Category Archives: Tech

PdaNet and the Sprint Data Network Save the Day

OK, my being awesome helps as well. Verizon’s Business DSL crapped out at lunchtime today (I was actually AT lunch and had to come back to the office, thanks Verizon!). I quickly tethered my Palm Centro to my laptop and fired up PdaNet so that we could process some orders.

Problem solved! For me, but what about the rest of the company?!? Well, a little Googling brought me to a program called Nat32 that allowed me to setup my laptop as a router for the rest of the company to use as their default gateway! I could have used ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) but you need to use the 192.168.0.0 subnet so I would have to reissue IP addresses for the whole company (servers, printers, etc).

So the takeaway of this post is that it pays to be a geek with gadgets 😉

Happy Friday to you!

#ramday: An Experiment in Meme-Jumping

While a relatively small group of Twitterers were sharing their #ramday experiences, I wrote this blog post: “What the Hell is #ramday?”. It was an attempt to jump on the coattails of the #ramday meme and vault the blog post as high as possible in Google. Christopher S Penn had a similar meme-jumping experience with Youtube and Rickrolling.

Did it work??

Graphic showing the dramatic increase in visitors for the ramday meme explanation post.

For a personal blog with very little traffic (5 – 10 uniques a day?) I had 406 unique visitors on Friday July 25th (aka the inaugural #ramday)!

And here are the search results in Google:

Google search results for Ramday

Incredibly enough, and this is  testament to how great Google is as a search engine, this page highlighted above was result #51 on Friday July 25th 30 minutes after I wrote it!

Useful FTP Bash Script

I needed to be able to automate the download of specifically named files from an FTP server and then delete them upon successful download. The need arose when the old script I was using was downloading some zero byte files (likely due to poor network conditions, workstation issues or remote server issues) then deleting the source file! D’oh!!

This script checks that the file is not a zero byte file before deleting from the remote server. Not great error/consistency checking, but better than I had before. It also copies the successfully downloaded files to an IMPORT directory and then archives the originally downloaded files to an ARCHIVE directory.

Hopefully you find it useful.

Note: I updated the post to include logging.

#!/bin/bash
################################################
# Set some of the variables that will be needed
# during the execution of this script
################################################
# set current date
now=`date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M-%S`
#
# set the root dir
rootdir="/ftp_files"
#
# set the download directory
dldir="$rootdir/DOWNLOADS"
#
# set session download dir
sessdldir="$dldir/$now"
#
# set the import dir
importdir="$rootdir/IMPORT"
#
# set the archive dir
archivedir="$rootdir/ARCHIVE"
#
# set up logging
LOGFILE="$rootdir/LOGS/ftplog.txt"
#
################################################
# Lets get to work
#################################################
# create a directory based on todays date
mkdir $sessdldir
#
# change to the new directory prior to FTP connection
cd $sessdldir
#
if [ -f $LOGFILE ]
then
echo "****** FTP PROCESS STARTED AT: $now ******" >> $LOGFILE
else
echo "****** NEW LOG FILE CREATED AT: $now ******" > $LOGFILE
echo "****** FTP PROCESS STARTING AT: $now ******" >> $LOGFILE
fi

## FTP Connection parameters
ftpserver=server.com
username=youruser
password=yourpass
remotedir=/directoryname

## Connect to FTP server and download all TXT files
ftp -inv $ftpserver >> $LOGFILE <<MYEND
user $username $password
cd $remotedir
bin
mget *.TXT
bye
MYEND

## Test for existence of files in the session download dir
## (we cd'd here earlier)
if [ `ls | wc -l` -gt 0 ]
then
echo "" >> $LOGFILE
echo ">> Files have been downloaded" >> $LOGFILE
dlfiles=`ls`
echo ">>>> Downloaded files:" >> $LOGFILE
echo "$dlfiles" >> $LOGFILE
echo "" >> $LOGFILE

## Create the FTP delete script in order to remove the downloaded
## files from the FTP server. We will be sure to check for empty
## files below. The FTP delete script will be created in the session
## download directory and named ftp.$PID
echo "open $ftpserver
user $username $password
binary
cd $remotedir" > $sessdldir/ftp.$$
echo ">> Creating delete script to delete non-zero files from remote server" >> $LOGFILE

## Iterate through the downloaded files one by one
for i in $( ls *.TXT ); do
## If the file exists and is larger than 0 bytes, THEN add
## a delete command to the FTP delete script. This will allow
## us to delete all non-zero byte files from the FTP server.
## Non-zero byte files could be a sign that the file didn't
## download properly due to an FTP timeout or other network
## issues. By not deleting the non-zero byte file we can attempt
## to download it the next time the script is run.
if [ -s $i ]
then
echo "del $i" >> $sessdldir/ftp.$$
echo ">>>> $i will be added to delete script" >> $LOGFILE
fi
done

## Finish off the FTP delete script
echo "quit" >> $sessdldir/ftp.$$

echo "" >> $LOGFILE
echo ">> Here is the delete script">> $LOGFILE
echo "" >> $LOGFILE
cat $sessdldir/ftp.$$ >> $LOGFILE
echo "" >> $LOGFILE
echo ">> Running the delete script" >> $LOGFILE
echo "" >> $LOGFILE

## Run the FTP script
ftp -ivn < $sessdldir/ftp.$$ >> $LOGFILE

## Copy all the non-zero byte TXT files to the import folder
echo "" >> $LOGFILE
echo ">> Copying non-zero size files to IMPORT" >> $LOGFILE

for i in $( ls *.TXT ); do
if [ -s $i ]
then
cp $i $importdir
echo ">>>> Copying $i to IMPORT directory" >> $LOGFILE
fi
done
fi

## Copy session specific download dir to the ARCHIVE folder
echo "" >> $LOGFILE
echo ">> Copying entire $sessdldir to $archivedir" >> $LOGFILE

cp -R $sessdldir $archivedir/

## Delete the session specific download dir
rm -rf $sessdldir
echo "" >> $LOGFILE
echo ">> Deleting $sessdldir" >> $LOGFILE
echo "" >> $LOGFILE

## ENDING LOG FILE FOR SESSION
echo "****** FTP PROCESS ENDED AT: $now ******" >> $LOGFILE
echo "******************************************************" >> $LOGFILE
echo "" >> $LOGFILE

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Free Support Friday – 3/28/2008

Have a nagging computer or server issue? DNS or email not working the way you expect? I am offering free technical support/advice tonight March 28th 2008. If you have any questions or issues you can email them to me at geoff@geoffmanning.com and I will try to answer as many questions as I can.

Example topics:

  • Desktop/Server issues
  • email
  • DNS
  • Web hosting
  • WordPress
  • Spam
  • Anti-virus
  • etc.

Note: This is not to be confused with the show Chris Pirillo has hosted in the past called: Free Live Tech Support Friday. I will try to answer as many questions as I can but I can’t make any guarantees! If I need to, I can connect remotely via my CrossLoop account.

Status Update for Adopt a Newb Day 2008

While it is not necessarily a day, more of a concept, Adopt a Newb Day 2008 (AND 2008) has begun for me in full swing. If you follow the excellent tech podcast: Caffination then you have heard that Paul has started his AND 2008 campaign already as well. We first talked Adopt a Newb Day last month and if you don’t listen to Caffination, and your are a tech geek like me, then you should!

The concept is simple and it follows the ‘give a man a fish’/’teach a man to fish’ theory. Paul has turned that into ‘teach a man to tech’ and it is brilliant in it’s simplicity. There are so many things that come naturally to those more technologically inclined, it would be great for us to pay it forward.

So one of my AND 2008 projects has been to deploy a website for a close friend of mine that runs his own company. He has just started up recently and did not yet have a website. Slapping on my marketing geek hat I urged him to let me put up a website for him as it will open up a new sales channel for him and even the playing field with the competition. He agreed and here we are.

The ‘teach a man to fish’ concept here is that I developed the site entirely using the blogging platform wordpress (which runs geoffmanning.com by the way). I setup the templates and the general page structure and taught him how to manage his content using wordpress as a content management system (CMS).

The site is now live at Elite Sales and Marketing and he is starting to promote the site. The next step for us will be to drive traffic (and hopefully sales!) to the site. So Adopt a Newb yourself and keep us updated with the results!

Investigate missed calls with 800notes.com

For the past 2 weeks I have been getting calls from 866-463-3021. When I pick-up there is no one on the other end; if I let it go to voice mail, no message. I put the number into Google and the first result was from 800notes.com.

Apparently 800notes.com allows users to enter in phone numbers to see who is using that number. It derives it’s information from user contributions so the results may not always be accurate. For the number above, there are actually 18 pages (as of this writing) of comments from people who have had this show up in their call log.

So the next time you get a call from an unknown number, look it up in 800notes.com to see where it is coming from. For me, I’ll be wading through all those pages to see who the hell is calling me!

GTD with Jott

I have a speed dial on my cell phone programmed to (866) JOTT-123 so I can record new task items on the go. If you are not familiar with Jott, it is a service that transcribes your voice message to text and sends it to you in an email. It’s perfect for collecting new to-do list items the moment you think of them.

In addition to the task to email functionality, Jott can be used to send tasks (or notes, reminders, etc) to:

There are several Jott tutorials online, have a look for yourself and see if it can work for you.

Adopt a Newb Day 2008

Paul Muller over at the Caffination Podcast has come up with a great idea to help out those less technical: Adopt a Newb Day 2008. What Paul recommends is that you take time out of your day (on or near the 15th of April) to help out a friend, a coworker, a relative or a complete stranger with some technical assistance.

I think this is a brilliant and fun idea. I certainly take my tech knowledge for granted and this is a good way to “give back to the community”. I have certainly become a better teacher over the last year I’ve spent in consulting but at times I’ve struggled with trying to teach people things that come as second nature to me.

I hope you will join me in celebrating Adopt a Newb Day 2008. If you do, please leave a comment and let me know how it went. If you are looking for assistance, leave a comment as well or send me an email.

Outlook Search with Xobni

I have been using the Outlook search add-on by Xobni for the past few months and I have to say it is a great time-saver for me. It is lightning quick in searching my Outlook email compared to the built-in search Outlook provides.

In addition to the search capabilities, Xobni allows you to better navigate your email world. When you are viewing an email in Outlook, Xobni will display the contacts phone number (and a link to call if you have skype installed), recent conversations and recent attachments.

Have a look at the following youtube video to see all the features of Xobni.

Review: Agent18 Eco Shield (G3)

I can now take my iPod Nano G3 out of the house. Thanks Agent18! I received an iPod Nano G3 for Christmas this year and it’s black and shiny. This Nano is replacing my 2003 issued iPod that I scratched up something fierce within the first month I had it.

Every case I have owned (and that is quite a few) was either too clunky, not protective enough (as in no screen protection) or had features I that I didn’t need (like a belt clip). The Eco Shieldis what I have been looking for.

The Eco Shield (G3) is a two piece recycled plastic case that easily assembles over the iPod Nano. The front and back are completely covered with the exception of a cutout on the front to access the wheel.

What I have found the most useful bit about the Eco Shield is that the bottom of the case is completely open. This allows me to attach my FM Transmitter, and even dock the iPod without removing the case.

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