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Forcing Linux To Shutdown Or Reboot

admin — Wed, 25 May 2011 10:35:39 +0000

shutdown -r NOW halt reboot

not working for you?
To force a shutdown:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger

And for a reboot:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq echo o > /proc/sysrq-trigger

Thanks to Nasser Heidari for the tip.

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Choosing a VPS Web Hosting Provider

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:20:16 +0000

You would think that many of your worries are reduced when you move from shared web hosting to a virtual private server (VPS) but as my experiences testify, there is are some pretty frightening stories out there.
I have dealt with 3 VPS providers in the past year and this post goes through some of my [...]

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PHP mail() with Ubuntu Desktop and Gmail

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:43:03 +0000

Recently I was adapting a newsletter plugin for WordPress and needed the PHP mail() function for testing. However an Ubuntu desktop install is missing Sendmail – the MTA that PHP expects to find on a Linux PC.
I use a local Apache/MySQL server on a laptop to do a lot of my development – I don’t [...]

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PHP: The include() include_once() performance debate

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:40:26 +0000

The conventional wisdom always said that PHP’s include()/require() was quicker than include_once()/require_once(), but recently I came across an interesting post by Arin Sarkissian which suggests otherwise.

Also I found more commentary on the performance benefit of using relative versus absolute paths in include()/require() and include_once()/require_once() statements (although the main article’s conclusions contradict Arin’s experiments). The Drupal developers discussed and benchmarked the relative/absolute include() issue too.

So in keeping with the spirit of quick and dirty experimentation I hacked up some code and ran some tests on include()/require() against include_once()/require_once() and on the relative/absolute path issue. The results are pretty surprising and I love to hear some views.

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Beware: ISP’s as Hosting Companies – watch your DNS

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:33:31 +0000

The symptom

You cease your contract with your hosting company, cancel your contract and move your web site. People start to complain that they cannot reach your web site. Nothing seems out of order.

The problem:

You were hosting with a major ISP (like Eircom, Magnet or BT Ireland). They put DNS entries into their servers for your web site. When you cancel your contract they should remove these entries. Magnet and BT Ireland are two companies that are negligent in this regard. If they don’t remove these DNS entries, then their customers can have problems reaching your new web site.

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Using Runas to Add/Remove Programs/Hardware in Windows XP

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:49:25 +0000

Very useful if you run as a ‘restricted user’ (i.e. not a ‘power user’ or ‘administrator’):

Step 1: Get a CMD shell (‘DOS box’) as Administrator:

runas /user:administrator cmd

You will be asked for the Administrator password.

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PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /whatever/my-php-class.php.html on line 1 with PhpDocumentor files on CentOS

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:07:44 +0000

Symptom:

An XML file saved as something.php.html
Apache was trying to parse it as PHP and throwing an error because Short_open_tag was ‘on’

Fix:

Add the following to an .htaccess file in the folder (or a parent folder):

php_value short_open_tag off

I don’t know if this is a ‘bug’ or a ‘feature’. I don’t see why Apache should be interpreting *.php.html [...]

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Unlimited Google Adwords for a Fixed Fee – Not!

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:37:30 +0000

A client was approached the other day with an offer that sounds too good to be true. Well guess what, it is!

For more information, Webphoria (a UK web development company) has the story of the AdWords scam, and James from Online Media Direct checked it out the story with Google.

If you are approached with such [...]

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Migrating IMAP Email The Easy Way

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:05:57 +0000

Moving email servers has always been a royal pain for me. I’ve tried many of them over the years, and migrated from nearly as many of them. However the last couple of times I put myself through the pain I came across imapsync – an excellent script that will do an IMAP to IMAP migration [...]

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Debug your IMAP server with Telnet

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:25:42 +0000

Email by IMAP rocks – there are so many benefits to using it over POP3, particularly in an office environment. However many IMAP clients really suck when it comes to manipulating accounts with large messages. We recently watched a server brought to it’s knees during a email server migration – by an 165MB email containing [...]

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