Dan Makovec’s blog

Sun buys MySQL

Woah.  This will have some interesting consequences out there amongst the open source community.  Sun, which created Java, Solaris and some pretty funky hardware that our sites run on, is buying MySQL, the company that developed the data base that our sites, and nearly every startup web operation’s sites, runs on.Just announced a few hours ago.  I wonder how this will develop? 

MeBeam - platform agnostic video conferencing

I just came across MeBeam - a free service which lets you conduct video conferences using nothing more than a web browser.  It uses a flash based chat client that accesses your hardware effortlessly. Definitely the best one I’ve seen so far.

iRule for throttling clients under F5 BigIP LTM

We had a little problem with a DDoS attack this morning on DirectoryAustralia, so I was forced to go down the path of using Apache mod_rewrite to blockany access by a given user agent whose identity had been borrowed by a rogue bot.  Not pretty, but it got the site back on track.The problem with this approach is that it still means the requests come in to the load balancers, get assigned a worker node, hit the node, get run through the Apache rewrite checks, then get rejected.  It also means more config syncing between multiple servers.I thought to myself that given we’ve purchased a couple of really pricey F5 Big IP load balancers, surely there would be a way of having them generically throttle connections per IP without having to burden the servers with the effort of doing so? So I dug around a little into the F5 iRule syntax, and hit this page, which presented some nifty solutions that helped.  Here’s one derived iRule, based on the third rule listed in the above page, helpfully called Cap_connections_per_IP

when RULE_INIT {

    array set ::active_clients { }

}

when CLIENT_ACCEPTED {    set client_ip [IP::remote_addr]    if { [info exists ::active_clients($client_ip)] } {        if {$::active_clients($client_ip) > 10 } {            reject            log local0. "Reject overactive IP $client_ip ($::active_clients($client_ip))"            return        } else {            incr ::active_clients($client_ip)        }    } else {        set ::active_clients($client_ip) 1    }}when CLIENT_CLOSED {    set client_ip [IP::remote_addr]    if { [info exists ::active_clients($client_ip)] } {        incr ::active_clients($client_ip) -1        if { $::active_clients($client_ip) <= 0 } {            unset ::active_clients($client_ip)        }    }}

Back in Sydney

It’s 10.30 at night and I’m up on the 75th floor of World Tower overlooking Hyde Park and Kings Cross all the way across the harbour to Manly.

From up here, this town ain’t so bad.  Tonight however I descended my ivory (well, glass really) tower and walked amongst the plebs doing their Christmas shopping in Pitt St Mall and realised why I left.  Shitty traffic; pushy, rude people; pollution; crazy prices.  Makes me glad to be a Brizzy boy now.

Yes, it was a 45 minute drive the 12km to the airport along the Gateway this morning, compared to 20 minutes to get from Mascot to the Sydney CBD, but given how rarely I use that road these days, it’s a small price to pay.

Virgin also went severely fubar today.  They had a major nation-wide systems meltdown.  So much so that they had to resort to doing the paperwork using, er,  pen and paper!  My flight was delayed an hour.  Not that I minded, as it gave me time for a hearty breakfast in Brizzy airport.  Plus also the equipment that was supposed to have arrived in Sydney for me yesterday hasn’t made it yet (after several promises of various missed deadlines).  It’s coming tomorrow apparently - the suppliers promised!  I just hope it’s before lunch, so I have enough time to actually install it before hopping back on the flight.

It’s hard to believe that this time last year we were preparing to drive from Sydney to Adelaide for Chrissy.  This time we’re staying in Brisbane.  Just as well really - we’ve got some serious gardening to do in preparation for a mid year rennovation (nice big back deck and verandah going on the house).  I just hope the transplanted trees survive the drought.

Speaking of drought, there’s no sign of one down here.  Dams are nice and high, and everything’s lush.  I think I’ll make the most of it - the jacuzzi in my ensuite awaits.

Night.

More db44 info

Just an addendum to that last post, in case anybody finds it handy: when building the db44 port, it appears that you’ll need to use some variants.

Use: port install db44 +darwin_8 +universal

Hope that helps!

MacPorts db44 build fails under OS X 10.5 Tiger

Was scratching my head over this one for a while. When I try a port install db44, I get the failure:

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c: In function 'main':../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:212: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:214: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:229: error: 'struct __db' has no member named 'seq'

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:229: error: 'R_NEXT' undeclared (first use in this function)

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:229: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:229: error: for each function it appears in.)

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:234: error: 'struct __db' has no member named 'seq'

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c: In function 'db_hash':

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:262: error: 'struct __db' has no member named 'internal'

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:264: error: 'struct __db' has no member named 'internal'

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c: In function 'db_btree':

../dist/../db_dump185/db_dump185.c:289: error: 'struct __db' has no member named 'internal'

make: *** [db_dump185.lo] Error 1

It turns out that this is a known bug, and the workaround solution is to rename /usr/local to /usr/local-offline, run the port install, then rename /usr/local back again.  Now, back to building Apache2 and PHP5.

Screw Columbus

I reckon I deserve some recognition as a pioneering explorer.

Single handedly, I’ve discovered the most amazing things nobody has seen before on an almost weekly basis.  It doesn’t matter where I go - department stores, banks, phone providers, anywhere.  I always discover something completely revolutionary that nobody else has ever seen, which gets the way of my living or doing business.  Maybe I’m really good.  Maybe I’m just charmed.

Take this morning’s exchange with AMEX.  I’m attempting to set up an online credit card facility for our new site launching next week.  This has been taking a while. Note the date of this blog post, and note the date mentioned in the conversation.

“We’re still having a problem with our terminal ID”

“You shouldn’t, the number is correct.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s definitely here and was set up on October 25th”

“Can I re-verify that number?”

“Sure it’s 4-0-2…. Oh wait a minute, it’s marked here as set up but not active.  I wonder how that happened?  I swear, I’ve been here 5 years and I’ve never come across that before.”

“Can you activate it?”

“Ok, done now.”

“Is that what’s been holding this up for the past month?”

“Perhaps, although I’m not sure.  As I’ve said, this is the first time I’ve ever seen this.  I’ll have to report it to my manager”

“OK, are there any other issues that could be holding us up this time?”

“No, you’re definitely ready to go now.”

“Are you sure?  Will this take another 24 hours as we were told the last two times?”

“No, it’s fine…. well, it could take 24 hours but it should be fine”

“It’s Friday to day.  does 24 hours mean 24 hours, or does it mean Monday?”

“I.. umm.. it should be 24 hours, it’s all automatic.  But it might be active now, so get your gateway provider to give it another go”

I’m still waiting to see if it works…

Take the train!

A bit of a public transport rant today - it’s a pet topic of mine. Bear with me, a caffiene induced spiel follows.

For the last 2 years, my daily commute to work has consisted of walking to the spare bedroom where I’m all set up with the home office. There are few distractions, my own decor, and best of all, no traffic jams.

Anybody who’s been my passenger knows I’m susceptible to the odd bit of verbal road rage. I’m quite easily frustrated on the roads. This probably stems from my low tolerance to stupidity in general, and for some reason the roads seem to attract more than their fair share of idiots. I guess there are just as many idiots walking down the local shopping mall or sitting in offices, but their actions have less of an immediate impact on my state of mind than those on four wheels.

I’m sitting down in front of Sunrise this morning, having seen B off for his first day of work in his new job at BoQ HQ, and watched with amusement as the daily traffic chopper cross has come on, showing the Gateway Motorway, Western Freeway, Bruce Highway, Pacific Mwy and Gympie Rd all clogged up as usual. Sometimes it’s the result of somebody’s old bomb breaking down in the middle lane; other times it’s simply the sheer weight of numbers killing the road network.

Two minutes later, an ad for a “7 news exclusive” says that experts have finally recognized that the roads are stuffed and that they’re going to get worse despite the billions of dollars being poured into building a cross-city tunnel (a useful one, not like that Sydney joke), second Gateway bridge and motorway, etc, because they simply can’t build the roads fast enough to cope. The ad then poses the question “just what can we do to ease the problem?”

Anybody who’s lived in a decent size town should know the solution: public transport, and lots of it. I mean, where’s the frigging rocket science? Lots of trains from key locations to a central spot, and an orbital line for those not going to the city. No need for huge monsters like the Sydney-style double-decker 1000 people carriers. Just small, 100-200 person vehicles that travel frequently, no more than 10 minutes apart.

Let’s do some maths. The Gateway motorway upgrade will cost $1.8 billion. For that, you get 20km of road. This will double the capacity of the current motorway. The original Gateway was opened in 1988 and is maxed out, at 100,000 vehicles per day. So in theory, doubling the capacity could last us up to 2026, allowing 200,000 vehicles per day before it needs to be expanded again (assuming the region’s growth slows down). I’d say that probably 75% of vehicles on the road at peak hour have a driver and no passengers, so let’s say that gives you capacity for about 300,000 people to travel.

Now compare this with the $214 million in funding being given to build 72 train carriages. Each existing older-style 4 car set holds 524 passengers, so our $214 million gives us transport for 72 / 4 * 544 = 9792 people at a time. Taking the Ipswitch-Caboolture line as an example, it takes 2 hours to make a trip end to end, so really you’re only going to get one ride per new train during peak periods.

We take one ride in the morning, one in the evening. In total that’s 19,500 odd peek hour journeys per day from $200 million. If instead of the $200 million, you threw the $2 billion odd that’s going to the Gateway into rail, you’ve got about 195,000 journeys at peak hour alone - compared to the highway’s max of 300,000 per day in total.

So you can spend about the same amount of money on rail as on roads and move a comparable number of people. But if you do it with rail, you’ve got complete control of the transport corridors, which means less congestion and less frustration. Plus, you don’t have to provide parking spaces in town for all the commuters, and you take a shitload of pollution spilling vehicles off the road.

Yes the numbers above are rough, but even then the cost of building public transport infrastructure is clearly not an order of magnitude higher than building roads, so why don’t our governments just do it?

I think it comes down to commuter attitude. Brisbane commuters just want their cars, despite all the problems they cause. We need to change that. Driving is too cheap. Raise taxes on petrol, or go the London route and levy a congestion charge on all cars entering the city, then feed that money into public transport. Keep the public transport fares the same, and eventually people will come around.

As for my commute, I’m hoping to set up an office in town next month. I’ll be taking the 7.31 express, which Brian just told me via SMS was pretty empty. As another traffic report comes through showing how bad the roads still are…

MMS?

Can somebody please tell me why the fuck in 2007 can I still not send an MMS message from my Dopod 838pro on 3 to Brian’s Samsung E250 on Virgin/Optus?  I mean, seriously now, has MMS been abandoned like WAP in favor of expensive 3G video calling or something?

I just wanted to send a fucking photo of a special lightbulb that blew out on our IXL Tastic for him to pick up from the shops on the way home so he could see what it looks like.  How hard could it be?

Impressions of Leopard

Just installed Leopard on my iMac last night, and to be honest it’s a bit meh so far.  There have been some small improvements, but surely nothing that required a dot upgrade?

I bought it for Time Machine, which I’m sure will pay for itself after a while - lazy as I am at doing backups and maintaining scripts to tar and untar archive files.

I notice some minor improvements with Mail.app - for my purposes, iCal’s Todos showing up in Mail is nice, since I hardly ever look at iCal.  One neat feature (to me anyway) they’ve done in Mail is a change to the way multiple messages are selected.  If you click on a message and drag up or down, you select the other surrounding messages.  If you drag left or right, it realises you want to move the messages and groups them together to drag.

The old Tiger Mail grouped them no matter which way you dragged, so you had to shift-drag to select multiples.  The “Move to XXX Again” context menu is also nice.  I have an enormous IMAP folder hierarchy and it’s a bitch to drag lots of messages between various folders, so after doing it the first time, the above menu item gives you a nice shortcut.  New keyboard shortcuts (apple-1 to apple-8) let you jump through folders easily.

The most controversial “feature” is the new desktop translucent menu-bar.  Depending on the picture you have on in the background, this can make viewing and using the menu extremely difficult.  This is a rare slip up for Apple, who normally pride themselves on good UI usability.  I never got the whole transparent thing, but if it’s there then there should at least be an option to turn it off.  I know I’m not alone in suggesting this.  If they wanted to conserve desktop space, they could have made it an auto-hide menu (a la the Amiga c. 1985).  As far as I can tell though, this new transparent menubar is just wank for wank’s sake, and actually reduces productivity by making the damn thing harder to read.
Oh yeah, they’ve also finally done away with the rounded corners at the top of the screen.  I kind of miss them, but they really were a relic of the old CRT macs. and looked a little dated.  I’m not really a fan of the new folder icons either (they’re pretty chunky), but I’m sure I’ll get used to them.

Finder has had a serious makeover and now works the way I thought it always should have (when it doesn’t lock up).  Coverflow view is kinda cute but a bit gimmicky.  Accessing network machines is now far more logical than before though so quite an improvement.  Smart folders (a la Tiger’s Mail.app and iTunes) are also a welcome, if overdue, addition.

So, would I upgrade all my computers to Leopard?  Probably not.  But this upgrade’s cheaper than Tiger was (especially with work paying for it), and the built in backup makes it a good idea for a work machine if you don’t already have a decent backup system in place.