Where do I begin?

The good news is that for the first time in several days I fell asleep with no delay. The so-so news is that I went to bed around 3 am.

From time to time, something - typically a computer issue - will raise its ugly head and compel me to track it down to the best of my non-expert abilities. Last night was such a night.

It started when I casually visited a site in my de.lirio.us list of bookmarklets that provided an updated directory of applications you can run from thumb drives. As a result of that, I visited a site that explained how to set up a wiki on such a device.

I followed the instructions, which were pretty clear, and the end result was as advertised: I was running a MySQL-based, PHP-powered wiki off a 128-MB JumpDrive (which shows only 122 MB available when empty, but I digress...).

I then proceeded to replace the 2-port USB card in gagarin with a 5-port USB 2.0 card I'd picked up in Durango earlier in the day. Curious to see if the new card provided any additional speed (or whether the bottleneck is the read/write times of the memory in the device), I plugged the JumpDrive into a port and tried to run the wiki.

No joy.

I tried again, and got the same result. (Can you tell I used to be a software engineer? :^)

The list of processes in the task manager showed two instances of Apache running, so I shut down gagarin, cold booted, and tried running the software again.

Again, no joy. I was getting a blank screen where before, I had the capability to start and stop MySQL, shut down the Apache server, and use phpMyAdmin to oversee the database.

I threw away the installation and tried to reproduce my earlier success from scratch. A key element of the installation is something called UniServer, but this time, my attempt to install it fizzled. I kept getting a blank screen every time I tried to start the thing up. The system error files were telling me that Apache was never starting, and that MySQL was shutting down as soon as it was starting up.

Searching around the Internet, I found a newsgroup post that suggested typing the following command in what I still think of as a  "DOS window":

   netstat.exe -p TCP -n -a | find.exe "LISTENING"

and see if anything had already glommed port 80, which is the "traditional" port for http. It turned out something had.

The installation instructions suggested running the UniServer setup on another port in such an eventuality, but I was curious. Eventually, I hit on the idea of killing the numerous apps running in the system tray,  one by one.

Port 80 was freed when I killed Skype. Indeed, Skype was not running when I had gone through the process the first time. (I've noticed the executable has a habit of silently terminating itself from time to time; I'm not sure why.) Starting gagarin after the USB card upgrade started up Skype, the way it was supposed to.

In any event, now the UniServer setup worked. (Indeed, starting Skype with UniServer running elicited no complaints, though I have yet to test the software to see if it will work in such a configuration.) And as I contemplated extracting all the MediaWiki files to the JumpDrive, it suddenly occurred to me that I could do just as well by putting WackoWiki r4.2 (the brainchild of LJ friend kukutz) on the device instead.

That will be a tale for another time, because I've got to get going with my translation, and the kids are expecting me over for dinner in just under two hours.

Cheers...

A convenient stopping place...

...with about 1450 words left for tomorrow.

That's good, as it buys me time to do the additional work received yesterday, but I get ahead of myself.

I hied into the store this morning to give Drew a hand, and stayed until about 1 pm, at which point I went home and shortly found my way into the sack for a nap. I was awakened from the nap by a peal of thunder, the first of what I'm sure will be a number of such peals this year. It was all to the good, really, as I needed to go downstairs and translate.

I love strength analyses. They are so repetitive. First you take part A, figure out where the greatest stresses and strains are going to be (computer programs will tell you this), do a calculation to make sure said forces aren't excessive, and move on to the next part, with the same approach.

Yes, I'm simplifying.

Anyway, I'm about 1100 words ahead of where I expected to be tonight, and that's good.

* * *Dinner was at the kids' place and as usual, I had a pretty good time. Huntür and I amused ourselves while dinner was cooking by rolling a plastic cork back and forth across the table at each other. After dinner, I dialed Galina and handed the phone to Huntür, to let them chat for a while. While the kid still occasionally nods her head while speaking on the phone (instead of saying "yes"), she is still quite a chatterbox and holds her own pretty well these days.

* * *To continue the tale from my post of earlier today, you'll recall I was thinking of installing WackoWiki instead of MediaWiki, so I did. My experience with the former assured me there should be no problems getting it to run, except that when I entered the URL into my browser, I was told I didn't have the right to access the directory.

Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.

Windows doesn't get persnickety about stuff like that unless specifically prodded to go out of its way to do so, and anyway, the first time I went through the exercise, there were no issues about accessing the MediaWiki directory.

I have to remember to Check Error Logs First.™. I did so, whereupon I was told, in effect, that my Apache options prevented the so-called "rewrite rules" feature from being turned on. At that moment, I recalled that each WachoWiki subdirectory has an .htaccess file that makes sure the feature is on, so I cautiously opened the Apache configuration file, made the tweak, and then recycled the server.

This time, the WackoWiki URL worked fine, and installation proceeded with no further ado. One of these days, I would love to learn the intricacies of rule rewriting; it's as yet a black art to me now.

* * *I never did get to watch that episode of Eyes last night. It turns out that, since moving my sleeping quarters into the spare bedroom, I have not watched more than about 30 seconds of television. (Then again, I'm not exactly complaining.)

Time to go unwind.

Cheers...