After I switched to Ubuntu as my primary OS (dual-boot alongside Windows XP), I had a problem syncing some Dropbox files to an NTFS mount.

While some files synced without much trouble, the Dropbox icon would consistently be spinning and several files and folders would not sync.

I got around to searching for the issue today “dropbox ntfs ubuntu” and found this helpful blog post that answered my problems.

tl;dr; – the fix was to simply add uid=1000 to the /etc/fstab entry for the NTFS mount, because Dropbox, running as your user, tries to change permissions on the file (owned by root in the absence of the uid=1000 option).

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I upgraded to Mountain Lion (10.8.x) from Lion (10.7.x) a few months ago, and only discovered today that Apache wasn’t working–going to http://localhost showed the default “It works!” page.

A quick search for “apache mountain lion” found this helpful guide: AMP Guide for Mac OSX 10.8.

tl;dr; for those who know what they are doing:

• There is no longer a Web Sharing section in System Preferences > Sharing.
• Use sudo httpd start|stop|restart to control the Apache process
• Main configuration file: /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
• Default DocumentRoot is /Library/WebServer/Documents
• Enable PHP by uncommenting the PHP module include in httpd.conf
• User configuration file: create one at etc/apache2/users/YOURUSERNAME.conf

Sample user conf contents:

<Directory "/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Sites/">
Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Here’s a cool video.

The song, named Tan Te, is sung by Gong LinNa. It is considered both modern and traditional Chinese music.

And in case you’re wondering–no, the words don’t make any sense.

Last night, I made the best decision of my computing life, ever.

Old Setup:

• Two desktop machines under my desk, two 24” LCD monitors, controlled by one keyboard and mouse via Synergy

• Main computer was Windows XP 32-bit Core2 Quad 8200 4GB RAM (2.8GB usable after OS and video card reserved)

  • Primary uses were general browsing, word processing, gaming (Starcraft 2, WoW, Diablo 3), organizing and uploading photos (Picasa + Flickr), IE-only testing, some coding

• Secondary computer was Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit Core2 Quad 6600 6GB RAM

  • Ran 4 Ubuntu VMs in VirtualBox for various development and ghetto dynamic DNS hosting during the days before I rented my current VPS from Linode
• MacBook Air that I would use when working outside of my home office or lounging in the living room

Transition to New Setup:

• Transferred the VMs onto my main computer–turns out that I really only need 2 of the 4.

  • The problem I had before was that the Core2 Quad 8200 doesn’t have Virtualization Technology enabled, so it can’t emulate 64-bit VMs even if the host machine is 64-bit, so I had to run it on the Core2 Quad 6600. Now, I only need 2 32-bit VMs that will run fine on the C2Q 8200.
• Decommissioned the Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, pulled out 2x2GB and stuck it in the main computer for 8GB RAM total
• Install Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64-bit on the main computer, can still dual-boot into Windows if I want to
• Connect MacBook Air with USB hub and video dongle to secondary monitor

Thoughts So Far:

It feels good. It feels REALLY good.

Since I’ve been using Ubuntu for over 6 years now, it feels really comfortable. In the past, I had run Ubuntu exclusively on several machines, including netbooks like Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Samsung Series 5 Chromebook.

All Pros, No Cons So Far:

• Lots of good FOSS replacements for Windows-only software, like VALO-CD replacing a bunch of stuff and Frogr replacing Flickr
• I already feel a productivity increase since the terminal is right there
• Removed temptation to waste time playing games.

See original blog post from Twilio Con: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2011/09/twilio-presents-the-definitive-brogramming-primer.html