Koozie Notes

How to Get SFTP Perl support on Windows XP

Today, I needed to update some old perl scripts from sending files via ftp to sftp.  I finally figured out how to make that happen on ActiveState's Perl 5.8.8 running on Windows XP. [Instructions for ActiveState PPMs for 5.8.8]

 

C:\>ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/Net-SSH2.ppd

--Chris

 

Git: Should I use 'git pull' or 'git fetch'?

While searching for documentation explaining the difference between "git pull" versus "git fetch", I found a nice blog posting covering this issue titled, git: fetch and merge, don’t pull.

The short answer is use 'git fetch origin' followed by a 'git merge origin/master'.  You can insert a 'git diff master origin/master' between the first and second command to see what will be brought in.

--Chris

 Online Git Book, "Pro Git"

 

BitCoin: A New Internet Currency?

I first heard about Bitcoin while listening Steve Gibson's Security Now podcast, episode # 287.  

 

Steve: Well, it's really, really clever. The reason that I sort of fell in love with this for the moment is, as I plowed in, I just got a big kick out of the way that the many problems associated with a sort of a floating currency, meaning a currency that isn't anchored by any central bank, there's no state sponsorship for it, I mean, and it's a real thing. Anyone who's interested, and I would encourage our listeners, if this podcast and what they hear about it makes them curious, go check it out. Just put "bitcoin" into Google, and you'll start seeing pages of stuff. And about two years ago the project was registered, a little over two years ago, by a Japanese cryptographer, Satoshi Nakamoto. And it's an open source project on SourceForge, so none of this is black art stuff. The goal is to really solve, I mean, to offer an honest-to-god, non-hobby-level, but industrial-strength, Internet-based, peer-to-peer currency where real value can be exchanged between two parties without any intermediary being involved. And that's one of the trickiest things because you've got all kinds of problems. First of all, where does the currency come from? What creates the currency? How much currency is flowing through the system? How do you monitor that and regulate it? How do you prevent it from being inflated? How do you keep people from fraudulently creating currency? How do you keep someone from, if they have some, from reusing the same currency? All of that has been solved with this system in some very clever and very new ways. Which is really what captivated my attention on this.

 

Next, I installed the Mac version of the Bitcoin client application, and headed over to get some free bitcoins from Gavin's Bitcoin faucet.

So far it is a definetly an interesting solution to a difficult problem: How to provide a true Internet Currency or E-Cash, which is not tied nor control by banks or soverign country.  BitCoin Market Watche provides data on how BitCoin is trading against the US Dollar.  Comments from PayPal on Bitcoin.

 

--Chris 

 

BitCoin Me!  [18cfvqNkQR6Q1bWpAarPiaTM51bRFb2W1z]

Bitcoin Block Explorer: Tool for Review Bitcoins Blocks.

Lone Star Ruby Conference

I attended the annual Lone Star Ruby Conference (27-28 AUG 2010) in Austin, and needed a place to keep some of my notes.  To of my goals after attending the conference:

1. Give the VIM text editor another shot.  Currently use UltraEdit on windows and Textmate on Mac.
2. Learn Git, a popular DVCS

Videos were taken at the Lone Star Ruby Conference.

--Chris

Send To --> Mail Recipient on WinXP and Thunderbird Stopped Working

I really don't remember when it happened, but for the last week I have not been able to right click on a file and select "Send To" --> "Mail Recipient." My work computer runs Windows XP SP3 and I use Mozilla's Thunderbird as my email client.

I did find a good thread describing this problem, but none of the workaround seem to work for me.

Mozilla team has this issue as a known bug.  It seems to be related to running the Thunderbird update as opposed to reinstalling a new version.  Another link can be found here describing this problem.

- Chris

Update:

To fix this problem on my machine, I had to change a registry setting.  In one of the links above, they state: "to make a registry setting a path to:"

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\mozMapi32_InUse.dll

which did not work for me because I did not have a file labeled mozMapi32_InUse.dll on my computer, but I did have one labled "mozMapi32.dll".  So I modified this registry setting use the DLL installed on my computer.  Send To now works for me.

Windows Registry Workaround

This is a better workaround, it will work if you installed Thunderbird with
default settings and you use a English Windows version. Just save the file to
disk and then execute it. If you prefer to apply the workaround manually, you
have to set in the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Mozilla
Thunderbird the DLLPath key to "C:\Program Files\Mozilla
Thunderbird\mozMapi32_InUse.dll" (without the quotes).
Another workaround is to set another mail client as default mail client (for
example Outlook Express) and then Thunderbird as default mail client again. But
I would not recommend this as this might cause the same problems as in Bug 452162 again.

--Chris

iPhone App: Deposit Checks with Camera

USAA is planning on updating their iPhone application, which will allow users to make a check deposit using only their iPhone.  I even saw a video demonstration of their new app.

Sweet.

--Chris

Partial File Attachment Issue: IMAP on Thunderbird

After working my email hosting provider, they found a solution to a recurring problem I have with getting full email attachments.  In my setup, I use an IMAP connection on Thunderbird (version 2.0.0.22 (20090605) ) with my email hosting provider.  And sometimes, I cannot pull down full attachments, especially when the attachments are standard ASCII text files.

After working with tech support, they requested that I make two (2) configuration changes, which after restarting Thunderbird, cleared up the problem.

In Thunderbird, navigate to Tools > Options > Advanced >
Config Editor.  Look for the "mail.imap.fetch_by_chunks" and "
mail.server.default.fetch_by_chunks" values and set them to "False".  
Restart Thunderbird.

--Chris

Issues Converting from SQL 7 to SQL 2005: 6.5 Compatibility

Yesterday evening, I was working on moving an old database from MS SQL Server 7.0 to a new server running MS SQL Server 2005.  Using SQL 2005 Management Studio, the moved database just stated "Database Name" (6.5 Compatibility).

After a few google searches, I found this site describing the same problem.  To correct the problem and convert the old database to SQL Server 2005 format, you would issue the following SQL command:

EXEC sp_dbcmptlevel 'MyDBName', '90';

I learned another fact last night about SQL 2005. SQL Enterprise manager, which was in SQL 2000 and SQL 7.0, is now called Management Studio. And the query analyzer, which used to be a separate application, is now incorporated inside SQL 2005 Management Studio.

--Chris

Old School Programing: Basic-256

While listening the Leo and Steve on the "Security Now!" podcast, they mentioned BASIC-256, a version of BASIC used to teach computer programming.  This evening, I downloaded and ran it.  Pretty cool. 

It reminds me of childhood programming on my Sinclair 1000, typing out programs, and saving them to cassette tape.

BASIC-256 web site.

You might also want to take a look at a Salon article title, "Why Johny Can't Code."

--Chris

Funky Error Code Using Perl and Win32::ODBC

While working on a perl script today, I came accross a strange error message from Win32::ODBC.

[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Too few parameters. Expected 1.

Now in the SQL statement, I was passing in the following VBA function:
    DateDiff( interval, date1, date2, [firstdayofweek], [firstweekofyear] )

When I passed in  DateDiff( "d", date1, date2), I received an error.  So I left off the double quotes and passed in DateDiff( d, date1, date2), which still failed.

Solution:  Pass it in with single quotes.

DateDiff( 'd', date1, date2)

--Chris