I am writing this blog entry at a standing workstation which a lot of people still view as an oddity despite the data provided in each study that is being published.  [...]]]> Get off your butt and make some tea if you want to live

By Simon Sharwood, Posted in Science, 27th March 2012 07:11 GMT

I am writing this blog entry at a standing workstation which a lot of people still view as an oddity despite the data provided in each study that is being published.  I realize this is published on The Register and that makes it always worth investigating, the study is remarkably similar to those I have reviewed before.

A study of more than 220,000 people aged 45 or more has come to a startling conclusion: sitting down all day is killing you.

The 45 and Up study compared mortality rates among those who sit for many hours a day and those who spend less time perched on their posterior.

The study used “… questionnaire data from 222 497 individuals 45 years or older from the 45 and Up Study to mortality data from the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Australia) from February 1, 2006, through December 31, 2010.”

The news is bad if you spend more than 11 hours a day sitting: your chance of leaving this plane of existence in the next three years is 40% higher than those who spend less time on their behinds. Even those who sit for just eight hours a day have a 15% “better” chance of death.

The dangers of sitting are not only related to a sedentary lifestyle and obesity. The study also hints at more profound physiological issues created by sitting for many hours a day, as doing so means the body is deprived of many internal triggers that spark beneficial actions in the body. Even standing a few more times a day, the research says, can therefore improve health. Hence our plea for tea in the subheading.

"Shorter sitting times and sufficient physical activity are independently protective against all-cause mortality not just for healthy individuals but also for those with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, overweight, or obesity," the study’s authors wrote in Archives of Internal Medicine, where the results of the study were published this week.

If you’re sitting while reading this, what are you waiting for?

Morpheus, The Matrix

Installation error: The Zip PHP extension is now required by Moodle, info-ZIP binaries or PclZip library are not used anymore.

The trick is that the Zip PHP extension [...]]]> A new installation error when installing Moodle 2, today I was working on Fedora 16 with Moodle 2.2.2+ and received this error on the Package Check Screen

Installation error: The Zip PHP extension is now required by Moodle, info-ZIP binaries or PclZip library are not used anymore.

The trick is that the Zip PHP extension was included in Fedora 15 but not Fedora 16.  There is an interesting discussion thread why.

Not to worry

Sam almost has the instructions right on, there is an assumption he makes without stating that you have php-devel installed, and he has an error in where the PHP modifications go as well as the command with systemd to restart the servers.

Try this

1. Install dependencies as root or using sudo:

yum install pcre-devel gcc zlib zlib-devel

1a. Install php-devel the same way, again as root or using sudo:

yum install php-devel

2. Install zip module using PECL (PEAR‘s sister):

pecl install zip

3. [Modified] Where you used to edit the main PHP configuration file to register the new module, now you create a zip.ini in the /etc/php.d directory.  Copy another one and remove its extension and add this text:

extension=zip.so;

4. [Modified] Restart your web server as root or using sudo:

systemctl restart httpd.service

5. Check that support is enabled using phpinfo(). You should have a section on your phpinfo() page that looks like the image below.

This should do the trick.