Το φιτρί αγόρι (colourful life)

In a month Linkin Park will come to Athens. Talking about this with a friend and looking for more information I found some Linkin Park covers. They are with piano, violin and a new voice. I did like them. I hope you enjoy

• What I’ve done. Violin by Dave Kim, piano and vocals by Marie Digby.

• What I’ve done . Piano and vocals by Marie Digby.

• Numb. Piano cover by ModistOne.

I’ve chosen Hostmonster as a shared hosting provider for one my projects using Django. I’ve been using hostmonster for this blog so I wanted to give it a try for more professional matters. The problem is that hostmonster is not django/python friendly. I’ve found the following problems:

• No subversion (svn) client.
• Old python without mysql support.
• Of course, no Django support.

As you can see:

$ python -V
Python 2.3.4
$ svn
-bash: svn: command not found

But not supported doesn’t mean impossible. You can have your python 2.5 and Django from subversion (And everything you want to install). You only need to install the software we need from scratch. If you want to know how, just read the rest of this entry.

Read the rest of this entry »

Are you one of those who uses Internet Explorer 6? This post is dedicated to you, fellow visitor who enjoys the web using a great piece of software. For you it’s time to Stop IE6.

Thanks to you, the development of the web is slower. And because you continue using IE6, web developers from all around the world have to implement fixes for you to enjoy the web. So please, make the world a favor: Update to Internet Explorer 7 (or Internet Explorer 8). Or even better: use other browsers like: Firefox, Opera or even Safari. IE6 was a great piece of software time ago, in 2001 when it was launched. But 6 years have passed and it’s time to move on.

For all the rest. I’ve been analyzing the support of some WEB standards on IE6, and it’s hell. It lacks the support of modern standards that makes life easier and web styles compact and easy to read (I won’t talk about bugs). So if you want to develop a webpage you have to spend extra time (and time is money) developing hacks for IE6. Some of those patches are available on the internet, but you still spend time taking care of an old museum piece.

So now I have to work with web development and then, when everything is finished, work to attach available hacks and implements what the hacks cannot patch.

And you, web developer who develops only for Internet Explorer (like eurobank e-banking). You, will be next.

Meanwhile, update your browser and try the alternatives

Installing the python library for MySQL in Leopard can be a bit tricky. If you’re an easy_install lover, the first thing to try would be:

$ sudo easy_install MySQL-python

But the results you’ll obtain will be not very encouraging.

Searching for MySQL-python
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/MySQL-python/
Reading http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python
Reading http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python/
Best match: MySQL-python 1.2.2
Downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mysql-python/MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar.gz
Processing MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar.gz
Running MySQL-python-1.2.2/setup.py -q bdist_egg –dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-07GTpt/MySQL-python-1.2.2/egg-dist-tmp-t78bko
In file included from /opt/local/include/mysql5/mysql/mysql.h:47,
from _mysql.c:40:
/usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: duplicate ‘unsigned’
/usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: two or more data types in declaration specifiers
In file included from /opt/local/include/mysql5/mysql/mysql.h:47,
from _mysql.c:40:
/usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: duplicate ‘unsigned’
/usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: two or more data types in declaration specifiers
lipo: can’t open input file: /var/tmp//cczla7iC.out (No such file or directory)
error: Setup script exited with error: command ‘gcc’ failed with exit status 1

But the solution is there. As you can see, the command talks about an error in line 40 for some file called _mysql.c. We’re going to get to that file and remove one line.

First we need to download the package. We will use easy_install, but later. So now grab your wget or your browser to here. And when you have the file, uncompress it (terminal or through finder).

$ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mysql-python/MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar.gz
…
$ tar xzf MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar.gz

Now go to the directory that has just been created and open the file _mysql.c. Go to the line number 38.

35 #include “my_config.h”
36 #endif
37 #ifndef uint
38 #define uint unsigned int
39 #endif
40 #include “mysql.h”

Delete line 38, save and install your modified egg from the parent directory with:

$ easy_install MySQL-python-1.2.2
Processing MySQL-python-1.2.2
Running setup.py -q bdist_egg –dist-dir /Users/alff/tmp/MySQL-python-1.2.2/egg-dist-tmp-S4uIM7
ld: warning in /opt/local/lib/mysql5/mysql/libmysqlclient_r.dylib, file is not of required architecture
ld: warning in /opt/local/lib/libz.dylib, file is not of required architecture
ld: warning in /opt/local/lib/libssl.dylib, file is not of required architecture
ld: warning in /opt/local/lib/libcrypto.dylib, file is not of required architecture
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents…
Adding MySQL-python 1.2.2 to easy-install.pth file
.
Installed /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/MySQL_python-1.2.2-py2.5-macosx-10.5-i386.egg
Processing dependencies for MySQL-python==1.2.2
Finished processing dependencies for MySQL-python==1.2.2

The problem was that _mysql.c defined the type unit and that type is defined again when it includes the file mysql.h. We remove the duplicate, the compiler is happy

Edit: If you installed mysql5 with MacPorts, and you get the error EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found when installing the egg. Just add a link from mysql_config to mysql_config5.

# which mysql_config5
/opt/local/bin/mysql_config5
# cd /opt/local/bin/
# ln -s mysql_config5 mysql_config

Easter holidays are totally over. They started (for me) on April 23th, but using the official calendar on April 25th (my birthday). I decided to stay away from the office, starting on 23 till 29th, and go to a small village in the north. A nice green place where you can sit outside in the morning and see green hills. Also you eat fresh food and some times vegetables from the house garden. In there I found myself again. I also found a turtle eating a whole lettuce in the garden. I guess it found itself too, eating healthy food.

These holidays are mainly used by people to return to their home places. Reunite again the family and have some relaxing time. I shared my time with Stella’s family. Mostly they get on really well, and all the family is like a group. I enjoyed a lot going with the “young” generation for coffee or for a walk.

But in order to reunite the lovely family… a long trip. Usually everybody travels, and in a big place like Athens, is an exodus. There are not so many highways in Greece, and the 1 lane per way national roads don’t help much during Eastern. I left early (in the week) so I arrived safe and on time

The traditions here are a bit different from Spain. There are no religious parades carrying huge sacred figures. But there are important events where people gather. One is the “death of Jesus Christ” where in the end there is a small parade around the church.

The other is “The holy light” after sundown on Holy Saturday. Here after mass, the priest lights a candle that is supposed to carry the holy light. Then, people lights their candles using that one or other people’s. After that you get one boiled egg painted in red and “play” with other people to break it. If your egg survives you’re supposed to have good luck.

And on Sunday after the Holy Saturday: meat. Meat in huge quantities. The tradition is to roast a goat, and prepare other meals with parts of the goat. The bad it’s that i don’t like liver, and some of these foods are based on it But tzatziki can fix almost everything

Appart from that, only relaxing in a small village. About the village I’d like to point that a lot of people returned there, so it was quite full. Full of people and cars, but not only normal cars also expensive ones. The most expensive was an Aston Martin parked in the Kafenio (sorry no pic, I was so astonished I forgot to take one). But others where:

• Really new Mercedes.
• Beautiful Audi TT.
• Big Mercedes.
• Some young guys with their Easter Present.
• Mercedes cabrio.

Do people spend all their money in cars? Or in petrol for their cars?