How to get freeSSHd public key authentication to work

I was looking for a Windows SSH server implementation to use in conjunction with Mercurial when I stumbled upon freeSSHd. Setting it up was a matter of minutes… except that I could not get public key authentication to work. After countless attempts and many a Google search I eventually solved my problem, thanks to this step by step IBM tutorial.

Unfortunately when used in non-interactive mode freeSSHd doesn’t spawn cmd.exe, which makes it unsuitable for applications that expect their remote counterparts to be on the path.

Quote of the day #3

“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots.

So far, the Universe is winning.”

Richard Cook

From an email signature.

Does anybody here remember… Live Wire?

Live Wire were a British band from the late seventies. As far as I know they released three albums: Pick it Up, No Fright and Changes Made. Theirs was an original style which combined a rather nocturnal, essential approach to rock music with a decidedly jazz rock oriented bass. The atmosphere was different in each album, possibly a little convoluted and wordy in the first two, more easy going in the last one.

Here in Italy they were likened to Dire Straits, but the two bands had little in common except for the fact of being non Punk/New Wave bands in the height of the Punk/New Wave era. Live Wire were less immediate and pleasant than Dire Straits, but certainly not less interesting.

They toured Italy at least twice and I managed to attend the second tour’s first and last gigs. I have a pleasant memory of the band’s involvement with the audience: they appeared to enjoy playing for us and they seemed to be truly moved by our response. Their “In my Child’s Eye” is still one of my favourite songs.

Italy appears to have played a role in their career, both before and after they split. As a band they worked with some local artist; after the break-up guitar player Simon Boswell went on to write film scores for, among others, master of suspense Dario Argento, while bass player Jeremy Meek played with Pino Daniele on different occasions. A friend of mine happened to attend a gig where lead singer Mike Green was among a performer a few years later in Milan.

All in all a band that deserved better fortune than they got; all the more so considering that it’s highly unlikely that their records will ever be reissued in digital form.

Per i nostalgici di Rasputin Dischi

Ora c’è un gruppo di Facebook tutto per noi! Dal momento che ogni volta che controllo qualcun altro è capitato sul mio post a proposito di Rasputin, ho pensato che sarebbe stato divertente vedere chi siamo e quanti siamo.

Test results for Boost 1.37.0 and CodeGear compilers…

… may be found here!

I ran the tests both before and after applying Update 1 and the results are exactly the same.

Boost 1.37 is out

As you probably know Boost 1.37 was released yesterday. I expect it to be well received by CodeGear users, as it includes many specific patches for both C++Builder 2009 and C++Builder 2007. The good news are that many of these patches actually disable workarounds that are not needed any more and none is specific to the latest compiler version, so apparently there are no new regressions.

Among the involved libraries there are some of the fundamental ones, as Config, CallTraits, Exception, Iterator, MPL and TypeTraits. Asio, Foreach, Filesystem, Function, Functional and Serialization also received patches. Unfortunately there were quite a few patches that I didn’t manage to submit in time; these will have to wait for 1.38, I’m afraid.

I hope to be able to post test results for both CB2009 and CB2007 on the bcbboost site by tomorrow evening. Originally I didn’t plan to issue a new bcbboost release, but CodeGear released Update 1 for CB2009 too late for explicit support to be included in 1.37. In the next few days I’ll check what needs to be done.

C++ Builder 2009, Boost & bcbboost

The number of visits to this blog has increased in the last few days. I obviously don’t know for sure, but C++ Builder 2009 was recently released and one possible reason for the increased traffic is that people are looking for information on Boost support for the new compiler.

As you probably know CB 2009 includes a custom version of Boost 1.35 . This includes a very high number of specific changes which, combined with the standard compliance improvements in the compiler, increase dramatically the level of support compared with previous releases. I would consider this a very convenient solution for those that do not need the latest libraries.

I’m currently in the process of helping the CodeGear people merge their changes into the official Boost repository and I hope to finish in time for the next Boost release, 1.37 . Should I not make it I plan to check with CodeGear whether they have any objection on issuing their patches through bcbboost first.

I currently have no plans for a 1.36 backport, but if you direly need it, let me know.

Welcome to .Nick’s!

I just setup a small SourceForge project to hold the C# code I wrote during the last few months. It should be fairly general purpose, with a slant towards system tool programming, which is what I’ve been spending a fair portion of my time on since the beginning of this year. You can check it out here.

You will find the source code and a little bit of documentation. The next thing to do is to issue an initial release. Hopefully during the weekend, but don’t hold your breath.

Searching for a raskal

A while ago, while trying to find my way around the intricacies of .NET’s approach to application configuration, I stumbled upon this article. As I found the approach it described as well as the code it provides very convenient, I built around it my own configuration support classes.

Now I would like to publish my current C# toolbox as Open Source and I’d like to include stuff that’s directly derived from the article I just mentioned. Thus I’m trying to get in touch with raskal, who originally posted the article on the Nezdeboeuf blog on the RioterDeckers’ Headquarters site, to ask his or her permission.

Hopefully sooner or later someone who knows how to reach her or him will google for one of these names and chance upon this post…

Rock’n'Roll Animal – Lou Reed (1974)

In stark contrast with the minimalist approach that characterizes both his beginnings with The Velvet Underground and much of his later career, here Lou Reed presents a very triumphant, glamorous rendition of his music. Rock’n'Roll Animal starts off magnificently with a beautiful instrumental introduction which leads into a powerful version of “Sweet Jane”, one of Lou’s most famous songs and one of rock music’s most effective riffs. This is followed by a breath taking, spine chilling interpretation of “Heroin”, the archetype controversial song. If an artist’s job is to induce ideas into us by communicating at the emotional level rather than at the rational one, considering how the imagery that Lou Reed and his band throw upon us is incredibly vivid there can be no doubt that this is not only a work of art, but actually a masterpiece. Certainly this is as close as I will ever get to experiencing how it really feels. And yet…

The remastered CD version I’m currently listening to includes here a couple of songs that weren’t on the original album, “How Do You Think It Feels” and “Caroline Says I”. These don’t add much to the collection; one could almost say that they actually lower the overall average. On the other hand those who, like me, suffer from “completeness-mania” will probably be happy that these songs have been made available.

The original program resumes with a powerful rendition of “White Light / White Heat“, a fast rock’n'roll number from the Velvet Underground period. The atmosphere changes all of a sudden to a feeling of impending doom with “Lady Day”, from the Berlin album. Rock’n'Roll Animal closes on a much lighter tone with the humourous “Rock’n’ Roll”.

This is one of the great rock live albums. The songs are mostly masterpieces, very well arranged and played by accomplished musicians. In my opinion it has aged well, even though its style dates it unmistakably in the first half of the 1970′s. What can I say more? I wish I was there; instead, I urge you to buy this album, and possibly also Lou Reed Live, taken from the same concert.