Monthly Archives: March 2011

Helpful Tips

No php53-pear for RHEL 5.6, download it the traditional way!

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I had to update to the latest vBulletin 4, but for that I needed php5.3. Luckily, RHEL has put out php53-* packages (I installed php 5.3.3-1.el5_6.1 btw). I downloaded them all but they were missing php53-pear* package. I’m not sure if this is just the case for x86_64.

So the main problem was getting PEAR packages to install. I tried to get the newer way of downloading pear packages, pyrus (pear2). However, the command php pyrus.phar install ___ resulted in messages like these:
The sqlite3 extension is required.
You must compile PHP with sqlite3 enabled, or install the necessary extension for your distribution.
(Not sure which extension of php53 would resolve this)

The sqlite3 extension is required.
You must compile PHP with sqlite3 enabled, or install the necessary extension for your distribution.
(This one is resolved by downloading php53-xml, thankfully available)

Anyhow, I didn’t want to go on a hunt to try to get these php53 special packages by following the instructions listed in the manual. However, the url listed in the manual http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar makes php-fcgi put up a blank/empty page. I had a feeling it’s these .phar (weird php compressed archives) files that they’re using. Luckily in the comments, I noticed somebody said to get http://pear.php.net/go-pear. Now that my friends worked like a charm. All I had to do was download that to the server, open it up in the browser and follow the steps as it shows.

The rest comes easy. If you got questions, fire away.

Helpful Tips

Virtualenvwrapper on CentOS/RHEL with Virtualmin

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I used the IUS Community and EPEL repositories to install python 2.6 on my RHEL 5.6 Tikanga box. However I faced some errors, which I didn’t see fully documented online so I figured they would come handy to myself and whoever else tries to do similar things.

Problem 1: Error on mkvirtualenv and other commands: No module named virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader
Resolution: After looking at the source code, virtualenvwrapper can’t find our special python installation. Put the following line in your .bashrc:

VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python26

along with the other two lines that everybody tells you to put in:

export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
source <strong>/usr/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh</strong>

(Note that virtualenvwrapper was installed to the above location, this is a different location than the one that everybody else (who is documenting the procedure) is installing at. I’m not sure if this is a new change in virtualenv or because of our special python26 installation. So use locate to find your location properly.)

Problem 2: Virtualenvwrapper commands do not auto-complete or can’t be found also unless .bashrc is sourced manually.
Reason: .bashrc is not executed when logging in to the box (like it should be because it is listed inside .bash_profile, which should be executed also)
Solution: This happens because virtualmin setup’s default $SHELL for each non-root user is /bin/sh. To fix this for on user, open up /etc/passwd, find the user that you are interested in, and change the /bin/sh part to /bin/bash. To fix the default for each virtualmin created user, go to virtualmin’s admin page, under System Customization > Custom Shells > Choose the /bin/bash custom shell.

Downloads

Protoaculous 1.9.0 Minified

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Premise
I used to download the updated versions of protoaculous from Prototype Core Google Group. Recently, Google announced that the Files section of the Google Groups will be deprecated. Also, nobody has been updating the copy of protoaculous in that group (or anywhere else on the public google-searched internet for that matter).

Instructions
The instructions to create it are really simple and so you can do it yourself. You can read them at Boog Design.

Download
For the lazy (like me), here’s the minified version of Prototype.js 1.7.0 (using the new Sizzle CSS Selector Engine – v1.0) + Scriptaculous 1.9.0:
Download

Coral CDN
Cached version (similar to ajax.googleapis.com versions):
http://inderpreetsingh.com.nyud.net/wp-content/uploads/protoaculous.1.9.0.min_.js

Other info
Size of Prototype.js + Scriptaculous = 287,939 bytes
Size of Protoaculous.js Minified = 168,754 bytes

Packed: prototype.js + scriptaculous.js + builder.js + effects.js + dragdrop.js + controls.js + slider.js + sound.js

Downloads

Profile Visitors 4.1 Mod for SMF 2.0

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Profile Visitors mod description:

This modifications logs the visitors for all members’ profile with the time of their last visit. Additionally it gives you the ability to see the total visit count for the profile.

Version 4.1

At last, version 4.1, which is an SMF 2.0 only package is released. This version does not log 20, but all visitors of a user. Also it keeps the total visit count for each visitor and total visit count for each profile.

It, as usual, has own/any profile view option and improved remove visitor permissions. Also it includes “Avoid logging permission”, which allows users to select if they want to be logged or not. User can set it from “Look and Layout” area of their profile.

And some bad news… There won’t be any updates for the SMF 1.x version, but I’ll continue supporting that too.

-Blue Dream

This mod is one of the most requested features on my social networking site, Punjabi Janta. So when I went to look for the mod (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1150), I noticed that the mod coder, [SiNaN], had ended development for a lot of his mods. A couple of users reuploaded the mod to the forum on user’s requests, but moderators were quick to remove it claiming that mods can’t be distributed without owner’s permission.

Anyhow, I had requested a copy from MasterD, and he was helpful in sharing it with me. Here’s an archived copy of it, you won’t find it on Simple Machine’s Forum.

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/452804270/ProfileVisitors4.1.zip

PS: The Profile.template.php edit may fail. Just replace the leading spaces with tabs on the following lines:

 
      <div id="detailedinfo">
         <div class="windowbg2">

Edit June 4, 2011: Here’s the edited version to work with SMF 2.0 with the above fix: ProfileVisitors4.1-IPS