After literally hours of scouring the web trying to find a solution to a SIMPLE problem, I finally came across it.

What’s the problem you ask? Well, I have a Mongrel application server running a Rails application. We’re authenticating to this application using mod_auth_sspi in Apache. This is fine, but it doesn’t permit the application to know who is on the other end (and we can’t rely on the Authorization header). So finally, I googled the right thing, and came up with this post on CRAZ8 that they implemented as a plugin. Here’s the bit I care about:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{LA-U:REMOTE_USER} (.+)
RewriteRule .* - [E=RU:%1]
RequestHeader add REMOTE_USER %{RU}e

To quote CRAZ8:

Here’s what this Rewrite-fu does:

Line 2: Use lookahead access to get REMOTE_USER set by authentication module Line 3: Transfer the results of line 2 into an environment variable called RU Line 4: Set a Request header to the environment variable from line 3.

Thanks!

I had a problem where items in the GNOME Places menu were opening in Dolphin (and weren’t working). Somehow Dolphin hijacked the file:// protocol. The fix is simple though is something I just found by looking around in GConf Editor.

Why would I have Dolphin installed in GNOME you ask? Amarok 2.0 needs it. By the way it’s nice.

Do this as your normal user (not root):

gconftool-2 --set --type=string /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/file/command 'nautilus "%s"'
gconftool-2 --set --type=bool /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/file/enabled true
gconftool-2 --set --type=bool /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/file/need-terminal false

Hopefully other users find this through Google, because having the GNOME Panel’s Places menu launch Dolphin instead of Nautilus sucks, and this fixes it! :) (that’s a paragraph of keywords, folks)

(If you use a different file manager, replace the command as needed)

At work, we put up a lot of Flash video. I use On2 Flix Pro for the Flash encoding part. But I get the content in a variety of formats. Perhaps the most common format we get is 480i MPEG-2 video interleaved. I’m encoding on a Mac, and QuickTime cannot correctly feed the audio stream into Flix Pro because it’s interleaved in the video stream. Also, Flix Pro’s deinterlacer sucks. So, I use mplayer and mencoder to fudge the video around and deinterlace it. It’s working very well. Oh yeah, you’ll need Perian.

Read it after the break.

#!/bin/bash

# Takes $1 and dumps it into two files in work/
./scripts/mplayer "$1" -dumpvideo -dumpfile work/dump.m2v
./scripts/mplayer "$1" -dumpaudio -dumpfile work/dump.mp3

#!/bin/bash

# Runs crop detect on the stream we dumped.
./scripts/mplayer work/dump.m2v -vf cropdetect -vo null -ao null

#!/bin/bash

# Takes work/dump.m2v and applies the crop in $1
# and deinterlaces, outputting to work/dump.deint.yuv

./scripts/mplayer work/dump.m2v -vf crop=$1,pp=de,yadif=0 \
    -vo yuv4mpeg:file=work/dump.deint.yuv

#!/bin/bash

# Takes files in work and compiles them into work/output.avi
# $1 if specified is a list of additional filters to apply.

if [ "x$1" == "x" ]; then
    ./scripts/mencoder work/dump.deint.yuv -noskip -vf harddup,pp=de -ofps 30000/1001 -ovc lavc \
        -lavcopts vcodec=huffyuv:format=422p -audiofile work/dump.mp3 -oac copy -o work/output.avi
else
    ./scripts/mencoder work/dump.deint.yuv -noskip -vf harddup,pp=de,$1 -ofps 30000/1001 -ovc lavc \
        -lavcopts vcodec=huffyuv:format=422p -audiofile work/dump.mp3 -oac copy -o work/output.avi
fi

For some reason, when using NTLM authentication on Apache through the mod_auth_sspi module (combined with SSL, but that might not be a requirement), Internet Explorer will refuse to send POST data along with a request at random points in time. It will still send a POST request, but it just doesn’t send data.

This seems to only affect IE users on domains with Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA). My CrossOver-emulated IE6 works fine with Basic authentication over the secure site we have set up doing IWA (of course I have to type in my credentials). But my Windows machine authenticating using IWA drops POST data!

After tireless Googling, I think I have a solution. It sucks, but it’s the best I can do. Suggestions welcome:

SetEnvIf User-Agent ".*MSIE.*" ssl-unclean-shutdown
MaxKeepAliveRequests 1

What this does is for MSIE, it tells mod_ssl to uncleanly shutdown. And it makes KeepAlive/HTTP Pipelining on, but only for one request. With KeepAlive turned off, IE doesn’t work at all. It gives a “Page Cannot be Displayed” error… probably because it’s attempting to NTLM authenticate, lost the socket, and dies.

What’s this mean for everyone else that follows the rules? They don’t get any benefit from HTTP pipelining. Which totally sucks. So hopefully you don’t have this problem…

(code is past the break)

# Need: Ruby, this browser,
# and SysInternals Process Explorer

# Start Process Explorer, configure for always on
# top and only allow single instance, close it.

require 'win32ole'

BROWSER_PATH = ""
PROCEXP_PATH = ""

puts "Starting the lockdown browser"
shell = WIN32OLE.new('Shell.Application')
shell.ShellExecute(BROWSER_PATH, '', '', 'open', '1')

puts "Giving the lockdown browser time to breathe..."
sleep 10

puts "=> Ctrl-C to stop <="

while true do
    shell = WIN32OLE.new('Shell.Application')
    shell.ShellExecute(PROCEXP_PATH, '', '', 'open', '1')
    sleep 20
end

I recently purchased an LG Vu, and I’m always into making phones operate like I want to, remove all of the built in crap, and so on. If you read the rest of this post, I’ve got tons of stuff that I’ve been working on. It all requires BitPim, which I just emerge‘ed in Gentoo. Install it however you need to. You have to tell BitPim that you have an LG VX-8700. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to know to back up the files on their expensive piece of equipment before altering them…

I change my own oil, not because it’s cheaper, but because then I know what kind of work goes into it, and if there are other issues I need to be aware of. So I was out there and got to needing to get the oil filter off. It’s a no-go. It won’t come off. I tried everything. I tried three filter wrenches, a pair of huge channel locks, nothing helped. Although the channel locks did severely warp the can. Which actually looked kind of cool. So then I used my computer smarts… When there’s something wrong with my computer, what do I do? Google it! One of the first things that came up was a link to Jim’s Garage. Apparently, and I would have never thought of this, but if you get a really long screwdriver and jam it into the can and hammer it in all the way through, your oil filter just got a nifty handle. So keep that in mind if you ever get into that kind of situation. Though you might want to hammer slowly until the oil gets out of the filter, or you’ll have a nasty mess.

So, maybe that’ll help someone :).

Also, my Evolve Black Katana case is here. It’s pretty cool looking, but the paintjob looks just a tad better than something I could do myself. It’s still pretty good. I give it 3 out of 5.

I bought Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I expected it to run on my drivechipped Wii (chipped for homebrew btw). Well, it’s the first Wii game that’s dual layer, and the WiiKey incorrectly assumes that all dual layer discs are GameCube multi-game discs. Great assumption, as it was true. Now it’s not. And unfortunately, WiiKey’s Website is showing the default RHEL test page and apparently has been for some time now.

Shit.

So Googling around, I found out that the WiiKey is compatible with the OpenWii firmware. Great! Except the sucky part is that OpenWii requires programming the chip directly rather than using a DVD. Not that big of a problem, I guess. The biggest problem I’m going to encounter in swapping my WiiKey to run OpenWii is the fact I have to solder on SMD chips and I don’t have good enough magnification (I could probably use a jewelers magnification thingy). Also my soldering iron tip is quite large and my soldering iron doesn’t really have a selection of bits for it with a finer point than what I have. Meh. Also I have to take apart the Wii again, which is an adventure in itself…

So… What am I going to do? I could just desolder the WiiKey and say “screw it”, but that defeats the purpose of it (especially since huge strides have been made in homebrew). So, I think I’m going to do this:

1. Using this guide I’m going to rewire my WiiKey (yes, I’ll take pictures) and put a port on the back of my Wii which will connect to a modified parallel port cable.
2. While I have the Wii open, I’ll take it apart the rest of the way and put it in a new awesome case.
3. I’ll also install a switch on the Wii so that I can turn off the modchip if needed (this switch would be required because the diagram shows that the WiiKey requires power from the parallel port during programming, and I don’t want the possibility of shorting the Wii - so I’ll probably install two switches, one for programmer power ON/OFF and one for DVDROM power ON/OFF). This will avoid this problem from ever occuring again.

Though, like an idiot, I “quicksoldered” the thing to my Wii. In hindsight, it would have been faster to actually use wire, since I ended up tearing a trace off the drive and had to solder to the actual drive chip (luckily the “debug port” pins that were left on the drive are just shortcuts to the pins on the actual chip).

I’ll keep everyone posted with updates.

If you missed part 1, you should go back and read it, so you understand why I’m taking apart such an expensive monitor.

Before I cut the end of the cable off, I wanted to know what I was working with. Maybe the cable was simple to replace. Maybe it was something that I could easily find. By following this take-apart guide, you’ll see, the cable is really simple to remove. The Mac mini and Nintendo Wii are much more difficult to open up (though not really that hard).

But a word of warning: After I took apart the monitor, and saw how easy the cable was to replace, I tried to locate one on the Internet. Nobody sells one. So, I went to an Apple store. Evidently, even though the monitor is easy to service, they send the monitor back to China and have the underaged children with small hands refurbish my monitor and they send me another refurbished one. There is a $120-$200 cost for this. Unless, of course, you take it apart first, in which case the refurbishment charge is $800 (for those keeping score, that’s $300 more than I paid for it). Even though the monitor is not under warranty, taking it apart is one of the Seven Deadly Apple Sins. So, don’t do it if you’re in the same boat I am. Unless you have a cable already, in which case, let me know how you got it! :)

So, anyway, on with the guide.