Squeee!!!

There are various aspects of graphic design in which I have dabbled over the years, mostly to satisfy myself that I could master that particular talent if I bothered. There is one particular aspect that I've discovered I have absolutely no talent at whatsoever, though. This one.

Still, that's f'ing gorgeous work.

Drupal hangs on installation: cause and workaround

One very rare problem that hits some people with Drupal is that it hangs on installation, and never gets anywhere.  Using Firebug, I was able to track the problem down to jQuery, then ripped out the minimized copy of jQuery, stuck in a full copy, and re-ran the install, which immediately revealed the bug.

Drupal was attempting to access a URL that is not sandboxed (in the list of legal URLs for its own site) using Javascript.  Javascript limits (”sandboxes”) URLs to prevent cross-site exploits, and in this case Drupal was attempting to access an IP-based URL on a different port.

There are two interrelated problems.  First, access on the IP rather than the host name.  Firefox can’t tell those are the same address and sandboxes them apart from one another.  Attempting to access one from the other is a security violation.  Second, access on a different port: that was caused by Nginx as a front-end to the Apache box.  Drupal is relying on Apache’s “ServerName” setting, and it shouldn’t.

If you’re having this problem and you’re developing on the same box you’re browsing from,  stop and then restart Apache.  If you see this message: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1 for ServerName, that’s your problem.  Use the IP address rather than any locally assigned hostnames for the Drupal install.

Secondly, if you’re using Nginx or any other reverse proxy, go around it.  Use the IP address of the Apache install directly, not the reverse proxy’s front end.

I hope this helps someone out there.

This entry was automatically cross-posted from Elf's technical journal, ElfSternberg.com

Attn: ME

Attn: Me

You may not buy Henry Weinhard's "Belgian Style Wheat" anymore. Remember your post recently about how alcohol doesn't do much for ya? This particular beer is so drinkable it may make you reconsider.

On the other hand, we are disappointed to report that Rachel Maddow's favorite cocktail, the Jack Rose, still doesn't do much. Too alcohol-y.

pre-Pre products prorogated

The end of an era

It is with a heavy heart that I discovered today that Staples Office Supplies has decided to discontinue support for all products from Palm prior to the Pre. The discontinued products table at the local brick-and-mortar this afternoon was covered with keyboards, hardcases, and various other ephemera with which one could deck out their archaic Palm T|X (like mine) or Tungsten E (like Omaha's).

I think that's a shame. There still isn't a schedule manager for the iPhone that matches the smarts embedded in the PalmOS DateBook program. The trade-offs between time-event management and network-event management (which a Palm non-phone device doesn't have) in an iPhone apparently make those kinds of smarts difficult. That's why Omaha and I have kept our Palms far past their spoilerage date. I still my use an old Palm V for my alarm clock (and midnight porn-reading repository). There was nothing on the discontined table for the Palm V.

Looks like I'll be using the Internet far into the future to keep my poor life-management devices alive. Staples is no longer a help.

A man with an infant car-seat

This afternoon, as I was driving out for yet another collection of errands in the unending hurly-burly that was my life this day, I drove past a man driving into my neighborhood is his white SUV, and in the passenger seat there was a big box holding a brand new infant car-seat. And he had that dreamy, funny smile some guys get-- I hope I had it, once upon a time-- when a man a realizes suddenly that he's a father, and he has responsibilities for keeping his child safe, and he's doing his duty.

I've been thinking a lot about Sandra Tsing Loh's divorce recently. There's a lot to chew on in her essay, "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off," and I've been chewing like mad since she posted it three days ago. And one of the things I think she gets, but can't quite articulate, is the whole "stay together for the sake of the children" thing isn't a woman-pushed thing, it's a man-pushed thing.

I have this theory, ill-formed and still seeking coherence, that Americans, specifically, marry for the same frisson, on a different scale, that they get when playing the lottery or listening to Rush Limbaugh. More on that later.

But for the man in the car seat, he made me happy. I smiled a lot after seeing him, and enjoyed the next hour, thinking about another young man just starting out on one of the coolest little projects a human being can ever commit to.

And that attitude, "A cool project a man can commit 18 years to," is something that I try to bring to my stories.

The Monster.com job fair: Massive depression

This morning, after dropping the kids off at school and running supplies up to Omaha for her interviews at Casual Connect, I got home and tweaked the hell out of my resume before heading up to Bellevue for the Monster.com quarterly "Job Fair," this time held at the Bellevue Hilton South.

What a goddamned waste of my fucking time. There were exactly 19 open booths. Three of them offered job training, four of them were for recruiters, and five of them were for people seeking "franchisees" or "affiliates": "We'll set you up as an independent financial advisor / sales manager / tutor / real estate agent!" That left seven legitimate ones, and, like, Target was looking for managers, as was The Dollar Tree stores (payday loans? really?), and PetSmart. I still gave them all my resume.

The only legitimate contact I had was with a local non-profit, which had had the same freakin' job up on its job board for three months, a perfect fit for my skillset, and yet no action. I asked about it and the woman said, "Well, that just means the manager isn't really under any pressure to fill the position, so although he asked for the job listing he hasn't moved on any of the resumes he's gotten. But I'll make sure your resume gets sent to our IT guy, just to make sure." And she took it, and I'll send her a thank-you not tomorrow.

To make matters worse, after this I stopped by a local Starbucks and ran into an unnamed executive from a former, unnamed employer who had been forced out of his position due to a financial scandal that made former unnamed employer look bad to Wall Street and beat the hell out of stock I had. I felt like some glad-handing politician shaking his hand and talking up old times. It would seem he's doing well. We exchanged cards. He was talking with some startup junkie about a new web-based venture, and said startup junkie gave me great advice about where to look for job openings in the area.

I was so depressed after that.

On the way home I bought razor blades.