My notes, things I have learned, and documentation I have created.

Sometimes resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) on a Mac can resolve an apparent hardware issue. I have found this to work sometimes, but usually it just delays the inevitable hardware issue. I have also documented how to reset the PRAM (Parameter RAM) and NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM). This is usually one of the first things tried by an Apple repair technician.

Intel Mac notebooks with removable batteries:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Disconnect the power.
3. Remove the battery.
4. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
5. Release the power button.
6. Reconnect the battery and power.
7. Turn on the computer.

Intel Mac notebooks without removable batteries:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Ensure that the power is connected.
3. Hit the Shift-Control-Option keys (on the left side) and the power at the same time.
4. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
5. Turn on the computer.

Intel desktop Macs:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer.
3. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
4. Attach the computers power cable.
5. Turn on the computer.

To reset the PRAM and NVRAM:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Turn on the computer while holding the Command-Option-P-R keys (4).
4. Hold down the keys until you hear the startup bong for the second time.

I finally upgraded Yourls in an attempt to get back to the Twitter plugin. Simple to upgrade.

Backup yourls directory location.
Backup yourls MySQL database.
Remove everything from your yourls location.
Unzip the new yourls software.
Copy the config_sample.php to config.php. The configuration files are location in the includes directory.
Modify the config.php with your site specific settings.
I had to modify the following definitions:
YOURLS_DB_USE
YOURLS_DB_PASS
YOURLS_DB_NAME
YOURLS_SITE
$yourls_user_passwords

And, because I was upgrading from 1.2, I had to add the following definitions:
define(‘YOURLS_DB_TABLE_URL’, ‘url’);
define(‘YOURLS_DB_TABLE_NEXTDEC’, ‘next_id’);

Go to your yourls site:
http://yourls-url/admin
Login and upgrade.

This worked great for me for all of my websites. I did this globally by adding the following in my /etc/http/conf/httpd.conf file. I had no other Location options enabled. I could do this by VirtualHost, buy opted not to for now, since I have very little upload bandwidth.

I took this, as is, from http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_deflate.html.

# Insert filter
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE

# Netscape 4.x has some problems…
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html

# Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip

# MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine
# BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

# NOTE: Due to a bug in mod_setenvif up to Apache 2.0.48
# the above regex won’t work. You can use the following
# workaround to get the desired effect:
BrowserMatch \bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

# Don’t compress images
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \
\.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary

# Make sure proxies don’t deliver the wrong content
Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary

I am trying to get the wordbook plugin to post on my facebook wall.

If a Windows Terminal server client receives the following kind, they need to remove the corrupt license registry key on the client. The following two messages were identified on a Citrix license server.

The solution was to remove the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSLicensing

The key will be recreated the next time the client connects to the Citrix server.

Used the following to modify the shmmax kernel parameter in Fedora 13 after updating postgresql on a machine running WiKID for two-factor authentication.

Modifies the parameter:
# sysctl -w kernel.shmmax=67108864
Changes the parameter so a reboot is not required.
# sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf

To keep the new setting after rebooting:
# vi /etc/sysctl.conf
…
kernel.shmmax=67108864
…

Open the file as your normally would ( For example, vi mybinary.fil):
To view in hex:
Enter the following from command mode: :%!xxd

To switch back:
Enter the following from command mode: :%!xxd -r

If you are making changes you want to save, make sure you switch back before saving the file. Otherwise, you end up saving the file as the text you see when viewing the file in hex mode.

To create a custom SMS tone for a jailbroken iPhone on MacOS from iTunes:

1.) Start iTunes.
2.) Go to Preferences/General.
3.) Click “Import Settings” next to “Ask To Import CD.”
4.) Change “Import Using” from “Mp3 Encoder” or other to “Aiff Encoder.”
5.) Right click on the song you want to convert and go to “Get Info.”
6.) Click on the Options tab and go to “Start Time” and “Stop Time.”
7.) Enter the desired time range that you want and click “Ok.”. It should be less than 30 seconds in duration.
8.) Right click the clip and click “Create AIFF Version.”
9.) Rename the resulting .aif file to sms-received[1-6].cap.
For example: Rename myfile.aif to sms-received1.cap.
10.) Ensure that ssh is installed on your jailborken iPhone.
11.) Replace one of the sms-received[1-6].caf files in /System/Library/Audio/UISounds with your newly created sms-received[1-6].cap file. I used FileZilla to transfer the file from my Mac to the iPhone, but you can use any sftp/scp client or the command line from Terminal.
12.) Now, on your iPhone, you can find your newly create sound in Settings/Sounds/”New Text Message.” The selection names do not change, but you can select each one to hear the sample to find your custom SMS/MMS text sound.
13.) Remember to switch back to Import Settings in iTunes.

The boot record on a Dell E310 was modified over time as a result of various system updates. I was unable to access the restore partition, when the OS needed to be restored, using Ctrl-F11 at the BIOS boot screen. To restore the boot record so that I could use Ctrl-F11, I created a bootable DOS CD using the fdfullcd.iso from the FreeDOS site (http://www.freedos.org/). Then, I created another CD with the dsrfix.exe (http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dsrfix.zip) utility on it. I unzipped the dsrfix.zip file and burn the contents of the zip file onto a CD.

From here, I booted the FreeDOS CD. Then, I removed the FreeDOS CD and put in the dsrfix CD. I ran mscdex.exe at this point. However, I do not believe that was necessary. Then, I switched to the E: drive and ran dsrfix. I had an alert on pbr descriptor 3. Next, I ran dsrfix /F. This repaired the record so that Ctrl-F11 worked. Thanks to Dan Goodell (http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/). According to Dan’s site, his utility has been tested on the following Dell systems: Dimension 1100, 2400, 3000, 3100, 4550, 4600, 4700, 5000, 5100, 5150, 8200, 8300, 8400, 9100, 9150, B110, E310, E510, E520, E521, XPS 400, XPS 410, XPS 720, XPS Gen 4. Inspiron 500m, 510m, 600m, 630m, 640m, 700m, 1150, 1200, 1300, 1501(AMD), 2200, 5100, 5150, 6000, 6400, 8600, 9300, 9400, B120, B130, E1405, E1505, E1705, M710, M1210, XPS, XPS Gen 2, XPS M1710. Vostro 200.

I used this procedure to add swap space to a server, where I not more available partitions, but had space on a previously formated partition.

# mkdir /var/swap

Create container files:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap/swapfile1 bs=1024 count=65536
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap/swapfile2 bs=1024 count=65536
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap/swapfile3 bs=1024 count=65536
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap/swapfile4 bs=1024 count=65536

Format as swap:
# mkswap /var/swap/swapfile1
# mkswap /var/swap/swapfile2
# mkswap /var/swap/swapfile3
# mkswap /var/swap/swapfile4

Add them to startup:
# vi /etc/fstab
…
/var/swap/swapfile1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/var/swap/swapfile2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/var/swap/swapfile3 swap swap defaults 0 0
/var/swap/swapfile4 swap swap defaults 0 0
…

Enable them:
# swapon -a
Check them:
# swapon -sh