Panoramas from Maine

Created using hugin, a very cool open source tools to create panoramic photos.

The stock version included in Ubuntu 12.04 is a little old. You can get a more recent version here

Install script to CollectiveAccess on a debian Wheezy server

I've been looking at using CollectiveAccess, a very nice GPL'ed cataloguing tool and web-based application for museums, archives and digital collections, to use for a local historical society and surname genealogy group. If you know me IRL, I can set you up with a test account on a CA instance.

The installation is pretty straight forward, but I took the time to automate the installation progress to install it on a stock Debian Wheezy 7.1 image running in hpcloud.com (standard.xsmall)

Download it to the server, and then as root: sh ca-install.sh

ca-install.sh


#!/bin/bash
########################################################################
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program. If not, see .
#
########################################################################
#
# This script will install Collectiveaccess Providence & Pawtucket
# v1.3 on a stock Debian Wheezy server.
#
# Scan down for CHANGEME and replace it with whatever you want the
# Collectiveaccess (ca) account's mysql password to be.
#
# I tested this using the "209316 – Debian Wheezy 7.1 Server 64-bit
# 20130701 (b)" base image on http://hpcloud.com
#
# -marc nozell
# marc@nozell.com
# 2013-08-08
#
apt-get update
echo "get more packages"
apt-get install apache2 mysql-server php5 php5-imagick libtiff5 libgd-tools php5-ffmpeg libav-tools ghostscript dcraw poppler-utils abiword mediainfo php-getid3 php5-mysql

echo "update php.ini"
perl -pi -e "s/post_max_size = 8M/post_max_size = 32M/" /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
perl -pi -e "s/upload_max_filesize = 2M/upload_max_filesize = 2M/" /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
perl -pi -e "s/memory_limit = 128M/memory_limit = 256M/" /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
perl -pi -e "s/display_errors = Off/display_errors = On/" /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

echo "restart apache"
service apache2 restart

echo "configure mysql -- enter the mysql root password:"
mysql -p < < EOF
create database ca;
create user 'ca'@'localhost' identified by 'CHANGEME';
grant all on ca.* to 'ca'@'localhost';
EOF

echo "get providence 1.3 kit"
cd /usr/src/
wget -c http://collectiveaccess.org/downloads/collectiveaccess-providence-1.3.tgz

echo "unpack providence"
cd /var/www/
tar zxvf /usr/src/collectiveaccess-providence-1.3.tgz
mv collectiveaccess-providence-1.3 providence

cd providence

echo "edit providence setup.php"
cp setup.php-dist setup.php

perl -pi -e "s/my_database_user/ca/" setup.php
perl -pi -e "s/my_database_password/CHANGEME/" setup.php
perl -pi -e "s/name_of_my_database/ca/" setup.php
perl -pi -e "s/my_database_user/ca/" setup.php

echo "set some providence directory protections"
cd ..
chmod a+w providence/app/tmp
chmod a+w providence
chmod a+w providence/app/lib/core/Parsers/htmlpurifier/standalone/HTMLPurifier/DefinitionCache

echo "get the pawtucket kit"
cd /usr/src/
wget -c http://collectiveaccess.org/downloads/collectiveaccess-pawtucket-1.3.tgz

echo "unpack pawtucket"
cd /var/www/providence
tar zxvf /usr/src/collectiveaccess-pawtucket-1.3.tgz
mv collectiveaccess-pawtucket-1.3 pawtucket

cd pawtucket

echo "edit pawtucket setup.php"
cp setup.php-dist setup.php


perl -pi -e "s/my_database_user/ca/" setup.php
perl -pi -e "s/my_database_password/CHANGEME/" setup.php
perl -pi -e "s/name_of_my_database/ca/" setup.php
perl -pi -e "s/my_database_user/ca/" setup.php

cd /var/www/providence/pawtucket

echo "create media softlink"
ln -s ../media ./

echo "fix pawtucket directory protections"
chmod a+w /var/www/providence/pawtucket/app/tmp /var/www/providence/pawtucket/app/lib/core/Parsers/htmlpurifier/standalone/HTMLPurifier/DefinitionCache
chmod 777 /var/www/providence/pawtucket/app/lib/core/Parsers/htmlpurifier/standalone/HTMLPurifier/DefinitionCache/Serializer

echo "Now go open http://THIS-SERVER/providence/install and complete the setup"


Genealogy Resources @ Merrimack Public Library

Tonight I gave a presentation on using the Genealogy Resources at the Merrimack Public Library. (and internet in general)

Here are the slides:

• 3-Genealogy-Resources-At-Your-Merrimack-Public-Library-July-2013.odp (OpenOffice format)


• 3-Genealogy-Resources-At-Your-Merrimack-Public-Library-July-2013.pdf (PDF)

They are available under the Creative Commons' Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Using GRAMPS for your Genealogy Project

Tonight I gave a presentation on Using GRAMPS for your Genealogy Project at the Merrimack Public Library. (and internet in general)

Here are the slides:

• 
  2-Using-GRAMPS-for-your-genealogy-project.odp (OpenOffice format)


• 
  2-Using-GRAMPS-for-your-genealogy-project.pdf (PDF)

They are available under the Creative Commons' Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Getting started with your Genealogy Research talk

Tonight I gave a presentation on getting started with your genealogy research at the Merrimack Public Library.

Here are the slides:

• 1-Getting-Started-Merrimack-Public-Library-June-2013.odp (OpenOffice format)


• 1-Getting-Started-Merrimack-Public-Library-June-2013.pdf (PDF)

They are available under the Creative Commons' Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Over the next two weeks I'll give a talk on using GRAMPS for managing your genealogy information and one on using genealogy resources at the Merrimack Public Library such as the 'Library Edition' of Ancestry.com, other databases at the library and internet resources.

HOWTO get your Raspberry Pi running owncloud, tt-rss and thinkup

Today a case for my Raspberry Pi arrived from Adafruit arrived and it is time for some spring cleaning.

I was running the XBMC distro on the pi, but found it cumbersome to listen to music in the home office that way. So time to start with a fresh Raspbian install.

Here are my notes:

• Get the current Raspbian release from Raspbian.org and install it on a
  4GB flash disk.


• Boot the new disk and make the following configurations using
  raspi-config which is run the first time it starts up.
  
  - Use only 16M for GPU since I'm not running an X desktop
  - set appropriate timezone
  - set appropriate locale
  - expand fs to use entire 4GB disk
  - change pi passwd
  - enable ssh access
  - update
  - reboot
  


• Now some miscellaneous setup to make life easier later on. Both tt-rss and thinkup require MySQL, but I'll also want to use it for
  owncloud too. So install MySQL server:
  
  sudo apt-get install mysql-server
  
  Avahi (aka bonjour) is a very nice network tool that is a DNS-less way
  to announcing your hostname on the local network. Most (all) linux
  tools support it, but you'll need Apple's Bonjour kit for Windows.
  That means you can just 'ssh raspberrypi.local' or browse to
  http://raspberrypi.local/

sudo apt-get install avahi-utils
  
  I like emacs and screen is useful.
  
  sudo apt-get install emacs23-nox screen
  
  At this point I stop using the keyboard/monitor connected to the Raspberry Pi and use an ssh session from my laptop to do the rest.
  
  


• First install ownCloud by taking a look here: http://software.opensuse.org/download/package?project=isv:ownCloud:community&package=owncloud. Then connect to your Raspberry Pi:
  
  ssh pi@raspberrypi.local
sudo -i
  
  Now run this script which I slightly modified from their page:
  
  wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:ownCloud:community/Debian_6.0/Release.key
apt-key add - < Release.key

echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:ownCloud:community/Debian_6.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/owncloud.list
apt-get update
apt-get install owncloud
  
  At this point you'll have all the required packages are installed. Now point a browser to http://raspberrypi.local/owncloud
  
  You will need to create an owncloud admin account and will want to then expand the Advanced tab and to use a MySQL server instead of SQLite. Fill in root, mysql root password (I didn't bother to set an mysql admin password, so null in my case). For the database, use owncloud and database host localhost. It may take a couple minutes to be complete, so be patient.
  



• Now install tt-rss doing the following steps:
  
  cd /var/www/

wget -c https://github.com/gothfox/Tiny-Tiny-RSS/archive/1.7.4.tar.gz
  
  And follow the instructions here http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki/InstallationNotes which are essentially:
  
  tar zxvf 1.7.4.tar.gz
mv Tiny-Tiny-RSS-1.7.4 tt-rss

chown -R www-data:www-data tt-rss
  
  You will have to manually create a mysql database and import the schema
  
  mysql -u root
  mysql> create database ttrss;
  mysql> quit
  
  Now import the database schema (a fancy way to say the database tables and some initial data)
  
  cd tt-rss/schema
mysql -u root ttrss < ttrss_schema_mysql.sql
  
  And a little editing the configuration file...
  
  cd /var/www/tt-rss

cp config.php-dist config.php

emacs config.php (or use vi, nano, etc)
  
  I made the following edits:
  
define('DB_TYPE', "mysql");
define('DB_HOST', "localhost");
define('DB_USER', "root");
define('DB_NAME', "ttrss");
define('DB_PASS', "");

define('SELF_URL_PATH', 'http://raspberrypi.local/tt-rss/');
define('SINGLE_USER_MODE', true);
  
  Point a browser to http://raspberrypi.local/tt-rss
  
  From there login with default login/password of admin/password and you are done.
  



• Finally install http://www.thinkupapp.com/docs/install/quickstart.html
  
  The one package you'll need that isn't already installed at this point is php5-curl.
  
  apt-get install php5-curl
  
  Now get the kit. I used wget and the site provided the kit, but with an unusual name.
  
  
cd /var/www
wget -c http://thinkupapp.com/download/
mv index.html thinkup-1.3.1.zip
unzip thinkup-1.3.1
chown -R www-data:www-data thinkup
  
  Almost done. Point a browser to http://raspberrypi.local/thinkup and complete the configuration.
  
  database host: localhost
  
  database name: thinkup
  
  user: root
  
  password: blank, in my case or whatever you set the mysql root password to.
  
  I (and probably you) don't have a smtp server configured, so in order to activate your account, you'll need to do this: http://www.thinkupapp.com/docs/troubleshoot/common/advanced/directdb.html
  
  # mysql -u root thinkup
  
  mysql> select id,full_name,is_activated from tu_owners;
  +----+-------------+--------------+
  | id | full_name | is_activated |
  +----+-------------+--------------+
  | 1 | Marc Nozell | 0 |
  +----+-------------+--------------+
  1 row in set (0.00 sec)
  
  mysql> update tu_owners set is_activated=1 where id=1;
  mysql> quit
  
  Done! Now go back to http://raspberrypi.local/thinkup and configure the plugins to your favorite social media sites.
  
  

Trevor @ NH Mens' Gymnastics Championships 2013

Back from the NH Mens' Gymnastics Championships -- Trevor placed 2nd All Around and 1st in Floor, Rings and PBars. Nice way to end his gymnastics career.

Except for the New England Regionals the beginning of April of course.

• 
  Still Rings
  



• 
  Pommel Horse


• 
  Floor


• 
  High Bar



• 
  Parallel Bars


• 
  Vault