PDFCreator

PDFCreator is a free little PDF creator (duh) for Windows. It "adds" a new printer to your system to print to PDF.

I never print anything at home... Mainly because my printer is out of ink and I'm too cheap to by more. However, with PDF Creator, I can print receipts from online purchases to PDF and archive them. When I need a hard copy, I can easily print it somewhere else (*cough* *work*).

Plus, I don't have a bunch of receipts laying around that I never really need.

Use "dislocate" to created a re-connectable process

Use: dislocate

Eventually, use ^] to disconnect. Later on, reconnect to the Linux server, run "dislocate" w/o parameters, and choose the session to reconnect to. Much easier than "screen" for simple situations!

Upgrade Fedora 9 to Fedora 10

I know... 11 is already out, but I didn't feel like messing with it. Now that 9 is no longer supported, I figured I'd take the plunge.

I got some error about missing dependencies for:

avahi-0.6.17-1.fc7.i386

yum remove avahi-0.6.17-1.fc7.i386

said it erased it, but it was still there.... rpm -e gave an error about the script returning an error...

Eventually, this worked:

rpm -e --noscripts avahi-0.6.17-1.fc7.i386

Breaking through a restrictive proxy

I have sshd running on a small linux box at home. This allows me to access my home network from anywhere, except from work... The proxy wouldn't let me through. I tried proxytunnel, putty, and a few other toys, but none seemed to work. Then I found httptunnel :)

On my linux box, I created a new service with the following command:

/usr/bin/hts -p /var/opt/hts/PID -F localhost:22 81

That starts the httptunnel server with:

-p to write the PID to the file /var/opt/hts/PID

-F to forward to port 22 on the local host

and finally it is listening on port 81

Next, on my Windows machine, I downloaded the httptunnel package for cygwin. From a cygwin terminal, I could then execute:

htc -P : -A -F 8888 :81

Where:

-P is the proxy address:port

-A is my username:password for the proxy

-F is the port to use on the local machine

followed by my server:port

Once htc is running on my machine, I can do:

ssh -p 8888 -l localhost

Like magic, htc wraps everything inside some http "stuff", hands it off to the proxy, which passes it to my home machine. hts on my Linux box gets rid of the http garbage and passes the packet on to sshd (and visa-versa).

Very nice indeed! Now I can use ssh to tunnel all kinds of apps, like remote desktop, or even firefox.

As a side note, here's how to use my isp for browsing:

ssh -p -l -D localhost:8889 localhost

In Firefox:

Edit --> Preferences

Advanced Tab

Settings

Select "Manual Proxy Configuration", enter "localhost" in the SOCKS host field and port 8889.

Woo Hoo!

More Perl "Hidden Treasures"

Hash::Util

This gives you some very nice options - such as locking a hash so that no more keys can be added! Seems like a very nice way to avoid some typos!

Also look at

Class::Struct

That could come in handy to make some quick little objects without messing around with the constructor and accessors. Maybe it is possible to use Hash::Util with it to make it "read-only"???

See:

Hidden Treasures of the Perl Core, part II
By Casey West
June 19, 2003

Removing a Version from ClearCase UCM

Here's a good blog about removing a version of a file from ClearCase UCM:

http://doublepaddle.blogspot.com/2008/01/clearcase-eraser-versions-recorded-in.html

My First (Semi) Manual!

I got the track stand down pretty good, so I began trying to manual. Normally, I would jerk the bars up as hard as I could to try getting over an obstacle, but I've realized that really isn't the best way.

So, I got a copy of Mastering Mountain Bike Skills and began reading (it's a very good book). Between that and the author's website www.leelikesbikes.com, I finally started to "get" just how to do a manual.

These posts at Lee's blog also helped immensely:

• How to Manual Again
• Tallness is no Excuse
• Manuals for Small Riders

Between those posts, the responses to the posts, and the book, these are the tips that helped me the most:

1. I lowered the seat to practice. This let me shift my hips back much more easily. I'll practice with my seat at my "standard" XC height once I get this down.
2. Really focused on using the "third brake" (ie, practically scratching your butt with the rear wheel because you shift your hips back so far). Basically, Lee said you probably aren't shifting nearly as far as you think you are, so I really tried to "over-exaggerate" the entire motion (my over-exaggeration was probably closer to the "real" motion).
3. Finally, really pushing forward with my arms and driving my legs down and forward.

The first time the wheel came up, it felt like some Jedi was lifting the wheel with the Force! It was a very strange feeling since I was used to muscling it up. The wheel just needs to pop up a bit before your shifted-weight takes over. The more you pre-load and the faster you push yourself backwards, the faster it happens.

So far I have bailed off each time it gets up, but I'll get used to the feeling soon enough and learn to control it. I have found that once it comes up to a certain height I start pulling myself up. I just need to let it happen. It seems like minor shifts of the hips should stabalize it, as well as a few pumps with the legs (you can see the kid to that in this video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnuqtPSnyLY

Once I'm better at this, I can finally begin working on some nice, high bunny hops!