EGOPOLY

Download the firmware image from a the manugacturer. In the case of Sony, the download is an ISO image wrapped up in a self-extracting .exe file. Why is it a .exe file? It’s not like it’s a program that has to do some proprietary shit to talk to the BD player over USB. It’s just an archive. Why not have the ISO image just plain on the site? Or in a ZIP? Guess what, geniuses: Mac has only 10% market share, but I bet if you eliminated corporate sales, it’s more like 20%. And I’ll bet if you surveyed people who have BD players, it’s even higher.

Anyway, run Windows in your VM to extract the ISO from the .EXE. Then burn a DVD from the ISO and put it in the BD player.

Now wait while the LED display of the BD player spews out incomprehensible messages for a while. Don’t bother turning on the TV, nothing will be there to indicate what the heck is going on.

After a while, the BD player will spit out the disk with another inscrutable message. Upgrade complete.

Every few years or so I need to migrate this site (and others) to a new hosted server. Here is my checklist for what packages to install, and other stuff to do. At the moment, I’m using CentOS 5. So far, I haven’t decided to go the virtualization route; even though virtual hosted servers are cheaper, they don’t have the horsepower to run some of the bigger sites I host. (hint: not this blog.)

Packages (via yum):

emacs
postfix
mysql-devel
freetype-devel (for RRDtool)
libpng-devel
libart_lgpl-devel

Directories to tar/rsync over:

web document roots
/home dirs
/usr/local

Critical configs:


/etc/httpd/conf and conf.d
/etc/sysconfig/iptables
/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/group
/etc/sudoers
/etc/ssh/sshd_config


Misc tasks:

• disable hosting company account
• disable webmin or other security holes
• configure postfix for outbound
• recompile RRDtool
• dude, DON’T FORGET THE CRONTABS!!!!! including for users and /etc/crontab and .daily etc
• Time zone: cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern /etc/localtime

Cutover procedure

1. put up global “we are moving” web page on all sites

2. dump/restore mysql data to new server

3. bring up httpd with /etc/hosts file on my machine pointing to new server

4. test

5. change DNS to point to new server

It’s even more awesome than you think.

gizmodo.com

hdiutil create -size 100g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname "iMovie Events" -fs "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" -verbose iMovieEvents.sparsebundle

I got one of the new aluminum Macbooks. I was perfectly happy with my relatively new black Macbook, until I saw and held the new one at the Apple store.

In terms of weight, performance, aesthetics, size and screen, this is by far the best notebook computer I’ve ever had. I have to say I am very glad I did not buy a Macbook Air when they came out, because this computer is very nearly as portable, but does not sacrifice CD drive, ethernet connection or CPU speed. And it’s way the hell cheaper.

Unlike other Macbooks I’ve had, this one doesn’t seem to get really hot. Maybe the solid aluminum case is that much better at dissipating heat uniformly?

My memory upgrade I ordered should be arriving today, which I need to run Windows in a virtual machine. These are the instructions for adding memory; Apple made it more of a pain to install memory, and less difficult to install/replace the hard drive. That trade-off makes sense.

Handy upgrading tip: you must remove the back plate of the macbook to do the memory upgrade. To do this, you must remove 8 tiny screws. There are three different sizes of screw, so keep them separate. Pretty obvious. But what might not be obvious is this: do no put these tiny screws anywhere near the right side of the macbook as you work on it. Because the magsafe adapter will suck the tiny little things right in, without you noticing. Then you’ll start to freak out because you can’t find the screws, and you’ll crawl under your desk looking for them, saying “oh shit oh shit, WTF?”

http://www.jessies.org/~enh/

Lots of interesting stuff here for future reference, especially Terminator (a terminal emulator) and a Java build system that is not ANT.

ASCII Art Spam. Made it through Gmail’s filters. This one will be tough to beat.

Best Spam Ever

I don’t know why I read this blog, but I alway feel
[Ed. - nice grammar, dumbass] about 20% dumber when I do.

Create the file /etc/launchd.conf

Add this line:

umask 000

reboot.

This is very handy if you want a network-wide shared read/write NFS partition to actually, you know, work.

It’s now possible to have bi-directional (read/write) access to you Google calendar via Apple’s fat iCal application. This seems to work even for Google hosted domain apps (which is what I’ve moved all my google accounts to, for home and work.)

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358

Should be cool if it really works.