H3xl4t0r

Download and convert (to MP3) a Youtube playlist using youtube-dl (Mac osx)

2018-06-06T06:02:00.001+00:00

Install youtube-dl using brew

brew install youtube-dl

Install libav using brew as well:

brew install libav

Download the playlist using the command:

youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=IDOFTHELIST

Change IDOFTHELIST to the id of the list, normally it's something like PL2140A0411C65DD13

Good luck!

How to become a DevOps Engineer in less than six months

2018-06-04T03:55:00.001+00:00

Target Audience

Are you a developer looking to shift your career towards a more DevOps model?

Are you are a classically trained Ops person and you would like to get a feeling of what this whole DevOps thing is all about?

Or are you neither, and simply looking for a career change and have no idea where to start? If so, read on!

Finally, if you have been doing this DevOps thing for years now, you might still find this useful as a validation of where we are and where this is going.

What’s This, Now?

First, what is DevOps?

You can google the definitions and wade through all that buzzword extravaganza but know that most are embarrassingly long word salads stuffed into giant run-on sentences. (See what I did here?)

So, I’ll save you the clicks and distill it down:

DevOps is a way to deliver software with shared pain and responsibility.

That’s it.

OK, but what does that mean?

It means that traditionally, the developers (people who create software) had incentives that were vastly different from operations (people who run software.)

For example, as a developer, I want to create as many new features as fast as possible. After all, this is my job and that’s what customers demand!

However, if I’m an ops person, then I want as few new features as possible because every new feature is a change and change is risky.

As a result of this misalignment of incentives, DevOps was born.

DevOps attempts to fuse development and operations (DevOps, get it?) into one group. The idea is that one group will now share both the pain and the responsibility (and presumably, the rewards) of creating, deploying, and generating revenue from customer-facing software.

Now, purists will tell you know that there is no such thing as a “DevOps Engineer”. “DevOps is a culture, not a role,” they will tell you.

Yeah, yeah. They are technically correct (the worst kind of correct!) but as it so often happens, the term has morphed beyond its original meaning.

Now, being a DevOps Engineer is something like “Systems Engineer 2.0.”

In other words, somebody who understands the Software Development Lifecycle and brings software engineering tools and processes to solve classic operations challenges.

DevOps ultimately means building digital pipelines that take code from a developer’s laptop all the way to revenue generating prod awesomeness!

That’s what it’s all about!

Also note that as a career choice, the whole DevOps space is highly compensated, with almost every company either “doing DevOps” or claiming to do so.

Regardless of where the companies are, the overall DevOps job opportunities are plentiful, offering fun, meaningful employment for years to come.

NOTE: Be wary of companies hiring for a “DevOps team” or a “DevOps department.” Strictly speaking, such things should not exist because ultimately, DevOps is all about the culture and a way of delivering sofware, not a new team or department to be staffed up.

Disclaimer

Now, let’s put the glass of Kool-Aid aside for a moment and consider the following.

Have you heard the old adage, “there are no junior DevOps engineers?”

If not, please know it is a popular trope on Reddit and StackOverflow. But what does that mean?

Simply put, it means that it takes many years of experience, combined with a solid understanding of tools, to eventually become a truly effective Senior DevOps practitioner. And sadly, there is no shortcut for experience.

So, this is not an attempt to cheat the system — I don’t think that’s actually possible to pretend to be a Senior DevOps Engineer with a few months of experience. Solid understanding of the rapidly changing tools and methodologies takes years to master and there is no getting around that.

However! There is a roughly agreed upon (trendy, if you will) menu of tools and concepts that most companies use and that is what the article is all about!

Again, tools are different from skills, so while you are learning the tools, make sure you don’t neglect your skills (interviewing, networking, written communication, troubleshooting, etc.)

Most importantly, don’t lose track of what we are after — building a fully automated digital pipeline that takes ideas and turns them into revenue generating pieces of code.

That is the single, most important take-away from this entire article!

Enough Talk, Where Do I Start?

Below is your roadmap.

Master the following and you can safely and honestly call yourself a DevOps Engineer! Or a Cloud Engineer if you detest the “DevOps” title.

The map below represents mine (and probably the majority of folks working in this space) idea of what a competent DevOps Engineer should know. That said, it is only an opinion and there will certainly be dissenting voices. That is OK! We are not after perfection here, we are after a solid foundation upon which to build.

NOTE: You are meant to traverse this breadth-first, layer by layer. Start (and continue!) with the foundation first. Learn the technologies in blue first (Linux|Python|AWS), then if time permits or job market demands, go after the purple stuff (Golang|Google Cloud).

DevOps Foundational Knowledge

Again, go after the first layer in every pillar. Then, time permitting, go after the second layer to add depth to your expertise.

Once you have the Foundation layer reasonably figured out, move onto the real-world set of skills:

Real-world skills

NOTE: What’s notably missing from the pipeline above is Test. That’s intentional — writing unit, integration, and acceptance tests is not easy and traditionally falls on the shoulders of developers. The “Test” phase omission is intentional, since the goal of this roadmap is rapid intake of new skills and tools. Lack of testing expertise is judged by the author to be an insignificant barrier to a proper DevOps employment.

Also, please remember, we are not after learning a whole bunch of unrelated techno-babble here. We are after a solid understanding of tools that taken together, tell a single, coherent story.

That story is end-to-end process automation — a digital pipeline that moves bits around in an assembly line-like fashion.

Moreover, you don’t want to learn a bunch of tools and stop. Tools change rapidly, concepts much less so. Therefore, what you want to do is use the tools as learning proxies for the higher level concepts.

OK, let’s dig in a little deeper!

Foundational Knowledge

Under the top line labeled “Foundation” you will see the skills that every DevOps Engineer must master.

Here, you will see three industry-dominant pillars: operating system, programming language, public cloud. These things are not going to be something that you can learn really quickly, check them off the list and move on. These are going to be skills that you must acquire and keep sharp on a continuous basis, to stay relevant and up to date with what is going on.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Linux: where everything runs. Now, can you be an awesome DevOps practitioner and stay entirely within the Microsoft ecosystem? Of course, you can! There’s no law that mandates Linux for everything.

However! Please know that while all the DevOps-y things can certainly be done with Windows, it is far more painful and the job opportunities are far fewer. For now, you can safely assume that one cannot become a true DevOps professional without knowing Linux. Therefore, Linux is what you must learn and keep learning.

Honestly, the best way to do it is to just install Linux (Fedora or Ubuntu) at home and use that as much as you can. You will break things, you will get stuck and then you will have to fix it all and in the process, you will learn Linux!

For reference, in North America, the Red Hat variants are more prevalent. Therefore, it makes sense to start with Fedora or CentOS. If you are wondering whether you should get the KDE or Gnome edition, get KDE. That’s what Linus Torvalds uses. :)

Python: the dominant back-end language these days. Easy to get started with, widely used. Bonus: Python is very prevalent in the AI/Machine Learning space, so if you ever want to transition to yet another hot field, you’ll be all set!

Amazon Web Services: Once again, it is impossible to become a seasoned DevOps professional without a solid understanding of how a public cloud works. And if knowledge of a cloud is what you are after, Amazon Web Services is the dominant player in this space, offering the richest set of tools to work with.

Is it possible to start with Google Cloud or Azure instead? Absolutely! But we are after the biggest bang for the buck here, so AWS is the safest play to make, at least in 2018.

You get a free tier to play with when you sign up for an account at AWS, so that is a good place to start.

Now, when you log into the AWS console, you are greeted with a simple, easy to understand menu of choices.

Start with the following: VPC, EC2, IAM, S3, CloudWatch, ELB (under the EC2 umbrella), and Security Groups. These things are plenty to get you started and every modern, cloud-enabled enterprise will be using these tools heavily.

AWS’ own training website is a good place to start.

I recommend you set aside 20–30 minutes daily to practice Python, Linux, and AWS.

NOTE: this will be in addition to the other stuff you will have to learn. Altogether, I estimate that spending an hour daily, five times a week is enough to give you a solid understanding of what is going on in the DevOps space within 6 months or less.

That’s it for the Foundational Layer!

In the subsequent articles, we will explore the next level of complexity: how to Configure, Version, Package, Deploy, Run, and Monitor software in a fully automated way!

macOS 10.13 High Sierra Apache Setup: MySQL, APC & More...

2018-04-14T10:49:00.002+01:00

In Part 1 of this 3-part series, we covered configuring Apache on macOS to work better with your local user account, as well as the installation process for installing multiple versions of PHP.

In this Part 2, we will cover installing MySQL, Virtual Hosts, APC caching, YAML, and Xdebug.

This guide is intended for experienced web developers. If you are a beginner developer, you will be better served using MAMP or MAMP Pro.

MySQL

Although not required for development of Grav, there are times you definitely need an installation of MySQL. In the original guide, we used the Oracle MySQL installation package. However, we now have switched to MariaDB which is a drop-in replacement for MySQL and is easily installed and updated with Brew. Detailed information on the HomeBrew installation process can be found on the mariadb.org site but the essentials are as follows:

Install MariaDB with Brew:

$ brew update
$ brew install mariadb

After a successful installation, you can start the server ane ensure it autostarts in the future with:

$ brew services start mariadb

You should get some positive feedback on that action:

==> Successfully started `mariadb` (label: homebrew.mxcl.mariadb)

Download SequelPro and install it. (it's awesome and free!). You should be able to automatically create a new connection via the Socket option without changing any settings.

It is advisable to change the MySQL server password and secure your installation. The simplest way to do this is to use the provided script:

$ /usr/local/bin/mysql_secure_installation

Just answer the questions and fill them in as is appropriate for your environment.

If you need to stop the server, you can use the simple command:

$ brew services stop mariadb

Apache Virtual Hosts

A very handy development option is to have multiple virtual hosts set up for you various projects. This means that you can set up names such as grav.mydomain.com which point to your Grav setup, or project-x.mydomain.com for a project-specific URL.

Apache generally performs name-based matching, so you don't need to configure multiple IP addresses. Detailed information can be found on the apache.org site.

Apache already comes preconfigured to support this behavior but it is not enabled. First you will need to uncomment the following lines in your /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf file:

LoadModule vhost_alias_module lib/httpd/modules/mod_vhost_alias.so

and:

# Virtual hosts
Include /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Then you can edit this referenced file and configure it to your needs:

$ open -e /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

This file has some instructions already but the important thing to remember is that these rules are matched in order. When you set up virtual hosts, you will lose your older document root, so you will need to add back support for that first as a virtual host.


    DocumentRoot "/Users/your_user/Sites"
    ServerName localhost

DocumentRoot "/Users/your_user/Sites/grav-admin" ServerName grav-admin.test

As you set up your .test virtual hosts, you may receive a warning such as Warning: DocumentRoot [/Users/your_user/Sites/grav-admin] does not exist when restarting Apache. This just lets you know that the source directory listed for your virtual hosts is not present on the drive. It's an issue that can be resolved by editing this file with the corrected DocumentRoot.

Dnsmasq

We used to recommend using .dev domain name, but since Chrome 63 forces all .dev domains to use SSL, this guide has been updated to use .test

In the example virtualhost we setup above, we defined a ServerName of grav-admin.test. This by default will not resolve to your local machine, but it's often very useful to be able to setup various virtual hosts for development purposes. You can do this by manually adding entries to /etc/hosts ever time, or you can install and configure Dnsmasq to automatically handle wildcard *.test names and forward all of them to localhost (127.0.0.1).

First we install it with brew:

$ brew install dnsmasq

Then we setup *.test hosts:

$ echo 'address=/.test/127.0.0.1' > /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

Start it and ensure it auto-starts on reboot in the future:

$ sudo brew services start dnsmasq

And lastly, add it to the resolvers:

$ sudo mkdir -v /etc/resolver
$ sudo bash -c 'echo "nameserver 127.0.0.1" > /etc/resolver/test'

Now you can test it out by pinging some bogus .test name:

ping bogus.test
PING bogus.test (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.044 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.118 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.045 ms

Voila! we have successfully setup wildcard forwarding of all *.test DNS names to localhost.

APC Cache

Caching in PHP is a big part of the performance equation. There are two types of caching typically available, and both have a big impact on speed and performance.

The first type of cache is called an opcode cache, and this is what takes your PHP script and compiles it for faster execution. This alone can typically result in a 3X speed increase!.

The second type of cache is a user cache, and this is a data-store that PHP can use to quickly store and retrieve data from. These typically run in memory which means they are transient, but very fast.

All PHP packages now come pre-built with Zend OPcache by default, but you can still install APCu Cache as a data store.

Install APCu

Switch to PHP 5.6 mode, then run the following brew commands to install autoconf:

$ sphp 5.6
$ brew install autoconf

Then you can install APCu via PECL. PECL is a PHP package manager that is now the preferred way to install PHP packages. Using it requires a little more manual work than before when these packages were available via a single one-line brew install command.

For PHP 5.6 we have to install the latest 4.x version of APCu, as this is the last version to provide PHP 5.6 support:

$ pecl channel-update pecl.php.net
$ pecl install apcu-4.0.11

Answer any question by simply pressing Return to accept the default values

Restart Apache with the standard sudo apachectl -k restart command to pick up your changes.

[Optional] APCu Configuration

This is probably enough for most people, but if you are like me and like a little more control over your settings, and also the ability to more easily enable/disable the extension, we have some extra optional steps.

You will now need to remove the extension="apcu.so" entry that PECL adds to the top of your php.ini. So edit this file and remove the top line:

$ open -e /usr/local/etc/php/5.6/php.ini

Once that line is removed, we can add a new file with a proper entry to the recently bulit apcu.so library:

$ open -e /usr/local/etc/php/5.6/conf.d/ext-apcu.ini

In this file paste the following:

[apcu]
extension="apcu.so"
apc.enabled=1
apc.shm_size=64M
apc.ttl=7200
apc.enable_cli=1

Restart Apache with the standard sudo apachectl -k restart command to pick up your changes.

APCu for other PHP versions

For PHP 7.0 and above you can use the latest 5.x release of APCu, so the process is the same for all. First let's switch to PHP 7.0 and install the APCu library:

$ sphp 7.0
$ pecl uninstall -r apcu
$ pecl install apcu

Restart Apache with the standard sudo apachectl -k restart command to pick up your changes.

The uninstall -r enables PECL to only remove registration, it does not actually uninstall anything.

Again if you are OK with the ACPu defaults, you can leave things as-is, but you can choose to repeat the Optional APCu Configurationsteps to create an APCu configuration file fore each PHP version.

For PHP 7.1, just repeat these steps but use 7.1 instead of 7.0:

$ sphp 7.1
$ pecl uninstall -r apcu
$ pecl install apcu

and for PHP 7.2:

$ sphp 7.2
$ pecl uninstall -r apcu
$ pecl install apcu

YAML

With recent versions of Grav, we now make use of the native PECL YAML library that allow YAML processing to be done by highly efficient libYAML C library rather than by they Symfony PHP library. This can result in a 5X improvement in YAML processing times! Luckily this is a simple process to install for any PHP version:

Switch to PHP 5.6 mode, then run the following brew commands to install libyaml:

$ sphp 5.6
$ brew install libyaml

Then you can install YAML via PECL.

For PHP 5.6 we have to install the latest 1.3.x version of YAML, as this is the last version to provide PHP 5.6 support:

$ pecl install yaml-1.3.1

Answer any question by simply pressing Return to accept the default values

Restart Apache with the standard sudo apachectl -k restart command to pick up your changes.

YAML for other PHP versions

For PHP 7.0 and above you can use the latest 2.x release of YAML, so the process is the same for all. First let's switch to PHP 7.0 and install the YAML library:

$ sphp 7.0
$ pecl uninstall -r yaml
$ pecl install yaml

Restart Apache with the standard sudo apachectl -k restart command to pick up your changes.

The uninstall -r enables PECL to only remove registration, it does not actually uninstall anything.

For PHP 7.1, just repeat these steps but use 7.1 instead of 7.0:

$ sphp 7.1
$ pecl uninstall -r yaml
$ pecl install yaml

and for PHP 7.2:

$ sphp 7.2
$ pecl uninstall -r yaml
$ pecl install yaml

[Optional] YAML Configuration

If you are feeling adventurous, or you like to keep things uniform, you can follow the same procedure as APCu and remove the default extension-"yaml.so" entry in each PHP's php.ini and instead, create a conf.d/ext-yaml.ini file:

[yaml]
extension="yaml.so"

Xdebug

One of the most important aspects of any kind of development is the ability to debug and fix your code. PHP comes with limited support to dump variables or log to a file, but for more complex situations you need something more powerful.

Xdebug provides is a debugging and profiling extension for PHP that provides an HTML-friendly output for the var_dump() method that improves the readability of the default version. It also provides other useful dumping methods as well as displaying stack traces. One of the best features however, is the ability to remote debug your code. This means you can set breakpoints, and step through your PHP code inspecting as you go. Full documentation on Xdebug contains extensive information about all the functionality available. Let's switch back to PHP 5.6 and get started.

$ sphp 5.6

Then you can install Xdebug via PECL. For PHP 5.6 we have to install the latest 2.5.x version of Xdebug, as this is the last version to provide PHP 5.6 support:

$ pecl install xdebug-2.5.5

[Required] Xdebug Configuration

Like the other PECL-installed modules, this will create a simple entry in the php.ini file, but you really need to configure Xdebug for it to be useful. So let's just go ahead and create our configuration file as we'll need it shortly anyway.

You will now need to remove the zend_extension="xdebug.so"" entry that PECL adds to the top of your php.ini. So edit this file and remove the top line:

$ open -e /usr/local/etc/php/5.6/php.ini

Once that line is removed, we can add a new file with a proper entry to the recently bulit xdebug.so library:

$ open -e /usr/local/etc/php/5.6/conf.d/ext-xdebug.ini

In this file paste the following:

[xdebug]
zend_extension="xdebug.so"
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_host=localhost
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_port=9000

Restart Apache with the standard sudo apachectl -k restart command to pick up your changes. You should check the http://localhost/info.php to ensure that Xdebug information is displayed:

W00fz created a great tool for quickly enabling/disabling xdebug. Install this with brew:

$ curl -L https://gist.githubusercontent.com/rhukster/073a2c1270ccb2c6868e7aced92001cf/raw > /usr/local/bin/xdebug
$ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/xdebug

Using it is simple, you can get the current state with:

$ xdebug

And then turn it on or off with:

$ xdebug on
$ xdebug off

if Xdebug still shows up in php -v the most likely cause is you didn't remove the zend_extension="xdebug.so"" entry at the top of php.ini

Xdebug for other PHP versions

For PHP 7.0 and above you can use the latest 1.6.x release of Xdebug, so the process is the same for all. First let's switch to PHP 7.0 and install the Xdebug library:

$ sphp 7.0
$ pecl uninstall -r xdebug
$ pecl install xdebug

Afer this just repeat the Required Xdebug Configuration steps, with /usr/local/etc/php/7.0/php.ini as the PHP configuration file to remove the existing entry, and /usr/local/etc/php/7.0/conf.d/ext-xdebug.ini for the file you will create with the new Xdebug configuration.

Restart Apache with the standard sudo apachectl -k restart command to pick up your changes.

For PHP 7.1, just repeat these steps but use 7.1 instead of 7.0:

$ sphp 7.1
$ pecl uninstall -r xdebug
$ pecl install xdebug

Again, repeat the Required Xdebug Configuration steps with the same info you used for 7.0 except use 7.1

and for PHP 7.2:

$ sphp 7.2
$ pecl uninstall -r xdebug
$ pecl install xdebug

Again, repeat the Required Xdebug Configuration steps with the same info you used for 7.1 except use 7.2

Advanced Techniques

Here's a hot tip if you have done this before and want to speed-up the installation process. Simply install everything (apcu, yaml, xdebug) in one shot, and then perform the other non-installation steps. This is faster but less intuitive for newbies:

PHP 5.6

$ pecl install apcu-4.0.11 && pecl install yaml-1.3.1 && pecl install xdebug-2.5.5

PHP 7.0+

Repeat the following 2 steps for PHP 7.0 through PHP 7.2:

$ sphp 7.0
$ pecl uninstall -r apcu && pecl install apcu && pecl uninstall -r yaml && pecl install yaml && pecl uninstall -r xdebug && pecl install xdebug

Once you have created your configruation (conf.d/ext-[lbirary].ini) files, you can also easily copy the configuration files from one version of PHP to another.

$ cd /usr/local/php/5.6/conf.d
$ cp ext-apcu.ini ext-xdebug.ini ext-yaml.ini ../../7.0/conf.d
$ cp ext-apcu.ini ext-xdebug.ini ext-yaml.ini ../../7.1/conf.d
$ cp ext-apcu.ini ext-xdebug.ini ext-yaml.ini ../../7.2/conf.d

You should now be all set with a Rockin' PHP development environment! To find out how to enable SSL on Apache, check out Part 3 in the series.

NOTE: The brew installation actually creates configuration files in /usr/local/etc/php/5.6/conf.d,/usr/local/etc/php/7.0/conf.d, /usr/local/etc/php/7.1/conf.d, and /usr/local/etc/php/7.2/conf.drespectively. If you want to uninstall a PHP extension, simply rename the .ini file to .ini.bak and restart apache. Alternatively, you can simply use brew to uninstall it, and reinstall it again when you need it.

macOS 10.13 High Sierra Apache Setup: Multiple PHP Versions

2018-04-14T10:48:00.001+01:00

Developing web applications on macOS is a real joy. There are plenty of options for setting up your development environments, including the ever-popular MAMP Pro that provides a nice UI on top of Apache, PHP and MySQL. However, there are times when MAMP Pro has slow downs, or out of date versions, or is simply behaving badly due to its restrictive system of configuration templates and non-standard builds.

It is times like these that people often look for an alternative approach, and luckily there is one, and it is relatively straight-forward to setup.

In this blog post, we will walk you through setting up and configuring Apache 2.4 and multiple PHP versions. In the second blog post in this two-post series, we will cover MySQL, Apache virtual hosts, APC caching, and Xdebug installation.

This guide is intended for experienced web developers. If you are a beginner developer, you will be better served using MAMP or MAMP Pro.

XCode Command Line Tools

If you don't already have XCode installed, it's best to first install the command line tools as these will be used by homebrew:

$ xcode-select --install

Homebrew Installation

This process relies heavily on the macOS package manager called Homebrew. Using the brew command you can easily add powerful functionality to your mac, but first we have to install it. This is a simple process, but you need to launch your Terminal(/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) application and then enter:

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Just follow the terminal prompts and enter your password where required. This may take a few minutes, but when complete, a quick way to ensure you have installed brew correctly, simply type:

$ brew --version
Homebrew 1.5.14
Homebrew/homebrew-core (git revision beff; last commit 2018-04-06)

You should probably also run the following command to ensure everything is configured correctly:

$ brew doctor

It will instruct you if you need to correct anything.

Apache Installation

The latest macOS 10.13 High Sierra comes with Apache 2.4 pre-installed, however, it is no longer a simple task to use this version with Homebrew because Apple has removed some required scripts in this release. However, the solution is to install Apache 2.4 via Homebrew and then configure it to run on the standard ports (80/443).

If you already have the built-in Apache running, it will need to be shutdown first, and any auto-loading scripts removed. It really doesn't hurt to just run all these commands in order - even if it's a fresh installation:

$ sudo apachectl stop
$ sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist 2>/dev/null

Now we need to install the new version provided by Brew:

$ brew install httpd

Without options, httpd won't need to be built from source, so it installs pretty quickly. Upon completion you should see a message like:

🍺  /usr/local/Cellar/httpd/2.4.33: 1,633 files, 26.4MB

Now we just need to configure things so that our new Apache server is auto-started

$ sudo brew services start httpd

You now have installed Homebrew's Apache, and configured it to auto-start with a privileged account. It should already be running, so you can try to reach your server in a browser by pointing it at http://localhost:8080, you should see a simple header that says "It works!".

Troubleshooting Tips

If you get a message that the browser can't connect to the server, first check to ensure the server is up.

$ ps -aef | grep httpd

You should see a few httpd processes if Apache is up and running.

Try to restart Apache with:

$ sudo apachectl -k restart

You can watch the Apache error log in a new Terminal tab/window during a restart to see if anything is invalid or causing a problem:

$ tail -f /usr/local/var/log/httpd/error_log

Apache is controlled via the apachectl command so some useful commands to use are:

$ sudo apachectl start
$ sudo apachectl stop
$ sudo apachectl -k restart

The -k will force a restart immediately rather than asking politely to restart when apache is good and ready

Apache Configuration

Now that we have a working web server, we will want to do is make some configuration changes so it works better as a local development server.

In the latest version of Brew, you have to manually set the listen port from the default of 8080 to 80, so we will need to edit Apache's configuration file.

/usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf

For simplicity we'll use the built-in TextEditor application to make all our edits. You can launch this from the Terminal by using the open -e command followed by the path to the file:

$ open -e /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf

Find the line that says

Listen 8080

and change it to 80:

Listen 80

Next we'll configure it to use the to change the document root for Apache. This is the folder where Apache looks to serve file from. By default, the document root is configured as /usr/local/var/www. As this is a development machine, let's assume we want to change the document root to point to a folder in our own home directory.

Search for the term DocumentRoot, and you should see the following line:

DocumentRoot "/usr/local/var/www"

Change this to point to your user directory where your_user is the name of your user account:

DocumentRoot /Users/your_user/Sites

You also need to change the tag reference right below the DocumentRoot line. This should also be changed to point to your new document root also:

We removed the optional quotes around the directory paths as TextEdit will probably try to convert those to smart-quotes and that will result in a Syntax error when you try to restart Apache. Even if you edit around the quotes and leave them where they are, saving the document may result in their conversion and cause an error.

In that same block you will find an AllowOverride setting, this should be changed as follows:

# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
#   AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
AllowOverride All

Also we should now enable mod_rewrite which is commented out by default. Search for mod_rewrite.so and uncomment the line by removing the leading #:

LoadModule rewrite_module lib/httpd/modules/mod_rewrite.so

User & Group

Now we have the Apache configuration pointing to a Sites folder in our home directory. One problem still exists, however. By default, apache runs as the user daemon and group daemon. This will cause permission problems when trying to access files in our home directory. About a third of the way down the httpd.conf file there are two settings to set the User and Group Apache will run under. Change these to match your user account (replace your_user with your real username), with a group of staff:

User your_user
Group staff

Servername

Apache likes to have a server name in the configuration, but this is disabled by default, so search for:

#ServerName www.example.com:8080

and replace it with:

ServerName localhost

Sites Folder

Now, you need to create a Sites folder in the root of your home directory. You can do this in your terminal, or in Finder. In this new Sites folder create a simple index.html and put some dummy content in it like:


My User Web Root

$ mkdir ~/Sites
$ echo "
My User Web Root
" > ~/Sites/index.html

Restart apache to ensure your configuration changes have taken effect:

$ sudo apachectl -k restart

If you receive an error upon restarting Apache, try removing the quotes around the DocumentRoot and Directory designations we set up earlier.

Pointing your browser to http://localhost should display your new message. If you have that working, we can move on!

PHP Installation

If you have existing PHP installations via Brew, you need to first cleanup your setup with our Upgrading Homebrew guide before continuing with this section.

We will proceed by installing PHP 5.6, PHP 7.0, PHP 7.1 and PHP 7.2 and using a simple script to switch between them as we need. Up until the end of March 2018, all PHP related brews were handled by Homebrew/php tab, but that has been deprecated, so now we use what's available in the Homebrew/core package. This should be a better maintained, but is a much less complete, set of packages.

$ brew install php@5.6
$ brew install php@7.0
$ brew install php@7.1
$ brew install php@7.2

The first one will take a little bit of time as it has to install a bunch of brew dependencies. Subsequent PHP versions will install faster.

You no longer have to unlink each version between installing PHP versions as they are not linked by default

Also, you may have the need to tweak configuration settings of PHP to your needs. A common thing to change is the memory setting, or the date.timezone configuration. The php.ini files for each version of PHP are located in the following directories:

/usr/local/etc/php/5.6/php.ini
/usr/local/etc/php/7.0/php.ini
/usr/local/etc/php/7.1/php.ini
/usr/local/etc/php/7.2/php.ini

Let's switch back to the first PHP version now:

$ brew unlink php@7.2 && brew link --force --overwrite php@5.6

At this point, I strongly recommend closing ALL your terminal tabs and windows. This will mean opening a new terminal to continue with the next step. This is strongly recommended because some really strange path issues can arise with existing terminals (trust me, I have seen it!).

Quick test that we're in the correct version:

php -v

PHP 5.6.35 (cli) (built: Mar 31 2018 20:21:31)
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.0.6-dev, Copyright (c) 1999-2016, by Zend Technologies

Apache PHP Setup - Part 1

You have successfully installed your PHP versions, but we need to tell Apache to use them. You will again need to edit the /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf file scroll to the bottom of the LoadModule entries.

If you have been following this guide correctly, the last entry should be your mod_rewrite module:

LoadModule rewrite_module lib/httpd/modules/mod_rewrite.so

Below this add the following libphp modules:

LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/opt/php@5.6/lib/httpd/modules/libphp5.so
#LoadModule php7_module /usr/local/opt/php@7.0/lib/httpd/modules/libphp7.so
#LoadModule php7_module /usr/local/opt/php@7.1/lib/httpd/modules/libphp7.so
#LoadModule php7_module /usr/local/opt/php@7.2/lib/httpd/modules/libphp7.so

We can only have one module processing PHP at a time, so for now, so we have left our php@5.6 entry uncommented while all teh others are commented out. This will tell Apache to use PHP 5.6 to handle PHP requests. (We will add the ability to switch PHP versions later).

Also you must set the Directory Indexes for PHP explicitly, so search for this block:


    DirectoryIndex index.html

and replace it with this:


    DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

SetHandler application/x-httpd-php

Save the file and stop Apache then start again, now that we have installed PHP:

$ sudo apachectl -k stop
$ sudo apachectl start

Validating PHP Installation

The best way to test if PHP is installed and running as expected is to make use of phpinfo(). This is not something you want to leave on a production machine, but it's invaluable in a development environment.

Simply create a file called info.php in your Sites/ folder you created earlier with this one-liner.

echo " > ~/Sites/info.php

Point your browser to http://localhost/info.php and you should see a shiny PHP information page:

If you see a similar phpinfo result, congratulations! You now have Apache and PHP running successfully. You can test the other PHP versions by commenting the LoadModule ... php@5.6 ... entry and uncommenting one of the other ones. Then simply restart apache and reload the same page.

PHP Switcher Script

We hard-coded Apache to use PHP 5.6, but we really want to be able to switch between versions. Luckily, some industrious individuals have already done the hard work for us and written a very handy little PHP switcher script.

We will install the sphp script into brew's standard /usr/local/bin:

$ curl -L https://gist.githubusercontent.com/rhukster/f4c04f1bf59e0b74e335ee5d186a98e2/raw > /usr/local/bin/sphp
$ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/sphp

Check Your Path

Homebrew should have added its preferred /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin to your path as part of its installation process. Quickly test this by typing:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

If you don't see this, you might need to add these manually to your path. Depending on your shell your using, you may need to add this line to ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, or ~/.zshrc. We will assume you are using the default bash shell, so add this line to a your .profile (create it if it doesn't exist) file at the root of your user directory:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH

Testing the PHP Switching

After you have completed these steps, you should be able to switch your PHP version by using the command sphp followed by a two digit value for the PHP version:

$ sphp 7.0

You will probably have to enter your administrator password, and it should give you some feedback:

$ sphp 70
Switching to php@7.0
Switching your shell
Unlinking /usr/local/Cellar/php@5.6/5.6.35... 47 symlinks removed
Unlinking /usr/local/Cellar/php@7.0/7.0.29... 0 symlinks removed
Unlinking /usr/local/Cellar/php@7.1/7.1.16... 0 symlinks removed
Unlinking /usr/local/Cellar/php/7.2.4... 0 symlinks removed
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/php@7.0/7.0.29... 47 symlinks created

If you need to have this software first in your PATH instead consider running:
  echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/php@7.0/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
  echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/php@7.0/sbin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
You will need sudo power from now on
Switching your apache conf
Password:
Restarting apache
All done!

Test to see if your Apache is now running PHP 7.0 by again pointing your browser to http://localhost/info.php. With a little luck, you should see something like this:

Updating PHP and other Brew Packages

Brew makes it super easy to update PHP and the other packages you install. The first step is to update Brew so that it gets a list of available updates:

$ brew update

This will spit out a list of available updates, and any deleted formulas. To upgrade the packages simply type:

$ brew upgrade

You will need to switch to each of your installed PHP versions and run update again to get updates for each PHP version and ensure you are running the version of PHP you intend.

Activating Specific/Latest PHP Versions

Due to the way our PHP linking is set up, only one version of PHP is linked at a time, only the current active version of PHP will be updated to the latest version. You can see the current active version by typing:

$ php -v

And you can see the specific versions of PHP available by typing:

$ brew info php@7.0
php@7.0: stable 7.0.29 (bottled) [keg-only]
General-purpose scripting language
...

OK, that wraps up Part 1 of this 3 part series You now have a fully functional Apache 2.4 installation with a quick-and-easy way to toggle between PHP 5.6, 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2. Check out Part 2 to find out how to setup your environment with MySQL, Virtual Hosts, APCcaching, YAML, and Xdebug.

macOS 10.13 High Sierra Apache Setup: Upgrading Homebrew

2018-04-14T10:44:00.003+01:00

With the deprecation of Homebrew/php tap, many of the prior formulaes we used in this guide are no longer available. The cleanest way to migrate from the old brew formulae to the new pecl package approach is to remove everything PHP-related and reinstall with the new instructions.

The first step in this process is to update all the latest packages then upgrade them. This will acually 'migrate' the core PHP packages (which are the only ones supported), but there's a bunch of symlinks utilized that could cause problems down the road, so after upgrading, we'll remove all PHP packages, to provide a fresh start:

$ brew update
$ brew upgrade
$ brew cleanup

You can then double check the current installed PHP packages with:

$ brew list | grep php

Now we just need to remove everything:

$ brew uninstall --force php56 php56-apcu php56-opcache php56-xdebug php56-yaml
$ brew uninstall --force php70 php70-apcu php70-opcache php70-xdebug php70-yaml
$ brew uninstall --force php71 php71-apcu php71-opcache php71-xdebug php71-yaml
$ brew uninstall --force php72 php72-apcu php72-opcache php72-xdebug php72-yaml
$ brew cleanup

Don't worry if you don't have all these packages installed, this is just a cumulative list and it will skip over anything that's not installed.

Now we can check to see if anything PHP-related is left:

$ brew list | grep php

If you don't see anything you are all good. If something is still left, you can uninstall those individually using the same brew uninstall --force syntax as above.

Now we want to clean out the old configuration options for PHP:

$ rm -Rf /usr/local/etc/php/*

Now you've cleaned up your prior installation, you can jump to the PHP Installation.

basic steps to configure a new Laravel 5.5 project

2018-01-22T22:42:00.003+00:00

The humble checklist is an incredible tool for quickly and accurately completing tasks that you don't do all of the time. Time and time again, checklists have saved me from making a critical error on some pretty important - and terribly mundane - tasks.

One of my all-time favorite checklists outlines how to set up and configure a new Laravel project. While the documentation does a great job of explaining how to get the ball rolling, there are still several things we need to do before we can really start working.

Without further ado, let's hop right into this checklist and configure a brand new Laravel project.

1. Create a Laravel Project

Run laravel new from the directory where we want to store our project

2. Create a MySQL Database

From the command line, run mysql -uroot -p to log in to MySQL
Then, run create database ; to create the database

3. Update the `.env`

Out-of-the-box, Laravel provides us with an .env file to configure our project, which we'll need to update.
- APP_NAME=“”
- APP_URL=http://
- DB_DATABASE=
- DB_USERNAME=root
- DB_PASSWORD=

4. Set Up Our Testing Environment

Think you can skip this? Think again! Just kidding, it's up to you, but I highly recommend it!
Inside of phpunit.xml in the root directory of our project, we can add the following lines in the block at the bottom

5. Scaffold Authentication

In my Laravel project, I use the default auth 99% of the time. If you don't need to, then great! Feel free to skip this step, otherwise continue onward.
From the command line, run php artisan make:auth

6. Migrate Database

From the command line, run php artisan migrate

7. Initialize Git

From the command line, run git init to initialize the project as a git repository
Then, run git add . to add all of the project files to the staging area
Finally, run git commit -m 'initial commit' to commit these files

8. Add the project to GitLab/GitHub/"Your Platform of Choice"

Create a new project on your platform
Follow the directions they provide for adding an existing local repository to a new project

9. Install JS Packages

From the command line, run yarn or npm install to install your project's initial JavaScript dependencies

10. Update Scss files

I like to use .sass files for my custom CSS, so at this point I'll make a few changes to do that. You don't have to this if you don't want to use Sass, but you might have to do some other work to use your CSS preprocessor of choice.
Delete _variables.scss file
Remove all of the content inside of app.scss
Rename app.scss to use .sass
Update the reference to app.scss inside of webpack.mix.js

11. Add Any Other Initial Project Dependencies

Now we can really start to customize our projects. To start, I'll typically add Tailwind CSS and then get coding.
To add Tailwind CSS, follow these steps
1. From the command line, run yarn add tailwindcss --dev or npm install tailwindcss --save-dev to install the package
2. Then run, ./node_modules/.bin/tailwind init to generate the config file
3. Add @tailwind preflight and @tailwind utilities to app.sass in that order
4. Add let tailwindcss = require('tailwindcss'); to the top of webpack.mix.js
5. Replace the .sass() portion of the mix code with the following:

.sass('resources/assets/sass/app.sass', 'public/css').options({
    processCssUrls: false, postCss:[ tailwindcss(‘./tailwind.js') ],
});

From the command line, run npm run production to make sure everything is working correctly and to generate your CSS file

12. Start Coding

That's it! You're ready to start coding.

The Wrap-Up

I hope this checklist can help you get a new Laravel project up and running, and show you how useful checklists can be. This isn't something that anyone does often, so having this checklist handy prevents us from making obvious mistakes that take time away from actually coding! As always, feel free to ask me any questions on Twitter. And until next time, happy coding!

Uninstall PREY from Mac OSX

2017-04-27T16:47:00.002+01:00

Hey,

Just type this in your terminal:

sudo /usr/local/lib/prey/current/bin/prey config hooks pre_uninstall && sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/prey /var/log/prey.log /etc/prey

aaaaand:

Voila! All good.

The 11 Most Popular Online Business Models

2017-04-26T16:58:00.002+01:00

Online businesses over the last decade and a half have disrupted industries across the world and have changed the way we commerce forever.

In addition, online businesses have changed people’s lives. For the first time, there is a real gateway for someone who wants to exit out of their cubicle or a life where they feel chained to something and actually become free.

It can happen fast, or it can happen slow.

For me, I was in the oilfield for six years and tried a bit of everything. Finally, when I got focused, I began writing articles for pennies for other entrepreneurs. Eventually, this snowballed into writing bigger pieces of content until finally,

The internet changed my life.

It is easier to start an online business than an offline brick and mortar business. The startup is far less capital intensive, the barrier to entry far lower, and the return on investment can be insane for the time you put in.

It is such a gold rush that there are even investor pools of people forming, who buy these sites and manage them by hiring effective site builders because of the high level ROIs.

But what are the models out there that exist that people can leverage to create what they personally want in their lives?

The Most Popular Online Business Models You Can Utilize Today

Adsense

Adsense is probably the simplest business model that exists online right now. Basically, you create a content site and drive traffic (typically organic search engine traffic, but there are those who have successfully ran paid traffic) to the site. The traffic clicks on the Adsense ads and Google cuts you a check for the ad exposure.

Amazon Affiliate

Amazon is among the oldest online affiliate program in existence. It is also one of the most trusted online brands around, which means it can convert highly. People will often create portfolios of these styled sites, usually where they are reviewing various products. Similar to Adsense, this is a very easy place for a newbie to start out, and an expert can make it into quite a lucrative endeavor.

Affiliate Marketing

Similar to the Amazon affiliate business model, you simply sign up to sell different products, and build sites around those products or services. Almost every product or service you can imagine under the sun has an affiliate program somewhere. There are entire businesses that have cropped up around helping other businesses create affiliate offers and attracting affiliates to those offers – called Affiliate Networks. There are even businesses that have cropped up that organize all the different Affiliate Networks in an easy to find place, such as OfferVault.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a good place for people just starting out to experiment with the ecommerce business model. Instead of spending large upfront costs on a product, and storing that product, you instead create an entire sales funnel that the actual factory ships direct to the buyer. The margins are thinner than traditional ecommerce, but it is a great place for someone just starting out, or those who have become marketing experts, to grow significant businesses.

Amazon FBA

Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is closer to an ecommerce store, but it is completely hosted on Amazon.com. Your store is actually an Amazon listing, and with that comes all the benefits that the online behemoth has to offer: built in traffic, Amazon affiliates that could end up promoting your products on their niche sites, and even Amazon promoting your products for free if they are proven to convert. This can be a lucrative business to be in, and those who are in it for the long haul will often build a brand around their products, so they can eventually leverage multichannel selling with their own ecommerce store.

Ecommerce

Ecommerce is like having a digital retail store. You buy a product, find a place to store and fulfill orders for that product, and promote the store through a plethora of internet marketing strategies. Many people use paid traffic that they send to their store as the #1 way to get buyers and test new items. Ecommerce works well with dropshipping too, since dropshipping will allow a store owner to test out new kinds of products without an upfront cost. The products that convert best could then be sourced, so that all the products on the store are eventually branded specifically to that online business. I recently wrote a case study on an ecommerce store we sold on the Shopify platform for over $80,000 that you can .

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS products are exploding right now, which makes sense, as they can be quite lucrative. Since almost every SaaS product has a rebilling feature, each customer can have a significant lifetime value that allows these companies to lose money on the initial acquisition of a customer, but still make a profit down the road due to that customer’s continuous usage of the software. SaaS products are allowing small businesses more than ever to have high level infrastructure without the high level IT costs that would be associated with them building their own software. SaaS products are everywhere, from accounting and sales CRMs to even writing solutions for fiction authors.

Infoproducts

Most people that are just starting out in online business were probably a customer a time or two for someone selling an ebook or video course about making money online. This market exists in many more niches than just the make money online space. People selling training, dating advice, fitness consultation, or even products about how you can appear taller are all part of this space. The great thing about infoproducts is that all the work for the most part is front loaded — once the product is created and converting, you can scale it to the moon. It costs nothing extra to sell 1,000 units instead of 1 unit, outside of the obvious marketing costs, making this business incredibly lucrative in the hands of the right person.

Apps

Apps are a big business. At the time of this writing, Pokémon GO has become such a huge phenomenon that there are more active users playing Pokémon GO than there are on Twitter. That is some crazy numbers, and shows that apps can still be huge money makers, despite increased competition. The biggest thing with apps is making the app as addictive as possible, so people keep using it once they have downloaded it, rather than being pushed to some folder the mobile phone users never open again. For someone who loves to learn about user engagement, combining that skill set with useful and entertaining apps can mean big business.

Productized Services

Productized services are a relatively new kid on the block for proven online business models, and they have been a godsend for many a freelancer turned full-fledged entrepreneur. It is a way to take what normally would be a one-to-one client service, such as web design and SEO, and packaging them into a more packaged service. Because of this, it can limit one of the biggest frustrations that freelancers know as a “scope creep”. Where one job slowly grows into a monstrous job that begins to eat into the freelancer’s profits. Instead, people buy packages and are sometimes upsold on more customized solutions that are still “productized”. It is an exciting opportunity, and businesses like WPCurve and Design Pickle have shown that it can work wonders, even despite early-doubters (who are now huge fans of the model).

Lead Gen

Lead Gen is an amazing opportunity right now for both local markets, and on the (inter)national stage. These kinds of opportunities could consist of affiliate programs where you are sending leads to offers such as college or higher level education, or it could be on a per client basis like the local plumber who is willing to pay $20-30 bucks per a qualified lead. The nice thing about lead gen over a one-on-one client agency model is that you are usually not exclusive and you can use a full range of internet marketing strategies to generate those leads versus having to wait for approval from a client before moving forward with one.

How and Why to Update the Modem/baseband Firmware on a Samsung Android Phone {Mac OSX}

2017-02-05T13:27:00.000+00:00

If you have a Samsung Android phone, and you use Samsung’s own version of Android, this article is not for you. When Samsung sends you updates to Android, they also will include any relevant updates to the modem/baseband firmware. So stop reading and go have a cup of tea or something, your job is done.

But for everyone who uses a custom ROM like Cyanogenmod, ParanoidAndroid, or AOKP, sit up and pay attention: you’re missing some key updates for your phone, and it’s probably the reason you have trouble with cellular signal or battery life. I only learned this myself because my beloved Samsung S4 I-9505 has been having a hell of a time keeping signal lately. Over the last 6 months or so, it’s picked up a quirk where it randomly drops the signal and starts to overheat in my pocket. Only toggling in and out of airplane mode to restart the connection solves the problem.

Turns out that just as Android gets regular updates, there are updates to the firmware of the cellular modem inside your phone. In any other device, I would expect the firmware to remain extremely stable, and new versions of the OS to include equally stable drivers. In the mobile phone world however, when Google updates Android, manufacturers update their firmware along with it. Mostly these are incremental updates to improve stability or battery life. Over time however, if you’re updating your OS but not your firmware, your cellular modem is getting gradually more and more out of sync with what the driver in the OS expects of it.

In my case, I had a recent build of Cyanogenmod based on Android 4.4.4, last updated in March 2015, and a modem firmware that was based on 4.2.2, last updated in May 2013. So my phone was acting up. Maybe yours is doing the same.

Updating your modem firmware doesn’t touch the rest of the operating system, and it doesn’t touch your data. It’s always a good idea to take a backup, but this is not a high risk operation for your data. If you’re not careful you might make your signal situation even worse, but at least your photos and contacts will be OK!

Before I go any further, a word about vocabulary: the modem firmware can reasonably be called your “baseband”, and sometimes people use “firmware update” to refer to the combined updates to OS and modem firmware that get shipped out by manufacturers. I will only use “firmware” to describe the part that drives the modem, because that’s what we’re dealing with in this article. On other blog posts or forum posts people will not be so consistent, so read carefully!

In order to update your modem firmware, The first thing to do is to find out the Android version that you’re using on your particular ROM. On most ROMs you can find out under “Settings”, “About this phone”. Look for the line that says “Android Version”.

Next, you have to find out the version of the most recent modem firmware release for your device, built for the same version of Android you’re running. SamMobile has a fantastic catalog of devices with specifications and build histories for each one. Note that each carrier handles their own updates, so they package their own modem firmwares with slightly different serial numbers. There shouldn’t be any significant difference, but check which one comes from your country and provider just in case, using their Firmware lookup. Note that if you want to download from SamMobile, you have to sign up for their download platform. I didn’t – instead, I hunted for the right download with Google, and eventually found it on the great xda developers forum. There are a bunch of posts like this one with download links to tons of different firmwares. Make sure you look yours up, first!

If there isn’t a build for exactly the same version of Android that you have, it’s OK to use one a little bit behind. Do not take a modem firmware build that’s newer than your Android build. That could leave you in a situation like this;

If your phone is a GT-I9505 from T-Mobile Germany, you can shortcut this process and get the same download I did](http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2192025&page=503). If you have any other device or are from any other region or phone company, find the right firmware for your own phone. Double check it, you can really mess up your phone if you do this wrong.

The updated firmware file is a .tar file, which contains two .bin files: modem.bin for the 3g modem in your phone, and NON-HLOS.bin for the LTE modem in your phone. You’ll need both. Apparently if you’re on Windows you can use Odin which will let you send both those .bin files at once by choosing the combined .tar file. I’m on a Mac so I don’t know about that. I used the excellent, open source, cross-platform tool Heimdall, which has a great, easy command line interface. Download and install, and unpack that .tar file somewhere convenient.

Then get your phone into “Download mode”. For the Samsung Galaxy S4, this means:

1) Power off by holding the power button. 2) Simultaneously hold the home, volume down, and power keys until the phone comes on and asks you if you’re SURE you want to go into Download mode. You are sure, so press volume up to continue. 3) Plug the phone into your computer.

Then in the Terminal, run:

~$ heimdall detect
Device detected

~$ heimdall flash --APNHLOS ~/Downloads/Modem_GNG8_FULL/NON-HLOS.bin --MDM ~/Downloads/Modem_GNG8_FULL/modem.bin

(do not include the ~$ in your typing! It’s just an indicator to show you what you type, and what comes back from the system)

“heimdall detect” tells heimdall to find your phone attached via USB. “heimdall flash” tells it to blow away the LTE modem firmware you have now with the file NON-HLOS.bin, and the 3G modem firmware you have now with the file modem.bin.

If all goes well, the phone will reset itself and boot back up normally. You can check to see that your flash worked by looking for the new serial number in your phone Settings.

Or perhaps you’ll find the same problem I did: something else on my computer had already “claimed” this phone, so Heimdall errored out with “libusbx: error [darwin_claim_interface] USBInterfaceOpen: another process has device opened for exclusive access. ERROR: Claiming interface failed!” If you encounter this problem, you can solve it by manually shutting down that other software:

~$ sudo kextstat |grep -v apple
Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) 
  134    0 0xffffff7f80eca000 0x4000     0x4000     com.devguru.driver.SamsungComposite (1.4.25) <38 3="" 4="">
  136    0 0xffffff7f80ec3000 0x3000     0x3000     com.devguru.driver.SamsungACMControl (1.4.25) <38 3="" 4="">
  138    0 0xffffff7f80ead000 0xc000     0xc000     com.devguru.driver.SamsungACMData (1.4.25) <84 38="" 3="" 4="" 5="">
  141    0 0xffffff7f829fa000 0x6000     0x6000     net.tunnelblick.tun (1.0) <7 1="" 4="" 5="">

Note the lines that say Samsung in them. Those are the Samsung drivers that are blocking Heimdall. Now I hate Kies even more! We can shut them down one at a time like this:

~$ sudo kextunload -b com.devguru.driver.SamsungComposite
~$ sudo kextunload -b com.devguru.driver.SamsungACMControl
~$ sudo kextunload -b com.devguru.driver.SamsungACMData

Then try the heimdall commands again. For my phone, I found greatly improved signal… and because it wasn’t spinning extra cycles without signal, greatly improved battery life, too. So we know: every time you update your ROM, do a modem firmware update, too.

The dirty secret of big law life

2016-02-11T01:14:00.001+00:00

What you make as an associate is likely the most you will ever make. You'll put in 6 or 8 or 10 years. You'll fucking hate your job, but you'll be too addicted to the money to leave. Eventually you'll be pushed out, because basically no one makes partner anymore, and you'll be forced to look for in- house or government jobs. You will take a MAJOR pay cut (30-50% or more). BUT. But. With this new job comes the opportunity to actually be happy and not hate the way you make your living. The catch is that the "but" depends very much on how much of a lifestyle cut you have to take. If you're living at the edge of your limit, and taking that new job means selling your fancy house, no more new cars, no more ski vacations, taking your kid out of his private school, that new job feels like failure. But if you've socked away $500k plus in savings, and you live in a way that's still sustainable with your new reduced income, you will be on top of the world. That job change will taste like the freedom it is. And you will actually be happy.

Everyone starting out where you are thinks they'll be the exception. You think you'll make partner. You think you'll be immune to the lifestyle creep. You think you'll love your job. You're wrong. No one is immune. I would give almost anything to shed my golden handcuffs and go do something I hate less. Anything, that is, but my golden handcuffs. It sucks. You should do better for yourself.

Red Pill Wisdom From Patrice O’Neal

2015-06-05T05:43:00.001+01:00

The Two Sides Of The Female Mind

Patrice is telling a story about how his girl was subtly testing his manhood:

“Women have two things in their head. They have the thing that makes them go ‘I LOVE you. You’re a MAN. You’re bigger than me, stronger than me, I can’t even open this pickle jar without you.’ And then it’s the other side of their brain that goes ‘You faggot ass bitch, why are you loving this motherfucker so much?’ So what they want is the girl shit at the expense of your manhood […] Women don’t know how to tap into a man’s desire [to help them].”

Male/Female Conversation Styles

[To the female co-host] “Women are not born in honesty. You don’t need to be. You don’t need to have charisma or figure it all out. Men have developed a lot of different verbal skills that women haven’t because you haven’t had to. There’s no need for you to have […] conversational ability. And when you do have conversational ability, you FORCE it on guys. Because you know that most women don’t [have it].

“Here’s something that will work 99 percent of the time: If she says ‘here’s what I think,’ all you have to do to combat her is go: ‘Why? She never has the thought that is the purpose for her thought. There is never reasoning. Guys always have a reason behind what they’re saying.”

How To Deal With A Woman Pressuring Marriage

“You have to not be afraid to take a loss to get your point across. When she gives you that ultimatum, if you look like you’re sweating and you’re blinking and you’re nervous about her leaving, she will take advantage of that.”

“Stop trying to give her things to make her happy. You have to say, ‘Look sweetie, this is how it is.’ You have to be ready for her to walk out of your life. You ever see that movie Heat? Don’t get involved in something you can’t walk out on in less than 30 seconds.”

“One thing women need from you is emotions. […]. If you [calmly deflect them], her emotions have to eat on themselves. Let her emotions eat her soul up, then she’ll think of another option because she’s not walking out of your life unless you’re crushed. Women don’t leave unless you are completely crushed […] She won’t take a step.”

Cheating

A caller says that his wife no longer has sex with him, and he is debating cheating on her at a friend’s bachelor party:

“You can’t love a woman like a woman loves you […] You can’t go ‘boobie bear’, you can’t hold her hand the way she’s holding yours. It’s a distance thing. […] You gotta make her chase you. Stay gone for a couple days.”

“There’s a righteous fuck and a dishonest fuck. […] If you’re gonna go to this bachelor party and get some righteous pussy, don’t even look back because it’s not about her. […] They don’t want what the can have, and right now she has you. Even in your attempt to be evil, you still have kind of a worthless self-image. You can’t cheat and be thinking about how you’re hurting her. If cheating on her helps your self esteem, you do it but you do it righteously to help YOU.”

On Materialistic Women

A caller asks if there’s a way to pre-screen for materialist girls before investing time/money in them:

“Most loser women, all they have to barter is their pussy. Men have so many other things to barter when it comes to the sex game and the relationship game. It’s not their fault, because they all do it, so there has to be nature involved.”

“We have other things that make us attractive to women. Initially, there’s only one thing that makes them attractive to us, and that’s fucking them, and then it builds from there.”

“You gotta understand that when you meet these women essentially they are losers. She HAS to get something out of her pussy, dude. She has to get dinner. She has to get a movie. How can she function if she doesn’t get something out of what she has?”

“When you’re taking her out to dinner and to the movies, that’s her way of fucking you. If you take her out 5 times, she’s fucked you 5 times, and you haven’t fucked her yet […] Don’t let them fuck you, because dinner/movie time is them fucking you. Are you a whore? You can’t let a woman whore out your time.”

Patrice is a comedian at his core, so this stuff is guaranteed to make you laugh. More importantly, though, it will make you more attuned to an unspoken battlefield of gender relations few others are willing to address so candidly. This is a guy who gamed women, made every mistake in the book during his youth, and witnessed firsthand the interplay between fame, money, game, and confidence. Whether you’re a veteran needing a refresher or a newbie looking to gain some power in your dealings with the opposite sex, the Black Phillip archives is an excellent place to continue your research.

How to prevent SQL Injection in PHP Applications ?

2015-05-27T06:47:00.001+01:00

SQL Injection is a technique for taking control of a database query and often results in a compromise of confidentiality. In some cases (e.g. if SELECT 'succeeds) this can result in a complete server takeover.

Since code injection (which encompasses SQL, LDAP, OS Command, and XPath Injection techniques) has consistently remained on top of the OWASP Top Ten vulnerabilities, it's a popular topic for bloggers trying to get their feet wet in the application security field.

While more people sharing knowledge about application security is a good thing, unfortunately much of the advice circulating on the Internet (especially on ancient blog posts that rank high on search engines) is outdated, unintentionally misleading, and often dangerous.

How to Prevent SQL Injection Every Time, Guaranteed

Use Prepared Statements, also known as parametrized queries. For example:

$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM blog_posts WHERE YEAR(created) = ? AND MONTH(created) = ?');
if (!$stmt->execute([$_GET['year'], $_GET['month']])) {
    header("Location: /blog/"); exit;
}
$posts = $stmt->fetchAll(\PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

Prepared Statements eliminate any possibility of SQL Injection. No matter what is passed into the$_GET variables here, the structure of the SQL query cannot be changed by an attacker (unless, of course, you have PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES enabled, which means you're not truly using prepared statements).

Prepared Statements solve a fundamental problem of application security: They separate the data that is to be processed from the instructions that operate on said data by sending them in completely separate packets. This is the same fundamental problem that makes stack/heap overflows possible.

As long as you never concatenate user-provided or environment variables with the SQL statement(and make sure you aren't using emulated prepares) you can for all practical purposes cross SQL injection off your checklist forever.

What About Sanitizing Input?

Many people have seen this 2007 comic from XKCD about SQL Injection exploits. It's frequently cited or included in security conference talks, especially ones addressed to newcomers. The comic has done a lot of good raising awareness of the dangerous of user input in database queries, but its advice to sanitize your database inputs is, by a 2015 understanding of the issues involved, only a half-measure.

You're Better Off Forgetting About Sanitizing Input

While it's possible to prevent attacks by rewriting the incoming data stream before you send it to your database driver, it's rife with dangerous nuance and obscure edge-cases. (Both links in the previous sentence are highly recommended.)

Unless you want to take the time to research and attain complete mastery over every Unicode format your application uses or accepts, you're better off not even trying to sanitize your inputs.

Furthermore, altering your incoming data stream can cause data corruption, especially if you are dealing with raw binary blobs (e.g. images or encrypted messages).

Prepared statements are easier and can guarantee SQL Injection prevention.

XKCD's author Randall Munroe is a smart cookie. If this comic were being written today, the hacker mom character probably would have said this instead:

Input Should Still Be Validated

Validation is not the same thing as sanitation. Prepared statements can prevent SQL Injection, but they cannot save you from bad data. For most cases, filter_var() is useful here.

$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);
if (empty($email)) {
    throw new \InvalidArgumentException('Invalid email address');
}

What About Column and Table Identifiers?

Since column and table identifiers are part of the query structure, you cannot parametrize them. If the application you are developing requires a dynamic query structure, use a whitelist.

A whitelist is an application logic strategy that explicitly only allows a few accepted values and either rejects the rest or uses a sane default. Contrast it with a blacklist, which only forbids known-bad inputs. In most cases, whitelists are better for security than blacklists.

$qs = 'SELECT * FROM photos WHERE album = ?';
// Use switch-case for an explicit whitelist
switch ($_POST['orderby']) {
    case 'name':
    case 'exifdate':
    case 'uploaded':
       // These strings are trusted and expected
       $qs .= ' ORDER BY '.$_POST['orderby'];
       if (!empty($_POST['asc'])) {
           $qs .= ' ASC';
       } else {
           $qs .= ' DESC';
       }
    default:
       // Some other value was passed. Let's just order by photo ID in descending order.
       $qs .= ' ORDER BY photoid DESC';
}
$stmt = $db->prepare($qs);
if ($stmt->execute([$_POST['album_id']])) {
    $photos = $stmt->fetchAll(\PDO::FETCH_ASSOC); 
}

What if Using Prepared Statements Seems Too Cumbersome?

The first time a developer encounters prepared statements, they can feel frustrated about the prospect of being forced to write a lot of redundant code (prepare, execute, fetch; prepare, execute, fetch; ad nauseam).

Thus, the team at Paragon Initiative Enterprises wrote a PHP library called EasyDB.

How to Use EasyDB

There are two ways to start using EasyDB in your code:

You can use EasyDB to wrap your PDO instances.
If you're familiar with PDO constructors, you can pass the same arguments to\ParagonIE\EasyDB\Factory::create() instead.

// First method:
$pdo = new \PDO('mysql;host=localhost;dbname=something', 'username', 'putastrongpasswordhere');
$db = \ParagonIE\EasyDB\EasyDB($pdo, 'mysql');
// Second method:
$db = \ParagonIE\EasyDB\Factory::create('mysql;host=localhost;dbname=something', 'username', 'putastrongpasswordhere');

Once you have an EasyDB object, you can begin leveraging its simplified interface to quickly develop secure database-aware applications. Some examples include:

Safe Database Querying with Prepared Statements

$data = $db->safeQuery(
    'SELECT * FROM transactions WHERE type = ? AND amount >= ? AND date >= ?', 
    [
        $_POST['ttype'],
        $_POST['minimum'],
        $_POST['since']
    ]
);

Select many rows from a database table

$rows = $db->run(
     'SELECT * FROM comments WHERE blogpostid = ? ORDER BY created ASC',
     $_GET['blogpostid']
);
foreach ($rows as $row) {
    $template_engine->render('comment', $row);
}

Select one row from a database table

$userData = $db->row(
    "SELECT * FROM users WHERE userid = ?",
    $_GET['userid']
);

Insert a new row into a database table

$db->insert('comments', [
    'blogpostid' => $_POST['blogpost'],
    'userid' => $_SESSION['user'],
    'comment' => $_POST['body'],
    'parent' => isset($_POST['replyTo']) ? $_POST['replyTo'] : null
]);

Escape an Identifier (Column/Table/View Names) for Dynamic Queries

$qs = 'SELECT * FROM some_table';
$and = false;
if (!empty($where)) {
    $qs .= ' WHERE ';
    foreach (\array_keys($where) as $column) {
        if (!\in_array($column, $whiteListOfColumnNames)) {
            continue;
        }
        if ($and) {
            $qs .= ' AND ';
        }
        $qs .= $db->escapeIdentifier($column).' = ?';
        $and = true;
    }
}
$qs .= ' ORDER BY rowid DESC';

// And then to fetch some data
$data = $db->run($qs, \array_values($where);

Caution: The escapeIdentifier() method is meant for this very specific use-case and should not be used for escaping input.

Can I Use EasyDB to Satisfy Business Needs?

Yes. We have chosen to release EasyDB under a very permissive license (MIT) because we wish to promote the adoption of better security practices in the community at large. Feel free to use EasyDBin any of your projects, even commercial ones.

Should I use EasyDB over an ORM or Component of My Framework?

If you're already using tools that you're comfortable with that provide secure defaults (e.g. most modern PHP frameworks), don't drop them in favor of EasyDB. Easy doesn't mean "fits all use cases".

Let's Make Secure the Norm

It's up to us software developers to make the applications we develop secure from malicious actors. We're the ones on the front lines (with our system administrators, when we don't also fulfill that role) defending against zero-day vulnerabilities.

Not the politicians. Not the Anti-Virus vendors. Not the forensic investigators.

Tutorials & Technicalities: Compile Bitcoin Core on Raspberry Pi (Raspbian)

2014-10-13T16:50:00.001+01:00

Tutorials & Technicalities: Compile Bitcoin Core on Raspberry Pi (Raspbian): If you want to run a full node on the Bitcoin network, you might want to do so on a computer that doesn't use so much power and is ver...

10 life tips for success

2014-10-07T16:41:00.002+01:00

There are certain rules in life that are scientific. Newtons law of physics tells us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you push against something, it will almost certainly push back.

The same can be said about universal energy. What we put out into the universe, will come back to us. This is Karma in it’s most basic form.

The law of attraction is no secret (Mind the pun) and there are certain rules in life that, if followed, will offer you a return on investment that can make your life substantially easier.

We aren’t re-inventing the wheel by telling you these rules, but it seems like sometimes we just need a little reminder to keep us on the right path.

So for the sake of saving time and energy, here’s a list of life tips that will help you be successful in your personal life and in business.

1. Follow Your Passion

Now while this may sound like regurgitated irony, how many of us truly follow our passions? After reading self help books and biographies on some of the most successful entrepreneurs, I’ve come to realise that almost anyone who has built something truly great, has done so by following their passion.

“Don’t settle for average, work towards greatness”

What separates the “great” from the “average” is certainty and passion. “When you are absolutely certain and passionate about something, it will become your reality” – Tony Robbins-

This is another scientific law of life.

Now this doesn’t mean go out there, quit your job and start pursuing a professional career in snake handling, but hey, you only live once.

Tim Ferris talks about this in his book The 4 Hour Work Week

Put life into perspective for a second. There a millions of people that are simply existing, not living. We’re fortunate enough to be given an opportunity to live, breathe, walk, talk and sleep on this beautiful earth, so why WOULDN’T you take every opportunity to pursue something that makes you happy?

Sick of your job? Find one that’s more fulfilling.

In a crappy relationship? End it.

Hate how fat you’ve become? (Excuse the abruptness) EAT HEALTHY FOOD AND EXERCISE.

Find what you’re passionate about and pursue it.

2. Be Extraordinary

If you do the same thing as everyone else, it’s hard to be successful.

“The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” – Albert Einstein -

Emmitt Smith once said that ‘All men are created equal. Some work harder in preseason”. Everyone is born with the same set of skills and talents. What separates the good from the best, is what happens in the background.

If you want to be the best you need to give yourself the edge! Give yourself an advantage!

You need to work harder, think smarter, train longer and want it more. There is always someone out there who wants what you want, just as much, or even more. How are you going to make sure you get it instead of them?

Whether it is money or just a sense of personal accomplishment, the extraordinary person attracts it all because they are willing go the extra mile.

How are you extraordinary? If you feel just ordinary, what are you going to do to become extraordinary?

3. Add Value

My mother taught me two things that i’ll never forget.

1. You can’t ever lose by telling the truth

2. You’ll never go wrong if you’re valuable

Now unfortunately i’ve learnt the first isn’t so, but you can’t argue with the second.

So what does it mean to be valuable? It means you are ADDING value. No matter what you do and where you go, you can’t go wrong with adding value.

Value, in its simplest form, is anything that someone would be willing to put a price on.

- In your professional life, the more value you can offer, the more money you can make.

- In your personal life, more value translates to closer relationships and strong personal growth.

The best way that you can add value, is to understand what it is that people are willing to pay for and what it is that you can offer them that aligns with your own values and your strengths.

How are you adding value to your employers, employees or loved ones today? What can you do to increase your ability to add value?

RELATED: 9 Steps to Achieving Goals

4. Start Today

“TODAY is someday”

Without a doubt, the most important thing that you can do today to add value to your own life, is to take action. Action is the missing ingredient to most peoples “recipe for success”.

Most people miss out on reaching their full potential because they NEVER start. It’s an oxymoron. They’re always looking for “the right time’ without really understanding that there will never be “the right time”.

Have you said this to yourself in the last year? Or maybe the last month?

In his book Start Today M.H. Harris talks about this vicious cycle. People are always preparing, planning and waiting for the best time to start, but the key isn’t in the timing, it’s simply just starting.

Ask yourself if you’ve been putting something off for “the right day”.

Think about it logically. What’s really the worse thing that can happen if you got started right now? You’d be a few more days, months or years ahead. Is that really a bad thing?

If you are someone that’s just been waiting, you should probably stop reading this post and get started on what you have been wanting to do.

This article will still be here when you get back.

5. Surround yourself with mentors

Your network is your net worth and you can be sure that your network will attribute to your success.

“You are the average of your 5 closest friends”

Successful people usually credit their success to a mentor or a network who helped guide them to where they are today, because EVERYONE starts out as a rookie and needs help at one stage in their lives.

Mentors have most likely gone down the path that you want to travel and will help you get there quicker. Why? Because they’ve made the mistakes that you won’t have to.

If you want to be healthy, find a mentor involved in health and fitness that inspires you. Don’t be scared. Ask them what they do, copy them and shadow them. Learn their techniques.

If you want to be rich, then you have to find someone who is already rich. They’ve faced the trials and tribulations and know how to overcome them.

What surprises me is how rarely people engage in mentoring relationships. If you want to be successful, be active about finding mentors that will help you achieve your goals and be successful in life.

Have you got a mentor that’s helping you achieve your goals? If not, ask yourself what’s preventing you from finding one. It’s the quickest way to reach your goals.

6. Create a support network

Mentors can act as a “guide” on an entrepreneurial journey and can help you avoid future pitfalls, but a support network is a group of people that work together to build similar goals and become responsible for one another.

Here’s a classic example.

I have a motivational instagram account which now has a total of 25,000 followers. Nothing to crack open the champagne over, but still something that i’m working on building to further develop my own profile.

A similar Instagram account owner approached me to help promote his own page when we both had about 10,000 followers. I politely declined as I was busy that stage building my other blog.

Leveraging the database of a new support network, his page has now grown to 45,000 followers because he has the help of two other platforms with similar goals in mind to support and promote each other. Every time he posts, he links his support network in his posts and vice versa.

He now has double the user base that I do and all because he found a great support network. Lesson learnt.

Not only is a support network great to help you build your business or database, but it’s extremely helpful to have someone you know that is willing to listen to your frustrations and self doubt and to encourage you and remind you of how far you’ve already come.

It’s also nice to have someone that understand the same obstacles and challenges that you’re facing. It’s therapeutic.

Who is in your support group?

RELATED: What You Can Learn From Floyd Mayweather About Success

7. Understand your finances

I have a friend who can remember EVERY single important number.

- Passport number

- Drivers licence

- Social Security

- Account numbers

You name it and he knows it. I call him the rain man and it’s safe to say he has his sh*t together.

Now while i’m not suggesting that you take memory lessons to remember every single number in your life, it’s definitely important to success in your life and in business, to understand your finances. At least the basic principles.

Numbers scare a lot of people. Start talking about assets, liabilities and net worth and people automatically drift off.

If you are one of these people, please stop sweeping it under the carpet because you are only hurting yourself! If you want to be financially free or financially independent, you need to know how to keep score.

If you have your own business or plan on investing in the future, your finances will tell you how well you are doing and reveal the health of a business. Sure, some might be saying that’s what accountants are for but if you don’t understand finances, you have to learn.

It’s easy once you get over the limiting belief that you are no good at numbers. For those interested in learning more, use the internet! There are PLENTY of FREE resources out there and for the lazy ones, check out some online learning resources like this one on Corporate Finance.

If money is part of success strategy, it simply doesn’t make sense to lack in these fundamentals.

Do you know your own net worth? If you are bad at numbers, what’s keep you from a little online learning?

8. Ask for help

There’s one reason and one reason only that this is so hard to do. Ego.

We all have one and some are bigger than others, but they say the three hardest things to say in life are:

- I love you

- I’m sorry

- Help

It’s a sad reality, especially when “help” is actually a GOOD thing.

I have a tendency to attempt to do everything myself and many “entrepreneurs” are the same. We have the mindset that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

It is important to know and understand all aspects of your life and business but that does not mean having to do all the tasks yourself. Knowledge is power and you should NEVER stop learning, but sometimes your time is more valuable used else where.

Tim Ferris talks about using your strengths to your advantage and multiplying the effects of your strengths instead of slowly progressing on the areas that you lack. Delegation is the key to productivity and efficiency.

For those that want to outsource, Elance is a nice way to find some quality freelancers or you could look at hiring a virtual assistant from overseas.

How are you spending your time? Is it doing things you are good at? If not, what are you doing that you can outsource or delegate so you can spend more time doing what you’re good at?

9. Know how to sell

No matter what career you’re planning, there’s no smarter move than learning how to sell. It’s one of the most important life tips. Just ask Donald Trump or Richard Kiyosaki.

That’s especially true for entrepreneurs. You may have the greatest idea in the business world, but if you can’t sell that idea, you won’t and can’t attract investors, customers, or talented employees.

It’s true for everyone else, too. Finding a great job always involves selling yourself and your skills. And being successful at any job means constantly selling the value of the services that you’re providing.

“Here’s the truth: a mediocre performer who knows how to sell will ALWAYS beat an exceptional performer who doesn’t. And an exceptional performer who also knows how to sell ALWAYS beats out everyone else” (Insert taken fromINC.Com)

Everything we do in life is a sell. Trying to sell someone on a movie choice or restaurant selection, or even which holiday destination will be the best for Christmas. But on a much more important level, sales skill (Regardless of how much it scares you) will only help you progress your life both personally and finacially.

When you hear “Sales”, what associations come to mind? Are they positive or negative? Do you know how to sell effectively? If not, how do you plan to learn?

10. Learn to be resilient

Life’s tough. Simple as that. If you want to hear about how easy life is, then go to a different article because you won’t read it here.

Things rarely work out the way you planned in life and there will always be distractions, obstacles and hurdles that you have to deal with when you are on the path to success.

You have to remember that persistence defeats resistance and you need to develop the courage to push through the pain even when everyone around you is telling you it’s ok to give up.

When everything seems to be going wrong, remember this:

“the road to success is paved with a thousand failures”

Each failure brings you closer to your goal, IF you learn from it. One of my mentors once likened life to the steel of a sword. The more battles it gets in, the tougher and stronger it gets.

How often do you quit when times get tough? Would you describe yourself as an optimist or do you shy away from difficulties? Do you view problems as opportunities or challenges?

This is not an absolute list, but it does provide you with a starting point. If you need more motivation to get moving, try our article on How to Get Motivated Instantly

If you’ve got other life tips for personal and financial success, we would love to hear what you have found useful in the comments section.

9 Essential Habits of Remarkably Effective People

2014-10-07T16:38:00.001+01:00

There's a huge biggest difference between being efficient and being effective:

Efficient people are well organized and competent. They check things off their to-do list. They complete projects. They get stuff done.

Effective people do all that ... but they check the right things off their to-do list. They complete the right projects. They get the right stuff done.

They execute and produce what makes the biggest difference for their business ... and for themselves.

Here are some of the traits of remarkably effective people, and why they're so successful:

1. They always start with goals.

Effort without a genuine purpose is just effort. Effective people don't just know what to do--they know why. They have a long-term goal. They have short-term goals that support their long-term goals.

In short, they have purpose--and that purpose informs everything they do. That's why remarkable people appear so dedicated and organized and consistently on-task. They're not slaves to a routine; they're simply driven to reach their goals and quick to eliminate roadblocks and put aside distractions that stand in their way.

Remarkably effective people set their goals first. So decide what success means to you. (Your definition of success is and should be different from everyone else's.)

You'll find it's easy to stay focused and be effective when you truly care about what you hope to achieve.

Even so, once they establish a goal, remarkably effective people don't focus solely on that goal; instead ...

2. Then they create systems.

If you're an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a successful business. Your system consists of your processes for sales, marketing, fulfillment, operations, etc.

A goal is great for planning and mapping out what success looks like; a system is great for actually making progress toward that goal.

Remarkably effective people know a goal can provide direction and even push them forward in the short term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win.

Everyone has goals; committing to a system makes all the difference in achieving that goal.

3. They believe in themselves.

Diligence isn't easy. Hard work is hard. Pushing forward when successes are few and far between takes optimism and self-belief.

That's why busy people quickly give up and effective people keep going.

Remarkably effective people embrace the fact (and it is a fact) that the only way to get to where they want to go is to try ... and keep on trying. They know that eventually they will succeed, because ...

4. They believe they are in control of their lives.

Many people feel luck--or outside forces--has a lot to do with success or failure. If they succeed, luck favored them; if they fail, luck was against them.

Luck certainly does play a part, but effective people don't hope for good luck or worry about bad luck. They assume success is totally within their control. If they succeed, they caused it; if they fail, they caused that, too.

Remarkably effective people waste zero mental energy worrying about what might happen to them--they put all their effort into making things happen.

They know they can never control luck ... but they can always control themselves.

5. And yet they also embrace "random."

When your nose is to the grindstone, all you can see is the grindstone. And that means you miss opportunities to spot something new, try something different, or go off on a fruitful tangent.

Effective people stay almost totally on-task. Remarkably effective people build in time and opportunity to experience new things, try new methods, and benefit from happy accidents.

They're not always trying to reinvent the wheel. But they're more than happy to adopt someone else's perfectly functioning wheel.

6. They find happiness in the success of others.

Great teams win because their most talented members are willing to sacrifice to help others succeed.

That's why great companies are made up of employees who help each other, know their roles, set aside their personal goals, and value team success over everything else.

Where does that attitude come from?

You.

Focus only on yourself and ultimately you'll be by yourself. To be remarkably effective, find fulfillment in helping other people succeed. In the process you will succeed, too--in more ways than one.

7. They use their goals to make decisions automatic.

In a podcast, Tim Ferriss described how Herb Kelleher, the CEO of Southwest Airlines, makes so many decisions every day. Kelleher applies a simple framework to every issue: Will this help Southwest be the low-cost provider? If so, the answer is yes. If not, no.

Remarkably effective people apply the same framework to the decisions they make. "Will this help me reach my goal? If not, I won't do it."

If you feel like you're constantly struggling to make decisions, take a step back. Think about your goals; your goals will help you make decisions.

That's why remarkably effective people are so decisive. Indecision is born of a lack of purpose: When you know what you truly want, most of your decisions can--and should--be almost automatic.

8. They don't multitask.

Plenty of research says multitasking doesn't work. (Some research says multitasking actually makes you stupid.)

Maybe you don't agree.

Maybe you're wrong. Try to do two things at once and you'll do both half-assed.

Remarkably effective people focus on one thing at a time. They do that one thing incredibly well ... and then they move on to whatever is next. And they do that incredibly well.

9. They freely ask for help.

Busy people ask for help getting something done. Remarkably effective people ask for help not just because they need help but also because by asking they show respect for the other person and trust his or her experience, skill, or insight.

Mutual respect is the foundation of every solid relationship--and the best way to create mutual respect is to first show respect.

Want to be remarkably effective? Surround yourself with people who trust and motivate and inspire you--and in turn are inspired by you.

Even if you don't achieve all your goals, your life will be infinitely richer.

Best practices for software license management

2014-06-09T11:48:00.000+01:00

Software license management is the process that ensures that the legal agreements that come with procured software licenses are adhered to.In a basic sense, it ensures that only legally procured licenses are deployed on systems.

Organizations spend a fortune on licenses every year, and a lack of management around it can result in heavy fines. In some cases, CIOs of certain organizations have been taken into custody for violating norms.

In this article, I will provide the basic concept of how software license management works along with a process map.

Prerequisites for implementing license management

1.  Software Asset Management Tool

- Organizations will have to invest in database software that is capable of recording various types of licenses against its respective owners. There are numerous software asset management tools available in the market, including free ones. All-in-one database tools are capable of storing deployment details of software along with license details. Popular ones on the market include FlexNet Manager by Flexera Software, Software Asset Management by Microsoft and License Manager by License Dashboard.

2.  Software License Auditor Tool

- The auditor tool runs over the company network, and identifies the deployed licenses across all systems of the network. The tool deploys its agents across all systems and in turn, these agents report the installed licenses to the central engine, which consolidates the total licenses residing on the network. An auditor tool that is capable of connecting through APIs with the software asset management tool should be preferred.

3. Asset inventory

- Before getting into licenses, it is absolutely necessary to have an asset inventory with identified owners. The inventory must account for all systems in the organization, at least the operational ones. And, every system must have an owner or a name of someone who is accountable for what gets installed on the system.

4.  People and processes

- Management of software licenses does not happen with these tools alone. You also have to have dedicated license managers and processes that maintain compliance. The processes woven around software licenses must ensure 360-degree control over licenses purchased, deployed, archived and those that have expired.

License management implementation process map

Step 1: Obtain all procured license details

The starting point to software license management implementation is to find out where you currently are and what you own. You'll store all the procured licenses identified.

Not all licenses come in the same shape and color. Here are some of the most common types:

Named user license - A license that can be used by a particular user
Volume license - A single license can be used on multiple systems depending on the purchased volume
License under enterprise agreement (EA) - Similar to volume license, terminology used by Microsoft when volume licenses exceed 250
Concurrent Licenses - Licenses that can be installed on any number of machines but can be used on a limited number of machines at any given point
OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) - Software license that accompanies hardware
Evaluation - Trial license which may come with limited functionality or for a definite period of time
Free License - License that is available for free

Step 2: Identify all license deployments

Once you build a baseline of licenses owned by the organization, you'll identify the deployment of these licenses across the organization. The software license auditor tool would be a big help in identifying the deployments. Manual inventory of software licenses, even if script driven, is a big no no.

The output of this step would look something like this:

All the license deployments would be consolidated together to identify how many machines are deployed with individual licenses. In the crude example that I have displayed above, the OS license is installed on three systems while the DTP license on two.

Names of system owners are important too if you are dealing with a named user license. Asset inventory comes in handy in identifying system owners.

Step 3 and Step 4: Compare license purchase vs. license deployments

In most cases, you should be able to tell if your organization is in software license compliance or not by comparing the procured licenses against deployed ones.

(As I mentioned earlier, named user licenses can be in non-compliance even if the number of installations is under control but against a wrong set of people.)

Step 4: Uninstall or procure licenses

If you are in compliance, there is nothing to fret. If you're not, there are two logical choices - purchase more licenses or uninstall software from certain machines.

Instructions for finding your Host ID or Machine ID

2014-06-09T11:31:00.000+01:00

When a license file is generated for a specific computer, it is locked to a number that is unique to that machine. For some UNIX machines, the 32-bit hostid is used. For Linux, Mac, and Windows machines, the ethernet (MAC) address is used. Optionally, for network based licenses, the IP Address can also be used.

Instructions for finding your Host ID or Machine ID:

==========

Windows® (all)

==========

For standalone licenses (including the Student version), the Host ID can be either the volume serial number of the C:\ drive (Option 1), or the MAC Address (Physical Address) of the first Ethernet adapter (Option 2).

NOTE 1: For Concurrent or Network Named User licenses, the volume serial number cannot be used as the Host ID.

NOTE 2: If your computer has a B drive, proceed directly to option 2

Option 1: Volume Serial Number (Standalone licenses & Student Version only)

To obtain the Volume Serial Number, open a Command Prompt window (click the Start Menu, go to All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt) and run the command:

vol c:

The Host ID will be "DISK_SERIAL_NUM=" and the volume serial number listed without the dashes (ex. DISK_SERIAL_NUM=1234abcd).

Option 2: MAC Address (Physical Address, All licenses)

To obtain the MAC Address, open a Command Prompt window, and run the command:

getmac

Use the first Physical Address listed without the dashes (ex. 001122aabbcc).

==========

Solaris™

==========

CPU hostid:

To get this value, run the following command in a Terminal Window:

hostid

==========

Linux®

==========

For a Linux machine, the Host ID is the MAC Address of the eth0 device (first Ethernet device). To obtain this value, run the following command in a Terminal window:

/sbin/ifconfig eth0

The Host ID will be the value listed next to the tag "HWaddr" without the colons.

==========

Mac OS® X

==========

For Macintosh:

1) Open the ‘Applications’ folder

2) Open the ‘Utilities’ folder

3) Launch the ‘Terminal’ application

4) Enter the following command in the command window:

ifconfig en0 | grep ether

Your Host ID is the "ether" value and should be entered as your Host ID without the colons.

**NOTE - For most Macs running OS 10.8.1 and above, you will need to use the ether value for en1 as your Host ID. Run the following command instead:

ifconfig en1 | grep ether

Cheeers !

Numéros utiles de tous les opérateurs (Maroc Télécom (IAM) , Meditel , Inwi)

2014-06-02T15:59:00.001+01:00

Je vous présente la liste des numéros du service de relation clientèle pour tous les opérateurs:
Maroc Télécom

Pour joindre le service de relation clientèle pour les clients Jawal et Internet 3G Prépayée, vous devez appeler le 888 ( le 0801000888 depuis un autre opérateur )
Pour joindre le service de relation clientèle pour les abonnés et les clients de l’Internet 3G Post-payé, vous devez appeler le 777 ( le 0801000777 depuis un autre opérateur )
Pour joindre le service de relation clientèle pour le fixe, vous devez appeler le 108 ( le 0801000800 depuis un autre opérateur )
Pour les dérangements du fixe, vous devez appeler le 110
Pour joindre le service de relation clientèle pour l' ADSL, vous devez appeler le 115 (le 0801000115 depuis un autre opérateur)

Pour consulter leurs soldes:

Les clients Jawal doivent appeler le 580
Les clients du forfait maîtrisé doivent appeler le 665
Les clients du forfait particulier doivent appeler le 666 (arabe) ou le 667 (français)
Les clients du Forfait Universal Music Mobile doivent appeler le 664
Les clients du Forfait Liberté doivent appeler le 664
Les clients du fixe doivent appeler le 106

Méditel

Pour joindre le service de relation clientèle de méditel, vous devez appeler le 121 (le 0663121121 depuis un autre opérateur)
Pour consulter votre solde, vous devez appeler le 5554 ou composez le #554# suivi de la touche appel

Inwi

Pour consulter votre solde, composez *120*30# suivi de la touche appel ou appelez le 1202
Pour joindre le service de relation clientèle d'inwi, appelez le 220 (le 0529000220 depuis un autre opérateur)

BaynGSM

Pour consulter votre solde, appelez le 1113
Pour joindre le service de relation clientèle de Bayn GSM,appelez le 101 (le 0529000101 depuis un autre opérateur)

Exporting and sharing Sublime Text configuration

2014-03-10T19:30:00.001+00:00

Sublime Text is a very powerful and popular text editor. But it’s more than a text editor… it’s an ecosystem of programmer’s tools where you can go to armory and choose the winning set for every code you’ll face. However, entering this ecosystem is long walk; learning all the plugins, tricks and such will take time. In this blog post I’ll show how more experienced Sublime Text user can share his/her setup with fellow peers still learning Sublime Text. Also, I have created a shell script collection which helps copying configurations into a fresh Sublime Text installation.

If you are new to Sublime Text 2 read my crash course article. Instructions in this blog post have been tested with Sublime Text 2. Sublime Text 3 is in beta, but it is not recommended yet for every day usage yet as some of the workflow critical plugins have not yet been ported for this version.

Sublime Text configuration mainly consists of following

Packages/ folder where all your installed plugins and setting files lie (shortcut into this available through preferences menu)
Packages/User/ folder where are the files specific to your configuration (other folders in Packages/ folder are pristine plugin files and should not be directly edited)
Packages/User/Preferences.sublime-settings stores the preferences you have changed
Packages/User/Package Control.sublime-settings contains the list of installed addons

1. Configuration files needing copying

To transfer your Sublime Text configuration to fellow user you only need to copy

Packages/User/Preferences.sublime-settings for settings
Packages/User/Package Control.sublime-settings for list of plugins
Other configuration files (shortcut keys, SFTP server configs, etc.) could be transferred, but they are not critical or may contain sensitive information

It is not safe to copy plugins as is between environments, as plugins may contain operating system or computer specific dependencies. It’s better to copy Package Control.sublime-settings file only. On the next Sublime Text start up Package Control will automatically read the list of packages from this file and install any missing packages from Github.

Manually installed packages, those not through Package Control, must be installed by hand on the target computer.

For personal backup purposes you can sync Sublime Text configuration using Dropbox.

2. Automated setups

I have created a sublime-helper, a collection of shell scripts, which will help copying Sublime Text configurations (hosted on Github). It comes with my own configuration andpackage list; please free to clone and do whatever you want it with to make your and your peers’ workflow smooth.

The script will also setup subl shell alias to open Sublime Text from command line. Also, your UNIX EDITOR environment variable will point to special subl-wrapper-wait-exitcommand which integrates Sublime Text for git and svn commit message editing.

I tested the script by transferring my Sublime Text 2 configuration from OSX to Ubuntu Linux. A person new to Sublime Text was able to configure the editor and grasp some basics in 5 minutes. After seeing SublimeLinter jshint warning highlighting and JsFormatplugins the test person reaction was: “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

I think he is not switching back to Aptana + Eclipse.

Solving "Unfortunately System UI has stopped" Android's problem without a Factory Reset

2014-02-27T08:51:00.001+00:00

This morning I've been playing with the Xposed installer module "Gravity Box",
turns out that I've enabled the Navigation launcher, it asked for a reboot so i did it.
Surpriiiiiise ! the message ""Unfortunately System UI has stopped" pops up every second !
i couldn't do more than one screen tap a time, because that message was showing every second,
i've searched a little bit of similar issues, i found a lot but with the same solution " Do a factory Reset!!!!"
but i don't want to dooooo a factory reset ! i'm too lazy to install again all those stuff, aaaaand i don't want to looooose my data ! i'm even lazy to do a backup to my sd card before that factory reset which would be bad anyways beacause i could have a bad backup with the same problem at the end,
the solution was pretty simple: uninstall the last 10 apps you've recently installed if you didn't know which one caused that problem. For me, it was easier because i simply uninstalled that module/app (Gravity box) and rebooted !!
This problem is caused most of the time by some Launcher app/module, so be careful with that !
Another solution is to install another launcher on top of the one you're having, i'd suggest going with 'Go launcher'

Good luck.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Pics leaks

2014-02-24T13:13:00.001+00:00

Cheers !

Transaction Malleability [Bitcoin]

2014-02-13T11:42:00.003+00:00

While transactions are signed, the signature does not currently cover all the data in a transaction that is hashed to create the transaction hash. Thus while uncommon it is possible for a node on the network to change a transaction you send in such a way that the hash is invalidated. Note that this just changes the hash, the output of the transaction remains the same and the bitcoins will go to their intended recipient. However this does mean that, for instance, it is not safe to accept a chain of unconfirmed transactions under any circumstance because the later transactions will depend on the hashes of the previous transactions, and those hashes can be changed until they are confirmed in a block. (and potentially even after a confirmation if the block chain is reorganized) In addition clients must always actively scan for transactions to them; assuming a txout exists because the client created it previously is unsafe.

Signature Malleability

The first form of malleability is in the signatures themselves. Each signature has exactly one DER-encoded ASN.1 octet representation, but openssl does not enforce this, and as long as a signature isn't horribly malformed, it will be accepted.^[1] In addition for every ECDSA signature (r,s), the signature (r, -s (mod N)) is a valid signature of the same message.^[2]

Efforts are underway to first make Bitcoin nodes not relay non-standard signatures, and eventually disallow them from being included in new blocks entirely.

scriptSig Malleability

The signature algorithm used in Bitcoin does not sign any of the scriptSig to create the signature. While signing the whole scriptSig would be impossible - the signature would be signing itself - this does mean that additional data can be added such that it will be pushed on the stack prior to the required signatures and public keys. Similarly OP_DROP can be added to leave the stack exactly as before prior to scriptPubKey execution.

Preventing scriptSig malleability is being considered as well. Currently transactions with anything other than data push operations in their scriptSig are considered non-standard and are not relayed, and eventually this rule may extend to enforcing that the stack have exactly one item after execution. However doing that may interfere with later extensions to Bitcoin.

References

Bitcoin: Most popular apps

2014-01-31T23:42:00.003+00:00

The growth in popularity of digital currency in general—and Bitcoins specifically—hasn't gone unnoticed in the mobile applications industry. Developers have created apps for all your on-the-go cryptocurrency needs, quick and efficient little programs you can install on your smartphone or tablet computer. New apps crop up on a regular basis, and it's a niche market that promises to grow along with the rest of the industry. Today, we're gonna take a look at the most popular mobile apps you can use with your Bitcoin account. So, in no particular order, here we go:

BlockChain Bitcoin Wallet. This is a full-service wallet that allows users to access and maintain their accounts, store and update address books, buy Bitcoins and look up exchange rates, and make transactions. The latter can be done either by a manual transfer or by using the QR code scanner to instantly set the transaction in motion. This app also supports paper digital currency wallets (the type that has actual hard copies of your currency printed out), also using QR technology. The Bitcoin Wallet is available for both the Android and iOS operating systems—though due to Apple's restrictions, the iOS version has limited features and functionality.

Bitcoin Wallet. This wallet is not to be confused with the BlockChain product listed above, though it features the same features as the BlockChain app, and also includes the capability of making transfers by touching one smartphone to another. This wallet is available for both Android and BlackBerry —but is not currently available for iOS.

Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet. This wallet app features many of the same functions as the two listed above it, and one of the features they highlight is its “cold storage” security capability, meaning your account is kept offline unless you're making a transaction. The Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet is currently available for Android.

Bitcoin Widget. This no-frills app allows you to look up the current value of a Bitcoin, and to check out graphs that show how its value has trended over time. At this time, Bitcoin Widget is only available for theAndroid mobile operating system.

Bitcoin Paranoid. We love the name of this app! By downloading it, you can set it to constantly display Bitcoin's current value on the notification bar on your smartphone or tablet. As its name might imply, it's designed for the very serious Bitcoin investor. This app is currently available only on the Android mobile operating system.

Coinbase Bitcoin Wallet. This popular wallet is comparable to the others listed here—really, they're all great wallets, and it'll boil down to your personal choice as to which suits your needs best. As a matter of fact, all the wallets listed in this article are officially endorsed by Bitcoin on their wallet page. Coinbase's wallet was available for iOS for a brief period of time, but is no longer listed there—but you can still get it for your Android device.

Detecting a pattern here? TechCrunch has an article that details how Coinbase's wallet was pulled from the Apple Apps Store only a month after its release. In our research, we found time and time again apps that were refused or highly restricted by Apple's rules and restrictions. Apple's no stranger to being strict when it comes to payment methods and policies; another look at their relationship with Bitcoin can be found inthis Forbes Magazine article. It doesn't look like that's gonna change any time soon.

Taking a look at the future, you may be able to use Bitcoins and other digital currencies as easily as you use your bank account and credit cards for payments. It's conceivable—and likely, once alternative currencies really catch on—that you'll be able to select Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies just as you select MasterCard or Visa as a payment option today. And, as we alluded to earlier, look for more apps to be developed that work with existing and emerging alternative currencies.

Bitcoin: Private and Public Keys

2014-01-31T23:41:00.001+00:00

In the modern world of electronic communication and business, privacy and security are big concerns. We all hear horror stories of personal information and financial assets being hacked and stolen, which highlights the need for encryption and protection of our data. These concerns are just as valid when it comes to digital currency transactions, and public and private keys play a pivotal role in protecting these investments. Coin Pursuit will be dedicating this article to what these keys are, and how they work.

When you first invest in cryptocurrency, along with a digital wallet to store your currency, you're issued unique public and private keys. These are long strings of code that identify you as either the sender or recipient of digital currency in a transaction with another investor or merchant. These keys are generated by what is called an “asymmetric key algorithm.” Before we go any further, a working definition is in order.

Symmetric key algorithms mean that both the recipient and the sender of digital information have the samekey. Since they both have this key, and can therefore decode the encrypted data, they're allowed to exchange confidential information. Only those who have this key can unlock the code and thus communicate with one another.

By contrast, asymmetric key algorithms work with two different keys, one public and one private. The two are created together, and linked together, but only you have access to the private key. Your public key is just that—and it's published in public directories so investors and merchants can do business with you. When a transaction is made, the other party uses your public key to initialize it, and you use your private key to finalize it. Your private key acts as a digital signature, and proves you're you. Comodo.com puts the transaction process in layman's terms like so:

...if Bob wants to send sensitive data to Alice, and wants to be sure that only Alice may be able to read it, he will encrypt the data with Alice's Public Key. Only Alice has access to her corresponding Private Key and as a result is the only person with the capability of decrypting the encrypted data back into its original form.

As only Alice has access to her Private Key, it is possible that only Alice can decrypt the encrypted data. Even if someone else gains access to the encrypted data, it will remain confidential as they should not have access to Alice's Private Key.

With that said, your private key should be closely guarded, and not given out to anyone; if someone else gets a hold of it, they can intercept the transaction and steal from your currency account. Your private key is as unique an identifier as your Social Security number and should be treated as such.

Public keys only carry as much information as you want them to; they're unique identifiers, yes, but they don't divulge your name, physical address or any other personal information. If in the course of a transaction, you want to share any of this information with someone else, you can, and it will only be between the two of you; it will be encrypted along with the other transaction info, and can only be decoded with a private key on the other end. Therefore, if you wish, you can remain anonymous during a cryptocurrency transaction, though you're still identified by the system as a unique user.

In order to assure security, both public and private keys are composed of very long strings of encrypted data; each generally contain 30 or more four-character alphanumeric blocks. The logic here is that the more information these key codes contain, the more difficult they are to decode. It should be noted that many types of digital currency also offer added layers of security on top of public and private keys, such as password-protected transactions and currency codes—the latter being unique identifiers for individual coins. Cryptocurrency issuers take the security of your investment very seriously; when shopping around, it never hurts to ask exactly what measures are being taken to protect your coins.

Bitcoin's Glossary

2014-01-26T15:52:00.002+00:00

21 million

The number of bitcoins that maximum number of bitcoins that there will ever be. The number has been hard-set into the protocol and cannot be changed, ensuring that Bitcoin is a deflationary currency.

6 confirmations

Each Bitcoin transaction is broadcast to all nodes, or computers using the Bitcoin client. When the miners confirm a block, a page in the Bitcoin ledger is published attesting that the transactions in that block are valid and that no effort has been made to spend those bitcoins on two things at the same time. This process is known as a confirmation and occurs every 1o minutes on average. One confirmation is considered secure, but having 6 confirmations is considered proof that there is statistically no chance that any cheating has occurred.

51% attack

The Bitcoin network is essentially a democracy with every miner having one vote. As long as at least 51% of the participants are honest, then the network is secure. If some person or group were to get enough mining power to represent more than 51%, they could invalidate transactions, create false transactions, and change the Bitcoin protocol.

Because of the rise of mining pools (in which people with only a small amount of computing power join a pool and get paid on the percentage of their contribution), the risk of one group getting 51% or more control is real, but also not tremendously dangerous. The miners themselves are invested in the value of Bitcoin and the trustworthiness of the network. At the beginning of 2014, one mining pool got close to this number and themselves started discouraging people from joining to ensure the integrity of Bitcoin.

Some say the real danger of having too much centralized mining is that it would provide governments with a way to subpoena, threaten, or control the miners into redlisting addresses.

Address

An address is a string of letters and numbers which can be used to send or receive bitcoins. Addresses are usually accessed through wallets like Bitcoin Qt, Blockchain, or others. These addresses are often shown as QR codes to make transactions easier and it is safe to share as long as the private key is kept secure.

Altcoin

Bitcoin is the first successful crypto coin experiment. Many others have used the Bitcoin protocol to come up with their own variations. Variations include Litecoin, which has a quicker confirm time and higher number of eventual coins and Primecoin which finds prime numbers at the same time as it confirms its blocks.

At the moment only Bitcoin has the network effect to make it a likely success as an crypto currency and store of value, but the other coins are experiments in attributes that might eventually be adopted to Bitcoin, services, or special purpose coins like SXC.

AML

One of the main arguments made for the need of governments to regulate or pass laws against Bitcoin is its usefulness to pass money nearly instantly and nearly anonymously. Anti-Money Laundering legislation has been used along with KYC laws to prosecute some Bitcoin businesses. Additionally, banks have been known to close the accounts of Bitcoin related businesses and even individual users, supposedly due to the possibility of money laundering.

ASIC

Application Specific Integrated Circuits. As the profitability of mining became apparent, miners naturally sought ways to mine faster and more efficiently to maximize profits. The use of ASIC miners have practically taken mining out of the hands of the amateurs and centralized it in the hands of a few mining pools.

Bitcent

One tenth of a bitcoin (.01).

Bitcoin Investment Trust

An institution that purchases and stores Bitcoins on behalf of investors.

Block

The heart of the Bitcoin system. Bitcoin is essentially an open-ledger accounting system. Bitcoin transactions are broadcast to the network when they are made, and then they are recorded in a block by the miner who solved the most recent Bitcoin math problem. One block is like one page from that ledger, showing recent transactions that the network agrees are valid.

The Bitcoin protocol is set so that each block will take, on average, every ten minutes.

Block chain

If every block is a page from an accounting ledger, then then the bottom of each page of the ledger would have a calculation based on the contents of that page that must be solved before the next page can be created. Because of the linking of the blocks together in this way, the validity of every page in the ledger can be confirmed since it links with the page before and behind it. Linking the blocks together makes it impossible to spoof blocks and allows the system to be trusted.

Block reward

To encourage miners to solve the problem of each block and confirm the next set of transactions, they are awarded a bounty of Bitcoins and transaction fees. The block reward for Bitcoin was originally 50 BTC, but is halved every four years.

BTC

A common abbreviation for Bitcoin.

Buttonwood

An agreement that resulted in the creation of the stock market on Wall Street in 1792. More recently, it refers to attempts to create an open-air market for Bitcoin.

Client

A software program that connects to the Bitcoin network like Bitcoin Qt. These may require hosting the full block chain.

Confirmation

When a transaction is successfully entered into a block, it is said to be confirmed. This means that more than 51% of the Bitcoin nodes recognize that the transaction is valid and that there has been no effort to double spend those bitcoins. Although one confirmation is considered secure, 6 confirmations are generally enough to make the validity of a transaction beyond question.

Colored coins

A project by BitcoinX to allow for the ‘marking’ of some bitcoins so that they can be used for specific purposes like stocks, contracts, and even physical property. The project is under development, but is one of many attempts to build more practical applications on top of the Bitcoin protocol, further increasing its value beyond currency or store of value.

Coin age

The length of time since a coin has last been spent. Noting how long since a number of coins have been transacted is one indication of velocity in the Bitcoin economy. However, since transactions may not be between people, but merely individuals moving their holdings from one address to another, this can be overstated.

Crypto currency

Any of a number of digital currencies, including Bitcoin, that are produced through solving mathematical equations. The security of these networks is ensured by the strength of the cryptography used.

Deflation

Most currencies used today are inflationary. Governments produce more money to cover their debts and the increased money supply drives prices up. When the supply of a commodity or currency is set, then its value will adjust to demand, and in most cases that means it’s the price at which goods and services can be bought, will tend to go down.

There are many theories as to why a deflationary currency is not desirable, including the tendency of people to hoard rather than spend their money. On the other hand, a deflationary currency will mean that savings will be naturally rewarded, cause salaries to naturally increase in value, and make pension planning much easier. Deflationary currencies favor those furthest from the money supply, which explains why politicians and economists tend to oppose the idea.

Difficulty

On average, a block is produced every ten minutes. However, the number of people, and the amount of computing power, does not remain constant as Bitcoin gains in popularity. Greater computing power means a reduction in the amount of time it takes to produce a block; therefore, at regular periods, the difficulty of the problems miners must solve to produce a block is recalculated to keep the rate of blocks at about ten minutes.

Double spending

A double spend is when someone tries to spend the same bitcoins at two places at the same time. If successful, one transaction would be recorded in a block and confirmed, and the other would be considered not-valid, depriving that recipient the bitcoins. As the transaction gains in confirmations, the risk of a double spend decreases. Although possible, double spends wouldn’t be worth the effort for small sums, and people conducting large transactions will be willing to wait for 1-6 confirmations.

Dust transaction

A bitcoin can be divided into one-hundred million pieces, known as satoshis. Very small amounts of bitcoins are known as dust as they have no practical value. Some websites, like faucets, may attempt to make many dust transactions, which clutter up the block chain. Small transaction fees and limits on how many satoshis can be sent have been imposed to limit dust transactions.

ECDSA

The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm is the lightweight cryptographic algorithm used to sign transactions in the Bitcoin protocol.

Escrow

Escrow is the act of letting a third party hold the money during a transaction until both people agree that it has been successfully completed. With Bitcoin, transactions are irreversible, therefore, in some cases, requests that funds be put into escrow is expected.

Some have suggested that escrows could become automated with apps built on top of the Bitcoin protocol. Funds would be sent to a particular address and not be released until certain conditions, conditions that could be automatically checked, were met.

Exchange

Exchanges are businesses that allow changing one type of currency for another at market rates. Crypto currency exchanges may swap between different crypto currencies and fiat currencies.

Bitcoin exchanges have had a number of difficulties gaining financial and legal footing, making getting fiat onto and off of them tricky. This situation is expected to improve over time.

Faucet

Sites that give away small amounts of Bitcoin. Initially this was done to spread the currency and get people interested. More recently, faucets are a way to get people interested in online crypto gambling or to get advertising revenue.

Though the amounts given away are small, faucets remain a good way to teach people about Bitcoin and get them comfortable using wallets without putting up any of their own money.

Fiat currency

A term frequently used in crypto currency circles. Fiat money is money by decree of the government that issues it. Although there are frequent attempts that fiat money has value because of legal requirements to accept it and its utility in dealing with the government, it is also usually inflationary and open to broad manipulation by the government.

One reason governments prefer fiat money is that governments are usually run with deep amounts of debt. By issuing more money, the government can cause inflation, which drives down the relative value of its debt. This benefits the government and the banks at the expense of everyone else.

FinCEN

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an agency within the US Treasury Department. FinCEN was responsible for seizing two Mt. Gox bank accounts in 2013. Along with the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, it is expected to be the branch of government that will issue regulations on crypto currencies.

Fork

A fork occurs when two blocks dealing with the same transactions is produced. In this case, one set of miners will be working off of one block, and another set of the other. Eventually, only one set of blocks will be honored.

Forks can happen in the case of 51% attacks, because of bugs in the protocol, or because the core developers wish to introduce a new feature into the protocol.

There have been several successful forks due to developers introducing features, and one because of a bug. In that case, the bug was quickly recognized and the mining community rallied to accept the correct fork with a fix to the bug.

Genesis block

The first block mined by Satoshi Nakamoto that began it all. This block is still part of the block chain and can be viewed.

GPU

Graphical Processing Unit. In the early days, bitcoins were mined with regular computers. Soon after, someone discovered that the GPUs used for gaming were more efficient and most mining switched over to those before transitioning to ASICs.

Hash

A way to take a large amount of data and produce a short, fixed-length output. Hashes are useful to Bitcoin because it is nearly impossible to figure out the original data based on the result and even the smallest change to the original data will produce a completely different output. This helps Bitcoin remain a secure protocol.

Hash rate

The number of hashes that a miner can produce in a set amount of time, usually seconds. The hash rate necessary to successfully mine a block has been rising exponentially. We are now looking at gigahashes and petahashes.

Inflation

A decrease in purchasing power due to a decrease in confidence in a currency or currency manipulation.

Input

The address from which a transaction has originated.

KYC

Know Your Client rules required of many financial institutions to be sure that the customer is not engaged in any money laundering.

Liquidity

The ability to switch between any two given currencies easily. In a market where there are lots of people, liquidity can usually be expected because there will always be people buying or selling. In a small market, few numbers means that there will be times where it is easier to buy or to sell, causing volatility.

mBTC

A millibitcoin, or one thousandth of a bitcoin (.001). Often referred to as a milli.

Microtransaction

An exchange of a very small amount of currency. In many places, especially in sales or exchanges on the internet, microtransactions are nearly impossible because of the cost of transmission. Bitcoin partly solves this problem, allowing artists and authors to be paid very small amounts for their work. More work needs to be done in this area as in the developing world many transactions might be seen as bit dust and be discouraged.

Mining

The production of bitcoins by solving mathematical problems using specialized equipment. The term ‘mining’ was coined for this because of the similarities that bitcoin mining has with gold mining. It is also mistaken since winning one block will not ‘put you on to’ the next block the way a gold miner might discover a gold vein. Rather, mining is a bit closer to a lottery in which each hash is a ticket to win. Increasing hashing power does not increase the supply of bitcoins, but merely increases the chance that the miner will win the next block.

Because increased hashing does not increase the bitcoin supply, there has been a lot of criticism of hashing as wasteful, particularly in terms of electricity. In fact, miners are also increasing the security of the Bitcoin network.

Mixing service

Bitcoin, despite broad claims to the contrary, is not exactly anonymous. All bitcoin transactions are public and viewable on the block chain. It is possible, therefore, to trace bitcoins and transaction histories. Mixing services are sites that will pool bitcoins together with a great many other bitcoins and then issue back bitcoins of an equal value. This randomizes the bitcoin histories and makes it much more difficult to track them.

Node

Any computer connected to the internet running the bitcoin client software. These computers transmit transaction throughout the network.

Nonce

A random number used in a hash in an attempt to find a block. Using a nonce ensures that the hash calculation is cryptographically secure (can’t be hacked) since it can’t be repeated without that random number.

Orphan block

In the event that the block chain is forked, an orphan block is on the chain that is abandoned for the valid chain.

OTC exchange

A place or business in which buyers and sellers interact directly without the need for a middleman.

Output

An address or addresses to which funds are sent in a transaction.

P2P

Peer-to-peer. Systems of sharing information between individuals on a network rather than going through a central authority. In music downloads, Napster was a central authority and bit torrent is a P2P network. Napster was brought down because it had a central node that could be attacked.

Paper wallet

Bitcoin wallets need two strings of code, a public key identifying where the bitcoins will be stored, an a private key, which allows the owner to send those coins to a different address. A paper wallet is a printout of both of these numbers, either as strings of digits and letters, or as QR codes.

If created correctly, paper wallets are considered one of the more secure ways to store bitcoins.

Pool

As the amount of computing power needed to mine a block has risen, those who don’t have the resources or skills needed to compete can merge their computing power with others and get a proportional return on the blocks discovered.

The rise in pools has also given rise to concentrations of hashing power, making some people worry about the possibility of a 51% attack. In practice, thus far, miners have been careful not to come too close to this limit to protect the trust of the system and the value of their holdings.

Pre-mining

This is when a coin founder mines a coin before allowing others to do so. With Bitcoin and most altcoins, it is necessary to pre-mine a bit in order to create faucets and otherwise drum up interest. Some scamcoins mine a significant portion of their coins before release.

Private key

A long string of numbers and letters used to unlock an address and allow its bitcoins to be moved. It is very important to keep this key private as proved by the TV reporter who flashed a QR code of his private key during a news segment and immediately lost his coins. The person who took the coins contacted the reporter, saying that he had taken them before someone with less noble intentions did and offered them back. Eventually, the coins were donated to charity.

Pump and dump

When a group of people heavily hype a new coin, driving the price up, and then quickly sell leaving other investors with a worthless asset. This is not new to crypto currencies, but the excitement surrounding them make pump-and-dump schemes common. Be careful when checking out altcoins.

Another type is when groups of traders buy bitcoin back and forth between themselves to drive the price up and then sell a larger amount, crashing the price, and buy back in cheap. The relative smallness of the Bitcoin economy makes these more of a possibility than in the larger market.

Proof of stake

A system used by some altcoins in which the amount of coins that you own determines that amount of coins that you can mine.

Proof of work

Hashes are cryptographic problems that must be solved in order for a block to be won. Since it is hard to solve a hash, the solution is proof that a miner put in the effort to get that block.

Public key

A long string of numbers and letters which marks a location on the block chain where bitcoins can be stored. The public key, or its QR code, can be freely shared. An example of this is the college student who held a QR code of his public key up at a sporting event along with the note “Mom, send money!” He received over 20,000$ in value from unknown good Samaritans.

QR code

A type of barcode formatted to contain more complex information such as addresses, websites, promotions, etc. Since these are easily usable with most smartphones and computers, many Bitcoin applications will let you show or print both public and private keys as QR codes.

Ripple

A competing/complimentary currency and network to Bitcoin. Ripple is based on a principle of multiple IOUs being exchanged as a way for value to be exchanged between unknown parties. The system is set up on trust.

Satoshi

Bitcoins can be divided 100 million times. The smallest unit is named in honor of the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. One satoshi is .00000001. At the moment, one satoshi is worth considerably less than one penny, but in the event that Bitcoin’s value rises, bitcoins can be made further disvisible.

Satoshi Nakamoto

The programmer or group of programmers who created Bitcoin. Satoshi apparently planned on being anonymous and dropping out of the project. He, she, or they, were initially heard from in late 2008 when the Bitcoin white paper was published on a cryptgraphic forum and disappeared in 2010 when he, she, or they stopped returning emails.

There are about 1,000,000 bitcoins in addresses that have not been touched since the first year of Bitcoin. As these addresses all have exactly 50 bitcoins, it is supposed that they were mined by Satoshi, who will re-emerge at some point as a Bitcoin billionaire.

Scamcoin

An altcoin created with the sole purpose of enriching the creator. Usually a pump-and-dump scheme.

Scrypt

A proof-of-work process that is supposedly more efficient on CPUs than ASIC miners, and thus more democratic. Litecoin uses scrypt.

Signature

A sum that results from hashing a public and private key to prove that a transaction came from a particular address.

Silk Road

The early days of Bitcoin were driven by people who wanted a currency that could be used when fiat money was too dangerous. Silk Road was a website, operated on TOR, on which people could buy questionable goods like illegal drugs.

In 2013, the site was shut down by the FBI and the operator, Ross Ulbricht, was arrested. The FBI seized about 160,000 bitcoins from Ulbricht’s computers, making the FBI one of the largest owners of bitcoin in the world.

SEPA

A wire transfer system for the Euro in the European Union.

SHA-256

The cryptographical process underlying Bitcoin’s proof of work.

SPV

Simplified Payment Verification. A process used by some Bitcoin wallets that lets them not download the whole block chain, but only headers, in order to verify the Bitcoins held in that wallet. This makes using these wallets substantially easier to use.

Stale

When a block is ‘discovered,’ any other miners who are working on solving that block stop, and move on to the next one. The block they were working on is now considered ‘stale.’

Taint

A way of linking addresses by tracking how a bitcoins move between addresses. Taint analysis can show where stolen bitcoins go and suggest that a set of addresses belong to a single individual. If any addresses are publicly associated with an individual (like the donation QR on this site), then that entire set of addresses might be identified.

Testnet

An alternative bitcoin block chain, used purely for testing purposes.

TOR

A browser extension that allows people to visit sites not listed on Google, and to do so without risking their identities. It was originally created for the US Navy and has since come to be used by journalists, activists, and any number of other people who want to keep their activities and identities secret.

As part of the ‘dark web,’ TOR has naturally been used for illegal activities and became famous as the way to visit Silk Road. The TOR Project, though, says that it is dedicated to keeping both governments and corporations out of our lives if we don’t want them there.

Transaction block

A set of transactions that have been broadcast to the Bitcoin network which are then bundled together to create the next block.

Transaction fee

A small fee imposed on many transactions on the block chain. This ensure that miners will continue to be rewarded for their efforts. Transactions sent without fees will generally be confirmed, but it may take more time as transactions with fees are prioritized.

uBTC

A micro bitcoin, or micro, .000001.

Vanity address

It is possible to get addresses with names or other recognizable patterns in them. These are termed vanity addressed.

Virgin bitcoin

Bitcoins obtained as a reward for discovering a block that have not been spent.

Volatility

How wildly the price of Bitcoin moves within a specific time frame. Bitcoin has had periods of truly wild swings, and will continue to do so until many more people adopt its use.

Wallet

A wallet is where your bitcoins are. It’s a program, piece of paper, or online service that stores the public and private key of a Bitcoin address.

Zero-confirmation transaction

When bitcons are sent to an address but the transaction is not yet included in a block, it is considered a zero-confirmation transaction. The on-average confirmation time of ten minutes is too long for many, everyday, purchases. Therefore, most merchants will take seeing that funds have arrived in their wallet as adequate proof that the transaction has taken place and conclude the sale.

EOF.

H3xl4t0r

Download and convert (to MP3) a Youtube playlist using youtube-dl (Mac osx)

How to become a DevOps Engineer in less than six months

Target Audience

What’s This, Now?

Disclaimer

Enough Talk, Where Do I Start?

Foundational Knowledge

macOS 10.13 High Sierra Apache Setup: MySQL, APC & More...

MySQL

Apache Virtual Hosts

Dnsmasq

APC Cache

Install APCu

[Optional] APCu Configuration

APCu for other PHP versions

YAML

YAML for other PHP versions

[Optional] YAML Configuration

Xdebug

[Required] Xdebug Configuration

Xdebug for other PHP versions

Advanced Techniques

PHP 5.6

PHP 7.0+

macOS 10.13 High Sierra Apache Setup: Multiple PHP Versions

XCode Command Line Tools

Homebrew Installation

Apache Installation

Troubleshooting Tips

Apache Configuration

User & Group

Servername

Sites Folder

My User Web Root

My User Web Root

PHP Installation

Apache PHP Setup - Part 1

Validating PHP Installation

PHP Switcher Script

Check Your Path

Testing the PHP Switching

Updating PHP and other Brew Packages

Activating Specific/Latest PHP Versions

macOS 10.13 High Sierra Apache Setup: Upgrading Homebrew

basic steps to configure a new Laravel 5.5 project

1. Create a Laravel Project

2. Create a MySQL Database

3. Update the .env

4. Set Up Our Testing Environment

5. Scaffold Authentication

6. Migrate Database

7. Initialize Git

8. Add the project to GitLab/GitHub/"Your Platform of Choice"

9. Install JS Packages

10. Update Scss files

11. Add Any Other Initial Project Dependencies

12. Start Coding

The Wrap-Up

Uninstall PREY from Mac OSX

The 11 Most Popular Online Business Models

The Most Popular Online Business Models You Can Utilize Today

Adsense

How and Why to Update the Modem/baseband Firmware on a Samsung Android Phone {Mac OSX}

The dirty secret of big law life

Red Pill Wisdom From Patrice O’Neal

The Two Sides Of The Female Mind

Male/Female Conversation Styles

How To Deal With A Woman Pressuring Marriage

Cheating

On Materialistic Women

How to prevent SQL Injection in PHP Applications ?

How to Prevent SQL Injection Every Time, Guaranteed

What About Sanitizing Input?

You're Better Off Forgetting About Sanitizing Input

Input Should Still Be Validated

What About Column and Table Identifiers?

What if Using Prepared Statements Seems Too Cumbersome?

How to Use EasyDB

Safe Database Querying with Prepared Statements

3. Update the `.env`