Job at Maemo

In case you'd like working in Maemo, we're looking (also) for an IT specialist:

Debian packaging: Changing permissions and ownership of dirs

Regarding creating users and permissions our beloved Debian Policy [chap. 10.9] tells us:

...you must arrange for your package to create the user or group if necessary using adduser in the preinst or postinst script (again, the latter is to be preferred if it is possible).

I wanted to stick to the postinst since it's preferrable so I couldn't change the permissions in the rules file.

Now the thing is I need to give this user permissions for the dirs it will need to own/write and so on. I already have the dirs listed in debian/dirs and I don't want to hardcode anything else in the rules or in the postinst. Of course not being a so experienced debian devel I started to google but didn't find anything... asked around but nothing yet... so I hacked it in this way in the end:

debian/rules:
...
MYDIRS := $(shell cat $(CURDIR)/debian/dirs)
SUBME := $(foreach dir, $(MYDIRS), chown -R \$$the_user $(dir);)
SUBFRIENDLY := $(shell echo "$(SUBME)" | sed -e 's/\//\\\//g')
...
binary-indep: build install
...
dh_installdeb
sed -i -e 's/PLACEHOLDER/$(SUBFRIENDLY)/' $(DESTDIR)/DEBIAN/postinst
...
...

debian/postinst:
...
configure)
the_user="xyz"
#Creating the user if it does not exist
if ! getent passwd $the_user > /dev/null; then
adduser $the_user
fi

#Changing the permissions for the given dirs
PLACEHOLDER
...

(user=xyz can be easily changed to numeric ID)

I don't know if this is the 'standard' way to do it (nor if there is a standard way) but it's at least a way that worked... If anybody there can give me an hint on how to do it better, it would be really appreciated.

N900 and TV-out: I just love it

After I read the post of Urho about Wiimote+DrNokSnes+TVout I couldn't help trying it out right away (except the Wiimote thing that I don't have). That was a funny jump back in time to when I was young and passed the evenings at a friend's apartment trying to finish the (amazing at that time) Super Mario bros on the NES (I didn't have a NES myself).

Besides that I tried out for the first time in these months the TV-out. I never realized it was so amazing... after having that strange cable packed on my desk for a whole 2 months I got to really use it. And, even if at first it was just to play Mario, I realized that the N900 it's a full blown audio/video player that supports a lot of formats. So I just started to watch a TV show on the bus, arrived home and plugged it into the TV and finished watching the show there.

I mean it's amazing! 180 grams plus a cable and you have a multimedia station with 32G storage on board. I've been thinking to get some kind of media box lately... well I think I found it... it was in my pocket the whole time.

Troppi papi

Geniale vignetta di Beppemora.

A questa non c'avevo proprio pensato...

Oggi mi sveglio, una giornata come tante altre e scopro che il nostro mitico Silvio presidentone nazionale (il migliore degli ultimi 150 anni) si candida (o si vorrebbe candidare, o lo vorrebbero candidare, ancora non ho capito) al premio Nobel per la pace.

Si avete capito bene premio Nobel per la pace.

Come se io mi candidassi al premio Nobel per la letteratura.

Non contento della messa in scena pare che abbia assoldato Biancaneve e i sette nani (al coro), un sosia di Bocelli e lo zio di Mogol per interpretare e scrivere il testo di questa canzone


O forse il testo l'ha scritto lui in un momento in cui si sentiva ispirato al cesso ("Silvio Silvio grande e'" chiara eco ai cori da stadio).

Sempre in vena di scherzoni ha fatto mettere su un sito che raccoglie una tale valanga di minchiate che manco Alvaro Vitali e Thomas Millian ubriachi e dopo essersi magnati 10 chili di coda alla vaccinara nel famoso ristorante La Parolaccia di Roma sarebbero stati in grado di mettere una dietro l'altra.

Ma andiamo con ordine:

in home page non si poteva fare a meno dell'inno italiano (che fa sempre scena, malgrado al governo con Silvio ci sia chi con l'inno ci si pulisce il deretano). Sempre in home page una accozzaglia di frasi che dovrebbero spingerti a credere veramente in quello che il sito sponsorizza:

Il Premio Nobel per la Pace non è mai stato assegnato ad un italiano dal 1907 ad oggi.
E' finalmente venuta l'ora di sfatare un tabù che dura da più di cento anni, ovvero da quanto nel 1907, ad aggiudicarselo fu Ernesto Teodoro Moneta.
Alla corsa per l'ambito riconoscimento si sono succeduti, in questi anni numerosi politici e capi di Stato, tra i quali potremmo citare, Yasser Arafat, il presidente della Corea del Sud, Kim Dae-Jung, l'ex presidente americano, Jimmy Carter, ed Al Gore.
Oggi crediamo che, anche, l'Italia meriti di ricevere tale riconoscimento, e di essere degnamente rappresentata da Silvio Berlusconi, per il suo indiscusso impegno umanitario in campo nazionale ed internazionale.

(vi consiglio di visitare questo link per un'adeguata parafrasi di quello che e' scritto qui sopra)

E andiamo subito alle chicche: testimonial d'ecce_zz_ione (nel senso di eccezziunaleveramente) e' Loriana Lana ... vi chiederete "ecchiccazze'?". Ecco se lo stanno chiedendo un po' tutti.

I GadgetS: Una maglietta con su scritto (davanti) "Silvio per il nobel", probabilmente dietro ci sara' scritto Kaka'.

Dulcis in fundo: chi ha aderito all'appello: un gruppo di sodali, portaborse e amichetti del premier (tutta gente molto importante e in vista per carita').

Ecco ora potete scoprire chi ha creato quest'iniziativa (cosi' potete mandarli a quel paese di persona) e qui ci metto il link ma cmq la faccia di questo vi dice gia' tutto:

Micidiale...

Ennesima versione del video di Hitler... stavolta in salsa italiana :)

Translation Party

Well this is a really nice way to waste your time: Translation Party.
You write a phrase in english and it will translate it back and forth from english to Japanese until the phrases will match in 2 consecutive translations.
I entered this:

Whatever you say it's wrong and I will disagree with that until you prove it right

and the equilibrium was at this point:

And, right or wrong, I have evidence to the contrary

try it!

My first bread

Following the series of 'cooking at home' here is our first home made bread.

Incredibly enough the first attempt is really good :)

Maemo5 and Nokia N900

Oh finally we announced this thing. Still can't talk about it that much :(

The video looks great though :)

Seeking for the perfect pizza recipe (in Finland)

Image by Aaron Landry via Flickr

(this is for Sotiris and Francesco)

In a struggle to find the perfect mix of flours here in Finland I managed to get close to something good with this recipe.

Ingredients

* 50% of Erikoisvehnäjauho
* 30% of Durum Vehnäjauho
* 20% of Hiivaleipäjauho

I usually make 1 Kg of dough I also put:
* 3/4 (0.75) of a glass of olive oil (extra virgin it's maybe better, don't use sunflower oil or similar in that case it's better without oil)
* 1 cube of fresh yeast (the standard hiiva from K-market or S-market), 2 cubes if you want to prepare the "high dough" (we call it Naples' pizza)
* 1 teaspoon of salt
* Some lukewarm water (I really never measured how much, the dough doesn't have to be sticky nor too dry, maybe 400/500 ml it's ok)

Preparation

Dissolve the yeast in a cup of water. (*** see update below)
Mix the three types of flour together with salt and olive oil.
Mix the yeasted water with the flour... and mix... and mix... and add other water until you get a compact, non sticky dough.
Roll it to obtain a ball.
Make it rise for 2 hours under a rag inside a big plastic bag (so that the moist stays inside and the dough doesn't dry).
Now you can split the dough in how many parts you want (I suggest 10 parts for the thin pizza and 5 parts if you want a thick pizza), make as many balls of dough and stretch the pizza with a rolling pin (or if you really want to try your luck with your hands making the dough fly in the air, but this is kind of Pro also for me :D ).

Topping
For the topping I use the tomato sauce that I find in Lidl and the ground mozzarella that is always there. Then some basilica and you have your "margherita" (not "margerita" or "margarita" as you often find in many restaurants around).

If you have more time and fantasy you can add Parma Ham or mushrooms or eggplants or zucchini or radicchio (here is called "punainen salaatti") or whatever you want.


UPDATE:
There is a small mod to the recipe that proved to be slightly better:

Change
* Dissolve the yeast in a cup of water
with:
* Dissolve the yeast in 3 spoons of lukewarm water and one teaspoon of sugar and wait until you see some foam (2/3 minutes usually) - The sugar helps a lot the rising process.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

The Hangover

Few days ago I watched this movie, absolutely hilarious. One of the best comedies of the year.

A group of 4 guys that goes for a bachelor party in Las Vegas and the day after nobody remembers anything and one of them is disappeared. Always in between reality and surreality you'll be often screaming "WTF, this is not possible!!!" and you'll laugh your ass out.

Un progetto ambizioso

Siccome all'ultima rimpatriata la scelta sul ristorante e' stata dettata prettamente dal caso e dalla fretta di avere un posto dove andare a mangiare e che potesse contenere 30 persone, ho deciso stavolta di partire da lontano con un progetto molto ambizioso: iniziare a scegliere oggi il ristorante dove faremo la prossima rimpatriata chissa' quando, Natale o quel che sara'.
Ad ora l'unico ristorante e' quello dove siamo gia' andati, potete aggiungerne altri cliccando qui.

Happy Sysadmin day

Let's face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgement. It's the least you could do.

Maija Poppanen!!!

I'm just amazed by the translation of Mary Poppins in Finnish... small things that cheer up your day :D

Silvio meets Obama

From Articolo21

My first caciotta

So after trying the Pan di Stelle recipe I had to put myself at stake with some cheese.

This is my first home made caciotta (from an idea and a recipe of our friend Marcelo), now I have to wait 20 days of seasoning and taste it... let you know ;)


[UPDATE]

The caciotta is almost finished now and it was veeery good :D

Recycling the first maemo

Time to recycle the first maemo server, phased out a long time ago and now waiting for its final death.

(it's not just a server with a yellow maemo sticker on top, even if you can argue that :D )

[Kudos to Jesus that spotted it in the corridor]

The Prime Minister of WTF!

(re-blogging) Great Alexander Stille

really convert your SVN to GIT with one script (tags included)

Having to convert some SVN repositories to GIT, Misha pointed me to this recipe that was quite what I needed to convert svn tags to real tags.

There was some more typing involved and I hate typing, plus I had to deal with a non standard SVN layout that by experience I think it's like a second standard. So I included all the hints found there and somewhere else in a "one click" script that tries to do everything automatically. Since it's automatic you might end up with something close but not exactly as you need, so feel free to tweak as much as you want (as I did with Frank's recipe ;) ).

You can download the script here and run it

sh convert_svn_to_git.sh -r path/to/svn/repo -a path/to/authorsfile

enjoy ;)

Finns go and buy Parmigiano directly from Italy (it's cheaper)!

Image via Wikipedia

Today, first time in 4 years that I dare to buy a piece of Parmigiano Reggiano from Stockmann (supplies finished... :( ).
Price: 43.5 euros/Kg
Well not bad it traveled so many kilometers...
Then I made some raw calculation. I checked the price of a Finnair direct flight from Helsinki to Rome for next weekend: 384 euros going Saturday and coming back on Sunday. In Italy the price for Parmigiano is about 14-15 euros/Kg (maybe in the airport itself it might be a bit more expensive I don't know). I can bring 20 Kgs of luggage and 6 Kg with me in the cabin. To fill it up of Parmigiano I need to spend around 400 euros. 80 euros for a night in an average hotel and 50 euros of taxi to get there and come back. Total expense: around 915 euros. Price per kg: 35.2 euros.

Well of course now you have the problem of eating 26 Kgs of Parmigiano :D

Il terremoto secondo Berlusca

non ci volevo credere

Come San Tommaso quando ho letto questa blog entry non ci volevo credere ... ma poi ho visto con i miei occhi

Shall the last one turn off the light please...

Image by aussiegall via Flickr

Earth hour...

As Marc said: "8.30 PM. Unplug your shit"

When the summer depends on the calendar

Image by victor_nuno via Flickr

The other day I've seen an ad saying 'summer is coming'. That's very funny since here in Helsinki it's still -3 and there is a good amount of snow on the streets, the sea still looks frozen (even though probably I wouldn't dare walking on that) and cars have still the winter tires. But in Finland is like this. Seasons don't depend on the weather (there wouldn't be summer as such otherwise probably) but rather on the calendar. And the even more funny thing is that seasons don't start at solstices or equinoxes (as in the rest of the world) but on the first of the month. So this 1st of march spring started. And 1st of June will be summer. We have time to prepare anyhow...

Pan di stelle

There is one thing that I miss from Italy that I still wasn't able to get here in Finland. The pan di stelle biscuits. Well bored of waiting somebody to import them from Italy I found the recipe and baked them.

Below is the result. The taste is much better :D

News from Finland (you don't expect)

Image via Wikipedia

For the series 'Uskomatonta mutta totta' (Incredible but true!) finnish newspaper Helsingin sanomat reports us a study from Gallup that reveals how 25% percent of finns is irritated by loud phone conversations.

Well you can imagine how loud can be a (non drunk) finn so being italian you can guess how much I am actually pleased to hear somebody talking in the bus or in any other public places. I mean I like Finland and finns but you can say anything but they are loud :D