If you upgrade SMF from 1.1.2 all the way to 1.1.11 there is a missing chunk of SQL upgrade. The `smf_board_permissions` table has `permission` VARCHAR(10) but there are permissions like "post_reply_new" which gets silently shaved into "post_reply" due to the column length limitation leaving you tearing your hair out. (Well it did me. I was editing templates and everything.) This results in situations where forum users can no longer reply to posts and trying to edit forum permissions results in database error messages due to duplicate keys ("post_reply_own" and "post_reply_any" both get shaved into "post_reply" for example).
Alter the column `permission` to VARCHAR(50) and it'll work again.
While doing some research on what options are available to eliminate deeply nested branching, I stumbled across this:
http://www.ctocorner.com/fsharp/book/default.aspx
I’ve been reading it when I have a moment here and there and so far its been great.
I recently replaced my aging Intel Core2 Duo 1.86GHz with an AMD Phenom II Black and a BioStar TA70GXE 128M motherboard (which is a real piece of shit, I would not recommend it to anyone). I could not find RAID drivers that allowed me to install Windows 7 64-bit (or even 32-bit), scouring the Internet led to a lot of perplexed posts about why it would not work. One suggestion that apparently works is to install Windows XP 32-bit with the supplied RAID drivers, then upgrade to Windows 7 64-bit. I was about to do that but I stumbled across an older set of AMD SB7XX RAID drivers today that caused Windows 7 setup to FINALLY detect my RAID/0 array. Here’s hoping to no stability problems.
The drivers I found can be downloaded from my web site: ATI_SB700_SATA_Slipstream.zip
Until November 25th Pragmatic Press is offering 40% off all their existing print and upcoming print books. I took advantage of this and picked up a few print books, but one of the books I wanted was eBook only. No problem, except… no Kindle. So:
- Jailbreak iPhone if you haven’t done so already. Very important to change your root and mobile user passwords – root’s password by default is `alpine’ - either by installing Cydia’s Terminal application or sshing into your phone. (Jailbreaking is a time consuming process and I feel guilty about putting it as a single step.)
- You will need to install OpenSSH so you can copy files to the phone; you will probably also want to install Terminal. Both of these applications are available for free within Cydia, just search for them and install. It will take a long time for your very first ssh connection to your phone to connect as its generating encryption keys.
- Install the free Kindle app on the iPhone from the iTunes store.
- The Kindle stores its books in an `eBooks’ folder buried in the `/var/mobile/Applications/…/Documents/eBooks’ where the `…’ is a GUID identifying the application.
- SSH (preferably a client where you can copy and paste) or Terminal.
find -type d /var/mobile/Applications -name 'eBooks'
- a. Copy the GUID, and you’ll want to end up with the path in 2.1, above, but where the `…’ is replaced by the GUID. (On my device the GUID was 127DF7F1-9B49-423B-9FA9-77AB87775E24 but I don’t know if this is the same across devices; probably not.)
- This is purely for convenience, mainly because I want to use WinSCP to copy files from my Windows 7 PC to my iPhone and I don’t want to remember the GUID for the Amazon application every time I want to do this. (You can also use command line scp, but you’ll likely still want to create a symlink.) (You may also want to use `/private/var/root/Media/eBooks’ if you prefer a better organizational hierarchy.)
ln -s /var/mobile/Applications/YOUR_GUID/Documents/eBooks \
/private/var/root/eBooks
- Now you can use WinSCP or scp to copy *.mobi files directly into your device’s `/private/var/root/eBooks’ directory; books you copy here will be available in the Amazon Kindle iPhone app next time you launch it.
I attended Andy Hunt's “Refactor Your Wetware: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning” presentation given for the Richmond Java User Group/Central VA Ruby User Group October meeting Wednesday night. Having just completed this book in September I was very interested in reinforcing what I have learned (and began practicing, ahem, mind mapping) and excited to see the author present this material.
I was impressed with the professional atmosphere and organization at this event.
Andy’s presentation centered around the book, touching on several highlights over the two hour period. This was largely a rehash for me, which was very good, with a little bit of new material thrown in. (There is a new Pomodoro book pragprog is publishing so there was a brief overview of Pomodoro included with a plug – which I fully support at free/sponsored events; I had just read the RSS post earlier in the day so I would have been disappointed if it were skipped!) His slides were good – not distracting – and the presentation was delivered with animation and some really well placed humor.
Points [I remember]:
Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition
Mind mapping (easily my favorite technique I learned from the book)
You cannot execute a great idea if you don’t exercise your brain to get it to produce them – write down your ideas, all of them
Meditation
How context switching and multitasking damages productivity
Have a personal wiki
Book study groups – going to suggest replacing our low value formal code reviews with this in an on-going basis
Finally Andy said it may be possible in the near future to get some of pragprog’s non-code books in an audio book format which for anyone who has a long commute is very good news.
