Older blog entries for wez (starting at number 41)

CouchShare now on BitBucket

A few of my friends and associates may have heard me talk about the media server I've been running in my basement; I used to automatically transfer content from my tivo to a hard-disk in my basement so that I had more space for recordings on the tivo.  Since most of the recordings that I want to keep are now available via Hulu, I haven't had much call to use it in the last 6 months.

So, what is CouchShare?  It's a UPnP server that can share content from folder to an XBox 360 on your network.

It's written in PHP (and requires a tiny PHP extension to enable multicast support) and is written using the eventing framework that is part of the Alexandria codebase.

I wrote the code back in 2007 and it has served me well for a couple of years; it felt like it was about time I got off my backside and shared it with the world.

It is by no-means a polished bit of code; I think it's probably the sloppiest code I've written in quite some time, and it may well need a couple of tweaks to make an easier application out of it.

continue reading …

Syndicated 2009-06-08 02:56:48 from Evil, as in Dr.

toshiba hotkeys on solaris

Update: moved code to http://bitbucket.org/wez/toshutils/

Friday evening I sat down and wrote my first piece of solaris kernel code and an associated user-space application that activates the brightness up/down hotkeys for the LCD on my Toshiba Satellite M30.

I implemented a tosh_hci driver that can perform Toshiba Hardware Configuration Interface traps via an ioctl(2). This driver is really simple; the hardest part being the intel assembly needed to perform the trap (technically an inb instruction, not a trap).

The userspace code is a really slimmed down version of the code that I previously made available in my patch to the linux acpid. It currently only handles the LCD brightness keys because none of the features that the other hotkeys are supposed to invoke are currently supported by solaris/opensolaris.

Anyhoo, I've made the source available, under the CDDL, in a bundle here for any other toshibans that might like to get a bit more comfort factor back when running solaris.

Syndicated 2009-06-08 01:13:22 from Evil, as in Dr.

Dead laptop disk == more linux hacking

Update2: moved code to http://bitbucket.org/wez/toshkey/overview/

Update acpid now handles the brightness controls, displays the battery status in the ps list and emits power warnings once you're down to 15 minutes of power. I've also added a little non-root acpid client that will allow you to run your own stuff in response to hotkey events.

I suffered a dead (nearly; it's on its way out) laptop disk almost a week ago, and have been clawing my way back to normality.

As a side effect, I now own a Toshiba Satellite M30, which apparently has slightly more linux friendly hardware than my other Satellite (the one that's having issues).

One of the cool things is the toshiba_acpi module; it works in this model and allows access to the hotkeys so you can map them exactly as you like. Since running a standalone daemon for this sucks (you can choose either a python script or a slightly-overweight fnfxd), and since there was a feature request on the ToshibaAcpiDriver page for it, I've written this patch that adds toshiba key support to acpid (1.0.3).

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Syndicated 2009-06-08 01:09:27 from Evil, as in Dr.

Whirlwhind review of php|tek 09

It's been a simultaneously long and fast week for me. I flew into Chicago last Sunday, ready for the PHP core developers meeting that we had planned for the Monday and Tuesday. My journey went like a charm; perfect timing had me parked at the airport, immediately on the shuttle bus to the terminal, straight through security and to my gate just in time to start boarding. The only minor hiccough was in finding the shuttle from Chicago to the hotel; it was extremely poorly sign-posted.

Anyway, I got to the hotel and ran into the British contingent of the conference, and we eventually found our way to a Mexican restaurant not far from the hotel, and then to the bar across several lanes of traffic from the hotel, where a fair quantity of alcohol was consumed by all.

The next day we headed downtown to the Microsoft offices for day 1 of the core developer meeting, where a number of internals issues around PHP 6 were discussed. This was a very productive session, and we earned the drinks that followed at the Map Room, although I opted out of the bulk of those and headed back to the hotel (yes, I'm getting old)

Tuesday was day 2 of the core developer meeting, and thankfully was held in the conference hotel; the journey downtown took the better part of an hour and I was glad to skip it. The agenda for this day was to look primarily at what we could clean up in the code for PHP 6 and whether we might need to introduce a PHP 5.4 to aid in that transition.

We also touched on PDO 2; the short of it is that it might be about time to see if the vendors are willing to play with us again, and where the original plan was to have all the major vendors on board, we may well be looking at cutting out the less flexible vendors from the baseline PHP distribution. I'll do what I can to help facilitate a PDO 2, but don't anticipate having much free time in the coming months.

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Syndicated 2009-05-24 07:03:42 from Evil, as in Dr.

Getting IT Done

The slides from my "Getting IT Done" session at php|tek can be found on slideshare.net; Enjoy!

PS: I would be grateful if you were there and could rate the talk on joind.in

Syndicated 2009-05-23 22:54:08 from Evil, as in Dr.

Getting IT Done

The slides from my "Getting IT Done" session at php|tek can be found on slideshare.net.

Enjoy!

Syndicated 2009-05-20 22:15:01 from Evil, as in Dr.

Seven Things

I'm usually no big fan of chain letters (it's the "or-else" part that I object to), but this current 7-things-tag going around is pretty benign, and I think it's a great way to get some insight into the people you're reading. Thanks to Elizabeth Smith for tagging me.

Anyway, here's some facts about me that you may not know:

  1. I have 6 siblings: 1.5 brothers and 2 sisters.
  2. I used to live in Spain and crossed the border to Gibraltar twice daily getting to and from school.
  3. I taught myself 6502 machine code on the C64 when I was 10. 'C' had to wait until I finally got my own Amiga at the age of 17; by that time it was already obsolete, but I'd dreamed of it for so long. The biggest barrier for learning 'C' for me was the sheer quantity of bad Intuition code examples floating around on Fish Disks and Aminet.
  4. I studied Electronic Systems Engineering at The University of York, where I discovered my first Unix system (IRIX) and had to retake my first year exam as a result of spending too much time in the "Spod Pit" (a room filled with Indigo workstations). In retrospect, that "inappropriate" use of time was instrumental in shaping my career.
  5. I once rolled into a 9 a.m. computer lab assessment with my partner wearing tuxedos after partying all night at a graduation ball. The lab supervisor said "let's assess you first, as you look like you've got places to go". (We aced that assessment; preparation was key).
  6. I've moved home on average about once every 2.5 years of my life, making my time in the USA one of the longer periods in one spot.
  7. I've been told that I have a distinctive look, which is probably largely due to my long hair. In the late 80's, early 90's, I used to have a flat top. Then I discovered Guns'n'Roses and Metallica and haven't worn my hair short since.

As for chaining, in no particularly significant order:

continue reading …

Syndicated 2009-01-03 05:41:29 from Evil, as in Dr.

Seven Things

I'm usually no big fan of chain letters (it's the "or-else" part that I object to), but this current 7-things-tag going around is pretty benign, and I think it's a great way to get some insight into the people you're reading. Thanks to Elizabeth Smith for tagging me.

Anyway, here's some facts about me that you may not know:

  1. I have 6 siblings: 1.5 brothers and 2 sisters.
  2. I used to live in Spain and crossed the border to Gibraltar twice daily getting to and from school.
  3. I taught myself 6502 machine code on the C64 when I was 10. 'C' had to wait until I finally got my own Amiga at the age of 17; by that time it was already obsolete, but I'd dreamed of it for so long. The biggest barrier for learning 'C' for me was the sheer quantity of bad Intuition code examples floating around on Fish Disks and Aminet.
  4. I studied Electronic Systems Engineering at The University of York, where I discovered my first Unix system (IRIX) and had to retake my first year as a result of spending too much time in the "Spod Pit" (a room filled with Indigo workstations). In retrospect, that "inappropriate" use of time was instrumental in shaping my career.
  5. I once rolled into a 9 a.m. computer lab assessment with my partner wearing tuxedos after partying all night at a graduation ball. The lab supervisor said "let's assess you first, as you look like you've got places to go". (We aced that assessment; preparation was key).
  6. I've moved home on average about once every 2.5 years of my life, making my time in the USA one of the longer periods in one spot.
  7. I've been told that I have a distinctive look, which is probably largely due to my long hair. In the late 80's, early 90's, I used to have a flat top. Then I discovered Guns'n'Roses and Metallica and haven't worn my hair short since.

As for chaining, in no particularly significant order:

continue reading …

Syndicated 2009-01-03 04:57:57 from Evil, as in Dr.

Impressions of the Amazon Kindle

Technorati Tags: Toys

I treated myself to a Kindle a couple of months ago, and I'm pleased to say that I've been enjoying it a lot.  I've read just over a half-dozen books on it so far; some at home and some while traveling.

At first, the page turning buttons are a little frustrating because it is very easy to accidentally press them.  This is something you train yourself not to do in pretty short order.

The screen is very clear and easy to read, and has a configurable font size to cater for the eagle eyed through to the bleary eyed.  There's no back light, so you need to provide your own illumination, just as you would for a regular dead-tree book.

I've found it very easy to read.  I'd read in some reviews that the visible page refresh takes a second or so when you turn a page, and that some people found that annoying.  I view that as being equivalent to actually turning a page and giving your eyes a moment or so to move back up to the top left of the screen.  I've started to press the "next page" button as I'm reading the last line; this is an unconscious action.

continue reading …

Syndicated 2008-10-22 04:03:09 from Evil, as in Dr.

Wanted: Senior Backend Web Engineer

I'm looking for a senior-level engineer to help extend the web-based dashboards for our messaging infrastructure platform.

This position reports directly to me.

While we don't face the traditional scale-to-the-world types of problems in our web UI, we do face some difficult UI and data scalability challenges.

If you're interested, please contact me via jobs@messagesystems.com.

Job Description

continue reading …

Syndicated 2008-09-11 17:26:56 from Evil, as in Dr.

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