This e-mail and any attachment may contain confidential and/or
privileged information. If you have received this e-mail and/or
attachment in error, please notify the sender immediately and
delete the e-mail and any attachment from your system. If you
are not the intended recipient you must not copy, distribute,
disclose or use the contents of the e-mail or any attachment.

All e-mail sent to or from this address may be accessed by
someone other than the recipient for system management and
security reasons or for other lawful purposes.

Airbus Operations Limited does not accept liability for any
damage or loss which may be caused by software viruses.

Airbus Operations Limited is registered in England and Wales
under company number 3468788. The company's registered office
is at New Filton House, Filton, Bristol, BS99 7AR.

Anyway, if you use phpns - or any CMS which uses TinyMCE for WYSIWYG text entry / editing - you'll find that if you embed code like YouTube links in code view, switch back to WYSIWYG view, then switch back to code view again... All your lovely embed codes are gone!

This was really annoying me, so I decided to have a hunt about for a quick 'n dirty solution. After lots of forum reading, a few things were clear:

• TinyMCE won't let you easily disable its code cleaning / HTML verification, which sucks
• Even the TinyMCE devs aren't quite sure how to efficiently stop this from happening
• Trying to fully disable its HTML verification / cleanup routines is nigh-on impossible, the codebase is a spider's web of PHP
• and by default, it hates all <object> and <embed> tags, even if you have the TinyMCE Flash plugin installed.

This can royally screw with your meticulously-entered YouTube embeds. However, on his blog, Akbar neatly demonstrates a simple but effective method to stop TinyMCE eating your embed code - and all you need to do is add the object and embed tags and possible variables... There's a full demo, with borrowable code, on his web site.

After looking in all the nooks and crannies, I found a few useful sites:

For reviews, statistics and comparisons of tyres, I found three useful sites:
TyreReview (http://www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Goodyear/DuraGrip.htm)
Tyres-Online (http://www.tyres-online.co.uk/tyretest/goodyear.asp#1)
BlackCircles (http://www.blackcircles.com/order/tyres/search)

And a couple of reputable-looking brokers:
etyres (quote for GoodYear DuraGrips: £161.80 inc VAT)
TyreFitDirect (quote for GoodYear DuraGrips: £152.82 inc VAT)

I decided to give etyres a go. Unfortunately, given the less popular dimensions of my tyre (185/55/R14/80H), etyres could only promise me fitting with a two-week lead time, as they'd have to order the tyres I wanted specially (I was after GoodYear DuraGrips). As I had a flat tyre, was running on the spare and had to drive down the motorway the day afterwards, I wussed out and went to my local Kwik Fit - where they knocked about £60 off a pair of Michelin Energy Savers, which I was happy with.

Including fitting and balance, two tyres came to £180, which isn't amazing... but isn't bad for a walk-up price with half an hour's notice, and was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would cost. Certainly it would've been nice to pay less, but when you have no other options, what do you do? To their credit, I didn't have to wait long and my tyres were fitted quickly, so no complaints there. Apparently Kwik Fit also do rotating promotions on various kinds of tyres; when I went in, they (ironically) had a sliding discount promotion on GoodYears for February. Sod's law though, they didn't have the DuraGrips in my tyre size! so I plumped for Michelins (they did have cheaper tyres, but I wanted some premium rubber this time around after a few recent close shaves in rush hour traffic).

The moral of the story? If you need tyres fitting really quickly, don't solely rely on the online brokers and on-site mechanic companies being able to supply your tyres at very short notice. However, if you want to save some money, you can haggle with your local garage... or plan ahead and book with an online broker (like etyres or TyreFitDirect), get your tyres changed at your home or workplace and save a few bob. Don't let my bad experience put you off - I'm also keen to know if you've used any online tyre services, so if you've had good or bad experiences (including etyres or TyreFitDirect) then please leave a comment.

Once again, corporate email policy results in signatures longer than the emails (and this time, with the mailserver tacking another copy on to each reply). (Linebreaks added for legibility)

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The information contained within this e-mail (and any attachment) sent
by Birmingham City Council is confidential and may be legally privileged.
It is intended only for the named recipient or entity to whom it is
addressed. If you are not the intended recipient please accept our
apologies and notify the sender immediately, or telephone +(44)(0)121
464 4444. Unauthorised access, use, disclosure, storage or copying is
not permitted and may be unlawful. Any e-mail including its content may
be monitored and used by Birmingham City Council for reasons of security
and for monitoring internal compliance with the office policy on staff
use. E-mail blocking software may also be used. Any views or opinions
presented are solely those of the originator and do not necessarily
represent those of Birmingham City Council. We cannot guarantee that
this message or any attachment is virus free or has not been intercepted
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The reasons for why corporate email disclaimers are usually worth less than the electrons they're sent with is explained on Jeff's web site... To get us started, here's the email disclaimer from Scottish Widows (a part of Lloyds Banking Group, as they helpfully tell us) with linebreaks added for readability:

*******************************************************************************

As part of the Lloyds Banking Group, Scottish Widows is proud to be
an Official Provider of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
www.scottishwidows.co.uk/london2012

This E-Mail is confidential. Unauthorised recipients must notify the sender
immediately on 0131-655-6789 and must delete the original E-Mail without
taking a copy. We virus scan and monitor all e-mails but are not responsible
for any damage caused by a virus or alteration or our email by a third
party after transmission. The E-Mail is not intended nor should it be taken
to create any legal relations, contractual or otherwise.

The following companies are part of the Scottish Widows Group and,
with the exception of Scottish Widows Services Limited, are authorised
and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. They are all registered
in the United Kingdom:

Scottish Widows plc, Co No. 199549/FSA Register No. 191517;
Scottish Widows Annuities Limited, Co No.199550/FSA Register No. 191518;
Scottish Widows Services Limited, Co No.189975; Scottish Widows Unit
Funds Limited, Co No. 74809/FSA Register No. 202648; all having their
Registered Office at 69 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8YF.

Scottish Widows Bank plc, Co No. 154554/FSA Register No. 201601.
Registered Office at 67 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8YJ.

Scottish Widows Unit Trust Managers Limited, Co No. 1629925/FSA
Register Co No. 122129, Registered Office at Charlton Place,
Andover, Hampshire SP10 1RE.

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership Limited, Co No. 794936/FSA
Register Co No. 193707; SWIP Fund Management Limited,
Co No. 406604/FSA Register No. 122135 and SWIP Multi-Manager
Funds Limited, Co No. 5582499/FSA Register No. 455821; all having
their Registered Office at 33 Old Broad Street, London EC2N 1HZ.

Scottish Widows Fund Management Limited, Co No. 74517/FSA Register
No. 119359; Pensions Management (SWF) Limited, Co No. 45361/FSA
Register No. 110422; all having their Registered Office at
15 Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh, EH16 5BU.

Lloyds TSB Investments Limited, Co No. 106723/FSA Register No. 122130,
Registered Office at 60 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8BE.

Scottish Widows Administration Services Limited, Co No. 1132760/FSA
Register No. 139398, Registered Office at 25 Gresham
Street, London, EC2V 7HN.

All of the above companies are part of the Lloyds Banking Group.

*******************************************************************************

In this case, the email disclaimer was over 5x longer than the content of the email - if I was feeling grumpier, I would've classified this message as spam.

More coming as/when I get them.

Even more frustratingly, attempting to rename/delete the domain's folder via FTP or SSH didn't work, and I couldn't re-add the domain to the account as DirectAdmin could (bizarrely) still see that it was already hosting it! Moving/deleting the domain's DNS zone file didn't work, and neither did a DirectAdmin restart. So, Catch 22... What to do?

I went digging into the server filesystem (using root) and had a look at some of the many catalogue files DirectAdmin uses to remind itself which domains it's hosting. I first checked for a .db file in /var/named/ (where the named DNS app stores its zone files for each domain) - the domain's file was still there. I then checked /etc/virtual/domains and /etc/virtual/domainowners (the first file holds a list of domains hosted on the system, and the second shows each domain's owner account), and for some reason while domains still had the problem domain listed, its ownership had disappeared from domainowners.

So, after readding it, saving the file out and restarting DirectAdmin via the control panel's Service Monitor (when logged in as admin), the domain immediately reappeared in the user's control panel and it's working perfectly once again. However, this would've been virtually impossible to fix had I not found some crucial info on the web, including John's post on Binary Web Host, where I first learnt of the existence of the domains and domainowners files.

Hopefully this helps other people avoid suffering this problem for long if they encounter it - I could find no useful info on the DirectAdmin knowledge base or forums, and it even had my server host stumped too (and they're no cowboys - they had never seen this problem before with DirectAdmin where it hadn't fixed itself after a restart).

How a boxfresh Ronin should look...

I recently went out in some brand new trainers (a pair of Etnies Ronin skate shoes, which are black and white suede/synthetic material mixture with a white trim round the sole). Unsurprisingly, it rained on Saturday evening, and when I came back my shoes were DESTROYED.

Unfortunately, mine weren't quite caked, but were fairly smattered in nasty looking mud. But what to do? Well, after some careful research (and even more careful testing), here's some tips for cleaning these kinds of skate shoes.

Shoes like the Ronins aren't all suede - they have what Etnies describe as an "action leather upper" combined with synthetic, woven sections (for example, the material around the E motif on the side of the shoe is a different fabric). However, in my case, the whole lot was just smothered with nasty, gunky mud.

So, what to do? Well, first thing's first - DON'T TRY TO CLEAN THE SHOES WHILST THEY'RE STILL WET! All you'll do is rub the dirt right into the fibres, ruining them pretty much forever (or until you get them professionally cleaned which could cost a lot). Resisting the temptation to grab the scrubbing brush, put them in a warm place overnight and let the mud dry completely.

Before you start to remove the mud, you'll need a couple of things:

• A suede brush (they come in all shapes and sizes; a photo of one here - I bought mine from Timpson's)
• A suede eraser/cleaning block (or a soft white pencil eraser like a Staedtler if you can't find a suede eraser - again, I got one from my local Timpson's)
• A small dish/bucket/container, into which you'll put a mix of warm tap water and a small amount of bleach or clear vinegar (not brown malt vinegar!)
  • Optionally, something like the soapbar-shaped Vanish stain remover bar (which I used)
• A small plastic-bristled scrubbing brush and/or J-cloth/dishcloth (I just used a J-cloth)
• Some paper tissues / absorbent towels or cloths
• Some spray-on suede/leather/nubuck protector (Kiwi and Punch make this stuff, along with loads of shoe shops' own brands - I ended up finding some in Asda)

Start by using the suede brush to rub off most of the heavy soiling - you'll be surprised, as long as you brush with the nap of the fibre, just how much comes off once the mud's dried. The suede is also more resilient than you'd think - of course, having coloured or very light suede/nubuck shoes will affect the end result slightly as you may have some more permanent discolouration, but my black shoes looked almost spotless after this first brushing.

I ended up starting off gently, then slowly increasing pressure and speed as I got most of the mud off. To continue, I used the suede eraser - it's quite hard and crumbles easily, taking the dirt with it, so I used that to crack off the more stubborn mud flakes and remove some of the smaller stains and marks.

I grabbed the Vanish stain remover bar (it looks like a bar of soap, but you can rub it onto problem stains), daubing it where necessary for the more heavily soiled areas - of which there were, fortunately, not many. Once that was done, I got some water/bleach mixture onto the J-cloth and used it to thoroughly wash the shoes' outer fabric - NOT completely soaking the shoes or utterly drenching the fabric as that's really bad for it. Being methodical is the key here, and then take the time to then go round the shoes with the paper towels and dab off the excess liquid. Repeat for the other shoe, then leave to dry overnight.

Once completely dry, give your shoes a good spray treatment with the protector - this will help to stop moisture ingress and keep your suede/nubuck/leather looking newer for longer! If you have coloured material be sure to test on a discreet area first, juuuuust in case it adversely affects the dye of the material). Some protectors state that the colour of your shoes may darken slightly after application - sometimes it's just unavoidable, but it's for the best in the long run. After the shoes have dried, use the suede brush to bring up the pile of the fibre again to restore some of its natural look. Finally, enjoy your newly-restored shoes again - without having to resort to professional shoe cleaning services!

However if you do need professional suede/nubuck cleaning, a professional shoemakers like James Taylor and Son in London look like a promising place to begin your search. (Watch their VideoJug feature on cleaning suede shoes - recommended viewing for all suede shoe owners regardless)

So, at all costs:

• avoid washing your shoes straight away, avoid putting your shoes in the washing machine (AWFUL for both the shoes and the washing machine)
• avoid using suede/nubuck cleaner as some people report that it actually spoils the fabric completely
• don't leave your shoes wet after cleaning them yourself and
• don't forget to BUY A MORE APPROPRIATE PAIR OF SHOES FOR MUDDY WEATHER!

I learnt that the hard way so you don't have to (fortunately my shoes are as good as new now). Given all this snowy weather we're having, the amount of mud/snow/grit you'll be getting on your shoes is certainly not good for brand new suede or nubuck, so it pays to protect your footwear before you head out the door

Fortunately, the MacRumors Guides site had a page with some protips to help eject stuck CDs/DVDs - including a nice drutil command which solved the problem nicely. Once again, the Mac Users community saves the day

As it turns out, it's as simple as three mouseclicks. In order to disable Safe Mode and open_basedir you need to log into the DA control panel as the admin (NOT the reseller user). From there, there's a menu option called "PHP SafeMode Configuration" in the Extra Features section - you can set the defaults for new sites, plus selectively enable/disable PHP Safe Mode and open_basedir restrictions for existing sites in a couple of mouseclicks.

This feature's been present since at least 1.33.7; I'm currently adminning a server running 1.34.4 and the menu option is definitely still there. Hopefully this saves some fellow webmasters some hassle messing around with custom php.ini or VirtualHost containers