05.13.09
Posted in rants, bugs/fixes at 5:44 pm by tal
You’re trying to phpize some package, but no matter what you do it complains that it cannot find autoconf? whatever you do it throws at you:
Cannot find autoconf. Please check your autoconf installation and the $PHP_AUTOCONF environment variable is set correctly and then rerun this script
I’ve been stuck with this for 5 hours till I found the solution at: http://georgedonnelly.com/unix/the-fix-for-those-silly-freebsd-php-ports-php_autoconf-errors
Basically, if you’re like me - you’ve been trying to point $PHP_AUTOCONF at the executable, right? What you should do instead is:
1) make sure the autoconf binary is in the path
2) set $PHP_AUTOCONF to whatever the name of your autoconf binary is
I hope it took you less than 5 hours to get here. (go google!)
P.S.
If you need autoconf you can follow the uzair’s instructions which are:
You can download it from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/ and then do
1. ./configure –prefix=/path/to/your/home/directory
2. make
3. make install
Permalink
12.23.08
Posted in rants, bugs/fixes, google, code at 1:57 am by tal
I’ve been integrating my uncle’s corporate cookie gift baskets website with Google Checkout. Google has done a great job making everything easy and straightforward, and the experience has been delightful. Except that it is terribly broken.
Google offers three methods of determining shipping costs: Flat-rate, Carrier-Calculated and Merchant-Calculated.
Carrier-Calculated-Shipping provides the merchant the options of specifying an additonal fixed charge, and a percentage modification, which should be enough so that the vast majority of integrations would not have to resolve to creating their own shipping calculation code.
Google allows for “address restrictions” to be added to the Flat-Rate and the Merchant-Calculated shipping option, so if for example you do not wish to offer a flat-rate option to people outside of a certain set of states or zip-codes you can easily define that.
For some unknown, undocumented, incredibly annoying reason - you cannot specify address restrictions on Carrier-Calculated-Shipping. The result is that if you choose to use Carrier-Calculated-Shipping you must offer it to all buyers regardless of address. Even addresses which are obviously unavailable (such as UPS shipping to APO/FPO addresses) are being offered those services. I don’t think it is too much to ask for those obvious excluded addresses to be pre-configured into the google system, but it is outrageous that you cannot even specify those restrictions yourself!
This is very un-Google-like. I can’t stop thinking that I’m missing something. Google cannot be this stupid…
On the forums they suggest that I collect the zip/state of the user prior to checkout and then decide which shipping options to add to the cart-xml-request. This defeats the purpose of being a single-step, quick, checkout option doesn’t it?
I can’t think of a reason why implementing address restrictions on the Carrier-Calculated-Shipping option would be anything but a straight forward one-liner on google’s side.
In one word: dissapointing!
Permalink
10.31.08
Posted in interoperability, Windows, technology, OS-X at 12:45 am by tal
Ever had to read an HFS partition on a PC? from what I found - HFSExplorer is the best option out there (and of course, it is free). The downside is that it is a standalone application rather than a ‘driver/plugin’ so you can’t mount the partition - which wouldn’t be a big deal if the app would let you browse the tree while copying. Better than nothing…
Permalink
07.08.08
Posted in QuickTime, bugs/fixes, OS-X at 11:11 pm by tal
One of the annoying things on my MacBook Pro is that the speaker volume is too low. It is even more annoying when QuickTime is for some reason playing the file at a low volume so that it is very hard to hear even though both QT volume and system volume are at their max. A partial solution to this problem is a little known hidden volume setting on QT: While the movie is playing simply hit shift + up-arrow and this will increase the volume beyond the original maximum. Enjoy! [tested on version 7.5 on OS-X 10.4]
Permalink
06.24.08
Posted in funny, retail at 12:33 pm by tal
I ordered some resistors/capacitors from PartsStore Online, the purchase was made on eBay, the confirmation e-mail arrived from “orders@partstore.com” and the email said to contact another address, this time at “partsearch.com”. Oh, well.
The phone number on the e-mail was different from the ones on either website. Strange.
After a couple of days, everything else I ordered on the same day, from various other places, had already arrived. I contacted the store via e-mail, and inquired. A nice guy named Mike replied and explained that the order was forwarded by mistake to a warehouse without stock, and that other warehouses have plenty in stock. Those of you who have keen observation skillz have noticed by now that the order was placed on eBay, and have probably guessed that the auction was for on-stock items. ANYWAY, back to Mike, he was nice enough to make sure the order we rerouted and upgraded my shipping to 2nd-day. I was happy.
A day later - I get the following e-mail:
“…We have your part(s) on order, so you are in line to receive it as soon as it becomes available. Unfortunately, it is not in current stock. We apologize for the delay, but the part(s) you ordered is in high demand. We do our best to make sure that all orders are filled promptly. We will update you as soon as we receive more information.
You will not be charged for this order until the part is shipped. …”
As you have probably guessed, I have already paid (eBay, remember) - so not being charged is a blatant lie.
I decided to try and call them up.
Nice Jazz music on the line, good start.
30 seconds later… A calming voice stating that my call will be answered in approximately 1 minute, great!
1 minute later… Same voice, less calming this time, stating that my call will be answered in approximately 0 (zero) minutes, amusing.
I wonder if you can guess what happened next. Click here to listen (0:30)
* Edit *
In reply to Ethan: Yes, the eventually answered my call (when the counter hit negative 28 minutes). the guy who answered was Mike. The very same mike who e-mailed me. I’m either very lucky or they are very short on staff. I believe the minimum staff for running this kind of gig is 1 person. I’m waiting for him to call me back. Somehow I don’t think that is ever going to happen. or maybe he called me back before I ever called him.
Permalink
06.10.08
Posted in bugs/fixes, google, firefox, technology at 12:58 pm by tal
Finally a solution to this annoying bug (feature?)!
If you’re using Firefox+TabMixPlus and the new edition of GMail (which is now available also for Google-Apps users) you must have noticed that Gmail stops functioning entirely after downloading an attachment. Hitting back doesn’t resolve this, so you must reload GMail entirely.
To avoid this:
1) In FireFox - click on “Tools”
2) choose “Tab Mix Plus options”
3) “Links” should open by default, select it if not
4) Click on “Edit…” next to “Prevent blank tabs when downloading files”
5) Remove the line “/disp=attd&view=att/” from the list
See complete details here
Permalink
Posted in code, technology at 12:58 pm by tal
I was excited to share my discoveries about how to upload files in an AJAX-like manner (without refreshing the page) but this guy did such a good job - I just decided to link to him… (see: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com/2008/05/ajax-file-upload-cake-is-lie.html)
Permalink
05.29.08
Posted in Wifi, OS-X at 5:12 pm by tal
A friend of mine keeps her router's SSID hidden, which is a good practice. Sure, it is not really more secure against a hacker who has half a brain, but it does a pretty good job at preventing random people from poking at your router or trying to guess your password (which is not so hard thanks to tools such as these).
Sadly Apple's inadequate solution for a GUI for the airport makes it really hard to connect to a hidden network. This becomes very annoying if the signal is weak and you keep getting disconnected. Instead of trying to reconnect you have to manually(!) connect, which involves entering the network name all over again (it's not on the list, since it is hidden) AND the password (of course, why would it remember the password?!). *sigh*.
Solution: So, apparently apple has a neat utility that allows you to control (and get info about) your WiFi network hidden in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport (see: osxdaily).
Using this utility I was able to write a one-liner script that would connect me to her network, which makes the whole process a lot simpler.
Notice: The '-h' option reports incorrectly that the modifier required to specify the BSSID is "--bssid=<arg>" while it is actually "--ssid=<arg>"
Permalink
08.10.07
Posted in photography, cats at 7:22 am by tal
Got my new camera last week.
My cats aren’t used to being photographed without a flash,
finally I am able to take a picture of Gizmo with his eyes open!
[SCSI’s reflexes were never as fast, so I do have pictures of him with his eyes open 
]
(Gizmo)
(SCSI)
Permalink