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Compile FFMPEG on Fedora, Centos or Amazon Ami for drupal video transcoding

Submitted by steev on

Originally tested on fedora core 15 and 2.6.35.11-83.9.amzn1.x86_64

Download and install yasm (http://yasm.tortall.net/)

$ cd yasm
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
$ make; sudo make install

Download and compile faac - mpeg2 and mpeg4 AAC encoder/decoder http://www.audiocoding.com/faac.html

$ cd faac-1.28
$ ./bootstrap
$ ./configure prefix=/usr
$ make;sudo make install

Download and compile faad

$ cd faad2
$ ./autoreconf -vif
$ ./configure prefix=/usr
$ make;sudo make install

How to compile IDJC with mp3 support on 64bit Fedora Core 15

Submitted by steev on

IDJC (Internet Disc Jockey Console) is the app you want to use if you need to run a traditional DJing setup with multiple mics for the DJ plus guests (skype is supported amongst others) and have two decks with which to crossfade and pitch correct mp3s into the mix. In addition it all integrates with jackd so you can output whatever you need to wherever you need it. It's been rock solid for me so far and i can't reccomend it enough. You can read about it here http://idjc.sourceforge.net/

Configure postfix for Drupal development

Submitted by steev on

Drupal sends a lot of email given half a chance. Especially with modules like messaging and notifications its possible to send email when new content is generated, when taxonomy terms are updated etc. It is generally considered 'poor practice' to send your user base test emails from your dev machine 'Testing from dev machine' sent to 50 000 users, wins you no friends and may lose you clients!

References: 

http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html#smtpd_recipient_restrictions
http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html#reject_unauth_destination
http://www.postfix.org/SMTPD_ACCESS_README.html
http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31633
http://www.postfix.org/access.5.html
http://serverfault.com/questions/94168/postfix-on-development-server-allow-only-...
http://www.postfix.org/SMTPD_ACCESS_README.html
http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html#permit_auth_destination
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/red-hat-31/how-to-make-postfix-only-rela...

How to Nginx 0.8.54, php-fpm 5.2.17, mariadb and drupal 6.19

Submitted by steev on

The cloud has led to many improvements in LAMP architecture. No client wants to throw tin at performance problems anymore. seems there is always a way to work smarter. So my acronyms may be screwed (who want's to install a LNMPC?) - but if Carlsberg made software stacks for CMS, they'd probably use this...

References: 

http://interfacelab.com/nginx-php-fpm-apc-awesome/
http://www.philbayfield.com/2010/07/11/switching-mysql-for-mariadb-on-ubuntu/

Ushahidi for Ubuntu 10.4 php5.2 and Mcrypt

Submitted by steev on

For a few days in my offtime i've been meaning to play with Ushahidi and the Ushahidi platform. All was going swimmingly until the installer complained about a missing php5 mcrypt module. There are a host of issues regarding php 5.3 and luckily i had already downgraded to php 5.2 on a test server, but strangely i was still getting this error.


$ sudo apt-get install php5-mcrypt
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have

References: 

Rasyid.net
www.ushahidi.com/

How to remove MySQL server 5.1 and install MariaDB 5.1 for Drupal 7 on ubuntu 10.x

Submitted by steev on

MariaDB is a fork of the MySQL codebase by founding developer Monty Widenius. Unlike MySQL which is now the property of Oracle Corporation (which is no bad thing if you like paying per seat and per cpu licence fees), MariaDB is true opensource and community led and should be to all intents and purposes 100% compatible with the same major version from MySQL.

Backup the datafiles in case you want to go back to mysql5.1:

Force an EBS volume to detach

Submitted by steev on

Earlier in the year I moved my AWS instances from Virginia (us-east-1b) to Dublin. While reviewing the charges for the service i noticed an errant EBS volume hadn't been decommissioned from the Virginia site. Upon further inspection it turned out that the volume was reporting as being attached to 'no' instance. Right clicking and attempting to detach in the aws control panel yielded no result, with an error message indicating I should attempt to force detach.

Long story short, the region nomenclature is a bit different to what i had expected.

References: 

https://forums.aws.amazon.com/message.jspa?messageID=185918

Change paths in drupal file table

Submitted by steev on

I seem to use this more and more and the more i use it, the more i seem to forget the syntax.

If, as I do, you develop under client specific subdomains - e.g. clientname.initsix.co.uk, then when uploading content you will find that filepaths have this hardcoded. When moving to live its best practice (in case you dare to remove the dns entry in the future) to remove these temporary subdomains from the table. (backup first!)

update files set filepath = replace(filepath,'clientname.initsix.co.uk','www.clientname.com');

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