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.

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

gizmodo.com

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?”

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

via http://denverdev.blogspot.com/2008/09/setting-up-sun-visualvm-on-mac-osx.html

What was really annoying was that the first iPod Touch didn’t have this feature: to skip songs, or pause, you had to pull the thing out of your pocket, look at it, wake it up and pause/skip. This made the iPod touch the “worst iPod ever,” at least as far as listening to music goes. For me, this seemingly hostile feature drop, even more than having no physical volume control, relegated the iTouch to watching movies and web browsing.

But all is forgiven. Plug your iPhone (or compatible, presumably) headphones into the iTouch, queue up a playlist. You can pause by one-clicking, skip by double-clicking. I’m hoping the new Nano has the same improvement.

http://highscalability.com/latency-everywhere-and-it-costs-you-sales-how-crush-it