subversion propset automation via auto-props

Found it:

Link: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch07.html#svn-ch-7-sect-1.3.2

config on my host currently reads:

...
enable-auto-props = yes

### Section for configuring automatic properties.
### The format of the entries is:
### file-name-pattern = propname[=value][;propname[=value]...]
### The file-name-pattern can contain wildcards (such as '*' and
### '?'). All entries which match will be applied to the file.
### Note that auto-props functionality must be enabled, which
### is typically done by setting the 'enable-auto-props' option.
[auto-props]
*.c = svn:eol-style=native;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
*.cpp = svn:eol-style=native;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
*.h = svn:eol-style=native;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
*.dsp = svn:eol-style=CRLF;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
*.dsw = svn:eol-style=CRLF;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
*.sh = svn:eol-style=native;svn:executable;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
*.txt = svn:eol-style=native;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
*.png = svn:mime-type=image/png
*.jpg = svn:mime-type=image/jpeg
Makefile = svn:eol-style=native;svn:keywords=Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision

Notes:

• Quotes in file "config" prevented subversion from updating property Id in my test file. For example, this does not work:
• *.cpp = svn:eol-style=native;svn:keywords="Id ..."
• Whitespace confuses subversion propset application. For example:
• This works:
• $Id$
• $Id:$
• This does not work (note the whitespace):
• $Id : $
  
• Steps I applied to test:
• Add this example header to a dummy file (new.cpp):
  /*******************************************************************************
  * #
  * # Author: author
  * #
  * # $Id: $
  * #
  * # *****************************************************************************/
• svn add new.cpp
• A new.cpp
  
• svn proplist --verbose new.cpp
• Properties on 'new.cpp':
  svn:keywords : Id Date LastChangedDate HeadURL URL Author LastChangedBy Rev Revision
  svn:eol-style : native
  
• svn commit new.cpp -m "Initial revision"
• Replacing new.cpp
  Transmitting file data .
  Committed revision 11.
  
• cat new.cpp
• /*******************************************************************************
  * #
  * # Author: author
  * #
  * # $Id: new.cpp 11 2008-02-24 19:26:30Z user $
  * #
  * # *****************************************************************************/
• Italicized items above represent environment-specific text

Level 77

It gets exponentially longer with each level. The top PQ'ers are up to level 92.

This is the only computer game I "play" these days.

Link: http://progressquest.com

Friday Cat Blogging

Kernels once rolled here;
Unpopped, mesmerizing sounds;
Put them back in, please?

Hired

I started a new full-time job on Monday, Feb 4.

Today, I learned there's a form I need to fill out if I want to bring an electric fan into work. A fan! My high hopes for bringing in a new development rig and a compact fridge have met with similar violent ends.

I'm glad I didn't ask before swapping out the stock Cool White fluorescent tubes for Full Spectrum tubes.

On the up side, I'm helping low-income kids, and that feels good.

Shadows

Walking across campus from my compiler class on Thursday, I was struck by the number of shadows I cast as I walked--seven by my count, and perhaps more. I've never noticed before, but it's so obvious. As I walked, they changed direction and opaqueness, as the angle and distance from the light sources changed. It was quiet, save the occasional vehicle, and I felt peaceful.

Sealable Plastic Badge Holder

The past two jobs I've worked at require badges (save the jokes, please) for identification.

Stock plastic badge holders provided with the badge open at the top to allow the RFID card to slide in. The unsealable opening at the top eventually lets in dust, dirt, and liquids. The badge ends up looking beat up after a year or two. Replacing the plastic holder helps, but it's a hassle.

It turns out there's a simple solution--purchase a pack of sealable badge holders from an office-supply store. For example, Office Depot, or intuitively enough, badgeholder.com.

Canon MP160 + Wireless Multifunction Print Server

Wireless multifunction print servers have a few pitfalls--here's what I've been through.

I own a Canon Pixma MP160 multifunction USB 2.0 printer. Originally, I connected it to my laptop's docking station using a GigaWare four-port USB 2.0 hub and shared it on the network from my laptop. The downsides of this configuration:

• Undocking the laptop removes the printer from the network.
• Once undocked, other laptops can still print, but they have to have a separate printer driver installed for local rather than remote printing, and they obviously have to hoof it over to the printer.
• Desktops that rely on the shared printer are out-of-luck.
  

Obviously a non-optimal solution. A wireless print server, theoretically, would mean all wireless-enabled desktops and laptops can print from wherever they are in the house.

The seed of this idea has been in my head for several months. An opportunity to remedy the situation presented itself while I was shopping at a local tech store two weeks ago. On impulse (in hindsight, a regrettable decision) I purchased a Linksys Wireless G print server. Getting home, I discovered in my ignorance that print server manufacturers typically break down print servers into two sets--those that support multifunction printers and those that don't. The Linksys Wireless G print server doesn't support multifunction printers. Above and beyond that limitation, the installation and configuration process of the Linksys Wireless G proved frustrating:

• The print server web server crashes if you begin navigating from the home page. To avoid this bug, one has to start navigating the print server's web server from http://*ip*/ps_stat.htm. That's scary quality control.
• Without knowing this trick, even though you set the local wireless SSID security key, it doesn't take--so it's even worse from the user's point of view, since they think they did everything right.

After researching this on the internet, I decided that I wasn't happy with the bugs and the loss of multifunction printing support for the price, and returned it.

Before I did that, I decided to research wireless multifunction print servers further. My local tech store sells print servers from Hawking, D-Link, Linksys, AirLink, and TrendWare. I ignored the multifunction version from Linksys and decided after reading reviews online that the D-Link Rangebooster G Multifunction print server represented the best bet. I knew from reading their web site that the Canon MP160 wasn't listed as supported under the FAQ, but I decided to take a risk since they only had reviewed HP and Epson. This represented my second learning opportunity.

Last night I hooked it up, and after a quick call to tech support (it needed a static IP to work), got it working. D-Link tech support confirmed that it doesn't work with the MP160 multifunction printer, however. Other than it's failure to work with DHCP, the D-Link seemed like a quality product.

I finally got the idea to just call Canon and ask them point-blank what works with their printers. It turns out that they sell a model called the Silex C-6700WG that works with the Canon printers. Unfortunately, it's $100. *sigh* I guess this is what is meant by vendor lock-in. I haven't decided whether or not to buy it, since in the future I'm hoping to upgrade to a color laser printer

So why does it seem so hard to get printing right for multifunction printers? The answer seems to be (from TrendNet's now defunct page):

Printers that host multiple functions, such as faxing and scanning, use different communication standards to complete respective tasks. Traditional print servers are unable to interface with multi-function printers due to the use of different communication standards within one device. The result is that many multi-function printers are not currently linked to a home or office network.

So there you have it--multifunction print servers need to be fluent in fax, scanner, copier and printer standards--and apparently the communication pipeline of printer-driver<->print-server<->printer is pretty fragile.

1,415

My spam folder currently contains 1,415 spam e-mails, all received in the last 30 days.

On average:

• 354 per week
  
• 47 per day
• 2 per hour
  

To get silly:

• 0.033 per minute
• 0.00055 per second

I'm curious how typical this is....

24C3

Aw man, I missed the 24C3:

http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Main_Page

One of the highlights of the tech year.

Radio Songs

Heard on the radio:

Vacaville, CA-based Papa Roach's "...To Be Loved" from their 2006 album The Paramour Sessions on the Geffen Records label. Video.

Chamorro Pride

Saw this phrase on a license-plate frame yesterday on the way to class.

Apparently, the Chamorro are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, which include the American territory of Guam and the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia.

Friday Cat Blogging

Putty Settings

Bright green text on a dark-green background with a nice fixed-width six-point text:

• Font: Terminal, 6-point
• Default Foreground Color="0,255,0"
• Default Bold Foreground="255,255,255"
• Default Background="0,55,0"
• Default Bold Background="85,85,85"
• Lines of scrollback: 9999
• Rows: 100
• Columns: 100

UPDATE: On KUbuntu, I'm using font Monospace Regular 10 pt.

To Infinity And Beyond

Yoshi is the Infinite Cat Project's 2007 Christmas Day cat:
http://www.infinitecat.com/infinite/cat-html/1501-1600/1522.html

Questionable Content

A web comic by Jeph Jacques that's been around forever which I just discovered: http://questionablecontent.net/cast.php

Friday Cat Blogging

Yoshi with The Infinite Cat Project in the background.

Yuki in the bathroom sink.

Yoshi

This evening we welcomed a second kitten into our home. Yoshi is a 10-week old marmalade tabby we adopted from Happy Tails. Yoshi is a polydactyl cat, which means he has more than the usual number of toes on both of his front paws due to a cat body type genetic mutation. The more than usual number of toes are harmless.

Our resident kitten, eight-month-old Yuki, hasn't fully accepted Yoshi yet. He growls and hisses, which is normal (according to the information sheet given to us).

UPDATE: All seems well--after watching our neighbor play with Yoshi for some time, Yuki's temperament seems to have transformed from defensive aggressiveness to playful. They chased each other all over the house, with Yoshi finally hiding under our bed to take a nap. Yoshi's playfulness seemed unphased by Yuki's hissing and growling, like a branch bending in the wind and then springing back. It seems obvious to us by his reaction that Yuki's never been in a home with other cats. His origin remains a mystery, but it's equally obvious that he was raised in a loving home.

UPDATE: Day Two--Yuki continues to hiss, one or two almost inaudible growls. Yuki wants to play--he lies on his back and looks at Yoshi.

UPDATE: Day Three--Yuki continues to hiss at times, then hides from Yoshi in a large box, in a drawer, or behind a curtain. We think he's overwhelmed with Yoshi's energy and needs some peace and safety to de-stress. This evening they played together and they're both sitting with us in the office sleeping.

Friday Cat Blogging

Yuki at six months
watching the move-in process
Cat Supervisor

By Joel Hodgson

Cruising the Flickr account of an ILM'er 90 minutes to the west who got a chance to see the worldwide premier of Cinematic Titanic and shoot pics of the cast party afterward, I found this image:



The hilarious bit about Joel's autograph on the book is that Mike Nelson wrote the book and seems to point to the words "By Joel Hodgson." I'm assuming Joel didn't write that--or did he?

California State Personnel Board Written Exam: Associate Programmer Analyst (Specialist)

This afternoon, on my way to the California State Personnel Board Testing Center to take the written exam for the Associate Programmer Analyst (Specialist) position, I watched ice fly off the top of a semi-trailer heading westward toward San Francisco. The sheets of ice, formed during transport through the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains, had melted in the warm Central Valley sunshine. Now, with every incline or bump, the sheets broke off, arced into the 65-mph winds, then dashed against the road, shattering into thousands of sparkling shards that rattled in my car's wheel wells as I drove over them. Vehicles in adjoining lanes cautiously passed the trailer as best they could.

I managed to avoid the ice and arrive early, parking at the Westfield Plaza East parking garage, eating a light lunch, reading a book to pass the time, and then walking to the Center. I waited outside with 20 other applicants as maintenance staff cleaned windows. At 12:00, a proctor unlocked the door and we filed in, taking our assigned computers (Dell Optiplex GX260's). At precisely 12:15, the proctor began reading the instructions for the exam. At 12:23, we began the three-hour computer-based, multiple-choice test.

The test consisted of 100 questions divided into three sections, each question paired with four multiple-choice answers. The software is a kiosk-style (menu-less) web browser window. The first section discussed IT questions; the second project management and database questions; the third logic and situational questions. You may check a box next to each question to indicate you'd like to review it after completing. At the end of the exam, the software generates links to these questions and those the candidate left blank. A candidate can submit the test for instant grading at any time.

Test topics included: PERT charts, Gantt charts, critical paths, flat files, primary & foreign keys, logic puzzles, algorithm-evaluation, situational questions, a customer-service question, number sequence puzzles, logical database views, batch processing, real-time processing, parallel processing, multitasking, transaction processing, transactions, records, tables, logical operators, relational operators, system development life cycle models (for example, waterfall, spiral), and so forth, and so forth.

Observations:

• The software provides a final grade--no answers, no statistics. You pass or you fail (70% cut-off).
• Don't be late--the proctor turned away one candidate who arrived at 12:30 due to parking problems.
• The proctor has no experience with the test material to clarify questions.
• Cameras record the candidates. No cheating.
• The proctor allowed me to keep a closed-container of water and a Clif Bar on the desk.
• No keyboard necessary--you're instructed to set it on top of the computer case
• You'll need the candidate ID number issued to you to log-in to the software.
• Overwhelmingly male population. Out of 20, perhaps 5 women.
• One tip: Spinners at the Westfield Plaza Mall near the Center offers parking validation if you buy a coffee.
• I finished in approximately two hours, and spent the remaining 60 minutes reviewing questions I failed to answer or marked for review. I then went through the entire test again one final time.
• The software presents a one-page candidate satisfaction survey at the end to obtain feedback prior to showing your grade.
• The exam software worked well--no bugs.

Opinions/reactions:

• A question on flat-files? Domo arigato Mr. Roboto! Take me back to the 80's.
• Coming from a computer science background I felt rusty on some of the business analyst terminology.
• The design of the web exam software seems like a throwback to the HTML of the mid-nineties. Solidly functional, but dated.
• I mis-interpreted the equality operator ('=') as the assignment operator and botched a question. x_x Too much reading of C code.
• I felt disappointment at not having the option to see which questions I missed--I'd appreciate more transparency. A few questions I had down to one of two choices and I'd like to know what the answers were. Especially the answers to the situational questions, which seem subjective. A call to the Exam Questions line (916-653-1705) revealed, It's a standard exam and we don't allow answer inspections for that.
• The URL http://www.spb.ca.gov/employment/eligible_list_disclosure.cfm on the printed results sheet given to me after the test doesn't work. The URL appears to be http://www.spb.ca.gov/jobs/exams/eligible_list_disclosure.htm.

The State ranks people based on their scores, and hires primarily out of the top three ranks.

To my surprise, I discovered that due to extra points given to veterans or career state employees. The percentages needed to reach the top two ranks are 110% and 105%! Third-rank is 100%, with each rank decreasing by 5%--fourth rank, 95%, fifth rank, 90%, and so forth. x_xI didn't achieve the perfect score necessary to reach third rank, but I'm quite content with the result I achieved.

It appears upon review that the printed results sheet given to me after the test contains a table which indicates rank one and two as 110% and 105%, but in reality rank one seems to be 95%+, rank two seems to be 90%+, and rank three 85%+.

Wishing you success on the exam.