Aquarionics

Lets try this “User input” thing, shall we?

I propose a new format, called the Unified Meta Discovery format. This will be an XML based format with a single purpose – to stop every visitor to my site having to download half a million <link> tags contianing references to metadata.

The proposal is as follows:

In the head of the HTML documents, I propose one last <link> tag, <link rel=”meta” type=”application/xml” title=”UMD” href=”/meta/umd.xml”>

Which contains something like the following:

<umd>
	<object>
		<format>foaf</format>
		<name>Friend of a Friend file</name>
		<version>1.0</format>
		<file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/foaf.rdf</file>
	</object>

	<object>
		<name>ESF feed of everything on Aquarionics</name>
		<format>esf</format>
		<version>1.0</format>
		<file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/all.esf</file>
	</object>

	<object>
		<name>RSS feed of everything on Aquarionics</name>
		<format>rss</format>
		<version>0.94</format>
		<file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/all.rss</file>
	</object>

	<object>
		<name>RSS feed of the Aquarionics Weblog</name>
		<format>rss</format>
		<version>0.94</format>
		<file>http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/weblog.rss</file>
	</object>
</umd>

Most of it is self explanitory, but…

• format is case-insensitive.
• file is an absolute URL, purely so people can have their synidcation feeds on seperate servers.
• All of this is subject to discussion.

Ideas? Comments? Dupication of effort? Screams of “For gods sake, Aquarion, not another bloody XML format?

Greek Geeks

Every time I see this I go back to an idea I had whilst I was wandering around the baths in Bath, which is some kind of Bronzepunk.

Bronzepunk? Compare Steampunk, the literary idea of a society backed by technology as advanced as ours without the benefits of electricity. Steam, in other words. Steam-powered computers, for example. Now, I would like to do something like that set in Rome, or ancient Greece, and I’ve called it Bronzepunk. Ideas are swirling, if you excuse the metaphor, in the steam…

Link via Neil Gaiman

I thought it might be a good idea for Aquarionics to be backed up on occasion. All the PHP is saved on my local machine before it’s uploaded here, so the code is fine, but the database hadn’t been backed up since I recreated my local copy of the site, about a month ago, and then about six months before that. This is because I had an automatic backup system on hive.beehost.net before I moved the site to pol’s server.

So now, I have a cronjob and a couple of scripts that do a mysqldump on Afphrid and Aquarionics’ databases every month, compress them and save them, whilst every day I do another mysqldump, diff that against the monthly one, and save that. The entire directory of backups will get downloaded every week by a server on the other side the world. I am not a paranoid person.

Backup.sh

Run monthly.

#!/bin/bash
DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
WHERE=/home/sites/site3/users/aquarion/backups
mysqldump --password=(PASSWORD) -u aquarion klind | bzip2 -c  > $WHERE/aqcom/$DATE.bz2
if [ -e $WHERE/aqcom/backup.bz2 ]
then
        rm $WHERE/aqcom/backup.bz2
fi
ln -s $WHERE/aqcom/$DATE.bz2 $WHERE/aqcom/backup.bz2

mysqldump --password=(PASSWORD) -u aquarion afphrid | bzip2 -c  > $WHERE/afphrid/$DATE.bz2
if [ -e $WHERE/afphrid/backup.bz2 ]
then
        rm $WHERE/afphrid/backup.bz2
fi
ln -s $WHERE/afphrid/$DATE.bz2 $WHERE/afphrid/backup.bz2

Increment.sh

Daily

#!/bin/bash
DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
WHERE=/home/sites/site3/users/aquarion/backups

mysqldump --password=(PASSWORD) -u aquarion klind > /tmp/today.txt
bunzip2 -c $WHERE/aqcom/backup.bz2 > /tmp/backup.txt
diff /tmp/backup.txt /tmp/today.txt | bzip2 -c > $WHERE/aqcom/diff.bz2
rm /tmp/backup.txt /tmp/today.txt

mysqldump --password=(PASSWORD) -u aquarion afphrid > /tmp/today.txt
bunzip2 -c $WHERE/afphrid/backup.bz2 > /tmp/backup.txt
diff /tmp/backup.txt /tmp/today.txt | bzip2 -c > $WHERE/afphrid/diff.bz2
rm /tmp/backup.txt /tmp/today.txt

New stuff this week:
Quick Windows Tips: Quick launch (nodes)
A review of Mil Millington’s “Things Me And My Girlfriend Argue About…“

And if that wasn’t enough, All this week (and most of next week) It’s Different Header Every Day week on Aquarionics!

One of the most useful features in any version of windows greater than 95 is the Quicklaunch button, which sits (by default) next to the start menu. To enable it – if you don’t already have it – right click on the task bar, go to Toolbars, and click Quicklaunch. Do the same to disable it.

Why is it useful? It gives you instant access to four (or more if you extend the size) programs instantly, and then to more by a click of the double-chevron. If you put directories in the folder where Quicklaunch constructs it’s data, you can create a secondary (and quicker) start menu, as below:

The easiest way to edit this menu is using windows explorer. Quicklaunch is created from a directory, under Windows 98/98SE/Me, this is “C:\Windows\Quick Launch”, Whereas under 2000/XP it’s in “C:\Documents and Settings\$USER\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch” (Where $USER is your username) It makes your most used applications far easier to access, and if you really want to, you can drag it to the left or right side of the window for a permanent Shortcut Bar, ala MSOffice 97.