Andy's Thoughts

After a long break, the unix_quote fortune bot is back online. It is posing linux fortune command results from an Ubuntu server.  The script is written in perl using the Net::Twitter::Lite library and is run using cron several times a day.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::Twitter::Lite;
my $nt=Net::Twitter::Lite->new(
legacy_lists_api => 1,
consumer_key => "",
consumer_secret => "",
access_token => "",
access_token_secret => "",
);
$quote=`/usr/games/fortune`;
$qupte=substr($quote,0,139);
$quote =~ s/\s+$//;
$nt->update($quote);

Of course, the secret passwords have been omitted to protect the innocent. The magic Oath passwords can be obtained from the twitter developer site.

This year again Adam, Jess and I preformed in the Mason City Tuba Christmas, as you can see it was well covered by the local media…

The mp3 audio recorded by the local radio station: http://www.kglonews.com/pc/tubachristmas2012.mp3

Local newspaper article

http://globegazette.com/news/local/merry-tuba-christmas-daughter-of-founder-pays-and-plays-tribute/article_629cdd3e-4197-11e2-b6de-001a4bcf887a.html#.UMPdqdB9WlY.facebook

And the video that Dad shot… http://youtu.be/TV1prB6X1zU

I hope you all have a merry Tuba Christmas again this year

In yet another improvement to their service, Amazon’s S3 service now allows for CORS. This allows developers to build HTML5 and AJAX empowered applications that utilize the power of the S3 cloud without having to resort to hacks such as running a proxy server on their web server.

This is yet another upgrade in a long line of cool stuff from the wizards at Amazon.

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A lot has been in the news about the new Mars Rover, Curiosity. NASA and JPL’s latest cool project that landed a nuclear powered rover on the surface of Mars by the use of a sky crane.

The people responsible for this are apparently also passably good dancers also as seen in this spoof of “I’m sexy and I know it” aka “I’m NASA and I know it.”

I hope everyone has a happy 4th of July!

Apple has released iOS version 5.1.1 (the operating system of for your phone).  Directions for over the air updating are available: http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57429405-285/how-to-update-your-ios-device-software-over-the-air/ (the update will require connecting to a wifi point first or via itunes).  This upgrade also applies to any iPad, later generation iPod touch, or other recent iOS devices.

Congratulations to my sister-in-law Ashley Hill who walked at the University of Norther Iowa graduation last weekend (ok, she doesn’t actually graduate until the end of summer and her internship). She majored in Leisure Youth & Human Services.  Best of luck to her in her future endeavors.

I ran into an odd error when trying to send email from our newly configured Office 365 hosted exchange.  When sending email to people who were already in my auto complete address book I would receive the message “Can not complete the operation” a fellow user also recieved the error “Could not complete the operation. One or more parameter values are not valid.”

It turns out that this is a corruption in the frequently used email address cache and can be cured by deleting the cache by going to File/Tools/Options/Mail and choosing clear autocomplete