Category Archives: Geek

All things geek

Coding, Geek, Unix

Fix/Tricks for plugin auto-update on WordPress 2.5

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[READ THIS FIRST!!!  Update 6/13/2009: If you’ve come here looking to get plugin updates to work and you’re using WordPress 2.8, you really want to start with this more recent post on the topic and then come back for the permission information.]

One of the neat features of WordPress 2.5 is the click to install plugin upgrades, assuming the plugin is registered in the WordPress Plugin Directory. If certain conditions are correct on the server it can do it in place, otherwise it tries to do it via FTP.

To make it so wordpress could upgrade them on the server without FTP requires doing some permission changes. You should be aware, the changes I made allow the web server (Apache) to be able to write to the plugin directory. This creates some security exposure. Since I do nightly backups, for me this is an acceptable risk. You may make a different call.

The way I’ve done it also assumes you have admin rights on the unix box or you’re friendly with (s)he who does. Without admin rights to do the group ownership changes, you’re stuck having to make files writable by the world, and that’s not something I’d do. Luckily, I hold the power on the box(es) I care about. Continue reading Fix/Tricks for plugin auto-update on WordPress 2.5 →

Geek, Omphaloskepsis

Bleeding edge

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Looks like both the upgrade to WordPress 2.5 and to keeping my WP up to date by using subversion went smoothly. I should have done the svn thing a long time ago.

One thing I should note is the rsync magic I used to go from the WordPress 2.5 hand install to WordPress 2.5 svn install. It allowed me to move all the files that aren’t part of the WP distribution that I have, mostly plugins but includes things like .htaccess files as well as plugins. There may be some redundant flags, but it worked and I’m done.

rsync -aCOSpcrv --exclude=wp-content/cache/ wordpress/. blog.new

Now to actually generate some content. But first, to finish with the Disney photos from vacation 2 weeks ago.

[Update 3/31: I forgot to mention, the above rsync command assumes you have the subversion version checked out in blog.new and your old blog in wordpress. Change your line as needed.]

Coding, Geek, Linux, OS X, Ruby

Place shifting action 3: Revenge of the Sith

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tivo.jpgPreviously I put out an early version of my ruby based command line oriented tivo download script.

I’ve had a patch from MARK NOTARUS to make the menu have some more options and I’m using Console::ProgressBar from facets now.

It works well enough for my needs, but let me know if you hit any roadblocks. Just as a reminder, my target was to download stuff off my tivo on one of my headless Linux boxes for batch encoding for my iPhone and/or PSP.

Download tivo-ruby-0.2.tar.gz

Chicago, Entertainment, Geek

The secret to getting a lot of hits on your blog

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So, apparently, to get a shit load of hits on your blog you need a popular afternoon radio show to mention something you mentioned once on your blog and is among the top three hits.  My server was having a nice little load and traffic spike as a result.

My unique visitors just today are half the number of last month’s.  And one page got 810 hits in just 45 minutes.   For my little dumbass blog that’s mostly become twitter spew, that’s pretty good.  I’ve now reconfigured the web server to not load spike like this again.

Geek, OS X

Dave Dribin once again rocks

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qlscreenshot.jpgDave is having a rocking week.  He started with the 1.0 version of his QLEncript plugin to get QuickLook to show color syntax highlighted code files.  Here’s a quick screenshot of it in action on my laptop.

Today, to continue his rocking, Dave posted on Leopard’s ssh, ssh-agent, keychain interaction and ways to make it a bit more secure.  I was confused about this and he took the time to figure out.  I think, though, I will probably stick with using SSHKeychain for now.

Coding, Geek, Linux, OS X, Ruby

Place shifting action 2

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tivo.jpgI’ve been working on a command-line oriented TiVo2Go downloader so I can automate getting items off my tivo, or at least do it when I’m on the road via ssh (and then kick off that other script…)  I’ve written a quick and dirty TiVo library, and a sample script called TiVo2Disk which uses the library.

On its own, the TiVo library stuff I whipped up will just download the content from the TiVo still locked up in TiVo’s DRM.  If you pair it with tivodecode (like the sample script does) you can get the video as an MPEG-2 stream.  Beware, HD content is HUGE.

I’ve only tested with my Series 3, and I’ve run it under both OS X and Linux, but it should work on any .  The UI on the sample script is pretty bad, but its an early version.  I’m interested in an feedback, patches, etc anyone might have.  I still need to do some rdoc as well.

This works for me, but I’d like it to be more useful for more people.   In any case, feel free to checkout tivo-ruby-0.1.tar.gz.