Planning for Aliens

1. Open up your web browser to the TortoiseSVN downloads page.

2. Scroll down until you see a post entitled “The current version is…” and download the file that ends with the .msi extension under the 32 bit subheading. It will look something like the following, but the numbers could be different: TortoiseSVN-1.3.5.6804-svn-1.3.2.msi

3. You will be directed to a screen with a list of locations and download links on the right side. Scroll down until you see the location nearest you, in my case it is Phoenix, AZ.

Download the file to your desktop or where you can find it easily.

4. Once the file completes downloading, open it and click through the wizard. There are no special options, just keep clicking ‘next’ until you can click ‘install’. You will have to reboot your computer to finish the installation.

5. Once your computer has finished rebooting, TortoiseSVN is now installed. Right click anywhere on your desktop and you will now see two additional options: SVN checkout and TortoiseSVN.

6. Now we need to adjust the configuration settings. Right click anywhere on your desktop and within the TortoiseSVN submenu choose “Settings…”

7. Highlight “General” and click the “Edit” button next to the words “Subversion configuration file”

8. Delete everything in that file and insert the following:

Note: Ensure that there is no leading white space, (tabs or spaces), in your file when you cut and paste the selection below.

[auth]
[helpers]
[tunnels]
[miscellany]
enable-auto-props = yes
[auto-props]
* = svn:needs-lock=*

9. Save your changes and close out all of the TortoiseSVN windows currently open.

10. Open up My Documents and create a new folder. If you are following these directions, I have sent you an email with some information. Name the new folder the same as the name of the repository that is within that email.

11. Right click on your new folder and choose “SVN checkout”. In the “URL of repository” field enter http://meshsandbox.com/svn/(the name of your repository). Leave everything else and click OK.

12. Enter in the username and password I provided you. Make sure and choose the option to save the name and password, otherwise you will be entering it in quite frequently.

You have successfully installed subversion and checked out a working copy of your repository. Chances are there are no files in your repository, so let’s add one for practice:

1. If you have a file that you know you want to be under version control, drag it into the folder we have just created. For future reference this folder is called the “Working Copy”.

2. Even though you see the file in the folder, it is still not in the repository. As you recall from this article, what you have on your computer is merely a copy of all the files held within the repository. Anyone with access to the repository has a copy of it and it is up to you to update the real repository with any changes you have made. Right click on the document, go into the TortoiseSVN menu and choose “Add”.

3. The file is now part of the repository, but now you need to committ your changes. Right click anywhere within the window and choose “SVN Commit”. This will permanently save your changes to the repository. Now, whenever anyone checks out or updates the repository, they will have your file.

I will create another set of directions to clarify these last few steps. I have also created a screen cast that illustrates how to check out the repository and add a file as described above. You can view it here. I recommend clicking on the icon with the double boxes located in the bottom right corner of the video box to expand it to full screen.

You can also download the zipped windows media file here if you want a clearer picture.

I offered to create Subversion repositories for some of my family and friends and to my surprise, quite a few were very interested. This article is to give a broad overview of what Subversion is and why it is incredibly useful.

What is Subversion? Subversion is version control software. Version control helps a group of people manage a set of shared files.

For example:

You are working on a presentation with three other people. You go home and after watching an inspirational television program you feel the urge to update the slides. Just before you head off to bed, you email the new presentation to everyone on your team. At the same time another member of your team also updated the slides and emailed their changes to everyone. The next morning when you check your email you have two separate versions of your presentation and the joyless task of merging both sets of changes into one version. Version control solves this problem.

All files controlled by Subversion are stored in a repository. This is basically a digital vault that everyone on your team can access from anywhere with an internet connection. Each person who has access to the repository maintains an updated copy of all the files on their computer: this is called your “working copy”. Each person has their own copy. Once you are done working, you update the version stored in the vault. This is called, “committing” your changes. The next time someone on your team updates their working copy it will contain your changes and they will be working on the most recent “version” of the file. This is why it’s called “version” control.

As of Subversion 1.2 you can now lock files. When one member of the team locks the file, no other team member can make changes to the file. In our example above, you would have locked the presentation before you started making changes, so the other member of your team couldn’t have made changes to the document.

I’ve created a workflow diagram to show the process you would use to update a file when it is under version control using Subversion.

Note: Using Subversion it is possible to have multiple people working on one file at the same time. Subversion would then merge the changes and pass off any complicated conflicts to a human. However, it can’t do this with complicated files like Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint. This is why the repositories I am creating for my friends and family will be set up to require locks as I have described above.

I haven’t blogged in over a year. I started Meshsandbox so that I could record my thoughts as I learned all about mesh networking. I quickly expanded the topic of the blog to include entrepreneurship, since I was learning about mesh networking in order to start a business. Considering the very narrow topic I had a relatively large audience. In short time I felt obligated to update Meshsandbox on a semi-regular basis with useful and interesting content. Once my energy shifted away from mesh networking, posting to Meshsandbox was like pulling teeth.

Planning for Aliens will be a reflection of what I am thinking about at the moment. It will catalogue the progression of my thoughts and ideas. I doubt this blog will never generate the kind of traffic Meshsandbox did because it will not be focused like a laser on one topic and it will not be full of useful information. Nevertheless, I am really happy to be blogging again.