Contrary to these other virtualization tools, there is nothing in VirtualBox’ GUI to do this. Fortunately, you can use 2 tools to achieve the same goal…

First, you need to download SDelete from Microsoft and run it in the VM:

sdelete -c

Now stop the VM and compact the disk:

VBoxManage modifyhd blah.vdi --compact

That’s it, your disk is now compacted and you have probably gained a couple of GB!

Today I received an e-mail telling me that my N900 would probably be delivered mid-February. That would be almost 3 months since I paid and of course you don’t get any money back on the price drop that occurs during this period…how screwed is that? It wasn’t even a pre-order, the N900 was “available”. Nokia, if you can’t deliver a product to your customers, fucking don’t sell it if you have no stock! I’m so fed up of these lousy business practices.

Nokia are not the only to blame, nVidia and ATI behave exactly the same when they launch new lines of graphic cards. Whose fault is it? The marketing guys? I honestly don’t see how generating hype on a product and not delivering it for months will help you. All you gain are angry customers who lost money on pre-orders and all the buzz effect is gone once the product really hits the streets. Great job!

On the other hand you have Apple, they have a sense on how to deliver products to the market. When a product is announced, it’s available. Guess what? They are doing fine.

This is not very practical if you have big databases and need to restore only a part of them…So I searched for a way to backup every database to separate files. The process is quite simple with a little scripting:

• Find a way to list all databases
• For each database, dump it to a file using mysqldump

I quickly found a blogpost from 2005 about that, but it was a bit outdated and not accurate anymore for MySQL 5.1. So here is an updated version, I hope it helps and saves time to someone:

#!/bin/bash
# This script backups every MySQL database to its own file

#Some variables you can set how you like
USER=’root’
PASSWORD=’mypassword’
OUTPUTDIR=’/root/backup’
MYSQLDUMP=’/usr/bin/mysqldump’
MYSQL=’/usr/bin/mysql’

#Clean up any old backups
rm -f $OUTPUTDIR/*

#Get a list of databases names except the system one
databases=`$MYSQL –user=$USER –password=$PASSWORD -e ‘SHOW DATABASES;’ | grep -Ev ‘(Database|information_schema)’`

#Dump each database in turn and compress the output
for db in $databases; do
$MYSQLDUMP –opt –hex-blob –force –user=$USER –password=$PASSWORD $db | gzip > $OUTPUTDIR/$db.gz
done

PS: WordPress seems to replace double dashes (- -) with a single one (-) in the code, so just be aware of that.

I also strongly advise you to use the –hex-blob option for mysqldump if you have any blobs (binary files like executables, images…) in your database, otherwise you may end up with an un-restorable database, even if the backup process went well.

RT also has a notion of priority levels for tickets, ranging from 0 to 100 and it supports scripting to automate some tasks. RT does a lot of things actually, but it’s a bit of a scary beast at first, with a not-so-clear documentation.

One need we have at my company is to be able to automatically send SMS notifications to some people when tickets with certain priority levels are filed in a certain queue, or when a ticket is escalated from a low to a medium/high priority.

Not knowing the RT Scrip language (yes, the call scripts scrip), it took my a couple of hours to figure out and test a working solution to handle this case. To avoid a waste of time to other people, here is a working solution…note that I’m using the RT 3.8 branch.

Step 1: chose an SMTP to SMS provider

To be able to send SMS messages, you obviously need some kind of gateway between the e-mail RT is able to send and your mobile phone. Many companies are offering SMTP to SMS services…I use Clickatell but you can use whoever you want by mildly tweaking the following steps.

Step 2: configure a Template in RT

This Template contains what you will see in the SMS message (the “text:” parts) as well as specific information needed to authenticate to the Clickatell SMS gateway. All “to:” lines are phone numbers to send the SMS to.

Configuration > Global > Templates > New
Name: SMS-XXX-Queue
Description: SMS template for the XXX queue
Content:
To: sms@messaging.clickatell.com

user:<you clickatell username>
password:<you clickatell password>
api_id:<you clickatell API ID>
to:xxxxxxxxxx
to:xxxxxxxxxx
text:Medium/High priority ticket filed!
text:{$Ticket->QueueObj->Name}: {$Ticket->Subject}
text:URL: {$RT::WebURL}Ticket/Display.html?id={$Ticket->id}

Step 3: configure a Scrip in RT to send the SMS using the Template

I’m having 3 priority levels here, 0 (Low), 50 (Medium) and 100 (High). This Scrip sends an SMS as soon as a 50 or 100 priority level ticket is filed or escalated to, it also nicely handles transitions between states. The “XXX” corresponds to the RT queue name you wish the Scrip to apply to.

Configuration > Global > Scrips > New
Description: SMS – XXX queue
Condition: User Defined
Action: Notify Other Recipients
Template: Global template: SMS-XXX-Queue
Stage: TransactionCreate
Custom condition:
if (($self->TransactionObj->Field eq ‘Priority’ && $self->TicketObj->Priority >= 50 && $self->TransactionObj->NewValue > $self->TransactionObj->OldValue && $self->TransactionObj->OldValue != 50 && $self->TicketObj->QueueObj->Name eq “XXX”) || ($self->TransactionObj->Type eq ‘Create’ && $self->TicketObj->Priority >= 50 && $self->TicketObj->QueueObj->Name eq “XXX”)) {
return(1);
}
else {
return(undef);
}
Custom action preparation code:
return 1;

That’s it, you have working SMS notifications for your XXX queue now!

As I recently moved to another city and switched work, new requirements started to emerge in my life. These new requirements change my general multimedia usage patterns quite a lot, so I’m thinking of reorganizing my whole media distribution methods at home and at work. This may sound quite vague, but let me explain how this is related to mobile phones…My current “multimedia” needs are:

1. To be able to access the Internet via my mobile phone (work requirement).
2. To have a centralized way of downloading podcasts (personal requirement).
3. To have a centralized point to distribute music to my HiFi system (personal requirement).
4. The system has to be open for tweaking, using open standards (personal/work requirement).
5. The system has to be able to connect to my Fedora box to transfer files (personal requirement).

Now you probably see where I’m going…these tasks can be handled by modern smartphones. Let’s exclude the iPhone as it’s way too proprietary. This leaves me with two main options: a Goolge Android 2 based phone or a Nokia Maemo 5 based phone. Points 1, 2 and 3 are trivial for both phones, they can serve as modems on Fedora, they have applications to manage your music and download podcasts and they can stream music via Bluetooth (A2DP) or FM radio (for the Maemo device).

The Android story – HTC Hero

At work, almost all of my colleagues have HTC Magic or HTC Hero phones running Android 1.6 (soon to be updated to Android 2.0 for free) and they seem to be very happy about them. Another colleague and friend even develops an application for our company on Android and also seems happy about it. I’m pretty sure that in the long run Android will be the dominant OS on mobile phones other than the ones by Apple; let’s just give the Chinese manufacturers time to swarm the market with cheap smartphones.

What I’m concerned about with Android is Goolge, when I read things like this or this (I agree with the 3rd commentary)  it concerns me a little bit; be careful Google, don’t become evil. The “your are not allowed to share your Internet connection” clauses remind me of 1998, when ISPs didn’t like home routers; I pay for a service, let me use it as I want.

HTC Hero

Apart from that, an Android 2.0 phone can fulfill all my requirements at a decent price, around 550 CHF (360€) for a HTC Hero. It has a decent marketplace for applications and will surely benefit from the fact that it’s used by multiple phone brands (mass effect).

The Maemo story – Nokia N900

As a Fedora contributor, Maemo touches me more than Android. It’s Nokia’s “new” OS for their high-end mobile devices. By 2012, it should replace Symbian on all their devices in this category.

Unlike Android, Maemo is a “true” Linux distribution as we know it; it’s a Debian-based distribution with Gnome on it and a custom UI. It has apt to handle software updates and installations, supports software repositories, supports GTK and QT, uses Gnome technologies (gstreamer, telepathy…),  PulseAudio, BlueZ a Mozilla browser etc etc…it also has a strong developer community and a planet, like Fedora.

On this device, you have a root access by default and you can find all your usual command-line applications. Their flagship mobile device running Meamo 5 is the new Nokia N900. Oh, and it has a real keyboard too.

The downside of this device is ironically that it’s new. The Nokia application store is not very well populated and the Maemo OS is only used by Nokia. As now, I see it much more like a hacker device than Android and I don’t expect it to have huge market share. An N900 can be bought for around 700 CHF (460€).

Conclusion

You may argue that these smartphones are expensive and I agree, but you rarely buy them without a contract from a mobile operator anyway. In my situation, my company pays for the phone bills so I can also invest some money in hardware now..priorities change.

If you look a the raw technical specifications, the Nokia N900 wins over the HTC Hero, it has more of just everything (Memory, CPU power, I/O capabilities).  Having seen a HTC Hero in action, it doesn’t lack any processing power though, so the real difference between the devices has to be made on the software side. Both devices can serve as modems and download + stream music from a centralized point to all the devices in my apartment.

• Android is solid, stable, has a big and growing marketplace and is supported by many companies. It just lacks that little bit of openness that would make it the perfect OS for my usage.
• Meamo is reported to be stable, very fast, very hackable but it lacks a real marketplace for applications right now. The fact that it’s a “pure” Linux system backed by Nokia, a big Open Source contributor, really appeals to me though.

At the end of the day, I’m probably going to give my preference to the N900, let me a couple of days to think about it and with a little chance, you’ll get a full review in a couple of weeks.

While writing this blog post, it also struck me how important the concept of caring about an operating system on your phone has become during the last years, we can at least thank the iPhone for that. Yes, I feel like a hipster now.

/me looks at the shiny marketing video

• Redirect all URLs usually going to http://foo/go/bar to http://foo/maintenance-light.html
• Redirect all other URLs to http://foo/maintenance.html

All the maintenance pages are also using some CSS and images. Creating this redirection sounds really stupid and simple, but one thing wasn’t clear in the documentation and it took me quite a while to figure it out…every RewriteCond is only valid until the next RewriteRule! Not knowing that, I had infinite loops on the second RewriteRule…so I hope that this post will help someone else to avoid this problem.

The lines to add to your Apache config are:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/maintenance.html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/maintenance-light.html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/img/(.*)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/css/(.*)$
RewriteRule ^/go/ /maintenance-light.html [R,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/maintenance.html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/maintenance-light.html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/css/(.*)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/img/(.*)$
RewriteRule $ /maintenance.html [R,L]

The first line is there to simply enable the Apache rewrite engine. Then we have 4 lines to “exclude” some paths from being rewritten and finally we find the rewrite rule. Note that they are processed in order. The “L” flag instructs Apache to skip all the following RewriteRule statements as soon as the one is matched.

Le tout est fait de telle sorte qu’il n’y ait pas besoin du livre de règles, tout est guidé de manière dynamique au fur et à mesure des différentes étapes de la création des persos. Notez qu’il n’y a pas de contrôle contre la “triche”, mais bon en a-t-on vraiment besoin…j’ajouterai peut-être un javascript pour ça un jour. Donc en résumé on a:

• Support de toutes les professions du livre de base ainsi que de l’extension “Aventures Extraordinaires”.
• Support du jeu en mode “puriste” ou “pulp”.
• Support d’un nombre de joueurs aléatoire.
• Export de feuille de personnage pré-remplie au format PDF.

Le générateur dans sa version 1.1 est accessible sur par ici pour les intéressés. Ça a peut-être l’air con comme-ça, mais derrière il y a une base de données d’environ 1500 enregistrements afin de gérer toutes les combinaisons.

As you can see on the picture above, it’s a really small case in which you can fit an optical drive and 2 3.5″ disks. The whole thing is based on an Atom 330, which is a dual-core CPU running at 1.6GHz. As a desktop chip, it supports the 64-Bit instruction set. So I installed a 64-Bit Fedora 11 on it and I have to say that it works quite well…It’s perfectly usable to browse the web (even with Flash), listen to music and work on an OpenOffce document at the same time. Don’t expect much more as it will begin to feel sluggish…

One thing I don’t like about it is the integrated fan…it’s loud. In fact it’s as loud as my quad-core computer when it’s idle, which frankly sucks on a small computer.