February 2010
1 post
apt woes
If you’re trying to install a package using the apt package management tools and you are getting errors of this kind:
dpkg (subprocess): unable to execute post-removal script: Permission denied
Then you should check the mount options for your /var partition. Ensure that you do not have the noexec option set (at least for the duration of the install).
May 2009
2 posts
Fix for Munin MySQL Monitoring Plugin Graph Not... →
Field Notes: Inside an Integrated Communications... →
This really comes in handy when dealing with standalone Python scripts that need to use Django features (especially Models).
March 2009
5 posts
Getting Google to promote your project
I was wondering how Earth Hour got Google to promote their event and I saw this. I think it might be useful for someone out there.
How can I get Google to do something similar for my organization or project? We welcome your ideas on how we can become more socially and environmentally responsible. Although we can’t guarantee either a placement on the Google homepage or even a response to...
sirjohn.co.uk » Blog Archive » Installing SSL... →
The four stages of programming competence «... →
So what level of competence are you at?
agile approach | HOWTO: Install PECL APC Cache on... →
In case you ever find yourself running out of memory when you need to install a PEAR package or PECL extension.
Text-to-Speech Online Voice Service →
Voice-enable virtually any application.
February 2009
7 posts
MySQL Lists: mysql: Re: query to find duplicate... →
This is about one of the best ways I’ve seen to remove duplicate rows in a MySQL database. The only draw back is that you have to run it more than once for rows that have more than one duplicate.
Tinkering with IPV6
For hackers out there looking for something cool to play with, my advice will be to give IPV6 a try. At the moment, I’ve got one tunnel up (Courtesy go6) and I intend to get a subnet with which I can allocate IPV6 ip addresses to clients on my LAN including my Nokia E61i.
Why’s this cool? It means I can finally get every device that has some kind of network connectivity on the...
Jerome Etienne 's blog: using git for symfony and... →
In the coming days, I’ll be adding Git to my repertoire of SCM knowledge. This tip comes in rather handy. Oh it’s really more about how to handle empty directories in Git.
Tiled backgrounds designer →
Videos - Video Categories - Startonomics 2009 LA →
The Indie Publisher's mod_rewrite Recipe Book →
Virtually all pretty urls are made possible because of url rewriting. In some other cases, you can use this feature to do lots of fun things. This is a howto guide on getting up to speed with this utility.
January 2009
1 post
Getting munin to work on your cPanel-based server
Munin is a monitoring tool that can be used to monitor the performance of a server or groups of servers. Somewhat similar (in some ways) to MRTG (it’s more popular counterpart).
By default, new installations of cPanel/WHM come preinstalled with Munin but it doesn’t work. Trying to access the utility from your WHM menu Munin Service Monitor will result in an error similar to this:
The...
December 2008
1 post
5 tags
What's lacking in African technology development?
I’m an African and a great fan of Africa. My dream is to see a technologically advanced Africa; an era where Africans have equal access to technology as their technologically-advanced counterparts and utilize them. However, there are certain things I see as limitations that will limit our ever attaining this nirvana and one of such limitations is trust.
In addition to being a great fan of...
November 2008
1 post
3 tags
Hacking your long term memory?
Several nights ago, I found myself scrambling for my mobile phone to key down some thought that came to me while I was asleep. I was half awake. Interesting enough, it happened to be a particular word I had heard less than seven times in my life. It so happened that I understood the meaning of the word at that time but when I was fully awake, trying to make a connection in regards to familiarity...
October 2008
5 posts
3 tags
What you need to know about Facebook Privacy
I got really concerned and felt I needed to write up some blog post especially after actually seeing the way some people used Facebook.
Social Network Services like Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, etc are great and I encourage them for networking, keeping in touch and so on and so forth but it starts becoming really bad when you can know what’s going on in the private lives of others.
My wake up...
“If all the Internet fraudsters in Nigeria and all the “yahoo boys” were working...”
– Temi Kolawole
Web server tweaking to improve web app performance...
If a web developer should aim at making his web application faster, this could mean getting a faster server, using caches, optimizing your code or database schema and so on and so forth.
Having an understanding of how web servers and web browsers work is an important skill to learn. For instance, few know about the cache management processes of web browsers that if factored into your...
Persistent Background PHP Scripts on Shared...
I find myself sometimes wanting to keep a php script running in the background may be so it can poll a database or provide some kind of service daemon. Sometimes, this script might be hosted on a shared hosting platform and I don’t have the ability to configure the script to run at system startup. The solution to this problem might be to create a cron entry to run the script. The problem...
September 2008
6 posts
3 tags
What is MTN doing?
I was a little hesistant about doing this but then I reasoned: this is exactly what social media has an edge in. We might not have strong consumer protection laws in this country but word of mouth can make an impact. Let’s see how far this goes.
For a while now, loading prepaid recharge cards on the MTN network has been hell (for lack of a better word). This has been ongoing for about a...
Mobile Payments Security Issues
There’s no doubt that mobile phones are going to accelerate the adoption and use of the Internet in Africa for day to day activities. The question then is not if but when it will become mainstream.
If Internet usage and e-commerce will become widely adopted and utilized, then there are some speculative problems in the rather nascent mobile industry that will need to be tackled to ensure the...
Innovation in Participatory Learning Awards
Yesterday, I was having a discussion with a lecturer of mine and we happened to have discussed the Innovation in Participatory Learning Awards and what we could do to enter in for the competition. Interesting enough, today, I got a following from the twitter account of the DML themselves and I was thrilled about the coincidence.
Before I get to far, I should start by defining what Participatory...
4 tags
Sharing is its own reward
I recently read an blog post on Appfrica.net about how the sharing of knowledge can actually be a good thing. I could identify with everything that was mentioned in that article about developers having the fear that their work or idea might be stolen and proper attributions not made. While this is indeed what actually goes on, we will never see the level of development we desire and so desparately...
“Nearly all men can stand adversity but if you want to test a man’s...”
August 2008
11 posts
“Discipline is doing what you really don’t want to do so that you can do...”
“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is required.”
– Winston Churchill
“Science postulates that matter can neither be created nor destroyed; the bible...”
GOOD COPY BAD COPY →
A documentary about the current state of copyright and culture.
Nigeria's Metro Digital copyright dispute headed... →
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment...”
– Vince Lombardi
URL shortening on the Opera Mini
URL shortening services allow you to shorten urls that will have eventually taken a lot of keystrokes to enter, into a short version that can easily be shared via SMS or microblogging services like Twitter.
Configuring your Opera Mini browser to shorten urls easily is trivial. I will be configuring the Is.gd URL shortening service (others can be done likewise). On launching the Opera Mini,...
What if it crashes?
Have you ever thought of the possibility of your web application crashing? Probably there was some data corruption or data integrity was compromised of some sort. It could happen in different ways. But I’m more particular about the database since that’s where most of the application data is stored - registrations, transactions, account status and so on. If you have not developed a...
Tabula rasa
For quite a long while now, I stopped blogging. The simple reason for this was the fact that the hosting company that hosted the server on which my blog was, somehow went out of business - twice! I’ve decided to start again and so I’m launching this Tumblelog today.
Tumblr is not exactly a complete blogging solution and so I intend to use it for my random musings, pictures,...