Rußecke

Posted in Computing on November 26, 2008.

Version 0.4-1 of site-upload has been released. This is the first version I am releasing publicly, but I have actually been using this tool for many years to upload changes to various websites that I maintain. It works easily and quickly form the command-line, which is handy when making changes on my home server remotely.

Changes

Initial public release.
Major clean-up of the code.
Do not delete remote files if they are now being ignored.
Add --start-path and --norecurse to allow fast uploads of large sites when little has changed.
Allow command-line options to properly override config file options.
Fix logic for boolean config options.Only check the checksum if the modification time changed.

LIRC module Debian packages for 2.6.27 kernels

Posted in Computing on November 21, 2008.

"LIRC is a package that allows you to decode and send infra-red signals of many (but not all) commonly used remote controls."

It seems that any time I try to use the Debian LIRC modules source package, it is too old to build against the kernel I am trying to use. I have updated the 0.8.3 package currently found in Lenny and Sid to 0.8.4a. It will now build against Linux 2.6.27.

Source Packages

Binary Packages

What I have built with the above source. Unlikely to be useful to you, but here you go anyway...

New Meets Old

Posted in Computing on November 14, 2008.

While the "blog" part of WordPress is attractive for some things, there are still the more static parts of my old web site that I wanted to integrate somehow. I tested a few different themes and settled on pixeled by samk. I like the layout and how it uses categories to power the menu bar at the top. I also like the color scheme and artwork. It's a perfect throwback to the old site. Thank you, Sam!

I've taken categories further by using them as an engine to load static HTML pages and display them at the top of the first page in each category. This more-or-less emulates the layout of what I had before. It also allowed me to eliminate some cruft and reminded me about some things that need updating (not that I will). Still making changes, but this will work for now. Right now these static pages are stored with the theme itself. I may decide to switch to WP pages instead, though I am not quite ready to give up being able to update them locally and batch-upload them.

Sam released his theme under the GPL, so I am posting my derivative here.

Downgrade from Irritating Ibex

Posted in Computing on November 14, 2008.

Lately, I have not been as diligent in testing Ubuntu releases before upgrading my important machines. There are always some small hiccups, but most were fixed fairly easily. Upgrades to both Feisty and Gutsy went fairly well and didn't introduce any serious issues that I can remember. I had a few snags with Hardy on one or two machines, but once a few weeks went by and the flurry of updates subsided, it proved to be one of the more solid versions I have used to date.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Intrepid Ibex. The upgrade went OK, but it introduced a lot of issues with usability such that I have decided to downgrade at least one of my machines. The two main issues are:

Import Posts into WordPress with SimpleWXR

Posted in Computing on November 13, 2008.

After some experimentation with the WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) importer, I decided it was more trouble than it was worth. The importer requires too many details to create usable posts out of the basic "log" entires on my old website. Instead, I have taken the portion of Zack Preble's "CSV" Importer that interfaces with WordPress, fixed the database query problems for categories, and adapted it to a simple XML parser. Then it was a simple matter to write a Perl script that could parse the HTML and generate the XML files.

The XML tags are modeled after WXR and the following are supported:

<item>, <title>, <post_date>, <category>, <content>

Here is an example XML file.

Source

simplewxr-0.1.zip

Importation Experimentation

Posted in Computing on November 07, 2008.

Trying various ways to import my static website without having to do it by hand. Poked around with Zack Preble's "CSV" Importer. It works fine for short posts in plain text without carriage returns, but it's a bit lacking for more complicated stuff.

Right now I am trying to write a script that will generate WPX RSS formatted XML files that are good enough to import directly into WordPress.

Welcome to the 21st Century, Me.

Posted in Computing on November 06, 2008.

I've been resisting the trend to start a blog for almost a decade now, as I still sort of enjoyed "blogging" through the various esoteric corners of my old, vanilla website. However, I am finding less and less time to fiddle with HTML though ssh sessions. My brain is also getting such that I seem to forget where I keep things. This is my attempt to migrate the more useful parts of my partly living home website into a searchable blog-style site. We'll see how far I get before I give up!

Keyspan USB to Serial Converter Driver

Posted in Computing on October 29, 2008.

This driver source code and firmware was taken directly from the kernel.org sources and packaged as a kernel module. It supports several of the Keyspan "USA" Series USB to Serial converters. This driver was removed from official Debian kernel sources due to its change in status as "non-free" per the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). This was the result of some unclear language in the license found in the firmware header files.

I had invested in several of these dongles due to their quality, performance, and good Linux support. Debian is the only distribution that is not happy with the licensing terms. Even Ubuntu (a Debian-derived distribution) has added this driver back to its kernels. I was a bit frustrated by this and have decided to package the driver for other Debian users.

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