I’ve recently had to install drupal a number of times in a span of a few days. The way I usually do it – download tarballs, extract, create file structure, upload via ftp – was just too slow. Fortunately I have shell access to my shared hosting account on DreamHost, so here’s what I’ve been doing recently.

1. Fire up a terminal window in Mac OS and SSH to my wonderful DreamHost linux webserver (you can do the same in Linux, but you need some software SSH in windows) – Here’s the command I use:
   ssh username@servername.com
   and enter the password when the server asks you for it. Do note that the characters that you type in for your password may not appear on the screen, but they’re still being entered.
2. Change to the directory that you’re going to install drupal into. Alongside this, navigate over to drupal.org, and to their download page. At the time of writing this, Drupal 6.20 is the latest version, so the path to the .tar.gz file looks like this: http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-6.20.tar.gz I just right click in Firefox and select “Copy Link Location”.
3. Now, skip back over to the terminal window. Remember, I’ve navigated to the folder I want to install drupal to. Then type in wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-6.20.tar.gz. This downloads the drupal core tarball to the server directly.
4. Extract it using tar -xzvf drupal-6.20.tar.gz. You’ll see a screen ful of paths as the files are extracted to a folder called drupal-6.20.
5. I go ahead and start off the install in a browser, and get the settings file renamed and database hooked up, and everything else until it becomes time to get the contrib modules installed.
6. On any given install of drupal, I usually have atleast 10 or so contrib modules installed, and very often it goes up quite a bit. Like I said before, FTP just does not cut it for this, so, like our drupal core tar.gz file, I find the paths to every single contrib module that I want installed. And here’s a little secret – They’re all at the Modules page of Drupal.org!!! and happily listed in descending order of the modules most used. This is a quick process. I wget them to the sites/all/modules/ folder, so that I have about 20 GZipped Tar files; and that’s where I hit a snag.
7. You see, the tar command does not use wildcards happily. In fact it does not use wildcards. – (period) So I had to find an alternative, to get all these .tar.gz files extracted without having to repeat the same command again and again manually. I found a solution. In fact, I found two solutions
8. find -name '*.tar.gz' -exec tar -xzvf '{}' ';' – This piece of code extracts all .tar.gz files in the current folder, and all subfolders, making it ideal if you have all the tar files ready and waiting extraction in the sites/all/modules/ sites/all/themes/ and sites/all/libraries/ folders. Just run it in the sites/all/ folder, and then run back and rm -R *.tar.gz each folder to remove the tar files.
9. for i in *.tar.gz; do tar -xzvf $i; done – This piece of code extracts all .tar.gz files in the current folder. Leaving you to cleanup all the tar.gz files in the directory with a simple rm -R *.tar.gz
10. That’s it, done! Head over to http://yoursite.com/admin/build/modules and tick the check box next to the names of all the contrib modules you want to activate, save, and they’re ready to do your bidding!

I hope you find this time saving shortcut useful. The code is not mine. I found it on WebHostingTalk.com in a thread titled How do you untar multiple .tar.gz files? I was also helped along by a good friend who does not want to be named. Experiment and see what works best for you.

Summary

The Snow Leopard Graphics Update contains stability and performance fixes for graphics applications and games in Mac OS X v10.6.4.

Products Affected

MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009), MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010), iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009), Mac Pro (Early 2009), Mac mini (Early 2009), Mac OS X 10.6.4, Mac mini (Mid 2010), iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010), iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010), Portal, StarCraft II, Team Fortress 2

What’s included?

The Snow Leopard Graphics Update contains stability and performance fixes for graphics applications and games:

• Addresses frame rate issues occurring in Portal and Team Fortress 2 by Valve, on iMac (Late 2009 and Mid 2010), Mac mini (Early 2009 and Mid 2010), Mac Pro (Early 2009), MacBook (Early 2009 and Mid 2010) and MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) or MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010) models.
• Resolves an issue that could cause Aperture 3, or StarCraft II by Blizzard, to unexpectedly quit or become unresponsive.
• Resolves an image corruption issue that may occur when disconnecting and reconnecting external displays while the system is running.

PLZ LEARN: TPB CANT BE SHUT DOWN

LOL!

AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL. TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.

TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.

TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003

ColoursAlive is proud to announce that we’ve got two more websites out of our design workshop and into the wild for your viewing pleasure.

JeevaRaghunath.com is the website of acclaimed storyteller and childrens’ book writer, Jeeva Raghunath. She’s a bundle of energy when telling stories to kids. They just can’t get enough of her stories!

TalismanTattoos.in is the website of Chennai’s first Tattoo Artists, Amar and Nisha. They’ve recently started off their own tattoo boutique called Talisman, and are to teach interested students who are really interested, how to Tattoo.

Check out the websites and let us know what you think. Cheers!

Dear Sir / Madam,

So far I have had a very bad experience with your company’s billing department. I sincerly hope you are able to rectify this in the near future.

I have not received a single bill for my Reliance Netconnect Broadband connection right from the day that I first subscribed to your service (over four months). This has resulted in sudden deactivation of internet service to my datacard on two occasions, putting me through great inconvenience.

Though I first complained some time in early January about non receipt of a bill, the situation has not yet been rectified. Each month, the first indication that my bill’s due date has passed is a phone call from one of your collection agents stating that my bill date has not been paid.

Each time a complaint is taken, I am informed that I will receive a copy of my bill within 3-5 working days, but the bill does not come. On what basis then, am I to pay the amount you quote on the telephone? How am I to know the details of what I am paying for? I have, till date paid up the amount quoted to me just because I needed the internet re-connected. This time I assure you that I shall not make a payment till I receive a bill.

The operator on the phone tells me that your billing department states that the bill has been sent. They also say that  they called and spoke to me regarding this issue, but I have not received any phone call from any representative of your company. I urge you to look into the occurance of this mis-reporting that is happening as it is quite serious.

The latest of my complaints bears the number 121940180 which is a request for a bill to be sent to my postal address. I have also requested that you reverse ALL late payment fees that have been charged till date, and inform me of the amount; complaint number 121940279.

My next step, should I not receive an immediate response, will be to contact the Public Greviance Cell of the TRAI to inform them that your company has been negligent of standard billing and complaint-followup procedures.

My MDN Number is 0938xxxxxx0.
My Name is Susheel Samuel Chandradhas
My Address is

1xx, xxxxxxx Nagar,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Chennai – 600 xxx

My Phone Number is 9962028747.

I look forward to a speedy and permanent resolution to this problem.

Sincerely,

Susheel Chandradhas.

PS: This letter is also being posted on my blog. You can find it at http://www.coloursalive.net/2010/03/18/reliance-netconnect-broadband-billing-issues-an-open-letter/

Feel free to write in to us, and let us know whether you like our simple approach, or whether you totally hate it. We’d love to hear from you.