Mac OS X Server and WordPress

I have to say that I’m not at all happy with Mac OS X as a web server. My immediate complaint is that it’s not serving up WordPress themes correctly. I know I have them working properly, but when I go to other computers, I see that they’re not correct. I guess it’s time for me to move back to linux where I know things work properly.

Rails3 and Gemfile

I’ve had some problems with the new bundle install in rails 3. Specifically, on my laptop, in the development environment, I use sqlite. But in production, I use mysql. I was getting all sorts of errors on my laptop about the mysql gem not working and on the production server the errors were about a problem with the sqlite gem. Ideally, I wanted the development server to ignore mysql and the production server to ignore sqlite. Here’s how it was done.

Fullfilling a Promise (from Google Cache)

Originally posted on July 27, 2008

My House Style (from Google Cache)

Originally posted August 3, 2008

Best.Corn.Ever (from Google Cache)

Originally posted August 20, 2008

Rails and params hash (from Google Cache)

Originally posted January 7, 2010

Perhaps This is Stupid (from Google Cache)

Originally posted August 21, 2008

iPhone Update (from Google Cache)

Originally posted June 28, 2009

The Little House All Alone (from Google Cache)

Originally posted June 6, 2009

Happy New Year and New Year Spamassassin Issues (from Google Cache)

Originally posted January 1, 2010

Blown Power Supply (from Google Cache)

Originally posted October 14, 2009

RubyGems Notes (from Google Cache)

Originally posted October 15, 2009

I’ve been trying to do some stuff with ruby on rails and getting my program up and running here on coldandheartless. I had all kinds of trouble when I finally got to the deployment stage. The first errors I got were:

yo:site maryh$ cap deploy:setup
/Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:280:in `activate’: can’t activate net-sftp (= 1.1.0, runtime)
for [], already activated net-sftp-2.0.2 for ["capistrano-2.0.0"] (Gem::LoadError)
from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:35:in `require’
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/
gems/capistrano-2.0.0/lib/capistrano/upload.rb:2
from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `gem_original_require’
from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require’
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/
capistrano-2.0.0/lib/capistrano/configuration/actions/file_transfer.rb:1
from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `gem_original_require’
from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require’
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/
capistrano-2.0.0/lib/capistrano/configuration.rb:12
… 7 levels…
from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require’
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/
capistrano-2.0.0/bin/cap:3
from /usr/bin/cap:19:in `load’
from /usr/bin/cap:19

After screwing around for a very long time, I found that I seem to have some old versions of gems that were messing me up. And I when I tried to uninstall them, I got this error:

yo:gems root# gem uninstall capistrano -i /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
Remove executables:
cap, capify

in addition to the gem? [Yn] Y
ERROR: While executing gem … (Gem::FilePermissionError)
You don’t have write permissions into the /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/
Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/bin directory.

So I went to go and look at the above directory and it’s true that I don’t have write permissions because there was no bin directory there at all. After I created the bin directory, I was able to uninstall the gems. So now I should be able to uninstall the old stuff and put the newest files on.

Working with httpd.conf (from Google Cache)

Originally posted October 16, 2009

Comcast, SurfBoard SB6120 and Airport Extreme (from Google Cache)

Originally posted Nov. 28, 2009.

My First Solar Image (from Google Cache)

Originally posted March 3, 2010.

Business is Open!

I got my first consulting work check today. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I’ll have to build on this to get the business going.

A New Coldandheartless

It might be a bit obvious now, but my coldandheartless server died a painful death last week. I finally got around to seeing if I could fix anything and found that the system drive had completely failed. I tried rescuing files from the drive and it didn’t work. The good news is that I had the webpages on a separate disk which was still fine. So I could copy all of those files to my new server. Unfortunately, my wordpress database was not backed up (my bad) and I was unable to restore any of the files. The good news is that I did find one old backup (from sometime in 2008) that I could use to get back some of my posts. So there is now about a two-year gap in the blog. Oh well. Lesson learned. Now, I have to devise a new backup scheme. I haven’t yet decided how to do it, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.

Recycling

It was beautiful out yesterday and I couldn’t go anywhere because my car is still in the shop. So, I decided to put the vent for the bathroom fan on my house. I also did some cleaning in the basement.

NXServer/Client Issues

If, say, your server crashed while you had an open nxclient session, you may have the problem of not being able to start another one. Here is the solution.

A Little Bit of Work

I admit that I have not been working on my house much of late. I’m pretty much completely satisfied with the fact that I can take a shower in my own house. Pretty much anything else is just gravy.

The Visitor

John and I went to go and see “The Visitor” tonight and it was terrific. It’s about a guy from Connecticut who finds two people living in his NY apartment. Basically, the idea is that your life could be changed drastically by people that you meet. The movie was really sad, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. (I don’t always like sad movies, but I did like this one.) And it wasn’t all sad, it had some very funny moments and some incredibly touching scenes. So I highly recommend it, except to my sister Julie who doesn’t go for sad movies at all.

My Sister is Going to Europe and I’m Not

My sister is going to Europe this summer for three weeks. She is now in my house, planning her trip with the help of my brother John. I’ll see about giving her an account here, so she can blog her trip while she’s gone.

My Favorite Things

I bought myself an easter lily yesterday. They are, unquestionably, my favorite flower. I like lillies in general, but the white, easter lily just smells so nice and looks so pretty that I love it. Now my house has that nice smell as well. And since I spent today doing some cleaning, my house is rather neat as well. Altogether, a pleasant place to be.

Approaching 40…

We’re just over six months until my fortieth birthday. I thought I was going to be a bit depressed about it, but I don’t think I will be. However, I do think that I’m going to be making some changes in my life. It probably happened a couple of years ago, but I’m now fairly sure that I’m in the second half of my life. The first half was good, but I want the second half to be much better.

The Barber of Seville

I saw “The Barber of Seville” last night. It has, I think, one of the most recognizable openings of any opera that I’ve heard. It’s great to just watch all the people in front of me swaying along to the music. And I know, for sure, that I could not have been the only person picturing the Bugs Bunny cartoon as the music played. The guy playing Figaro, Nathan Gunn, was very good and, looking at the photo in the book, incredibly good looking. My seat is much too far away to be able to tell myself.