Updated: PHP Uptime Function


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I wrote a PHP Uptime script a while back and I’ve recently gone to use it but found that it wasn’t actually working and never returned the correct uptime, so I’ve got round to fixing it up.

The PHP function displays the uptime of the server/computer in a human understandable format, unlike other scripts, it doesn’t output a mess of digits nor does it rely on possible unavailable commands, the only condition it needs is /proc/uptime.

The new script is more efficient AND actually working. It’s Linux only (the previous post incorrectly included BSD/Unix/Solaris) too.

PHP Uptime:

function uptime(){
  if(PHP_OS == "Linux") {
    $uptime = @file_get_contents( "/proc/uptime");
    if ($uptime !== false) {
      $uptime = explode(" ",$uptime);
      $uptime = $uptime[0];
      $days = explode(".",(($uptime % 31556926) / 86400));
      $hours = explode(".",((($uptime % 31556926) % 86400) / 3600));
      $minutes = explode(".",(((($uptime % 31556926) % 86400) % 3600) / 60));
      $time = ".";
      if ($minutes > 0)
        $time=$minutes[0]." mins".$time;
      if ($minutes > 0 && ($hours > 0 || $days > 0))
        $time = ", ".$time;
      if ($hours > 0)
        $time = $hours[0]." hours".$time;
      if ($hours > 0 && $days > 0)
        $time = ", ".$time;
      if ($days > 0)
        $time = $days[0]." days".$time;
    } else {
      $time = false;
    }
  } else {
    $time = false;
  }
  return $time;
}

The output looks like so

54 days, 8 hours, 27 mins.
1 days, 5 mins.
4 hours.

and just call it up with

echo uptime();

A Scoutstrap Update


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I’ve updated the documentation for Scoutstrap; it’s got a main page as well as a better design for the docs along with links to the source and download.

The Sun+


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Another UK national newspaper TheSun has decided to put up a paywall to read their online content which was kind of expected really.

I’m not a Sun reader but the idea of using a paywall to block people consuming all of your site content baffles me a little especially when their site is so slow and laiden with ads.

After fiddling around, it seems as though they haven’t done a very good job at implementing their paywall and could quite possibly be violating Google’s Advice on Content Cloaking and possibly other search engines policies; that is because the site detects your brosers Useragent and then serves content depending on your browser, in this case, they serve the entire articles to any browser with the UA string mimicking the googlebot where as any other standard UA is served the locked out content.
A little research into how you’re suggested to operate paywalls and still have good SEO is with the use of First Click Free (FCF) which allows users that have clicked your content from a search result to have access to the full article but not others; which is NOT implemented in The Suns site.
Finally to top this off they don’t set in the HTTP headers that the UserAgent will very the content either.
I wonder if Google will notice and penalise such a large brand name for SEO tactics that are heavily discouraged.

So in essence, to read The Suns content for free as though you have subscribed (bypass) all you need to do is change your useragent to the same as the GoogleBot.

Scoutstrap


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I’m currently working on a website for my local Scout group and I decided to use the excellent Bootstrap framework.

My issue was that bootstrap didn’t conform to the Scout branding guidelines. So I decided to extend the classes myself to bring the style of the site into the guidelines.

Once I got started I realised that others might find it useful; so I developed it into a separate style-sheet, wrote it in LESS to compile with Bootstrap nicely extend the classes.

So here it is!

Scoutstrap: A bootstrap extension to develop on-brand websites for the Scout Association.

It’s my first proper use of GitHub, GitHub Pages and LESS so any issues, then add it as an issue and I’ll get around to fixing/sorting them. This is aimed at Bootstrap Version 2.3.2 and not the recent Bootstrap 3.0 which I aim to develop for in the near future.

 

Remove password protection from Office 2010 Documents


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I was given a word 2010 docx document the other day to edit, only the issue was that it had protection added to stop people from editing it which I needed to remove.

I spent an hour searching for a document password cracker / remover with no luck until I happened across a post on spiceworks which gave a easy working solution to remove the password from the word 2010 file.

So here’s the solution, for future reference:

  1. make a copy of the original file
  2. right-click and rename the extension to zip
  3. extract the files
  4. open the extracted folder and look for word\settings.xml
  5. right-click and edit
  6. find a string with “w:documentprotection”, it’ll be after the “w:proofstate” group
  7. cut/delete the “w:documentprotection” area of the xml file and save
  8. drag your new settings.xml from the extracted folder to the zip folder
  9. rename the zip folder’s extension with the edited .xml file back to docx

LittleBobaFooFoo ~ Spiceworks Forum

this 100% worked to remove edit protection from word 2010 docx but it should work with any office 2010 file and as they share similar file structures, it should work with office 2007 too.