tips
3
Oct 08
note to self re: git unpacker error
when you get an unpacker error “unpack failed” and git is being RIDICULOUSLY CRYPTIC (as usual) about it’s error, try this.
git repack remote/origin/master
I’m sick of pulling my hair out over this.
30
May 08
Big announcement!
Cathy and I have BIG NEWS! However, instead of repeating ourselves everywhere, I’m just going to ask you to head over to Cathy’s blog and read about it there. Without further ado, we present…
13
May 08
XSendFile note
Note to everyone using Apache and the XSendFile module. If you’ve included the module and are getting 0-byte files, like I was today, make sure you have the following lines in your VirtualHost config
XSendFile on
XSendFileAllowAbove on
The website needs to know you want to use the module. Duh. 
1
Jul 07
Let’s hear it for Virginia
I’m coming out of blog hiatus to post about this important bill recently passed in Virginia. It relates to my biggest pet peeve about driving. People who don’t use their signal.
Didn’t use your turn signal? That’ll be $1,050, please!
Now, if only every state decided to use this. The world would be a better place.
PLEASE USE YOUR SIGNAL!!!!
16
Apr 07
Restarting mongrel_cluster with capistrano
Update April 2, 2009: This post is REALLY old. Do yourself a favor and install Passenger. I have and it’s a life saver for my Rails sites. No more crashing mongrels, or mongrels that don’t want to restart. Just sites that know they need to spin up if they’re down.
Update April 17, 2007: Bradley, the author of mongrel_cluster, was already aware of this issue and is getting ready to release a new version with some fixes for this issue. Best practice for now is to update your config files to place the pid files in /var/run/mongrel_cluster. He mentioned it way back on February 23rd. I shoulda read closer.
If you’ve been experiencing problems with restarting your mongrel cluster through Capistrano then I have two solutions that have worked for me and I’m pretty sure will for you as well. Continue reading →
4
Apr 07
Save the world… Save the cheerleader
Cathy and I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” last weekend and it was really inspiring. Sure, it’s a glorified PowerPoint presentation but, with all apologies to Marshall McLuhan, in this instance the medium is not the message. So, I’ve tried to step up my looking for ways to help reduce my impact on our environment. My small steps may not make a HUGE difference but they’ll help and I can also help spread the word on my tiny little blog here. One thing that helps not just the environment but your pocketbook as well?
Stop idling the car!!
Studies have shown that idling the car for longer than 10 seconds is very wasteful. 10 SECONDS PEOPLE! That’s many stoplights out where I live, if I hit it right… wrong… umm, just as it changes to red. So, I’ve started to turn my car off when I think I can get away with it. The following link has more information and there’s a quaint, though low-budget (I love the squirrel), video that makes a good point as well.
(inspiration for this post) Homemade Hybrids – with the 10-Second Rule
Using this 10 second rule can even save you gas. The person quoted in the story I linked to above said he got an extra 30 miles in one month. That’s an extra gallon in my car. $3.45 saved. Per tank. I go through a coupla tanks a month. That’s big bucks.
What else am I doing?
- I’m starting to take lightrail more often into work
- I don’t run the water in my shower waiting for it to get hot as long as I used to. I used to shave while waiting but it gets hot enough, fast enough, that I start the shower after shaving.
- We’ve replaced standard lightbulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs in many places, though I think I know some places where we haven’t.
Little things, but things that help. You can too. So, if you find yourself idling your car, anywhere you’re going to be longer than 10 seconds?… A long stoplight… Waiting for the kids to come out of school… Tailgating… etc… Turn it off.
PS – What’s the deal with the title? If we save our world? We’ll be saving the lives of countless cheerleaders too. I, for one, am all for that!
16
Nov 06
Autostarting Mongrel clusters in FreeBSD 6.x on bootup
Update April 2, 2009: This post is REALLY old. Do yourself a favor and install Passenger. I have and it’s a life saver for my Rails sites. No more crashing mongrels, or mongrels that don’t want to restart. Just sites that know they need to spin up if they’re down.
Jeez this has been a confusing day. I’ve been trying to figure out why the mongrel clusters powering my websites weren’t starting after a reboot of my servers. I’m initializing the reboots so don’t worry that my servers are unstable. they’re not. They’re well-behaved children.
FreeBSD has the /usr/local/etc/rc.d directory for shell scripts that will autostart services for you. Kinda like the “Startup” directory in windows. Great. So I found a shell script someone had written and sent in this email on the Mongrel-users mailing list. I copied that to the rc.d directory and placed the require mongrel_cluster_enable=”YES” line into /etc/rc.conf.
reboot.
Nothing. Apache was starting. Mysql was starting. WTF.
Continue reading →
