Forum topics don’t show in Drupal

Many people have complained that, with recent updates to Drupal 5, forum topics don’t show anymore. If you’re having trouble in Drupal 6, this solution should work, too.

Fortunately, the problem is easily fixed.

Make old extensions compatible with FireFox 3.5

Got an old extension that quit when Mozilla got deep into the 3.0 series? Make it work again with a couple of mouse clicks.

I have a lot of extension installed in my Firefox 3.5 called RSS Editor, which quit working after the first update of Firefox 3. It was compatible up until then.

That mean I could use it at all, even though there’s no problem with its functionality or compatibility. And, sadly, the guy who developed it hasn’t kept it updated to keep up with FireFox changes.

Fix WordPress ‘Press This’ 404 error

Are you getting a 404 page error when you try to use the WordPress “Press This” bookmarklet?

There’s an easy fix. The problem is that the URI encoding is getting mixed up with the mod_rewrite function. For the fix, we’ll assume you have already dragged the “Press This” shortcut to your browser’s bookmark bar).

Use SimplePie as a standalone without a module in Drupal 5/6

This is an update to a post I did last year about using SimplePie as a standalone entity in Drupal.

Why would you want to do that?

Well, modules that use SimplePie as part of their coding reconfigure it to make it work with their module. Some even publish feed items as nodes – and that’s fine if that’s what you want to do.

But what if you just want to put a simple feed in a block or a page without all the baggage from a module? Sorry, folks, those modules won’t help you do that. Their sole reason for existence is to take SimplePie and mold it into their code – not use SimplePie by itself.

However, you can get around that.

PhpGedView updated to version 4.1.6

The PhpGedView genealogy program has been updated to version 4.1.6. This new version introduces a new installation wizard, and several bug fixes, to include that RSS.php bug that trashed the program’s rss feed, as noted in the post for PhpGedView 4.1.5.

To save you some installation grief, since there is no download for updating from 4.1.5 to 4.1.6, these tips are offered for your installation pleasure:

Protect AWSTATS from prying eyes on Mac OS 10.5 Leopard

One of the more irritaing things you see when you look at your AWSTATS totals each day is seeing how many other people are also looking at your stats.

If you’re running an Apache server on Mac OS 10.5.5 (or earlier), inlcuding your own personal server, there is a way to password-protect your AWSTATS folder, using your htpasswd and your httpd.conf file. This should also work for earlier versions of Mac OS X. For our model, we’re running Apache 2.8.

This is a three-step procedure, that you will perform in Terminal:

1. Creating a htpasswd file. This file will contain a user name and password, and that password will be MD5-encypted.

2. Creating a directive in the /etc/apache2/httpd.conf file. Don’t worry; it’s painless. Just be sure you backup your httpd.conf before editing it … just in case.

3. Rebooting Apache.

Safari 3.1 for Windows vulnerable

Securia reports the new Safari 3.1 for Windows has been hit with two ‘highly critical’ vulnerabilities that can result in execution of arbitrary code. The first is due to an improper handling of the buffer for long filenames of files being downloaded, and the second can result in successful spoofing of websites and phishing.

This comes close on the heels of criticism of Apple for offering Safari as a update for approximately 500 million users of iTunes on Windows by default, and reports of crashes. There are currently no patches or workarounds available except the advice to stay clear of ‘untrusted’ sites.

[ Securia website ]

SpringWidgets: Create your own RSS Widget

One of the more innovative on-line RSS creation tools, SpringWidgets offers an easy way for you to include any RSS feed onto your own web site.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to follow the instructions on the site, and you can create your feed, using a variety of available templates (or you can make your own). All you have to do is include the code for the widget onto your web or blog page.

To see the widget in action, go here.