Justin Hayes.com

My apartment

Justin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 07:06:53 +0000

Alright, I'll say right now... this is old news. I moved back around the middle of May. This apartment came up unexpectedly and I was told about it by a friend. The rent seemed pretty reasonable for all the space I was getting, and I like the building. It's not a high-rise apartment, just a 3-story building with a store below.

Full Gallery

Wow, I have been busy

Justin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:58:48 +0000

Ok, sorry, this is a teaser to a series of more posts I'll try to get put up over the course of the week, but I will give out free samples:

1) IRL: Wow... where to begin. I moved into my own apartment by myself, it's quite a different experience. I've been working 5-6 days a week just to cover my expenses, and managed to get promoted to assistant manager in less than a year. Now if I could only get a raise...

2) Server tweaks: Because no server is ever good enough, I've been very busily working on my servers and network infrastructure. Long story short, I've made some major architectural changes to my LAMP stack by replacing Apache's mod_php with PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager).

3) Introducing Connor Behan: My friend has been renting space on my server from me for 2+ years and he only recently got around to actually using it. Lots to share about our adventures with Arch Linux + Lighttpd/PHP-FPM (and some caveats about the latter), and setting up multi-core Apache Solr to serve search queries for two Drupal sites.

4) APT repo and LAMP-related back-ports: I needed to back-port PHP to get PHP-FPM on Lucid, and while I was at it I decided to do the same for Apache, and Lighttpd. And since I went to all that trouble, naturally I needed a repo to house them in.

So, that's what I plan to cover over the week in more detail including how-to's and pictures. Stay tuned.

SNMP monitoring with Zenoss

Justin — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 01:19:16 +0000

Zenoss is a web-based SNMP management/monitoring tool that you can use to track the health of your servers and networking infrastructure. Zenoss comes in two editions, Core and Enterprise. This will be a short how-to on setting up Zenoss Core to monitor your home/lab network with SNMP. I won't go over setting up the various options of Zenoss, I'll let you read about that on their docs.

Start by downloading and installing the appropriate version of Zenoss for your distribution, or a VMware image if you want to go that route. I installed the Zenoss stack on an Ubuntu 10.04 virtual machine.

sudo dpkg -i zenoss-stack_3.1.0_i386.deb

The next thing to do is configure SNMP on all the machines you want to monitor.

Going mobile

Justin — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:38:19 +0000

My cellphone contract came up last month and I was finally eligible to get a free or discounted phone. The obvious choice from the outset was an Android phone, and Telus had two that looked like they would fit the bill. It came down to the HTC Desire and the Motorola Milestone (AKA Droid). I ended up getting the wonderful HTC Desire, my first smartphone, and I wanted to write about how it's changing the way I use the web and communicate. I know I'm late to the party, but who wants to pay $500 for a new phone without a contract when you can get it for $80 + your soul for the next 3 years?

Drupal 7 Beta

Justin — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 18:25:41 +0000

It's been a while since I last checked out Drupal 7, but now that the beta is out (old news) I've taken another look and I was absolutely amazed at everything they've done with it. It's come so far in the last year. I love the new admin overlay and the new theme is almost beautiful enough to keep enabled. It seems like a few staple modules for Drupal 6 have been made obsolete, the default install profile has a lot of useful features included.

With that all being said, I like it so much that I think I will attempt to upgrade this site to the beta as soon as I test everything on a cloned install first. Look forward to another post about how it goes and hopefully an upgrade in the near future.

The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Justin — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 00:20:53 +0000

My life changed pretty significantly starting January this year. My parents announced their impending divorce, my girlfriend of the time broke up with me not long after, my grades in college began to slip... It's been a crazy year to say the least. In the last 6 months I've moved twice, put up with 'temporary' accommodations, and generally felt like my entire life was in flux. I'm glad to say things are finally starting to balance out now. I have moved closer to town where I don't need to rely on others for transportation, and managed to find a job not far away (no small feat in a blue-collar city like Hamilton where the job market has really hit the dumps).

I finally got my servers and other infrastructure online today, as you can see if you're reading this. Not only that, but I've finally gotten a brand-spankin' new server as well. This site is now hosted on a very fast Core 2 Duo 2.93ghz with 2gb of DDR2-800 RAM, and a couple 500gb hard drives. I took the opportunity to also upgrade to the latest long term support release of Ubuntu, 10.04 Lucid Lynx. All-in-all, I'm very impressed with this release. I've had to do barely any manual configuration for any of the services I'm running: Apache 2.2, PHP 5.3, MySQL 5.1 and Tomcat 6 with Apache Solr. Getting Drupal back up to date after months of being offline was quite a chore however...

In conclusion, I am very much still alive, and good things are coming my way. This is a new life, and I don't intend to let things get as bad as they were before this time around.

What I've been up to lately

Justin — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:36:14 +0000

I've been sucked back into EVE Online, which is a massively-multiplayer online sci-fi game. You basically fly big spaceships. In space.

I've been playing this game off and on for almost 5 years now, and for the first time I've joined a player corporation (equivalent of a guild in WoW). I've just completed a website for my corporation, SWARTA (State War Academy Rapid Tactical Assault) using Drupal again. It has forums with strict access control so would-be spies can't view our plans, and will feature galleries and blogs in the future.

Spy Shenanighans

Justin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:04:49 +0000

I created this video of demo footage I took the other night playing Team Fortress 2 as spy. Not my best work by far, but it was fun making it,so I'll be making more with better action :)

Standard definition, high quality

Installing Apache Tomcat 6 and Solr nightly on Ubuntu 8.04

Justin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:30:22 +0000

Getting Solr to play nice with Tomcat on Ubuntu was an interesting journey, I almost gave up entirely at one point. I'm compiling this how-to from tips I got from multiple websites. I'll try to make as complete a list as I can remember at the end of this post.

Screenshot upload script

Justin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:30:21 +0000

I wrote up this script to take a screenshot and upload it to my webserver a while ago and I want to share it, so without further adieu, I give you ShotUp:

#!/bin/bash

## Screenshot Upload script

## by Justin Hayes

## variables

# screen capture delay

DELAY='2'

# screen capture quality

QUALITY='100'

# screen capture output format

OUTPUT='jpg'

# directory

DIR='/tmp'

# timestamp

TIMESTAMP=`date +%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M`

# hostname

HOST=`uname -n`

# remote user

RUSER='justin'

# remote host

RHOST='192.168.1.101'

# remote directory

RDIR='/var/www/justin-hayes.com/web/www/files/screenshots'

# web directory

WEBDIR='http://www.justin-hayes.com/files/screenshots'

## let's get down to business...

scrot -q $QUALITY -d $DELAY $DIR/screenshot_$HOST\_$TIMESTAMP.$OUTPUT

scp $DIR/screenshot_$HOST\_$TIMESTAMP.$OUTPUT $RUSER@$RHOST:$RDIR

firefox $WEBDIR/screenshot_$HOST\_$TIMESTAMP.$OUTPUT

Use the script by placing it in /usr/bin and calling the command shotup in the Gnome run dialog box or equivalent for other display environments. Please note that the upload will only work if you've setup SSH public key authentication.

That does it for me

Justin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:50:06 +0000

Last.fm had always been one of my favourite web services. Indeed, it was the first "social network" I ever joined. I've seen them go through a lot of transformations over the years, from the new website design, to being bought out by CBS, but I've always supported them. I have been a paying subscriber on and off for a while now. But the announcement they made today is just too much for me to bear.

I don't care that there's still plenty for free users to do, I don't care that the subscription cost is affordable, what I do care about though is the fact that it remains free in the three countries that could probably best afford it, while everyone else gets the shaft. Are you telling me there's not enough of an ad market to support free radio for Canadians? Because I'd have to call bullshit on that claim.

I'm sorry last.fm, but this is the last straw. I will not pay for something that has always been free for me, especially since paying subscribers no longer get all the same benefits they used to. Your service is cheap, but it's still not worth the money, so I will not be renewing my subscription until we get our choice back, or you bring more to the table.

Apparently sharing my opinion in an intelligent manner makes me unpopular

Justin — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:38:22 +0000

New Facebook version came out recently and everyone's whining as they always do about it. I decided to share my opinions with one such group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56865947818), and here's their response:

RSS feed should be fixed now

Justin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:04:09 +0000

I've moved my RSS feeds from FeedBurner's old backend to the new one at Google. I know this has caused some problems in the last week with the feed not being available, but everything should be fine again now. Don't worry, you haven't missed anything. I'll have some new stuff to post about soon, promise. I will say now though that I got a new job. More about that at a later date.

Thoughts on faith from Nick

Justin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:43:34 +0000

Ok, I'm kind of cheating here, republishing a comment my friend Nick made on my other friend, Dan's, blog. However, I thought it echoed my own opinions perfectly, so I'm re-posting it here with his permission. All I've edited is his spelling.

The idea of a god bewilders me to no end. The idea of some infinite paradise after death, attainable ONLY through the strict, virtually un-followable guidelines of a book lost in translation a hundred times over makes it impossible for me to believe. bare with me, as I feel like discussing this matter in some detail. *sorry*

First off, God is said to be omnipotent, or otherwise all powerful. I refer you to the omnipotence paradox. For those who are unfamiliar with this, it is as such: Can god create a stone with such mass that even he himself cannot lift it. If not, then he is not omnipotent, for there is something he cannot do. If he can, and is unable to lift said rock, he is again, not omnipotent, as there is again something he is unable to accomplish. My point being here is that god is perceived by most as an all powerful, super-being, which is impossible. it is not possible, nor is it feasible for such an entity to exist. But if you look carefully at society, in this age and any past. Those who question this fact, in almost all cases, are not blinded by religious propaganda, are not force fed misguided views since childhood. Their sense of wonderment is encouraged, instead of stifled, and develop a sense of their surroundings, and the fact that a god has never entered into it.

To quote your sister, Christians, and most other believers certainly do have an answer for everything, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. I have had this experience before. If you ask a Christian to prove to you there is a god, almost every time you will get something along the lines of "read the bible, it's all in there". I have a huge problem with this. The bible has been translated, and re-written so many times, that any other book in existence would have been cast aside as false, yet this book is guiding the lives of millions. Also, if you propose to them the fact that no matter how much you pray, act, call upon, etc.. the "Lord", you will never get a response. Again, the most common response is "thou shalt not tempt the Lord". Basically, no matter what you do, you will never see/hear/smell/touch or otherwise be granted any proof of existence. That is such a blindfolded view of life, it's almost sickening. Believing in a blade of grass makes more sense to me. At least there is physical, spiritual, and any other kind of proof you need of it's existence.

Religions are based on blind-faith, false prophets, and empty promises. You go to church, you are told what to believe, how to act, when to act, what to do, and what not to do. Like sheep you are herded and controlled until you die. Upon that you will realize (technically you wont, as you're dead) that all you have believed your entire life was false.

There is no Heaven, no Hell. No God or Devil, Angels or Demons. They are all perceptions given life by a society unwilling to accept the fact that there isn't a hand guiding them. That there is no guardian angel watching over them. You are alone. The fact that millions of people are unwilling to accept this blatant truth of life is bewildering to me.

I could go on, but I need some sleep.

TaNDy

Justin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:43:16 +0000

TaNDy (Twitter Notification Daemon) is a notification daemon that reports on system status to you via Twitter direct message (DM).

Daily report:

CPU load average
memory load average
disk I/O average
disk usage
up-time

Real-time report:

available updates
process status change (specified)
dramatic load spikes

This page will be updated as I add ideas. It is as yet, vapourware. I repeat, THIS SOFTWARE DOES NOT YET EXIST. I'm just recording ideas and collecting opinions for now.

My Drupal modules

Justin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:31:43 +0000

Just thought I'd share with everyone all the modules I'm making use of here on my site since I've had a few people asking.

List of installed modules below:

Drupal automatic upgrade script

Justin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:41:23 +0000

I got tired of always manually upgrading the necessary files for my Drupal installation and then copying the config back over. So I've automated almost the entire upgrade process with a shell script. All that I must do myself now is put Drupal into maintenance mode.

drupal_upgrade.sh (Don't forget to make it executable: chmod +x drupal_upgrade.sh)

Note: The script assumes that it and the extracted update is in the next directory up from Drupal. Don't forget to set the Drupal directory variable. Also, obligatory "I'm not responsible if you hose you database/Drupal install". TEST THIS SCRIPT IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FIRST.

I did something good!

Justin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:45:41 +0000

I reported a simple bug in Adobe AIR yesterday that concerns opening links and got this response today:

Quote:

Justin
Thanks for reporting this. It has been fixed and will be available in the next public release.
- Ashutosh

Is Drupal right for me?

Justin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:26:29 +0000

If you find yourself asking the above question, I hope to help you find the answer. In this post I'm going to look at what Drupal does well, and what some of it's competitors do better. I will not focus so much on what Drupal does that it's competitors don't do, because if I did, my post would be obsolete within a month. Everyone is emulating Drupal.

Drupal is beastly. I mean that in a literal sense. If you threw Drupal in a pit with all the other content management systems out there, I'm pretty sure Drupal would come out on top. Drupal is a very powerful system, but as Spiderman taught me, with great power, comes great responsibility. What I mean is, if you can't or are unwilling to put the time in to learn the ins and outs of Drupal, you probably won't be very impressed with what is otherwise an excellent piece of software.

So why would you choose it? Read on to find out...

Comment RSS feeds for everyone!

Justin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:20:10 +0000

I went and installed the Comment RSS module so you can all enjoy subscriptions to active comment feeds. I'm sure those following my religious debates will appreciate it.

If you don't know what RSS is, don't worry about it. You probably won't think you're missing much.