Housekeeping
I’ve completed some general housekeeping here at Take the First Step. If I’ve done it correctly, then there will be fewer 404 – Not Found errors around here.
The first step for the budding webmaster is to register your site at Google Webmaster Tools. That will you a window into how Google sees your site. I like to check once a week to make sure that the Googlebot can find everything that it is looking for.
The next step is to learn how to interpret your web server log files. Your mileage may vary, but here’s how I look for 404 errors:
$ zgrep -w 404 access_log.20080512.gz | cut -d ' ' -f7,11 | uniq -c 1 /blog/2004/09/27.html "-" 2 /blog/topic/software/2003/08/18.html "-" 1 /id/1319/jms-providers/ "-" 1 /id/1318/leopard-part-4/ "-" 1 /id/1317/brief-history/ "-" 1 /id/1316/march-drabness/ "-" 1 /id/1315/march-madness-08/ "-"where:
"zgrep -w 404" retrieves lines with the word 404 from my compressed access logs "cut -d ' ' -f7,11" defines a space as field delimiter and retrieves the 7th and 11th fields from those lines "uniq -c" shows the unique lines preceded by the instance count
Here we see some failing radio userland links and a mis-behaving client that is adding a trailing '/' to my page links. A little htaccess magic and the 404's are cured.
Open Source JMS Providers
I’d like to take a look at JMS and the leading contenders for an open source JMS provider seem to be:
Circumstances are pushing me to JORAM by a process of elimination:
- ActiveMQ seems to be happiest with Java 1.5
- The last release of OpenJMS seems to have been back in June 2006
- JBoss Messaging appears to only run inside of JBoss
I’ll let you know how things work out.
Leopard Configuration IV
- Map the Caps Lock key to a second Control key via System Preferences.
- To be Continued …
The full configuration list can be viewed at my MacBook Configuration Log.
Brief History of Blogging
GoldBlogging is discoveredGoldBlog rush begins- Early
prospectorsbloggers stake claims - Some get rich, most get blisters, merchants make a bundle selling
- Disillusioned
minersbloggers abandonclaimsblogs - Disputes begin over
ownershiprole in history
I was going to comment on: Writers Blog Till They Drop, but Marc Andreessen got there first: New York Times covers blogging. And I somehow ended up with this. Go figure.
Leopard Configuration III
- Configure Apple Mail to properly share folders with FastMail
- Start Mail
- Select the appropriate IMAP folder
- From the Mail menu, select Mailbox → Use This Mailbox For →
- Clean some of the unused cruft from my Finder Sidebar. Select the Sidebar in the Finder Preferences and clear:
- Devices → iDisk
- Shared → Connected Servers
- Places → Documents
- Set the display to a 2.2 gamma
- Change my default shell to /bin/zsh:
chsh -s /bin/zsh - To be continued …
The full configuration list may be viewed at my MacBook Configuration Log
26 Apr: Leopard Configuration part IV
Little Things
Jack of all trades. Master of none.
I’d venture to say that many consider that a compliment. But even if you take a more flattering definition of jack than any common fellow, it is pretty clear that “master of none” rules out superiority at any one skill.
So you really need to read between the lines when Fred Wilson advises that you need utility infielders. No one views a utility infielder on par with their starting shortstop or center fielder. But players who do the little things and get things done are as valuable as anyone else on your team.
ExpanDrive +1
After a boffo ExpanDrive review from John Gruber, I decided to take it out for a test drive. It only took 20 minutes for me to send Magnetk their money.
My upgrade to TextPattern 4.0.6 was greatly simplified by ExpanDrive. I simply mounted by webhost home directory, examined the updates in emacs, edited my htaccess, moved some files and I was in business.