isaac on the inkrunway

Hudson and Parameters (Choices)

Isaac — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:27:17 +0000

So i found this little tidbit while hunting something else, but i was suprised because i thought the only way you can use choices in Hudson was to read them as env vars from an invoked script.

If you make your build parameterized and say, add a choice called “Database”, you can refer to it in your build steps like this: ${ENV,var=”DATABASE”}

I write these posts with the hope google snags them and next time some other frustrated SCM / Builder is googling they find them.

ReelDirector for iPhone

Isaac — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 20:59:45 +0000

I love this little app. what was totally unclear to me was how to import music. When i first downloaded it, that section just seemed to say “Add via Wifi” or iTunes. While I can’t show you the iTunes section, you’ll have to trust me, that after you sync the first time, in the Apps section (the tab of Apps when you pick your device – the place where you would select to add/remove or re-arrange icons), the bottom half has a sync-to-apps section which includes ReelDirector and you can just pick a file.. then when you launch reeldirector (cable still attached) and choose import, it starts sucking them over.

As for wifi syncing, you need to be on the same network. Here my iPhone and laptop are on the same wifi. You can see what the web page looks like and the phone (which told me the URL):

Maven release plugin issues with subversion

Isaac — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:33:43 +0000

I kept trying to run a build using maven’s release plugin but it kept failing:

command output:

svn: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: OPTIONS request failed on ‘/svn-build/source/branches/training-system/idot-training’
svn: OPTIONS of ‘/svn-build/source/branches/training-system/idot-training’: authorization failed (http://svn)

at org.apache.maven.plugins.release.PrepareReleaseMojo.execute(PrepareReleaseMojo.java:132)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:451)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:558)
… 16 more

I knew i checked out the directory right, using MYUSER and MYPASS (svn –username MYUSER –password MYPASS http://svn/blah/blah).

I had the right user/pass in the passed in parameters:

mvn -e -Dusername=MYUSER -Dpassword=MYPASS –settings /home/maven/settings-training.xml –batch-mode release:prepare -DpreparationGoals=”clean” -Dtag=training-2-7-7-0 -DtagBase=http://svn/svn-build/source/tags -DreleaseVersion=2.7.7.0 -DdevVersion=2.7.8.0

Apache’s error log kept complaining “password mismatch” and “user SOMEOTHERUSER not found”.

Ended up that the release plugin definition in the pom.xml was NOT being overridden by the parameters. username, being different than user was taking, but password must have been using the password from the file, not command line. AND because no mention of “svn” is in that section, my persistant searches weren’t find it.

Here is the section i needed to find and change:

 XML |   copy code | ?  
01 >
02 >
03 >
04  >org.apache.maven.plugins>
05  >maven-release-plugin>
06         			>
07      			>${releaseVersion}>
08              			>${devVersion}>
09      			>false>
10      			>BADUSERNAME>
11 >BADPASS>
12  >
13     >
14          >
15      >

org.apache.maven.plugins

maven-release-plugin

${releaseVersion}

${devVersion}

false

smoke

Here is the

Sending large files

Isaac — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:46:49 +0000

good cnet article; http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20000133-248.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Isaac — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:08:48 +0000

I’ve been working on a perl based Jira SOAP perl script to add versions to a project. thought i would share

 Perl |   copy code | ?  
01 #!/usr/bin/perl
02 use SOAP::Lite;
03  
04 my $username = "ijohnson";
05 my $password = 'password';
06  
07 #this took a bit.  the ID i know is 10000
08 #so i kept trying to push that, but it wants the short textual name (for the QA group here it's TEST)
09 #e.g. http://10.10.10.172:8080/jira/browse/TEST
10 my $projectNum = "TEST"; #10000
11  
12 #for reference, jira is exposed like http://10.10.10.172:8080/jira/secure/Dashboard.jspa
13 my $soap = SOAP::Lite->proxy("http://10.10.10.172:8080/jira/rpc/soap/jirasoapservice-v2?wsdl");
14  
15 my $auth = $soap->login(
16 SOAP::Data->type(string => $username),
17 SOAP::Data->type(string => $password)
18 );
19  
20 #Example one (releaseDate is optional).
21 my %versionInfo = ( 'name' => '2.7.37.11',
22 'releaseDate' => "2010-03-02T00:00:00.000Z");
23 my $newVersion = $soap->addVersion($auth->result(),
24 $projectNum,
25 \%versionInfo);
26  
27 #Example two
28  
29 # note:
30 # releaseDate => SOAP::Data->type(string => "2010-03-02T00:00:01.000Z"),
31 # didnt work, someone can probably fix this example.  works without releaseDate though
32 my $versionInfo2 = {
33 name => SOAP::Data->type(string => "2.7.37.12"),
34 };
35 my $newVersion = $soap->addVersion($auth->result(),
36 $projectNum,
37 $versionInfo2);
38  
39 #example three
40 my $vName = "2.7.37.13";
41 my $rDate = "2010-03-02T00:00:03.000Z";
42  
43 my $newVersion = $soap->addVersion($auth->result(),
44 $projectNum,
45 SOAP::Data->type(
46 versionInfo => {
47 name => $vName,
48 releaseDate => $rDate
49 },
50 )
51 );
52  
53 exit 0;

Legion, Book of Eli

Isaac — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:15:04 +0000

during our trip thus far Anna and I have seen two theligically rooted action movies; Legion and Book of Eli. Legion is a pseudo-end-of-days movie set in the desert. while it uses some Christian concepts, it’s mostly just a brainless zombie movie. we were both rather bored and by the end, laughing at it’s dumb plot line.

Book of Eli is a post-apocolyptical western, so devoid of color it’s almost a black and white. The acting on a whole was good and the concept well thought out. I didn’t see what was coming in many instances. we didn’t see the end coming. the role of solara was weak but other than that, a good matinee worthy flick.

First time settings up Wordpress with Ubuntu

Isaac — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:25:03 +0000

if you follow the instructions to the T with ubuntu 9.10 you get a damn “cannot connect to database” error when you go to localhost/wordpress. To solve it open /etc/wordpress/config-localhost.php and get your temp password (e.g. ABCD1234)
then log into mysql with mysql -u root -p and type your password. when you get the mysql> prompt, set the password:
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR ‘wordpress’@'localhost’ = OLD_PASSWORD(’ABCD1234′);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

it should be fixed

Good for Google

Isaac — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:31:09 +0000

I’ve had this conversation a few times now with people in different businesses but all have experienced trying to outsource to China: It doesn’t work. It’s this bizarre Emporer-has-no-clothes scenerio; everyone on the ground knows it and only now is management getting it. Google finally stepped out, pointed and shouted “hey, they’re phony”.

I’ve worked at a few companies, not a lot, but a few; those that do PDM/PLM to Biotech to Medical Devices, always in SCM which means I always have to interface with remote developers; including offshore ones. Indian developers have some problems, but really, if you integrate them as equals, just remote, they perform quite well. My best collegues (and bosses) have been Indian (though highly American-ized). I have had some very positive experiences there and personally found that if you pay them right (you get what you pay for), you get really dedicated people.

Now China is completely different… it’s like the wild west. At one employer i worked at, the China QA had been failing … they had 4 times the people (they offshored QA for the same price… getting 4 times as many people) but bugs, really nasty showstoppers, were getting through over and over and delaying the release. Their computer network, despite being pretty built up, was slower than molasses. Eventually two of the best people on our team; one architect one manager were put in charge.

After about a month and a visit out there, the architect pulled me aside one day.
“This is political, understand” he cautioned. “They just surf and download movies and music all day. Nothing gets done. I walked around casually and could see bittorrent running on all their machines”. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t get a turn around. And I didn’t understand the politics but there is something unusual with the doing business in China; maybe it’s payoffs or something else. But when I read Google had their IP stolen, it didn’t surprise me in the least.

The guy i mentioned eventually got canned; no manager wants to own the problem of their cheap offshore team failing and needing to hire back local QA, but the tide is changing. I’m now hearing stories from various collegues about software companies pulling back on China; either stopping growth or moving back to Singapore and India.

Hopefully Google’s sounding bell will free other companies to step forward and admit what everyone knows: China is not good for offshoring technology development. You can spin it any way you like, but a culture lead from the top not to respect IP and allows piracy will also see piracy pervade legitimate enterprise.

JIRA SVN plugin configuration with WebSVN 2.x

Isaac — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:44:44 +0000

#———————————
# WebClient for SVN (2.0)
#———————————
linkformat.changeset=http://svn.mycompany.net/websvn-2.2.1/revision.php?repname=source&location=/&rev=${rev}
linkformat.file.added=http://svn.mycompany.net/websvn-2.2.1/filedetails.php?repname=source&path=${path}&rev=${rev}
linkformat.file.modified=http://svn.mycompany.net/websvn-2.2.1/diff.php?repname=source&path=${path}&rev=${rev}&sc=0
linkformat.file.replaced=http://svn.mycompany.net/websvn-2.2.1/filedetails.php?repname=source&path=${path}&rev=${rev-1}&sc=0
linkformat.file.deleted=http://svn.mycompany.net/websvn-2.2.1/filedetails.php?repname=source&path=${path}&rev=${rev-1}&sc=0
linkformat.copyfrom=http://svn.mycompany.net/websvn-2.2.1/filedetails.php?repname=source&path=${path}&rev=${rev-1}&sc=0

FTP sharing in Mac OS X; Permission Denied

Isaac — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:10:14 +0000

I went to the sharing control panel and chose the 3rd checkbox for “File Sharing” and then “Share files and folders using FTP”. I then logged into the remote linux box and did an FTP back “ftp 10.10.10.10″ where 10.10.10.10 is my IP… i used my username i log into the mac with (not the linux server) and password. then i did a “put /opt/mydumpfile” but it kept saying “Permission Denied”.. I was thinking i somehow hosed a permission… long story short.. you need to specify both FROM and TO when using PUT with Mac OS X FTP.. when i changed the command to “put /opt/mydumpfile mydumpfile” then it worked like a champ.

01	>
02	>
03	>
04	>org.apache.maven.plugins>
05	>maven-release-plugin>
06	>
07	>${releaseVersion}>
08	>${devVersion}>
09	>false>
10	>BADUSERNAME>
11	>BADPASS>
12	>
13	>
14	>
15	>

01	#!/usr/bin/perl
02	use SOAP::Lite;
03
04	my $username = "ijohnson";
05	my $password = 'password';
06
07	#this took a bit. the ID i know is 10000
08	#so i kept trying to push that, but it wants the short textual name (for the QA group here it's TEST)
09	#e.g. http://10.10.10.172:8080/jira/browse/TEST
10	my $projectNum = "TEST"; #10000
11
12	#for reference, jira is exposed like http://10.10.10.172:8080/jira/secure/Dashboard.jspa
13	my $soap = SOAP::Lite->proxy("http://10.10.10.172:8080/jira/rpc/soap/jirasoapservice-v2?wsdl");
14
15	my $auth = $soap->login(
16	SOAP::Data->type(string => $username),
17	SOAP::Data->type(string => $password)
18	);
19
20	#Example one (releaseDate is optional).
21	my %versionInfo = ( 'name' => '2.7.37.11',
22	'releaseDate' => "2010-03-02T00:00:00.000Z");
23	my $newVersion = $soap->addVersion($auth->result(),
24	$projectNum,
25	\%versionInfo);
26
27	#Example two
28
29	# note:
30	# releaseDate => SOAP::Data->type(string => "2010-03-02T00:00:01.000Z"),
31	# didnt work, someone can probably fix this example. works without releaseDate though
32	my $versionInfo2 = {
33	name => SOAP::Data->type(string => "2.7.37.12"),
34	};
35	my $newVersion = $soap->addVersion($auth->result(),
36	$projectNum,
37	$versionInfo2);
38
39	#example three
40	my $vName = "2.7.37.13";
41	my $rDate = "2010-03-02T00:00:03.000Z";
42
43	my $newVersion = $soap->addVersion($auth->result(),
44	$projectNum,
45	SOAP::Data->type(
46	versionInfo => {
47	name => $vName,
48	releaseDate => $rDate
49	},
50	)
51	);
52
53	exit 0;