Oldstone Place

Stattraq is one of the better statistics plugins for Wordpress. Unfortunately due to the changes made in recent versions of Wordpress, the installation link in the plugin description gives a permissions error.

You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.

This happens because the stattraq-install.php is not included in the $_registered_pages[] array, so user_can_access_admin_page() in wp-admin\includes\plugin.php doesnt allow access to the install code.

To fix it, you can either add the stattraq-install.php hook to $_registered_pages[], or simply add another menu item. To add another menu, edit the stattraq_menu() function near line 170 in wp-content\qp-stattraq\stattraq.php

function stattraq_menu()
{
    if (function_exists(‘add_menu_page’))
  {
    // add_menu_page(‘Stat Traq’, ‘Stat Traq’, 8, ‘../wp-stattraq/’);
    // add_menu_page(‘Stat Traq’, ‘Stat Traq’, 8, ‘../wp-content/plugins/wp-stattraq/index.php’);
    add_menu_page(‘Stat Traq’, ‘Stat Traq’, 8, ‘wp-stattraq/index.php’);
    add_menu_page(‘Stat Traq’, ‘Install Stat Traq’, 8, ‘wp-stattraq/stattraq-install.php’);
    add_action(‘admin_head’, ’stattraq_admin_css’);
    }
}

Google’s Liquid Galaxy is a series of eight LCD panels surrounding the viewer in a wraparound view of Google Earth. You can get really motion sick flying around the globe but it is very cool.

OmmWriter for the Mac is a wonderfully simple text editor designed to help you relax and focus on your writing without distractions.

Aptana 2.0 no longer ships with Aptana PHP or the Database tools included by default. You need to install the PDT plugin for PHP development, and the Quantum Database plugin for managing database connections.

To install the Quantum Database Utilities, in Aptana open Help > Install Additional Features. Under Featured Plugins, select Quantum Database Utility and click Install. Select the features and click Next. Click Next again, accept the license agreement and click Finish. When installation finishes, restart Aptana.

Use the same process to install the PHP Development Tools (PDT) and the PHP Debugger Binaries. I also installed jQuery Support.

To add a database bookmark, open the Quantum DB Perspective. If you don’t have the icon for this perspective already, click Window > Open Perspective > Other and select Quantum DB. Right-click on the (Internal) Derby bookmark or click the Add Bookmark icon in the Database Bookmarks pane.

If you haven’t already, add the MySQL JDBC driver by clicking Add Driver. Click Add External Jar and locate your jdbc jar file, you shoud have saved it in /Library/Java/Extensions. Click Browse and select com.mysql.jdbc.Driver then click Ok then Finish.

Back at the New Bookmark dialog, select the MySQL JDBC driver and click Next. Enter your MySQL username and password. Leave the hostname and port as is, then enter the name of the database. When you click Finish you should be able to browse your database tables.

The functionality of Quantum DB Utilities is disappointing. Apart from browsing tables and manually enter SQL statements, the only editing functionality is table data. phpMyAdmin is more useful.

It is fairly easy to install the JDBC adaptor on a Mac, you just need to know where to copy the jar file.

Go to MySQL Downloads and download the ZIP archive of the latest stable release of MySQL Connector/J. At time of this writing this is version 5.1.

Assuming this file was downloaded in a folder named /Users/Shared/Downloads/ then you will follow the following instructions.

Expand the zip file (if not already done by your browser). Inside this file there are other files and folders including the .jar file which in this case is named “mysql-connector-java-5.1.10-bin.jar”.

Now open Finder and navigate to Macintosh HD > Library > Java > Extensions. Then drag the .jar file from the zip folder to the Extensions folder.

If you want to conceal your computers address from external eyes, then the Tor-Privoxy solution below may be what you’re looking for.

Sharing Files Anonymously

If you want to upload or download files anonymously, there are services that mask your computer’s IP address for a small fee without significantly reducing your bandwidth. The cost is usually a monthly fee or the purchase of a special software product. These services include anonymizer.com, The Cloak, and A4proxy. TorrentPrivacy for example charges from $2.95 for a week up to $99.95 for a year for SSH 128 bit encryption. Mute Anonymity is a non-profit project dedicated to the P2P downloading community.

Web surfing and Email anonymity

If you want to bypass the oppressive controls in your country there are free proxy servers available around the Web. But the most reliable choice is a special two-part freeware solution by the EFF to protect democratic freedoms of citizens. This solution consists of Tor and Privoxy.

Tor is a special network of web servers run by the EFF and many volunteer server administrators. Privoxy is the software you need to connect to this Tor network. Tor and Privoxy hide your IP address by bouncing the data packets around several internet servers called Tor Onion Routers.

Tor and Privoxy are not perfect and they do not guarantee your privacy, but they do help reduce your exposure to surveillance and make you more difficult to track.

Please note, the Tor-Privoxy network was designed to protect private citizens personal privacy, not for downloading copyright data. Do not abuse the system by turning it into a P2P downloading avenue.

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RealBASIC is a cross-platform (Mac, Windows, Linux) development tool available in a trial version. Price ranges from ¥9,900 for the Personal Edition, to ¥118,000 for Real Studio.

FBtoC creates Mac OS X universal applications (Mach-O executables) from FutureBasic projects. FutureBasic is freeware.

Chipmunk Basic is an old-fashioned freeware Basic interpreter which runs on almost all Apple Macintosh computers. It uses a traditional command-line console.  Supported features on Mac OS X include color graphics, sprites, sound (including Quicktime MIDI sounds and morse code), speech synthesis, matrix ops, AppleScript, network sockets, pipes, serial I/O, and even some rudimentary OOP (object oriented programming) capabilities. Versions are available for System 6.0.7 thru Mac OS X 10.6, for systems from very old Mac 512Ke’s, up thru the latest Apple iMacs & MacBook Pros.

Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. Sponsored by Novell, Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing community is helping position Mono to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

Palm has launched a public beta of their IDE for writing Mojo apps for WebOS. The whole thing is browser based — it works in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox — and looks pretty slick.

Project Ares is the first mobile development environment hosted entirely in a browser, lowering the barriers for web developers to jump into mobile development.