cPanel Password Syncing

Posted 4 days ago

While making some server  changes and resetting some passwords (making them more secure), I ran across an issue where I couldn't log into phpMyAdmin -- even though I was already logged into cPanel. I kept being asked to log in (instead of being logged in automatically) and my cPanel credentials wouldn't work; instead, I was forced to use a database user and password, which only gave me access to a subset of my databases.

Turns out that some passwords don't sync properly between services:

That is correct, though it's not just punctuation, but almost any "special character" that can trip phpMyAdmin up and cause you to be unable to login to phpMyAdmin from cPanel, and may also affect the operation of Fantastico. The password itself is still synced, it seems that phpMyAdmin just doesn't encapsulate the entire password properly; it incorrectly thinks some of the special characters should not be passed onto MySQL, causing the issue.

Tip of the day: use only alphanumeric characters for cPanel passwords.

The Unclickable Flash Settings Dialog

Posted 6 days ago

Much as I despise Flash for its crushing memory requirements and its tendency to crash any system I have, I do need to have Flash Player installed to view videos at various times. Usually that's not a problem, since I also use ClickToPlugin to manage when and if Flash is loaded.

However, there's a bug in Flash Player which appears to go back to at least version 10 and which Adobe seems not to have fixed, even though the bug is quite widespread: the Adobe Flash Player Settings dialog which sometimes appears is unclickable. (This issue plagues not only OS X, but also Windows and Linux.) The dialog generally appears whenever Flash wants to gain access to your system in some manner -- for example, when the site you are visiting wants to use your camera or microphone or store data in local storage. Since the dialog is unclickable, it obscurs at least a portion of the Flash object and, for me, makes watching some videos impossible.

The workarounds often mentioned, which involve managing your Flash Player global settings (either using the Local Settings Manager for Flash 10.3+ or the Online Settings Manager), just aren't satisfactory. There is a better option which may just fix the problem completely for you (it did for me):

  • On Windows, delete these folders: %APPDATA%\Adobe\Flash Player and %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player.
  • On OS X, delete these folders: ~/Library/Caches/Adobe/Flash Player and ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player.

Thanks to Katie on the Adobe Forums for posting the answer.

My #1 Affiliate Marketing Secret

By Don Morris

Once in a while I'm asked by an affiliate of mine why he or she isn't making any sales of $7 Secrets. Nine times out of 10, that affiliate is missing the one thing I believe every affiliate needs, no matter what product they're promoting: a website.

If you want to be successful marketing products as an affiliate, you need to have your own website—and promote those products from your website.

Here are several reasons why using your own website for promotion is so important:

Personal recommendation

How do I find out about WSOs?

Posted 3 weeks ago

If you're looking for the latest WSOs (Warrior Special Offers) on the Warrior Forum, going to the forum itself is often frustrating. For some reason WSOs are the only board that cannot be sorted; even if it could be, there's no apparent way to sort by thread start date instead of date of last post (comment). As a result, the threads at the top of the list aren't necessarily the newest offers.

Beginning the Big Unsubscribe

Posted 3 weeks ago

What I'm doing today is the antithesis of list building; it's what every online marketer hates: I'm unsubscribing from dozens of lists.

When I buy something online, I usually sign up to the offered mailing list. Sometimes I want product updates, sometimes I want to hear about related news. Most often I want to see how other marketers promote, so I can learn what (or what not) to do.

PHP Configuration Files Are Not Inherited

Posted 3 weeks ago

I has a problem that started a couple days ago on one of my sites, where my custom php.ini file wasn't overriding the server's global php.ini file. This meant that certain directives weren't set and one of my scripts wasn't behaving.

Learning Object-Oriented Programming

Posted December 16, 2011

Want to learn OOP? Stanford University offers a number of online courses from its catalog, including Programming Methodology (CS106A), through iTunes University—for free!

Choosing a Personal Finance App (Part Two)

Posted December 05, 2011

In August 2009, I abandoned my search for a personal finance app to replace Quicken, but have taken it up once again. With Quicken now unsupported on Lion—because Lion won’t run PowerPC apps and Quicken still hasn’t been updated for Intel Macs—it’s time to look again for something to take its place.

Looking back at the apps I’d started with two years ago, I found some immediate reasons to eliminate a few...

The Night Before Christmas (arr. J. Daniel Smith)

Posted December 04, 2011

A big shout out to J. Daniel Smith, who arranged The Night Before Christmas, a musical performed at our church tonight. I had a great deal of fun playing the oboe; Daniel scored that part beautifully! I've been enjoying his arranging for better than 20 years. Joel Lindsey, one of the writers of the musical, was in attendance and I don't think we let him down.

Sesame Street Glee Parody

Posted November 19, 2011

This was just too funny!

Link Checkers

Posted November 18, 2011

While preparing a quote for a client to convert their static web site to Drupal, I wanted to make sure that I knew how many pages the site spanned. Normally that's an easy task, but their previous webmaster did little in the way of organization, leaving dozens of old files littering the hosting account.

Ledesma Optometry

Posted November 03, 2011

I broke my eyeglasses frames a couple weeks ago and immediately ordered a new pair from my regular optometrist, Ledesma Optometry in Redlands. I was told they would be in on Tuesday (this was a Friday) and that they would be covered under their free replacement policy. I called back on Tuesday, was told their courier would be in after 1:30. I called after 1:30, was told that I was given incorrect information: the frames would take as long as seven days to arrive. No problem—except that my backup glasses were several years old and not suitable for long-term wear.

Those Darn Finder Windows

Posted October 29, 2011

The Finder has an Always open folders in a new window preference that, as the option suggests, ensures that opening a folder spawns a new window. You might think that disabling this setting would ensure that all folders are opened in the parent window; that is, alas, not the case.

(I'm posting this mostly because the following behavior bites me once in a while and by writing it down I'm more likely to remember the reason.)

iOS Syncs in Background

Posted October 25, 2011

I hadn't noticed this before, nor had I seen it mentioned anywhere else, but it appears that syncing your iOS device no longer prevents you from using it while the sync is happening.