Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology
When you set up your own web server or use a private server (virtual or physical), you will find that web servers run using the www-data account. That means that website files need to be accessible to that system account if not owned by it. The latter is mandatory if you you want WordPress to be able to update itself with needing FTP details.
It also means that you probably need scheduled jobs to be executed using the privileges possess by the www-data account. For instance, I use WP-CLI to automate spam removal and updates to plugins, themes and WordPress itself. Spam removal can be done without the www-data account but the updates need file access and cannot be completed without this. Therefore, I got interested in setting up cron jobs to run under that account and the following command helps to address this:
sudo -u www-data crontab -e
For that to work, your own account needs to be listed in /etc/sudoers or be assigned to the sudo group in /etc/group. If it is either of those, then entering your own password will open the cron file for www-data and it can be edited as for any other account. Closing and saving the session will update cron with the new job details.
In fact, the same approach can be taken for a variety of commands where files only can be access using www-data. This includes copying, pasting and deleting files as well as executing WP-CLI commands. The latter issues a striking message if you run a command using the root account, a pervasive temptation given what it allows. Any alternative to the latter has to be better from a security standpoint.
UNIX (and Linux) does a wonderful trick with its file and folder shortcuts; it effectively treats them as file and folder transporters that transfer associate a file or folder that exists in one folder hierarchy with another and it is treated as if it exists in that hierarchy too. For example, the images folder under /www/htdocs/blog can have a link under /www/htdocs/ that makes it appear that its contents exist in both places without any file duplication. For instance, the pwd command cannot tell a folder from a folder shortcut. To achieve this, I use what are called symbolic links and the following command achieves the outcome in the example:
ln -s /www/htdocs/blog/images /www/htdocs/images
The first file path is the destination for the link while the second one is that for the link itself. I had a problem with Google Reader not showing up images in its feed displays so symbolic links rode to the rescue as they did for resolve a similar conundrum that I was encountering when editing posts in my hillwalking blog.
There are times when I feel the need to share some snippets with a longer lifespan than a tweet. This is a place for those and some yet may even turn into longer articles themselves. That already has happened for one of them, so there is something of a digital scrapbook in operation here.
13:08 January 8, 2024
Now that ownCloud has been acquired by Kiteworks, there is some uncertainty about what happens next. So far, there is an offer for ownCloud and Nextcloud users to move to Kiteworks’ proprietary platform. Nextcloud itself has been busy making use of the uncertainty to promote their own product line.
19:15 November 19, 2023
The open-source section of the website got a lot of tweaking in the last few weeks. The recipient of the attention was the operating system subsection. That got a full reorganisation with all the listings seeing new entries too. The desktop software also got a bit of attention, and other areas could get altered yet.
11:35 January 20, 2023
Recently, I have been having trouble with Nvidia drivers following a kernel update in Linux Mint (21.1 is the version that I am using). The kernel version has been rolled back from 5.19.x to 5.15.x, and I installed an old AMD graphics card as well. Things still are not perfect, though, so I will be looking out for a way to make things smoother. For now, all is good enough for the moment.
10:30 February 12, 2022
Google Analytics appears to be losing favour in the EU, if Matomo is to be believed. First, Austria outlawed its usage and no France follows suit. This naturally suits Matomo, a self-hosted open-source alternative for collecting website metrics, so it should not be any surprise that they are forthcoming with these details.
16:20 October 9, 2021
Here is the sequence of commands to use when upgrading from OpenMediaVault 4.x to 5.x. All need to be executed with elevated access privileges:
wget -O - https://github.com/OpenMediaVault-Plugin-Developers/installScript/raw/master/upgrade4to5 | sudo bash
reboot
Once your system has restarted and you have logged in again, then you execute these:
apt-get purge openmediavault-omvextrasorg resolvconf
wget -O - https://github.com/OpenMediaVault-Plugin-Developers/packages/raw/master/install | bash
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
omv-salt deploy run nginx
omv-salt deploy run phpfpm
apt-get install usrmerge
omv-confdbadm migrate conf 5.0.0
15:19 October 9, 2021
Here are some North American online emporia fro buying computers, their components or peripherals:
09:06 September 24, 2021
Here are boilerplate commands for banning and unbanning IP addresses using Fail2ban:
fail2ban-client set <JAIL> banip <IP>
fail2ban-client set <JAIL> unbanip <IP>
13:09 July 27, 2020
If you ever need to install Linux kernel headers on an openSUSE instance in order to install VirtualBox Guest Additions, the following command should be executed in order to do the needful:
sudo zypper in kernel-source
10:37 February 5, 2017
Here is a possible way of resetting the CSS definition for a HTML element, class or ID:
#reset-this-parent {
all: initial;
* {
all: unset;
}
}
Browser support for the above may vary though.
10:39 November 23, 2016
After seeing messages like “The authenticity of host ‘hostname’ can’t be established” during ssh connections, I decided to investigate more and came up with the following solution:
sudo chown -v $USER ~/.ssh/known_hosts
My known_hosts file had gained root ownership so i could not write to it so changing the ownership to that of my own user account sorted the problem. An alternative could be to change the group assignment using chgrp and setting permissions using chmod but what I did sufficed for my needs.
06:30 November 23, 2016
When I ran into trouble with accessing my own websites using my broadband, I found that the solution was to change DNS Lookup Service to what Google offers. This was done on the router side and the IP addresses used were 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.8.4.
22:33 June 4, 2016
Here’s a way to convert DNG files to JPEG ones:
find -type f | grep DNG | parallel mogrify -format jpg {}
10:51 September 16, 2015
Here is a way to recursively delete folders and their contents in PowerShell:
Remove-Item .\foldertodelete -Force -Recurse
The Force switch silences any messages that otherwise would appear and the Recurse switch is what gets directories removed.
23:38 August 18, 2015
Thomson Reuters is changing over Open Calais at the end of August.
11:05 July 29, 2015
Motorola now selling phones direct to the public through its own store. Customisation options are available for more expensive models like Moto X and Nexus 6 too.
10:18 April 12, 2015
Devuan (pronounced like dev-one) is a fork of Debian that does not use systemd as Debian, like so many other distros, is doing. Part of the name must come from a collective calling itself Veteran UNIX Admin (VUA). There is no actual release just but one is intended for around the same time as Debian 8.0 gets released and donations are being solicted via the website.
18:51 February 20, 2015
Here is a handy way to get PowerShell to show files larger than a certain size:
get-childitem | where-object {$_.length -gt 10000}
|ft fullname, length -auto
19:40 December 1, 2014
When a VirtualBox upgrade broke the networking on a Windows 8.1, it was time to look at System Restore to see what it would do. It reverted version 4.3.20 to 4.3.15 and the network disconnection stopped. For now, I will remain with that older version after the misstep with the latest one. Sometimes it is best to stick with what is known to work.
20:38 October 30, 2014
With my deciding to try doing about my waistline during the summer (a bike got put on a trainer and around 30 minutes is spent on it most evenings while I also catch up some reading; now, I feel fitter and incursions into the countryside have an added air of confidence about them), an interest in fitness monitors has developed and the Pulse Ox from Withings has taken my eye due its being price of around £100. That makes it less than alternatives and it isn’t the only health gadget that the company does either with there being a blood pressure monitor in its range too. The Pulse Ox monitors such things as heart rate, activity such as walking and running, sleeping and weight too. It should work with your smartphone as well, which is a bonus. It is one of several like it with Samsung and Apple going in for phone apps and Microsoft releasing their Band device as well. This appears to be a growing area where I never expected to see mainstream technology companies having a role for themselves.
12:44 October 30, 2014
Ergotech now have useful desktop stands for tablet computers. There is one for a full size iPad and another for any other type of tablet. A standalone one on wheels also is available though I cannot see myself ever needing such an item.
20:24 October 20, 2014
Here are some more specialist information sources with search facilities:
18:53 October 7, 2014
Here is the test for the “Shellshock” vulnerability in the bash shell:
env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable’ bash -c “echo this is a test”
It should not return the following:
vulnerable
this is a test
This would be acceptable:
bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt
bash: error importing function definition for `x’
this is a test
Also, just having this might be fine too:
this is a test
In case you need it, Redhat has more information on the bug that caused scare stories everywhere. Now, it is over to system administrators everywhere to do their bit now that bash has been patched.
21:36 August 24, 2014
Sometimes you need to create more than one directory level in a hierarchy at once and mkdir has the -p option for this purpose. That gets it to create any missing levels in a folder path and avoids warnings that would be issued otherwise.
16:18 August 21, 2014
Debian 8 is under development and has its first beta ready for download. XFCE is now the default desktop environment though it remains possible to install GNOME and GNOME Shell too. In fact, I successfully have given that a go in a VirtualBox installation and will keeping an eye on development so long as no system meltdowns occur. The version of the X Window system already is incompatible with VirtualBox 4.3.14 so we need to await a new version of the virtualisation software before we get access to advanced functions like full window desktop expansion. What we have at the moment works well enough to keep eye on development so we can wait for that full support.
18:31 August 6, 2014
Perfect Resize from onOne Software caught my eye for scaling up images after seeing it mentioned in a Outdoor Photography review of Avanquest PhotoZoom Professional. With a library of 6″ x 4″ prints, I am limited in how large I can make scanned images without they looking blurred and pixelated so that’s why my interest was aroused. There may be a free moment spent seeing what it might do in that situation yet.
16:24 August 2, 2014
Nvidia has a useful page on the difference between DVI-D and DVI-I. It came in handy when transitioning from VGA to DVI on my home PC’s. That made what appears on my Iiyama screen much sharper and allowed me to rid myself of a suspect VGA cable too.
21:42 June 11, 2014
Here are some interesting articles about EFI and UEFI that I uncovered during a recent episode of setting up dual booting of Windows 8.1 and Linux Mint 17 on a PC with EFI:
UEFI Dual-Boot -- Ubuntu 12.04.3 + Windows 8.1 (One GPT HDD)
11:53 May 3, 2014
In the U.K., BT allows you to divert your phone calls for a fee and I have made good use of it over the past year. The service is called Call Diversion and Eircom, Ireland’s counterpart to BT, offers Call Forwarding in Éire. Both are handy because redirecting a call to a mobile phone means that you know you are not missing any calls and that there is nothing lurking on an answering machine when you do get to your home or office. Landline telephony may seem less exciting these days than other forms of communication yet it still has its place and I would not get any nasty surprises along the path of life either. If only I had started doing this kind of thing earlier than I did…
20:12 April 4, 2014
Here’s a useful article about the ever useful locate command. Whether it is FreeBSD or Ubuntu that you are running, this article has a use and that especially when the locate database needs updating with the updatedb command.
20:54 March 12, 2014
A recent website redesign was well helped by modern.IE‘s collection of virtual machine appliances containing different versions of Windows and Internet Explorer. Depending on the host operating system that you are using, you have different options. For Linux, it is VirtualBox only while Windows gains VMware and Virtual PC too. It is a matter of just picking out what suits your situation from dropdown lists.
The first one that I picked was Vista with IE 7 and it was an interface that I had not seen for a while. For all the criticism, the operating system did work well though I wonder if it arrived before the computer hardware that it really needed in order to run smoothly. The dark theme cannot have helped its cause either, especially when compared with the much brighter Windows 7 or Windows 8.x. A Windows XP appliance with IE 6 was grabbed before it gets yanked and support for the elderly OS does finish in April. IE 6 probably is on its last legs so I probably can ignore it now but IE 7 might live longer yet. Window 7 appliances with IE 9 and IE 10 also were downloaded and confirmed that all was well in recent versions of IE when it came to the website. The Vista virtual machine allowed me to ensure that all looks acceptable on IE 7 too. The VM’s themselves contain evaluation versions of enterprise variants of Windows and have a limited lifespan though it is little trouble to reimport an appliance again to rest the clock if so required. In most cases, you extend the evaluation periods too through re-arming and there only are so many times that you can do that anyway. With Windows 8.x, it isn’t even a possibility anyway.
22:05 March 9, 2014
Today, I found an interesting article on CSS media queries and put it to some use for a website redesign that has been keeping me busy over the weekend. Twitter’s Bootstrap came in handy for this too. Now, it’s on to ridding the new design of any rough edges that remain in there. That can be an ongoing task and the site is here if you fancy a look to see what my efforts have produced.
16:20 February 26, 2014
Adding a new Zalman ZM450-GS power supply did little to sort the buzzing in my speakers but it has made the PC where it was installed so much quieter; a much larger fan spinning slower helps while still moving the required amount of air. It is 450W too and I am wondering if my main PC would benefit from a similar upgrade. That may be quieter than the other one was but the case was not a deluxe model so the change should do no harm. As for the speakers, moving them was the only way to get rid of the buzzing. Looking back on this now, it seems that one of them was far too close to a PC.
20:33 February 15, 2014
Currently, the spare PC appears to be causing buzzing on my main PC speakers and with my landline telephone when it is placed right under these. Removing it helps to cut it down but I fancy having a better fix and am wondering if a new power supply might help. Also, I am wondering if there are other sources too. In the meantime, I would like to share an article on the subject that I recently found: Kill Studio Hum and Buzz at the Source.
22:14 February 12, 2014
Applying latest set of updates to LMDE worked to get to Update 8 worked smoothly unlike some predecessors. This brought the latest version of Cinnamon so GNOME now is redundant. It will be interesting to see where things go next.
16:24 February 8, 2014
During the week, I discovered that Twitter is not a benign place to go ruminating. A sharp riposte in an unnecessary tone of voice was enough to bring on a sense of extra caution. Wherever you get humanity, you are likely to encounter and one had a go at me so some thoughts are going to be kept away from there from this point forward. Sometimes, you own website is a far better place to go ponder happenings in the world around you. After all, an ugly comment can be deleted and a rogue IP address blocked if things need to go that far. Of course. more civility would be best. Polite correction is the best course whenever it is warranted since we all are human and no one is beyond making mistakes.
16:15 February 8, 2014
On my outdoors website, I have been using a PHP script from Detect Mobile Browsers but this does not distinguish between Android running on a tablet and that running on a phone. Therefore, I have turned to another source of such scripting and that is working better so far. In fact, this offers more than just PHP but also Python, JavaScript and other scripting languages along with configuration files for web servers too. Apache, Nginx and IIS all have something for them. The logic essentially is based on Perl regular expression matching of user agent strings, not an infallible means but good enough for me along with a smattering of responsive design.
14:30 February 1, 2014
For anyone lost when faced with the changes Microsoft brought in with the launch of Windows 8 and largely retained in Windows 8.1, TechRadar has a useful article: 62 Windows 8 tips, tricks and secrets. What will prove especially interesting is where Microsoft goes next when many of their customers prefer the Windows 7 interface and are sticking with the elderly Windows XP. You only can get so far by telling your customers that they are wrong all of the time and the is competition in the form of Apple’s OS X and Google’s Chrome now.
14:23 February 1, 2014
TechRadar has a round-up of Best free photo editing software: 10 top image editors you should try. Usual options like GIMP, Paint.Net and IrfanView get a mention along with other less well known ones. Interestingly, Google’s Picasa is excluded from the list but that might be because it largely is an image file management tool even if it has some image editing capabilities too.
21:28 January 27, 2014
Late last week, I found out about the image file sorting tool PhotoSift via an article on the software. It looks interesting though I have yet to try it.
17:52 January 27, 2014
Here are some interesting reviews from TechRadar:
Best compact system camera 2014: the top models reviewed
Best tripod and camera support: 13 tested
The tripod heads review really caught my eye more than the others. After all, 2013 was the year that I got a CSC and a Manfrotto tripod has sat reproachingly in the corner far more often than it should.
19:41 January 16, 2014
Today, I spotted two interesting articles to which I want to retain links on here:
Managing the future of complex business and IT landscapes
Send large files to clients with these 8 free tools
Both of these ring bells for me for different reasons. The first is a reminder of a slow and painful system project with which I was involved and of an ineffective IT support service that pained us at the time. The second is ever present in my current job with its need to send data and output files to clients as well as receiving specifications from them.
19:36 January 4, 2014
In recent weeks, I have been having trouble with the onboard network controller on a spare PC that I have at home. It connects to the network fine for a few minutes and then struggles. Making use of an old PCI ethernet card that I had from another machine solved the problem. Does anyone know of issues with ASRock motherboards and onboard network ports at all? It isn’t something that I have seen before and this motherboard never had good networking capability as long as I have had it.
19:33 January 4, 2014
After Christmas, I took delivery of an HTC One mini mobile phone that I got free as part of a contract renewal with O2. It also is known as the M4 and I have been getting used to it since I got it. A lot is familiar and there are some little differences too. Some of these leave me asking why what worked well before got changed to something that is less smooth. Of course, that can be the course of things and it applies to buying a new car as much as getting a phone upgrade. All in all, the phone works well and battery life appears much improved over the HTC Desire S so far, never a bad thing to notice.
19:25 January 4, 2014
This morning, the hosting provider for this website had an outage that lasted over three hours. The provider was Fasthosts and the cause was a power failure. They usually are good so this thankfully does not happen too often. However, we have been getting a lot of stormy weather crossing Britain and Ireland this winter so I suspect that there should be little in the way of surprise when something like this happens. Weather is not due to settle during this month so there may be more power failures, hopefully elsewhere, before things settle down again.
17:20 January 3, 2014
On one WordPress website that I have, the refresh rate for RSS widgets wasn’t the quickest and the remedy was to add this line into the themes functions.php file:
add_filter( ‘wp_feed_cache_transient_lifetime’, create_function(‘$a’, ‘return 600;’) );
It creates a custom function that is attached to the widget and the refresh time is set to 600 seconds or 10 minutes. So far, this seems to be doing what I needed.
17:56 December 19, 2013
What I didn’t realise is that TRIM currently is not enabled in Ubuntu by default. That is set to change in Ubuntu 14.04 and here is some advice on the matter until then.
20:41 December 14, 2013
This weekend, I had visions of needing a new hard drive when all files on one in my main home PC (runs Ubuntu GNOME 13.10 64-bit) went read only. The cure was to re-seat the SATA cables and all was well again. Sometimes, inexpensive remedies are best and I need not to forget this one.
20:54 October 29, 2013
Here are two interesting articles that I spotted: the first is on new features in GNOME 3.10 and the second about getting DRM-protected Flash media playing on Ubuntu 13.10. For now, I am sticking with Ubuntu GNOME 13.04 in spite of a pop-up dialogue encouraging an upgrade to 13.10; the potential for even a little disruption is something that I am delaying for now.
20:34 October 16, 2013
While editing a file in Nano on an virtual Arch Linux web server that I have, I noticed that a file had DOS newline characters instead of UNIX ones so conversion using the dos2unix command was in order. There is more on this to be found on nixCraft and there are other options such as sed described in there too.
21:51 September 7, 2013
Following a look at Webmin, I have to say that it seems a worthy tool for remote management of servers. My trial so far has been on my Ubuntu virtual web server and it works on port 10000 without interfering with the operation of the actual web server. Being able to run system updates and deletion of MySQL databases without resorting to the command will seem a bonus for some. There’s more to it than these though and I have seen the possibility of managing virtual servers located within a real being mooted. It was an issue of Linux User & Developer than inspired me so my Linux magazine reading is seeing its uses.
20:30 September 4, 2013
Here are some interesting articles for anyone thinking about software development and its realities:
The care and feeding of software engineers (or, why engineers are grumpy)
Being an introvert as I am, this article really is something to which I can relate. Whenever I cannot get the space for undisturbed work, it takes from how I enjoy my job.
How designers and engineers can play nice (and still run with scissors)
We all have to work cross-functionally so you cannot have it all your own way…
Six reasons why the NHS National Programme for IT failed
Having been involved in system design, development and implementation myself, I have something to share that fits into the same topic area. Too many cooks can spoil a broth.
Queensland Government Bans IBM from IT Contracts
My past experiences of IBM have not been good and it wasn’t just where I worked either so this is not exactly a surprise. Service organisations need to ensure that they are sufficient responsive and flexible with empowered and enthusiastic staff who do the needful.
23:09 August 11, 2013
Vagrant and Puppet look like very interesting tools for working with virtual machines. They work with VirtualBox or VMware’s Fusion and Workstation so there’s a choice of virtualisation tool.
20:52 April 18, 2013
Crash reports have been appearing after logging into an Ubuntu session for /usr/share/hplip/config_usb_printer.py and it repeating has been reinstalling HPLIP software for my HP LaserJet 1018 printer too. Leaving the printer off until I need it would be one solution and saves some electricity too but it is best to try to sort an issue when you keep getting it. The first step was to download the latest HP software and install it. That wasn’t a complete solution so I altered the latest send_message function call in /usr/share/hplip/config_usb_printer.py from the following:
send_message( device_uri, printer_name, EVENT_DIAGNOSE_PRINTQUEUE, username, 0,”)
to:
send_message( device_uri, printer_name, EVENT_DIAGNOSE_PRINTQUEUE, ”, 0,”)
So far that alteration appears to have addressed the problem but I’ll be keeping an eye on things anyway. If you’re wondering, the inspiration came from a bug discussion on Launchpad and it was the queue clearing section of the Python script that I went and edited.
20:40 April 16, 2013
Recently, I have been having bother with WordPress Jetpack comment form submission. This was caused by the Bad Behaviour plugin and allowing cross site form submission sorted the problem. The setting to change is in Settings > Bad Behaviour on the Dashboard.
17:31 March 16, 2013
Here’s a quick way to make Faenza and Faience icons available to Ubuntu and maybe Linux Mint too:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install faenza-icon-theme faience-*
20:53 February 19, 2013
During a look at a Fedora 18 Live DVD, I found a user name was needed to get to the desktop and root did the trick for me. What I didn’t notice was an install to hard drive option for the GNOME variant that I tried. Maybe it was hidden on the desktop and not displayed. If so, it looks like an oversight.
16:02 February 14, 2013
Here’s the way to find the version of PROC CDISC that came with the version of SAS that you are using:
proc cdisc version;
run;
14:00 February 14, 2013
Here’s robustness principal for software design that otherwise is known as Postel’s Law after TCP pioneer Jon Postel:
Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others
08:10 February 14, 2013
Here’s a command for removal of orphaned packages in Arch Linux and its derivatives (CinnArch and ArchBang come to mind but there may be others):
sudo pacman -Rns $(pacman -Qqtd)
15:11 January 26, 2013
Cinnarch looks very interesting. It’s based on Arch Linux so it’s a rolling distro but has Cinnamon as its desktop environment. Currently, it’s still in beta but I am tempted to give it a go in a virtual machine.
20:55 December 15, 2012
Having decided that my ever sluggish system needed a fresh operating system installation, I set to trying to get on Linux Mint 14. However, not remembering that the disk and not the partition needs specifying for GRUB installation cost me some time. Later, adding on GNOME Shell resulted in a system conflict between MDM and GDM so I now am running Ubuntu GNOME Remix instead. All feels fresher so far though a spot bother was had with the lock screen that caused me to turn off the feature. VMware Player installed without any of the trickery needed to get in its forbear and runs without a hitch so far too. Other bits and pieces need instating yet but the basis of a refreshed computing platform is in place now.
20:56 November 19, 2012
A look at Linux Mint 14 64-bit release candidate in a VirtualBox virtual machine confronted me with irritating mouse pointer behaviour. The pointer constantly darts to the left when you need it not to do that and it seriously affects usability. The final version will be awaited to see if there is an improvement because it’s not very usable as things stand. GNOME Shell can be installed in working order after a spot of fiddling. Installing the software from the Software Store doesn’t add gnome-session as well so the command line alternative remains best:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell && sudo apt-get install gnome-session
These two really need packaging together as dependencies. Cinnamon is looking as nice as ever and in need of a plug-in that makes virtual desktops behave as they do in GNOME, even if that’s a minority interest now.
12:07 September 30, 2012
Here are commands for adding Cinnamon to Ubuntu:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon
14:39 September 29, 2012
Had a look at GNOME 3.6 in Ubuntu GNOME Remix 12.10 Beta 1 release. Not all extensions are supported yet but GNOME 3.6 only launched officially yesterday anyway. Will take a little while for those extension developers to catch up with it. No hurry in moving from GNOME 3.4 until they do so.
20:24 September 22, 2012
Picked up Netgear ethernet switcher at PC World today. Working without a hitch so far. Some network reorganisation may follow suit.
20:14 September 22, 2012
Initially, I needed to use the command “modprobe vboxdrv” to get VirtualBox going on Sabayon 10. However, there seems to be a better remedy: adding the line ‘modules=”vboxdrv vboxnetflt vboxnetadp”‘ (removing the outer single quotes, by the way) to /etc/conf.d/modules and restarting the system. That seems to have done the trick though I wonder it wasn’t added for me automatically.
13:08 September 22, 2012
Until recently, I hadn’t realised that most if not all SSD’s come in 2.5″ form factor. An extra bracket is needed for installing into 3.5″ drive bays. While tempting, this remains a nice to have upgrade for me.
20:02 September 21, 2012
Found out why my proftpd daemon wasn’t working on Linux Mint. Needed to set it as standalone and not inetd operation. It’s the ServerType setting in /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf.
21:53 September 18, 2012
Given the site a new appearance. The cause was getting microblogging going on this page. Clashes with zeeDisplay theme and Twitter Tools made for replacements that now power what you see here. Jetpack plugin added too. All looking good to my eyes so far. More tinkering may happen yet.
21:36 September 15, 2012
Here are a few places where you will find Linux version information stored: /etc/issue, /etc/issue.net, /etc/lsb-release.
17:30 September 15, 2012
Desktop swapping can be done in Ubuntu and here’s the command for Xubuntu:
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
17:22 September 15, 2012
Here’s a set of commands that I once used to get GNOME Shell going for a Sabayon 9 installation in a VirtualBox virtual machine:
su
equo install --ask linux-sources
cd /run/media/john/VBOXADDITIONS_4.1.16_78094
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
mv /usr/libexec/gnome-session-check-accelerated-helper /usr/libexec/gnome-session-check-accelerated-helper.bak
ln -s /bin/true /usr/libexec/gnome-session-check-accelerated-helper
Hope they have a use though VirtualBox has gone through a few versions since I discovered that these had the desired effect though the login screen behaved a little oddly. Otherwise, everything worked as it should.
14:16 September 15, 2012
Pondering purchase of NAS. QNAP TS-412 looking promising but need to think about my home networking set up first. Might need an ethernet switch but plan to look into it more first, especially with uplink capability needed.
14:11 September 15, 2012
Appearance of Sabayon 10 caused a bit of disturbance to my Sabayon installation that needed installation from a DVD to resolve. Tried GRUB repairs before the non-loading of an Nvidia kernel module caused bother. Went for old fashioned approach for sake of saving a little troubleshooting time.
13:52 September 15, 2012
This has been added using the Live Blogging plugin and it’s good for pages too, unlike Automattic’s own Liveblog plugin. Maybe they’ll add that sort of functionality in time.
Here’s a trick that might have its uses: using a local WordPress instance to update your online blog (yes, there are plenty of applications that promise to edit your online blog but these need file permissions to the likes of xmlrpc.php to be opened up). Along with the right database access credentials and the ability to log in remotely, adding the following two lines to wp-config.php does the trick:
define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://localhost/blog');
define('WP_HOME', 'http://localhost/blog');
These two constants override what is in the database and allow to update the online database from your own PC using WordPress running on a local web server (Apache or otherwise). One thing to remember here is that both online and offline directory structures are similar. For example, if your online WordPress files are in blog in the root of the online web server file system (typically htdocs for Linux), then they need to be contained in the same directory in the root of the offline server too. Otherwise, things could get confusing and perhaps messy. Another thing to consider is that you are modifying your online blog so the usual rules about care and attention apply, particularly with respect to using the same version of WordPress both locally and remotely. This is especially a concern if you, like me, run development versions of WordPress to see if there are any upheavals ahead of us like the overhaul that is coming in with WordPress 2.7.
An alternative use of this same trick is to keep a local copy of your online database in case of any problems while using a local WordPress instance to work with it. I used to have to edit the database backup directly (on my main Ubuntu system), first with GEdit but then using a sed command like the following:
sed -e s/www\.onlinewebsite\.com/localhost/g backup.sql > backup_l.sql
The -e switch uses regular expression substitution that follows it to edit the input with the output being directed to a new file. It’s slicker than the interactive GEdit route but has been made redundant by defining constants for a local WordPress installation as described above.
So as not to deface anything that is available online on the web, I have a tendency to set up an offline Apache server on a home PC to do any tinkering away from the eyes of the unsuspecting public. Though Ubuntu is my mainstay for home computing, I do have a PC with Fedora installed and I have been trying to get an Apache instance starting automatically on there without success for a few months. While I can start it by running the following command as root, I’d rather not have more manual steps than is necessary.
httpd -k start
The command used by the system when it starts is different and, even when manually run as root, it failed with messages saying that it couldn’t find the directory while the web server files are stored. Here it is:
service httpd start
The default document root location on any Linux distribution that I have seen is /var/www and all is very well with this but it isn’t a safe place to leave things if ever a re-installation is needed. Having needed to wipe /var after having it on a separate disk or partition for the sake of one installation, it doesn’t look so persistent to me. In contrast, you can safeguard /home by having it on another disk or in a dedicated partition and it can be retained even when you change the distro that you’re using. Thus, I have got into the habit of having the root of the web server document root folder in my home area and that is where I have been seeing the problem.
Because of the access message, I tried using chmod and chgrp but to no avail. The remedy has to do with reassigning the security contexts used by SELinux. In Fedora, Apache will not work with the context user_home_t that is usually associated with home directories but needs httpd_sys_content_t instead. To find out what contexts are associated with particular folders, issue the following command:
ls -Z
The final solution was to create a user account whose home directory hosts the root of the web server file system, called www in my case. Then, I executed the following command as root to get things going:
chcon -R -h -t httpd_sys_content_t /home/www
It seems that even the root of the home directory has to have an appropriate security context (/home has home_root_t so that might do the needful too). Without that, nothing will work even if all is well at the next level down. The switches for chcon command translate as follows:
-R : recursive; applies changes to all files and folders within a directory.
-h : changes apply only to symbolic links and not to where they refer in the file system.
-t : alters context type.
It took a while for all of this stuff about SELinux security contexts to percolate through to the point where I was able to solve the problem. A spot of further inspiration was needed too and even guided my search for the information that I needed. It’s well worth trying Linux Home Networking if you need more information. There are references to an earlier release of Fedora but the content still applies to later versions of Fedora right up to the current release if my experience is typical.
There are times when I just need to share some links outside the fleeting environment of Twitter, and this is where they might appear. The practice is very much in the spirit of the original weblog idea when it was about link sharing and not about writing down one’s thoughts as it subsequently became before sharing of photos, videos and other multimedia content became a mainstay of (legal) sharing for some people.
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One of the disadvantages of my Google/Asus Nexus 7 is that it needs a Wi-Fi connection to use. Most of the time this is not a problem since I also have a Huawei mobile WiFi hub from T-Mobile and this seems to work just about anywhere in the U.K. Away from the U.K. though, it won’t work because roaming is not switched on for it and that may be no bad thing with the fees that could introduce. My HTC Desire S could deputise but I need to watch costs with that too.
There’s also the factor of download caps and those apply both to the Huawei and to the HTC. Recently, I added Anquet‘s Outdoor Map Navigator (OMN) to my Nexus 7 through the Google Play store for a fee of £7 and that allows access to any walking maps that I have bought from Anquet. However, those are large downloads so the caps start to come into play. Frugality would help but I began to look at other possibilities that make use of a laptop’s Wi-Fi functionality.
Looking on the web, I found two options for this that work on Windows 7 (8 should be OK too): Connectify Hotspot and Virtual Router Manager. The first of these is commercial software but there is a Lite edition for those wanting to try it out; that it is not a time limited demo is not something that I can confirm though that did not seem to be the case since it looked as if only features were missing from it that you’d get if you paid for the Pro variant. The second option is an open source one and is free of charge apart from an invitation to donate to the project.
Though online tutorials show the usage of either of these to be straightforward, my experiences were not all that positive at the outset. In fact, there was something that I needed to do and that is why this post has come to exist at all. That happened even after the restart that Conectify Hotspot needed as part of its installation; it runs as a system service so that’s why the restart was needed. In fact, it was Virtual Router Manager that told me what the issue was and it needed no reboot. Neither did it cause network disconnection of a laptop like the Connectify offering did on me and that was the cause of its ejection from that system; limitations in favour of its paid addition aside, it may have the snazzier interface but I’ll take effective simplicity any day.
Using Virtual Router Manager turns out to be simple enough. It needs a network name (also known as an SSID), a password to restrict who accesses the network and the internet connection to be shared. In my case, the was Local Area Connection on the drop down list. With all the required information entered, I was ready to start the router using the Start Network Router button. The text on this changes to Stop Network Router when the hub is operational or at least it should have done for me on the first time that I ran it. What I got instead was the following message:
The group or resource is not in the correct state to perform the requested operation.
The above may not say all that much but it becomes more than ample information if you enter it into the likes of Google. Behind the scenes, Virtual Router Manager is using native Windows functionality is create a WiFi hub from a PC and it appears to be the Microsoft Virtual Wi-Fi Miniport Adapter from what I have seen. When I tried setting up an adhoc Wi-Fi network from a laptop to the Nexus 7 using Windows’ own network set up capability via its Control Panel, it didn’t do what I needed so there might be something that third party software can do. So, the interesting thing about the solution to my Virtual Router Manager problem was that it needed me to delve into the innards of Windows a little.
Firstly, there’s running Command Prompt (All Programs > Accessories) from the Start Menu with Administrator privileges. It helps here if the account with which you log into Windows is in the Administrators group since all you have to do then is right click on the Start Menu entry and choose Run as administrator entry in the pop-up context menu. With a command line window now open, you then need to issue the following command:
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=[network name] key=[password] keyUsage=persistent
When that had done its thing, Virtual Router Manager worked without a hitch though it did turn itself after a while and that may be no bad thing from the security standpoint. On the Android side, it was a matter of going in Settings > Wi-Fi and choose the new network that have been creating on the laptop. This sort of thing may apply to other types of tablet (Dare I mention iPads?) so you could connect anything to the hub without needing to do any more on the Windows side.
For those wanting to know what’s going on behind the scenes on Windows, there’s a useful tutorial on Instructables that shows what third party software is saving you from having to do. Even if I never go down the more DIY route, I probably have saved myself having to buy a mobile Wi-Fi hub for any trips to Éire. For now, the Irish 3G dongle that I already have should be enough.
For a long time, I wasn’t that interested in mobile telephony but a switch of job in 2010 meant that having access to the web from a mobile became desirable so I started doing that with a long relinquished BlackBerry Curve 8520; now it is Motorola hardware that I mainly use for the same kind of thing. The increased interest in mobile telephony has borne fruit in the list that you find here. The world of 3G and the devices that use it produced a learning curve for me and the availability of 5G is growing now too.
One thing that you’ll see from many a high street in the U.K. is the profusion of shops operated by mobile phone network operators and it is the same in Éire (the indigenous operator Eir has impressed me over there). These networks sell you their wares online too and that is why they are listed in their own section at the bottom. Before their listing, I have collected whatever retailers there are that are not attached to any network and there didn’t seem to be that many of them when I set up the list but it’s grown a good bit since then due to my perusing the occasional mobile phone magazine. If I find any more of these, I’ll add them on here.
Independent Retailers
These are the people with whom I have had the most dealings since I got my first ever mobile phone from them, a Motorola that I kept using until it battery kept losing its charge quickly on me. More recently, I picked up a Nokia 1661 from them that needed a look at the manual to get its call volume set properly.
If these didn’t sponsor the Buyer’s Guide in Smartphone Essentials magazine, I never would have heard of them; Derby County FC supporters should have seen their logo on the player’s shirts but I cannot say that I am a football fan. A look at the website confirms the presence of a comprehensive selection of phones for sale, contracted or otherwise.
Compared to the others, this outlet is unusual in offering only phones without contracts or pay-as-you-go arrangements. In other words, it is a place for someone running the gauntlet of the cost of going for a SIM-free phone. Saying that, they have their place and many tariffs are puffed up to pay for the more expensive device that is provided to you as part of the contract; that’s why you are tied in for a certain length of time too, so as ensure that the cost of the phone is recovered.
The name may be new to me but its Derbyshire based parent company has been involved in mobile phone reselling for more than a decade. The range that the website supplies includes not controlled contracted and pay as you go phones but also SIM cards and phones without SIM cards. That makes it worth a look along with others like it.
Networks
Haven’t had much to do with these people apart from poking around their website looking at what SIM-only deals that they have. However, hearing the experiences of others with their network takes the shine off their offer.
From the point of view of network coverage, this operator looks like your best option and would be who I would choose if I had my chance again; there have been parts of Wales and Scotland where I otherwise not have had mobile signal with my O2 account and Vodafone users were left bereft in the case of the Welsh location of Port Eynon. It was a T-Mobile PAYG BlackBerry Curve 8520 that brought me their way in 2010 and the merger with Orange soon showed its advantages when it came to network improvements. A PAYG mobile WiFi modem followed in 2011 and that uses the SIM card from a defunct Huawei mobile broadband dongle. The BlackBerry was traded for cash once a phone upgrade made available an older HTC to replace the thing; it was hideously slow and that may have had more to do with the phone that its 2G data connection. More recently, a backup Moto makes use of a PAYG account and that is how things look for now.
As it happens, I have been with this bunch since they were part of BT and known as Cellnet. The transformation to O2 and subsequent incorporation into Telefonica and Virgin Media has not meant any disruption. Their BT origins and being part of the first wave of operators has meant that network coverage is reasonable too, though voice services do come out better than data ones so that needs to be kept in mind.
For a global operator, their British and Irish networks leave something to be desired and the British one got slated in an industry appraisal. That fits with the pay-as-you-go mobile broadband dongle experience in the U.K. as well as hit and miss attempts calling Vodafone network users in Ireland. Let’s hope that those network problems get sorted because good phones need equally good connections.
Recently, I shared my thoughts on learning new computing languages by oneself using books, online research and personal practice. As successful as that can be, there remains a place for getting some actual instruction as well. Maybe that is why so many turn to YouTube, where there is a multitude of video channels offering such possibilities without cost. What I have also discovered is that this is complemented by a host of other providers whose services attract a fee, and there will be a few of those mentioned later in this post. Paying for online courses does mean that you can get the benefit of curation and an added assurance of quality in what appears to be a growing market.
The variation in quality can dog the YouTube approach, and it also can be tricky to find something good, even if the platform does suggest new videos based on what you have been watching. Much of what is found there does take the form of webinars from the likes of the Why R? Foundation, Posit or the NHSR Community. These can be useful, and there are shorter videos from such providers as the Association of Computing Machinery or SAS Users. These do help more if you already have some knowledge about the topic area being discussed, so they may not make the best starting points for someone who is starting from scratch.
Of course, working your way through a good book will help, and it is something that I have been known to do, but supplementing this with one or more video courses really adds to the experience and I have done a few of these on LinkedIn. That part of the professional platform came from the acquisition of Lynda.com and the topic areas range from soft skills like time management through to computing skills courses with R, SAS and Python seeing coverage among the data science portfolio. Even O’Reilly has ventured into the area in an expansion from the book publishing activities for which so many of us know the organisation.
The available online instructor community does not stop at the above since there are others like Degreed, Baeldung, Udacity, Programiz, Udemy, Business Science and Datanovia. Some of these tend towards online education provision that feels more like an online university course and those are numerous as well as you will find through Data Science Central or KDNuggets. Both of these earn income from advertising to pay for featured blog posts and newsletters, while the former also organises regular webinars and was my first port of call when I became curious about the world of data science during the autumn of 2017.
My point of approach into the world of online training has been as a freelance information professional needing to keep up to date with a rapidly changing field. The mix of content that is both free of charge and that which attracts a fee is one that can work. Both kinds do complement each other while possessing their unique advantages and disadvantages. The need to continually expand skills and knowledge never goes away, so it is well worth spending some time working what you are after, since you need to be sure that any training always adds to your own knowledge and skill level.
In previous posts, I have talked about getting VMware Workstation back on its feet again after a kernel upgrade. It also seems that VirtualBox is prone to the same sort of affliction. However, while VMware Workstation fails to start at all, VirtualBox at least starts itself even if it cannot get a virtual machine going and generates errors instead.
My usual course of action is to fire up Synaptic and install the drivers for the relevant kernel. Looking for virtualbox-ose-modules-[kernel version and type] and installing that usually resolves the problem. For example, at the time of writing, the latest file available for my system would be virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.24-19-generic. If you are a command line fan, the command for this would be:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.24-19-generic
The next thing to do would be to issue the command to start the vboxdrv service and you’d be all set:
sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv start
There is one point of weakness (an Achilles heal, if you like) with all of this: the relevant modules need to be available in the first place and I hit a glitch after updating the kernel to 2.6.24-20 when they weren’t; I do wonder why Canonical fail to keep both in step with one another and why the new kernel modules don’t come through the updates automatically either. However, there is a way around this too. That means installing virtualbox-ose-source via either Synaptic or the command line:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-source
The subsequent steps involve issuing more commands to perform a reinstallation from the source code:
sudo m-a prepare
sudo m-a auto-install virtualbox-ose
Once these are complete, the next is to start the vbox drv as described earlier and to add yourself to vboxusers group if you’re still having trouble:
sudo adduser [your username] vboxusers
The source code installation option certainly got me up and running again and I’ll be keeping it on hand for use should the situation raise its head again.