By default, the monitoring service sends you emails for up/down alarms… just what we need more emails! … So I have started to write an alarm console which is a compatible webhook for their API…. i.e. you can send alarms to it!

My Webhook is called [rx]Alarm… rx as in receive

The source code is on github (rxalam repo) and a working copy is on openshift (rxalam site).

This may end up being yet-another-project-I-don’t-finish … or it maybe not, only time will tell!

The code has been pushed to a branch of my abandonware repo as I don’t plan to make on any future changes, checkout README.md for some info on how the code works.

https://github.com/linickx/a/tree/oauth

I found it quite difficult to find some simple code to do this, so hopefully ^that^ will help someone else

<?php
/*
                DO NOT INDEX /blog
        */

        if ( (!is_front_page()) && (!is_page()) && (!is_single()) && (!is_archive()) ) {
                echo '<meta name="robots" content="noindex">' . "\n";
        }
?>

You may notice that WordPress doesn’t appear to be an is_blog function which would do the same thing.

Actually a two year wait isn’t strictly true, those watching the dev log would have seen I’ve pushed the odd update here and there.

So what prompts this release, well I’ve noticed that in WP3.3 that the cookie functions have changed, so to ensure future compatibility (and minimal issues for me) I have updated this plugin to be aligned to the core source.

The usual blurb…

• Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/root-cookie/download/
• Support: https://wordpress.org/tags/root-cookie?forum_id=10#postform
• Bugs: http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/newticket?component=root-cookie&owner=linickx

ChangeLog

• Contextual Help
• Bug fix “undefined method WP_Error::get_items”
• Logout Enhancement
• WP 3.3 Compatability
• Donation Link (it’s good for your karma)

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of spreadsheet and sub-netting type stuff, whilst doing this mundane work I’ve realised that I can get scripts to work for me. I’ve started to post a few PHP network functions to github which I’ve been using.

Here’s an example: I have a nokia firewall, the routing table in voyager is shown in the following format -

Network / CIDR Mask , Gateway
10.0.0.0 / 8 , 10.0.0.1

I need that same routing in a Cisco ASA format -

Network , Mask , Gateway
10.0.0.0, 255.0.0.0, 10.0.0.1

Now this is not a problem for a few routes but the firewall I’m looking at now has 177 static routes, which I don’t want to convert manually.

Roll in PHP!
Save the original routing table as a .csv file. ColA = ip/mask , ColB = gateway.

Save this a route_conv.php

<?php

	/**

		Change the below to your CSV File.

	**/

	$firewall_csv = "./routes_cdr.csv"; 

	/**

		Function to convert CIDRs such as "23" to decimall dotted like "255.255.254.0"
		I've got more of these: https://gist.github.com/1309388

	**/

	function cidr2mask($netmask) {

		$netmask_result="";
		for($i=1; $i <= $netmask; $i++) {
		  $netmask_result .= "1";
		}

		for($i=$netmask+1; $i <= 32; $i++) {
		    $netmask_result .= "0";
		}

		$netmask_ip_binary_array = str_split( $netmask_result, 8 );

		$netmask_ip_decimal_array = array();
		foreach( $netmask_ip_binary_array as $k => $v ){
		    $netmask_ip_decimal_array[$k] = bindec( $v ); // "100" => 4
		}

		$subnet = join( ".", $netmask_ip_decimal_array );

		return $subnet;

	}

	ini_set('auto_detect_line_endings', true); // detect CR

	if (file_exists($firewall_csv)) {

		$file = fopen($firewall_csv, 'r');

		$counter = 0; // array counter

		while (($data = fgetcsv($file)) !== FALSE) {

			list($ip, $netmask) = split( "/", $data[0] ); // SPLIT Col A into IP & Mask

			$netmask = cidr2mask($netmask); // Covert Mask

			$gateway = $data[1]; // Col B

			/**
				This echo is the CSV style output, but you could change this to echo "route add $ip $mask $ gateway \n" for unix style output.
			**/

			echo $ip . "," . $netmask . "," . $gateway . "\n";

		}

		fclose($file);

	} else {

		echo "404: $firewall_csv \n"; // FILE NOT FOUND.

	}
?>

from your CLI run “php route_conv.php” and enjoy the output!

I actually started on this release a couple of months ago but couldn’t find the time to write this post and tag the release :-$ The good news is that there have been lots of changes since 0.6, basically I’ve implemented as many bug fixes and feature as I can in the WordPress-Plugin bug tracker.

If you have a feature request or patch, please submit here.

Support questions and requests for help should be directed at the forum.

Without further ado… What’s New?

• WordPress 3.1.4 Testing
  Yep, with such a slow development cycle I can confirm that PRT works with WordPress version 3, but you knew that right ?
• CSS Styleable output
  A common request, there is now a UL class called prt_ul and a LI class called prt_li which can be used to make you sidebar look pretty!
• Plugin Options Modernisation
  I follow planet.wordpress so any tips, tricks and modern ways of doing things have been implemented i.e.
  • Collapse multiple options into an array
  • Implement register settings to close http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1217
  • Implement upgrade.php to migrate all variable to new array form
• Resolved: Missing argument 1 for phpbb_topics()
  This was a stoooopid bug that has been in the code for ages, I finally found the time to squish it!
• Code clean-up (Lots of changes)
  I’ve put a lot of effort in 0.7 to remove all the un-necessary code, the kind of stuff that get’s pasted in as a good idea but not needed, hopefully this has some positive impact in your site as well as my kama
• Timezone/Off-Set fix (Reads +/- hours from WordPress Settings)
  This was perhaps the most requested feature, I figured out a neat way of doing it by reading the WordPress options.
• Localisation of date/time fix (http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1173)
  I’m planning to complete localisation in 0.8, but this is a start right?
• Callback functionality
  Do you want to do something cool with PRT? Check out phpbb_topics_callback in the readme!
• Contextual Help in the admin dashboard
  In the past, this blog post has contained the instructions for getting going, I’ve now put everything either in the readme or actually in the wordpress help, keep a weather eye out for the “help” in the top right hand corner of the WordPress dashboard.

Where do I get it?
Download phpbb_recent_topics version 0.7 from WordPress.org

I hope you enjoy this release!

Footnote: Version 0.7.1 has been pushed out which fixes the date display issue reported below!

Yesterday I completed the subversion mirror of my WordPress projects – phpbb_recent_topics , root cookie and linickx lifestream – now this isn’t a migration, it is a mirror! For the time being I’m happy using the subversion tools provided by Automattic and the WordPress team but I understand that git is gaining momentum and many are switching, basically I’m hoping this makes it easier for the WP community to get in touch or make suggestions to the code.

I’m also working on uploading some of my old work, I rely heavily on google to broadcast my wares and perhaps there are some old dinosaurs that need resurrecting by a new community of devs? Well if you’re feeling nosey “A is for Abandonware”

It’s likely that new code and projects will appear on git hub, I’ve been toying with running subversion on linickx.com but now that Xcode4 has git built in this cloud based social service might be a better option…. I guess only time will tell!

Enjoy!

$my_query = $wp_query->query; // Copy the existing query into a new one
$my_query['posts_per_page'] = "30"; // change the number we want displayed.
$my_query['orderby'] = "title"; // Sort by title.
$my_query['order'] = "ASC"; // 'A' first!
query_posts($my_query);  // Run our query.... normal service resumes.

Hopefully this post will give someone the light bulb moment they’re after.

I’m going to assume that you’ve requested access to WordPress.org’s SVN repository, and you’ve found the admin panel and want to get your Xcode goodness hooked up to the WP SVN.

To get started create a new Empty Xcode project.

Xcode project chooser	Empty Project

From the menu bar select SCM then Configure Repositories, the window select the + to add a new repo, the username & password pair are your wordpress.org credentials, you can find the URL to your SVN repo on the wordpress.org site.

The WP.org admin interface

Next from the menu bar select SCM then Repositories, highlight the repo you’ve just created and choose checkout; you’re going to be asked for a folder to “save” the contents of the repo to, I chose inside my Xcode project folder.

Repo’ Config	Code Checkout

You now need to add those “checked out” files to you project, in the tree on the left, right/control click the blue project icon at the top and select add existing files, accept the defaults and the repo should be imported.

Imported Code

These files now in the project need to be associated with the repo, this is done by highlighting the blue project icon and clicking the “Info” button, then click “Configure Roots & SCM”; click the + button and choose your repo folder (again)… the dropdown on the right should automatically select the correct SCM.

Project Properties	Project Roots

If you now change a file / add / delete / etc it will appear under the SCM tree, you can right/control click and commit to the repo…. job done

Yay it works!

Very quickly you’re going to find out that you want to test your changes prior to commiting them, to do this you may want to copy your files upto a webserver…. I get Xcode to do that for me, using macfuse to mount my webroot via ssh but for this example I’ll create a directory on the desktop … you also need to create any subdirectories you may need.. I have to create “admin”.

To copy the files we’re use an Xcode target, from the menu bar choose Project then New Target then Copy Files Target, I called my new target CopyFile. Using the info button change the absolute path of the copy – e.g. /Users/Nick/Desktop/LL … now here I ran into a problem (suggestions welcome)… next I created extra copy build phases for each subdirectory. Control/right click your Target ( i.e CopyFiles) then choose Add, New Build Phase, New Copy Files Build Phase… I then set the absolute path of this “sub target” to /Users/nick/Desktop/LL/admin/ to represent my admin subdirectory.

Finally DRAG down the files into their correct target, all being well and a fair wind clicking “BUILD” will cause your files to be copied into your directory. You can now make changes, click build to test, and then commit them to subversion when you’re happy

Finished!

The red sweater post that inspires this now talks about creating a RUN shortcut to automatically open a web browser for testing, however mine didn’t work… I got this error “The program being debugged is not being run“… suggestions to fix welcome!