What do you do if the host name of your CVS server changes? For example, here’s my case. I checked out a whole lot of CVS modules from the repository while my laptop was on the domain. Now however, thanks to Vista SP1 not playing with an antiquated NT domain, the laptop can’t join the domain so to connect to a server I need to qualify its name with a domain. So, whereas I checked out the modules using the hostname “cvshost”, I now need to use “cvshost.mydomain.co.uk”.

Unfortunately, TortoiseCVS has no way to change the host names for modules you’ve already checked out. WinCVS can, supposedly, do this thanks to a macro. However, WinCVS stubbornly tells me I don’t have Python installed (I do) and therefore won’t let me use macros.

The solution is to just go through all the CVS “Root” files and change the host name. The Root file lives in the CVS directory at each level within a checked out module. This would be a laborious task by hand, but if you have SUA (Microsoft’s Subsystem for UNIX Applications) and Perl installed it’s easy. Just pull up a Korn shell and browse to the directory within which your checked out CVS modules live.

Run the following command.

find . -name 'Root' -print0 | xargs -0 perl -pi -e 's/oldhostname/newhostname/g'

For example, I ran the command:

find . -name 'Root' -print0 | xargs -0 perl -pi -e 's/cvshost/cvshost.mydomain.co.uk/g'

Which changed the Contents of the Root file from:

:pserver:achristie@cvshost:/company/repository

to:

:pserver:achristie@cvshost.mydomain.co.uk:/company/repository

The BBC iPlayer is a great bit of technology, but it's also a peer-to-peer file sharing client and sometimes you don't want lots of data being uploaded from your computer when you're trying to use that bandwidth for something else.

I've just added an article (my first since revamping this site) that describes how to take control of the iPlayer's KService Windows service and the iPlayer program itself: khost.exe.

Read the article: Preventing BBC iPlayer running all the time

I just stumbled upon the news that Bob Dylan has a new album out next week and NPR are streaming it on their Web site right now (but probably not for much longer).

OK, I know this has nothing to do with technical writing. But I like Bob Dylan and, hey, everyone needs a break from tech writing for a while (or for 12 months, and counting, in my case).

From what I've heard so far it's pretty good stuff but very familiar - very like the stuff he's done over the past years. Not surprising really. It is the stuff he's been doing over the past few years. It's more outtakes and tracks that didn't get used. But don't dismiss it for that. In true Dylan style, the tracks that didn't get used are sometimes better than the ones that did.

The YouTube video below is one of the tracks off the album.

I also came across a great Dylan podcast recently. It's not really a podcast though. It's a radio program that's been split up into a series of short podcasts. It's presented by Patti Smith (yes, the Patti Smith), who sounds very cool, and it has lots of great guests. Two problems with it though:

1. Like most music podcasts, you only get 30 seconds or so of each song.

2. There are only 19 episodes.

http://blogs.legacyrecordings.com/podcast/category/bob-dylan-podcast/

Graham Campbell writes ...

Just a quick note to say I'll be attending the ISTC Conference in Nottingham next week. I'm not known to many (any?) of you, but I plan to get as many faces to blog names as possible while I'm there. So on that note, who else is attending? I hope to grab as many people as possible for impromptu, informal chats that may form the basis of a future podcast. If you'd be willing to donate 5 minutes of your time and insight to the ITAuthor podcast I'd love to hear from you.

When I return I'm sure I'll provide a round-up of the conference either in here or on the podcast itself. Alistair has been away at the UA Conference this week and may provide an update himself when he gets back.

One thing about writing a blog is that most of the time you have no idea who's reading your posts. As a result, I usually assume no one's reading apart from me, until occasionally someone at work will mention something I wrote about. Of course I don't mind having an assumed readership of one because, by and large, I write this blog is for my own benefit and I do quite often use it to find out technical stuff I would otherwise have spent much longer finding via Google.

However, once in a while I'm reminded that other people might be reading some of this stuff too from time to time. This evening I logged into my WordPress dashboard (not something I often do, because I always post to my blog from Live Writer) and I noticed there was a comment sitting awaiting moderation.

Turns out it was a comment by brian d foy (his preferred style, in case you're wondering), the founder of Perl Mongers, author of Mastering Perl and co-author of Learning Perl and Intermediate Perl. Nice to know that at least one of my posts has had such an esteemed reader.

Oh and by the way, if you're reading this post of the front page of my blog, the way to post a comment is to click the post heading to display it as a single page and then scroll down the the comment form.