a.kao

My MScIS courses are starting in January 2009, therefore I thought it’s a good time to re-setup Subversion repository on my server to manage my assignments. I had one setup ~3 years ago and I recall the setup was fairly painless, not so this time.

I used minimum configuration for Subversion (plenty of tutorial on how to do that online), yet whenever I attempted to import some code into the repository I kept on getting


svn: Server sent unexpected return value (403 Forbidden) in response to PROPFIND request for '/repos/course1'


Error in the Apache log

[error] [client 1.2.3.4] client denied by server configuration: /home/art/public_html/repos


Apache kept on looking for /repos under my virtualhost’s DocumentRoot (/home/art/public_html).

After hours of googling, finally I was able to locate the solution at
http://www.readingtype.org.uk/blog/2008/08/brief-apache-229subversion-146.html

The addition of the bolded lines were the answer.



DAV svn
SVNParentPath /repositories
SVNListParentPath on
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
AuthType Basic
AuthName “ABC”
AuthUserFile /home/art/passwd
Require valid-user



We had several boxes running RHEL4 U3 or earlier, SCSI controllers on these VM instances were using BusLogic. After U3 (or U4) Red Hat no longer carried BusLogic drivers therefore when we updated these boxes to U7, VM’s SCSI controller must be changed as well. After we switched SCSI controller using the VIC, we must update kernel, otherwise we will get kernel panic.

First remove BusLogic reference from /etc/modprobe.conf and add:


alias scsi_hostadapter mptbase
alias scsi_hostadapter1 mptscsih


Then we rebuild initrd with the following:


mkinitrd --preload mptscsih --preload mptsas --preload mptspi --preload mptscsi --preload mptbase initrd-2.6.9-78.0.8.ELsmp.img 2.6.9-78.0.8.ELsmp

Check grub.conf to make sure everything is pointing at the right location and the right file. Now the VM should boot without issue.

Fedora, my main desktop OS since I stopped manage SMS, has released version 10.

Get Fedora 10 (Public Mirrors)

Once it’s installed, get additional software via RPM Fusion, a combined effort between Dribble, Freshrpms and Livna.

Great post on Windows command line commands one should be familiar with.

http://synjunkie.blogspot.com/2008/03/basic-dos-foo.html

Now waiting for its occupant’s arrival.

I recently found out you can get various free samples and gifts from baby formula vendors. Since it’s FREE, of course I’ll sign up. Furthermore, initially you may need to try out different formula until you find the one that your baby like and stick to it.

Here are the programs:
Enfamil
Similac
Nestle Baby

I have been thinking about getting a NAS device for home use for quite some time, I even bought 2 500GB hard drives a few weeks back during a NCIX weekly sale. Originally I wanted to build a DIY NAS with unused equipment using either FreeNAS, OpenSolaris (with ZFS) or plain Linux. However at the end I just got lazy and settled for a simple NAS enclosure from D-Link. My reasoning is simple, I do system administration during the day, when I am home I just want to relax and “enjoy” the technology.

RAID1 array setup was fairly straight forward once you navigate to the web administration interface. Default login is “admin”, password is blank. I changed password and then created folders, users and group. After these steps I was able to mount my new volume and folder via


mount -t cifs -o username=abc,password=abc //nas/Volume_1/stuff /stuff


For whatever reason Fedora came with Firefox 3 Beta 5. Unfortunately most of the add-ons does not work with Firefox 3b5, yet. I use Bookmark Sync and Sort with WebDAV to synchronize work and home PC/laptop therefore I need Firefox 2 back! Firefox 3’s bookmark structure changed so updating this add-on will be a lot of work.


sudo yum remove firefox
sudo yum install compat-libstdc++-33


After that you should be able to download Firefox 2 directly from Mozilla.org and install it.

UPDATE: At the end I decided to give Firefox 3 another try since it’s now out of beta phase. As for bookmark synchronization, I am using Foxmarks as substitute. I still prefer storing my bookmarks on my own storage but it seems Foxmarks does the job, I also tried GMarks but it was painfully SLOW!

Found this online, after reading it I feel I will be a much better father.

I’ve suffered my first legitimate sport injury, first broken bone(s) ever, during the last indoor soccer game of the season.

I heard 2 pops when I went down so I knew I wasn’t going to get away with a simple ankle sprain, but the X-ray showed a much more chilling story. I had to have surgery to insert a steel plate on the outside ankle bone and several screws on the inside ankle bone in order to hold them back together. Good news is that doctor said I would recover fully in 6 weeks. However I am probably done for the year because wife might break my other leg if I choose to rejoin sports immediately after my recovery ;)