the dangers of transparency

From: [nag generator at my hosting server]
Subject: Re: [Alerts] *** SECURITY information for [my hosting server] ***
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2006 00:36:09 -0500
To: [me]

Attention: the use of sudo is restricted to staff.

Please do not use sudo in the future.

Thank you.

--  
[sig of nag generator at my hosting server]

On Sep 8, 2006, at 12:32 AM, [me] wrote:

> [my hosting server] : Sep  8 05:32:18 : [my userid] : user NOT in  
> sudoers ; TTY=ttyp0 ; PWD=[my home directory] ; USER=root ;  
> COMMAND=/usr/local/sbin/apachectl restart
>

The ssh session into my hosting server looks purty much like my local shell; I was of course trying to restart my, local, server, not my host's server.

No sandwich for me! (Thanks Josh)

Time to make my PS1 on my host a little more obvious, somehow ...

Of course, what's scary is that I use sudo (and sudo -s) a lot these days, it seems. Almost might as well be using Windows. Gotta do something about that as well ...

guitar signal chain

I'm a guitar noodler. See definition 3, and I'll emphasize the haphazard part. Although I started playing when I was 8, my big problem is I never played with a band (sorry Eric + Mark, biohaz doesn't really count). And I take frequent, multi-month breaks from guitar. But I'm back in one of my phases, and I've got a pretty good set up, so I thought I'd mention it.

I should first mention I was hoping to run everything through my MacBook, but when I tried that, the amount of set up I had to go through every time I wanted to play was just too much, plus, I don't really have room for everything in front of me, plus the chair I live out of doesn't lend itself to comfortable guitar playing.

So, I resigned myself to setting up on my wife's desktop. I bought a Line 6 TonePort UX1 about a year ago. This is a fun box, as it's basically like a traditional Line 6 Pod in it's functionality, only it's really just a USB-based D/A box; all the tone rendering is done on the computer it's connected to, but it doesn't use much CPU. The USB is nice, instead of having to rely on the line-in ports of my sound card; I'll take a USB connector over a 1/8" stereo connector any day. And the latency is basically nil. The UX1, when connected, adds another 'sound device' to windows, but only Ableton Live is listening to that device; luckily, Live actually let's you select audio devices to use instead of just using the system default, like every other program in the universe. I have some headphones always attached to the UX1 also, and the line outs of the UX1 go to an old receiver on that desk, so I can play through stereo speakers, if I'm willing to embarass myself in front of my family.

So, to play, I pull out my guitar, the guitar stand, and the cord. Then, I attach cord to guitar and then to the UX1, and either put on headphones or turn on the receiver. Then start trying to play. Probably less than a minute total. Nice.

version control for one

So I'm planning on getting off my arse and working on some small code projects I've been meaning to work on for a while. It's been so long, and so many machines ago that I've done this, that I don't have a legacy version control system that I must use, so I thought I'd look around a bit.

Actually, that's not quite correct. I was planning on using subversion. I started compiling it a few months ago, to get all the binaries lined up, and actually started using it. Well, reading the docs. Getting started, and reading the docs, means checking out the section of the Subversion book titled Choosing a Repository Layout. At least for a SVN n00b like me. Now, there's something to be said for the relatively clean nature of the SVN's tag and branch story. Quite nice, and logical, compared to CVS.

However, it kind of sucks to be in a position where you have to choose a repository layout like this out front. On one hand, I'd like to have some grand scheme in place for multiple projects, but on the other hand, structure like this usually evolves, or at least you need to have some practical experience, and I don't want to wait for either. I just want to start committing some code.

Not to mention, if I was planning on using Eclipse, I'd have to make the Subclipse vs. Subversive choice, and I have no idea which one would be a better fit for me.

Luckily for me, I won't be needing Eclipse. More on that later :-)

So, poking around at what else I might use, I ran into darcs again, and decided I'd try that for a while. Bonus, TextDrive supports it as well (on the server end).

Took me a few tries to get my initial project dir pushed to my server, and ... guess we'll see how it goes from here.