Author Archives: Chris
There’s no need to type your password when you restart Apache, really…
When you're developing with PHP on a mac, if you're not using MAMP, you'll often end up having to do a lot of manual restarts when you make changes to how you've set up Apache (assuming you haven't joined all the cool kids and moved onto Nginx yet...). This usually involves calling up a terminal [...]
How to get back into Drupal site if you’ve locked yourself out
A few posts back, I shared a one liner to get you back into a WordPress site if you manage to lock yourself out, and forget your database password. Assuming you've access to the command line and drush, you can pull a similar trick with Drupal, by typing the following query in: drush sql-query "update [...]
Quick heads up on a super handy cheat sheet for Drupal
I'm working with Drupal a lot at work now, and in the process of creating my last post, I stumbled across this cheat sheet for developing with Drupal. I had no idea could pull ddebug_backtrace() to get an instant stacktrace, or DARGS() to see the arguments being passing into a function at any point, or [...]
Posted in Coding, Journal Tagged drupal, drupal php web development, web development Leave a comment
How to setup Snow Leopard for LAMP development and debugging
Over this weekend, I've been looking at ways to make it easier for me to work with PHP, largely because I've been using it more and more at work, and I've felt spoilt by the tools available when using Ruby, like the [ruby debugger], or when playing with Django or Twisted, python's own interactive pdb [...]
Switching iPhone contracts
I came across this video when trawling across web, researching which provider I wanted to leave O2's woeful reception for with my iphone contract, and while sadly it's not far from the current experience of using my iPhone now that I've upgraded to the new iPhone OS, it is funny enough to raise a smile [...]
Posted in Journal 2 Comments
Looking for the best way to keep data on servers safe
We know we should all be doing it, but most of us don't do it enough. I put out a request today to my followers Twitter asking this question: I've had the following services recommended to me by a number of fellow developers whose opinions I have a lot of respect for: A couple of [...]
Why it’s worth volunteering for medical science
Back in 2007, I volunteered to give a blood sample at Guys Hospital, as part of a research project called Indices of Renal Tolerance , which investigated how some kidney transplant patients recovered after operations. Normally after a transplant operation, our bodies' immune systems would attack any new organ placed inside a body because they [...]
Nerdy Vim tip ahoy! How to save a file as the root user from inside Vim
At work, I'm always managing files while working on a remote server which invariably means I'm stuck using Vim or Vi, and finding out after I've made the my necessary changes to crucial config file, I don't have the rights to actually save them - so I can see this tip by catonmat saving lots [...]
How to tame Jive’s backup happy nature