I decided to use a bash script to instead run the script. Here’s how I did it:

Though this approach works, I am still unaware of the implications that may occur. As of now, this solves my problem.

More info: http://linuxconfig.org/Bash_scripting_Tutorial

Anyways, what I want to talk about right now is the meaning of music. As far as I remember, I really enjoy music. But for the sake of recall, I could re-visit myself sitting down on a couch or the sofa listening to good music. That was way back a decade ago. I’ve been fond of music since as there have been some bands and some artists that titillate the follicles in my ear. However, the only thing I’ve been attracted to was the sound and the melody. It didn’t matter what lyrics it contained as long as it could give me a good reason to sit back and relax, feeling serene.

A few months ago, close to a year, somehow, things changed. I kinda spent more time analyzing lyrics instead of the notes used to produce the vibrant sound. Come to think of it, touche. That was the same time I began feeling melancholic. I never appreciated rap music, if it wasn’t Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park until now. I could say to myself, some rap music have really deep meaning. Take Eminem’s pieces for example, they all make sense and they all talk about life.

I could now classify myself more than an audiophile now. Its no longer the sound that counts, it needs meaning for it to reach your soul. Or, maybe perhaps, I’m just getting old. /sigh

So many times, it has occured to me that “if you love what you do, you don’t have to work a single day”. I’ve been living under that clause until I came to realize a difference between what we call “hobby” and “work”. Of course, you should really like what you do and be happy with it so that you don’t regret it in the long term. The huge difference between regret and happiness is very evident, if not noticeable by you it would be the people around you who will point it out.

Lately, I’ve been looking into some topics at some IT communities like slashdot and gigaOM and I have bumped some insightful posts about career and work and thus arrived to a conclusion that the IT industry is almost taken for granted. To cite an example for this, some kids the age of 12 or younger are being taught by schools on the basics of computer science or what most of us know, programming. Note that the basics is a must when it comes to the field and not to mention, the fundamentals. Going back to what I have noticed, if you know a bit of coding, can you possibly call yourself a programmer? I mean, without a degree?

An article I’ve read entitled “Is an IT course worth taking at this time of age?”. The gist of this post states that there are already a lot of freelance people doing programming work for several off-shoring industries. Some of these people just code for fun or don’t even have a degree to begin with, they just find joy in coding. The intriguing part is that they’re friggin good at it! In fact, they even best some of the good people I know whom I have worked with.

I have this question upon myself; “work or hobby? which is it?”. I have to accept it, when I code, I have this feeling of satisfaction especially when I solve a very sophisticated problem. Although the problem I experience is just a revisit most of the time, it still pays that I coined the solution without any help from other sources but my own capabilities. There are times however that I don’t feel like coding. It’s like a void inside me that just begins to tick – the urge to do something else. If it was just a hobby then I could have just put it on hold and pursue that something else in mind. But, here it comes! the difference between hobby and work – as for the hobby, yes you may halt it at your own discretion, for work however, you cannot – you absolutely have to do it or somebody else will be upset say, your boss.

Career is more often than not misunderstood. Career is something you’d want to do until you’re less capable than you really are and you still have to continue working on improving regardless. My core definition of career is “you should never get bored while you’re in it”. You’ll always find ways on making it interesting if you really want to pursue it. Working daily at a factory as a rank-and-file or staff would be more interesting if you can be more innovative. Being at the top of the food chain would also be boring, if the time comes. That’s no longer a career, its already a basis for cash – the real question now is, are you still happy?

My new toy, the Nikon D90 (taken by a Samsung Galaxy S2)

Just a revisit from last year’s post: Target Camera: Nikon D90 | Misty-Stix

The last camera I had was a Fujifulm S200EXR. It did a great job taking pictures for me but then I reached a point where I am already being limited by its capabilities. Its still a great camera, however! And now, I am able to take pictures I’ve been longing to take using the manual-focus plus the broad and plentiful customization elements of the manual option.

Here are some sample shots (click to enlarge):

.. and finally, that sweet smile from Jen!

I am so loving the D90 so far. Never did I feel regret for the cost of buying this camera.

dynamic forms

Why I called this a revisited issue is because I’ve asked this before in the stackoverflow community. Check this link: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2293512/web-ui-dynamic-web-forms.

The problem lies in the dynamic generation of components from within a form, for instance, your data-structure follows the one-has-many setup. Take for example a person who has one or more cars, then we would like to have multiple cars to add or to remove from the form.

Lately, a similar project reached my desk and I am faced with a very similar issue. Before, I’d just rewrite the code I wrote as a patch-up to what I did years ago using duplicate javascript code with the help of jquery and json. But alas, I’d want a plugin to do the work for me, well, extjs, a product of sencha is for-sale and its good but I’d like a small fix that would simply solve my problem, at least.

Again, I tried searching the web for alternatives on what to use re: dynamic forms and the keyword ‘lambda’ appears. A solution has been rediscovered after all this time http://code.google.com/p/jquery-dynamic-form. This solution is the perfect candidate to solve my dynamic forms problem, the code is as simple as this:

dynamic form

I intend to make a simpler example of the code so that it’d be easier to read.

Javascript:

HTML:

Just in case the later versions of jquery.dynamic do not work for you, I have included the jquery plugin I used and tested.

I’ve used jquery version 1.4.2.

download source: jquery.lambda

Problems we usually encounter are: Where’d my error_log file go? How can I enable it? It’s enabled but I don’t see any error_log inside my ./public_html/ folder.

On most cases we experience these problems while we’re setting up a Linux server with apache and php pre-installed. I have never experienced this issue before until I migrated into a cloud instance.

The server has whm/cpanel installed but I cannot find an error_log file inside the public_html folder. Took me hours to make it work only when I found out that the solution was pretty simple. I’m still finding a way on how to make the error_log file automatically created when an error occurs.

Anyway, here’s how I solved it.

Firstly, make sure that error reporting is enabled and configured in your web-server. You can verify if its working by viewing the phpinfo().

phpinfo()

Create a file named error_log inside your public_html / www folder (this is the same directory where you put your index.php file or landing pages).

create a file named error_log

Add ‘read’ permission for ‘owner’ to file error_log so you can view it later.

add permission

Add ‘write’ permission for ‘others’ to file error_log so apache / httpd can write to it.

add permission

This is what your error_log should look like after you execute an ‘ls -lh’ command.

error_log attributes

Now, that the error_log has been created, expect it to be filled with logs once an error occurs in your application. You may view error_log contents by using either the ‘more error_log’ or ‘tail error_log’ commands.

more error_log

At the moment, I still have no clue why the error_log is not being auto-generated when an error occurs and when the error_log file is not present inside public_html. Based from the previous servers I handled, the error_logs have been automatically created when necessary.

client request flood

I have implemented several options of blocking this. One strategy would be to add the ip-address to the deny-list in .htaccess.

memory free after blocking with .htaccess

But what if it is just an uncontrolled influx of requests that are, in turn also relevant to us but we just want to limit it? I tried another approach which is to create a built-in limiter via script using php. By adding a new table in the database which tracks how many requests the client has already sent and by restricting all succeeding requests once the limit has been reached. This strategy did not solve the problem, it still added to the hog of server-resources.

The last strategy I tried was to resort to IPTables. Using IPTables lets you utilize the operating system firewall, in my case, Linux’s. I have added some restrictions to the client’s IP address by only limiting it to a few concurrent requests only, but before this, the client is sending at around 100+ requests and this is incremental.

This is how I did it:
Execute this script via ssh:

where: 127.0.0.1 or any ip is the client that you need to limit.
where: 80 or any port that you need to limit
where: –connlimit-above x (x is the number of connections you want to limit to)

You may also list down all IPTables’ current rules using this command:

And then finally, you may also flush all current rules of IPTables using this command:

I have learned about IPTables when I was searching for a way to limit client / host connections into my servers.

Check any of these links for more information on setting up IPTables
http://www.linuxhelp.in/2011/04/how-to-limit-connections-from-one-ip.html
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/iptables-connection-limits-howto
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/01/iptables-fundamentals
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/07/list-and-flush-iptables-rules
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/01/redhat-iptables-flush

While it is true that I don’t drink nor do I smoke, but the point is, like other people who enjoy being solitary and keep still most of the time I gain weight and eat like there’s no tomorrow.

Lately, I’ve been thinking – The outdoors is quite fun! So I decided to take a walk, and before I knew it I started jogging. Quite the initiative you might say, but it is the environment that took me away from my seat.

I decided to join a race recommended by a friend. He told me that, unlike a mountainous region where we live – the road is flat and easier to route. I joined the 21k or 21-kilometer category, a half-marathon run. Look what I got!

I’ve never been into any sport in my life so I’m pretty useless when it comes to physical activities. I only slack around and keep still until I find something to do worthwhile, that is, if I’m not in front of the computer working or playing.

I managed to get out of my seat and start running. Its fun! It perhaps gives me a reason to find more meaning in life – not so sure about this but I’m willing to find out!

All work no play? well, just don’t forget to stretch your legs once in a while..

Lying By Omission
A lie of omission is when a person fails to include the relevant facts that the listener reasonably expects to be included in an answer. For example, a woman says to her boyfriend, “I thought you went to a show, not to the bar.” He answers, “I did go to the show. Here are the ticket stubs,” but he leaves out the fact that he went to the bar after the show.

The simplest way to catch this kind of lying is to ask the most relevant questions directly. In the above example, the woman could ask, “Did you go to the bar at all tonight?” Many people are willing to avoid the truth, but not willing to lie outright, at least not in every case. Force them to make a choice and they may just tell the truth.

Lying By Embellishment
Lying by embellishment means exaggerating or changing the details. For example, a woman says, “I spent eight hours working on that project,” when she wasn’t actually working for most of that time. It includes exaggerating one’s role in something, as when a man says, “Andy and I have this great little business,” when in fact he is just an employee.

If you suspect this type of lying, the first thing to do is to get specific. Using the examples above, you might ask, “What exactly did you do for those eight hours?” or in the second case, “Do you actually own the business?” Of course, you can also go to other people or get other information to verify or contradict what was said.

Lying By Commission
A lie by commission is an entirely false statement. For example, a child says, “I didn’t break the car window,” even though he did. It can also involve transferring blame to others; “Andy must have broken it.” It may also include improperly taking credit, as when a man says, “Do you like my idea?” about an idea that wasn’t his.

By its nature, lying of this kind is harder to detect, because the speaker is obviously willing to lie outright. He may even be good at telling lies, depending on how much practice he has had. There are many “indicators” to watch for, though, and other ways to tell when someone is lying, including dozens of traps that can catch lying of this sort.

Some of the classic indicators of lying have to do with the eyes. “Shifty eyes, or the speaker looking away from you are thought to mean he is lying. Some will tell you these are myths that have been debunked by science. Neither moving the eyes nor avoiding eye contact indicates that what the person is saying is more likely to be a lie, the research shows. But the research is flawed. It relies on laboratory settings in which people are instructed to lie, and looks for universal indicators, rather than those specific to the individual.

Aldert Vrij of the University of Portsmouth in England, sought to correct this deficiency in the research by looking at real-life police interrogation videos. His idea on how to tell when someone is lying was to concentrate on cases where the true facts were later determined. He found that there were fairly reliable clues to whether a person is lying, but that these are individual, not universal.

For example, one woman might consistently avert her gaze when lying, while another might have greater eye-contact when lying. Most research wasn’t testing for these individual factors, so the results seem to indicate that lie-detecting wasn’t viable. But we CAN take into account individual habits and patterns of behavior.

Use what you know or can determine about the individual. Does he normally avoid eye contact? Have you seen him do this before when he was lying? Of course, avoiding eye contact or moving one’s eyes could be a general sign of guilt, so be careful before assuming that it means a dishonest response to a particular question. The person may just feel guilty about something related. In other words, to tell if someone is lying, start by learning a little about the person.

I hope these tips will help make the truth a little more transparent.

(original article: link)