Step 1

How to fix MySQL in Snow Leopard

Basically, thus:
Fix mysql.sock location in php.ini

In /etc/php.ini, replace the three occurences of /var/mysql/mysql.sock by /tmp/mysql.sock

• pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
• mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
• mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

Step 2

Quickly import a database into a local computer

When you want to import a large SQL query in phpMyAdmin, you can run into problems as the default upload size limit is restricted by whatever it is in the php.ini file – and often, you cannot change this or simply don’t want to. It tends to default to a measly 2MB.

However, there’s a feature that will allow you to FTP your SQL file to an upload directory of your choosing, and then instruct phpMyAdmin to run the query file. Here’s how you do it.

Open up your FTP program, and navigate to the phpmyadmin folder on your server. Inside that folder is a file called config.inc.php – open this up in your trusty text editor.

While you’re still in your FTP program – create a directory inside the phpmyadmin directory called upload:

Towards the bottom of the config file, you’ll notice a potential setting for $cfg['UploadDir']. Change it so that it reads the following:

Don’t forget to add the “./” before “upload” – this just tells the program to look in the existing directory (phpmyadmin) for a folder called “upload” – there’s no need to change file permissions or anything.

Save it, and then go back to your ftp program, and upload a sql file to that directory.

When you go to the Import tab in phpMyAdmin, you’ll now see a drop-down list of available files within your upload directory. Pick the one you want to run.

Step 3

Fix blank Wordpress pages

Not sure which of the two worked; probably the last item.

Edit wp-config.php

It should be possible to fix the site URL using a new feature -

Add these two lines to your wp-config.php, where “example.com” is the NEW location of your site.

define(’WP_HOME’,'http://example.com’);
define(’WP_SITEURL’,'http://example.com’);
That should be it. If it worked, stop reading this page now.

Thanks filosofo for the fix, implemented in 2.2.

Quick fix method

If you have access to the site via FTP, then this method will help you quickly get a site back up and running, if you changed those values incorrectly.

1. FTP to the site, and get a copy of the active theme’s functions.php file. You’re going to edit it in a simple text editor (like notepad) and upload it back to the site.

2. Add these two lines to the file, immediately after the initial “

update_option('siteurl','http://example.com/blog');
update_option('home','http://example.com/blog');
Use your own URL instead of example.com, obviously.

3. Upload the file back to your site, in the same location. FileZilla offers a handy "edit file" function to do all of the above rapidly, if you can use that, do so.

4. Load the login or admin page a couple of times. The site should come back up.

5. Repeat the above steps, but remove those lines. IMPORTANT: Do NOT leave those lines in there. Remove them immediately after the site is up and running again.

If there is no functions.php file in the theme: Create a new text file called "functions.php". Edit it with notepad, and add this text to it, using your own URL instead of example.com:

update_option('siteurl','http://example.com/blog');
update_option('home','http://example.com/blog');
Upload that to your theme directory, then proceed as stated above. Remove the file afterwards.

Step 4

Fix permissions issues to develop themes
Set file permissions

On Mac OS X (Leopard), the Apache HTTP Server runs under the user account, _www which belongs to the group _www. To allow WordPress to configure wp-config.php during installation, update files during upgrades, and update the .htaccess file for pretty permalinks, give the server write permission on the files.

One way to do this is to change the owner of the wordpress directory and its contents to _www. Keep the group as staff, a group to which your user account belongs and give write permissions to the group.

$ cd /Users//Sites
$ sudo chown -R _www wordpress
$ sudo chmod -R g+w wordpress

This way, the WordPress directories have a permission level of 775 and files have a permission level of 664. No file nor directory is world-writeable.

For reference, the Apache configuration file, httpd.conf, contains entries for the User and Group which the server will run as. The default setting is www for both.

For reference, on Mac OS X (Leopard), the user account information is located in the file:

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/_www.plist

This file shows that the _www and www name map to the same user account.

=====

Bonus 1: enable mod_rewrite if you use friendly URLs for posts and pages (e.g., “blog.com/dec/12″)
Here, under ‘Fixing Other Issues’.

In two places in the httpd.conf file. A third is for the CGI directory if you wish to fix that.

AllowOverride Not Enabled
Your server may not have the AllowOverride directive enabled. If the AllowOverride directive is set to None in your Apache httpd.config file, then .htaccess files are completely ignored. In this case, the server will not even attempt to read .htaccess files in the filesystem. When this directive is set to All, then any directive which has the .htaccess Context is allowed in .htaccess files. Example of enabled AllowOverride directive in httpd.config:

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All

You may also have to enable the AllowOverride directive in your DocumentRoot:

# … other directives…
AllowOverride All

Bonus 2
Character encoding showing up strange? The fix is here.

1. Upgrading to WP2.2 caused funny characters to appear.

FIX: Commenting these two lines out in wp-config.php fixed it.
// define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
// define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

2. WP2.2 links to single posts from archive pages (or blog home page or search page) fails because of the presence of double byte characters in posts.

FIX: In the admin pages, I went to Options/Permalinks and re-saved the page.

=====

That should get you going. Good luck.

Over the years, I’ve carried innumerable gadgets and the like, though I’m not the type that packs a dSLR, laptop, gaming device AND music player. In fact, I’ve traveled with only a camera and a few extra memory cards, and no more— in fact, I prefer traveling that way. But inevitably, you must take a phone to communicate with others, or an entertainment device, whether it’s a music or video player. And those items usually require portable battery power. Most of those devices have dedicated power bricks, and are rarely interchangeable. Over a few years, a few competitors have tried to make a universal charger to charge all your devices, including laptops. Unfortunately for Mac users, there is only one vendor who makes a cable for the Mac portables and universal chargers; though he does provide a DIY guide to modify your own for a few dollars. The bottom line is, what is the least amount of gadgets you can carry and still be functional on the road?

I’ll discuss the Kensington adapter here, though I do have experiences with the iGo and Solio chargers.

For my travel, I’ve gotten things down to a Leica M8 and a few lenses, a MacBook Air… and well, that’s it. Sometimes I just travel with my M8 and a few spare batteries and cards, and I’m perfectly happy. But for over a week, I drag along a laptop. I hated carrying my 15″ MacBook Pro, and the 13″ MacBook was still a burden. The MacBook Air (and a backup hard drive) is a perfect travel companion. I like the iPhone for its handy applications, but for international cellular voice, an unlocked GSM Blackberry is very handy. SIM cards are easily purchased in countries, and simply recharged. Pay-as-you go Blackberry service (BIS) is apparently even available in the UK.

How do you charge all these items?
There are basically two options: carry dedicated chargers or use a universal charging device. There is a distinct advantage to carrying all the myriad chargers: if one fails, you can still charge your other devices. You can charge one or most of your items at the same time. The advantage of having a universal charger is that you can somewhat simplify what you carry, but that can be negated by the unique approach to universal charging: the myriad tips. This all assumes of course, that your chargers can handle international voltages and power cycles.

First, you have to find the tips available for your small devices. Kensington has a limited selection of tips available, but iGo carries a larger selection, including one that charges the iPhone 3G. Kensington does offer a standard USB female tip, in which case you can plug in a USB cable to charge your device, if there is a corresponding cable available (for instance, Sony PSP mini USB –> USB, and is also the same as a Blackberry cable). So, what is the advantage then? Certainly it must be weight reduction? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

I weighed each of the setups to see what I would get in terms of weight savings. I removed some of the shared items (Leica battery charger, country power tip converters from Lewis and Clark (though the APC—and known by other names as well— universal plug adapter is decent), iPod cable, and AA charger for a mouse, if necessary), to see what the net weight of each setup would be. I was quite surprised to find out the dedicated charging options was quite a good weight-savings bargain!

This is the dedicated charging set. Shown: Monster Cable 3-outlet extender, Blackberry charger, iPhone charger, MacBook Air charger.  

Shown here is the Kensington Travel charger set. Included are items not all necessary for travel.

You may think, well, why bother? Indeed, it seems like a lot more stuff, but the key advantage of the universal charger is such that you can carry a few less pieces, if you simplify the setup. Above is the whole she-bang, and not necessary for travel; you don’t need to bring all of this. You could easily eliminate the extra Y-adapters (I’ll discuss these in a bit), and the car/plane adapter. Aha! the plane/car adapter that actually charges your laptop as well. There’s the distinct advantage: with Apple’s in-flight cable, you can only power your laptop, and no more. The windup cable is an added expense, as Kensington supplies a long, bound cable, about a meter long.

What’s with the Y-adapters?
With a single cable, you can charge one device; with the Y-adapter you can charge a laptop, and: a small device (like phone or iPod), or battery charger (provided you know what the right tip is, and that your battery charger has a DC input). You can also daisy-chain Y-adapters to your heart’s content to provide laptop power and as many devices as Y-adapters you have. You don’t need the Y-adapters, if you can mentally manage charging device juggling times during your travel down-time. Being a modular system provides lots of flexibility, but at the expense of lots of parts, and as we’ll see some additional weight and time-suck.

The flexibility of the universal charger.

Following are the results of the weigh-in for these two setups (they were weighed with a fairly accurate postal scale):

• Kensington (full): 1lb. 4oz.
• Kensington (no auto/air, ): 1lb. 2oz.
• Kensington (no auto/air, no y-adapters, tips only): 1lb. 1oz.
• Kensington (no auto/air, 1 y-adapter): 1lb.
• Dedicated chargers : 1lb.

The Kensington was, after all, a refurb on sale for about $20; along with the other tips and cables, the cost creeps to around $80; a second MacBook Air adapter and travel plug costs about as much. As you can see, the weight savings aren’t quite there, but not grossly heavier either. The advantage is that you have a great deal of charging options for devices and inputs. But ultimately, you have a single line of not-so-easily-replaceable failure— that is, everything from the power cable through the power brick to the extension cable, and tips. And in systems reliability design, this is generally a Bad Idea™. Ultimately, this information was intended to allow people to make their own decisions in regards to answer whether or not they need a single, or dedicated charger, and the distinct advantages and disadvantages they both come with.

1. Import database from live site using phpmyadmin or any other MySQL tools, if you want actual data.
2. Setup the database to mirror the settings as the live site (create a database, user, password, etc.)
3. For some odd reason, the default ‘localhost’ variable in wp-config.php was not working for me, but changing it to ‘127.0.0.1′ works.
4. Download site via FTP (1, 2) or methods (WebDAV) that work.
5. Install and run move script to localize the URLs.

Et voilà, you can now develop your local version.

All you have to do is create a Smart Playlist with some filtering. Simply use the same “Purchased” playlist, but filter it to only play your music:

Select “File”, “New Smart Playlist…”. Filter out the kind of media; since music files are AAC, and video is MPEG-4, just play AAC files.

Rename your new playlist by clicking on the “untitled smart playlist” once, and then again; perhaps, name it “recent music purchases”.

Easy.

I’ve spent a lot of time gathering bags (as my family will attest), to fill some odd need to carry things. In the end, I’ve realized multi-use (when possible) and lightness as major factors in gearing up for the road. I want a bag that’s lightweight, flexible, and offers smart storage.

The North Face Solaris 40

• 22″ x 13″ x 11″ (56 cm x 34 cm x 27 cm)
• 2450 in3 (40 liters)
• 3 lbs. 2 oz.

This seems large, but for a day pack, I love the size; it’s large enough for a long haul or short trip, but much more compact than the larger internal-frame back-country top-loaders. Not appearing here is the highly-adjustable, fully padded hip belt, which is the ideal place on which to rest your carry weight. I know not why this particular one I got has orange highlights, and not the typical all-black treatment like the typical North Face black colorway.

The neat thing about this particular pack is its bottom compartment, which allows for myriad items such as a charger, and other things that can be nudged around a bit, but separated by a trampoline (two clasps hold the divider in place). This area was designed for sleeping bags and the like. Though there’s plenty of room in the main compartment for a few days’ worth of clothes, footwear, and other miscellany for a tropical to semi-tropical environment, I don’t need much more than this.

Within this compartment, I store other goodies, like an extra foldable bag, a first aid kit, and some technical tools and gear. Some of this I assume can be bumped around a little better than say, delicate camera equipment and other precious goods. A softcover book would probably be perfect here. More things can certainly fit in here, so keep in mind that if you were going to utilize this area, I recommend keeping few items grouped together for better visibility and retrieval.

The neatest gear I carry may have to be the Solio Magnesium battery/charger, which conveniently takes iGo tips. Click on the images for more info on flickr. The cool thing about the charger is that it can be charged from the Sun for free, or plugged into the grid to be charged like a battery. It’s rated to give an iPod a full couple of charges. Another neat aspect as mentioned before is its ability to use iGo tips, which probably has the largest market share of universal chargers for multiple accessories and small electronic devices, such as iPods, phones, and the like. The USB adapter just makes it that much more compatible with USB-based chargers. The only drawback is that it doesn’t charge custom batteries from camera manufacturers, which means adding weight with another charger or packing extra batteries.

You can see a lot more in my flickr photostream, and read detailed info in the notes I’ve taken.

Overall, there’s a good sense of balance and my back thanks me for not carrying a shoulder bag every day with a backpack. As a bonus, the compartments are ideally placed for my usage, and I can find everything very quickly. Especially for the day, getting to and from the office with lunches and variable items is a lot easier with a high-capacity bag. It’s not Prada, so fashionistas need not apply. But it’s not from a 1980s outdoors catalog either, so while the styling is high-tech, it’s not overly, and tastelessly outdoorsy either.

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More info.

As a paean to the old adage goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… too much.

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