

May10
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mike

I don’t often get all excited about a piece of technology, but at Google I/O today, Google announced that Arduino will be part of the hardware part of the the Android Accessory Development Kit.

The applications for an open hardware platform mashed with an open device platform have my head spinning.

What would you do with something like this?

Posted in Announcements, Apps, Linux, Mobile, Think

Hands on certifications that really count

May03
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mike

Last month I spent 5 days in Austin Texas taking the TippingPoint IPS Expert Certification. It was hard. Really hard. The exam lasted the entire day on Friday and consisted of broken machine and attack scenarios.

When I completed the exam (I passed) I really felt like I was a expert in configuring and managing IPS devices in a complex environment.

The last time I took a certification that I felt this good about was in April of 2000 when I became Red Hat Linux certified.

The thing that they had in common was that they were hands on and really hard.

I’m curious, what other certifications are like this?

Posted in Think

Fix for VMWare crash in Ubuntu 11.04

Apr27
2011 13 Comments Written by mike

If your VMWare workstation is crashing after you’ve upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04, you might be having a glib conflict.

If you start vmware in a terminal you’ll see errors like this:

(vmware-unity-helper:3090): GLib-WARNING **: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.28.6/./glib/goption.c:2132: ignoring no-arg, optional-arg or filename flags (8) on option of type 0
(vmware-unity-helper:3142): GLib-WARNING **: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.28.6/./glib/goption.c:2132: ignoring no-arg, optional-arg or filename flags (8) on option of type 0

The fix until VMWare patches is simple:

Edit your /usr/bin/vmware file as root:

sudo vim /usr/bin/vmware

and add the following to the top of the file:

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0/libglib-2.0.so.0

Posted in Linux, Tips and Tricks - Tagged , , ,

Evolution Mail with Exchange 5.5

Apr26
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mike

If you find yourself needing to connect to an old Exchange 5.5 server and you use Evolution, you’ll need to install and use the Evolution MAPI plugin.

sudo aptitude install evolution-mapi

Posted in Linux, Tips and Tricks

The sky is not falling

Apr23
2011 1 Comment Written by mike

In case you missed it, Amazon had a major outage with some of their cloud services this week.

This should just serve as a discussion point and you should not be abandoning your cloud solutions. Like any complex system, this is bound to happen and we should see it as an opportunity for learning and making our overall solutions more robust.

And if you’re one of those crappy sales guys who uses incidents like this to just spread fear around instead of encouraging rational conversations, please keep in mind that the reason your sales numbers continue to suck is because you’re an idiot. You should come to my office so I can throw things at you.

Think opportunity to learn, not opportunity to exploit.

Posted in Cloud - Tagged , ,

Upgrade to Firefox 4 in Ubuntu

Apr07
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mike

Firefox 4 is a great upgrade and as is so typical with Ubuntu these days, the upgrade is a snap:

 

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Easy as pie.

Posted in Linux, Tips and Tricks - Tagged , ,

Dramatic battery life extension on HTC EVO 4G

Apr07
2011 6 Comments Written by mike

I love my EVO, but the battery life is really really terrible.  Often without any use, it wont standby for 7 or 8 hours.

While traveling the last two weeks I tried a new setting:

  1. From your home screen, press the menu button.
  2. Select Settings
  3. Select Wireless & Networks
  4. Scroll down and select Mobile Networks
  5. Uncheck the “Enable always on mobile” setting
  6. Exit

Now it will standby without use for 24 hours and consistantly makes it through my workday with moderate use on a single charge.

It doesn’t seem to have effected any of the phone’s operation except battery life.  This setting just shuts off the network connection when no apps are using it and they are still able to fetch data when you’ve set them to.

3x extension by unchecking a box.  Not too shabby.

Posted in Mobile, Tips and Tricks - Tagged , , , , , ,

I’m baaacckkkk

Apr04
2011 Leave a Comment Written by mike

Since starting Evadot in March of 2009, I really let my tech blogging go.

Gina Smith is resurrecting BYTE.com and I’m a contributing writer so I’m officially back in the tech writing game.

Some of my stuff will be at BTYE and some of it will be here.

It’s going to be a great ride!

Posted in Announcements
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