Robin Smidsrød

perl

How to get a PSGI app running with mod_fastcgi on Ubuntu with Apache2

First make sure you activate the multiverse repository for apt. Then install the required modules (if you don't already have them enabled) sudo aptitude install libapache2-mod-fastcgi apache2-suexec Enable the fastcgi and rewrite modules: sudo a2enmod fastcgi sudo a2enmod rewrite Edit /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/fastcgi.conf and enable the

Software

Talk: Morality and Pragmatism in Free Software and Open Source

I just wanted to inform you about a talk I'll be making on my local college about the differences in philosophy of the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement. Feedback about content, accuracy etc. most wanted. The talk is mostly about summarizing the content of Dave

perl

Playing with Alias' new CPANDB

This is a somewhat simple query that identifies CPAN authors that use modules from the Test namespace in their runtime phase, according to the data from CPANDB. SELECT d.author, count(r.module) AS test_namespace_used_in_runtime_phase FROM requires r JOIN distribution d ON r.distribution = d.

Software

Deprecated code analyzer for perl

After reading NPEREZ's blog article DarkPAN SchmarkPAN -- STOP THE MEME, it suddenly comes to me: We need a tool that enable users to profile their codebase to verify if they are using any removed, deprecated or changed features of a new version of the perl interpreter. This

Software

Lets make a perl appreciation survey for the masses

This is a response to John Napiorkowski's article: Why All the Hate?Matt S. Trout was talking about the fact that we need to become better with marketing. I second that. One of the tools of marketeers is the survey. My suggestion is this: Why don't

Software

X11 forwarding to Ubuntu server not working with PuTTY and Xming?

I was stumped why I couldn't run X11 software on my Ubuntu server installation and have it forwarded through my SSH connection to my desktop Windows machine running Xming. The solution was to install the xauth package from the Ubuntu repositories: $ sudo aptitude install xauth Apparently installing an

Software

Memory footprint of popular CPAN modules

I was reading Jay Kuri's article about CGI alternatives the other day, and I got thinking. How much memory does these various modules for simple (or advanced) web serving use? After having looked through Mark Stosberg's article on startup penalties I was even more bewildered. It

American English

How to make sure class/instance methods are called in the right way

I was recently attending NPW09 and there I met several prominent members of the Perl community. It was a really exciting event for me. I feel like I learned more in two days then I could've learned from studying documentation for two months. One of the guys I

jquery

How to make an unordered list from a tree

Last week I showed you how to take an adjacency list in a database and turn it into a nicely indented textual output. Today I will show you how you can take that same (flat) data structure and turn it into an HTML unordered list (UL) using Template Toolkit. The

Education

Why Should I Learn This?

I was talking with my wife (which is a teacher) about how to make students want to learn a specific subject. My solution to the problem was that you have to make the student understand how learning the subject at hand can improve the quality of something they already enjoy

American English

Implementing a depth-first search in a PostgreSQL stored procedure using Perl

In this article I'm going to show you how do implement a depth-first search using a stored procedure written in Perl inside the PostgreSQL database server. Depth-first search is an advanced algorithm for quickly traversing all nodes in a tree (like, e.g., a filesystem). In this example

Software

How to setup an Atheros-based Access Point with WPA-PSK on Ubuntu 8.04 server

Install Ubuntu 8.04 server normally. I haven't tested it, but the desktop edition should also work, but remember to choose the right version of linux-restricted-modules for your setup and to remove the wifi interface from the NetworkManager setup. Login with your normal "admin" user. Get

Software

Catalyst: How to authenticate against OpenID and get roles from local DBIC

First you need to follow the Catalyst tutorial and enable the authentication and session layers. After that you need to install these two CPAN modules: # cpan install Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::OpenID # cpan install Catalyst::Authentication::Store::DBIx::Class, After that you need to add the following to myapp.yml. authentication:

Software

Follow these tips to boost Vista performance

A very good article about ways to make Windows Vista perform better on borderline hardware. I decided to keep only these settings activated in visual effects. It gives a nice balance between speed in good looks. * Show preview and filters in folder * Show thumbnails instead of icons * Show window contents

Hardware

How To Choose CD/DVD Archival Media

A very good dissertation about what kind of  writable optical media is the best. His suggestion about Taiyo Yuden DVD+R I'm sure going to follow. Recently I've had lots of issues with Verbatim DVD-R (MCC 03RG20), probably because of a slightly old firmware on my

Photography

The Fall of the Wall

I've submitted one of my pictures to the theme "Passport" in issue #13 of JPG Magazine. Why don't you follow the link and vote for it?

Photography

Caught in the Act

I've submitted one of my pictures to the theme "Gravity Powered" in issue #13 of JPG Magazine. Why don't you follow the link and vote for it?

Software

Inclusive Web Design with Progressive Enhancement

This is a very good presentation about the needs to use progressive enhancement instead of graceful degradation in web applications. This way you cater to the baseline users first, and create more advanced user interfaces for those that use more advanced browsers. Absolutely worth a read to all web developers.

Software

Ubuntu audio access for Active Directory users

By following the suggestions in this article and making sure that pam_group.so is before pam_winbind.so in /etc/pam.d/common-auth it works as intended. Finally I can have my local machines setup without local user accounts!

Software

Firebird 1.5 on Ubuntu Dapper - How to fix "operating system directive open failed" error

After installing Firebird 1.5 on Ubuntu Dapper I ran into a strang problem. I first installed firebird2-classic-server and everything worked. Then I installed firebird2-dev and suddenly I couldn't connect anymore to my database, not even locally as root. If the fixes in the article above doesn'

Software

ImgRed.com - Image Redirection

This is a simple but cool concept. Makes it really easy to hotlink pictures, even for newbies. Simple solution to a boring and tedious problem. I wonder how he does it backend to not eat up too much bandwidth and storage? Probably the url to the picture is stored, and

Personal

best of craigslist : Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It...

There is really not anything else to say. She says it all. A nerd is a good catch. Finally a good reason to be a nerd. :)

Education

Levels of HTML knowledge

This was an interesting article. I think I'm a level 5 for the most, and sometimes dwell into the state of a 6 on occasion. And I seem to always try and do something that is in a specification that is still not implemented unfortunately.

Software

FTFS Distributed Filesystem (PDF)

This seems like a really good research paper. They adhere to the VFS layer and implement the fact that you should be able to add nodes with any kind of storage at any time, without having to reformat the filesystem. This seems like a much better approach than MogileFS, considering

Software

How to partition Kingston 8GB USB flash drives

Update: It seems like I've been the victim of USB Flash Drive counterfeiting, according to this information. The method below does not work to fix the drives. Use the method suggested in that article instead. My USB drive showed up initially as 1099GB, and using the tool they