Mysql error

DB Error: unknown error
delete from cache where mod_title = 'layout' [nativecode=1030 ** Got error 127 from table handler]

I got this error at the Legacy Farm website his morning on the mysql database used by phpwebsite. I ran a check via cpanel on the database and an error popped up complaining about the cache table. I ran a repair via cpanel to fix this problem. I have had this problem before and fixed it the same way. I do not know what triggers this problem but I found a can minimize the effects of it by checking the website each morning.

Knoppix 3.6 and the nodma problem

Today I burned a Knoppix cd and did some testing. I used a demo of Nero Burning to burn the CD. When I booted it hung when I used the defaults. I checked the FAQ and it recommended using the nodma cheatcode. Sure enough it worked but the disk access was pitifully slow. After some research I found this page at the LinuxDevCenter. All of their recommendations worked for me but found

hdparm -X66 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 /dev/hda

seemed to work the best for me. I will probably have to try a few more tests but the disk access was very respectable. After a little more research I found out that I could go to either -X68 which supports ATA66 or -X69 which supports ATA100.

Pasting rich text in Firefox

It took me awhile to find the correct instructions for allowing pasting of rich text in Firefox. I was trying to enable the pasting of rich text into htmlarea/fckeditor box and I kept getting a security popup from Firefox. The page it referred me to a mozilla page and those instructions did not work for Firefox. After I searched for "user.js firefox", I found a page that said Firefox looks for the user.js file in a different directory than Mozilla. When I placed the modified user.js in the correct directory, I could paste rich text.

Zoomtown is working!

This morning I hooked up the DSL modem and line filters I received from Cincinnati Bell and ran the installation disk. They told me to wait until 5pm but I thought I would go ahead and give it a try. After a few minutes everything seemed to be working except my access to the internet. I did a little investigating but did not find anything significant so I called tech support. The support person confirmed that my connection was running and said I should find the connection under the High Speed Internet group of network connections. There it was. Somehow I had overlooked it. I ran ICW so my ISA firewall would recognize the new connection and now I am zooming around the internet. This is slick! My dial-up modem is retired.

Moving up to DSL…maybe!

Maybe, just maybe, I will have a functional DSL line on Monday. I live on a farm and until recently I was too far from the telephone exchange. I was also too far from the road for cable. Yesterday I was listening to a voice mail from Cincinnati Bell and they were offering to connect me up to their DSL at an intro price of $10/month for the next three months. I was surprised. I called the number they provided to see whether something had changed or whether they had made a mistake. They said my address was in their system as a valid address so I took them up on their offer. I would be more suspicious except that my dial-up speeds have been consistently better for the last two months. I suspect they made a hardware change to support a new subdivision down the road. Anyway, I will know for sure next week.

WordPress Updated to 1.2.1

I updated WordPress to 1.2.1. I copied my modified index.php file to another directory and then used Fantastico to update WordPress. I renamed the new index.php file to a different name and then copied my modified file back into the directory.

While I was messing with stuff I decided to add Kitten’s Spam Words plugin and the common spam words to my WordPress configuration. I have been getting several online poker comments in the last couple of days so I hope these measures will keep the blog from getting cluttered with spam.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-039: Vulnerability in ISA Server 2000 and Proxy Server 2.0 Could Allow Internet Content Spoofing (888258)

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-039: Vulnerability in ISA Server 2000 and Proxy Server 2.0 Could Allow Internet Content Spoofing (888258)

Executive Summary:

This update resolves a newly-discovered, privately reported vulnerability. The vulnerability is documented in the Vulnerability Details section of this bulletin. This vulnerability could enable an attacker to spoof trusted Internet content.

We recommend that customers install the update at the earliest opportunity.

HOW TO: Restore a User Profile in Windows 2000

HOW TO: Restore a User Profile in Windows 2000
SUMMARY
This step-by-step article describes how to restore a user profile as well as the following user profile items:

  • Documents
  • Desktop settings
  • Favorites
  • Cookies

My problems with Adobe’s backup finally caught up to me. The problem occurred when Photoshop Elements was insistent about backing up my photos. I told it to back up my catalog to the My Documents directory. The My Documents directory is redirected to the file server so it should have plenty of space. I forgot that I have offline access to those files and my computer would synchronize with the file server at some point. The real problem was that I did not know that I had a video in the Album catalog. The reason the catalog backup was taking a lot of time and disk space was because it was backing up a several gigabyte video file. I had killed the backup a couple of days ago when it was taking so long. When I logged off my computer it attempted to synchronize with the file server and copy a bunch of file from the file server to my computer. It used up all of my diskspace before failing. I logged back on and the operating system created a new profile for me because I had so little disk space. Now I was screwed! My settings were no longer associated with my userid so many things did not work(e.g. Internet access). I eventually got things working again but it was ugly. Today I was finally able to make some headway researching this problem and found this article. I am going to know a lot more about profiles by the time I finally fix this. I will probably try and clean up the orphan profiles before I put this one to bed.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0

I finally bit the bullet and bought a copy of Photoshop Elements 3.0. I have been using the trial version of Album for most of my photos and wanted to upgrade. Although I have used Fireworks and Corel PhotoPaint for fixing photos in the past, the combination of Photoshop Elements and Album will save me time. Autotfix did a really nice job on most of my problem photos. My complaints are:

  1. It takes a long time to load. Then it insists I see a menu I would prefer to skip.
  2. It was insistent about backing up my catalog and then took a very long time to back it up. The backup ended up to be 7.5 GB. I am not sure whether I like this.
  3. I also had to change my temp file back to my main drive since I was running out of space when editing a photo(?).

Eclipse update snafu

I finally updated Eclipse to 3.0.1. The first and second times I did this Eclipse would not restart. It would refer me to a log file for further info. In the log file I would find several messages like:

!MESSAGE Bundle update@/y:/Downloads/eclipse-SDK-3.0-win32/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.cdt.core.win32_2.0.1/ [7] was not resolved.

The first time this happened to me I re-installed Eclipse after a quick search for possible fixes turned up nothing. Today I looked a little harder and found a recommendation to delete everything in the configuration directory except the config.xml file. This forces Eclipse to re-index the plugins. The error above refers to the C/C++ Eclipse plugin so re-indexing the plugins could be a likely fix. Now Eclipse would start. Since my configuration checks for updates, Eclipse asked me if I wanted to update my installation. The installation process evidently knew it had the most current version of the files so it did not download the files again but proceeded directly to installing the files. When the installation process completed it asked to restart the workspace. This time Eclipse restarted without errors and the installation was up to date.

I am back at Article Manager 2.7

I found several bugs in Article Manager 2.8 yesterday so I went back to 2.7. This first bug appears on the home page as a separate block. It says it cannot find an article in a red font and then proceeds to create normal looking Article Manger block below it with all of the current articles. Then I tried to create a new article it said the template was missing. I do not know why I did not find these bugs earlier.

While trying to identify the source of the bug, I ended up screwing up the tables and had to selectively restore the tables from backup. It sure is nice that bluehost.com performs daily, weekly, and monthly backups.

Article Manager 2.8

Eloi has continued to refine Article Manager. The latest verions is 2.8. I have used it on two sites and I like the results. Most of the documents I want to publish fit into the style he supports so we are a good match. I am sure I could use a different style with Article Manager but I feel a need to publish more before going back to playing.

Winpt & Gnupg updated

I spent a few minutes on Friday fiddling with Gnupg and Winpt. Winpt is the Windows Privacy tools which is a front-end to Gnupg. I think I got started in this direction when I saw a post about someone will be signing all future updates using gpg. So I went back to check on Winpt and Gnupg and found that both had been updated. I played a little bit and learned a lot about the correct way to use them. I was proud that I actually remembered my passphrase so I could validate some keys. I also ended up opening up port 11371 so the keyserver query would work correctly.

Clipboard Utilities

I finally got fed up with the wrapped links in mailing lists so I installed a clipboard utility. I briefly looked at the popular Clipboard Buddy. I ended up installing Yankee Clipper III. Yankee Clipper is a little newer and a much smaller download. After fiddling with it I was able to successfully edit the wrapped link into a usable link and launch it. Mission accomplished!

Moving Data Folders for Windows SBS 2003

Download details: Moving Data Folders for Windows SBS 2003

I have been looking for a document like this. The default installation and the OEM installation of SBS2K-SBS2K3 puts everything on the same partition as the operating system. I have already moved some stuff(e.g. SQL Server) by researching it. This document has instructions on how to move several other items and it has all the instructions in one place. Thanks go to someone on the SBS mailing list for mentioning this document.

Installing Eclipse

I do not know what possesed me to download and install Eclipse but I did. It was probably curiosity since I have always had a soft spot for development. Since Eclipse was recently featured in Dr. Dobbs it was probably inevitable that I check it out.

The download(85MB) was taking forever so I let it run overnight. When I unzipped the file I found out that there wasn’t anything to install. Oh, yea! This is java! I started the program and after a minute I was up and running. Java is slow to load but has adequate performance when loaded. The IDE is very nice and I really like the idea of using one ide to support multiple programming environments. Almost everything was there. I wanted the C/C++ compiler and the subversion plug-ins so I had to setup a couple of remote sites to download the plug-ins. For kicks I created and ran the Hello world program. Despite all this effort I only wasted an hour or so. Pretty cool!