Category Archives: General

StatusNet OStatus Subscription Issue

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I recently switched to self-hosted StatusNet installation from identi.ca. One of the issues I was having was not getting status updates from all the users I was subscribd to. Thanks to the helpful people at !feds group, I was able to solve the problem, if you have a similar issue, you can fix it by running (from statusnet folder):

plugins/OStatus/scripts/resub-feed.php -u <atom feed of the person you are subscribed to>

and then

plugins/OStatus/scripts/resub-feed.php <atom feed of the person you are subscribed to>

 

(first you have to run it with -u switch, and then run it without -u switch).
For StatusNet, link for atom feed can be obtained from user’s profile page, below the list of following and followers.

Site Transfer Complete!

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Site transfer seems to have been successful. I think I have moved everything from previous hosting, but there might still be some missing stuff or some configuration issues.

I still have to modify the theme, and customize the site, but that would be for later.

If you notice anything broken on the site, please let me know.

Best Year of My Life

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I got this in email today:

An inspirational speaker said: “Best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman, who wasn’t my wife.”

Audience was in shock and silence. He added: “She was my mother”. A big round of applause & laughter!

A very daring husband tried to crack this at home. After a dinner, he said loudly to his wife in the kitchen:

“Best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman, who wasn’t my wife”, standing for a moment, trying to recall the second line of that speaker he finally blurted out,”… and I can’t remember who she was!

By the time he gained his senses, he was on a hospitel bed recovering from burns of boiling water!

An old joke, but still an interesting one, with special moral for husbands :)

Reading Log – 2011

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A friend of mine posted the list of books he has read in 2011, and while talking about it, asked me to share my list. So, here are the books I have read in 2011 yet.

  • Wheel of Time – Robert Jordan / Brandon Sanderson
    • Lord of Chaos (Book 07 in series)
    • A Crown of Swords (Book 08)
    • The Path of Daggers (Book 09)
    • Crossroads of Twilight (Book 10)
    • Knife of Dreams (Book 11)
    • The Gathering Storm (Book 12)
    • Towers of Midnight (Book 13)
  • Jumper: A Novel – Steven Gould
  • The Minority Report – Philip K. Dick
  • My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult
  • Ender Wiggin Saga – Orson Scott Card
    • Xenocide (Book 3)
    • Childers of the Mind (Book 4)
  • The Chronicles of Narnia – C. S. Lewis
    • Prince Caspian (Book 2)
    • The Voyage of Dawn Treader (Book 3)
  • How to Learn Any Language – Barry Farber
  • The Dresden File – Jim Butcher
    • Storm Front (Book 1)
    • Fool Moon (Book 2)

Only 17 books yet, and most of them fantasy, with some sci-fi. I should pay some attention to other books too.

So, which books have you been reading?

Support Complaint

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I once did an internship at an ISP’s support department, and have first hand knowldge that some customers can be annoying, but this is also true for some support teams, they can be very annoying too.

Note: It is almost a rant, beware if you want to read ahead:

Recently I had to buy a wordpress theme but the website only supported Paypal to Paypal transactions, and as Paypal is not available in Pakistan I contacted the company, told them that it is not available in my reigon and I can pay by credit card if they can accept it direrctly or have some other mode of payment. They replied after a day (which makes me believe that it was not an automated reply), and after thanking me for my email & visiting their site, told me:

If you want to pay by credit card, you need to create a PayPal account then link your credit card to your paypal account.

This followed by telling me how to link my credit card with Paypal, then couple of paragraphs explaining the benifits of Paypal, without saying anything specific to my query.

I am not posting this to complain about one specific company, I have experienced such support responses before. In general I don’t care if any company does or does not provide some specific service, for most things there is enough competition that if one doesn’t like a provider they can choose another. In the above situation, I would have been happier if they had just sent a simple email saying "No, we only support Paypal for payments", but what really annoys me is when people don’t read the emails before replying.

So, this is just my way of saying, if you really care about customers, please read what they are asking before replying. A short, to the point answer is much better than a long, unrelated answer.

Puzzling Puzzles

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I used to play with jigsaw puzzles when I was kid, while growing up I also came across many other puzzles, than when I found out about sudoku, I loved it and started playing, but I won’t say I was ever very interested in puzzles, until recently, that is.

To satisfy my new found interest, I got a Rubick’s cube, found some daily sudoku and word puzzles, and re-joined project euler. In case you don’t know about Project Euler, it is a site that lists various problems that requires mathematical and programming skills to solve them. As of writing this, I have solved only 5 out 300+ problems and am still at Level 0. Let’s see how long it takes me to solve all the problems. In the meantime, if you know of any interesting puzzles, games or sites that feature puzzles, let me know.

Time to Try Diaspora

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When I first got Diaspora invite few months back, it had just the basic social networking functionality, that is:

  • You could add/invite anyone
  • Post a status message for one specific aspect, or all of them

And that was all. All other features, like notifications, posting status message to multiple aspects, mention someone using @, infinite scroll etc. came later. Personally, I don’t think Diaspora will become facebook killer any time soon, if ever, but with the latest updates, which includes private messaging among other things, it now has all the major features required by average social networking users, not to mention with much greater importance given to privacy and security than most other social networking sites.

I think Diaspora is now ready for general, non-techie population. If you have tried Diaspora in past and found it lacking or was just waiting for it to get some more features before giving it a try, I think now is the time to do so. If you want an invite, let me know here or ask on identi.ca.

Update: I am out of diaspora invites to share, you can still get them by asking at diasporainvites group on identi.ca.

Quick Update on Standing Desk

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Last month, after reading Gina Trapani’s post on lifehacker, I switched to standing desk.

So, how is the experience going? Well, after first three days, there is not much difference in using computer while sitting or standing, at least not for first 4 – 6, but you can use clogs or shoes with soft sole to solve that problem. Other than that, I feel more active now, with reduced chance of getting the back pain, which considering how I used to be slouched in my chair for 8-14 hours a day, is a miracle I hadn’t already got it.

As for my setup, I have a laptop, so I had to get a separate keyboard and a mouse to make it work.

Standing-desk setup

Going Libre

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Just a small post to say that I’ve converted all files on my system to open formats. Which includes just two kind of files:

  1. Music files: All converted to ogg vorbis.
  2. Document files: Converted all MS Office files to Open Document Format (ODF).

I would still have to use MS Office formats for my uni work or to share files with majority of people I know here (they all are using pirated version of MS Office and don’t really care about open formats or digital rights), but at least I can get that tingly feeling that I am supporting a good cause.

Click on the images below for more information.