mbaierl.com Blog » web http://blog.mbaierl.com Michael Baierl\'s Blog Mon, 06 Sep 2010 10:18:59 +0000 en hourly 1 Youtube wird 5! http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/05/youtube-wird-5.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/05/youtube-wird-5.html#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 11:13:23 +0000 Mike http://blog.mbaierl.com/?p=609 continue reading]]]> Wozu ich herzlich gratuliere! 2 Milliarden angesehene Videos PRO TAG sind wirklich nicht ohne!

Gespannt bin ich ja ob Google TV bzw. Youtube einmal Apple den Rang ablaufen werden. Deren Apple TV ist ja mehr ein Spielzeug und unterstützt nicht einmal Blue-Ray geschweige denn Aufnahmen auf Disk….

Was mich dabei aber doch schockt ist die folgende Aussage:

Der typische US- Fernsehzuschauer sitzt über fünf Stunden vor dem TV-Gerät. (Quelle)

Sport wäre glaube ich sinnvoller…

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/05/youtube-wird-5.html/feed 1 I’m going to delete all mail http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/04/im-going-to-delete-all-mail.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/04/im-going-to-delete-all-mail.html#comments Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:18:19 +0000 Mike http://blog.mbaierl.com/?p=578 continue reading]]]> A great tip:

When you go on vacation, set up an autoreply that says, “I’m on vacation until x/x/2010. When I get back, I’m going to delete all the email that arrived while I was gone, so if this note is important, please send it to me again after that date.”

Something I’ll try next time I’ll go on vacation…

Read the full story called 8 things I wish everyone knew about email.

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/04/im-going-to-delete-all-mail.html/feed 0 Bye-bye comment spam! http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/03/bye-bye-comment-spam.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/03/bye-bye-comment-spam.html#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:54:10 +0000 Mike http://blog.mbaierl.com/?p=547 continue reading]]]> Almost immediately after I migrated from Blogger to WordPress I started receiving comment spam. Not a lot, only 1 post every 1-2 days, but still annoying.

Luckily there are several solutions to fight Spam without the need for every user to register with the blog… and based on a recommendation from _m3 I installed the Akismet WordPress Plugin. What should I say, it works… Akismet is eating my spam and leaving through ham, works like a charm – thus highly recommended for WordPress installations!

(Image from flickr)

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/03/bye-bye-comment-spam.html/feed 0 Blogger to WordPress migration http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/03/blogger-to-wordpress-migration.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/03/blogger-to-wordpress-migration.html#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:55:40 +0000 Mike http://blog.mbaierl.com/?p=526 continue reading]]]> Wordpress LogoRecently Blogger announced that they are going to shut down their FTP publishing service. On one side I think this is not a very smart move as they’ll loose a lot of customers, but on the other hand I fully understand why they are doing this. FTP is really old, causing them a lot of troubles and prevents Google from implementing cool stuff (i.e. a mobile view for the blog).

So, what to do with my (this) blog? Initially I migrated over to a custom domain (still with Blogger), which required me to setup some redirects (mbaierl.com/blog -> blog.mbaierl.com). Not a big deal, no need to wait for the FTP migration tool, worked great and smoothly. But suddenly I had to display the Blogger Bar on top of my blog. Drawback 1. And I did not see statistics within my known Webalizer interface. Drawback 2. And: I want control! :)

So I started to look for alternatives – and as I manage 3 blogs in total I stumbled across WordPress MU and started the migration:

  1. Installing WordPress is super-simple, I’m really impressed! Just needed to make sure it is secure by setting a few file permissions correctly.
  2. WordPress can import all data (posts, comments) from Blogger – and it really works! Only Youtube videos don’t come through, so I had to re-add them manually (check out the “Smart Youtube” plugin!)
  3. Luckily I did not post a lot while being on the Blogger custom domain as this required a migration of the image files.
  4. Migrating the template was the hardest part – yes, there are tons of themes available, but I wanted to keep my own for this blog… but the documentation is really good and it was just a matter of hours to get a working template that integrates into my site.
  5. There are tons of useful plugins – i.e. Akismet for Spam protection or WordPress Mobile Edition. That’s great and gives me way more flexibility and freedom than Blogger did! There is even an iPhone App!

Right now I’m very satisfied with the features and the performance and highly recommend having a look at WordPress if you need to migrate away from Blogger because of their FTP shutdown or for any other reason….

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2010/03/blogger-to-wordpress-migration.html/feed 1 PHP 5.3 released http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/07/php-5-3-released.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/07/php-5-3-released.html#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:26:00 +0000 Mike http://test.mbaierl.com/2009/07/php-5-3-released.html continue reading]]]> PHP 5.3 has just been released!

I’m especially impressed by the namespaces and the great, JavaScript-like implementation of Closures – no new syntax to learn here. And the developers also show humor regarding the newly implemented goto support…

Overall a great release with long-awaited features and cleanups, let’s hope the providers update their installations quickly!

Read the full release notes.

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/07/php-5-3-released.html/feed 2 “jQuery for Absolute Beginners” Video Series http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/04/%e2%80%9cjquery-for-absolute-beginners%e2%80%9d-video-series.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/04/%e2%80%9cjquery-for-absolute-beginners%e2%80%9d-video-series.html#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:31:00 +0000 Mike http://test.mbaierl.com/2009/04/%e2%80%9cjquery-for-absolute-beginners%e2%80%9d-video-series.html continue reading]]]> There are tons of jQuery tutorials available, but I just recently found out about the “jQuery for Absolute Beginners” Video Series, which has 15 online videos and, according to a good friend, teaches exactly what is needed to get started with jQuery.

So if you want to learn jQuery just fire up your browser and point it to the “jQuery for Absolute Beginners” Video Series.

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/04/%e2%80%9cjquery-for-absolute-beginners%e2%80%9d-video-series.html/feed 0 Logwatch for PHP errors, the Apache error log and MySQL http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/logwatch-for-php-errors-the-apache-error-log-and-mysql.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/logwatch-for-php-errors-the-apache-error-log-and-mysql.html#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:54:00 +0000 Mike http://test.mbaierl.com/2009/03/logwatch-for-php-errors-the-apache-error-log-and-mysql.html continue reading]]]> Logwatch is a very flexible and customizable log watching system for lazy system administrators. It checks the logfiles regularly and sends custom mail reports – very useful and way better than daily manual checking of the logs.

Unfortunately the configuration for MySQL, PHP and the Apache error_log is missing; so let me share the configuration scripts:

Logwatch configuration for PHP
Interestingly there is no logwatch configuration for PHP error_log files – and all a search revealed are some outdated files which don’t work anymore. Here are the adopted files that allow you to get notified about PHP errors:

  • logfiles_php.conf – place this file in /etc/logwatch/conf/logfiles/php.conf and adopt the path to the php error_log file (or just use the Apache error_log)
  • services_php.conf – place this file in /etc/logwatch/conf/services/php.conf
  • scripts_php – place this file in /etc/logwatch/scripts/php and make it executable

Logwatch configuration for MySQL
Also a configuration for MySQL is missing in the default configuration; here are the configuration files:

  • logfiles_mysql.conf – place this file in /etc/logwatch/conf/logfiles/mysql.conf and adopt the path to the MySQL logfile
  • services_mysql.conf – place this file in /etc/logwatch/conf/services/mysql.conf
  • scripts_mysql – place this file in /etc/logwatch/scripts/mysql and make it executable

Logwatch configuration for Apache’s error_log
Now hat really made me wonder is the at the httpd access_log is monitored but the error_log is left out, so no details about errors are included in the logs. This configuration ignores PHP errors and includes all httd errors in the logwatch output:

  • logfiles_http-error.conf – place this file in /etc/logwatch/conf/logfiles/http-error.conf and adopt the path to the httpd error_log file accordingly
  • services_http-error.conf – place this file in /etc/logwatch/conf/services/http-error.conf
  • scripts_http-error – place this file in /etc/logwatch/scripts/http-error and make it executable

To test that the individual scripts work use this command:

/usr/sbin/logwatch –detail high –print –service $SERVICE –range today –debug 0

Replace $SERVICE with either php, mysql or http-error and set debug to 5 if you want to see more (but not too much) debugging information.

All the logwatch configuration scripts for MySQL, PHP and the Apache error_log can be found here.

Update: There was an error in the scripts_mysql file, fixed now.

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/logwatch-for-php-errors-the-apache-error-log-and-mysql.html/feed 6 USA Erklärt http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/usa-erklart.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/usa-erklart.html#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:43:00 +0000 Mike http://test.mbaierl.com/2009/03/usa-erklart.html continue reading]]]> Die Vereinigten Staaten sind ja nicht ganz unwichtig für den Rest der Welt – und trotzdem verstehen wir Europäer die Amerikaner nicht immer und nicht wirklich. Zum Glück gibt es einen sehr lesenswerten Blog names “USA Erklärt” in welchem Scot W. Stevenson auf unterhaltsame Weise über Amerika aufklärt. Das klingt dann ungefähr so:
Auf die Frage an die beste Freundin, wie einem ein Kleid steht, wird eine Deutsche vielleicht das Gesicht verziehen und “Du, nicht wirklich” sagen oder “Ich weiß nicht, ob es dir so gut steht”, eine Amerikanerin aber eher etwas wie “Würde blau nicht besser zu deinen Augen passen?”. Für eine Amerikanerin heißt das, du siehst aus wie eine magersüchtige Vogelscheuche mit einem Heroin-Problem, während eine Deutsche das Gefühl hat, man redet aneinander vorbei. Augen? Was faselt die von meinen Augen? Ich will wissen, ob mein Arsch fett aussieht!

Sehr lesenswert das ganze, und da es schon einige Einträge gibt fangt man am Besten mit der Top-5-Liste an.

(Bild von flickr)

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/usa-erklart.html/feed 0 10 things a web designer would never tell you http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/10-things-a-web-designer-would-never-tell-you.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/10-things-a-web-designer-would-never-tell-you.html#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:43:00 +0000 Mike http://test.mbaierl.com/2009/03/10-things-a-web-designer-would-never-tell-you.html continue reading]]]> Working with designers is not that easy, luckily there is a great collection of hints and tricks that you should be aware of, the summary reads as follows:
You need to take control of the design process. Its your site and you should get the design you want. The role of the designer is to implement your idea. Do not allow him to drag you down into endless discussions about ‘users needs’, ‘accessibility’ and ‘usability’. These are all distractions from the primary aim – to impress your boss and earn that next promotion.

Read the full story to learn more ;)

]]> http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/03/10-things-a-web-designer-would-never-tell-you.html/feed 2 2008 in photographs http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/01/2008-in-photographs.html http://blog.mbaierl.com/2009/01/2008-in-photographs.html#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:42:00 +0000 Mike http://test.mbaierl.com/2009/01/2008-in-photographs.html
Check out 2008 in photographs, they are amazing, depressing, real!

(Image source)

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