paul schreiber » public service announcement http://paulschreiber.com tagline goes here Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:06:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Ontario 2011 Election results, consolidated http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/10/14/ontario-2011-election-results-consolidated/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/10/14/ontario-2011-election-results-consolidated/#comments Sat, 15 Oct 2011 05:59:48 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=2203 If you don’t want to download and parse 107 pages of Elections Ontario data, I’ve gathered it for you:

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/10/14/ontario-2011-election-results-consolidated/feed/ 0 7198299 Canada Limited http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/05/03/7198299-canada-limited/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/05/03/7198299-canada-limited/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 20:21:07 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=2120 7198299 Canada Limited is Red Chili Thai, 1266 Danforth Avenue in Toronto. [for Google]

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/05/03/7198299-canada-limited/feed/ 2 HOWTO count words in JavaScript http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/03/03/howto-count-words-in-javascript/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/03/03/howto-count-words-in-javascript/#comments Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:36:57 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=2086 /g, ' ') // remove numbers and punctuation .replace(/[–—.(),;:!?%#$‘’“”'"_+=\/\-]*/g, '') // remove/coalesce space chars .replace(/( | |[ ])+/gi, ' '); // … Continue reading →]]> Here is a handy JavaScript function for counting words:

String.prototype.countWords = function(value) { // remove html tags var cleanedText = this.replace(/< .[^<>]*?>/g, ' ') // remove numbers and punctuation .replace(/[–—.(),;:!?%#$‘’“”'"_+=\/\-]*/g, '') // remove/coalesce space chars .replace(/(&nbsp;|&#160;|[ ])+/gi, ' '); // don't split "" into words, as you'll get 1 ([""]) if (cleanedText === "") { return 0; } // count words return cleanedText.split(/\W/).length; }
]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/03/03/howto-count-words-in-javascript/feed/ 0 HOWTO set up IMAP email for Yahoo http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/19/howto-set-up-imap-email-for-yahoo/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/19/howto-set-up-imap-email-for-yahoo/#comments Sat, 19 Feb 2011 18:21:37 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=2054 Continue reading →]]> A few weeks ago, I was helping my cousins set up their new iMac. Once everything was up and running, she inquired about adding their Yahoo account to Mail. The conventional wisdom says you can’t do this. Yahoo charges for POP access. IMAP? Unavailable.

But then she hands me her new iPod touch…with her Yahoo mail account working just fine. It must get the mail somehow. And it’s highly unlikely Apple wrote some sort of custom HTTP-Mail transport just for them.

You can have IMAP access to your Yahoo Mail account. For free. Here’s how.

Cutting to the chase

IMAP server: apple.imap.mail.yahoo.com (username = Yahoo ID)
SMTP server: apple.smtp.mail.yahoo.com (username = yahooid@yahoo.com)
SSL enabled. Authentication = password.

Step-by-step guide to configuring Mac OS X Mail for Yahoo

  1. Go to Mail > Preferences…
  2. Click Accounts (toolbar)
  3. Click + (lower left)
  4. You’ll see the first pane of the wizard. Enter your email address and password. Then click Continue.
  5. Mail recognizes this as a Yahoo account. But you’re not a paying Yahoo Mail Plus customer, and don’t have access to the POP server. Don’t worry. That’s okay. Click Continue anyway.
  6. On the next screen, select IMAP from the popup and enter apple.imap.mail.yahoo.com as the server name.

    Note: most of the instructions on the internet tell you to enter imap.apple.mail.yahoo.com. While this also works, you’ll get an SSL error:

    since Yahoo’s wildcard certificate is for *.imap.mail.yahoo.com. If you do this, you have to click Show Certificate, check the “Always trust…” checkbox, click connect and enter your Mac OS username and password.

    Why bother?

  7. Next, enter apple.smtp.mail.yahoo.com as your SMTP server. Enter your username (full yahoo email address) and password and click Continue:
  8. The good news: Mail has recognized this as not just an IMAP account, but a Yahoo IMAP account.

    The bad news: it thinks it’s a POP account, and has set the port to 995.

    Change the port to 993.

  9. Finally, we need to set up the Junk mail folder. Click the Mailbox Behaviors tab. Besides Junk, check “Store Junk messages on the server.”

    Then, close the preferences window. When prompted, click Save.

  10. Now, put your feet up. Depending on the amount of email you have, it could take an hour or more to download it all. Yeah, you whose friends email them photos instead of posting them to Flickr. That’s right. You.

    Once that’s done, you need to identify four mailboxes as special: Draft(s), Trash, Sent and Bulk Mail (Junk).

    Select the Draft folder. Then select Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Drafts:

    Select the Trash folder. Then select Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Trash:

    Repeat for Sent and Bulk Mail.

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/19/howto-set-up-imap-email-for-yahoo/feed/ 19 HOWTO setup multistage deployment with Capistrano http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/12/howto-setup-multistage-deployment-with-capistrano/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/12/howto-setup-multistage-deployment-with-capistrano/#comments Sun, 13 Feb 2011 01:24:29 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=2013 Continue reading →]]> When I wrote about deploying PHP sites with Capistrano, step 6 was a bit of a throwaway — hey, here's a quick hack for handling multistage deployment. I'd been using variants of that technique for quite some time but figured there must be a better way. There is: Capistrano multistage. There is even documentation for this. But it misses a few steps.

How to setup multistage deployment with Capistrano

  1. Install capistrano and capistrano multistage
  2. Capify your project
  3. Set up the deploy/ directory
  4. Create the deployment recipes

In my Rails-based example, we'll have two stages: staging and production. You can name your stages whatever you want. However, don’t name one of your stages stage — that's a reserved word. Call it staging.

Install capistrano and capistrano multistage

gem install capistrano
gem install capistrano-ext

Capify your project

capify .

Set up the deploy directory

mkdir config/deploy
touch config/deploy/staging.rb
touch config/deploy/production.rb

Create the deployment recipes

You’re going to edit three files: deploy.rb, staging.rb and production.rb:

deploy.rb

set :stages, %w(staging production) set :default_stage, "production" require 'capistrano/ext/multistage'
default_run_options[:pty] = true
set :application, "myproject" set :use_sudo, false set :keep_releases, 5
set :repository, "https://somewhere/svn/myproject/trunk" set :scm, :subversion set :scm_username, "me" set :deploy_via, :export
# this is useful in a shared hosting environment, where you have your own JAVA_HOME or GEM_HOME. # otherwise, just set RAILS_ENV set(:rake) { "JAVA_HOME=#{java_home} GEM_HOME=#{gem_home} RAILS_ENV=#{rails_env} /usr/bin/env rake" }
# since :domain is defined in another file (staging.rb and production.rb), # we need to delay its assignment until they're loaded set(:domain) { "#{domain}" } role(:web) { domain } role(:app) { domain } role(:db, :primary => true) { domain }
namespace :deploy do task :start do ; end task :stop do ; end task :restart, :roles => :app, :except => { :no_release => true } do run "#{try_sudo} touch #{File.join(current_path,'tmp','restart.txt')}" end end
# for some reason, this isn't enabled by default after "deploy:update", "deploy:cleanup"
# here is an example task which uses rake, as defined above after "deploy:migrate", "load_sample_fixtures" desc "load sample fixtures" task :load_sample_fixtures do run "cd #{current_release}; FIXTURES=samples #{rake} db:fixtures:load" end

staging.rb

set :deploy_to, "/path/to/#{application}-stage" # My Rails app uses RJB, so it needs to know where Java lives set :java_home, "/path/to/java-6-openjdk" set :domain, "testing.myserver.ca" set :user, "paul" set :rails_env, "staging" # I am root on my staging server and have all the right gems installed # so I don't need GEM_HOME to be overridden set :gem_home, nil

production.rb

set :deploy_to, "/home/myuser/#{application}" set :java_home, "/home/myuser/sw/jdk" set :domain, "www.myserver.ca" set :user, "myuser" set :rails_env, "production" set :gem_home, "/home/myuser/ruby/gems/"
# in a shared hosting environment, you often need to specify your own passenger configuration desc "copy the .htaccess file (passenger configuration); setup_load_paths.rb (sets GEM_HOME)" namespace :deploy do task :copy_htaccess do run "cp #{current_release}/config/htaccess_production #{current_release}/public/.htaccess" run "mv #{current_release}/config/production_setup_load_paths.rb #{current_release}/config/setup_load_paths.rb" end end
after "deploy:update_code", "deploy:copy_htaccess"

Now, you’re set. You can deploy with cap deploy (for the default stage, production), or cap staging deploy. TextMate's Capistrano plugin handles this gracefully, presenting you with a dialog listing the available stages.

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/12/howto-setup-multistage-deployment-with-capistrano/feed/ 3 Fixing iChat Google Talk login failures http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/09/fixing-ichat-google-talk-login-failures/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/09/fixing-ichat-google-talk-login-failures/#comments Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:27:05 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=1992 Continue reading →]]> I was helping a friend set up her new iBook MacBook yesterday, and we were unable to get iChat to log in to her Google Talk account.

We kept seeing this error:

iChat can’t log in to talk.google.com because your login ID or password is incorrect.

And this XMPP error was logged to Console:

iChatAgent[33567] [Warning] JConnection: Error: Error Domain=XMPPErrorDomain Code=10 “The operation couldn’t be completed. (XMPPErrorDomain error 10.)”

When we tried the same username and password on gmail.com in Safari, it worked. It also worked logging in to Google Talk using Adium.

So what’s going on? Well, my Google Account is paulschreiber@gmail.com. Most people know Google also accepts emails sent to paul.schreiber@gmail.com. What I didn’t know is that you can also use paul.schreiber as a username. Most of the time.

Let me explain with a chart:

username gmail.com iChat Adium
paulschreiber YES YES YES
paul.schreiber YES NO YES

The problem was the dot. Once we removed it, we could log in successfully.

I assume the same thing happens if your actual username has a dot and you remove it.

Filed with Apple as Radar 8978731.

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/02/09/fixing-ichat-google-talk-login-failures/feed/ 0 WordPress batch upgrade http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/01/02/wordpress-batch-upgrade/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/01/02/wordpress-batch-upgrade/#comments Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:45:37 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=1864 Continue reading →]]> If you run a web server and have multiple installations of WordPress, upgrading them all is a pain.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could update a dozen WP installs at once? Wouldn’t it be even better if you could update the Akismet plugin at the same time? (WordPress releases independently of Akimset, and their subversion tags doesn’t track Akismet’s trunk).

Now you can. Inspired by Scot Hacker’s WordPress Mass Management Tools, I created wp-upgrade.

Usage

$ cd /path/to/wp-upgrade
$ sudo ./wp-upgrade.py 3.0.4

Configuration

You need to configure two files before starting:

  • sites.txt a tab-delimited file with information about the sites you’ll be upgrading (path, url, email address of owner, userid of owner)
  • wp-upgrade.txt an email with instructions to your users
]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2011/01/02/wordpress-batch-upgrade/feed/ 1 How to solve the “undefined method `deep_symbolize_keys’ for nil:NilClass” error in Rails http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/12/09/how-to-solve-the-undefined-method-deep_symbolize_keys-for-nilnilclass-error-in-rails/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/12/09/how-to-solve-the-undefined-method-deep_symbolize_keys-for-nilnilclass-error-in-rails/#comments Fri, 10 Dec 2010 03:39:38 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=1813 Continue reading →]]> I was trying to migrate a table in my Rails app and got this error:
undefined method `deep_symbolize_keys' for nil:NilClass

It’s a strange error, and there weren’t very many hits on Google. A lighthouse ticket provided a clue.

The problem wasn’t one of my plugins or gems — it was i18n itself. Upgrading from 0.4.1 to 0.5.0 solved my problem. (I am using Rails 2.3.10.)

Here’s the full stack trace:

$ rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production –trace
(in /home/loranaw/apply/releases/20101210024212)
** Invoke db:migrate (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
rake aborted!
undefined method `deep_symbolize_keys’ for nil:NilClass
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/simple.rb:34:in `store_translations’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/base.rb:215:in `load_file’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/base.rb:215:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/base.rb:215:in `load_file’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/base.rb:21:in `load_translations’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/base.rb:21:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/base.rb:21:in `load_translations’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/simple.rb:57:in `init_translations’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/backend/simple.rb:40:in `available_locales’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n/config.rb:38:in `available_locales’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/i18n-0.4.1/lib/i18n.rb:35:in `available_locales’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:226:in `valid_locale?’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:243:in `parse_extensions’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:233:in `split’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:118:in `initialize’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:92:in `new’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:92:in `create_template’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:87:in `templates_in_path’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:86:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:86:in `templates_in_path’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/template.rb:69:in `load!’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.3.10/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:173:in `to_proc’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/paths.rb:40:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.10/lib/action_view/paths.rb:40:in `load!’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.3.10/lib/initializer.rb:402:in `load_view_paths’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.3.10/lib/initializer.rb:194:in `process’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.3.10/lib/initializer.rb:113:in `send’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.3.10/lib/initializer.rb:113:in `run’
/home/loranaw/apply/releases/20101210024212/config/environment.rb:9
/usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `gem_original_require’
/usr/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.3.10/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:182:in `require’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.3.10/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:547:in `new_constants_in’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.3.10/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:182:in `require’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.3.10/lib/tasks/misc.rake:4
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:636:in `call’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:636:in `execute’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:631:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:631:in `execute’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:597:in `invoke_with_call_chain’
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `synchronize’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:590:in `invoke_with_call_chain’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:607:in `invoke_prerequisites’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:604:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:604:in `invoke_prerequisites’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:596:in `invoke_with_call_chain’
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `synchronize’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:590:in `invoke_with_call_chain’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:583:in `invoke’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2051:in `invoke_task’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `top_level’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `top_level’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in `standard_exception_handling’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2023:in `top_level’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2001:in `run’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in `standard_exception_handling’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1998:in `run’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/bin/rake:31
/usr/bin/rake:19:in `load’
/usr/bin/rake:19

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/12/09/how-to-solve-the-undefined-method-deep_symbolize_keys-for-nilnilclass-error-in-rails/feed/ 0 FedEx location in Burlington, Ontario Canada http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/10/04/fedex-location-in-burlington-ontario-canada/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/10/04/fedex-location-in-burlington-ontario-canada/#comments Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:37:10 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=1679 This was a bit hard to find:

FedEx Burlngton
4243 North Service Road
Burlington ON L7L 4X6
Canada

(905) 332-4647

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/10/04/fedex-location-in-burlington-ontario-canada/feed/ 0 HOWTO install the rjb gem on Ubuntu and Mac OS X http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/08/07/howto-install-the-rjb-gem-on-ubuntu-and-mac-os-x/ http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/08/07/howto-install-the-rjb-gem-on-ubuntu-and-mac-os-x/#comments Sat, 07 Aug 2010 19:44:19 +0000 paulschreiber http://paulschreiber.com/?p=1655 Continue reading →]]> Here’s how to install the Ruby Java Bridge (rjb) gem on Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X:

Ubuntu Linux (10.10)

# aptitude install openjdk-6-jre-headless openjdk-6-jdk
# JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk gem install rjb

Mac OS X 10.6.4

# JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home gem install rjb

Note: rjb 1.3.2 requires the Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3 Developer Package. If you don’t want to download it, you can use 1.3.1:

JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home gem install rjb -v=1.3.1

]]> http://paulschreiber.com/blog/2010/08/07/howto-install-the-rjb-gem-on-ubuntu-and-mac-os-x/feed/ 6