While trying to perform a command-line merge with subversion recently, I encountered one of the best indecipherable errors that I have seen for a while:

subversion/libsvn_ra_dav/util.c:826: (apr_err=160005)
svn: REPORT request failed on '/svn/eta/!svn/vcc/default'
subversion/libsvn_ra_dav/util.c:389: (apr_err=160005)
svn: Cannot replace a directory from within

Turns out that if you see that error, you should replace all the ‘:’ characters in your subversion command with ‘@’ ones and all will be well…

How to move Windows XP or Win2K user profiles to a new drive: that was the problem that I had to solve recently at a client’s site. They had what I assume is quite a common scenario - An older computer on which they had filled up the hard disk where windows was installed. As large hard disks are now cheap, they had bought a new one, but not wanting to go through the whole Windows reinstallation thing, they just installed the new drive in parallel with the old one, moving a few files across to the new drive to make some space on the system drive.

However, as Windows updates got installed (leaving all their rollback files on the system drive) and with user’s profiles still on the system drive (where their temporary files were getting stored as well), the system drive rapidly filled up again, causing stability and booting problems. In this case, the situation had been made consisderably worse by their having partitioned the original disk - an old fashioned approach that is rarely of value nowadays - and which reduced even further the space available on the system drive.

The obvious solution was to move the windows profiles to the new drive, but when I tried to research it, I didn’t find an immediate solution. However, I eventually succeeded, and these are step-by-step intructions on how I did it…

I have been working with autogenerated Hibernate 3.0 mapping files and objects recently, and this note describes (maybe not the best way, but) at least one way to use them in a project with Eclipse and Subversion.

This note contains two tips on how to manage Hibernate files in this environment in a way that allows periodic regeneration while reducing the work that has to be done each time that happens.

• Tip 1 — How to separate project source from generated files
• Tip 2 — How to regenerate files without breaking Subversion!

JMeter is a really useful load testing tool. It is not a record/replay one, but it does allow the creation of functional tests very quickly, and the tests can also be easily modified to test subtly different behaviours. It can be downloaded from JMeter Home Page.

Ignoring the user interface (which, is my opinion, is one of the best adverts for not using Swing to build a UI), there is one particular gotcha that I’d like to highlight. The setup for this gotcha goes like this:

1 Since version 1.9 it has been possible to create a Module Controller. This contains no functionality itself, but acts as a symbolic link to another test controller that is held in a ‘library’ area in the test. This allows you to rapidly reconfigure your test plan between a number of options.

In Drupal you can set the system up to have 2 separate roles in the creation of a website - those who create the content (writers) and those who decide exactly what gets published on the site (publishers or editors). To get this to work on a Drupal site is not as easy, or as obvious as might be expected although there is the added bonus that you can define this behaviour separately for different types of content.

This is a document that I have produced which is a PDF version of the ZenCart FAQ pages. It combines all the Frequently Asked Question pages from the ZenCart website into a single, easily printable, document. It also aims to improve the formatting of the documents to aid readability.

To view the latest versions of these FAQs, go here.

The UK Government recommends a set of standard keys for all websites to use. These are triggered by pressing Alt + the access key on Windows or Control + the access key on Macintosh. These are their recommendations.

When you install the indexpage module, the title of the indexpages generated is 'index page for flexinode-1' for any created flexinode data types. This is less than ideal.

The problem is that the page heading is actually taken from the text used for the menu entry in the sidebar (regardless of whether that menu is shown or not). These entries are written at some point during the indexpage initialisation, but then not modified if the flexinodes are renamed.

The solutions is to change the text of the menu entry. If the menu module is not enabled you will have to enable it to make this change - you can disable it again afterwards. Once it is enabled, go into 'administer/menus'. You will find the incorrect page headings under 'main index page'. If they are disabled, you will have to enable them to edit the menu item, and then disable them again.

If, as site administrator, you change the input formats available, you should be aware of the possible side effects of this behaviour.

Removing the availability of an input format type to a user group may have a serious effect on articles already written by that user. This may have a particular effect if you remove the default of 'filtered HTML' (which you will want to do if you are using a WYSIWYG editor such as TinyMCE which writes HTML incompatible with the filter).

The result of removing the option is to make those articles un-editable - the 'edit' tab will be removed. The only solution is to go into the database and edit the 'node' table.

To transfer article ownership in Drupal from one person to another:

1. In the 'users' table, locate the 'uid' of the users that the article(s) need to be transferred from and to.
2. In the 'node' table, locate the articles that need to be transferred, note down the 'nid' value(s), and change the 'uid' field to that of the new owner.
3. In the 'history' table, locate the entries that match the article 'nid'(s) and the old users 'uid'. Change those that match to the new 'uid'. Note that where you get a unique key conflict, the older timestamped entry should be deleted.