Codestrom - The Wandering Programmer

You know it's time to buy a Mac when...

So.. for the past month.. I've been contemplating on whether I should buy a Mac.. Here's my 10 flippant reasons to buy a Mac..

Warning : This post may contain strong doses of dry humor or sarcasm

1) All open source software you could use as an OS would waste time and be unrewarding to contribute to

2) You'd like to pursue more musical or design interests

3) Open source has left you unfulfilled and uncaring after so many battles

4) You'd rather die or be a farmer without power before using any Microsoft product

5) Any open source software which you may still have some lingering desire to hack on is already been ported to the Mac

6) You'd like to change your image from someone who cares about value to someone that has a frivolous budget

7) All your friends own one, two or maybe three

8) It's technically a certified UNIX..

9) Apple may hire you to hack on some code

10) You'll impress all the ladies.. </sarcasm>

----

11) You think zfs on Mac OSX shouldn't die.. *cough*

IRC guide for professionals

Connecting to an irc network

Many people have a lot of preferences and opinions about what makes a "good" irc client.  All personal preferences aside I'll step by step describe how to setup an irc account using pidgin [1].  Pidgin offers a number of advantages including being portable across multiple OS and combining multiple messenger protocols into one convenient place.  Pidgin does lack a lot of the useful functions that many other irc clients provide, but for those getting started provides an intuitive interface to help get started.

Note: If you mention to others you're using pidgin they will almost certainly comment it's a bad irc client.

• From the main buddy list window in pidgin click > Accounts > Manage accounts
  • Select > add
    • From the protocols choose > irc
    • Username > (something unique.. a moniker, nickname or even parts of your name.  Your choice..)
    • Server > (for pidgin it should default to irc.freenode.net)
    • Password > (won't matter unless you register)

After saving pidgin should automatically attempt to connect you.

Note: I assume you've successfully connected and if not I'll add a troubleshooting section

• From the main buddy list window in pidgin click > Buddies > Join a Chat
  • Account - select the irc network you just created
  • Channel - #osunix (Depending on the network there can be dozens to thousands to choose from) *Small selfish plug for a channel I manage
    

Useful commands you need to know and should remember

• /help - gives a list of commands you can send to the server
• /nick newnickname - change your nickname
• /join #channelname - Many channel names start with # or ##.  You can join up to 20 channels by default, but I would recommend you start small.
• /query somenick - opens a private chat window where you can talk privately with that person.
• /list - Will open a new window with a list of channels you can join
  

IRC tips, best practices and etiquette

• Be polite
• Ignore idiots - Mostly commonly called "trolls"  They are professionals at trying to get attention and being stupid.
  
• If you enter a new channel and have a question.  Just ask the question.  It may break normal politeness, but on irc it's not rude. Not following this will get you ignored or instantly marked as someone without a lot of irc experience.  (Thus a possible target for trolls)
• It's ok to ignore the channel and just work.  Anyone with years of experience will develop this skill quickly.  For those connecting while at their day job this can be especially important.  No need to apologize.. Once again it's not rude.
• Try to google first and failing that then ask.  Encourage others to do the same
• There's no rule that says you have to participate.  It's ok to "lurk" and just read or ignore
• Normally you can tab complete a person's nick by just typing a few characters

Setting up auto-join

• From the main conversation window > Conversation > add
  • Account and channel should be correct if you were already in #osunix
  • Tick the box "Autojoin when account becomes online"
    

Registering your nickname (freenode specific) [2] 

Note: Remember to update your account if you didn't add a password when you originally created it.

Channel managed by me will be

• Relatively noise free
• Positive atmosphere
  
• Currently no idiots and will stay that way for the foreseeable future

Reasons why to use irc

• most efficient and best tool for a large or small group of professionals to collaborate
• friendly atmosphere
• informal place for new users to ask questions
• allows a natural pooling of knowledge as the channel grows (the more people who join.. the better the channel gets)
• good tool to recruit and keep new users interested
• sometimes more efficient than email to debug and identify problems
  

[1] http://www.pidgin.im/
[2] http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#registering

big kudos to jesper + bitbucket team

For a while I've been debating whether git or hg was the better choice for our upstream OSUNIX project.   About a week ago my decision process became a no-brainer.  The guys from bitbucket and the overall mercurial community is exactly the type of people we want to be aligned with.  (fingers crossed) So a big thanks to those guys for setting up our fork of onnv-gate..

http://hg.osunix.org/codestr0m/osunix-gate
(shameless self promotion)

There still needs testing and commit policies before it's really launched, but having one less thing to worry about is great.

So.. lets actually get to the point of this post.. the bitbucket team has secretly been working on a new site built for the community. So without further adue..  Take a look at the preview and give some feedback.. the mercurial guys would love to know..

OpenSolaris - Bittorrent client setup

If you're like me and feel like migrating from Linux or another OS and trying OpenSolaris.. You'll notice a few of the basic necessities are missing out of the box..  Here's the steps to get the Transmission bittorrent client up and running..