Easy DNS mistake with TXT and wildcard records

I recently discovered that it's actually quite easy to get your DNs settings wrong and potentially take your site offline. Especially if you've got a lot of domains and subdomains. This issue is specifically to do with having a wildcard set up for your domain and also having TXT records for subdomains.
I thought I'd better share this to stop any one else making the same mistakes I have.

[SOLVED] Drupal db_query and date formats

Here's small issue I came across and didn't find many answers online. When using Drupal's db_query method to execute some SQL that contains dateformats in it the weekday always comes out as a zero.
for example:

db_query("SELECT DATE_FORMAT(from_unixtime(changed), '%Y-%m-%d') lastmod FROM node LIMIT 10");

This will return dates like 2011-09-0. The month day will always be zero. It will also match %s (seconds), %f (microseconds), and %b (abbreviated month name) Don't worry there's a simple solution.

[SOLVED] How To Stop XSL Outputting Unwanted Namespaces

CC Attribution Share-Alike 3.0

Unwanted namespace in transformed XML

I'm using XSL quite a lot now and several times I've had an issue with namespaces in the output XML/XHTML. In particular if you're using xpath-functions then you might have the xmlns:fn namespace finding it's way into your output. I've finally found the solution and though I'd better post it before  I forget it.

Lets see some an example of the problem.

[SOLVED] VPN: short read (-1): 'Message too long'

While working from home I've had a really annoying problem for a while now. I've set my VPN to only use VPN for local addresses. So normally surfing and stuff is fine.
But when send an email through the MS Exchange web interface, or browse a development site on the office network, my VPN fails with this message:

nm-pptp-service-7067 warn[decaps_gre:pptp_gre.c:331]: short read (-1): Message too long

It disconnects any SSH sessions using the VPN, and is generally very annoying.
Finally I think I may have got the answer....

Fixing Ubuntu 11.04 Partial Upgrade

I use Ubuntu at work and at home and normally the upgrade process is very smooth.
However, the upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04 has been a pain to say the least.
In fact I'm still grappling with it. (Haven't even started it at work yet.)

So I thought I'd share some tips to in case they might help anyone else.