Bizzare Error

For some reason, the category links on the right (as well as tag links) aren’t working – at all. I think this has something to do with either my server setup, (fCGI and SUEXEC), the Theme i’m using (Portfolio Press), a combination of the two or something totally different. This might be a good opportunity to start using Jekyll, so if you could hang on in there for now (all 0 of you), I’ll hopefully have it sorted in a week or so’s time.

Macbook Pro 15″ (2011) USB Port Issue

I had an alarming issue where one of my USB ports (the one closest to the display) wasn’t recognising any devices… It would charge them up without any problems, but things like USB hard drives and iPhones would not mount. I thought that this was a hardware fault, and was preparing myself book a slot at the Genius Bar.

However, by resetting my PRAM and NVRAM, I managed to fix the problem. To do this, first power off your Macbook Pro. Then, hold down the option key (alt key), Command Key, P and R simultaneously. While holding these keys down, press the power button once and wait for the computer to chime. Once your laptop has “chimed”, it will restart – you can then release the keys. Your NVRAM and PRAM will now be reset – and hopefully, your USB Socket will resume normal operation!

I hope that this helps!

 

Dedicated Servers

I recently bought a Kimsufi-2G Dedicated Server from OVH (well, Kimsufi…). I’m using it to host project websites, where non-php programs might need to be run. Infact – I moved this blog over to the new server, so if you’re reading this, then all is well.

I’ve always wanted a dedicated server. VPS’s are good, but the thought of having a physical machine in a datacenter somewhere is, for some reason, very appealing to me. The server is costing me £16.80 a month, which isn’t too bad. I have  5TB of Bandwidth, 1TB hard disk, 2GB RAM and 1.2GHz Celeron. At first, I thought that the processor would be horrifically under-powered for my needs – but it’s coping very well. Infact, it’s doing better than another server I had, with a 2.66GHz Celeron Processor. The 1.2GHz Celeron is considerably newer than the 2.66GHz Celeron, and has 512KB L2 cache rather than 256KB – I put the different in speed down to that.

I opted to install Virtualmin, so that if any of my friends needed some hosting, I could quickly create them account. It uses a bit of RAM.. at the moment, with a couple of dynamic sites (including this one), memory usage is at 384MB. If this where a low end VPS, i would be slightly concerened – but given that I have 2GB RAM, it’s not a big issue for me.

I have set up the dedicated server to be my primary nameserver, with my $3.50/m BuyVM VPS being my secondary. This should provide a decent amount of redundancy, as the two servers are physically very far apart.

It is very tempting to get a Kimsufi 16G, which would have (as the name suggests) 16GB RAM, along with a quad core I5 (or better), a 2TB Hard Drive and 10TB Bandwidth for £43/m. However, I can’t really justify that price… especially since my £16.80 Server is treating me just fine.

Google Plus is now available for Google Apps users

After what feels like a lifetime of waiting, it has recently been announced that Google Plus is finally available for those of us who use Google Apps for Domains. You’ll need to be an administrator to enable it for your domain – if that is you, then take the following steps.

  1. Log into the Google Apps control panel
  2. Choose the “Organisation and users” option from the top navigation bar
  3. Click on the “Services” tab (next to users)
  4. Scroll down through the “Additional Services”, and find “Google Plus”
  5. Click the “On” button
After doing that, you should be able to access your Google Plus profile at http://google.com/+/.
Hope that helped!

OSX Internet Sharing DHCP Lease file

Just a quick post – While using the Internet Sharing function of OSX, I ran into some errors where my client machine wasn’t getting an IP address. I did some digging, and it turns out that the dhcp lease file is stored at this location:

/private/var/db/dhcpd_leases

This is definitely the location for Lion – I’d imagine that it’s the same for 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6 (Snow Leopard) as well… although i’m not 100% sure. I fixed my issue with clients not recieving IP addresses by deleting this file – I’m not sure if that is a good thing to do, but it worked for me! It was interesting to see who had connected when I accidentally set it to an open network, too… “Andy’s iPhone”, I’m keeping an eye out for you!

Corsair Force Series 3 with Macbook Pro (15″ Early 2011)

Just in-case you where interested/thinking of upgrading, I can confirm that the Corsair Force Series 3 is 100% compatible with the Early 2011 Macbook Pro. I have the 15″ version, but I’d imagine that it would be the case for all screen sizes. I opted for the 120GB model – I wasn’t sure that I would have enough room to begin with, I’ve got pretty much everything I need installed and still have 90GB+ free (after following instructions on disabling your sleepimage file here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070302210328928). At the same time as upgrading to an SSD, I got an 8GB DDR3 RAM kit (for the bargainous price of £34.99). Shutdown time is about 6 seconds, and boot-up time is around 16 seconds. While boot up time isn’t a terribly important factor to me (once you’ve booted up it doesn’t really matter?!), it does relate to the general speed of the system post boot-up.

I was a little worried to begin with – the Force 3 has been given some bad press due to some bad firmware. I haven’t experienced any of the extensivley described issues that are sprawled all over the internet, so I can only assume that the firmware has been fixed, and people experiencing issues are either using drives with the older firmware, or are having more isolated problems.

With the old 5400RPM hard drive (which I have now put inside a USB enclosure), there was a delay between pushing the pause key (F8) and iTunes actually pausing – with the Force 3, there is no such delay. I am assuming that this increase in snappiness is down to the SSD rather than the RAM upgrade… but I’m fairly sure that I am correct!

Missing Features in OSX 10.7 “Lion”

So, Apple have added 250 new functions to their new operating system, Lion. That’s great – well done. But what I FAIL to understand is why on earth they have got rid of some really handy functions. Apple have made a big fuss about the new functionality, but they have failed to mention what important features have been removed.  Below is a list of things that used to be in OSX 10.6.x – AKA “Snow Leopard” (I am listing as I find – so this list is far from exhaustive. Leave a comment if you’ve noticed anything).

  1. The “DigitalColor Meter” has lost all of it’s useful functionality (useful to me, anyway). You can no longer get a hex value for the colour that you have picked. A workaround (which shouldn’t be necessary) is to make an AppleScript file containing the line “choose color”.
  2. You can no longer zoom in within a finder window (with two fingers or otherwise). WHY would this be removed? I just dont understand it. I used to use it daily. I am not aware of any kind of workaround for this.
It’s not a huge list at the moment… but I have a feeling that it will grow.

DeIMGUR

I wrote a tool a couple of months ago, allowing you to view imgur images when your network firewall/filtering system doesn’t allow it. It’s not terribly advanced – but it does the job.

If you’re interested in using it – you can access it here: http://redfern.me/deimgur/.

Any comments would be welcomed – I’ve received an email about the possibility of a Greasemonkey script, which I will look into! It’s kinda rough around the edges at the moment… but it should do the job.

Customer Portal Development

So far, it’s been a pretty busy summer. I have spent some time transferring the Modern Glass website over from Drupal to WordPress – mostly for ease-of-use in terms of updating. Along with it have come some speed increases, and SEO optimisations.

This was not a major undertaking – however, the Customer Portal which came with it was getting close to being!

  

The system was created to allow customers to easily access  and comment on quotes. At Modern Glass, once a quote has been entered into the main computer system, it is saved as a PDF. The Customer Portal which I have created allows the PDF and design files to be uploaded to the site, where the files are turned into thumbnails. Once the quote and all of it’s attatchments are uploaded, the user will recieve an email to tell them that a quote has been added to their account. When they click on the link to view the quote, the time and date at which the quote was viewed is recorded and sent by email to Modern Glass. The customer has the option of adding a comment to the quote – this comment can be replied to by a member of staff.

There are other interesting projects going on this summer – including an automated booking system allowing customers to charter a yacht! I update this blog with my progress.