How to sync past events in the Apple Calendar App on iOS
Have you ever been shocked to find out that a new iOS device does not show your old calendar entries, even though future events sync fine across your other devices? We’ve all been there! Turns out there’s a default setting in the Calendar App that only synchronises the last 1 month of entries. As if your life before that point didn’t matter. Kind of like Apple’s policy of not supporting hardware older than 4 weeks. But I digress… To fix this problem, open the Settings App on your iOS device, then head over to...
read moreHow to set WordPress Categories depending on the Post Title
I was working on a project the other day that required to determine which category a new post would go into, depending on the post title. This was important because posts were automatically acquired without the web interface, and in this workflow there was no way to pick a category other than the default. In our case we wanted to use a post fix in the title to determine which category was to be picked: for example, if a post title would end with “_ONE”, it should end up in Category 1, and if it ends up with “_TWO” it...
read moreP2 Header Ad – Version 1.6 released
I’ve just released a new version of my P2 Header Ad plugin! It fixes a few issues I’ve come across in debug mode: styles are now loaded via wp_enqueue_scripts hook fixed a debug warning that assumed a constant rather than a value verified compatibility with WordPress 4.5 There’s still a lone warning that appears in WordPress 4.5 Debug Mode. It reads something like “get_currentuserinfo is deprecated since version 4.5! Use wp_get_current_user() instead”. This isn’t actually triggered by my plugin, but rather...
read moreHow to fix “MLSD unable to build data connection” in ProFTP
I’ve come across an odd problem today on a server that’s been working fine for all kinds of FTP traffic for many years. Turns out that today, FileZilla started complaining about explicit TLS connections (when available) and gave the following error message: 425 MLSD unable to build data connection: operation not permitted Clients could still connect, but no directory content was displayed, nor was uploading new files possible. Rats, I thought. This was on a CentOS 6 server with Plesk 12 running without a hitch otherwise. Turns out...
read moreHow to switch off Developer Beta Downloads on Mac OS X
A while ago I thought it would be fun to run the OS X Developer Betas on my MacBook Pro. That was before El Captain was released. Once the buzz had died down I grew a little tired of the bi-weekly point release downloads that took about an hour to install. So how can we tell a Developer Beta Mac to become a “normal” non-beta Mac again? While forum posts suggest that it’s an impossible feat, it’s actually no trouble at all. Simply head over to System Preferences – App Store and find a button that reads “your...
read moreHow to connect your Xbox 360 Controller to Dolphin for Mac
I’ve been experimenting with the marvellous Dolphin Emulator recently. It’s an open source project that allows us to play Nintendo Gamecube and Wii games on modern hardware. Dolphin is available for Windows, OS X and Linux. I have a wireless Xbox 360 controller for Windows at my disposal, but the only Windows hardware I have is the first generation Surface Pro. While the controller connects without issues, the Surface sadly just isn’t fast enough to run Dolphin. My more powerful hardware is Mac based, and Dolphin runs great...
read moreHow to use direct block access commands in Commodore DOS
We can access each sector’s raw data on Commodore disk drives with direct block access commands. Supported drives include the 1541, 1571, the VICE emulator as well as the SD2IEC card reader (for the most part). Each single sided floppy contains 35 sectors, while a double sided 1571 formatted disk contains 70 sectors. Each track contains between 17 and 21 sectors depending on how far inside or outside they are. Each sector contains 255 bytes we can read or write. Sectors are the same as blocks: only the directory refers to them as...
read moreHow to save data to your C128 RAM Expansion Unit (REU)
With a RAM Expansion Unit (REU), the Commodore 128 could address up to 512k of data. That was huge in the late eighties! All you needed was one of those REUs, plug it into your cartridge port, and so much more super fast memory was at your fingertips. But even with such a cartridge at hand, how do we actually make use of it from CBM BASIC 7.0? With three funky commands called STASH, FETCH and SWAP. Here’s how we can use them. The REUs cannot be addressed directly, like other memory in your computer. Instead, data has to be either copied...
read moreHow to create relative data files on your Commodore 128
The CBM DOS can write “relative data” onto disk, based on individual records. The advantage is that all space is allocated once and then randomly accessed if and when it’s needed – much like the tracks on a CD. This approach is different from sequential files, which have to read or write the whole file in one go (Apple call this “reading and writing atomically”). So finding the 50th record in a sequential file can take some time, whereas retrieving record 50 from a relative file is just as fast as...
read moreHow to create sequential files on your Commodore C128
Sequential files are files to which we can write arbitrary data and read it back later. We can even append data to the file later without having to re-write the whole file. This works with the Datasette (tape drive) as well as floppy drives. Here’s how to do it in CBM BASIC 7.0: Creating Sequential Files The C128 has a few special commands up its sleeve to aid us in this task. Here we create a new file using the DOPEN keyword and write 100 statements to it. 10 dopen#1,"@seq test",w 20 for i=1 to 100 30...
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