The Code Cave

It went something like this:

Be sure to join me live tonight at 9pm Eastern at http://www.RhettAndLink.com/live

This is one of the must usful features when using skype for business. Especially with an organization the size of b5media. I use shared groups to deploy blogger skype contacts to all of the b5media bloggers, the b5media Toronto Office and b5media Tech Team amoungst others. The blogger group is great becase when a new blogger comes on they instantly have access to dozens of other b5bloggers through skype.

I have personal Skype groups for b5 Third Party Contacts, for Rhett and Link, and others. The third party group is great because it contains both normal phone numbers and skype contacts. Since I have skype out, my laptop is my work phone.

This screencast demonstrates some of the features and asks some questions I don’t have the answers to:

Previous in series

I have been here.  I know  what both of them are feeling.

“I forgot all about the air hockey table….  ***aaaaaaahhhhhhhh***”

(It would have been so easy to drive overtop of my friend’s little Saturn when she was lead the moving van I was driving through the old brick streets of Pittsburgh’s south hills… It was sooo tempting…)

This is actually my second time co-hosting the WordPress Podcast.  Episode 42 had unexpected delays in post production and much to my own chagrin, I suggested that it was perhaps a but too dated and should be re-recorded.  It saddens be because 42 was such a perfect number to join the podcast on…

But now with Jonathon away for the week, I’ve had another chance to join my friend Charles Stricklin online.  Please join us and give the show a listen.  Here’s a link to share if you like it:  http://is.gd/GFG

I am at SxSW for a week and the introduction of this session was so incredible I thought I would live blog it and share my notes:

SxSW using geolocation in games and online (03/08/2008)
11:48 So here I am at SwSW at the second session I’ve hit for the day. and So far this is a blast
11:49 This session doesn’t apply to my job directly but it is incredibly high on the geek coolness factor
11:50 I started describing old school geocaching from 2000 talking about how you used GPS to go and find “treasures” out in the woods
11:52 But there is now all sorts of cool stuff going on. Like zork based games where you get to a location and your phone/device/whatever gets messages saying “In front of you is an old man searching though a basket” when you get to the right location
11:54 They have also been covering things like vertical games where in a big city you have ppl up in a tall building guiding your team mate through a maze down on the city street.
11:56 Now there are also competions going on with things like Nike Plus which has run tracking, mileage and geolocation built into the shoe and ppl are competing with others for how far they go etc
11:57 So why can’t you do things with points as you are going. A little transmitter at different locations indicates that you get a power up or get extra points for the run.
11:57 This technology is really fascinating.
11:58 The idea of bringing movement into games has taken off with the wii and Dance Dance revolution

11:58 This brings things into a new level as it turns the real world into a game
11:59 New term I am “Geo Curious”

12:00 They are talking about how the iphone doesn’t have true gps right now
12:01 I am really glad that I flashed the leaked GPS enabled ROM to my Verizon Titan right now. I just wish I could pick up more satelites. I’m waiting for them to ask who has GPS on their phone
12:02 The fuzzyness of GPSa is causing difficulty in creating Zork based games
12:03 GPSa is where your phone determines location based upon the cell towers that you are talking too.
12:03 So right now rooms when you are making a phone playable game has to be 100mx100m

12:04 However with TRUE GPS you can have a game that is within 2ft
12:05 “Conquest” was a game that divided a city into 8 zones and as soon asa team was within a zone and then the could shoot the “semicodes”? (Zombies?)

12:05 However they players who knew more could cheat if they knew where the edges would be.
12:07 These games can be done by ppl txting a certain codes that are available only at certain places. I think they said “crossroads” did that.
12:07 The maze game I talked about before that was done from building looking down at a maze was actually called “pac-man(hattan)”

12:08 ppl were dressed in pacman suits and they were guided by their partners with their cell phones.
12:09 Lower tech games just had you call and say things like “I am the king of spain” but the one panelist dialed the wrong number and really freaked someone out.
12:10 So the terms are “Relative Location” “Definate Location” and “Fuzzy Location”
12:13 “Crossroads” used GPS and you were looking at the map on your phone. and using that on a virtual map to guide you around an artificial environment as you are working around the real world.
12:14 I totally love the idea of this walking over the goal that you have and suddenly your phone buzzes in your pocket and gives you your next goal
12:15 However as with many things the technology is not QUITE there yet.
12:15 We are sooooooo close to very exciting things.
12:16 ppl with the Titan/Mogal/XV6800 can get to within 2 ft and that is wondererful

12:16 But atm I am off the ivory coast since I can’t get any sats.
12:17 There are also other issues beyond technology
12:17 There is a social aspect that has to be considered.
12:18 In even just geocaching, while burying an ammo box in the woods is OK, using it as a geocache in timesquare is not smart. Neither is a metal pipe.

12:19 This also CAN be dangerous. in a game in a city ppl walking out into traffic with their heads down is a REAL possiblity.

12:19 Playing games in the street can be a real danger.
12:20 Some one from the Discovery channel is in the audience asking a question (OK someone lolkatz that)

12:20 She is discussing Shark tracking and other similar technology to improve this type of game “Shark Hunters” was the show they did on this…
12:22 BTW for those that don’t know http://GeoCaching.com is a great site.
12:25 Another question is about using this in the news media. Obviously tagging photos is one idea but if all published media had was tagged with a location the possiblty is incredible
12:26 Google and other search tools would bring news really directly to you things that really directly affect your world.
12:26 In the blogging world there is of course http://GeoRSS.org
12:27 There is also a website that I can’t think of right now that is designed to show the whole world in photo format with geo location as well. The never metioned it today but I’ve been to the site. It is @jeremywright’s twitter feed.
12:29 There is a question about whether a city planner or ski results person came to one of the panelist how would they respond. Could you work together to create an official map.
12:30 RFID is actually an tech that would work better for this sort of thing. It could be used to create a more persistant game board in a city. The idea is brilliant. Seatle shoudl do that to bring ppl in.
12:31 This would be a similar idea to the “Skateboarding in the city” movement

12:31
Links
12:31 WhereIgo.com platform for creating your own games
12:32 Areacodeinc.com
12:32 loki.com (spelling?)
12:33 And that wraps up this session. That was really neat.
12:41 This Live Blog has now ended.

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It’s happened to you.  You know it has.  You were just starting to relax when the phone rings.  It’s you father/mother/in-laws/girl who you knew in highschool that kept asking for your new number each time you moved.  And they, sounding kind of guilty, say “I’m having a problem and I was wondering if you could help me…”  And so begins a 3 hour long discussion involving phrases  like”OK tell me each letter you typed” and  “No I meant hit the space bar, not type s-p-a-c-e” and ending with philosophical discussions of which button really is the “right” mouse button anyway. 

While up in New York at my in-laws, I even got a support call from their neighbor down the street.  Because they knew I was out visiting and had heard so many good things about me and couldn’t I help them with one quick thing?

No don’t get me wrong, I am glad to help and am eager to do it.  But that doesn’t mean it is without pain!  I have even gone to extent of installing Ultra VNC on my both of the computers at my in-laws house.  I’ve modified their router to route a custom port to each and created a custom page so they could tell me their current up address.  (http://myip.thecodecave.com btw.  Feel free to use it and even scrape it for use in custom apps for determining the external port if  you like.  It will always only return the ip.  No ads or other junk.)

That works swell, but had to wait till I was there to put everything in place.  Now there is another solution

Citrix has started a public beta of a program called GoToAssist.  This application goes pretty far beyond what all other custom solutions can do. Benefits include

1. All is started from a single url that can be emailed to a person.
2. No software pre-install is required (There is an app that sends the invites to the computers to be controlled - available only for Windows).  The person needing help only clicks on the url, accepts the certificate and a small client is automatically installed.  1 startup registry entry is added.
3. You can view/control not just PCs but MACS! from your Windows computer.
4. No firewalls were harmed during the production of this program.  You don’t need to open any ports.
5. Advanced features like send/pull files and request diagnostic report are available across all platforms.  (I don’t even know how to determine which programs start automatically on a Mac, but the report can tell me which they are)
6. Permanent/unattended sessions are supported.  There does not need to be any interaction to resume sessions if that’s how you want it to be.

So, the public beta is open at http://express.gotoassist.com and you should go check it out!  They are wide open to accepting new testers at this point and chances are that strong beta testers will get a good discount on the software.  And really good beta testers might get a really good surprise.  Citrix even has a good paid tester program that is worth your investigation.

Hat tip to Chris Pirillo for pointing out the beta program.

Here’s something neat… a screen shot of me supporting my own machine as it shows me supporting my own machine which shows me… well you get the idea…

I decided to report that one, but it actually handled it fairly well.

I had 47 spams get through yesterday!!!

I mananged to get a working post-new.php to come up in new post wysiwyg editor field by just going to the new post page.

Weeeeeeirrrd.

Here’s a screen shot:

The release of WordPress 2.2 is finaly at our doorstep.  You can find the download on the on the main download page here: http://wordpress.org/download/ or from the announcement here: http://wordpress.org/development/2007/05/wordpress-22/.  This has been an interesting release.  For the last month I’ve been concentrating on the new job, but in the middle of all that I did participate in the debate that ended with the original tag implementation being pulled from this release.  Matt M. showed some real maturity by being willing to step back from his implementation upon the recomendation of others.  Oh! and for info about the name of this release “Getz”  head on over to Matt’s site for some sweet tones to put you into the mood to upgrade…

Aaron Brazell, aka Mr. Boss Sir, has come through and delivered another one of his 10 Things You Should Know About WordPress 2.2 articles and does a pretty good job of describing the heart and soul of this release.

I’ve released an updated version of my EasyWPUpdate script which includes some of the suggestions I’ve had from my readers.  Now, I must admit that Aaron’s similar script is downright awesome and the absolute best script in the world (yes I must admit that because it was a condition of my employment with b5media (REALLY!)), but if you don’t have automated server backups and you don’t regularly backup your SQL files, you might want to try my lowly little script.

Its features include:

• Many blogs in one shot
• Any version of WP
• Automaticly runs upgrade script
• Cleans up all files
• Can use hosted or local files as source
• Can be croned to ensure backups and/or refresh of dirtied files
• Backup of files to new directory
• Backup of files tarball/li>
• Backup of database to SQL text file
• Backup of database to tar ball
• Optional inclusion/exclusions of directories.
• Error detection and safe aborts

You can peruse the text version, EasyWPUpdate.txt, here:
Here are the basic steps to install this script:
1. Use Telnet or Putty to connect to your website and log into the shell
2. Type the following line:
wget http://www.thecodecave.com/downloads/EasyWPUpdate
3. Type the following line:
chmod +x EasyWPUpdate
4. Use an editor to change the values in Step 1 and save it again.
5. Run the script by typing:
EasyWPUpdate

That’s it. You will have just made backups of the files and database and updated all of your blogs. When 2.2.1 or even 2.3 comes out, the process will be:
1. Log in
2. Type
EasyWPUpdate

And you are done.

Now, step 1 looks like this:

# ##################################################################
# Step 1. Tell the script where to find the blogs
# ##################################################################
# List all of your WordPress directories and urls here.
#
# Each Blog should have a BlogDir and a BlugURL.
# Each Blog should have its own number [1],[2],[3] etc
# Delete the ones you don’t need.
#
BlogDir[1]=’site1dir’
BlogURL[1]=’www.example.com’

BlogDir[2]=’site2/news’
BlogURL[2]=’www.site2.com/news’

BlogDir[3]=’wordpress’
BlogURL[3]=’blog.site3.com’

That isn’t that hard to change is it? Even in VI.

Some quick tips on editing the script
1. type
vi EasyWPUpdate
2. Hit i
3. Make your changes
4. Hit ESCAPE COLON W to save your changes (or skip this step to lose changes)
5. Hit ESCAPE COLON !Q to immediately quit

Also, if your root directory is accessible from the web, you might want to change the name of the script:
mv EasyWPUpdate SomeSneakyName

to prevent unauthorized access.

(If you are a guru, please read through all 6 setup steps (and the rest too) there may be things you want to change.)

Enjoy 2.2!