Freelance Time Tracking

I just found the best client/invoice/time tracking application ever. The rundown:

• 3 free users
• 3 invoices per month
• $9.99 per month to get unlimited invoices
• more users? $3.99 per user from there
• your own subdomain
• open name spaces on your subdomain
• your logo on the invoice
• unlimited clients and projects
• mac widget
• browser based tracking tool

I cannot find anything that beats it. No iPhone application support which sucks but I am hopeful they will fix that soon. Check them out!

God I love this command.

sudo chmod 755 /opt/subversion/bin/svn* | sudo ln -s /opt/subversion/bin/svn*

Especially since for some reason installing the new version of Subversion on a mack puts it in the /opt/subversion/bin folder.

REGEX FTW!

***Update***

I completely dumped SVN after this. I switched to Mercurial and I am loving it. No looking back, SVN who?

New IRC Client.

I found, from one of those Mac freelancer pages, a new IRC client. OMG is it nice. If you have a Mac or iPhone and want IRC to be...useable. Check out Colloquy.

• Tabbed interface
• AppleScript
• Plugins
• File transfers
• Mobile
• FREE!!!

Webfaction

Just migrated to Webfaction. I am liking it. TREMENDOUSLY. More to come...

WTF is with "developers" using Windows to write code? *updated*

Seriously, WTF? Demo? Check out this moron.

I read the #django-users' list and it seems that, almost daily, there is someone that has a problem installing django on Vista or XP. Who would host a server running Vista or XP? I hope, NO ONE. What kind of moron would trust Microsoft with his/her data? Also, seriously, who runs server farm hosting businesses on Windows? I know people do, but, self flagellation would be a little less painful, really.

I read the mod_wsgi users' list and it seems that, almost daily, someone has a problem installing mod_wsgi on Windows. (I have had my fair share of mod_wsgi problems (see below)) but a local Apache server on Windows, c'mon people.

Most of the screencasts I have seen about anything django or Python related has been done on Windows as well. Save us FSM (flying spaghetti monster).

I guess I have to applaud their efforts, these lost intellects, I got off the Windows juice many years ago. I have been consistently Windows free for the better part of 6 years. What should they use? Unix, almost any flavor. I was never much for the distros that had BSD in the name, my hardware was too advanced to install it (god I miss those days). Nowadays, I run OS X on my MBP and OpenSolaris on my in home staging server. Both Unix, both very powerful and all that. Both > Windows.

Seriously "developers" get an operating system that will allow you to actually have a key to the hood so you can fix your own itches.

(This kind of ended up as an opensource parade but it is still true; friends don't let friends use Windows.)

Installing mod_wsgi on OpenSolaris.

*Not for the faint of heart. (See below)*

This is the process I followed to install mod_wsgi on OpenSolaris 2008.11. 

First I would like to thank Graham Dumpleton and Thurner Rupert from the mod_wsgi mailing list and @yksingisyyteni from #opensolaris.

The way to do it:

When trying to install mod_wsgi with a fresh install of OpenSolaris and the amp-dev, gcc-dev, Sun Studio Express, and all other relevant packages; I kept ending up with an error saying, "/opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc not found". WTF is SUNWspro? Let me tell you: SUNWspro is a piece of the Sun Studio 12 program used to compile C for the Solaris platform. It is the same thing that compiled the version of Apache you installed through PKG. Which means that that GNU cc program that you chose to download is not going to work to compile it. What you need to do is get Sun Studio 12. Once you have it you can follow the instructions on the Sun website for how to install it (which I could never get to work) or you could do this:

• bunzip2 -vv SunStudio...tar.bz2 (this will take some time; let it run)
• tar xvf SunStudio...tar (this will also take some time)
• ./installer & (now wait)
• Follow the GUI tools to finish the install.

Once you have Sun Studio installed you can compile like the Installation Instructions say. Just a quick make, make install, edit your apache conf file and you are done.

*Not the way to do it:

This is what I had to do to get to the final, finished product you see above.

• Realize I don't know what SUNWspro is.
• Think, "Fuck, I will just reinstall."
• mailing list, irc
• Reinstall, damn it still doesn't work.
• I know, I will try to install Sun Studio.
• I am running bzcat SunStudio...tar.bz2 | tar xvf - and it is not working.
• I waited...
• and waited...
• OK, scratch that. I will compile my own versions of Apache, MySQL, and any other thing that I would need to run a server.
• That was fun. Apache is a blast to compile.
• MySQL...pkg, WTF? I can't just double click?
• I will install the tar MySQL.
• Fuck, this takes a long time and is kind of hard.
• Pkgadd -d, wait that's how I can add the MySQL.pkg file?
• rm -rf mysql
• pkgadd -d mysql.pkg
• mysqld 
• ERRORS!!!1!111!!
• Much "googling"
• Damn. I got mod_wsgi to work I don't want to reinstall again.
• mysql ERRORS!!1!!1!!
• Reinstall
• Now I know the drill
• Install amp-dev and all other relevant packages
• Install SunStudio
• Compile mod_wsgi
• HOORAY!!!

Running, Dying

Always the first to the second.