Tables in Moodle appear without border lines.

Tables in Moodle 2 will tend to have this issue where users just can't get the grid lines to appear. Another description for this, is the border lines appear during editing, but is not displayed when it is saved and viewed as a normal content page.

The misleading choice was to right click and edit using "Table properties". Did not work in what ever combination that was made.

Following are steps that can be taken when creating a standard table from scratch in Moodle.

Step 1: Right click on the existing table. Choose Cell ->Table cell properties.
It does look like we are changing one cell, but bear with me to get this applied to the whole table.

Step 2: Choose the Advanced tab. Click on the Border color's colour selection box.

Step 3: Choose a colour. Better still click on Palette or Named tabs to choose a standard colour. Click Apply. In this example, Black or #000000 is choosen as the border line colour.

Step 4: At the dropdown box choose "Update all cells in table", click "Update".

Step 5: Save changes to the page where the table is added and view the table with the border lines.

Samsung S3's Android update March 2013

Just did an OTA update from Jan 2013 to Mar 2013.

Among changes known at this moment;

Lock screen security patch. Previously there is a 5 step hack to by pass the login for the lock screen.

Camera. The menu at sides now have transparent borders. Now missing 3 scene modes, which include the fireworks, backlit.

Faces of Clouds

Cloud is a big thing these last few months. Just to clear some terms that is of interest and where even so called IT experts are not able to agree on. This means, that its my personal view based on resources published by industry experts.

3 items are of interest. The first, is naming of a cloud based on its deployment. Second, clouds can further be classified based on services it provide to users. And lastly, a case study. Think of your plan to build a cloud and how it would be shaped.

A) A cloud is named based on its location or deployment.

1. Public - Applications, storage and services made available to the general public for free or for a fee.
2. Private - For a single organisation and decisions made centrally on resources.
3. Community - Shared infrastructure having several organisation with specific interest that is managed internally or by a 3rd party.
4. Hybrid - Combination of either Public, Private or Community, or all three.

B) A cloud can then be named based on its services.

1. IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)
1. Users install own operating system and maintain its own patches, IP addresses. - Rackspace, Amazon EC2.
2. Users can leverage resources to sell as a service provider to their clients.
2. PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)
1. Run your own application on a provider's platform
2. Develop on a provider's platform - Google AppEngine, Oracle Cloud Platform, OpenShift.
3. SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)
1. Full web application - E.g. Googledocs, SalesForce, Gmail
2. Web services (consumed by other web application) - GoogleMaps API, PayPal

C) A case study

How would you shape a cloud based on above (A) and (B) for following situation?

Lets say a government wants to setup a TeleHealth cloud. It allows any application for hospitals, clinics and government. Some of these applications are built and some bought. Geographically users are very dispersed throughout the country. 

A) Community

Why? Organisations apart from the Ministry of Health, clinics and hospitals would also include 3rd party resources for pharmaceutical, research, assets, payments.

B) PaaS

1. By providing one or two standard platforms, all development can be better managed. Deployed applications can be made to meet security and other standards set.
2. Many new applications/web services can be introduced by users. 

Yahoo on scheduled maintenance

Did you get any notification for this scheduled maintenance?

Dangers in copy and paste to CLI

A reminder for those who are trying to be smart and copy commands found on the internet or via unknown emails, the PASTE may contain dangerous commands.

See http://thejh.net/misc/website-terminal-copy-paste

WARNING, do not try the following if you do not understand dangers of hidden codes. Here below is an attempt to simulate that line to be copied.

Just copy the 1 line below and paste to the CLI, watch what happens.

/dev/null; clear; echo -n "Hello ";whoami|tr -d '\n';echo -e '!\nThat was a bad idea. Don'"'"'t copy code from websites you don'"'"'t trust!
Here'"'"'s the first line of your /etc/passwd: ';head -n1 /etc/passwd
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kup/kup.git

Howto troubleshoot Virtualisation with RHEVM

In the event to do troubleshooting, some of these were carried out for a recent RHEVM;

1. In the RHEVM Administration Portal, check out the events.
2. The command rhevm-log-collector collect download logs including from hypervisors to the /tmp folder. 
3. Collect only RHEVM logs rhevm-log-collector collect --no-hypervisors
4. Look at logs in /var/log/rhevm 
5. Need to check the RHEVM database? Try  pg_dump engine -U postgres -W -f /tmp/cu_rhevm.dump -F t
6. Check the multipath
7. Check configuration with rhevm-config --list

 Only item I do not see is the %TEMP%/manager_hostname/log as mentioned from the RHEV website.

Additional references: http://www.howtoforge.com/virtualization-with-kvm-on-a-centos-6.2-server

Installing JDBC on MS Windows 7

Basics on getting data from remote MySQL database requires installation of a Java driver.

The JDBC drivers is provided through the current Connector/J 5.1. This is a type 4 driver and works for MySQL 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 5.5. MySQL reference for the driver can be found at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/mysql-refman-6.0/connectors-apis.html#connector-j-versions

Step 1. Ensure JDK 1.6 or 1.7 is already installed.
At the command prompt check the version, see below example where it was installed in C:\Program Files\Java\jre7


> java -version
java version "1.7.0_03"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_03-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 22.1-b02, mixed mode, sharing)



Step 2. Download the driver from Maven2 project.
Download from http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/maven2/mysql/mysql-connector-java/5.1.19/
the file mysql-connector-java-5.1.19.jar

And save to C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\

Step 3. Tell Java where to find the driver
Click on Start ->Control Panel ->System
On the left menu choose, Advanced system setting
Choose Environment variables, in the System variables box click on CLASSPATH and choose Edit.
At the end of the text box, append a semi colon followed by location and the name of the drivers, e.g.

;C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\lib\mysql-connector-java-5.1.19.jar

Choose Ok until all boxes are closed.
If you have any command prompt or Java application, they need to be restarted.

Useful information in order to use the driver;

1. The classname: com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
2. The connection string: jdbc:mysql://server-name:server-port/database-name
3. Username and password to the database
4. Default port 3306

OpenOffice / LibreOffice Base

Step 1. Add the classpath
Open Writer and in the menu choose
Tools ->Option ->Java
Click on the JRE installed; Click Classpath ->Add Archive
Choose location of the driver (In this case C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\lib\mysql-connector-java-5.1.19.jar), click OK until all windows are closed.

Step 2. Close all OpenOffice / LibreOffice applications.

Test using the OpenOffice / LibreOffice Base

Android 4.1.2 on Samsung S3

Update from Android 4.1.1 to 4.1.2 on Samsung S3 was straight forward. There were not many noticeable changes so I am listing what were the initial encounters;

1. Pull down Notification bar have 2 new buttons
1. AllShare cast - to share the screen with other S3 devices. Yet to get a chance to test it.
2. Multi window - Allow a menu on the left side of the screen to appear with a list of apps. Two of these apps can be dragged to the screen and viewed at the same time. One app appears at top half and the other at bottom half. Click the horizontal bar at the centre and there are options to switch both app locations or to use the full screen.
2. Pull down Notification bar doesn't have the Sync button - Looks like have to sync emails and calendars manually from the settings as the "Auto Sync" button is lost. If you really have the battery and want to leave the sync on, try editing Notification bar or follow this; Left button, choose "System settings" ->"Data Usage". Left button, choose "Auto sync data".
3. Edit buttons on Notification bar - Default install have omitted the Sync button, but it can be added back to the Notification bar. To add or remove buttons, Click the Menu button (Left button), Choose "System settings" ->"Display" ->"Notification Panel". Drag additional buttons from the Available Buttons bar into empty spaces in the Notification panel bar.
4. Keyboard includes a predictive feature that I could only disable when it appeared the first time I tried to use the keyboard. This include words from all the Facebook, ChatOn, social networking tools. I do not see the option to change the settings anywhere.
5. Chrome web browser is included. If you use Chrome on your desktop, and signed in, the same apps open and saved bookmarks can be seen on the S3.
6. The Gallery app provides 3 different views to show photos in an Album. In Gallery, choose the top right corner button to switch views.
7. Coming soon...

Getting started with Symfony2 - Part 1

After installing Symfony 2.1 and going through the documentations, everything seems simple enough. To start developing an application from scratch, first create a project, next create a Bundle and start adding codes.

Several assumptions;

1. Installation was done as in my previous posting, including creating the project called mysymfony.
2. The Bundle is called HelloBundle in Sample. All Bundle names must end with the word Bundle.
3. All Bundles will be under the vendor named "Sample".

Here are steps to create and delete a Bundle.

A. Create a Bundle
Step 1: Generate the Bundle

cd mysymfony

php app/console generate:bundle --namespace=Sample/HelloBundle --format=yml

Respond to the wizard's questions;

1. [Enter]
2. HelloBundle
3. [Enter]
4. [Enter]
5. [Enter]
6. [Enter]
7. [Enter]
8. [Enter]

Step 2: Create the routing.
Still in the symfony directory, edit the file src/Sample/HelloBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml

hello:
    pattern:  /hello/{name}
    defaults: { _controller: SampleHelloBundle:Hello:index }

Step 3: Create the controller file.

vi src/Sample/HelloBundle/Controller/HelloController.php

namespace Sample\HelloBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;

class HelloController extends Controller
{
    public function indexAction($name)
    {
        return $this->render('SampleHelloBundle:Hello:index.html.twig', array('name' => $name));
    }
}
Step 4: Create a view template

vi src/Sample/HelloBundle/Resources/views/Hello/index.html.twig

{% extends '::base.html.twig' %}
{% block body %}
Hello {{ name }}!
{% endblock %}

Step 5: Access the final application

In a web browser, enter the location or URL as

http://localhost/mysymfony/web/app.php/hello/malaysia

---

B. Delete a Bundle
Step 1: Delete the Bundle directory
rm -rf src/Sample/HelloBundle/

Step 2: Remove Bundle routing in /app/config/routing.yml
Example, delete

sample_hello:
    resource: "@SampleHelloBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml"
    prefix:   /

Step 3: Remove Bundle from app/AppKernel.php
Example, delete

new Sample\HelloBundle\SampleHelloBundle(),

Step 4: Clear Symfony cache

php app/console cache:clear 

or

php app/console cache:clear --env=prod --no-debug


Note to self: No promises when Part 2 will be published.

Installing Symfony2 on Centos 6

Symfony2 framework looks like it provide many useful development tools.

All following codes require access to internet to download the respective files.

Pre installation check list for Symfony2.1.

1. Installed and running Apache httpd
2. Installed php 5.3 or higher
3. Installed GIT 1.7 or higher

Install PHP
Lots of resources available online.

Ensure additional php packages are installed, including

• php-cli
• php-intl
• php-mysql (if you use MySQL database)
• php-gd
• php-pecl-apc
• php-mbstring

Check that /etc/php/ini timezone is edited.
Example;
date.timezone = "Asia/Kuala_Lumpur"

Install GIT

sudo yum install git-core

Install Composer for PHP

cd /var/www/html

curl -s https://getcomposer.org/installer | php


Install Symfony2.1
Step 1: Download from http://symfony.com/download and extract


tar xvzf Symfony_Standard_Vendors_2.1.6.tgz

Read the text file Symfony/README.md

cp composer.phar Symfony

Step 2: Basic configuration



Step 3: Create your first Symfony2 project

cd /var/www/html/Symfony

php composer.phar create-project symfony/framework-standard-edition /var/www/html/mysymfony 2.1.6

Where

• create-project is the command to create a project with 3 arguments
• symfony/framework-standard-edition is the framework to be installed
• /var/www/html/mysymfony is the new directory or project name to be created and installed with base project files
• 2.1.6 is the version

Use a web browser to check installed project at

http://localhost/mysymfony/web/config.php

If there is an error, please fix before continuing. I received 2 errors to fix the directory permission for app/cache and app/logs

chown -Rf apache.apache app/logs app/cache


Note: I found following discussion useful

http://forum.symfony-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=45892

What you should not do for your online portal

At any time if you have launched a portal accessed publicly, its a bad idea to have links showing Minta Maaf.

Just found this on the Malaysian Road Transport Department Portal on  5 Jan 2013.

If its not ready, no need to put it online, right? Just my Opinion.

The link kept directing to http://www.jpj.gov.my/mintamaaf for most of the options I picked.

Statistics on OSS

From time to time, the use of OSS needs justification. What better then information based on open source development model. This includes;

1. Large number of contributors
2. Frequency of updates (commits)
3. Lines of codes

I found such info from Ohloh.net. Example for HTTP Server from Apache is at http://www.ohloh.net/p/apache

Upgrade Sony Tablet S to Android 4.0.3 rel5

Just received notice of an upgrade. Current Android is 4.0.3 rel 1.

Info on updates is at http://www.sony-asia.com/support/faq/528949

Speedtest via Digi

Speedtest.net results for Digi on SE Xperia X10i with Android 2.3.3

Subscribed to Digi unlimited
[1st round] on 6 Dec 2012
Download: 558kbps, Upload: 377kbps
Ping 99ms

[2nd round] on 6 Dec 2012

Download: 1658kbps, Upload: 372kbps
Ping 90ms


Hmmm...

Centos Linux and 7z

Files with the extension of .7z indicates its a 7-zip compressed files in unicode format. To access files within the 7z, you will need to uncompress or extract the 7z file. By default, compression uses LZMA or Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm, which is an algorithm used to perform lossless data compression.

The program used to access 7z files;

1. Windows: 7-zip
2. Centos Linux: p7zip

Main differences of 7z and tar, is that 7z is meant to be more portable. This includes dropping of the user/group permission of files. I will demonstrate based on Centos 6.

A. Creating a 7z file
Step 1: Installing p7zip
yum install p7zip

Step 2: Compress files in directory named "examples" into the file myfiles.7z
7za a myfiles.7z

Step 3: List files within myfiles.7z
7za l myfiles.7z

Example output as below (note - no user/group info)

7-Zip (A) [64] 9.20  Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov  2010-11-18
p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_US.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,4 CPUs)

Listing archive: scripts.7z

--
Path = scripts.7z
Type = 7z
Method = LZMA
Solid = +
Blocks = 1
Physical Size = 4319
Headers Size = 365

   Date      Time    Attr         Size   Compressed  Name
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------
2012-12-04 09:17:15 ....A          179         3954  examples/svn-auth-users
2012-12-04 09:17:15 ....A           35               examples/tboxmy.sh
2012-12-04 09:17:15 ....A         1004               examples/menusnapshot.sh
2012-12-04 09:17:15 D....            0            0  examples 

------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------

                                  1218         3954  3 files, 1 folders

Optional steps;
Verify 7z file
7za t myfiles.7z


B. Extracting a 7z file

Step 1: Extract to current directory
7za e myfiles.7z

Contributing to Libreoffice

well, Patching of Libreoffice is a commitment from a wide range of users. Below is a response of a contributor on how he contributes. =======
When I work, I frist create a branch out of a point in master (preferably a oen that build nicely :-) ) so nwo I'm on branch 'foo' for example. I code my patch, then I submity it to gerrit via git push origin foo:refs/for/master then I checkout out master again... and keep going... When the review comes and modification to my patch are needed, I checkout out the branch foo again... the I make the modifications and 'amend' the commit (which _is_ the commit I pushed to gerrit) and then push it again using the same command. rince and repeat until the patch is ready... then I let gerrit cherry pick it on top of master.. if ok, then I can delete the foo branch locally if the cherry pick failed because of a conflict... I fetch ./g fetch and then rebase foo : git rebase origin/master (while being on the foo branch) since the cherry pick from gerrit failed, that rebase should exibit some conflict, with I resolve using git mergetool then one can re-push the patch to gerrit, again using the same command as above.. rince and repeat until the cherry pick from gerrit works If one has commit right, then the last phase can be dealt by bringing the patch to master locally and simply pushing to master

Change MySQL database directory

Why do I need to change MySQL database directory or location?

1. Current disk is out of space
2. Current partition is out of space
3. There is a better filesystem to improve disk IO performance.

Steps to do this on Centos 6 with SELinux enforced.

Step 1: Stop MySQL server

Step 2: Create the new directory

A new directory can be created in the new disk or partition.

Step 3: Copy existing database to new location

 mv /var/lib/mysql/* /srv/mysql/

Step 4: Configure MySQL server

Edit /etc/my.cnf with following

datadir=

socket=

[client]

socket=

Save and close the file.

5. Configure SELinux to allow new database

View current settings

setstatus

ls -lZ /var/lib/mysql

ls -lZ

Edit settings with e.g. as /media/server/mysql

semanage fcontext -a -t mysqld_db_t "/media/server/mysql(/.*)?"

OR

chcon -R -t mysqld_db_t /media/server/mysql

restorecon -Rv /media/server/mysql

Check settings are in the config file

grep -i mysql /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts.local

6. Start up MySQL

I had to reboot the server and change selinux to permissive for all this to work.

Linux welcome messages

Securing the Linux terminal includes telling users that they may not access the system without authorisation.

Edit following files for this purpose;

1. /etc/motd
2. /etc/issue
3. /etc/issue.net

For items 2 and 3, they only work if you are connected at the terminal or have client server setup. Those using SSH, messages can be set to point to item 3 in the configuration file /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Howto Yii 1, a PHP framework

This framework seemed worth while to test out. Steps to get started is as follows;

Step 1: Install the framework.
From the www.yiiframework.com site, follow the instructions for pre-requisite to install the Yii framework. Typically you will need

1. Apache web browser
2. PHP 5.1 and newer
3. PHP PDO
4. A database

Download Yii-1.1...tar.gz (in tar.gz format) from http://www.yiiframework.com/download/
Extract the tar.gz file to the web folder /var/www/html/yii1

It is also a good point to download the Yii-docs-1.1...tar.gz and extract it to follow its references and tutorials in PDF.

Step 2: Create the skeleton of a new web app.
At the prompt, access the framework's directory /var/www/html/yii1/framework

Type the following:
./yiic webapp ../testdrive

or in windows
yiic webapp ..\testdrive

Open a web browser and access the testdrive application
http://localhost/yii1/testdrive

Step 3: Configure the timezone for the web app.
If an error on the timezone appears, complete following steps

vi /var/www/html/yii1/testdrive/protected/config/main.php

Just before the last line, add the timezone.


'timeZone'=>'Asia/Kuala_Lumpur',
);

Access the testdrive application with the web browser, the error on timezone is gone. It does inform users the following;


You may change the content of this page by modifying the following two files:

View file: C:\Program Files\www\yii1\testdrive\protected\views\site\index.php
Layout file: C:\Program Files\www\yii1\testdrive\protected\views\layouts\main.php



Step 4. Understanding the structure
It is good to know the directories built for the testdrive web application under /var/www/html/yii1/testdrive. From here on, I will refer to the directory /var/www/html/yii1/testdrive as

/index.php
/index-test.php
/assets/  <=Empty
/css/  <=Contains 5 basic CSS files and a bg.gif file
/images/  <=Empty
/protected/  <=This is where your coding goes
/themes/  <=Several directories that is empty

Step 5. The database, mysql
Create a database named yii_testdrive, and load in the SQL from
/protected/data/schema.mysql.sql

By default it has the SQLLITE as its database, edit the file /config/main.php and comment out the following lines


'db'=>array(
'connectionString' => 'sqlite:'.dirname(__FILE__).'/../data/testdrive.db',
),

Uncomment the mysql lines below it and edit the database connection


'db'=>array(
'connectionString' => 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=yii_testdrive',
'emulatePrepare' => true,
'username' => 'root',
'password' => '',
'charset' => 'utf8',
),



Step 6. Generating the pages based on the database

Uncomment the GII web-based code generator and change the default password to MyPassword


'gii'=>array(
'class'=>'system.gii.GiiModule',
'password'=>'MyPassword',
// If removed, Gii defaults to localhost only. Edit carefully to taste.
'ipFilters'=>array('127.0.0.1','::1'),
),



Open a web browser and point to the gii resource
 http://localhost/yii1/testdrive/index.php?r=gii

A login page appears, type the password as
MyPassword

You are then presented with the following to auto generate codes based on your database.

1. Controller Generator
2. Crud Generator
3. Form Generator
4. Model Generator
5. Module Generator

Thats all for now...will continue when time permits.

Howto Install OpenSIS on Centos 6

Step 1: Retrieve the package
Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/opensis-ce/files/latest/download
Extract opensis-ce to /vcar/www/html

Step 2: Launch web installer
Start mysqld and httpd (apache web server). Open a web browser and point to the address

http:///opensis-ce/install

Follow onscreen instructions to install database and sample database.