Essentially,

• wget usb-storage.ko
• insmod usb-storage.ko
• mkdir /mnt/usb1
• mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb2 /mnt/usb1

You can find out what device was attached by looking in dmesg after plugging in the device.

If builds of PostgreSQL 9 are failing and you have version 8.x installed,
you may need to remove the previous version first. See:

https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/issues/issue/2510

To build plpython against a specific Python, set PYTHON prior to brewing:
PYTHON=/usr/local/bin/python brew install postgresql
See:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/install-procedure.html

# Create/Upgrade a Database

If this is your first install, create a database with:
initdb /usr/local/var/postgres -E utf8

To migrate existing data from a previous major version (pre-9.2) of PostgreSQL, see:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/upgrading.html

# Start/Stop PostgreSQL

If this is your first install, automatically load on login with:
mkdir -p ~/Library/LaunchAgents
cp /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.1/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist

If this is an upgrade and you already have the homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist loaded:
launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist
cp /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.1/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist

Or start manually with:
pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -l /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log start

And stop with:
pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres stop -s -m fast

# Loading Extensions

By default, Homebrew builds all available Contrib extensions. To see a list of all
available extensions, from the psql command line, run:
SELECT * FROM pg_available_extensions;

To load any of the extension names, navigate to the desired database and run:
CREATE EXTENSION [extension name];

For instance, to load the tablefunc extension in the current database, run:
CREATE EXTENSION tablefunc;

For more information on the CREATE EXTENSION command, see:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/sql-createextension.html

For more information on extensions, see:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/contrib.html

# Other

Some machines may require provisioning of shared memory:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/kernel-resources.html#SYSVIPC

To install postgresql (and ossp-uuid) in 32-bit mode:
brew install postgresql –32-bit

If you want to install the postgres gem, including ARCHFLAGS is recommended:
env ARCHFLAGS=”-arch x86_64″ gem install pg

The problem is that Werkzeug which handles Flask’s routing request URLs to views, is very particular. The request hostname must match the SERVER_NAME configuration in Flask. As a result, if you have the SERVER_NAME set to ‘myserver.mydomain.com’ it will throw a 404 if you send your request to http://myserver/, even though the application successfully gets the request because the network, nginx and uWSGI are all smart enough to know that they are the same thing.

Digging through the Werkzeug source I found the following:

    if 'HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST' in environ:
        return environ['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST']
    elif 'HTTP_HOST' in environ:
        return environ['HTTP_HOST']
    result = environ['SERVER_NAME']
    if (environ['wsgi.url_scheme'], environ['SERVER_PORT']) not \
       in (('https', '443'), ('http', '80')):
        result += ':' + environ['SERVER_PORT']
    return result

At first I was trying to set the SERVER_NAME WSGI param in nginx but as you can see from the above, it falls down through HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST, HTTP_POST, and then finally SERVER_NAME.

Here is the new server section of my nginx config:

    server {
        listen 80;

        server_name myserver.mydomain.com;
        charset utf-8;
        index index;

        location / {
            uwsgi_pass  unix:///tmp/uwsgi.sock;
            include     uwsgi_params;
            uwsgi_param SCRIPT_NAME '';
            uwsgi_param HTTP_HOST $server_name;
            uwsgi_intercept_errors on; # let nginx serve error_page
        }
    }

Now everything works. I can request using either the sub-domain or the FQDN.

This repeats much of what can already be found on many sites on the internet but this is my attempt at writing down the steps to setup vim for my liking so that I can repeat it. Also, this is very much a work in progress and a living document.

• install the latest of MacVim or gvim if a Linux user (and ensure that python and ruby support is compiled in for later plugins by adding the following switches to configure: –enable-pythoninterp –enable-rubyinterp. MacVim will come with these out of the box.)
• install pathogen to manage all subsequent plugins
  Now you can just cd into .vim/bundle and clone things from git. For example cd ~/.vim/bundle
  git clone git://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive.git
• install fugative for git integration
• install command-t for easy file opening (notes: requires ruby support – see notes above. Also, once git cloned you must read the README.txt file because the files must be compiled. Finally, I find this to be a faster way to open files on disk than a filesystem explorer like NERDTree)
• install ack.vim to have access to ack directly in vim (see Ag below … it is superior)
• install ag.vim to have access to ag directly in vim (need to first install ag via brew install the_silver_searcher)
• install vim-javascript for better auto indentation
• install jslint.vim if you are doing javascript
• install taglist.vim (requires exuberant ctags – brew install ctags-exuberant – this will allow you to press ctrl-p to do command completion as well as :TlistToggle to get a code structure viewer – but I couldn’t get it to work)
• install the colour scheme vividchalk.vim (a black background theme)
• install the colour scheme mayansmoke (a pale, less harsh on tired eyes theme)
• install flake8 for syntax checking and PEP8 gestapo-ing (note requires python support – see note above and you must first pip install flake8)
• install powerline for the most kick ass status line (must do brew install fontforge) – read the fontpatcher/README.rst file to get the proper font – note that I have had a hell of a time installing fontforge on OS X Mountain Lion. And if you want a super nice font try Source Code Pro. You can find a Powerline version of this font in github. It is an Adobe font and they give instructions on how to install on Mac OS X. On Linux just git clone the powerline compiled version from github into your ~/.fonts directory. You can find out the official name of it in Linux’s character map utility

Overall this is a good list from over on Quora

I don’t know Dave McClure personally but wikipedia describes him as “a prominent angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area.” That description and the mere fact that Dave McClure has a wikipedia page suggests that he is a pretty damn successful guy. Therefore, his post bemoaning his lack of accomplishments comes across as disingenuous. Given his age, the post is obviously his reflection on the first half of his life and his admission that he has not lived up to his own internal expectations. I can respect that. He is my contemporary and I have had those very same feelings. But I found the tone of his post horribly off.

I am guessing that my net worth is considerably less than Dave’s and I would never write a post saying I have only made “a little bit of money.” Even at my net worth (read not zero) I know that I am extremely fortunate in comparison to the vast majority of people on this planet. But I don’t live in Silicon Valley. It must be hard to have perspective when your neighbours are Mark Zuckerberg and the like. Dave is still maintaining that he is not rich but I have a hard time believing him.

I don’t begrudge Dave his ambition and nor do I want him to “settle” for what he has already accomplished (which is a hell of a lot.) And I definitely don’t hate him. If he ever comes to Vancouver I would gladly buy him a beer (apparently he likes beer.)

I understand that great things only come from people pushing themselves to become great. We should all strive to be our very best but some perspective wouldn’t hurt either. Therefore, I can’t wish Dave luck. I would like to reserve my luck wishing to those who truly need it.

- can you describe it one very short and succinct sentence?
- can you describe the value it provides users/society in one very short succinct sentence?
- stripped of all fluff (bells, whistles, and whiz-bang things that are purely there for marketing purposes) is it still valuable?
- stripped of all fluff can you differentiate it from competitors? (again, in a very short, succinct sentence)

I am a believer in minimum viable product (MVP). Valuable ideas and or products can express themselves in minimal viable product form. Others can not. And that is it’s essence.

I have heard the argument that minimal products can not compete because, in general, the bar has been raised too high for web applications. The argument against MVP follows that a product must have polish to be successful. Yes, a product must have polish to be widely accepted, but what we are searching for is merely a viable product. This is the proof that it provides value. Therefore, don’t waste your time trying to build the Taj Mahal because you may very well just be putting lipstick on a pig.

Far too often people go about creating a startup simply because they want to create a startup, not because they actually think they have an idea that is viable. Now, I don’t actually have anything against this approach, and in fact, I encourage it if you have the time and have nothing to lose. However, do it to learn how to create a startup, not because you think you will become the next Mark Zuckerberg. And here is the formula:

1. throw something against the wall
2. see if it sticks
3. goto 1

Anyway, I thought I would give myself a challenge and run wordpress behind nginx. The formula is to proxy nginx to php-cgi. This worked fine but was horribly unstable as the php-cgi process goes down quite often. The problem was running spawn-fcgi from init.d. It needed to be run from a proper process manager. As luck would have it, I had supervisord already running to monitor uwsgi.

I wish I would have stumbled across this post from Grig Gheorghiu, as it would have saved me a lot of effort. Funny how he is also a python guy.

Anyway without further ado, click through to see all locations in BC where a marijuana grow operation was found by the police in the last year. And here is the raw data.

The visualization shows a circle at the location and the size is proportional to how many plants were seized. A scaling factor was applied to the circles so that they are still visible, and proportional, at all zoom levels.

Also, don’t be surprised if the whole thing comes crashing down because this was thrown together as an experiment.

The root cause of this error is the python-meld3 library and the following import statement:

from xml.etree.ElementTree import fixtag

The problem has been fixed in version 0.6.7 of python-meld3. Therefore, before you install supervisor, do the following on the command line as root:

aptitude install python-meld3
pip install meld3==0.6.7

The above will install version 0.6.5 of python-meld3 and then pip will upgrade it to the latest. You can then install supervisor without any problems.

If you want you can read the gory details of the problem in python-meld3.

I recently implemented such a feature using jQuery’s hover event handler and pulled my hair out trying to test the functionality with Selenium. I went down a complete rat hole trying trigger the event within selenium using the getEval method and passing in custom javascript code. What a nightmare. That is, until I really sat down and thought about it.

Remember that Selenium doesn’t actually control the pointer in the browser but drives the browser through javascript. Therefore, unlike a true mouse event that may trigger a number of events, Selenium’s mouseOver just triggers mouseover on the element. Now, if you have used jQuery’s hover then you are binding your functionality to mouseenter and mouseleave not mouseover and mouseout.

Therefore, if you wish to test with Selenium, do not use jQuery’s hover method and bind your functionality to mouseover and mouseout.

Note that many older browsers do not support mouseenter and mouseleave as this was introduced by Microsoft and was not immediately adopted by the others. There is also a big difference in their behaviour and propagation in the event model. mouseover and mouseout bubble up whereas mouseenter and mouseleave do not bubble up.