Sid Sidberry Reads

I’m really liking exaile! and have been recommending it to friends. of course their first question is , can it run on mac / windows?

well as far as windows yes : heres a few links to help you run exaile! on windows :

screen shots : http://potatosaladx.blogspot.com/2007/01/exaile-029b-on-windows.html
Patch : http://www.exaile.org/trac/ticket/200

A new version of swf address is out

The new SWFAddress has just arrived after seven months of active development, various contributions and lots of positive feedback from the community. The list of changes includes the following:

* Refactored JavaScript implementation
* New SWFAddress.swc AS3 component
* New CS4 based Splash screen sample
* New Digg API sample
* New up() method for easier deep linking path navigation
* New XSS protection that doesn’t affect special characters
* Support for Internet Explorer 8
* Support for custom HTTP status messages in the SEO sample
* Improved title handling
* Improved unload event handling for IE
* Updated Rails sample
* Fixed getBaseURL() for AS3
* Fixed Safari 2.0-2.0.3 support
* Build-in fix for the Firefox 3/Mac OSX blinking effect
* Additional onLoad fix for application/xml content type
* Fixed optional options parameter for the popup method
* Cross platform build script
* Various optimizations

Asual | Blog – SWFAddress 2.2

I’m using vmware 6, so I don’t know if this works in 5 or server editions.

vmware installs a script called vmrun that allows you to perform almost anything you need to do on a vmware machine pragmatically.

sidney@my-host:~> /usr/bin/vmrun
vmrun version 6.0.4 build-93057

Usage: vmrun COMMAND [PARAMETERS]

Authentication flags
-gu
-gp

POWER COMMANDS           PARAMETERS           DESCRIPTION
start                    Path to vmx file     Start a VM or Team
                         or vmtm file
                         [gui|nogui]
stop                     Path to vmx file     Stop a VM or Team
                         or vmtm file
                         [hard|soft]
reset                    Path to vmx file     Reset a VM or Team
                         or vmtm file
                         [hard|soft]
suspend                  Path to vmx file     Suspend a VM or Team
                         or vmtm file
                         [hard|soft]

SNAPSHOT COMMANDS        PARAMETERS           DESCRIPTION
listSnapshots            Path to vmx file     List all snapshots in a VM
snapshot                 Path to vmx file     Create a snapshot of a VM
                         Snapshot name
deleteSnapshot           Path to vmx file     Remove a snapshot from a VM
                         Snapshot name
revertToSnapshot         Path to vmx file     Set VM state to a snapshot
                         Snapshot name

GUEST OS COMMANDS        PARAMETERS           DESCRIPTION
runProgramInGuest        Path to vmx file     Run a program in Guest OS
                         Program
                         [Program arguments]
fileExistsInGuest        Path to vmx file     Check if a file exists in Guest OS
                         Path to file in guest
setSharedFolderState     Path to vmx file     Modify a Host-Guest shared folder
                         Share name
                         New host path
addSharedFolder          Path to vmx file     Add a Host-Guest shared folder
                         Share name
                         Host path
removeSharedFolder       Path to vmx file     Remove a Host-Guest shared folder
                         Share name
listProcessesInGuest     Path to vmx file     List running processes in Guest OS
killProcessInGuest       Path to vmx file     Kill a process in Guest OS
                         process id
runScriptInGuest         Path to vmx file     Run a script in Guest OS
                         Interpreter path
                         script_text
deleteFileInGuest        Path to vmx file     Delete a file in Guest OS
                         File
createDirectoryInGuest   Path to vmx file     Create a directory in Guest OS
                         Directory path
deleteDirectoryInGuest   Path to vmx file     Delete a directory in Guest OS
                         Directory path
listDirectoryInGuest     Path to vmx file     List a directory in Guest OS
                         Directory path
copyFileFromHostToGuest  Path to vmx file     Copy a file from host OS to guest OS
                         Path on host
                         Path in guest
copyFileFromGuestToHost  Path to vmx file     Copy a file from guest OS to host OS
                         Path in guest
                         Path on host
renameFileInGuest        Path to vmx file     Rename a file in Guest OS
                         Original name
                         New name

GENERAL COMMANDS         PARAMETERS           DESCRIPTION
list                                          List all running VMs
upgradevm                Path to vmx file     Upgrade VM file format, virtual hw
installtools             Path to vmx file     Install Tools in Guest OS

Examples:
  vmrun list
  vmrun upgradevm w2k.vmx
  vmrun reset w2k.vmx soft
 

Yippie!

While benchmarking performance for deathy death match I realized something: Benchmarking sucks!

That said, and me being the lazy person I am, I asked myself how can I make this easier? My answer: benchsid, two shell scripts that make benchmarking easier.

disclaimer

This is a 1,2,3 trick pony – use it as such

These scripts are offered as is and I am not responsible for anything you do, create, break, etc.

Both scripts are released under the do whatever the hell you want, but don’t blame me license. This of course isn’t a real license, but you get the point.

Make benchmarks easier, if only a bit

I’ve tried as much as possible to keep your commands to a minimum. If running as root you can run a complete benchmark, save both the results and you benchmark servers top + free output, and reboot with 3 commands. See lazy right?

monitor.sh – run this script on the machine your benchmarking
bench.sh – run this script on the machine your benchmarking from

you do not need to run these on separate machines, but I recommend it

How do I use…

monitor:

 ./monitor.sh

 ./monitor.sh help

bench:

 ./bench.sh

 ./bench.sh help

If your still having issues post a comment

monitor.sh

Monitor should be ran on the machine your benchmarking. It automates the process of recording free (free -m) and top, and if running as root will reboot the server when you tell it to stop monitoring a benchmark

Sounds good so far right?

monitor.sh process overview

start process

clear out any benchmarks that will be overwritten
save output from free to a file (free -m)
save output from top to a file
start a top process to monitor to a file while we benchmark
confirm that we are up and running

stop process

stop top
save output of free to file
save output of top to file
reboot server

monitor.sh: umm why?

monitor.sh saves the information about the server before, during and after your benchmark has been run. By running top during the benchmark process (10 second intervals), we can get a real time overview of both server load and the loads created by applications

bench.sh

bench.sh is the benchmarking portion. bench.sh can benchmark your server using one of three programs: ab, siege, or httpref. I considered adding an option to do all three, but honestly that more poor mans dos than benchmark.

bench.sh first will perform a warm-up cycle of 2000 requests to your server using your desired (or default) concurrency. After that it will perform 3 benchmark cycles of your desired number of requests and concurrency.

All cycle results (including warm up) are saved to the filesystem.

download

download benchsid: http://gregsidberry.com/httpdocs/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/benchsid.tar.gz

known issues

siege output – siege outputs a couple of variables to screen that aren’t included, or properly recorded, in the created file. I’ve tried output redirection, script, etc, but haven’t been able to find a fix that keeps everything in one script

input validation – there is no input validation, so please don’t put these files in a web public location.

funyuns – I’m out of funyuns, please send more

enjoy
Sid

Hyper table looks promising, I have absolutely no need for it, but guess thats just the geek in me

Hypertable is a high performance distributed data storage system designed to support applications requiring maximum performance, scalability, and reliability.

Hypertable will be particularly invaluable to any organization that needs to manage rapidly evolving data to support demanding real-time applications. Modeled after Google’s well known Bigtable project, Hypertable is designed to manage the storage and processing of information on a large cluster of commodity servers, providing resilience to machine and component failures. Hypertable seeks to set the open source standard for highly available, petabyte scale, database systems.

About Hypertable

If you don’t know: I’m anti Mac. I love ipod, tempted by iphone, but my main issue is with the mac os and pretty much anyone I know that has switched. I’ll admit some of the newer laptops are oh so shiny, tiny, and have made me drool on occasion. Anyways more on my anti mac crusade: Apple is advising users to install anti virus software. Oh yeah freebsd users are still safe

We are all notoriously snobbish when it comes to not installing anti-virus software, but largely because we all know that malware is essentially non-existent when it comes to the Mac. Yes, yes, there’s the occasional scare, but seriously: when was the last time that you noticed an actual piece of malware on the Mac of someone you know that actually did any harm? Yeah, exactly.

Nevertheless, the Washington Post’s Brian Krebs noticed a November 21 technical note published on the Apple website that reads:

Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple anti-virus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.

Of course, Apple has long-touted the fact that Macs just, simply don’t get viruses. Remember this ad?

Apple says users should install anti-virus software | MacUser | Macworld

When I first started this experiment I planned on using a custom php framework. Recently I realized that its kinda pointless to attempt to do something like this and at the same time lock myself into something that may not be the best solution….

enter google, research, testing, and little sleep. Result: codeigniter was the best choice. Huh? Here’s why.

snakes not on the plane

I should say from jump: If I knew and had the time to learn python / django it would have been the winner, sadly I do not.

ruby, rails, hype

I’m a fan of ror, and of course when I decided to take what I’ve created so far and migrate it into something usable I of course thought of ruby on rails. Sadly I saw more than a few hurdles.

First off ror doesn’t play we’ll with others, meaning you shouldn’t run rails in a shared environment. The whole concept behind this experiment is a small start-up with a shoe string budget and 2-3 websites / apps. Yes its possible to host multiple rails apps on one server / vps, but it’s not recommended. There is of course passenger, but that leads into the next point. php +1

Ror is a resource hog, there I said it. When compared to php, rails is more resource intensive than php. Of course the answer is to optimize and scale out, but remember I’m trying to keep the monthly hosting budget under 100-120 bucks (yes seriously shoe string). So php was the choice here.

So far php seems like the best choice for what I’m trying to do, but I needed more than just a few issues I could work around. You can’t work around speed and optimizing. ruby is faster than php via command line, but ror is not amazingly faster when used via web. When you add an opcode cache into the picture ror gets is butt kicked hands down. Of course this is comparing a language to a framework, enter codeigniter.

Codeigniter still out performs ror with an opcode cache. That is just one optimization and php shows drastic improvement.

I wasn’t ready to abandon ror yet, simply put: why use an imitator if you can have the real deal. Codeigniter is a great framework, but it makes more since to actually use rails right?

In the end the answer is no. Rails has a higher level of maintainability out the box, but does less code, easier maintenance, and of course the ror cool factor out weight slower speed, higher cost to deploy, and fewer production optimizations? No.

MVC while not as strict in codeigniter, is there. That combined with OOP will make using a php framework easier to maintain, not ror easy, but easy enough for production imho.

framework, shamework

So we now know why php won over ruby, but why pick codeigniter? I originally started out writing a custom framework, which is always fun to do from time to time to push yourself, but in the end you see the downside and benefits of doing so. Since this entire idea revolves around a small start-up we also need to take development time into consideration.

A custom framework takes alot of trial and error, coding, and recoding, and still more coding. Using a php framework I can reduce the time it takes to get up and running, while still building what I want and need. Yes there’s some overhead compared to a custom framework, but in the end a start-up isn’t yahoo. You should be back at the planning table long before you reach yahoo numbers. Thats not to say you shouldn’t plan for massive growth (hence scalable), just that traffic / users / data on yahoo’s scale is far beyond my scope of experience and even I know its another elephant to eat.

When comparing php frameworks, i was originally looking at cakephp, but after some research found it to slow and with to much overhead. There are other frameworks, but only codeigniter and cakephp met my needs. 2-1=1 (or less than one mr. V), so codeigniter was the winner.

One thing I should note is how poor most of the php frameworks I looked at perform out the box. Yes rails (and merb) are better out the box. Luckily a few simple optimizations speeds things up.

all your base are belong to theory

So far everything has been pretty much all theory, research, and testing. No worries, the meat and potatoes are coming shortly.

the next few posts will cover setting everything up(centos5): memcached / memcachedb, ngninx, apache, varnish, mysql, s3 + rsync, varnish -> s3 relations, etc.

If you feel like following along head over to http://linode.com and setup a few machines, or setup a team in vmware.

Worth Reading

Here are few articles that I came across while researching, some are more on topic than others, but all have some value.

PHP vs Java vs Ruby:
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/industry-news/php-vs-java-vs-ruby-000887.php

Ruby vs PHP performance (cli)
http://izumi.plan99.net/blog/index.php/2008/01/17/ruby-vs-php-performance/

Ruby on Rails Fans
http://shiflett.org/blog/2006/feb/ruby-on-rails-fans

The performance test of 6 leading frameworks
http://www.alrond.com/en/2007/jan/25/performance-test-of-6-leading-frameworks/

I’m watching tv, only to see a commercial where windows is market testing a new os. “Holy crap” , I thought to myself, “they realized zista is shite and are already releasing a new os, thats gonna piss off some people”, but a smart move since as mentioned, vista is shite.

Then again, I’d never heard of the code name they used. Well guess waht it was vista.

So I’ve decided due to my all nighter, lack of sleep, and for everyones amusement, to tell you how my demo would have went.

I’m running a core2duo 2ghz with 4gigs of ram. I dual boot into vista 64 from time to time because, well actually i have not sane reason: I just do.

—
Loading vista: hmm looks kinda sweet
login screen: nice look
login: is this slower than xp?
system startup: crap this is slow

-I should note I only have firefox, antivirus, vmware, a firwall, pidgin, and the adobe web / creative suite installed. This is an install thats at best 2 months old, and rarely used.

start firefox: system hangs, kill firefox
start firefox: system hangs, wait 10 minutes

start vmware centos image: system degrades to p4 (pre ht) running xp, and under heavy load
check load : cpu 100%, ram 60%,

say crap why did I load into vista

reboot

opensuse 11 loads

I start up an xp vmachine with 313mb of ram, centos5 vmachine with 256 of ram, firefox, evolution, utorrent, gimp, pidgin, exalie, and a bunch of folders (forgot to mention opening my downloads folder almost crashes vista) including my downloads folder. Oh yeah I should mention I normally have 10-30 tabs open in firefox3.

open flash cs3, dreamweaver cs3, and virtual folders in xp

check my stats: cpu1 26%, cpu2 31%, ram 41%, swap 0%, upload 84k.

wonder why an xp machine thats barely using my cpu, and that has almost no ram out performs vista…..

and now to code, and eventually find sleep

Its been over a month, so i figured its time to do an after action report.

Simply put I still LOVE openSuse. Of course theres a few things that need work, but overall its a wonderful distro that I strongly recommend.

Ok so for a bit of back story I’ve been using windows since i think 3.1. When i was a kid my dad taught me to use the green screens, and i’ve been using linux off and on since about 2000. Also I’ve rarely used kde.

Umm so wheres the review

Sorry if your expecting stats, screen shots, etc. Its is pretty much nothing more than opinion. Take it as you like, I’m just hoping to share my experience – hopefully helping someone else find their ideal os sooner.

4 machines – similar experiences

I’ve installed opensuse on the 4 machines: a new toshiba core2duo laptop, a p4 (pre ht) dell laptop, an amd x2 hp desktop, and a p4 ht dell desktop.

my experience has been pretty consistent acroos all machines with the following exceptions:

1. There is no audio on the dell laptop. I’m sure this could be fixed, but the dell is more of a toy than something i actually use.
2. Wifi refuses to work during initial setup on the x2. I’ve used both a linksys pci card and belkin usb device. Both are detected, but no signals are detected. As an fyi I’m able to stabily connect to my network from 50-80 (rough estimate )  feet from my place, so there are no signal issues here.
3. Media support can be a bit annoying to get up and running.
4. firefox / internet seems to run slower

now on to detials

Wifi

The wifi support in openSuse is by far awesome, for the most part it puts windows wireless support to same, and of course any and all of my past experiences with wireless on linux.

On the p4 dell I plugged in a wireless card that on ubuntu doesn’t even get reconigzed. Guess what? It worked, no drivers to install, no new device settings, it was up running and displaying my network quickly.

I have yet to have any wireless device not install and display in my connections list. This is a big plus for me as I’ve had bad experiences with wifi on ubuntu.

networking

I have yet to actually setup my network (sorry I’ve been lazy), but as far as getting a basic network setup it’s been no problem.

Theres really nothing to say here other than it works, I haven’t setup myth servers, file servers, etc. I do however have lamp servers running with no issues (disclaimer: I only use centos for development / production lamp servers).

Graphics

You knwo how they say a cool comp won’t help you pick up chicks? Their right, but it sure as hell looks cool when you bring someone over.

Compiz + emerald work damn near flawless. I’m not a gamer so i tend to get your basic video card. I’ve had no issues with eye candy. And to all you mac users: yes my eye candy kicks your eye candy in the arse.

I have the majority of my rendering set to medium levels and only experience lags when recording desktop.

You do not need a top of the line graphics to enjoy good eye candy. Running awn, compiz, and emerald barely taxes any of my systems except the dell p4 laptop which only has 512mb of ram.

Also of note: DUAL SCREEN SUPPORT! yes i know thats in caps, but seriously why can’t everyone handle dual screens like this. I briefly tried ubuntu 8.01 after a few months of 7.10 and honestly opensuse jsut feels more natural to me. Yes i prefer openSuse’s dual screen support to windows.

Eye candy

As already mentioned eye candy is everywhere in openSuse, imho they have the best layouts / designs for the bootscreen, login, everything, etc.

Speed

Fast – that simple, I experience occasional program hangs, and in total 3-4 system hangs, but then again i was messing with stuff.

So compare something already

Here is a list of os and what they do better than opensuse. Understand I’m comparing this way because it’s easier to just point out what another os does better, than to point out everything it does worst.

mint linux : media support, newbie friendly

Seriously I don’t think there’s another distro thats handling media support better than mint linux right now. That said the same support can be installed on openSuse fairly easily.

ubuntu : newbie friendly, media support

mint linux is based on ubuntu, so of course ubuntu is gonna beat openSuse in the same areas. media support is better on mint linux, but again open suse can be setup witht he same media support.

Where i think opensuse loses the majority of its newbie friendly points is yast. Yes yast is powerful, but dependency support is lacking. While ubuntu allows a newer linux user to quickly get a feel, we all know where and when its lacking so I’ll leave that alone. If openSuse improves their package management, denpency support, and loses the one-click installs for something less annoying, imho it will be on par with ubuntu. I should however point out that the stability of packages has not been a problem at all on openSuse as it was on ubuntu.

fedora : nada

I haven’t touched fedora in years, but based on feedback, theres no need to compare. If your looking at fedora look at either ubuntu or openSuse. also does anyone remember when fedora was the centos of linux?

slackware: old school

openSuse is slackware based, but much easier to use. Slackware however has more of the old school linux feel.

centos: anything lamp

centos imho is the only os to host on (well other than rhel). So simply put its better as a lamp envirnoment. Most software is tested on rhel / centos so you’ll have less install issues on centos. Lastly centos has been the most stable hosting os i’ve used. I left ubuntu after 3 days when i tried using it as a hosting envirnoment

rhel: see centos

mandrake linux:

to me openSuse just feels more linuxy – i know thats not a word but hopefully it makes since

closing thoughts

sorry I’m not really big on testing everything, just testing till you find what works best. There are plenty of new and old distros that may work for you. look around, google and ask around. openSuse might not be the best distro for you, but i highly recommend it to everyone. If your a developer that deals with lamp i highly recommend you try openSuse. I’m basing this on the fact that i’m a lamp developer.

That said my ex roommate was a windows network admin, he loved ubuntu, and prob will love opensuse. Speaking of which I should shoot him an email.

elsid Out

LOS ANGELES — Google is experimenting with a new method of distributing original material on the Web, and some Hollywood film financiers are betting millions that the company will succeed.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image

Seth MacFarlane, the 34-year-old creator of “Family Guy.”

In September, Seth MacFarlane, creator of “Family Guy” on television, will unveil a carefully guarded new project called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.” Unlike “Family Guy,” which is broadcast on Fox, this animation series will appear exclusively on the Internet.

The innovative part involves the distribution plan. Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a “Cavalcade” video clip. The content will also be distributed via YouTube.

Advertising – Google and Creator of ‘Family Guy’ Strike a Deal – NYTimes.com