Most of my computer life of the last few years has lived within Dropbox. It's proven to be a very hands off largely no-thought means of ensuring the 3 Windows computers I use regularly at work and home all have almost identical tool chains and environments. It's always bugged me though, that my "home" is buried under C:\Users\matt\Dropbox (though at least with Win7 it's not under that horrible "Documents and Settings" folder!). Way too freakin much typing just to get to the point of starting work, or fun.

I've tried several methods for making this more livable, and each succeeds to …continue.

Very short problems about python, found and fixed.

>pip
failed to create process.

whups, this worked yesterday. Whatup? --> drive letters/paths have been changed. The path to python.exe specified in pip.exe has moved. Solution: reinstall pip (and any other py programs similarly impacted).

Here is a recipe for installing Leo from scratch on Windows (Win7 tested). The only prerequisites are command line wget in PATH and an internet connection.

About 50mb of files are downloaded and 200mb consumed when done.

Open a command prompt and run:

mkdir X:\testing
pushd X:\testing

wget -O apt.exe --no-clobber http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/release/apt/apt-r1193M.exe
SET OSGEO4W_ROOT=%~dp0\root
apt setup
apt update
apt install pyqt4 sip

call root\osgeo4w.bat

wget --no-check-certificate http://gist.github.com/maphew/5393935/raw/install-pip.py
python install-pip.py GO
python install-pip.py GO

pip install -i https://testpypi.python.org/pypi leo-editor

python apps\Python27\Scripts\leo

After this the directory X:\testing\root can be renamed and/or moved anywhere.

To run leo in future sessions, simply call x:\path\to\root\osgeo4w.bat python apps\Python27\Scripts\leo, either as a batch file or windows shortcut.

IMPORTANT NOTE - this is just a proof …continue.

There is no time like the present to really delve into and master static web generation:

Huge attack on WordPress sites could spawn never-before-seen super botnet. Ongoing attack from >90,000 computers is creating a strain on Web hosts, too

Ongoing malware attack targeting Apache hijacks 20,000 sites. Mysterious "Darkleech" exposes visitors to potent malware exploits

I received the ArsTechnica newsletter with the above stories in my mailbox in the same 5 minute window that Google Webmaster Tools informed me that one of our websites for my work has likely been compromised.

No, it's not running Wordpress, but it is running a blog-style php …continue.

Introducing a pure python means to install pip and it's requirements all in one go.

Installing pip on Windows is relatively straightforward, now, but still a tad bumpy. Basically it consists of

1. Download distribute or setuptools
2. Install it with python distribute_setup.py
3. Download the get-pip script
4. Install with python get-pip.py

(Aside: curiously the distribute docs say you can use pip to install distribute!)

On Windows this means installing wget or curl in order to follow the install instructions as given, or pointing and clicking your through click-this-url >> save as >> choose a spot >> open a python shell >> ...etc.. Easy, but boring and easy to …continue.

Recipe for copying my Acrylamid-generated static html website to my webhost (nearlyfreespeech.net).

In a nutshell, I use QtdSync to generate the basic rsync update script, and then add rsync advanced options as make sense to me. From QtdSync's progress screen the rsync command line can be copied and pasted to create a batch file (strip the -e ... sshpass... line for interactive password prompting).

QtdSync is a bit twitchy around the "backup/don't backup into subfolder" options. Sometimes they appear to have the opposite effect of what they say. I still found it much easier than trying to construct the appropriate rsync script …continue.

Recipe used for converting httrack snapshot of Mindtouch wiki to markdown for acrylamid

Generate the processing list

dir /s/b \www\maphew.com\*.html > process-list.xt

Edit process-list and remove junk, fix bad filenames (resultant from double quotes in name).

Copy to excel and:

• convert text to table using \ for delim,
• apply conditional formatting highlighting .html
• sort by html column
• remove duplicates
• save tab delimited
• search and replace tabs with \, removing dupes

Scripted Html to Markdown to Acrylamid

for /f %a in (process-list-cleaned.txt) do @mkdir .%~pa

for /f %a in (process-list-cleaned.txt) do ^
    @pandoc --to markdown --standalone --template acrylamid-pandoc-template.txt "%a" -o ".\%~pa\%~na.md"

acrylamid init converted
rd /s/q converted\content
move www\maphew.com converted
pushd converted
rename 

Well, here I am once again looking at the detritus of my website and wondering what to do with it. Each page represents, at least, an hour or three of endeavour. Many have no relevance any more and or of little if any interest to anyone, including me. Others though... well lets just say I'm not quite ready to pull the plug and let them drain away.

While not a regular experience, this is a recurring one. We've been here before. Each time I've devoted a few days or months to rewriting or transforming old content into a new container, add …continue.

I needed to record a CBC radio piece today. For most cases, it appears the easiest route is to use streamtuner and streamripper, however there is something about my particular computer or CBC’s streaming style that made it difficult for me. Since it took a couple of hours to figure it all out, I figured I’d better save it for future reference. So here is a vlc only method which works, but with more clicks and it’s is easier to select a combination of options that don’t work than do. This is the combination which finally worked for me:

• start VLC
• File > Open Network Stream
• for HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MMS: …continue.

Xkcdhas a wonderful comic on map projections in common and not so common use, and what each of them have to say about the personalities of those who like them. A blog post and accompanying conversation at Explain XKCD fills out some of the jokes.

I liked so much I've reworked it into a 10"x12" mini-poster for printing: