That ol'time Death and Resurrection show (part 3)

It occurs to me I haven't mentioned the progress I've made on repairing the damage to my network.

Larkin: Replaced the motherboard, and got it to run all of 10 minutes. Then, upon reboot, the hard drive failed. This led me to believe that the power supply was faulty (seems like the most logical connection between the two failed components, and I know the electricity in our apartment is... less good). That has been replaced, and a new hard drive is in the works.

the SquareOne: I shipped it back to Quad MicroWorks, and they shipped it back, fully functional and with the original hard drive (saving me a ton of data reloading). Great communication from them (A+++ in ebay-speak). Unfortunately, for the applications that I need to run, it will not do as a web server. It'll host my basic webpage for now, until I can get a more powerful, dedicated box. Then its just a matter of fighting my lousy Comcast connection. Oh, I can't wait the end of the ISP monopolies...

Berman: Still can't use the iSight, but I can connect it to the new TV, and man, what a picture! As soon as my thesis work is done, I'll get it into the shop.

Pearl: I think I finally fixed the Javascript error, as well as the problem that was causing MS Word to crash whenever a browser window was open along side. This system is also currently running dual monitors, until Larkin is back up.

My old laptop: Dead as a doornail. I really wish those RAM chips I bought hadn't failed, because even a 128 MB boost would be handy... maybe I can find a sweet deal on craigslist.


More minor updates when they occur, and I have the time.

The Death and... Death show (part 2)

As I began to detail in a previous post, several of my computers have suffered hardware failure. Since that post, even more machines have broken. Here is the list of my woes:

1. my old laptop: despite replacing the RAM, memory problems persist. I've spoken with colleagues, and they say it might be the RAM connector ports (which I cannot fix).
2. Larkin: Still down with (I assume) motherboard failure. I can fix this, but I need to confirm the problem and buy the part.
3. Berman: Not dead by any stretch, but the built-in iSight has given out for no apparent reason. Under warranty, but I can't afford to lose the use of this system right now.
   
4. the SquareOne: No longer lets computers on the local network connect to the Internet. Tech support says this, too, is hardware failure. Its under warranty, and they can either replace it now, or upgrade it to the Generation 2 in a few weeks (at a discount). I'm thinking I'll go for the Gen 2... I could use the WiFi and extra processing power.
5. My work computer: In an attempt to increase the RAM and a second harddrive, my work system has lost almost all its usefulness; no more office, or Creative Suite, or any other program I installed. I've seen more computer guts lately than I care to recall. I can't even put a Kubuntu install on the thing... good thing most of my work can be done with online or open-source programs.
   
6. Pearl: My Windows system is still holding on strong, but I think the Javascript engine is corrupted. I can't get various webpages that use .js to display properly (regardless of which browser I use). Not a well-documented problem.

I had even lost the use of the modem for a time (Comcast turned off our Internet by mistake; took 3 days to fix). This led me to believe perhaps this apartment had some kind of static field or techno-poltergeist or something. But with the repair of the modem and the problems at work, I think it might just be me.

More as it develops.

Website Redesigned!

At long last, I've had the opportunity to redesign my website. The chance came with my enrollment in LSC 597: Digital Libraries. The primary feature of this new site, aside from its new address, is that it is a database-driven dynamic site, rather than flat HTML. I'm hosting it myself, on the SquareOne. You are encouraged to check it out.

The Photos section is currently up and running, though you have to be a local (i.e. in my apartment) user to see the full sized images. This will change when I build the user login system.

Keep in mind that advanced search and Documents searching is as yet unimplemented. The collection is small enough right now that that's not too big a deal. When the collection grows, so too will advanced searching.

There is a lot of other stuff on the list to do; I know there are several broken links, and the CSS I'm using is horribly boring. One of the nice features that will come with the user login is the ability to choose amongst several CSS, and have the system remember your choice (without those pesky cookies!). Again, coming soon.

I welcome comments and feedback.

Mastering PHP's XML Parser

Probably not the most exciting subject for anyone else, but I've spent a lot of hours in the last couple days writing a script to automatically read ATOM feeds into a webpage. And yes, I'm aware that such things already exist, and can be found easily on Sourceforge, but doing it myself helped get me that much deeper into working with PHP, and made sure that I understood both the ATOM schema and PHP's XML Parser.

The XML Parser requires several functions to be put into it in order to do whatever it is you want it to do. You need a function to deal with start tags, one for end tags, and one for character data between those tags. The only place you can deal with attributes is within the start tag function. It helps, then, to have some global variables to store the information you desire to pluck out of an XML document. This sounded like something suited for an object-oriented approach, so I started by building a class called ATOMParser. I made the start, end and character functions internal, and created two public functions, one to parse a document, the other to set how many results to return and which label to search for.

Here entered a wrinkle; on my server, where I did much of my testing, I run PHP 4.something, whereas the university server has PHP 5.something. PHP 5 has a whole bunch of reserved words like public, private and interface, whereas PHP 4 does not. To make things work on both ends, I had to go generic with my terms. It all worked fine, but theoretically, someone could call the start or end functions from outside the ATOMParser object... for what little good it would do.

Another difference: on my server, I could simple open the XML straight away, whereas on the URI server it was necessary to stream the document in chunks, then open it. What does this mean? Well, using code that worked on my server to display all the different posts in the blog only showed the latest post (maybe the latest two, if I refreshed just right) on the URI server. The packeting fixed that.

So, my end result is a pretty portable piece of PHP that I can use elsewhere on the GSLIS site. You can see its current implementation at www.uri.edu/artsci/lsc. More will follow, notably the joblist. I will also likely use this somewhere in my website for bringing in blog info (same blog package as GSLIS). For other XML documents, I can now create custom parsers to do my bidding. Very exciting.

Well, to me, at least.

Blog title change

I've never been very good with titles. I've always liked working in the math and science realm, because when you wrote a paper, all you had to do was describe all its key points in the title, and you were set. Coming up with catchy titles, like one must in the arts, social sciences and humanities, is just not a talent of mine. So, I enlisted the help of my wife-to-be, Sarah, to help me come up with a better blog title. You'll notice it above.

In other news, I got an email back from Quad Microworks, and they will be offering a downloadable disk image with the "highest version numbers that the original hardware can handle without slowing down too much" of APM for the 1st gen system. It should be out after the 2nd gen systems ship.

It figures...

Before I can even get the thing fully up and running, they go and release a second generation device...

I doubt they'll have a trade-in program... and after the hassle of moving so many gigabytes of info onto the current system, I'm not sure the doubled CPU and RAM would make up for it. With any luck, they'll provide us first-gen'ers a way to upgrade our MySQL and PHP versions. I've asked.

Getting ready for SLA 2007

I'm currently printing out some articles for my Digital Libraries class, so that I might have productive things to read on the flight to Denver. Unfortunately, many of these documents were born digital, and it sucks up a lot of paper to print them (one of the assigned readings is actually a book, only 47 pages, but still). I'd plan to do other work on the plane, but my laptop is now completely battery-dead, and they don't typically provide wall sockets on a 777. I suppose I could bring a book and ::gasp:: relax a little...

Since my PDA was thoroughly destroyed last winter, and my phone's internet connection is both slow and expensive, I'm also going to make a printed packet of relevant information about my stay in Denver, including a map and calendar. Not nearly as high-tech as I'd like, but I'm pressed for time.

Oh, and I finally figured out why the Dynamic DNS services I'd tried for the SquareOne haven't worked; its my ISP. Cox blocks port 80 incoming, so you can't run any kind of web server. They do not block Telnet or FTP access, so I will be least be able to access my files remotely, but that's why the website hasn't migrated yet. Once we move, we will change ISP to one that doesn't explicitly block port 80. So long as I don't use my site for commercial purposes, I should be fine within this other ISP's service agreement.

Interesting note on ISPs: You aren't allowed to use any kind of Linux with their services. Not that there is any technical reason why you couldn't (the SquareOne runs Linux, and here I type), but they just don't want to train their people to deal with it. Not that the support people I've encountered when calling an ISP seem trained at all, but that's one of those rants I shall save for a different blog.

Setting up the Square One, part 1.5

It occurs to me that I should really include a picture of the Square One in its native habitat.


Its being safeguarded by a noble Cylon Centurian. Thanks, Peter!

In other news, I've decided, after talking to the creator of the household Linux system, that it would be better to just install a new distro altogether, one I can master and keep up to date. We've decided to go with Kubuntu, and will start the process once all the documents on the Linux system are safely backed up on the Square One.

Setting up the Square One, part 1

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got a Quad Microworks SquareOne personal Internet server for my birthday. Now that classes are over, I felt I had the free time to set it up, and our household need for constant Internet service was low enough to risk losing it for a few hours.

No such loss occurred, thankfully. Step 1 in my setup, the actual wiring of the SquareOne as an Internet router went as smooth as silk, since the computers in the house were already running off a router. Great!


Step 2: Accessing the SquareOne, and mapping it's shared folder as a remote network drive.

On Windows, this was simply a matter of going to the IP address of the SquareOne, entering the password, and clicking "map network drive". I now have access to the 320 GB harddrive, as well as all the pre-installed programs, all through my convenient Q: drive.

On Linux, I had figured this would be a little trickier, but the computer was way ahead of me, and the two machines were already talking through Samba. All I had to do was navigate to the shared space though Konquerer, enter the password, and I was all set. I could even play the test file (a Horrorpops mp3) through Amarok. Since one of the goals of getting the server was using it as a space to store our music so that any system on the network could access it, this pleased me greatly.


Step 3: Setting up the networked printer.

I have a HP Deskjet, and until now, only the Windows computer had access to it. Major hassle, since most of the print jobs originated from work done on the Linux system.

On Windows, all I had to do was connect the printer to the USB port on the SquareOne, then follow the instructions in the SquareOne manual. The trickiest thing that I had to do a soft reset on the SquareOne to get everything started.

On Linux, though, I hit my first significant snag. The particular system I'm running is Debian, and woefully out of date. The Common Unix Printing System was not installed on this system, since it had never had a printer before. Attempting to do so led to all kinds of package update, installation, and removal issues, and lots of warnings about unauthorized sources being a security risk. Talking to the computer's creator, I learned that this system hadn't had any package maintenance in a while, and making all the upgrades would probably be a huge, huge hassle, and involve a lot of risk (like my not being able to get the video driver working again...).

Therefore, rather than potentially take out one of our desktop systems, I decided that waiting a little while, then backing up all the data onto the server and installing a new OS would be the best course of action. I've had Ubuntu and Fedora Core 6 recommended.

In this process, I've learned a lot more of what's floating around pre-installed on the Linux system, and how to work with it. So, despite not being able to print yet, the whole experience has been worthwhile.


Step 4: Setting up the SquareOne as a server to host my website, and allow for FTP access.

I've progressed a bit on this, but still have some tests to run before I report on it. Soon!