Mounting HFS+ R/W in Linux(Debian)

Mounting an HFS+ system in Linux is not all that easy In order to succeed you must mount your HFS+ drive then run fsck.hfsplus on the drive/

Here is how it is down

Step 1 : in a terminal

apt-get install hfsplus

Step 2 : I assume your drive is attached/installed

In my case I ran a mount command to see if indeed I could mount it

mount -t force hfsplus /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

If this works then umount the drive

Step 3 : apply the hfsplus rebuild to the drive: on the termina

fsck.hfsplus

l write

 

The output looks like this

root@thinkpad:~# fsck.hfsplus /dev/sda1
** /dev/sda1
** Checking HFS Plus volume.
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalog file.
** Checking Catalog hierarchy.
** Checking Extended Attributes file.
   Incorrect number of Extended Attributes
(8, 3)
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** Repairing volume.
** Rechecking volume.
** Checking HFS Plus volume.
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalog file.
** Checking Catalog hierarchy.
** Checking Extended Attributes file.
   Invalid map node
(8, 0)
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** Repairing volume.
** Rechecking volume.
** Checking HFS Plus volume.
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalog file.
** Checking Catalog hierarchy.
** Checking Extended Attributes file.
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** The volume Backup_USB was repaired successfully.

Step 4: edit your /etc/fstab file

Add the following line to your fstab file

    /dev/sda1       /mnt/sda1       hfsplus  rw,user,noauto 0       0

Step 5:

reboot

Building a working and stable Gallery 3 media archive site

Ihave been toodling around with Gallery3 for some time. I spent an inordinate amount of time checking o photo-media gallery alternatives and came back to Gallery3. Many gallery server packages had shortcomings. I even thought ran WordPress for some days thinking that with all the media plugins I could build an archive with this very elegant tool. The packages I tested were, on the whole, incomplete, lacking in essential features, or both. Some, notablyZenphoto (disappointingly), were too darn slow. I have used Gallery1 and Gallery2 in thepast but the latter is too bloated and the former is ancient. I took the time to investigate Gallery3 and the claims made about the Kohana backbone. Yep. I think this is going to be a very good kit. For now though, it is still beta, so be warned.

Amongst the slew of gallery-media server packages, the mostpromising, and the one with which I stuck the longest, was LinPHA. However, I have finally dragged into the Trash bin because itis short on features but, more importantly, active development is as slow as a snail on asandy beach. 

After a couple of weeks ofGallery3, I am confident that I have found the right media archivingtool for the coming years. However, there are some shortcomings(still). For a Mac-iPhoto-Aperture user like myself, an exportfunction to Gallery3 would be just the ticket. I suppose I may have to find the time to do itmyself because, I am sure, the good chaps at Menalto are up to their eyeballs fielding bugs and requests.


I am running my Gallery3 on a toothless Tiger-G5 beast, lamentably short on memory and as noisyy as a steam engine in a tunnel. However, that being said, it does keep my shack from blowing away in the wind. 

Working Gallery 3 site 


Permissions on Gallery3
This is a tricky issue and can cause one to pull whatever little hair one has growing on the skull.
It seems that whatever else you must do, you must have the correct matching of the host name in the /etc/hosts file so that your domainname.tld is matched to 127.0.0.1
Hence, in my server, I had to this line


127.0.0.1  gallery.rego.im
I also had this
127.0.0.1<—–>localhost 


Now the pesky message to do change your .htaccess file and AllowOverRide  in the httpd.conf file is gone. Bleeding heck.

How to create drop shadows using only HTML/CSS

 

How to create drop shadow effect on text using only HTML

I wanted to create a shadow effect (example above).
My principal concern was that it would work on most if not all browsers. There are many examples of how this is done using CSS and various cryptic javascript commands which do not seem to work on all browsers. I turned to plain old html code which I could insert in my Gallery3 header.
Here is the code and how it works.

1. This is the first line or bottom text –  shadow text

1. This is the top line

Here is how it works …
Step 1: Change the position of the shadow text by moving it a little to right or left. In the case above I moved it sligthly to the left of the top text (which is in 2 px to the right of the shadow text therefore after “position: absolute; left:”  I changed it to 10px
Step 2: Change the position of the shadow text from the top to be sligthly offset from the top text. In this case the top text is 22px and the shadow text is 24px.
Step 3: I made the shadow higher  (47px versus 44px) 
Step 4: The font size is the same for both the shadow and top text. 
Step 5: Colours are changed by fiddling around with the “color:” code.

What is cool about this method is that by jigging around with the size and positionig you also get a glow effect.

Easy peasy!

Confluence of events

Sometimes the confluence of events are such that you must stop and reflect on how or why the universe works the way it does. Sometimes it, life or fate, is just too darn full of irony and snook-cocking that it is not to be believed.

I lost my battery-driven drill almost two years ago. It was a handy little devil, a Bosch PSR 300 LSI, covering 90% of my needs. When I started renovating the chicken house I decided to use screws instead of nails. I stocked up on tools (most of them were Bosch as I had had good experience with this brand over the years). I chose to use screws instead of nails because I have since learned that working alone on major renovation projects requires a extra pair of hands and since I only have two …. The thing is that clamps, screws with a trusty little rechargeable drill is just the ticket to succeed in almost any project (without that extra pair of hands).

I bought this handy sidekick at Bauhaus, drove home sixty kilometres, unpacked it and voila, the bleeding thing worked for 10 minutes and then stopped. I returned it but I had to drive sixty kilometres back to Bauhaus. No questions asked I was presented with another PSR300. I was reluctant to take a replacement of the same type but did so. I was supremely happy with the device for a good six months. Indeed it was the most handy and useful tool I have owned in quite a while. It fits in the hand perfectly and holds a charge for a long while – enough to give me half a days work. It has enough torque to drive 100 mm screws (into 2x4s. It even also charges very quickly.

Then I lost it. In the garden somewhere. I looked for it on many occasions, many. Indeed I became a bit obsessed with finding it. But it just stayed hidden, under a log, for almost two years.

This morning I found it. It looked as it did when I lost it (see pic). It had been out in the sleet, ice, rain and snow of Finnish weather for nearly two years. I picked it up naturally I squeezed the trigger. Lo it came to life. I perked up immensely thinking that fate was good to me today. I  had indeed searched high and low for this wee beastie, many times over the past two years, and in many nooks and crannies. Finally when I realized it was gone forever, I decided to buy another one.  I asked around at the many shops I frequent but the model had been discontinued shortly after its introduction. Pity.

I finished the renovation work this morning. Indeed I was cleaning up and had just run after the garbage truck to get in heave in the last trash bin liner into the back of the lorry. 

It was about 15 minutes after the run to the garbage truck that I found the drill. I then remembered that in the bin liner I had thrown into the garbage truck was the charger for the newly found drill. My elated cooing became vituperation. 

My cleaning up routine was ruthless. When I came to the PSR300 charger I thought that perhaps I should  keep it, just in case I found the drill. You never know, I told myself, but then I decided to bin it;  after all two years sitting about gathering dust is no fun. Besides, I reasoned, even if I did find the drill it would not work. Surely not.

Ah well. I picked up the drill squeezed the trigger and then decided to see if it could still drive a screw. It did. Damn nice tool. Why the devil did Bosch stop producing such a fine tool? Why the devil did I throw away the charger?  And why did I notice the garbage truck that morning when otherwise I never, ever see it. Argh!

The chicken house was a troubling mess. Built in 1921, it was ready to topple over and die a slow death.