Thumb drive as a webserver / NAS

I wish that I could find a flash drive that acted as a NAS.

Most USB flash drives are passive storage. Encryption is done by the OS you plug into.  Since I run Windows and various *IXes, and want to access my data from each, depending on a particular OS is a pain.

Booting an OS from the USB flash drive is better - but still not great, since it makes assumptions about the platform you are plugging in to. Typically, that it is a PC.

Flash drives have non-trivial processors in them.  Probably running Linux.  Why not make them a peer?

Issue: network interface.

I don't really want to add a typical Cat 5 ethernet connector - what is that, RJ45, 8P8C plug? - to the flash drive, neither in addition to nor replacing USB.

Q: I am sure there is a standard for networking over USB - but how ubiquitous is it?  I do not recall ever getting the option, when I plug in a USB flash drive, of connecting a webnrowser to a server running on tghe drive.

Gratuitous key position changes.

Was wondering why "search"  or "find" in Google chrome was broken.

Wasn't.  For the past week I was using a keyboard that was not my usual, with the keys in the lower left hand corner looking like Ctrl,Fn,...

Just switched back to what has been my usual keyboard for several months, with those keys swapped: Fn,Ctrl,...

It's funny how these trivial differences in devices are some of the most annoying.

Last time I shopped for keyboards, I bought 3 identical.  Not my favorite keyboard, but cheap enough that i could afford 3 of them.  Home, work, and Oceanside.

Yeah, yeah: remapping. Loses.

(The only good form of keyboard remapping is one that is downloaded into a PROM on the keyboard, so that it works in all modes, even before the OS boots.)

hg schemes extension

http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/SchemesExtension

I like the idea of this extension, that allows you to create shortcuts for URLs you use often, e.g. cloning.

E.g.

[extensions]
hgext.schemes=

[schemes]
ups = ssh://my-uarch-performance-simulator/...

However, it is something of a no-sale when I saw that the URL was notexpanded in the clone:

> hg clone ups: u
...
> cd u
> hg paths
default = ups://
> 

Or in WorkDir/.hg/hgrc

[paths]
default = ups:

PRO: when the remote repository changges location, this *might* allow you to change the scheme URL shorthand in hgrc, and have things work in the possibly multiple clones you have outstanding.

CON: it loses some documentation. If I got run over by a beer truck, my replacement might have trouble finding where it was from.  Worse, if a repo was restored from backup (particularly if people keep branches as repos), and my home directory with the ~/.hgrc enabling SchemesExtension was  not present.

I'm not sure what I would like. Possibly always expand the shorthand.  Possibly record the shorthand with the long path as a comment:

[paths]
default = ups: # ssh://my-uarch-performance-simulator/...

> hg paths
default = ups:// # ssh://my-uarch-performance-simulator/...

TBD: move this to my wiki Category:VCS.

VirtualBoxen

Gave in, worn down... Installed VirtualBox, and Ubuntu in a virtual box, on my tablet PC running Windows 7.

Stream of  consciousness...

Recovering diverged home directory version control

I have long version controlled my home directory.  CVS. Git. Hg.

Unfortunately, they diverged.  Divergence happens naturally with CVS.  You have to work hard to get git and hg to diverge, but I did.

Now I want to merge the diverged home directories back together.  Preserving the history if possible, from the different VCS.  Sometimes just merging fikes.

==

Today: I want to start merging a diverged linux tree, from a flash drive, with my working tree (which started off on cygwin).

I created a new hg repo, created a branch on it, and then imported the tree to be merged.

I pulled/pushed this with my main home hg repo.  Had to use -f, to force unrelated repos to be together.

Now I have a single repo, with my current working (cygwin derived, homedir, and a not working linux homedir, on different branches.  The former n the default branch.

That's okay.  Not so bad.  A single history object(although I have kept separate working space trees.)

===

Now I want to merge, a file or a few files at a time.

E.g. copy the README from the linux branch to the default working derived from cygwin branch.


AAARGH!!!!  Hg doesn't handle partials... neither merges, not copies, nor...  Hg just plain really wants to lose track, not make doing this activity easy.

Missing X fonts

Like http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11544410, I was getting errors such as

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

(Except that I was getting the errors, not on a fresh Ubintu install, but when trying to use a fairly new machine at work, with what is probably a newer version of redHat.)

The post I quote fixed things by setting ~/.Xdefaultsto

emacs*font: 7x14

And then doing xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults

On my end, I found that neither 7x14 nor courier worked.  But font "fixed" did.

An Amusing and Frustrating Anecdote about Google 2-step Verification

I like Google 2-step verification - in which you normally log in with a password, but where, if you are logging in from a new machine, etc., you "verify" your login by entering a one time code sent to your cell phone by voice or text.

I liked the idea as soon as I heard of it, but was reluctant to sign up for it because I frequently use my laptop computer in places where cell phones don't work - e.g. at the coast in Oregon, and, most recently, at my new house in Portland's hills.

I was scared that I might end up unable to log into my gmail, lacking cell phone.

Nevertheless, after reading rave reviews, I finally gave in and signed up for 2-step verification.  And have continued to use my laptop fairly successfully at the coast without cell phone coverage, since normally it has already been verified.

But over New Year's I finally tripped up:

Because of a bug with googlevoiceplugin.exe (a new copy was spawned every time I started Chrome: I had 52 copies when I realized what was happening) I uninstalled and reinstalled the plugin, and eventually Chrome itself 9since  the plugin would not uninstall while Chrome was running).

So when I tried to log back into gmail on Chrome, 2-step verification was required.  But my cell phone doesn't work at the coast.

Now, Google 2-step verification has  a backup phone numbeer, which can be a land line using voice.  But remember that I said the new house that I have just bought also lacks cell phone coverage?  Guess what my backup phone was?

And Google 2-step verification does have a backup set of one time passwords.  I know I printed them out for my wallet.  Umm...  got a new wallet, recently, smaller, and did not carry it over.

So now the fun begins:  I don't have to drive too far to receive a text message.  I'll try to login, get Google to send the verification code, drive to where I can receive a text message, drive back.

Try #1: got the message.  Actually, got several verification code messages.  Drive back, they don't work.  Perhaps I got confused, and typed the wrong verification code into the wrong box.

Try #2: I realize that I may not need to drive the few miles to the next town.  The mountain next to my house may have reception.  Drive up it, yep, received the text message.  Drive down... Nope, didn't work.

I'm beginning to think there is a timeout.

Try #3: Repeat. An hour or so later, since I had to charge my cell phone - the battery drains quickly in this area. But this time, I can't get any bars on top of the mountain.  The fog has moved in and the sun has set, affecting signal strength.
 
So I drive to the next town. Signal, but no text message.  I wait ten minutes, start driving back... and the message arrives while I am driving.  Have I mentioned that AT&T Wireless has occasionally taken >4 hours to deliver text messages?  20 minutes is par for the course.

Doesn't work.  I', getting pretty sure there is a timeout.

Try #4: This time I request the verification code, drive out, and call back to ask my wife to enter it.
   
However, my laptop has gone into power saving mode, and although I disabled the power-on password, by wife doesn't realize what has happened, and tries to use  the second computer sitting next to the laptop that needs the verification code.

2 days later we try again: my wife drives to the next town with my cell phone.  She calls me back when she gets a signal.  I request the verification code. She waits a minute or so - fortunately, this morning AT&T is fast - and reads it back to me over the phone. I enter the code, and all is well.

I change my backup hone number to the landline at the coast. Realizing that this will needto be changed again when I get back to Portland.

And I write the backup passwords down by hand.