I was installing NagVis when I came across this weird message:

Strict Standards: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system’s timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected ‘UTC’ for ‘GMT/0.0/no DST’ instead in /usr/local/nagios/nagvis/nagvis/includes/classes/objects/NagVisStatefulObject.php on line 360

It clearly says that I should check the timezone, which I did. But there’s nothing wrong with time or date. ntpd is running and it set the correct timezone so what could be wrong?

If you are reading this then probably you are seeing this error too. To fix this, open your php.ini using your favourite text editor (like vi) and add this line:

date.timezone=UTC

Take note that depending on how you installed php, it could be in /etc/php.ini (RedHat) or /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini (SLES) or if compiled, /usr/local/php5/php.ini.

You need to restart Apache for changes to take effect.

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Wordpress 2.5 is the latest version to date of the world’s most popular publishing system. Despite my innards telling me not to go with the update, I went ahead did it anyway.

There’s nothing wrong with WP 2.5. It is more organized and sort of easy to the eyes. I like that they decided to let go of the old look and came up with a refreshing one. When I got the site working with WP 2.5, I checked the control panel and said to myself “Eh, it’s not so bad.”

Or so I thought.

Everything works (AFAIK) so I go changing my theme and modified some stuff here and there before I decided to change the order of things in the sidebars. Apparently, it is tougher to do this in this version. I tried moving one widget from my left sidebar onto the right sidebar. So I dragged the widget to the left in attempt to deactivate the widget first before clicking the RightSidebar dropdown. But no sir, it cannot be done. The widget kept bouncing back to the Left Sidebar column. So how do I move one widget from left sidebar to the right sidebar or vice versa?

Well, good question.

Or what if you want to just deactivate the widget without deleting it?

That is another good one.

Some folks down at the wordpress.org forum have their opinions about the widget ‘bug’. Looks like I am not alone in this one. So I guess that means we have to do some workaround until they release another version with the ‘bug’ fixed.

To bring a widget from one sidebar to another:

1. Open the widget and copy the codes inside. Remember to put the copied code in a notepad.

2. Delete the widget by selecting Remove and click Save Changes.

3. Open the other sidebar and create a new widget. Paste the codes here and save your changes.

To deactivate the widget without deleting:

(I have not yet found a workaround for this).

So you see, the task that can be done in 2 seconds in version 2.3.3 is now a 3-minute job. This is a huge backward step in terms of usability. Nevertheless, I am too lazy to rollback my site to version 2.3.3. I just got my site working again from database disaster, for crying out loud! Now you want me to rollback everything? I don’t think so. So I’m sticking to 2.5 until they get this fixed. I’m sure that the WP team is working to resolve this.

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LifeHack.org writes all the tell-tale signs to know if your hard drive will soon fail and die on you. Very helpful since I have already suffered enough from hard drives that decided to just get tired and stop breathing – er… spinning.

Hard drives form the basis of our computing. The use of computers comes down to manipulating data, and the hard drive is, of course, where we store all our data; family albums, music, work documents, email, the list goes on.

Most of the components in your computer are electronic devices. They don’t fail with time like a mechanical device such as a car. But your hard drive is one of the few mechanical devices used in modern computing, and as such, it’s destined to die eventually.

It’s important to learn to recognize the warning signs of an imminent hard drive failure, since you might not have the budget for an extensive back-up system, so you can rescue all that data before it’s lost—sometimes forever, not retrievable at any cost.
Why do hard drives fail?

Logical Failures

Logical failures occur when the electronics of the hard drive failure or the software (firmware) has a problem. This kind of failure is usually the cheapest and easiest to have fixed. Unfortunately, it’s also an uncommon failure.
Media Failures

If the hard drive has been handled roughly, or the magnetic platters are scratched, have read/write errors or low-level formatting problems, this is a media failure. These are also relatively uncommon. Once the platters are scratched, the data should be considered scrapped.

Head Failures

A head failure occurs when the read/write head crashes into the platters (the head crash), has an “improper flying height” or the wiring between the logic board and the head is faulty—among other failures related to malfunction of the read/write head. This is a common failure. The head crash is particularly nasty.

Mechanical Failures

Mechanical failures probably make up the bulk of hard drive failures. The motor burns out, the drive overheats, bearings get stuck—the kind of thing you’d expect to find when a car fails. These can be nasty but if the failure didn’t affect the platters, you might have a chance of recovery, but at a cost.

How do I find out when it’s going to fail before it fails?

That’s not always possible, and sometimes a hard drive will just die—but it’s still important to keep an eye on the symptoms of an imminent hard drive so you have the chance to back-up your data and get professional help.

Hard drives are incredibly sensitive bits of hardware, so don’t try to crack it open and have a look inside unless you know what you’re doing. And most definitely ensure that if you do crack it open, the platters don’t get exposed to the open air—hard drives can only be opened in Class 100 clean rooms or they’re pretty much instantly destroyed by dust.

It’s a lot easier to back-up than to get your data recovered. Once you detect any of the signs of failure you need to ensure that you have a back-up and if not, make one. Then when the drive dies, you can claim your warranty if you still have it, or buy a new drive, and be on your way.

Recovery can cost thousands and thousands of dollars; it sure is a ridiculous amount to pay, but there’s not much you can do but shop around and find the best price. The cost of transferring a back-up onto a brand new drive is much cheaper than having a recovery specialist do the same for you.

Strange Noises

Sometimes hearing strange grinding and thrashing noises means your drive is beyond repair—for instance, if you’ve had a head crash, it very often is. Or it could just be that the motor has failed or your hard drive is grinding away because of noisy bearings. If you’re hearing strange noises then act very, very quickly—you probably don’t have much time.

Disappearing Data and Disk Errors

Computer won’t let you save a document? Or you’re sure that you had a file on your desktop yesterday that’s nowhere to be seen today? Programs that always worked suddenly stop working, asking where a file it depends on is stored?

These are all potential signs that your hard drive is on its way out. Of course, it could be that your kids moved your files for fun or a virus is eating through them, but disappearing data is never a good sign for your drive if you can rule out those alternative causes.
Your computer stops recognizing your drive

This may seem obvious, but if your computer no longer recognizes your drive chances are there’s a problem with it, not the computer. Test it in a friend’s computer and see if your hard drive is recognized by it.

Often, this will be a logical failure—unless you can hear strange noises that indicate a severe mechanical or head problem.

Computer Crashes

Does your computer regularly blue-screen or suddenly reboot? Does it crash often, especially when booting your operating system? If your computer is crashing, especially at times when the computers is accessing files (such as during the boot sequence), it may indicate a problem with your drive.
Really Slow Access Times

It shouldn’t take half an hour to open a folder in Windows Explorer, or two hours to empty the trash. I’ve come across this problem plenty of times over the years, and it’s always followed by a failing hard drive within a month or two.

If you have this symptom on your computer and your drive does not fail, please uninstall Vista from your 486.

Sound is a great indicator. As soon as the sound changes from the norm, or you get plenty of clicking and grinding from your hard drive, you need to power it down immediately. Get to know the sound of your hard drive while it’s young and in working order, because you’ll need to be able to hear the slightest differences when it gets older.

What next?

Don’t try to be a hero. If there’s time, get your data backed up. If there’s not—nasty noises, for example—get it out of the computer or enclosure, wrap it in anti-static plastic or aluminium foil and keep it safe until you can send it to a professional. Hard drives are very sensitive, just like those kids who die their hair black and write poems about suicide. Don’t mess with them.

When you contact a recovery specialist, they will give you details on shipping the drive, though they tend to prefer you hand-deliver it to prevent further damage.

When it comes to hard drives, just remember to keep an eye on it and act quickly. And, of course, keep extensive back-ups, even if you have to skip groceries one week to do so.

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For two years of my early career life, I was a struggling Windows support who worked from being a Windows help desk support to Windows on-site support before becoming a Linux system administrator.

Being an IT support is a tough and dirty job. You face dusty, broken computers, get on your knees to re-connect that patch cable underneath the desk, listen to the whines of people from Marketing and Accounting on how they could not do their work because you have their computers at your mercy, accidentally reading confidential emails and catching the latest office news while you are at it (hey, you already saw the email so there is no point in denying)  and of course, what could be more fun than to help users find their START button. All of these are done on a daily basis.

IT support are also in charge of setting up that cool, new PC which is the easiest work because you work with a blank canvass. It is clean, fast and if you mess it up, you can wipe everything and start all over again. Never have to worry about losing important spreadsheets, emails and browser bookmarks.  The only thing to think about are the programs you need to install. To help our fellow support engineers out there, here is a nice site with free toolkits that are commonly installed on fresh computers.

Before installing these programs, please confirm first with the company policies of these programs are allowed on your network.

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There are more than a couple of ways of updating Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) packages on your machine. One is by using up2date, the default package updater of RHEL systems. Unlike Fedora and CentOS which uses yum, up2date requires you to be registered to Red Hat Network (RHN) to be able to download or update your packages from the RHN repository.

Now, what if you need to install a certain package that is not available in your current repository by up2date? Or what if the package in the repository wreaks havoc in your system? Maybe you should try using yum to install or update rpm packages.

But… but… but how can I install yum in my RHEL machine?, you may ask. It’s actually very simple.

I got this tip from Babar Haq’s Blog with a little modification since I am using RHEL 4.

1. Download yum by using wget

# wget http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/download/2.0/yum-2.0.8-1.noarch.rpm

2. Install the rpm

# rpm -ivh yum-2.0.8-1.noarch.rpm

3. Configure /etc/yum.conf to use compatible repository

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1

[base]
name=CentOS-$releasever – Base
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/os/i386/
gpgcheck=1

[updates]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever – Updates
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/updates/i386/
gpgcheck=1

4. Download and install the CentOS GPG Key

# wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-4

# rpm –import RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-4

5. Test yum to see if it works (I tested by running full update on my machine)

# yum update

*Note: This will update ALL installed packages in your machine. If you do not want to do this, cancel the process or skip this step.

If you reach step 5 without encountering any errors, it means that yum is successfully updating your machine with the latest versions available in the repo.

This worked perfectly fine for me. If you experienced any errors, post a message and I will try to help you out

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