<?php
/**
 * Example usage (using jQuery):
 *  var url = "/path/mantisconnect_json.php?name=mc_project_get_issues&project_id=0&page_number=1&per_page=10";
 *  $.getJSON(url, function(data) {
 *      $.each(data, function() {
 *          console.log(data.id + ': ' data.summary);
 *      });
 *  });
 */

// URL to your Mantis SOAP API (the mantisconnect.php file)
define('MANTISCONNECT_URL', 'http://www.whereyouhaveyourmantis.com/api/soap/mantisconnect.php');

// the username/password of the user account to use for calls
define('USERNAME', 'yourmantislogin');
define('PASSWORD', 'yourmantisloginpassword');

// ------------------------------------------------

parse_str($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'], $args);

// get SOAP function name to call
if (!isset($args['name'])) {
    die("No name specified.");
}
$function_name = $args['name'];

// remove function name from arguments
unset($args['name']);

// prepend username/passwords to arguments
$args = array_merge(
    array(
        'username' => USERNAME,
        'password' => PASSWORD
    ),
    $args
);

// connect and do the SOAP call
try {
    $client = new SoapClient(MANTISCONNECT_URL . '?wsdl');

    $result = $client->__soapCall($function_name, $args);
} catch (SoapFault $e) {
    $result = array(
        'error' => $e->faultstring
    );
}

print json_encode($result);

Put the mantisconnect_json.php file wherever you want, it doesn’t need to be on the same server or have the same domain as the Mantis installation. Edit the MANTISCONNECT_URL and your Mantis username and password.

The query string parameter name defines what SOAP action to call, the rest of the query string parameters are passed as arguments in the SOAP call. Note that the Mantis username/password is inserted automatically as arguments by the PHP code to avoid having you expose it publicly in JavaScript (but they may be overridden if desired).

Please note that this is a very simple wrapper for read-only purpose (e.g. it will not work to create new issues).

Wipe
Copies zeros over the whole disk.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdaX

Where sdaX is the device you want to wipe. Read discussion at security.stackexchange.

Shutdown
Since the shutdown command will be trashed by the wiping, we need to force shutdown in another way.

echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq
echo o > /proc/sysrq-trigger

Don’t try this at home.

The reason for this is that you must use the Alt-key to get a bracket [, and apparently Command-Alt-[ is already taken by toggling zoom on/off.

To make tab-indenting work in Coda, open System Preferences, Keyboard, click Keyboard Shortcuts tab, select Universal Access and finally uncheck the box for Turn zoom on or off.

The presentation is basically a quick high-level overview of some of the main points I’ve encountered after several workshops at different clients wanting to take the step from a legacy server centric web site architecture to a modern rich client side implementation.

Slides are available as PDF here (this is an english version of what was presented).

The demo I did of the Friendly Iframe ad-loading optimization by Tobias Järlund at Aftonbladet is available at the Aftonbladet dev blog (swedish).

Here is the presentation as pdf and the implementation examples I demonstrated.

It was great fun as always, with lots of people (apx 90). Thanks for having me!

One way to describe this book, in a somewhat generalized way, is to say “Old people talking about when they were programmers”. The book is a collection of transcript style interviews with some of the most protruding people in the history of computer programming. 15 interviews in all, from Jamie Zawinski of Netscape fame (the young one of the lot, thereby the “old people” tongue-in-cheek reference) to Donald Knuth.

Each interview is prefaced with a short introduction of the interviewee, followed by a discussion around a number of topics; how did you learn to program, how do you prefer to read code, hardest bug you tracked down, do you think of yourself as a scientist, engineer, artist or craftsman, what do you think of formal proofs, have you used literate programming, how do you interview candidates for employment, and more.

The author, Peter Seibel, is himself an experienced programmer resulting in insightful questions that only someone with great knowledge about programming may ask, making the interviews more free and targeted towards the interest of the particular person. It also makes the discussion feel more genuine and honest, rather than a set of questions and answers following a strict agenda.

The focus of the interviews are not technology, but the person being interviewed and how they look back on their career. The technical discussions typically centers on systems like PDP and programming in LISP. Although most issues are still relevant today in some way or another, the context is usually not on today’s technology (you do not program using punch cards, do you?).

That means that this book is not for someone looking at quick technical tips to apply in their current programming language of choice. But for those genuinely interested in the craft of software development this book is inspiring and gives insight into the people who were significant in some way bringing the industry into what it is today.

The book really does not analyze the answers in the interviews to a greater extent, leaving that to the reader. But to mention a few reoccurring themes there seems to be a consensus that programming is harder today (mostly because of parallelization) and C++ (and especially pointers) is crap.

Notable famous people missing from the list are Linus Torvalds (Linux) and John Carmack (Doom/Quake). Both were contacted by author Peter Seibel but he never got an answer. Additionally, most of the interviewees look back at the time when they were programming as their main profession, this is not a list of the superstar programmers of today (which would make a great follow up book).

All in all, if you are interested in the people, how they are and what their thoughts and experiences are like, then this book is for you – you’ll likely find it both inspiring as well as entertaining as I did. If you want source code listings, look elsewhere.

Cannot register the hard disk ‘myhd.vdi’ with UUID {ABCD} because a hard disk ‘myhd2.vdi’ with UUID {ABCD} already exists in the media registry (‘path/VirtualBox.xml’).

The solution is to generate a new UUID for the copy. This is done using:

VBoxManage internalcommands setvdiuuid myhd2.vdi