From msemtd at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 1 05:42:55 2006 From: msemtd at yahoo.co.uk (Michael Erskine) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 13:42:55 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight Message-ID: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> Join us at NLUG's Pizza & Pub Social tonight - see http://www.nottingham.lug.org.uk/ (extract follows) Plus discussion of upcoming visit by Birmingham Perl Mongers as a run up to YAPC::Europe (http://www.yapceurope.org/conferences.html) Regards, Michael Erskine. ---------------------------------------------------- Wed 1st March 2006 - Social - The Corner House Pizza Hut Meet 19:30 for Pre-food meet up at Langtrys 4 South Sherwood Street, NG1 4BY Opposite the Corner House entrance. 20:00 Pizza Hut The Corner House, Forman St, NG1 6HW On the next corner anti-clockwise at The Corner House. 22:00-ish Rolling on we shall reaccumulate oncemore at Langtrys for further penguin discussions or a drink or so... All are welcome. -- It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) -- She asked me, "What's your sign?" I blinked and answered "Neon," I thought I'd blow her mind... ___________________________________________________________ NEW Yahoo! Cars - sell your car and browse thousands of new and used cars online! http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/ From barbie at missbarbell.co.uk Tue Mar 7 06:35:32 2006 From: barbie at missbarbell.co.uk (Barbie) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 14:35:32 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight In-Reply-To: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060307143532.GA7163@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 01:42:55PM +0000, Michael Erskine wrote: > Join us at NLUG's Pizza & Pub Social tonight - see > http://www.nottingham.lug.org.uk/ (extract follows) > > Plus discussion of upcoming visit by Birmingham Perl Mongers as a run up to > YAPC::Europe (http://www.yapceurope.org/conferences.html) How far did your discussion go? I hope it involved beer ;) Do you have a venue for the event next month? I'll probably be getting there by car, but I suspect a couple may arrive by train. If you're able to give us some directions, I can pass them on to the others. Looking forward to seeing you guys. Have fun, Barbie. From msemtd at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 7 07:36:49 2006 From: msemtd at yahoo.co.uk (Michael Erskine) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:36:49 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight In-Reply-To: <20060307143532.GA7163@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> References: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> <20060307143532.GA7163@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> Message-ID: <200603071536.50527.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> On Tuesday 07 March 2006 14:35, Barbie wrote: > On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 01:42:55PM +0000, Michael Erskine wrote: > > Join us at NLUG's Pizza & Pub Social tonight - see > > http://www.nottingham.lug.org.uk/ (extract follows) > > Plus discussion of upcoming visit by Birmingham Perl Mongers as a run up > > to YAPC::Europe (http://www.yapceurope.org/conferences.html) > How far did your discussion go? I hope it involved beer ;) Yes! Many real ales were put away. > Do you have a venue for the event next month? I'll probably be getting > there by car, but I suspect a couple may arrive by train. If you're able > to give us some directions, I can pass them on to the others. > Looking forward to seeing you guys. The venue is now arranged for Jono's talk: Navigation Inn, 6 Wilford St., Nottingham, NG2 1AA (see http://www.nottingham.lug.org.uk/ - I revamped the NLUG site (slightly) this week). The best place for parking will be The Broadmarsh Centre - I'll be available to guide our out-of-town visitors to and from the venue. More details, and perhaps a map or two, to follow. Looking forward to seeing you too. Regards, Michael Erskine. -- QOTD: "Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy." ___________________________________________________________ Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry From barbie at missbarbell.co.uk Wed Mar 8 03:32:59 2006 From: barbie at missbarbell.co.uk (Barbie) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 11:32:59 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight In-Reply-To: <200603071536.50527.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> <20060307143532.GA7163@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> <200603071536.50527.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060308113259.GC27854@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 03:36:49PM +0000, Michael Erskine wrote: > On Tuesday 07 March 2006 14:35, Barbie wrote: > > > How far did your discussion go? I hope it involved beer ;) > > Yes! Many real ales were put away. Glad to hear it :) > > Do you have a venue for the event next month? > > The venue is now arranged for Jono's talk: Navigation Inn, 6 Wilford St., > Nottingham, NG2 1AA (see http://www.nottingham.lug.org.uk/ Great stuff, I'll start advertising it. BTW the website appears to be down at the moment :( Cheers, Barbie. From djf at star.le.ac.uk Wed Mar 8 04:08:27 2006 From: djf at star.le.ac.uk (Duncan John Fyfe) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:08:27 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight In-Reply-To: <20060308113259.GC27854@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> References: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> <20060307143532.GA7163@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> <200603071536.50527.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> <20060308113259.GC27854@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> Message-ID: <1141819707.22722.2.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> On Wed, 2006-03-08 at 11:32 +0000, Barbie wrote: > On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 03:36:49PM +0000, Michael Erskine wrote: > > On Tuesday 07 March 2006 14:35, Barbie wrote: > > > > > How far did your discussion go? I hope it involved beer ;) > > > > Yes! Many real ales were put away. > > Glad to hear it :) > > > > Do you have a venue for the event next month? > > > > The venue is now arranged for Jono's talk: Navigation Inn, 6 Wilford St., > > Nottingham, NG2 1AA (see http://www.nottingham.lug.org.uk/ > > Great stuff, I'll start advertising it. BTW the website appears to be > down at the moment :( > %>ping lug.org.uk PING lug.org.uk (217.147.93.68) 56(84) bytes of data. >From dnuk.lug.org.uk (217.147.82.214) icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable would explain it. lug.org.uk appears to be down./ off network. Have fun, Duncan From msemtd at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 8 04:15:05 2006 From: msemtd at yahoo.co.uk (Michael Erskine) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 12:15:05 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight In-Reply-To: <1141819707.22722.2.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> References: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> <20060308113259.GC27854@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> <1141819707.22722.2.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> Message-ID: <200603081215.06594.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> On Wednesday 08 March 2006 12:08, Duncan John Fyfe wrote: > On Wed, 2006-03-08 at 11:32 +0000, Barbie wrote: > > Great stuff, I'll start advertising it. BTW the website appears to be > > down at the moment :( > %>ping lug.org.uk > PING lug.org.uk (217.147.93.68) 56(84) bytes of data. > >From dnuk.lug.org.uk (217.147.82.214) icmp_seq=2 Destination Host > > Unreachable > would explain it. > lug.org.uk appears to be down./ off network. Hope it's not my fault -- I have been playing with it recently! Regards, Michael Erskine -- It is the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree. ___________________________________________________________ Win a BlackBerry device from O2 with Yahoo!. Enter now. http://www.yahoo.co.uk/blackberry From djf at star.le.ac.uk Wed Mar 8 04:45:43 2006 From: djf at star.le.ac.uk (Duncan John Fyfe) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:45:43 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight In-Reply-To: <200603081215.06594.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> <20060308113259.GC27854@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> <1141819707.22722.2.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> <200603081215.06594.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <1141821943.22722.12.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> On Wed, 2006-03-08 at 12:15 +0000, Michael Erskine wrote: > -- > It is the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree. Ipso facto all ostriches are stupid. Have fun, Duncan From msemtd at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 8 07:37:50 2006 From: msemtd at yahoo.co.uk (Michael Erskine) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 15:37:50 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] NLUG Pizza & Pub social tonight In-Reply-To: <1141819707.22722.2.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> References: <200603011342.55434.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> <20060308113259.GC27854@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk> <1141819707.22722.2.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> Message-ID: <200603081537.51143.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> On Wednesday 08 March 2006 12:08, Duncan John Fyfe wrote: > On Wed, 2006-03-08 at 11:32 +0000, Barbie wrote: > > Great stuff, I'll start advertising it. BTW the website appears to be > > down at the moment :( > lug.org.uk appears to be down./ off network. Seems to be back up again - the uptime is just over an hour so it has been down for some unknown reason. Regards, Michael Erskine. -- Adults die young. ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com From perl at tecspy.com Sun Mar 12 10:02:20 2006 From: perl at tecspy.com (Michael Erskine) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 18:02:20 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] [Fwd: O'Reilly UK User Group Newsletter issue 03-06] Message-ID: <4414622C.6060300@tecspy.com> All, Here follows the latest User Groups newsletter from Josette garcia at O'Reilly UK. Regards, Michael Erskine. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: O'Reilly UK User Group Newsletter issue 03-06 Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 16:43:53 -0000 Message-ID: <4E008DE3B431EF4F81DACDB40F2F51E30F9556 at ora-srv01.oreilly.local> Thread-Topic: O'Reilly UK User Group Newsletter issue 03-06 From: Josette Garcia O'Reilly UK User Group Programme NEWSLETTER Issue 02-06 Within a week, this newsletter will be available to be downloaded in pdf format from the Developers Group web site at . You are welcome to create a link to it for your members' use. Previous newsletters are available at - Our aim is to have both formats available at the same time, but that might take us a little longer. ================================================ HIGHLIGHTS ================================================ NEWS FROM O'REILLY AND BEYOND -A Secret Tip for Taking Great Digital Shots -Quicken 2006 Missing Manual: Setting Up Your Quicken Environment -Early Access to Cutting-Edge Technology -Latest Titles available on O'Reilly Rough Cuts -Introducing Lua -Building a High-Availability MySQL Cluster -Free Mesh Networking with Metrix Pebble -What's New in iWork '06? -Digitizing VHS Tapes with EyeTV -Inside Look: Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2 -Creating an Application from Scratch, Part 3 -A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned -O'Reilly Learning Lab Offers Updated HTML/CSS Course -Information Architecture: Why the Last Page Comes First -Asynchronous Messaging Made Easy With Spring JMS -Playing Together Nicely: Getting REST and SOAP to Share Each Other's Toys -Attention Streams, Taking Pictures, Java in Brazil, and Presenting Differently -Pioneer Podcasters Share Insider Tips, Part 4: Top-of-the-Line Gear and How to Avoid and Fix Errors -Walking the Talk with Julieanne Kost -O'Reilly Photography Learning Center -Speak Your Mind on Digital Media -Calling All Makers! -Meet Your Fellow Makers BOOK NEWS - Books for review - Coming soon CONFERENCE NEWS YOUR BOOK REVIEWS YOUR NEWS ================================================ NEWS FROM O'REILLY AND BEYOND ================================================ --------------------- General News --------------------- ***A Secret Tip for Taking Great Digital Shots Want to impress friends and family with professional-looking photos? Professional photographer and best-selling author Derrick Story provides his favorite tip--using a flash setting--for taking great shots for better skin tone, reduced texture in the face, and adding a twinkle to the eyes. ***Quicken 2006 Missing Manual: Setting Up Your Quicken Environment After you install Quicken, you're only a few steps away from experiencing the joys of electronic personal finance. Chapter 1 of "Quicken 2006 for Starters: The Missing Manual" gets you out of the gate running, guiding you through launch, set up and the intricate preferences. If you like this chapter, read the whole book (and up to nine others) on Safari with a free trial subscription. ***Early Access to Cutting-Edge Technology O'Reilly's Safari Books Online has just announced a new service called Rough Cuts that gives you early access to content on cutting-edge technologies months before it's published. Rough Cuts allows you to purchase work-in-progress manuscripts of selected titles. For more information, go to: Latest Titles Available: Perl Hacks Ubuntu Hacks Ajax Design Patterns Java and XML, 3rd Edition --------------------- Open Source --------------------- ***Introducing Lua Scripting is highly important to extensible applications. Not only is it easier to write logic in higher-level languages, but it's often safer. It can be effective, too--consider that World of Warcraft and other games embed the Lua language and use it for scripts, AI, configuration, and even user interface management. Why Lua? Keith Fieldhouse introduces the language and explains why it's so appropriate. ***Building a High-Availability MySQL Cluster Serious business services really can't go down, whether due to hardware or software failures. If your necessary services rely on MySQL, clustering and high availability can prevent failures. Kris Buytaert shows how his group recently used MySQL Cluster and Heartbeat to provide redundant, failure-proof replication and availability of their data. ***Free Mesh Networking with Metrix Pebble Metrix Pebble is a variant of the popular Pebble Linux distribution that adds a web-based configuration GUI, support for OLSRD and EVDO, automatic generation of network flows, wireless users, and radio link status graphs using rrdtool, and fits in just under 64MB of flash memory. Rob Flickenger describes how to use Metrix Pebble to set up a wireless mesh network. --------------------- Mac --------------------- ***What's New in iWork '06? iWork's tandem offering of Pages and Keynote provides a useful collection of tools for presentations, word processing, and layout. But how much has changed since last year's debut? Giles Turnbull walks you through Pages 2 and Keynote 3 to help decide if this upgrade is for you. ***Digitizing VHS Tapes with EyeTV By digitizing your old VHS tapes, you can move them from taking up precious shelf space to more readily available disk space. In this article, Joe McMahon shows you a hack that lets you archive full-quality digital recordings from EyeTV to offline media, but still play them back easily in EyeTV. --------------------- Windows/.NET --------------------- ***Inside Look: Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2 The long-awaited Beta 2 of IE 7 is finally here. What's new, good, and better? Wei-Meng Lee gives you a guided tour and an inside look. ***Creating an Application from Scratch, Part 3 Jesse Liberty is creating an application from scratch in ASP.NET 2.0 while you watch over his shoulder. In part 3, he builds the engine and implements it. --------------------- Web --------------------- ***A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned Think ecommerce web sites on the cheap are impossible? Find out how to get a site off the ground for less than $2000. ***O'Reilly Learning Lab Offers Updated HTML/CSS Course Keep on the cutting edge of web programming with our newly updated HTML/CSS course, part of our hugely popular Web Programming Certificate series through the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education. Keep your free O'Reilly books for reference, and your Learning Lab account as an online portfolio. Pre-enroll in all six Web Programming courses and get HTML/CSS free. Offer good through February 28th. ***Information Architecture: Why the Last Page Comes First When designing a site, are you still creating the frontpage first? Find out why this is a mistake, and a better way to approach it. --------------------- Java --------------------- ***Asynchronous Messaging Made Easy With Spring JMS Java Messaging Service (JMS) requires a lot of work to set up sessions and manage messages, work that can distract you from your application-specific logic. The Spring framework's SpringJMS offers a simpler solution that keeps the JMS administration out of your face. Srini Penchikala takes a look. ***Playing Together Nicely: Getting REST and SOAP to Share Each Other's Toys Convincing your colleagues and clients to consider a RESTful approach to SOAP is difficult when the accepted standard is SOAP-style services. In this article, Jason R. Briggs introduces a SOAP interface that can be used to deliver SOAP messages from REST resources. --------------------- Podcasts --------------------- ***Attention Streams, Taking Pictures, Java in Brazil, and Presenting Differently Rael Dornfest and Tim O'Reilly continue their preview of next month's Emerging Technology conference, Bruno Souza talks to us about Java in Brazil, conference photographer James Duncan Davidson discusses his art, and "Why the Lucky Stiff" shows us that conference presentations can be much more creative than they tend to be. (DTF 02-17-2006: 28 minutes 37 seconds) ***Pioneer Podcasters Share Insider Tips, Part 4: Top-of-the-Line Gear and How to Avoid and Fix Errors Listen in as Jack Herrington, the author of "Podcasting Hacks," chats with pioneer podcasters Doug Kaye and James Polanco. Doug is the founder of IT Conversations, the influential site that features podcasts covering important events, programs, and interviews with industry luminaries. James is the founder of "Fake Science," the popular podcast radio show covering all things digital music--news, reviews, and profiles of digital artists. --------------------- Digital Media --------------------- ***Walking the Talk with Julieanne Kost In addition to over 150 full-color images, Julieanne Kost's new book, "Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking" includes details on such topics as how to make great-looking images of clouds, mountains, farmland, and water, while photographing through airplane windows. This excerpt from Kost's book explains how to do just that. Kost details some of the techniques she used to transform images captured from the skies above into the final images that appear in the book. ***O'Reilly Photography Learning Center The O'Reilly Photography Learning Center is an evolving resource of tips, tricks, and techniques for photographers, both professional and amateur alike. Each month, we highlight a featured author, provide tips and techniques, and offer special discounts. Right now, check out Deke McClelland's tried and true teaching method for learning Photoshop CS2. ***Speak Your Mind on Digital Media Fill out a short survey (less than 10 minutes) and help us bring you the most accessible, best-written, cost-effective, and useful digital media resources on Earth. And don't forget to give us your email address at the end of the survey for a chance to win several great prizes! --------------------- MAKE --------------------- ***Calling All Makers! On April 22nd and 23rd at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, MAKE magazine, the first magazine devoted entirely to DIY technology projects, is hosting Maker Faire. This event is the first ever public gathering of tech DIY enthusiasts, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, authors, and exhibitors. Maker Faire will include 6 exposition & workshop pavilions, a 5-acre outdoor midway, over 100 exhibiting Makers, hands-on workshops, demonstrations, DIY competitions, and the latest in tools, kits and DIY resources. The Maker Faire will also be featuring The imate Garage (automative meets tech DIY), Robotics, Digital Entertainment/Gaming, Green Tech & Electronics Recycling, Ultimate Workshop, Weird Science, and the MAKE: Remix video film festival. More info: The Call for Proposals is now open. If you have an interesting project that you are bursting to share with your fellow Makers, here's your chance! You will have the opportunity to explain how the project works and to demonstrate it to an inquisitive and appreciative audience. Plus, you will have the opportunity to roam the Faire and spend some downtime with fellow Makers. Each Maker will be assigned to a half-day time slot on Saturday or Sunday. Your proposal should include a short description of your project and a brief profile describing yourself. This information will appear in the Maker Faire program and on makezine.com. Also, please state any special requirements (power, connectivity, ventilation, etc.) you may have. Submit a proposal today: Important Dates: Maker Proposal Due: Midnight (PST) Feb. 27, 2006 Speaker Notification: March 15, 2006 Workshop and Presentations Files Due: April 10, 2006 Faire: April 22-23, 2006 ***Meet Your Fellow Makers Find and post events, exhibits, and more with Maker events listings: ***Try a Sample Project from MAKE: ================================================ BOOK NEWS ================================================ Copies of our books are available for your members to review -- send me an email with the delivery address together with the book you would like to review. When the review is published, please send me a copy or the url. I would also appreciate if you could send a copy to www.amazon.co.uk Latest books available for review - * Adobe InDesign CS2 One-on-One This unique, hands-on book comes with two hours of video instruction (hosted by McClelland himself) on DVD to get you working with InDesign right away, building relevant, real-world projects while mastering fundamental and advanced concepts, theory, best practices, and techniques for making the most of InDesign--to make the most of your page designs. * Baseball Hacks Whether you're a fantasy baseball fanatic, casual fan, or just a statistically inclined mathematician, Baseball Hacks has something for you. This comprehensive guide walks readers through the sport's core statistical categories, and then demonstrates how to use this data to truly understand baseball. Statistical analysis, data mining, probability, forecasting, and other valuable tools are examined. * C# Cookbook (Second Edition) The C# Cookbook offers a definitive collection of solutions and examples for this new programming language. Recipes range from simple tasks to the more complex, and are organized with respect to the types of problems you'll need to solve as you progress in your experience as a C# programmer. Nearly every recipe contains a complete, documented code sample showing you how to solve the specific problem, as well as a discussion of how the underlying technology works and a discussion of alternatives, limitations, and other considerations where appropriate. * Essential Microsoft Operations Manager This comprehensive tutorial gives system administrators a solid foundation for planning, implementing, and administering Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005. Learn how to program MOM so it automates burdensome and lengthy diagnostic tasks, making your life as a troubleshooter easier than ever. Features practical, real-world advice from MOM expert Chris Fox. * Fixing Access Annoyances Access is one of the easier and more flexible database management solutions for organizing data. You could grab other books for help, but do they solve problems from page one? Meet a book of a different stripe where newcomers start off right and learn valuable methods for building databases while seasoned pros gain efficiency. Fixing Access Annoyances saves time and bouts of hair pulling. * Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances Microsoft PowerPoint is the most popular presentation software on the planet and and an estimated 30 million PowerPoint presentations are made every day. So no matter how frustrating it gets, you're not about to chuck the program in the Recycle Bin. If you're vexed and perplexed by PowerPoint, this new guide presents a variety of all-too-familiar, real-world annoyances and smart solutions for every one of them. * Learning C# (Second Edition) With Learning C#, best-selling author Jesse Liberty will help you build a solid foundation in .NET and show how to apply your skills by using dozens of tested examples. You will learn how to develop various kinds of applications--including those that work with databases--and web services. Whether you have a little object-oriented programming experience or you are new to programming altogether, Learning C# will set you firmly on your way. * Learning Windows Server 2003 (Second Edition) This compact guide provides the nuts and bolts for installing, configuring, securing, and managing Windows Server 2003. Topics include patch management, Active Directory replication, network access quarantining, server clustering, and more. Designed for system administrators of all levels, Learning Windows Server 2003, 2nd Edition has also been completely updated for Service Pack 1 and release R2. * MAKE Magazine: The First Year >From out of nowhere, MAKE has rapidly become one of the hottest new magazines to hit the newsstands. Through the brilliantly written and beautifully illustrated magazine, podcasts and makezine.com website, the MAKE team has already won broad acclaim for their clear yet down-to-earth coverage and uncanny instinct for what moves Makers, and their ability to nail the curiosity, vibrance, and passion of the rapidly emerging "tech DIY" movement. In this special re-release, all 4-Volumes of MAKE's first year are combined in a special 4-Volume Collector's Set. * Mind Performance Hacks Mind Performance Hacks provides real-life tips and tools for overclocking your brain and becoming a better thinker. In the increasingly frenetic pace of today's information economy, managing your life requires hacking your brain. With this book, you'll cut through the clutter and tune up your brain intentionally, safely, and productively. * Repairing and Upgrading Your PC Repairing and Upgrading Your PC delivers start-to-finish instructions, simple enough for even the most inexperienced PC owner, for troubleshooting, repairing, and upgrading your computer. Written by hardware experts Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson, this book covers it all: how to troubleshoot a troublesome PC, how to identify which components make sense for an upgrade, and how to tear it all down and put it back together. This book shows how to repair and upgrade all of your PC's essential components. * Visual Basic 2005 in a Nutshell (Third Edition) Newly updated, this classic detailed reference to the Visual Basic programming language had been reorganized to cover all the ins and outs of Visual Basic 2005, including new features like Generics, My Namespace, and operators. An alphabetical reference to Visual Basic 2005 statements, procedures, functions, and objects makes sure you follow along. Ideal for developers, programmers, and anyone learning VB as a first language. * Web Design in a Nutshell (Third Edition) Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, has been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art in web standards. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels. * Web Site Cookbook This handy guide provides a wide range of solutions to real-life problems that come up regularly when creating and growing a website. With recipes that teach both routine and advanced setup tasks, the book includes clear and professional instruction on a host of topics. Learn page design, visitor tracking, site promotion, and much more. * Window Seat Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking is a complete view of a creative project from the artist's perspective. Julieanne Kost, a Photoshop and creative thinking guru, has taken her own experience shooting images out of airplane windows to create a unique seminar in three parts: a manifesto of ways to stay creatively alive; a portfolio of stunning photographs, with commentaries describing her experiences and thought process, and a technical appendix that includes the details of the images were shot, manipulated, and prepared for printing. ****Coming Soon * The Art of SQL * Atlas: Rough Cuts Version * Best of Ruby Quiz (Pragmatic Bookshelf) * Don't Get Burned on eBay * Fixing Windows XP Annoyances * Flash 8: The Missing Manual * Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity * Google: The Missing Manual * Head Rush Ajax * iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual * iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual * MySQL Stored Procedure Programming * Photoshop CS2 RAW * Practices of an Agile Developer (Pragmatic Bookshelf) * UML 2.0 Pocket Reference * XAML in a Nutshell ==================================================== O'REILLY WILL BE THERE! ==================================================== UKUUG Spring Conference 2006 22nd and 23rd March 2006 in Durham. UKUUG/Apple Technical Briefing 2006. 20th April 2006. ================================================ YOUR BOOK REVIEWS ================================================ *** Edinburgh pm reviewed - Learning Perl Objects, References and Modules - http://edinburgh.pm.org/book-reviews/learning-perl-objects-references-and-modules.html ***Scottish ColdFusion Group reviewed - Head First Design Patterns ****Java Hellenic User Group reviewed - . Spring - = . Head First Design Patterns - = ****Nordest Perlmongers reviewed - . Wireless Hacks - ****UG Armenia reviewed - . Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual - ****SNUG reviewed - . Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with Nunit - ****ULK reviewed - . XSLT Pocket Reference - . Greasemoneky Hacks - . Producing Open Source Software - That's all for now. Josette *************************** The information contained in this e-mail message and any attachments is intended for the addressee only and may be confidential. 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Thank you. *************************** From robert at grinning-cat.com Sun Mar 12 14:36:39 2006 From: robert at grinning-cat.com (Robert Postill) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 22:36:39 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] [Fwd: Compiling Software In A Perl Script] Message-ID: <4414A277.2000003@grinning-cat.com> Hi, I'm developing an installer for a PHP-based app at work after getting sick and tired of building the thing by hand. What I want is to collate the output from the compilation of Apache, PHP and MySQL into a single point, check that it's all OK and then save the output for later support perusal. All of these apps are standard configure && make && make install jobs. I need to make sure they have the right flags set (e.g. mbstring and LDAP support) and I also need to make sure they all land in one place (so uninstallation is a matter of rm -rf ). Now in classic Perl noob mode I'm thinking of using the system(command) to get my operations run. Then redirecting the output to a file so I can check the actions succeeded. So my questions are: 1. This is portable to AIX and the more niche unices right? 2. Is there a more efficient way of collecting the output rather than directing the stderr and stdout to a file? 3. Does this sound like high order lunacy to anyone for some reason? Robert. From msemtd at yahoo.co.uk Mon Mar 13 00:38:45 2006 From: msemtd at yahoo.co.uk (Michael Erskine) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:38:45 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] [Fwd: Compiling Software In A Perl Script] In-Reply-To: <4414A277.2000003@grinning-cat.com> References: <4414A277.2000003@grinning-cat.com> Message-ID: <200603130838.46148.msemtd@yahoo.co.uk> On Sunday 12 March 2006 22:36, Robert Postill wrote: > Hi, > I'm developing an installer for a PHP-based app at work after getting > sick and tired of building the thing by hand. What I want is to collate > the output from the compilation of Apache, PHP and MySQL into a single > point, check that it's all OK and then save the output for later support > perusal. All of these apps are standard configure && make && make > install jobs. I need to make sure they have the right flags set (e.g. > mbstring and LDAP support) and I also need to make sure they all land in > one place (so uninstallation is a matter of rm -rf ). Now > in classic Perl noob mode I'm thinking of using the system(command) to > get my operations run. Then redirecting the output to a file so I can > check the actions succeeded. So my questions are: > 1. This is portable to AIX and the more niche unices right? Yes, as long as the underlying commands are present and correct. Test, test, test... then test some more! > 2. Is there a more efficient way of collecting the output rather than > directing the stderr and stdout to a file? You don't need to be efficient - Perl will do that for you! If it doesn't then it's no the right tool for the job. You could use backticks to collect the output directly but it won't separate stderr and stdout. See "perldoc -q stderr". I'd use system() to run the commands but use the shell to redirect stderr and stdout into separate files (if you want them separate). Then if they need processing in any way you can read them back in with File::Slurp or similar. > 3. Does this sound like high order lunacy to anyone for some reason? No, it gives you the repeatability you want and it gives you better portability than a shell script. Let us know if you get stuck in any way. Regards, Michael Erskine. -- You are here: *** *** ********* ******* ***** *** * But you're not all there. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Photos ? NEW, now offering a quality print service from just 8p a photo http://uk.photos.yahoo.com From djf at star.le.ac.uk Mon Mar 13 02:15:34 2006 From: djf at star.le.ac.uk (Duncan John Fyfe) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:15:34 +0000 Subject: [Nottingham-pm] [Fwd: Compiling Software In A Perl Script] In-Reply-To: <4414A277.2000003@grinning-cat.com> References: <4414A277.2000003@grinning-cat.com> Message-ID: <1142244934.28937.70.camel@saturn3.star.le.ac.uk> On Sun, 2006-03-12 at 22:36 +0000, Robert Postill wrote: > Hi, > > I'm developing an installer for a PHP-based app at work after getting > sick and tired of building the thing by hand. What I want is to collate > the output from the compilation of Apache, PHP and MySQL into a single > point, check that it's all OK and then save the output for later support > perusal. All of these apps are standard configure && make && make > install jobs. I need to make sure they have the right flags set (e.g. > mbstring and LDAP support) and I also need to make sure they all land in > one place (so uninstallation is a matter of rm -rf ). Now > in classic Perl noob mode I'm thinking of using the system(command) to > get my operations run. Then redirecting the output to a file so I can > check the actions succeeded. So my questions are: > 1. This is portable to AIX and the more niche unices right? > 2. Is there a more efficient way of collecting the output rather than > directing the stderr and stdout to a file? > 3. Does this sound like high order lunacy to anyone for some reason? > Hello Rob, good to know you are alive. Quick answers: 0. Lunacy would be trying to make a higher level make script to do this ;) 1. perldoc -f open For how to run a command and accumulate output to/from a pipe. 2. Wrap the logging (see below) so you can format the output and make it more parseable. 3. Things become messy if you need to extract environment variables from one sub shell for use in another. eg. system("make ldap"); # Somewhere in here FUNKY_GIBBON gets set. . . . system("make datainstall"); #This needs to know the value of FUNKY_GIBBON. 4. Have a look at the debian (or other distro) package scripts for apache, php etc. maybe they have thought of quirks you need to think of too (especially for the unistall). 5. Identify components/files which traditionally live outside of the install tree (log files, lock files, pid files, /etc/apache/...) you might need to do something special to bring them in tree (if that is wise) or there might be some you want left behind (logs ?) when you rm -rf everything else. Here we have apache2 installed so: /www /www/apache2/... /www/documents/... It keeps it under one tree but also segregates the publically accessible bits (/www/documents) from the not so publically accessible bits (everything else) like password files. A little more perl: I wrap system and open as below to reduce effort handling errors and formatting the output. Msg and Exception are logging and exception modules of my own devising but it should be pretty obvious what they are doing and they can easily be replaced with warn/die etc. In my case Msg (Exception logs through Msg) formats the messages making them more parsable (among other requirements) than simple warn/die etc. so... $Exec::Silent=0; Exec::run("a_command --dowhatimean"); would produce: #COMMAND # [COMMAND] [2006-03-10T16:40:56] a_command --dowhatimean # [OUTPUT] [2006-03-10T16:51:08] doingwhat youmean # one potato # two potato # three potato # four # [ERROR] [2006-03-10T16:51:31 no more potatoes. It is then a trivial exercise for my log analysis scripts to scan the log files and pick out errors, the command that caused them and any other ouput from that command. (yep, the astute observer would also note that this also gives me shell executable log files). ### ### PERL PACKAGE BEGINS HERE ### package Exec; use strict; use Msg; use Exception; use vars qw($Silent); # Do or do not log command output by default. $Silent = 0; sub system { # Wrapper for system command with added Exception throwing. # system( @_ ) Msg->command(@_); my $rv = system(@_); Msg->info("System RV",$rv); if ($rv == -1) { Exception->error({id => 'SysFail' ,text => [@_,'System command failed.'] }); } elsif ($rv & 127) { Exception->error( {id => 'DeathbySignal' , text => [@_,sprintf( "Received signal signal %d, %s coredump" , ($rv & 127) , ($rv & 128) ? 'with' : 'without' )] ,signal => ($rv & 127) ,coredump => ($rv & 128) }); } elsif ( $rv >> 8 ) { Exception->error({id => 'ExecAbend' , text => [@_,sprintf ( "Exited with value %d", $rv >> 8 )] , value => $rv >> 8 }); } } sub run { # Wrapper for using open to run commands with added Exception throwing. # Returns an annonymous list of the output from the command. Msg->command(@_); my $cmd = shift; my $pipe; open($pipe,"$cmd 2>&1 |") or Exception->error('COMMAND','Error opening external command:',$cmd) ; my @out = (<$pipe>); close $pipe; my $rv = $?; Msg->output(@out) unless $Silent; if ($rv == -1) { Exception->error({id => 'ExecSysFail' ,text => [@_,'Opening external command failed.'] }); } elsif ($rv & 127) { Exception->error( {id => 'DeathbySignal' , text => [@_,sprintf( "Received signal signal %d, %s coredump" , ($rv & 127) , ($rv & 128) ? 'with' : 'without' )] ,signal => ($rv & 127) ,coredump => ($rv & 128) }); } elsif ( $? >> 8 ) { Exception->error({id => 'ExecAbend' , text => [@_,sprintf ( "Exited with value %d", $rv >> 8 )] , value => $rv >> 8 }); } return [@out]; } 1;