When installing a configuring Subversion to work through Apache, you might get an error like this when attempting to start up httpd:

Cannot load /etc/httpd/modules/mod_dav_svn.so into server: /etc/httpd/modules/mod_dav_svn.so: undefined symbol: dav_xml_get_cdata

Please note! Some people have indicated that this is because Apache wasn’t configured with DAV support when it was compiled on your distro. The answer might be a lot simpler than that.

Garrett Rooney noted that it might be as simple as just making sure that mod_dav is loaded before loading mod_dav_svn! I was experiencing this error, and a simple rearrangement of my LoadModule commands in httpd.conf fixed it.

A few years ago, I purchased a Panasonic PV-DV851 camcorder which, in its day, was absolutely a killer camera (if this is any hint, it sold new for $1599!). I bought it when it was getting phased out on clearance, so I paid a fraction of that price. Even though it was getting phased out in lieu of better models, it still had all the bells and whistles you wanted on a camcorder: a great LCD, digital video, even still photos which could be saved on a memory card! Naturally, it then had FireWire for copying the video to the Mac to do your video editing in iMovie.

Yawn. All of that is old hat now. This camcorder is starting to feel long in the tooth. The image seems a bit grainy now, having to use a tape feels so turn-of-the-century, and it doesn’t even support widescreen video!

Fast-forward to this past week. I went to Best Buy on Monday with a 12% off coupon in my hand, on top of a general camcorder sale they were having, with full intentions to buy a camcorder before I go on vacation. I already had the camcorder picked out; I was going to buy the Panasonic PV-GS500, because MacWorld gave it a glowing review. It was perfect: I already like Panasonic; it supports SD cards, which is my preferred memory card format; it uses MiniDV and FireWire, guaranteeing smooth operation with my Mac; it supports widescreen video; and most importantly, it is a 3 CCD camcorder, instead of using a single CCD like most.

I had been in stores playing with it a few times in the past. This time, I stood in front of it ready to make the purchase. As we stared each other down, I came to a realization. I don’t really like this camcorder! Its bulkiness is disturbing, its appearance is worse, and the UI, although not horrendous, is very boring. Frankly, I’m disappointed that a Mac magazine, written by people who appreciate the importance of these kinds of things, rate this camcorder as one of their “Best Picks”.

And then I started browsing around. I let my eyes incorrigibly wander over to the hard drive camcorders, and before I knew it, I was looking at the camcorders with all the features I’ve been wanting…with the price tag I don’t.

Let me introduce to you what a camcorder should be like nowadays, and it is almost exemplified in the Sony HDR-SR1. This camcorder was gorgeous. I couldn’t put it down. Warning: If you have a problem putting down cool tech toys, it might be best for you to just not even pick up this camcorder in the first place!

For starters, it features a beautiful widescreen 3.5″ LCD. It’s a good thing too, because it can show off the amazing 1080i video you’ll be recording using Sony’s AVCHD format. The great picture is achieved by using a CMOS sensor versus a CCD, which is not only arguably better quality, but also consumes less power. The quality is so good that, despite being a video sensor, this camcorder can still take 4MP still images. Oh, and while you’re enjoying that notably high-quality picture, you might try navigating through the great UI, which has been improved over Sony past models, and like its past models, the UI is a touch-screen interface on the 3.5″ LCD. A screen large enough to make touch-screen really nice, with (finally) a pretty UI that is a joy to use. To top things off, it features a 30GB hard drive supporting 10 hours of video in LP mode, and 5.1 surround sound audio recording.

A hard drive camcorder that records high-definition widescreen video with surround sound and a touch-screen 3.5″ LCD. I like. I like very much. Look. I’m drooling.

After haggling with the salesperson for a deal (only the demo model was left, even though it was just put on the floor that day), on top of an existing sale price, and with a 12% off coupon, I bought this beauty and still paid too much money.

Then I brought it home and discovered some serious cons. This list is a lot shorter than the list of pros, and yet they were still deal-breakers for me. The Sony HDR-SR1 doesn’t have a FireWire port (only USB 2.0), meaning iMovie on my Mac doesn’t want to import its video. And it wouldn’t be able to import it anyway, because iMovie and Final Cut Pro do not support AVCHD at this time. Frankly, there may not be any video editing software that currently supports AVCHD except the software that Sony includes with the camcorder, because it is a very new format.

These cons aren’t really faults in the camcorder itself; nevertheless, I can’t buy a camcorder that I can’t use with my Mac. I returned it the same night. It is rumored that Apple will announce AVCHD support in January at the MacWorld Expo, but until that happens, I will keep my poor little PV-DV851.

In the meantime, I will keep on the lookout. I await Apple’s support for AVCHD in iMovie and Final Cut Pro. And when I do buy a camcorder, I hope it can have all of the bold features listed above.

New Atlanta supports only Fedora Core 1, 2, and 3. This is sad, since Fedora Core 6 came out recently.

BlueDragon 6.2 and 7 beta don’t appear to work on Fedora Core 5 and 6, but just because they come with Apache 2.2. The installer script crashes initially, but with this Installer Setting Hack, the installer will be able to install BlueDragon. That’s fine and good, but once it runs, the mod_servletexec.so and mod_servletexec2.so files freak out when you actually try to start up HTTPD with BlueDragon. This appears to be caused by an updated version of the APR package (Apache Portable Runtime library). It’s pretty much a roadblock to installing BlueDragon on FC5 or FC6 unless you manually install Apache 2.0.

All of that said, Fedora Core 4 is the most modern version of this flavor of Linux that can run BlueDragon easily. But there is one serious problem with BlueDragon on FC4.

Some issue with Java 1.4.2 on FC4 causes it to want to look to IPv6 sockets instead of IPv4 sockets, which causes problems, like errors that say something like this:

java.net.SocketException: Invalid argument or cannot assign requested address

This problem is broader than just BlueDragon, but BlueDragon is how I found out about it. Because of this problem, BlueDragon has trouble stopping its service and possibly trouble starting sometimes.

I learned about this problem on this forum thread, which led me to a blog post called Fedora Core 4 and JDK 1.4.2 Problems, where a fix is described that basically tells Java to prefer the IPv4 stack over the IPv6 one by including -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true as a parameter in your Java call to your app.

To apply this to BlueDragon, we have to modify the StartBlueDragon.sh and StopBlueDragon.sh scripts, which are used for starting and stopping the service. They are located under ~/BlueDragonInstallation/bin/.

In StartBlueDragon.sh, modify this line (addition in bold) near the bottom of the file:

“$JAVA_HOME/bin/java” -server -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true $HEAPSIZES $OPTIONS -classpath “$NEW_CLASSPATH” com.newatlanta.webserver.BlueDragon &

In StopBlueDragon.sh, modify this line (addition in bold) near the bottom of the file:

“$JAVA_HOME/bin/java” -server -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -classpath “$NEW_CLASSPATH” StopServletExec -host 127.0.0.1:8080

After saving these files, you should now be able to successfully stop or restart the BlueDragon_Server service.

I have a server that has 2 IDE channels, no spare IDE cards, and 4 hard drives that I want to be running. This will obviously take up all 4 drive spaces in my 2 IDE channels. But to install the OS, I will need to use one of those spaces for the CD-ROM drive, meaning I can only install the OS with 3 of the drives.

To put the fourth drive in there, I would remove the CD-ROM drive after installation of the OS and put in the fourth hard drive. So how do I configure Linux to recognize the fourth and final drive? On my Fedora Core system, it’s easy. These steps will assume the drive is already partitioned and formatted.

The mount point. First, make the directory for the mount point. For instance, I’ll create a directory in the /mnt directory:

mkdir /mnt/mynewdrive

The fstab entry. You’ll have to know which letter your drive has been assigned, and the partition number of your volume. Likely, it will be hdd, since hda, hdb, and hdc will be assigned to the first three. And if the drive is just one large partition, it will obviously be partition 1. So, the desired volume in this instance would be hdd1. Thus, you can map /dev/hdd1 to the /mnt/mynewdrive directory by editing /etc/fstab with the following line:

/dev/hdd1 /mnt/mynewdrive ext3 defaults 1 1

Naturally, substitute ext3 with whatever filesystem you’re using, if different.

You could avoid using an editor to make this change by doing a command like this:

echo /dev/hdd1 /mnt/mynewdrive ext3 defaults 1 1 >> /etc/fstab

First-time mount. Then, simply call a mount command:

mount /mnt/mynewdrive

You’ll only have to do this the first time. If you have automounting set up, the drive will automount in the future.