The sudo command checks the permission of the /etc/sudoers file and also the contents of /etc/sudoers.d/ before allowing you to use the sudo command. For example you might be warned: or perhaps: Therefore, if you don’t have root login (which is generally good security practise) then you might not be able to change the permission … Read more
The Oxford to Heathrow Airline Bus doesn’t go to Heathrow Terminal 4. You get dropped off at Terminal 5 and then need to make your own way to Terminal 4. I found it super confusion and therefore thought I would write some directions to Terminal 4 are to: 1) Go to Level 0 2) Go … Read more
One of our Apache 2.4 web servers strangely stopped working and didn’t want to come back up. I tried to start it but it came back with a vague error message: A quick look in /var/log/apache2/error.log just showed nothing useful: So, I ran the Apache configuration check tool on the configuration files but the syntax … Read more
I’ve been working on a commercial project where we would have liked to use Ghostscript. To use ghostscript in a commercial settings (i.e. to distribute it alongside binary code) you need to have a license. At the time of writing (September 2014) – the costs for this are rather prohibitive: There is a minimum $8000 … Read more
It’s a classic mistake. You buy an ipod, import all your music into itunes, sync it onto the ipod… then at some point loose the computer. Suddenly, your ipod has all of your music on it and you can’t get it off. Don’t panic… there is hope but it does cost you $35. Yes, there … Read more
If you need to check that your DNS is setup correctly then I can highly recommend using IntoDNS. They provide a brilliant, simple and accurate health check for your DNS servers. For example, here is the health report for my website: http://intodns.com/randomhacks.co.uk Thanks guys!
I’ve been using DynECT for our corporate DNS for several years. I choose it because it has a well designed and easy to use interface. However, over the last few months, they have put their prices up and set new query limits. This means that DynECT are now completely uncompetitive. After looking around, we have … Read more
I just upgraded MySQL from 5.5 to 5.6 and changed all the tables in the PHPBB3 database into InnoDB tables. I did this because InnoDB is faster if you have lots of concurrent read / writes and MySQL 5.6 finally support FULLTEXT searching using InnoDB. However, I made a mistake and did the conversion to … Read more
Ubuntu 14.04 comes with both MySQL 5.5 and MySQL 5.6 and by default uses MySQL 5.5. However, you can upgrade to MySQL 5.6 by doing the following steps: Step 1 – Take a backup! Step 2 – Remove the old MySQL I recommend using ‘apt-get purge’ rather than ‘apt-get remove’ to uninstall the old MySQL … Read more
I looked at buying a black Seat Ibiza with number plate GN10KJZ. I did a HPI check and it came up clear. However, while looking through the car manual, I found a memo from ASM Autos which are salvage and breakers yard. I then looked under at the engine compartment and found that substantial repair … Read more