Now we’ve worked out what files you want backed up, and we’ve sorted automatic authentication, the only thing left to do is schedule our backups. Unfortunately we can’t make use of the very handy iSync or Backup tools to do this (Apple don’t seem keen on opening up these tools up, as they no-doubt help sell expensive .Mac accounts). Read the rest of this entry »
In our last part, we used rsync to connect to a remote server to perform incremental backups. The problem is that we really want this to be automatic. Scheduling when a backup occurs is actually fairly simple. What is more work is performing automatic authentication so our backup can occur without user intervention.
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If you’ve been using computers for a while, chances are you’ve lost valuable data more than once. Most computers nowadays come with CD writers (and many with DVD writers) which is great for the occasional manual backup – there is even the nice OSX-specific iSync tool which remind you when to perform the backup, and can manage the files being backed up too. However what would be better would be an automatic solution.
The rsync tool ships with OSX, Linux, and even Windows. Rather than copying and overwriting files on a remote location rsyc performs incremental transfer of files – only those files not already present will be copied – this drastically reduces the time taken to perform backups.
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Update: I’ve caught what I think is a cross between avian flu and sars, with a bit of ebola thrown in. Needless to say I’ll be unable to attend this evening – so Simon B is in charge. Needless to say I’m a little annoyed.
OK, arrangements have been made and we have a new venue for the monthly Django/Rails/Python/Ruby meeting. This time around we’ll have our own space at the Old Bank Of England, which should be much more quiet than Smiths. Like last month, we’ll hopefully be joined by the London Python group, and Django/Rails/Python/Ruby newbies are more than welcome.
Given that we’ll have a better venue for it, I’d also be as keen on people showing demos – hopefully I’ll try and get my colleagues to repeat the demo created for our recent GreenPeace bid. Make sure you leave a comment if you’ll be attending, as I’d like to let the barman know if we’ll drink him out of house and home…
Good developers create good technical solutions to problems.
Good consultants find that delicate balance between being themselves and not being themselves that enable them to get the job done for the client.
This was driving me nuts for ages – I couldn’t work out how to turn off that annoying beep you got whenever an auto-completion had multiple or no hits. Anyway, it’s a ReadLine configuration (so it’ll apply to any shell using ReadLone) – edit (or create) .inputrc in your home directory, and insert the following line:
set bell-style off
Finally – peace!
Carlos make a very interesting point concerning my suprise that Flickr haven’t invested in functional testing:
Read the rest of this entry »…[not testing can incur] less upfront [costs] and more maintenance costs over time. As a startup (well, before they were acquired by Yahoo, anyway), this makes sense: the whole point of a startup is that you can do riskier things, and they guessed at some point that automatically testing anything but the most significant bits (smoke tests?) wasnt as important as getting code out the door, fast, and obssessively listening and reacting to user feedback. This probably required keeping insane levels of attention to detail and commitment, which is quite rare I might add, but a great part of what I attribute to their success.
This according to the Observer Music Monthly – as if Jamie Cullum guesting on the latest Pharrell Williams album wasn’t weird enough. I’m bracing myself for the inevitable rise of easy listening crunk.
This scoop also courtesy of the Observer Music Monthly. I’m sure John Peel would approve. Read the rest of this entry »
On the 28th and 29th of November, XP Day 2005 will be held in London. Organised by the local Extreme Tuesday Club, XP Day (tag line: “More than XP, more than one day”) will be hosting multiple tracks for beginners, journeymen and experts alike. I really encourage any of you interested in agile development to come along – it’s surprisingly good value.
This year, I’m happy to be presenting the Lego XP game which I developed as a teaching aid for our company. Unlike the more traditional XP game (which introduces some of the central tenants of XP and agile development with the help of balloons, playing cards and dice) the lego version makes a clearer link with the development of software, introducing such concepts has regression bugs, refactoring and technical debt. Expect a fuller writeup after the event.
It was with some disbelief that I sat through Cal Henderson’s otherwise highly entertaining (and to be recommended) Building Flickr Workshop, to hear that automated testing didn’t feature highly in their list of priorities (as an interesting aside, Cal also considers object oriented programming to be ‘insane’, which all ‘sane’ code existing in the space between one-giant-function programing and OO). “Testing web applications” Cal said, “is hard”. This is a common misconception. Like any type of application, if you structure it for testability, testing is easy. And if you invest in testing tools written specifically for testing web applications (FIT and FITnesse, Selenium are good examples) even those applications written without testing in mind have no excuse for going without.
But with Flickr being such a high profile and successful application I assumed there would be a more mature approach towards automated testing. Is this laissez faire approach to automated testing common? Read the rest of this entry »
