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· One min read

When I was writing my post “Setting a Static IP Address in Ubuntu“, I encountered a strange problem.

In the post I was describing the location of of a directory and it contained the following:

/ etc/network

Notice that there is a space between the word “etc” and the preceding forward slash? If I were remove the space between these two characters, I will get the following error message when I preview or publish the post:

Method Not Implemented

POST to /wordpress/wp-admin/post.php not supported.

I don’t know if this is an isolated incident or a WordPress vulnerability. I wonder if anyone else has encountered this problem.

· 3 min read

Just recently I had to set up a few workstations for developer work. I installed them with Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). I had originally installed them with 9.10 (Karmic Koala) but for some bloody reason, Eclipse, both Ganymede and Gallileo, don’t work on Koala. Anyway, that’s another story for another time.

So the workstations are used for Web development, each has to have a static IP address. Being a small outfit, we don’t have a DNS server. Therefore we need to set each machine’s IP address as static. I thought that it could easily be done with the Network Manager tool in the menu bar, but I was wrong.

· 3 min read

The server holding the project files for the e-learning application that I’m developing just died on me today. The cause of the server dying is the insertion of a faulty RAM chip. What flabbergasted me was that the chip was idenfitied as faulty before. Why my colleague knowingly placed the RAM into the server I don’t know. I haven’t gotten a chance to ask.

The result of that action was that the server could not boot up. In fact, the problem was so different from what I’ve encountered before that it didn’t even occur to me that RAM could be the problem. The CPU was supposed to be a headless node that our developers access over the network to the repository and the wiki. What tipped me off was that the CPU was not reachable even after turning on. Network cable seems fine, and are connected at both ends properly. The system was working fine the Friday last week. Then I connected a monitor to the server to try to resolve the issue. Strangely, what came up on the monitor is an image that is akin to static noise you see on TV (during the analog days).

· 2 min read

A few days ago, I had to set up a mail client to retrieve mail from a hosted Google mail account. Setting the mail client should be a very simple affair that can be done in a few minutes. I never imagined it would take me more than 10 minutes to get it working.

· 2 min read

As any respectable JavaScript developer will know, JSON has become the de facto method of holding objects and passing arguments, even using it as a name-spacing mechanism.

Being the conscientious (and careless) programmer that I am, in my e-learning application that I’m developing at the moment, where I’m heavily using JSON, I made a conscious choice to always leave a comma at the end of the last member-value pair like so:

· One min read

Monitors just ain't what they used to be. I remember a time when all I need to know is that if a monitor supports 1024 by 768 resolution, it's good. If it stayed only in 800 by 600, then it's bad.

Times have changed! With HD, 1080P, DVI, HDMI, and what have you, it can be confusing. The Real Deal podcast from CNET has an excellent episode on monitors. CNET's monitor expert, Eric Franklin, is on this episode to talk about monitors and what you need to know about modern monitors.

If you are thinking of buying a TV that you might want to connect up to your CPU or laptop, check it out as well.

· One min read

I just discovered a way to use templates in Vim where when I create a file, depending on the extension of the file, the boilerplate text that should always be there will be there.

You can find out how to do this from the Vim Recipe book, in particular this page: http://vim.runpaint.org/typing/using-templates/

· 3 min read

The most attractive feature that VI has to offer is the block visual mode. It is amazingly powerful, especially for those who do coding. With it you can add characters to or remove characters a block of text in a column fashion. For example, you can add characters to a block of text (Figure 1) instantly (Figure 2).

· One min read

Some of the commands that you use for every session can be placed in a file named ".vimrc" in your home folder.

Personally, when editing code, I like to have my tabs to be of 4 characters wide. I also want the tab characters to be changed to 4 spaces. So in my .vimrc file, I place the following lines:

set smartindent
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set expandtab

I can then code and have the next line auto-indented. (There is another option called autoindent but it is not as good as smartindent.)

With the options set, the lines can also be indented in command mode or visual mode with the characters >> (shift dot key twice) and un-indented with << (shift comma key twice).