Let me show you how easy it is to use. You type ec2ssh in your shell, and a menu displays with a list of running instances. Each of your servers is numbered and grouped by security group, so it’s easy to find your instances. You can do several things here. You can type the number of the server you wish to connect to, or define a list or range of servers you wish to ssh to in a sequence.

Additionally, you can run ec2ssh with parameter, a filter, to narrow down your list of servers. Say, you run a typical environment with web, database, application servers. If your instances were tagged by meaningful names like:
- Live MySQL server A
- Live MySQL server B
- Live MySQL server C
- Live Web server A
- Live Web server B
…
- Live Web server XYZ

you can limit the list by specifying a meaningful parameter such as:
ec2ssh live – would list all production servers
ec2ssh mysql – would list MySQL servers in dev, staging and production
ec2ssh i-2asf3234dd – would list information for given server instance
ec2ssh sg-adf23df2d – would list all servers in a given security group

Parameters are case insensitive. To use a script, download it from the ec2ssh github page. If you’re a github user please fork the project and submit any new features or fixes.

I searched for an answer on Google and found the codes. If you have this problem you need to type:

*5005*86*16472789973#

Press call and you’ll hear a beep. Nothing else will change. Clear the calling number and verify the new number by typing:

*#5005*86#

When you click Call, the phone will display the number of your voicemail access number, in my case 16472789973. If it worked, you should be able to retrieve your voicemail by clicking the Voicemail icon.

Non-advertised feature

Chatr makes extra money every time you listen to your voicemail. Each call is 25 cents/min. However, if you dial your voicemail access number from another phone, and provide your phone and pin, you’ll not be charged for listing to those messages.

I finally settled with two services: Callcentric and Voip.ms.

Callcentric seems to have better quality, while Voip.ms provides a Callback service. Not *69 call back, but the one that enables you to call with low rates when travelling abroad. You basically call your number from say Bosnia. You get a fast busy signal. When you hang up the system calls you back and gives you the dial tone. So, you pay the low Voip.ms rates instead of $$$ that overseas companies charge.

Callcentric is my choice of VoIP provider for inbound and outbound calls. It works great, unlike Voip.ms behind the CellPipe 1730 modem on Bell Fibe.

Porting from Bell to CallCentric (LNP)

CallCentric provides a free account that comes with a 1-777 number. This number is not reachable from a regular landline, but it can be used to test the quality of the service by dialling the echo service. I ordered a local Toronto number and tested it for about two days. I was very happy with the quality of calls. I was ready to leave Bell, so I requested my home number to be ported to Callcentric. This is done by a form on CallCentric’s web site. I had to sign a form and upload it to their site along with the latest Bell Canada bill. I was informed that the line would be ported in two days. On the second day, I received an email that the port has completed.

Setting up the local number

I set up the ATA with my account details, but it didnt work properly as I already had a local number (DID) working on my VoIP box. It turns out you can have multiple DID’s on the same CallCentric account, but they can’t be used with the same VoIP box, even if you have a box with two lines. Their support explained that I need to open another account with a temporary number, forward my DID to that temporary number from the other account. That’s a little bit of a workaround, but as long as I don’t have to pay two bills I’m happy. We’ll see.

Sit, VoIP, sit! Behave like a landline!

The default setup of the calling plans is little cumbersome. You need to dial 1 before the area code, even if it’s your local area code. Let’s fix this! I live in Toronto, where 416 and 647 are both local and normally dialled without a starting 1.

Take CallCentric’s default calling plan:

(*xx.|*xxx|*75xx|[3469]11|0|00|1xxx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|xxxxxxxxxxxx.|**275*x.)

and change this recipe to:

(*xx.|*xxx|*75xx|[3469]11|0|00|<:1>416[2-9]xxxxxxS0|<:1>647[2-9]xxxxxxS0|1xxx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|xxxxxxxxxxxx.|**275*x.)

What it does is it recognizes the number starting with 416 or 647 and prepends “1″ to it.

Make overseas dialling super easy

We travel to Bosnia every year. The numbering system there is “06″ for cell numbers and “05″ for landlines. I want to be able to dial a number as if I were there. So, to dial a hotel with a phone number 011 387 51 215 775, I’m going to change a rule to allow 051 215 775 to dial this number.

(*xx.|*xxx|*75xx|[3469]11|0|00|<:1>416[2-9]xxxxxxS0|<:1>647[2-9]xxxxxxS0|1xxx[2-9]xxxxxxS0|0<:11387>[56]xxxxxxxS0|xxxxxxxxxxxx.|**275*x.)

Adding

<script type="text/javascript"> Cufon.now(); </script>

to the buttom of the page, but before other JS scripts, like Google Analytics, really makes the difference. There is no flicker in replacing the default font and Cufon font. Apparently it helps with IE quirks as well.

nginx configuration for a domain (/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/www.mydomain.com) contains:

listen 11.22.33.44:80;
server_name www.mydomain.com mydomain.com;

Apache configuration for another domain contains:

In this case, this was at the top of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/myotherdomain.com

WIth this setup, each web server has its own IP to listen to and they both serve on port 80.

This is a copy-paste from Chris Gaunt’s github page with a change in server name.

server {
    listen 8080;
    server_name www.metak.com metak.com;
    access_log /home/metak/metak.com/logs/access.log;
    error_log /home/metak/metak.com/logs/error.log;
    root   /home/metak/metak.com/public_html;

    # If file is an asset, set expires and break
    location ~* \.(ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)(\?[0-9]+)?$ {
        expires max;
        break;
    }

	# Serve the directory/file if it exists, else pass to CodeIgniter front controller
	location / {
		try_files $uri @codeigniter;
	}

	# Do not allow direct access to the CodeIgniter front controller
	location ~* ^/index.php {
		rewrite ^/index.php/?(.*)$ /$1 permanent;
	}

	# CodeIgniter Front Controller
	location @codeigniter {
		internal;
		root /home/metak/metak.com/public_html;
		fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
		fastcgi_index index.php;
		include fastcgi_config;
		include fastcgi_params;
		fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/metak/metak.com/public_html/index.php;
	}

	# If directly accessing a PHP file in the public dir other than index.php
	location ~* \.php$ {
		root /home/metak/metak.com/public_html;
		try_files $uri @codeigniter;
		fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
		fastcgi_index index.php;
		include fastcgi_config;
		include fastcgi_params;
		fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
	}

}

$db['default']['database'] = 'sqlite:'.APPPATH.'data/dictionary.sqlite3';

Tip taken from:
http://blog.trevorbramble.com/past/2009/9/20/codeigniter_sqlite3/

diff -rq dirA dirB

It sorts all files by name and than reports if a file exists in one and not the other. It also reports if files of same name exist in both directories but differ in content.

Enough of talking, here is the pre-commit hook, a bash script, you were desperately searching the Internet for:

#!/bin/bash

REPOS="$1"
TXN="$2"

PHP="/usr/local/bin/php"
SVNLOOK="/usr/bin/svnlook"
AWK="/usr/bin/awk"
GREP="/bin/egrep"
SED="/bin/sed"

CHANGED=`$SVNLOOK changed -t "$TXN" "$REPOS" | $GREP "^[U|A]" | $AWK '{print $2}' | $GREP \.php$`

REGEX=$'\xEF\xBB\xBF'
GREP2="grep -l $REGEX"

for FILE in $CHANGED
do
    MESSAGE=`$SVNLOOK cat -t "$TXN" "$REPOS" "$FILE" | $GREP2`
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]
    then
        echo 1>&2
        echo "***********************************" 1>&2
        echo "Byte order mark error in: $FILE:" 1>&2
        #echo `echo "$MESSAGE" | $SED "s| -| $FILE|g"` 1>&2
        echo "***********************************" 1>&2
        exit 1
    fi
done