Month: November 2006

Digital Reality: Comparing Programming Languages in real life

 

There are so many programming languages available that it can be very difficult to get to know them all well enough to pick the right one for you. On the other hand most men know what kind of woman appeals to them. So here is a handy guide for many of the popular programming languages that describes what kind of women they would be if programming languages were women.

Source: Digital Reality: Comparing Programming Languages in real life

This article is funnier if you are male and have actually suffered while programming some of these languages.

GreatNews: The Intelligent RSS Reader

Link to GreatNews: The Intelligent RSS Reader

I was prompted to update my version of GreatNews when I started it today. The upgrade went great until I found that the whimsical css files provided by Maty no longer worked properly. I checked the forum and Maty had noticed it, too. Neither Maty or the forum moderator provided a fix. The 2 column design I was using showed a different colored background behind the text. This background overlapped other lines making it difficult to read. The problem I found appears to be related to the display:inline command. After some playing around I finally got everything to work. In my case I added a display:inline on line 78/79 and commented out the line 91/92. The rest of the changes are related to my desire to use a little larger font and fixing the layout issues of the two column design. Here is my diff file.

   1:  31c31
   2:  <     font: x-small Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-serif;
   3:  ---
   4:  >     font: small Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans-serif;
   5:  78a79
   6:  >     display: inline;
   7:  80c81
   8:  <     width: 48%;
   9:  ---
  10:  >     width: 45%;
  11:  85c86
  12:  <     width: 99%;
  13:  ---
  14:  >     width: 94%;
  15:  91c92
  16:  <     display: inline;
  17:  ---
  18:  >     /*display: inline;*/
  19:  106c107
  20:  <     margin: 20px 0px 8px 14px;
  21:  ---
  22:  >     margin: 20px 0px 8px 0px;

Accessing Windows Or Samba Shares Using AutoFS

Accessing Windows Or Samba Shares Using AutoFS

You already installed Linux on your networked desktop PC and now you want to work with files stored on some other PCs in your network. This is where autofs comes into play. This tutorial shows how to configure autofs to use CIFS to access Windows or Samba shares from Linux Desktop PCs. It also includes a tailored configuration file.

Link to Accessing Windows Or Samba Shares Using AutoFS

Site Explorer APIs from Yahoo! Search Web Services

Introducing the Yahoo! Site Explorer APIs

Gain a unique perspective on your online presence with Site Explorer APIs

Yahoo! Site Explorer APIs provide access to information about your site from the Yahoo! Site Explorer service. These APIs help you better understand your traffic and usage — querying for the pages in the Yahoo! index and the sites linking into a site. They will be useful to anyone looking for a good grasp of who is linking to you and to create an effective alternative to easily-spammed trackbacks.

Source: Site Explorer APIs from Yahoo! Search Web Services

After creating a sitemap I decided to explore the SEO features available from Yahoo since I got the impression that Yahoo supports the sitemap protocol. Lo and behold, the rumors are true and Yahoo looks like they are happy to use the same sitemap.xml that Google uses. The sitemap support for MSN is under development.

Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress v2 Final

 

This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.

More information what XML-Sitemaps are and how they can help you to get indexed by the major search engines can be found at Sitemaps.org and the searchenginewatch blog.

If you have questions about XML-Sitemaps or run into problems, have a look at my Google Sitemaps FAQ.

Source: Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress v2 Final

I just got finished setting this plugin up on three web sites. Google has been very good to the sites that I manage but I decided to see if I could help Google do a better job by using a sitemap. The key to making Sitemap really useful to Google is to dynamically create a new sitemap every time there is a change to the website and to tell Google that the sitemap has been updated.That is where this plugin comes in.

Two sites were plain WordPress blogs and the third site is a business site with a WordPress blog. The first thing I did was:

  1. Create a Google Account
  2. Add my sites
  3. Verify my sites

The next thing was to create a Sitemap. So I uploaded the Google Sitemap Generator plugin to the plugins directory and activated it. Then I went to the Options page for the Sitemap generator. For the two sites that are only WordPress blogs I accepted the default setup. For the business site with WordPress I needed to make a few changes. I changed the location for the sitemap.xml to put it in the root directory. Then I added the pages that are not part of WordPress before clicking on the Update Options button. Finally I clicked on the Rescan button. All of my scans completed without problems so I went back to my Google account and told it where to find my sitemaps. In about five minutes Google had analyzed my sitemaps.

After Google analyzes your sitemaps you can use its statistics pages. The data presented on the Google pages complement the data available via web statistics programs like Awstats. It will probably take me a week or two to figure out how much this helps or hinders my web sites.

Get Ready For Launch

It looks like Eric has been busy trying to encourage the partners to get ready for the Vista, Office 2007, and Exchange 2007 launches. I need to review these but I do not have time right now.

Set Up Ubuntu-Server 6.10 As A Firewall/Gateway For Your Small Business Environment

Set Up Ubuntu-Server 6.10 As A Firewall/Gateway For Your Small Business Environment

This tutorial shows how to set up a Ubuntu 6.10 server (“Edgy Eft”) as a firewall and gateway for small/medium networks. The article covers the installation/configuration of services such as Shorewall, NAT, caching nameserver, DHCP server, VPN server, Webmin, munin, Apache, Squirrelmail, Postfix, Courier IMAP and POP3, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and many more.

Link to Set Up Ubuntu-Server 6.10 As A Firewall/Gateway For Your Small Business Environment

I am almost curious enough to try this. Throw in a little Samba and you have a pretty good SBS competitor although it might be a tossup to use an inexpensive NAS box for the file sharing instead. The turn-off was the 11 pages of cut-and-paste instructions. Of course, the entire installation is done via the geek’s old friend, the command line. I guess my age is showing. I am spoiled with the ease of using Wizards to install and maintain computer systems.

phpWebSite 1.0.0 Stable Released

Download the stable version of phpWebSite 1.0.0 here. md5 73ae2b5868fc147c03018ea8d9061f8b

Link to phpWebSite 1.0.0 Stable Released

Time for me to start testing the new release. I still think its a neat product but WordPress is easier for some businesses.

Security Settings tabs do not respond after installing CSM on Windows2003/SBS 2003 with SP1

Solution Details
The Security Settings tabs do not respond after installing CSM on Windows2003/SBS 2003 with SP1.

I finally found this article. I do not use TrendMicro’s Dashboard very often but it has been a problem for me. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it would not work. I did not think I had done anything wrong but I was not sure. Since I push the lower limits of the hardware requirements on my server, I did not push the issue with TrendMicro. When I checked my “Web Sites” settings as indicated in this article, they were set to compress application files. So I unchecked the block and clicked OK. Now the Security Settings tab in Dashboard works consistently for me.

The SysInternals tools are now on microsoft.com

The SysInternals tools — including Process Explorer, Regmon, Filemon, and many more — are now available here on microsoft.com. A couple of major highlights include Process Monitor, a new tool that supersedes Regmon and Filemon, and the SysInternals Suite, which combines the whole set of SysInternals tools into a single download package.

In addition, check out Mark’s new TechNet blog, and the SysInternals blog.

URLs:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx
http://blogs.technet.com/MarkRussinovich/
http://blogs.technet.com/sysinternals/

Link to The SysInternals tools are now on microsoft.com

andy » ScreenGrab 0.8 (now with untested FF2)!

 

The FF2.0 compatible version of 0.8 is available

Source: andy » ScreenGrab 0.8 (now with untested FF2)!

This plugin does not install unless you modify the install.rdf file in the xpi archive. Here is how to modify the install.rdf file so that you can install ScreenGrab.

  1. I used 7-Zip to open the archive and edit the install.rdf file. You probably can do this with other zip-type programs.
  2. Near the bottom of the file you should find the field, “<em:maxVersion>1.6</em:maxVersion>”. Change the 1.6 to 2.0.
  3. Save the install.rdf file and close the archive. When it asks you if you want to update the archive, click on the Yes button. The modified xpi archive is ready to install.
  4. Open FireFox and then open the updated xpi archive via Ctrl+O or File-Open Archive. Follow the prompts to install the addon and restart FireFox.
  5. After FireFox restarts you should be ready to use it.

Free Download of Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007

Office Accounting 2007

Microsoft Introduces New Accounting Software and Services for Small and Home-Based Businesses

Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Microsoft® Office Accounting Express 2007, financial management software designed for early startups and home-based businesses that currently use pen and calculator or spreadsheets to run their operations. Office Accounting Express 2007 consists of desktop software available as a free download and seven integrated online services.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman

Microsoft Senior Manager

Small Business Community Engagement

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights

Link to Free Download of Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007

I downloaded this program and installed it on my Vista RC1 virtual machine. RC1 is my beta box. This program is a QuickBooks alternative so I should check it out. The installation program complained and said I needed to install SQL 20005 SP2 to avoid problems. They talk about SP2 but it is not available. Tomorrow I will import a simple QuickBooks company file and see what gets screwed up. Imports are typically pretty ugly. I thought I saw someplace a better time billing feature using the Outlook calendar.