I’ve been itching to contribute some nice software to Haiku for a while. Last year I made my first piece of Haiku software: a screensaver of pretty falling leaves. It seemed like a good place to start for me since I like making video games, and screensavers are pretty much just video games without any user input.

http://haikuware.com/directory/view-details/utilities/screensavers/fallleaves

My plan for my next piece of software is to pick a nice library, compile in on Haiku, and then write a native GUI to interact with it. I decided to start by writing an RSS client. It’s coming along slowly but fine.

It’s funny, there’s “no software applications for Haiku”, but at the same time, every time I think I have a great idea to fill in some functionality gap, I find out there already is an application for it in Haiku that works fine. Combine that with the WebPositive web browser and you now have a ton of functionality that’s provided by websites (RSS feed readers, email, document creation…) Probably the biggest application gap I see is that there’s no native word processor, but it’s really hard for me to care. I don’t really use word processors in any operating systems.

Lastly, here’s my usual list of some of the stuff I did in Haiku recently:

• Log in to my MSN, Yahoo, AIM, and Gmail chat accounts using Caya
• Download YouTube videos using youtube-dl and watch them using MediaPlayer
• Listen to music while I program using a playlist in MediaPlayer
• Host a simple static web page using PoorMan (a “poor man’s” web server)
• Create a new software project with the Paladin IDE, setup a new project on SourceForge, and sync my work using git
• Check my email and visit various websites using WebPositive
• Use BePDF to view some documents that were emailed to me
• I had some fun trying out and voting on some of the new software releases on Haikuware.

In the past I’ve downloaded files through bittorrent using Transmission, but for some reason it wasn’t working last week. I didn’t really look into it, but I think I was trying to use a crummy seeds.

I plan on spending more time in Vision, the native IRC client, to learn more about software development in Haiku.

Oh, I almost forgot! I resized my partitions and gave myself a new Haiku native partition. So I now have a partition for the Arch Linux operating system, the Haiku operating system, my Linux personal data, and my Haiku personal data. This way I don’t have to fret when upgrading.

To get this functionality natively within dwm 6.0:

• Patch your dwm config with jasonwryan’s statuscolors-6.0
• Take a look at jasonwryan’s dwm-status script the dzen website for some ideas of what text can be piped
• Follow Lokaltag’s tutorial to draw symbols into your favourite bitmap font.
• Look at dzen’s icon packs for some ideas of what can be drawn.

Here’s what my statusbar currently looks like (click for full length image):

For the lazy, here’s how to get the statusbar to look like the above:

1. Save font as ~/.fonts/terminus2.bdf:
   https://github.com/w0ng/dwm/blob/master/terminus2.bdf
2. Update font cache:

$ xset +fp ~/.fonts
# fc-cache -fv

3. Save script as ~/.dwm-statusbar.bash:
   https://github.com/w0ng/bin/blob/master/dwm-statusbar
4. Allow script to be executed:

   $ chmod +x ~/.dwm-statusbar.bash

5. Apply jasonwryan’s statuscolors-6.0 patch
6. Change font and statuscolors options in dwm/config.h:

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   ... /* appearance */ static const char font[] = "-*-terminus2-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"; #define NUMCOLORS 6 static const char colors[NUMCOLORS][ColLast][8] = { // border foreground background { "#073642", "#657b83", "#002b36" }, // 1 = normal (grey on black) { "#b58900", "#eee8d5", "#002b36" }, // 2 = selected (white on black) { "#dc322f", "#002b36", "#b58900" }, // 3 = urgent (black on yellow) { "#073642", "#839496", "#073642" }, // 4 = lightgrey on brightblack { "#073642", "#073642", "#002b36" }, // 5 = brightblack on black { "#073642", "#002b36", "#073642" }, // 6 = black on brightblack }; ...

7. Add statusbar script to ~/.xinitrc:

   ~/.dwm-statusbar.bash &

8. Restart X

Edit: This appears to be a better solution (I haven’t tried it yet, though): https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1096029#p1096029

I am always on the search for the other ways to encrypt my documents on a server.
I’ve used gpg keys, gpg symetric encryption, but this one seems to fit the bill the best.
Encrypting with vim is a very painless process, it does take some setup, but not much, I promise.

The first thing I do is to setup an alias in my .bashrc file.  I alias the following :

alias vime=”vim -u ~/.vimencrypt -x″

vime is short for “vim encrypted”, at least in my head
WHEW! Step one finished, that was easy! ……hey, where is that “easy button” again ?

Next is to edit/and or/create a separate .vimrc just for this, and I name mine  .vimencrypt
This file will be in your home directory.  ~/.vimencrypt     
It contains the following:

source ~/.vimrc
set nobackup
set noswapfile
set nowritebackup
set cm=blowfish

Note: Since Vim 7.3 (2010-08-15)(and newer), vim can now use Blowfish encryption.
If your using an older vim — remove the “set cm=blowfish” line. It will then default to crypt for encryption.

I know, very complicated right ?     That’s it folks, you are now READY to use encryption with vim!
Now, simply type “vime something.txt”  and you’re on your way.

You will then see:

Enter encryption key:

Enter same key again:

If you entered the same key twice, then you should be presented with a normal vim interface.

If you use “vime” to encrypt the document the first time, it will stay encrypted.
You can then just use vim normally to edit it endlessly (vim will ask for your password, you only have to use “vime” on the initial creation of the document), and it’s encrypted when you close it.

Now you will see VimCrypt~02……. when you cat your encrypted file, and it’s encrypted with blowfish, a MUCH MUCH stronger encryption than just “crypt” which can be broken fairly easily.

> cat test VimCrypt~02!sD~wLПYEx

I hope you have fun with vim and encryption.

Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s what we want:

Copy the default dircolors to $HOME

$ dircolors -p > ~/.dir_colours

Make the following changes to ~/.dir_colours

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--- .dir_colours.orig	2012-04-21 19:48:39.029808008 +1000
+++ .dir_colours	2012-04-21 18:28:38.645813921 +1000
@@ -68,8 +68,8 @@ TERM xterm-debian
 #NORMAL 00 # no color code at all
 #FILE 00 # regular file: use no color at all
 RESET 0 # reset to "normal" color
-DIR 01;34 # directory
-LINK 01;36 # symbolic link. (If you set this to 'target' instead of a
+DIR 00;34 # directory
+LINK 00;36 # symbolic link. (If you set this to 'target' instead of a
  # numerical value, the color is as for the file pointed to.)
 MULTIHARDLINK 00 # regular file with more than one link
 FIFO 40;33 # pipe
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ STICKY_OTHER_WRITABLE 30;42 # dir that i
 OTHER_WRITABLE 34;42 # dir that is other-writable (o+w) and not sticky
 STICKY 37;44 # dir with the sticky bit set (+t) and not other-writable
 # This is for files with execute permission:
-EXEC 01;32
+EXEC 00;32
 # List any file extensions like '.gz' or '.tar' that you would like ls
 # to colorize below. Put the extension, a space, and the color init string.
 # (and any comments you want to add after a '#')
@@ -184,19 +184,19 @@ EXEC 01;32
 .ogv 01;35
 .ogx 01;35
 # audio formats
-.aac 00;36
-.au 00;36
-.flac 00;36
-.mid 00;36
-.midi 00;36
-.mka 00;36
-.mp3 00;36
-.mpc 00;36
-.ogg 00;36
-.ra 00;36
-.wav 00;36
+.aac 00;33
+.au 00;33
+.flac 00;33
+.mid 00;33
+.midi 00;33
+.mka 00;33
+.mp3 00;33
+.mpc 00;33
+.ogg 00;33
+.ra 00;33
+.wav 00;33
 # http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/MIME_Types_and_File_Extensions
-.axa 00;36
-.oga 00;36
-.spx 00;36
-.xspf 00;36
+.axa 00;33
+.oga 00;33
+.spx 00;33
+.xspf 00;33

Finally, run the following line to append to the colours to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

$ echo "eval $(dircolors ~/.dir_colours)" >> ~/.zshrc

Download the aur eggdrop package:

$ yaourt -S eggdrop

Copy the configuration file to a local directory:

# mkdir ~/.eggdrop
# cp /etc/eggdrop.conf ~/.eggdrop

Modify ~/.eggdrop/eggdrop.conf using the eggdrop wiki as a guide:
http://eggwiki.org/Eggdrop.conf

Start eggdrop:

cd ~/.eggdrop
eggdrop eggdrop.conf

Message your bot from your IRC client to setup an admin password:

/msg YourBotsName hello

Control your bot by via DCC:

/ctcp YourBotsName chat
/dcc chat YourBotsName

To start eggdrop when you startx, add to ~/.xinitrc:

cd ~/.eggdrop && eggdrop eggdrop.conf &

Problem #1: tilde character looks like a dash when font size is less than 10
Problem #2: semicolon glyph is missing

I’ve entered a bug report here

Fix:

1. Download latest files from the source:
   https://googlefontdirectory.googlecode.com/hg/cousine/src/
2. Install fontforge

   # pacman -S fontforge

3. Open Cousine-Regular.ttf in fontforge
4. Element -> Font Info -> PS Names
5. Change font name to distinguish it from the ttf-google-webfonts package

   Fontname: CousineRegen
   Family Name: Cousine Regen
   Name of Humans: Cousine Regen

6. OK -> Change
7. File -> Generate Fonts -> Truetype -> untick Validate before saving -> Save
8. Repeat 3-7 for the bold, italic and boldItalic ttf files
9. Add CousineRegen*.ttf to a directory in your FontPath
10. Refresh font cache

    # fc-cache -fv

tl;dr: Source ttf fonts provide missing glyph. Regenerating fonts in fontforge fixes tilde character at low fontsizes.

Before vs after:

It was about a year ago that I decided to start trimming my online presence. My main reasons were that I got tired of being the “product” of a business and that it was taking too much of my time. I don’t really miss it.

It took a while to convince myself to go so far as to delete my Facebook account. I pretty much only used it to chat with people (well, only a couple of people) and to let people know that I’d updated my personally-hosted blog. (just use RSS, gosh darn it!) Facebook doesn’t seem to be used by my friends nearly as much as it used to be, so I was pretty much checking it all the time hoping that someone would post something interesting.

Many of my friends have nice open-to-anyone blogs that I can follow anyway. I don’t plan on ever again joining a website that can only be viewed by people who are members.

I’m sure some day I’ll think back on this post and laugh. It’ll be something my future teenage children will tease me about. Facebook will be remembered like we remember MySpace and GeoCities.

One of my favorite things to teach people is that all websites eventually go away. I consider it to be one of the basic laws of the Internet. Don’t become too invested in any one, because some day it’s going to disappear.

On that note, have you made a personal backup of your archlinux.me posts recently?

I’ve been using rsnapshot to backup personal files and settings that I think are important. But I’ve always had this uneasy feeling that something wasn’t quite right with my backups.

There are two important rules regarding backups:

1. Have one.
2. Be able to restore it.

That second one is where my concern was. The things I would backup include which Arch Linux packages I use. In theory, it shouldn’t be too hard to setup Arch Linux from a backup to the way I have it now. But I also host a website that uses mysql, and I think I’m backing it up correctly, but, you know, I’ve never tried restoring it, so I’m not really sure. Also, rsnapshot takes way longer to run that I thought it would.

So, I started using dd. My system is a good candidate for it because my primary hard drive and my backup are the exact same model. I was also excited to use it because I got to download and boot into the Arch Linux live CD again, which I haven’t seen in years. Good memories.

So, here’s how I do my new backups:

1. Boot into the Arch Linux live CD.
2. Take my external backup drive out of the fireproof box and plug it in.
3. Confirm the names of the two hard drives.
4. Use dd.
5. Wait.
6. Unplug the drive and put it away.
7. Relax.

My dd command:

dd if=/dev/INTERNALDRIVEsda of=/dev/EXTERNALDRIVEsdb bs=1M conv=noerror

The benefits of using dd to make an exact copy of my entire hard drive are:

• I can’t accidentally forget to backup something that I need to setup my computer. My data, my settings, my operating system, and my website all get backed up. Even my Haiku installation gets backed up!
• If my hard drive fails, I can swap it with my backup drive and be up and running again in a matter of minutes.
• I’ll have a copy of the lastest Arch Linux installation media lying around, just in case.

Possible drawbacks include:

• I only have one “copy” of my files, as opposed to one from from last week, one from the week before, and so on. I only ever had one copy, even when I used rsnapshot. I keep a backup mainly in case of a hardware failure, so one copy is all I need.
• I can’t automate it. That’s ok, because I don’t keep my backup hard drive connected to my computer anyway. Maybe someday when I’m rich and famous I’ll be able to afford an external hard drive and an internal backup hard drive.
• It’s easier to destroy my computer setup by making a mistake with dd than it is by making a mistake using rsnapshot. Well, be careful!

This has also been my first experience using the dd command. Such power. But, as with any power, it’s important to remember the old saying:

With great power comes great awesomeness.

Brynäs kommer sist i serien och får kvala, de är i final. De åker ut med 4-1 i matcher i kvartsfinalen, det blir nästan tvärtom. De ska enkelt åka ut i semin mot Färjestad, men vinner med 4-1 i matcher. I finalen ska Skellefteå vinna relativt enkelt, men i detta nu står det 3-1 i matcher till Brynäs fördel. Vilka kunde tro det? Inte många. När Brynäs väl imponerat den första matchen med en klar vinst med 3-6 på bortais, då börjar journalisterna tala om guld till Brynäs helt plötsligt. Sedan flyter det på, vi vinner tills det står 3-0 i matcher. En match kvar, ingen annan lag har kunnat vända ett sådant underläge sedan vi införde systemet med bäst av fyra. Journalisterna skriver att Brynäs tar hem det.

Vad hände igår? Skellefteå vinner i Gävle efter sudden. Helt plötsligt vänder det och Skellefteå, ni kan vända det här!!! Give me a f*ucking break. Andas, vänta tills det åtminstone står 3-2 eller 3-3 i matcher innan ni vänder eran kappa. Sorgligt.

–

After 8 months of running Ubuntu 11.10 I finally gave up on it, there’re too many things that makes using it a painful experience, for instance:

* The PPA system: I guess it was never meant to be used the way it’s used today but there’s nothing best to keep one’s system up-to-date – Ubuntu’s upgrade policy is to only update packages in the current release with security patchs, no bumps to newer versions for the next 6 months. PPAs? Hell no! AUR is way more efficient, easy, simple… well, way more Arch :)
* It’s Debian based :( While I’m positive GNU/Linux and F/LOSS communities owes too much to it and that it’s social contract represents a giant leap towards a better world (yeah, I do think that) by being not only the biggest free and open computer community ever but the biggest world-wide community effort ever, I can’t stand the way it implements GNU/Linux, it just sucks cocks fucking hard, everywhere.
* /etc/apt/ it’s a clunky crap.
* Canonical’s Compiz screwing up: I love Compiz -and Emerald-, I hate Ubuntu 11.04/11.10 Compiz. While Compiz traditionally provided out-of-this-world eye candy for my desktop the way it’s integrated into Ubuntu 11.04/11.10 plain SUCKS, do you hear (Canonical) boys? S U C K S, it simple hogs my CPU and drains my computer battery – in contrast to Mutter (GNOME Shell green composite technology) and KDE SC’s KWin that simple rocks. Thanks Canonical for screwing Compiz up.
* The kernel, my kingdom for a kernel! In Ubuntu you need to wait 6 months for a kernel upgrade -they only update minor revisions- so if say, there’s a new functionality added that may potentially make your system better support your hardware (or just be aware of it!) you’ll have to wait 6 months before you get it! Worst, when they finally freeze a kernel to add it to the next Ubuntu release it’s surely it will be well behind the *current-stable* available kernel. One thing that specially annoy me about Ubuntu’s kernel is that my laptop heated like if Lindsay Lohan and Michele Rodriguez were having sex on the blonde bad girl of Mission Imposible 4: Ghost Protocol – @ Hell.
(Oh… a surprisingly good idea, mmm…)
Wait, give me a minute please…
(Five minutes later)
Ok, let’s continue:
* Ubuntu’s base system, Debian: I dislike it – a lot.
* Bloatness, hogness and other pigness: The whole system was bloated, trivial applications pulled long lists of dependencies.
* Indicators: Most indicators I’ve used at the time were known to not work with upcoming Ubuntu release (and I’ve already did lose some of the soldiers when upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10, so this made me sick, really).
* Don’t touch! I was totally afraid to touch something I was supposed to not touch and broke the system – the same old story of Ubuntu.
* Greedy: I learn about Canonical modifying the source code of Rhythmbox so they basically kept all the incoming produced by users using the various online music stores accessible within application – originally this source of incoming was used to finance both Rhythmbox and GNOME Project development.
* Did you ever cat an Ubuntu ~/.bashrc? There’s a whole fucking OS in there!
* apt stinks, did I mention it?
* aptitude tries to make apt not stink but in the end stinks with it’s own odor.
* It’s versioned. Be real people: if your GNU/Linux installation it’s not a server install then you *should* (note I’m being polite) be rolling-release. C’mon, it’s 2012, remember world will come to end at 25/12/2012, maybe you won’t have time to release another version LOL!
* It’s bulky and constructed in a way you can’t touch much of it without risking to have to reinstall it.
* Closed: Seems -read, I said SEEMS- Canonical is slowly but with good pace ‘closing’ it the way Apple and now Moco$oft (BTW, in spanish moco means mucus, snot) close their ecosystems. Sure, Ubuntu *is* GNU/Linux, sure it (still) is open source, but with every new version it feels a little more closed/compact, it feels like you can’t really do as much as you want with it; to me, flexibility and openness of a OS it’s everything.
* Ubuntu forums: you need to register just to make a search, WTF!
* It’s bloody buggy, hell. Linux Mint exists because Ubuntu (surprinsingly STILL) floats in a sea of bugs, and that sucks. Today Linux Mint have it’s own path with Cinammon and all of that but it’s roots are in polishing the buggy Ubuntu.
* Last: I don’t like what Canonical did to GNOME and Rhythmbox teams: YOU SUCKS, SHUTTLEWORTH.

Ahh, I feel much better now :P

Now, it’s not all words of hate sir, not at all!
I love Ubuntu because it was the first GNU/Linux system with which I could totally replace and better of, improve my computing experience by replacing XP with it circa 2007 – I did play with GNU/Linux from some time before but never found anything near to what Ubuntu was at the time and the truth is desktop experience was nowhere near to what it is today.
I still DO LIKE UBUNTU and have a lot of expectations on it. I firmly believe that today _it’s the only_ GNU/Linux distro that can compete with MacOS and Win$hit on THEIR terms, and that’s fucking awesome. I do like Unity -fuck off all of you, bunch of motherfuckers- and where Canonical Ltd. seem is going with the distro – and where Ubuntu will be in the next year or two.
Hey I’m not saying Gentoo.. er, well, may be it’s not the best example *cof* sorry…, I’m not saying any other distro could’nt be a real option for Average Joe or Doña Rosa, what I say there’s no other GNU/Linux distro out there that’s canned in a way you can open and consume it. Of course my Arch Linux running KDE SC 4.8.2 beats the shit out of Ubuntu*, Windick and MacOS, but it is my personal installation, not Arch Linux by itself – same with every other distro out there. Not even Sabayon, Calculate (whoa, two Gentoo based), Fedora, even openSUSE with it’s KDE desktop are near Ubuntu user-experience, check out the list at Distrowatch and you tell me. The only other distro I could think as a real competitor to Ubuntu which in fact I really like and it’s doing their homework very well is Linux Mint: the guy behind it knows what he’s doing and there’s no doubt he managed to gather an awesome team, I feel happy for them, Mint rocks. However Mint’s actual transition to new in-house developed Cinammon/GNOME3 DE puts it out of the race; said that, I’ve used Lisa for about a month and after tweaking it a bit -Mint’s forum have a Tip & Tricks section that helps a lot- I can say it really shines: Lisa is an elegant, speedier than Ubuntu, customizable to the bones and easy to deploy and use distro which will give you an *excellent* desktop experience without doing away with your nerdy habits.
*My current Arch Linux + KDE SC 4.8.2 setup is awesome, believe me on this, from my own experience it beats the shit out of Windows 7 (my laptop came with a HP-customized Home Premium edition) and MacOS SnowLeopard (played with it at work,  sucks). To being fair I must say although somewhat finished Ubuntu is still a work in progress so I can forgive Ubuntu on this one ;-D

tmux of Ubuntu 11.10

Farewell Ubuntu!

Honey, I’m home!

It’s incredible how adaptable are we, the humans.
Eight months ago the postman brings me home the laptop I’m using now, a HP Pavilion dv7-4287cl. The first thing I did and I presume the very same thing everyone does when buys a new computer that happens to be shipped with poop is erase Win$hit partitions. I remember at that time I was in need to have my computer up and running faster than fast so I throwed at it an Ubuntu 11.04 LiveCD counting the days to the next weekend when I was to install and tweak Arch – a pretty cool program for the weekend if you ask me.
What I didn’t expect was I actually liked 11.04, it was awesome when compared with the last Ubuntu I tried, 9.10. In fact I liked so much Natty Narwhal I made it my official desktop – Father, forgive me for I have sinned…
But what started as a passionate love early became a tense relationship soon to break-up only saved because Oneiric was around the corner. I must say 11.10 impressed me: they did go further on the concepts shown in 11.04 and improved it resulting in the polished and functional 11.10 that blown away my wig!
And everything was smooth and cool… for a time though, we didn’t live happily forever :( you already read about that at the beginning of this post rant.

So once again I’m here enjoying Arch and I don’t plan to leave again for a loooong time, that is if I ever leave; however I will keep recommending newcomers Ubuntu and Linux Mint when asked about which GNU/Linux distribution they should install.
All I have to say is I’m truly happy to be at home again. Linux-pf kernel works perfects here as do linux-ck-corex and linux-lqx (thank you very much guys, from the devs to the AURers, thank you!) and if I have time today Sunday I will try linux-grsec on an old notebook I used as home server.
Now I’m enjoying again the beauty of Arch’s design I plan to post all the changes, tweaks and customizations I made to the system that makes a pleasure using it.
For now, just a couple of screenshots…

About to play Office Space (1999 by Mike Judge)

KWin-GLES: everything you want and more.

‘Till next time.

Jag har sedan jag flyttat tillbaka hit ständigt gått runt med tanken att jag ska dra så fort som möjligt. Dessvärre är det betydligt enklare sagt än gjort. Många pusselbitar måste falla på plats först, somliga vilka kan ta sin tid. Jag ska inte älta, det är bara onödigt. Istället ska jag fortsätta söka kurser och sedan ta en dag i sänder, men bort härifrån ska jag.

There are currently 3 popular workarounds for those without root access.

Workaround #1. Add the following to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

alias ipython="python /usr/bin/ipython"

Workaround #2. Install a local virtualenv copy of ipython:

$ pip install ipython

Workaround #3. Create ~/.config/ipython/profile_default/ipython_virtualenv.py with the following (for Python3):

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# Modified for Python 3 (https://gist.github.com/1759781)
from os import environ
from os.path import join, sep
 
if 'VIRTUAL_ENV' in environ:
    virtual_env_dir = environ['VIRTUAL_ENV']
    activate_this = join(virtual_env_dir, "bin", "activate_this.py")
    exec(compile(open(activate_this).read(), activate_this, 'exec'),
         dict(__file__=activate_this))
    virtual_env_name = virtual_env_dir.split(sep)[-1]
    message = 'virtualenv "{0}" ({1})]'.format(virtual_env_name,
                                               virtual_env_dir)
    print(message)
    del virtual_env_dir
del environ, join, sep

Add the following to ~/.config/ipython/profile_default/ipython_config.py:

c.InteractiveShellApp.exec_files = ['ipython_virtualenv.py']

From the IPython FAQ, those with root access can access it by modifying the shebang in /usr/bin/ipython

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#!/usr/bin/env python

It’s possible to change the cursor in urxvt when using zsh to indicate the current vi mode (e.g. grey for INSERT, red for NORMAL).

Append the following to ~/.zshrc

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# change cursor colour depending on vi mode
zle-keymap-select () {
  if [ "$TERM" = "rxvt-unicode-256color" ]; then
if [ $KEYMAP = vicmd ]; then
echo -ne "\033]12;red\007"
    else
echo -ne "\033]12;grey\007"
    fi
fi
}; zle -N zle-keymap-select
zle-line-init () {
  zle -K viins
  echo -ne "\033]12;grey\007"
}; zle -N zle-line-init

Zsh auto-detects and sets the editing mode (default: emacs) to vi if $EDITOR=vim. If this environment variable isn’t set, or is set to something else, you’ll also need to add bindkey -v to your ~/.zshrc.

Aspen lodges itself in a small niche between php-like spaghetti code and a complicated package structure full of python models, views, controllers, and templates. In Aspen, template and control code live in the same file, but in separate pages, called Simplates. In a rebellion against regular expression url parsing, Aspen uses the filesystem to define url structure and paths; like in the old days of statically served HTML files.

One thing I love about Aspen is how easy it is to get up and running. Aspen will serve a single HTML file with no python code without any boilerplate. It serves static files for css, javascript, and images just as easily. To add a dynamic page to your Aspen powered site, you simply use the aforementioned simplates, which include python controllers and Tornado inspired templates in the same file. Aspen provides numerous service connectors, so deployment can also be trivial.

Another great feature of Aspen is its documentation. At first glance, the docs seem sparse and rather limited. However, they are well organized, and every page seems to answer every question I have on the topic succinctly and quickly. Chad seems to have a terrific minimalist policy of telling you exactly what you want to know in as few words as possible. As a writer, I know just how difficult this is to accomplish without repeating oneself.

On the negative side, I do have misgivings as to how well Aspen’s filesystem urls it can scale. Chad has assured me that Aspen is up for running large sites. I appreciate the power of regex urls, and I don’t necessarily like having arbitrary file extensions in URLS. I think locators should be succinct and divorced from implementation details. Ideally, I believe there may be a happy medium between Aspen’s enforced folder structure, and the overly-abstract and overly-complicated url scheme Django and its kin provide.

Another downside is that I haven’t figured out a good way to unit test Aspen simplates. You can refactor much of the code into backend libraries and test that, of course, or you can start the service running and mock requests. However, I miss the TestClient feature from Django that allows me to mock a request without running the server. It provides a better analysis of code coverage, and is closer to the actual code.

Now, with the review over, I’d like to introduce a little project I’ve started to provide some vital features that Aspen core is missing.
Trembling is kind of a catch-all project with a few basic helpers and a few useful projects. Namely, trembling provides:

• Basic sessions
• Basic user authentication
• Less than basic single request messages
• A simple redirect response

Aspen itself does not define or require a model layer; you’re free to use the ORM, DBAPI connector, or NoSQL database of your choice. Trembling arbitrarily chooses mongoengine for the models. I made no effort to make pluggable backends like Django does; Aspen does not encourage excessive layers of abstraction.

I also don’t know how secure trembling’s session and auth features are. If you find a security hole, pull requests are welcome. Overall, I think the combination of Trembling and Aspen will be very useful for my future basic sites. I would also like to try it on a more complicated project just to see how well it performs.

Solarized colour scheme author talks about his scheme, Arch Linux, xmonad, Haskell terminal fonts, and more.

A few days ago, I suddenly begun receiving approval requests for comments(spam comments) in my e-mailbox. Somehow, from the time of my vacation to today, my archlinux.me blog had for all I was concerned never existed. Totally obliviated from existence.

Dear readers, I feel obligated to humbly apologize for my sudden and unexplained abscence and I will yet again take to the stage and write about my adventures in Archlinux.

One major annoyance I’ve found is that terminal vim responds extremely slowly when dealing with files that contain long lines (.e.g. xml, markdown, php, etc.).

Some simple changes in ~/.vimrc to overcome this:

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" set max syntax columns to prevent lag on long lines (default: 3000)
set synmaxcol=128
" disable cursorline (default: nocursorline)
set nocursorline "

To compensate for loss of the visual aid in the cursorline, in my vim theme and ~/.Xresources, I changed my cursor colour from the default grey/white to yellow.