Step 1 – Update and Upgrade your existing software repositories
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2 – Add some extra repositories so you can get the latest version
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add the following to that file, and save it:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable all
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib
deb http://packages.dotdeb.org/ stable all

Step 3: Update your new repositories
sudo apt-get update

(I got some 404 errors with this step, but you can ignore them)

Step 4: Install the latest version of php
sudo apt-get install php5-cli

Step 5: Restart Apache
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

A quick look at the source for install.php reveals this on line 489:

$version_fail = (version_compare(phpversion(), “5.2.8″) < 0);

If you just change 5.2.8 to your version (in my case, 5.2.6), it will install. There aren’t heaps of changes between these two versions, so I’m hoping there won’t be any major side effects!

Here’s how to add Google Latitude to your iPhone as a web clip without Mobile Safari’s top and bottom navigation bars.

1. On your iPhone, go to http://carbis.fu8.com/iPhone/latitude (the capital ‘P’ matters)
2. Before you are redirected to the latitude page, quickly press the + button, and press Add to Home Screen
3. If the icon loads with a black background, you didn’t quite get it before it redirected – try again
4. Press Add in the top right hand corner

And that’s that. You’ll notice I also edited the ugly Latitude home screen icon so that it matches all of Google’s other web apps.

Hope you like.

First of all, you’ll need to update your SRV records. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of them before, it’s really easy. Log into your domain control, and, in the same way you would add DNS records, add the following SRV records (replacing domain.com with your domain):

_xmpp-server._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com.
_xmpp-server._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.domain. IN SRV 5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.domain. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server1.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.domain. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server2.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.domain. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server3.l.google.com.
_jabber._tcp.gmail.domain. IN SRV 20 0 5269 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.

_xmpp-client._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 5 0 5222 xmpp-server.l.google.com.
_xmpp-client._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5222 xmpp-server1.l.google.com.
_xmpp-client._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5222 xmpp-server2.l.google.com.
_xmpp-client._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5222 xmpp-server3.l.google.com.
_xmpp-client._tcp.domain.com. IN SRV 20 0 5222 xmpp-server4.l.google.com.

The last five are the most important, and they’re not included in Google’s article on the topic. They are the part that lets you log in from a different instant messaging client.

Next, just add a Google Talk account, with the username being ‘username@yourdomain.com’ . It should all be good from there.

Let me know how you go, if this works for you (or if it doesn’t).

I discovered it when learning about Fussy Follow Friday on Matt Stratton’s blog.

First, an example: Click here to tweet!

And now, here’s some html how-to goodness:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=type twitter status here“>Click me!</a>

Of course, if you’re not signed into twitter, it will ask you to sign in first… but if you are signed in, it will post automatically.

Of course, all my Hebrew music has the genre ‘Hebrew’. Unfortunately, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the custom genre art to work! It would work if I used the genre ‘Israel’ or ‘Jewish’, but never ‘Hebrew’.

Then I cottoned on to something. I tried the genre ‘Italian’, and that didn’t work either. Nor did ‘French’.

In short, iTunes 8 custom genre art does not work with language name genres.

Hope that helps someone. Here’s what I ended up with.

iTunes 8 Custom Genre Art

1. Start up in single-user mode by holding command-s while turning on the computer (this gives you root access)
2. Type: “fsck -fy” (without quotes – ALWAYS without quotes)
3. Type: “mount -uw /”
4. Type: “launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist”
5. Type: “dscl . -passwd /Users/theUsernameWhosPasswordYouWantToChange newPassword”
6. Type: “exit”
7. Restart your computer

That should work. If you have any problems, let me know in the comments. If you don’t, let me know in the comments.

Here’s the gospel for programmers.

Sorry about the spacing… wordpress doesn’t like tabs. Please feel free to point out any syntax errors.

var $sin = 0;
var $pricePaid = true;
var $heaven = true;
var $alive = true;
var $deathAge = 120;

// please set this variable as a boolean
var $acceptChrist =

function eatForbiddenFruit ($temptation, $resistance) {
if ($temptation == true && $resistance = false) {
$sin = 1;
$pricePaid = false;
}
}

function jesus($sinOfChrist) {
death($sinOfChrist,true);
}

function death($amountOfSinFromLife, $programmer) {

if ($amountOfSinFromLife == 0 && $programmer == true) {
$pricePaid = true;
}
else {

if ($acceptChrist && $pricePaid) {
$amountOfSinFromLife = $sinOfChrist;
}

if (amountOfSinFromLife == 0) {
$heaven = true;
}
else {
$heaven = false;
}
}

}

eatForbiddenFruit(true,false);

jesus(0);

while ($alive) {

$sin ++;

if (rand(0,$deathAge) == $deathAge) {
$alive = false;
break;
}

$deathAge –;
}

death($sin,false);

I’m thinking about expanding on this, to include all the major events of the bible. What do you think?

Finally, I’ve come accross an easy terminal command to change a file or folders visibility! Just type the following into terminal:

sudo chflags hidden /path/to/file

to unhide:

sudo chflags nohidden /path/to/file

Finally! A way to hide those pesky Microsoft User Data and Halo folders that want to live in your Document folder.

If this doesn’t work for you, or if you have any questions, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to get back to you.

The question that came to mind yesterday is a question I’m sure many have pondered. Is it possible to take Facebook back to the “good-’ol-days” – before pirates, ninjas, warewolves, vampires, super-walls, scrabble, and any other application you could possibly be bothered to imagine?

The answer: Yes, and it’s not too hard. I like lists, here’s one to help you clean up your Facebook account.

1. Cull your Applications.

It took me a little while, sure, but removing all the third party applications you could manage without is guaranteed to leave you with a sense of Facebook zen. After my cull, I was just left with:

• Photos
• Video
• Notes
• Groups
• Events
• Marketplace
• Posted Items

You might decide to keep some more, but my general rule was only to keep applications developed by Facebook. No third party apps.

2. Start blocking

Whenever you receive an application request, there are two buttons. One to accept, and one to ignore. Just below these buttons is a link to Block This Application. From now on, instead of pressing Ignore whenever you get a new application request, choose to Block it instead. This will ensure that you don’t receive multiple requests for the same application, and you will see that the amount of application requests you receive will quickly dissapait.

3. Hide Notifications

Hit the Inbox drop down, then choose Notifications from the menu. From here, you can manage which applications you receive notifications from. Hide everything but the essentials (such as Photos or Wall Posts).

Already you will notice Facebook to be MUCH cleaner. But there are still a couple of things we can do to make it even more friendly.

4. Get rid of email notifications

If you’re like most people, you’re on Facebook at least once everyday. If that’s the case, you don’t need to get an email every time someone tags you in a photo, or writes on your wall – you’ll be notified by this when you log in. This is also a great way to reduce email clutter.

To stop the emails, hit the ‘account’ link, in the top right hand corner of the page. Then go to the Notifications tab. From here, you can choose to turn on or off every email notification. I turned every one of mine off.

5. Boost

If you’re a firefox user, you can take the Facebook clean-up one step further. By installing the Boost firefox extension, you can really customise your Facebook experience. I use this just to get rid of advertisments, and block all application requests altogther, but you can also customise the way you view photo albums, auto-refresh your home page, auto-login or even change the entire look and feel of Facebook. Boost also includes a Facebook toolbar (which I personally prefer to disable) for those hardcore Facebook users.

You can download the Boost extension here: Boost Firefox Extension.

That about wraps it up, but if you have any other tips or hints to help get a better experience out of Facebook, or if you even just found this post useful, let me know in the comments!