Month: April 2011

Disable Logging in an Apache VirtualHost

Synetech Leave a comment

VirtualHosts and logs are invaluable features of a web server. However, you may not always want to log things for every VirtualHost. If you simply comment out the logging commands of a VirtualHost, then transfers to and from the VH will be logged to the main (ie, parent) log file; commenting them does not disable logging for a VirtualHost.

If you want to disable logging for a VirtualHost, one option is to log to a file in a temporary directory that gets flushed regularly, but a better solution is instead to have it log to a non-existent file (nul in Windows, /dev/null in *nix/Mac), such as in the following—mixed example—commands:

<VirtualHost …>
…
ErrorLog nul
CustomLog "nul" common
CustomLog dev/nul referer
CustomLog "dev/nul" agent
…
</VirtualHost>

Windows Installer Error 2203

Synetech Leave a comment

After much testing, I have determined that the reason that I was experiencing problems installing drivers, software, or updates in Windows recently was because I had removed the user-level environment variables for TEMP and TMP even though they were still available via the system-level environment. Creating copies for the user environment fixed the problem (at least the installation problem, now there is the issue of redundant environment variables, but that’s not so bad).

Pet-Fur Usage: Circle of Life

Synetech Leave a comment

When the spring comes and the temperatures start to rise, cats and dogs start shedding their winter fur. To avoid having the fur come off little by little and stick everywhere, it’s more effective to brush them properly. This way not only do you get more of their shed hair off, but it is quality time spent with the pet as well; and it can be done while watching TV or something for people who are too impatient.

When you brush your pets, you’ll collect fair-sized chunks of fur from the brush. Instead of throwing these in the garbage, split them up into smaller lumps and toss them around the yard for birds to pick up and line their new nests for when they start having baby birds.

It seems strange that birds would bring cat fur into their homes since cats are supposed to be their natural predators, but they do, and it’s much softer than twigs and such. (It makes sense in a way: predators help their prey to survive and reproduce so that they’ll have something to prey on). Either way, it’s nature and the circle of life.