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How To Preset the Next Node Id In Drupal

I needed to predict the NID of certain nodes on a project; I needed to make sure the nid for my next node was x and not y. How to do that? How does Drupal determine the nid of the next created node?

A quick scan of the node module pointed me to the fact that it just grabs the auto_increment value from the node table. Therefore, to predetermine the next created nid, just set the auto_increment value to the desired value. This is easily achieved with phpmyadmin by selecting your table, clicking on operations, and looking in the lower left corner for the box marked "auto_increment".

Making Wordpress More Secure

Today I spent a few hours restoring a wp blog for a client, which had been hacked to redirect the users to an assortment of other sites. The part worth noting is this link which talks about "Hardening Wordpress", that is to say, ways to decrease your chances of getting hacked. It's worth taking the time to be preemptive rather than reactive AFTER the attack!

http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

How to wake another mac on the LAN

I found this utility that did just what I needed: wake my mac mini server from my macbook pro over the LAN. I have had 100% success so far. Here's the summary from the website:

"WakeOnLan discovers all other computers in your LAN, and enables you to wake them up by clicking a button. If your remote computer is a Mac you can put it asleep too."

It includes a great little os x widget to wake the remote computer so you don't have to open the application.

Download it here: http://www.readpixel.com/wakeonlan/

30 Stylesheet Limit in ie6 and ie7

I was having trouble tracing a stylesheet-not-loading problem to a defective drupal_add_css function in one of my modules. It appeared that drupal_add_css did not work in ie6 and in ie7. In reality it was not the function, but the result of the function that was tripping up these bains of our craft. It turns out that it was the limitation of the number of link tags allowed by both ie6 and ie7. I was able to fix the issue by turning on css optimization, which reduces the total number of stylesheets in the <head>.

Before You Use OS X Time Machine

When you buy a hard drive that you will use with Time Machine, the first thing you do after connecting it to your Mac should be this (the instructions are for the current version of Mac OS X, which is 10.5.6):

Drupal & Subversion Workflow Strategy

Ignore These Files

Commit the entire Drupal installation, except the following folders/files:

  1. /.htaccess (top level)
  2. /sites/default/settings.php
  3. /sites/default/files (the "files" directory, wherever it's located.)

.htaccess

This file is most likely server specific and may be tweaked for production differently that dev. E.g. the public dev server has password protection set in this file.

Drupal Versions 4, 5, 6 Usage Statistics

Came across this post that tells that 53% of Drupal sites now are version 6.0.

http://blamcast.net/articles/new-drupal-statistics

Path Redirect Module Quick and Simple Alternative

If you have at least one module in your site and you need to redirect a page, here's a simple and quick way to do it without installing the path_redirect module.

This code goes inside your hook_menu().

Important to note, you have to put your redirect code in single-quotes or this will not work, as the menu module will think you are referencing an arg() placeholder.

Of course you need to replace [new url] and [old url] with the appropriate paths.

//redirect using default 302 HTTP header code
$items['[old url]'] = array(

My HomePlug AV Experience

2010-01-25 Update
When I turned on my treadmill, we lost connection. I've returned the homeplugs; just too much trouble.

My experience with the Linksys PLK300 homeplug AV kit was a mixed bag.

The first disappointment was in the advertising of the 200 mbps number. Take note, the truth is that the network these devices create can NEVER be above 100 mbps because of the 10/100 ethernet specs. This is of course written in fine print on the BACK of the box, but it took me a while to discover this.

Drupal Naming Conventions Cheat Sheet Chart & Summary

  • CONSTANT_NAMES
  • css-classes
  • css-ids
  • DOCUMENTATION.txt (!notice l.c. extension)
  • filenames-in-general
  • html_form_variables (since they convert to php variables)
  • javascriptFunctions
  • javascriptVariables
  • mysql_columns
  • mysql_tables (all tablenames should be singular, e.g. node)
  • mysql_databases
  • _php_global_variables (!notice leading underscore)
  • _php_private_functions (!notice leading underscore)
  • php_functions

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