note to self....

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# azlyricfilter.pl - filters HTML from www.azlyrics.com into text
#
#   Run this on the output of 'html2text -nobs azlyricsURL e.g.
#
#      html2text -nobs  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/u2/exit.html\
#         | azlyricfilter.pl > u2-exit.txt
#
#   The -nobs keeps html2text from marking up the text w/ BS and over-
#   strike characters.
#
#   This program requires the html2text program.
#
# Revision History:
#   2005-10-31: pdwilso@gmail.com - initial version
#
$start=1;
while (<>) {
    chomp;
    next if ($start && /LYRICS/);
    next if ($start && /^\s*$/);
    if(/^\s*\"/) {$start=0;}
    exit if(/\[ www.azlyrics.com \]/);
    s/^\s*//g;
    print;
    print"\n";
}

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# mkogg.pl - this program converts .flac files in directory to .ogg
#
#    This program accepts no arguments or parameters - the input 
#    filenames are read from the current directory.
#
#    Filenames are assumed to have have the following data:
#
#      artistname-albumname-trackno-songtitle.flac
#
#    Each of the fields separated by '-' (artistname, albumname, 
#    trackno, and songtitle) contain underscores ('_') where the 
#    spaces should be.  No special characters are supported in
#    the input (.flac) file names, so set up the ripping and 
#    flac encoding appropriately.  
#
#    The FLAC decoding and OGG encoding operations are spawned as
#    child processes to this process.  There should probably be some 
#    sort of monitoring here that would reap the child PIDs if 
#    something goes wrong.  
#
#    This software depends on the FLAC decoder flac(1) and the OGG
#    encoder oggenc(1) being installed and available in the path.
#
#  Revision History:
#   2005-10-30: pdwilso@gmail.com - Initial version
#   2005-10-31: pdwilso@gmail.com 
#               - Corrected really heinous error that was over-
#                 writing the source .flac files.
#               - Corrected syntax error in code that collects 
#                 child PID into @children array.
#               - Added $QUIET and $DEBUGGING declarations.
#
$QUIET=0;
$DEBUGGING=0;
opendir(DH, ".") || die "could not open current working dir : $!";
@flacs = grep { chomp, /\.flac$/  } readdir DH;
closedir DH;
@children = ();
unless ($QUIET) { 
    print "Found ".scalar(@flacs)." FLAC files...\n"; 
}
foreach my $flac (@flacs) {
    if (my $pid=fork) {
        push @children, $pid;
    } else {
        my ($artist,$album,$track,$title) = split(/-/,$flac);
        $title=~s/\.flac$//;
        
        foreach my $s ($artist,$album,$title) {
            $s=~s/_/ /g;
            $s=~s/\W([a-z])/ \U$1/g;
            $s=~s/^([a-z])/\U$1/;
        }
        
        my $ofile = $flac;
        $ofile =~ s/flac$/ogg/g;

        my $params=
            "-a '$artist' ".
            "-t '$title' ".
            "-l '$album' ".
            "-o $ofile ".
            "-N $track";
        
        unless ($QUIET) {
            print "Converting $flac to\n   $ofile ...\n";
        }
 if ($DEBUGGING) {
     print 
  "COMMAND: ",
  "flac -s -d -c $flac | oggenc -Q $params -\n";
 }
        my $output= `flac -s -d -c $flac | oggenc -Q $params -\n`;
        unless ($QUIET) {
            print "$ofile done.\n";
        }
        exit;
    }
}

<?php
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
// m3u.php - create a playlist from a directory listing
//
//   This program collects a list of MP3 files in a directory on
//   the web server and creates an .m3u playlist suitable for
//   passing to to e.g. XMMS from a URL within a webpage or
//   typed into a browser location bar.
//
//   The program expects to be run from within the same
//   directory as the MP3 files that it will list - that means
//   that in the *nix world we typically just place this program
//   file in the same directory as the music files.
//
//   This program was tested using Apache webserver under SuSE
//   9.2, Firefox 1.07 web browser, and Xmms 1.2.10.
//
//   Not sure of the Apache version - it is completely stock
//   (but with updates installed).
//
//   The client-side tests were run in a KDE desktop environment
//   under both SuSE 9.1 and SuSE 9.2 - again, these are stock
//   environments with nothing special done to them except
//   routine updates.
//
//   Correctly behavior for this script means that the web
//   browser prompts for "Save this file or open using XMMS" and
//   when XMMS is selected the playlist actually loads and plays
//   as expected.
//
//   This behaviour does not occur using existing playlist
//   transfer code found on the web.  Specifically, code that
//   uses 'Content-Type: audio/x-mpegurl' triggers loading to
//   XMMS but does not actually play.  
//
//   For other content types tried in the test environment
//   described above: The 'audio/mpegurl' type does play
//   correctly.  The audio/mpeg and audio/x-mpeg types don't
//   work, either (alhthough both of those do seem to work for
//   single (individual) MP3 files.
//
//   This program could be easily adapted to handle other media
//   types.
//
// Credits:
//   The HTTP header code is modified from an example found on
//   the web. The Content-Type string is changed from the
//   example.
//
// Revision History:
//   2005-10-30: pdwilso@gmail.com - initial version
//
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//
// Get input params...
//
//   We're not doing anything here, yet...
//
$m3ufn=$_GET['file'];
// Modify this to allow users to supply a playlist filename or
// to provide a more desciptive filename for the playlist.
if (!($m3ufn === 'pl.m3u')) {
    $m3ufn='pl.m3u';
}
//
// Get the environment we're running in, and create a base URL
// to use in constructing the invidividual song pointers.
//
$host=$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$DOCBASE = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
$len = strlen($DOCBASE);
$url='';
// Need to change this if you're not under *nix - $str gets the
// name of the current working directory.
$str = rtrim(`pwd`);
// The dir seperator here is *nix specific ('/')
$pelem = explode('/',substr($str,$len));
foreach ($pelem as $s) {
    $url .= '/'.urlencode("$s");
}
//
// Construct a list of files...
//
//   The list is an array of filenames for files in this (the
//   current working directory) directory whose extensions match
//   the type(s) of files we're looking for.
//  
//   Right now we're just handling MP3 - note that this is case
//   sensitive - were just handling lower case 'mp3'
//
$dh = opendir(".");
while (($f=readdir($dh)) != false) {
    // Change this regex to include e.g. .ogg files in the
    // listing that will go to the player - if you change this
    // to include e.g. video files, be sure to handle the
    // Content-Type header, below, as well...
    if (preg_match('/mp3$/',$f)) {
        $files[] = urlencode($f);
    }
}
closedir($dh);
sort($files);
//
// Create the output content...
//
//   Not sure if the DOS line terminators are significant
//   here, but it seems to work, so we leave it in.
//
$text="#EXTM3U:\r\n";
foreach ($files as $f) {
    $u = "http://$host$url/$f";
    $text.= "$u\r\n";
}
// Send it...
header("Pragma: no-cache"); // HTTP/1.0
header("Cache-Control: private"); // HTTP/1.1
header("Content-Type: audio/mpegurl", TRUE);
header("Content-Length: ".strlen($text)."", TRUE);
header("Content-Disposition:  attachment; filename=\"".$m3ufn."\"", TRUE);
print $text;
?>

"IEEE 802 Local Area Networks (LANs) [802], including Ethernet [802.3], Token-Ring [802.5] and IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs [802.11], as well as to other link-layer technologies that operate at data rates of at least 1 Mbps, have a round-trip latency of at most one second, and support ARP [RFC826]."

The above is quoted from RFC 3927: Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses

WMIS Internet - Grand Rapids Michigan - dialup dsl wireless cable hosting

This is a review of the gOFFICE.com online word processing application.

Overall, the word processor (demo) seems to work well. There are a couple things that could stand to be addressed:

1) There's no reason (if I understand the way this thing works correctly) to have a scrollbar defined within the edit space - the browser scrollbar should be sufficient.

2) I miss the context menus in the edit space - apparently the Javascript is not capturing right mouse button activity. I use context menus a lot in the standalone, local word processing apps - when the browser context menu pops up in the gOFFICE editor, it reminds me that I'm not using a "regular" word processor.

3) There doesn't seem to be any way to center a table. Other than that, the table functionality is quite useful.

4) There is a nice bit of visual feedback in MS Word that could be applied here - that is: In Word, when the cursor moves onto the left margin of the document, the cursor changes to a right-pointing horizontal arrow. This indicates that selecting will select entire lines (blocks). Open Office lacks this little feature, as well, iirc.

Overall this editor is quite nice. It has the feature of sending the finished document down to the user as a PDF file which can be saved locally. Other save options appear to be Email, Fax, and Postal Mail. The "Save" and "Print" options both lead to PDF download.

No direct mention is made of support for mobile devices (handhelds).

OVERVIEW:

    This paper outlines - in a very general way - the steps needed to
    set up VNC servic on a host machine such that VNC will provide
    remotely accessible, multi-user graphical loging functionality on a
    Unixish server.

    Additionally, these steps include information about how to custom-
    tailor the Xvnc configuration such that connection to various
    defined ports can provides specified client screen resolution.

    Using well-crafted VNC startup initialization scripts in concert
    with the named port mapping technique shown here, these methods
    could could produce highly customized. specialized services on VNC
    service ports in the specified range.

    Ports may be named appropirately, and portions of the configuration
    scripts may be dynamic.



PRECONDITIONS:

    The the following conditions should pertain for the host which is to
    provide the VNC service:

    * is running the display manager XDM (X-windows Display Manager)

    * is running the Internet meta-deamon INETD

    * has Xvnc installed

    Additionally, the user performing the configuration must have system
    administrative privileges for the host.



STEPS:

    1. Add VNC User account

        the VNC server application runs as this user.  This should be
        generic system user ID, a bit like the user 'nobody' which
        Apache runs as.


    2. Add VNC Port names to /etc/services

        VNC uses TCP/IP ports 5900 to 5999.  These ports map to display
        numbers in VNC client connect strings, and by inetd (or xinetd)
        to start the VNC service.


    3. Add VNC service definitions to /etc/inetd.conf

        For each VNC port name defined in step 2, above, a line is
        placed in the /etc/inetd.comf file.  These are standard inetd
        configuration / invocation syntax definitions that are used to
        configure services that are requested via inetd.


    4. Modify Display Manager startup scripts

        a) /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess

          The file /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess contains rules which control
          access to the XDM display manager.  These rules must remote
          access to XDM in order that remote users be able to use XDM
          for login.

          The simplest way to accomplish that is to simply place a
          single asterick character (*) on a line by itself in this
          file.

          For example. an /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess rule allowing access to
          Xdm from any network host is:

          *  # any  host can get a login window

        b) /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config

          Comment out the DisplayManager.requestPort line.


    5. Restart System Services XDM and INETD

        % /etc/init.d/xdm restart
        % /etc/init.d/inetd restart



NOTES:

    For additional information about XDM initialization and
    configuration, see the XDM manual pages.

    For additional information about VNC session startup initialization,
    see the VNC documentation.

    For additional information about INETD and the /etc/services file,
    see the manual pages for those.



EXAMPLE FOR /etc/services FILE:

    ## ===========================================================
    ##  /etc/services Modifications
    ##  VNC services using ports 5900 thru 5999
    ##  ---------------------------------------------------------
    # name          port/proto      resolution      screen number
    # ------------  --------------  --------------- -------------
    vnc             5900/tcp        # site default  :0
    vnc-tiny        5901/tcp        # 320x240       :1
    vnc-small       5902/tcp        # 640x480       :2
    vnc-med         5903/tcp        # 800x600       :3
    vnc-large       5904/tcp        # 1024x764      :4
    vnc-xlrg        5905/tcp        # 1280x1024     :5
    vnc-huge        5906/tcp        # 1600x1200     :6
    vnc-cust        5907/tcp        # 1160x960      :7
    ## ===========================================================



EXAMPLE FOR /etc/inetd.conf FILE:

    # ============================================================
    # Add to /etc/inetd.conf
    # ===========================================================
    # Start VNC services based on TCP port name.
    #
    # In this example, ports are named for their resolutions.
    #
    # All servers in this example uses a default pixel color depth of
    # 24bpp.
    #
    # All servers currently run under username "netcusr".
    #
    # Port numbers are defined in /etc/services
    #
    #       name            resolution      VNC screen
    #       -------------   -------------   ----------
    #       vnc             1160x960        :0
    #       vnc-tiny        320x240         :1
    #       vnc-small       640x480         :2
    #       vnc-med         800x600         :3
    #       vnc-large       1024x768        :4
    #       vnc-xlrg        1280x1024       :5
    #       vnc-huge        1600x1200       :6
    #       vnc-cust        1160x960        :7
    #
    # ===========================================================
    vnc     stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\
            -geometry 1160x960 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
            -inetd -once -query localhost
    vnc-tiny stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\ 
           -geometry 320x240 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
           -inetd -once -query localhost
    vnc-small stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\
           -geometry 640x480 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
           -inetd -once -query localhost
    vnc-med stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\
           -geometry 800x600 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
           -inetd -once -query localhost
    vnc-large stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\
           -geometry 1024x768 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
           -inetd -once -query localhost
    vnc-xlrg stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\
           -geometry 1280x1024 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
           -inetd -once -query localhost
    vnc-huge stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\
           -geometry 1600x1200 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
           -inetd -once -query localhost
    vnc-cust stream tcp nowait netcusr /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc Xvnc\
           -geometry 1160x960 -depth 24 -desktop NetC\
           -inetd -once -query localhost
    # ===========================================================



ADDITIONAL CONFIGURATION AND EXTENSION INFORMATION:

    From the XDM manual page:

      "For X terminals that do not offer a menu of hosts to get display
       management  from,  xdm  can collect  willing  hosts and run the
       chooser program to offer the user a menu.  For X displays
       attached to a host, this step is typically not used, as the local
       host does the display  management."

    ...this chooser behaviour may be automated server side such that it
    could select a login host form a cluster of hosts based on e.g. load
    balancing parameters.


    Also from the manual page:

      "After  resetting  the X server, xdm runs the Xsetup script to
       assist in setting up the screen the user sees along with the
       xlogin widget."

   ...the Xsetup script exists as /etc/X11/xdm/Xsetup - this is the
   script to customize to control what the user sees on the login
   screen.


   Manual page, again:

     "The xlogin widget, which xdm presents, offers the familiar login
      and password prompts."

   ...the xlogin widget resources may be specified using standard X
   resource specifications.  This gives fine-grained control over the
   appearance and behaviour of the login widget (which displays the
   'Username:' and 'Password:' prompts)...

   The manual page specifies the order in which the other session setup
   scripts run:

     "After the user logs in, xdm runs the Xstartup script as root.

     "Then xdm runs the Xsession script as the user.  This system
      session file may  do  some  additional  startup  and  typically
      runs the .xsession script in the user's home directory.  When the
      Xsession script exits, the session is over."

   ...note that the ~/.vnc session initialization scripts are not be
   being used, here, since the VNC service is running at a system level,
   allowing the user to log in using standard X login methods. This
   means that, assuming the user logins in only using VNC (i.e. never
   logs in locally), the standard startup scripts may be used to
   initialize the session, even though some session initialization may
   be VNC-specific.


     "At the end of the session, the Xreset script is run to clean up,
     the X server is  reset,  and the cycle starts over."

   ...so any session tear-down should be done in Xreset.  There should
   also be a user-specific version of this file.  If there is not, one
   should be added.


   To summarize:  VNC can be used to set up the connection and do
   authentication, following which the XDM and standard X session
   configurations can be used to control the what gets displayed on the
   "desktop" that the user sees following the login authenitcation
   sequence.