All the way from Cambridge

Apachecon NA 2010 – Register now

pctony — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:30:22 +0000

Registration for this years Apachecon is now open, you can visit the site here and click on the register for the conference icon

Whilst your three why not take a look at the conference schedule and see which talks and meet ups you want to go to. You can even download the schedule as an ics file and import it unto your favourite calendar.

Go sign up now!

Just been to the physio…

pctony — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:26:03 +0000

I went to see a physio tonight after suffering with arm and shoulder pain for the past 5/6 weeks after being knocked off my bicycle at about 25mph when a pedestrian stepped out in front of me..

Looks like I will be missing badminton for at least one more month, which is a shame as i will likely miss the start of the season now.

No exertion of the arm either, means chaining my cycling position. Which is good as that will coincide with me wanting to get my new bicycle..

Bah humbug!

Kindle for the iPad

pctony — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:51:19 +0000

So. Yesterday I installed kindle on my iPad. What a revelation.
No need for iBooks now it seems. Kindle books are cheaper, and a great selection.

Enjoying book number 1 already.

Also, re-reviewing my photos from aperture - wow stunning screen to look at them on.

Yes i may be a fully paid up member of the Steve jobs gadget club, but i love each one of them for what they are.

More Apple toys…..

pctony — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:12:18 +0000

So, today on the day that the new apple store opened in Covent Garden, London i went ro y local Apple store and picked up a new 32GB iPad, and one of the new wireless trackpads.

Firstly the trackpad. What a revelation, way more comfortable than a mouse, and with all the gestures of the trackpad on my MacbookPro. Fantastic.

Now, the iPad. I bought it mainly for books, photos and web/mail without the need to get my big 17" MBP out. Already added 28Gb (pre processing) of images. They look awesome.

Some of my iPhone games like angry bird are just as much fun.

Only time will tell to see just how much i use it for other things like video/iplayer et al.

Which bicycle?

pctony — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 20:26:16 +0000

So I am looking to upgrade my bicycle. But I am torn between a Trek 1.5, and a Specialized Allez.

The two offer very similar setups, and rides. The Trek has the Shimano 105 gear, but the Specialized brand is what I know (and love. Or used too.) On Saturday I took the 1.5 for a test ride, and I have to admit, even with jeans and trainers on it felt good. I now just need to get my hands on the Allez for a test spin.

Oh, why oh why does it have to be so hard?

An ode for Joe

pctony — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:29:51 +0000

Joe, you are an unashamed Jesus phone user
You dont take any grief from any luser
Your perl fu stands head and shoulders above,
But somedays that is just not enough. 

You were briefly courted by Ning,
Just so you know we wouldn't trade you for anything
You are well known for speaking your mind
But sometimes it feels so unkind.
Do you think you could be nice, if even for a day
But be sure that we love you no matter what you do

We are on the hunt for a new president and you know who would be best,
For once you and I agree, and in this I do not jest. 

So, what are we going to do now.  You have started working for slayer
of hopes and dreams and the betrayer of sysadmins.
Next you'll be coming back and telling us that Java is not all that bad,
and we should all extoll the virtues of git.

Oh Joe, oh Joe, oh Joe
Whatever would we do without you?
Some days you get out of bed on the wrong side,
Others you're just like a grizzly bear with the flu.

You like to tease, poke and prod,
You set your standards really high,
But whatever happens to those who get it wrong?
You're always there to say I told you so,
Or just call someone a twit.
Now you have Gavin to teach and guide
I'm sure he'll turn out just fine

Your choice of shell is ZSH,
That speaks volumes about your age.
Don't forget to remind us that git is the VCS that Jesus would use.

This past fall we finally got to meet,
Oh boy it was such a treat.
Today you're off too Disneyland,
Even at your age I'm sure it'll be grand.

CARET – We’re looking for two developers.

pctony — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:08:19 +0000

My current employer CARET, part of the University of Cambridge, are looking for two intrepid folks to come and join us as developers here in Cambridge.

There are currently two positions, one as developer here, and one as a more senior developer/architect here.

I have been at CARET for just short of 6 months, and during that time I have almost adjusted to the academic way of life.

apache.org incident report

pctony — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:52:25 +0000

A little earlier we (the Infrastructure team) published our incident report for last week's intrusion. You can read the full report here

Essentially what happened was; the server that hosted the apachecon.com website was compromised, and after a short while they discovered the SSH key that allowed them to gain shell access on people.apache.org. From here they placed files in the webroot of several websites. These were then rsync'd to the US and EU website mirrors.

As most of our sites used CGI to offer 'nearest mirror' downlaod service, we had to support the use of ExecCGI. This meant these scripts were executable. The CGI scripts essentially allowed the attacker to gain remote shells (in the context of the webserver) sending command via HTTP POST commands.

There are no remaining residual effects, and all services have been restored. The full report contains all the details.

www.us.apachecon.com — It’s back!

pctony — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:16:40 +0000

After all the fun and games of the past few days Aaron and I have managed to rebuild the entire VM, and apachecon website. It was a lot of fun and games, and I'm sure in we'll be buying each other a lot of beer in Oakland.

So, go, get your daily dose of apachecon fun, over at http://us.apachecon.com

mod_pony goodness

pctony — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:11:17 +0000

Thanks to DrBacchus mod_pony has been resurrected, and I have it installed.

How do I get mod_pony?
(1) svn checkout http://svn.rcbowen.com/svn/public/mod_pony/mod_pony.c /tmp
(2) /usr/local/apache/bin/apxs -cia /tmp/mod_pony.c
(3) edit your httpd.conf (or variant there of) and add

SetHandler pony

(4) /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl restart

Now open your browser, and goto http://foo.example.com/pony and you should see :--

If you have your servertokens set to 'Full" then you will also see mod_pony listed there too.

Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.8b DAV/2 SVN/1.4.5 PHP/5.2.6 PONY!