Friday, April 24, 2009

Configuring webdav and effective user in plone-buildout

If you installed Plone 3.x from their universal installer, there is a default buildout.cfg provided. Edit this to installed cool additional packages and just run `bin/buildout`. It will download whatever you need and then ready to be up and running again. The buildout will override your zope.conf so if you want any settings to persist in your zope.conf it should be put into your buildout.cfg.

Inside the buildout.cfg there is section for client1 and client2 if you installed the default cluster settings. So to configure the effective user for client1 (so that root can start the instance) you should add:

effective-user = plone

in the client1 section. And inside client2 section you can just add:

effective-user = ${client1:effective-user}

so that you don't have to edit at 2 places later. And do you want to enable webdav with that? Then just add:

zope-conf-additional =
enable-ms-author-via on
<webdav-source-server>
address localhost:1980
force-connection-close off
</webdav-source-server>

in the client sections. All done.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The art of writing

I've always considered myself more of a coder than a documenter (if there is such a word). I like writing codes but I hate writing about them. I do write about it once in a while in a blog or something if it's something especially hard and I might have to refer about doing it again but usually I'll just file it in my head as "ooooh.. I can look it up later if I REALLY need it". So some of the stuff that I really hate to write up are user manuals and requirement specs.

Now I've been burned enough times to know that requirement specs are really crucial to a successful software project. If the user does not know what they want, then you'll soon be sucked into the black hole of "user wants" pretty soon and it would take a whole lot of thick face justifying yourself just to save your sanity much less the project. But even then, I'm still very much unmotivated to do it. One of the reasons is that it is so bland and boring. Boring to write, boring to read. And finally nobody would refer to it. But recently I read that you should strive to make it enjoyable to read. Maybe even funny. And I was awestruck. A funny user requirement specs, that'd be awesome. :)

If you know me personally, I think you'd agree I try very very hard to be funny. Is it difficult to be funny? Hmmm.. I practice a lot and still sometimes it's just flat out come out flat. So I guess it's pretty hard. But you know what's even harder? Just becoming consistent in the discipline of writing. Ok.. maybe for me at least, being consistent in being disciplined in anything at all.. :P

I have this blog right here, and I retain the rights to say whatever I want on it, and I could practice my writing skills every single day if I wanted to, but I know that would never happen (yeah... I hear your sighs of relieve for not needing to read my rants everyday). Because I know I'd never be able to stick to it. Maybe once a week, maybe, but anything more than that would be nigh impossible.

You know what's another funny thing about writing in blogs? I used to write without a care in the world because I know nobody is going to read it. But since I know people know of it, and read it, and some even kind enough to leave comments in it, my mindset changed. I write as if I'm writing for an audience. Oh I know it's all my fault, that it is all in my mind, but I can't help it. That's how I feel about it. I don't think it's a bad thing, only that it sometimes makes me take a longer time to write it up. I think more about the words and composition, think more about how the references have to be right, think more about making it acceptable. So in the end, all the speed you get practicing touch typing for hours and hours becomes moot because you just sit there in front of the monitor for 5 minutes to write a single sentence. Of course once the idea comes rampaging through you're glad you can type pretty fast, but most of the time, you're no faster than a 'hunt and peck'er. Oh well... that's all for now I guess. See you again next week, same time, same place.. ta.. ta.. :D

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Joke's on you

I'm a Fedora ambassador, I recommend people to use Ubuntu, but I myself use Arch Linux. I'm not sure what that makes me.. :P But I love using Arch. It is lean, mean and geared towards the more tinkering inclined in the sense that almost everything is default and you have to hand configure yourself... with a text editor :D

So it was really sad for me last week to read that they are going to drop support for the i686. For a whole week I was contemplating which distro would I go to now? I really like Arch's way of a rolling update. Not waiting for a certain dateline but get the newest thing as soon as it's ready. But after reading that news I am concerned because I don't think my laptop support x86_64 (Haven't tried it yet though, but it's a really old laptop). And not only that, if one day I am fortunate enough to get myself a netbook of my own, I doubt those small atomic chips support 64bit either. So where should I go? My choice was 2. Fedora or Ubuntu. I haven't tried the latest (Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10) but heard they have quite a lot of great new stuff. Fedora 10 even boots faster too. I'm still contemplating...

Then today I read this news. I was dumb struck. It's all an april fools joke? Wow.. they even mentioned about it in the forums and everything. I really thought it was real. But I'm glad it's not... :D So now I can be rest assured I can still use my favourite distro for quite a long while to come. I'm such an idiot.. :P Kudos to all the Arch Linux dev for pulling off such a convincing trick. And next time I'll be more careful to wait for a few days to confirm news heard on the 1st of April.. :D

So finally I guess the joke's on me.. :)

Is Blogging No Longer a Thing?

As I embark on my new journey to learn the Rust programming language, I find myself pondering—where have all the blogs gone? In search of pr...