Sigmonsay

Acp.

– SNIP –

All UNIX shells cache the command paths based on the contents of PATH enviromental variable. This can cause a problem if a cached path no longer exists. For example, you have a command “foo” installed in /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin. Your PATH variable is set to “/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin“.When you run “foo“, it is searched under each directory listed in PATH and the results are cached. In this case, the path “/usr/local/bin/foo” will be cached for “foo“.Now suppose you delete the command file “/usr/local/bin/foo“. You still have another copy in “/usr/bin/foo“. However, the next time you type “foo“, the shell will return an error such as this:

-bash: /usr/local/bin/foo: No such file or directory

To clear the cached path of foo command, you can run

$ PATH=$PATH

This basically resets the PATH variable, thereby clearing the cache. For bash shell, you might be able to do the same thing using

$ hash -r

Although, the previous method should also work for bash.

Sending screenshots around is something I do quite often. Rather than rely on external screenshot services I like to build my own using available cloud services. Because doing everything on the cheap is better, more fun and challenging.

Configuring varnish to fetch assets from CouchDB and then S3 as a fail safe if couch is MIA was a fun use of available technologies. Couch lets you save attachments in documents and it was quite a simple addition to the screenshot program I use.

python screenshot program

# add metadata record and image to couchdb
 couchone_uri = "http://XXXXXX.couchone.com/screenshot"
 scheme, netloc, path, query, fragment = urlparse.urlsplit(couchone_uri)
 ss = httplib.HTTPConnection(netloc)

 # save meta data
 rec = {
 "year" : int(time.strftime("%Y")),
 "month" : int(time.strftime("%m")),
 "day" : int(time.strftime("%d")),
 "doctype" : "metadata",
 "s3_url" : s3_url,
 "s3_key" : s3_key,
 }
 headers = {
 "Content-Type" : "application/json",
 }
 couch_key = s3_key.replace("/", "-")
 ss.request("PUT", os.path.join(path, couch_key), json.dumps(rec), headers)
 res = ss.getresponse()
 ret = json.loads(res.read())
 print res.status, res.reason, ret

 # Upload the image as an attachment
 aurl = os.path.join(path, ret['id'], "image")
 aurl_params = "?rev=" + ret['rev']
 ss.request("PUT", aurl + aurl_params, file(filename).read(), { "Content-Type" : "image/jpg" })
 res = ss.getresponse()
 print res.status, res.reason, res.read()
 attach_url = scheme + "://" + netloc + os.path.join(path , ret['id'], "image")
 print "URL", repr(attach_url)

Brace yourself

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From The Big Picture, Boston.com:

From Japan: One week later – The Big Picture – Boston.com.

I too am without words. AMAZED at the damage that unfolds, by the cars at first, then floored by entire buildings getting washed away.

Sittin here on a rainy day in SF skipping the swim swum getting wordpress less broken

And i’m having some troubles getting posts working with direct links…