Adopt Python to manage UNIX® systems while incorporating concepts of good program design. Python is an easy-to-learn, open source scripting language that lets system administrators do their job more quickly. It can also make tasks more fun.

Keep your Drupal 5.x site up to date with Update Status module -

Thanks to the hard work of several contributors, drupal.org can now automatically provide information about the latest official releases of drupal core and any contributed modules. The Update status module can check this information to tell you if your site needs to be updated. While it does not have information about development releases or modules acquired via CVS, if your site uses primarily officially released modules, you can easily tell which of your modules need to be updated.

This module will inform you that you are out of date by visiting the main administration page, and another page displays the status of Drupal and your installed modules. For more information, there is a Frequently Asked Questions available on the update status project page!

[Drupal.org]

Over the weekend, I upgraded the server that hosts CMS Report with the latest stable releases of MySQL and eAccelerator. The upgrade from MySQL 4.1 to 5.0 was easy compared to the upgrade I made a year ago from MySQL 3.23 to 4.1. This time around I also have use of CPanel which meant I could make the database upgrade with at least one eye closed. My journey with upgrading from eAccelerator 0.9.4 to 0.9.5 however took a lot longer.

I've been using eAccelerator 0.9.4 since it was released early in 2006. I've gotten into some trouble in the past by those smarter than me when I tried to explain exactly what eAccelerator does and does not do. To play it safe this time around, I'll give you the summary of what eAccelerator does straight from eAccelerator.net:

Although MySQL 5.1 is still in beta, I have a feeling it will be making the headlines this week in many of the IT related publications. MySQL has officially dropped support for the BerkeleyDB engine. The following release notes for MySQL 5.1.12 (beta) may be of interest to BerkeleyDB fans:

Functionality added or changed:

• Incompatible change: Support for the BerkeleyDB (BDB) engine has been dropped from this release. Any existing tables that are in BDB format will not be readable from within MySQL from 5.1.12 or newer. You should convert your tables to another storage engine before upgrading to 5.1.12.

However, Brian Aker of MySQL has already responded in a few blogs letting users know that the changes do allow for the BerkeleyDB engine to be returned to MySQL through a third party plug-in:

We too have been seeing an increase in blog spam at some of our sister sites, especially those using Wordpress. Akismet, an anti-trackback spam group, is confirming the case in their own stats too. It looks to me that the spammers have declared a new war on many fronts. Our theory, there are a lot of lonely servers on the Univsersity campus in the United States that are just sitting there now that the students have gone home for the summer.

There has been a ton of buzz around the blogosphere about the huge spikes in spam the past few weeks, and we've been blogging about it a fair amount too, but I was getting tired of blogging the doubling every few days.

Now we have a pretty neat Akismet stats page which graphs out the number of spams and legitimate comments (aka ham) that we see each day. Check it out and be glad you're not having to deal with all that by hand any more. Posted at: Akismet

[Planet Wordpress]