Subversion on Ubuntu (Feisty) with a Mac Client

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Subversion gets my ducks in a row

As part of a continuous effort to improve my organization (a.k.a. not lose stuff) I have finally set up Subversion at home. If you are not familiar with Subversion it is an open source version control system used (mostly) by developers to keep up with changes to their codebase.

I’ve spent most of my career as kind of a “one man team” where I have been responsible for all phases of development and maintenance of code. However, I was exposed to Subversion when I contracted briefly last year in a multi-developer environment. I made a mental note at that time to revisit Subversion at a later date.

At last that date has come…

Subversion is now running at home on an old Gateway pc that I recently “upgraded” from XP to Ubuntu. I’m a total newbie with Linux, but I’ll be posting some on it in the future. Thanks to this tutorial the process was ridiculously easy (less than 5 minutes).

The next step was to get an SVN client. My previous exposure to Subversion was in the Windows world so we used TortoiseSVN. I have a PowerBook and an iMac at home though so I hunted down scplugin which integrates with Mac Finder the way TortoiseSVN integrates with Windows Explorer.

Now I just have to get all my code checked in.

Comment yer code with myRev Dreamweaver Extension

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myRev logo

It’s March and amazingly I have stuck to one of my New Year’s Resolutions for work. What is that resolution you may or may not be asking? …Comment my frigging code.

Several years ago I fooled around with making a few little Dreamweaver Extensions. I pulled out an old one, dusted if off, pimped it up, and am providing it here for your benefit. It’s called myRev and it will insert a comment header for you (ideally you would insert it at the top of the page you are developing). Here is a sample of the output:


<!---
============================================================
File: SomeFile.cfm
Author: Christopher C. Simmons (CCS)
Date: 3.4.2008
Purpose: To perform some calculations
History: 0.1 Initial Release
============================================================
--->

You can use it with Coldfusion, PHP, CSS, JavaScript, or HTML. The header knows what comment style to use based on your choice in the Extension’s UI.

Here’s the fine print…

csimmons.net, LLC supplies this software AS IS and makes no guarantees for your use of it. csimmons.net, LLC is not responsible for any damage or pain the use of this product may cause you.

GET IT HERE (or by clicking the myRev icon above). To install it just unzip it and double click the myRev.mxp file. The Dreamweaver Extension manager will then install it.

I just took a huge cfdump

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cfdump top

Har har. Scatological humor and programming.

So I learned something today that I didn’t know even though I have been using Coldfusion for years. It’s kind of embarrassing actually. Everyone has used cfdump a million times to debug query output. Sometimes a query might return many records though and you don’t really need to see them all. Apparently there is a “top” attribute you can use to limit the number of rows returned. Nice.

Boot Camp + XP SP1 Disc = :-(

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I do some .NET work on a project where the developers all use Visual Studio. A few weeks ago I foolishly tried to install it onto Virtual PC on my Powerbook G4. Total no-go. The installation took hours and the program locked up indefinitely the first time I tried to run it.

So, I took the plunge last week and decided to load XP onto the new family iMac using Boot Camp. A slight (deal breaker) problem arose though as I was preparing for installation. I was disappointed to discover that the XP cd that came with our PC was SP1 and therefore not compatible with Boot Camp.

A few minutes of googling, however, revealed a process known as “slipstreaming” whereby you can download SP2, merge it with your SP1 files and burn the result to a new cd that will work with Boot Camp. At first glance the process seemed pretty involved, but ultimately it proved fairly simple to follow. Here is where I found it.

I did it one snag though…

The ultimate goal of the process is a bootable XP cd. The result of my slipstreaming, however, produced 722 MB of files, which is just barely too large to burn to cd (Note: the size of your slipstream depends on how much extra crap came on your SP1 cd). So, what could be trimmed from my project? I deleted the SBSI folder, which in it’s own words is:

“Microsoft (r) Windows XP Professional Step by Step Interactive is a multimedia, self-paced training product that uses a combination of simulations and informative topics to create an easy and flexible learning environment.”

Problem solved. Sliptream cd installed XP like a charm to the iMac.

Buy Some Art

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It’s the holiday season. Time to buy a gift for someone you [love/like/work with/live with/want to impress]. So what can you buy?

  1. gift card
  2. lap dance
  3. shiny brookstone gadget
  4. some freaking original art

Ok, a. – c. sound pretty good, but d. could last forever. Also, not only does it give your special someone a merry Christmas, but it can also put some coin in the stocking of a “starving artist”. Maybe you are saying to yourself “Gee, it sounds good, but I don’t know any starving artists.” Luckily for you, I do. Here’s a sample of some of his work:

Fairground

Landscape

Bullfight

If you like what you see here check out the artist’s web site: atlastglance.com. There are lots of paintings there for sale. Additionally, there are some prints available.

Leopard has no love for Belkin Flip

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I no longer love you

One of my favorite little pieces of hardware that is not an iPod or an iPhone, or anything else “i” is my Belkin Flip. It’s a handy little device that allows me to “flip” back and forth between two machines (including audio) with the press of a button. This little gadget has, or should I say “had” created a world of harmony for me allowing my pc and mac to share the same monitor and keyboard with minimal effort. Then I upgraded to Leopard.

I can count on one finger the number of times my mac has “crashed” in two years. Leopard + Flip = crash * every time you hit the button.

An email to Belkin support yielded the following direct quote:

“We are sorry to tell you that it is a compatible issue the Flip is compatible with MAC OS but since Leopard is the new OS.”

Hmmm… so… what exactly does this mean? How about a formal announcement Belkin?

500 Miles

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While it may not be much for celebrity marathoners like Lance Armstrong or Katey Holmes it’s an achievement for an out of shape dude in his 30’s. So here it is in all of its glory. Proof positive of my 500 mile accomplishment:

500 Miles

Just disregard that it apparently took me 75 hours to do it. I think I need to recalibrate my Nike +. That’s my story anyway. If you are so inclined feel free to dig the certificate as well.