entroducing.com – Page 2 – to prove that i have too much time

Block bad bots

by Benny December 13, 2016

written by Benny

Recently my website has been crawling to a stop with 508 errors.

And then i realised there’s a stupid bot keep crawling my website non-stop

And that stupid bot is called ‘Semrush’ and below is the access log entry

46.229.168.68 - - [05/Dec/2016:16:07:55 +0800] "GET /xyz.html HTTP/1.1" 301 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; SemrushBot/1.1~bl; +http://www.semrush.com/bot.html)"

And to block this bot all you have to do is to add the following entries to your .htaccess file

BrowserMatchNoCase Semrush bad_bot

Order Deny,Allow
Deny from env=bad_bot

deny from 46.229.164.
deny from 46.229.168.

The above codes will block both browser agent and as well as IP address

December 13, 2016 0 comment

Reviews

My New TV! Samsung Curved UHD TV UA65HU7200K Review Part 1

by Benny January 4, 2015

written by Benny

After few weeks of hesitation and countless visits to Best Denki, Expo and Havey Norman, I finally jumped into the curved TV trend in Dec 2014.

I rarely do review in my website as I know that there are countless review of other things that i have but for this TV model – there is not much review as it is quite new in the market.

I am not a professional TV reviewer so please do not take my review seriously. The feedbacks i provide here are basically from a normal consumer POV.

I will split this into several parts but before i start the actual TV model review, let me talk about curved TV in general.

Curved TV?

I did some research on curved TV before I bought this model and this is what others would think

If your screen size is 65 inch and below – you will not benefit from the curved TV.
You need to sit directly in front of the TV to benefit the ‘immersion’ of curved TV.
People sitting at the side will get disoriented viewing
Curved TV looks like shit if mount on TV

And below is what I thought after watching the TV for hours 1 month after i bought the TV

You barely noticed any difference if you sit in front or at the side of your sofa.

Trust me. After few hours of viewing, you dont feel any difference of the curved TV either

…sitting directly in front of it (However, if you observe carefully, the scoreboard is slightly curved)

or sitting at the side

Did you see any reflection for the above 2 pictures? Yes but not that much.

Curved TV does looks awkward when mounting on wall.

Not sure about your setup but my curved TV is ‘surrounded’ by my side cabinets and hence it does not look weird in my living room.

However, if you view it from the side, it does take up some space (approx 10-15cm) after mounting it to the wall.

And this is the allowance left for you to plug in the cables

I will stop my review here and will post more feedbacks next month as I will be going for a long holiday.

In the meantime, feel free to post anything that you wish to find out about curved TV or this samsung TV series and I will glad to cover that area as well.

January 4, 2015 0 comment

Networking

Using D-Link 865L as AC wireless access point for Asus RT-N66U

by Benny December 28, 2014

written by Benny

I got a superb wireless router which i bought 2-3 years back and it is Asus RT-N66U.
I recently switch to another ISP which gave me Dlink 865L wireless router but I really want to use my RTN66U as my default router.

I occasionally do some internal file transfer between my computer and my NAS and i hit the speed limit of the aging 5ghz wireless N band.

RTN66U doesnt support wireless AC but DLink 865L does.
So why not use 865L solely for AC band while using RTN66U for the b/g/n band?

This tutorial will teach you how to extend your existing router and use Dlink 865L (or other dlink routers i believe) purely for wireless AC.

First of all, connect your laptop/computer to the Dlink router only and do the following first:-

1. Disable UPNP.
Go to Advanced -> Advanced Network and uncheck ‘Enabled UPNP IGD’ or similar options

2. Disable wireless N and only enable AC band (optional if you still want to use dlink wireless features).
Under SETUP-> Wireless Settings -> Manual setup, disabled 2.4GHz Band and enable 5GHz Band. Set 802.11 Mode = Mixed 802.11ac. For my configuration, i select channel 44 as it is less congested in my area.

3. Disable DHCP server.
Go to SETUP -> Network Settings and unchecked DHCP Server option.

4. Update your Dlink router IP Address and set it as part of the network with your default router.

[See above screenshot]

My Asus RTN66U network configuration is as below.
IP Address: 192.168.1.1
Subnet: 255.255.254.0

Hence, i configure my dlink as:-
IP Address: 192.168.1.2
Subnet: 255.255.254.0

Configure IP address and subnet by going to Setup->Network Settings page.

5. Once you done the above, connect your dlink router (LAN port) to your default router LAN port. Note that you should connect dlink’s LAN port to your router LAN port. You should not connect to your dlink WAN port.

6. Reboot dlink and it is done.

Bonus: You can also use the other 3 LAN ports in your dlink router for other devices as well. Hence, saving the need to buy additional switch

December 28, 2014 0 comment

Coding symfony

Migrating Symfony1 to Symfony2: Weekend 1

by Benny July 21, 2014

written by Benny

Before i start, i am not a Symfony pro.

I have a day job and i am updating my website on my freetime (usually on the weekends).

Its been 2-3 years ever since i last update my other website.

Hence, this timeblog is not really for experts looking for answer here but more of keeping a record of how i update the framework so that i do not need to ‘re’-read the whole cookbook/tutorial again.

I hope you may find some useful information from my blog here. If do, please drop some comments here.

…

Read the overview and tutorial briefly from symfony website and its time to install one clean copy in my development machine

Installed latest XAMPP

And the composer

And as per Symfony’s instruction, enter

composer create-project symfony/framework-standard-edition path/ "2.5.*"

to install symfony framework to your machine.

Next, add the virtual host to your apache and get it started


&lt;VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:8000&gt;
ServerName www.hostphotocontest.com.localhost

DocumentRoot "G:/Websites/hostphotocontest/hostphotocontest_site_sym2/Symfony/path/web"
&lt;Directory "G:/Websites/hostphotocontest/hostphotocontest_site_sym2/Symfony/path/web"&gt;
# enable the .htaccess rewrites
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
&lt;/Directory&gt;

ErrorLog "D:/xampp/apache/logs/project_error.log"
CustomLog "D:/xampp/apache/logs/project_access.log" combined
&lt;/VirtualHost&gt;

Make sure the website(e.g www.hostphotocontest.com.localhost) is added to your hosts file so that when u load www.hostphotocontest.com.localhost in your local browser, it is actually calling apache 127.0.0.1 to load the symfony

OK. Website loaded but it keep showing error.
Right. Production is not setup yet. I need to load DEV environment instead.

Hence, i load http://www.hostphotocontest.com.localhost:8000/app_dev.php/ in my browser instead (read ‘app_dev.php’).

Website loaded. Installation is good.

And i spend the rest of the weekend in re-designing my website with bootstrap.

End of Weekend 1

July 21, 2014 0 comment

Coding symfony

Symfony 1 to Symfony 2

by Benny July 21, 2014

written by Benny

Finally have some time to update one of my personal website (http://www.hostpohotocontest.com) from Symfony 1 to Symfony 2 framework.

Below are the noticeable differences i encounter when migrating to Symfony 1 to 2.

I will update this list from time to time whenever i have the time and energy to do so.

The Good

The concept of the framework is similar to Symfony 2.
Unlike Symfony1, which multiple applications (e.g. frontend and backend) using the one single framework API, everything in Symfony 2 is bundles. The frontend twig, is a bundle, the framework is a bundle.
There is no ‘plugin’ concept. Everything is a bundle.
Twig looks good. Write lesser code for view layer.
Most of the generator are still available in Symfony 1
Composer makes installing third party bundles easy!
Want to overwrite or extend third party’s controller without updating their codes directly? Yes it can be done easily in Symfony 2. This is good in the sense that if you update third party bundles, you can be assured that your own ‘manual override’ codes still remain intact.

The Bad

sfguard is not available in Symfony2. Yes. its a nightmare to migrate this over, especially that the encyrption implemented in symfony 2 is different.
- I found a a replacement of sfguard = FOSUserBundle bundle. Will update my progress on this along the way
If you are using timestampable fields like me (i.e created_at, updated_at, deleted_at), these features does not come with Symfony2 by default, you need to install a DoctrineExtension bundle from STOF

The Ugly

You need to re-code everything over. The directory structure and the codes are totally different in Symfony 2.

And… I will keep track of the weekends i spent on re-writing my codes over.

Weekend 1

July 21, 2014 0 comment

magento php

aheadworks Blog not showing up or empty in Magento

by Benny June 11, 2014

written by Benny

I recently set up a new Magento website from fresh and then install a new theme follow by installing aheadworks blog extension.

Everything works fine until I installed the blog extension and I encounter a 404 not found page in backend.
I logged out and login in backend and able to see the blog admin page. Fine.

I then check out my frontend store and i couldnt see any blog link on top or bottom.
I tried visiting /blog page but it shows an empty page.

Googled online and found out that the extension only install the files to the magento default folder.
If you are using custom theme, you would need to copy them to your theme folder.
Below are the folders/files to copy

app/design/frontend/default/default/template/aw_blog
to
app/design/frontend/[THEME FOLDER]/default/template/aw_blog

app/design/frontend/default/default/layout/aw_blog.xml
to
app/design/frontend/[THEME FOLDER]/default/layout/aw_blog.xml

skin/frontend/default/default/aw_blog
to
skin/frontend/[THEME FOLDER]/default/aw_blog

Flush/Clear your cache and try again

June 11, 2014 0 comment

magento php

Mystery weird Magento behaviors have finally been resolved… due to base64_decode being disabled by web hosting!

by Benny February 11, 2014

written by Benny

For a few months after i have upgraded to 1.6.x and to current 1.8.x, i have been facing the following issues/behavior in backend admin

Searching by fields in every view(Sales, Order, Catalog, etc) are not possible. All searches will return all result back. It seemed as if filter is not working!
Dashboard graph is not working. It shows broken images regardless of any selection.
Reports that require to input a date range are not working. It keep showing ‘No Records’ even if i refresh the statistics
Even to the extend of doing fresh install of Magento (i tried 1.8.1) also gives the same errors above

And the clues i have are

phpinfo() shows that base64_decode has been disabled
Log files keep showing the following errors

Warning: base64_decode() has been disabled for security reasons  in MYAPP/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Helper/Abstract.php on line 365
Undefined index: title  in MYAPP/app/code/core/Mage/Reports/Model/Resource/Report/Collection.php on line 187
Warning: base64_decode() has been disabled for security reasons  in MYAPP/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Encryption.php on line 144
Warning: base64_decode() has been disabled for security reasons  in MYAPP/app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/controllers/DashboardController.php on line 95
I never thought that the base64_decode php functions would indirectly cause all the problems i faced until i recently ask my web hosting company to enable it back.

To my surprise, all the functions are working properly now and i have finally close this issue.
If you encounter the above behaviors or issues, you may want to check if base64_decode has been disabled by your web hosting company. You can do so by creating a php file with a phpinfo() in it.

February 11, 2014 0 comment