Linux Kernel Panic – Ubuntu

So you are at your linux system and you restarted and all the sudden on boot, you get a: Kernel Panic ... What do you do now? Well first of all don't you panic! First step to take would be to boot your system in rescue mode. To do that you need any sort of a live CD. Get a Ubuntu CD and load using it. There will be a prompt that says load using the CD. This is your system booting off the CD. Now that you have access to the Server. What you need to do is get access to your actual physical system.

My first hobby turned startup project – http://www.deals411.com/ (All your group deal needs in one place)

About 2 years ago I came across groupon. Since then I had started buying a lot of daily deal coupons. I signed up to such services as yipit and onespout. With the help of those sites, I was buying coupons from many group deal sites. Last year (2011), I got fed up with the fact I wasn't sure where I bought some of my deals. As a developer, I thought to myself there must be a better way. So I started writing scripts to go to these different group sites, authenticate, keep my session and allow to download the different coupons that I had already purchased from these daily deal sites.

first wordpress plugin submission.

So today I had to write a plugin for wordpress. I don't personally use wordpress a lot. I like my drupal CMS which gives me better control. But none-the-less wrote a plugin to allow for inclusion of one post from within another post by simply adding the [include id=post_id] into the content of the other post.

WordPress Plugin: WP-Include-Posts

Wordpress Plugin: WP-Include-Posts

WP-Include-Posts

Contributors: Thusjanthan Kubendranathan Tags: include post Requires at least: 1.5 Tested up to: 3.2 Stable tag: 3.2

Description

This plugin will allow you to include contents of one post into another post by adding the text [include id=post_id_of_another_post] into the content of the current post. You can add as many of these includes as you'd like.

Installation

1. Extract the contents of the archive 2. Upload the contents of the wp-note folder to your 'wp-content/plugins' folder

Creating IP to location based applications

Now a days people want data that is relative to them. This includes location specific dynamic data. There are two applications that I think have merit: ip2location and maxmind. IP2location is $199 USD per server for the binary file to narrow an IP address down to the city level. MaxMind is $370 per Site and $90/month for monthly updates of IP addresses.

jsonp cross domain ajax call

What is JSONP? Jsonp is basically json formatting with padding. The padding essentially is set by the server side to automatically call the javascript function that is passed in in the default callback function. That is for example if our ajax is as follows: $.ajax({ url: "http://someotherdomainurl/", dataType: "jsonp", data: { search_term: request.term }, success: function( data ) { response( $.map( data, function( item ) { return { label: item.label, value: item.id } })); } });

PHP SOAP Server with Memcached queries

The new thing I wanted to try out this week was to implement a SOAP server using PHP to query against a MySQL database. I also add a memcached server to cache the query results for each SOAP call so that all queries are not hitting the database. To install a memcached server on the Ubuntu Natty setup was simple. The following command will install memcache as well as the php libraries for memcache and soap: apt-get install memcached php5-memcache php-soap

Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) – Alpha released

Today was the release of Ubuntu 11.04 alpha which is suppose to utilize the new desktop Unity over Gnome. So had to try it. Downloaded the i386 version from (http://www.softview.co.in/2010/12/ubuntu-1104-aka-natty-narwhal-alpha-1.html) and setup a VMWare Workstation to host the alpha version. So far it seems quite stable.

Trac authentication on Dreamhost

Simply put, Trac authentication will not work on Dreamhost the way you like if you go with the .htaccess approach. Trac recommends putting the following in your .htaccess of your trac install: AuthType Basic AuthName "Trac" AuthUserFile /somewhere/trac.htpasswd Require valid-user However, dreamhost does not allow you to place any location directive from within your custom .htaccess files. This will result in an "Internal Server Error". Yes very descriptive indeed.

Whats next…

On Monday November, 15 2010 I hit the button on Simon Fraser University's system to graduate. Whats next? Shockingly, the feeling still hasn't yet hit me that I finished my masters in computer science. However, I have moved on. Monday, I picked up a book on objective-c and almost finished reading it now. My short term plan for the next few months is to write a few applications for the iPhone/iPad. I have a potential client that is interested in an iPad application and this will move me towards what I think would be the next big wave - the mobile development sector.