I Want You For BeerEnthusiasts
I am working on an open source project called BeerEnthusiasts with Tristan and Jordan and we need a volunteer to help us with the front-end development of the site. You can find out more information about BeerEnthusiasts here but I will give a quick overview of the project. BeerEnthusiasts is a site for homebrewers to upload, share and rate brewing recipes. The whole project is open sourced and built using open source tools. You can follow the project on GitHub. We currently have some mock ups of a few of the main pages done by Tim Toomey. He did an awesome job and I can’t wait to put out a site to show off his kick-ass work. We have a little bit of the mockups translated into web pages done by Cezar. Unfortunately, Cezar doesn’t have the availability to help right now. This is where you come in if you happen to enjoy beer, HTML/CSS and JavaScript. We are looking for a volunteer to help with this project and work on the front-end of the site. If you are interested please contact me and let me know.
Weaving Together Fabric, SSH Key Based Logins and Sudo
A tool I have really come to appreciate has been Fabric. It is a Python library and command line tool for simplifying the use of SSH in system administration. A common use for Fabric is with software deployment. However, I use it for simplifying some of my more menial system administration tasks. Currently I am working on a tool for handling remote updates of our various servers. One problem I ran into was with Fabric and ssh key based logins not passing a password when running an application with sudo(). The problem is that since Fabric didn’t need to ask for a password to connect via ssh it never passed one for sudo(). The solution to the problem is to use python’s getpass module to prompt for a password. Below is a code example to show how this is done in a fabfile.py. This problem has been fixed in the the upcoming 1.0 version that can be checked out from GitHub. Sometime soon I will write a post with an introduction to fabric and some example usage.
1 2 3 4 | import getpass def update(): set(fab_password=getpass.getpass()) sudo('apt-get upgrade -s') |
My Bike is Finally ‘Finished’
This has been a long project, a lot longer than I thought it would have taken me but Project Delilah is completed. Project Delilah was the project of taking my orange rust colored Peugeot steel frame road bike into a great looking upgraded road bike. This project wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the help of Cezar and Zach. Cezar was there to give me a hand when it came to picking out parts and working on the bike and Zach helped me sand and paint the frame.
This was a major project as almost every piece of this bike was replaced. The only parts left from when I originally bought the bike from Working Bikes are the frame, headset and handlebars. This project started out of necessity as parts started failing after buying it used from Working Bikes. The first thing replaced was the drive train with a new to me crank set and rear derailer. Then after getting hit by a car my rear wheel was bent so I needed to get a new rear wheel. At that time I decided to just buy a replacement wheel. After this I decided I was going to start undertaking the project of a total makeover of my bike. I started by painting my bike because I really didn’t like the rust orange color with all the decals. I wanted a nice bright color with a little bit of pop. I decided I wanted the frame painted kelly green with silver metal flake. This paint job did a great job of pulling together all the components that were black, silver and chrome. The paint job was done by my friend Zach and me. We first had to strip down and sand the frame and then prime and paint it. We did this at my Dad’s shop down state and it was a lot of fun.
After the frame was finished, the next task was to start upgrading the components of the bike. I replaced the black vinyl grip tape with some black standard grip tape. I also upgraded the drive train with a new rear derailer and cassette. The major upgrade was the purchase of a new wheel set. I bought a set of Mavik Akisums along with a pair of gator skin tires. I have to give credit to Cezar and West Town bikes for helping me do all the work during this phase of the project. Cezar was also a great help in picking out the right parts. The last piece in this puzzle was replacing the old brake levers. I didn’t like the look of the old levers and they didn’t really work well for the way I rode. I replaced these with a pair of black interrupters from Blue City Cycles. They were super friendly and did a great job on the install.
Now my bike is ‘finished’ but I still have a wish list of items that I would like to upgrade. First on the list is a set of delta locking skewers for my wheels and then probably a new saddle. You can view pictures from this project on my Flickr page.
Google and iPhone Now With Even More AWESOME
Earlier this week Google released Google Sync. This allows mobile devices to sync google calendar and contacts over the air using Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. Why do I care about this? I care because now I don’t have to use a third party Exchange Server to get push syncing for my calendar and contacts on my iPhone. I was a little wary of syncing my contacts with GMail at first because I was afraid that all of those automatically added email addresses in GMail would be added as contacts on my phone. However, this is not the case. Only those you have explicitly added as contacts in GMail will get synced to your phone.
My current syncing situation was that I would sync my Calendar with Google Calendar by using NuevaSync and then I was just backing up my contacts to Apple’s AddressBook on my Macbook. I really only did this as a backup for my contacts since I only need the info on my phone. Here are the steps I used to get my phone working with the new Google Sync.
- Backup Calendar and Contacts: You will lose any calendars and contacts on your phone when you setup your phone to sync with Goolge. I didn’t backup my calendar since I was already syncing it with my Goolge Calendar via NuevaSync. My contacts were backed up by syncing them with AddressBook via iTunes.
- Setup Your iPhone to Sync With Google Sync: I followed the steps found here.
- Migrate Your Contacts to GMail: After you finish setting up the syncing you will notice that all of your contacts are gone. Well we need to migrate our contacts from AddressBook to GMail. I used A to G to accomplish this task. What it will do is export your contacts as a CSV list that you can then import into GMail.
- Profit: Now if you check your contacts or calendar on your phone they will be the same as on Google Calendar and in GMail. Any changes you make on your phone will be pushed to Google Calendar or GMail and vice versa.
ChicagoLUG Meeting February 7th at 3:00pm
The Chicago GNU/Linux User Group will be having our next meeting on February 7th at 3:00pm. We will be meeting at the Institute of Design (350 N. LaSalle Ave, Floor 2 Room 201). This location is accessible via CTA trains as well as a parking garage across the street with parking for $8.
WHAT: Chicago GNU/Linux User Group Meeting
WHEN: February 7th at 3:00pm
WHERE: Institute of Design (350 N. LaSalle Ave, Floor 2 Room 201)
TOPICS:
- Tool and Tips to Help Market Yourself (Kevin Harriss)
- This presentation will introduce some tools and tips that people can use to help market themselves so they can get the job that they want.
- Remember the Milk (Jim Campbell)
- An overview of the the web-based task manager, Remember the Milk.
- Miro (Christopher Allan Webber)
- An introduction to Miro a free, open source Internet TV and video player.
- What is a Hackerspace (Ishmael Rufus)
- An introduction to the basics of what hackerspaces are and why they are created which would lead into talking about the project in Chicago Pumpingstation One.
Ubuntu Global Bug Jam Setup Meeting
Today at the Chicago GNU/Linux User Group meeting the Ubuntu Chicago LoCo will be helping people get setup for the Ubuntu Global Bug Jam. We will be helping people setup and learn to use launchpad, create gpg keys, sign the Ubuntu code of conduct and show them how to work with ubuntu bugs. We ask that people bring a computer with ubuntu installed on it or have ubuntu in a virtual machine to use. The meeting will be taking place at the Institute of Design in Room 201 at 3:00pm. Please make sure to be on time as we will be starting promptly at 3:00pm.
WHAT: Ubuntu Global Bug Jam Setup Meeting
WHEN: Saturday, January 17 @ 3:00pm
WHERE: Institute of Design (350 N. LaSalle Ave., Chicago IL) Floor 2 Room 201
I hope to see everyone there and ready to help make linux even better.
Chicago LUG is Now on Twitter
So I finally got around to setting up an account for the Chicago GNU/Linux User Group on twitter. I will use the account to post information about our meetings, along with general linux news. If you are on twitter and have any questions about linux, our group or our meetings feel free to shoot me a question @chicagolug. You can find our profile page here. I look forward to interacting you some new and familiar faces via twitter.
Slicehost is My New Favorite Hosting Company
So for a project I am working on with some of my friends we were looking for a hosting solution. We decided that we didn’t need a big beefy dedicated server so I went out looking for a VPS host. In the end, I narrowed it down to 2 providers and they were Linode and Slicehost. After looking them over and reading customer reviews I decided to go with Slicehost and boy am I happy that I choose them. Linode had a slight edge in the cost factor, we would have gotten a little more performance for the money. They both had similar outstanding customer reviews. So the real deciding factors that made me go with Slicehost was their outstanding feature set. Here are some of the features that really impressed me.
- Super Quick Setup: They advertise that upon purchase your slice will be created and you will be able to access it in 2 minutes. This is true, within 2 minutes I had the ip address and root password for our slice.
- Great Documentation: They offer some excellent guides to help people setup and secure there server. This is a great resource especially for people that are looking for a hosting solution but might not be the most experienced System Administrator.
- Super Simple and Clean Management Interface: Everything I would need to manage my slice and just that is available in their management interface. It has the ability to resize, restart, rename, backup, restore your slice as well as managing DNS for your slice. There is also a web based console to connect to your slice. However, some other hosting solutions offer everything under the sun in the management console, like updating and managing the OS on the slice. I find that this just clutters the management interface, especially since I can do all that via the command line. Some user might find this lack of system OS management a negative but for me this is a huge positive.
- Management API: Along with a super simple and clean management interface they offer an api to manage your slice. This has to be enable in the management interface to allow API access. The API is well documented and they try to maintain a stable API.
- iPhone Management App: Since the have an open API someone has written an app for the iPhone to allow you to manage your slice. This is awesome since I don’t allows have a computer on me but my phone is always on me, so if something comes up and I need to resize or restart my slice I can from my phone.
- Pool Bandwidth Across Slices: Currently we only have one slice but in the future we will most likely have multiple slices and when we do all the bandwidth limits of our slices will be added together in a pool. This is nice if you have one slice that does very little bandwidth and another slice that is pushing the bandwidth limits since you can in a sense share bandwidth. Also you don’t lose money by wasting unused bandwidth.
Beer Project Looking for Web Design Help
Are you a beer enthusiast? Do you have an interest in home brewing beer? If so then now is your lucky day, I am working with a group to help improve on-line collaboration between home brewers and general beer enthusiasts and we are looking for some help. We also plan to help educate people about craft beers as well as introduce them to new craft beers. We are currently looking for a web designer to help translate our ideas into the web interface for the site. We are unavailable to pay someone for this work, but will be more than happy to treat you to some tasty beverages. This would be a good opportunity for someone looking to get some experience in web design. If you are interested in helping us out please contact me. Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think might be interested.
Migrating to OpenOffice3
At my current job we are evaluating if we could migrate all staff, faculty and lab computers to OpenOffice3 and away from Microsoft Office. I have a few questions that I haven’t been able to find solid answer for so I am turning to the loyal internet.
- Are there plans for a OpenOffice3 English version for OS X PPC? Currently the latest version is 2.4.0.
- Have you experienced or heard any major problems when saving to microsoft file formats as default? I would like to migrate to an open document standard but since we interact with other departments and companies that wouldn’t be able to open them we have to stick with the microsoft formats for now.
- How different is the work flow of OpenOffice3 from that of Office2003? My boss and I don’t find the work flow very different but we only scratch the surface of the tools?
- What benefits would you express to users to convince them to use OpenOffice3? They don’t care about the freedom but cost is a selling point. Also the fact that they can open OOXML files is a big plus since we have updated to the latest office suite yet.
We are currently testing it out on a few computers but hope to have a wide release after we answer some of these questions. If all goes well we will have another success story for Open Source software.
