January 21st, 2010
What to do when eSata doesn’t work on a Dell Latitude E6500 – Win7 or Vista
I ran into an interested problem with my month-old Dell Latitude E6500. It comes with an eSata connection which i was eager to take advantage of for high speed backups and disk cloning. I discovered that there is a lot more to getting this port working with an external drive (in my case a 1.5TB Western Digital MyBook).
There are a few things you’ll need to conquer to get eSata functionality out of the E6500. Although quite annoying, the 50+megabytes per seconds you’ll be able to transfer at are worth the wait.
1) Intel Matrix driver and software must be updated.
The SiL5744 chipset requires updated software from the dell support site. Download the software here.
2) You must make a registry change (YIKES)
Microsoft has directions to make a registry change necessary to run eSata.
3) You must enable the correct SATA support in the BIOS
The E6500′s BIOS is initially set to use IRRT. The likely reason for this is that IRRT supports RAID1 setups, which in my opinion aren’t going to be widely used even in corporate environments. Tt must be changed to AHCI for an external drive to successfully connect. Some registry changes are needed to keep the system able to boot. (if you make a mistake you can switch back to IRRT to boot again.
4) CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOUR CABLE FITS THE CONNECTIONS – MODIFICATIONS MAY BE NEEDED.
I bought a standard Belkin eSata cable at Staples for around 20 bucks. Turns out the plastic molded around each of the male ends goes too far down the plug, causing it to not actually make a connection. I cut about 5mm off with a razor blade and it made all the difference. This problem is well known (toms hardware article) and not too obvious to the average consumer.
I put a lot of the blame on Western Digital for making the case on their MyBook so damn thick over the ports. They’re no way most cables will fit into this drives without some modification. I would also recommend looking into other eSata drives, as I was less impressed that a $175 external drive came with demo/trial software. Disappointing considering how much great open source software they could have bundled with it.
Some Additional Resources
Published in: Computers & Internet, Questions AnsweredJanuary 7th, 2010
For CPanel Servers, ConfigServer firewall a must
The crew at ConfigServer have created an awesome (Free) firewall plugin for CPanel that makes security a breeze. I’ve loaded it on all our servers and am really impressed. You can hop over to more information about ConfigServer, or follow the simple instructions I’m archiving here:
###############################################################################
# Copyright 2006-2009, Way to the Web Limited
# URL: http://www.waytotheweb.com
# Email: sales@waytotheweb.com
###############################################################################
Installation
============
Installation is quite straightforward:
rm -fv csf.tgz
wget http://www.configserver.com/free/csf.tgz
tar -xzf csf.tgz
cd csf
sh install.sh
Next, test whether you have the required iptables modules:
perl /etc/csf/csftest.pl
Don't worry if you cannot run all the features, so long as the script doesn't
report any FATAL errors
You should not run any other iptables firewall configuration script. For
example, if you previously used APF+BFD you can remove the combination (which
you will need to do if you have them installed otherwise they will conflict
horribly):
sh /etc/csf/remove_apf_bfd.sh
That's it. You can then configure csf and lfd by edit the files
directly in /etc/csf/*, or on cPanel servers use the WHM UI
csf installation for cPanel is preconfigured to work on a cPanel server with all
the standard cPanel ports open.
csf installation for DirectAdmin is preconfigured to work on a DirectAdmin
server with all the standard DirectAdmin ports open.
csf auto-configures your SSH port on installation where it's running on a non-
standard port.
csf auto-whitelists your connected IP address where possible on installation.
You should ensure that kernel logging daemon (klogd) is enabled. Typically, VPS
servers have this disabled and you should check /etc/init.d/syslog and make
sure that any klogd lines are not commented out. If you change the file,
remember to restart syslog.
See the readme.txt file for more information.
Webmin Module Installation/Upgrade
==================================
To install or upgrade the csf webmin module:
Install csf as above
Install the csf webmin module in:
Webmin > Webmin Configuration > Webmin Modules >
From local file > /etc/csf/csfwebmin.tgz > Install Module
Uninstallation
==============
Removing csf and lfd is even more simple:
On cPanel servers:
cd /etc/csf
sh uninstall.sh
On DirectAdmin servers:
cd /etc/csf
sh uninstall.directadmin.sh
On generic linux servers:
cd /etc/csf
sh uninstall.generic.sh
January 7th, 2010
Custom 404 Error Pages in Codeigniter (the easy way)
For those who have worked with the Codeigniter framework, you may have wanted to customize your error pages, specifically the 404. It looks like most of the developers on the forums are coming up with more complicated ways then necessary. The easiest way is to edit the following file:
/includes/application/errors/error_404.php
I opted for a customized background image, specific link and some modified copy. You could of course treat this like a view and do more dynamic things… but really? it’s a 404 page, let’s keep it simple people.
Here is an example of the one I put together: http://www.campuslive.com/somecrazyjibberishurl
Published in: Web Development
