Month: January 2006

Today’s interesting discovery

I’ve just discovered  lighttpd, a small memory footprint web server that supports all the stuff I currently use on my Linode – it’s got server side includes, fast cgi, simple virtual hosting, and mod_rewrite type redirection.  And Ruby on Rails supports it.  Ruby on Rails also supports SQLite, a small memory footprint SQL RDBMS.

Considering the small memory on my linode, I’m thinking that a transition from Apache and MySQL to lighttpd and SQLite might be just the ticket to improve the performance.  Which will be important if I start playing around with Ruby on Rails, because these “do everything including the kitchen sink” things tend to be memory and CPU hogs.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to test a transition.  I could install both of them on my home server and run it on another port.  I could install both of them on my linode and run it on another port.  Both of those options have the problem that it’s not a 100% accurate test, because I’d have to change the code to support a different port, and then change it back if/when I make it the true thing.  Another possibility is to buy another Linode for a few months and try it out there.

Stupid tooth

One of my teeth exploded this morning.  I went to the dentist and they poked around, took a ton of x-rays, and scheduled me for about a bazillion appointments.  They haven’t put anything on the hole, but it isn’t hurting much.

In other news, somebody from my pimp agency came by to see me, because the INS was asking for proof that I have a legal right to work in the US, so I had to show him my green card.  Not sure why it didn’t take the last time I showed it to them.  I was asking him about the current job market.  Not that I expect anything – my contract has been extended to the end of the year, but it never hurts to keep your eyes and ears open.  He said that right now, the hot technology is J2EE.  I’m not entirely sure how J2EE differs from all the Java Swing and RDBMS stuff I’ve been doing is, but I suppose I should do some research and become buzzword compliant.

Which is too bad, because in aid of my desire to get some more experience with AJAX I was planning to teach myself more Javascript and maybe Ruby on Rails.  There just isn’t enough time, nor enough room in my head.

Friday the 13th: A good day to fly

I finally got up flying today.  It wasn’t perfect weather conditions – there were low scattered clouds around the airport, and a solid overcast up at 20,000 feet to deprive me of the sunny day I craved.  It was a bit hazy and there was a definite wind shear around 2,000 feet, with the consequent small amount of turbulence.  But it was warm enough that I didn’t have to pre-heat, and thanks to our getting cheap hangar space this winter, no messing around with wing and cabin covers.  And the weather is supposed to utterly suck this weekend, so it was now or “never”.
Continue reading “Friday the 13th: A good day to fly”

How dare life get in the way of flying!

I’ve been waiting for months for good weather so I can go out and get re-acquainted with the sky.  It had gotten to the point where I was resolved to blow off work on the first sunny day.  But wouldn’t you know, today was a sunny day, but I had an important meeting at 10:00am, another one at 1:00pm, and a doctor’s appointment at 3:30pm.  Didn’t leave much of a gap for getting out to fly, especially considering the time it takes to get a plane ready before and put it away afterwards.  Even after the doctor’s appointment, there isn’t much time before the sun goes down, so I went to Best Buy to get my XM radio and iPod adaptor installed.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny as well, but there is supposed to be a strong windshear at 2,000 feet.  (I think that’s what Canadian weather briefers refer to that as a low level jet.)  That can mean difficult landings and lots of turbulence.  Not ideal conditions for a fun flight.  But we’ll see.

What crack is Adobe smoking?

Last night I wanted to install Acrobat Reader 7 on my laptop.  Normally installing a program in Mac OS X is just a matter of downloading a .dmg (Disk Image) file, opening it, and dragging the application out of there to the Applications folder.  Sometimes the .dmg has a package installer in it.  So I wasn’t too surprised when I found that the .dmg file I’d downloaded from Adobe had a package installer in it.  But when I ran the package installer, it didn’t just copy some files from within itself to places on the destination drive.  Oh no, that would be too normal.  Instead, the package installer fired up a Adobe download tool that downloaded another freaking .dmg file!  And that .dmg file had a package installer that actually installed the Acrobat Reader.

Can somebody please explain why they wouldn’t just let you download the Acrobat Reader installer package, instead of making you download an installer installer?

Rone, you want to comment?