Would you like to monitor your monthly Videotron Internet quota easily?

I offer two choices:

1) a Google Chrome extension

2) a Mac Dashboard widget

Wanting to get the comments in Google Reader, I simply looked in the Inspect Element > Network tab, to see what was going on, when I visited the Chrome Store page for my extension. And lo and behold, there’s an AJAX request to fetch the comments, with the results returned as a nice JSON-encoded object!

A couple of LOCs of PHP later, I now have an URL that takes in parameter an extension ID (that 32-characters-long string of letters you see in the URL, when you visit the extension URL; eg. fnhepcakkcnkaehfhpagimbbkpelkdha), and an optional extension name (to beautify the RSS a little), and gives me a RSS feed of all the comments for that extension.

Want to use it yourself? Easy peasy!

Just go here: Google Chrome Extension Comments RSS Generator

Enjoy, fellow extensions developers!

In the past, Greyhole used a log file to log all file operations that happened on Greyhole-enabled Samba shares. At one point, it used it’s own log file, then switched to using syslog (/var/log/messages usually).
In version 0.8, Greyhole now use spool files to log those operations.
This is similar to how email servers (like sendmail and postfix) work.
Basically, Samba will create small data files in /var/spool/greyhole/, with filenames being timestamps of when the event happened.
When the Greyhole daemon needs something to do, it will look in that directory, and process any files it finds.

All of this serves multiple purposes. One is to simplify Greyhole code.
Parsing a log file wasn’t that pleasant: we had to remember where we stopped parsing the log the last time we looked at it, and we had to handle log rotation in order to not miss any operations.
All of this is now a thing of the past. We now simply list a directory, and process the files we find there, before deleting them. Quite simple really!

Another goal which we’re aiming for with 0.8 is to have the Samba module that Greyhole use become part of Samba. That would mean that everyone with Samba installed would have at least one of the many blocks required to run Greyhole. That would also mean a lot more visibility for Greyhole than what we currently have. I’m currently working with Samba developers to make that a reality, and I expect to get this committed in the Samba mainline repository in the upcoming weeks.

Next up is version 0.9, and a new website.

This website centralize all the information one could want about Greyhole:

• A presentation of what Greyhole is (homepage)
• Links to download the latest version
• Links to past versions downloads
• Links to the code repository, issues tracker & wiki (documentation), all hosted on Google Code
• Link to “Fund a Feature | Donate”, hosted by fundry.com
• RSS feeds for Greyhole news (which you really should subscribe to if you’re reading this!), downloads, issues or commits
• Link to @GreyholeApp Twitter account
• And links to a support forum (GetSatisfaction), and live chat (IRC channel on FreeNode)

Implemented in PHP, the result is not that pretty, but it’s nice enough, and the ease of use allows me to keep it updated without too much hassle.

Data entry takes a date (default to today), and distance-price-quantity, aka “KPL”: Kilometrage, Price, Liters.

The webpage has 4 simple text fields to enter those values, and an email just needs to contain the KPL in whitespace-separated format. The webpage has one form per car, and an email just needs to contain the name of the car anywhere in the email (subject or body): “corolla” or “highlander”.

The database is simple enough: date, car ID, KPL (3 fields), and an auto-filled (using MySQL triggers) consumption field. A simple cars domain table links the car ID to it’s user-readable model, make and year, used to display the reports.

Throw in some Google Chart Tools to display graphs, and some general statistics (average consumption, total mileage, total fuel bought (in $ and L), and you’re done!

A nice to have I added later on is a next_service table, which contains a car ID, and a mileage. When data is entered that makes the total mileage of a car reach the mileage indicated in that table, an email is sent to the car owner, to remind him that his next service is due. Not that the dealer won’t remind me anyway, but still…

Here’s what it looks like, for the recent Highlander Hybrid (bought April 2008), and the 2002 Corolla:

The code that makes this work will be open-sourced if anyone is interested.

Or if you’d like to simply use it yourself as-is, I can set you up on my server, no problem. Just poke me.

What I didn’t like about it was it’s Chrome extension, which required me to use the mouse to click the 1Password icon in the toolbar each time I wanted to auto-fill a form with login details!! That was so annoying.

So annoying in fact that I took upon myself to implement keyboard shortcuts in the 1Password extensions. I knew it wouldn’t be that hard, since Chrome extensions are basically JavaScript & HTML files.

And it turned out to be pretty easy indeed:

I added an event listener for keyUp in the content script (that’s executed each time a page is loaded):

window.addEventListener("keyup", keyListener, false);

Then in the keyListener function, I simply check for the keyboard shortcuts I want:

if (e.ctrlKey && e.keyCode) {
  if (e.keyCode == 220 || e.keyCode == 191 || (e.altKey && e.keyCode == 80)) {
    chrome.extension.sendRequest({name: "openPopUp"});
  }
}

That sendRequest line simply calls another JavaScript function, but a function that is defined and executed in the ‘background’ context (the equivalent of a singleton pattern for Chrome extensions).
In the background HTML file, I simply added some code in that function that would popup a small window that would show the same popup.html file as when I clicked the 1Password button in the toolbar.

var url = chrome.extension.getURL('popup.html');
[...]
window.popUpWindow = window.open(url, "1Password for Chrome", options);

The only thing left was to change the existing functions from popup.html that fetched the available login informations, and auto-filled the forms, to use the parent tab, instead of the current tab, when invoked from the popup.
And how lucky I was; there was already a null parameter used for the target window in both those functions! I simply changed that parameter to the parent window id, if the popup was invoked from the keyboard, and that’s it!

I now have a working 1Password extension that I can use without my hands leaving the keyboard.

I created a patch of my changes, and posted it in the 1Password forums, so that them developers could take it and base the official implementation from there.

If you really must try it yourself, you can try to patch your extension (version 0.6.2; might not work on future versions; but you can try).
Download 1password_chrome_extension_keyboard_shorcut.patch.txt first on your desktop.

In Terminal.app:

cd Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Extensions/gkndfifopckmhdkohjeoljlbfnjhekfg/0.6.2/
patch < ~/Desktop/1password_chrome_extension_keyboard_shorcut.patch.txt

Result should look like:

patching file onepassword_background.html
patching file onepassword_loader.js
patching file popup.html
patch unexpectedly ends in middle of line

Restart Chrome.
Then try the shortcuts: Ctrl-/ or Ctrl-\

But still, sometimes, it’s nice to use it for other things.
One such other thing would be to stream videos from the Amahi home server sitting in a closet upstairs.
One can watch a recorded TV show in bed, or hand the iPad to the big kid to let him watch Cars or Nemo while we’re watching the news, or something non kid-friendly.

Being of the DIY kind, I made my own web-app to achieve this, using the new HTML5 videos tag. Yes, I know, there are existing ‘solutions’ that would allow me do to something very similar, but what’s the fun in that. Plus, building my own, I’ll be sure the features I need and want will be implemented in a timely fashion!

The result can be witnessed on the Google Code page that hosts the application code:
http://code.google.com/p/videos5/

I’m pretty happy with the end result.

• There’s user profiles, that can be password protected, that allows me to hide the inappropriate videos from my children.
• It integrates nicely with XBMC, that I was already using for those videos, to use the same thumbnails, and import ratings.
• There’s batch encode and batch ratings, for movies and TV shows.
• There’s an Encode Queue page allowing me to monitor progress of all the queued encodes.
• Encoded videos will play nicely on all devices (iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, XBMC).
• The home page shown after selecting user profile can be bookmarked (in the browser bookmarks, or the iPad home screen) to allow easy access to that specific profile. Perfect to allow the kids to reach their videos easily.

If you want to try it, I created a pretty thorough README that you can follow.

You’ll need an HTTP server, PHP, MySQL, HandBrake-CLI, mediainfo and mplayer (command-line version), all of which are pretty easy to obtain for any OS.
Final note: You’ll probably need to manually edit the index.php file to point to the correct paths for some executables. And I doubt it would work in it’s current state on Windows, though it should be able to, with a couple of minor modifications.

Not long ago, a 1 TB  hard drive that was part of my storage pool died (my fault really, handling it while it was powered up). Greyhole handled this beautifully, re-creating duplicate copies of the files that were stored on that drive to continue protecting all my data. But I didn’t have enough free space on the other drives to allow all the duplicates I want to be created.

Perfect timing to test a very nice feature of Greyhole: inclusion of remote hard drives in the storage pool.

I have a 1 TB hard drive attached to my Airport Extreme router, that I use as my Time Machine backup destination (the Airport makes it available through AFP and Samba). It had about 600 GB free. Perfect candidate for this.
I simply mounted that drive on my file server, and included it in my Greyhole storage pool. I then launched “greyhole –balance” to force Greyhole to balance the available space evenly on all drives. Files transferred at about 5MB/s from my file server to the remote drive, so I had to wait a couple of hours for the 600GB to get filled.

I now have about 10-12 GB free on all the drives included in my storage pool, and all my files are correctly protected once more.

Further thinking revealed an interesting use of such remote hard drive in a Greyhole storage pool. Since remote access is much slower than local access, it wouldn’t make much sense to keep a remote drive in my pool forever, since I do care about performance. But, for some files, performance is not an issue. For example, for my Photos share, I keep a copy of each file on all available drives in my storage pool (I do care about those files!) A remote drive could be used to store a copy of those files, and nothing else. The trick to achieve this is to simply indicate a very high number as the minimum free space for that drive in the Greyhole configuration.
With such a configuration, the remote drive will only be used as a last resort choice when Greyhole chooses where a file copy should be kept. And, minimum free space will be ignored in the case of files that needs to go on all drives.
What this means is that the remote drive will be used to store a copy of the files in my Photos share, and it will be used to store file copies on other shares only if all other hard drives are filled to capacity. Which is nice.
My important files are now backed up remotely (well, in the next room is remote to the file server!), plus if all my fast drives get filled, this slower option will be used until I can free up some space (by adding another internal drive, most likely).

How cool is that? Very cool I think. I don’t know any other pooling / redundancy system that would allow you to do something like that with such ease!
I’m glad to be using Greyhole right now. And you?

Download the widget version 1.3.9

What’s new in 1.3.9
Bugfix: During the 1st day of the month, you could see
a warning about reaching ‘infinity’ at the end of the month!

Update: There is now a Google Chrome extension that replicates this widget’s functionalities (and adds notifications). Get it on the Chrome Web Store.

Having received earlier this week a letter from Vidéotron, my ISP, about my account getting capped at 100GB monthly in the upcoming months, I decided I needed an easy way to monitor my monthly bandwidth usage. A Dashboard widget was a good fit.

I downloaded a couple of widget samples from Apple.com, and started a new widget from there.

The end result:

A nice little widget, sitting on my Dashboard, that can tell me how much of my monthly quota I’ve used so far.
Preferences are: Vidéotron Use Key (something that looks like FFFFFF1234567890), and if you’d like to visualize upload (versus download) using a different color, on the graph.

Enjoy, fellow Vidéotron users.

Changelog

• 1.3.9 - Bugfix: During the 1st day of the month, you could see a warning about reaching ‘infinity’ at the end of the month!
• 1.3.8 - Improvement: Give a warning when the entered User Key is not the right length (16 characters).
• 1.3.7 - Bugfix: date conversions were broken!
• 1.3.6 – Bugfix: Small fix for the ‘now’ arrow in the small UI.
  Bugfix: finally working on 10.4 and Lion (10.7).
  Improvement: New version available looks better in French and on small UI.
• 1.3.5 – Bugfix: Incorrect end date calculation placed the ’now’ cursor at the wrong position.
  Bugfix: trying to make it work on 10.4.
• 1.3.4 – Improvement: try to prevent getting blocked by Videotron, for sending too many requests too fast. Also, better overall error handling.
• 1.3.3 – Bugfix: minimal UI was broken since 1.3.0. Also added surplus calculation details in Console, and changed back surplus number in green (was changed to red for no reason).
• 1.3.2 – Bugfix & improvements: spinning wheel now disappears when it should. Current now appears in the preferences. New versions notifications will appear below the widget.
• 1.3.1 – Bugfix for Mac OS X 10.6 and lower (1.3.0 only worked on Lion… Sorry!)
• 1.3.0 – Bugfix & Improvement: Now using the new public Videotron API, instead of data scraping the consumption web page! You’ll need your User Key. You can find it in your Videotron Customer Center, in the User Key tab of the Your Profile page.
• 1.2.8 – Bugfix: wrong plan would become selected when new plans became available. Improvement: the bandwidth used today is now accounted for. Improvement: better warning text when your limit is busted, including the approx. amount you’ll be charged for the extra.
• 1.2.7 – Bugfix: typo in JavaScript made the widget unusable on Lion. Fixed. (Thanks Anonymous for the pointer.)
• 1.2.6 – Bugfix: regression in 1.2.5; couldn’t save preferences!
• 1.2.5 – Bugfix: Basic (2GB) plan couldn’t be selected.
• 1.2.4 – Updated Vidéotron logo; bug fixed: accumulated daily surplus and ‘now’ arrow were 1 day off; clarified that the last updated date was in fact “$date @ 23h59″; visual fix when new versions are available.
• 1.2.3 – Changed text in options, to clarify that the data transfer packages are ‘extras’, and the ‘Plan’ option is what will define your monthly limit.
• 1.2.2 – Added option to select data transfer packages bought this month. The selected value will be reset when the billing month changes.
• 1.2.1 – Missing Business plans from 1.2.0; added an option to display upload using a different color on the graph.
• 1.2.0 – Easier configuration; new version available notification; now displaying numeric deviation from daily limit (surplus) – this was only shown using a small arrow on the graph before; added overcharge ($) you should expect on your invoice, if you’re over your limit.
• 1.1.6 – Better handling for wrong username; people entering anything else than their VLXXXXXX Vidéotron username will now get a relevant error message.
• 1.1.5 – Fetch new data less often; was previously checking for new data every 15 minutes when the Dashboard was open; changed that to once a day.
• 1.1.4 – Added small arrows on meters to show the current date. If the meter is higher than the arrow, it means you’ve transferred too much in regard to the current date versus the date you’re invoiced. Red arrow = bad; green arrow = good.
• 1.1.3 – Beta for 1.1.4
• 1.1.2 – Small visual changes: loading animated GIF, numbers formatted as 0.xx instead of .xx.
• 1.1.1 – New French localization option; new minimal look option; fixed incorrect dates (all dates were one month early).
• 1.0.1 – Fixed missing percentage when using combined quota.
• 1.0 – First version.