Missing /dev/cdrom in Xubuntu 11.10

So for some unknown reason the /dev/cdrom symlink to my actual dvd device was missing, causing things like abcde not to work because thats what I had in my config to tell it which drive to use.
This fixes it:

> sudo lshw -C disk
*-disk                  
       description: ATA Disk
       product: ST95005620AS
       vendor: Seagate
       physical id: 0
       bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sda
       version: SD23
       serial: 5YX0B265
       size: 465GiB (500GB)
       capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
       configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=00074110
  *-cdrom
       description: DVD-RAM writer
       product: DVD+-RW DU-8A3S
       vendor: PLDS
       physical id: 1
       bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/cdrom
       logical name: /dev/dvd
       logical name: /dev/scd0
       logical name: /dev/sr0
       version: KD12
       capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
       configuration: ansiversion=5 status=open

> ln -s /dev/scd0 /dev/cdrom
> ln -s /dev/scd0 /dev/dvd 

gmusicbrowser

Gmusicbrowser, Xubuntus default music player has a nice simple fifo for controlling basic playback functions.

Xubuntu...

Switched to using Xubuntu 11.10 - first time running non stock Ubuntu in almost 5 years.
Things so far:

Enabling SMB and network browsing. I actually like using FUSE much more than Nautilus own (gnome-based?) vfs.

Triming video with ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i video.avi -vcodec copy -acodec copy -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:00:04 trimmed_video.avi


source.

Fixing window buttons in Ubuntu

How to get them on the right hand side where they belong.

Setting up git push hook for html publishing

If you want a a simple Git push hook to publish out html static content.

Matrix Snippets

How to use Matrix Snippet as Global keyword.

More Android Development

How to properly setup udev on Ubuntu so that adb works with real android devices ( Answer from: jerichod Level 1 10/11/10)

Installing 2.6.34 kernel fixes 'eclipse random freezing' issue on ubuntu 10.10 - NO it doesn't!

Moving Postgresql data

So the volume attached to the EC2 instance where I was running a test instance of Squiz Matrix ran out of room.
Luckily this proved to be pretty straight forward:

1. using AWS web console, create a new volume and attach it to my instance (while instance is shutdown) - the new volume is attached as /dev/sdb
2. start up the instance, ssh in and format new volume: mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb
3. mkdir mount point, eg /pgdata
4. vim /etc/fstab, adding:
   /dev/sdb        /pgdata         ext3    defaults        1 1
5. mount /pgdata
6. chown postgres:postgres /pgdata/
7. refer to this handy blog post
8. service postgresql stop
9. cp -R /var/lib/pgsql/data /pgdata/
10. Wait...
11. vim /etc/init.d/postgresql  and setting PGDATA to /pgdata
12. service postgresql start

Matrix content headers,,,

To set the content type for matrix assets via a Design file:

<MySource_PRINT id_name="__global__" var="content_type" content_type="text/xml" />
<MySource_AREA id_name="page_body" design_area="body" />

Git and SciTE

How to have SciTE expliclty open a new window when using the check.if.already.open feature.

To change default editor that Git uses for commit messages:

git config  --global core.editor "scite -check.if.already.open=0"

And also add this to your SciTEUser.properties:

quit.on.close.last=1

Auth with Nodejs, Matrix and SQLServer,...

Doing Basic Auth with Node.js builtin HTTP client:

• Manual way
• Using a module

My doc from a while back on how to get Squiz Matrix talking to SQL Server.

And heres a real dossie.

Presentation at LCA

When building a slide deck for a presentation, test to make sure it works at 1024x768, as thats all you can really rely on from a projector at a random venue. They will definitely not be 16:9 !

Actually maybe even 800x600 is an even safer resolution to test with.

Having a clicker would make it easier so that you don't have to stand next to the laptop hitting hte space bar to advance the slides.