BloggerBuddy: Update to v0.5.1

The last couple of days my friend Sire brought to my attention a small problem on BloggerBuddy. There was a conversation on the update post here about it. What was happening is that on the individual feed view, i.e. when clicking on a specific feed to view posts from that blog only, the posts would be randomly ordered rather than ordered by date, as they should be. I also noticed that the same thing happened when you would do a search. Thanks to him i took another look at my code and i found out that i had a small problem. I fixed it and decided it is worth releasing a small update. This is now on version 0.5.1. All you need to do is visit BloggerBuddy’s site and download the latest .air file. Run it and it will update the program. Beware though! Make sure you keep a copy of the data.db file because the installation will inject an empty one! After updating then just put it back replacing the blank one. More on the update process here.

Thanks Sire! Oh, and sorry for doubting on the beggining. Also, stay tuned for more on BloggerBuddy, since i am planing a small “hack it” post.

When things get extremely wrong

As many of you must have noticed, either by visitng or by my desperate tweets, my sites have been down yesterday for almost 12 hours. This is due to what i’d like to call a mistake of mythical proportions. But why am i writing this post now? Well, for starters i want to let you guys know what happened yesterday and, secondly, because my mistake can help you out and warn you, so you won’t have to deal with the same problems i had. As they say: “It’s a very good thing to learn from your mistakes but even better to learn from others’“. So, here is my story.

All my sites, details of which you can find on my sites index here, are hosted on what we call a Virtual Private Server (VPS) – more on VPS’s here. Yesterday was cleaning day. I opened a console to the machine and started tiding up things here and there, cleaning logs, unneeded backups, folders etc. When i was done i wanted to update my machine to the latest software available. The OS that hosts my sites is a Debian Linux distribution so, all needed, was a simple command “apt-get upgrade“. What this does actually is very simple. It checks online to see what versions are available, crosschecks them with the ones already installed and decides which need update. This way everything is done automatically. When i did that, it told me that some packages shouldn’t be updated. That puzzled me a little and i thought “well if i am to update i shall update” so i forced a total update. Process went smooth. All was done. Literally. When the update ended i wanted to check out that all was fine, and guess what, it wasn’t! My web server was unresponsive, it wouldn’t bring up my virtual hosts (thus my sites where all down) and generally it had a mind of it’s own. I started trying to revive Apache but he was still refusing any help. On the process i discovered that it all started by a serious misconfiguration the update caused to the very basic files of the virtual hosting. The damage was irreversible. All was left was a clean install. Fortunately my hosting company offers a very easy re-install process of the OS. The big thing though was backing up, restoring and reconfiguring the server. I had the opportunity to take all the backup i wanted but since time was pressuring i didn’t have a clear mind to remember everything i wanted plus some of the things i did want were too big to backup at the moment so i decided to sacrifice them. All in all it was a very long process that took almost 7 hours to partly complete. The sites are up, just a few administration tasks are there left to complete.

Now, what is this all worth mentioning? Well one big thing for me. Create a backup plan well before you need it. Because when you do, even if you are given an opportunity to take it (like my case), you are going to have loses. That is because on the time of a crisis you don’t have a clear mind to decide and remember what you need to keep and what doesn’t matter. Backup plans are a product of mature thinking and everyday tasks rather than panic reactions. So, my advice, think that your site or server is going down now, what do you want to save? Thanks for sticking around all!

Dumb and dumber root commands

Managing a linux machine can be from extremely easy to extremely difficult depending on the level of abstraction to the system you are willing to use. For instance, using an Ubuntu distribution with an administrator-like user account (that’s a sudo-er) and synaptic, makes things actually pretty easy. But, in my humble opinion, the time when you need to get your hands a bit dirty will come sooner or later. Either you will need a program that is not available from the official sources (so compiling seems to be the only way) or you will be curious on “how can this be done manually”. And then the magic begins…

You start a quest on installing or modifying something and, as the time goes by, you get tired. Now, what is wrong with that? Well, you start typing without really thinking. You just hit the keys on your keyboard and press enter. What’s wrong with that? Well, if you are logged in as root – and chances is that you are since you work on something on the system – then most probably you will be in a lot of trouble. Why’s that? Because, when the system gets a command from his root, his absolute and true God, his one and only master, will do exactly what is told to do. Even if it means messing up things for good.

I can already see a face from all the Ubuntu users with one thought going through their mind “i use sudo”. I would say that sudo is good (too good to be true actually) but when you have a batch of things to do you get tempted on just logging in as root and get it over with (i know that you can do a sudo session but that’s not the point here).

To make things clear we have all been there, including me. You just type and hit enter and ten seconds later you are like “what the @#$%#$%^$%^ have i done!”. In this post i decided to list a few nice and glorious moments i have collected from my experience with Linux and through talking with poor friends. It’s just for fun and not actually to insult or make fun of anyone. So, here i go!

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Member Of The Month: January

So here we are again. The first 1/12th of the year has gone by and, to be honest, it was not one of my most productive ones. But, what can you do, i’ve been thrown some curveballs this month on my professional and online life. On the contrary, on my personal life, i am better than good so the tradeoff is fair. Although i haven’t been around much this month you have been as loyal as before. Without further due, this month’s MOTM is Raju with 14 comments! I would like to thank you all, especially Raju, for coming back here. I must add that i was very touched by all of you showing concern when i was “lost” for a few days. This means that, although by the definition of the term “Friends” we are totaly strangers, we stick together and care for each other. So, friends it is! I would like to thank you all for that. Stick around and i will be back (that’s a threat!).