WordPress update on nginx => 503 error

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It was a routine update, you've done it a thousand times. You select the plugins that need updating, hit update, and browse away while its all happening. Big mistake. You have to stay on the WordPress page for the update to finish. Now when you go to visit any page on your site, you see … Read more

More Control Over Logwatch Report Dates

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I've been happily running Logwatch on several servers with the default 'yesterday' date range for several years. However I needed to run it for a client with a larger date range to check out a problem. But the options available for logwatch are only 'today', 'yesterday' and 'all'. Or so it told me. And even worse, the 'yesterday' option takes the date from the previous day, and pulls out all the info on that date. So if you run your logwatch report at 4pm, you're missing out on 16 hours worth of data! But it turns out logwatch is smarter than that …

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ZTE USB Modem on Linux. Send SMS, Check Balance

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Seems like a lot of the information on the internet about this is out of date, and there is much old and unmaintained software. Here's what worked for me. I'm running Linux Mint 17, which is based on Ubuntu 14. This should also work on Debian.
So I have a SmartBro modem, which I use when my main internet connection breaks. A lot of the time it sits in my drawer, and I just top up the balance every 3 months with 30 pesos, to keep the number active. I can send the loads via online bank account, or coins.ph, or from any cornershop Loadz person, but how to check the balance when you're running Linux.
I've struggled with previous GSM modem interfaces before like Gnokii, and SMStools. This is waaaay simpler.

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How to change the time anacron runs.

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Well this one took me a while to figure out, so I thought I'd blog about it in case I could save someone else some time. Anacron is installed on desktop / laptop orientated distributions as they're often switched off. It basically makes sure the daily, weekly and monthly cron jobs are run by checking … Read more