jQuery executes error function even on success (200) status

Just lost a couple of hours with this problems.

jQuery was executing an error function regardless the jqXHR status. A little bit about setup:
node.js + Express + Backbone + backbone.paginator + Underscore

After upgrading to Express 3.0 an application that was working without any problems stoped to work. Problem - jQuery was always executing an error function for all ajax requests. After checking the code, googling, reading, debugging, taking a lunch, debugging again and again I saw that I was using res.json() and not res.jsonp() (added in Express 3.x). Change of one line and everything is working back again.

So - if your node.js + express 3.x returns jsonp, please, use res.jsonp() instead of res.json()

MySQL PASSWORD() function in JavaScript

If you need to implement a MySQL PASSWORD() function in JavaScript - use http://code.google.com/p/crypto-js/#SHA-1 with 2 encodings.

Here is an example:

var password = "TestPassword";
var result = ("*"+CryptoJS.SHA1(CryptoJS.SHA1(password))).toUpperCase();
console.log("result : " + result);

Result will be *0F437A73F4E4014091B7360F60CF81271FB73180. If you check it with MySQL password() it will be the same:

mysql> select password("TestPassword") as result;
+-------------------------------------------+
| result                                    |
+-------------------------------------------+
| *0F437A73F4E4014091B7360F60CF81271FB73180 |
+-------------------------------------------+

Show hidden files on Mac

To show hidden files and folders in Finder - open terminal window and paste the following line:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Then relaunch Finder application (Option + right button click on dock icon, then select relaunch).

To disable showing of hidden files - do the same procedure with other string:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

Find directory with biggest number of files / directories

Today we had a problem related with a number of files in a directory. We needed to find directories with a biggest number of files / directories in it. Here is a small shell script that will list directories and a number of files/directories in each directory.

find . -type d|awk {'print "echo -n "$1".\"\t\"; ls "$1"|wc -l"'} > /tmp/do; . /tmp/do|sort -k 2 -n -r |more

Explaining it a little bit:

"find . -type d" - find all directories bellow current directory
"awk {'print "echo -n "$1".\"\t\"; ls "$1"|wc -l"'} > /tmp/do" - generate a script that will print a directory name (echo -n), make ls in this directory and count a number of lines from ls (wc -l)
". /tmp/do" - execute generated script
"sort -k 2 -n -r" - sort the result using second column (-k 2) as numerical (-n) and in reverse order (-r)

iPhone takes too long to sync

After changing a notebook I got a following problem. My iPhone was taking an eternity to sync with iTunes. I made a restore - no solution. I made a restore as new iPhone - same problem. After googling a little bit I found that this can be related with "Sync Photos" option. At the moment that I disabled "sync photos" - my iPhone was synced in a couple of minutes.

Problem: iPhone is taking too much time to sync on Windows 7.
Possible solution: Try to disable "Sync Photos" option.

VMware crashes after updating (upgrading) of host OS (to CentOS 5.4)

If you have in your hostd.log something like this:

Nov 07 21:19:12.648: Worker#23| Caught signal 6 -- tid 31543

this can be related with update(upgrade) of host OS.

After upgrading of a host OS (CentOS 5.3->CentOS 5.4) I got an issue - a guest OS started to crash. Searching around for a possible cause I found bug post in CentOS bug tracker. Seems that issue is related to glibc update (last version is glibc-2.5-42) and a fix is to downgrade to previous version on host OS (glibc-2.5-34).

To be sure that your downgrade of glibc worked - check the size of libc-2.5.so. I got an issue on downgrade (even with --oldpackage rpm was not willing to replace a libc), and that's why I lost some hours trying to figure out what is going on. So, be sure to check the size of the files after downgrade. It can save you some hours :)

Twitter tip

RT @ryancarson: Top tip: You can put a "+" on the end of any http://bit.ly link and see, real time, the pace at which that link is getting shared and clicked

VMware troubles

Well, I'm not a hardware guru, but from my experience I figured out the following:

Dell Servers + QLogic HBA + IBM Storage = troubles

Dell Servers + Emulex HBA + IBM Storage = working ok

Dell Servers + QLogic HBA + EMC Storage = working ok

Other one issue is:

Any server + Any HBA + Any storage - Fiber Channel Switch = troubles (unclean filesystem on Linux guests with EXT3 filesystem)

"Network Connection Closed Unexpectedly" error while using svn+ssh

If you got a "Network Connection Closed Unexpectedly" error while using svn+ssh (here is a nice HOWTO) then you should comment (or remove) "mesg y" in /etc/bashrc or in $HOME/.bashrc

Worked for me as a charm :)

iPhone speaker too low

Well, I got a simple accident - "Mozart Chocolate Liqueur" were split over my iPhone 3G. I quickly clean it out, but... Next day I noticed that my iPhone speaker was too low. I was not able to hear it ringing. After looking around for solution I found a post telling that this can be caused by dust. Seems that this is my case (ok, not dust, but a creamy liqueur...). 

So, I put some music on my iPhone and start carefully cleaning the microphone hole with a needle. After just a few holes I made on the "dust" - I was able to hear that volume had increased. So I finished up cleaning by putting a needle just a little into every tiny hole of the speaker protection and everything worked like a charm. My speaker volume came back to the normal level (or even louder).

Just in case that you have a doubt on which one is speaker and which one is microphone on your iPhone - here is a picture: