Memorial Day...

Enough said. Wish I had the original source, this was sent to me in a compilation email.

MySQL, OS X and easy_install MySQL-python...

I wonder, sometimes, if as developers we find excuses to hack at code. Part of today's chores had me installing MySQL, and the python DB connector, on my Mac Book Pro. It goes very quickly until I found myself today staring at this error:

$ sudo easy_install -Z MySQL-python
...
EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found

As always, I started by Googling to see who else had hit this problem. The first few hits were all unanimous, you had to edit the setup_posix.py that ships with MySQL-python and change the path to match your OS X environment.

Yes, I'm sure that would work, but the setup_posix.py isn't doing a "/go/to/this/bad/path/mysql_config ..." it's just doing "mysql_config ...".

In other words you can fix everything, and use easy_install by doing a simple:

$ PATH=/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH
(Make sure to adjust for the shell you're using!)

And then run the easy_install, everything goes fine.

Simple! MySQL 5.1.33 and MySQL-python 1.2.3 on OS X 10.5.

Not helping the blond cause..

My eldest has blond hair. You need to remember this.

I'm in the kitchen this weekend with my son making Rice Krispie Treats. We're at the stove melting the marshmallows and butter. He's stirring madly. We've decided not to tell anyone what we're making, even though the marshmallows, Rice Krispies and the recipe are all on the counter. My eldest decides to figure out the mystery. She takes a quick look in the bowl.

Daughter: "You're making Rice Krispie Treats!"

Me: "Yep"

Daughter, looking at the box of Rice Krispies, "What are the Rice Krispies for?"

I stared at her for a good 30 seconds figuring she must be kidding - then I couldn't stop laughing. Sorry blonds, she didn't help the cause.

Well said...

Too bad there wouldn't be a Calvin book along these lines. It'd be an interesting story to see how Calvin's kids turn out.

Diving in...

Or over the edge, depends on your view. I made the switch a week back and moved all of my contacts, etc. out into GMail. Given my addiction to Blogger, Reader, etc. and my continuous complaints about various IT related mail headaches it was time. Probably past time. How did it go? Easy.

I don't have Gigs of mail or contacts. I was able to open up an IMAP connection to GMail from within Thunderbird (instructions for various clients here) and copied things up. It didn't take too long. I then set up GMail to do POP3 fetching from my ISP and adjusted my email alias forwarder (which may die off, not sure yet) to aim everything at my GMail account.

The result has been positive. Google's spam filters are doing their jobs and the mental switch from "Folders" to "Tags" wasn't as bad as I thought. Setting up filters to automatically tag things is simple enough and helps to quickly eyeball things when at work.

Net result? So far, so good!

It's a very big playground

I just read How not to be a Key Online Influencer a story that resonates with me. Today, between Twitter and Facebook, blogs and forums, and the ability to google answers on everything, we have the ability to share, find, and regurgitate information at a rate our parents viewed as impossible only a few decades ago. Many, who grew up with this, understand the responsibility we have been given and the risks. Many, who came in later, don't.

When I started this blog it was to do two things; force me to write more and to make sure I qualified for the PokerStars blogger game. It's done both (although I missed this years tournament due to qualifiers conflicting with my schedule *sigh*), and it's made me realize how easy it is to step over virtual lines we wouldn't cross in real life.

Simple example; Would you walk into an auditorium filled with many people you knew, and people they knew, and yell out "I'm going on vacation to Canada the week of [pick a date]!"? Probably not. Why? Because you don't know all the people listening and the potential risk to your property, or person, are too high.

Okay, now how many of you would post that to Facebook? Twitter? Your own personal blog? I'm willing to bet a few. We view these areas as "safe" - as a limited forum to our friends and family only. Which is true, if you've set up the security, none of your friends has been hacked, and you're diligent in checking this.

I know I'm not. It's a reason my Facebook account is locked down, and I only share what I would share here. No names, pictures, or stories without permission. Honestly, it limits what I can write. However, I've stuck to my values and I've not once insulted a friend or family member -- unless they knew it was coming.

It's worth giving your values the once over in the Social media space. Odds are Mom was right, if you don't want it published on the front page NY Times, your friends probably don't want it on the front page of Facebook.

Wires crossed?

While shoveling out the 13" of snow this past weekend we saw a half dozen Robins, a few Blue Jays, and even a cardinal. Normally, when I see a Robin, it's Spring. This doesn't look like Spring. The heft was more like Winter, even if the temps did peak around 40 yesterday.

The pic is from a shot I took with my iPhone out the "Cat's TV" in my bedroom. There were so many birds that all 3 of our cats had taken to staring out the window. The kitten was trying to puzzle out how she could sit on the 2" sill, mewl at the birds, and not fall down. I don't think she ever puzzled it out.

The birds let me take pics, the cats were more enigmatic.