Initial content import

content/drafts/adding-caffeine-porting-cocoa-to-cappuccino.html

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+Translate foundation from NS to CP
+No pointers so lose the *
+Local variables are not typed, so just declare then with var
+No properties so convert dot notation to method calls
+No synthesize but can add @accessors to ivars to create basic accessor methods
+#pragma's don't work and cause syntax errors
+No header files, just put it all in the j file
+#import becomes @import
+CGPointZero, CGRectZero -> CGMakePointZero(), CGMakeRectZero()
+
+
+TextMate regexes to convert properties to method calls:
+Find: (\s*)([^.]+)\.([^ ]+) = ([^;]+);
+Replace: $1[$2 set\u$3:$4];

content/drafts/adding-caffeine-porting-cocoa-to-cappuccino.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+--- 
+slug: adding-caffeine-porting-cocoa-to-cappuccino
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/?p=238
+kind: draft
+section: technical
+created_at: 2009-08-17 12:31:47
+title: "Adding Caffeine: Porting Cocoa to Cappuccino"
+post_id: 238
+tags: 
+- cappuccino
+- cocoa
+- objective-c
+- objective-j
+categories: 
+- Development
+status: draft

content/drafts/google-chrome-for-mac.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Google's web browser, Chrome, has been available as a developer preview for some time now. Recently it shifted to beta status and the polish keeps piling on. There are a lot of nice touches in the browser that have contributed to me switching away from Safari such as multi-purpose address/search bar, tab closing behaviour, performance and a supported extension mechanism. Some of these things were discussed in Rob Friesel Jr.'s <a href="http://blog.founddrama.net/2010/01/a-week-with-chrome/">a Week With Chrome</a> and Basil Safwat's obviously tab focussed, <a href="http://www.theinvisibl.com/news/2009/12/08/a-piece-with-a-lot-of-screenshots-about-the-close-tab-behaviour-in-google-chrome/">A piece with a lot of screenshots about the close tab behaviour in Google Chrome</a>.
+
+Today, whilst reading http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/resources/html-css/single-line-css/

content/drafts/google-chrome-for-mac.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: google-chrome-for-mac
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/?p=298
+kind: draft
+section: personal
+created_at: 0000-00-00 00:00:00
+title: Google Chrome for Mac
+post_id: 298
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: draft

content/drafts/haiku.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+On the topic of OS's nearing release, Haiku is set for an alpha release in Sep[1]: http://www.osnews.com/story/22001/Haiku_Schedules_First_Alpha_Release_for_September_9
+
+If you haven't heard of <a href="http://www.haiku-os.org/">Haiku </a>its a rewrite of BeOS from scratch. The aim of the first release is compatibility with the last official release of BeOS: R5. They're a good way down that path. As far as I know many apps that were built for R5 will run on Haiku. I've been following the project for a while now. Back in uni I downloaded an installed BeOS on my PC, this was obviously before the company went out of business/was bought by Palm (I think). The bit that interests me about it is that its GUI out of the box, much like OS X and Windows. Its attributes such as compactness, GUI, open source and POSIX core makes it a great candidate for high level embedded type projects I think. Things like the digital photo frame project I've had in mind for a while. Its one drawback in my mind is that the platform's primary language is C++, which I'm not a huge fan of. However if you're into C++ it might be worth checking out. If I recall correctly large parts of the kernel are written in C++ too.

content/drafts/haiku.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: haiku
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/?p=240
+kind: draft
+section: personal
+created_at: 0000-00-00 00:00:00
+title: Haiku
+post_id: 240
+tags: 
+- os
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: draft

content/drafts/installing-debian-with-gpxe-and-netboot-me.html

@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+WezM.net was down again this weekend. The cause this time was the the large <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/melbourne-storm-leaves-bill-in-its-wake/story-e6frf7jo-1225838413382">storms in Melbourne</a> flooding the office where the computer that hosts this site lives. The computer escaped the water but the network and Internet connection did not.
+
+The office is located 60km from home so fixing problems like these have to wait until office hours, hence the extended downtime. This is the second time in an many weeks that I've run into this problem so I've decided to move WezM.net to my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-ITX">Mini ITX</a> server, which is more accessible out of hours as its at home.
+<!--more-->
+The ITX server flawlessly powered WezM.net from 2005 to 2007 with a personal best uptime of 407 days. I recently dug it up and had planned on running FreeBSD on it. However over the weekend I decided to take the easy way out and just go back <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, which originally powered the server. Its a little better suited to this server due the wide availability of binary packages; compiling stuff is not fast on an 800Mhz Via C3. In case you're wondering why I'm bothering with self hosting its because I'm too stingy to pay for a <abbr title="Virtual Private Server">VPS</abbr>.
+
+The ITX server lacks a CDROM drive and my previous attempts to boot from USB flash drives have failed. This makes installing new OSes a bit of a challenge. I decided to try out installing Debian via <a href="http://www.netboot.me/">netboot.me</a>. As the name suggests, netboot.me allows you to netboot a PC via the Internet. To do so you download and burn their bootable image to CD, floppy or USB drive. I didn't use any of these though as I already had a 8Mb (yes Mb) bootable CF card with <a href="http://www.etherboot.org/">gPXE</a> installed on it. gPXE is an open source and enhanced network bootloader.
+
+The installation involved the following steps:
+<ol>
+	<li>Connecting the CF card to the server (via a CF to IDE adaptor) and booting from it.</li>
+	<li>Entering the gPXE prompt via Ctrl-b. At this point gPXE had configured the network interface with DHCP.</li>
+	<li>Boot the Debian installer with the chain command: <code>chain http://netboot.me/2013</code></li>
+</ol>
+
+After that it downloads a kernel and initrd image and boots. All directly off the Internet. Brilliant!

content/drafts/installing-debian-with-gpxe-and-netboot-me.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: installing-debian-with-gpxe-and-netboot-me
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/?p=327
+kind: draft
+section: personal
+created_at: 0000-00-00 00:00:00
+title: Installing Debian With gPXE and netboot.me
+post_id: 327
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: draft

content/drafts/iphone-gripes-reminders.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Reminders aren't aggressive enough. A single buzz when on silent is not enough and makes them very easy to miss. They should behave like a phone call and persist until acknwledged.
+
+Lack of camera functionality: no timed photos

content/drafts/iphone-gripes-reminders.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: iphone-gripes-reminders
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/?p=237
+kind: draft
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-07-24 14:11:35
+title: "iPhone gripes: Reminders"
+post_id: 237
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- iPhone
+status: draft

content/drafts/perl-worst-practices.html

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Compare not best practice to be practice. Mention ruby embracing flexiblemess python evolution. New barewords.

content/drafts/perl-worst-practices.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: perl-worst-practices
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/?p=100
+kind: draft
+section: uncategorized
+created_at: 0000-00-00 00:00:00
+title: Perl Worst Practices
+post_id: 100
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Uncategorized
+status: draft

content/personal/2008/05/geohashing.html

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+<a href='http://xkcd.com/426/'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/05/geohashing-resized.png" alt="Geohashing xkcd comic" title="geohashing-resized" width="400" height="223" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24" /></a>
+
+Randall Munroe proposed the awesomely geeky idea of geohashing via the xkcd <a href="http://xkcd.com/426/">comic</a> and <a href="http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/05/21/geohashing/">blag</a> recently. The idea basically involves using the MD5 hash of a date combined with the opening value of the Dow Jones Index for that date to derive a latitude and longitude relative to a (generally your own) location. 
+
+However there is a problem for those of us residing in Australia (and other locations with a time zone significantly different from EST). With the Dow Jones Index operating on US time its not possible to determine a geohashed location in Australia until about 23:00 AEST for a given date. No doubt others have thought of this but I suggest we use the <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^AORD">All Ordinaries Index</a> instead. With that out of the way we just need some enterprising sole with some spare time to implement a version of the <a href="http://irc.peeron.com/xkcd/map/">map</a> based on this.
+
+<strong>Update:</strong> More info on geohashing in Melbourne on the <a href="http://visibleprocrastinations.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/geohashing/">Visible Procrastinations</a> blog.
+
+<strong>Another Update:</strong> Using the Dow on the weekend works well though. As over the weekend everyone is more or less synced to the same index.
+
+<strong>Final Update:</strong> The <a href="http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/05/23/geohashing-followup-change-to-algorithm-for-europe-africa-asia-australia/">xkcd blag has a follow up article</a> that clarifies the behaviour for Europe, Asia and Australia. It boils down to using the previous day's Dow Jones Index.

content/personal/2008/05/geohashing.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: geohashing
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/05/geohashing/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2008-05-22 07:34:53
+title: Geohashing
+post_id: 23
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2008/07/iphone-3g-one-week-in.html

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+A friend asked the following today, the reply was big enough I decided to post it:
+
+<blockquote>So Wes, you've had your iPhone for a week now - what are your initial comments?
+
+Pros / Cons?
+
+Has it changed your life? Has the battery life been crappy for you? Talk time OK?</blockquote>
+
+Its definitely the best phone I've had. Part of that is due to the tight integration with Mac OS X, which obviously very few companies were going to pull off. As a device its brilliant to use and full of functionality. I'm loving the apps and decent browser. The WiFi is really nice at home. The iPod part obviously works as well and better than any prior iPod.
+
+The on screen keyboard is pretty much as described. You have to give it time to get the hang of it and you have to trust it. If you're typing a word that would be in the English dictionary you're best to keep on typing even if the word is way off. By the time you get to pressing space its usually selected the right word, which is selected automatically upon space. Two irritations with typing though. Its less likely to get shorter word right, particularly when there's multiple valid options. There's no way that I'm aware of to get a list of possibilities and choose the one you want. Of course being a small word means its not hard to fix and if you type it correctly in the first place then it isn't a problem at all. The other minor annoyance is when you get to the last word in a sentence that is mis-typed with a correct suggestion it appears the only way to accept it is to press space (and then delete the space) or grab a full stop.
+<!--more-->
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0012.png' style="float: right; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0012-200x300.png" alt="Byline" title="img_0012" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-48" /></a>I haven't missed MMS at all, especially with a decent email client built in that can talk to Gmail via IMAP and send photos to flickr that way.
+I have missed Todo functionality. I have no idea why Apple have not got this syncing. The support is there in iSync and todos sync with my old phone (Nokia 6280) just fine. I'm hoping that its one of these things that will make it eventually. There's two reasons I miss todo, one to track things to be done, the other is for reminders for things that don't have a duration (which can be put in as calendar entries). There is no way to do reminders without a duration at the moment. Having said that the calendar functionality is comprehensive. It supports multiple calendars, full editing, meeting acceptance and basically anything you can do on the desktop.
+
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0019.png' style="clear: both; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0019-200x300.png" alt="Twinkle" title="img_0019" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-55" /></a>Another annoyance surrounds SMS. When on silent you only get a single vibration on new message, which is easily missed. My old phone did three, which was better. Also when you get an SMS my old phone would show an envelope on the black and white standby screen. With the iPhone you have to wake it up to see if you've got a message after the display goes back off.
+
+The AppStore is great, some of the apps are very well done. I'm really liking <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284946773&mt=8">Byline</a>, <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284967867&mt=8">Twinkle</a>, <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284919489&mt=8">Exposure</a> and <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284825922&mt=8">MoPhoTo</a>. I'm not much of a Facebook user but the <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284882215&mt=8">Facebook app</a> is very well done. It just the core parts of Facebook without all the crap. Of those five, three are free, one is free by ad-supported (with a pay for version available) and the other AU$12.99. I think that's a pretty good spread for some top quality apps. Some screenshots of these apps are scattered below.
+
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0016.png' style="clear: both; float: right; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0016-200x300.png" alt="Exposure" title="img_0016" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-52" /></a>Battery life is nothing brilliant as has been reported elsewhere. You'd probably want to change it every day. Today I watched a video podcast on the way to work, send a couple of SMSs during the day, added a calendar event, got a call from Steve, called the dentist, listened to music, read in Google Reader via the Byline app, read and updated Twitter via the Twinkle app and used the timer to cook dinner and its showing half battery.  It was off the changer all last night too.
+
+A complaint of the old one was that the ringer and message volume was very low and easily missed. I've it plenty loud enough and its only on about three quarters. Speaking on the phone the volume is good, although I haven't tried extreme environments like a club.  
+
+One of the best built-in apps on the whole phone is maps. Whenever you want to find something, or get the details for a business, get directions, just bring up Maps and it will sort it out. Its as good as, if not better than Google Maps on the desktop. It has the same three views too: Maps, Satellite and Hybrid. The location awareness is great and there's some basic uses of it in the apps so far, hopefully more creative uses come out. One interesting one is an app called Exposure that is a flickr client with a 'near me' function. It shows photos near your current location. Doing so at home brings ups photos of St Kilda Rd, the fountain in the gardens out the front (Pictured above).
+
+Maybe I'm easily sold on such things but the UI is truly beautiful and being solely finger driven is revolutionarily (on a phone). I'm a happy customer.
+
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0017.png' style="clear: both; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0017-200x300.png" alt="Facebook" title="img_0017" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-53" /></a><a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0018.png' style="float: right; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/07/img_0018-200x300.png" alt="MoPhoTo" title="img_0018" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-54" /></a>
+<div style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</div>

content/personal/2008/07/iphone-3g-one-week-in.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: iphone-3g-one-week-in
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/07/iphone-3g-one-week-in/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2008-07-21 11:41:09
+title: iPhone 3G One Week In
+post_id: 50
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+- iPhone
+status: publish

content/personal/2008/09/new-theme.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+After a lot of scouring the net I finally stumbled upon a theme I liked at <a href="http://themeforest.net/?ref=wezm">ThemeForest</a> (affiliate link) today. Clearly I still have to customise the header image. I also installed the <a href="http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/">WPtouch</a> plugin, which presents a version of the site optimised for iPhone and iPod touch when viewed on these devices.
+
+<strong>Update:</strong> My friend Sandra helped me out with fixing the logo. I think it looks great.

content/personal/2008/09/new-theme.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: new-theme
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/09/new-theme/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2008-09-24 10:20:51
+title: New Theme
+post_id: 68
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2008/11/cumquat-liqueur.html

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/2990288533/" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;" title="Cumquats by wezm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3061/2990288533_0e20d8a0d2_t.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="Cumquats" /></a>In August 2006 some friends of mine bought me a Cumquat tree (alternate spelling Kumquat) for my birthday. This was a great present as my balcony was in need of some vegetation and what better than a little fruit tree. Its grown a bit since then and started to bear fruit for the first time late last year. In February Amanda and I move to a new place. The tree came with us and continued to grow more fruit. 
+<!--more-->
+<div style="clear: left;"></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/2991199504/" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em;" title="My New Cumquat Tree by wezm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3179/2991199504_c566e4342e_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="My New Cumquat Tree" /></a>Early in 2008 I decided to try making some liqueur with the Cumquats. Today I decided there was finally enough fruit to make the liqueur. I bought a couple of 1.5L preseving jars from <a href="http://chefshat.com.au/">Chefs Hat</a>, a bottle of brandy and some sugar. The recipe I used called for 700g Cumquats, 700mL of brandy and 700g of sugar.
+
+I sterilised the jars by giving them a wash then putting then in the oven for 10 mins at 150ºC. I boiled the rubber seals for 10 mins as well. After letting the jars cool down I divided the ingredients evenly between the jars. The cumquats were added first, each one washed thoroughly and pricked with a fork several times. These were followed by the sugar and then the brandy. I'm not sure if all the sugar is supposed to dissolve. The recipe didn't say anything about it so I just left it.
+
+<div style="clear: both;"></div>Now the waiting begins. The jars will be sitting in a cupboard for the next six months, with a bit of a swish around once a month. Hopefully come May next year the liqueur will be ready for straining and sampling.
+
+<table style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 500px;">
+<tr>
+<td>
+<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/2991144522/" style="float: left;" title="Cumquat Liqueur Ingredients by wezm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2991144522_3e0b69e59f_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Cumquat Liqueur Ingredients" /></a>
+</td>
+<td>
+<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/2990289473/" style="float: right;" title="Cumquat Liqueur in Jar by wezm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3021/2990289473_2c94ee15b3_m.jpg" width="160" height="240" alt="Cumquat Liqueur in Jar" /></a>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>

content/personal/2008/11/cumquat-liqueur.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: cumquat-liqueur
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/11/cumquat-liqueur/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2008-11-01 05:21:17
+title: Cumquat Liqueur
+post_id: 70
+tags: 
+- cumquat
+- liqueur
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2008/11/movember.html

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/3037156949/" title="Wes with Mo by wezm, on Flickr" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3041/3037156949_d73e730b2a_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Wes with Mo" /></a>For the month of November this year I'm particpating in <a href="http://au.movember.com/">Movember</a>. At the beginning of the month I started clean shaven and for the remainder of the month I'm growing and maintaining a moustache in order to raise awareness of men's health issues. In particular depression and prostate cancer. This photo to the left shows my progress after the first two weeks (yeah its hard to see, the colour blends in :-) ).
+
+<div style="clear: left;">Some facts:</div>
+<ul>
+	<li>Depression affects 1 in 6 men. Most don't seek help and untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide. Having seen the effect of depression first hand this year its certainly not something I would wish to see go untreated.</li>
+	<li>Last year 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in Australia and more than 2,900 died from it. This is equivalent to the number of women that die of breast cancer annually.</li>
+</ul>
+
+As part of participating in Movember I am seeking donations that will be passed on to the <a href="http://www.prostate.org.au/">Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia</a> and <a href="http://www.beyondblue.org.au/">beyondblue</a> - the national depression initiative. The Movember Foundation is a registered charity, so all donations over $2 are tax deductible.
+
+To sponsor my dodgy mo (as I've named it) follow this link: <a href="http://movember.wezm.net/">http://movember.wezm.net/</a>.

content/personal/2008/11/movember.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: movember
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/11/movember/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2008-11-20 22:51:48
+title: Movember
+post_id: 74
+tags: 
+- moustache
+- movember
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2008/11/typography-enhancements.html

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+Added a couple of WordPress plugins tonight to make the text on this blog a little prettier and hopefully more readable. First up is <a href="http://kingdesk.com/projects/wp-hyphenate/">wp-hyphenate</a> by <a href="http://kingdesk.com/">KINGdesk</a> to apply hyphenation rules. Second is <a href="http://blog.hamstu.com/2007/05/31/web-typography-just-got-better/">wp-typogrify</a>, which applies <a href="http://michelf.com/projects/php-smartypants/">PHP SmartyPants</a> (originally by <a href="http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/">John Gruber</a>) to make "curly quotes" and proper dashes.
+
+<strong>Update:</strong> I disabled wp-hyphenate as it was doing strange things to my html. In one case it was changing
+
+<code>&lt;table class="top_headers"&gt;</code> into
+
+<code>&lt;table 
+lass="top_headers"&gt;</code>

content/personal/2008/11/typography-enhancements.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: typography-enhancements
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/11/typography-enhancements/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2008-11-05 09:08:39
+title: Typography Enhancements
+post_id: 72
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/01/sensation-melbourne-nye.html

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+<a style="float:left; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.1em;" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/3154900959/" title="Crowd by wezm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/3154900959_abe155e071_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Crowd" /></a>On new years eve I welcomed the beginning of 2009 at <a href="http://www.sensation.nl/">Sensation</a>, the self proclaimed "worlds leading dance event". Sensation started in The Netherlands, being held at Amsterdam Arena. When I first stumbled across videos and music from the Amsterdam events several years back I was in awe of a dance party that managed to pull 40,000 people. Well based on what I saw at Tel$tra Dome I think they managed to pull off the same thing here. Seeing the stadium packed with so many people all dressed in white was truly awesome. The music did not disappoint either. However I think I had built up an expectation of more of a "performance" aspect to the event, as this didn't seem to quite meet my expectations. Nonetheless a great night was had by all. Also special thanks to Hayden for using a number of his comped Deluxe tickets to get us in for free and skip the queue. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/sets/72157611937922733/">Photos and movies from the night</a> are on Flickr.
+<!--more-->
+Leading up to Sensation the media had a field day in regard to a select minority that took a bad batch of GHB at the X-Qlusive event and ended up in hospital. Now taking GHB in the first place is stupid but the way it was reported was just reckless and inaccurate. Not only did they harp on about this minority but the Herald-Sun managed to attribute the overdoses to totally the wrong event: Christmas Kandy, which was cancelled as a result. In the days leading up to Sensation I heard a news report on TV refer to Sensation as, "controversial" and you could tell they were just waiting for a repeat of what happened at X-Qlusive. Funnily enough it seemed that everyone at Sensation was very well behaved as I didn't hear or see a single report in the following days about any drug related problems (no news is good news?). I think its a great win for the people and the rave scene that the media didn't get what they wanted. Especially considering it probably the biggest "rave" type event to ever be held in Melbourne.
+
+I hope to see it held again next year as I'm certainly up for going again. Who knows maybe they'll bring Sensation Black here as well.

content/personal/2009/01/sensation-melbourne-nye.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: sensation-melbourne-nye
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/01/sensation-melbourne-nye/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-01-06 04:04:32
+title: Sensation Melbourne NYE
+post_id: 80
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/03/becoming-a-melbourne-cyclist.html

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+<h3>Getting Started</h3>
+With the move to Essendon and new job in January I decided I'd try my hand (or feet) at riding to work. There's a coupe of obvious benefits. Firstly its good exercise and secondly each time I ride to and from work I save about $6 in train fares. After settling into my new job for a week and loaning my brother's now mostly unused mountain bike<sup>1</sup> I set off one Sunday night on a trial run. I did some research <a href="http://www.bigyak.net.au/gmaps/vicbiketrailsgmap.html">online</a> and via the Melways with my Dad to determine the route. The trial to and from work straight after each other went well so I did it for real the next day.
+<!--more-->
+Laden with a backpack containing a laptop, lunch and a change of clothes amongst other things I set out into the peak hour traffic. The traffic turned out to be quite off-putting and I wasted a bit of time trying to negotiate it. Once I'd finally crossed <a href="http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Buckley+St+and+Mt+Alexander+Rd+Essendon&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=43.569223,54.931641&ie=UTF8&z=16&iwloc=addr">Mt. Alexander Rd</a> I was able to head for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonee_Ponds_Creek_Trail">Moonee Ponds Creek Trail</a> with relative ease. Running late I pushed myself a bit and a short distance down the trail started thinking this whole riding thing was not a great idea at all and that I'd be lucky to arrive at work at all that morning. With the rushing and heavy bag it all seemed a lot harder than the trial the night before. It probably didn't help that this was only my second bike ride of distance greater than about 200m in around 10 years.
+
+<h3>Tracking My Rides</h3>
+
+I did make it to work though, albeit somewhat hot and sweaty. The trip took about 40mins. Since that first day I've done the ride another 10 or so times, refined the route and have begun working on shortening the travel time. First I got it down to 30 mins and my best so far is 28 mins something. I track each ride using a brilliant little (free) iPhone app called <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=289333140&mt=8">Trailguru</a> (app store link). It records my ride logging the route with GPS, the duration and distance. When I arrive at my destination I stop it recording and can then upload the ride to the <a href="http://www.trailguru.com/">companion site</a>. Each trail gets a page where there is plot of the route on Google Maps, graphs of altitude, pace and speed as well as other stats.
+
+Below is a sample ride to work that Trailguru recorded:
+<iframe src="http://www.trailguru.com/ui/embed/embedTrack.php?thid=205513" height="475px" width="100%" frameborder="0">
+        <a href="http://www.trailguru.com/wiki/index.php/Track:4EKP">8 to (Road Biking) | Flemington VIC 3031, Australia</a>
+    </iframe>Trailguru also lets you search for trails and will show others near your own. You can also take and upload photos with the iPhone app. I haven't used that feature yet as my phone is in my bag during the ride but I'd like to get an iPhone bike mount so I can use it as a speedometer as well. You can see all my trails on my <a href="http://www.trailguru.com/ui/user/tracks/Wmoore">Trailguru user page</a>. 
+
+<h3>Road Rage</h3>
+
+Being a cyclist isn't all fun and games though. There are of course cars to deal with. My ride shares a limited amount of time on roads and much of that has bike lanes, which is a plus. The stretches that are without a bike lane are always a little worrying though. I do my best to be a courteous road user but I'm well aware as a driver how annoying it is being stuck behind a bike, whether or not they have the right to be there. As well as keeping out of way of cars I'm also trying to be vigilant when riding beside parked cars. I can just see a door flying open right in front of me one day and causing me all sorts of grief.
+
+I have mostly avoided any incidents with cars so far but I did have a small bout of road rage the other morning... and it was me with the rage. It totally surprised me actually. I was waiting in the far left lane to cross Mt. Alexander Rd. As far as I know this is where I'm supposed to wait but it also happens to be a left turn lane with an arrow. As I was waiting a car came up behind and tooted me. My instant, totally instinctive reaction was to fly off the handle much to the surprise of some pedestrians. I did this as I moved onto the footpath to get out of the way. Not sure where the anger came from as it even shocked me.
+
+I'm trying to do three rides a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That gives me a break in between while I'm getting used to it and should also still be <a href="http://notahat.com/posts/30">beneficial fitness wise</a>. However I've only managed that once so far due to after work engagements and bad weather. Time will tell how it goes but I'm enjoying it so far.
+
+_______________
+<sup>1</sup> Several year old GT avalanche 2.0 for those that are into such things.

content/personal/2009/03/becoming-a-melbourne-cyclist.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: becoming-a-melbourne-cyclist
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/becoming-a-melbourne-cyclist/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-03-04 22:00:25
+title: Becoming a Melbourne Cyclist
+post_id: 91
+tags: 
+- cycling
+- gps
+- iphone
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/03/general-tech-content-here-from-now-on.html

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+As <a href="http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/06/moving-geeky-posts-to-binary-trance/">mentioned on my now personal blog</a> I've decided to post all future technical posts on this blog to separate the general posts from the geeky ones. Some example of posts from earlier this year that would be posted here instead of WezM.net from now are:
+<ul>
+	<li><a href="http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/04/mac-remote-desktop-connection-without-installer/">Mac Remote Desktop Connection Without Installer</a></li>
+	<li><a href="http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/03/install-consolas-mac-osx/">Install Microsoft’s Consolas Font on Mac OS X</a></li>
+	<li><a href="http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/02/my-first-new-site-is-live/">My First New Site is Live</a></li>
+	<li><a href="http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/02/debian-lenny-released/">Debian 5.0 ‘Lenny’ Released</a></li>
+	<li><a href="http://www.wezm.net/2009/01/20/determining-non-automatically-installed-debian-packages/">Determining Non-Automatically Installed Debian Packages</a></li>
+</ul>

content/personal/2009/03/general-tech-content-here-from-now-on.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: general-tech-content-here-from-now-on
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/general-tech-content-here-from-now-on/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-03-08 06:22:41
+title: General Tech Content Here From Now On
+post_id: 6
+tags: 
+- meta
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/03/gmail-stickers-have-arrived.html

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/p1050054.jpg'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/p1050054-150x150.jpg" alt="" title="Gmail Stickers" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-94" /></a>Back in December there was a <a href="http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/get-your-gmail-stickers.html">post on the Gmail Blog</a> which gave instructions on how to get some stickers for the cost of postage. I thought I'd try it out so I sent them an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reply_coupon">International Reply Coupon</a> (IRC) (something I'd never heard of before) and what do you know they showed up today. They managed to come all the way from San Francisco in an unsealed envelope too. Now to decide what to stick them to... and who to give the unicorn one to.

content/personal/2009/03/gmail-stickers-have-arrived.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: gmail-stickers-have-arrived
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/gmail-stickers-have-arrived/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-03-12 08:27:20
+title: Gmail Stickers Have Arrived
+post_id: 93
+tags: 
+- gmail
+- stickers
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/03/moving-geeky-posts-to-binary-trance.html

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+I read a post by <a href="http://www.useit.com/jakob/">Jakob Nielsen</a> today titled, <a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html">Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes</a>. It was written back in 2005 but is still very relevant to today. The eighth point, "Mixing Topics", which states, "If you publish on many different topics, you're less likely to attract a loyal audience of high-value users" seemed particularly relevant given the diversity of topics in my recent posts. As a result I've decided to stop posting geeky content on this site and instead post that to my somewhat neglegted software site, <a href="http://www.binarytrance.com/">Binary Trance</a> (which needs a redesign). So if there if there is anyone out there that wants drop the personal stuff or keep getting the geeky stuff I suggest you check it out. If you're just after the feed I can save you the trip: <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/BinaryTranceBlog">Feed for Binary Trance Blog</a>.

content/personal/2009/03/moving-geeky-posts-to-binary-trance.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: moving-geeky-posts-to-binary-trance
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/moving-geeky-posts-to-binary-trance/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-03-05 22:00:34
+title: Moving Geeky Posts to Binary Trance
+post_id: 92
+tags: 
+- binary-trance
+- blog
+- geek
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/03/once-a-month-cooking.html

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+This weekend Amanda and I embarked upon our first attempt at once a month cooking. The theory goes that you spend a weekend buying and cooking in bulk and then don't need to do it again for another month. Given we both aren't keen on cooking when we get home from work this allows the meal preparation to be simple and quick, without resorting to frozen pizzas or trips to KFC. It also has the potential to be cheaper since you can buy in bulk.
+<!--more-->
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/_mg_6380.jpg' style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/_mg_6380-123x300.jpg" alt="Freezer full of food" width="123" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-87" /></a>We selected a number of pasta dishes including typical sauces such as Bolognese but also did a lasagne and spinach and ricotta cannelloni. To add some variety we also included some double batches of massaman and Thai green curries. For snacks we baked some choc-chip cookies and choc-caramel muffins. Most of these weren't from scratch. Packet mixes, pre-made curry pastes and bottled pasta sauces were used to keep things simple also also allow the meals to be done quickly allowing us make more in a day.
+
+It is pretty tiring standing at the bench for hours on end so we came up with a system of one hour shifts. One of us would cook whilst the other did lighter tasks around the house, which worked well. It also avoided the problem of, "too many cooks in the kitchen...".
+
+The end result is a very fulll freezer as the photo on the left shows. All that should keep as in dinners and lunches for a couple of weeks. We don't have the freezer space to do a full month's worth although we have the ingredients to do the second fortnight of meals without another shopping trip.

content/personal/2009/03/once-a-month-cooking.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: once-a-month-cooking
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/once-a-month-cooking/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-03-01 00:17:49
+title: Once a Month Cooking
+post_id: 86
+tags: 
+- cooking
+- oamc
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/04/greetings-from-tall-karri-country.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/04/greetings-from-tall-karri-country.jpg'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/04/greetings-from-tall-karri-country-300x196.jpg" alt="" title="greetings-from-tall-karri-country" width="300" height="196" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-98" /></a>I was sorting through some old postcards that I bought during the trip around Australia my family did in 1992. Amongst them was this particular one. Now that I'm not twelve and obsessed by tractors and earth moving equipment it seemed quite bizarre. The caption on the back reads:
+<blockquote style="clear: left;">A view of a Karri tree being lifted prior to loading on to a truck at <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Pemberton,+WA,+Australia&sll=53.540307,-2.672424&sspn=0.749982,0.906372&g=pemberton&ie=UTF8&ll=-33.888658,116.526489&spn=4.190239,3.625488&z=8&iwloc=addr">Pemberton</a> Western Australia</blockquote>
+Pemberton is in the southern part of Western Australia that features the Karri forests. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karri">According to Wikipedia</a> Karri trees can grow up to 90m tall, making them amongst the tallest trees in the world. The photo seems like such a strange image to put on a post card. Can you imagine writing home to family telling them about the beautiful Karri forests on a card that depicts them being destroyed?

content/personal/2009/04/greetings-from-tall-karri-country.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: greetings-from-tall-karri-country
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/04/greetings-from-tall-karri-country/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-04-05 01:42:04
+title: Greetings from Tall Karri Country
+post_id: 97
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/personal/2009/05/rafael-bonachelas-360-degrees.html

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+For Manda's birthday this year I gave her tickets to <a href="http://www.sydneydancecompany.com/Repertoire/360_Degrees/1415">Rafael Bonachela's 360°</a>, a contemporary dance performance by the <a href="http://www.sydneydancecompany.com/">Sydney Dance Company</a>. The performance was in the <a href="http://www.theartscentre.com.au/discover/spaces-and-places/playhouse.aspx">Playhouse at the Arts Centre</a> (Melbourne). Unfortunately it didn't meet our expectations.
+
+Now let me preface the rest of the post with the following: We're hardly connoisseurs of the fine arts. Instead we got the bulk of our prior exposure to contemporary dance through channel Ten's <a href="http://dance.ten.com.au/">So You Think You Can Dance</a>. I'm sure the purists out there would scoff at that but we wouldn't have even entertained the idea of seeing 360&deg; were it not for the show.
+
+With that out of the way let me continue by starting at the end. After the performance finished and we'd endured what seemed like several minutes of applause with much bowing and cutting of lights only for them to return again, Manda and I both said nothing to each other about it. We were both feeling underwhelmed and wanted to withhold our comments until out of ear shot of people that might not agree.
+
+The performance seemed to lack any coherent story. The music choices seemed inappropriate to even tell a story and the projected backdrops seemed to have no relationship with what was going on on-stage. I was left feeling that I was not on the right level to understand it and some aspects were "arty" for arts sake. For example the sand covered skull with the sand falling in reverse to slowly reveal the skull.
+
+Ignoring the aspects I didn't like there was still things that I did like. The skill of the dancers was most impressive. The use of light and mirrors was creative and clever. So overall the experience was a disappointment. I'm hoping that we will find another contemporary performance to see in the future that will live up to our perhaps uncultured expectations.

content/personal/2009/05/rafael-bonachelas-360-degrees.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: rafael-bonachelas-360-degrees
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/05/rafael-bonachelas-360-degrees/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2009-05-30 05:46:04
+title: "Rafael Bonachela's 360\xC2\xB0"
+post_id: 141
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Entertainment
+status: publish

content/personal/2010/01/mt-dandenong.html

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/sets/72157623193938202/"><img alt="Cloudhill" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4025/4268590612_130ef8354a_m.jpg" title="Cloudhill Gardens" class="alignleft" width="160" height="240" /></a> Last week while we were still on holidays Manda and I got a good deal on <a href="http://www.wotif.com/">Wotif</a> for a night at <a href="http://www.lindengardens.com.au/">Linden Garden's Rainforest Retreat</a>. We set off in the morning and had lunch at <a href="http://www.cloudehill.com.au/">Cloudhill Restaurant and Gardens</a>. After lunch we wandered around the many different areas of the garden. The hedges and geometric alignment of the gardens were very cool.
+
+After that it was time to check-in at Linden Gardens. Google Maps gave us a dud route that sent us down a few interesting roads but we made it in the end. Our lodging for the night was "Sanctuary Tower", a three level mini-house with great views. After an in room massage we had a nice dinner at <a href="http://www.wildoak.com.au/">Wild Oak Restaurant</a> just around the corner. The food was excellent and the servings very generous.
+
+The accommodation was fantastic, right down to the graphic design of the web site and stationary. There were lots of inclusions and thoughtful extras. The one complaint was that the bedroom was quite light when trying to sleep given not all the windows had blinds.
+
+In the morning we wandered around the gardens. The rainforest plans seem to have been planted some time ago and now it has that real rainforest feel. The paths in particular stood out as they were totally green with moss. After that it was time to go, it was a short but most enjoyable stay.
+
+<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/sets/72157623193938202/">Photos of Cloudhill and Linden Gardens</a> are on Flickr. Given the lovely weather we had I also took the opportunity to take bracketed shots to deal with the extreme range of light. I then merged them with the newly updated <a href="http://www.pangeasoft.net/pano/bracketeer/index.html">Bracketeer</a>.

content/personal/2010/01/mt-dandenong.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: mt-dandenong
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2010/01/mt-dandenong/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2010-01-12 08:41:46
+title: Mt. Dandenong
+post_id: 286
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Out and About
+- Personal
+status: publish

content/personal/2010/01/sensation-melbourne-2009.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+<img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4240123752_ce3c0a7f61_m.jpg" alt="Sensation water show" class="alignleft" width="240" height="180" /> The end of 2009 saw Melbourne's second Sensation held at Etihad stadium. I was fortunate enough to attend for free again and was once again impressed by the spectacle of the show and tens of thousands of people in white. The crowd seemed smaller than last year but there were still more than enough people to give a good atmosphere.
+
+A selection of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wezm/sets/72157623002015185/">photos from the night</a> are on Flickr along with some <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/album/162125">movies on Vimeo</a>.

content/personal/2010/01/sensation-melbourne-2009.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: sensation-melbourne-2009
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2010/01/sensation-melbourne-2009/
+kind: article
+section: personal
+created_at: 2010-01-10 07:22:14
+title: Sensation Melbourne 2009
+post_id: 281
+tags: 
+- melbourne
+- nye
+- sensation
+categories: 
+- Entertainment
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/02/seeking-app-ideas.html

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+Ever since the now very quiet drunkenbatman hosted the <a href="http://www.drunkenblog.com/evening_at_adler/">Evening at Adler</a> and Gus Mueller posted, "<a href="http://www.gusmueller.com/blog/archives/2005/12/25.html">How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days</a>", its has been a goal of mine to one day live the indie Mac developer dream.
+
+Over the years I've dabbled in Mac OS X development but have struggled to find the time in between a full time job and also having a life to be able to see something through from start to finish. I'm convinced the ideas are sound because frequently others eventually release similar products. My last endevour was for a better archiver than that provided by the Finder. It was to be dead simple, taking interface cues from things like <a href="http://appzapper.com/">AppZapper</a>. I discovered a little while ago that the fine folks at Apimac had created <a href="http://www.apimac.com/compress_files/">Compress Files</a>, which implemented my ideas and more.
+
+Frustrated by this lack of time I decided to do something about it (after a small helping of procrastination). Last week I successfully negotiated a reduction to 4 days per week at my day job, with the fifth day allocated to Mac development. The first day of my new job is Mon Feb 11, 2008. However I find myself with a bit of a problem, I don't have any current projects to actually work on. Heeding the advice in Gus' post for <abbr title="Think small and make sure you really like what you are doing">Lesson #1</abbr> I'm seeking ideas from the Mac using community for a small application that I can use to get started. So if you got an idea for a small application that you don't mind sharing feel free to post a comment and let me know, it might be just what I'm looking for.

content/technical/2008/02/seeking-app-ideas.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: seeking-app-ideas
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/02/seeking-app-ideas/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-02-04 02:29:35
+title: Seeking Application Ideas
+post_id: 1
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Development
+- Mac
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/03/create-empty-tar-file.html

@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+Strangely enough I had the need to determine if it was possible to create a valid but empty tar file. Turns out it is. The method varies slightly depending on your flavour of tar program, here's how to do it on three of the big ones:
+
+<strong>BSD</strong>
+<code>tar cvf empty.tar --from-file /dev/null</code>
+
+<strong>GNU (Linux)</strong>
+<code>tar cvf empty.tar --files-from /dev/null</code>
+
+<strong>Solaris</strong>
+<code>tar cvf empty.tar -I /dev/null</code>
+
+Now if you wondering why I would want this, here's the explanation. I work on a batch processing system that processes files delivered from other systems. In some cases its necessary to wait for a file to arrive but give up after some time. In order to give up we copy an empty file (automatically) so that the processing proceeds normally. Ordinarily this is an empty plain text file but for the system I'm working on I'm expecting a tar file, hence the need for an empty one.

content/technical/2008/03/create-empty-tar-file.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+--- 
+slug: create-empty-tar-file
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/03/create-empty-tar-file/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-03-27 10:28:39
+title: How to create an empty tar file
+post_id: 8
+tags: 
+- empty
+- tar
+- unix
+categories: 
+- Linux
+- Mac OS X
+- Tips
+- UNIX
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/03/webkit-for-keynote.html

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+An interesting email passed through the <a href="http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo/webkit-dev">webkit-dev</a> mailing list today. In what appears to be a small glimpse into what goes on in preparation for a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevenote">Stevenote</a>, Geoffrey Garen (Apple) noted in a reply to an email from Akos Kiss (Department of Software Engineering, University of Szeged, Hungary) that <em>one</em> of the reasons <a href="http://webkit.org/">WebKit</a> likes to do its own thing and not depend on code it doesn't own is to be able to fix problems with very short notice. Citing the example of, "12 hours before a keynote address".
+
+Akos Kiss (Department of Software Engineering, University of Szeged, Hungary):
+<blockquote>b) JIT compilation to Java bytecode or ActionScript bytecode.
+
+Comment: Huge work. Currently available compiler implementations do not fit to the architecture of the JS engine.</blockquote>
+
+Geoffrey Garen (Apple):
+<blockquote>Right. We're also reluctant to rely on code that we don't own. We've seen very large performance wins from tightly integrating and customizing all the components of the web stack. We also need the freedom to fix crashes and compatibility problems on very short notice (for example, 12 hours before a keynote address).</blockquote>

content/technical/2008/03/webkit-for-keynote.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: webkit-for-keynote
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/03/webkit-for-keynote/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-03-05 01:11:31
+title: WebKit for Keynote
+post_id: 4
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- WebKit
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/03/windows-silverlight-installation-experience.html

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+I encountered a (Microsoft) site the other day that required <a href="http://silverlight.net/">Silverlight</a> to be installed. Given I was using my work laptop (running Windows XP) I thought I'd give it a try. The first attempt at running the setup file I downloaded resulted in the following error message (which was opened in a browser window, not displayed by the installer):
+
+<blockquote>The Microsoft Silverlight download was automatically extracted to a virtual drive. You should manually extract the download to a physical drive, and then run it from there. Please follow these steps to complete your installation:
+
+   1. Create a new folder on drive C called SilverlightTemp.
+   2. Save the Silverlight download to this folder.
+   3. Click Start, click Run, type cmd.exe, and then click OK.
+   4. In the cmd.exe window, type cd C:\SilverlightTemp\, and then press Enter.
+   5. This step depends on which version of Silverlight you are installing.
+          * For Silverlight 1.0 Beta:
+            In the cmd.exe window, type Silverlight.1.0beta.exe /X, and then press Enter.
+          * For Silverlight 1.1 Alpha:
+   6. In the cmd.exe window, type Silverlight.1.1alpha.exe /X, and then press Enter.
+   7. If you receive a User Account Control (UAC) prompt, click Continue.
+   8. In the Choose Directory For Extracted Files box, type C:\SilverlightTemp, and then click OK.
+   9. In the Extraction Complete box, click OK.
+  10. In the cmd.exe window, type install.exe, and then press Enter.
+  11. If you receive a UAC prompt, click Continue.
+  12. In the cmd.exe window, type cd.. and then press Enter.
+  13. In the cmd.exe window, type rmdir SilverlightTemp /S /Q, and then press Enter.
+  14. In the cmd.exe window, type exit, and then press Enter.</blockquote>
+
+After recovering from the initial shock of the installation instructions for a very consumer oriented technology requiring use of the command line, I followed the instructions only to be shown another web based error message:
+
+<blockquote>This installation is forbidden by system policy. Contact your system administrator for assistance.</blockquote>
+
+Yes, that's right I don't have administrator privileges on my work laptop. Surely the installer could have worked this out at the start of the process. 

content/technical/2008/03/windows-silverlight-installation-experience.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: windows-silverlight-installation-experience
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/03/windows-silverlight-installation-experience/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-03-05 00:56:01
+title: Windows Silverlight Installation Experience
+post_id: 3
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Windows
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/04/expand-glob-in-variable-within-shell-script.html

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+I had the need today to read in a list of patterns from a file, expand them and then operate upon each file all from within a shell script. Apparently there is a <a href="http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-0210/6m6nb7mas?a=view">shell built-in for csh</a>, but I didn't want to learn csh at that point. The eventual solution was to run an extra shell with the -c argument.
+
+Example:
+<pre>#!/bin/bash
+FILES=`cat patterns.txt`
+for pattern in $FILES; do
+    bash -c "ls -l ${pattern}"
+done</pre>

content/technical/2008/04/expand-glob-in-variable-within-shell-script.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+--- 
+slug: expand-glob-in-variable-within-shell-script
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/04/expand-glob-in-variable-within-shell-script/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-04-24 07:37:14
+title: Expand glob in variable within shell script
+post_id: 18
+tags: 
+- bash
+- expand
+- glob
+- script
+- shell
+- variable
+categories: 
+- Tips
+- UNIX
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/04/mp3-decoder-libraries-compared.html

@@ -0,0 +1,206 @@
+For my current software project I have the need to decode MP3 files for the purpose of producing an <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=audio+waveform">audio waveform</a>. It doesn't need to be overly accurate as the decoded samples will be displayed, not played. However it does need to be fast, as a typical use case for the application will be MP3 files of around 100Mb (full length CDs). The application is for Mac OS X, although the results of my testing below could be useful for other platforms.
+
+Assisted by a code sample from Apple I wrote an initial version of the decoder that would read the source MP3 file and write the raw linear PCM data out to a file. I did this using the <a href="http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MusicAudio/Conceptual/CoreAudioOverview/index.html">Core Audio</a> framework built into Mac OS X. Once the program was working I tested it against some sample files and came to the conclusion that 4 seconds to decode a 3 min track was great but over 100 seconds for a full length CD, not so great.
+
+I did some searching and came up with two other libraries that seemed well suited to the task of MP3 decoding, they were <a href="http://www.mpg123.de/">mpg123</a> (libmpg123) and <a href="http://www.underbit.com/products/mad/"><abbr title="MPEG Audio Decoder">MAD</abbr></a> (libmad). mpg123 had claims of being very fast, mad claimed it was very accurate.
+
+<h3>Methodology</h3>
+
+I built the two additional libraries with the default configuration options, except for libmad, which I added the <code>--enable-speed</code> option. With the help of example code I made programs out of each that were comparable to the first version for Core Audio. I.e. MP3 file in, 16-bit Linear PCM audio samples out.
+
+To provide a benchmark I wrote a script that would run each of the three programs against a source MP3 file. Each program reported the elapsed time (via <a href="http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man3/time.3.html">time(3)</a>) and the processor time (via <a href="http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man3/clock.3.html">clock(3)</a>) when it finished decoding. The programs were run one after another on the source file 10 times. Their PCM output was written to a new file for each invocation.
+<!--more-->
+<h3>Environment</h3>
+
+The tests were performed on my dual 1.8Ghz Power Mac G5 with 2Gb RAM running Mac OS X 10.5.2. I didn't make any special attempt to quit all other running programs while I ran the tests but iTunes was paused and nothing was doing anything significant in the background. I also didn't do anything on the computer while the tests were running.
+
+<h3>Results</h3>
+
+The results of the tests for my sample MP3s is below. The individual times were averaged over the 10 runs for each library. The standard deviation of the processor time is also included to given an indication of how consistent the decoding time was.
+
+<h4>Small File</h4>
+<!-- 1-08 Pushin.mp3 -->
+
+<table class="left_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Size</th><td>4,296,251 bytes</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Bitrate</th><td>160 kbps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Channels</th><td>2 (Joint Stereo)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Length</th><td>3:34</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table class="top_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Library</th>
+<th>Average Elapsed Time</th>
+<th>Average Processor Time</th>
+<th>Processor Time Std. Deviation</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mpg123</td>
+<td>2.30</td>
+<td>1.71</td>
+<td>0.95</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Core Audio</td>
+<td>4.10</td>
+<td>3.63</td>
+<td>0.27</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mad</td>
+<td>4.80</td>
+<td>4.42</td>
+<td>0.02</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h4>Medium Mono File</h4>
+<!-- Sensation Black 2007 Warm Up Mix.mp3 -->
+
+<table class="left_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Size</th><td>83,091,456 bytes</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Bitrate</th><td>320 kbps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Channels</th><td>1 (Mono)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Length</th><td>34:37</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table class="top_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Library</th>
+<th>Average Elapsed Time</th>
+<th>Average Processor Time</th>
+<th>Processor Time Std. Deviation</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mpg123</td>
+<td>11.10</td>
+<td>9.40</td>
+<td>0.03</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mad</td>
+<td>26.90</td>
+<td>24.60</td>
+<td>0.03</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Core Audio</td>
+<td>33.60</td>
+<td>30.33</td>
+<td>1.18</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h4>Large File</h4>
+<!-- 1-01 Clubbers Guide 2007 - CD 1.mp3 -->
+
+<table class="left_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Size</th><td>126,083,072 bytes</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Bitrate</th><td>224 kbps</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Channels</th><td>2 (Joint Stereo)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Length</th><td>1:15:02</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table class="top_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Library</th>
+<th>Average Elapsed Time</th>
+<th>Average Processor Time</th>
+<th>Processor Time Std. Deviation</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mpg123</td>
+<td>37.00</td>
+<td>32.21</td>
+<td>0.19</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Core Audio</td>
+<td>84.00</td>
+<td>78.34</td>
+<td>0.34</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mad</td>
+<td>100.10</td>
+<td>94.44</td>
+<td>0.15</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h4>Large VBR File</h4>
+<!-- 1-01 Clubbers Guide to 2007 (AU Edition).mp3 -->
+
+<table class="left_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Size</th><td>123,028,672 bytes</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Bitrate</th><td>210 kbps (VBR)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Channels</th><td>2 (Joint Stereo)</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th>Length</th><td>1:17:46</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<table class="top_headers">
+<tr>
+<th>Library</th>
+<th>Average Elapsed Time</th>
+<th>Average Processor Time</th>
+<th>Processor Time Std. Deviation</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mpg123</td>
+<td>37.90</td>
+<td>32.96</td>
+<td>0.13</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>Core Audio</td>
+<td>86.40</td>
+<td>80.52</td>
+<td>0.18</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>mad</td>
+<td>104.30</td>
+<td>98.43</td>
+<td>0.10</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<br />
+<strong>Note:</strong> All files had a 44100 Hz sample rate.
+
+<h3>Conclusion</h3>
+
+The results speak for themselves, mpg123 lives up to its claim of being high performance. In all the tests it was consistently around twice as fast - a very impressive result. Its certainly the library I'll be using. Of note it also has quite a nice API. Of the three Core Audio's has the most tedious API but it is low level and capable of quite a bit more than what I was using it for.

content/technical/2008/04/mp3-decoder-libraries-compared.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+--- 
+slug: mp3-decoder-libraries-compared
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/04/mp3-decoder-libraries-compared/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-04-16 12:22:49
+title: MP3 Decoder Libraries Compared
+post_id: 11
+tags: 
+- benchmark
+- core-audio
+- decoder
+- mad
+- mp3
+- mpg123
+categories: 
+- Linux
+- Mac OS X
+- Programming
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/04/pizza-style-delivery-for-technical-books.html

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+Recently I wanted a to quickly lookup how to do something in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sed">sed</a>. As headed for the man page once again I wished I had a quick reference on hand, like the <a href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlpr3/">Perl Pocket Reference</a> I have. In a slight diversion I did some searching to see if there was a pocket reference for sed, <a href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sedawkrepr2/index.html">there is</a>, and as a bonus it covers <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWK_(programming_language)">awk</a> too.
+
+Armed with the knowledge that the sed reference exists I searched for bookshops in Melbourne to buy it from. This is where it became difficult. No one had it in stock and even if they did it would take at least a whole day to arrive if I had ordered it right then. It was here that I wished there was a delivery service for technical books that could see them delivered with the promptness and low cost of a pizza delivery.
+
+The need for a technical book, in particular those that are mainly reference material tends to come about with a need-it-now urgency to satisfy whatever the pressing enquiry is. Typically the desired information is available via online documentation or a simple Google search however I tend to prefer references to be in dead tree form and I don't believe I'm alone in this.
+
+Given the relatively huge lead time in actually getting a reference book delivered, the online documentation usually wins and the books remain unordered. For a nominal fee I think if it were possible to have a book delivered within the <abbr title="Central Business District">CBD</abbr> in an hour or so from ordering many more books could be sold to satify the immedaite need for the reference.
+
+Now an hour is a long time to wait if you need to look something up now, but it would allow you to look up whatever it is you're after online then for the rest of the day refer to your new reference that arrived a little later. So bookstores, pizza style delivery for technical books, who's up for it?
+
+On a side note, its extremely lame that the <a href="http://www.borders.com.au/">Australian Borders website</a> doesn't have the ability to search for books they stock.
+
+<strong>Update 16 Oct 2009:</strong> <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/amazoncom-introduces-same-day-delivery/">Amazon have announced same day delivery</a>. If I was living in the US this would be awesome.

content/technical/2008/04/pizza-style-delivery-for-technical-books.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+--- 
+slug: pizza-style-delivery-for-technical-books
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/04/pizza-style-delivery-for-technical-books/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-04-06 06:37:10
+title: Pizza Style Delivery for Technical Books
+post_id: 5
+tags: 
+- awk
+- books
+- delivery
+- pocket-reference
+- sed
+categories: 
+- UNIX
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/04/womens-weekly-getting-in-on-the-linux-action.html

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/04/womens-weekly-tux-cake.jpg' title='Women’s Weekly Tux Cake'><img src='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/04/womens-weekly-tux-cake.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Women’s Weekly Tux Cake' style="float: left; margin: 0 1em 1em 0;" /></a> I snapped this with my my phone whilst I was shopping at Safeway last Sunday. It seems the Australian Women's Weekly are Linux fans or aren't aware that they <em>may</em> be infringing <a href="http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/">Larry Ewing</a>'s copyright. Who wouldn't want a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux">Tux</a> cake though.

content/technical/2008/04/womens-weekly-getting-in-on-the-linux-action.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: womens-weekly-getting-in-on-the-linux-action
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/04/womens-weekly-getting-in-on-the-linux-action/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-04-15 04:01:23
+title: Women's Weekly Getting in on the Linux Action
+post_id: 13
+tags: 
+- cake
+- linux
+- tux
+categories: 
+- Linux
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/05/death-to-the-feed-uri-scheme.html

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Can people please stop using the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed:_URI_scheme">'feed:' URI scheme</a> for links to feeds on web pages. Its annoying and unnecessary.
+
+From what I can tell this URI scheme was proposed around Dec 2003 as an unofficial <a href="http://www.25hoursaday.com/draft-obasanjo-feed-URI-scheme-02.html">pre-draft RFC</a>. The reasoning behind the proposal was:
+
+<blockquote>...to provide a straightforward way for end users to subscribe to the data feed for a particular online resource while browsing the World Wide Web. The expectation is that clicking on a hyperlink that points at a "feed" URI will cause the Web browser to invoke the specified handler for the "feed" URI scheme which SHOULD provide the user with information about the data feed as well as the possess the ability to subscribe to the feed.</blockquote>
+
+Fast forward to 2008 and all the major browsers have support for discovery of feeds specified by the <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_link.asp">link tag</a> and a user interface to access them. Additionally they are able to auto-detect a feed when specified with the normal http URI scheme. With the built in support the browser is able to launch the appropriate feed reader on the system, be it within the browser or an external application; thus removing the need for the URI to be specified with the 'feed:' scheme.
+<!--more-->
+It seems use of the scheme really took off around the release of Safari 2, which included RSS support. When viewing a feed in Safari it presents the URI using the 'feed:' scheme, thus making its use highly visible.
+
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/04/picture-4.png'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/04/picture-4.png" alt="" title="Safari feed: URI scheme" width="194" height="30" class="center" /></a>
+
+I understand that using the scheme makes it easy at an operating system level to associate a particular application with the scheme but it should be entirely internal an invisible to the user. The reasons its use irks me is when adding a feed to <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/">Google Reader</a> its necessary to copy and paste the link and then remove the 'feed:' at the start. Additionally Firefox removes the colon from http, meaning that has to be replaced too. Okay so I'm lazy but all the hassle can be avoided by simply linking to the feed with the normal 'http:' scheme.
+
+As an example I'll pick on the <a href="http://www.mildmanneredindustries.com/blog/">MildMannered Industries Blog</a> solely because its the first example I could find. The link on the page<sup>1</sup> (at the top) is <span style="white-space:nowrap"><strong>feed://http://</strong>www.mildmanneredindustries.com/blog/?feed=rss2,</span> which when copied via Copy Link Location in Firefox becomes <span style="white-space:nowrap"><strong>feed://http//</strong>www.mildmanneredindustries.com/blog/?feed=rss2.</span>
+
+The other issue I have stems from the terrible DNS or proxy (not sure which is to blame) setup here at work. When a request is made for a hostname or scheme that doesn't exist the browser hangs for about 2 minutes before returning an error generated by the proxy. This happens in all browsers and means that if I click in a feed: link my browser hangs for 2 minutes, which is quite frustrating.
+
+So my request to the wider Internet community: Please stop using 'feed:'.
+________________________
+1. The related link embedded in the &lt;head&gt; section is correct (I.e. without 'feed:')

content/technical/2008/05/death-to-the-feed-uri-scheme.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+--- 
+slug: death-to-the-feed-uri-scheme
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/05/death-to-the-feed-uri-scheme/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-05-20 05:59:28
+title: Death to the 'feed:' URI Scheme
+post_id: 12
+tags: 
+- atom
+- feed
+- rss
+- uri-scheme
+categories: 
+- Internet
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/05/stop-vim-completion-searching-included-files.html

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+I use vim coupled with the <a href="http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=182">SuperTab</a> plugin for my text editing and auto-completion needs. In some vim setups (E.g. Mac OS X) it is configured by default to search included files when completing words. This sounds like a useful feature but it turns out not to be. It has a habit of searching the include files of system libraries and modules, the keywords of which you rarely want. Its also quite a slow operation as it trawls through all the files. The solution is to add the following in your .vimrc file.
+
+<code>set complete=.,w,b,u,t</code>
+
+This is the same set of flags as the default except with the '<code>i</code>' option removed. See the help for the <a href="http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/options.html#%27complete%27">'complete' option</a> for an explanation of what each flag means.

content/technical/2008/05/stop-vim-completion-searching-included-files.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+--- 
+slug: stop-vim-completion-searching-included-files
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/05/stop-vim-completion-searching-included-files/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-05-23 05:59:25
+title: Stop Vim Completion Searching Included Files
+post_id: 25
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Linux
+- Mac OS X
+- Programming
+- Tips
+- UNIX
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/05/to-title-case-bookmarklet.html

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+I've make a bookmarklet out of <a href="http://individed.com/code/to-title-case/">David Gouch's Javascript implementation</a> of <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2008/05/title_case">John Gruber's Title Case</a> Perl script.
+
+Drag this link to your bookmarks bar: <a href="javascript:function%20toTitleCase%28t%29%7B%20return%20t.replace%28%2F%28%5B%5Cw%26%60%27%E2%80%98%E2%80%99%22%E2%80%9C.%40%3A%5C%2F%5C%7B%5C%28%5C%5B%3C%3E_%5D%2B-%3F%20%2A%29%2Fg%2C%20function%28match%2C%20p1%2C%20index%2C%20title%29%7B%20if%20%28index%20%3E%200%20%26%26%20title.charAt%28index%20-%202%29%20%21%3D%20%22%3A%22%20%26%26%20match.search%28%2F%5E%28a%28nd%3F%7Cs%7Ct%29%3F%7Cb%28ut%7Cy%29%7Cen%7Cfor%7Ci%5Bfn%5D%7Co%5Bfnr%5D%7Ct%28he%7Co%29%7Cvs%3F%5C.%3F%7Cvia%29%5B%20-%5D%2Fi%29%20%3E%20-1%29%20return%20match.toLowerCase%28%29%3B%20if%20%28title.substring%28index%20-%201%2C%20index%20%2B%201%29.search%28%2F%5B%27%22_%7B%28%5B%5D%2F%29%20%3E%20-1%29%20return%20match.charAt%280%29%20%2B%20match.charAt%281%29.toUpperCase%28%29%20%2B%20match.substr%282%29%3B%20if%20%28match.substr%281%29.search%28%2F%5BA-Z%5D%2B%7C%26%7C%5B%5Cw%5D%2B%5B._%5D%5B%5Cw%5D%2B%2F%29%20%3E%20-1%20%7C%7C%20title.substring%28index%20-%201%2C%20index%20%2B%201%29.search%28%2F%5B%5C%5D%29%7D%5D%2F%29%20%3E%20-1%29%20return%20match%3B%20return%20match.charAt%280%29.toUpperCase%28%29%20%2B%20match.substr%281%29%3B%20%7D%29%3B%20%7D%3Bvar%20S%20%3D%20%22%22%20%2B%20%28window.getSelection%20%3F%20window.getSelection%28%29%20%3A%20document.getSelection%20%3F%20document.getSelection%28%29%20%3A%20document.selection.createRange%28%29.text%29%3Bif%28%21S%29%20S%3Dprompt%28%22You%20didn%27t%20select%20any%20text.%20%20Enter%20text%20now%3A%22%2C%20%22%22%29%3Bif%20%28S%21%3Dnull%29%7Balert%28toTitleCase%28S%29%29%7D%3B%20void%200">Title Case</a>
+
+Seems to work ok in Firefox, IE 6 has issues.

content/technical/2008/05/to-title-case-bookmarklet.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: to-title-case-bookmarklet
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/05/to-title-case-bookmarklet/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-05-27 23:29:28
+title: To Title Case Bookmarklet
+post_id: 27
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Code
+- Internet
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/07/comment-feeds-in-wordpress.html

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Here's tip for something I worked out today. WordPress blogs generally have an RSS feed available for the comments on a post. This is handy for when you want to see other comments posted without having to remember to check back. The problem is many <acronym title="WordPress">WP</acronym> themes don't provide a link to the feed. The solution is to add <code>/feed</code> to the URL of the post, so for this post the comment feed is at:
+<a href="http://www.wezm.net/2008/07/02/comment-feeds-in-wordpress/feed">http://www.wezm.net/2008/07/02/comment-feeds-in-wordpress/feed</a>.

content/technical/2008/07/comment-feeds-in-wordpress.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: comment-feeds-in-wordpress
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/07/comment-feeds-in-wordpress/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-07-02 04:14:17
+title: Comment Feeds in WordPress
+post_id: 34
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Internet
+- Tips
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/07/iphone-tips-from-the-user-guide.html

@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+<p>I read through the 150 odd pages of the iPhone user guide looking for tips and shortcuts and for information on usage that I haven't discovered yet. The following is a collection of the things I found useful or interesting, some may be well known already but they're mainly here for my reference. However they may be useful to others as well; Particularly those who've just picked up an iPhone for the first time following the worldwide release of the iPhone 3G.</p>
+
+<p>The quotes are mostly copied verbatim from the <a href="http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPhone_User_Guide.pdf">iPhone User Guide</a> (PDF), Copyright Apple Inc. As noted at the end of this post the iPhone User Guide is also available for viewing directly on the iPhone at <a href="http://help.apple.com/iphone">http://help.apple.com/iphone</a>.</p>
+<!--more-->
+<h3>General Usage</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>[When scrolling] you can wait for the scrolling to come to a stop, or tap or touch anywhere on the screen to stop it immediately. Tapping or touching to stop scrolling won’t choose or activate anything on the screen.  To quickly scroll to the top of a list, webpage, or email, just tap the status bar.</p></blockquote>
+<p>The point about tapping status bar is useful. It also mentions that in Safari tapping the status bar will reveal the address bar allowing you to search or enter a URL.</p>
+
+<p>Handy tips for more efficient typing:</p>
+<blockquote><dl><dt>Quickly type a period and space</dt>
+        <dd>Double-tap the space bar.</dd>
+        <dt>Turn caps lock on</dt><dd>Enable caps lock (see “Keyboard” on page 108), then double-tap the Shift key. The Shift key turns blue, and all letters you type are uppercase. Tap the Shift key again to turn caps lock off.</dd>
+        <dt>Type letters or symbols that aren’t on the keyboard</dt><dd>Press and hold the related letter or symbol, then slide to choose a variation.</dd></dl></blockquote>
+
+<p>See a link’s destination address:</p>
+<blockquote><p>[In Mail, Safari] touch and hold the link. The address pops up next to your finger. You can touch and hold an image to see if it has a link.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Save a photo attachment to your Camera Roll album:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Press and hold the image, then tap “Save Image.”</p></blockquote>
+<p>Applies to images in Safari too.</p>
+
+<p>Deleting messages in Mail or SMS:</p>
+<blockquote><p>You can also delete a message directly from the mailbox message list by swiping left or right over the message title, then tapping Delete.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Phone</h3>
+<p>Jump to favorites from anywhere:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Double-click the Home button.</p></blockquote>
+<p>Requires setting to be enabled under Settings &gt; General &gt; Home Button.</p>
+
+<p>Bring up the last number you dialed:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Tap Keypad, then tap Call. Tap Call again to dial the number.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Block calls and maintain Wi-Fi access to the Internet:</p>
+<blockquote><p>In Settings, turn on Airplane Mode, then tap Wi-Fi and turn it on.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Set iPhone to add the correct prefix when dialing from another country:</p>
+<blockquote><p>In Settings, tap Phone, then turn International Assist on. This lets you make calls to your home country using the numbers in your contacts and favorites, without having to add a prefix or your country code.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Safari</h3>
+<p>Scroll within a frame on a webpage:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Use two fingers to scroll within a frame on a webpage. Use one finger to scroll the entire webpage.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Submit a form:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Once you finish filling out a form, tap Go or Search. Most pages also have a link you can tap to submit the form.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p>Close the keyboard without submitting the form: Tap Done.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>iPod</h3>
+<p>Convert a video to work with iPhone in iTunes:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Select the video in your iTunes library and choose Advanced &gt; “Convert Selection for iPod/iPhone.” Then add the converted video to iPhone.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Return to the iPod browse lists:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Tap ← Or swipe to the right over the album cover.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p>You can display playback controls at any time when you’re listening to music and using another application—or even when iPhone is locked—by double-clicking the Home button.</p></blockquote>
+<p>Requires iPod Controls to be enabled in Settings &gt; General &gt; Home Button</p>
+
+<p>Unlike music you can delete videos on iPhone:</p>
+<blockquote><p>In the videos list, swipe left or right over the video, then tap Delete.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Set a sleep timer:</p>
+<blockquote><p>From the Home screen choose Clock &gt; Timer, then flick to set the number of hours and minutes. Tap When Timer Ends and choose Sleep iPod, tap Set, then tap Start to start the timer.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Photos</h3>
+<p>Add a photo to your Photo Library:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Press and hold the photo, then tap Save Image.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Maps</h3>
+<blockquote><p>To conserve battery life, turn Locations Services off when you’re not using it. In Settings, choose General &gt; Location Services.</p></blockquote>
+<p>Just speculation but this might help when location services go AWOL</p>
+
+<p>Zooming out:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Pinch the map. Or tap the map with two fingers. Tap with two fingers again to zoom out further.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p>See a list of the businesses found in the search: From the Map screen, tap List.</p></blockquote>
+<p>I wasn't sure what the List option was for. It seems kind of out of place next to Map, Satellite and Hybrid.</p>
+
+<h3>Settings</h3>
+
+<p>Setting the double click function of the home button:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Choose General &gt; Home Button to set preferences for double-clicking the Home button. You can set iPhone so that double-clicking the Home button goes to either to the Home screen, Phone Favorites, or the iPod screen.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Reset the keyboard dictionary:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Choose General &gt; Reset and tap Reset Keyboard Dictionary.  You add words to the keyboard dictionary by rejecting words iPhone suggests as you type. Tap a word to reject the correction and add the word to the keyboard dictionary. Resetting the keyboard dictionary erases all words you’ve added.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Reset the location warnings:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Choose General &gt; Reset and tap Reset Location Warnings.  Locations warnings are the requests made by applications (such as Camera and Maps) to use Location Services with those applications. iPhone stops presenting the warning for an application the second time you tap OK. Tap Reset Location Warnings to resume the warnings.</p></blockquote>
+<p>Its a pity this and the one above it are all or nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Set iPhone to add the correct prefix when dialing from another country:</p>
+<blockquote><p>In Settings, tap Phone, then turn International Assist on. This lets you make calls to your home country using the numbers in your contacts and favorites, without having to add a prefix or your country code (not available in all areas).</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Store</h3>
+
+<p>Checking for updates to App Store apps is all automatic:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Whenever you access the App Store, it checks for updates to applications you’ve installed. By default, the App Store also automatically checks for updates every week.  The App Store icon shows the total number of application updates available.  If an update is available and you access the App Store, the Updates screen appears immediately.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Ensure all iTunes and App Store items on the phone are listed in iTunes:</p>
+<blockquote><p>You can use iTunes to verify that all the music, videos, applications, and other items you bought from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store or App Store are in your iTunes library.  You might want to do this if a download was interrupted.  Verify your purchases:</p>
+    <ol>
+        <li>Make sure your computer is connected to the Internet.</li>
+        <li>In iTunes, choose Store &gt; Check for Purchases.</li>
+        <li>Enter your iTunes Store account ID and password, then click Check.</li>
+    </ol>
+    <p>Purchases not yet on your computer are downloaded.</p></blockquote>
+
+<em>Update:</em> This did not entirely solve the problem I had where not all apps on the phone were appearing in iTunes. However The Apple Blog seemed to have solved it with their "<a href="http://theappleblog.com/2008/07/22/transfer-applications-from-iphone-to-itunes/">Transfer Applications from iPhone to iTunes</a>" post.
+
+<h3>Troubleshooting</h3>
+
+<p>Restart iPhone:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the red slider appears. Slide your finger across the slider to turn off iPhone. To turn iPhone back on, press and hold the Sleep/Wake until the Apple logo appears.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Reset iPhone:</p>
+<blockquote><p>Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.</p></blockquote>
+<p>It isn't made clear what the difference between restart and reset is.</p>
+
+<blockquote><h4>iPhone Doesn’t Respond</h4>
+    <ul>
+        <li>iPhone may be low on power. Connect iPhone to your computer or to its power adapter to charge. See “Charging the Battery” on page 33.</li>
+        <li>Press and hold the Home button below the screen for at least six seconds, until the application you were using quits.</li>
+        <li>If that doesn’t work, turn iPhone off and turn it on again. [See Restart iPhone above]</li>
+        <li>If that doesn’t work, reset iPhone. [See Reset iPhone above]</li>
+    </ul>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Mainly included this quote for this point on force quitting apps.</p>
+
+<blockquote><h4>iPhone Is Too Warm</h4>
+    <p>If the interior temperature of iPhone 3G exceeds normal operating temperatures, you may experience the following as it attempts to regulate its temperature:</p>
+    <ul>
+        <li>iPhone stops charging</li>
+        <li>display dims</li>
+        <li>weak cellular signal</li>
+        <li>temperature warning screen appears</li>
+    </ul>
+    <p>Important: You cannot use iPhone while the temperature warning screen is displayed except to make an emergency call. If none of the above measures succeeds in lowering the internal temperature, iPhone automatically goes into a deep sleep mode until it cools. You cannot make an emergency call when iPhone is in this mode. Move iPhone to a cooler location and wait a few minutes before trying to use iPhone again.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Interesting that this calls out the iPhone 3G specifically.</p>
+
+<h3>Final Notes</h3>
+<blockquote><p>The iPhone User Guide, optimized for viewing on iPhone, is available at: <a href="http://help.apple.com/iphone">help.apple.com/iphone</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>My Notes</h3>
+<p>Pressing the number/symbol button and sliding to the appropriate key is a quick way of adding punctuation and single numerals.</p>
+<p>Time scanning after sitting idle is a strange UI anomaly. Could be related to network time.</p>
+<p>There's an interesting section on Backups and managing them in iTunes that I won't repeat here, pp. 139.</p>

content/technical/2008/07/iphone-tips-from-the-user-guide.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: iphone-tips-from-the-user-guide
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/07/iphone-tips-from-the-user-guide/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-07-15 06:53:23
+title: iPhone Tips From the User Guide
+post_id: 49
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- iPhone
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/07/iphone-vodafone-comments.html

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+I just sent off the following to Vodafone <a href="mailto:Customer.Enquiries@vodafone.com">customer enquiries</a>. I'm not overly hopeful of a favourable response but thought it was necessary.
+
+<blockquote>Hi,
+No doubt I'm one of thousands sending an email like this but still feel it necessary. I am eagerly awaiting the launch of the iPhone in Australia. I am intending to buy one on the day of release. When it was initially announced that Vodafone and Optus would be carrying the iPhone I had it in my mind that I would take the opportunity to swap to Vodafone from Optus. I have been a constant Optus customer since getting my first mobile phone in 1999.The complete lack of communication from Vodafone has put me off though.
+
+In order to make an informed decision on launch day it would have been nice to have plan details available at the very least a week before. With three days remaining its now getting beyond a joke. I understand that there may be other factors at play here. However given you have an audience that have voluntarily signed up for updates it would have been pro-active and open to communicate with these people and let them know what was holding up progress or at least when to expect more information (with more certainty than "very soon").
+
+At this point are you able to provide any more detail than that which is publicly available already?
+
+Unfortunately unless the plans eventually announced are particularly compelling I expect I will remain an Optus customer.
+
+Regards,
+Wesley Moore</blockquote>
+
+<strong>Update:</strong> I never got a response and bought my iPhone from Optus.

content/technical/2008/07/iphone-vodafone-comments.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: iphone-vodafone-comments
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/07/iphone-vodafone-comments/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-07-08 02:03:40
+title: Comments to Vodafone on Lack of iPhone Information
+post_id: 37
+tags: 
+- complaint
+- iphone
+- vodafone
+categories: 
+- iPhone
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/08/iphone-gripe-trucated-song-titles.html

@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+Something that seems to be a regression on the iPhone relative to all previous iPods is that song titles get truncated. Even in the original iPod the Now Playing screen would scroll the current song title so that you could read it all when it didn't fit on screen. Later model iPods also scrolled text that was wider than the screen when browsing menus. It seems the iPhone 3G does neither of these.
+<!--more-->
+I tried the three main views: Now Playing, List view (flip side of album art in now playing screen) and the track browsing screen. All three are pictured at the end of this post (which incidently was written using the very cool iPhone WordPress app). It seems the only way to see the full track name is to rotate the iPhone into the Coverflow view where the text fits given the added width of the screen. If anyone has any better suggestions I'd love to hear them.
+<p><a href="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/p-480-320-3c97c4e8-d88f-4711-985a-2dae212034c9.jpeg"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/p-480-320-3c97c4e8-d88f-4711-985a-2dae212034c9.jpeg" alt="" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-364" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/p-480-320-418af65a-6827-4c5f-87d3-0b8a365c3c2a.jpeg"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/p-480-320-418af65a-6827-4c5f-87d3-0b8a365c3c2a.jpeg" alt="" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-364" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/p-480-320-15170353-744f-40cf-9ff9-1b6bb3d657f2.jpeg"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/p-480-320-15170353-744f-40cf-9ff9-1b6bb3d657f2.jpeg" alt="" width="200" height="300" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-364" /></a></p>

content/technical/2008/08/iphone-gripe-trucated-song-titles.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+--- 
+slug: iphone-gripe-trucated-song-titles
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/08/iphone-gripe-trucated-song-titles/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-08-17 09:10:12
+title: "iPhone Gripe: Trucated Song Titles"
+post_id: 62
+tags: 
+- gripe
+- iphone
+- ipod
+- music
+- title
+- truncation
+categories: 
+- iPhone
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/08/pondering-sent-from-my-iphone.html

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+The first email I sent from my iPhone was: <blockquote>Hello from my new 16Gb white iPhone. I was 5th in line. :-)</blockquote>
+Unbeknownst to me at that time, my phone had helpfully attached the default signature of, "Sent from my iPhone", at the end of the email. Later that day, in a reply to what may have been my third ever email from the phone a friend said: <blockquote>&gt; Sent from my iPhone
+
+thats going to get annoying soon.. heheh :-P</blockquote>Not one to wish to annoy people and seeing where he was coming from I removed the signature.
+
+A couple of weeks later as I was typing out a reply to a different friend on my trip to work on the tram, the desire for the signature returned. The reason being including the signature tells the recipient that the message came from a small handheld device, whilst I was on the go. This may help explain why the reply is terse and why there may be typos or particularly in the iPhones case, whole word substitutions. The phone is generally pretty good at auto-correction but if you're typing away furiously its easy for mistakes to go unnoticed. So, with a genuine desire to have a signature that wasn't about big-noting the fact I owned an iPhone, I explained the situation to my friends and asked what exactly was it that they disliked about it and how could it be made better and/or less intrusive.
+<!--more-->
+I got several well reasoned responses. The first suggested replying on the go wasn't really necessary, as most things can wait. So instead of pushing out a quick, terse response, take the time to write a proper reply and proof read for mistakes. Or just wait until you've got access to a desktop computer. 
+
+Whilst a valid comment, the emails I am replying to are personal and I'm generally using my commute to work to read and reply to them to avoid using work time for personal email. Without doing so the reply would have to wait until my lunch break or until I get home.
+
+The next reply was from a fellow iPhone user that had also received comments about the signature, but agreed with me that it helped explain the style of the response. He noted that he had removed it though.
+
+The final reply echoed the first in suggesting that if its worth sending its worth doing properly and then followed with what I was expecting all along, I'll quote that part in full:
+<blockquote>To answer you question "why do you hate the sig", i think its mainly because of the blatant "zomg look at me i have an iPhone!!"".. There are many better options if you MUST have a sig just to say sorry to your reader.. eg Please excuse the brevity and/or any misspellings. The fact that it is the default, so it comes from everyone and is just such a blatant advertiser just gives me the shits to be totally honest :-)</blockquote>
+I totally get where Hayden is coming from here. The default signature is quite blatant and in your face.
+
+Thinking it over I came up with the following solutions:
+<ol>
+<li>Have a signature like Hayden suggested that is device non-specic. E.g. "Sent from my phone"</li>
+<li>Set my name in the account settings to "Wesley Moore (Mobile)" or something along those lines.</li>
+ </ol>
+
+I went with the latter as its more subtle but still conveys what I wanted. The result looks like the following (in Gmail).
+
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/wesley-moore-mobile.png'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/08/wesley-moore-mobile.png" alt="" title="wesley-moore-mobile" width="470" height="137" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-58" /></a>
+
+The first response after making that change was:
+<blockquote>BRILLIANT!
+
+love your work :-)</blockquote>
+
+So there you have it, a simple change that might make some of your email recipients cringe a little less.

content/technical/2008/08/pondering-sent-from-my-iphone.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: pondering-sent-from-my-iphone
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/08/pondering-sent-from-my-iphone/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-08-12 12:04:25
+title: Pondering "Sent from my iPhone"
+post_id: 57
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- iPhone
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/09/pimping-vim-on-windows.html

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+Following Nick Kreeger's <a href="http://nkreeger.com/2008/09/macvim-ftw.html">handy post</a> on tweaking MacVim on Mac OS X I applied some of the tips to GVim under Windows to make it a little easier on the eye. The following settings are placed in your _vimrc/.vimrc file.
+
+First up is a change of font. With the introduction of Windows Vista Microsoft had a <a href="http://www.officeformac.com/blog/Brave-New-Fonts">set of new standard fonts</a> created. These also ship with the latest versions of Office. The Consolas monospaced font makes a good programmers font so I this as the font when running under Windows. I've also set the size to be relatively small.
+
+<pre>if has("gui_win32")
+    :set guifont=Consolas:h8,<a href="http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download">ProggyTiny</a>:h8,Luxi_Mono:h12:cANSI
+endif</pre><!--more-->Next up set the window to start tall and a little wider than normal:
+
+<code>set columns=90 lines=65</code>
+
+I share my vim config with Cygwin and Windows native vim. In order to get the Windows version to pick up the UNIX plugins etc in the .vim I include the following:
+
+<pre>" Make Windows use my UNIX vimfiles
+if has("win32")
+    set runtimepath=$HOME/.vim,$HOME/vimfiles,$VIM/vimfiles,$VIMRUNTIME,$VIM/vimfiles/after,$HOME/vimfiles/after
+endif</pre>
+
+Turn on a custom status line which includes the file name, file type, modified and read only status, line and column numbers and the percentage through the file.
+
+<code>set laststatus=2
+set statusline=%&lt;%f\ %m%a%=%([%R%H%Y]%)\ %-19(%3l\ of\ %L,%c%)%P
+set showcmd</code>
+
+Along the lines of what Nick did I turned line numbers on and toned the colour down a bit:
+
+<code>colorscheme koehler
+hi LineNr guifg=#666666
+set number</code>
+
+So what does it all like in the end? Still not as good as MacVim but not too bad (click for full size version, scaled version looks a bit average):
+
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/09/windows-gvim.png'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/09/windows-gvim.png" alt="Screenshot of GVim on Windows after customisation" title="Customised GVim" width="500" height="847" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-67" /></a>
+

content/technical/2008/09/pimping-vim-on-windows.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: pimping-vim-on-windows
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/09/pimping-vim-on-windows/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-09-23 10:21:38
+title: Pimping Vim on Windows
+post_id: 65
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Tips
+- Windows
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/09/update-expectations.html

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+I've recently upgraded from a Power Mac G5 to a Mac Pro. Since this upgrade also includes a switch of processor architecture I've been making a point of re-downloading all the apps I use, instead of just copying them from the old Mac. I'm doing this for two reasons. Firstly it ensures the apps are all up to date<sup>1</sup> and secondly I ran <a href="http://www.xslimmer.com/">Xslimmer</a> over a lot of apps on the G5, which removed the Intel binary from Universal apps.
+
+This process has made me somewhat aware of a few apps that have seen little or no updates in quite a while. For some reason I have an expectation that applications will see periodic updates, say every six months or less. This expectation seems to stem from the fact I've paid for all these apps, which seems to bring with it some expectation of updates. Whether or not this expectation is justified or not is certainly up for debate. I clearly purchased a tool at some point and it performs its job fine, so I got what I paid for. I guess the expectation comes from not wanting to think you've bought abandon-ware and that software is one of those things that tends to continually evolve.
+
+In some cases I think the authors of the software fuel these expectations by explicitly indicating that there will be future development or by implying there will be updates. The following are some examples of what I'm talking about:
+<!--more-->
+<h3><a href="http://discoapp.com/">Disco</a> (Disc burning software)</h3>
+
+Disco had a very hyped public beta prior to its release but since then has remained almost untouched feature wise. Its seen three maintenance releases since 1.0, which mostly centred around bug fixes and minor tweaks. Yet the aplication's home page advertises the following:
+
+<blockquote>There are some amazing things in the works for Disco. First and foremost, as Apple adds support for Blu-ray to their computers we intend to be right there with them. As soon as possible, Disco will support these new media technologies to the fullest. We're also planning on introducing more innovative features in the vein of Discography, Spanning and the new Disc Naming.</blockquote>
+
+Obviously we're still waiting for Apple to bring us Blu-ray however despite the claims of future enhancements in the last sentence there have been no significant new features since the 1.0 release over 18 months<sup>2</sup> ago. The last maintenance release was six months ago.
+
+<h3><a href="http://www.appzapper.com/">AppZapper</a> (Application removal tool)</h3>
+
+AppZapper is a well designed minimalist app that takes care of deleting applications and their associated support files. Whilst it works ok. There's definitely room for improvement to become comparable with some of the newer apps in this area like <a href="http://www.binarynights.com/">Forklift</a>, which I also own. Forklift tends to find more files, such as log files, that AppZapper misses. The AppZapper home page proclaims "Free upgrades for life". This seems like a good selling point until you discover that the last time it saw an update of any kind was well over 18 months ago<sup>3</sup>.
+
+<h3><a href="http://www.xtorrentp2p.com/">Xtorrent</a> (BitTorrent client)</h3>
+
+Xtorrent is written by the infomous Dave Watenabe (a fellow Melburnian I beleive). His combined search tool and torrent client saw frequent, if not <a href="http://www.xtorrentp2p.com/releasenotes.php">frantic updates</a> leading up to and beyond the 1.0 release. Followed by a feature release of version 1.1 not far off one year ago<sup>4</sup>. The kicker with this one is that when you purchase Xtorrent you can pay an extra US$15 to get Lifetime upgrades (which I did). That would be money well spent if there were frequent upgrades.
+
+Now I'm aware Dave can fly off the handle at times so in an attempt to avoid that I will mention that he does have a lot of apps on his hands for a single developer. I guess the main gripe here is Xtorrent can be a little flakey at times, particular when clicking the delete search button<sup>5</sup>, plus I'm led to believe it uses the open source <a href="http://www.transmissionbt.com/">Tranmisson</a> BitTorrent library so there could potentially be updates just to keep Xtorrent in sync with that.
+
+So there you go, maybe I'm being greedy and expecting too much or maybe there's room for improvement from these app's authors, either way lets hope the apps see some love soon.
+
+________________________
+<ol>
+	<li>Although this is taken care of by built-in updaters like <a href="http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org/">Sparkle</a> and derivatives in a lot of cases.</li>
+	<li>http://discoapp.com/releasenotes.html</li>
+	<li>http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20306/appzapper</li>
+	<li>http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/22815/xtorrent</li>
+	<li>I probably should admit here that no, I haven't reported this to him. I'll get on it after this post.</li>
+</ol>
+

content/technical/2008/09/update-expectations.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: update-expectations
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/09/update-expectations/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-09-05 06:54:53
+title: Update Expectations
+post_id: 63
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Mac OS X
+- Software
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/09/zsh-cygwin-and-insecure-directories.html

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+In order to cope with having to use Windows at work I run Cygwin. My shell of choice is zsh. For whatever reason the Cygwin package of zsh installs with a serious of directories that the zsh completion system deems to be insecure and it makes sure you know this. Each time a new shell is opened (in my case through a Windows native rxvt terminal) I would receive the following warning:
+
+<code>Ignore insecure directories and continue [ny]?</code>
+
+Pressing 'y' becomes a bit tedious after a while so I decided to track down these insecure directories and fix them.
+<!--more-->
+<tt>man zshcompsys</tt> reveals the following about the security check:
+
+<blockquote>For security reasons compinit also  checks  if  the  completion  system
+would  use  files not owned by root or by the current user, or files in
+directories that are world- or group-writable or that are not owned  by
+root  or  by the current user.  If such files or directories are found,
+compinit will ask if the completion system should really be  used.   To
+avoid  these tests and make all files found be used without asking, use
+the option -u, and to make compinit silently ignore all insecure  files
+and  directories  use  the  option  -i.  This security check is skipped
+entirely when the -C option is given.
+
+The security check can be retried at any time by running  the  function
+compaudit.
+</blockquote>
+
+Running compaudit revealed the following:
+<code>% compaudit 
+There are insecure directories:
+/usr/share/zsh/site-functions
+/usr/share/zsh/4.3.4/functions
+/usr/share/zsh
+/usr/share/zsh/4.3.4</code>
+
+Examining the permissions on these directories showed they were all group writable.
+
+<code>% ls -ld /usr/share/zsh/site-functions
+drwxrwx---+ 2 wmoore mkgroup-l-d 0 Sep  4 10:54 /usr/share/zsh/site-functions</code>
+
+Stripping them of the group write permission fixed the problem and made starting a new shell a little more pleasant.
+
+<code>% chmod g-w /usr/share/zsh/site-functions /usr/share/zsh/4.3.4/functions /usr/share/zsh /usr/share/zsh/4.3.4
+% compaudit                                                                 
+% 
+</code>
+
+<strong>Update:</strong> kylexlau provides this one line solution for correcting to permissions on each of the directories that compaudit returns:
+<code>compaudit | xargs chmod g-w</code>

content/technical/2008/09/zsh-cygwin-and-insecure-directories.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: zsh-cygwin-and-insecure-directories
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/09/zsh-cygwin-and-insecure-directories/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-09-22 13:12:16
+title: zsh, Cygwin and Insecure Directories
+post_id: 66
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Tips
+- UNIX
+- Windows
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/11/iphone-case.html

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+<a href="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/11/_mg_5820.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0 1em 1em 0;"><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/11/_mg_5820-150x150.jpg" alt="Mossimo iPhone Pouch/Case" title="Mossimo iPhone Pouch" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-76" /></a>Since I got my iPhone I've been trying to find a suitable case for it. As <a href="http://popcorn.cx/blog/2008/07/jumping-on-the-bandwagon-in-7-14-days/#comment-52510">I mentioned on Stephen's blog</a> back in July I was looking for a pouch style case. I wanted something a thin as possible but not something that was permanently on the phone. I don't see the point of buying some thing with excellent design then wrapping it in some ugly case. I've been dropping into phone shops now and then to see what cases they've got but hadn't found anything compelling until this week. I saw that TeleChoice seemed to have what I was looking for, it also happened to be a Mossimo case. There is one problem that I didn't notice in the shop though.
+<!--more-->
+The case itself is almost exactly what I'm after: it's a vertical slip-in genuine leather pouch with a soft liner. There's one glaring fault though, which is the inclusion of a metal eyelet. The eyelet will of course get pressed against the phone and damage it over time, especially when in a moving jeans pocket or similar. I haven't yet decided what to do about. Options include removing it, putting tape or something over it or putting a little piece of tape on the phone.
+
+<table style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"><tr><td style="padding: 1em;">
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/11/_mg_5820.jpg'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/11/_mg_5820-199x300.jpg" alt="Mossimo iPhone Pouch/Case" title="Mossimo iPhone Pouch" width="199" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-76" /></a></td>
+<td style="padding: 1em;"><a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/11/_mg_5821.jpg'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2008/11/_mg_5821-199x300.jpg" alt="" title="Mossimo iPhone Pouch Back" width="199" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-77" /></a></td></tr></table>

content/technical/2008/11/iphone-case.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: iphone-case
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/11/iphone-case/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-11-21 03:32:05
+title: iPhone Case
+post_id: 75
+tags: 
+- case
+- iphone
+categories: 
+- iPhone
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/11/power-mac-g5-on-ebay.html

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+My trusty Power Mac G5 that was replaced by a Mac Pro earlier this year is now on eBay. If you're in Australia and you or someone you know is looking for a cheap, capable, expandable workstation send them to the auction.
+
+<object width="355" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://togo.ebay.com/togo/togo.swf?2008013100" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="flashvars" value="base=http://togo.ebay.com/togo/&lang=en-us&mode=normal&itemid=220315001694&query=qr%20code" /><embed src="http://togo.ebay.com/togo/togo.swf?2008013100" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="355" height="300" allowScriptAccess="always" flashvars="base=http://togo.ebay.com/togo/&lang=en-us&mode=normal&itemid=220315001694&query=qr%20code"></embed></object>
+
+P.S. It pains me to have Flash on my site but its the easiest way to embed the auction. There's no AU version of the "<a href="http://togo.ebay.com/">eBay To Go</a>" feature I used either, which is why its in US dollars.

content/technical/2008/11/power-mac-g5-on-ebay.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+--- 
+slug: power-mac-g5-on-ebay
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/11/power-mac-g5-on-ebay/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-11-19 12:07:48
+title: Power Mac G5 on eBay
+post_id: 73
+tags: []
+
+categories: 
+- Apple
+- Miscellaneous
+status: publish

content/technical/2008/11/progress-update.html

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+Its been quite some time since my original post soliciting ideas for a Mac OS X application to develop. Since then I decided to heed the advice I've read in several places and to just implement something simple that <em>I</em> want. That ended up being an audio file splitter. The app is currently nicknamed Chopper, which aside from the obvious cutting meaning also has a bit of meaning in Australian culture as a reference to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopper_Read">Mark "Chopper" Read</a>.
+
+In July I also changed jobs. As part of accepting the new role I asked to work a four day week, with the intention of dedicating the fifth day to Mac development. A day a week turned out to be too much but they did accept a day a fortnight, written into my contract, so I always get it.
+
+With that day a fortnight I've done such things as:
+<ul>
+	<li>Come up with an overview of requirements</li>
+	<li>Sketch out several possible UI designs</li>
+	<li><a href="http://www.wezm.net/2008/04/16/mp3-decoder-libraries-compared/">Benchmark MP3 decoders</a></li>
+	<li>Learn and use the new features in Obj-C 2.0</li>
+	<li>Learn OCUint and add unit tests to the project</li>
+	<li>Implement an MPEG header parser</li>
+	<li>Implement MPEG file splitting</li>
+	<li>Implement a CUE sheet parser</li>
+	<li>Implement splitting on CUE sheet track boundaries</li>
+	<li>Hook up a basic UI that uses bindings</li>
+</ul>
+
+The todo list is still quite large. I will continue plugging away and one day it will be ready. In the meantime I'm aiming to post more frequent updates on this site and maybe cover some of the things that I've learnt such as unit testing Cocoa classes.

content/technical/2008/11/progress-update.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+--- 
+slug: progress-update
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2008/11/progress-update/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2008-11-21 00:16:35
+title: Progress Update
+post_id: 102
+tags: 
+- chopper
+categories: 
+- Development
+status: publish

content/technical/2009/01/determining-non-automatically-installed-debian-packages.html

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+Tonight I began migrating from my current VPS at <a href="http://www.vpsfarm.com/">vpsFarm</a> to a new one at <a href="http://www.crucial.com.au/">Crucial Paradigm</a>. The primary driver behind this is financial. Firstly I wanted to reduce the cost of running a VPS and secondly I wanted a VPS billed in Australian dollars so I wasn't exposed to wildly varying value of the Australian dollar. Due to the recent slump in the exchange rate the vpsFarm server started costing $10 or so more a month.
+<!--more-->
+With my fresh Debian 4 VPS up and running I now wanted to install all the various packages that I had on the vpsFarm server. However I'm aware that when using <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude">aptitude</a> to install packages it tracks which ones were included automatically as dependencies and can then clean them up if they are later on no longer needed by anything. As a result of this I didn't want to just install every package listed by <code>`dpkg -l`</code> on the old server. The solution I came up with was as follows. Its not particularly elegant but got the job done:
+
+<pre># On old server
+aptitude search '~i' | grep -v 'i A' > ~/installed.txt
+# scp installed.txt to new server
+# Then on new server
+aptitude search '~i' | grep -v 'i A' > ~/installed2.txt
+# Then determine which ones the new server doesn't have already
+diff installed*.txt | awk '{ print $3 }'|sort |uniq</pre>
+
+I joined the resulting list into a single line (Text > Unwrap Selection in TextMate or :%j in vim), removed a few that I didn't want then did <code>sudo aptitude install </code> and pasted the list of packages from TextMate. The <code>aptitude search '~i'</code> lists installed packages, the <code>grep</code> removes ones that were automatically installed and the <code>diff</code> finds ones that the new server doesn't already have.

content/technical/2009/01/determining-non-automatically-installed-debian-packages.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+--- 
+slug: determining-non-automatically-installed-debian-packages
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/01/determining-non-automatically-installed-debian-packages/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2009-01-20 13:18:54
+title: Determining Non-Automatically Installed Debian Packages
+post_id: 81
+tags: 
+- apt
+- debian
+- installed
+- linux
+- packages
+- server
+- vps
+categories: 
+- Linux
+- Tips
+status: publish

content/technical/2009/01/the-iphone-headphones-have-a-button.html

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Before Christmas I was speaking with two colleagues and recent iPhone adopters about headphones. They were examining my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-EX71SLA-Fontopia-Bud-Style-Headphones/dp/B000JKHXPQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1231211983&sr=1-3">Sony MDR-EX71s</a> (white, short cable) connected to <a href="http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/smarttalk">Griffin SmartTalk</a>. I mentioned the SmartTalk gives third-party headphones a button and microphone. I was asked if you could answer calls with the button to which I said, "yes, it does all the same things as the included headphones". To which the reply was, "the included ones have a button?". Yep they certainly do.
+<!--more-->
+<blockquote>The headset included with iPhone features a microphone and an integrated button that allows you to answer and end calls easily, and control audio and video playback.
+Plug in the headset to listen to music or a phone call. Callers hear you through the headset microphone. Click the mic button to control music playback and answer or end calls, even when iPhone is locked.</blockquote>
+
+<img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/01/iphone-headphones.png" alt="Stereo Headset with mic" width="384" height="185" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-79" />
+
+These are the functions that can be performed with the mic button:
+<table class="left_headers">
+  <tr>
+    <th>Pause a song or video</th>
+    <td>Click the mic button once. Click again to resume playback.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Skip to the next song</th>
+    <td>Click twice quickly.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Skip to the previous song</th>
+    <td>Click three times quickly.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Answer an incoming call</th>
+    <td>Click once.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>End the current call</th>
+    <td>Click once.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Decline an incoming call</th>
+    <td>Press and hold for about two seconds, then let go. When you let go, two low beeps confirm you declined the call.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Switch to an incoming or on-hold call and put the current call on hold</th>
+    <td>Click once. Click again to switch back to the first call.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th>Switch to an incoming or on-hold call and end the current call</th>
+    <td>Press and hold for about two seconds, then let go. When you let go, two low beeps confirm you ended the first call.</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+

content/technical/2009/01/the-iphone-headphones-have-a-button.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+--- 
+slug: the-iphone-headphones-have-a-button
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/01/the-iphone-headphones-have-a-button/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2009-01-06 03:31:45
+title: The iPhone Headphones Have a Button
+post_id: 78
+tags: 
+- button
+- headphones
+- headset
+- iphone
+- microphone
+categories: 
+- iPhone
+status: publish

content/technical/2009/03/bash-git-completion-with-mac-ports.html

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+Git comes with bash completion support which comes in handy for completing branch names and things like that. To get this support when installing git via Mac Ports you must add the bash_completion variant. You'll also want to install the bash_completion port. After that you need to add the following to your ~/.bashrc file:<pre>if [ -f /opt/local/etc/bash_completion ]; then
+    . /opt/local/etc/bash_completion
+fi</pre>
+For reference I have the folloowing Git related config in my <code>.bashrc</code>:
+<script src="http://gist.github.com/87724.js"></script>

content/technical/2009/03/bash-git-completion-with-mac-ports.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+--- 
+slug: bash-git-completion-with-mac-ports
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/bash-git-completion-with-mac-ports/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2009-03-30 10:13:49
+title: Bash Git Completion with Mac Ports
+post_id: 107
+tags: 
+- bash
+- completion
+- git
+- macports
+categories: 
+- Mac
+status: publish

content/technical/2009/03/consolas-on-mac-update.html

@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+Today I followed my own <a href="ttp://www.wezm.net/2009/03/03/install-consolas-mac-osx/">directions on installing Consolas</a> on my Mac Pro. The original directions were put together when installing it on my Mac Book. The downloaded disk image had a different volume name, as did the meta package. So the the command I used to launch the font installer was: <pre>open "/Volumes/Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0/Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0.mpkg/Contents/Packages/OpenXML_all_fonts.pkg"</pre>
+
+After the installer ran I went about making it the default font in Terminal. After doing so and setting it the same as it was on my Mac Book (13pt, antialiasing on) it looked terrible on the Mac Pro. Compare the two images below. I was after the latter.
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/picture-81.png'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/picture-81.png" alt="" title="Automatic font smoothing" width="665" height="195" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12" /></a><a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/picture-6.png'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/picture-6.png" alt="" title="Medium font smoothing" width="672" height="195" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13" /></a>After a little bit of confusion I decided to check the font smoothing style in the Appearance preference pane (in System Preferences). Turns out it was set to Automatic (best for main display) on the Mac Pro and Medium (best for Flat Panel) on the Mac Book. Changing to Medium and relaunching Terminal had it looking identical on both machines.

content/technical/2009/03/consolas-on-mac-update.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+--- 
+slug: consolas-on-mac-update
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/consolas-on-mac-update/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2009-03-30 09:56:12
+title: Consolas on Mac Update
+post_id: 106
+tags: 
+- consolas
+- font
+- smoothing
+- terminal
+categories: 
+- Mac
+status: publish

content/technical/2009/03/debian-lenny-released.html

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 was released on Valentines day 2009, "after 22 months of constant development", according to <a href="http://debian.org/News/2009/20090214">the announcement</a>. 22 months is still a long time between releases but its certainly an improvement over the nearly three years between 3.0 and 3.1 (sarge) and consistent with the 21 months between 3.1 and 4.0.
+
+As always the upgrade procedure is straightforward and worked seamlessly for me. I followed the <a href="http://www.go2linux.org/upgrading-debian">instructions on go2linux</a>.

content/technical/2009/03/debian-lenny-released.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+--- 
+slug: debian-lenny-released
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/debian-lenny-released/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2009-03-01 21:00:39
+title: Debian 5.0 'Lenny' Released
+post_id: 90
+tags: 
+- debian
+- etch
+- lenny
+- upgrade
+categories: 
+- Linux
+status: publish

content/technical/2009/03/free-virtualisation-with-virtualbox.html

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+Virtualisation software has been around for a long time. This software allows you to host one or more guest operating systems on top of the one you're already running at near full speed. For example you could run Linux as a guest on Windows or OpenSolaris as a guest on Mac OS X. Some of the reasons you might wish to do this are:
+<ul>
+	<li>Testing: Check a web application in browsers only available for particular operating systems.</li>
+	<li>Development: Create software for a different target operating system. E.g. You might be developing software for a Linux based device but use Windows on your desktop.</li>
+	<li>Security: You can run software in a restricted environment, separate from the host and have the ability to roll back to snapshots taken at a known-good point in time.</li>
+	<li>Convenience: Whilst it might be possible to install multiple operating systems on one host you must reboot to use each one. You can use multiple operating systems simultaneously with virtualisation.</li>
+	<li>Utilisation: You can take one server and turn it into several. You could run a Solaris database server, Linux webserver and Microsoft Exchange server all from the one (well specced) host.</li>
+</ul><!--more-->There's quite a few different virtualisation software options out there but a relative newcomer is Sun Microsystems' <a href="http://www.virtualbox.org/">VirtualBox</a>. Originally developed by innotek it was acquired by Sun in February 2008. As well as being very capable in its own right VirtualBox is also free and open source.
+
+VirtualBox runs on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. It can host Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OS/2 and probably many more guest OS's. It features a seamless windows feature for Linux and Windows guests to integrate the guest windows into the host, is extensively controllable and configurable from the command line and has a built in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Protocol"><abbr title="Remote Desktop Protocol ">RDP</abbr></a> server so you can access the GUI of a guest remotely amongst many other features. It also includes "additions" that you install in the guest to get better integration with the host. Currently there are additions for Linux, Windows, Solaris and OS/2.
+
+<a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/picture-8.png'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/picture-8-300x254.png" alt="The VirtualBox Graphical User Interface" title="VirtualBox GUI" width="300" height="254" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-8" /></a><a href='http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/wezm.net/2009/03/picture-9.png'><img src="http://www.wezm.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/picture-9-300x196.png" alt="VirtualBox running a Debian GNU/Linux guest on Mac OS X" title="VirtualBox Debian Guest" width="300" height="196" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-9" /></a><p style="clear: both;">One particularly nifty feature if you're on a Windows PC without Administrator privileges is VirtualBox will install and run as an unprivileged user. This means if you're forced to use Windows at work you might be able to install Linux via VirtualBox and become a bit more productive.</p>
+
+In some future posts I plan to cover some ways you can put VirtualBox to use. The first of these will cover setting up a Linux guest to mirror the deployment environment of a web application.

content/technical/2009/03/free-virtualisation-with-virtualbox.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+--- 
+slug: free-virtualisation-with-virtualbox
+permalink: http://www.wezm.net/2009/03/free-virtualisation-with-virtualbox/
+kind: article
+section: technical
+created_at: 2009-03-12 11:36:40
+title: Free Virtualisation With VirtualBox
+post_id: 7
+tags: 
+- virtualbox
+- virtualisation
+- virtualization
+categories: 
+- Software
+status: publish