Upon calling Bell, I first had to wade through their highly annoying female computer system answering questions and giving my cell phone number. After 1 minute 30 seconds I got annoying and hit zero (0) to get a real person. It then took another two (2) minutes for the person to arrive online. Strangely enough, I then had to answer a bunch of questions and give this girl my cell phone number again. Tiffany--she also gave me her employee number, but so quickly I did not get it--then spent the next  four and a quarter (4.25) minutes letting me know that she can reverse the charges.

So, in the end, I spend 7.75 minutes to not pay for this erroneous usage at an amazing rate of $51.20 per MB. Curious, I wanted to find the area on the Bell.ca website where they tell you that you will pay this high rate for data usage, but the only thing I could find was a note saying:

• Additional data: 5¢/MB in Canada, $6/MB in the US

In the package details, they often had little numbers referencing small print. On numerous occasions, I could not find the small print, or, the number was larger than any number in the small print.

Bell, you have officially confused the hell out of me. Tell me why, exactly, I should get another phone from you?

If you ever get this, chances are you are suffering from Apache leaving a bunch of stray semaphore sets lying around after an attempted restart of apache. A semaphore in simple terms, is a lock on an operation. The fix, with many thanks to Carlos Rivero solved my problem instantly. Note that his solution does not fix the root of the problem, rather it simply gets you going again.

In terminal do the following using the ipcs app, which according to the man pages "ipcs - report XSI interprocess communication facilities status" . The -s flag will show a list of semaphores sets:

Most likely you will see a fairly large list here. You need too, and it is safe too, have these deleted. The following command will again do the trick:

Note: If your apache is running as nobody or another user, be sure to substitute that other user in place of  apache above.

<h2>Cannot create SSLMutex solution</h2>

At the heart of the problem, is most likely a poorly configured Apache server. By default, SSMutex is configured to the default setting, as it was on this one server of ours. If you read the Apache.org pages for mod_ssl configuration, they have this to say about the default setting:

<pre>

The following Mutex types are available:

none | no

This is the default where no Mutex is used at all. Use it at your own risk. But because currently the Mutex is mainly used for synchronizing write access to the SSL Session Cache you can live without it as long as you accept a sometimes garbled Session Cache. So it's not recommended to leave this the default. Instead configure a real Mutex.

</pre>

There are of course optional configuration settings. At the very least, it is suggested that you set SSLMutex to sem, which will let Apache choose which SSLMutex type to use.

You will most likely find this setting in the ssl.conf file located at /etc/httpd/conf.d.

How to bulk remove keywords in Aperture

If you import your library from iPhoto, there is a new keyword on every single photo called 'iPhoto Edited'. Removing this keyword is simple once you know how.

1. Click on 'Projects' Tab.
2. Click on 'All Photos'
3. Under View menu choose 'Browser Only'
4. Select All the photos - Command A.
5. Press 'Shift D' to show keyword controls
6. In the 'Add Keyword' field, enter the keyword you wish to remove
7. Then press 'Shift Return'

All of the photos you selected will have that keyword removed automatically.

Going to the menu 'Virtual Machine->Shut Down Guest' didn't do anything. The trick was to hold down the option key, which changes the Shut Down Guest to 'Power Off'. Selecting this worked fine.

Hope this tip helps someone else.

The long and short of it all is that a security hole in Flash is in the wild, and is unpatchable according to Adobe.

Mike Murray, the chief information security officer at Orlando, Fla.-based Foreground Security says "The best mitigation is to not use Flash, but we know that that's impossible for most users, since Flash is so widely used on the Web. Almost everyone using the Internet is vulnerable to a Web site that allows content to be updated inappropriately. That's not hyperbole, it's just fact. This has the potential to affect any social media site, any career site, any dating site, many retail sites and many cloud applications. That's why this attack is so serious. End users would never know they got exploited."

To read all about this, and how it might affect you, please take a moment to get educated and read the story at ComputerWorld.com.

Working in good condition. eStudio 810 digital copier / printer, Black and White.

Included:

• New toner cartridge.
• Bulk paper feeder (5000 sheets)
• 3 paper trays (programmable)
• Inserter
• Hole punch
• Stitching unit
• Collator
• Scanning board (scan direct to PDF / email / or local box)
• GA1120 Adobe postscript board with onboard harddrive

This printer will print 81 pages per minute. Originally purchased for my company and no longer required due to change in business plan.

Printer is in excellent working condition, clean and low page count (721257). Imaging drum was installed at about 600K impressions and leaves no marks. Glass is clean and unmarked.

For more details and photos, please see my ad on Kijiji.ca.

This is a quick hack and a ping server list. The hack is to allow ping servers that require a port number that has more than 4 digits (i.e. icerocket.com requires port 10800). The list is mostly from this post, and has been edited due to a couple of bad reponses.

Please backup everything before doing these changes! I mean it!

The Hack:
First you need to update the DB table for pings so that you can store ports that are longer than 4 digits. This change will not delete anything from your databases.

The next hack is to the core of EE (I hate doing this but don't know of a way to make a plugin for this).

Using your favourite editor, simply alter one line in /system/cp/cp.publish_ad.php. Change line 9154 (or there abouts) from:

to:

That's it! Now you can enter ports with more than 4 digits in them.

Here is the ping server list as promised formatted in MySQL so that you can easily import it into your ExpressionEngine install. If you already have ping servers installed, this list will not remove them, so you may end up with dupes.

If you wish to wipe out clean your list of ping servers, first issue this in MySQL:

From what I see, setting the member_id to zero, will allow for the ping servers to be viewed and used by any member with publishing rights. Otherwise, I presume you would set the member_id to a specific user. site_id = 1 is for single sites. If you have a MSM with more than one site, you will need to adjust as necessary.

Hopefully this helps some folks out.

Just to clarify before you start reading, I love Apple and their computers, and this is one of the first times I have experienced such poor service. I did call customer support, twice, and they apparently had no other solution for me. The following is what I sent to Apple, based on my latest experience with their online store.

-------------------------
I am an Apple user since the Mac Classic. I currently own an iMac, Mac Book Pro, Mac Book and the latest Mac Pro. I love Mac. Normally I like the way Apple online store works, and as a rule place all my orders through the Apple online store.

My Story:
I bought a digital Canon XSi last year and recently started learning how to actually use it. One great feature is RAW format. Now, as I take more photos, and better photos, I want to learn how to edit the photos and keep better track of them. iPhoto wasn't cutting it for me, which left me with two options: Adobe Lightroom and Apples Aperture. Being a Mac fan, and finding Adobe's software rather cumbersome and over priced (though I do own two copies of CS4 Premium as I require it for my work), I decided to try out Apple's Aperture Trial.

I find your Aperture software really nice, and handling my photos is pretty simple. Most importantly, I could now adjust with a certain level of professionalism, my photos in RAW format. I took a weeks worth of my nights to go through my entire collection of roughly 4000 photos, cleaning up, re-organizing and categorizing. When the trial expired, I knew I wanted to own the software.

My issue begins:
I went to the Apple.ca online store to purchase Aperture. Apple has the option for me to order a boxed version of Aperture with delivery time of a few days, or the ability to order just the serial number, to get me up and running right away. Since my Mom had just sent me around 80 photos, and I wanted to view and organize them right away, getting the serial number without delay was a good thing. I placed my order, and in usual Apple style, an email from Apple arrived within minutes.

The email did not contain a key for Aperture, so the logical assumption was that it would arrive in a separate email. Just to be sure, I logged into my Apple.ca store account suggested in the email, and saw under Downloadable Software Purchase History that my order was successful, but still no serial number. After 4 hours, I checked again, still no key. The next morning, surely the key would be there, but alas, still nothing. I called Apple support. The friendly person there said I needed to wait 24 hours for my serial number to appear. So I waited 24 hours plus an additional 12 hours just to be sure. I checked my account again. Still no key, and no email from Apple. I called Apple customer support again.

Ian, the friendly Apple customer service rep came online, to whom I explained the issue at hand. He looked at whatever computer screen Apple Customer Service reps looked at and said he would speak to someone in another department. Two minutes passed. Ian came back on the phone, and said that I had ordered my software using a different login, and would I please make a new account to access my code. This sounded rather strange, so I explained that I could see the order in my current account, just no key. His response was, "I am not sure what else we can do." The situation wasn't going well at this point, and I was getting frustrated, so I suggested he cancel my order and I would order the box set. Ian then typed something and said, "Thank you for calling Apple Customer Support how did you find my service today" (something similar).

Unsure of what Ian had actually done for me, I asked him, "What did you do actually to help me?". He clarified that he had indeed cancelled my order and within 5 days I would receive a notice to that effect, and my credit card would be reimbursed.

My dilemma:
I need to wait for my credit from Apple, and then place a new order for Aperture in a box. SIn roughly two weeks time I will be able to use Aperture and look at my mom's photos. With today's technology, I find it strange that Apple was not able to simply give me a key over the phone, or fix the problem and send me the key I paid for.

Be assured that my confidence on the Apple store has been shaken. My question at this point is, do I wait two weeks, or do I try Adobe's Lightroom? I am finding it difficult to think all the work I put into using and learning Aperture is just a waste, but at the same time, waiting another two weeks is going to just frustrate me endlessly.

If someone at Apple is listening and actual reads these emails, I would appreciate some sort of a sign, or acknowledgement. If you can actually do something to help expedite the delivery of a software key for Aperture, that would be great too.
-------------------------

Has anyone else had any issues with ordering downloadable software keys from Apple's store. Or is this bad customer experience from Apple a one off?

[Updated: 2009/09/25 1:45pm]
Wow, some faith restored in Apple. After emailing them this morning at 10:58AM, I got a call from them at 1:46PM promising to look into the situation and call me back today. How do ya like them Apples!

Travel with science editor Susan Watts to World War II code-breaking centre Bletchley Park. Visit where Turing worked to find out more about the man and speak to some of his relatives.

The solution is really quite simple. In Adobe's infinite wisdom, they don't allow parameters in the URL when trying to load the XMLRPC connection file. ExpressionEngine uses something like yoursite.com/index.php?ACT=10&ID=1 as the way to connect. If you look at the server logs, Contribute will truncate your URL to just /index.php.

The solution is rather simeple, and requires only that you can modify your .htaccess file. Simply add a line like this:

The 'yoursite.com/?ACT=10&id=1 should be replaced with whatever URL ExpressionEngine gives you after turning on, and setting up the Metaweblog API feature in ExpressionEngine Modules. For a complete how-to on setting this up, check out Ryan Irelan's excellent screencast on setting up external editors. If you aren't familiar with Ryan's screencasts on ExpressionEngine, now is the time to check those out too. At just $5 a pop, there is something for everyone in them. I have been using ExpressionEngine for two years and still learnt a lot of things.