Recent Articles
Drupal Updating / Upgrading
Oct 30, 2009 Drupal, techno-babble Leave a comment
Updating or Upgrading Drupal is not an easy task. Compared to Wordpress, where the updating is simply a mouse-click away, Drupal requires you to do certain things that can take a bit of time in extremely extensive sites. I recently had to update my Drupal installation from 6.12 to 6.14
Now this being my first Drupal installation, and as much as I love this CMS, the updating process can be a pain if not following the instructions carefully. The instructions can be found in “upgrade.txt” file located in your drupal zip file, also you can find tons of instructions online. An excellent website learnbythedrop.com can help you out a lot if you are looking for tutorials on Drupal. Here’s the video I followed to help me update Drupal. Posting it here so that it can get more recognition on the web! They say you can fill an ocean, one drop at a time….
2012 — What’s up with that?
Oct 23, 2009 Thoughts and ramblings Leave a comment
Three youtube videos on the documentary “Everything 2012″ sure do make you go “hmmm.”
So what is the truth and what is going to really happen, I guess we will have to see. Why is it that prophecies always tell us what bad is going to happen to the world, how about the good things?
Watch the videos to see what I mean, and do give your comments about what is going to happen in 2012!
Part I
Part II
Part III
Sarve bhavantu sukhinaH
Oct 21, 2009 Hinduism Leave a comment
This is one of my favorite mantras to recite.
Sarve bhavantu sukhinaH
Sarve santu niraamayaH
Sarve bhadraani pashyantu
maa kash-chit dukh bhaag bhavet
Aum Shaanti Shaanti Shaanti Aum
Meaning
May all be happy.
May all enjoy health and freedom from disease.
May all have prosperity and good luck.
May none suffer or fall on evil days.
This mantra is for Peace invocation. It is intended to be recited for the welfare of humanity as a whole. The reason it is one of my favorite mantras in Hinduism is simple — the mantra is the most selfless prayer ever. You are not asking anything for you by reciting this, but rather the goodwill and welfare of everybody in the world is being prayed for. In my humble opinion, it is a representation of Hinduism, a non-violent, peaceful religion.
The BILZ new song — Against All Odds
Oct 20, 2009 Bollywood, Music Leave a comment
Sick track! Sounds awesome! and the video looks great!
Get it on iTunes!
Our perception of beauty
Oct 7, 2009 Thoughts and ramblings Leave a comment
Another video showing you the magic of information technology. Look at the girl carefully in the beginning and at the end.
Drupal 6 Installation issues
Oct 1, 2009 Drupal, techno-babble Leave a comment
Drupal 6 requires php directive “register_globals” to be off. This is not always the case depending on your hosting environment or even your own requirements as Drupal may not be the only thing residing on your virtual server.
There are several work arounds for the issue if you come across an error during installation asking you to turn “register_globals” off. It may work for you or it may not work for you, but the final one will definitely do the job. Just to be safe, try the fixes in the order below:
1. You can always add or edit the .htaccess file in your root directory with the following line:
php_flag register_globals off
This may or may not work depending on whether the apache configuration on your host allows directives to be fed through the .htaccess file. Find out more about .htaccess files by going to http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/htaccess/
2. So that didn’t work huh? Fret not, here’s another solution. Place a “php.ini” file in your root directory with the following line:
register_globals = 0
did that work? Basically you are telling php to initialize with the setting for your directory.
3. Wait, we didn’t cover the fact that you may be running your own server! Well if you are lucky enough to have your own server and control over your php.ini file, simply change the register_globals variable to ‘off’ in your php.ini file. More information can be found at the php website about how to configure your php.ini file.
4. You could also try adding the following line to your .htaccess file (it has been proven to work on 1&1 webservers):
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
This directive simply tells the server to use php5 for .php files instead of php4 (which might be the default for several webhosts out there)
5. Ok genius, nothing worked, now what? Yup, that was my case as well, nothing worked, seemed the host didn’t allow default settings to be changed. Well there’s always the “ask your hosting provider” answer. If you are so inclined to do so, send them an email and ask them how to turn the “register_globals” variable off for your particular site. They might not be of much help, but you never know. Or, (Yes!) there’s another method. You can simply tell Drupal to ignore it when installing. It requires you to change the install file located in modules/system directory called “system.install“. Go ahead and find the line:
if (!empty($register_globals) && strtolower($register_globals) != ‘off’)
and change the “!=” to “==” . The line should now read:
if (!empty($register_globals) && strtolower($register_globals) == ‘off’)
Curious to know what you are doing here? Well you are simply telling the system.install file change the “not equal to” to “equal to”. Basically, you fooled the system into treating a response which would mean that “register_globals” is “on” into treating it as “register_globals” is “off”. You will not get any more errors when doing the install now.
Now, remember, it is unsafe to have register_globals on. Your system is not fully secure if that directive is on. So if you are willing to take the risk, you can implement the solutions provided in this post.
Heer-Ranjha — The BILZ & Kashif
Sep 30, 2009 Bollywood, Poetry, Thoughts and ramblings Leave a comment
The BILZ & Kashif have come out with two new tracks recently, one of which was written by me (the Punjabi Lyrics that is), so ideal to post the song here and .. voila:
You can go ahead and buy the tune on iTunes, in fact get on it right now and buy it! Oh and look out for more songs written by yours truly for The BILZ & Kashif… their next album “Breaking Barriers” is rocking!
Here are the punjabi lyrics for the song (I’ll have to ask Kashif to give me a copy of the English lyrics so that I can post them here as well):
tu hai meri heer tera ranjha maiN deewaana
roke saanu koi vi roke, tenu chak lai jaanaa
roke saanu koi vi roke, tenu chak lai jaanaa
mitro o mitro vekho vekho kuRi diwaani
kinna mainu taRpaaNdi kinna mainu satauNdi
soni hai phabbat oNdi akhaaN vi maTkaundi
turdi o geet hai lagdi nachdi oNdi jawaani
[Kashif's part here]
tu hai meri heer tera ranjha maiN deewana
roke saanu koi vi roke tenu chak lai jaanaa
roke saanu koi vi roke tenu chak lai jaanaa
sajno o sajno vekho vekho kuRi diwani
haNsdi jad khil khil rabba dil nu mere sataundi
nachdi jad naal mere ishq di chaldi aaNdhi
mitro o mitro vekho mere dil di raani!
[Kashif's part]
tu hai meri heer tera ranjha maiN diwaana
roke saanu koi vi roke tenu chak lai jaanaa
roke saanu koi vi roke tenu chak lai jaanaa
Open Source CMS Comparitive Analysis
Sep 15, 2009 techno-babble Leave a comment
Are you looking for an open source CMS? There are way too many systems out there and everybody has its own choice, providing their own pros and cons about the various systems out there. I came across a nice report which I felt like sharing with others who may be visiting these open source demo sites with the same dilemma as myself, which one is best?
Link to the report:
http://www.waterandstone.com/downloads/2008OpenSourceCMSMarketSurvey.pdf
While you are at it, couple of other sites that may be of interest to you are:
http://www.opensourcecms.com/
http://www.oscom.org/matrix/index.html
If anybody reading this has any thoughts on the open source CMS systems, please share. I personally have liked playing with Drupal a lot.
Fearless
Aug 19, 2008 Thoughts and ramblings 1 Comment
Some movies teach you a lot about life, although they are meant for entertainment, movies are a great way, in my humble opinion, to escape reality for a few hours, just like video games, and I believe everybody needs that escape, people have different ways to make that escape, some like to listen to music, read poetry, write poetry, read books, watch movies, play video games, etc. And some of these things have big lessons for life. Fearless with Jet Li happens to be one of them (a movie I highly recommend). The biggest lesson this movie teaches is that life humbles you. Indeed, arrogance, pride, get you no where, life has a way of getting back at you. Unnecessary tragedies and undesired events can make you so humble. There are better things then personal arrogance and personal pride.
The movie was binding. The lesson in the movie is, again, in my opinion, needed to be taught to newer generations and perhaps older generation as well, heck people in general need to know that humility is important. Arrogance doesn’t only harm you, as a person, but has effects on your loved ones, your surroundings. And then, out of nowhere, life bites you back, a tragedy strikes, and you learn that your arrogance has simply made you unhappy, taken the most precious things away from you. It is true what they say, you don’t know what you have till it’s gone and when that precious person is gone, the errors of your ways become clear to you.
We all need a lesson in humility I believe. The “I” is not all that there is. There is a bigger “I” out there, one needs to realize it. To realize it is to know it and to know is to know God perhaps? I say that with a question mark because, believing in a higher power really is a question of faith and faith is not an easy thing to acquire. It is really hard to have that faith but I digress.
St. Augustine said – The sufficient of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
Don’t let life teach you a lesson and show you how vain it is to be egotistic or arrogant. Keep some humility. Be fearless, but be humble at the same time, find the balance.
