I’m used to using ‘slapt-get –search foobar’ in Slackware, and was curious how to do it in debian…
apt-cache search foobar
This is quite useful on our new Blades.
Many places use webDAV technology to allow outside people into their file systems. PSU started to implement this type of access to student files in 2004/2005. We have the possibility to do it as well if so choose — and could provide useful for people traveling. They wouldn’t even need their own computer, since it runs over http
http://davenport.sourceforge.net/
I just had to sludge through getting SSL working on the new HUNAN box, and found a pretty good guide for setting it up. Here it is for my personal record.
VPN Starter is a extremley simple dashboard widget for OSX used to connect to Cisco VPNs. Note the huge red button graphic that is impossible to not understand. This is my holy grail for end-user VPN connection programs.
Here’s a tip for Firefox. An extension called BugMeNot enables you to right click on “general” forms and say “Login with BugMeNot.” Firefox will call the BugMeNot extension which looks up in an external database login information. For instance, www.nytimes.com requires a login, which is a great place to test it out.
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/bugmenot
With all the little intraweb apps we seem to be tacking on lately, I think we should develop some basic guidelines or a css style sheet of what the default colors, fonts, etc we should use. Otherwise, I think the user experience for these programs won’t be optimal, as each app will feel unfamiliar and users will resist using them, because it seems like ‘another thing to learn.’
Thems my thoughts.
Scuttle is del.icio.us style social bookmark sharing. When you want to add a bookmark, you get a little button in your browser to bookmark a site with, and your bookmark appears in the shared pool. The key to this is you can add a ‘tag’ to your bookmark, so you can look at sites via tag category.
The cool thing is it’s open source, so you can host your own copy of it. I’m thinking this might be another way to crack collected knowledge free from it’s individual keepers, and distribute it throughout the organization. Also, it’s just a good way to cut down on email, no more: “Did you get the link I emailed?” type situations.
A developer just showed me an interesting framework to produce python-backed sites VERY quickly. This is mainly for you Ian, it natively supports AJAX as well. Here’s the link:
http://www.turbogears.org/
I watched the demo, pretty interesting.
In addition to a bouncing off point, I really want to see start.yjusa.com become an aggregator of useful information; a dashboard for the info you need in the company.
The trick to this is RSS. If we can assemble valid RSS feeds from important data sets, it’s easy enough to pump those into the intraweb homepage, and allows uers to turn on & off what they want to see.
As a first step, I am really intersted in integrating the updates RSS feed from yjusa.grouphub.com into start.yjusa.com. I found the Magpie PHP RSS Library which can be used to do this, though there are probably other PHP RSS libraries out there (the tricky thing about that feed is it requires SSL authentication, which Magpie supports).
I am thinking once Compiere is up and in use, we can periodically have a script that taps into it’s database connection, downloads intersting data, and coverts it into RSS feeds. Then users can decide if they want to subscribe to the “Todays Orders” feed or whatever we dream up.
The only trick to this is that we would need one consistent login scheme, with a cookie to remember the user’s login. I guess this is the first step.
Thoughts?
I have a feeling we will shortly be deploying many Linux servers to perform certain actions. Maybe we will implement Asterisk to be used as a VoIP interchange between locations, maybe the backup servers will be Linux based, maybe the BDCs.
One thing that could speed up implementation at remote sites is to build live cds for certain purposes. For instance, on the file server in PDX to keep updated live cds for certain projects. Like, a BDC live cd or a backup live cd. Already setup with the most current packages (or scripts to fetch+install them). So when we get to the site we just put the CD in, click or type “load” and poof, the server is installed and configured.
These links (haven’t read all of the process) may be helpful:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7233
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_build_a_LiveCD_from_scratch