WebPageTest Error With HTTPS / HTTP2 Enabled Site

Last updated on by topcat

Symptoms

One situation I ran into when I migrated 1keydata.com to HTTPS with HTTP2 enabled was that I had an issue with the page load speed testing tools WebPageTest and GTMetrix. On both tools, https://www.1keydata.com/ failed to load, yet when I visit the site using a browser, the website loaded up fine. This is the first time I have seen a difference in behavior between these types of testing tools and a browser. Given the highly unusual nature of this difference, I decided to look into the issue further. Below is what the test result page on WebPageTest looked like:

WebPageTest Error Result Page

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WordPress Permalink Stops Working

Last updated on by topcat

I recently migrated to a new Linux server with a different version of Apache, and for a while I could not get the WordPress permalinks to work. After a lot of trial and error, I figured out what the problem was, and I hope the information I share here will help someone in the future.

Below are the relevant system information:
OS: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Web Server: Apache 2.4.18

What was the initial symptom?

The home page of the blog loaded OK. However, when I clicked on any link to go into any post, category, or month, I got a 404 error.

For those of you who wants to know the answer right away without reading through my journey of getting there, go to the Fix section.

Things I tried

I tried a number of ways to resolve this issue. They were as follows:

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Convert From HTTP to HTTPS Using CloudFlare SSL

Last updated on by topcat

I recently converted a website from HTTP to HTTPS using CloudFlare’s Universal SSL, which is free and does not require installation on the server, two factors that had prevented me from doing this previously. Here are the steps I took to convert my website to HTTPS:

1. Update all internal links to point to the HTTPS version of the asset. This includes the following:

  • Canonical URL
  • Internal links
  • CSS
  • Javascript
  • Images
  • External CSS resources such as Google fonts

Depending on how complex your website is, this effort could range from a few minutes (if you have a very small website) to a big project that takes several months (if you are a large enterprise). However, if you belong to the latter category or if you are doing ecommerce, it is a good idea to go with one of the commercial SSL certificates rather than getting SSL through CloudFlare.

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How To Convert Tape To Digital Format

Last updated on by topcat

I have a collection of over 200 music cassette tapes, and I have been going through the process of copying the contents of these tapes into digital format and storing them on my computer. This process is fairly straightforward, but it does take time. At the high level, what you need to do is to use a software program to record the music on your computer by playing the cassette tape in a tape player and connecting the tape player to your computer. Then, you can store the music on your computer in your favorite format.

Materials Needed

1. A cassette tape player.

2. A 3.5 mm male-to-male audio connector such as this one from Amazon.

3. An audio editing program called Audacity. You can download this program from the website.

Detailed Steps

1. Plug one end of the audio connector into the tape player, and the other end into your computer.

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Shellshock Bash Bug

Last updated on by topcat

Since the announcement of the Shellshock Bash bug yesterday, there has been a lot of confusion on what this is, and how it may impact people. At the high level, it impacts bash, which is a “shell” program for systems running on some flavor of Unix such as Linux. For those who are interested in the details, please visit the links in the reference section. In this post we want to discuss how Shellshock impacts different groups and what can be done:

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Heartbleed Bug

Last updated on by topcat

The Heartbleed bug has been all over the media this week. The reason it’s generating so much buzz is because of its potential large impact. Many large websites have this vulnerability, so pretty much everyone needs to change some, if not all, of their passwords to minimize the impact.

Many websites have come out and said that they have seen no evidence of any access or data breach. However, according to Codenomicon, the organization that announced this vulnerability, an attack may not leave any trace. Therefore, consumers have been warned to change their passwords just to be on the safe side.

There are several lists (list 1 and list 2) out there that show which websites were affected, and which ones were not. I was glad to see that Paypal and my financial institutions were not impacted. However, I did see that Yahoo was affected, and likely Google (Google announced that there is no need to change the Google Account password, though many experts still recommend that you do so) as well. All internet users should check now to see if they need to change the password to any site that they login to.

References:
www.heartbleed.com
heardbleedvirus.com

Tokyo Trip and 787 Dreamliner Experience

Last updated on by topcat

I recently took a trip to Tokyo, and I want to share my experience of the trip, which hopefully can be of use to some people.

Google Map Directions

First, I will say that Google Map directions will get you to the vicinity of where you want to go without any problem. If you use the “by Public Transit” option, it will show you the correct routes to take and the correct station to get off.

However, there are two problems:

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