Every once in a while you may need to install a specific version of a package on your system. If you're using the yum package manager, it isn't blatantly obvious how to do this, even after pouring over the man pages.

So let's do this thing.

First, if you've already installed a newer version of the package, you'll have to downgrade it. ...

Platforms:
any *nix distro

What You'll Need:
Samba

In a heterogeneous LAN it is often useful to resolve network addresses by a computer's name (ie. netbios name). This is especially true if the LAN does not have a DNS server so that host names can be used instead of IP addresses (which if ...

AJAX communication between the client browser and web server is a handy method of transferring data without forcing the user to refresh the page. Typically, the data sent to the server is a simple set of form fields or flags. However, it is also possible to submit more complex structured data. This tutorial will demonstrate 3 different methods used to ...

By default, your keyboard's numlock enabled number pad doesn't work well with console applications running on a PuTTY SSH connection. The numpad's numbers seem to get mapped to inserting the characters "q" thru "y". This is especially annoying when using vim.

To get numlock working, open PuTTY's configuration window, goto Terminal > Features. Enable the "Disable application keypad mode" checkbox.

If you ...

Sometimes you need to execute a really long process after displaying a web page. For example, you may need to evaluate the data a user submitted, and that operation may take a lot of time. And since you're a thoughtful programmer, you don't want make the user stare at a blank page while they ...

Platforms:
any Linux distro

What You'll Need:
Postfix 2.2+
cyrus-sasl 2.1.19+
email account

A typical email scenario: you're a developer, and you've got a development Linux box at home. You need to be able to send emails from your code or cron jobs, but you're too lazy to set up a full fledged email server on your ...

TortoiseSVN is an excellent Subersion client for Windows. By default, TortoiseSVN makes noise when it encounters a warning or an error. This almost made me crap a brick when TortoiseSVN failed on a commit and I forgot I had my speakers cranked to eleven.

TortoiseSVN does not have an internal ...

What You'll Need:
grep 2.5.3+

I can't count how many times a day I use grep. It is an indispensable tool for searching the contents of configuration files, data files, and source code.

One of the annoying side effects of grep is when searching a Subversion working copy recursively, all the hidden .svn directories ...

Did you register a domain name with GoDaddy? Did you use the "free hosting credit" to setup your website's hosting? Having problems getting the visual editor to work on your new Wordpress blog? Then join the club - GoDaddy's infamous injected ads break the Javascript code that makes the TinyMCE visual editor work. Luckily, it's fixable, and here's how.

The Symptoms

There are quite a few things that can cause the Wordpress WYSIWYG editor ...

Indenting lines of programming code is essential for readability. Indenting multiple lines at once is a feature that any useful code editing software should have.

As a programmer, I went far too long not knowing how to do this with vim (one of my favorite editors). It's so easy, even Mike Tyson could do it. And he never learned to read.

1. Enter VISUAL LINE mode by holding and hitting the "v" ...
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