Angry Nerd

So git status is saying "Your branch and 'origin/master' have diverged, blah blah" -- now what?

The easiest way to resolve the divergence is to ditch your local changes and start over from the latest origin/master:

git reset --hard origin/master

If you don't want to ditch the local commits you need to do a rebase instead of a reset:

git rebase origin/master

So how do you know if there's anything in the local commits that's worth keeping? You review the commit log and the diff:

Here's how to add a new disk to a Linux machine:

# fdisk /dev/xvdb ... Command (m for help): p ... Command (m for help): n Command action e extended p primary partition (1-4) p Partition number (1-4): 1 First cylinder (1-181975, default 1): Using default value 1 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-181975, default 181975): Using default value 181975 Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/xvdb: 1496.7 GB, 1496796102656 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 181975 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0xc6318a63 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/xvdb1 1 181975 1461714156 83 Linux Command (m for help): w ... # mke2fs -j /dev/xvdb1 # mkdir /mydisk # echo "/dev/xvdb1 /mydisk ext3 defaults 1 2" >> /etc/fstab # mount -a # df -H

My HP Laserjet P1102w refused to work on Linux (Ubuntu 10.04), even after installing hplip and all the required dependencies. The printer did show up on lsusb output, though:

~/Downloads/hplip-3.12.6$ lsusb Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 SGS Thomson Microelectronics Fingerprint Reader Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 001 Device 005: ID 03f0:032a Hewlett-Packard Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub ~/Downloads/hplip-3.12.6$

The trouble is, the printer does not show up as a printer, but as a fake CD-ROM drive! This is because of something known as "HP Smart Install", which only works on Windows (of course). Currently the only way to fix that is to install the printer and its full driver package on Windows, and then run UTIL/SIUtility.exe to disable the Smart Install feature on the printer. Having done that, it works on Linux without a hitch.

Here's how to install Node.js on Red Hat based Linux distributions:

Having figured out how to re-save a JPEG in Irfanview such that my Canon DSLR no longer gives the "unrecognized file type" error (see the previous post), I had enough confidence to try the "JPG Lossless Crop" option, too.

The good news is that it works; the bad news is that you have to be really careful with it, or you'll end up with the "unrecognized file type" error once again.

I was trying to be clever and did some quick editing on JPEGs while they were still sitting in my Canon 500D, but damn, the bloody camera refused to recognize any of the edited photos!

After several hours of googling and playing with Irfanview and ExifTool, I had to give up on restoring the processed photos into a state that the camera would accept -- apparently my editing software (Picasa) had mangled the files beyond recovery. Luckily, Picasa also keeps the originals tucked away, so I could go back to square one.

I then started diagnosing the problem from the opposite direction. I opened one of the originals in Irfanview and re-saved it without any changes, but no luck: the Canon still wouldn't recognize it.

Here's how to launch a unix shell command from Python and grab its output:

First make the sudoers file writable:

sudo chmod 640 /etc/sudoers

then open the sudoers file in your favorite text editor:

sudo emacs /etc/sudoers

then find the line that reads

root ALL=(ALL) ALL

and add the following line

myaccount ALL=(ALL) ALL

Finally turn the sudoers file back to read-only:

Step-by-step instructions for setting up https connections on Apache/CentOS: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Https

Turn off all caching to see how your site performs to a first-time visitor:

#LoadModule cache_module modules/mod_cache.so #LoadModule disk_cache_module modules/mod_disk_cache.so #LoadModule file_cache_module modules/mod_file_cache.so #LoadModule mem_cache_module modules/mod_mem_cache.so

Allowing persistent connections is typically a good idea:

KeepAlive On

Allow CGI script execution in any directory, not just cgi-bin:

<Directory "/var/www/html"> Options FollowSymLinks ExecCGI ... </Directory>

CGI script execution in arbitrary directories also requires handlers:

Change the date and time of all .jpg files to match the time they were captured: