On the way

On the way http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/ J2EE software engineer writing about working abroad, cultures and insights en-us Nucleus CMS v3.32 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.hietavirta.net/blog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif On the way http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/ <![CDATA[Apache Redirect Permanent and ProxyPass]]> http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=335 Redirect permanent /subfolder/ /
This would redirect www.yoursite.com/subfolder to www.yoursite.com.

Then later on you to add proxy config:



ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/site/

ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/site/

ProxyPassReverseCookiePath /site /

But after that your redirect fails. It turns out that ProxyPass config overrules Redirect. Add exclusion to the ProxyPass to fix this:



ProxyPass /subfolder !

ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/site/

ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/site/

ProxyPassReverseCookiePath /site /

Note that the exclusion is before others.]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=335 Fri, 2 Jul 2010 23:35:23 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=335 <![CDATA[Frame rate tool for OS X - ReelSnail]]> http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=334
The project is based on Python script that did the same in command line. But I wanted to add a OS X native front end and I also wanted learn Objective C so I decided to rewrite the whole thing in Objective C. I managed to get most of it working in a weekend. I had one old Cocoa book (Hillegass - Cococa Programming for Mac OS X) and Apple's online guides. XCode and Objective C were pretty different compared to Eclipse and Java but I managed to get my head around some of the concepts.

Another new experiment for me was to use Git for the project. I used GPLv3 for the project because the original Python version used that. Being open source project it was possible to set the repository to GitHub for free. Having gone through some nasty merges in SVN I wanted to try out distributed approach. In a one man project there is not too much to merge but I was curious to try out Git tooling. I ended up using both command line tools and GitX.

ReelSnail project wiki
ReelSnail downloads]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=334 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:03:54 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=334 <![CDATA[Moved back to Edinburgh]]> http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=333
This new flat is reasonably new, it has some modern comforts like dishwasher and double glazing. Hmm... I must have spent long enough in UK because I am mentioning double glazing as an extra. Anyways, nice and modern flat with some sea view. I think I should write down an article about flat hunting and related matters. At least I have experience from three different occasions.

Otherwise life is pretty much same here, I am still working in the same company developing open source Java CMS. It will be published soon but the exact date is still unclear at least for me.]]> General http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=333 Fri, 7 May 2010 23:01:33 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=333 <![CDATA[Hacking Canon IXUS 60]]> http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=332 Full story at Apertoire blog.]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=332 Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:06:49 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=332 <![CDATA[Experimenting with analog technology]]> http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=331 Read it from my photography blog.]]> General http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=331 Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:51:49 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=331 <![CDATA[Media convergence, publishers and Apple iPad]]> http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=330
Traditional web or mobile optimised version of the print publications wont cut anymore. Some publishers have announced their own iPhone application but many of them are simple page flipping applications. Not much difference to PDF reader. Seamlessly embedded videos and photo galleries are not that common as one would expect. Especially when new devices like iPad support much larger screen and computing power than previously so they should be able to handle them easily.

At the moment many of those magazine or newspaper reader applications are free with their content but paid content will definitely become more popular. Instead of subscribing or buying physical printed magazine you would receive an access to the extra content - all edited and formatted in a single package. Simple 'subscribers only' area with content snippets lying around might have been the way to do previously but now users are expecting much more elegant presentation. I see iPad and similar devices as premium content platforms and their users are already used to pay for applications, videos and music.

There are two sides of the iPad publishing - a CMS and a reader. Recent development on digital photography has enabled photo reporters to shoot both stills and video - actually they expected to do so now. Presenting this variety of media formats is not straightforward. Publishers had to find way to add all this content in to their sites and I can imagine how their CMSs are being pushed against the limits. Publishers need to have highly flexible content management system that handles vast amount of different media formats and is able to transform them to another (i.e. downscaling videos). The same content needs to be available for normal web, lightweight mobile devices, smart phones and now also for tablet. The extra effort and cost required for each platform version should be minimal.

The content reader can be either the standard web browser or a custom reader application. Publishing content for specific application allows much more freedom for layout and media formats. is an example of how a digital magazine would look like in the future. Developing such reader application is not trivial task but I assume iPad SDK has some new features supporting this. Unfortunately the documentation is available only for members of the iPhone Developer Program.

As Apple did not announce their own de facto reader for rich content there is now an open space for iPad developers to conquer. The solution offering the intuitive user interface on iPad, excellent performance and seamless integration with content management systems will be a winner.
]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=330 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:54:00 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=330 <![CDATA[Some file organizing with Python]]> http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=329
I implemented this in two parts. The first part created the required directory structure:



import os



workPath = "/tmp/test/"

for a in range (0, 16):

   os.mkdir(workPath+hex(a)[2:])   

   for b in range (0, 16):

      os.mkdir(workPath+"/"+hex(a)[2:]+"/"+hex(b)[2:])

      for c in range (0, 16):

         os.mkdir(workPath+"/"+hex(a)[2:]+"/"+hex(b)[2:]+"/"+hex(c)[2:])

The next part was to move files to the corresponding directories. This was also quite straightforward but I had problem with os.rename and I had to replace it with shutil.move. The original script worked fine on my home computer but the development server had the source and destination directories in different filesystems. Here is the final version:



import os

import shutil



sourceDir = "/tmp/files/"

destDir = "/tmp/test/"



filenames = os.listdir(sourceDir)

for filename in filenames:

   sourceFile = sourceDir+filename

   print(sourceFile)

   destFile = destDir+filename[0]+"/"+filename[1]+"/"+filename[2]+"/"+filename

   print(destFile)

   shutil.move(sourceFile, destFile)