Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
May 2, 2007 by Jason · 53 Comments
As if the giant blue-colored screen used in prior versions of Windows wasn't enough to let you know your computer crashed, apparently Microsoft has decided that in Vista they need to let you know that your computer blue-screened once it comes back up as well.
While, normally I would think that additional information about a crash was useful (I mean, many power users know that nv4_disp.dll is a video card problem, but a quick search on Google can help troubleshoot most of the info that you get on a blue screen), this particular message tells you absolutely nothing useful about the crash. Perhaps the developer who created the dialog could help, but your average Joe is going to be completely lost.
Subversion packages in repo upgraded to 1.4.3
April 23, 2007 by Jason · 10 Comments
After taking a long weekend to enjoy my new FIOS TV service (by the way, if you haven't seen FIOS TV then you haven't actually watched TV, this is crystal clear), I decided to build Subversion 1.4.3 packages for my repo. These, as with the last batch, are based on DAG's spec file but have been compiled against newer versions of apr & httpd.
Questions and comments, leave them below. Otherwise, enjoy.
WordPress Plugin: “Block Countries”
April 16, 2007 by Jason · 66 Comments
As was mentioned in my "To the jerk stealing my content" rant, I've recently developed a WordPress plugin that can be used to block certain countries from accessing a blog. After a few days of tweaking, I believe that it's finally ready for a public release. I give you... "Block Countries"!
I'm actually surprised at how quickly this plugin was completed. I started with ZERO idea as to how to build a plugin for WordPress but within a couple hours I had a bare-bones plugin that accomplished what I needed it to do. Of course, it then took most of the weekend to clean it up to the point where I would feel comfortable telling someone, "Why don't you try this out on your blog?".
To the jerk stealing my content…
April 11, 2007 by Jason · 5 Comments
You! Yeah, You! You know who you are... Cut it out!
Not only are you the biggest tool on the planet for stealing other people's content, but you don't even seem to have the decency to NOT hotlink files from my server. Bandwidth isn't free you know! If you'd only asked if you could use some of my content on your site I would have gladly said yes, provided that you gave credit where credit is due and provided a link back to the real article.
In any case, your lack of consideration has caused me to spend my lunch break today writing a plugin for WordPress that allows me to block users from certain countries. It's a little rough around the edges right now but I'm going to polish it up over the next couple days and I'll probably release it to the public so that others can block your thieving-self...
MySQL 5.0.38 packages updated
April 6, 2007 by Jason · 14 Comments
I've rebuilt the MySQL 5.0.38 binaries in my yum repository to take care of a small bug that I introduced for new installs.
It seems that the database initialization script that runs on the first launch of mysqld (part of the 'mysql-server' package) has changed a bit between 5.0.37 & 5.0.38. Unfortunately, not noticing that, I tossed a couple of new .sql scripts in the wrong package. This, as it turns out, only affected users who were trying to do a clean installation of mysql. If you were upgrading from the stock EL4 version, from the 'centosplus' repo, or from one of my earlier releases then you weren't affected.
New Repository Addition: Subversion
April 5, 2007 by Jason · 8 Comments
There have been a few requests in the post comments and via email for a version of Subversion that works with my updated version of httpd. Well, after ripping my hair out for the past couple days trying to get around a few blocking issues, I finally built Subversion packages for 32- & 64-bit systems.
First, unlike my httpd, PHP, and MySQL builds, I wanted to stick with the version of Subversion that came with RHEL & CentOS 4. I really didn't see the point of upgrading to a newer, less tested, version on this particular package. That said, the version of Subversion that comes with EL4 didn't particularly like the version of apr that is included in my repo. That meant that a straight rebuild of the src.rpm wasn't possible (it was failing the apr-related tests during the build).
New PHP packages available by popular request
April 2, 2007 by Jason · 6 Comments
Since there have been a few requests for some of the less-common PHP modules (and because these modules are available in the 'centosplus' repo) I decided to build them and have them added to my repositories. The 32- & 64-bit repos now have packages for php-dbase, php-mcrypt, php-mhash, and php-tidy. A few dependencies for those packages popped up (such as libmcrypt, tidy, and mhash) so those have been included as well.
I've also received quite a few requests for a subversion binary package that will work with the newer version of httpd. I'm a bit busy right now, but I'd expect that I'll be able to get to those requests within the next few days.
Upgrading to MySQL 5.0.38 on RHEL and CentOS
March 26, 2007 by Jason · 14 Comments
Well, MySQL has released another Enterprise-only version. Not only are there no binary packages for the community, but they haven't even bothered to post a link to the source on the download page. Why they do this, I don't know, because it would really only take another 15 seconds to update the link to the source package on the community release page. As it stands, in order for someone to find out about this release they'd either have to be crawling the MySQL FTP site or watching the Enterprise edition release logs.
In any case, not to be left behind just because I "can't afford"/"refuse to pay" $600 (minimum) per server, I have once again built packages to provide a community release of the newest stable version of MySQL.
Continue Reading 'Upgrading to MySQL 5.0.38 on RHEL and CentOS' »
apr, apr-util, & pcre Updated
March 20, 2007 by Jason · 6 Comments
The files in my yum repository (32- and 64-bit) have been updated to the newest available versions of 'apr' (1.2.8), 'apr-util' (1.2.8), and 'pcre' (7.0). 'httpd' has also been rebuilt to take advantage of the newer versions. I would suggest that all users apply these updates.
We’ve got 64-bit binaries!
March 17, 2007 by Jason · 7 Comments
Well, I've finally gotten VMWare working again. Now that I've got a suitable 64-bit development environment running, I'm finally able to compile both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries for httpd, PHP, MySQL, etc.
If you run a 64-bit system and you haven't already taken a look, now might be a good time to check out my yum repository.