First of all, I’ll skip the discussion on what ZNC and IRC are, as you likely know if you are reading this post. I use IRC with my development team at work. It’s helpful to stay logged in 24/7 to keep up on pertinent discussions. I could stay logged in 24/7 with any IRC client at work, but some days (and perhaps some evenings) I may be working and chatting from home. To solve this problem I was using tmux and irssi running on my work computer. If I ever needed to log in from home, I would just ssh into my work computer and connect to tmux.

Since switching jobs, I got a laptop. Obviously it is not connect 24/7. So I switched to using my home computer. In this process of changing, I decided to try out ZNC. The main benefit to ZNC over IRC to me is that I can use other IRC clients that have more features. So I’m going to explain how I set up ZNC and Limechat (OS X).

I was running ZNC on my home computer – currently a Mac Pro. But I find either my 1 yr old or 4 yr old keeps getting into my office and turning off my computer. So, just to try it out, I set up a Linode running Ubuntu. Here are the step by step instructions that took me all of 10 minutes to get set up.

If you don’t have a Linode account, create one. Please feel free to use my affiliate link.

1. Add a Linode. I selected the cheapest one, which is a Linode 512 for $19.95 per month. (I understand that paying $20 is likely a waste of money just for an IRC bouncer, but I’ll talk about this later…)
2. Create an instance of Ubuntu on your Linode. I used Ubuntu 11.10. Make note of your new IP address for your server. You may want to create an entry in your hosts file so you can reference it by name instead of remembering the IP address.
3. Boot your Linode
4. ssh into your Linode
5. Create a new user:
• adduser <username>
6. Create an admin group
• addgroup admin
7. Add yourself to the admin group (so you can use sudo)
• adduser <username> admin
8. Log in to your user account
• su <username>
9. Install ZNC
• sudo apt-get install znc
10. Make a ZNC config file
• znc –makeconf
• Here are the options I selected:
• listen on port 6667
• SSL? no
• ipv6? no
• Listen host – left blank for all
• No global modules
• Username and password – I used the same as my IRC nick & password so it is easy to remember
• Blind host – left blank
• Number of lines to buffer per channel – 5000 (why not?)
• Keep buffers after replay? no
• Default channel modes – went with default [+stn]
• yes on on modules
• IRC server: irc.freenode.net, port 6667, no password
• I added one IRC channel (#utahdjango), I’ll join the others later
• I added my IRC user and password.
• Then I started IRC at the end of the script. (If you don’t, just type ‘znc’ to start the znc server)
11. Connect to your new server. I used Limechat with the following settings:
• Network name: Linode ZNC
• Server: Name I mapped to my linode IP address in my hosts file. You could just enter your IP address.
• Port: 6667
• Server Password: passoword I entered on my IRC makeconf script
• Nickname: irc nick
• Login name: irc nick (remember I used the same nick & password for znc that I use for freenode)
• Real Name: Dustin Davis
• Nickserv Passoword: same as above

That was it! I was connected and up and running just like that. Now, I’m bar far an expert on this stuff, but if you have any questions on what I did, leave a comment below.

Now, as I mentioned, paying $20 per month for an IRC bouncer doesn’t seem like a great idea. So here are some things to consider…

• Use your home computer. If you keep your computer on 24/7 and basically have a static IP this shouldn’t be a problem. If you have a router, you will have to set up port forwarding as well.
• If you don’t want to leave your main computer or, or use you main computer in this manner, consider buying another computer. I have a friend that uses a plug computer for this purpose. This is actually very tempting for me. Paying for a linode for 5 months is about the same as buying a $99 plug computer. You would then have a small server running 24/7 on minimal power and it could also be used for a media server by plugging in an external hard drive among other uses. Another options is Tonido Plug, but these always seem to sell out so fast.
• User your work computer. This may not be easy. At my old job I was given a static IP and subdomain to connect to my computer.
• If you are paying for hosting elsewhere, consider moving your hosting to your new Linode server. This would save you money from hosting elsewhere, but you should be comfortable managing your own hosting server.

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Commuting is a drag. There was a point in time that I had a 5 minute commute to work, then I decided to move and my company said I could just work from home. When it came time to switch jobs my walk down the stairs turned into a 45 minute (one-way) commute – and that was on a good day. So for the past two years I’ve found myself in the car for a minimum if an hour and a half each day. It seems insane at first thought, but I am a bit surprised how I have gotten used to it.

How do I pass the time? There are two main things I do that keep me sane: 1) Eat Sunflower seeds – this is mainly to keep me awake. I find I don’t get drowsy if I am constantly eating something and Spitz BBQ sunflower seeds are my addiction. 2) Listen to audio books.

Why audio books? A few reasons. First, I’m not much of a music person. I never have been. I will listen to music on occasion, but it gets old fast to me. I know, I’m strange in this regard. Second, I like learning new things. I don’t really get that from music. Third, there are lots of books I would like to read, but I just don’t have the time. My average weekday looks something like this:

4:00 AM – 6:30 AM: Freelance or independent work
6:30 AM – 7:15 AM: Shower & get dressed
7:15 AM – 8:00 AM: Commute to work
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM: Work my butt off!
5:00 PM – 5:45 PM: Commute home
5:45 PM – 8:00 PM: Family time (dinner, play with kids, etc)
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Time with my wife (watch TV, talk, eat ice-cream)
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM: Ready for bed, read, pray

So that is an average day, I wouldn’t say I stick to this schedule religiously, but it is somewhat predictable if nothing is on the schedule. So you can see I don’t really take the time to read. Dave Ramsey often says that the average millionaire reads one non-fiction book per month. So the best way for me to get in all the books I would like to read, is by listening to audio books.

Here are some of my favorite sources for audio books:

1. Audible.com: this like the Amazon of audio books. (In fact, they are now owned by Amazon). I have a monthly subscription that I pay $14.95 per month for. This gives me 1 credit per month. Each audio book is 1 credit. Also, as a subscription member, you get discounted pricing on all books. If a discounted price of a book is less than $14.95 I will likely purchase it without using a credit and save my credits for more expensive books. I’ve learned that credits will expire if you don’t use them, so this encourages me to continue to find new interesting books to read. I do find that my favorite are self-help type books like Zig Ziglar stuff. It energizes me. I look at the membership price as an investment in me.
2. BooksShouldBeFree.com: This is a very easy to navigate site with all kinds of audio books created from public domain sources. Check out the top 100 to see some of the great classics available. Sometime is is nice to step away from non-fiction books and just be entertained.
3. LibriVox.org: This may be a duplicate listing because it seems to me that all the listings in BooksShouldBeFree.com are essentially taken from LibriVox. It appears LibriVox is build on top of WordPress, so I mention them mainly because they are the source we can all thank for these free audio books, but their user interface will not be as nice as the custom interface of BooksShouldBeFree.com.
4. iTunes: While this integrates well with my iPhone, there are a few reasons I don’t use iTunes much. I have purchased AudioBooks on iTunes in the past and after switching computers and iPhones, I don’t have those books available and I can’t find them in my account history. I’m sure this has improved since the invention of iCloud. Second, they tend to be more expensive. Generally a book selling for $29.95 on iTunes I’ll just find on Audible.com and use 1 ($14.95) credit.
5. Podcasts: So I know they are not audio books per say, but if you run out of books you want to listen to, check out some podcasts that are in your interest area. The best place to find these are on iTunes, and most of them are free.

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While trying to install iOS5 today I kept getting an error message something to the effect of:

The iPhone “Dustin’s iPhone” could not be restored.
An unknown error occurred.

After 4 attempts I could see I was getting nowhere. So I clicked the Restore button. After doing a factory restore, iOS5 was installed. Everything seems to be working now.

Hope this helps!

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I’ve been using Git now for over two years. Previously, all my source control was handled with subversion (SVN). To be honest, I can’t even remember how to use SVN. To be more honest, I cheated and used TortoiseSVN most of the time anyway.

Every so often I want to update an old website, but my repo is in SVN. I don’t even have it installed anymore. So what do I do. I quickly convert it to Git.

Most of my important repos are stored on my Unfuddle account. Fortunately, they support both SVN & Git. I recently converted an SVN repo to Git. Here were the steps I took (I’m using Ubuntu).

mkdir svntemp
cd svntemp
git svn init http://myusername.unfuddle.com/svn/myusername_myrepo/ --no-metadata
git svn fetch

… wait for fetching …

cd ..
mkdir newgitrepo
cd newgitrepo 
git init
git remote add origin git@myusername.unfuddle.com:myusername/myrepo.git
cp -R ../svntemp/trunk/* .
git add *
git commit -am "initial commit"
git push origin master

And I think we’re done here. Now, back to coding!

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One of my favorite tools on Windows is Enounce MySpeed. It basically allows you to incread the playback speed of online videos – or any flash content really. This is great for watching long instuctional type vidoes.

Unfortunately MySpeed is not available on Ubuntu Linux. I’ve had to come up with a work-around process to speed up videos. That work-around is what I’m going to share here.

The first think I do is download the video that I want to speed up. This is made easy with the Video DownloadHelper plugin for Firefox.

After downloading the video, I play it with the VLC media player, which you can easily download in the Ubuntu Software Center.

In the lower right hand corder of VLC you will see 1.00x. Click this and you will then have a slider to adjust the playback speed.

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This morning for whatever reason I was loathing IE. I hadn’t done any development work all weekend so I don’t even know why it was on my mind. In any case I had an epiphany of sorts.

Despite being totally proprietary, IE seems to be the most easily exploited browser due to its support of active x. (It’s no coincidence that IE users suffer from the most viruses, but that is neither here nor there). What if someone were to hack IE and make use of the popular open source rendering engine webkit?

So instead of the ugly display because IE still can’t do CSS rounded corners and other goodies, and instead of lame javascript errors, IE could finally work!

Surely I’m not the smartest guy on the planet. Someone had to have thought of this already. But would that person spend the time to make it happen?

Sure they would… if they worked for Google.

I was delighted to find Google Chrome Frame. It

I tried it out on a particular site I was working on. I have never seen IE render so beautifully!

Thanks Google for making IE suck less!

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Recently I’ve taken up hiking during lunch. There is a nice mountain trail behind my house the I really enjoy. There are a few landmarks that I generally try to make it to with the time I have available. I was curious exactly how far those landmarks were so I used Google Earth to find out. Curious to know just how accurate Google Earth was, I decided to test it out. I found a local high school track and measured the path around it. .25 miles looks accurate to me!

To use this tool, click the ruler icon and use the path tab to draw polygon shapes.

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This morning was the first time I heard an official release date for Windows 7. I’ve been running Windows 7 betas for the past 3 months and it has been far more stable and responsive than Vista was for me. I will definitely be upgrading this one on release day! I have just put in my pre-order at Amazon. I’ll be going with the Ultimate version ($219) since I have a media center PC and I want all the bells and whistles. Really, this is the first time EVER I’ve been excited for a Microsoft launch. Crazy.

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Ever since installing Windows 7 RC, I have not been able to run Pidgin. It would put an icon in the tray, then disappear. Finally after searching the net high and low and found this comment on an open pidgin ticket that seemed to resolve the problem.

I have XAMPP installed and the PHP subdirectory is in the path. I renamed the aspell-15.dll in this directory and the crash went away. Renaming the file back caused the crash. Seems to be a conflict between these two files.

I also had the same issue with XAMPP installed. Thanks Chowarmaan, whoever you are!

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Windows 7 Release Candidate is now available. I’ve been using the beta of Windows 7 quite happily for a couple of months now after frustrating ordeals with Vista. The only problem I’ve had with the beta version of Windows 7 is having Windows Explorer crash 3-5 times a day. It hasn’t been a huge deal because it restarts automatically after about 10 seconds. Still, it is enough to consider getting the RC.

So as I generally do before installing a new OS, I took inventory of my installed applications and began backing up documents to an external HD I recently bought. Files are simple enough to back up and restore, but applications are not so easy. They all have to be reinstalled to work right, then there is the issue of tracking down the license codes I’ve purchased for the commercial software. After compiling my list of applications I use, I’m starting to wonder if I really should install the RC, or just wait for the official release as I will likely have to do this all over again.

So here are my apps I currently have installed in alphabetical order (bold items I have commercial licenses for). Sorry, I’m not going to link to all of them. It would take forever.

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