I’ve been given the task at work to mirror all of our websites on-to our local development server. I knew instantly that I needed to use something like rsync but was unsure how to use it. Also rsync runs over SSH and requires human intervention to enter the login password for the remote server over SSH. As I want the mirror to update daily I would need to setup a cron job but that could not work as the rsync command rqquires someone to type in a password.
After Googling I found this fantastic article at How to Forge: Mirror Your Web Site With rsync. It gives an extensive step-by-step guide on how to setup mirroring using rsync, configuring the servers so that rsync does not require a password when connecting to remote server, and how to setup the cron jobs.
Found a fantastic guide at crucialp.com on how to copy files in Linux from one server to another using various techniques including SCP, rsync and tar (over SSH).
If you have a Netgear WNR2000 router like I do you might find that some computers and devices won’t connect to the internet. You maybe receive messages like the following:
Windows: Limited or no Connectivity
or
OS X: Alert: No internet connection
I had this problem for weeks, I tried updating the firmware to the latest version but this had no effect. The only way I could fix the problem was by restarting the router. The router would then assign an IP addresses but then a few hours later the computers would drop off the wireless and then when they try to reconnect the router would not assign them an IP.
After reading countless posts on the internet I found the solution to my problem in a post on the Netgear forums.
So what’s the solution?
Well it turns out that one of the settings for the DHCP service on the router defaults to the wrong value. Under the LAN Setup section of the routers web administration interface The RIP Version setting was set to Disabled for me and according to the documentation the default should be RIP-2, see below snippet from the routers own documentation:
RIP Version. This controls the format and the broadcasting method of the RIP packets that the router sends. (It recognizes both formats when receiving.) By default, this is set to RIP-2.
RIP-1 is universally supported. RIP-2 carries more information
Changing the value of the RIP Version from Disabled to RIP_2B under the LAN Setup section fixed the issue for me. Hope this helps.
Everyday I use my iMac and I am more and more convinced that Mac’s are indeed better than Windows based PC’s. Having spent most of my life being a PC nerd I feel I can say this without bias.
As a Web Developer I have to make sure all my websites work on all web browsers. I have to make sure that the site I have designed looks great in Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and IE6, IE7 and IE8! Obviously IE is not available on the Mac so last year I decided to purchase Windows XP Professional and VMware Fusion. Taken from the VMware site about the product:
Seamlessly run your favorite Windows applications and devices, on any Intel-based Mac. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion is the easiest way to switch to Mac—letting you bring all of your Windows applications with you, making the most of your Windows software investment, while providing the perfect safety blanket for the switch.
What is great about VMware Fusion is that it is not entirely an emulator. The CPU is not emulated but instead uses virtualization. This means that Windows running under VMware is getting full power from the CPU. What is even better is as my iMac is dual core, VMware Fusion gives one core to OS X and the other to Windows. This results in almost now slowdown on the host or client operating systems.
VMware Fusion is built on the industry’s most mature, and powerful virtualization engine, under development for more than a decade. This powerful technology delivers the speed and stability you expect, with low impact on your Mac, letting you enjoy the full power of your hardware.
Using VMware Fusion allowed me to installed two copies of Windows XP one for IE6 and one for IE7/8. I then ran both versions of Windows XP at the same time each occupying one of OS X 10.5’s spaces (virtual desktops). That’s three OS’s at the same time! I was amazed at how smooth they all ran and how little impact running two XP’s had on OS X. I could switch between OS X, Windows XP (running IE8) and Windows XP (running IE6) seamlessly. I was even editing a large file in Adobe Fireworks in OS X and playing music in iTunes.
I challenge any off-the-shelf PC to do better. This is just one more thing that makes me realise why I could never go back to owning a PC.
Google have just announced that they are entering the Operating System market.
Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.
This is sure to ruffle some feathers at Microsoft and Apple. It seems that it will first be targeted at Netbooks and then at full desktop PC’s.
I found a very interesting article today at ExtremeTech about what the author thinks is the worst thing about Macs. I have to agree on most of the points in this article, but I don’t want to spoil it so if you have five minutes go read it yourself.
I’ve been going through my backup of my old blog and restoring all my old posts. When I came to this post it made me chuckle as when I originally wrote this article I agreed with most of what it says. Now that I have owned my own Mac for the last couple of years I can safely say that I love Mac’s and do believe they are better than PC’s for most things.
I know that my blog posts so far have been very Mac orientated, so not to break with tradition here’s another Mac related post. A colleague at work who’s a web/graphic designer gave me a link today to very neat program. This program shows a floating preview of incoming mail so that you can determine whether the message requires your immediate attention.
Mail.appetizer is a plug-in for Apple’s Mail and the current version is a beta, but so far a very stable one. There is also a panther version available.