mediatribe.net -- Drupal and Web Development

Using limit and stop sell orders for stocks

by root 1 year 16 weeks ago

If it is May 1st and I have $1000 to invest, and after due diligence, I like a stock which sells for $99, I might buy 10 of them at the market price and pay $10 for the commission. Assuming the stock has good volume and I end up getting it for $99, I will end up with stock worth a total of $990. (This technique will not work for stocks which do not have good volume because the actual sale price will be very different from the market price. I am not a sophisticated investor so I stick with stocks with large volume.)

Because of human psychology, I now face two risks:

  • Greed: if my stock rises to, say, $110, I might convince myself to wait just a little longer to make as much money as possible.
  • The sunk cost fallacy: if my stock falls to, say, $90, I might convince myself to hold on because I'd lose too much if I sell.

In both cases, I'd be wrong and that's that's why most investors lose money.

To reduce these risks, once I own the stock, I will immediately decide my target price and tolerance for potential loss; and I would like to place the following orders which are good for 30 days:

  • A sell order of type stop at $90. This will guarantee that I cut my losses and the stock will be sold if it falls below $90.
  • A sell order of type limit at $110. This will insure me against greed and guarantee that the stock will be sold if rises above $110.

Certain brokerages do not allow these so-called "one-cancels-the-other" or "bracket" orders. Scotia iTrade does not allow them, but Questrade seems to. See also this StackExchange thread.

If I check my portfolio every month, then on June 1st one of these scenarios will have played out:

  • The stock has lost value and triggered the sell order of type stop, in which case I'll wind up with $890 after my sell commission.
  • The stock has gained value and triggered the sell order of type limit, in which case I'll wind up with $1090 after my sell commission.
  • The stock hasn't moved too much, in which case I can decide whether to get rid fo the stock in favor of another one, or to keep it. If I keep it, I'll then place two more stop and limit sell orders good for another month.

More about order types can be found on the YouTube video "FRM: Order Types (market, limit, stop, stop-limit)".

( comments, last 1 year 16 weeks ago)

Using limit and stop sell orders for stocks

by root 1 year 16 weeks ago
If it is May 1st and I have $1000 to invest, and after due diligence, I like a stock which sells for $99, I might buy 10 of them at the market price and pay $10 for the commission. Assuming the stock has good volume and I end up getting it for $99, I will end up with stock worth a total of $990. (This technique will not work for stocks which do not have good volume because the actual sale price... » read more
( comments, last 1 year 16 weeks ago)

Échec d'un guichet Desjardins...

by root 2 years 12 weeks ago
Ce matin (27 avril 2015 à 8h15) j'ai effectué un retrait de 500$ au Guichet 3024028, le guichet de gauche de la succursale Galt/Wellington à Verdun. Une erreur s'est produite dans le montant, et par hasard c'était à la faveur de le caisse: j'ai l'habitude de compter les pulsations internes du guichet pour m'assurer que le compte est bon. Il l'était, mais en sortant, l'argent est sorti croche, et... » read more
( comments, last 2 years 12 weeks ago)

Restoring Mozy backups has been very arduous

by root 2 years 38 weeks ago
A computer I am managing was recently stolen. I logged into my Mozy account and tried these restore methods, all of which are an exercise in frustration. I have a very speedy internet connection and have downloaded several HD movies on iTunes and Mac OS Yosemite (a 5Gb download) in a hour or two with no problem. First: Mozy Download Manager Mozy Download Manager (I tried it both on Mac OS... » read more
( comments, last 2 years 38 weeks ago)

See my watched issues in Jira

by Albert 3 years 11 weeks ago
It took me a while to figure this out. I'm following (watching) issues in Jira and need to see them. If my Jira URL is myjira.example.com, here is the list of watched issues. https://myjira.example.com/issues/?jql=watcher%20%3D%20currentUser() » read more
(16 comments, last 3 weeks 6 days ago)

Installed drush with PEAR, where is it?

by Albert 3 years 13 weeks ago
If you are on CentOS, look here: cd /usr/share/pear/drush » read more
( comments, last 3 years 13 weeks ago)

Restarting MAMP's Apache from the command line

by Albert 3 years 14 weeks ago
First thing, you need to have the correct executable in your $PATH: sudo mv /usr/sbin/apachectl /usr/sbin/apachectl-mac sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/apachectl /usr/sbin/apachectl Next you need to give yourself access to call `sudo apachectl restart` without having to enter a password: sudo visudo Learn how [vi text editor](http://www.howtogeek.com/102468/a-beginners-guide... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 14 weeks ago)

Calculating elapsed time on the command line

by Albert 3 years 15 weeks ago
If you want to calculate how much time something takes on the command line: START=$(date +%s) # do your thing echo "$(echo "$(date +%s) - $START"|bc) seconds since start" » read more
( comments, last 3 years 15 weeks ago)

Testing Moneris with a sandbox

by Albert 3 years 17 weeks ago
I had a hard time finding sandbox APIs for Drupal commerce and moneris, here they are: http://www.corecommerce.com/kb/25211/moneris_canada_e-select_plus_paymen... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 17 weeks ago)

MAMP, drush and the command line

by Albert 3 years 18 weeks ago
This often happens when you restore from a time machine backup or change computers: your command line utilities are not restored properly. You need access from the command line to mysql to be able to call drush mysqlc, drush updb, for example. First, figure out where your mysql utility is: on my machine it is at /Applications/MAMP/bin/apache2/bin/mysql. There are also many other useful utilities... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 18 weeks ago)

Drupal 7: Se connecter avec Facebook et Twitter

by Albert 3 years 19 weeks ago
Voici ma technique pour permettre la connection au site via Facebook ou Twitter. Avant de commencer Faites-vous des clé d'application (API) pour Twitter et Facebook, tel que décrit ici. Télécharger les modules Twitter et Facebook Oauth pour Drupal. Activer twitter_signin et fboauth. Twitter Sur admin/reports/status, vous verrez qu'il manque les clés de l'application Twitter. Pour les... » read more
(1 comments, last 2 years 45 weeks ago)

Comment se faire des clés API Facebook et Twitter

by Albert 3 years 19 weeks ago
Voici comment se faire des clés API Facebook et Twitter. Vous en aurez besoin pour utiliser les services de connexion à votre site via ces comptes. Pour cet exemple, disons que vous développez un site "Outils AAA" et que votre environnement de développement est http://outils.local/ Connectez-vous sur votre compte Twitter Aller au https://apps.twitter.com/app/new Name: mettez un nom unique, par... » read more
(1 comments, last 1 year 50 weeks ago)

Easily find backlinks to your website

by Albert 3 years 30 weeks ago
You can use the the search at http://www.opensiteexplorer.org to find out who is talking about your website » read more
( comments, last 3 years 30 weeks ago)

Disabling a module directly in the Drupal database

by Albert 3 years 30 weeks ago
Here is how to disable a module directly in the Drupal database echo "UPDATE system SET status = 0 WHERE name = 'MODULENAME';" | drush sqlc » read more
( comments, last 3 years 30 weeks ago)

MAMP, drush and the command line: beware upgrades

by Albert 3 years 31 weeks ago
If you are using MAMP, you will need to create a symlink for /usr/bin/php and /usr/bin/mysql to MAMP's executable, something like this: ls -lah /usr/bin | grep sql lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 26B 26 Mar 2012 mysql -> /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql ... sudo mv /usr/bin/mysql mysql-mac sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql /usr/bin/mysql sudo mv /usr/bin/php php-mac sudo ln -s /... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 31 weeks ago)

Git: Moving a to new branch, tracking a remote branch

by Albert 3 years 32 weeks ago
Let's say you only have one local branch, master, which, and you want to create a new local branch, stage, to track the stage branch which exists remotely on the origin, you'll want to be careful how to create your new branch. This way is correct: git checkout -b stage origin/stage Whereas the following is incorrect, because you will wind up a stage branch integrating with whatever changes you... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 32 weeks ago)

Jenkins: Could not checkout null with start point

by Albert 3 years 32 weeks ago
I got this problem all of a sudden with three projects: I push commit 123456 to master Jenkins gives me this error: Checking out Revision 123456 (origin/master) FATAL: Could not checkout null with start point 123456 For each project I logged into the jenkins server sudo su jenkins cd /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/myproject git status # Not currently on any branch. nothing to commit (working... » read more
(1 comments, last 2 years 10 weeks ago)

Écrire des tests automatisés pour Wordpress

by Albert 3 years 32 weeks ago
Nous tentons dans mon agence d'implémenter des tests automatisés pour plusieurs technologies avec lesquelles nous travaillons. Pour Drupal, la méthode que nous avons mise en place est documentée sur le site Dcycle. Pour Wordpress, je me suis basé sur cette méthode pour donner la procédure suivante. Étant un développeur Drupal, le monde du Wordpress m'est à peu près inconnu, alors si quelque... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 32 weeks ago)

Adding postal codes for Canada to Drupal location module

by Albert 3 years 33 weeks ago
The Drupal location module does not ship with Canadian postal codes. I've recently had to fix this on two Drupal 6 sites, here is how: wget http://www.freeformsolutions.ca/en/sites/mediatribe.net/files/downloads/zipcodes.ca.mysql.zip unzip zipcodes.ca.mysql.zip drush sqlc < zipcodes.ca.mysql #### takes 10 minutes!!! rm zipcodes.ca.* » read more
( comments, last 3 years 33 weeks ago)

Procédure pour ajouter un site Drupal à Jenkins

by Albert 3 years 33 weeks ago
Voici ma procédure pour ajouter un projet Drupal à Jenkins (1) Assurez-vous d'avoir une version locale du site sur Git. (2) Allez sur votre instance de Jenkins et ajouter un projet de type "free-style software project" pour ce site. (3) Dans description mettre "Teste la branche master et la met sur URL", où "URL" est un URL propre à Jenkins, selon votre nomenclature, par exemple monsite.... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 33 weeks ago)

DocumentRoot does not exist when it does?

by Albert 3 years 33 weeks ago
When restarting Apache, if you get "DocumentRoot does not exist", but your document root does exist, and you have read access to it, try this: setenforce 0sudo apachectl restart I have no idea what this is, but it worked for me! » read more
( comments, last 3 years 33 weeks ago)

Simpletest hanging? Try the error log

by Albert 3 years 35 weeks ago
Once in a while you'll get a simpletest just hang when you run it in the GUI. Here is one thing which may help you: Go to sites/mediatribe.net/files/files/simpletest/[test run number]/error.log In there you might find some indication about what the problem, for example a PHP error in the test itself. » read more
( comments, last 3 years 35 weeks ago)

Drupal: Cloner une BD externe sur votre ordi

by Albert 3 years 36 weeks ago
Si vous voulez travailler sur une version locale d'un site web, faites ce qui suit: git clone [chemin-git]cd [répertoire]echo 'create database [dbname]' | mysql -u[user] -p[pass]drush si --db-url=mysql://[user]:[pass]@localhost/[dbname] --account-name=root --account-pass=rootssh moi@example.com "drush -r /chemin/vers/drupal sql-dump" > db.sqldrush sqlc < db.sql » read more
(3 comments, last 3 years 36 weeks ago)

scp and rsync: command not found with remote Centos 6

by Albert 3 years 36 weeks ago
I was trying to scp and rsync from a Mac into a brand-new CentOS VM, and was getting this error, even after installing rsync and scp on my remote machine with yum install openssh-clients and yum install rsync: scp root@example.com:~/whatever.txt ~/scp: command not found Same problem with rsync. It turns out scp and rsync are expected to be on the remote machine at /usr/sbin but are at /usr/bin by... » read more
(1 comments, last 15 weeks 21 hours ago)

htaccess: redirecting one path to another

by Albert 3 years 37 weeks ago
I want to type example.com/source and be redirected to example.com/destination. This can be achieved by adding the following rewrite rule to .htaccess, provided rewrite engine is available and activated: RewriteRule ^source$ /destination [L,R=301] » read more
( comments, last 3 years 37 weeks ago)

Where is ImageMagick on Mac OS X

by Albert 3 years 37 weeks ago
The standard installer of ImageMagick did not add the binaries to my $PATH. For exapmle, I was looking for the compare utility. Here it is: /opt/ImageMagick/bin/compare » read more
( comments, last 3 years 37 weeks ago)

Drupal site hanging due to semaphore table

by Albert 3 years 37 weeks ago
I recently had to debug a problem on a production site, so I cloned it to my local computer. Now, the site was just hanging (loading forever). Here's how I fixed the problem: - I first eabled xdebug on my local site. - Next I installed Webgrind. - Now I visited the hanging page and add ?XDEBUG_PROFILE=1 to the end of the URL - Webgrind informed me that lock_wait() was being called repeatedly.... » read more
(4 comments, last 44 weeks 5 days ago)

Enabling xdebug on MAMP

by Albert 3 years 38 weeks ago
Add the following to the end of you php.ini file in MAMP [xdebug] zend_extension="/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.3.14/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/xdebug.so" xdebug.remote_enable=1 xdebug.profiler_enable_trigger=1 xdebug.remote_host=localhost xdebug.remote_port=9000 xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp » read more
( comments, last 3 years 38 weeks ago)

Views development: add your handlers to the .info file to avoid missing/broken handler

by Albert 3 years 38 weeks ago
I just lost 30 minutes on this one: for all you novice views developers (like me): creating a new handler requires you to add its file to your module's .info file, or else you'll get a missing/broken handler problem. » read more
( comments, last 3 years 38 weeks ago)

Skitch annoying you with Evernote password, sharing? Revert to an older version

by Albert 3 years 39 weeks ago
Skitch is a great screen-capture tool for mac, which allows you to annotate your captures. The newer version of Skitch (> 2) seems to require an Evernote account. I don't know what Evernote is, I don't want an account, and I don't want to be reminded that my "password expired". My solution has been to download the latest 1.x version of Skitch from http://www.oldapps.com/mac/skitch_for_mac.php?... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 39 weeks ago)

Git: specifying a directory without being in it

by Albert 3 years 40 weeks ago
In case you don't want to cd into a directory, you can still target it with git. See also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1386291. Here is an example: mkdir testcd testgit initInitialized empty Git repository in /path/to/test/.git/touch test.txtgit add .git commit -am 'initial'[master (root-commit) d0505e5] initial 0 files changed create mode 100644 test.txtcd ..pwd/path/togit --git-... » read more
(1 comments, last 3 years 40 weeks ago)

SSH key authentication permission scheme

by Albert 3 years 40 weeks ago
SSH key authentication will not work unless your files, on your server, have the following permission scheme: ls -lah ~/.sshdrwx------  2 root root 4.0K Oct  2 11:39 .-rw-r-----  1 root root  17K Oct  2 11:39 authorized_keys... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 40 weeks ago)

Find out where the site is on the server

by Albert 3 years 40 weeks ago
So you have a site example.com, you know is hosted on the server somewhere, but your server structure is a mess. In some cases you can find your filepath by typing: grep -r 'example' /etc/httpd/conf.d/ » read more
( comments, last 3 years 40 weeks ago)

Exit parent process with the code of the child process on Mac OS X

by Albert 3 years 43 weeks ago
Sometimes you want the parent process to exit with the child process's code. In the example below, whatever is in parentheses is child code. For example, calling exit 1 directly exists the process, but calling (exit 1) does not exit the process. (exit 1)#parent still running(exit 0)#parent still running(exit 1)#parent still running[ $? = 0 ] || exit $?# exit parent with exit code of child process... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 43 weeks ago)

Drupal: Use module_load_include(), not require_once. Here is why

by Albert 3 years 43 weeks ago
In Drupal 7, say you are in the module xyz and you want to include xyz.admin.inc., you should always use <?phpmodule_load_include('inc', 'xyz', 'xyz.admin');?> and not: <?phprequire_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/xyz.admin.inc';?> Here is a typical scenario where this breaks your site completely: Say you start a project by downloading a bunch of modules to sites/all/modules. Eventually,... » read more
(2 comments, last 3 years 9 weeks ago)

How to grab a local copy of a remote Wordpress database

by Albert 3 years 44 weeks ago
(1) Log on to the remote server and visit wp-config.php, take note of the database, username and password. (2) Make sure you have the same code locally (except wp-config.php, which is probably excluded from your version control repo), and run the following: ssh me@example.com "mysqldump -uuser -ppassword databasename --default-character-set=utf8" > database.sqlecho 'create... » read more
(1 comments, last 1 year 10 weeks ago)

Snippet of code to test image uploading in simpletests

by Albert 3 years 45 weeks ago
I can't get this in my head, so here it is: how to test that a module can upload images. Add this in your Drupal Simpletest: <?php$image = current($this->drupalGetTestFiles('image'));return drupal_realpath($image->uri);?> » read more
( comments, last 3 years 45 weeks ago)

J'aimerais changer mot mot de passe Drupal, comment faire

by Albert 3 years 46 weeks ago
L'exemple suivant utilise example.com comme domaine. 1. assurez-vous de ne pas être connectés au site (aller sur http://example.com/user/logout, en vous assurant de mettre votre domaine à la place de example.com) 2. aller sur http://example.com/user/password, en vous assurant de mettre votre domaine à la place de example.com 3. mettre votre nom d'utilisateur ou votre adresse courriel 4. attendre... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 46 weeks ago)

nicely formatted multilingual dates

by Albert 3 years 51 weeks ago
Here is a code snippet which allows nicely formatted multilingual dates <?php/** * Generate some nicely formatted dates depending on the current lang */function MYMODULE_format_date($timestamp, $lang = NULL) {  if (!$lang) {    global $language;    $lang = $language->language;  }  $extra = '';  switch ($lang) {    case 'fr':... » read more
( comments, last 3 years 51 weeks ago)

Running Drupal simpletests from the command line and the "Could not upload file" problem

by Albert 4 years 2 weeks ago
I am using Simpletests for my site which check for file upload functionality. The problem is that uploading files requires sites/*/files to be owned by the web user (www in my case). When running simpletests, files are uploaded to a temporary directory sites/*/files/simpletest/*, which also needs to be owned by the web user (www). When running your tests via the command line (in my case with the... » read more
( comments, last 4 years 2 weeks ago)

Limiting the execution time of a command line on Mac OS X

by Albert 4 years 5 weeks ago
Unfortunately the "timeout" command does not exist on mac OS X. (sleep 2;echo 'done')  & sleep 1; kill $! 2> /dev/null || : will not display "done" because the first command executed in more than 1 second. (sleep 2;echo 'done')  & sleep 3; kill $! 2> /dev/null || : will not display "done" because the first command executed in less than 3 second. Walking... » read more
(1 comments, last 4 years 3 weeks ago)

Linux: moving to the parent of a command file

by Albert 4 years 7 weeks ago
Say you want to cd into the parent directory of the command file xyz, you can type: cd $(which xyz | xargs dirname) » read more
( comments, last 4 years 7 weeks ago)

Mozy credit card change annoyance

by Albert 4 years 21 weeks ago
My credit card having been changed, Mozy contacted me to change the card on file, which I did. A few days later I get an "account suspended" message, so I changed it again. Now the home screen is giving me two contradictory messages, as you can see in the enclosed screenshot. Contacting customer support yields yet more annoyances: opening a support ticket, it is impossible to add file attachments... » read more
(2 comments, last 3 years 16 weeks ago)

Drupal 7: Absolute path to file URI or file object

by Albert 4 years 21 weeks ago
Say you have a file in one of your modules for which you need a file object, the trick is to _copy_ it to the public filesystem, and then use it. For example, say we need to import the french translation of MYMODULE during an update, we can use the following code: <?php$file = file_save_data(file_get_contents(realpath(drupal_get_path('module', 'MYMODULE') . '/translations/fr.po')), 'public://... » read more
( comments, last 4 years 21 weeks ago)

In PHP, getting the calling function

by Albert 4 years 24 weeks ago
In PHP, if you want to know the function that called whatever function you are currently in, you can define something like: <?php/** * Returns the calling function through a backtrace */function get_calling_function() {  // a funciton x has called a function y which called this  // see stackoverflow.com/questions/190421  $caller = debug_backtrace();  $caller = $caller[2];... » read more
(1 comments, last 3 years 9 weeks ago)

Where is the JDK directory on Mac OS X

by Albert 4 years 25 weeks ago
If you are installing Jenkins on Mac OS X, JDK is already installing (trying to install it automatically won't work). Its home directory is "/Library/Java/Home". » read more
( comments, last 4 years 25 weeks ago)

Comment gérer vos chemins sur un site Drupal

by Albert 4 years 36 weeks ago
À penser: - Quels chemins on veut pour différents contenus - Que se passe-t-il si un visiteur retire une partie d'un chemin (par exemple, il tombe sur k.o/nouvelles/2010/08/02/x-y-z, et il efface tout après 08, y a-t-il une vue ou page à prévoir ou le visiteur tombe-t-il sur une "page non trouvée") - Liens permanents (genre k.o/nouvelles/2010/08/02/x-y-z) vs. temporaires (k.o/yxz) -- dans ce cas... » read more
( comments, last 4 years 36 weeks ago)

Finding a script on Mac OS X

by Albert 4 years 47 weeks ago
To find a script on Mac OS X - which xyz will find the actual location of the script which would run. - whereis xyz will find the standard location See also this post. » read more
( comments, last 4 years 47 weeks ago)

Automatic testing for your Drupal update and upgrade paths

by Albert 4 years 51 weeks ago
Introduction Simpletest is great for unit and functional tests for your Drupal modules; you can also use Simpletest to automatically test your module updates and upgrade path. The process is similar in Drupal 7 and Drupal 8, and this article will show you how to do it, and include some simple example modules. Terminology First, some terminology: updates of your module remains within the same... » read more
( comments, last 4 years 51 weeks ago)

Creating and applying a Drupal patch with binary files

by Albert 4 years 51 weeks ago
I am normally in the habit of creating my patches with the commands "git diff 123456 abcdef > patch.patch" (where 123456 and abcdef are commits); and applying the patch with "patch -p1 < patch.patch". This works fine unless you have binary files. For example, for this issue I needed to include a new .gz file in my patch, and the above technique was causing a fail. To create and apply... » read more
(2 comments, last 2 years 24 weeks ago)

Using conditional stylesheets (IE) with Omega

by Albert 5 years 4 weeks ago
As described here, conditional_styles does not work with Omega for Drupal. Here's what to add in your template.php file for this to work: <?phpfunction YOUR_THEME_NAME_preprocess_html(&$variables) {    // Add conditional stylesheets for IE  drupal_add_css(path_to_theme() . '/css/ie.css', array('group' => CSS_THEME, 'browsers' => array('IE' => 'lte IE 8', '!IE' =... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 4 weeks ago)

Drush, Drupal 8, MAMP, and the magic_quotes_gpc problems

by Albert 5 years 6 weeks ago
The latest version of Drush gives me this error, but only with Drupal 8 sites: PHP's 'magic_quotes_gpc' and 'magic_quotes_runtime' settings are not supported and must be disabled.Drush command terminated abnormally due to an unrecoverable error.          I'm using MAMP, so I turned all magic quote related stuff off in /... » read more
(3 comments, last 4 years 46 weeks ago)

Créer un newsletter HTML avec le feature dCycle Generate HTML Newsletter et simplenews

by Albert 5 years 7 weeks ago
Les liens suivants utilisent le domaine example.com. Il faut installer le module https://github.com/alberto56/generatecivihtml sur votre site et changer les liens example.com par votre propre nom de domaine. Pour créer un newsletter avec dCycle Generate HTML Newsletter: aller créer un nouveau newsletter issue. Choisir le gabarit qui vous convient. (vous pouvez créer de nouveaux gabarits ici)... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 7 weeks ago)

Sending HTML emails using simplenews on Drupal 6

by Albert 5 years 7 weeks ago
- download and enable simplenews and mimemail - admin/settings/simplenews/newsletter: set format to HTML and save - go to node/add/simplenews, and make sure Wysiwyg is disabled (click on Deactivate rich text, for example) - paste full HTML in the body section, and send your email. (Actually creating good HTML is outside the scope of this tutorial!) - you might have to run cron on your site for... » read more
(2 comments, last 3 years 24 weeks ago)

Setting up per-forum search on Drupal 6

by Albert 5 years 7 weeks ago
Install advanced_forum 6.x-2.x and nodecomment 6.x-2.x. Enable advanced_comment, nodecomment and core search module. (nodecomment might take a few minutes to be enabled, depending on the number of nodes on your site. You might also have an out of memory error while enabling the module, just ignore it). Run cron on your site If you have a non-English site, go to admin/build/translate/search, and... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 7 weeks ago)

Using more than one SSH private key

by Albert 5 years 8 weeks ago
Say you have your regular SSH public-private key pair for most of what you do, and you need to have another SSH public-private key pair for specific servers (this doesn't happen often, but there are some edge cases where there is no easy alternative). start by creating a new directory in your home folder, called .ssh-whatever, and put your public private key pair (or just your private key, that... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 8 weeks ago)

Selenium: testing Javascript with Simpletest on Drupal 7

by Albert 5 years 11 weeks ago
Prerequisites To get the best of this tutorial, it is best to know a bit about Simpletest, Drupal 7, the command line, and applying patches. Chrome and Firefox should be installed on your computer. I tested this on Mac OS but it should work on Linux. Going through it all might take you about an hour. You should do all of it on your laptop (using MAMP or Quickstart, rather than a remote server --... » read more
(3 comments, last 3 years 23 weeks ago)

Enabling a theme in D7 and setting it to default

by Albert 5 years 11 weeks ago
I normally will do this in the install hook of my site's main feature when using dCycle <?php  theme_enable(array('mytheme'));  variable_set('theme_default', 'mytheme');?> » read more
( comments, last 5 years 11 weeks ago)

Using prepopulate on Drupal 7's contact form

by Albert 5 years 11 weeks ago
Say I have several categories in my Drupal contact form, and I'd like to create a link to the contact form, but with one of those categories preselected, and, while I'm at, prepopulate the subject and message fields, here's how I go about it. (1) install and enable the prepopulate module. (2) Figure out which category (recipient) you want to preselect by finding its ID on the page example.com/... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 11 weeks ago)

Installing / debugging MAMP on Mac OS X

by Albert 5 years 16 weeks ago
MAMP is a local server with MySql and PHP on your Mac. It is great to run local copies of Drupal, Wordpress, etc. on your computer. Here's how to install it. I reinstall MAMP every time I update Mac OS X (say, from 10.6.6 to 10.6.7). The reason is that updating Mac OS X results in MySQL Server refusing to start (i.e. I get the red light next the Mamp Server), and after hours of searching, I can'... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 16 weeks ago)

Using Mac OS to make an iPhone 3G work like an iPod Touch

by Albert 5 years 19 weeks ago
Here's how I got an iPhone 3G I inherited from my sister to work like an iPod Touch. (So much for Apple's legendary ease of use -- this took me an hour to set up.) Note that I don't care about the phone, speed, features, lost data, or having the latest version. I just want to access the internet with wifi. 1. Put any SIM card in your iPhone and connect the iPhone to your Mac. 2. Download... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 19 weeks ago)

mysql server gone away, Drupal 6 and MAMP

by Albert 5 years 21 weeks ago
In my experience, the problem is always too many cck fields. Here's how to fix this: (1) open /Applications/MAMP/bin/startMysql.sh with your favorite text editor (2) put "--max_allowed_packet=16M " before the trailing & (3) restart MAMP Troubleshooting. If your mysql server won't start try this: - make sure there are no newlines in your startMysql.sh file - sudo chgrp admin /Applications/MAMP... » read more
(1 comments, last 5 years 4 weeks ago)

For Drupal/dcycle theme developers: pulling new changes to a site

by Albert 5 years 41 weeks ago
If you are theming a Drupal 7 site using the dCycle workflow, and a colleague has updated features (for example, added a new view, content type, etc.), here's how to theme it: In terminal, navigate to your sites/*/modules folder for your site: for example cd /path/to/your/drupal/site/sites/mediatribe.net/modules Check git status. If your directory is not clean, commit your latest changes, for... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 41 weeks ago)

Drupal 7 Simpletest: in your tests, creating users with specifc roles

by Albert 5 years 41 weeks ago
When creating automated tests in Drupal 7, you can use $this->drupalCreateUser() to create a user with specific permissions, but what if you want to create a user with a specific role? Here's how to set up a user with the role "administrator", for example within your setUp() method: <?php    // create a new user with some permissions you need; then log in.    $... » read more
(6 comments, last 36 weeks 23 hours ago)

Dev-stage-prod in Drupal: a formalized workflow

by Albert 5 years 44 weeks ago
Tired of dealing with many disparate dev-stage-prod workflows, I have gathered all my best practices into dCycle. » read more
( comments, last 5 years 44 weeks ago)

Drupal 6: Two menu items pointing to the same page with features

by Albert 5 years 48 weeks ago
The Drupal features module does not, for the moment, allow you to export two menu items with the same path. This is a problem if you have a menu structure like this, which is quite common: Resources: path "resources/one" One: path "resources/one" Two: path "resources/two" Now, we don't want to have a Resources page. Rather, we would like the top "resources" menu item to lead to "reasources/... » read more
( comments, last 5 years 48 weeks ago)

Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 Launched!

by Albert 5 years 49 weeks ago
The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 has finally been launched. At over 1100 pages, this book contains all necessary information to use Drupal 7 to its full potential. Thirty authors contributed included Koumbit's own Albert Albala with a chapter on automated testing. » read more
(7 comments, last 1 year 27 weeks ago)

Lancement du Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 !

by root 5 years 49 weeks ago
Le Definitive Guide to Drupal 7, a finalement été lancé. Avec plus de 1100, ce livre contient toute l'information nécessaire pour bien utiliser Drupal 7. Trente auteurs ont collaboré à ce livre, dont le koumbitien Albert Albala avec un chapitre sur les tests automatisés. » read more
(2 comments, last 5 years 49 weeks ago)

Installing a wyiswyg editor on Drupal 6 and 7

by Albert 5 years 49 weeks ago
Installing a wysiwyg editor is a convoluted process with numerous obstacles. Here is my step-by-step procedure for Drupal 6 and for Drupal 7. » read more
(2 comments, last 5 years 48 weeks ago)

Drupal on a virtual host in MAMP on Mac OS X

by Albert 5 years 50 weeks ago
When you install MAMP, localhost points to your htdocs folder. I install multiple sites in there, so that localhost/example, for example, is a Drupal site. The thing is, certain irritating things happen when Drupal is running in a subdirectory, so I would rather have my Drupal sites run on, for example, example.local. Here's how that's done: == Before you start == Make a backup of your /etc/... » read more
(2 comments, last 4 years 12 weeks ago)

Adding a user to a group in Mac OS X

by root 5 years 50 weeks ago
Here is how to add your user, say, albert, to the group wheel in Mac OS X Snow Leopard: sudo dscl . append /Groups/admin GroupMembership albert » read more
( comments, last 5 years 50 weeks ago)

Using hook_update_n() for to update your Drupal website database

by Albert 6 years 7 weeks ago
Note that this article applies primarily to Drupal 6. When developing features or other modules, I often find myself making changes to the module dependencies or other aspects after my module has first been moved to the staging site. I use hook_update_N() for that. Here's how. Initial install hook Features normally don't do anything to the database, so typically we won't have an implementation of... » read more
(3 comments, last 4 years 27 weeks ago)

Call to undefined function image_gd_check_settings()

by root 6 years 10 weeks ago
Getting Fatal error: Call to undefined function image_gd_check_settings() in ... This was after I migrated a Drupal site to Aegir. The solution is to visit this page: admin/settings/image-toolkit and click save. See also http://drupal.org/node/295854 » read more
(2 comments, last 3 years 42 weeks ago)

Theme-specific image styles (equivelent of imagecache) in Drupal 7

by Albert 6 years 14 weeks ago
(EDIT: 28 oct. 2011, changed the Drupal 7 version to reflect changes in the 7.9 implementation -- updated solution should work for all versions of D7, see also this issue) Image styles in Drupal 7 are the equivalent of Imagecache presets in Drupal 6: definitions of a namespace with one or more effects for images. For example, a "thumbnail" image might be 150 pixel-wide version of your image.... » read more
(6 comments, last 4 years 30 weeks ago)

Styles d'images (equivalent de imagecache) spécifiques au thème dans Drupal 7

by Albert 6 years 14 weeks ago
Les styles d'image (image styles) sont à Drupal 7 ce que les préréglages imagecache sont à Drupal 6: une définition de comment une image doit apparaître. Par exemple, une "vignette" (thumbnail) pourrait être une image de 150 pixels de large. Ces préréglages peuvent ensuite être utilisés par les vues, les nodes, etc. Cepedant, différents thèmes peuvent avoir différentes conceptions de ce qu'est... » read more
( comments, last 6 years 14 weeks ago)

Building a javascript-based browser map with views for Drupal 6

by Albert 6 years 24 weeks ago
Recently for a projet I needed to build a javascript-based browsing mechanism for alternatives.ca. You can see the result at http://alternatives.ca/projets. I'll try to describe how this was done. It takes about two hours to set this up properly. Compatibility: IE7 and above. The basic idea I categorized my content with taxonomy, then created a view with exposed filters, enabled ajax in the view... » read more
(4 comments, last 5 years 27 weeks ago)

Finding files by name in Linux

by Albert 6 years 27 weeks ago
One way of searching for a file containing "abc" through a file system without annoying "Permission denied" messages: find . -name '*abc*' 2>/dev/null » read more
( comments, last 6 years 27 weeks ago)

Using aliases to navigate the command line

by Albert 6 years 27 weeks ago
I need to have access to several ssh servers, and several paths throughout my working day. I'm a very unsophisticated command line user, so for others out there who would like to tame the command line, here's a trick: vi ~/.bash_profile Add, at the very end alias go-whatever='cd /path/to/whatever'alias go-client='ssh me@client.com'#etc. Then, to make aliases permanent source... » read more
( comments, last 6 years 27 weeks ago)

Moving WMVs from Vista to a mac for video editing.

by Albert 6 years 36 weeks ago
I have a FireWire camcorder, a Vista machine with FireWire; and Mac OS X 10.6 machine sans FireWire with Final Cut Express video editing software. This technique takes about 10 hours of processing and transfer time for each hour of footage Here's how I go about transferring my movies for editing: (1) Download wmv2avi.exe http://www.freewarezoom.com/archives/free-wmv-to-avi-mpeg-converter to... » read more
(1 comments, last 6 years 25 weeks ago)

Sharing between Mac OS X Snow Loepard and Windows Vista

by Albert 6 years 36 weeks ago
Found a great resource which will have this set up in a few minutes. Just deactivate your Vista firewall before sharing and reactivate it after. http://www.youtube.com/v/w4chH8hrs6A?fs=1&hl=en_US » read more
( comments, last 6 years 36 weeks ago)

Installing Gobby 0.5 on Mac OS (via Ubuntu on VirtualBox)

by Albert 6 years 39 weeks ago
Gobby is a tool which allows teams to edit the same document simultaneously in real time. We use it at Koumbit during some meetings; and when we quickly need to produce a document without going through the normal revision procedures. As of this writing Gobby 0.5 is not available directly on mac OS X (The MacPorts installation guide here gives me Gobby 0.4, which is incompatible with Gobby 0.5).... » read more
( comments, last 6 years 39 weeks ago)

How to scan with the lexmark X5495 on Mac OS X 10.6.8

by Albert 6 years 41 weeks ago
Update: 9 Oct 2011. Made some slight changes, still works though. I've just spent an hour on the phone with Lexmark because my mom wanted me to scan something on my Lexmark X5495 scanner. This is the second time in two month that I have to call Lexmark in order to get my scanner to work. I'm documenting the solution here -- it worked for me. These steps assume you have already set up your printer... » read more
(2 comments, last 4 years 21 weeks ago)

A hosting platform -- the end of an experiment

by Albert 6 years 42 weeks ago
Aegir, Drupal—Last year we launched a beta version of Qumbia, a platform for creating Drupal sites easily. Today we are definitely shutting it down. I'll attempt to explain how it worked, why we're shutting it down, and what will replace it. Here's how it worked: one "master" site, with all the basic functionalities you'd want in a basic website (wysiwyg editing, captcha, blog, events, store etc.) was kept up... » read more
( comments, last 6 years 42 weeks ago)

Converting a word doc to pdf

by Albert 6 years 44 weeks ago
I recently got a 2Mb word document I had to convert to PDF to put online. For some reason, on Mac OS X: OpenOffice (through the print... dialog) generated a 64Mb document Acrobat (through extreme space saving meaures) generated a 24Mb document OpenOffice (through export... > Adobe PDF > smallest file size) generated a whopping 160Mb document Google Docs couldn't read by word doc at all (it... » read more
(2 comments, last 6 years 27 weeks ago)

Displaying the total number of rows in a view

by Albert 7 years 3 weeks ago
Drupal—Put a pager, make sure your items to display is not set to unlimited, and put this in your header or footer: <?php $view = views_get_current_view();print $view->total_rows . ' ' . t('items in this category'); ?> » read more
( comments, last 7 years 3 weeks ago)

how to upgrade a module to drupal 7

by Albert 7 years 3 weeks ago
drupal development—Here are some step-by-step instructions on how I upgrade modules from d6 to d7: drush dl coder drush dl grammar_parser drush en coder_upgrade put the latest 6.x version of the module into sites/mediatribe.net/files/coder_upgrade/old go to admin/config/development/coder/upgrade click the checkbox next to the name of the module you are upgrading to d7 click convert files make sure there are no... » read more
(1 comments, last 3 years 11 weeks ago)

Adding content (text and images) to a Drupal site via email

by Albert 7 years 5 weeks ago
Drupal—In my experience, there are several users who don't feel comfortable using the standard Drupal interface to create content on their website. I've noticed that this is the case with reforestation.net, I site I manage: even though I provide users with accounts and training, almost all users end up sending me their content (including images and text) via email, and I have to upload it myself to the... » read more
(4 comments, last 4 years 6 days ago)

Creating actions for use with views bulk operations

by Albert 7 years 10 weeks ago
Drupal—You can combine Views bulk operations with your own code to make powerful actions which can be applied to several nodes at the time. Here is some sample code to create an action:   /* describe your action(s) */function mymodule_action_info() {  return array(    'mymodule_action_callback' => array(       'type' =>... » read more
(1 comments, last 4 years 46 weeks ago)

Great site for checking nameservers

by Albert 7 years 17 weeks ago
Jus enter any domain here: http://intodns.com/example.com And it will give you info about your nameservers. Here are some practical commands for use with mac os x: dscacheutil -flushcachetraceroutenslookup » read more
( comments, last 7 years 17 weeks ago)

Displaying a block with a field from the current node using Views 2 and Drupal 6

by Albert 7 years 19 weeks ago
Drupal, Views—I have a CCK field with an image on my page nodes. I want to display a block with the CCK field value on its related node, but nothing on non-pages. This often works in the views preview, but not on the actual page. This was driving me nuts and I spent a few hours finding this solution: Create view with Filter: node nid > 0 Argument: node nid, Action to take if argument is not present:... » read more
(6 comments, last 2 years 46 weeks ago)

Counting inodes (files, folders, symlinks)

by Albert 7 years 19 weeks ago
Many hosts restrict the number of inodes you can use on a VPS or shared account. If you have shell access, the following commands are useful to determine how many inodes you are using: ls -R /path/to/directory | /usr/bin/wc cd /path/to/directoryfor i in $(ls);do echo -n "`pwd`/$i: ";find $i -print|wc -l 2>/dev/null;done » read more
( comments, last 7 years 19 weeks ago)

Setting up wysiwyg with image upload on Drupal

by Albert 7 years 19 weeks ago
Drupal—Update May 3, 2010 -- Please see the first comment, below. Some of the hacks in this article are outdated. Please proceed carefully and report your results here! Warning: this will take you at least an hour and if you make even the slightest mistake, it won't work! Please try this on a test site to make sure it suits your needs! Related issues: Doesn't work with themes with dark backgrounds:... » read more
(3 comments, last 6 years 3 weeks ago)

Un YouTube pour les mp3

by Albert 7 years 36 weeks ago
Pour ceux qui cherchent un service de type YouTube pour les fichiers sonores (mp3, etc.), j'ai trouvé HoundBite qui fonctionne très bien... si le logo de la société sur votre site ne vous gêne pas! Seul hic: en téléversant un mp3, mon fureteur m'a averti qu'un script sur le site demandait l'accès sans restriction à mon ordinateur... ce que j'ai refusé, bien sûr, mais tout a fonctionné quand même. » read more
(2 comments, last 6 years 4 weeks ago)

Bloc de sélecteur de langue dans Drupal: Ne pas afficher la langue active

by Albert 7 years 37 weeks ago
Drupal, multilingue—La plupart de nos clients ont un site bilingue (français et anglais). Le bloc "sélecteur de langue" (Language Switcher) est une bonne façon de passer d'une langue à l'autre, mais souvent nous ne voulons pas afficher la langue courante. Par exemple, sur une page en français, nous voulons un lien vers le contenu en anglais, mais pas de lien "français". Notre solution est d'ajouter le css suivant à... » read more
( comments, last 7 years 37 weeks ago)

Using diff and patch for directories, and managing patches during Drupal upgrades.

by Albert 7 years 37 weeks ago
Drupal—Background: I was recently making a Drupal site where I needed (as is often the case) a visual text editor along with image- and file-upload capabilities. I tried using the wysiwyg module in conjunction FCKEditor 2.6.x, which is a good combination for that purpose. Since this does not work out of the box, I followed the instructions here. This procedure requires modifying files in the Wysiwyg... » read more
( comments, last 7 years 37 weeks ago)

Setting up Cron with Drupal 6 and cPanel

by Albert 7 years 38 weeks ago
cPanel, Drupal, procedures—If you have a drupal site on a cPanel account, you can set up cron in cPanel. Here is how: (1) Your site is, say, example.com (2) Log into cPanel (example.com/cpanel) (3) Go to cron jobs > standard (4) Enter the following code in your cron: /usr/bin/lynx -source http://example.com/cron.php (replace example.com with your actual website) I normally choose every hour, every day, every weekday,... » read more
(2 comments, last 6 years 23 weeks ago)

Language Switcher Block: Not displaying the active language in Drupal 6

by Albert 7 years 39 weeks ago
Drupal, Multilingual—Most of our clients have bilingual (French and English) websites. The Language Switcher Block is a great way to switch between languages, but we often don't want to display the active language. For example, on a French-language page, we want to have a link to English (not French and English). Our solution is to add the following css either to your theme, or, if you are using a contrib or core... » read more
( comments, last 7 years 39 weeks ago)