Archive for July, 2006

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Still Weird

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

Looks like I was wrong the other day – it wasn’t stray markup that was causing problems. There seems to be something fundamentally broken with my Typo installation.

Everytime I make a post I get the [FATAL] failed to allocate memory error. Sometimes if I repeatedly retry (with re-starting the application inbetween) it lets a post through, but it is starting to get very frustrating.

Right now I’m torn between trying to determine and (hopefully) fix the problem – although I’m hitting a brick wall with that right now – or switching to something else.

After spending some time in #typo and getting nowhere fast, I decided to try a fresh checkout from the trunk which would appear to have fixed the problem. No idea why, but I’m not complaining!

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How to install Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

The instructions for installing Ruby on Rails have always been lumped in with the Debian ones, and over time the page has gotten pretty messy. I’ve recently been having numerous discussions with various people about the perceived difficulties in installing Rails and its offspring on Ubuntu (and Debian). I’d been meaning to write an installation guide for Ubuntu for quite a while now to address this, but I never seemed to get around to it.

Whilst at LugRadio Live this weekend, I attended the Ruby on Rails BOF during which someone mentioned an install guide and I said I was going to be (re)writing one. This prompted me to pull my finger and actually do it, so without further ado let me introduce the new guide for installing Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu. I decided to create a new page instead of updating the old one not because that’s the Open Source Way but rather because the old one may still be useful to people.

I’m planning on creating a similar (probably almost identical) guide for Debian, and I need to add a couple more bits and pieces to it. I’m also planning on duplicating the content to the equivalent Ubuntu wiki page.

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Still Weird

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

Looks like I was wrong the other day – it wasn’t stray markup that was causing problems. There seems to be something fundamentally broken with my Typo installation.

Everytime I make a post I get the [FATAL] failed to allocate memory error. Sometimes if I repeatedly retry (with re-starting the application inbetween) it lets a post through, but it is starting to get very frustrating.

Right now I’m torn between trying to determine and (hopefully) fix the problem – although I’m hitting a brick wall with that right now – or switching to something else.

Posted in Ruby On Rails | No Comments »

LugRadio Live 2006 Photos

Monday, July 24th, 2006

sebpayne setup a Flickr group for photos from LugRadio Live. He’s put loads in there, and I’ve uploaded some of mine as well, so go have a look.

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LugRadio Live 2006 Day 1

Monday, July 24th, 2006

I wandered down to the venue with fellow geeks to be greeted by the (very professional looking) banner letting the world know what was taking place inside. Actually I’d had a sneak preview of the banners and venue yesterday, but everyone else was suitably impressed. :)

The banner outside

I snuck inside to drop off my video camera, and got roped into helping by Jono. My task? Keeping out non-exhibitors. My reward? A bright (and I mean bright yellow t-shirt with word CREW emblazoned across the back of it). This also meant I was to provide assistance throughout the rest of the day, but in practice I wasn’t really needed.

Queuing to get in

The venue was seriously impressive with large flatscreens everywhere (a feature of the venue) displaying what was happening now & next, and a stream of photos taken by people throughout the day – I believe sebpayne may have been the biggest contributor of shots. There was also a 12’ screen on the main stage.

First port of call was the introduction by the four large gents, and then onto the show itself.

Introduction

(more…)

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@LRL

Saturday, July 22nd, 2006

Well, I’m here at LugRadio Live and thoroughly enjoying it!

I arrived yesterday afternoon in time for the afternoon food and drinks. Met up with the four large gents and bunch of other cool guys (spepayne, dotwaffle and Shane MacGowan(sp?) amongst them). Aqurion was also there (who I already knew).

Checked into the Quality Chin, and was pleased to discover free WiFi.

Back down into town for the evening meetup at the Hogshead. A great evening, with a chance to catch up with some old friends (Russ & Jen from Cumbria LUG, Kat & Dave Goodwin), meet lots of new ones (MacSlow, Conner and the other irish guy, John running the Ubuntu stand, the guy with MAME cabinet whose name I can’t remember, Roy) and to put faces to nicks for people I know from #lugradio (Xalior, lejt, mrben, neuro).

Another gaggle of geeks

Now for breakfast and the event itself!

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New Feed

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006

Inspired by Elliot I’ve added my Ruby on Rails related posts to RubyCorner.

I subscribe to quite a few planet-style feeds, and I don’t mind the odd off-topic post, but a disproportionate number of personal posts to a planet that’s technical in nature soon winds me up.

So I’m not going to inflict the same on others.

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Awkward defined

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006

awk·ward adj.

1. Marked by or causing embarrassment or discomfort: an awkward remark; an awkward silence
2. Requiring great tact, ingenuity, skill, and discretion: An awkward situation arose during the peace talks
3. Your ex-boss returning to work after a leave of absence to be informed that they now work for you

Guess which one happened to me recently…

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Now that was weird

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006

My previous post was delayed by 48 hours due to a very weird problem in Typo that needs further investigation.

Whenever I tried to publish the post, the mongrel instance for this application would disappear in a puff of smoke leaving only the following message:

[FATAL] failed to allocate memory

That’s it. Nothing else.

By process of elimination, I figured out that it may be some stray markup in the post I was writing – I was quoting an email – but in the end all I removed was a fairly innocuous URL that wasn’t even embedded in a link.

One day I’ll sit down and figure it out, but until then normal service is resumed.

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Blind to the competition

Wednesday, July 19th, 2006

I received this in my inbox the other day (emphasis added):

Once again it’s that time of the year when we start cranking up the activity
for this year’s LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.

We’d be really grateful for your support (and for you to flag up the event to your members) as I’m sure your user group members would be interested in what’s going on at the event. We have a host of speakers from both technical & business background and support from the press; SOCITM; OFE; OSC; plus all the key associations. This is the only major event for Linux in the UK and we also have the .org village, a free seminar programme, The Great Linux Debate plus the exhibition itself.

The only major event for Linux in the UK?!? Have they not heard of the great gathering of geeks that is known as LugRadio Live? Which takes place this weekend (22nd & 23rd of July, 2006) no less.

Whilst I’ll concur that LRL is not of the same scale as LinuxWorld, it is still an impressive event especially considering it is almost wholly community based.

I’m planning on travelling down Saturday morning, returning Sunday evening and residing at the Quality Chin on Saturday night.

Unfortunately there are too many good things going on, so I won’t be able to see everything I want to. My definites are:

  • Ruby on Rails In Actuality BOF
  • #lugradio Meet and Greet BOF
  • LugRadio Live and Unleashed (of course)
  • The Hour of Power—short demos of cool stuff

Beyond that there are various talks I would like to catch, but I have the feeling there will be many, many distractions!

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