Month: February 2007

One-pixel table border with CSS

Problem

I want to have a one-pixel one-color solid border around a table and its cells. Adding border="1" to the table tag isn’t suitable, because it looks horrific in most of the browsers.

Source: One-pixel table border with CSS

I was confronted with this same problem in phpWebsite. I was using a table to display the pedigree of a horse with the border set by using border="1". I am not sure what it was doing but it looked pretty ugly. His solution for a default one-pixel border looked pretty simple and elegant and I was determined to figure out a way to use it.

table
{
    border-color: #600;
    border-width: 0 0 1px 1px;
    border-style: solid;
}

td
{
    border-color: #600;
    border-width: 1px 1px 0 0;
    border-style: solid;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 4px;
    background-color: #FFC;
}

When I tried to use this code as the default definitions for table and td elements used by phpWebsite I found it affected multiple areas I did not want changed. I needed to refine its use via selectors and the ID selector was my first choice. I had used the Class selector before and it involved a lot more work adding it on table and td elements. The design of phpWebsite uses section templates for creating formatted content on web pages. So I added the above CSS code to my site CSS but prefaced it with the #mytable ID so that I would override the default table definitions only in #mytable blocks. Then I created a new section template to wrap a <div id="mytable"> around the existing content. All I needed to do was go back and update the existing sections containing the tables to use the new template. Within a fairly short time all of my tables had their ugly border replaced with a simple 1 pixel border.

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Trend Micro 3.5 ActiveUpdate Server setting

From the SBS2K group at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sbs2k/

Hello,
> What they don’t know is that I turned the server off for a
> day, and that one desktop is still being updated.
The Clients will update, automatically, from the Internet if they cannot communicate direclty with the CSM SMB server. We have changed this to be the default behavior in 3.5. You can check this here:
Security Settings | Select a Group | Configure | Client Privileges | Update Settings
[x] Download from the Trend Micro ActiveUpdate Server
It is now enabled by default in 3.5 and above.
> because he understands that it should be able to run on
> the Windows XP Pro system.
Prior to GM release we run a final check called FCSE, First Customer Ship Experience, and I personally did the following on Windows XP Professional and had no issues.
2.0 upgrade to 3.5
3.0 SP1 upgrade to 3.5
3.5 New installation
Let me check with Support on this issue.
Regards,
William Kam
Product Management
Trend Micro, Ltd.
https://SMB-PORTAL.TRENDMICRO.COM (External User Group Portal)

Although I am running version 3.5 on the company server, I did not think my laptop was updating until I connected with the local network via vpn. When I checked my configuration I found that the setting to allow the client to update from the ActiveUpdate server was not enabled. It is now enabled since I prefer to have my laptop up to date.

My experience with Trend Micro has been mixed. I run Client Server Messaging Security for SMB version 3.5 on our company server. I generally have had good experiences with the client. Major client updates can get a little hairy. My experience is that all of the anti-virus vendors are okay but the other vendors are a little more intrusive. The most serious problems I faced occured with the server interface under version 3.0. Several SBS consultants said they were staying with 2.0 until the interface situation improved. SP1 improved the situation somewhat. I found the interface to be quirky but workable since clients do not access it and I did not need to use it very often. I upgraded to version 3.5 from 3.0 SP1. It took a long time to upgrade but it worked without a problem. The server interface has improved. It is stable and a joy to use.

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E-Bitz – SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS "Diva" : Getting an "Event ID 5" error on "DefaultAppPool"?

 

Getting an “Event ID 5” error on “DefaultAppPool”?

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Active Server Pages
Event Category: None
Event ID: 5
Date:  14/05/2004
Time:  4:32:55 AM
User:  N/A
Computer: 001DC001
Description:
Error: The Template Persistent Cache initialization failed for Application Pool ‘DefaultAppPool’ because of the following error: Could not create a Disk Cache Sub-directory for the Application Pool. The data may have additional error codes..

Try these fixes:

A. Add the NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE account to
C:\WINDOWS\Help\iisHelp\common with “Read and Execute,” “List Folder Contents” and “Read”.

B. Add the NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE account to
C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\ASP Compiled Templates with Full Control.

C. Add the NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE account to C:\WINDOWS\IIS Temporary Compressed Files with Full Control.

Thanks David S. for the suggestion! 🙂

Source: E-Bitz – SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS “Diva” : Getting an “Event ID 5” error on “DefaultAppPool”?

Event 5 is more of an annoyance than an error so I implemented this today. I do not know how long I have had this “error” but the only symptom is this error message. I restarted IIS and I did not get the error message. My final test will be when I reboot.

Cleaning up ISA routes

ISA Server detected routes through adapter WAN that do not correlate with the network element to which this adapter belongs. For best practice, the address range of an ISA Server network should match the address ranges routable through the associated network adapter as defined in the routing table. Otherwise valid packets may be dropped as spoofed. (This alert may occur momentarily when you create a remote site network. You may safely ignore this message if it does not reoccur.) The address ranges in conflict are: 172.16.255.255-172.16.255.255;.

While I was fixing problems I decided to clean up this configuration error. I have a DMZ that uses IP addresses, 172.16.0.0 through 172.16.0.255. Evidently ISA needs 172.16.255.255 so it inserts a route on the WAN adapter for it and then complains about the route being in the wrong place. I added this single address to the DMZ network and this configuration error went away.

Microsoft ISA 2004 crashes and burns

Yesterday was a miserable day. We lost power for eight hours due to an ice storm and I spent most of the day taking care of business in the barn since our employees were not going to make it in. When I finally got some time to look at my server, it was complaining that it was running low on disk space on the OS partition and that an external drive I was storing volume snaps had been forced down. Microsoft had just let loose gobs of patches. So late in the day I decided to clean up the server.

  1. I deleted the tmp files that had caused the disk space problem.
  2. I deleted the old apps I have been meaning to remove but hadn’t got around to it.
  3. I applied the patches and reboot.

Then the fun began. The Firewall service crashed with the following message.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Microsoft ISA Server 2004
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 2/15/2007
Time: 11:03:56 AM
User: N/A
Computer: myserver
Description: Faulting application wspsrv.exe, version 4.0.2165.610, stamp 442d48f1, faulting module w3filter.dll, version 4.0.2165.610, stamp 442d48dd, debug? 0, fault address 0x00094cff.

This did not seem too serious until I realized that my workstation could no longer see the server. My search of the internet came up with nothing so I removed the most recent patches and rebooted. It still failed. The server’s browser could not get to local https sites and the LAN card was showing no incoming traffic. This was getting pretty ugly.

The symptoms on my workstation were ugly, too. All of the programs(e.g. TrendMicro and Firewall client) that regularly communicate with the server were not communicating with the server. When I ran ipconfig, it showed that DHCP was not working. The LAN card status showed that there were no incoming packets. Fortunately I can let this server be down for awhile, so I went to bed.

Today I searched the internet for some more clues. I found a reference for a similar problem that pointed me in the direction of the ISA cache and it recomended disabling BITS on the ISA Cache rules. That didn’t work. Since I was out of ideas I decided to disable the cache. I started the firewall service and it worked. Just for kicks I enabled the cache and started the firewall service again. It worked! It must have been something in the cache.

Blockquote problems with paragraph spacing in the visual editor

I decided to turn off the visual editor in WordPress today. It has an annoying habit of removing the <p> and <br /> tags when you switch to the code tab. This would not be a problem if it did not remove the blank lines inside a <blockquote> tag, too. This problem occurs when you start out on the visual tab, go to the code tab, return to the visual tab and then go back to the code tab. The second time you go to the code tab the blank line disappears. The end result is a paragraph with all of the sentences bunched together in one paragraph. Yea, it looks pretty ugly. I cannot see how this could be per design, so I submitted this as a bug.

I found that if you use the manual editor, the <p> and <br /> tags and the line spacing get stored with the post correctly. This change should work out for me since I write most of my posts using LiveWriter and I use the manual editor primarily to tweak the html.

The problem that started me on this merry chase was a subtle line spacing issue with paragraphs inside a blockquote. I did not know that my CSS for paragraphs inside a blockquote used margin: 0px; and this margin value removed the blank line that normally follows a paragraph. Changing this code to margin: 0 0 15px; restored the normal paragraph spacing. Of course, the source of this problem is obscured if the visual editor keeps stripping out the <p> tag.

NY Times owner – Print version irrelevant or gone in 5 years!

Newspaper pictureArthur Sulzberger is the owner and chairman of the New York Times. And he has now shocked us all by telling an Israeli newspaper “I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either.”Let me repeat that so you don’t miss the magnitude of that statement! “I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either.”

Update: Here’s a link to what seems to be the original newspaper article.

Sulzberger says the site development costs for the Internet are nothing compared to the huge print investment costs. Furthermore, he said, “…we live in the Internet world…” indicating that the paper is going to have to learn to survive there. It’s the future, and he realizes it.

For fans of e-readers this is especially exciting news. It would seem to accelerate the race for e-reader devices and content systems that can adequately collect and present daily and weekly publications. Clearly, such delivery mechanisms are in their infancy, but with so much at stake so soon, there will surely be a lot of activity and technological advances.We might find that UMPCs and e-ink both gain a lot more traction as this newspaper revolution begins.

From UPI, via a tip from Pride of Lions. Thanks!

Link to NY Times owner – Print version irrelevant or gone in 5 years!

About twenty years ago I was taking a course for my MBA in which we did a competitive analysis of the newspaper industry. We concluded that it was on an irreversible decline when compared to the competitive advantages of the other media. This was before the Internet! I watched with amusement over the years how the newspapers have adapted to the onslaught from the different media services. Local newspapers, local radio, and local TV stations have shown remarkable agility in targeting their advertising market. For local businesses the advertising opportunities offered by local newspapers, local radio, and local TV are still the most cost effective way to market certain products. The price of local advertising has gone down in response to the lower market share but there are certain segments of the population that are not reachable via the Internet. The local media organizations have responded by making their organizations more efficient and agile. As long as there is local advertising revenue and local media is willing to adjust their prices in response to completive pressures, they will continue to find ways to survive another day.

Large “national” newspapers have a more severe problem as they compete more directly with both national TV news and the Internet. As an example I was an avid reader of the Wall Street Journal for many years. It taught me a lot about business. About ten years ago I dropped my printed subscription because the Internet version was more convenient. About two years ago I dropped my online subscription primarily because I could read most of the information it felt was significant from free news sources. The breadth, depth, and quality of the news available via the Internet is truly amazing. National and international news was the domain governed by large “national” newspapers and the major television networks. The news available via the Internet has a significant competitive advantage over these media outlets and has forced these organizations to assume a lesser role. This lesser role along with other demographics has translated into lower subscriptions and advertising revenue. Eventually these organizations will have to re-organize to confront the realities of the smaller advertising market segment they serve.

Printed newspapers will continue to decline with the biggest impact occurring on the large “national” newspapers because of their competition with national TV networks and the Internet. I believe that the “national” newspapers will eventually revert to local newspapers due to cost issues and the competitive advantages of the Internet. First hand reporting on national and international issues by these large organizations will be the first to feel the change in business direction. The need to reduce costs will out weigh the need for first hand reporting. Someone else will have to provide this service. This change will be painful but necessary if they are to survive. Despite these competitive pressures I doubt printed newspapers will disappear any time soon.

Outlook by the sound : RPC server is unavailable since SP1

 

I finally called Tech Support and we found out that there is a hotfix out related to RPC Issues in ISA 2004, also there is an “SBS Protected Networks Access Rule” . Rt click it and “configure RPC protocol and uncheck the “Enforce strict RPC compliance”. This will allow DCOM to pass.

Source: Outlook by the sound : RPC server is unavailable since SP1

Okay this should not be that difficult but I found a way to screw it up. I started to suffer these problems when I installed SP1 for SBS Premium  in 2005(?). The most prominent symptom of this problem is that you suffer Autoenrollment errors on the client and 537 login audit failures on the server. The 537 errors are kerberos errors but they are particularly ambiguous. This was an annoying problem in my case but surprisingly everything still works. From a different source than the one listed above, I unchecked the “Enforce strict RPC compliance” box. The problem is that there are two boxes, one in the System Policy and another the box on the “SBS Protected Networks Access Rule”. I unchecked the box in the System Policy and it did not fix my problem. So I spent a lot of hours after installing SP1 trying to figure out why I was still getting errors. Over the last two days I have been rebuilding my desktop computer so I made another attempt to clear up this problem. Lo and behold, I found this in one of my searches. Unchecking the box on “SBS Protected Networks Access Rule” appears to have fixed the Autoenrollment errors and 10009 DCOM errors on the client. It also fixes the 537 audit failures on the server.