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Studying sendmail

As I was setting up the Ken Goldstein Project I decided that I would set up sendmail as well. Sendmail has a reputation for being the most difficult back-end e-mail program available; difficult to configure, that is. So far my experience bears this out. For me and possibly other OS X users as well the most difficult part of setting sendmail up was determining how the system identifies its own hostname global.

The way I and others solved the problem of local host host name assignment has been to manually edit the file “/etc/hostconfig” to substitute the value manually. This is unsatisfying but it works (otherwise in that section of hostconfig there’s a directive which prompts the system to, ultimately, determine its’ hostname from the first successful DNS query it makes – which can lead to interesting results depending on whose DNS you’ve opted for). Additionally because sendmail offers so many configuration and build options it can be very challenging to correctly identify where the program obtains such data as usernames or aliases. But wait!
I promised I wouldn’t bore you with sendmail details. So that’s enough of this. But I’ve even been dreaming about it, so it’s hard to write about anything else.

Speaking of writing, Cinescape has asked me to accept a regular freelance position which I am looking forward to accepting. It’s kind of an on-line entertainment news trolling position. Somehow I suspect I am about to become a huge fan of RSS feeds.

Not that I expect studio publicity websites to provide such useful tools. Hmm. Perhaps there is a business here. Journalism people, that’s nontraditional thinking, isn’t it?

One more geek note: I used ViaVoice to input this entry, and it took a long time, presumably associated with a) my needing to learn how to use the voicerec more efficiently; b) also with the program not having been sufficiently trained up yet; and c) the inherent dictation challenge of using words like “/etc/hostconfig/” . After a bit I’ll have a better feel for it. I felt like the copy was choppy, with a fair amount of needless repetition, presumably a consequence of attempting to correct non sequitirs on the fly instead of after completing the copy block as a whole.

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KGP highlights

I was so busy batting cleanup yesterday I did not have time to point out some highlights of the Ken Goldstein Project submissions and props.

First, the mask is available for download, with complete instructions right on the sheet. I designed the mask to also be hung as a street poster, so if you walk to work, consider copying a batch and putting them up.

Second, a big THANK YOU to everyone who attended Sabrina‘s PHO on Sunday, August 18 at Thanh Bros on Broadway. This picture is of that group. I hope that members of this gathering will become direct participants in the Ken Goldstein project.

Third, Ken’s ex-roommates Murph and Juli went well beyond the call of duty, supplying the Project with eight amusing and yet somehow disturbing images, notably including this one:

Which is of the actual original Illuminated Donkey which Ken named his blog after.

Additional participants whom I thank heartily are Frankenstein, le Petit Chou, and The Fat Guy.

Ya know what would be great? It would be great if someone went all around Ken’s neighborhood in Jersey City and hung the mask poster a bunch of times. That would be great.

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Stumpy's back!

Couple’s deformed pet squirrel safe at home after road trip

“MACHIAS — A squirrel with half a tail and no left hind foot is back with his caretakers after 10 days on the lam.

Stumpy the squirrel was found six miles from the residence of Steve and Marcia Carter, 52 and 51, who fought back tears when he was returned.”

…

“When they arrived, Steve Carter lifted the plywood and Stumpy leaped onto his shoulder and uncorked a succession of squeaky barks, seemingly well-nourished and none the worse for wear except for a scratch on his shoulder and five ticks.”

…

“The deformed squirrel took to walking on a rope leash, playing in the Carters’ front yard, sleeping at night in a cage in their house and riding on the dashboard of Steve Carter’s truck when he made his rounds as a contractor.”

Now this is the kind of quality news America needs in these troubled times. It’s got everthing: pet rodents, a deformed, plucky hero samed Stumpy who’s both cute and repellent (since he is a rodent), touching family values, and a burly he-man who nearly weeps with joy when reunited with the missing loved one. Yeah!

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Introducing the Ken Goldstein Project

And at last, I’m proud to announce the open-sourcing of what began as my Ken Goldstein of the Week. But you know what? It’s so much larger than only me. Ken truly belongs to the world now – to each and every one of us that holds that little somethin’ that we call “Ken” in our hearts.

May I present THE KEN GOLDSTEIN PROJECT!

A hearty thank-you and congratulations to the literal handful of semi-interested observers who made this into the realization of one man’s crazy, crazy dream.

Here’s the way it works: I keep making goofy Ken Goldstein toys (Scott Chaffin wonders about the possibility of a Ken Goldstein action figure) and I’ll especially make them so that YOU, dear reader, can put a little Ken Goldstein into your life.

Below (and continued) is the first selection of images contributed by the selfless volunteers of the Ken Goldstein project, helping to spread a little bit of Ken Goldstein into this crazy world we live in. (I broke it up into two sections so it wouldn’t be a killer download on the front page. Better yet – go to the Ken Goldstein Project website, and sign up!)

As Ken has said in the past, “Oh dear lord, no!” Let that be our watchword!

]]> Read more

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Aching forearms and an inability to respond clearly when asked questions

Day two of the “expand your knowledge of BSD considered as a superset of the Mac OS self-guided seminar and cursing tutorial” continues.

Progress is being made!

Brain cells are being bludgeoned! Errors in books are being noted! The simple beauty of Mac OS Classic based mailservers is suddenly much appreciated!

Ah, but the payoff will be tomorrow, now shan’t it me hearties (actually that’s done already – I just got ambitious and trekked on into sendmail territory). And yes, Ima call it the art for the week.

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I yam a GEEK

The TiLP project plus my incoming graphlink USB cable will allow me to dump to and fro from my desktop to my TI-83 graphing calculator! I can’t wait!

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a full-on math retard who has never, not once, acheived a grade higher than a D- in any math-oriented class. It’s like being tone deaf. I hate it.

I should actually explore this at greater length, since verbal and symbolic logic have always been the merest trifles to me. Somehow, if you call it math, I lose all aptitude and become Monsieur Hulot.

Well-meaning, capable of discretion and careful distinction, able to restate and clarify the most arcane points of procedure verbally, I immediately become a pratfalling, limb-tangling menace and figure of fun in any given math-oriented learning environment.

Still, my earliest programming experience was writing BASIC demos on a hand-held japanese calculator in 1982, and I still remember my dad coming home from work in Boston, circa 1972, with a blue-plastic TI calculator that had cool blue LEDs and operated via a metal, hardwired stylus clacking against brass-tone contact points. It was boss cool.)

UPDATE: oops, it wasn’t a TI. It was almost surely a Litton Industries Royal IV , one of only two models of calculator known to employ a stylus back in the day. I remember, as a little kid when Dad brought it home, asking why it didn’t use buttons. He told me that “studies” had indicated a higher degree of accuracy (fewer fumbled digit entries) in input. I recall being skeptical, but there’s a germ of something there: we’ve employed sticks held in the hand to make expressive and information-carrying marks for longer than we’ve been writing. It can be argued that the stylus is a more mature technology than all others but for weapons, bread, and beer.

It’s definitely more mature than the button.

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Punishing the User

I’m busting ass setting up a website using the popular, if yet a work in progress, CMS postNuke, and oog, I’m experiencing the downside of opensource collaboratively developed projects.

Which is not to say that so far I haven’t been pleased by the capabilities and featureset of the application. It is to say I’ve been quite frustrated by poor documentation, aggravating, developer-centric assumptions about how users and administrators will interact with the system once it’s in place, and partially-implemented functionality.

I opted for postnuke over phpnuke based on security concerns (phpnuke explicitly requires “register_globals” to be on in php, which is deprecated in the current release of php), and I’m, frankly, wondering if I made the right choice.

I’ll continue with the implementation under postnuke for now, but the project is apparently in extreme disarray following the motorcycle-accident death of its’ lead developer this summer. A variety of long-term developers appear to have forked from postnuke to a new project, as yet in gestation, and the rump team have released a version of postnuke with many housekeeping issues, while at the same time updating the postnuke website in such a way that older user discussions and documentation is effectively inaccessible.

Shhh… no-one tell Microsoft marketing about this.

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ViaVoice on the cheap for Mac OSX

1. go to eBay and locate a vendor selling remaindered copies of “IBM ViaVoice for Mac Enhanced Edition 2.01”. I found mine from this vendor, who appeared sufficently reliable.

2. Be sure the item for sale is a) unopened and therefore unregistered, and b) is the full retail version of the software, which comes packaged with a USB headset mic (the Andrea USB NC-7100, in my box at least). Ask the vendor a question if ncessary.

You may be able to substitute another mic if you’re already equipped.

3. Bid or use “buy it now”. sknetstore’s buy it now price is $60, but when I bid there was no crush of bidders, so I got it for the opening price of $49 + S&H.

4. Once you’ve received your product, go to IBM’s ViaVoice website, and head over to the Enhanced Edition rebate page.

5. Take stock of the choices: download the whole thing for free (200mb, not for dialup users!), pay $5.95 for a free CD-ROM to be shipped to you, or pay $20 to have them send you a full – if slim – documentation and software package. The installer you’ll get with all of these options requires the presence of the a valid Enhanced Edition CD-ROM mounted on your machine.

That’s it! I opted for the free download. Total cost to me? About $50. Total savings compared to a list-price purchase? About $150.

Please note: it’s very likely that IBM will act to close this loophole once it’s well-known, or once they conclude that they’ve serviced the whole user-base of Enhanced Edition adopters. Additionally, it should be noted that ViaVoice for X is only supported for use on “Mac OSX 10.1”, according to IBM’s support notes; it is working for me under 10.1.2; and anecdotal evidence has been proffered of it’s operation under Jagwire 10.2. YMMV, natch; but DANG! Wotta deal!