Category: Programming

Coding

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Understanding CRONTAB

Time to write cron job to make sure a process fires every morning on a linux server. This sums it up quite well!

* * * * * command to be executed
– – – – –
| | | | |
| | | | —– day of week (0 – 6) (Sunday=0)
| | | ——- month (1 – 12)
| | ——— day of month (1 – 31)
| ———– hour (0 – 23)
————- min (0 – 59)

So I’m looking at:
0 1 * * * /usr/bin/wget -q -O- myfile.php
To run every morning at 1am.

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Debugging CSS

For folks working with CSS and Firefox, there is an outstanding tool called Aardvark. There is also a javascript bookmarklet that does something similar and can be used in any browser that supports javascript. Simply go to this page and drag the Bookmark this link for MODIv2 link to your bookmarks toolbar. When you want to use it, click the shortcut. (of course, you can skip going to the page and simply drag that link).

I still highly recommend Aardvark.

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5 Steps to CSS Heaven

I find CSS to be much fun. I like reading other people’s options of CSS techniques. PingMag lists 5 steps that I like.

  1. http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/05/18/5-steps-to-css-heaven/
  2. Separate the positioning properties from the typographic properties
  3. Isolate single properties that you are likely to reuse a lot
  4. Try out an online CSS compressor
  5. Learn to exploit the cascading nature of CSS

I don’t necessarily agree completely or adhere to these steps but they are certainly worth reviewing. [Source]

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Coding hurts

This is the stuff that makes my eyes bleed:

<FORM action="{$register_script_name}?{$smarty.server.QUERY_STRING}" method="POST" name="registerform"{if $js_enabled} onsubmit="javascript: if (check_zip_code(){if $default_fields.email.required eq 'Y'} && checkEmailAddress(document.registerform.email){/if}) return true; else return false;"{/if}>

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Server Status

I disabled a few unessential services, like FTP, did a magic reboot taking a brief stop in Safe Mode, and CFMX 7 started working! CFMX 6.1 continues to not work.

Others have had this issue. I fail to see any clear resolution. Right now I am pondering uninstalling 6.1.

Now to apply the latest 7 hotfixes then get back to work.

Btw, this was done but may or may not have helped.

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Server troubleshooting continues

On trying to start the cfmx (6.1) service I get the following message:

Windows could not start the ColdFusion MX Server on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service-specific error code 1.

The event log shows (for Application):

The ColdFusion MX Application Server service could not be started. Check that server “default” exists. Check the server “default” log files for more information.

And for MX 7:

The ColdFusion MX 7 Application Server service could not be started within 240 seconds. Increase the server startup timeout value using C:\CFusionMX7\runtime\jrunsvc.exe -starttimeout <seconds> "ColdFusion MX 7 Application Server".

I wonder if this is related:

Source:WinMgmt Warning! "WMI ADAP was unable to process the PerfDisk performance library due to a time violation in the open function."

The event viewer shows nothing interesting for DNS Server, IExplore, or Security. System however shows a warning for source Browser:

The browser was unable to retrieve a list of servers fromthe browser master \\ROCKWELL on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{31C49F54-B9A1-4536-85E6-FCCF5D042F85}. The data is the error code. "Data: bytes: 0000: 35 00 00 00 5…"

That’s interesting because Rockwell is my development machine and should not be master of anything. Other server event warnings/errors:

Error: Source: Service Control Manager: The RMServer service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 0 milliseconds. No action.
Error: Source: Service Control Manager: The RMServer service hung on starting.
Error: Source: Service Control Manager: The ColdFusion MX 7 Application Server service terminated with service-specific error 2.
Error: Source: Service Control Manager: The Windows Media Program Service service terminiated wtih service-specific error 16389.
Error: Source: The ColdFusion MX Application Server service terminated with service-specific error 1.
Warning: Time: 3:47 Source: BROWSER: The browser was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\FREUD on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{31C49F54-B9A1-4536-85E6-FCCF5D042F85}. The data is the error code. Data: Bytes: 0000: 35 00 00 00 5…

Ok! What’s that?! \\FREUD is my wife’s computer and has no more business being a browser master than \\ROCKWELL. We were also fast asleep at that time.

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Update on yesterday’s challenges

Yesterday I hit the ground running at 2:30am and was taking names! Somewhere around 7am I had a problem with my server and productivity ground to a halt. I spent the entire day working the issue and still don’t have it working. My server is a development server accessible only to me and sports ColdFusion 4.5 and ColdFusion MX 6.1. It now also has ColdFusion 7 installed. CF 4.5 works fine. CFMX 6.1 and 7 both refuse to start as a service. The timing on this issue couldn’t be worse.

From the cf7 runtime/logs/coldfusion-event.log:

06/15 06:24:56 warning No sessionSecret has been specified in jrun.xml. Installing a self generated sessionSecret.
06/15 06:25:01 info No JDBC data sources have been configured for this server (see jrun-resources.xml)
06/15 06:25:02 info JRun Web Server listening on *:8501
06/15 06:25:02 info Deploying enterprise application “Macromedia ColdFusion MX” from: file:/C:/CFusionMX7/
06/15 06:25:07 info Deploying web application “Macromedia Coldfusion MX” from: file:/C:/CFusionMX7/
06/15 06:25:47 user JSPServlet: init
06/15 06:25:55 user CFMxmlServlet: init
06/15 06:25:55 user CFMxmlServlet: Macromedia Flex Build: 87315.134646
06/15 06:26:11 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: init
06/15 06:26:11 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: ColdFusion MX: Starting application services
06/15 06:26:11 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: ColdFusion MX: VM version = 1.4.2_05-b04

and from coldfusion-out.txt:

Starting Macromedia JRun 4.0 (Build 92909), coldfusion server
06/15 06:24:39 warning Unable to open C:\CFusionMX7\runtime/lib/license.properties
06/15 06:24:54 info JRun Naming Service listening on *:2920
06/15 06:24:56 warning No sessionSecret has been specified in jrun.xml. Installing a self generated sessionSecret.
06/15 06:25:01 info No JDBC data sources have been configured for this server (see jrun-resources.xml)
06/15 06:25:02 info JRun Web Server listening on *:8501
06/15 06:25:02 info Deploying enterprise application “Macromedia ColdFusion MX” from: file:/C:/CFusionMX7/
06/15 06:25:07 info Deploying web application “Macromedia Coldfusion MX” from: file:/C:/CFusionMX7/
06/15 06:25:47 INFO License Service: Flex 1.5 CF Edition enabled
06/15 06:25:47 INFO Starting Flex 1.5 CF Edition
06/15 06:25:47 user JSPServlet: init
06/15 06:25:55 user CFMxmlServlet: init
06/15 06:25:55 user CFMxmlServlet: Macromedia Flex Build: 87315.134646
06/15 06:25:55 INFO Macromedia Flex Build: 87315.134646
06/15 06:26:11 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: init
06/15 06:26:11 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: ColdFusion MX: Starting application services
06/15 06:26:11 user ColdFusionStartUpServlet: ColdFusion MX: VM version = 1.4.2_05-b04
06/15 06:26:15 Information [main] – Starting logging…
06/15 06:26:15 Information [main] – Starting crypto…
06/15 06:26:26 Information [main] – Starting license…
06/15 06:26:26 Information [main] – Starting License server …
06/15 06:27:08 Information [main] – Starting scheduler…
06/15 06:27:08 Information [main] – Starting WatchService…
06/15 06:27:09 Information [main] – Starting debugging…
06/15 06:27:09 Information [main] – Starting sql…
06/15 06:27:10 Information [main] – Starting mail…
06/15 06:27:13 Information [main] – CORBA Configuration not enabled
06/15 06:27:13 Information [main] – Starting cron…
06/15 06:27:13 Information [main] – Starting registry…
06/15 06:27:15 Information [main] – Starting client…
06/15 06:27:17 Information [main] – Starting xmlrpc…
06/15 06:27:21 Information [main] – Starting graphing…
06/15 06:27:36 Information [main] – Starting verity…
06/15 06:27:36 Information [main] – Starting archive…
06/15 06:27:36 Information [main] – Starting document…

Update: I did receive an error message:

Could not start the ColdFusion MX 7 Application Server service on local computer.
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

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Today’s Challenges

  1. CFMX6.1 from c:\CFusionMX\runtime\logs\default-out.log on Win2k server:

    JRun server “default” does not exist, the server root null was not found. Please verify that the C:\CFusionMX\runtime\lib\servers.xml file contains valid data for this server.

    Additional info from c:\CFusionMX\runtime\logs\default-err.log:

    jrunx.xml.XMLMetaData$CouldNotCreateDocumentException: Could not create document from location ‘file:/C:/CFusionMX/runtime/lib/servers.xml’
    at jrunx.xml.XMLMetaData.createDocument(XMLMetaData.java:1028)
    at jrunx.xml.XMLMetaData.importXML(XMLMetaData.java:200)
    at jrunx.xml.XMLMetaData.(XMLMetaData.java:122)
    at jrunx.server.metadata.ServersMetaData.(ServersMetaData.java:32)
    at jrunx.server.ServerManagement.refreshServersMetaData(ServerManagement.java:82)
    at jrunx.server.ServerManagement.getServerRootDirectory(ServerManagement.java:154)
    at jrunx.server.ServerManagement.getServerRootDirectoryFile(ServerManagement.java:171)
    at jrunx.kernel.JRun.startByNTService(JRun.java:410)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)
    at jrunx.kernel.JRun.invoke(JRun.java:180)
    at jrunx.kernel.JRun.main(JRun.java:168)

  2. My ftp client refuses to update a client site.
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Which way do you go?

So what’s your preference? A-2, A-3, Num, ITU, FIPS, IOC, DS, WMO, or MARC? I think I prefer FIPS.

Here’s a grin. The US designed FIPS. Europe designs NUTS. Both systems are crazy.

Update: I’ve changed my mind. I like ISO_3166-1.

The FIPS 10-4 country list differs from ISO 3166 in many minor and sometimes surprising ways. It has assigned separate codes to Bassas da India (BS), Europa Island (EU), Glorioso Islands (GO), Juan de Nova Island (JU), and Tromelin Island (TE), tiny and mostly uninhabited Indian Ocean islands administered from Reunion; also, Ashmore and Cartier Islands (AT) and Coral Sea Islands (CR), Australian territories; and Clipperton Island (IP), which is administered from French Polynesia. It splits Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands into two countries (JN and SV). * It shows United States Minor Outlying Islands as nine countries: Baker Island (FQ), Howland Island (HQ), Jarvis Island (DQ), Johnston Atoll (JQ), Kingman Reef (KQ), Midway Islands (MQ), Navassa Island (BQ), Palmyra Atoll (LQ), and Wake Island (WQ). It treats Palestine as the Gaza Strip (GZ) plus the West Bank (WE); also, a code is assigned to No Man’s Land (NM), a small and winding band of neutral territory near Jerusalem. The 2004 edition of the CIA World Factbook explains why it has added country listings for Akrotiri and Dhekelia, two British military bases in Cyprus. FIPS codes have not yet been assigned to these “countries”, but the Factbook‘s naming scheme implies that they should be AX and DX, respectively. Finally, FIPS allocates codes to the Paracel (PF) and Spratly (PG) Islands, two island groups in the South China Sea that are claimed by every country within shooting distance; ISO 3166 is noncommital about the Paracels and Spratlys.
[Source]

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Levels of HTML Knowledge

This serious rating of HTML coders complements my earlier joke post regarding the evolution of programmers by explaining 7 levels of HTML understanding from HTML Level 0 to HTML Level 6. I’d put myself at HTML Level 4 moving into 5.

It isn’t necessary for everybody to reach HTML Level 6. I consider myself a Level 5 person, and I’m quite happy reading the specs instead of writing them so I don’t really feel like I need to reach Level 6. People whose task is to keep a website’s content up-to-date can even get by at Level 1, provided that their CMS is good enough. It all depends on your needs.

Levels of HTML Knowledge was inspired by Levels of CSS knowledge. I am Level 5.