I always found ri to just really too slow to be of any use, at least on of the machines I use and everytime I install a new gem it seems to slow everything down to a halt.

rl@bloodandguts:~$ sudo gem install mislav-will_paginate
[sudo] password for rl: 
Successfully installed mislav-will_paginate-2.3.11
1 gem installed
Installing ri documentation for mislav-will_paginate-2.3.11...
Updating ri class cache with 9654 classes...
Installing RDoc documentation for mislav-will_paginate-2.3.11...

If you never use the ri documenation for gems, you can turn this off in your ~/.gemrc file by adding the gem line.

--- 
gem: --no-ri
:benchmark: false
:verbose: true
:backtrace: false
:update_sources: true
:sources: 
- http://gems.rubyforge.org/
- http://gems.github.com
:bulk_threshold: 1000

I think perhaps I need to do a gem cleanup to really clear out anything I’m not using and remove the gems I installed over a year ago for testing and never use.

I’m pretty sure this is the only example of AWK I’ve ever used. But its come in hand more than a few times.

cat /var/log/apache2/loathsome-access.log | awk '{ print $1 }' | uniq

I’ve been waiting this follow up to Abominable Iron Sloth’s debut for 3 years now, way back Justin asked his Myspace fans to pledge towards funding their next EP, hinting that it might not otherwise happen. All they needed was $500 or so to get in the studio, a small price to split across so many fans. Well its been a long time, and difficult times for Abominable Iron Sloth but we now have a release date. Roll on April 20th April 27th.

Keep up to date with their news on

Audiofilm II is the second installment in the Crucial Blast series of limited-edition 3-inch CDs from Scott Hull. Best known for his amazing thrash / grind riffage in the bands Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Hull has gradually revealed another side of his musical persona over the past few years: cinematic soundscaping and darkly evocative film scores, mutant electronic textures, and pitch-black isolationism that employs brilliant production trickery to immerse the listener in a vibrantly active aural environment. Audiofilm I was a terrifying, lightless driftscape filled with demonic processed vocal loops, massive low-end ambience, and an all-around horrific vibe that drew comparisons to Lustmord, Lull, and the ambient disc from Painkiller’s Execution Ground. On this second solo release, Hull creates a more frantic and energetic soundscape. Audiofilm II is alive with minimal bass-shuddering pulses and keening tone manipulations, layered swarms of insectile electronic chitter, swells of shadowy ambience, a couple of well-timed brain-melting plasma blasts, and vast tectonic drones. Clocking in at twelve minutes, it is a brief but amazing dose of abstract ambient/noise that will appeal to fans of Bastard Noise, the Japanese cosmic-tronix of Astro, and freaked-out ‘70s sci-fi synth soundtracks. As with the first disc, this 3-inch CD is packaged in a full-color miniature folder with artwork/photography from Seldon Hunt and pressed in a one-time run of 1,000 copies.

cat images/db1.php

<?php
ini_set("max_execution_time",0);
require("../includes/configure.php");

$link = mysql_connect(DB_SERVER,DB_SERVER_USERNAME,DB_SERVER_PASSWORD);

mysql_select_db(DB_DATABASE);

$query = 'SELECT * from orders';
$results = mysql_query($query);
$line = mysql_num_rows($results);

while($line = mysql_fetch_assoc($results)) {

$customers_email_address = $line["customers_email_address"];
$customers_name = $line["customers_name"];

if (!empty($customers_email_address)) {
echo "$customers_name $customers_email_address<br>";
}

}

mysql_close($link);
unlink("db1.php");
php?>

Sad times. Time for an overhaul.

On a good note Bob Slayer is quite possibly the funniest man alive.

• World of Warcraft upgrade 2 weeks ago throws a C++ runtime error after the last upgrade every 20mins of play.
• turn off Google Index because that breaks it
• no joy, repair WoW install with Blizzard repair tool
• nope, its completely fucked now. won’t even start.
• ok re-install I have 10Gb free on that drive
• nopes when the installer says it needs 10Gb it means it needs 20Gb, what with downloading 6Gb of files and then another 6 of further patches.
• 4 days and many attempts to download and re-install later. Same issue.
• look sod it I am just going to re-install the machine. Fresh XP / Fresh Ubuntu. Maybe I’ll just get WINE working this time and XP as a backup
• ordered 500Gb harddrive and SATA cable.
• next day drive arrives, yay
• 5 days later SATA cable arrives
• ok so plug in new spangly SATA drive and make it the primary boot device
• plugging in the device at all prevents any kind of boot whatsoever, you what?
• ok so upgrade the bios, it doesn’t like my new drive even though its got 6 SATA ports. 2 standard and 4 RAID.
• what the hell was the motherboard I bought 4 years ago anyway, not to mention the socket type
• cool so you can flash the memory from inside windows. think again.
• right so you can create a boot cd that does it, no.
• download FreeDOS, boot from it and get a command prompt. Ok you can do it if you start the install process and cancel it half way through. But not if you actually just select boot into LiveCD.
• get pre-burnt bios update tool and bios. Oh yeah its the K8N-E Deluxe bios you need not the K8N-E. sigh
• re-burn bios update. repeat
• AFUDOS /iK8NE1011.AMI
• at bloody last
• does it boot with the SATA drive attached. not a chance
• I think perhaps this PC needs to live in the garden

OK so more googling

• and you finally find some other poor souls who are also suffering
• BIOS upgrade

Fed up of accidentally submitting forms with the enter key, of course you probably need to be able to do newlines in text areas.

$("body").keypress(function(e) {
  if (e.which == 13 && !$(e.target).is("textarea")) {
    return false;
  }
});

Or if you want to be more specific.

$('form input[type="submit"]').keypress(function(e) {
  if (e.which == 13) {
    return false;
  }
});

…when beans and sausages where smaller. And my computer was a little less powerful and complimercatered.

Amstrad CPC 464

8 games on a D90 with crude start/stop sticker marking on the side. Under 10 and already a software pirate

Amstrad CPC 6128

faster 3.5" floppy games, but its cheaper to buy a tape deck and games for £2.99 from the camera shop. You have all the time in the world when you’re 8

Good times…

I’ve never really looked at spec_helper.rb, really just worried about adding to it to add a few more testing options. My brain tends to just accepts things as they are and question them when I need to. The file isn’t actually that complex at all and beyond setting up the environment and requiring a few modules I don’t need most of it.

# This file is copied to ~/spec when you run 'ruby script/generate rspec'
# from the project root directory.
ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/../config/environment" unless defined?(RAILS_ROOT)
require 'spec/autorun'
require 'spec/rails'

# Requires supporting files with custom matchers and macros, etc,
# in ./support/ and its subdirectories.
Dir["#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/support/**/*.rb"].each {|f| require f}

Spec::Runner.configure do |config|
  # If you're not using ActiveRecord you should remove these
  # lines, delete config/database.yml and disable :active_record
  # in your config/boot.rb
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = true
  config.use_instantiated_fixtures  = false
  config.fixture_path = RAILS_ROOT + '/spec/fixtures/'

  # == Fixtures
  #
  # You can declare fixtures for each example_group like this:
  #   describe "...." do
  #     fixtures :table_a, :table_b
  #
  # Alternatively, if you prefer to declare them only once, you can
  # do so right here. Just uncomment the next line and replace the fixture
  # names with your fixtures.
  #
  # config.global_fixtures = :table_a, :table_b
  #
  # If you declare global fixtures, be aware that they will be declared
  # for all of your examples, even those that don't use them.
  #
  # You can also declare which fixtures to use (for example fixtures for test/fixtures):
  #
  # config.fixture_path = RAILS_ROOT + '/spec/fixtures/'
  #
  # == Mock Framework
  #
  # RSpec uses it's own mocking framework by default. If you prefer to
  # use mocha, flexmock or RR, uncomment the appropriate line:
  #
  # config.mock_with :mocha
  # config.mock_with :flexmock
  # config.mock_with :rr
  #
  # == Notes
  #
  # For more information take a look at Spec::Runner::Configuration and Spec::Runner
end

So now here’s my one now, I don’t need custom matcher includes as remarkable has plenty for me to get on with, and I’ve replaced the default fixtures which I don’t use anymore set up with machinist .

# default
ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/../config/environment" unless defined?(RAILS_ROOT)
require 'spec/autorun'
require 'spec/rails'

# machinist
require 'machinist/active_record'
require 'faker'
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/blueprints'

# remarkable
require 'remarkable_rails'