du -h /path/to/directory

Which recursively lists all files in the directory in human readable forms. These are the switches I find most useful:

du -skhc /path/to/directory

- c, –total

Produce a grand total

-h, –human-readable

Print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)

-k

Use SIZE-byte blocks, equavalent to –block-size=1K

-s, –summarize

Display only a total for each argument

find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

Change permissions on all files, starting with files in the current directory:

find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Node.js HOWTO: Install Node+NPM as user (not root) under Unix OSes

These instructions worked perfectly to install NodeJS and NPM on Ubuntu as a non-root user.  Huge props to Tom Novelli.  Respect.

When I followed those instructions, installing tar went fine, but installing Node failed.  Here’s how I made it work:

Install Node.js v0.8.17

1. cd $HOME/src
2. wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.8.17/node-v0.8.17.tar.gz
3. tar -xvf node-v0.8.17.tar.gz
4. cd node-v0.8.17
5. Using your favorite editor, open the files configure and tools/install.py from the node-v0.8.17 directory. Change the first line #!/usr/bin/env python to #!/usr/bin/env python2.7
6. alias python=python2.7 (Note: you can check your current version of python with python -V)
7. ./configure --prefix=$HOME
8. make
9. python tools/install.py install

Win!

(Credit for step 9 goes to: http://orion98mc.blogspot.com/2012/08/two-hours-ill-never-get-back.html)

Uninstall Node.js

1. rm -r ~/lib/node
2. rm -r ~/bin/node

Anyway, I had a bunch of sequentially named image files that needed to be renamed.  Here’s how I did it in the terminal:


INDEX=0

done

Given a directory full of files with names like foo_image_00001.jpg, foo_image_00002.jpg, etc.; this renames them to a more manageable slide-0.jpg, slide-1.jpg, etc.  Win!

In the terminal, go to the _s directory and do:

1. find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 perl -pi -e "s/\'_s\'/\'mytheme\'/g;"
2. find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 perl -pi -e "s/_s_/mytheme_/g;"
3. find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 perl -pi -e "s/_s\b/Mytheme/g;"

Encode

1. Install oggenc: $ sudo apt-get install vorbis-tools
2. Encode: $ oggenc -q 6 input.wav -o output.ogg

The HTML:

<audio controls="controls" preload="auto" autobuffer autoplay id="player">
    <source src="http://alialujah.com/files/3513/2641/1365/a-house-a-home.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" />
    <source src="http://alialujah.com/files/3813/2648/7285/a-house-a-home.ogg" type="audio/ogg" />
    Aw dang! Your browser does not support html5.
</audio>

To enable url rewrites, go to System > Configuration > Web > Search Engines Optimization > Use Web Server Rewrites and choose yes.

Copy the following into a blank file and save it in the root of your Magento install as “.htaccess”:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Ed. Note 9/8/11: LiveCart made me a liar.  Turns out its broken, the community is non-existent, and the documentation is incomplete.  After struggling with PHP error after error for hours yesterday, I’ve given it up and my search for an eCC compatible shopping cart continues.  I remain impressed by Opencart though, and I’m hoping like hell that I get Quickbooks integration through consolibyte. I found them through the Opencart forums and their web connector is in beta. Here’s hopin’!

But not because it’s the best.  Its just the only one that actually works with eCC and Quickbooks.  The reason?  Variations.

Variations are everything

Quickbooks gives all items (the QB name for products) a unique item number. Variations on a product (like size and color) also get an item number. So if I am selling widgets, I would go into Quickbooks and add a new item called Widget, and Quickbooks would assign Widget item number 1. I have all different kinds of widgets so I’d leave the inventory amount at 0. Now I have to add a style (QB’s word for variations) for each kind of widget I’m selling. I have large widgets and small widgets and they come in green or red. So I add a style for each combo, large red, small red, large green, and small green.

When I save and look at the list of all my items, I find that I now have an entry for Widget with no styles, and an entry for each widget combination. Large red widgets are item number 2, small red widgets are item number 3, and so on. Quickbooks treats every variation as a unique product, which makes a lot of sense when you think about how hard it would be to track inventory otherwise. Unfortunately of the three carts I tested (Opencart, Livecart, and Prestashop), Livecart is the only only that works like this. And this is essential. So Livecart it is!

But Opencart was soooo good!

If Quickbooks integration wasn’t an issue, the winner would be Opencart by a mile. It’s really nice to use. The admin area (and the frontend while we’re at it) was super fast and just beautiful. Adding products and variations was a breeze. The workflow was so smooth and well thought out. Everything just made so much sense! I can’t say that about Livecart or Prestashop, which are both pretty slopping in comparison.

Code-wise Opencart was a big stand-out as well. No smarty templating to deal with, the code is clean, and the directory structure makes sense. Themeing is straight forward. All in all an exemplary MVC application. If only I could use it!

Never seen that one before! I fixed it by following tristanC’s advice on this forum post.

Just edit /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir.conf and add Options as the last argument on the AllowOverride line. Then restart Apache and you’re golden!