2019

I’ve dropped 24kgs without really trying

December 23, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

I’ve been overweight for most of my life – still am but things are heading in the right direction once again 🙂 Friend Marko sent me a pic from Dec 2013 recently and I thought I’d try on the shirt pictured in the photo as I knew I’d dropped a fair amount of weight since then. Wow! – I could now button the shirt up which was impossible when I was at my heaviest (about 133kg). I’m proud and surprised I’ve dropped a total of around 24kgs – but it’s taken time and there have been no ‘magic bullets’ of…

A taste of Issan

December 18, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

With my ‘permission to stay’ date fast approaching, it was time again to head to the other side of the Thai border for a while. This time around, I decided to catch an AirAsia flight to Vientiane, Laos and stayed the night before heading south to visit a few places I hadn’t seen before in Thailand’s Issan region. I didn’t bother doing any sightseeing as I’ve done that a few times before – just grabbed a cab from the airport to the hotel and soaked up some of the local Beer Laos (cheap as piss!) while sitting outside a small…

Beer Uncle @ Paseo shopping mall

October 7, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

I think I’ve managed to find possibly the only bar in a shopping center in Thailand. Beer Uncle, located at Paseo Shopping Mall on Ramkhamhaeng Road, is a quaint spot with a couple of fridges full of craft beers which, it has to be said, ain’t the cheapest. But if you want to drink quality beers while the wife is looking at shoes and handbags, will you really be arguing about price? Husband daycare ain’t free, folks! Last Friday night after doing the shopping at Villa Market, I dragged the wife in there for a few and left 6 or…

Tech tedbits

October 4, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

Here are a few things I’ve struggled with this week. Javascript addEventListener I tried to implement a simple accordion using some code I found at w3schools but couldn’t get it to work (within WordPress) I had to resort to using jQuery and finally got the desired result using the following code:

<script type="text/javascript">
var $jq1 = jQuery.noConflict();
$jq1(document).ready(function($){
//alert("jQuery loaded");
//console.log("Running script to add event listener");
$(document).on("click", "#btn1", function() {
  this.classList.toggle("active");
    var panel = this.nextElementSibling;
    if (panel.style.maxHeight) {
      panel.style.maxHeight = null;
    } else {
      panel.style.maxHeight = panel.scrollHeight + "px";
    }
  });
});
</script>

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var $jq1 = jQuery.noConflict();

$jq1(document).ready(function($){

//alert("jQuery loaded");

//console.log("Running script to add event listener");

$(document).on("click", "#btn1", function() {

this.classList.toggle("active");

var panel = this.nextElementSibling;

if (panel.style.maxHeight) {

panel.style.maxHeight = null;

} else {

panel.style.maxHeight = panel.scrollHeight + "px";

}

});

</script>

I suspect the issue was either a JS conflict OR the DOM not loading fully when trying to add the EventListener. Note the above script needs to be at the end of the file, after the HTML for the button and panel. HTML table line-height This is something…

Surprise and Spoil

October 1, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

A surprise party .. yes they still exist Before we headed to Pattaya for the main event, we stopped off in Ban Chang to surprise a mate for his 60th birthday. It’s getting harder and harder to do these days, with instant messaging and all. I think we pulled it off as he seemed genuinely surprised. But then while he was probably expecting a quiet night in, he had to rush around and get music, drinks and seats sorted pronto. It was a fun Friday night. The beers were chilled to exactly the correct temperature, no mean feat given the…

The mysterious case of the high water bill

September 27, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

‘Town’ water is cheap over here, and billed monthly, thankfully (see why below). The bill usually runs to about THB 100 or a little more, and has been like that ever since we moved into this house. Five weeks ago we received a bill of 181 THB, which was nearly double the expected amount. Didn’t think too much of it, willing to ‘keep an eye on it’. Bad move! Here’s the tip – if you receive an unusually high water bill, your first move should be to check your water meter! (*sees wise heads nodding*) We didn’t 🙁 The following…

BSV into cold storage

September 26, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

Recently my digital exchange announced they were leaving the building. Shame, great platform and customer service. Well done, folks! Sadly, everything ends! BX to stop services at month’s end Move fires price slump on exchange The price of the cryptocurrency traded on bx.in.th fell by 3.6% as of press time on Monday and slumped below 200,000 baht per Bitcoin at one point. If you ignore the two hours it took me to realise what I thought was a thumb drive was actually an empty micro SD card reader, then yeah it all went pretty smoothly. What a stupid mistake! There…

FFS MySQL

September 25, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

I recently lost 2 hours of my life trying to change a MySQL root password. F.F.S !! If you search the interwebs, you’ll find the pundits recommending something like the following:

#stop mysql service

sudo service mysql stop

#steps to change mysql root password for mysql 5.7

sudo mkdir -p /var/run/mysqld

sudo chown mysql:mysql /var/run/mysqld

mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

mysql -u root mysql

update user set authentication_string=password('newpassword') where user='root';

flush privileges; exit;

#kill mysqld process

sudo mysqld stop #Takes a while!

# if above doesn't work, try:
# /usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p shutdown

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#stop mysql service

sudo service mysql stop

#steps to change mysql root password for mysql 5.7

sudo mkdir -p /var/run/mysqld

sudo chown mysql:mysql /var/run/mysqld

mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

mysql -u root mysql

update user set authentication_string=password('newpassword') where user='root';

flush privileges; exit;

#kill mysqld process

sudo mysqld stop #Takes a while!

# if above doesn't work, try:

# /usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p shutdown

For some reason, the mysqld_safe script wouldn’t run in the background even though the ampersand was definitely present. Control never returned to the foreground and I then tried connecting to the MySQL server in another shell and perform the password reset yet it didn’t work – the result being that the password was reset to a blank password. Not good. [Ed – Not a blank password – the…

Picture of the day

September 21, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

Nice eh? Lizard on a leaf in the garden. Didn’t think he’d stay there long enough for me to grab the camera..

Blog – meet PHP 7.3

September 21, 2019
By: TheCra1gster

Given I’ve recently been doing a lot of server-based stuff on the work front, I decided to share some love with this here blog by upgrading PHP to version 7.3. It really does seem to make a difference, performance-wise. Even though I’ve handled a few PHP 7.3 upgrades now, everyone is a little different, it seems. Here’s what happened this time: First, I added the repository reference

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt-get update

1 2	sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php sudo apt-get update

apt-get update failed, reporting a key error. I managed to get that one sorted using sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 4F4EA0AAE5267A6C then ran apt-get update again. All good! Then I tried installing PHP 7.3 using sudo apt install php7.3 php7.3-common php7.3-cli No…

Our trips together

The Serious Stuff

The Ramble