Windows

• VLC
• Firefox + Adblock + Flashblock
• Flash
• Disable Flash updates
• OpenOffice
• Set default save formats for OO

Linux

• Adblock + Flashblock

Linux server

aptitude install mc libapache2-mod-evasive

WordPress

Setup the following:

• Y-m-d
• H:i
• Permalinks with date and name

Install the following:

• Category Posts Widget
• TinyMCE Advanced
• NoSpamNX
• ThreeWP Upcoming Posts

The problem

Ical cannot both subscribe to a calendar and publish to the same calendar using Webdav.

The idea

Publish the local version of the calendar.

Requirements

• The calendar has only one author
• You should know your way around the terminal
• The calendar file(s) are in ~/Library/Calendars.

The solution

This is what I did, and I don’t know shit about OSX (yeah, the thing where they take other people’s work and slap their logo on it and then don’t give back).

1. Fetch a copy of the calendar from the net. This will create a whole bunch of .ics files. Why Apple doesn’t have one big file for the calendar events I don’t know.
2. Create a new local calendar
3. Close Ical
4. Copy the Events directory from the copy to the new local calendar
5. Delete the Calendar Cache file. I think it was called something like that. It’s in the Calendars directory, at any rate. This will force Ical to reload all the calendars.
6. Start Ical
7. Publish the newly-created local calendar to the Webdav address

Now, when the author creates a new event both the author and the people subscribing to the online copy of the calendar will see the changes.

The other solution is to use the free and open calendar program Mozilla Sunbird, but it’s not as shiny as Ical so Mac people won’t like it.

Requirements

1. These instructions are for Windows – Linux folk usually help themselves and Mac folk don’t know how to play games.
2. CorsixTH uses the data files from the original Theme Hospital game. Where you find a copy of the original game is beyond the scope of this tutorial. Ask around.
3. The data files need to be unpacked or mounted. In this tutorial we have installed Virtual CloneCD and mounted the downloaded image.
4. You’ll need to download the second playable beta of Corsix TH.

Installing Theme Hospital

You’ve either unpacked the files somewhere or mounted the ISO using a DVD emulator (such as Virtual CloneCD). Either way is fine, as long as you can get to the game files.

We’re not going to install Theme Hospital, we’re just going to copy its files.

Your Theme Hospital image should be mounted.

Right click on the virtual drive and choose open.

You should now see all the files from the game.

Right click on the HOSP directory and choose copy.

The rest of the files are not necessary. Only the HOSP directory contains the data files for the actual game.

Right click in some other folder and choose paste.

It doesn’t matter where you paste them as long as you know in which directory you put the files. Choosing My Documents is easy because the directory is shown (see screenshot lower down).

The files are being copied...

Copying done! Go into the folder with a double-click.

Remeber where the files are!

That path, encircled, is what you’ll be needing later when you install CorsixTH.

Installing CorsixTH

Go to the download page of CorsixTH.

Select the installer.

Save the file somewhere.

When the download is complete, run the file.

Yes, Windows. Run the installer.

English will do fine.

Next.

That's interesting. Next.

Where to install Corsix TH. The default is fine.

Remember where you copied Theme Hospital to? Copy that address.

Paste the Theme Hospital address / path here. The path should end with HOSP.

Next.

Yay! Finished!

You have now installed CorsixTH and pointed it to the place where you have your original Theme Hospital data files.

Running CorsixTH

Corsix TH can be found in the start menu.

If it works correctly you’ll see the screen below:

The Corsix TH opening menu.

CorsixTH encountered an error during startup – consult the log window for details.

Error message telling you that the Theme Hospital data files could not be found.

If you see this message it’s probably because the address to the data files is not correct.

Go to where you installed CorsixTH. The default is C:\Program Files\CorsixTH.

In the Corsix TH program files directory, there is a config.txt.

Double-click the config.txt file to open it with notepad.

Make sure the theme_hospital_install setting is correct.

When you type in the correct address for the files, make sure you include the double square brackets.

theme_hospital_install = [[C:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\HOSP]]

If that still doesn’t work, join us on the #corsix-th IRC channel.

Downloading Virtual CloneDrive

The program can be downloaded from SlySoft’s site.

Click the download link

Yes, Windows, run the installer.

Click on Virtual CloneDrive. Save it somewhere.

Installing Virtual CloneDrive

When the download completes, run the file.

Yes, Windows, run the installer.

You agree.

We don't need a desktop icon. Next.

That directory is fine. Next.

Windows warns us that the programmer hasn't paid Microsoft thousands of dollars to avoid this nag window. Continue anyway.

Installation complete.

Using Virtual CloneDrive

There is now a CD/DVD icon in the systray. Right click and you can choose a DVD image to mount.

CD/DVD images usually have the extension .iso. Others are .img and .bin.

Right click on the CD icon, chose the drive and then mount. A file chooser should appear.

For this example I've chosen an image from Theme Hospital.

The game's autostart image pops up automatically! Just like a real DVD drive.

If you open My Computer you’ll see the Theme Hospital CD in the “drive”.

It's a virtual CD/DVD reader.

All the files are browsable just like a real CD.

This concludes the tutorial.

PeaZip is my archiver of choice because it’s free, open, cross-platform and handles lots of different archive formats.

Download PeaZip

Choose the installer for any Windows

Yes, yes, yes...

Save the file somewhere.

When the download is complete, run the installer.

Yes, Windows, we're sure we want to run the file we just clicked on.

Next.

Next.

Standard settings are fine.

Next.

Just install already.

Finally. We're finished.

There is now a PeaZip shortcut on the desktop.

You can delete the shortcut if you want. Now you at least know what the icon looks like.

Right click on a compressed file shows the extract menu.

My favorite command for compressed files is Extract here (in new folder).

Right clicking on a folder or file shows the add to archive menu.

It is beyond the scope of this tutorial to show how files are added to archives. A normal user’s most common use of archiving programs is actually unarchiving things…

#!/bin/bash
touch ~/.pulse-a11y-nostart
echo autospawn = no|tee -a ~/.pulse/client.conf
killall pulseaudio

Reboot.

Then remove all the PulseShit packages. Sweet Jesus in Heaven, what were the Ubuntu people thinking when they made Pulseaudio the standard? How much were their kickbacks?

Searching for help will only give you a bunch of links that tell you to check your permissions but if your /wp-content already has 777 then why is it still broken?

getmyuid() has been disabled for security reasons

The answer is, most probably, the above heading as an invisible error. Your webhost has a misconfigured server or something – I’m not quite sure why this happens, the thing is it does.

This function, getmyuid(), prevents PHP and therefore WordPress from finding out which user ID is running WordPress. So WordPress assumes direct file system access is broken and therefore goes to FTP mode. Which is irritating.

I’ve sent in a workaround getmyuid() patch to the WordPress guys. We’ll see if they want to include it anytime.

Download the patch here

The file in question is /wp-admin/includes. Help yourselves to the patch or the complete file. My WordPress version is 2.9.1.

file.php.diff.zip

file.php.zip

Anything else I should know?

Just make sure you completely reset the ownership of all your wp-admin files before patching. Just in case that helps (although I’m sure you’ve probably tried everything before finding this page).

Specifying a trigger function

First, we create the selectmenu UI widget from an existing <select> control, with the id=”selectmenu”.

$("#selectmenu").selectmenu({
  change: selectmenuChange
});

And selectmenuChange…
function selectmenuChange(event, value)
{
  switch(value.value)
  {
    case 0:
      alert('Hello!');
    break;
  }
  $("#selectmenu").selectmenu("value", "ignore"); // Put it back on the first option.
}

The last line should give you a clue as to what comes next.

Controlling the selectmenu after creation

$("#selectmenu").selectmenu("value", "ignore"); // Put it back on the first option.
$("#selectmenu").selectmenu("open"); // Open the selectmenu
$("#selectmenu").selectmenu("focus"); // Give it focus

Features

• There is a basic amount of security involved, restricting access to the shared directory. The files shared should be considered soon-to-be trash, just to be on the safe side.
• The theme is completely configurable.
• Uploaded files can be treated as normal files, or automatically unzipped depending on the theme.

Screenshots

Above is how Apache normally autoindexes directories…

… and this is what the default theme looks like for phpAutoindex. A selected file and the top of the upload & quickpaste forms are visible.

Requirements

• PHP5

Download

phpAutoIndex-1.0.zip

Installation

• Unzip to a directory in your htdocs.
• Have a quick look at the index.php file.

License

phpAutoIndex is GPLv3.

Contact

If something doesn’t work or you need help, try emailing me.

Background

Most window managers don’t have proper multihead window handling. WindowMaker does, with a hotkey and everything, but it’s from fucking 2005. When I actually switched to Linux in ~2003 WindowMaker was still modern…

I’ve recently switched to XFCE and since it doesn’t care about multihead setups (I have three monitors) I’ve had to come up with a solution.

The switchscreen utility

Switchscreen is a utility to switch monitors. As of v0.1.1 it doesn’t really work properly because of my sloppy window focus setting, but I’ve added some modifications I found in another modified version. Now you can switch between several monitors and yet keep the mouse and keyboard focus working.

My modified version of switchscreen

Download switchscreen-0.1.2.tar

Basically, I’ve added some options in the toggleScreen.sh script and a utility called fakemousemove.

toggleScreen.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Start of user settings.
# -----------------------

HIDECURSOR=1	# 1 to hide it. See below.

# Where to move the cursors for the displays that you're not using.
# Move the cursor wherever you want.
# Values are 0-based, therefore the maximum values are max-1.
# For example, the first one is for a 30" monitor that can do 2560x1600, then the max becomes 2560-1,1600-1
hideCursor=("2559,1599" "1919,1199" "1279,1023")

# In order for XFCE (among others) to properly grab focus using sloppy mouse focus, the mouse has to be "moved".
# The following two lines set the mouse to x0, y0 - which is where I have my panel.
# Then the mouse is then moved back to where it was: the window itself. Xfce sees this "movement" and the window is raised and what not.
SLOPPY_FOCUS_X=0	# Set to -1 for no sloppy focus fixing.
SLOPPY_FOCUS_Y=0

# Where did you put switchscreen & co?
DIRECTORY=/home/edward/scripts/switchscreen		### CHANGEME!!! ###

# End of user settings.
# ---------------------

STOREFILE=${DIRECTORY}/.toogleScreen
CMD_SWITCHSCREEN=${DIRECTORY}/switchscreen
CMD_FAKEMOUSEMOVE=${DIRECTORY}/fakemousemove

CURRENT="`$CMD_SWITCHSCREEN -P`"
CURSCR=`echo "$CURRENT" | gawk '{ print $2 }'`
CURPOS=`echo "$CURRENT" | gawk '{ print $4 }'`

echo $CURPOS > $STOREFILE.$CURSCR

# Calculate new monitor.

## CHANGEME!!! ##

# If you have two monitors, remove the '2' part (monitorCount+1).
# If you want some fancy schmany 0 -> 2 -> 1, instead of 0 -> 1 -> 2, change this.
case "$CURSCR" in
'0')
    NEWSCR=1
;;
'1')
    NEWSCR=2
;;
'2')
    NEWSCR=0
;;
esac

NEWPOS="`cat $STOREFILE.$NEWSCR 2>/dev/null`"
if [ "$NEWPOS" ]; then
    POSOPT="-c $NEWPOS"
else
    POSOPT=""
fi

if [ "$HIDECURSOR" = "1" ]; then
    $CMD_SWITCHSCREEN -c ${hideCursor[$CURSCR]}		# Hide the cursor for this screen
fi

$CMD_SWITCHSCREEN -q $POSOPT $NEWSCR			# Go to the new screen.

if [ "$SLOPPY_FOCUS_X" != "-1" ]; then
    $CMD_FAKEMOUSEMOVE -c $SLOPPY_FOCUS_X,$SLOPPY_FOCUS_Y $NEWSCR	# First, move the mouse to where the panel is (ie: out of the window).
    $CMD_FAKEMOUSEMOVE $POSOPT $NEWSCR					# And now move it back in. Sloppy focus will now have focused on the window again.
fi

Skip unimportant screens

Personally, I’ve modified the case to simplify irc:ing. Screen 0 is my main monitor, screen 1 is a misc monitor and screen 2 is irc/centerim. Since I don’t want to have to page past screen 1 when I want to quickly reply to something on IRC the script now checks when I last switched monitors.

If I switched a while ago (more than 1 second) then I’m probably just going to reply to something.

If I switched recently then I actually want to go to screen 1.

'0')
    LASTSTORE=$STOREFILE.2
    TIME_LAST=`date -r $LASTSTORE +%s`
    let TIME_SINCE_LAST=`date +%s`-$TIME_LAST

    if [ "$TIME_SINCE_LAST" -gt "1" ]; then
	NEWSCR=2
    else
	NEWSCR=1
    fi
;;

How to use it

1. Unzip
2. Look in toggleScreen.sh and look for the text “CHANGEME” (there are at least two). You might want to change the hideCursor() array.
3. Make a keyboard shortcut in XFCE to the script. I’ve used ctrl-tab.