This is relatively old news, but an interesting read none the less.
July 2003 Archives
Looks like the Coda File System may have what I am looking for.
I'll have to check into it (it seems a bit more promising than AFS).
Thanks to MTThreadMail you can get replies to your comments sent to you via email (so it works more like livejournal).
That way, if you comment, you can be notified if someone replies to your comment (making the threaded comments more useful -- you don't have to keep checking the blog to see if anyone posted anything.)
From Amazon:
"Greetings from Amazon.com.
We are sorry to report that the release of the following
item has been cancelled:
"Buffy Vampire Slayer: Season 5"
Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we've
since found that it will not be released after all. Please accept
our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience we have caused you.
We have cancelled this item from your order."
/cry/
This article (that I found via slashdot), talks about what a lot of technical people I know have thought about doing.
It seems like nothing ever really happens, though.
There obviously are a bunch of people who want tech support, IS/IT people, system administration, or whatever but can't afford to have people on staff. And then there are all those clueless 'network integrators' that got paid for not knowing how to connect businesses to their isdn lines...
This should be something that's relatively easy, interesting, and fulfilling ... but why aren't people I know doing it? (Or, why haven't those who have tried succeeded?).
I'm not doing it because my job is pretty secure, and I don't really have incentive to just try something new/risky like that right now.
Perhaps that's how it is with everyone I know, or maybe it's something else?
My brother, David, says that he reads this sometimes.
He's getting a new (refurbished) iBook G3/500 with xtra RAM and airport.
Cool.
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It occurs to me that Apple's iDisk does part of what I want (I really want to be running it myself, though. I want more than 1GB max space and don't want to have to pay that much for it). And WebDAV is supposed to (eventually?) do another big part of it.
... but nothing I've seen so far is quite like what I have in mind (which is encouraging).
Read this.
I want to believe that there are lots of people in the country that aren't overcome with the craziness from the extreme right.
So, it turns out that OpenAFS doesn't exactly do what I want (and does a lot of stuff I don't want or don't care about).
Unless I find something close to what I'm looking for, I'll probably start work on it myself.
I woke up this morning with a ton of implementation ideas (and a rough plan of how I want to start implementing things). I've got the first few stages thought out.
I want to first make the server daemon and a client app just to test file sending/receiving and some basic revision control stuff (eventually I want both point in time recovery and some kind of branching/merging functionality -- maybe merging only for text files).
After I get that part working, I'll start on the cool client integration. I'll have to write something like the webdav or ftp plugins to get it to look like a filesystem to the finder. I'll probably also have to write some kind of automount daemon.
The key will really be that everything will work locally and just sync up if/when a net connection is available (I'll have to put a pref. somewhere so people can turn off automagic sync. so they don't use too much bandwith over something like gprs).
... I'm excited about it, though. It's something I'll at least find useful, I think others will like it too, and it should get me some attention. (Besides, it'll let me do both network, filesystem, database, and revision control style coding which could be fun).
Now I just need to make some time to do this, and start writing.
My cheap 120GB 7200 rpm drive arrived today ($75) and I've put it in my empty external firewire enclosure.
Now I can psync my Mac OS X system onto it, rebuild the two internal 120GB drives into a mirror, and copy everything back.
Then I can disable the nightly psync across the drives (which is pretty lame).
Actually, my new drive is a little flakey (I was having trouble initializing it) but it seems to be working now that I'm having disk utility zero the drive while formatting it.
... while I've been waiting, I was drooling over iPods again. I think I'll spring for one after I re-roof my garage this summer.
The poll (specifically the last option) over at As the Apple Turns made me think of Ben.
Shattered Corpse.
At first glance, OpenAFS might provide 90% of what I want.
I'll have to do more research.
On my 10.2.6 system, with Safari 1.0, NetBank's "bankmail" feature doesn't work right.
You're supposed to click an image link and have a new window pop up. The link goes to javascript:PCMMail() which looks like this:
function PCMMail()
{
var url = "https://securemessaging.netbank.com/secureMessaging/consumerUI/inbox.asp?
u=xXxXxXxXx&t=00000000000000&s=0000000000";
open(url, "NETBANK", "scrollbars=yes,menubar=yes,location=0,resizable=1,copyhistory=1");
return;
}
(I've changed the u, t, and s variable values and moved them down a line)
If I copy the URL from the page source, and put it in a new Safari window, it works. If I click on the link a new window opens and I get an "Incorrect Parameter" error from NetBank.
I imagine that the server-side stuff must be expecting some IE specific craziness (as it works in IE), however it also seems to work in OmniWeb 4.5b2 (which I thought used WebCore, but maybe not JavaScriptCore hmmm).
I should probably bother to actually learn some JavaScript and figure out what is really going on.
I've been thinking about my job a bit lately. Don't get the wrong impression, I'm very grateful for it, and the flexibility working from home gives me makes it much easier to get lots of work done and still do other things (mostly fencing).
However, I'm starting to feel a bit unhappy with it. Fist of all, there's the whole lack of human contact thing. Then, there's the fact that what I'm doing isn't exactly challenging (more tedious, with nothing non-tedious in sight). While I have been able to do some design work, I haven't been able to do much. It doesn't look like I will be working on a group-project at all in the near future (much less run one).
Sometimes I think I would almost rather be doing sysadmin work somewhere (ok, not really :) ).
I would like to be able to work on things that interest me, though.
... and I would like to spend more time working with Cocoa and/or WebObjects. When I do spend time playing with them, I get more done with less effort. It's a lot more fun when it feels like the computer is working for me, than when I feel like I have to do the same things over and over (or fight the same things over and over).
I suppose if I spent more time on the framework(s) I wrote for my projects at work, it would be better, but I just can't devote the time necessary to them (I have to produce finished projects and not just really good and useful code).
Maybe I just need a vacation.
I want a distributed filesystem that doesn't suck.
I want my $HOME to be the same on all my Mac OS X machines (primarily my desktop and my laptop). I want transparent behind-the-scenes updates so that when I modify a file on my laptop it gets propagated to my desktop.
I want versioning too, so that I can back out changes.
I could get a partial solution a lot of different ways (one of the better ideas I had was to just set up a subversion server that I could check everything out of/in to).
Maybe I need to start looking at filesystem code again :)
So Phil has a G4 to play with now. It's too bad he has to install PPC Linux on it (I think it's for his TV Tuner card).
Mac OS X is just so much better to work in than Linux is (I can do all my geeky stuff and still have a computer that 'just works' when I want/need it to).
Does anyone know of a well-supported PCI TV-Tuner card that works on 10.2 (not only would I be interested in one, but it would be a good present for someone who is stuck using PPC Linux ;-) ).
The idiot is getting married. At Disneyworld. (In Disneyworld?)
He's asked me to be in the wedding party. This time, I was smart, though. Anne won't have to sit by herself while I'm at the head table.
I've got conflicting Disney emotions, though. The crazy liberal in me wants to hate the company, and despise how they treat their employees (or used to, things may have changed since I last read about it). However, the little kid in me is still excited about it.
I hope there are cool rides.
HR has decided that signing an acknowledgement form (saying I read and agreed to the company handbook) is a requirement of employement.
It's silly, as the acknowledgement is similar to the one I signed when they hired me which also included the provision that they could change anything at any time.
I don't see why they can't just say that the old one holds for the new handbook and be done with it.
Oh well.
In a great act of kindness. My younger sister found the "Dutch Store" in Grand Rapids and purchased the candy I've been trying to track down elsewhere.
Mmmmm. I found the company's website but I don't think it will do me much good.
I guess I'll have to brave the "Dutch Store" the next time I want some.
I want one of these.
