Figure out what that site and server are running

Submitted by Druss on Sat, 2011-08-13 03:45

If you administer or program websites etc., you often find yourself wondering what the specifics of a particular website or its server are. For e.g., you might want to know if a server is running on Linux, or if a site is based on Drupal or Mambo. The following sites all assist in this endeavour:

Google Chrome infected with the Facemoods toolbar and search engine

Submitted by Druss on Thu, 2011-08-11 00:38

I tried searching for something in Chrome a few minutes ago and found that my search was being handled by something sinisterly named Facemoods. Aghast, a few more checks confirmed that I had a toolbar installed on my system of the same name, the Chrome search engine was set to Facemoods by default and that I had an extension installed as well. A little more digging revealed that all this was jDownloader's fault as it installs the toolbar during its own installation process. Not good.

Removing all this junk involves the following steps:

Configuring Vim/Gvim to use spaces instead of TABs for indentation

Submitted by Druss on Wed, 2011-08-10 03:00

Some people like to indent their code using TABs. I used to like doing this. I still think that it's a good idea. But circumstances have dictated for the past several years that I need to indent using spaces instead. My favourite command-line editor in Linux and text editor in Windows is VIM / Gvim (where Gvim is basically Vim with a GUI). To configure this editor to override its default and use spaces instead of TABs for indentation, perform the following steps:

SotD: The Seatbelts: LIVE in Baghdad

Submitted by Druss on Wed, 2011-08-03 12:53

Today's Song of the Day is a track from the Cowboy Bebop! OST, off the disc titled No Disc. The song is heavy and yet sounds like a decidedly odd pot-pourri of speed metal, surf, punk and pop all mixed together in a batter of parody. The result is quite hilarious. However, the clincher is the lyrics (attributed to Gabriela Robin) which are included at the end of this post.

Windows 7: Program search box missing in Start Menu?

Submitted by Druss on Sun, 2011-07-31 11:59

I had to reinstall W7 yesterday and after some initial setup shenanigans, I found that the best feature of Windows 7 - the Start Menu program search field - was missing. These things are usually sorted via the Customize option which can be reached by right-clicking the Start Menu. However, I could find no option for the search field. After much hemming and hawing around, I decided to retrace my steps during the initial setup that I did and wonder upon wonder, organised strategies do work!

Drupal 7 and the "You do not have any administrative items" error

Submitted by Druss on Sat, 2011-07-30 11:27

If you've upgraded Drupal recently and noticed that the admin page is empty and returns a You do not have any administrative items error message, then this basically means that your menu table is a little wonky. Another tell-tale sign that you've got the same problem as I did is that the admin page will have the title, Administer rather than Administration. Fixing this is pretty straightforward, if a little painstaking. To do so, make sure that the Menu module is enabled and perform the following steps:

git-receive-pack not permitted error on pushing upstream

Submitted by Druss on Fri, 2011-07-08 22:53

If you ever run into a git-receive-pack not permitted error when using Git, chances are that it's a configuration issue on your end. In my case, I had cloned the repository using via https (which required authentication). However, pushing failed with the aforementioned error. This was due to the fact that I was only allowed to push via SSH. Therefore, once I changed the protocol in the configuration for my checkout, all was well again.

SSH password-less login using PuTTY on Windows

Submitted by Druss on Thu, 2011-06-30 00:27

So, if you, like me, have to resort to PuTTY sometimes to SSH into a Linux box, I'm sure that you have also subjected yourself to much gnashing of teeth at the lack of a Windows solution to password-less logins into your server. For the uninitiated, password-less SSH allows you to log into a server without manually authenticating yourself.

Linux: Finding all the members of a group

Submitted by Druss on Tue, 2011-05-17 11:00

Finding all the members of a group is an occasional requirement and while there are a number of ways to do this by parsing the /etc/group and /etc/password files, Debian/Ubuntu come with a simpler solution that performs all this skulduggery for you. This is the members function that can simply be installed using sudo apt-get install members . Once this is done, members of a group named foo can be listed using:

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