Sugus » computers

Other (probably intelligent) wordpress plugins to install

Pedro Assuncao — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:24:36 +0000

Following up on my post about RAM (or lack of it), i decided to install a proper wordpress plugin to cache most of the stuff in static HTML files. It’s called WP-SuperCache and i’m hoping it’s really super

But now i cannot but wonder if i shouldn’t – somehow – find a way to have nginx serving these static files instead of passing the request to apache. I’m already caching static JS, CSS, and image files with nginx, so that would probably make sense.

In other news, installed a plugin that serves a different Wordpress theme for mobile phones. It’s called wordpress-mobile-edition, in case you are interested.

Lack of RAM will kill your blog host virtual machine

Pedro Assuncao — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:39:39 +0000

I know what you are thinking: “Well, duh Pedro, how come you didn’t know that?”.

I’ll explain: Recently i started having some service shortages on my blog. From times to times the CPU usage would just go rooftop and then nginx and apache both stopped serving requests. I am using Linode as my host, where i have a nice virtual machine (or node, as they call it) with some reasonable values in terms of CPU and bandwidth monthly usage. The weakest link was the RAM; it only had 386Mb.

A while back i developed Jumperr.com and i figured “hey, i already have the node, so i’ll just host it there”. Some time after deploying jumperr, i started noticing these shortages coming up maybe once a month, or every two weeks (i notice the pattern now, not then ). At some point i even considered switching hosts (to slicehost, for example), but i never thought that memory could be the problem (after all they are not that accessed anyways). Looking at the system logs i just could not figure out what made the machine stop working just like that.

About one month ago, i decided to develop a stupid website that allows you to bomb countries using a Google maps interface. And then, surprise, the shortages became more and more frequent (sometimes 4 per day!). In one of these fails i decided to try to login to the node using Linode’s ajax ssh interface on their dashboard. And that’s when i saw it: a bunch of “out of memory” errors right on the boot list. Since when you connect normally via SSH you don’t see the prompt on the remote end, i never saw these before.

So there you go, lesson learned. If it spikes, chances are you are out of memory

By the way, if you are a proper Linux/Unix admin, was there a log that might contain those errors that i missed?

Video speed controls on youtube’s HTML5 player

Pedro Assuncao — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:12:44 +0000

I don’t know if you noticed, but youtube introduced speed controls to their HTML5 video player. I have no idea if it was there from the beginning, actually, but it’s a really cool feature indeed

The quest for a simple music player on mac OSX

Pedro Assuncao — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:11:41 +0000

I have to say this: looking for a simple music player for OSX is like searching for a needle in the middle of lots of big sticks; it should be easy, except the needle is under the carpet.

Nevertheless, between trying out iTunes, Songbird, and a few other options, i have always felt like there should be something, you know, simple and memory efficient. Don’t get me wrong, i love the interface on iTunes. And i do love what the guys at songbird are trying to accomplish. But the fact remains: I want a music player for OSX that does not freeze whenever i task-switch back to it. This happens on a 4GB ram macbook pro with both iTunes and Songbird!

So, a lot of google queries later, i came across Cog. It’s a very minimalistic music player that does one thing: it plays music. No multiple playlists, no plugins, no fuzz, it plays music. Period.

Time will tell if i’ll stick to it or miss something, but so far so good.

If anyone knows a better one, please let me know

Bomb This Country

Pedro Assuncao — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:08:15 +0000

After an awesome Japanese dinner with my good friend Luizzz, we came to the conclusion that the website that was missing was one where you could bomb any country in the world. The motivation for this was part statistical curiosity and part plain bastardness (did i just make up another word?).

So over the course of about 8 hours – the next day – we came up with bombthiscountry.com, a meaningless website where you can bomb any country in the world (yes, China, Tibet is a country). If you follow it on twitter you get daily statistics on the most bombed countries in the world.

Can’t touch this (iphone) nah, nah nah nah

Pedro Assuncao — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:10:52 +0000

Ok, this is so freaking hilarious that i cannot help it but sharing. It seems that, when faced with the impossibility of using their iPhones with gloves on, some Koreans have started using miniature sausages (yes, sausages) for that effect. It seems that the composition of the sausage is similar enough to a human finger for the touch screen to work.

I wonder what someone in the 80s would say if you told them that – in the future – people will use sausages as a way to interact with computers…

Note to urban dictionary admins

Pedro Assuncao — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:25:58 +0000

After an interesting discussion with some co-workers about having people breathing down your neck, i figured i should coin the term “neck-breather” in the famous urban dictionary.

The reply came instantly saying that an editor would take a look at the new entry and that – if acceptable – it would be added to the website. A couple of hours later i got an email saying that the term had been accepted. The email said something along these lines: “We have accepted your term. It should appear on this page in the next few days: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Neck-breather.

Is it me or the human part of this process should be the lengthier one? Why does it take a couple of days for something that has been approved to appear? Is the connection to the DB that slow?

Pair programming

Pedro Assuncao — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:42:57 +0000

I recently came across an article entitled “Pair programming works“. To be honest, the first thing that crossed my mind was that this would be a cartoon mocking the concept.

Fortunately, i was wrong as the article gives very compelling arguments on why “Pair programming” has a lot of benefits, both to the employer as well as the employees that are involved. Some of them include:

People talk while pair programming. And that really helps when you get stuck in some problem. It’s basically that effect you get when you describe your problem to another person and suddenly the solution hits you. By talking, you get out of it faster.
You notice more details. Two pairs of eyes are better than one and, since people usually think differently, two people will be able to pick up different types of details, which will make them much more effective at writing quality code than just one person.
Helps you understand who in your team is an expert on which areas. And as you go along pair programming with others you too will find out in which areas you are best.

If you have the time, give it a reading.

Things i wanted in Apple’s iPad (tablet)

Pedro Assuncao — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:08:51 +0000

Cool as it may be, i cannot but feel disappointed with Apple’s newest unveiling – the iPad:

No camera – Really? In this day and age of videoconferencing?!? What are you guys thinking?
No GPS – It does have assisted (wifi/3G) GPS but it’s not quite the same, is it? Especially when you don’t have wifi or 3G available;
No magical, shiny, new multi-touch UI paradigm – Maybe i was affected too much by the hype that has been created around it but i like to be surprised. And i have to say i wasn’t. Apart from the changes to the iWork suite to make it usable on a touch screen there is nothing really awesome about it;
No multitasking – No comments there. I wonder if it has copy & paste?
No phone calls (and SMS’s) – Has 3G but you cannot make phone calls or send messages? Doesn’t make sense to me;
64 GBs is really not enough for what you are going to want to carry around in it.

Now things that i *do* like in the iPad, so that this is not a bashing post:

It looks like the mockups that drifted on the internet before. And those looked cool;
The iBook application and store. As long as they support free/open PDF files;
Seems to be powerful enough to play basic 3D games (quake II – like);
Battery life is really nice. 10 hours for normal usage and up to 1 month in stand-by mode;
The price was a nice surprise. I always said that they would compete with netbooks’ prices and apparently i was not mistaken;
I love the keyboard dock and also the hard cover that changes into stand. Really clever!

That being said, i believe this is nothing more than a big iPod touch (not even an iPhone, since you cannot make phone calls) and will not deserve my $499 this time.

Some Apple tablet features

Pedro Assuncao — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:26:30 +0000

Jason Calacanis apparently had access to the Apple table 10 days ago. If you take a look at his status update feed on twiter, you find really interesting reports about the table, namely:

It will have an “ebook reader” mode that saves a lot of battery time;
Battery life for gaming/wifi is around 2/3 hours;
He hints that people will be able to play first person shooters on this thing, the specs must be awesome;
Will have 2 cameras. One that shoots what is in front of you, another shoots you;
Solar power pad in the back for recharging;
OLED screen;
At&T AND Verizon contracts available, probably;
Thumbpads on each side for gestures. Reads fingerprints for security;
Builtin HDTV tuner;
The price will be 599, 699 and 799 depending on size and memory;

If his tweets are accurate, then we have an awesome device coming up indeed