1) install Tomcat 5.5 using EasyApache (see this .pdf for details)

2) download and expand Tomcat 6 in /usr/local/jakarta

3) change the tomcat symlink to point to your new version (i.e. /usr/local/jakarta/apache-tomcat-6.0.XX)

4) from http://trulymanaged.com/blog/installation-of-tomcat6/:

#cd apache-tomcat-6.0.18
# cd bin
# tar xvfz jsvc.tar.gz
# cd jsvc-src
# chmod +x configure
# ./configure
# make
# cp jsvc ..
# cd ..

5) copy over any Host blocks from tomcat/conf/server.xml from the old Tomcat install to the new Tomcat install (you may or may not be able to set up new hosts through WHM)

6) copy over conf/workers.properties from the old Tomcat install to the new Tomcat install

7) start tomcat normally (/usr/sbin/starttomcat)

The /manager/html/ Tomcat manager application doesn’t load, though, so it’s not perfect.

If you ever need your old Tomcat back just stop Tomcat, flip the tomcat symlink back to the old install, and restart Tomcat.

Dreamhost has a handy “Google Hosted” feature where with a single click they’ll completely configure your domain to use Google Apps. You can then use Google Sites and the rest of the Apps suite for your entire website. Unfortunately, while Google Sites allows you to map a subdomain to a Google Site page, mapping naked domains (e.g. example.com) are not supported. If one maps the www subdomain to a Google Site then the traditional www.example.com will resolve, but example.com gives a Google-served 404 error. When using the Dreamhost “Google Hosted” feature all of the generated domain DNS records are non-editable, so you’re stuck with an A record which maps the domain to a nonexistent site.

My solution was to not use the Dreamhost “Google Hosted” feature at all, but to instead use the “DNS Only” option. I copied down all the generated DNS entries from the “Google Hosted” setup and manually recreated them, with one exception. The A record for the naked domain I directed to 174.129.25.170, which is the IP address of WWWizer, a free service which handily redirects any naked domain request the the corresponding www subdomain.

Now I have a site set up on my www subdomain with Google footing the hosting bill, and naked domain requests are seamlessly redirected to the www-based home page.

The Google Help page on the topic, at http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34143, is pretty weak. “If you require assistance making these changes in your domain host account”, they offer, “we suggest contacting your domain host.”

The change involves adding SRV DNS records for your domain. The records to be added are:

_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.

where gmail.com is replaced by your apps domain name.

Wikipedia takes a SRV record in the form

_sip._tcp.example.com. 86400 IN SRV 0 5 5060 sipserver.example.com.


and breaks it down thusly:

_Service._Proto.Name TTL Class SRV Priority Weight Port Target


Where:

• Service: the symbolic name of the desired service.
• Proto: the transport protocol of the desired service; this is usually either TCP or UDP.
• Name: the domain name for which this record is valid.
• TTL: standard DNS time to live field.
• Class: standard DNS class field (this is always IN).
• Priority: the priority of the target host, lower value means more preferred.
• Weight: A relative weight for records with the same priority.
• Port: the TCP or UDP port on which the service is to be found.
• Target: the canonical hostname of the machine providing the service.

Taking the first of the Google provided record definitions as an example,

_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com.

we have:

• Service: xmpp-server
• Proto: tcp
• Name: gmail.com.
• TTL: (none given)
• Class: IN
• Priority: 5
• Weight: 0
• Port: 5269
• Target: xmpp-server.l.google.com.

where, again, gmail.com is replaced by your Google Apps domain.

My DNS settings provider doesn’t offer a “Name” field while adding SRV records; instead they have a “Record/Hostname” field where the domain fixed but with the opportunity to enter a subdomain. This is usually not necessary with Google Apps, unless your primary Google Apps domain is actually a subdomain. For me I just left the “Record/Hostname” field blank and the “Name” was set correctly.

You can test that your new SRV records were created correctly using dig:

dig SRV _xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com


You should get back, in the ANSWER SECTION, just what the Google Help page listed for that service (with a TTL added):

_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. 86400 IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. 86400 IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. 86400 IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. 86400 IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com. 86400 IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com.


If you don’t want to wait for the DNS updates to propagate you can ask your domains name server directly:

dig @69.28.203.75 SRV _xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com


Where 69.28.203.75 is replaced with the IP address of your domains name server.

:(){:|:&};:

ImgBurn is great for burning .iso files to a DVD. Just insert a DVD, choose your source file, and click the button.

DVD Shrink will create a 4GB .iso from a double-layer disk!

See:

http://lifehacker.com/5444274/five-best-dvd+ripping-tools

http://lifehacker.com/5446090/best-dvd+ripping-tool-handbrake

http://lifehacker.com/208866/hack-attack-one+click-dvd-rips

http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/CD-DVD-Rip-Other-Tools/DVD-Shrink.shtml

http://paininthetech.com/2006/04/30/how-to-back-up-a-dvd

I appreciate that in Alma’s sermon on the Seed of Faith, where he says “Now, we will compare the word unto a seed” (Alma 32:28), and after “ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow” (Alma 32:33), he asks “And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect?” (Alma 32:34) and gives a qualified answer: “Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing” (Alma 32:34; emphasis added). Our knowledge is not, and indeed need not yet be, perfect in all things.

This reminds me of the man born blind who after being healed by Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees and answered:

“Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:25)

And the teaching of Isaiah:

“For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” (Isaiah 28:10).

tee is useful for redirecting stdout to a file, but what if you want to send the same output to another command too, like mail?

You disguise the command as a file, that’s what. Through process substitution you can say things like

echo "hello world" | tee >(mail -s "notice")

and have the message go to stdout and your mail program. You can chain process substitutions to do as many different things with the same output as you want.

Process substitution is supported in bash and friends, but not, as far as I can see, in sh.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily/dev

A few PPAs I like are

• PPA for Ubuntu Chromium – Dev Channel
• PPA for Shutter Team

The video is organized into three parts. The first part is 0:31 and displays 51 words, or 1.645 words per second.
The second section, from 0:32 to 1:40 (68 seconds) is 147 words; or 2.162 words per second.
The final section runs until 2:23, displaying 65 words in 43 seconds or 1.512 words per second.
The entire video averages 1.860 words per second (266 words in 143 seconds).

The video uses music and color to emphasize the text.

The music in the first section is fast and moving. It creates a sense of anticipation, of wonder, and perhaps pending discovery. One friend described the music as appropriate for approaching Hogwarts in a Harry Potter story.
The music in the second section starts slow and simple, building every eight counts. The layering effect emphasizes the cascading effects promised by the Girl Effect.
The third section is a reprise of the first–the same music, but much slower, since things aren’t as bad now that we’ve discovered how to save the world. We still have to actually do it, so there’s still some of the initial urency and anticipation, but at least now we know how to do it.

Beginning as white text on a black background, the words “a girl” introduce the first color into the video–white text on an orange background. The word “girl” remains in orange, as we quickly transition through black text on a white background to orange text as the solution is further described. The last three lines, in addition to the “changed the course of history” line a few lines previous, return to the white-on-black theme.

The music matches up with the text at three points–at each of the section transitions, and again at the end.

The video was produced by Wieden+Kennedy for the Nike Foundation. Their page on the effort is at http://blog.wk.com/2008/06/the-girl-effect.html

The transcript:

The world is a mess.
Poverty.
AIDS.
Hunger.
War.
So what else is new?
What if there was an unexpected solution that could turn this sinking ship around?
Would you even know it if you saw it?
It’s not the internet.
It’s not science.
It’s not the government.
It’s not money.
It’s
(dramatic pause)

a girl.
Imagine a girl living in poverty.
No, go ahead. Really, imagine her.
Girl, flies flies flies, baby, husband, hunger, HIV. [animated]
Now, pretend that you can fix this picture.
[remove all of these things and start over]
Girl. OK. Now she has a chance.
Let’s put her in a school uniform and see her get a loan to buy a cow and use the profits from the milk to help her family.
Pretty soon, her cow becomes a herd. And she becomes the business owner who brings clean water to the village, which makes the men respect her good sense, and invite her to the village council, where she convinces everyone that all girls are valuable.
Soon, more girls have a chance, and the village is thriving.
Village, food, peace, lower HIV, healthier babies, education, commerce, sanitation, stability. [animated]
Which means the economy of the entire country improves, and the whole world is better off.

Are you following what’s happening here?
Girl -> school -> cows -> $ -> business -> clean H2O -> social change -> stronger economy -> better world. [animated]
It’s called the girl effect.
Multiply that by 600 million girls in the developing world,
and you’ve just changed the course of history. [white on black]
The girl effect. [with logo]
Invest in a girl and she will do the rest.

It’s no big deal.
Just the future of humanity.
girleffect.org

Girl Effect:

And a parody:

Those are strong words. They were spoken by Christ after casting out a devil and being accused by the Pharisees of doing it by the power of Beelzebub. And yet they are directly contradicted by Christ in his response to John’s concern about people who were casting out devils in the name of Christ but not directly following the apostles. “Forbid him not:”, he said, “for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:50, cf. Mark 9:40) Each of the two views is expressed twice:

“And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:50)

“For he that is not against us is on our part.” (Mark 9:40; cf. Matt 18:7-35 & Luke 17:1-4)

“He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.” (Luke 11:23; cf. Matt 12:22-37, Mark 3:22-30, Luke 6:45; 12:10)

“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” (Matt 12:30; cf. Mark 3:22-30, Luke 6:45; 11:14-26; 12:10)

I’ve looked a little for some explanation of the reversal. There’s at least one other instance in Christ’s ministry where he reverses his recommendations to the apostles. In Luke 9 (cf. Matt 10:5-10) he says:

“[2] And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. [3] And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece.”

This charge was reiterated in Luke 10, this time to the Seventy:

“[1] After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. [2] Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. [3] Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. [4] Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way.”

But by Luke 22 the situation has changed:

“[35] And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. [36] Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”

Maybe something similar happened between Luke 9 and Luke 11? Or perhaps the Book of Mormon settles the tie?