TonidoPlug is a tiny, low power, low cost home server based on the 1.2 GHz Sheeva processor that allows you to access your applications, files, photos, music and media from anywhere (Powered by Tonido).

TonidoPlug comes pre-installed with powerful Tonido Applications – Photos, Jukebox, Webshare, Workspace, Thots, Explorer, Torrent and Search – all running on top of embedded Ubuntu Jaunty Linux OS. Additionally, TonidoPlug can be extended by installing new applications from Tonido App store.

Not sure if we are going to see them in Australia anytime soon, and if any adapters will be needed

Here’s a Youtube review of the TonidoPlug:

Technorati Tags: sheeva, tonidoplug, p2p, Torrent, Jaunty, Ubuntu, Embedded

Chromium is the open source version of Google Chrome for Linux. It’s still in alpha stage but it’s been very stable for me. The biggest downside is lack of Flash support for things like Google Analytics and Youtube.

For Ubuntu, install Chromium like so:

echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #chromium-browser" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/chromium.list
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xfbef0d696de1c72ba5a835fe5a9bf3bb4e5e17b5
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

to get Flash working:

cd /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins
sudo ln -s ../../flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so

Screenshot running on 64bit Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. Watching this was consuming approx 25% cpu in a single chromium process instance:

Flash for Chromium on Linux

I am now likely to spend most of my day in Chromium, though extensions are working in Chromium, my favourite part of Opera is native mouse gestures. I tested a few of the mouse gestures available for Chromium but none are working very well at the moment.

I will still use Firefox for it extensions like Firebug, Web Developer Toolbar & Yslow

One area sadly lacking in most Linux installs is the availability of really nice fonts useful for design and great fonts are not cheap, circa $150 for a font set. Best all in one location for getting great free fonts, I think is www.fawnt.com

If Ubuntu really wants to have a go at competing with the Mac, this is certainly an area that needs improving.

You can install fonts system wide by dropping them (or folders of font families) into /usr/share/fonts or alternatively, kfontviewer a KDE application will give you a nice gui for installing fonts.

Need to manage large amounts of fonts on Linux? Try Fontmatrix

sudo apt-get install fontmatrix

Technorati Tags: Graphic Design, Fonts, Free, Web Design

• No Install to Host/Join meetings
• Easy Share Screens&Webpages
• Audio & Video Conferencing
• Present PowerPoint and PDFs
• Private & Public Chat
• Whiteboard & Annotations
• Record and Playback Meetings
• Open Source and open APIs
• SynchroLive Co-Browsing
• Free Recording & Archiving
• Mac & PC Screen Sharing (no Linux??)
• Multiple Presenters
• Free Teleconferencing Calls
• Secure, Private Meetings
• Faster and Easier than ever
• No Install to Host meetings

It’s available as a vmware virtual appliance or for those of you using Qemu / KVM / Xen, you should be able to convert the image using:

qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow

So I decided to find out what it would be like to do some web programming in it. I learned a bit about asp.Net in the process and mono also.

So first thing I did was:

$ cd /usr/share/doc/boo/examples/asp.net
$ xsp2

and then from your browser you can run any of the “inline” samples

http://localhost:8080/InlineBooButtonClick.aspx
http://localhost:8080/InlineBooExpression.aspx
http://localhost:8080/InlineBooHelloAspNet.aspx

but if you try and run one of the code behind samples, you get something like this:

Description: Error parsing a resource required to service this request. Review your source file and modify it to fix this error.

Parser Error Message: Cannot find type Boo.Examples.Web.YourName

Source Error:

Line 1: <%@Page Inherits=”Boo.Examples.Web.YourName” %>
Line 2:
Line 3:

The problem is the the boo source code needs to be compiled and the dll’s must be placed in a bin directory in the folder you are running xsp2 from. There is a nant build script there but after trying to hack it to get it to build, we worked out it was easier to just compile manually.ie:

$ sudo mkdir bin
$ sudo booc -t:library -o:ScriptRunner.dll ScriptRunner.aspx.boo
$ sudo cp ScriptRunner.dll bin

from your browser:

http://localhost:8080/ScriptRunner.aspx

You can then use this to play around with some boo as if it were the booshell (booish)

Thanks to Cedric for helping me out in IRC on this.Technorati Tags: mono, python, boo, language, xsp, ubuntu, linux

Whilst they have served me well in the past and I may feel tempted to use Virtuemart for a customer who:

a) Will never ever need any customisations done to it
b) Already has a Joomla installation and is very comfortable using Joomla

What’s the issue with Zencart, OSC or Virtuemart you may ask?

The issue is this. First OSCommerce is a mess. Every single module you ever add to it is a hack, making upgrades a pain in the ass. Zencart, being closely related to OSC is not much better. It’s modularity is a bit better laid out and so you can actually create / install modules with very little hacking, if any BUT it’s template system still suffers from it’s OSC origins. It’s an effort to try and template for them..yes, it’s possible but does it really have to be that hard? Joomla’s concept is 1000 times better in regards to templating and Virtuemart excels in this area due to it’s Joomla foundations.

The big problem with them is when you need to make modifications to the core cart to implement a particular feature a customer wants. We have had situations where a small feature for the client required 144 changes in the files of Virtuemart. As soon as a XSS or other security issue comes to light, we have two options

1. Let it be, cross fingers and hope nothing happens (this really is not an option)
2. Inform customer, explain risks and give them compelling reasons to update (at their cost)
3. Our current solution is when we sign contracts with customers, we include a compulsory security updates fee, which means we update their site when new security releases come out. This has worked out best so far but still requires us to explain why we are giving a solution that isn’t inherently secure to begin with. Microsoft has made this easier to explain (daily updates anyone?) and for the most part, we can kill most XSS / SQL Injection attacks using Apache modsec rules but we really want to get beyond NEEDING to upgrade and therefore NEEDING to patch our mods into new releases of Virtuemart etc.

So, without further ado, there looks to be two better alternatives that have come to the rescue recently that look very, very promising though we haven’t done any work with them yet, so I will report on that later.

In PHP land, we have Magento. A very sexy, professional looking Open Source Ecommerce application that’s built upon the Zend MVC framework and claims to be able to develop extensions without touching core code. This, hopefully will fix our templating, modification and upgrade woes in a PHP solution. It has SEF URL’s built-in, google analytics built-in and a mini-CMS of sorts.

In Python land, we have Satchmo an open source ecommerce application built on top of the Django framework, with a reasonable feature set.

As part of my toolbox, my thinking at this point is if we have a customer that needs a standard shop with little to no development work, Magento will be our tool. If the customer has very unique needs, integration with other systems and customisations, we will work with Django.

This is because PHP deployment is so easy, that our only need should be to produce templates in Magento. If development work is needed, deployment and templating become a trivial matter in Satchmo in comparison to the ability to develop in Django & Python.

Would love to hear other’s experiences with any of the above… and of course any horror stories (or otherwise with OSC based development)

It is often difficult to find a resource that is focused on providing quality, relevant and free information for designing themes and templates; specifically one that covers a wide range of applications. This is where ThemesWiki.org intends to step in. Launched initially with tutorials covering over 20 Content Management Systems, ThemesWiki.org is expected to grow into an exhaustive resource for the theming community, with users generating most of the content.

“ThemesWiki.org promises to fill a much needed gap in the theming and templating community” said Ric Shreves, author of the Packt book, Drupal 5 Themes. “It is a source of information that cuts across systems and provides designers and developers a place to share ideas and approaches outside of the walled gardens of individual project sites.” Shreves, a partner in Water & Stone, an open source web development company, went on to say that “Mambo, Joomla, Drupal, Plone, Modx — whatever — none of the clients really care and frankly it matters less and less as time goes by What we should be concerned with is the end result, and that is where this site comes in.”

ThemesWiki.org is part of an ongoing process at Packt to develop unique methods of contributing to the Open Source community. Notable other initiatives include the website on free installation tutorials, www.InstallationWiki.org, and the annual Open Source CMS Award that has a total prize package of $20,000 to be divided among several winning projects.

ThemesWiki.org has been developed using the open source MediaWiki software package and has initially been populated using chapters from Packt books. ThemesWiki.org is free to use and open for everyone to contribute to. It is expected to grow and expand over the coming months with more tutorials added by users.

For more information, please visit www.ThemesWiki.org

I spent much of my schoolhood attending a nice, good ol’ Baptist School – we had a “non-contact” rule, or a “2 inch rule” ie: males and females who attended the same school were not supposed to go within 2 inches of each other and here’s the best part. This was in Australia in the late 80′s / early 90′s – we had been using the metric system for some 20-30 years already?

Anyway – here’s why Christianity needs to have a good rethink about it’s current situation.

1. Adopt a Nun – I just don’t get the whole idea of priests, nuns etc retiring? What do they retire from? Serving God? Did Mother Theresa ever retire? What about Saint Francis of Assisi? I’ve never heard of an Indian Yogi or Buddhist Monk retire, though maybe they do and I don’t know it.
2. The Christian version of ‘eternal life’ – let’s just get a ‘reference point’ – a few definitions of ‘eternity’

1. Time without beginning or end; infinite time.
2. infinite time; duration without beginning or end.

This one really gets me and I really understand Lewis Black’s frustration here because a common phrase in Christian rhetoric is “will have eternal life…” – now, I may be one for semantics but considering that eternity is without beginning or end, does it not stand to reason that  I have always existed, am existing and will exist forever more into the ‘future’ ie: that I already have eternal life? The normal Christian dialogue here is that I only get eternal ‘life’ when I ‘die’ and it’s just a matter of which direction I go – up or down, to the nice guy or the bad guy, the hot place or the one with eternal air conditioning. Eternity is simply not eternity if it had a beginning ie: I only came into existence when I entered this physical body.

Now, let’s talk about ‘idolatry‘ – ooh, this one get’s me going. A friend of mine was once advised by his christian lady friend that she did not want to have a certain object in their house that was gifted to him by his Buddhist uncle because it was an idol. Seriously, I just love the little representations that we give atom and neutrons spinning around each other. When does something become an idol? Those familiar with ‘A Course in Miracles’ may remember one of the first lessons – “I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me”. If I were to sit and pray under a tree, is that tree now an idol? If I stand in awe of a tall mountain, is that an idol? And what’s the whole issue with idols anyway? Here’s the lowdown

“I am the LORD your God…You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 2:2-5).

Backup there because I somehow think that either Mr Author of Exodus has made a bit of an error, something got lost in translation or the God that Mr. Author of Exodus is talking about is just not the kind of God I think worth of listening to. Jealousy huh? How many Christians would stand up and say “jealousy is a Godly trait” – hey, I bitch-slapped my woman because I was jealous of her talking to that guy at church.. and the congregation says “amen”, yea right.

Seriously idolators, we put our work first, our ipod first, our relationship’s first, our mum and dad first, our family first, our blog first, our tv first.. so, that little buddhist statue thing is no worse than your little photo of Jesus now, isn’t it? Here’s one to ask your Christian friend who is offended about your little ‘idol’ – “Show me somewhere where God isn’t” 

Another one of my favourites – Harry Potter is the work of the devil. You know, these Christians really belittle their God. Here’s the devil – he makes movies, he writes books, he’s out making fossils – I mean the guy’s really a bit of a happening dude and seems to be the omnipresent / omnipotent one here. Where’s God? Oh, he’s the quiet pacifist, who sits back and let’s the devil do his business.

It doesn’t stop there. The devil was apparently a fallen angel who want’s to usurp God’s position.. what’s that position? I mean, according to the Christian’s about the only useful purpose God has is to heal sick people (through human prayer – because until someone prayed, he just didn’t care right?) and his other purpose is to sit on some cool, golden throne with 24 elders passing judgement on those people who didn’t ‘believe Jesus died on the cross for them’ – nice guy..it kind of reminds me of the film “Baraka” where the baby chicks are getting sorted and debeaked. Now, the Christian version of God is definitely the kind of guy you’d want to be ‘your’ father right?

No wonder we have so many choosing aetheism these days. I see it more as a revolt against Christianity than anything else.

Anyway, on with my debeaking of Christianity – check this out.

The evil of any kind of ‘extra sensory’ powers like clairvoyance, clairsentience, psychics and the like. All of that stuff is from the devil also and yet, these are traits that Jesus displayed – notice any kind of contradiction when you read Mar 8? Ol’ Jesus was out there healing people, asking about reincarnation and predicting his death. His own people would call him the work of the devil, even today.

The Healing of a Blind Man at Bethsaida
22They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

24He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

25Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t go into the village.[a]“
Peter’s Confession of Christ
27Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

28They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

29″But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.[b]“

30Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Jesus Predicts His Death
31He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

I specifically like this part: Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him
and they went and told the whole world! They obviously can’t be trusted now, can they.

And here’s where Lewis Black wraps it all up into one well said piece.

Technorati Tags: christianity, rant, philosophy

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As per some previous posts, I like to be able to jump seamlessly between platforms. I don’t want to be tied down to anything if I can help it. This is why I wouldn’t buy an Ipod and like Mark Pilgrim, I don’t get the iphone phenomena. I want to use my application online, offline seamlessly. I want to have the same experience, no matter where I am, what I am doing etc. Software like NoMachine’s NX server give me this ability. I have a ultra-portable laptop I bought for $280 on ebay, I have Three wireless, which means I can be a passenger in a car / train / ferry / bus nearly anywhere in metro-Sydney and still have access to my Ubuntu desktop.. that’s frikkin’ cool.

But what about when I don’t have internet access? Well, I previously used Ifolder to keep all my files in sync (which uses mono btw) but ifolder has to be the worst managed open source project I have ever used. Trying to keep a client / server combination that worked together proved to be a feat for me too many times and finally I went in search of something else. I then switched over to Mindquarry (I could have just used svn with some python scripts that watched folders and syncs when it sees a change, I guess) but Mindquarry actually offers a few more features than svn or Ifolder alone ie: Tasks, timeline, wiki and teams.

So, now we have our files synchronised and I use imap, so we have mail synchronised and I have used sitebar for bookmarks for a very long time but there’s something more. What about my feeds in opera? all my vim settings? my bash_profile alias? This is where I think Conduit will be able to help me out eventually (one of the reasons I looked forward to moving to Gnome)

Now, I am really raising two separate issues here. On one hand, I am talking about syncronising two separate computers and on the other, I am talking about a seamless experience between online and offline applications. I think the first is mostly being taken care of. The second issue has some solutions becoming available also. This is where I see stuff like Google Gears, Adobe Air and db4o especially their db4o replication systemproving to show their usefulness.

Sidenote: In the Enterprise Data Centre, Lefthandnetworks has some very similar concepts happening for data virtualisation for online / offline drs solutions as db4o has for persistance – and more importanly for me, their new VMware product looks very promising for high availability + drs soutions using vmware.

So, now I bring up my original point in my posting. Let’s say we develop a desktop applications using db4o (mono bindings available) and I think we could even do that using the .Net python-like language called Boo – the developer of said language happens to also be a developer of db4o. Now, we take said winForms application and deploy it to the web using Visual WebGui. Now, I know the web purists might find this all very freakish as I haven’t done a W3C Validation on it, but I am half-certain something will be wrong and it’s not the sort of thing you are going to be delivering to blind people. I am talking about applications with a specific user base, something like a Mobile Lender, Mobile Salesperson, Microfinancing in remote areas etc.

In my post A Case for Learning Python I put forth my reasoning for deciding to spend all energy learning a language in Python – I don’t think any other language can offer the same access to so much for so little (time investment) as Python.

I will add something to the original list: Windmill is a web testing framework intended for complete automation of user interface testing, with strong test debugging capabilities and of course, it’s written in Python and uses CherryPy.

Also, in the same vein are WebUnit and Twill (both written in Python)

Technorati Tags: python, ajax, winforms, mono, django, visual webgui, mindquarry, gnome, conduit

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http://[^\?]*/

Thanks to this regex site. Of course, it’s not well tested but it did what I needed it to.

Technorati Tags: regex, urls

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