Tuesday, June 22, 2010

"NextGen Gallery" No GD support!

 This one tried to make me crazy...

While setting up the very awesome NextGEN Gallery WorPress plugin.
I ran in to problems with the GD Library. The Gallery Overview page happily reported:

Graphic Library
No GD Support!

Wow. Not very helpful.

I finally found the answer (at least for Red Hat Linux)

Run this command:

root@myhost:/ # yum install gd-devel php-gd

Note: You should, run this as a single command, not as 2 separate install commands.
NOT:
root@myhost:/ # yum install gd-devel
root@myhost:/ # yum install php-gd
Why?
I'm not sure, but it didn't solve the issue until I ran the command correctly...

Thursday, June 10, 2010

BP Fail Whale

 - In case you need one...

Cloud still has a life cycle, we still need to follow it


Interesting article in FCW today about data ownership in the cloud. Good points made, but one thing about it stuck in my craw.

From the article:
Agencies and the public need to be confident that government data is properly secured within the U.S. and can be, if needed, properly destroyed.
 Wait, why are they using the phrase "and can be, if needed, properly destroyed." 

Using a public cloud will require that when you finish using a server, you ensure the data is no longer on the server.  It's the Disposal phase of the life cycle.

You don't simply turn off old servers and set them on the curb.  You ensure the drives are removed, destroyed or wiped clean first, right? The Cloud speeds up the life cycle but doesn't free us from the required steps. We still need to follow it all the way through. Disposal is an important step.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

FF mention -


Folks,
Doubtful many beyond us will even find this interesting, but it makes me happy.
I run a twitter account, @USAID_info.
As the profile states, it is an: Unofficial Feed of RSS news
I set it up back before USAID had a twitter presence in Dec 2008.
I set it up to tweet info from the various USAID RSS feeds, etc. via twitterfeed.com
Kind of a set it and forget it method, although I have to check it once in a while…

Anyway,
I was checking in on the account today and discovered this gem.
On Friday, whoever runs the @BarackObama twitter account mentioned 5 federal agencies in a Follow Friday tweet.
(I am not so naïve to think that the president is involved, although I can dream)
My Unofficial @USAID_info account was one of those mentioned.
Not too shabby.