Rewriting www to non-www with Apache2

... or how to make mod_rewrite your friend.

Like many other hipster sites in the whole new series of tubes we call web2.0, I wanted to have my site reside at http://helpleaf.com rather than the old, redundant, crappy http://www.healpleaf.com. So I tried to set that up. After all, how hard could setting up a non-www RewriteRule be?

Well, as I learned, not hard if you know what you’re doing. Since I don’t, it was friggin’ hard. But, after wrestling with this for a couple of hours I enlisted the help of my friend Brett who showed me the easy way.

Here’s what we did…

My domain registrar is GoDaddy, but I transferred DNS control to SliceHost where my site resides (and whose DNS control I like a LOT better).

Then I set up my DNS records. Because DNS admin tools are really different from host to host you'll have ot figure out the exact ways to handle doing the following DNS stuff.

My domain is helpleaf.com so I created an A record pointing from helpleaf.com. to the IP address of my server.

At this point I had a choice, either:

1. create another A record for www.helpleaf.com pointing to the IP of my server

or

2. create a CNAME record for www pointing to helpleaf.com

I went with the latter because I am less likely to screw it up if I change IPs on the server since there’s only the one A record to update. (Note that this causes more heat on the DNS server, but since my traffic is low… meh.)

Now the trickiness (this is where Brett comes in handy)…

change to the apache2/sites-enabled directory

cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled

and create a new file:

sudo nano www.helpleaf.com

Here is the full content of that file:

<virtualhost>
ServerName www.helpleaf.com
ServerAlias www.helpleaf.com

DocumentRoot /home/bruce/helpleaf/public

RewriteEngine On

# rewrite anything incoming to helpleaf.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://helpleaf.com$1 [R=301,L]

# Custom log file locations
#  so I can see the www traffic sources
ErrorLog  /home/bruce/helpleaf/log/www.error.log
CustomLog /home/bruce/helpleaf/log/www.access.log combined

</virtualhost>

Just reload the apache2 config

sudo service apache2 reload

Let’s try that out. Open a browser and go to http://www.helpleaf.com.

Badda BING!

You should be redirected to http://helpleaf.com.

That’s it.

How to Disable the Confirm File Delete Dialog

The Windows Confirm File Delete Dialog may be one of the most annoying things ever.

You see there's this thing called "the recycle bin" where my files go to when I delete them in Windows. So why the heck do I need to confirm that I want to move something to a place where I can later recover it anyway.

Okay, I'll stop foaming at the mouth any minute now.

On the up side, the folks at Microsoft seem to have actually thought this one through and there's a simple solution. I thoroughly expected to have to hack the registry again. But no...


Here's how to do it:

Right-click the recycle bin and select Properties.

Lo and behold! At the bottom of the properties dialog is a checkbox for "Display delete confirmation dialog".


Sweet! Just un-check this sucka and click OK and Bob's your uncle!

The Joy of Patent Work

I've been trying to get the patent applications in order for the stuff we've been working on at Team46 for the past couple of months. Oh the joy of government legalese!

The US Patent & Trademark Office says:
------------------
“The USPTO will accept color drawings in utility patent applications and statutory invention registrations only after granting a petition explaining why the color drawings are necessary. Any such petition must include the following:

the appropriate fee set forth in 37 CFR §1.17(h)

three sets of color drawings; and

the following language as the first paragraph in that portion of the specification relating to the BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING. If the language is not in the specification, an amendment to insert the language must accompany the petition.”
------------------

Blaarghh!!! Please, kill me now.

Oh yeah… and THIS gem…

------------------
“The number of each sheet should be shown by two Arabic numerals placed on either side of an oblique line, with the first being the sheet number and the second being the total number of sheets of drawings, with no other marking.”
------------------

Oh, is that a fancy way of saying number sheets like 2 of 5 in this way; 2/5 ?

An oblique line!!?!? Grrr….

So if you've been tasked with taking care of IP stuff for your start-up let me give you some handy tips that I've come to so far...

Hire a lawyer
No, really. Time is one of your most precious commodities. Don't waste it on crap like trying to figure out the fancy government talk above.

Really prepare to talk to your lawyer
I like to write down all of my ideas, no matter how wacky or obvious, and get them in one big list. I write a short description (like two sentences) so I have a good idea of what I'm talking about. I also include diagrams or screenshots if I have them. Then I print out the list of ideas (with the numbers) as a table of contents and the ideas with their short descriptions with one idea per page. This way I have plenty of whitespace on my pages to take notes on what the lawyer says.

Types and Costs of Filings
There are two types of patent filings; Provisional (PF) and Utility (UF). Utility filings are what people typically think of when they think “patent”.

Provisional	Utility
Cheaper ($500-$5k)	More expensive (see below)
12 mo. then abandon or file utility	20 yrs from filing or 17 yrs from issue
Establish date for “prior art”	Establish exclusivity protection
Cannot be “tweaked” much before U.F.	Can be tweaked or amended significantly
Not published	Published

Figure 1 – Comparison of Provisional and Utility Filings

For Utility filings the costs based upon size and complexity of filing are t-shirt sized like this:

Size & Complexity	Initial Filing	2-3 Years Later
Low	$12k +- 2k	$12k
Medium	$15k +- 2k	$15k
High	$18k +- 2k	$18k
Gov.t Fees	$1.5k - $2.5k

Figure 2 – Estimates of Costs for Utility Filings

One advantage to a Utility Filing is that it forces you to go through the whole process and see what needs to be shored up in any Provisional Filings you want to file.

It may also be worth your while to read through a few actual patents. Once you get past the language you can start to see how they are organized and what they are looking for in terms of specificity and organization. The US Patent Office has a pretty usable patent search site that covers both applications and grated patents.

That's about all I can think of right now. My eyeballs are about to fall out. Time to go home and drink myself to sleep. Thanks Patent Office.