LearnByDoingIT

  • Just a friendly reminder about things you already know.

     

  • lrgI really like my Safari Bookshelf from O’Reilly Books.  I just started Fitness for Geeks to see if they cover some of the topics that I am interested in.  A short list of Bruce’s goals includes how to:

    • Learn to live in the modern digital world and still be physically vibrant
    • Examine apps and widgets for self-tracking various fitness issues
    • Zero in on carbs, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals
    • Find and choose food, and learn when to eat and when to fast
    • Reboot your system through movement in the outside world
    • Select from more than a dozen techniques for your gym workout
    • Fuel fitness by focusing on the science of nutrition and supplements
    • Apply lifestyle hacks, such as high-intensity exercise and good stress

  • Get off your butt and make some tea if you want to live

    By Simon Sharwood, Posted in Science, 27th March 2012 07:11 GMT

    I am writing this blog entry at a standing workstation which a lot of people still view as an oddity despite the data provided in each study that is being published.  I realize this is published on The Register and that makes it always worth investigating, the study is remarkably similar to those I have reviewed before.

    A study of more than 220,000 people aged 45 or more has come to a startling conclusion: sitting down all day is killing you.

    The 45 and Up study compared mortality rates among those who sit for many hours a day and those who spend less time perched on their posterior.

    The study used “… questionnaire data from 222 497 individuals 45 years or older from the 45 and Up Study to mortality data from the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Australia) from February 1, 2006, through December 31, 2010.”

    The news is bad if you spend more than 11 hours a day sitting: your chance of leaving this plane of existence in the next three years is 40% higher than those who spend less time on their behinds. Even those who sit for just eight hours a day have a 15% “better” chance of death.

    The dangers of sitting are not only related to a sedentary lifestyle and obesity. The study also hints at more profound physiological issues created by sitting for many hours a day, as doing so means the body is deprived of many internal triggers that spark beneficial actions in the body. Even standing a few more times a day, the research says, can therefore improve health. Hence our plea for tea in the subheading.

    "Shorter sitting times and sufficient physical activity are independently protective against all-cause mortality not just for healthy individuals but also for those with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, overweight, or obesity," the study’s authors wrote in Archives of Internal Medicine, where the results of the study were published this week.

    If you’re sitting while reading this, what are you waiting for?

  • What would movies look like if they were entered as code?  Movies As Code has an answer.

    "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."

    Morpheus, The Matrix

    Raiders of the Lost Ark

    MoviesAsCode

  • A new installation error when installing Moodle 2, today I was working on Fedora 16 with Moodle 2.2.2+ and received this error on the Package Check Screen

    Installation error: The Zip PHP extension is now required by Moodle, info-ZIP binaries or PclZip library are not used anymore.

    The trick is that the Zip PHP extension was included in Fedora 15 but not Fedora 16.  There is an interesting discussion thread why.

    Not to worry

    Sam almost has the instructions right on, there is an assumption he makes without stating that you have php-devel installed, and he has an error in where the PHP modifications go as well as the command with systemd to restart the servers.

    Try this

    1. Install dependencies as root or using sudo:

    yum install pcre-devel gcc zlib zlib-devel

    1a. Install php-devel the same way, again as root or using sudo:

    yum install php-devel

    2. Install zip module using PECL (PEAR‘s sister):

    pecl install zip

    3. [Modified] Where you used to edit the main PHP configuration file to register the new module, now you create a zip.ini in the /etc/php.d directory.  Copy another one and remove its extension and add this text:

    extension=zip.so;

    4. [Modified] Restart your web server as root or using sudo:

    systemctl restart httpd.service

    5. Check that support is enabled using phpinfo(). You should have a section on your phpinfo() page that looks like the image below.

    Screenshot of zip support shown on phpinfo() page

    This should do the trick.