Category Archives: geek
Age in years with python?
Given someone’s date of birth how do I work out their age? This is actually less trivial than first appears because: the person’s age doesn’t increment until their birthday passes on the calendar that day is not always the same … Continue reading
How to convert a VMWare vmdk appliance to VirtualBox vdi
There are loads of ready-built appliances for VMWare in .vmdk format but I use VirtualBox and there is never a release in .vdi form to be found. I’ve heard that virtualbox will run the vmware images… but is that true?
How to push wordpress from testing to production
I use a testing server for my site, and I use wordpress. I create and update content on testing, then deploy it to production. But the wordpress import procedure won’t update an existing post so…
How to use a testing server with wordpress
I like to mirror and build my wordpress site on a testing server and get it all ‘just right’ then push the changes to production when I’m somewhat ready to release. This a standard practice in the IT industry and … Continue reading
Svn global-ignore
I want subversion to always ignore compiled files. There is lots on the internet about using property svn:ignore but nothing about setting a global-ignore. Where the heck is this danged config file? On FreeBSD I found it at “~/.subversion/config”. Yes, … Continue reading
How to add a new user to SVN on Apache
Problem: I’ve started working on an existing project and needed to add myself as a user to the repository. It proved kinda tricky. First I couldn’t get Tortoise to authenticate, then I couldn’t add myself as a user, and then … Continue reading
johnmee.com gets a facelift
Well here it is, the new look johnmee.com I’m not happy with it yet but if I kept on working on it till I was happy, then it would never be released. It’s one of those idealist versus pragmatist tensions … Continue reading
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500 Error from IIS 5.1 on Windows XP
Problem Getting a 500 error from IIS 5.1 on Windows XP whilst trying to run from various document roots. The server was unable to logon the Windows NT account ‘STSSERVERAdministrator’ due to the following error: Logon failure: user account restriction. … Continue reading
A “testing” email server which doesn’t send out any emails
Problem I need an email server for testing. It accepts email just like a real one, but does not actually send any email out to the real world. I need to be able to see the emails that it is … Continue reading
Zend Framework Quickstart Tutorial: Deploy to a subdirectory instead of web root
When you’re just evaluating something new you do not want to rearrange your whole world just to try something out. I wanted to try out the Zend Framework and the “QuickStart” tutorial looked very official and the ideal place to … Continue reading
