Matt Croydon::Postneo

Month: January 2003

  • Outlook Aggregator

    From: Matt Croydon
    To: Greg Reinacker
    Re: Outlook Aggregator

    Hell yeah!

    –Matt

  • Coloco

    Interesting.

    I clicked on an ad at Slashdot this afternoon.  At first I thought that it was an ad for Rackspace, but it was for a company called Coloco.  Aparently they’re fairly close to me in Laurel, Maryland.  Their prices seem quite good ($50/mo for 1U colo for example).  I might have to figure out a way to justify this.  I wonder if they’re looking for any sysadmin monkeys.

  • Herbix

    Herbix 1.0-67 has been released.  Herbix is a floppy linux distro that packs http, ftp, smtp, dhcp, and irc daemons and a boatload of functionality onto that 1.44MB.  Looks like a good thing to have in your pocket if you want to serve on the go without disrupting your friend’s hard drive.  Mor details are on the freshmeat page for Herbix.

  • Mail::Box

    Ripped from the pages of Use Perl; soon to be a TV miniseries:

    Over the last 7 months, a generous grant from the Dutch NLnet Foundation enabled me to improve Mail::Box: a large module for e-mail handling. Mail::Box is designed as modern alternative to MailTools, MIME::Entity, Mail::Folder, and many more CPAN modules.

    Now it is time to reconsider and plan for the future. I would like to hear which features you need more before you upgrade your (MailTools based?) applications to Mail::Box. Could you drop me or the Mail::Box mailing list a note why you are using (or could not use) Mail::Box? With a list of users, usage, and wishes, the funding may be extended. Other conbributions are welcomed as well.”

  • Other People’s Links

    Garth Kidd has a good Python roundup (you can run it on an AS/400).

    Mark wraps up a bunch of quickies in a post titled In Brief.  What, no boxers?

  • 3.141592653589793/and/your/mother’s/ugly

    Mark is an RSS bandit:

    Dare, we don’t bother validating version numbers. You could publish an RSS feed version=”3.141592653589793/and/your/mother’s/ugly” and it would validate. In fact, I think I’m going to go do that.

  • Rdflib 1.2.0

    Phillip Pearson notes the latest release of rdflib for Python:

    rdflib 1.2.0 is now the latest stable release of Daniel ‘eikeon‘ Krech’s Python RDF parser/generator.

    This is amusing mostly because I started poking around the 1.1.5 development release a few days ago.

  • The Web Services Paradox

    Phil Waineright uncovers the web services paradox:

      1. They work because they use established, universal standards

        and yet

      2. They produce the best results in unanticipated circumstances.

  • Cable/DSL Routers

    For the record, the Netgear RP614 Cable/DSL Router was extremely easy to install and is quite configurable.  It was on sale with rebates this week.

  • Web Services Success

    Doug Kaye points to an article by Nick Evans highlights 10 hurdles to web services success.

  • RPC::XML 0.46

    RPC::XML 0.46 is out.  Changes to this version include makefile fixes, signature handling cleanups, and fixes to the uri() client method.

  • Heads

    Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead):

    We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.

    Heads.

    Heads.

    Heads.

    Heads.

    Heads.

  • I’m FOAFed

    Here’s my logic.  I figured that if Russell got around to FOAFing himself, it was time for me to do the same.  Here’s my FOAF, I’ll put it in my template over the weekend.  I’ll also add more FOAFers that I read.

    IAAM: I am Acronym Man.

    A little hackery with Python and rdflib is in order.

  • Derivative Works

    LinuxJournal discusses derivative works.  It made my head spin, though getting sick might have something to do with it.

  • Welcome to the Collective

    Sam Ruby to Ken Coar:

    Welcome to the collective.  Joe created a tasty morsel.  You picked it up and put a copy in your pile, with a rich pheromone trail back to the source.  Now others can do likewise.  This even works with two year old nuggets that are quickly picked  up by others and dropped into their piles.

  • Caterpillar

    Masukomi has released Caterpillar:

    Caterpillar is my latest creation. I took ThinRSS and gutted it. Now it can be modified to read and display ANY XML document that can be conceptually broken up into a series of items, like RSS and RDF news feeds.

  • Python Tweakings

    I snagged the latest IDLEfork this morning and updated my ftplib example to download something smaller than a 5 meg file.  It worked great on my dev box on cable, but it took a long time on a box at work running DSL, and I thought of the poor dialup users.  That’s fixed, it now downloads a file that is a couple of hundred k.

    I like IDLEfork so far, it seems to perform well.  I wound up having 4 or 5 windows open at one point, as it seems to spawn a new window for each file opened or script run.  I like progress though.

  • Toronto and Texas

    Good luck, Jim.

  • Modified Foosball Tables and Darboards

    Slashdot points to a pretty cool Foosball mod.  It is connected to a computer running Macromedia Director which keeps score on an LCD screen.  This project can only be eclipsed by the Dartboard IP project at Harvard.  It features a much more over-engineered system and projecting information semi-relatime back onto the dartboard.

    While searching for the original article (which aired Feb 20, 2002), I also stumbled upon a ‘weblog’ post about spending 16 hours in a Home Depot. I know that I pointed to it in my journal at the time, but it’s really amusing to have two things randomly associated via Google.  The kid who did the Home Depot stay is a teenager, so expect a potty mouth.  You have been warned.

    6:35AM: I like the light aisle. Have a funny feeling that I will be spending a lot of time here.
    7:10AM: There are many birds inside the store. This is getting very scary.

  • Python Ftplib Example

    This evening I wrote a simple script that hopefully explains Python’s ftplib a little bit more than your typical example.  For some reason, I couldn’t find anything approaching a comprehensive example of using ftplib on the web.  This article is aimed at Python newbies who are looking to do something useful with ftplib.

    So here’s my first semi-in-depth piece of 2003: Beyond the Basic Python Ftplib Example.  You can also look at the GPL’d source: ftptest.py.  Don’t let the name fool you, it’s still very basic, just slightly more in-depth than current online tutorials.  Hopefully I’ll be able to expand upon this in the future.