I was getting a strange set of LFD failures on my main server (most likely after some automatic system updates). The error was along the lines of  ”Error processing command for line [iptables: Unknown error 4294967295], at line xxxx”

It seems that there is some collision between broken implementations on Virtuozzo (my VPS providers’ virutalisation software) and CSF (see notes on v5.77 and 5.78).

After following the manual upgrade process, everything seemed to settle down. My hosting providers later suggested that actually a clean install was the only way to sort things out fully.

I got an odd error with Office 2013 Word and Excel on double clicking items to open them from Windows Explorer on Windows 8. The document opened, but there was an error window saying: “There was a problem sending the command to the program”

I tried a FixIt which appeared to sort out Word, strangely, but didn’t fix Excel.

I then followed the instructions here to turn on “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)” and then turned it off again. You can find the setting in File>Options>Advanced>General.

All now seems well.

Google makes it clear that it doesn’t support the redirection of naked domains (domain.com is a naked domain, www.domain.com is a subdomain). However, you can do it. I host some sites with Enom, so there were simple instructions to follow.

Summary: change your @ (and * if you like) host record to a URL Frame Record type and the address to, e.g., http://sites.google.com/a/domain.com/main/.

The new version of Google Authenticator (excellent provider of two-factor authentication for your Google accounts using your mobile as a secure key generator) force closes on open on CyanogenMod 7. You can fix it at a simple ADB prompt:

# adb remount
# adb shell
# cd /system/bin
# ln -s ../xbin/chmod chmod

It should now just work. Summary: it was looking for the chmod binary somewhere it doesn’t exist on CM7.

Every time you visit a site with Like / +1 / whatever buttons on them, you tell Facebook / Google / whoever what page you are visiting before you even think about clicking the button or not.

You may or may not care about this, but if you do and browse with Firefox, you can use Priv3: Practical Third-Party Privacy. It prevents the information being sent to the tracker unless you explicitly click the button.

I have found a nice plugin called DeployMint which allows WordPress to run in a staging / live deployment manner. It needs a fair bit of work to get it running on WHM/CPanel based on an existing site, so I’ve started trying to document it.

I had an odd thing where MusicMonkey 4 AutoDJ (essentially shuffle) stopped working: it would not add random tracks to the Now Playing list. After a bit of hunting I discovered that deleting all the files in the now playing list reset it and it suddenly kicked off again.

UNRAR for QNAP 439 Pro II+. Worked for me:

• /opt/bin/ipkg update
• /opt/bin/ipkg install unrar

Sometimes I find that newly created Google documents do not show up in the home page. Google Docs Documents Go Missing For Some has the fix. Put a * in the search box and there they are.