Kris is so right on this one. Network troubleshooting in a nutshell.

Quick and easy way to create an iso file from any cd/dvd under linux:

> sudo umount /dev/cdrom
> dd if=/dev/cdrom of=filename-goes-here.iso bs=1024

When deploying a Drupal site on a shared hosting environment running apache/php, chances are php’s safe mode is turned on.

If you’re trying to get flashvideo up and running, you’ll probably run into a problem when Drupal’s cron job tries to run ffmpeg to convert your uploaded video:

“Cannot execute using backquotes in Safe Mode”

Solution: turn off safe mode by modifying your httpd.conf file:
1. find your vhost entry
2. add to that vhost entry: php_admin_flag safe_mode Off

Problem solved.

Deploying a new Drupal project we just developed, involved me contacting the customer’s hosting company to arrange some system maintenance preparations.

This was the very first time I ever contacted that company.

I introduced myself, we made arrangements and at the end of our 5-minute conversation I indicated I was having problems accessing the system through ssh. The sysadmin promptly looked up the root password and volunteered the info over the phone. No questions asked, no ID check. Just like that.

My customer is notified and they will no doubt be filing a complaint.

Just found out that the Windows counterpart to the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, Mysql, Perl/Php/Python) has a fitting acronym : WIMP (Windows, IIS, Mysql, PHP).

Nice.

[UPDATE May 12, 2008]

The information is this post is outdated.
You should head over to the revised edition.

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The Flashvideo module in Drupal uses ffmpeg to convert uploaded video to Adobe Flash Video format (.flv).

However, we’re using Ubuntu based servers and Ubuntu has a strict policy not to include non-free software.