Posts Tagged ‘platform’
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 
saidar is a text based ncurses program to display live statistics about general system health.
It displays in one refreshable screen (similar to top) statistics about server state of:
CPU, Load, Memory, Swap, Network, I/O disk operations
Besides that saidar supports a ncurses console colors, which makes it more funny to look at.
Saidar extracts the statistics for system state based on libgstrap cross platform statistics library about pc system health.
On Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS Linuxes saider is available for install straight from distribution repositories.
On Debian and Ubuntu saidar is installed with cmd:
debian:~# apt-get install saidar
...
On CentOS and Fedora saidar is bundled as a part of statgrab-tools rpm package.
Installing it on 64 bit CentOS with yum is with command:
[root@centos ~]# yum install statgrab-tools.x86_64
Saidar is also available on FreeBSD as a part of the /usr/ports/devel/libgstrab, hence to use on my FreeBSD I had to install the libgstrab port:
freebsd# cd /usr/ports/devel/libstatgrab
freebsd# make install clean
Here is saidar running on my Desktop Debian on Thinkpad in color output:
debian:~# saidar -c
I've seen many people, who use various shell scripts to output system monitoring information, this scripts however are often written to just run without efficiency in mind and they put some let's say 1% extra load on the system CPU. This is not the case with saidar which is written in C and hence the program is optimized well for what it does.
Update: Next to saidar I recommend you check out Slurm (Real Time Network Interface Monitor) it can visualizes network interface traffic using ascii graph such as on top of the article. On Debian and Ubuntu Slurm is available and easily installable via simple:
apt-get install –yes slurm
Tags: CentOS, cleanHere, cpu load, cross platform, Desktop, desktop system, Disk, disk operations, distribution, extracts, fedora, freebsd, health, information, libgstrab, libgstrap, Linux, Load, load memory, memory, Monitor General Server Desktop, package, platform, ports, repositories, root, rpm, saidar, saider, screen, server desktop, server state, Shell, shell scripts, Slurm Real Time Network Interface Monitor, statistics library, system cpu, system health, text, thinkpad, Ubuntu, use, yum
Posted in FreeBSD, Linux, Monitoring, Networking, System Administration | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 27th, 2015 
On our Debian / CentOS / Ubuntu Linux and Windows servers we're running multiple MySQL servers and our customers sometimes need to access this servers.
This is usually problem because MySQL Db servers are running in a DMZ Zone with a strong firewall and besides that for security reasons SQLs are configured to only listen for connections coming from localhost, I mean in config files across our Debian Linux servers and CentOS / RHEL Linux machines the /etc/mysql/my.cnf and /etc/my.cnf the setting for bind-address is 127.0.0.1:
[root@centos ~]# grep -i bind-address /etc/my.cnf
bind-address = 127.0.0.1
##bind-address = 0.0.0.0
For source code developers which are accessing development SQL servers only through a VPN secured DMZ Network there are few MySQL servers witha allowed access remotely from all hosts, e.g. on those I have configured:
[root@ubuntu-dev ~]# grep -i bind-address /etc/my.cnf
bind-address = 0.0.0.0
However though clients insisted to have remote access to their MySQL Databases but since this is pretty unsecure, we decided not to configure MySQLs to listen to all available IP addresses / network interfaces.
MySQl acess is allowed only through PhpMyAdmin accessible via Cleint's Web interface which on some servers is CPanel and on other Kloxo (This is open source CPanel like very nice webhosting platform).
For some stubborn clients which wanted to have a mysql CLI and MySQL Desktop clients access to be able to easily analyze their databases with Desktop clients such as MySQL WorkBench there is a "hackers" like work around to create and use a MySQL Tunnel to SQL server from their local Windows PCs using standard OpenSSH Linux Client from Cygwin, MobaXterm which already comes with the SSH client pre-installed and has easy GUI interface to create SSH tunnels or eventually use Putty's Plink (Command Line Interface) to create the tunnel
Anyways the preferred and recommended (easiest) way to achieve a tunnel between MySQL and local PC (nomatter whether Windows or Linux client system) is to use standard ssh client and below command:
ssh -o ServerAliveInterval=10 -M -T -M -N -L 3308:localhost:3306 your-server.your-domain.com
By default SSH tunnel will keep opened for 3 minutes and if not used it will automatically close to get around this issue, you might want to raise it to (lets say 15 minutes). To do so in home directory user has to add in:
~/.ssh/config
ServerAliveInterval 15
ServerAliveCountMax 4
Note that sometimes it is possible ven though ssh tunnel timeout value is raised to not take affect if there is some NAT (Network Adress Translation) with low timeout setting on a firewall level. If you face constant SSH Tunnel timeouts you can use below bash few lines code to auto-respawn SSH tunnel connection (for Windows users use MobaXterm or install in advance bash shell cygwin package):
while true
do
ssh -o ServerAliveInterval=10 -M -T -M -N -L 3308:localhost:3306 your-server.your-domain.com
sleep 15
done
Below is MySQLBench screenshot connected through server where this blog is located after establishing ssh tunnel to remote mysql server on port 3308 on localhost
There is also another alternative way to access remote firewall filtered mysql servers without running complex commands to Run a tunnel which we recommend for clients (sql developers / sql designers) by using HeidiSQL (which is a useful tool for webdevelopers who has to deal with MySQL and MSSQL hosted Dbs).
To connect to remote MySQL server through a Tunnel using Heidi:
In the ‘Settings’ tab
1. In the dropdown list of ‘Network type’, please select SSH tunnel
2. Hostname/IP: localhost (even you are connecting remotely)
3. Username & Password: your mysql user and password
Next, in the tab SSH Tunnel:
1. specify plink.exe or you need to download it and specify where it’s located
2. Host + port: the remote IP of your SSH server(should be MySQL server as well), port 22 if you don’t change anything
3. Username & password: SSH username (not MySQL user)
Tags: cnf, configured, debian linux, developers, firewall, ip, linux windows, localhost, localhost port, mysql servers, network interfaces, package, platform, Plink Command Line Interface, root admin, running, security, source code, ssh client, Username Password, Windows
Posted in Everyday Life, MySQL, System Administration, Various, Web and CMS | No Comments »
Friday, February 20th, 2015 
If you're running a WordPress blog or Website where you have enabled comments for a page and your article or page is well indexing in Google (receives a lot of visit / reads ) daily, your site posts (comments) section is surely to quickly fill in with a lot of "Thank you" and non-sense Spam comments containing an ugly link to an external SPAM or Phishing website.
Such URL links with non-sense message is a favourite way for SPAMmers to raise their website incoming (other website) "InLinks" and through that increase current Search Engine position.
We all know a lot of comments SPAM is generally handled well by Akismet but unfortunately still many of such spam comments fail to be identified as Spam because spam Bots (text-generator algorithms) becomes more and more sophisticated with time, also you can never stop paid a real-persons Marketers to spam you with a smart crafted messages to increase their site's SEO ).
In all those cases Akismet WP (Anti-Spam) plugin – which btw is among the first "must have" WP extensions to install on a new blog / website will be not enough ..
To fight with worsening SEO because of spam URLs and to keep your site's SEO better (having a lot of links pointing to reported spam sites will reduce your overall SEO Index Rate) many WordPress based bloggers, choose to not use default WordPress Comments capabilities – e.g. use exnternal commenting systems such as Disqus – (Web Community of Communities), IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, Vicomi …
However as Disqus and other 3rd party commenting systems are proprietary software (you don't have access to comments data as comments are kept on proprietary platform and shown from there), I don't personally recommend (or use) those ones, yes Disqus, Google+, Facebook and other comment external sources can have a positive impact on your SEO but that's temporary event and on the long run I think it is more advantageous to have comments with yourself.
A small note for people using Disqos and Facebook as comment platforms – (just imagine if Disqos or Facebook bankrupts in future, where your comments will be? 🙂 )
So assuming that you're a novice blogger and I succeeded convincing you to stick to standard (embedded) WordPress Comment System once your site becomes famous you will start getting severe amount of comment spam. There is plenty of articles already written on how to remove URL comment form spam in WordPress but many of the guides online are old or obsolete so in this article I will do a short evaluation on few things I tried to remove comment spam and how I finally managed to disable URL link spam to appear on site.
1. Hide Comment Author Link (Hide-wp-comment-author-link)
This plugin is the best one I found and I started using it since yesterday, I warmly recommend this plugin because its very easy, Download, Unzip, Activate and there you're anything typed in URL field will no longer appear in Posts (note that the URL field will stay so if you want to keep track on person's input URL you can get still see it in Wp-Admin). I'm using default WordPress WRC (Kubrick), but I guess in most newer wordpress plugins is supposed to work. If you test it on another theme please drop a comment to inform whether works for you. Hide Comment Author Link works on current latest Wordpress 4.1 websites.
A similar plugin to hide-wp-author-link that works and you can use is Hide-n-Disable-comment-url-field, I tested this one but for some reason I couldn't make it work.
Whatever I type in Website field in above form, this is wiped out of comment once submitted 🙂
2. Disable hide Comment URL (disable-hide-comment-url)
I've seen reports disable-hide-comment-url works on WordPress 3.9.1, but it didn't worked for me, also the plugin is old and seems no longer maintaned (its last update was 3.5 years ago), if it works for you please please drop in comment your WP version, on WP 4.1 it is not working.
3. WordPress Anti-Spam plugin
WordPress Anti-Spam plugin is a very useful addition plugin to install next to Akismet. The plugin is great if you don't want to remove commenter URL to show in the post but want to cut a lot of the annoying Spam Robots crawling ur site.
Anti-spam plugin blocks spam in comments automatically, invisibly for users and for admins.
- no captcha, because spam is not users' problem
- no moderation queues, because spam is not administrators' problem
- no options, because it is great to forget about spam completely
Plugin is easy to use: just install it and it just works.
Anti bot works fine on WP 4.1
4. Stop Spam Comments
Stop Spam Comments is:
- Dead simple: no setup required, just activate it and enjoy your spam-free website.
- Lightweight: no additional database queries, it doesn't add script files or other assets in your theme. This means your website performance will not be affected and your server will thank you.
- Invisible by design: no captchas, no tricky questions or any other user interaction required at all.
Stop Spam Comments works fine on WP 4.1.
I've mentioned few of the plugins which can help you solve the problem, but as there are a lot of anti-spam URL plugins available for WP its up to you to test and see what fits you best. If you know or use some other method to protect yourself from Comment Url Spam to share it please.
Import thing to note is it usually a bad idea to mix up different anti-spam plugins so don't enable both Stop Spam Comments and WordPress Anti Spam plugin.
5. Comment Form Remove Url field Manually
This (Liberian) South) African blog describes a way how to remove URL field URL manually
In short to Remove Url Comment Field manually either edit function.php (if you have Shell SSH access) or if not do it via Wp-Admin web interface:
WordPress admin page –> Appearance –> Editor
Paste at the end of file following PHP code:
add_filter('comment_form_default_fields', 'remove_url');
function remove_url($fields)
{
if(isset($fields[‘url’]))
unset($fields[‘url’]);
return $fields;
}
Now to make changes effect, Restart Apache / Nginx Webserver and clean any cache if you're using a plugin like W3 Total Cache plugin etc.
Other good posts describing some manual and embedded WordPress ways to reduce / stop comment spam is here and here, however as it comes to my blog, none of the described manual (code hack) ways I found worked on WordPress v. 4.1.
Thus I personally stuck to using Hide and Disable Comment URL plugin to get rid of comment website URL.
Tags: article, bloggers, btw, data, interface, lot, page, php, platform, problem, running, Search Engine, SEO, spam, Spam Robots, Stop Spam Comments, theme, URLs, use, website, Wordpress Comments, wordpress plugins, wp
Posted in Curious Facts, Various, Web and CMS, Wordpress | 2 Comments »
Monday, May 12th, 2014 
As part of my passion for ASCII art, I've found another interesting tool useful to ASCII art maniacs like me, the tool is called ditta and is able to convert manually drawn ASCII art diagrams to graphics, below is tool description from my debian apt-cache as well as a screenshot:
apt-cache show ditaa|grep -i ditaa -A 4
Package: ditaa
Priority: optional
Section: graphics
Installed-Size: 164
Maintainer: David Paleino <dapal@debian.org>
—
Filename: pool/main/d/ditaa/ditaa_0.9+ds1-2_all.deb
Size: 107270
MD5sum: 05ec52d9274b954b053f1835ca5d7a7f
SHA1: 792d91d05fff2a2a19c0ebce317351d138436c18
SHA256: c4319d32e7918aab782e2f38cdad745bc9023f9f09a999033d983095ee4f70d5
—
DiTAA is a small command-line utility that can convert diagrams drawn using
ASCII art ("drawings" that contain characters that resemble lines, like | /
and -), into proper bitmap graphics.
.
DiTAA also uses special markup syntax to increase the possibilities of shapes
and symbols that can be rendered.
Homepage: http://ditaa.org
To install ditaa on Debian and Ubuntu Linux:
debian:~# apt-get install --yes ditaa
...
Ditaa text diagram to Graphics converter is also available in Fedora Linux and in Source RPMs to be used on Redhat Based RPM distributions.
To install in most of RPM based Linuxes:
[root@fedora:~]# yum install -y ditaa
…
For most people probably Ditta will not be of any value except as a PoC and of a Hack value just like Ditaa's home page suggests. Nomatter that Ditta is cool but has just 2 drawback it doesn't understand non-latin characters i.e. Cyrillic and requires Java Virtual Machine .. but if you're a real geek you will do the sacrifice to install a whole bunch of the heavy java for the sake of some oldschool fun 🙂 Being written in Java makes Ditta multi-platform, but you will need a Java VM version of at least 1.6 (it doesn't work with Java 1.5).
The format Ditta understands is close to HTML
<ditaa [optional parameters]>
... (some ditaa-code) ...
</ditaa>
There are also special tags understood by Ditta which are automatically turned into shaped graphical buttons and forms.
Not all shape selector tags are documented on the ditaa site. A quick source scan revealed:
| tag | Description |
| {c} | decision(Choice) |
| {d} | document |
| {io} | input/output, parallelogram |
| {mo} | manual operation |
| {o} | ellipse, circle |
| {s} | storage |
| {tr} | trapezoid (looks like an inverted {mo} ) |
Here is an example Ditta code
<ditaa round noedgesep right>
+--------+ +-------+ +-------+
| | --+ ditaa +--> | |
| Text | +-------+ |diagram|
|Document| |!magic!| | |
| {d}| | c478 | | |
+---+----+ +-------+ +-------+
: ^
| Lots of work :
+-------------------------+
</ditaa>
This Ditta code will generate following picture:
To learn more on ditta please check Ditaa's Project homepage on Sourceforge
Many thanks to Cybercity's 30 Cool Open Source Software of 2013 for inspiring this post.
Tags: Ascii, bitmap, bunch, close, command line utility, Cool Open Source Software, Debian, diagram, doesn, Graphics, input output, Java, java virtual machine, need, org, passion, picture, platform, possibilities, site, syntax, tool, utility
Posted in Curious Facts, Entertainment, Everyday Life, Various | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 20th, 2014 
I’m still administrating some old archaic Joomla website built on top of Joomla 1.5. Recently there were some security issues with the website so I first tried using jupgrade (Upgrade Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5) plugin to try to resolve the issues. As there were issues with the upgrade, because of used template was not available for Joomla 2.5, I decided to continue using Joomla 1.5 and applied the Joomla 1.5 Security Patch. I also had to disable a couple of unused joomla components and the contact form in order to prevent spammers of randomly spamming through the joomla … the Joomla Security Scanner was mostly useful in order to fix the Joomla security holes ..
So far so good this Joomla solved security but just recently I was asked to add a new article the Joomla News section – (the news section is configure to serve as a mini site blog as there are only few articles added every few months). For my surprise all of a sudden the new joomla article text started displaying text and pictures partially. The weirdly looking newly added news looked very much like some kind of template or css problem. I tried debugging the html code but unfortunately my knowledge in CSS is not so much, so as a next step I tried to temper some settings from Joomla Administrator in hope that this would resolve the text which was appearing from article used to be cut even though the text I’ve placed in artcle seemed correctly formatted. I finally pissed off trying to solve the news section layout problem so looked online too see if anyone else didn’t stick out to same error and I stumbled on Joomla’s forum explaining the Category Blog Layout Problem
The solution to the Joomla incomplete text showing in article is – To go to Joomla administrator menus:
1. Menus -> Main Menu -> (Click on Menu Item(s) – Edit Menu Item(s)) button
2. Click on News (section)
In Parameters section (on the botton right) of screen you will see #Leading set to some low number for example it will be something like 8 or 9. The whole issue in my case was that I was trying to add more than 8 articles and I had a Leading set to 8 and in order to add more articles and keep proper leading I had to raise it to more. To prevent recent leading errors, I’ve raised the Leading to 100 like shown in below screenshot
After raising to some high number click Apply and you’re done your problem is solved 🙂
For those curious what the above settings from screenshot mean:
# Leading Articles -> This refers to the number of articles that are to be shown to the full width
# Intro Articles -> This refers to the number of articles that are not to be shown to full width
# Columns -> This refers to the number of columns in which the articles will be shown that are identified as #Intro. If #Intro is zero this setting has no effect
# Links -> Number of articles that are to be shown as links. The number of articles should exceed #leading + #Intro
N.B. Solving this issue took me quite a long time and it caused me a lot of attempts to resolve it. I tried creating the article from scratch, making copy from an old article etc. I even messed few of the news articles one time so badly that I had to recreate them from scratch, before doing any changes to obsolete joomlas always make database and file content backup otherwise you will end up like me in situation loosing 10 hours of your time ..
The bitter experiences once again with Joomla convinced me when I have time I have to migrate this Joomla CMS to WordPress. My so far experience with Joomla prooved to me just for one time the time and nerves spend to learn joomla and built a multi-lingual website with it as well as to administer it with joomla obscure and hard to cryptic interfaces and multiple security issues., makes this CMS completely unworthy to study or use, its hardness to upgrade from release to release, besides its much slow and its less plugins if compared to WordPress makes wordpress much better (and easier to build use platform than Joomla).
So if you happen to be in doubt where to use Joomla or a WordPress to build a new company / community website or a blog my humbe advise is – choose WordPress!
Tags: article, Category Blog Layout Problem, Click, long time, number, order, Parameters, platform, resolve, screenshot, security issues, text, Upgrade Joomla
Posted in Everyday Life, Joomla, Various, Web and CMS | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 14th, 2013 
I have a Debian GNU / Linux squeeze with bluetooth and bluetooth is started automatically on system boot. This is pretty annoying, cause I use bluetooth quite rarely.
disable / enable bluetooth via terminal is controlled via Linux sysfs virtual filesystem. The command to disable bluetooth one time is:
debian:~# echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/bluetooth_enable
It is efficient in terms of energy saving especially if you use often your notebook on battery to turn off bluetooth permanently and only enable it when needed with:
debian:~# echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/bluetooth_enable
To permanently disable bluetooth on Linux boot use:
# service bluetooth stop
In /etc/rc.local before exit 0 line place:
echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/bluetooth_enable
An alternative method to permanently disable bluetooth (on other non-Thinkpad – any brand laptops) is via rfkill (bluetooth device control interface), on Ubuntu rfkill is installed by default but Debian users has to explicitly install it via apt:
debian:~# apt-get install –yes rfkill
Once rfkill is installed on host put a line before exit 0 in /etc/local:
rfkill block bluetooth
Tags: acpi, alternative, brand, control interface, debian gnu, debian users, echo 1, exit, lenovo thinkpad, line, Linux, linux ibm, notebook, one time, platform, squeeze, system boot, thinkpad laptops, Ubuntu, virtual filesystem
Posted in Bluetooth, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Various | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 
Since I’m using wordpress as a blogging platform for about two years now and I’m constantly experimenting with valueable wordpress plugins.
I’ve decided to publish a compilation of wordpress plugins that empowers my blog
The plugins included in the compilation are quite various, some of the plugins aims at easy post sharing via the general social networks and main websites used by users today, others significantly helps in increasing the blog ranking in major search engines, there are some that adds like button to the blog.
These plugins also strenghthen the easy blog RSS file sharing, some post straight to twitter all your blog posts, generate tags automatically, puts a better features to the default wordpress commenting mechanism, prevent from spam comments, add features for easily adding Google adsense to the wordpress installation to help you advertise on your blog.
There are also plugins which delete duplicate posts (if you have such), puts better wordpress blog search bar, generates a sitemap to the blog, add an option to include php codes straight into your posts, adds wordpress an option to easily put mod rewrite rules straight from the wordpress interface, boost wordpress speed by adding static html generation cache, boost performance etc. etc.
Here is the complete list of wordpress plugins which I have currently installed on my wordpress blog:
ad-squares-widget
add-to-any-subscribe
advertising-manager
ajax-comments
akismet
all-in-one-adsense-and-ypn
all-in-one-seo-pack
askapache-google-404
auto-tag
bm-custom-login
commentluv
comments-statistics
cyr2lat-slugs
delete-duplicate-posts
easy-adsenser
extended-search-plugin
facebook-share-new
favourite-bible-verse
feedburner-plugin
feedburner-widget
feedburner_feedsmith_plugin_2.3
feedlist
force-publish-schedule
google-analytics-for-wordpress
google-sitemap-generator
headspace2
my-link-order
php-code-widget
platinum-seo-pack
post-plugin-library
post-to-twitter
profile-pic
profile-pics
redirection
rss-atom-avatar
seo-automatic-links
seo-slugs
share-on-facebook
share-this
similar-posts
simple-tags
subscribe-to-comments-reloaded
subscribe-to-comments
subscribe2
text-control
tidy-up
tinymce-advanced
what-would-seth-godin-do
wordbook
wordpress-23-related-posts-plugin
wordpress-mobile-edition
wordpress-thread-comment
wp-codebox
wp-keiths-easy-rss
wp-likes
wp-o-matic
wp-postviews
wp-super-cache
wp-syntax
yourls-wordpress-to-twitter
I do have enabled most of the plugins, though some are disabled but still might be helpful somewhere in the close-future thus I still keep them installed.
I would skip the time to describe one by one what each of the above list of plugins will do for your wordpress, since the list is quite long.
However I defnitely think this is a list of plugins you might want to have installed in a newly established wordpress blog for sure.
Note that the versions of the plugins which are included in this must have wordpress plugins collection might not be the latest as the included ones are the ones I do have installed at the time of writting of this article.
Also be aware that some of the plugins might create some issues with newer versions of wordpress (your blog might beak up!), however most of the plugins should work out of the box by just enabling each one of them from the wordpress interface via the menus:
Settings -> Plugins -> Inactive
To straight install my bundled package of plugins you have to issue the commands:
linux:~# cd /var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins
linux:/var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/a_must_have_wordpress_plugins_collection.tar.gz
linux:/var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins# tar -zxvf a_must_have_wordpress_plugins_collection.tar.gz
...
linux:/var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins# unzip *.zip
Now as they should be installed under the plugins directory go and enable the plugins.
Further on many of the plugins will require configuration from the menus:
Settings
or in the menu
Tools
After being setup up your new wordpress installation will look significantly better, you will notice a tons of useful features which you might have previously missing and desperately needed 😉
Most of the bundled package of wordpress plugins works fine with wordpress version 3.1, if you’re trying to install enable and configure the plugins on some other versions of wordpress, there might be problems!
If you experience problems by trying out my bunch of wordpress plugins please drop me a comment.
I hope you enjoyed this improvised article, if these bunch of plugins are useful to you please give me a thanks 🙂
Thanks!
Tags: adsense, advertising manager, aims, ajax, analytics, auto tag, bible, bible verse, blog, boost, Button, collection, commentluv, compilation, complete list, configure, custom login, cyr, drop, extended search, generation, google, google sitemap generator, html generation, Inactive, installation, interface, major search engines, mechanism, mod, option, package, php, platform, plugin, post, Search, search bar, search plugin, SEO, Settingsor, Slugs, social networks, squares, time, twitter, wget, widget, wordbook, Wordpress, wordpress blog, wordpress plugins, ypn
Posted in SEO, Web and CMS, Wordpress | 8 Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2012 I'm running WordPress for already 3 years or so now. Since some very long time. The first wordpress install, I can hardly remember but it something like wordpress 2.5 or wordpress 2.4
Since quite a long time my wordpress blog is powered by a number of plugins, which I regularly update, whenever new plugins pops up …
I haven't noticed most of the time problems during major WordPress platform updates or the update of the installed extensions. However, today while I tried to reply back to one of my blog comments, I've been shocked that, I couldn't.
Pointing at the the Comment Reply box and typing inside was impossible and a null message was stayed filled in the form:
To catch what was causing this weird misbehaving with the reply comments functionality, I grepped through my /var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins/* for the movecfm(null,0,1,null):
# cd /var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins
# grep -rli 'movecfm(null,0,1,null)' */*.php
wordpress-thread-comment/wp-thread-comment.php
I've taken the string movecfm(null,0,1,null) from the browser page source in in my Firefox by pressing – Ctrl+U).
Once I knew of the problem, I first tried commenting the occurances of the null fields in wp-thread-comment.php, but as there, were other troubles in commenting this and I was lazy to read the whole code, checked online if some other fellows experienced the same shitty null void javascript error and already someone pointed at a solution. In the few minutes search I was unable to find anyone who reported for this bug, but what I found is some user threads on wordpress.org mentioning since WordPress 2.7+ the wordpress-threaded-comments is obsolete and the functionality provided by the plugin is already provided by default in newer WPinstalls.
Hence in order to enable the threaded comments WordPress (embedded) reply functionality from within the wp-admin panel used:
Settings -> Discussions -> Enable Threaded (nested) comments (Tick)
You see there is also an option to define how many nested comments subcomments, can be placed per comment, the default was 5, but I thought 5 is a bit low so increased it to 10 comments reply possible per comment.
Finally, to prevent the default threaded comments to interfere with the WordPress Threaded Comments plugin, disabled the plugin through menus:
Plugins -> Active -> WordPress Thread Comments (Deactivate)
This solved the weird javascript null "bug" caused by wordpress-threaded-comments once and for all.
Hopefully onwards, my blog readers will not have issues with threaded Reply Comments.
Tags: admin panel, Auto, code, Comment, Ctrl, Draft, fellows, few minutes, Firefox, form, grep, long time, misbehaving, movecfm, null fields, null message, number, occurances, option, page, page source, php, phpI, platform, plugin, Plugins, quot, reply comments, rli, someone, something, thread, threads, tick, time, time problems, Wordpress, wordpress blog, wp
Posted in Web and CMS, Wordpress | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 29th, 2012
After a long time of inavailability, finally TeamViewer 7 for GNU / Linux is out!
Here is the short TeamViewer 7 Linux release note :
In our TeamViewer download area you will now find TeamViewer 7 for Linux.
The final version includes a selection of new features for Linux, e. g. an integrated screenshot feature and the possibility of saving individual connection settings per computer.
You can now establish cross platform connections with other computers running version 7 and hold online meetings and presentations with up to 25 participants.
We wish you best continued success with TeamViewer!
Well, guys it was about time, even later than that… Until now I've so many times experienced troubles with Windows machines which I had to administrate remotely and they only had a TeamViewer 7 installed (a real, real pain in the ass).
The issue comes cause TeamViewer 6 is incompatible with 7 and just until very recently only TV 6 for Linux was available, so trying to access a 7 install directly from Linux was impossible.
Hence to access TeamViewer 7 Windows install, I had to use either a fresh Windows copy with TeamViewer 7 installed or a Virtual Machine like (Qemu, VirtualBox) with Windows version installed in it.
Often back then, when I had to fix remotely a Windows machine behind a firewall, I had to instruct the machine owners to replace the TeamViewer 7 with TeamViewer 6 in order to be able to easily access the remote host from my Debian Linux.
I still remember, it was quite a stuggle to find a link to a Windows .exe install file for TeamViewer 6.
Now thanksfully, TeamViewer guys are starting to make it easier for the user who would for some reason want to stick to older TV version.
I've noticed on TeamViewer's website there is already a new TeamViewer download page offering for download all the old teamviewer version – 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 6.x
One example, where old teamviewer release is useful is if you want to run teamviewer on older hardware or old OS (MS Windows 98 or old Linux distro).
I've made a mirror of teamviewer 6 for Debian / Ubuntu amd 32 and 64 bit versions along with all the OS available TeamViewer version 6 and 7, for the sake of preserving it if one day link to old versions of Teamviewer disappear from their website.
Here are the TeamViewer mirrored files:
Below you see a screenshot of teamviewer 7 running on my Debian Squeeze 🙂
It is great teamviewer produced a Linux working application, however if you run it you realize just like the previous releases TeamViewer is not natively supposed (compiled) to run on GNU / Linux OS but uses wine (windows emulator) to launch through…
Instead of porting the application to be natively for the Linux distros once again with this new release, teamviewer developers just "hacked" it to run on top of windows emulation. Though this is working its performance, is probably a bit degraded and it depends on having install on the Linux host a bunch of useless packages which wine depends on.
Besides that even if it "works" on Linux , TeamViewer has still non-free software essense. I still use it because unfortunately, I don't know of a better remote access program capable to connect to servers behind NAT / machines located behind a tight firewalled routers.
If only (I knew of?) a TeamViewer free software / open source equivalent …
I will be glad to hear if someone know a (free software / open source) TeamViewer like program able to access remote hosts with no a real (public inet) IP address?P.S.: By similar TV program I don't mean VNC, UltraVNC and this kind of other VNC derivative programs but mean close TeamViewer alternative.
Tags: Auto, connection, connection settings, copy, cross platform, debian linux, download, download area, Draft, exa, feature, firewall, gnu linux, host, inavailability, new features, online meetings, page, pain in the ass, platform, possibility, qemu, reason, screenshot, software, stuggle, TeamViewer, time, tv 6, tv version, Ubuntu, Virtual, virtual machine, VirtualBox, windows copy, windows machine, windows machines, windows version, wine, xOne
Posted in Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, News, System Administration | No Comments »
Saturday, February 17th, 2007 Yesterday I’ve went through a depression. The depression is trying to hunt me periodically. Right now I feel soso.So Praise the Lord. Yesterday I found out I passed the Accounting exam this was a great deal (thanks LORD).Today since it’s Saturday I hoped I will be able to sleep until 2, 3 o’clock unfortunately Tisho came andwake me up. Tisho is a friend I borrowed some money a week and a half ago. I can’t communicate normally with thisguy I don’t know why … We went to Mitko to take him for a coffee. e was playing Mugen ( A StreetFighter likecool fighting game). We stayed their for 30 minutes probably and then went to the fountain for a coffee.It was boring as a whole we smoked some cigaretes then everybody went to his home. When I cameback I upgraded the PHP modules on two of the boxes of DBG and right now I upgraded the clamav release.Meanwhile My boss make some interviews for a new server admin in the firm. One friend Joro went on the Interviewand the Boss approved him for the Job. What I am wandering and feeling about is, will this be me substitutionin the firm or this will be just another local administrator for the office. Actually I hope this thing wouldhappen that God has thought about me. I wait for the Lord to direct my way to somewhere since I’m in theocean as and no Land can be seen, just like I dreamed in one of my dreams before few months.In 5 o’clock I’ll meet Joro to speak about him how his interview in DBG went and possibly what will behis exam. ( I’ll be the examiner :]). Static come home yesterday and told me the dream he had the previousnight. He dreamed the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the dream.Our saviour was standing on a platform of a sort of cloudsand a lot of people were around him. He was all in light and everything around was light,there were 4 pillars ending in a sort of a sky. Jesus was all in white (white more whiter than any light in the world we can observe), he was with long White beard and Long white hair.Then my friend who dreamed this dream just thought in his mind “Oh Lord that’s you.”Then the Lord Jesus Christ pointed at him and he started ascending into the skies, full of very deep joy.After that he just woke up and prayed. Well Praise the Lord for giving to one of my brothers such a wonderfuldream. I hope his mercy will guard us all. Let Christ’s peace be in our hearts. AmenEND—–
Tags: Accounting, andwake, boss, boxes, cigaretes, Clamav, clock, cloudsand, coffee, dbg, deal, depression, dreams, everybody, everything, fighting game, half, Interviewand, joro, Land, Light, likecool, long white beard, lord jesus christ, lord today, Mitko, Mugen, platform, Praise, quot, saviour, server admin, Static, streetfighter, substitutionin, theocean, whi
Posted in Everyday Life | No Comments »
Remove URL from comments in WordPress Blogs and Websites to mitigate comment spam URLs in pages
Friday, February 20th, 2015If you're running a WordPress blog or Website where you have enabled comments for a page and your article or page is well indexing in Google (receives a lot of visit / reads ) daily, your site posts (comments) section is surely to quickly fill in with a lot of "Thank you" and non-sense Spam comments containing an ugly link to an external SPAM or Phishing website.
Such URL links with non-sense message is a favourite way for SPAMmers to raise their website incoming (other website) "InLinks" and through that increase current Search Engine position.
We all know a lot of comments SPAM is generally handled well by Akismet but unfortunately still many of such spam comments fail to be identified as Spam because spam Bots (text-generator algorithms) becomes more and more sophisticated with time, also you can never stop paid a real-persons Marketers to spam you with a smart crafted messages to increase their site's SEO ).
In all those cases Akismet WP (Anti-Spam) plugin – which btw is among the first "must have" WP extensions to install on a new blog / website will be not enough ..
To fight with worsening SEO because of spam URLs and to keep your site's SEO better (having a lot of links pointing to reported spam sites will reduce your overall SEO Index Rate) many WordPress based bloggers, choose to not use default WordPress Comments capabilities – e.g. use exnternal commenting systems such as Disqus – (Web Community of Communities), IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, Vicomi …
However as Disqus and other 3rd party commenting systems are proprietary software (you don't have access to comments data as comments are kept on proprietary platform and shown from there), I don't personally recommend (or use) those ones, yes Disqus, Google+, Facebook and other comment external sources can have a positive impact on your SEO but that's temporary event and on the long run I think it is more advantageous to have comments with yourself.
A small note for people using Disqos and Facebook as comment platforms – (just imagine if Disqos or Facebook bankrupts in future, where your comments will be? 🙂 )
So assuming that you're a novice blogger and I succeeded convincing you to stick to standard (embedded) WordPress Comment System once your site becomes famous you will start getting severe amount of comment spam. There is plenty of articles already written on how to remove URL comment form spam in WordPress but many of the guides online are old or obsolete so in this article I will do a short evaluation on few things I tried to remove comment spam and how I finally managed to disable URL link spam to appear on site.
1. Hide Comment Author Link (Hide-wp-comment-author-link)
This plugin is the best one I found and I started using it since yesterday, I warmly recommend this plugin because its very easy, Download, Unzip, Activate and there you're anything typed in URL field will no longer appear in Posts (note that the URL field will stay so if you want to keep track on person's input URL you can get still see it in Wp-Admin). I'm using default WordPress WRC (Kubrick), but I guess in most newer wordpress plugins is supposed to work. If you test it on another theme please drop a comment to inform whether works for you. Hide Comment Author Link works on current latest Wordpress 4.1 websites.
A similar plugin to hide-wp-author-link that works and you can use is Hide-n-Disable-comment-url-field, I tested this one but for some reason I couldn't make it work.
Whatever I type in Website field in above form, this is wiped out of comment once submitted 🙂
2. Disable hide Comment URL (disable-hide-comment-url)
I've seen reports disable-hide-comment-url works on WordPress 3.9.1, but it didn't worked for me, also the plugin is old and seems no longer maintaned (its last update was 3.5 years ago), if it works for you please please drop in comment your WP version, on WP 4.1 it is not working.
3. WordPress Anti-Spam plugin
WordPress Anti-Spam plugin is a very useful addition plugin to install next to Akismet. The plugin is great if you don't want to remove commenter URL to show in the post but want to cut a lot of the annoying Spam Robots crawling ur site.
Anti-spam plugin blocks spam in comments automatically, invisibly for users and for admins.
Plugin is easy to use: just install it and it just works.
Anti bot works fine on WP 4.1
4. Stop Spam Comments
Stop Spam Comments is:
Stop Spam Comments works fine on WP 4.1.
I've mentioned few of the plugins which can help you solve the problem, but as there are a lot of anti-spam URL plugins available for WP its up to you to test and see what fits you best. If you know or use some other method to protect yourself from Comment Url Spam to share it please.
Import thing to note is it usually a bad idea to mix up different anti-spam plugins so don't enable both Stop Spam Comments and WordPress Anti Spam plugin.
5. Comment Form Remove Url field Manually
This (Liberian) South) African blog describes a way how to remove URL field URL manually
In short to Remove Url Comment Field manually either edit function.php (if you have Shell SSH access) or if not do it via Wp-Admin web interface:
Paste at the end of file following PHP code:
Now to make changes effect, Restart Apache / Nginx Webserver and clean any cache if you're using a plugin like W3 Total Cache plugin etc.
Other good posts describing some manual and embedded WordPress ways to reduce / stop comment spam is here and here, however as it comes to my blog, none of the described manual (code hack) ways I found worked on WordPress v. 4.1.
Thus I personally stuck to using Hide and Disable Comment URL plugin to get rid of comment website URL.
Tags: article, bloggers, btw, data, interface, lot, page, php, platform, problem, running, Search Engine, SEO, spam, Spam Robots, Stop Spam Comments, theme, URLs, use, website, Wordpress Comments, wordpress plugins, wp
Posted in Curious Facts, Various, Web and CMS, Wordpress | 2 Comments »