For various reasons, I’ve found myself needing to decode email file attachments in base64. (It’s ugly and involves mailx. You don’t want to know.)
Here’s how to do it:
openssl base64 -d -in infilename -out outfilename
from macosxhints.com
More stuff documented so I don’t forget it. Also, this is my manual upgrade process for WordPress. In this case, I’m going from 2.5 to 2.8.
Backup my hacked akismet. I modified it to write a logfile, so I’ll put the old version back in after the upgrade. One of these days I’ll hack up a newer version.
Back up the database for the target site:
mysqldump –add-drop-table -h localhost -u username -p feorlen_org > /my/backup/location/28jun09backup.feorlen_org.sql
Back up everything on the site, just because. (Instead of only the WordPress directory.)
Disable plug-ins from the admin interface.
Copy the install package to the top level directory. Copy to a safe location wp-config.php. Delete the following:
the contents of my wordpress directory
wordpress/include
wordpress/admin
(I have no cache or widgets directories this time.)
Restore the saved wp-config.php.
Temporarily rename my custom named directory to “wordpress” and untar the archive over it. Then put it back. (Because I’m lazy.)
Go to the admin page and follow the directions. Replace new akismet with my old hacked one. Delete that crazy Dolly thing. Re-enable plugins.
Test.
I’ve suddenly found myself running out of fds, which brings things to a screeching halt. For future reference, here are some helpful things to remember.
Check the current settings with launchctl:
www.feorlen.org[feorlen]:/etc$ launchctl limit
cpu unlimited unlimited
filesize unlimited unlimited
data 6291456 unlimited
stack 8388608 67104768
core 0 unlimited
rss unlimited unlimited
memlock unlimited unlimited
maxproc 1000 2500
maxfiles 256 unlimited
change for this shell only:
www.feorlen.org[feorlen]:/etc$ launchctl limit maxfiles 1024 unlimited
Make systemwide changes in launchd.conf:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1659
WWDC is come and gone and I’m home with shiny new goodies. I installed Snow Leopard on my laptop during the week and that went well. Exchange support seems to be working and various glitches are (mostly) minor. So I started plotting to upgrade my server.
Talking to some folks in the IT lab, what I got was they have been working on upgrade and migration. That’s nice to hear as I’m always skeptical. Tiger->Leopard was new hardware for me so I just started from scratch, but this time I’d rather not. With the mess that my email has been lately I decided to jump in and give it a try. I was ready for some wonderful automagical upgrade goodness, and to be rid of cyrus forever.
After getting a good, bootable backup I put the DVD in and let it go. I got to the second reboot and there it sat: The cheerful Welcome screen, staring at me for 90 minutes until I finally power cycled the box. On reboot I got more of the same. It’s basically sitting there continuously flushing the firewall rules. So far, I’ve filed the bug and they are looking at some logfiles. And in the meantime, imapd is still crashing.
Once again, my mailbox got corrupted. Makes me want to hand it all over to Google and get out of the email hosting business (such as it is, with three mailboxes.) But Certain Users are objecting.
In the meantime, I have this:
Reconstructing cyrus mailboxes in Mac OS X Server 10.3 or later
I hope you never need it. I’m posting it here so I can remember where to find it.
The office Dictator of Food has decreed all items in the refrigerator must be signed and dated else they face termination with prejudice. I already put my name on most things, but it’s kindof a pain to figure out where to write something in sharpie pen on a package already covered in writing. I’ve lost items before because my name was not prominently enough displayed and it was mistaken for shared food.
So…
I went and bought myself a custom date and message stamp:
Now, with the help of some extra address labels, I can mark my lunch in an appropriately officious manner.
It was finally a clear day so I went for a walk through the hills. Next to the guest house where we are staying on campus, there is the Miramare train station and a path leading further up the hill.
There is a park of sorts in this steep area on the hillside. The first half is through trees, a few in the middle of the stairway. The stairs are old, but not that old, as there is a utility cable buried along the path. You can see it in spots where the stone wall has collapsed.
But in some places there are older stone steps surrounded by newer construction, so clearly they have been there a while. The finish and color of the old stone match those around Miramare so perhaps they are from the same period. There are about a million stairs up the hill, but the view is spectacular. There is a clear spot where you can see for kilometers around the Gulf of Trieste. If I can stitch together the panorama I’ll post it.
Further along there were a few small farms, an old stone well and then you come out on the outskirts of Prosecco where there is a community playground by a pond. I followed the road into the village to have a look around.
I was stopped on the street by an African guy carrying a big gym bag, who seemed to only want to wish me a good day. In English, in the middle of an Italian farm village. My brand new white sneakers and fleece jacket must have given me away. As soon as he said he was from Nigeria I knew I was in for a story.
He said he lived in Monfalcone, a town some kilometers away, and it’s very difficult you know to make a living when one does not have a work permit. So he and his friends bring some small items in from Rome to sell to make a few euro. At 7 euro for a package of socks I was not going along with it. Living in San Francisco pretty much cures you of giving in to sad stories and goods for sale of dubious origin. So I wished him good day and went off in a totally different direction. As quickly as possible.
Prosecco had more signs in Slovenian than down the hill and it is closer to the border. My Trieste bus map isn’t so good out there so I’m not really sure how far or in which direction. I had intended to walk to to Villa Opicina but I didn’t see a path except by the narrow highway. High speed road, stone walls on either side, no clear pedestrian path. I’ll explore that another time on the bus.
I took a tiny unmarked road down the hill, crossed another highway (Strada del Friuli) and continued down what looked like an oversized goat path which around here often passes for a public street. I was in Contovella. The road was paved, which gave hope for it going through somewhere. The other option was highway, so I figured why not.
I somewhat questioned that decision at various points, particularly when the road was closed for construction. Along the way there were several narrow staircases down the hill, some more scary than others but none had railings and the steps were not exactly in good repair. One was a private path, another was clearly well used by the trash left behind. All through here the road was a cliff on one side and the hill (or stone retaining wall) on the other. There was a vehicle that went off the road decades ago, now rotting in a tree.
Down the road I continued, squeezing past the barriers around the idle construction zone, where a new section of retaining wall was being built near some expensive looking houses. The road widened into a proper street here (although still narrow) with houses and small apartment buildings. Eventually it went back under the train tracks and let out in the center of Barcola.
I got a bottle of water from the same shop I went to yesterday, hung around in the park for a while (remembering to bring extra tissues for the public toilet!) and headed back out to Grignano.
I’ve been spending way too much time poking around online looking at census data. Yes, after 72 years that stuff you filled out is released to the public. It’s actually pretty cool and it encourages me to actually pay attention next time the census comes around.
After I got done finding my grandparents, great-grandparents and all their siblings and spouses in the 1910, 1920 and 1930 census data, I started looking around at other things. It took some work but I found both streets we’ve lived on in San Francisco, the only place I’ve lived where old buildings are everywhere.
I found our current apartment in the 1920 census. I was not able to locate it in 1930 but I found the records for others in the same building. I can’t figure out how to locate the right area of the city in the 1910 census, so I don’t know anything from then.
In 1920, Hugh E. Haffey, his wife Katherine A. and their adult children Clarence, Hugh Jr. and Irene lived here. Hugh, age 46, was born in Missouri and Katherine (44) in California, both of Irish parents. Hugh’s occupation was noted as a “Watchman” at an office building. Son Clarence (27) worked at a laundry (as a “Marker”,) Hugh Jr. (22) was an elevator operator and daughter Irene (18) also worked at a laundry (position unreadable.)
Most of the households I found in this building for both 1920 and 1930 were couples with children, as many as five. All were renters. In 1930, apartments in this building rented for $27-30 a month.
Our apartment is about 700 square feet, with a large kitchen and dining room, a modest bedroom and a large parlor. There are also two closets in addition to the bathroom. We use the parlor as a bedroom and the bedroom as a computer room. The dining room is what would now be considered a living room (although I use it as a work area mainly.) There is no fireplace and the building has no garage or driveway.
Now every family wants to have one bedroom per child plus multiple eating, sitting and working areas so modern houses are huge. Much larger than I’d prefer, actually. (Who wants to heat and clean, not to mention furnish, 6000 square feet?) But from what I can tell this was a average family dwelling for those of modest means. Not spectacular, but not horrible either.
Several years ago I visited the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York, one of the apartments on the tour was about 350 square feet and housed a large family plus a home dressmaking business, with a shared toilet in the hall. Another person on the tour humorously commented that add a coat of paint and it looked like some of the several thousand dollar Manhattan apartments he’d been shopping for.
I’ve been researching various parts of my family, with the end goal of submitting an application for Italian citizenship. We’ll see how that goes. At any rate, looking at old documents is interesting. It’s amazing how many different ways a census enumerator can mis-spell a name.
My grandmother shows up in various sources three different ways, none of them her actual given name (as it seems nobody used it.) Since the census doesn’t require any formal documentation, they take whatever you give them. I’m thinking it’s the same with Social Security as well, because they don’t have her birth name either. Oh, and Social Security tends to list the actual place of death (like a hospital) and states seem to use last place of residence instead.
Interesting things turn up. I remember a carved ashtray stand my father said was made by his uncle. In the 1930 census, I found an uncle with the occupation of woodcarver in the furniture industry. His brother, my grandfather, worked in a radio factory.
I vaguely recall a name mentioned in my youth that I thought was my great-grandfather. It seems I didn’t quite get it right, as it instead was his wife. Who lived much longer and remarried. At some point the whole family moved to New York, down the street from the girl who would become my grandmother. There were several documents that at first seemed doubtful because of name or date problems, but I was certain as soon as I looked at the actual artifact image and saw the address. For example, the eldest Laiosa girl of the 1920 census was, ten years later, found a few doors down living with her new husband and his father.
I have an image of the ship’s passenger manifest where my maternal great-grandfather came to New York, with a woman who may have been his sister. What happened to Maria Grazia Laiosa I may never know. Perhaps his single still living child (now 89) may remember, but then again not. I sent my father a copy of Giovanni’s draft registration and naturalization petition cards to give to her.
There are other observations on the nature of public record repositories. The state of Ohio started collecting birth records at the state level somewhere in the middle of 1908. I know this because I have to try several different agencies in attempt to locate my grandfather’s birth certificate. My first go didn’t do so well, so I’ve submitted a request for his elder brother for whom I have a more certain place of birth. Also the fees for copies of records appears to be arbitrary. New York City is hideously expensive and Columbiana County Ohio will do it for a self-addressed stamped envelope and the cost of the copy machine.
And then there is my mother’s family. In the 1930 census I found the household of my grandparents including my uncle, not a year old. But listed as my grandfather’s parents were two people I’d never heard of and my aunt says were related in some mysterious fashion. Four adults, two parents and two “sons” came to the United States from Eastern Europe, possibly at different times and with a collection of different names given to different officials. I don’t think anybody alive now knows exactly how these people are related.
If I’m going to go much farther, I’ll have to start getting documents. It will likely be less expensive to just go to New York and park myself in front of the microfilm reader than pay the search and copy fees trying to locate the right things. Fortunately my Italian family didn’t move far from Brooklyn for many years.
There was a lot of noise today about how much advertising the Yes on Prop 8 campaign was targeting at website visitors from California. Such that many people are pretty pissed that even their own websites were serving advertisements.
I checked spinnyspinny, the only site I have that uses Google advertisements, and nearly every one I saw was for Yes on Prop 8. How irritating. I promptly re-configured my account to block ads from their website and within an hour they were no more.
