Saturday 20 April 2013

enabling and installing pureftpd on Mac OS X 10.7

So, my computer is also acting as a web development server. As such, I'd like to access the files from anywhere so I decided I'd like something like FTP setup. But reading the forums FTP is a big no-no. Which is probably why Apple switched it off for OS X 10.7.

So, what are the alternatives:
PureFTPd

But how to install? Well, it needs to be compiled and then installed. Found the process here on an Apple Forum 3rd one down. He states:

find /usr/local -type f -name 'pure-*' | tar -czf pure-ftpd_backup.tgz -T -

tar xzf pure-ftpd-1.0.32.tar.gz
cd pure-ftpd-1.0.32
./configure --with-everything --with-tls --with-certfile=/etc/pure-ftpd/ssl/pure-ftpd.pem --sysconfdir=/etc/pure-ftpd/ --with-sysquotas --mandir /usr/local/man --with-pam --with-virtualchroot  --with-peruserlimits --with-ldap --with-rfc2640
make
sudo make install-strip
cd ..
rm -r pure-ftpd-1.0.32.tar.gz pure-ftpd-1.0.32
After this you can install PureFTPd Manager which should provide you with a GUI, although it states it works for OS X 10.6. Apparently works for 10.7.

Seems to work alright, although I'll have to read up about changing ports and setting up sftp stuff

Saturday 13 April 2013

website widths

Whenever I start making a website I'm always looking up what the current standard is. Here is an example of some peoples opinions.

General consensus is that in 2012/13 min size screen is 1280, but people don't necesarily use full screen browsing. So perhaps 980px is fine.

Another person has posted up some more fluid designs alternatives:

These look good

Friday 12 April 2013

Social networking sites and joomla

Just looking into enabling login via other site logins. i.e. facebook, google etc.

Found quite a few in the joomla extensions.

The best one I think I've found is LoginRadius Social Login. It's got a nice tutorial on how to install. Only problem is that you make an account through them, so they sort of act as the middle men.

I shall add to this once I've done a bit more research and tried it out.

For complete site jomsocial looks good

also joomlapolis.

Facilitates member interaction.


Just reading this article on creating a social network and it recommends SocialEngine.

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Making test sites in a subdirectory of a live joomla site

So I want a website which is a front end, but I want to be able to develop websites in subdirectories of this front-end site.

I just found this tutorial of how to do the reverse. Mainly editing the configuration.php file.

Also found this documentation from Joomla on how to move sites around in directorys/sub-directories

So, after much trial and error I finally got it working:

  1. So, I changed MAMPs directory to my new setup website:
    1. /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/mynewwebsite
  2. I then moved other websites within its' directory structure
    1. moved /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/testsite1 to /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/mynewwebsite/testsite1
  3. edited the configuration.php file in testsite1
    1. I actually found it had changed itself! But just to note:
    2. public $log_path = '/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/mynewwebsite/testsite1/logs';
    3. public $tmp_path = '/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/mynewwebsite/testsite1/tmp';
This sort of worked. It worked on the localhost machine perfectly, but when browsing externally it came up with:
404 - Article not found joomla error
I had a quick search and found this forum topic about it. Turns out a temporary fix is to turn off "Search Engine Friendly URLs" under Administration > Global Configuration > Site:


Viewsonic VX 800 blinking/flashing green LED light

A strange problem is occuring with a Viewsonic VX 800 monitor. Whenever it is switched on the green LED flashes constantly (every 0.5 seconds) and nothing appears on screen. But, after a prolonged period, the blinking will slow to once every 7 seconds. Perhaps not even after a long period. It is attached to an apple mac and when it reboots the screen sometimes comes on. Quite random. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've not fully tested the situations out.

I found a few mentions of stuff but not very helpful. I guess because the screens are quite old.

Here I found a service manual but it's not very helpful

Saturday 6 April 2013

Finding the gradient of a graph

Having installed Octave I now want to find gradients of gradients of gradients...... of gradients.

This is a note to remind me to do this.

So, turns out there is a function which does this:
gradient(F)

so, here's me plotting a sine wave, and then drawing gradients of that graph:


x=0:0.1:20
y=sin(x)

plot(y)
hold all
plot(gradient(y)*10)
hold all
plot(gradient(gradient(y))*100)
hold all
plot(gradient((gradient((gradient(y)*10))*10))*10)
plot(gradient((gradient((gradient((gradient(y)*10))*10))*10))*10)



Monday 1 April 2013

redirecting/dns setup with home machine and a bought domain name

So, I have a computer at home hosting a website and I wanted it to have a nice domain name (mynicedomainname.co.uk). So here's how I did it:

  1. Sign up to no-ip
  2. setup a Host/Redirect
  3. Host type "DNS Host (A)"
  4. get it to use the ip address of your home machine
    1. install the no-ip client
    2. and set it up
  5. do port forwarding on your rooter to get it to point to the right computer on your home network
  6. Buy a domain (I did with www.daily.co.uk)
  7. go to Domains > Manage DNS >
  8. Add a hostname > www
    1. type > CNAME
    2. data > your.no-ip.address.here
  9. Delete the www one that was already there
Sorted!

Just trying to revert it back now. Found this help page.