Geek Entrepreneur | Jeremy Heslop

Adding pdftk to 1and1 shared hosting

Published by jeremy November 11th, 2009 in howto, php, programming, software, technology and website. 3 Comments

There are some cases where you might need a powerful pdf toolkit to use with php. 1and1 does not come with any built in pdf processors or pdf libraries built into php. Here is the process I used to integrate phptk into my 1and1 shared hosting account.

Requirements: 1and1 shared plan that has ssh support

- Download pdftk deb file for debian etch (http://packages.debian.org/etch/i386/pdftk/download):

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/pdftk/pdftk_1.40-2_i386.deb

- Extract the pdftk deb file:

ar xv pdftk_1.40-2_i386.deb

- Extract the data.tar.gz file:

tar xvzf data.tar.gz

- Download libgcj deb file for debian etc (http://packages.debian.org/etch/i386/libgcj7-0/download):

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gcj-4.1/libgcj7-0_4.1.1-20_i386.deb

- Extract the libgcj deb file:

ar xv libgcj7-0_4.1.1-20_i386.deb

- Extract the data.tar.gz file:

tar xvzf data.tar.gz

- Create a script to link libgcj for pdftk (use nano or vi):

#!/bin/bash

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="usr/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" usr/bin/pdftk $*

- Chmod the pdftk script so it can run:

chmod 755 pdftk

Now you can run pdftk from your main directory and process files from php or cronjobs.

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Tags: 1&1, 1and1, deb, libraries, pdf, pdf toolkit, pdftk, php, shared hosting, wget

1&1 tightens up Email spam rules

Published by jeremy July 31st, 2009 in business, family, friends, linux and technology. 9 Comments

I use 1and1 for my personal and business websites as well as for our clients. We’ve had a client recently that was not receiving emails from one of their colleagues and of course the other company’s IT person said it was our problem. Having been an email administrator for many years I always like to look into the bounced back messages, smtp connection info, email headers, and more to track down a problem. This particular issue was perplexing because there where not many posts on the net about it. When someone was trying to send an email to a domain hosted at 1and1 it sent this error after the RCPT TO line:

421 invalid sender domain, possibly misconfigured

I tested at http://www.wormly.com/test_smtp_server (which is a great site btw) to get test the error.

So I sent an email to 1and1 support to see if they could help. This was the very speedy response:

The circumstances you have just described is caused by a RFC-non-compliant configuration of the despatcher-domain. The MX-Server
of the domain has no registered A-record, but merely a CNAME-record this is why the e-mail is rejected by our e-mail servers.

You can find some general information about this topic here:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2181.html

To provide the e-mail delivery as fast as possible again, we kindly advise you to inscribe the target domain of the CNAME-record as MX-record. For further information, please contact the provider of the despatcher-domain.

Looks like the 1and1 is blocking any non RFC compliant domains. In the rfc spec above it says:

10.3. MX and NS records

The domain name used as the value of a NS resource record, or part of
the value of a MX resource record must not be an alias.
…

Additional section processing does not include CNAME records, let alone the address records that may be associated with the canonical name derived from the alias.

So if you are a DNS admin or setup DNS for clients make sure to have the MX record for your domains be A records (they directly resolve to an ip) not CNAME records. So far I have had to email a couple of hosting companies related to this issue. I applaud 1and1 for locking down their email servers even more to thwart spam, but it would have been nice to have had a link or faq on their site explaining what was going on. Thus the reason for this lengthy blog post.

Some other posts on the web about this issues:

Useful links to test out DNS and MX records:

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Tags: 1&1, 1and1, alias, business, business websites, cname record, dns admin, e mail, hosting, mail servers, mx record, mx server, smtp server, speedy response

Adding PECL Uploadprogress to 1&1 shared hosting for Drupal FileField

Published by jeremy May 27th, 2009 in drupal, howto, programming, software, technology and website. 17 Comments

Drupal 6.x is the platform we use to build great websites. There are modules FileField and ImageField 3.0 that allow the ability to update a progress meter when uploading a file. This requires installing a PECL extension to PHP called uploadprogress. Here is the process I used to get it working on a 1and1.com hosting package. You will need a hosting package with ssh support currently the Business and Developer packages do.

Download PECL uploadaccess to your 1&1 account
Extract the package
tar xvzf uploadprogress-1.0.0.tgz
Go into the directory
cd uploadprogress-1.0.0
Run phpize5
phpize5
Change php-config to php-config5 in configure script
sed -i 's/=php-config/=php-config5/g' configure
Change include directives in Makefile
sed -i 's#-I/usr/local/include/php#-I/usr/include/php5#g' Makefile
Run make and make test
make make test
Make new extensions folder for new extension to go in
mkdir ~/extensions
Copy uploadprogress extension to new folder
cp .libs/uploadprogress.so ~/extensions/
Create new php.ini under your main folder (or under a single subfolder for just that application) to add new extension_dir then add this code to the file
extension_dir=/kunden/homepages/6/d87663654/htdocs/extensions/ extension=uploadprogress.so

That should be it. You should now be able to see the “Upload progress Enabled (PECL uploadprogress)” on the admin/reports/status page in Drupal.

Links that helped me with the above info:

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Tags: 1&1, drupal, hosting, PECL, php, shared hosting, uploadprogress

The Shack – Book Review

Published by jeremy April 15th, 2009 in books, life and review. 15 Comments

My wife started reading The Shack not to long ago and wanted me to read it as well so she could talk about what she was reading. My typical reading/listening is mostly filled with podcasts, self help, business and technical books. Novels work there way in my reading list but not often and not ones that are less than a year old from an unknown author. I was skeptical at best and had only heard short explanations of its contents from my father in-law and brother in-law that made the book seem less interesting. Everyone who talked about it had mentioned its controversial view of God and shock of their core belief system so when my wife asked me to read it I was reluctant. But knowing my wife she would not allow me to just put off such as request so I told her I would read it if it was on audible.com. It was. I have an audible.com account which had a couple credits queued up, so I downloaded the book to my iPhone that night. The next day I began listing to The Shack on the way to a clients two and a half hours away. I was hooked. The story was moving and captured my attention so much that I was disappointed at every interruption as I was driving in the car. The ride home was no different and I spent most of the evening at home with one or two earbuds in my ears. The book has some suspense so that evening when a transformer popped and made a bright light outside our bedroom window I was startled (you can read more about that on my wife’s blog). The day after I finished listening and all I can say is “Wow”. If this book doesn’t move you in a way to become a better person I don’t know what will. I won’t spoil the book for those who didn’t read it, but the main characters connection to God was so real it made me want to be familiar with God in that way. I can’t say it challenged my view of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as much as others, but it made me want to be a better person and to connect with God in a deep and new way. If you strive for those things you should get a copy today. You won’t be disappointed.

For more info on The Shack you can go to http://theshackbook.com/. If you want to find more info on purchasing check out amazon.com’s reviews and more.

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Tags: belief system, better person, book, controversial view, core belief, jesus and the holy spirit, novels, review

300k Miles!

Published by jeremy March 20th, 2009 in cars, life and video. 21 Comments

So this morning I hit 300k miles in my 1993 Honda Accord SE! I’ve owned my car since 1999 and I got it with 78k miles on it. So I’ve driven it an average of 22,200 miles a year. At my current miles per gallon of 25 at the current gas prices I would have spent over $1580 a year or $15,800 over the last 10 years. I could have bought a new car I had my Flip Video MinoHD (that Carla got me for my birthday. Thanks beautiful!) with me so I captured the moment of going from 299,999 to 300,000. A momentous occasion I’m sure.

Like I mentioned in the video I’ve had a great time driving my little Honda. Maybe I’ll get another 100k our of it!

Yes it is dusty I haven’t cleaned in awhile.

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Tags: 10 years, 1993 honda accord, 300k, honda, honda accord, miles per gallon, momentous occasion

Why do I use linux? Top 5 Reasons.

Published by jeremy March 8th, 2009 in linux and suggestions. Closed

Linux Tux I was inspired by a blog post about “Why Do You Use Linux” to post why I use Linux and I wanted to post how I use one of the best operating systems out there as well. First off if you are not familiar of what Linux is you can read up about it at wikipedia, but basically it is an operating system like Windows and Mac OSX that allows you to interface with the hardware and software on your computer system. Each operating system has its pluses and minuses. I’ll give you my take on what those are bust first I’ll give you some background.

I’ve been using Linux since around 1999 for both personal and professional reasons. I’ve always liked to tinker with computers as it is more than just a job for me. It’s fun. What isn’t fun is having to reboot every 10 minutes and having no clue why something like that is happening. It’s like having a car that is sputtering smoke and your not allowed to look under the hood. Fortunately in Linux everything is available under the hood. File locked? check it with lsof, network slow? view all the traffic with wireshark, running out of memory? use free or a large amount of other free and open source software that is at your disposal. So here are the main reasons why I use Linux:

Freedom: no vendor lock-in, open source code
Stability: I have client servers that have been running for over a year. ’nuff said
Security: never have to worry about virus’ again, plus built from the ground up to be a secure OS
Efficiency: Can run on small devices (Kindle anyone?) as well as a full desktop PC or server
Choice: I’m not forced into candy XP, glassy Vista or keechy OSX I have a multitude of choices from KDE, Gnome, XFCE, e17 and more great desktop environments. Not to mention the thousands of other programs I can use.

And those are just 5 of the reasons of why I use Linux. If you want to try this out you can download a “Live CD” that allows you to boot from a CD to run Linux and not touch mess with the system you are on right now, but I must warn you you might be tempted to click on the install now button because it is nice!

I’ll write another post on How I use Linux, but this should get anyone who has not heard of Linux interested.

Until next time. Linux on!

Linux!

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Tags: client servers, desktop environments, desktop pc, linux, open source software, security, server choice

P90X: Take 3

Published by jeremy March 2nd, 2009 in health and life. 15 Comments

So this is my 3rd time through P90X and I’m ashamed to say that this time around has been no better than the past two. Life gets in the way and I end up missing a week and then fizzle out. However I am determined to get back on the horse and hammer out the rest of the 60 days I have left. The hardest part is finding the time between the wife and kids to do an hour workout via DVD every day.

All that said I love P90X! It has to be the best workout program I have ever done. Click on the image to see all the reviews at amazon as that helped me in determining which program to go with.

One of the best parts of P90X is the music and Tony talking you through every step. It makes the workout fly by and you don;t have to focus as much on how bad it hurts. Just power through and X it.

I have a found a few resources to help out with making it easier to keep track of things. Here is a P90X Spreadsheet to keep track of progress which has has all the pre/post test info you can put in as well. My good friend Matt has a blog post about P90X that outlines all of the extras he bought for using the program. I ended up just purchasing basic dumbbells from Wal-mart and a yoga block (needed because I’m not flexible at all!). If you have any questions about what I use or getting started leave a comment and I’ll respond back to you. Good luck with getting in shape and not fizzling out like me

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Tags: blog, dumbbells, getting in shape, google, info, love, me, p90x, review, spreadsheet, things, wal mart, workout program, yoga

Aliza on the Swings

Published by jeremy January 11th, 2009 in family, pictures and video. 12 Comments

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Tags: aliza, fun, outside, playing, swing, winter jacket

All the good ideas are taken. Lost item locator.

Published by jeremy November 6th, 2008 in fortune, ideas and technology. 9 Comments

Had a thought last night as I was searching for my daughters pacifier for more than 15min as she was upstairs crying her little eyes out. “Pink passy” she crys from atop the stairs as I rummage around the kitchen, living room and across every corner, nook and cranny. My thought was, “If there was an RFID tag on that stupid passy I could have already found this thing!” After I finally found said passy behind the pantry door I wondered if such as product existed that allowed you to place a small RFID tag onto any item and then locate it with a transceiver by walking around the house. Seems it was such as good idea that someone already patented it. Not that I should be suprised because all the good ideas are taken! Well not really, but any of the obvious ones I come up with seem to be. So maybe one day I’ll come up with something that no one has patented, copyrighted or otherwise thought up and do something really great.

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Tags: ideas, patent, rfid

My Wife Thinks I’m Stealing My Blog Posts!!

Published by jeremy October 31st, 2008 in family, life and marriage. 0 Comments

I wrote a blog post yesterday about daylight savings. Check it out if you haven’t read it yet. So my wife reads the posts laughs at a few of the items in the list (especially the spending time with the special someone since she knows I’m referring to her) and then proceeds to ask me (for the second time mind you) if I came up with this list myself! Preposterous I tell you!!! Well I guess I should be flattered since she meant well and it was supposed to be a compliment. So I’ll take it as such, but it was funny that she did it almost twice in a row (She didn’t think I wrote this one either). I love you wife!

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Tags: compliment, daylight savings, fun, laugh, laughs, me, preposterous, second time, spending time, wife grrrr

What am I doing?

Found my murdered mailbox and half the post in a mound next to my main post. Was able to resurrect it and nail it back up. Yes! #fb 12 hrs ago

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