Made by Mikal – Page 96

Book status

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 25, 2006
Post category:Mythtv

I was thinking about the delivery status of the MythTV book as I was going off to sleep last night, and it occurred to me that the book is pretty much done. It's a good feeling. Stewart needs to finish poking a chapter on cut lists and so forth, with should be minimal effort, then he needs to work on chapters on MythWeb and VoIP (the VoIP one is half done). I need to write an updated introduction (the contents of the book have deviated from plan, although that always happens) as well as a short conclusion chapter, and help Stewart write a chapter about running the latest and greatest version of the code (and how to interact with the development community). Then we're done for the writing. That description can be summarised as "Stewart and I appear to both be about one and a half chapters away from finishing authoring". We of course still need to get through technical review, editorial review, replying to things those reviewers need changed, copy editing, page layout, and standing on one leg. We're getting towards the end of the project though. When I think about it that way, I guess I read the…

Please report to the municipal hall of justice

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 24, 2006
Post category:Travel

Catherine rang me while I was at work yesterday to let me know that I had a letter from the courthouse in Santa Clara country demanding (it doesn't make it sound all that optional) that I attend at the "Municipal Hall of Justice" for jury duty. Yes, they really called it that. Yes, I thought it sounded like something from a bad 1980's film too. So, I apparently can get out of the jury duty by proving to them that I am not a citizen. In fact, it's much more onerous to show that you're not a citizen than it is for many of the other escape clauses. They want a copy of my passport for example. The letter also doesn't make it particularly clear if being a non-citizen excludes me from jury duty or not. Oh, and the only contact details on the letter are a web site, and a 24 hour recorded message line. I don't know if I would serve or not if given the option -- I probably would. So, am I able to serve? Should I? Will the Demolition Man be at the municipal hall of justice? What about Judge Dredd?

MySQL Camp

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 23, 2006
Post category:Mysql

Kynan and I came along to the MySQL camp, and thru a quirk of fate pretty much ended up running it (the person who was meant to be running it got injured on the first day and had to go off to hospital). In return we wrote the Google Code blog post about the event. Pretty cool, huh?

Getting Google Talk working with PyXMPP

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 20, 2006
Post category:Google

Jacek Konieczny has written the wholly fantabulous PyXMPP, which implements Jabber clients and servers in Python. Now, Google Talk is a Jabber server, but it needs TLS support before it works. The code is all there, but the echobot example in the download (look in the examples directory) doesn't show you how. It's not that hard though -- here's the patch I needed to make it work: --- echobot.py 2005-12-26 07:25:55.000000000 -0800 +++ echobot2.py 2006-10-25 04:25:02.000000000 -0700 @@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ from pyxmpp.all import JID,Iq,Presence,Message,StreamError from pyxmpp.jabber.client import JabberClient +from pyxmpp import streamtls class Client(JabberClient): """Simple bot (client) example. Uses `pyxmpp.jabber.client.JabberClient` @@ -28,8 +29,12 @@ # setup client with provided connection information # and identity data + + tls = streamtls.TLSSettings(require=True, verify_peer=False) + auth = ['sasl:PLAIN'] JabberClient.__init__(self, jid, password, - disco_name="PyXMPP example: echo bot", disco_type="bot") + disco_name="PyXMPP example: echo bot", disco_type="bot", + tls_settings=tls, auth_methods=auth) # register features to be announced via Service Discovery self.disco_info.add_feature("jabber:iq:version") That makes the __init__ method for the client: def __init__(self, jid, password): # if bare JID is provided add a resource -- it is required if not jid.resource: jid=JID(jid.node, jid.domain, "Echobot") # setup client with provided connection information # and identity data tls = streamtls.TLSSettings(require=True, verify_peer=False)…

Oh, and no affection of SouthWest flights!

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 20, 2006
Post category:Link

(Yes, I'm catching up on CNN this morning, I have a headache, and it seemed like a good plan at the time). Clearly SouthWest want to be the only ones screwing their customers, don't you dare rest your head on your wife because that's a Federal offence they will pursue.

Kynan’s going to be in trouble…

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 20, 2006
Post category:Link

Kynan is an Australian I work with. He has an Australian flag in his cube, and it seems to me that he's skirting on the edge of crazy US laws if he happens to move to one of those jurisdictions. I can't imagine such laws passing in Mountain View, but I figure he deserves the warning anyways.

10-4 good buddy

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 20, 2006
Post category:Link

10 series radio codes might be dropped from US police lexicon. Seems a shame to me.

Dave and Busters

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 18, 2006
Post category:Travel

To celebrate a recent launch the team went out to an "adult arcade" called Dave and Busters today. An adult arcade is pretty much what it sounds like -- imagine a huge collection of arcade games, pool tables, bar, and restaurant. I of course had the most American thing I could find, which was a double cheese burger. It was sufficiently huge that I didn't really have dinner, just a light snack. Dave and Busters was cool, and I recommend having a look if you ever see one of them. The food is generic, but of a reasonable quality and quite cheap compared to what you would pay in Australia. The games are expensive, but given I have basically never been to an arcade in Australia I don't know if that is run for the course or not. I had fun, and I suspect that James with his fifty fluid ounces of Guinness did too. Oh, thats 1.47867648 liters by the way.

MySQL User Camp 2006

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 15, 2006
Post category:Conference

I "sort of attended" the MySQL user's camp on the weekend. More on that later. This blog post from the guy who wrote WordPress makes me think I should have made it to more of the sessions. Oh well.

Mi Pueblo

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 6, 2006
Post category:Travel

The phrase "Mi Pueblo" is remarkably over used, which made web surfing for this one hard. For some time, Catherine has been doing some of our food shopping at the little Spanish grocery store in Mountain View. For the first time I went along yesterday (she normally goes when I am at work). Imagine a food shop full of kids running around the place, loud Mexican music playing, where you're the only ones speaking English. It was great fun... Like a very short trip to Mexico. Oh, and it's cheap. Really cheap. For example, half the price of Safeway for Sirloin steak, and most fruit. For some time I've been thinking I should learn some basic Spanish. I really should get around to doing that...