I received a surprise in the mail today. It’s the iPhone cable I won in a giveaway organized by LiewCF.com. Thanks LiewCF and I should also thank MudahAlih.my for sponsoring the gifts.
I laughed because I expected that he will send me a pink cable, as I commented about pink in the post:
Thank you, this made my day.
After about 60 days using my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X Lion (10.7.3), I saw some sluggishness in some apps. At first, it was Messages (iChat replacement for Mountain Lion). It went unresponsive and displays the rainbow wheel for a few seconds, enough to annoy an impatient user.
Then, the same behavior happened in Terminal. This is where I realize the common behavior. You know, when you press delete on an empty prompt, you get a bell. The default is the audible bell. When I change it to the visual bell, sluggishness disappeared.
On Messages, I had the default sound effect setting when messages are received or sent.
Boy was I right. In the log /var/log/system.log there were a bunch of these:
May 3 22:30:57 ADYMAC iChat[66352]: [Warning] Actions: Couldn't create SystemSound from /Applications/iChat.app/Contents/Resources/Received Message.aiff May 3 22:31:07 ADYMAC iChat[66352]: [Warning] Unable to find a sound action ID for /Applications/iChat.app/Contents/Resources/Received Message.aiff errorResult: 268435460 May 3 22:31:07 ADYMAC iChat[66352]: [Warning] Actions: Couldn't create SystemSound from /Applications/iChat.app/Contents/Resources/Received Message.aiff May 3 22:31:17 ADYMAC iChat[66352]: [Warning] Unable to find a sound action ID for /Applications/iChat.app/Contents/Resources/Received Message.aiff errorResult: 268435460 |
These are when I tried to change the system bell using the System Preferences application.
May 11 01:45:55 adymac System Preferences[44495]: Error 268435460 setting AlertSound May 11 01:53:22 adymac System Preferences[44678]: Error 268435460 setting AlertSound May 11 01:58:20 adymac System Preferences[44678]: Error 268435460 setting AlertSound May 11 01:58:25 adymac System Preferences[44678]: Error 268435460 setting AlertSound |
And so I tried a lot of things, including logging out then in, inspecting the file permissions, and also ran the verify permission utility on the hard disk using Disk Utility. Nothing worked.
Finally, I saw that there was one process called coreaudiod
_coreaudiod 45197 0.0 0.1 2453172 5228 ?? Ss Fri02AM 0:10.52 /usr/sbin/coreaudiod |
And so I tried killing it:
$ sudo killall coreaudiod |
And as expected, it respawned itself and all audio effects were now working. Sluggishness and the dreaded rainbow wheel are gone.
Googling after, I saw that people mentioned that this may be a bug, and killing coreaudiod is only a workaround not the solution.
Come to think of it, it also caused unnecessary delay when making screen shots using the Command-Shift-4 key combination.
I hope this can save you some time.
If you’re a seasoned Linux SysAdmin, you’ll miss LFTP. It’s a really powerful FTP client. Yes, you can also install it using MacPorts or Fink but right now, this is much quicker for me.
Here’s how I built LFTP 4.3.6 on my MacBook Pro. For the record, I’m on 10.7.3
Prerequisite: Apple developer tools (Xcode)
1. Download The GNU Readline Library (The library that came with OS X will not work). This is how I built Readline 6.2:
$ cd /where/readline/was/extracted $ ./configure --prefix="/usr/local" --disable-shared && make && sudo make install |
This will build a static library and install in it /usr/local
2. Make sure the library (libreadline.a) was built successfully in /usr/local/lib
3. Download LFTP and build it:
$ cd /where/lftp/was/extracted $ CXXFLAGS="-O0 -Wall -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti -fno-implement-inlines" \ LDFLAGS="-Xlinker -search_paths_first -L/usr/local/lib" \ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" \ ./configure --with-openssl --disable-shared --disable-nls $ make && sudo make install |
In the lftp configure line, the “-Xlinker -search_paths_first” is necessary so that the linker will not prefer the system shared /usr/lib/libreadline.dylib to the static libreadline.a we just compiled.
The final binary will be installed into your /usr/local/bin/lftp and if your build was successful you should be able to run “lftp” and get the prompt:
lftp :~> |
My LFTP version:
LFTP | Version 4.3.6 | Copyright (c) 1996-2012 Alexander V. Lukyanov LFTP is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with LFTP. If not, see <http: //www.gnu.org/licenses/>. Send bug reports and questions to the mailing list lftp at uniyar.ac.ru. Libraries used: Readline 6.2, Expat 2.0.1, OpenSSL 0.9.8r 8 Feb 2011, libiconv 1.11, zlib 1.2.5 |
Good luck!
Perhaps some of you arrived by searching for “error: ‘rl_kill_full_line’ was not declared in this scope”. Yep, the above steps should help you.
If you’re here to look for the way to forward the phone that comes to UniFi to another phone number, I apologize. I don’t know how. I tried asking TM call center but they told me to call UniFi support for UniFi phone.
For the record every time I try *61*XXXXXXXXXX# the automated voice response is “harap maaf, anda tidak mempunyai akses ke nombor ini”. I think it’s related to a protection so that users can’t simply forward to any number. Protection is good only if there are procedures to follow to make a feature useful. Not in this case.
I created a ticket in the My Support section in myUniFi only to be closed by X1012121 – it’s not even a real name. The ticket was closed without any explanation whatsoever. Nada. Nothing. Nil.
So what they put in their Microsoft SharePoint website Phone (Voice Features) page doesn’t work. At least for me. If you can see any instructions on adding custom phone numbers to the forward list, do let me know. I might need new spectacles.
As a matter of fact, I created a ticket a week earlier about something else and although I specifically asked to be emailed, they called. Maybe the text on their system is too small to read especially the “Preferred communication” field. I don’t know. The annoying thing was that the person kept calling and calling and calling when the call was not picked up.
When the call is not picked up, please call later.
If you’re not going to fully support your value added services, you might as well not offer them at all. I am fully satisfied with the Internet service, but since there are “FREE” added service I thought I might utilize it. Now that I know they don’t work, I’m unhappy.
One thing that really bothers me is that I think they don’t really have an SLA with customers, and KPI to fulfill. Closing tickets without any reason is unacceptable by any standard, not even in inter organization support services.
I will never understand why TM work like this… and I know this post will not mean anything to them. I am just disappointed. Having some exposure on how they do stuff, I think they can do better and generate more profit than now but the mentality is just beyond me.
Malaysia boleh?
Apple has just released the developer preview for OS X Mountain Lion yesterday and at the same time released the beta version of Messages, an upgrade of iChat. Here is the link to download Messages.
Installation is straight forward but you will be warned that the machine will need to be restarted. After installation, the spanking new icon will appear in the dock. The rightmost icon in the screenshot, not the middle one.
After installation (and configuration with your iCloud account), the familiar iChat UI will appear. Alongside with a new “iPad inspired” message list. Messages will continue to work with the existing accounts, just with additional features. As you can see in my screenshot my Google Talk (Jabber) account works fine.
I really wanted to know whether old messages from the iPhone will be imported. They were not. Which is no big deal. I’m not sure whether some background sync will happen while I use it. I’ll update if it does that.
I sent a test message to a buddy, Nazham:
At the same moment, my message and his reply appeared in both Messages for Mac and the iPhone. This is what Apple meant by “Start an iMessage conversation on your Mac and continue it on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.”.
I love it.
Knowing Apple, Mountain Lion might be the only OS X I can upgrade my 2010 MacBook Pro with and I hope the price will be more or less like Lion.
Until next time, happy computing.
Here’s a short article on making a simple module to include on your Joomla! pages that displays login / logout links. I’m a Joomla! newbie so there might be better ways to accomplish this.
I was helping a friend-client to accomplish redirection to the same page after logout.
Here’s the basic code that you need to have in a module with the Jumi extension:
< ?php $user=& JFactory::getUser(); if (!$user->guest) echo '<a href="index.php?option=com_user&task=logout&return=Lw">Logout</a>'; else echo '<a href="index.php?page=account.index&option=com_virtuemart">Login</a>'; ?> |
The code above will redirect users to the root or uppermost level of the website.
Let’s say that your website is http://www.yourwebsite.com/ and your shopping page with VirtueMart is installed at a subfolder http://www.yourwebsite.com/shop/
The question is simply where you want your user to end up after logging out. If you need your users to end up at http://www.yourwebsite.com/ then you’re good to go. If you want your users to be redirected to the shop or a thank you page, here’s where you need to be a little creative.
You need to replace that “Lw” in the logout link to a different string. “Lw” is the base 64 representation of the character “/”. So this means that the user will be redirected to / which is http://www.yourwebsite.com/
A solution I came out with:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | < ?php $redirect_to = '/shop/'; $user=& JFactory::getUser(); if (!$user->guest) echo '<a href="index.php?option=com_user&task=logout&return=' . base64_encode($redirect_to) . '">Logout</a>'; else echo '<a href="index.php?page=account.index&option=com_virtuemart">Login</a>'; ?> |
So only line 2 needs to be changed. Let’s say you want users to be redirected to http://www.yourwebsite.com/thankyou.html here’s how you will change line 2:
2 | $redirect_to = '/thankyou.html'; |
If you’d like your users to simply be redirected to the same page where they clicked the logout link, here’s what you should do to line 2:
2 | $redirect_to = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']; |
That’s simply it. At first, I totally forgot that I can use PHP’s base64_encode so I ended up confusing my friend with an online encoder so that he can replace the “Lw”.
One annoying thing that I wasn’t able to solve is the login page always displays the error message:
Error: You do not have permission to access the requested module.
I think Joomla! is trying to load VirtueMart too early and I can’t make it go away. Looking at the Internet a lot of other websites has this message displayed. If you know how this message can be removed without hacking the CSS or source code, please let me know and I’ll give you credit.
References:
I have always been a fan of Crocs shoes because of their lightness, durability and the airy design. As someone who suffers from athlete’s foot since the teen years, airy means better air circulation and dryer feet.
Back in 2009 or 2010 we went to a Crocs warehouse sale in Ikano Power Center in Damansara. It was held in an empty unit next to the IT hypermarket at the top floor. We bought 5 pairs – two for myself and three for my son.
I bought myself an Olive Baya, and a Black Trailbreak.
For my son we bought him a Green Baya, a Batman Cayman and a Crocs Electro.
For other models than the Baya, links are from other websites as they no longer exist on the official website. Maybe they have been taken off production or something.
The purpose of this post is to make sure that if there is any more warehouse sale in the future, and if you’re going, you better thoroughly check the shoes you’re buying.
A few days back, my son was having trouble to put on the Crocs Electro on his left foot. That was weird, and at first I had a silly thought that his left foot has grown more than his right foot. I was surprised to see that the shoes, although marked with the same size, had the left one smaller than the other.
I don’t know how this happened but I’m not happy. Lucky for us we realize this before his feet were bruised more. It is not my intention to accuse anything at anyone but I have to admit that I am disappointed. Knowing Malaysia, we can’t return the shoes especially since it was bought in a warehouse sale. Heck, we can’t even return them if we buy them at retail price.
And of course, living in Malaysia I’m not excluding the possibilities of foul play. It’s how most businesses make maximum profit anyway…
In the previous post I wrote about enabling compression for your pages so that they would load faster to the visitor. Today I’m going to write about how you can make use of browser caching to save some bandwidth.
Some people told me that their ISP or hosting provider requested that they upgrade the hosting plan or subscribe for more bandwidth. Since this site doesn’t have that much traffic, I wouldn’t know.
However recently I was able to help on a website which has a lot of visitors compared to this site. Around 14-18 visitors per minute on a working day and the bandwidth usage was very high, more than a gigabyte per day.
For the website, I saw that there were many requests for images (photos). The images aren’t that big anyway, around 100KB each but the amount of request made it significant.
Armed with knowledge of mod_expires, I added the following clauses to .htaccess while hoping that the server has the module installed. The following configuration is minimal, and Google Pagespeed actually suggests for 1 week.
<ifmodule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 2 hours" ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 2 hours" ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 2 hours" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 2 hours" ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 2 hours" ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 2 hours" ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 2 hours" </ifmodule> |
Although I know why Google Analytics set its expiry to 2 hours, it’s kind of amusing since the suggestion comes from another Google product. Oh well I am allowed to be amused right?
So let’s get to the results. Here are the bandwidth graphs from both days. I enabled mod_expires at around 6PM on 5 January 2012.
We can’t really see the difference by looking at the graphs. Google Analytics shows that there are at least 200 more visits on 6 January 2012. The numbers? Here you go:
At least 400MB were saved by this technique. You can actually put specific settings for each folder in your website. For example 2 hours is nice for cosmetic images which may need to be changed frequently but not for photos. For example if you run a photography website, you can even make your photos to expire in 1 year!
What mod_expires does is actually telling the browser that the resource (images) will expire on a specific date. It’s flexible enough to set the date from the access time. Here is the link to the official manual page for mod_expires.
Please be careful to note that this is not a quick solution for the lazy. You must think hard enough to set the proper amount of time before the images expire otherwise normal users will not see your changes or updates to the image until the cache on their browsers expire!
Good luck!