Blog management

There are many ways to host a blog : it can be

• use a dedicated service like WordPress.com, Bloggers …
• install the application on a general hosting provider
• install the application on you home computer and host it yourself

Each solutions have pro and cons. I won’t debate this, just point out that over the years, your blog will move.

As long as your old blog is still hosted and its URL remains valid, it isn’t much a problem. But even so, wouldn’t it be great to keep the whole history in one place ? For example it would allow you to search for a keyword or category and have all the results in one place.

So, since a blog is a little bit structured, it is feasible to export/import from one host to another all the content and almost all the metadata.

It is just that the applications are missing, at least in the OSS world.

There are a few progress :

• WordPress provides an good import/export feature.
• wordpress2blogger by Yichao. Ongoing discussion here.

But it would make more sense to have a stand alone application which would import/export/synchronize to different blog platforms and hosts. Maybe with the progress of Atom/feeds libraries like ROME or Abdera and individual work like Yichao did, it will become a reality.

Wait and see …

GUI for IPTables, NetFilter

I found the following :

• netfilter.org is home to the software of the packet filtering framework.
• Firewall Builder (2.1.8 12/2006 C/Qt) : I tried it and liked it ! Classical firewall GUI, clear behavior and link to IPTables. I just wonder if it is possible to express all the potential of IPTables ? (like that : Mitigating against SSH brute force attacks using Netfilter or Using iptables to rate-limit incoming connections)
• Firestarter (1.0.3 01/2005) : I tried it, but didn’t like it. It seem easier from the GUI point of view, but you have no clue of how it works, where it writes its configuration and what is the link (if any) with IPTables. By the way, as I was having strange problems with Firewall Builder, I noticed that FireStarter install itself as a service, continue to run even if you doesn’t launch the GUI but doesn’t log in message : AVOID !
• Webmin Modules IPtables Configuration Webmin Module (niemueller.de 0.91.1 10/2005) and Turtle Firewall Project (1.37 02/2006)
• EasyChains (0.8.5 01/2004) : Easy-to-use gui for the console firewall tool. I didn’t tried it.
• FireHOL (R5 v1.226 01/2005), the iptables stateful packet filtering firewall builder.
• Jay’s Iptables Firewall (1.0.5 08/2005 Curses/Perl) : Curses could be nice with SSH. Have to try it !
• Guarddog (2.4 12/2004)
• Bifrost, (0.9.6 2002 NON FREE) Firewalling made easy
• The Bastille Hardening program “locks down” an operating system, proactively configuring the system for increased security and decreasing its susceptibility to compromise. A bit strong ?
• Shorewall (Shoreline Firewall) (3.2.8 01/2007) : a high-level tool for configuring Netfilter. It isn’t a GUI, but it is often recommended. Install as a service : I don’t understand why ?
• Easy Firewall Generator for IPTables (1.0.5 ?) : It is a web site generating your IPTables rules : Good idea

Which one should I choose ??

New release : Apache FOP Version 0.93

It is very slow development, so enjoy Apache FOP Version 0.93 !

PowerBook 12′ upgrade

I experienced some slow down with a new application : ADIBOU “learn English”.

So I started looking for ways to upgrade my PowerBook performance.

I found a lot of advices to add memory (I have 512Mo, I could go to 1,2Go). But only one site really explained how to be sure if the lack of performance is memory related. You have to launch the “Profile manager” and look at the number of “memory page out”. When the system runs out of memory, it writes chunk (“pages”) of memory to the Hard Drive to free some space, hence the slow down.

In my case, I saw that no memory pages where written to disk, so my problem won’t be solved with more RAM.

Then, there is the processor : it is already a G4 at 1,5GHz, almost the fastest that can fit in a PowerBook 12′, besides it is very expensive to change.

And the Hard Drive : it is a Hitachi TravelStar 60Go 5k 8Go so all I can do is to put a 7k like the Travelstar E7K60 but I fear it would be expensive, increase heat and consumption …

Bookmarks question

Like many old web user, I have to struggle with a long old list of bookmarks, that has been from local to Delicious tag mess, to Google Bookmark … and, like Dora the Explorer, it may be the time to “stop and think”. Or stop and google for other people solutions …

So now, I felt almost happy with Google Bookmark and the GMark extension. Just seeking a way to automatically classify those bookmarks.

During all those research I found that there are finally some changes going on. Most notably Firefox 3 will feature a new system for storing bookmarks, history, and other information about pages : Places. The link goes to the Wiki where a lot of discussions goes on and there are links to references on the subject.
References :

• Places covers much of the design and user-interface of Places. (Goals & Objectives, overview …)
• Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:Bookmarks long list of ideas and references.
• Places:Bookmarks:Rethinking : describe some potential future directions for Places. UI related stuff and screenshots.
• Bookmarks Use Cases : lots of ideas, too many ?
• Search “bookmarks” on MozillaWiki.

Measuring project health

Measuring project health: Part One
Nice article by Kurt Bittner in developerWorks (IBM). A it is only the beginning of a series.
Best I can do is to quote the resume :

from The Rational Edge: What project managers choose to measure as a gauge on performance generally receives the team’s special attention. Naturally, project health depends on accurate metrics, but more importantly it requires that the right things be measured. This article describes some of the fallacies associated with traditional software project metrics, then focuses on effective measurement during the Inception phase.

Photo gallery

I am searching a photo Gallery : I don’t need much bandwidth, but a lot of storage space.

• Picasa (Google) : 250Mo (6Go for $25/year)
• Gallery 2 (Menalto) : Seems to be THE solution. There is even an iPhoto plugin !
• Album Shaper 2.1 (04/2005) Qt. Based on XSLT and XSD : 5 themes available. The application is more about tweaking the photo and description than creating album. For example, there is nothing to help you modify the templates.
• ImgSeek 0.8.6 (01/2006) Python/Qt Linux. Not really focused on HTML album creation too.

RPM, YUM hang problems

Recently, I had problems with yumex, yum and rpm in generals.

I finally found this useful post : Dealing with yum hangs on FC6
Basically, you have to remove theses files : rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db.* !

For security, I did a rpm --rebuilddb ; yum clean all to clean up things.

By the way I found lots of informations using :
rpm -qa --queryformat "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{ARCH}-%{DISTRIBUTION}-%{VENDOR}\\n"
rpm --querytags will give you all the tags that you can use in the query.

%{ARCH} \\n" | grep openssl | sort

A good yum plugin : protectbase. In case you are using “dangerous” repositories like Freshrpms, ATrpms, livna …

Great OS X utilitie : witch

I found a great little utilities for Mac OS X : witch by Peter Maurer !

Witch lets you access all of your windows by pressing a shortcut and choosing from a clearly arranged list of window titles. Moreover, you can use Witch to …

• Directly access minimized windows without using your mouse
• Close minimized windows without bringing them to front first
• Zoom, de-/minimize, and close windows on the fly

OpenID, LID, Yadis, Identity 2.0 …

Looks like it maybe time to jump in “Identity 2.0” … look at OpenID, Yadis, LID. So I created an identity on 3 different providers (to test) :

• http://bruno.videntity.org : store many informations about you and creates a vCard and a FOAF profile. (PHP)
• http://mylid.net/bruno.vernay : store no informations about yo, but allow multiple protocols : LID, Yadis, OpenID.
• http://getopenid.com/brunovernay : store only email and public key. One of the few OpenID servers that supports SSL, Secure connexion (HTTPS).
• http://brunovernay.idproxy.net/ : Proxy to your Yahoo! account. Great idea. There is the same for Google, but the server was down when I wanted to try.
• There are many others Identity Providers.

I guess there will be reliability, security and performance problems soon.