Blog Archives

Xerox WorkCentre 3615DN Printer PPD file

I recently took charge of a rather nifty printer – the Xerox WorkCentre 3615DN. As we’ve been migrating to Ubuntu 14.04 I needed Linux drivers for it. The Xerox drivers do not work and the PPD file on their support

Posted in Hardware, Tech Blog

WordPress wp-cron not working?

There are various reasons why wp-cron does not work, one of the most common ones being a misconfigured network or firewall. However, due to the way wp-cron works, anything that prevents WordPress opening a http connection to itself will cause

Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Command Line Tricks, Development, Tech Blog, Web, Web Sites

Forcing Linux To Shutdown Or Reboot

[cc lang=’bash’ line_numbers=’false’]shutdown -r NOW[/cc] [cc lang=’bash’ line_numbers=’false’]halt[/cc] [cc lang=’bash’ line_numbers=’false’]reboot[/cc] not working for you? To force a shutdown: [cc lang=’bash’ line_numbers=’false’]echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger[/cc] And for a reboot: [cc lang=’bash’ line_numbers=’false’]echo 1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq echo

Tagged with:
Posted in Command Line Tricks, Servers, Tech Blog

Choosing a VPS Web Hosting Provider

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

Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Servers, Tech Blog, VPS, Web

PHP mail() with Ubuntu Desktop and Gmail

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

Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Development, Tech Blog

PHP: The include() include_once() performance debate

Updated with more tests on 2010-05-16. Click here to jump to the 2010-05-16 update… 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.

Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Servers, Tech Blog, Web

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

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

Tagged with: , ,
Posted in DNS, Servers, Tech Blog, Web Sites

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

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: [cc lang=’dos’ line_numbers=’false’]runas /user:administrator cmd[/cc]

Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Command Line Tricks, Servers, Tech Blog

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

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): [cc lang=’apache’

Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Servers, Tech Blog, Web

Unlimited Google Adwords for a Fixed Fee – Not!

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

Tagged with: , , ,
Posted in Tech Blog, Web Sites