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MediaWiki Review

The latest in my reviews of hosting provider open source software is available at Free Software Magazine.

You can read the full review here.

Wikipedia is a Wiki - basically a information storage engine that works entirely through a web interface. I describe it more succinctly in the article:

A Wiki - of which MediaWiki is one of the most widely used and best known - provides a simple, web-based environment that enables users to collaborate and provide and share information. Wikis are not about discussions, and they are not about regular articles or posts, like a blog.

I have a number of installations, including one that I use to record and document the internal systems here. A companion blog documents changes. There’ll be more about that over on MCslp Coalface soon.

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LoCA 2006 Photos

I’ve managed to find some photos of me presenting my keynote at LoCA 2006.

You can view the full set of all photos here. I’m the guy in white.

The somewhat jaded faces are nothing to do with my presentation, but the late night and then early morning start that the group had had the night before!

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Writing text parsers with yacc and lex

Lex and yacc are two tools that you may be aware of, but have maybe never used. They are key components to compilers, configuration tools and many different languages, where the ability to parse text and generate some other output (assembly code, or simply to understand the contents). To explain how the system works, I have a new tutorial at IBM developerWorks.

Entitle Writing text parsers with yac and lex, the tutorial primarily focuses on how the two tools work. To demonstrate the significance of precedence (order of execution) and structure, I use calculators as the main example, before moving on to how to parse and understand text.

You can read the article through this link, but you may also want to use the additional examples that I placed onto MCslp Coalface.

There are two follow-up articles:

These demonstrate how you can modify the output generated by, for example, an RPN parser so that it outputs normal equations, and vice versa. There’s an example in the tutorial the covers shows how you can link these two together.

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Memory stick returned!

Years ago, I got into the habit of travelling around with a USB memory stick, probably long before they became the fashion accessory they are now. It became invaluable for three reasons:

  • I keep a copy of my current resume on the stick. If I meet somebody at a show or conference, I can give them my memory stic to copy off the file.
  • I use it for backups - encrypted, of course - of the files on my laptop while I’m away. That way, I have an ‘offsite’ backup of anything that has changed since the machine was last backed up on the network, simply by carrying around the key.
  • It’s become one the most used elements of my tookit for migrating files. I’ve used it to swap files between machines, copy important documents between the office and a client when I didn’t or couldn’t take a laptop, and I’ve used it on a number of occasions for migrating Windows XP users between machines.

When I went to Sorrento for a conference in March, however, I lost my USB stick. I searched everywhere I thought I might find it, and just assumed I’d lost it somewhere amongst the conference rooms or my hotel room.

In fact, as evidenced by an email last week, I’d lost it at the airport. And my faith in human nature has been slightly restored, because the gentleman that found it check the info on the stick, found my resume and through that, found me. The stick itself arrived back just this week.

I’d just like to say thanks to Mike for finding, discovering, and returning the stick :)

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Mail.app and widescreen displays

OK, I’ve had my gripes about Mail.app before (see Mail Signatures Suck, but I’ve never mentioned the layout of the Mail.app window. Now there’s a solution that highlights a fault in the original and almost entirely related to the current trend towards widescreen monitors.

Why? Well, the current structure of the Mail.app window assumes that you want a list of folders on the left, and a split between the list of messages in a folder, and the message itself on the right.

This is fine on a standard 4:3 monitor. But on your typical widescreen, as used in the iMac or Powerbook/MacBook and variations thereof, you end up with the potential to waste a lot of space.

If you use the full-screen for your Mail.app window (like me), you’ll end up either with a very wide folder list, or a wide message list, which often means lots of white space, either to pad out your mail folders, or to pad out the columns in your message list. And even with a hi-res 20″ widescreen display, the amount of space you can devote to the actual mail message is quite small.

Now there’s a plug-in for Mail.app that splits your screen into three vertical columns, one for folders, one for the mail list, and one for the message. You can download the plug-in from here (with instructions), and thanks to The Unofficial Apple Weblog for the heads up.

Here’s the traditional layout:

Mail.app three panels

And the same folder and message in the three panels layout:

Mail.app three panels

The overall result is that you can see more messages in a folder without having to scroll, and you an usually see all of the mail message too - or at least more of it at the same time.

Well worth trying out if you are a widescreen Mac user.

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LoCA 2006 Keynote

As previously announced, I presented the keynote at LoCA 2006.

The keynote was on Google Maps and Google Earth, related to the new book which I just announced on the book’s new companion website.

I’d like to think that the presentation went well - we started late (due to Dublin traffic, the attendees had trouble getting in - my taxi, by comparison, got us there an hour early), but we finished even later as the questions and queries came thick and fast. We had a taxi booked at 11:00am to take us to the airport, but by 11:15am my wife had to come and collect me to ensure we made it for the flight.

If any LoCA attendees want to comment, please feel free!

As to the book - and apologies to those from LoCA who I instructed to visit this site for more information - I’m just in the process of organizing the examples and downloadable book content today.

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Hacking Google Maps and Google Earth

My new book, Hacking Google Maps and Google Earth, has now been put to bed. It’s expected to be available for purchase in the early part of August.

This blog is, of course, designed to back up the book and contains all of the examples featured in the book, along with follow-up articles and other bits and pieces.

I’ll be following up in the next couple of days with all the book-related content. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

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Security begins at home

Security - computerised or otherwise - is about knowing your rights and responsibilities. Don't give away information you shouldn't - and certainly not for a sweet. Hopefully you fall into the 30% of people who wouldn't give away their password for some confectionary, but don't let your guard down either. Sometimes requests for information from more responsible quarters can lead to the same problems.

As an example, I've been talking to a financial advisor this morning, and one of his original requests was for copies of some identification documents - passport, drivers licence, a recent utility bill. This is to comply with the money laundering regulations we have here in the UK.

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