My solution was to track down where these options are set and then manually edit the mimetypes.rdf file in the user’s firefox profile folder with all instances of Firefox closed. Enabling the Google Apps selection required adding both a
NC:possibleApplication RDF:resource= and a
RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:handler:web:
entry. Once completed, the agent was selectable in the preference Applications setting and worked properly for me.

Here’s the entries I made (NOTE: replace veino.com in the below with your own Google Apps domain):

Find
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:scheme:handler:mailto"
and add above the other similar entries below there the following:
<NC:possibleApplication RDF:resource="urn:handler:web:https://mail.google.com/a/veino.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s"/>

Find <RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:handler:web:https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s"
and add below that entry the following:
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:handler:web:https://mail.google.com/a/veino.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s"
NC:prettyName="veino.com email thru Gmail"
NC:uriTemplate="https://mail.google.com/a/veino.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s" />

Restart Firefox and change your application preferences for mailto: links to use the new agent and you’re all set.

Reinstall latest Arch following instructions.

Modifications to that installation process:

• Create the system partition as ext3 instead using mke2fs -j /dev/sda1 and make sure the boot loader knows to use ext3:fw_setenv usb_rootfstype ext3
• Perform the fw_setenv mod for boot wait on usb drive (figured this out the last time, required so the usb drive will come ready before the DockStar tries to boot from it) fw_setenv usb_rootdelay 10. Otherwise the DockStar may boot into the PogoPlug OS instead.

Change root password. Update hostname and locale per instruction at Arch Beginner’s Guide (HW reboot required for hostname to take effect)

update system: pacman -Syu

Install owfs, lighttpd, FastCGI and PHP: pacman -S owfs lighttpd fcgi php php-cgi (digitemp not available as a package yet, see AUR)

Set up lighttpd (including PHP and fcgi support, but DO NOT make the first set of mods shown right under the FastCGI heading, this is to enable Ruby on Rails but is incomplete and will bork the server start-up)

Set up passwordless login via key:

On your local machine, copy over your local public key to the new server using
user@localmachine ~ $ ssh-copy-id root@remotemachine
root@remotemachine's password:
Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'root@remotemachine'", and check in:

to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting.

Modify /etc/ssh/sshd_config to disable password authentication (without this, the passwordless authentication will work, but others could still try to log in with the root password):
PasswordAuthentication no
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

Future:

• Get owfs suite working and create the proper config and daemon files to have it autostart and keep running [DONE, details to be added here].
• Create web page(s) to autodisplay the local 1-wire sensors data as well as interesting data from a chosen wunderground feed [DONE, using the json API for wunderground, details to be added here].
• Automate the data collection and graphing for sensors. [PENDING]

Despite being called a Barn Dance, I confirmed with the organizer that they are looking for/happy with a straight contra dance program. I asked because that is pretty much the extent of my repertoire and wanted to be sure it will be a fit.

I have a nice program coming together and am looking forward to calling this dance very close to our home. See you tonight!

My called program:

• Broken Transcription – Don Veino
• Get Me Going – Lisa Greenleaf
• Another Flirty Attempt – Marian Hepburn
• Further and More – Lisa Greenleaf
• Amy’s Harmonium – Cary Ravitz
• The Raeden Reel – Bob Isaacs
  –Break–
• All You Can Eat – Ted Crane
• Sweet Music – Amy Kahn
• Small Potatoes – Jim Kitch
• Nail That Catfish To The Tree – Walter Davies [+Bob Dalsemer]
• Winter in Summerland – Jeff Spero
• You’re Among Friends – Bob Isaacs
• Night Sail – Rick Mohr

There were no significant bobbles or issues with my calling this evening and I got great feedback including some suggestions for more improvement (and many straight compliments, always appreciated!). Got one request to call (prompt) less, but that individual was dancing in a line that wasn’t experiencing the challenges showing in another line which drove me to keep calling. Was able to record most of the evening to review for my own education, may post some excerpts to YouTube later. Looking forward to my next gig!

Planned Program:

• Broken Transcription – Don Veino
• Get Me Going – Lisa Greenleaf
• Another Flirty Attempt – Marian Hepburn
• Further and More – Lisa Greenleaf
• Amy’s Harmonium – Cary Ravitz
• Night Sail – Rick Mohr
  –Break–
• Sweet Music – Amy Kahn
• Winter in Summerland – Jeff Spero
• Nail That Catfish To The Tree – Walter Davies [+Bob Dalsemer]
• Small Potatoes – Jim Kitch
• All You Can Eat – Ted Crane
• You’re Among Friends – Bob Isaacs

The AFAIK unique A1 Mad Robin to A2 slide left transition I originally had
as a slide on the left diagonal to diagonal waves, but it proved nearly
impossible to teach without a demo. The revised dance achieves effectively
the same result with more familiar calls to make for a more conventional
walk-thru. The variations try to further improve call familiarity by
omitting the “hook”.

Thanks to Lynn Ackerson for pointing out there being a shadow in the wave.

Here’s the dance: Sweet Scent of Sage.

That post included my list of remaining programs that I’d yet to find effective Linux alternatives for:

• Quicken
• TurboTax/HR Block at Home
• GoToWebinar

Well now Quicken is crossed off the list as I’ve found HomeBank (banking) and JStock (stock accounting, basis tracking). More info on using/configuring these will come later.

I wanted to use this for a discreet situation where the safe’s very loud keypad beep would be a distinct disadvantage. Others had posted solutions on the product review pages that involved totally silencing the beep through squirting super glue into the speaker or de-soldering it from the board.

Mine is a simple solution with what I believe are two distinct advantages: ability to adjust the volume to retain some of the feedback capability, and reversibility – the ability to undo the change and return the safe to factory condition in case you’d need to return it for some reason.

What I did was to insert a small screw into the opening in the speaker housing, which I screwed down carefully and slowly until it reached the volume level I wanted. This worked great and has remained the same for several weeks now. See the following photos for how to do it.

This dance evening marked my first “full evening” calling debut at the famous Concord, MA Scout House. I was excited to have the opportunity to call at this venue and to work with the excellent musicians playing: Mia Friedman (fiddle), Ariel Friedman (cello), Bethany Waickman (guitar), Jack O’Connor (mandolin, banjo, percussion).

My dance program as called for the evening consisted of:

• Broken Transcription – Don Veino
• Get Me Going – Lisa Greenleaf
• Butter – Gene Hubert
• Coconut Cream Pie – Lynn Ackerson
• Further and More – Lisa Greenleaf
• Winter in Summerland – Jeff Spero
• Amy’s Harmonium – Cary Ravitz
• Sweet Scent of Sage – Don Veino
  –Break–
• Sweet Music – Amy Kahn
• Special Delivery – Nell Wright
• All You Can Eat – Ted Crane
• The Baby Rose – David Kaynor

I had deliberately planned to start the evening with easy material that still presented fun dancing. The first five dances went very well – quick teaching and smooth dancing to wonderful music. Coconut Cream Pie (by a caller friend in California) was my first time calling a Four-Facing-Four dance and it went off well. BTW, I highly recommend this dance as it is very robust and works even if partner roles get mixed up.

My sixth dance selection, Winter in Summerland, is a great Becket dance which I’d mistakenly noted as having previously called successfully (so had not diagrammed it for this gig). My card had a (minor, positions swapped) error in it found during the walk-through. Believing my notes, I was convinced I’d made a walk-thru error and tried it again and became flustered enough by that to not spot the fix in the moment. Luckily, I had thought through this possibility and had selected several recovery dances. So I pulled out a Becket recovery dance, Amy’s Harmonium, and that went smoothly – albeit after time wasted for a second dance’s walk-through.

My final dance of the first half, Sweet Scent of Sage, was my new composition honoring my wife – who was in the crowd with my daughter. This was its first public performance. I had worked out carefully how to teach it. However, I probably should not have tried calling it for this evening – the dance has an unusual transition from a Mad Robin move, and another move I’d planned to use Winter in Summerland to teach previously. As a result, my teaching took longer than expected and again I got a bit flustered and forgot that I could/should have got down to the floor to do a demo the first time through. I did get onto the floor to straighten out some misalignment during the second walk-through, but it was still feeling a little rough and we were late moving to the break. So I made a decision to drop the dance and move on to the waltz. Well the crowd wouldn’t have it – they wanted to do it! So we did, and several folks later told me how much they’d enjoyed dancing this partner-centric dance. Among my takeaways, I now have a standing reminder on my card holder: “Will a demo teach better?”.

The first dance of the second half went well. The second dance, Special Delivery, is one I’ve called several times before without issue. The dance has two diagonal moves with a shadow which proved to disorient two couples in one of the lines this evening. I got down to the floor to try to help them get back on track. However, another couple (experienced dancers both) apparently got frustrated when they encountered this and just walked off the floor. This further complicated the situation such that there was nothing I could do to fix it but end that dance a bit short.

The balance of the evening went smoothly – two sure-fire dances which always please dancers.

I’d requested dancer feedback comments and put out a notebook for anonymous input. I received several helpful inputs that way and via face to face chats. Also heard that folks appreciated my programming different/unusual dances. Some wonderful learning that I’ll do my best to apply going forward. Thanks to those that made the effort to share their thoughts with me!

So here’s my acquired wisdom on how to get this done under Linux.

• Delete or archive off all dot (.) files. UNIX/Linux type operating systems store configuration and option information in hidden “dot” files in the user home directory. When moving to a new version of the OS, it is best to start with fresh dot files in most instances (prior files may confuse newer versions of programs, etc.) – there are just a few which are desirable to copy back (like your ssh keys and .mozilla (Firefox/Thunderbird) configurations). If you uninstall programs, the associated dot files may be left behind, taking up space. So delete or archive these files off and copy back only what you need after the new installation is done.
• Eliminate Duplicates. Over time, I did things like copy over from one machine to another a copy of an important directory, or upload the content of our camera’s memory card. This often results in duplicate files and folders. The best way to fix this is not to do it (which is what will be fixed with my sync/backup solution) but it can happen nonetheless. There are two good tools I’ve found to help clean this up.
  • FSlint: Among the capabilities of this tool is a duplicate files finder. It doesn’t just check for duplicate file names but does more comprehensive comparisons so that it will catch the same file under different names (even extensions!) and eliminate false positive matches using checksumming, etc. You can then delete off duplicate files, if desired, or replace them with hard links to a single copy to save space.
  • Meld: This tool includes a directory comparison capability, for up to three directories at once. It will tell you where the files in the directories are the same, where files exist in only some of them and/or if the file attributes match (eg: permissions, modification date or size). The tool allows for merging/moving files to consolidate down to a single “master” copy. Way better than trying to do the same through command line or file manager tools. Highly recommended!

Will add more later on ways to:
Slim down applications data.
Eliminate unused languages/localizations.
Clean out cached information.