Stupid Simple Keep Alive Bash Script

Everyone has servers and processes they want to keep alive and if they are not alive they want to restart them. But they don't want the restarts to get out of control.

This is a stupid simple bash example that will allow you to do that. I'm using it to restart a python notebook.

#!/bin/bash
#This silly script was written by @bentaylordata to handle auto restarting of processes in cron

#Check if string is running
string_of_interest="ipython"
OUTPUT="$(ps -ef | grep $string_of_interest | wc -l)"

if [ "$OUTPUT" -gt "1" ]
then
        echo "started"
else
        echo "need to start"
        ipython notebook --profile=nbserver --no-mathjax &   #This backgrounds the notebook server
fi

s3fs "Transport endpoint is not connected" error on ubuntu

So this error can probably be cause by many reasons:

s3fs "Transport endpoint is not connected" error

My issue was caused when I tried mounting my s3 bucket with the s3://mybucket in the name. Then I wasn't actually unmounting it until I ran

sudo fusermount -u /mnt/sshfs

Then when I reran the s3fs command it worked. 

s3fs mybucket /mnt/s3_upload/

use the "d" and "f" flags for the s3fs to give me debugging output. 

How to accept command line argument with octave

So I am wanting to accept command line arguments and the "octave -help" didn't really show me what I wanted. So like many other languages you can use argv to collect command line, here is an example.

Suppose I want to create a test.m file that will accept 4 command line inputs like so:

octave test.m 1 2 3 4

To do that I would do:

%Accept standard in
n1 = str2num(argv(){1})
n2 = str2num(argv(){2})
n3 = str2num(argv(){3})
n4 = str2num(argv(){4})
t=n1+n2+n3+n4;     %Do calculations

printf("%d\n", t)  %Print standard out...

That way I can do what I wanted.

How to install ctypes on mac

So when I was trying to install ctypes on mac I was getting this compile error:

clang: warning: argument unused during compilation: '-mno-fused-madd'
In file included from source/_ctypes.c:110:
build/temp.macosx-10.9-intel-2.7/libffi/include/ffi.h:161:3: error: unknown type name 'ffi_abi'
  ffi_abi abi;
  ^
build/temp.macosx-10.9-intel-2.7/libffi/include/ffi.h:183:3: error: unknown type name 'ffi_sarg'
  ffi_sarg  sint;
  ^
build/temp.macosx-10.9-intel-2.7/libffi/include/ffi.h:184:3: error: unknown type name 'ffi_arg'
  ffi_arg   uint;
  ^
build/temp.macosx-10.9-intel-2.7/libffi/include/ffi.h:267:4: error: unknown type name 'ffi_abi'
                        ffi_abi abi,
                        ^
In file included from source/_ctypes.c:126:
source/ctypes.h:71:2: error: unknown type name 'ffi_closure'
        ffi_closure *pcl; /* the C callable */
        ^
source/_ctypes.c:162:21: warning: implicit conversion loses integer precision: 'Py_ssize_t' (aka 'long') to 'int' [-Wshorten-64-to-32]
        parg->size = self->b_size;
                   ~ ~~~~~~^~~~~~
source/_ctypes.c:304:9: warning: format string is not a string literal (potentially insecure) [-Wformat-security]
                             ctypes_dlerror());
                             ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
source/ctypes_dlfcn.h:19:24: note: expanded from macro 'ctypes_dlerror'
#define ctypes_dlerror dlerror
                       ^
source/_ctypes.c:807:9: warning: implicit conversion loses integer precision: 'Py_ssize_t' (aka 'long') to 'int' [-Wshorten-64-to-32]
        size = PyString_GET_SIZE(value);
             ~ ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/stringobject.h:92:32: note: expanded from macro 'PyString_GET_SIZE'
#define PyString_GET_SIZE(op)  Py_SIZE(op)
                               ^~~~~~~~~~~
/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/object.h:116:56: note: expanded from macro 'Py_SIZE'
#define Py_SIZE(ob)             (((PyVarObject*)(ob))->ob_size)
                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~
source/_ctypes.c:982:11: warning: implicit conversion loses integer precision: 'long' to 'int' [-Wshorten-64-to-32]
        length = PyInt_AS_LONG(proto);
               ~ ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I fixed it by following the info on this thread:
https://trac.macports.org/ticket/22418

Which says to go to line 167 in setup.py and comment out the

 build_ext.build_ext.build_extensions(self)

to

 #build_ext.build_ext.build_extensions(self)

That fixed it so I could finish the install.

How to turn on spell check in the vi vim editor

I always forget to spell check in Latex coding projects when I am using vi or vim. You can enter this command while in a vim session:

:setlocal spell spelllang=en_us

Un-closable "Restore Windows" Message mac openOffice (FIX)

This was annoying and I waisted too long trying to figure this out so hopefully this helps someone.

So I was getting this OpenOffice pop-up box that I couldn't close and it was preventing me from using OpenOffice.

So I searched for this file:

find / -name "org.openoffice.script.savedState"

Then I did this:

rm -R "/Users/btaylor/Library/Saved Application State/org.openoffice.script.savedState"

Then I reopened OpenOffice and it was fixed (make sure it is closed completely before you begin)
This is the link that ended up helping me:

https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426#p58403

Matlab keyboard equivalent in python

I use the keyboard command all of the time in Matlab to get a live shell during an 
exception, etc.. so this is how you do it in python

import code
code.interact(local=locals())