Cafe Bucky

FlexiPhoto now exists outside of my house!

What the heck is it?

FlexiPhoto is a web-based photography database. It’s meant to give site admins a powerful way to run a photo db on their own servers, capable of handling multiple languages and UI’s at the same time. You can also install it multiple times on the same server, making it easy to have separate databases.

It’s a Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP app. I will get into a much more thorough overview later this month.

I’m not ready to really show it off in free-for-all mode yet, but am willing to give folks a test installation on my server that they can play around with. The usual caveats apply (don’t give out the link, don’t post anything stupid and/or illegal, realize that I am under no obligation to hang on to your photos, etc.) You can email the Flexiphoto 2.0 (Avocado) address for more info.

I expect to be in alpha/beta for a few months. The primary push lately has been to get it ready to show to people when I go to New York. That made me put off some major bits of functionality that have potential to be destabilizing (example: an “exhibit” is a gathering of photos which may be from different collections. Another: user/group permissions & preferences)

Got OpenSSH on your Linux box?

Upgrade time: new ssh expoit?

Didn’t I go through this fire drill earlier this year? Yep …

Since I run my own box at a colo, I’m sort of forced to pay attention to Linux security issues. On the one hand, I’m glad that we’re past the ftp and telnet days, and have reasonable “more secure” alternatives. On the other, you would think we’d have some pretty solid code by now. In this case, I couldn’t find an automatic upgrade package (because it was too early for there to be one). I trot off, find the source, dutifully compile and install, and feel a small sigh of relief: “well, patched that one!”. Followed by “what next?”.

I can’t imagine being serious about running some sort of Microsoft server. How many massive security bugs do admins of that junk contend with every single month? The times where I feel compelled to jump on to my server and fix things are few and far between.

But still, it does get old. I’ve been upgrading software for, what … 20 years or so now? Geez, that’s a lot. I don’t mind if it’s some sort of application. It’s always the OS/Security stuff that gets me. I roll my eyes and think “c’mon, get it right already!”. I tossed in a photo of the Other Cat, a Burmese named Valentine. Think he cares about this security stuff? Heck no! He just wants to sit on the monitor, veg out, and make sure I keep Groove Salad going. What a bum.

Getting back to the solid code issue: it’s not that simple, of course. So I raise an Ale in the general direction of the White Hats that fix things and get alerts out there for us ServerAdmins to act on. I know it’s hard to nail down everything because the problem is fundamentally Difficult.

Well, that made for an exciting morning. Now where the fark was I? (that’s the thing about these security alerts - they are the railyard switch in your morning. “you WILL take this track right now!”)

That’s it. I’m setting up another Linux environment @ home to be a pseudo-production environment (he says, eyeing an old iMac that’s already running Debian).

The day started well enough. Sun out. Birds chirping. My Russian Blue feline Tasha taking up residence on the verandah … Dizzy Gillespie singing “On The Sunny Side of the Street” … Fixed a couple of Perl bugs. Rice Crispies. Hot Coffee (today being so special, I treated myself to one of the clean mugs)

Ah, but then I actually tried to get something more significant done. Copied a preview version of FlexiPhoto up to my server (I have my own Penguin 1U Linux box, sitting in the Sonic.net colo facility up in Santa Rosa, CA) … go through a simple test .. choke! This install of PHP never got all of the image-creating goodies! And … exhale. Kinda hard to show a photo db that can’t resize an image, eh?

Oh well, it was an old enough version of PHP where I needed to upgrade anyway. I was all psyched up to have the day go one way, and now it’s leading me down the path of Neverlasting Upgrades (because you upgrade something, but the effect never lasts long enough).

So that’s my story today. Upgrades all around! Drinks on the house! And an iMac running Debian at home that will mirror my colo box, so I have something to do test runs on. Yeah yeah, I know this from all my time in production environments, etc. I was just being hopeful this morning that it would work :-)

So I’m pretty excited about going to New York for the month of October. I’m renting a room in Queens, right near the East River in Hunter’s Point. I was thinking today that I better get my flights all sorted out.

But then, I thought “well, why don’t I just drive there?” I could pack more, I could take my bike … I could take my main Linux box and monitor (this is, after all, a working trip)

And then the practical stuff kicked in. It’s an extra 3 or 4 days each way. I’d be solo. I’d run up a big hotel and gas bill, and I have a ton of frequent flyer miles I really should use. Heck, I went to the market today and got enough miles to get across the Bay!

My leaning at the moment is that I am just going to fly. I do harbor some romantic, idealistic notion about driving across the country. Coming back in early November, not knowing how the weather will be … ehhh I’m going to punt on this.

I do want to drive across the country though. I just don’t want to do it in a solo blur of “gotta keep driving, on a schedule, don’t want to rack up a hotel bill”.

I did check out Amtrak for a moment. To get a sleeper room across the country was something like $1500. I put my dropped jaw back in place and nixed that right quick. We once took the train from the SF Bay Area (Martinez) to Seattle. It was a great trip. 20 hours. Had our own little room with a pull-down bed and a shower. Dined in the upstairs restaurant as we rolled along. ’twas cool. But cross-country, $1500 and several days … nah. not this trip.

I will do the drive, hopefully next year. My notion is to do as much of Route 66 as possible. I want to take some time, get a lot of photos, be with my family, and have a sense that I’m seeing the country, as opposed to dashing across.

I was wondering if I would post anything yesterday, 9/11. I didn’t want to post something about my new phone, or the continuing decline of California, or something silly. Wil Wheaton said it nicely. Good on ya, Wil.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of park, get out, do something, go somewhere else, do more stuff. I’ve researched cell phones + plans about as much as I can stand …

I’m getting a Nokia 3650 with T-Mobile service through Amazon.com. If you are hemming and hawing yourself, realize that the time of Massive Rebate is almost up. Going through Amazon gets you a $300 phone for free. I like that word. Free. I also like the words “unlimited laptop internet through Bluetooth, talking to cell phone, for $19.99 a month”. Sign me up.

After driving my daughter crazy by actually going to a cell phone store, and checking out the item in question (imagine that, consumer research!), we dropped by an extensively stocked video (strictly retail) store in a Generic Mall. Amongst 100’s of anime vids and other imports was a Japanese Candy Section. I always enjoy the opportunity to point out the cultural bright spots in Suburban Mall Hell, where kiosks will sell ya a new plan, a new faceplate, will keep you talking so much that you forget the people you’re physically with, if you don’t watch out. So we bought us some edible Culture. Hee-yup.

Enter Strawberry Pocky. Although I haven’t yet been to Tokyo, I’m aware of the candy/vending machine subcultures there. Food fads come and go in a blur of culinary darwinism. Pocky, in this case, being a thin biscuit-stick with icing. One of the long-time survivors of the fickle taste buds of Japanese schoolkids. Context to tell Sophia a little more about how phones used to be, how they are now, and how tech is a bit ahead elsewhere.

Our new gadgets are Japan/Korea/Europe hand-me-downs. America always behind. My new phone will do 15 seconds of video. Assume Tokyo is ahead of us. More seconds. More resolution. Japanese schoolgirls are driving the newstands crazy with phonecam shoplifting. They use their phones to snap photos of fashion magazines. Maybe do a short video - A fresh email attachment sent before they even leave the store. Newstands resort to warning signs, but the problem is, they can’t tell if Hip Teenager is legitimately on the phone, or converting everything in sight into massive MoBlog copyright violations. Interesting culture: Hello Kitty hi-tech, bags of Pocky and Melon soda - convert real life to digital in a typical afternoon of crowded trains, earbuds, IMs and text messaging. Wavering between Real and Virtual space with the dexterity of a Russian gymnast.

No overwhelming conclusion to all of this. Just have been thinking a lot about cultures and gadgets. I’m old enough to remember how things were, and still enjoy the Edge of seeing where things are going. It would be fun to tour a few cities and do an article. Compare mobile tech and attitudes to what we see in the States. Sure, it’s been done, but then it keeps changing. A one-device-does-all Tech Nirvana on the horizon (and how will it affect the people that own it?)

Ya dare me to do two cell phone blogs in a row?

Hey, I will. Aside from FlexiPhoto, figuring out how I’ll be able to connect my laptop in Manhattan next month is taking on some urgency. I can use WiFi wherever there are free hotspots, no problem. I’m bound to want access here and there where there is no WiFi available.

I’ve spent a little time going over the web sites of different mobile phone service providers. I’m trying to get a sense of how to get lots of internet access through a cell phone without paying a ton of $$, and have decent speed.

A little pig-BASIC program helps explain the highly-rewarding, “gosh, I wish I could do this every single day” process of winnowing down the contestants of providers and phones:

10 providers = "verizon att cingular nextel sprint t-mobile"
20 phones = "nokia sony-ericsson motorola a-bunch-of-others"
30 if provider (charges through nose for data)
40      eliminate provider
50      and go to 30

60 if provider (has bad connectivty or terrible customer service
                or funky billing or bad attitude)
70             eliminate provider
80             and go to 60

85 if (no providers left)
86    go to 140   // need to have spaghetti code...

90 if (someone updates a plan, or improves service)
100   goto 10  // hair-pulling optional

110 if (phone has bad reception, flaky firmware, or wont talk
        to my laptop running linux)
120     eliminate phone
130     and go to 110

140 if (no phones or providers left)
150    lower expectations
160    and go to 10

I have a semi-urgent need to figure out a bit of connectivity …

I have a laptop that can run Linux or Windows. When I am not near a Wifi hotspot, I want to be able to connect to the Internet via a cell phone, preferably via Linux.

Oh, and I happen to be in the market for a new cell phone, and a new provider. Unlimited data minutes preferred, and connectivity in the SF Bay Area and New York City a must (meaning: some nationwide plan, not something where data works in one place, but not another)

I find the process of navigating through phones and plans to be something akin to seeking the Holy Grail (this is where we go into Monty Python mode). Each provider has their own set of rules, claims, puffery, and outright lies. Some phones have special “really small, cutesy, breaks if you look at it wrong” or “drains battery extra quick” attributes. Some providers have special “New York Minute” plans, where they tick off every 27 seconds. I’m half expecting to see a “save 20% if you dial on odd-numbered minutes” plan any day now.

Gotta wonder what Alexander Graham Bell would think of the state of all things phone.

Any recommendations? (IR, cable, or Bluetooth - doesn’t matter to me).