2007 on John Paulett

CouchDB on Ubuntu

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:51:42 +0000

::: notice These results are now largely outdated by the couchdb package in the Ubuntu universe repository. :::

Installing CouchDB

I have eagerly been waiting to try out CouchDB. I find the concept of document storage, instead of strict relational storage, to be very interesting. Plus, Erlang seems to be gaining mindshare. I documented the process that I took to install CouchDB 0.7.2 on Ubuntu 7.10 (it is basically straight from with the CouchDB wiki, but with some small modifications to get it to work).

Just upgraded to Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 2

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:29:58 +0000

After reading a post on Planet Ubuntu Users, I grew envious that I didn't have the latest and greatest of Ubuntu--so I decide to take the plunge. First I tried the sudo update-manager -c -d, which error'ed out. So I hacked away at the /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/UpdateManager/DistUpgradeFetcher.py file by adding import os. Everything started going fine, except my connection was crawling (almost dial-up speeds)--there was no way that I was going to wait. So I grabbed the latest ISO, picking the alternate install just to avoid the hassle of booting up into the live cd. Everything worked nicely--except I got a little worried when the install hung for ten minutes when installing Tomboy. But with a little patience, everything installed properly. I'm currently updating the system and looking into the new Dual Monitor tool. I am looking forward to exploring this new toy!

Code Statistics

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 10:40:15 +0000

I like looking at numbers. So when I saw an interesting gif on a friend's webpage saying that a certain piece of software had so many thousands of lines of code and cost so much money, I was naturally intrigued. After clicking on the link, I was directed to ohloh.net. This site analyzes public version control repositories and provides some interesting statistics about the project--including the lines of code and estimated cost to develop the software from scratch. I decided to try for myself and registered RadLex. I would have registered my VCSFrenzy branch, but currently only Subversion, CVS, and GIT are supported. After a little digging, it seems like ohloh uses David Wheeler's SLOCCount program. With an easy

Sync Outlook, Thunderbird, a PDA, and your Smartphone

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:02:06 +0000

Since I first owned a PDA, I have been looking for an elegant solution to syncing my data with the PDA and 'nonstandard' applications (Thunderbird / Sunbird / anything in Linux) ... as apparently many people are.

Outlook

I tried switching over to Outlook as my primary email/calendar program, my unholy marriage to Outlook lasted longer than I care to admit, mostly because syncing with my PDA <em>just worked</em>.

BirdieSync

With the release of Thunderbird 1.5, I decided I had enough of MS Outlook. Around the same time, Lightning and Sunbird caught my attention. After extensive google'ing, I found an excellent product, BirdieSync. I installed the trial version, and was loving it, until my 20 day trial expired. At €19.95 (roughly 27 USD) the product was a little extravagant as a college student. If you have the money and only use Windows, this is a decent option.

Upgrade to VirtualBox 1.4.0

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:01:45 +0000

VirtualBox 1.4.0 was released yesterday, so I thought I would write a very quick guide to installing it in Ubuntu Feisty. My previous post detailed downloading the file directly and several troubleshooting steps. If you run into a problem, check that post out. Add VirtualBox Repository Open up /etc/apt/sources.list (with sudo gedit) and add this line: :

deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian feisty non-free

Add the VirtualBox Public Key :

wget http://www.virtualbox.org/debian/innotek.asc
sudo apt-key add innotek.asc

Update Apt and Install :

Getting Involved with Ubuntu

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 04:33:17 +0000

My history with Linux started off with RedHat 9 then moved through Mandrake, Mandriva, openSUSE, and most recently, Ubuntu. I must admit that Ubuntu is by far the most polished/easy to use/accessible distribution yet. I am excited by the progress of the project and the community. Therefore, since I get such a nice operating system to use everyday for free, I want to give something back to the community and get more people involved with Ubuntu. I've been writing quite a few guides to using Ubuntu (or a least tools on Ubuntu); but I have also started getting involved in some Ubuntu projects, most notably VCS Frenzy. I've also updated my Launchpad Profile and my wiki page. Maybe one day I'll get into the respected ubuntu-dev group.

Install Pidgin in Ubuntu

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:46:05 +0000

Sure, there are some posts on the Ubuntu Forums with links on how to install a deb package of Pidgin from some untrusted repository. Personally, I'm not too thrilled about using a package that hasn't gone through the community process of being added to Ubuntu. So I have two goals:

Install Pidgin
Show you how to install something from source

Don't be afraid by that last point--a few months ago I was too, but there is no reason to be afraid, because in 7 commands/15 minutes you are going to have Pidgin on your system.

Open Sourcing RadLex

Fri, 11 May 2007 02:07:08 +0000

I finally got a chance today to release part of a project that I have been working on for the past year: RadLex. RadLex is a medical terminology, specifically designed for radiology. I created the servlet and a set of plugins for Protege that aid in the development and distribution of RadLex. We recently decided to open source the plugins, so I have spent the past several days preparing the plugins for a release on Sourceforge. Stay tuned as more documentation is added to the plugins (and stay on the lookout for a new release of the servlet and terminology). Remember, you can already develop an application around the RadLex API. - Wiki user page.

VCSFrenzy

Tue, 01 May 2007 10:47:29 +0000

I noticed an interesting project on Planet Ubuntu yesterday--VCSFrenzy. This tool allows you to get desktop notifications of changes to version control systems (VCS). Sure, some VCS let you have hooks that email you whenever a commit occurs--but this tool provides a lightweight and simple method of keeping track of multiple vcs's. So I have started helping Pete work on this project. So far we have support for subversion and bazaar (additionally with mercurial in my branch right now). Stay tuned as this program gets some support for more VCS's and gets some cool new features.

Vista on Ubuntu Using VirtualBox

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:34:26 +0000

::: notice Check out the new guide to installing VirtualBox 1.4.0 from a repository. This is a guide to installing Microsoft Windows Vista on a Ubuntu Edgy machine using VirtualBox. Note that Feisty is not yet fully supported by VirtualBox, but the edgy package is reported to work in feisty. Certain versions of Vista may be illegal to run in a virtual machine, according to the EULA, namely the Home flavors of Vista. :::

Get Ready

I like to keep stuff clean, so I am going to download everything to a folder. Adjust according if you decide to not make this folder. At the terminal:

Upgrade to Feisty Fawn from Edgy

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 04:30:34 +0000

Ubuntu 7.04, Feisty Fawn, has just been released, so why not upgrade your machine. To replace all your repositories, at the terminal:

sudo sed -e 's/edgy/feisty/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list

You can likely also upgrade Dapper to Feisty beta. I have

not tried this, directly. I have upgrade from Dapper to Edgy using this method before. So you could upgrade to Edgy first, or go straight to Feisty (if you are brave):

Now update:

RSS Alarm Clock

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 04:19:56 +0000

I finally managed to get a sound card for an old computer. Now, I can make my Ubuntu Alarm Clock! What better way to wake up each morning, than to have your friendly linux box read the news to you? The techniques that I am using are nothing new (Hak5 did it and some people at the Ubuntu Forums have talked about it). It is pretty simple, just download and install the rss2html.pl file and the necessary perl libaries, then create a bash script and add it to the crontab.

ClamAV Email Checking on a Shared Host

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:49:18 +0000

This guide is designed for users who have a shared hosting account (no root access), namely on DreamHost. We will make use of ClamAV, procmail, and ClamAssassin.

ℹ️

If you add a ~/.procmailrc file to DreamHost, you will likely be unable to use the DreamHost Control Panel's Junk Filtering. Therefore, it is recommended that you check out this excellent SpamAssassin guide and the Dreamhost wiki.

Note that I have installed everything in a ~/packages folder, which the previously mentioned guide does not do, so you should adjust accordingly. I also installed a more recent version of SpamAssassin than the previous guide (3.1.8 vs 3.1.0).

MediaWiki Markup for WordPress

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:25:01 +0000

Just found a nice tool for using MediaWiki's markup inside of Wordpress at Zech's Blog. The WYSIWYG editor is Wordpress is nice, but staying at the keyboard with the wiki markup is nice (without the clutter of XHTML). I have started to become a fan of the MediaWiki markup, because it leaves the text of document less cluttered than XHTML. I have recently been working quite a bit on wiki's (RadLex and several Trac installations). I originally coded the RadLex wiki text in XHTML, before I learned about MediaWiki's markup. But picking up the wiki markup was quick and I found reformatting the RadLex page in wiki markup to be much quicker than my first attempt with XHTML (which I have years of experience with).