What's it all about, Alfie?

This morning I read that the great guys as plasq have released Skitch 1.0b7 which has several new features and a few bug fixes as well. The primary change is the addition of the 'Put on all Spaces' option in the preferences. This makes it possible to have Skitch on every Space, and that's handy for moving things between Spaces.

OK, so it's not like they upgraded the storage, or added in something new and wild - but it's already the best app I've ever seen for what it does - get pictures easily, edit them simply, save them to the web in a place that's easy to link to, and you're done. All of this takes next to no time, and any improvements are just icing on the cake.

It's an open beta... look into it. It's wild.

I checked, and the Git for OS X group has built git 1.6.0.2 for the installer. Since I've decided to use them for git, it made sense to update. Additionally, 1.6.0.2 is the version that I've built from source for my OS X 10.3.9 box so it makes good sense to move.

I'm still waiting for some time to get gitweb going on my home server, but it's been a heck of a few weeks, and there just hasn't been time. Soon... very soon. And then there's the project I need to start using it... Holy Cow!

I gotta say... I'm really looking forward to using this. I just wish I weren't so bloody busy this month. Soon enough.

This morning I saw that Perian 1.1.1 is out, and I tried to get it. First, through the auto-updater in Perian itself, and then directly from the Perian web site. I was stunned... it took me several hours to get the update, and in the end the auto-updater was the 'winner'.

I was stunned. I've never seen a web site under such load. I may be trying to infer causation in a correlational study, but if they are getting hit this badly from an update, they might need to get a better hoster - or maybe get more donations because this thing is big.

I'll admit, I probably never see it in action - QuickTime just works and the plugin is just that - a plugin. But I have to say I'm impressed. Go get 'em guys!

There was a minor bug in the saved passwords code that caused some users not to be able to retrieve them, and that caused the developers to release 3.0.3. If I were impacted, I'd have wanted a fix, but as it was, I wasn't and things were fine.

As an aside, I've gone back to using the straight Firefox as the guy building optimized versions for the different processors is at 3.0.1 and if he catches up I may try to compare the two, but I have a feeling that it's like the MacVim tests I've done - on my machine the difference might very well be next to zero.

This morning I read on the Wall Street Journal front page about the failure of WaMu being the biggest in the nation's history. Roughly $30 billion in debt and stock washed down the tubes. Holy Cow!

The fact that no bank was willing to buy WaMu until it failed shows how badly confidence has eroded in a banking system awash with record profits just a few years ago. Faced with deepening losses on mortgages, credit cards and other loans, big and small banks across the country are struggling with what many bank executives say is a crisis far deeper than the savings-and-loan debacle.

This just makes me mad. People will look at this industry and say "What a horrible bunch of greedy people" when the last statement in the quote says it all: bad loans.

OK, who is the major borrower here? Answer: People. People getting into homes and mortgages they can't afford. People running up credit card debit they can't pay. It's people. Every single one of us that lives beyond their means. Ask not for whom the bailout is - is it for thee

I got an email from the great guys at Panic that they have created a new Unison (NNTP) server farm to replace the old one. The old one was their own after they stopped using a service that did a good deal of filtering - all to the good. This new server farm is said to be bigger, faster, with more groups and longer retention.

One of the nice things they added was SSL access - built right into Unison. I like that only because sending plaintext anything these days is asking to get snooped or swiped. It just makes the connection a little more 'private'.

Love the work these guys do.

I'm tired of companies selling a service, getting the money, and then coming up with a million diffeent ways to keep for providing that service. Comcast is just like that. Insurance companies are like that as well.

Comcast is in the news again with a statement about how the 250GB/mo. limits will raise as general network usage rises in the future. While that's true, so will the monthly charges - it's not like they are planning on giving us more for the dollar - even in the future. It's all another shell game.

Comcast needs to realize that most people don't need all the bandwidth they have all the time and be the Corporate Good Guy and make the system capable of handling the load. Be the one people want to have. Then you've got public opinion on your side if the regulators get ugly. They're already making a ton off the TV market and you can only watch one show per set - two if you think you can multitask that well.

Stop trying to find ways not to provide the service.

I like Twitter. It's an interesting async chat client. I like following the characters I follow. Interesting group. And I really wish I could tweet more. I really do. The problem is not that I can't, or don't have anything to say... it's as simple as the fear of retribution.

I work for some folks that would not appreciate that I'm talking from personal experience. Nope. Banks are funny that way. They aren't interested in your rights. They could not care less about what you think about the separation of work and personal life.

Nope. They like to get lawyers involved as soon as possible. We've got two of them on the same floor as I sit. It's sad, really. But in the end, I can't tweet because you can search tweets.

I'd think the government and shareholders would like to know about my tweets. Maybe there's something hiding under the covers here... maybe this place would want people to tweet to make sure the mere appearance of wrong-doing is ousted.

But they don't think that way. And I can't tweet.

Get a new job and maybe I can tweet.

In a previous post I discussed getting Git running on Mac OS X 10.3.9 - which is what's running on frosty my Snow iMac G3 in my office. It would be running 10.4 if it had a DVD drive, but it's still fine and every now and then it's a hassle - like with installing Git, but in the end I have Git 1.6.0.2 running on it just fine, and that's what really matters.

This installment is about getting public and private access to the Git repositories that I'm planning on hosting on this box. While you don't have to have a central repository for team members to sync with, I will work this way as it also provides people with a way to anonymously get the repo and decide if it's got something for them.

Private Repository Access

While the traditional way to handle Private repo access is to have accounts on the machine for each team member, I'm going to use Gitosis. This is a neat little package that allows you to simply have the id_rsa.pub SSH public keys for the users and then have a single user (git) handle all the authentication and push/pull work with Git.

Let's get started. The first thing I did was to add the user 'git' to my Mac using the traditional System Preferences application. Just add them with a password, etc. that you know (it will not be visible to the team members) and then you're ready to go to the next step. Typically, this places the files for the account into /Users/git and that's OK with me as the repositories will be placed in a directory off this users' $HOME directory.

The Python that comes with OS X 10.3.9 is Python 2.3, and we're going to need a more up-to-date version - say 2.5. I got this from the PythonMac.org website. Install it and then make sure that /usr/local/bin is very near the beginning of your path (and the path for the 'git' user). Make sure that you have this in the right place by checking:

  $ python -V
  Python 2.5

If you get the right response, you're looking good.

Unfortunately, Gitosis is going to need a little more and that "little more" is the Python library 'setuptools'. We have to get that, and install it, which is pretty simple:

  curl -o setuptools-0.6c8-py2.5.egg \
      http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.5/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c8-\
              py2.5.egg#md5=1721747ee329dc150590a58b3e1ac95b
  sh setuptools-0.6c8-py2.5.egg

the URL in the second and third lines is really one line and you have to make sure to have the name of the file exactly as indicated as that's used by the installer to know what to do. Once this is done, we're ready for the next step - installing Gitosis.

While the Gitosis talks about the location of the install, I've found that it's good advice and there's only one little hitch on OS X 10.3.9 - that is, that the Gitosis commands are not deposited in the PATH. So, we need to get the package and install it:

  su - git
  git clone git://eagain.net/gitosis.git
  cd gitosis
  sudo python setup.py install

and then symlink the executables from their install locations on OS X 10.3.9 to the obvious - /usr/local/bin:

  cd /usr/local/bin
  sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/bin/gitosis-init .
  sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/bin/gitosis-run-hook .
  sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/bin/gitosis-serve .

At this point, we're ready to initialize Gitosis for the one user (me):

  su - git
  cd /Users/git
  gitosis-init < /Users/drbob/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
  chmod 755 repositories/gitosis-admin.git/hooks/post-update

where the SSH public key file (/Users/drbob/id_rsa.pub) can be from your other machine, or where ever - I just happened to already have all my public keys on this server, so it's easy.

A point worth mentioning is that the last chmod command is needed because the setuptools doesn't properly set the execute permissions on the file and they need to be set in order for Gitosis to work properly.

We're ready to us the private access! I have already set up the DNS entry for git.themanfromspud.com to point to the machine, and put a hole for port 9418 in my router/firewall for this guy, so I can say from any machine:

  git clone git@git.themanfromspud.com:gitosis-admin.git
  cd gitosis-admin

and I'm ready to go!

At this point, it seems reasonable to follow the outline of steps here to add groups and users based on their SSH RSA public key files. I haven't needed to do that yet - but certainly will as time goes on. Got all the notes I need in VoodooPad.

Public Repository Access

This doesn't look as bad as the other, but it took me a lot longer as I was stumped trying to figure out why it wasn't working. Basically, I wanted to add git:// as an xinetd service to the box, and I was getting a ton of errors like:

  $ git clone git://git.themanfromspud.com/gitosis-admin.git
  Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/drbob/gitosis-admin/.git/
  fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

To start at the top, you need to make sure that we have the line for the protocol in /etc/services:

    git   9418/tcp       # Git Version Control Repo Viewer

and then in /etc/xinetd.d you need to create a file git-daemon which contains:

    # default: off
    # description: The git server offers access to git repositories
    service git
    {
        disable = no
        socket_type = stream
        wait = no
        user = git
        env = PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/libexec/git-core
        server = /usr/local/libexec/git-core/git-daemon
        server_args = --base-path=/Users/git/repositories/ --export-all --inetd
        log_on_failure += USERID
    }

and then send a kill -HUP to the xinetd process. The tricky point for me was the env = PATH=... line - without it the xinetd process does not know the path to the executables even with the path specified! So make sure it's there. After this, you should have the protocol working so you can say:

  $ git clone git://git.themanfromspud.com/gitosis-admin.git
  Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/drbob/gitosis-admin/.git/
  remote: Counting objects: 5, done.
  remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
  remote: Total 5 (delta 0), reused 5 (delta 0)

It's a love/hate relationship with me and Comcast. On one hand, it's the fastest ISP I can get. On another, they are constantly trying to say they provide more on less infrastructure than anyone I know. If you can sell 100 homes 8Mbps speed and only have the infrastructure for 10Mbps - you're making a boatload of dough. But then you're not really providing what you're selling, are you?

Comcast is like this. Their latest round of "end user license agreement" changes says that they will shut you down if you hit 250GB/month. Now that's a lot - even for me - but the question is "Why?" If I bought a 12Mbps line from you - then you are making money on me to provide that level of service. Period. To say that's the "peak" is OK, as long as you say what the sustainable rate is. No different than cars and the Highway/City MPG numbers. Tell me the "best", but tell me the "actual" as well.

Also, Comcast is going to start putting lower priority on the packets of "bandwidth hogs" - not to stop them, but just slow them down. I'm with that - so long as it's over the purchased minimum bandwidth. But they don't do that. That is a hard cap at the cable modem, and it should be. No, this is for people they believe to be "too piggish" on their network.

Hey, Babe... you sold us something based on it's speed. You're making the money. Spend it on the infrastructure to actually provide the speed you're selling - schmucks.