After uploading the (now smaller) Horde with our FTP client we can continue with

Part 2 The Database
Since without shell access we can’t use Horde’s setup (./scripts/setup.php) to do this for us we have to manually set up the database for Horde.

This step depends on your webhosters so i’ll just make it quick:
First create a database with your webhost, then find: hostname (often locahost), username, password, type (often tcp) and databasename for that database.

Now your webhoster probably offers some kind of management frontend (mostly phpmyadmin). There you navigate to your database and select the “SQL” tab.

In the editbox you will find there you have to paste some of the lines from the .sql file provided with Horde that matches your database. I use mysql so i used ./scripts/sql/create.mysql.sql.

Out host already created the database, the user etc. so we only need lines that create tables. In my file this would be lines 52 -> end (look for the first CREATE TABLE statement). Copy&Paste and press Submit. This should have given you no errors and created ~18 tables in your database.

In the next step we will create a basic configuration that allows Horde to run so we can do the rest of the setup from within it.

Because i don’t like the webmailer my host has chosen for me (roundcube) i decided to try installing Horde on the webspace that came with it.

This experiment will most likely fail because i don’t have shell access and the php installation is probably missing vital modules .. but what else is there to do on a saturday evening

Part1: Horde is f***ing huge!


du -sch .
108M total


I’ll start by making horde a little slimer…
This will give me all the folders with locales other than german or english (cd to horde first)

find -iname ??_?? -type d | grep -v de_DE | grep -v en_US | grep -v en_GB

and this will delete them

find -iname ??_?? -type d | grep -v de_DE | grep -v en_US | grep -v en_GB | xargs rm -r


The same for the “.po” files:

find -iname ??_??.po -type f | grep -v de_DE | grep -v en_US | grep -v en_GB | xargs rm -r



du -sch .
51M total

Half the size, nice :)

An onomatopoeical adjective based on the sound emitted when something is “oh so tasty” (either through hunger or flavorological value) that one gnaws through it without regard to cleanliness or etiquette.

While cleaning up my harddrive i found an old .txt i used to keep track of what i paid each month for internet access. Back then i used a modem, maybe ISDN later to dial to a local ISP, so essentially i paid a local phonecall, mostly in the evening.

These Prices are in German Marks, which back then was maybe half to two thirds of a dollar (date is in MM/YY form and the comma marks the decimal point, so first entry reads 62 Mark and 3 Pfennig)

07/98: 62,03
08/98: 190,66
09/98: 193,22
10/98: 174,92
11/98: 176,06
12/98: 231,59
01/99: 179,12
02/99: 207,84
03/99: 237,94
04/99: 238,27
05/99: 226,31
06/99: 137,04

Back then you had 56kbit with a modem or 64kbit with ISDN later and you had to make every minute count ;) All of this was to play Ultima Online in the evenings and i was still in school back then … kind of an expensive hobby :)
Comparing this to today’s DSL market really makes you cry ;)
You get 16mbit down 1mbit DSL up for 20 euros flat or even 50mbit down 10mbit up VDSL for 70 euros flat. Kids today have it way to easy! :)

Annoyed by the fact that I was “forced” to upgrade Wordpress by a security vulnerability I decided to simplify the process by using the anonymous subversion access Wordpress provides instead of doing the manual “delete these, keep these” routine.

It worked fine, currently I set it to the newest tag, but in future I might switch to the trunk, maybe then finally something breakes that I can then fix ;)

Title is once again inspired by a song I currently like, which was used as the music in this lovely “hooping” video: