The following commands dump a MySQL database from a remote server and create a corresponding database on the local computer.

The instructions have been tested on OSX and Linux (Ubuntu/Debian). On-line SSH compression is applied, so transferring SQL files, which are text content and compress well, should be around 6x faster than normal.

(Well… actually the script is six lines, but because this is my blog I’ll decide it doesn’t count)

The script

• Remotely runs mysqldump and puts the result to a local file
• Creates a MySQL database and corresponding user with full access to this database
• Reads the content of mysqldump to the newly created database

 ssh user@dserver.com -C -o CompressionLevel=9 mysqldump -u YOURDATABASEUSER --password=YOURDATABASEPASSWORD --skip-lock-tables --add-drop-table YOURDATABASENAME > YOURDATABASENAME.sql
mysql -uroot -p
create database YOURDATABASENAME;
connect YOURDATABASENAME;
source YOURDATABASENAME.sql
GRANT ALL ON YOURDATABASENAME.* TO 'YOURDATABASEUSER'@'localhost' identified by 'YOURDATABASEPASSWORD';

Leave out create database and GRANT for the subsequent runs – all data on the local computer will be replaced.

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Here are instructions how to run Firefox Mobile on Ubuntu Linux (tested on 32-bit Ubuntu 10.10)

wget http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/releases/latest/linux-i686/fennec-5.0.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
tar -xjf fennec-5.0.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
cd fennec
./fennec

.. and thats all you need. It works out of the box! 400x times faster than using Android emulator browser.

There are also OSX and Windows builds available.

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• Your program will run faster…
• … faster…
• and ..faster!

Here are quick instructions for using PyPy on OSX. You should be able to apply these instructions to other UNIX systems as well.

Install PyPy by getting binary tarball.

wget http://pypy.org/download/pypy-1.4.1-osx64.tar.bz2
tar -xjf pypy-1.4.1-osx64.tar.bz

Install Distribute / easy_install command (setuptools fork) in order to install third party libraries.

cd pypy-1.4.1-osx64
wget http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
bin/pypy distribute_setup.py

Install libraries – easy_install seems to run just fine on PyPy as long as you don’t try to install Python native extensions

bin/easy_install plac # command line parser
bin/easy_install iso8601 # date format parser

Then run your application

~/code/pypy-1.4.1-osx64/bin/pypy exceptionanalysis.py     -s=2010-01-01T00:00:00 /Users/moo/xxx/log/client1.log

In my case the application was a simple log analyzer based on Python generators (code will be posted later). It reads a text file and tries to interpret it. The script utilizes only one CPU core and thus is very CPU bound. The speed comparison results are

• With Python 2.4: Completed in 111.08 seconds
• With PyPy: Completed in 30.39 seconds

That’s almost 4x speed-up!

Things did not work with PyPy

• import multiprocessing – was not hard dependency, needed to comment out in plac_ext

Here is the traceback if anyone can help:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "app_main.py", line 53, in run_toplevel
 File "exceptionanalysis.py", line 20, in <module>
 import plac
 File "/Users/moo/code/pypy-1.4.1-osx64/site-packages/plac-0.8.0-py2.5.egg/plac.py", line 35, in <module>
 from plac_ext import Interpreter, import_main, ReadlineInput, stdout, runp, Monitor
 File "/Users/moo/code/pypy-1.4.1-osx64/site-packages/plac-0.8.0-py2.5.egg/plac_ext.py", line 7, in <module>
 import itertools, traceback, multiprocessing, signal, threading
 File "/Users/moo/code/pypy-1.4.1-osx64/site-packages/multiprocessing-2.6.2.1-py2.5-macosx-10.6-i386.egg/multiprocessing/__init__.py", line 87, in <module>
 import _multiprocessing
 File "/Users/moo/code/pypy-1.4.1-osx64/site-packages/multiprocessing-2.6.2.1-py2.5-macosx-10.6-i386.egg/multiprocessing/_multiprocessing.py", line 7, in <module>
 __bootstrap__()
 File "/Users/moo/code/pypy-1.4.1-osx64/site-packages/multiprocessing-2.6.2.1-py2.5-macosx-10.6-i386.egg/multiprocessing/_multiprocessing.py", line 6, in __bootstrap__
 imp.load_dynamic(__name__,__file__)
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'load_dynamic'

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Your terminal on Linux or OSX may end up to a bad state.

• You cat a binary file to terminal
• You interrupt pdb or some other application reading lines in a bad way

Symptoms

• New lines don’t work
• You cannot see your own typing to terminal
• Backspace stops working

Fix

Type command

stty sane

This may fix some problems without needing to restart the terminal. More info.

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• You are traveling and you want to have all files on the site (PDFs for reading)
• You are taking a site down and making the final back-up
• You just want to feel how cool Plone is

Plone supports WebDAV.

Creating a file system viewable offline copy of a Plone site is a task of

• Enabling WebDAV
• Login to site via WebDAV. On OSX use Cyberduck, Finder (the file browser of OSX itself) may have issues, though works. You might need Zope admin priviledges for certain operations.
• Drag and drop Plone site to your hard disk

WebDAV copy process works smoothly

• Folder and page structure is intact
• Files are copied as is (think PDFs, Docs)
• Images are copied as is
• Pages (HTML) are converted to special files, which are still readable in plain-text editor

Note that some special folders (acl_users, reference_catalog, etc.) might be exposed through WebDAV, but they are not really copyable. Just ignore these during the copy process.

You can also use WebDAV to mass upload files and images for your image bank instead of manually uploading them through web interface.

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Use your favorite editor to edit php.ini file in /Applications/XAMPP/etc/php.ini – sudo priviledges needed, Smultron does it out of the box.

Change lines:

log_errors = Off

;error_log = filename

To:

log_errors = on

error_log = /tmp/php.log

Restart Apache using XAMPP controller in Finder -> Applications.

Now use the following UNIX command to see continuous log flow in your terminal:

tail -f /tmp/php.log

See also the earlier article about XAMPP and file permissions.

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scp -C -o CompressionLevel=9 user@yoursite.com:~/plonefolder/zinstance/var/filestorage/Data.fs .

This command line enables real-time compression with the highest compression level. This speeds up copying somewhat, as ZODB database compresses pretty well.

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• You are using MySQL installation from mysql.com (and not e.g. from Macports)
• You want to install MySQL-python egg using easy_install or buildout

You’ll get an error

Getting distribution for 'MySQL-python'.
install_dir /Users/moo/project/eggs/tmp8-j13e
sh: mysql_config: command not found
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<string>", line 1, in ?
 File "/Users/moo/code/collective.buildout.python/python-2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages/distribute-0.6.14-py2.4.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1855, in main
 with_ei_usage(lambda:
 File "/Users/moo/code/collective.buildout.python/python-2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages/distribute-0.6.14-py2.4.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1836, in with_ei_usage
 return f()  
...

 31, in <lambda>
 {'__file__':setup_script, '__name__':'__main__'}
 File "setup.py", line 15, in ?
 File "/var/folders/O8/O8pt7q52F7Oi+P3O0pNqq++++TI/-Tmp-/easy_install-g5cvxl/MySQL-python-1.2.3/setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config
 File "/var/folders/O8/O8pt7q52F7Oi+P3O0pNqq++++TI/-Tmp-/easy_install-g5cvxl/MySQL-python-1.2.3/setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config
EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found
An error occured when trying to install MySQL-python 1.2.3.Look above this message for any errors thatwere output by easy_install.
While:
 Installing instance.
 Getting distribution for 'MySQL-python'.
Error: Couldn't install: MySQL-python 1.2.3

The reason is that MySQL installer puts MySQL under /usr/local and does not expose MySQL utilites directly to path. MySQL-python expects to find utility mysql_config to configure compile time paths when building native bindings using GCC.

Workaround:

sudo -i
cd /usr/bin
ln -s /usr/local/mysql-5.1.46-osx10.5-x86_64/bin/mysql_config .

Then rerun installer.

Though it is a bit harsh solution to modify system folder, it gets the thing done in simple manner.

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• It is faster, especially it launches and opens new tabs faster than Chrome
• User interface has some nice new innovations, like non-intrusive Download pop-ups and password update dialogs
• Tab groups (Panorama) allows me to create different “workspaces” for leisure time, like Facebook surfing, and work time containing tabs for corporate email and calendar
• Sync works across my different computers, though Chrome can also do this nowadays

Tab groups

I have been experiementing with following tab groups which mostly correspond my different “behavior modes” I have on when working on a computer

• Work tabs: email, calendar, docs
• Social tabs: Facebook, Twitter and such
• Plone, Python and other programming related: All documents and links open, for example copy-pasting them to IRC discussion to give support for someone

Note that I had to add “Tab group” button manually to toolbar, as it was not added there automatically after update. Just right click on empty space next to tabs and choose “Customize”

Add-ons

Some add-ons I am using and I haven’t found equally good alternatives on Google Chrome

• New Tab JumpStart – speed dial for your recently visited pages and bookmarks when opening a new tab
• FireGestures – Mouse gestures which also work on user interface and not just web pages and which do not mess with right button click
• Web Developer toolbar - test print CSS styles, clear cookies easily, somethign that Firebug doesn’t do well
• User Agent Switcher (needed for mobile site development, some instructions here)
• …. and of course Firebug!

I still wish to have add-on sync, so I wouldn’t need to install add-ons separately on each computer.

Firefox for Mobile (Fennec) does not yet provide as solid experience as its desktop counterpart. Mobile Firefox team definitely need to add some speed to its engine before I can consider it alternative for WebKit on my Android phone. But when it gets there and the sync feature is in the place, I’ll start using it instantly.

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Below is my .zshrc configuration file I use on OSX. It is based on Phil!’s ZSH prompt. It sets up nice colored prompt, colours for ls and some aliases. For OSX, get ZSH from Macports. Any suggestions welcome – please comment.

# This is a modified version of Phil's prompt
# I removed the battery monitor, color and simplified
# the title bar to just the host
#
# Changes by calvinhp
#
# Changes by moo
#
# http://aperiodic.net/phil/prompt/

function precmd {
    local TERMWIDTH
    (( TERMWIDTH = ${COLUMNS} - 1 ))

    # Truncate the path if it's too long.
    PR_FILLBAR=""
    PR_PWDLEN=""

    local promptsize=${#${(%):---%D{%a\,%b %d}-----}}
    local pwdsize=${#${(%):-%d}}

    if [[ "$promptsize + $pwdsize" -gt $TERMWIDTH ]]; then
            ((PR_PWDLEN=$TERMWIDTH - $promptsize))
    else
        PR_FILLBAR="\${(l.(($TERMWIDTH - ($promptsize + $pwdsize)))..${PR_HBAR}.)}"
    fi

    # Only show user in the prompt if it isn't yourself
    # Make sure and set the $ME var in .zshrc
    PR_IMPOSTER=""
    [ "$ME" != "" ] && [ $(whoami) != "$ME" ] && PR_IMPOSTER="(%n%)"

    PR_PROJECT=""
    local THIRD_DIR=$(pwd | cut -f 4,5 -d /)
    if [ "$THIRD_DIR" = "sixfeetup/projects" ]; then
        PR_PROJECT="$(pwd | cut -f 6 -d /)"
        [ ! "$PR_PROJECT" = "" ] && PR_PROJECT="($PR_PROJECT)"
    fi
}

setopt extended_glob
preexec () {
    if [[ "$TERM" == "screen" ]]; then
        local CMD=${1[(wr)^(*=*|sudo|-*)]}
        echo -n "\ek$CMD\e\\"
    fi
}

setprompt () {
    # Need this so the prompt will work.
    setopt prompt_subst

 	autoload colors zsh/terminfo
    if [[ "$terminfo[colors]" -ge 8 ]]; then
		colors
    fi
    for color in RED GREEN YELLOW BLUE MAGENTA CYAN WHITE; do
        eval PR_$color='%{$terminfo[bold]$fg[${(L)color}]%}'
        eval PR_LIGHT_$color='%{$fg[${(L)color}]%}'
        (( count = $count + 1 ))
    done
    PR_NO_COLOUR="%{$terminfo[sgr0]%}"

    # See if we can use extended characters to look nicer.
    typeset -A altchar
    set -A altchar ${(s..)terminfo[acsc]}
    PR_SET_CHARSET="%{$terminfo[enacs]%}"
    PR_SHIFT_IN="%{$terminfo[smacs]%}"
    PR_SHIFT_OUT="%{$terminfo[rmacs]%}"
    PR_HBAR=${altchar[q]:--}
    PR_ULCORNER=${altchar[l]:--}
    PR_LLCORNER=${altchar[m]:--}
    PR_LRCORNER=${altchar[j]:--}
    PR_URCORNER=${altchar[k]:--}

    # Decide if we need to set titlebar text.
    case $TERM in
       xterm*)
           PR_TITLEBAR=$'%{\e]0;%m $PR_IMPOSTER $PR_PROJECT\a%}'
           ;;
       screen)
           PR_TITLEBAR=$'%{\e_screen \005 (\005t) | %m $PR_IMPOSTER\e\\%}'
           ;;
       *)
           PR_TITLEBAR=''
           ;;
    esac

    # Decide whether to set a screen title
    if [[ "$TERM" == "screen" ]]; then
        PR_STITLE=$'%{\ekzsh\e\\%}'
    else
        PR_STITLE=''
    fi

    # Finally, the prompt (removed the color - claytron)
    PROMPT='$PR_SET_CHARSET$PR_STITLE${(e)PR_TITLEBAR}\
$PR_CYAN$PR_SHIFT_IN$PR_ULCORNER$PR_BLUE$PR_HBAR$PR_SHIFT_OUT(\
$PR_MAGENTA%$PR_PWDLEN<...<%~%<<$PR_BLUE)($PR_MAGENTA%(!.%SROOT%s.%n)$PR_GREEN\
$PR_BLUE)$PR_SHIFT_IN$PR_HBAR$PR_CYAN$PR_HBAR${(e)PR_FILLBAR}$PR_BLUE$PR_HBAR$PR_SHIFT_OUT(\
$PR_MAGENTA@%m:%l\
$PR_BLUE)$PR_SHIFT_IN$PR_HBAR$PR_CYAN$PR_URCORNER$PR_SHIFT_OUT\

$PR_CYAN$PR_SHIFT_IN$PR_LLCORNER$PR_BLUE$PR_HBAR$PR_SHIFT_OUT(\
%(?..$PR_LIGHT_RED%?$PR_BLUE:)\
${(e)PR_APM}$PR_YELLOW%D{%H:%M}\
$PR_LIGHT_BLUE:%(!.$PR_RED.$PR_WHITE)%#$PR_BLUE)$PR_SHIFT_IN$PR_HBAR$PR_SHIFT_OUT\
$PR_CYAN$PR_SHIFT_IN$PR_HBAR$PR_SHIFT_OUT\
$PR_NO_COLOUR '
}

setprompt

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

# For OSX users, alias nano to real editor
alias nano="open -a Smultron"

export CLICOLOR=1

# enable ls colors by default - use yellow for directories
LS_COLORS="no=00:fi=00:di=01;34:ln=01;36:pi=40;33:so=01;35:do=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:su=37;41:sg=30;43:tw=30;42:ow=34;42:st=37;44:ex=01;32:*.tar=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.svgz=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.Z=01;31:*.dz=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.bz=01;31:*.tbz2=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.jar=01;31:*.rar=01;31:*.ace=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.7z=01;31:*.rz=01;31:*.jpg=01;35:*.jpeg=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.pbm=01;35:*.pgm=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.tga=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.tif=01;35:*.tiff=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.svg=01;35:*.mng=01;35:*.pcx=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.mkv=01;35:*.ogm=01;35:*.mp4=01;35:*.m4v=01;35:*.mp4v=01;35:*.vob=01;35:*.qt=01;35:*.nuv=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.rmvb=01;35:*.flc=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.fli=01;35:*.gl=01;35:*.dl=01;35:*.xcf=01;35:*.xwd=01;35:*.yuv=01;35:*.aac=00;36:*.au=00;36:*.flac=00;36:*.mid=00;36:*.midi=00;36:*.mka=00;36:*.mp3=00;36:*.mpc=00;36:*.ogg=00;36:*.ra=00;36:*.wav=00;36:"

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