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Windows PowerShell…

Followers of the blog know I’m a Linux fan, but over the weekend I needed to fix some stuff on a Windows server at work and I took my first tentative steps into the world of Windows PowerShell. It was very much a case of “scripting by Google”, but I managed to get the job done pretty quickly. That episode prompted this tweet.

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That resulted in two little exchanges. The first from Niall Litchfield, who must have been a little under the weather. :)

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The second from @WindowsServer.

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I think that’s my first interaction with Microsoft on any social network. I sense a new website called “Windows-and-SQL-Server-and-PowerShell-base.com” coming on. :)

Cheers

Tim…

 

Posted 23 April 2013 † Tim... § Random § Technology ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: ,

WordPress Security…

With all the recent press about global brute force attacks on WordPress I decided to install the Better WP Security plugin last Sunday.

It includes loads of security features, including the big ones mentioned in the recent attacks:

  • Changing the name of the “admin” user.
  • Changing the ID of your renamed admin user.
  • Changing the table prefix.
  • Max login attempts lockdown.

Of the 5 blogs I manage, 4 worked straight off with this plugin. Unfortunately, one required a few attempts, so remember to take filesystem and database backups before you start or you may not end up in a happy place.

Over the week since activating the plugin I’ve been quite interested/scared by the results. I’ve been getting several emails a day telling me of user lockdowns due to attempted brute force attacks originating from USA, Russia and the Netherlands.

If you have a self-hosted WordPress installation, you really need to take some basic steps stop yourself becoming a victim. There are a number of security plugins available, which I’m sure work equally well, but I only have experience of this one.

Good luck.

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 21 April 2013 † Tim... § Technology ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , ,

McDonald’s : Is service really your biggest problem?

I read a story last week called McDonald’s Tackles Repair of ‘Broken’ Service. As I came out of the cinema turned into a drive through to give it a shot and see what it was like. In this case the service was fine, but the food. OMG!

Now I’m a vegetarian, so choice is a little limited, but people who know me know that I’m not a fussy eater. I will pack pretty much anything into my mouth, which is why my waistline is rather ample…

I got some fries, which were OK. I figure you can’t get too much wrong with fries unless they are cold. They were warmish, so that wasn’t so bad. The rather large amount of salt saved them. I don’t tend to add salt to any of my food, so the odd super-salty food feels like a blood pressure busting treat. :) It kinda went downhill from there.

The vanilla shake tasted like it was made of plastic. There was nothing remotely dairy about the taste. Added to that, the cup was only 3/4 full. On second thoughts, the lack of product was a bonus here because it tasted rank.

The really nasty stuff started when I got my Spicy Veggie Sandwich. The bread was made out of rubber. The spicy veggie patty tasted like damp carpet that someone had dropped a jar of chili powder on. It contained salad that must have been a day old, then there was this slimy mush all over it that I can only assume was dredged up from a sewer. Needless to say that made a quick detour to my kitchen bin…

So looking back on that article about the service at McDonald’s, I think there is a much bigger problem than service here. The problem, from my limited experience, is the food is complete muck. Sort that out and you will go a long way toward turning things around!

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 17 April 2013 † Tim... § Random ‡ Comments (4) °

Oblivion…

Just got back from watching Oblivion…

I was a little bit reluctant about going to see it because the trailer looked awesome, which these days tends to mean the film is terrible. Fortunately that wasn’t the case here. The film was great. Visually fantastic, with a pretty good story. Why can’t we have a few more Sci-Fi films like this?

As far as the trailers go, Iron Man 3 looks cool and the new Star Trek film looks very interesting. Maybe I’ll get my cinema mojo back after all…

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 17 April 2013 † Tim... § Films ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: ,

How to Change the WordPress Table Prefix

Assuming my current WordPress prefix was “wp_” and I wanted to change it to “banana_”, then I would do the following…

Take a backup of your database and file system. Remember, if you screw up and trash your blog you will thank yourself for the extra time you spent doing this!

Amend the “$table_prefix” setting in the “wp-config.php” file.

$table_prefix = 'banana_'; // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!

Rename all the tables, swapping the “wp_” prefix with “banana_”. For example, the following statement would rename the “wp_comments” table to “banana_comments”.

RENAME TABLE wp_comments TO banana_comments

Perform the following updates.

UPDATE banana_options SET option_name = 'banana_user_roles' WHERE option_name = 'wp_user_roles'
UPDATE banana_usermeta SET meta_key = 'banana_capabilities' WHERE meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
UPDATE banana_usermeta SET meta_key = 'banana_user_level' WHERE meta_key = 'wp_user_level'
UPDATE banana_usermeta SET meta_key = 'banana_autosave_draft_ids' WHERE meta_key = 'wp_autosave_draft_ids'

If you don’t do these updates, the blog will work, but when you try to access the admin site you will be greeted with a message saying,

You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.

That’s it!

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 14 April 2013 † Tim... § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (6) ° Tagged: , ,

VirtualBox 4.2.12…

VirtualBox 4.2.12 has just been released. The downloads and changelog are in the usual places.

Happy upgrading!

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 13 April 2013 † Tim... § Oracle ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , ,

Win A Free Copy of Packt’s Managing Multimedia and Unstructured Data in the Oracle Database e-book

I recently did the technical review of some of the chapters in a new Packt book called Managing Multimedia and Unstructured Data in the Oracle Database by Marcelle Kratochvil. I’ve known Marcelle for years and although we don’t always see eye-to-eye on DBA matters, she is definitely the first person I speak to about matters concerning multimedia and Oracle databases. A number of people “talk the talk”, but Marcelle is one of the few people that can actually “walk the walk” on this subject!

If you are interested in getting a free e-copy of this book, Packt Publishing are organizing a give away. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me why you think you deserve a copy and what you hope to achieve after reading it. In 2 weeks (approximately 26-April-2013) I’ll read and judge the responses and make sure an e-copy of the book gets to the 4 lucky winners. I’ll be contacting the winners by email, so you will have to use your real email address when you comment! :)

I’m not going to reveal my judging criteria, and I’ll probably ask Marcelle to help me decide, so try and be a little creative in your answers. :) Just asking for a copy is not going to make you a winner. :)

Let the games begin…

Cheers

Tim…

Note. Comments on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ will not be judged. Your entry must be a comment on this blog post.

Posted 12 April 2013 † Tim... § Books § Oracle ‡ Comments (19) ° Tagged:

Heretics of Dune

Heretics of Dune is the fifth book in the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

This book picks up the story 1,500 years after the last one ended. The descendants of Siona had scattered throughout the universe, hidden from prescient minds by their unique genetics traits. Now some of them return from the scattering, but for what purpose?

The first book in the series is what drew me in. The next couple of books were not great. The fourth was a lot better. This one continues the upward trend. The intensity builds pretty much from the start all the way through, but the ending is a little weak. The next book starts where this one left off, so I guess that’s the reason for the week ending in this case.

As with the previous books, there are some fantastic sound bites. When you are reading the books on a Kindle you can see the pages littered with other people’s highlights. I could list hundreds, but here are just a few.

 

“Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress “wild” research. Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a long history of producing unwanted competition.”

“Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?”

“… we only hate what’s really dangerous to us.”

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 06 April 2013 † Tim... § Books ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged: , ,

Not “how”, but “why” should we upgrade to JDeveloper & ADF 11.1.1.7.0 ?

Followers of the blog know I’m an Oracle database guy, but my current job also has me honing my newbie WebLogic 11g skills, setting up a number of servers to deliver ADF and Forms & Reports 11gR2 applications.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Oracle have just released the 11.1.1.7.0 version of JDeveloper and ADF. I tried applying the 11.1.1.7.0 patch to a WebLogic 11g (10.3.6) installation and it worked without any problems (see here).

The real issue is, we currently have developers working hard to get applications converted from AS10g to ADF (11.1.1.6) running on WebLogic 11g (10.3.6). As much as I would like to “force” them to upgrade to 11.1.1.7, it has to be justified. So why should we upgrade to JDeveloper & ADF 11.1.1.7.0?

One of the great things about the Oracle ACE program is the level of access you get to experts in a variety of Oracle technologies. This network of people includes both Oracle ACEs and Oracle employees.

So how did I go about answering my question? Simple! I emailed my buddy Chris Muir (Oracle ADF Product Manager at Oracle), who is far better qualified to answer than me. :) In that email I asked the following three questions:

  1. Assuming we don’t need the extra functionality in ADF 11.1.1.7, what is the advantage of moving to it? Are the bug fixes and maybe browser compatibility changes enough to warrant the upgrade?
  2. Is there a significance as far as support lifecycle is concerned?
  3. Is the upgrade likely to break anything that has already been converted for 11.1.1.6?

I suggested Chris might want to write a blog post based on these questions. He suggested a remote Q&A style post, so this is the “Q” and Chris will supply the “A” here!

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 03 April 2013 † Tim... § Oracle ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Oracle Linux : Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)…

I mentioned in a previous post that my company were planning to move all of our middle tier infrastructure and some of our Oracle databases to Oracle Linux running on a virtual infrastructure. That process is now underway.

Persuading the company to ditch Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in favor of Oracle Linux took a bit of effort, partly due to some Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) spread by one of the vendors we use. In the process of trying to counter the FUD I put together an Oracle Linux FAQ document. I thought it might come in handy for anyone else in a similar position, so I thought I would make it available on my site.

As I say at the top of the article, this includes some of my opinions as well as facts. This made me a little nervous, so I thought I would run it by an expert before I let it loose.  Big thanks to Lenz Grimmer for giving the article the once-over. His corrections and suggestions were very welcome!

Cheers

Tim…

Posted 02 April 2013 † Tim... § Linux § Oracle ‡ Comments (6) ° Tagged: , ,