PHP escapeshellarg with unicode/utf-8 support

By default escapeshellarg will strip any unicode characters. You can in some cases solve this by setting the locale to a utf-8 variant, but that might not always work.

Another way to do this is to write a custom escapeshellarg function:

function mb_escapeshellarg($arg)
{
	if (strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0, 3)) === 'WIN') {
		return '"' . str_replace(array('"', '%'), array('', ''), $arg) . '"';
	} else {
		return "'" . str_replace("'", "'\\''", $arg) . "'";
	}
}

The code above is translated from the C source of PHP.

4 Jan 2012

Install a locale on Ubuntu 11.10

To see what locales are installed, run

locale -a

To see what locales are available for installation, run

less /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED

To install the en_GB locale, run

locale-gen en_GB

Tip: Leave out the charset and every charset will be installed for that locale.

4 Jan 2012

Change time zone on Ubuntu 11.10 from command line

It's actually very easy.

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Just run that and select where you live. Verify that the time is correct with the date command.

23 Dec 2011

Get back missing Photoshop from Adobe Bridge CS5.1

Today when I had finished post-processing some photos, I noticed that the Photoshop sub-menu had disappeared from the Tools menu. After searching the Interwebs and my computer, I found a solution.

20 Nov 2011

Get back Acer 3820TG eRecovery / D2D / Alt + F10

The first thing I did after unpacking my Acer laptop, was to wipe it and install a clean version of Windows. Little did I think of creating any restore DVDs; when would I ever need those?

Well, now I did. And after lots of searching I almost succumbed to Acer and order their rescue pack. Good thing I didn't though, since I've now found a solution.

Disclaimer: I do not take responsibility for any data loss or damage that may happen to your devices.

Note: You should first verify that you have the restore partition intact before you proceed. Fire up some partition manager and look for a partition that is ~13 GB, and invisible in Windows Explorer.

1 Sep 2011