Hmm. I might need an NDA or, at the very least, a decent contract with which to ensure I don’t end up left with nothing. Time to start looking for a brief…

To automatically add a UUID when you insert a row, use a trigger:

DELIMITER $$
CREATE
 /*[DEFINER = { user | CURRENT_USER }]*/
 TRIGGER `mydatabase`.`Add UUID to mytable` BEFORE INSERT
 ON `mydatabase`.`mytable`
 FOR EACH ROW BEGIN
 SET NEW.`uuid` = UUID();
 END$$
DELIMITER;

UUIDs are 36 characters wide, so a column type of CHAR(36) is suitable.

Om nom nom!

If you are looking for private French lessons in Cambridge, you should contact Audrey via her web site

Following on from my earlier log about the micro-site I made for a friend, I made another one for her; this time focused on French Lessons in Cambridge as the keywords of choice.

Google and Yahoo! were happy with the sites, but Bing was not. They appear to have disappeared off Bing’s indexes completely, but this blog gets ranked highly on Bing for some reason. Let’s see if that continues.

1. Ensure the mod_redirect module is enabled

2. Added this to the site’s config:

$HTTP["host"] =~ "example.com {

    url.redirect =
    ( "/mt/"                 => "http://example.com/blog/",
      "atom.xml"             => "http://example.com/blog/feed",
      "rss.xml"              => "http://example.com/blog/feed",
      "^/blog/.+/(.+).html"  => "http://example.com/blog/$1"
    )
}

To apply these settings, I follow this routine (as a superuser)

1. Upload this emergency get-out-of-jail iptables config to the server

2. Set up a cronjob to apply that config every 15 minutes

$ crontab -e

*/15 * * * * iptables-restore < /path/to/firewall.open.txt

3. Upload the example iptables settings to the server

4. Apply that config to iptables:

iptables-restore < /path/to/firewall.memset.txt

5. Test one can reach the web site, connect via SSH, and ping the server, but cannot FTP or connect to mail ports

6. Once happy, disable the cronjob created in step 2 above, and check the firewall is up with

iptables -L

et voila! the server should now be pretty well locked down whilst allowing apt to connect to repositories, a web server serve up web pages, users connect via SSH and respond to ping requests.

You can see this at work on my home page

It’s a nice gadget. I love the ease with which I could integrate my Gmail contacts and link them with Facebook profiles. It’s taken a couple of hours, but this prompted me to tidy up my contacts. Now I have emails and phone numbers together. Changes I make in Gmail synchronize with the phone and vice versa. This is good.  I haven’t found a music app that compares to iTunes ( not that I’ve looked properly yet ), so any tips on a suitable candidate most welcome.

Comparing the Hero with my iPod Touch, I find the iPod a more polished product. The Hero freezes occasionally for small amounts of time. It feels like – as other reviewers have said – the hardware is the weak spot. The UI is good; the potential for uses, great, but that freezing experience is a bit disappointing. Not to say I am disappointed: overall I am very pleased, but there is room for some improvement. Value for money, compared to the iPhone, the Hero wins.

If HTC heed the reviews, I hope to see a more robust box that gives the software the processing and memory it deserves in the not too distant future.

BEGIN TRANSACTION;
CREATE TABLE t1_new (
 foo  TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
 bar  TEXT,
 baz  INTEGER,
);

INSERT INTO t1_new SELECT foo, bar, baz FROM t1;
DROP TABLE t1;
ALTER TABLE t1_new RENAME TO t1;
COMMIT;

The quick way to get the SQL to create your new table would be to use the .schema command when connected to the database using the command line client.