Back Home

I got back home from San Diego last night. I had a miserable flight because of the tail end of a cold. I coughed, snuffled, and sneezed my way through the flight.

I didn’t get to enjoy the nice weather in San Diego because of the cold. I didn’t do much while I was home beyond sit on the couch, read, and blow my nose.

My Christmas was pretty low key. Probably becuase the exiciting members of the family were elsewhere. It was just my parents, my grandfather, and myself. We didn’t open presents until nearly noon. We had a nice dinner of turkey and stuffing.

Rebuilding Fedora DVD

I am going home to San Diego tomorrow. One of the things I do every Christmas is upgrade my Dad’s computer to the newest version of [Fedora](http://fedora.redhat.com). However, FC4 has been out for six months so there is a whole pile of updates. Instead of downloading all the updates after the upgrade, I wanted to write them to a DVD. Even better, I made a bootable install DVD with the new packages.

First, I prepared the directory with a copy of the original DVD, and copied the update rpms. The repomanage utility in the yum-utils package helped remove the duplicates.

cp 4/i386/os/* rebuild/i386
cp updates/4/i386/* rebuild/i386/Fedora/RPMS
repomanage --old rebuild/i396/Fedora/RPMS | xargs rm

Then, it was time to rebuild the installer. This needs the anaconda and anaconda-runtime packages. The genhdlist creates the hdlist files in the Fedora/base directory. The buildinstall builds all the boot and installer images.

export PYTHONPATH=/usr/lib/anaconda
export PATH="$PATH:/usr/lib/anaconda-runtime"
export FCBASE=`pwd`
date=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)

genhdlist --productpath=Fedora $FCBASE/i386

pkgorder $FCBASE/i386 i386 Fedora | tee $FCBASE/pkgfile.$date
sudo buildinstall --comp dist-4.1 --pkgorder $FCBASE/pkgfile.$date \
--version 4 --product 'Fedora Core' --release 'Fedora Core 4' \
--prodpath Fedora $FCBASE/i386

genhdlist --withnumbers --productpath Fedora \
--fileorder $FCBASE/pkgfile.2005-12-23 $FCBASE/i386

Finally, write the DVD ISO image.

mkisofs -R -J -T -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
    -V "FC 4.3 i386 DVD" \
    -A "Fedora Core 4.3 Update $date i386 DVD" \
    -P "Ian Burrell " \
    -p "Ian Burrell " \
    -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -x lost+found \
    -o FC-4.3-i386-DVD.iso i386

Bluetooth HotSync with Linux

It turned out to be really easy to do Bluetooth HotSync from my Treo 650 to my Fedora Core Linux box.

On the Linux box:

service bluetooth start
service dund start

Create the /etc/ppp/peers/dun file:

115200
        192.168.2.15:192.168.2.16
        local
        ms-dns 192.168.1.14
        noauth
        debug

The first IP address is the local machine and the second is the Treo.

On the Treo 650, open the Prefs, Connection. Create a New connection, with PC, Bluetooth and then select the computer. Next, go to Network prefs. Create a New (from menu) service. Select the Connection you just made. Set your username and password (although I suspect they aren’t needed).

Then, open HotSync. Set the Modem Sync Prefs to Network, the LANSync Prefs to LANSync, put the PC IP address from above in Primary PC Setup box. Finally, select Modem and select your Bluetooth network connection below. Start the HotSync.

On the Linux box, you can run any pilot-xfer command using net:any as the port.

pilot-xfer -p net:any -l

For some reason, HotSync over the Bluetooth serial connection does not work with Linux.

Mobile Blogging

This was posted with mo:Blog, a blog client for PalmOS. It supports the blogger, metaWeblog, and MovableType APIs. The MovableType API is supposed to work best with Typo.

Got Typo Working

I got Typo working as I want it. The solution was adding a line to config/environment.rb to tell it to make all the links relative. I didn’t need the new strip-request-uri parameter for lighttpd.

ActionController::AbstractRequest.relative_url_root = "/blog"

Then I setup up the proxying. This was done through webmin but the directives produced were:

ProxyPass /blog http://znark.com:8090/blog
ProxyPassReverse /blog http://znark.com:8090/blog

Switching to Typo

I am switching the blog to [Typo](http://typo.leetsoft.com/), blog software written in [Ruby](http://rubylang.org), using the [Rails](http://rubyonrails.com) framework.

The hard part is getting the software to run fast and run where I want it [http://znark.com/blog/](http://znark.com/blog/). FastCGI and Apache don’t seem to work with my hosting company. So I could run it through CGI which means the each page loads slowly as it compiles tons of Ruby libraries.

A popular solution at [TextDrive](http://www.textdrive.com/) is to run a personal [Lighttpd](http://www.lighttpd.net/) web server process on an assigned port. Then, Apache can proxy to lighttpd so nobody has to remember to go to [http://blog.znark.com:8090/](http://blog.znark.com:8090/).

However, I haven’t figured out how to get typo to go in a subdirectory while running under a subdirectory. Lighttpd doesn’t yet have all the rewrite functionality needed. Until I get this figured out, the blog may be broken or not have any style.

Vacation: Return

On my final day, I was planning on taking the ferry to Port Angeles, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then driving past the Olympic Mountains. But the morning ferry was full and I wasn’t willing to wait for the afternoon one.

I drove back north to the other ferry terminal and caught the [Washington State Ferry](http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/) from Sidney to Anacortes. It went through the San Juan Islands and stopped in Friday Harbor. It was probably the slowest route; the ferry back to Vancouver would have been faster. But the islands were nice and scenic and it was interesting to pass through an area I had visited as a young kid.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa221806_m.jpg)

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa221819_m.jpg)

Vacation: Victoria 2

The next day I went to the attractions in Victoria. It was another atypical beautiful day.

I took a [water taxi](http://www.harbourferry.com/) on a tour of the harbor. I got to see seaplanes landing and taking off nearby.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa211732_m.jpg)

I went to the [Undersea Gardens](http://www.pacificunderseagardens.com/). Basically, they walled off part of the harbor, stocked it with native fish, and turned it into an aquarium. The best part of the show with a scuba diver where he showed an octopus.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa211752_m.jpg)

I went to the [Royal BC Museum](http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/). It had exhibits on the natural history (stuffed animals) and human history (totem poles) of Britich Columbia.

I went to [Craigdorrach Castle](http://www.craigdarrochcastle.com/). The mansion of an early BC industrial baron, it is perched on a hill with a commanding view.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa211775_m.jpg)

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa211792_m.jpg)

Finally, I went to [Fort Rodd Hill](http://www.fortroddhill.com/) and [Fisgard Lighthouse](http://www.fisgardlighthouse.com/)
to the west of Victoria. Fort Rodd Hill is a old fort with coastal artillery for protecting the naval facilities at Esquimalt Bay. And the lighthouse used protect the ships; now it is just picturesque. There was also a clear view of the Olympic Mountains.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa211799_m.jpg)

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa211802_m.jpg)

Vacation: Ferry to Victoria

The next day, I took the [ferry](http://www.bcferries.com) to Victoria on Vancouver Island. The ferry was a huge vessel which carried 200 plus cars and trucks on two decks. The ferry wound its way through the lovely Gulf Islands to Schwartz Bay on the north point of Saanich Peninsula, 30 minutes drive north of Victoria.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa201684_m.jpg)

My hotel, [Queen Victoria Hotel](http://www.queenvictoriainn.com/) was downtown, two blocks from the legislature building and the harbor. I originally planned to stay only one night in Victoria but I changed my mind and stayed an extra day.

That afternoon, I wandered around Victoria. Victoria’s downtown is compact and very walkable, wrapped around the Inner Harbour, with the Legislature Building, Empress Hotel, seaplane terminal, and lots of shops, restaurants, and bars.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa201699_m.jpg)

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa201705_m.jpg)

I walked to the top of Beacon Hill Park, which was behind the hotel. It had a view of the Olympic Mountains across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Vacation: Vancouver 3

It rained all day long on my third day in Vancouver.

First, I went to Stanley Park. Stanley Park covers half of the peninsula with downtown. I went to the [Vancouver Aquarium](http://www.vanaqua.org/home/). I discovered taking pictures of moving dolphins and belugas underwater is difficult. And discovered that taking pictures of animalI walked along the seawall and saw downtown through the rain.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa191625_m.jpg)

![](/photos/vancouver/pa191634_m.jpg)

Then, I went to the [Capilano Suspension Bridge](http://www.capbridge.com/). This is an overpriced tourist attraction wrapped around a pedestrian suspension bridge which crosses a deep gorge. The rain forest (accurate name) on the other side was nice to hike around and they had built walkways through the treetops.

![](/photostack/vancouver/pa191642_m.jpg)

Back in Stanley Park, I had another expensive dinner at [The Fish House](http://www.fishhousestanleypark.com/). Seafood was the theme for food on this vacation; I think I had a salmon at every dinner. This was some of the best.