Author: Bill

Comodo™ Free Firewall Software Download

Comodoâ„¢ Free Firewall Software Download

I have been using the latest  version is 3.0 for several weeks now but have decided to go back to the previous version. Although the latest version has several new features that increase security, it does not allow me to make a VPN connection. I found the problem when I was trying the beta version but it still does not work in the released version. The released 3.0 version is too buggy for me. Today I got fed up with the crashes and installed the old version.

Configuring Subversion to use Apache SSL

My plan was to create a subversion repository on a Linux box(CentOS) to support the configuration files I use with a virtual machine running Groundwork Open Source. This took much longer than I expected. This procedure was more complicated than usual since the latest version of CentOS requires you to create a self-signed certificate the old way since genkey and crypto-utils are no longer available.

The first step is to install subversion and configure Apache. I installed subversion and the Apache server module, mod_dav_svn, using the package manager. 

  1. I wanted one repository.
  2. I wanted to see the projects in it by typing http://myserver.com/repos/.

My initial stumbling block was figuring out where to put the repository. After fumbling around looking for a recommendation I settled on /usr/local/svn as a logical choice. So I opened a terminal window as root and created the repository, repos, with the following command:

svnadmin create /usr/local/svn/repos
chown -R apache.apache /usr/local/svn/repos

Next I imported a template directory structure with subdirectories for branches, tags, and trunk that I use for all projects.

svn import project1 file:///usr/local/svn/repos/project1 -m "Initial import"

To configure Apache to support subversion you need to edit the /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf file. The biggest problem I had with the example in the subversion manual was figuring out that I needed to use SVNPath statement rather than the SVNParentPath statement. These are the changed I made in this file.

  1. Change the location to /repos.
  2. Added the statement SVNPath /usr/local/svn/repos
  3. Followed the directions in the subversion manual to set up basic http authentication.

After restarting the httpd service you should be able to browse the repository using your web browser. The final step was to set up the web server to support SSL using a self-signed certificate. I found several tutorials out on the web. They all follow the same general procedure.

  1. Generate your private key
  2. Generate your Certificate Signing Request
  3. Generate a new key from your private key without a PassPhrase. You need this to start apache web server without prompting.
  4. Move the certificate and the insecure key over to the /etc/httpd/conf directory and change the permissions on the files so that root is the only one who can read them(i.e. chmod 400).
  5. Edit the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf file and tell it to use the new certificate and key file.

The tutorial I used was at http://www.xenocafe.com/tutorials/linux/centos/openssl/self_signed_certificates/.  The only change I made to this procedure was to add the “-new” parameter when I was creating a CSR. After restarting the httpd you should be able to browse your repository using https://myserver.com/repos/.

Obay Home » Blog Archive » Installing VMWare Player on Ubuntu

If you get the following error message:

/usr/lib/vmware-player/bin/vmplayer: /usr/lib/vmware-player/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2)

Apply the following fix

mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0.disabled
ln -sf /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0
mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1.disabled
ln -sf /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1

Obay Home » Blog Archive » Installing VMWare Player on Ubuntu

Yup, this works for Centos 5. I upgraded to Server 1.04 today and had to go back and fix things again. This is a different fix than the fix I used previously where I renamed the file and let Vmware find a suitable library. I am guessing that both solutions probably end up using the correct library but this solution looks like it is a more direct approach.

Windows Live Writer: Out of Beta

Thank you to everyone who tried out the beta releases of Writer over the last year and gave us feedback. Over 1.5 million of you downloaded our last beta release, and your input helped make Writer the product it is today. 

Our goal from the start has been to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone. Today, we’re proud to announce that Windows Live Writer 2008 is now available!

Download Writer 2008
Windows Live Writer 2008 (version 12.0.1366.1026)

Yea! I have been using this almost exclusively for my posts.

Windows Live Writer: Out of Beta

WordPress 2.3.1

WordPress 2.3.1 is now available. 2.3.1 is a bug-fix and security release for the 2.3 series.

2.3.1 fixes over twenty bugs. Some of the notable fixes are:

  • Tagging support for Windows Live Writer
  • Fixes for a login bug that affected those with a Blog Address different than
    their WordPress Address
  • Faster taxonomy database queries, especially tag intersection queries
  • Link importer fixes

…

The part that interested me the most was the tagging support for Live Writer. After a little research I figured out that I did not need to anything except refresh my blog account. To test this feature I created a new post and placed my tags in the field at the bottom of the Live Writer window called keywords. After publishing my post the browser confirmed that the tags were correctly entered. That is simple!

WordPress 2.3.1

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part7)

Every web designer finds it handy to have a collection of code snippets such as javascript effects, pieces of html and widgets that they incorporate into their designs. Lets take a look at recent examples of these …

This is an interesting collection of snippets that I need to investigate further. The creativity in web development never ceases to amaze me.

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part7)

Tracking down the cause of a 537 login problem

Recently I re-installed my desktop software on to a different disk drive and I started getting several event ID 537 error messages in the server security log. The workstation was not showing any operational problems so this is a low priority problem. The biggest problem is that the shear number of errors distorts my server monitoring report. Its annoying me about a non-critical problem. Somewhere in my past I had fixed this problem but unfortunately I could not remember how I did it. In fact I am not sure I ever knew how I fixed it! This particular error occurs with a status code of 0xC00002EE. Microsoft has an ambiguous explanation for this error message. Suffice to say there explanation was not helpful. Yesterday I got annoyed enough to solve the problem.

If you search the web for the 537 event ID, you will find several proposed solutions. Here are some of the solutions:

  1. Check to see if your workstation has a different time than the server.
  2. Remove HP printer monitoring software.
  3. Remove network interface card monitoring software.

None these solutions applied to me so I had to dig deeper into the problem.  The first thing I found out was that these errors appeared in clusters of three at periodic intervals. It looked like something at the workstation was triggering this error at periodic intervals so I started browsing the event logs on the workstation for an error at this time. I found that the automatic certificate enrollment was failing. Hmm….

When you look at the error message for the automatic certificate enrollment, you can see that it was failing because the “RPC server is unavailable”. So I cranked up the certificate snap-in and saw that the computer did not have a computer certificate. I also figured out that I could trigger the enrollment error by manually asking for a new certificate. Although there are a lot of causes of enrollment errors, I quickly focused on problems related to the ISA 2004 server and the RPC filter. ISA is a great firewall but sometimes it can be over protective. One of the recommended fixes was  to turn off “strict RPC Compliance”.  So I disabled that option, restarted the ISA firewall, and manually asked for a certificate. No Luck! I got the same error.

The next trick that some people advised was to disable the RPC filter in ISA. So I disabled the RPC filter, restarted the firewall, and manually asked for the certificate again. This time it worked and I have a computer certificate that is valid for a year. I enabled the RPC filter and restarted the firewall to put everything back to normal.

This morning I checked the log file on both the server and the workstation. Both log files look normal. The errors are gone and no new errors have appeared. Since I believe that I am running a fully patched ISA server, the RPC problem is a curious problem. For kicks I checked the date on the rpcflter.dll. It looks like the latest and greatest version so I suspect that the RPC problem probably lies elsewhere. Oh well! At least I know how to get rid of the problem for a year.

Importing invoices into QuickBooks using AutoIt Script

For several years I have successfully used the QuickBooks IIF format to import bills, checks, and employee hours. I have been less successful with invoices and I was unable to import payments. Several times I considered writing a C# or VB program to import the data but I backed off because it looked like it would take too much time. I looked at AutoIt but felt it would have a steep learning curve, too. Yesterday I decided to give AutoIt a try and after a couple of hours I was able import both invoices and payments.

Since I am the treasurer for a Habitat for Humanity affiliate I have a strong need to make sure our mortgage tracking system is kept in sync with QuickBooks accounts. I use an Excel spreadsheet to reconcile mortgage payments we record in the specialized system with the actual bank deposits. This is where I find the errors since we use one person to record the payments and another person to record the deposits. For each mortgage payment I must allocate it to principal, escrow, and late fee. If everything works fine, then both systems have the correct values for each individual home owner’s mortgage and escrow accounts. I set up an invoice for the principal owed when the home owner closes on the house. Every month I enter invoices for the escrow and late fees due. Habitat does not charge interest. On an average month I need to enter 30 to 40 invoices and 30 to 40 payments. As you can see, I have a vested interest in seeing that this project be quick and accurate.

The present script is a work in progress. I feed the data into the script via a VBA macro I created in my spreadsheet. The macro writes out the payment values as AutoIt code onto a new worksheet. Then I paste this code into my AutoIt script, save the script, and run it. Crude but effective. The code for the invoice screen was pretty straightforward and I am letting it run automatically. The code for the payment requires human interaction since I must allocate the payment to the different invoices. It pre-fills the payment screen and then asks me to allocate the payment and save the payment before proceeding. I click on a popup to process the next payment.

Before next month I will have the macro writing out the code to a text file that I can “include” in the script and include a little bit more error checking.

Updating my blog to WordPress 2.3 and migrating existing UTW tags to the WP native tags

Well, I finally updated this blog to WordPress 2.3. After I upgraded WordPress to version 2.3, I imported my tags from Ultimate Tag Warrior and then I made several changes to my theme before everything looked normal. To get there I had to:

  1. Replace the UTW function in my index.php, single.php, and archive.php files with this function, <?php the_tags(‘Tags:<ul><li>’, ’</li><li>’, ‘</li></ul>’); ?>. I had trouble finding the documentation for this function and Rich did not provide a good example of how to use it. After some guessing I came up with the correct parameters to generate valid html for an unordered list.
  2. Rename/delete my tag.php page. It interfered with the native tag support.
  3. I followed Rich’s suggestion and added the Executable PHP Widget widget to my blog. I used this widget to create a new tag cloud widget to replace my UTW tag cloud widget. I reduced the maximum font size down from 36 to 24 to get it to fit in my sidebar
  4. I added the wordpress-23-related-posts-plugin for related posts to replace the similar UTW function. I added the function call to display the related posts just under “the_tags” function call in my index.php, single.php, and archive.php files.

SVN access available! – phpWebSite

Version control access has been restored to the phpWebSite project.

SVN access available! – phpWebSite

I had a bright idea last week.  One of the annoying aspects of phpWebSite maintenance is downloading individual modules, expanding them, and copying them over the existing modules. Why not use Subversion to update the core and mod  directories of phpWebSite? The procedure would be the same as that advocated by WordPress here. Since I recently added the Subversion client capability to my remote host, the update process would be much smoother, less error prone, and consume less bandwidth.

As a test I checked out a copy of the development version of phpWebSite to my PC. I run a local test site under Windows using XAMPP. Yea, I know I am weird thinking I can run phpWebSite under windows. I then copied over the files I needed from my existing configuration and renamed the directories. Then I went into Boost and updated the modules. After fixing the windows specific errors with updating FileCabinet and menu(i.e. creating directories did not work) modules, all of the modules are now updated and I am ready to update the site using subversion next time.

Now to make this whole scenario work for a production site we need a little help from the folks maintaining the Subversion repository. I would like to use Subversion to get the stable version rather than the development version. If they would create a tag for the stable release like the folks at WordPress, then I could use the Subversion “switch” command to update to the latest stable version. I use the switch command with WordPress to update my test blog and this is a slick way to update the files.

Upgrading WordPress to Version 2.3

Yesterday I started updating some of my WordPress sites to WordPress 2.3. I used the WPAU plugin to update two sites and it worked fine. The bad news is that I found several problems. One theme and one plugin were not compatible with the latest WordPress version. I was a little surprised since these were plain vanilla sites with little customization.

The first problem I found was that I got an “array_key_exists” error message on the blog’s main page. After a little research I found that the problem was related to the Misty Look theme and that Sadish had updated the theme to version 3.5 to fix the problem.

The second problem I found was a bit more subtle. When I made a post or updated a page I got a “‘wp_post2cat’ doesn’t exist”. There were a variety of recommendations on how to fix this problem but I finally figured out that I needed to upgrade the google-xml-sitemap-generator plugin to the latest version.

Considering the problems I have found with the easy sites, I will proceed very carefully when I update this site. This site may have too many bells and whistles for my own good.

wehuberconsultingllc.com » Blog Archive » jQuery 1.1.4 works but JQuery 1.2 breaks tablesorter for me

In a previous post I said that jQuery 1.2 did not work with tablesorter. Well, Christian and the folks at jQuery have made some updates and they work together now. You need both the 2.01 version of tablesorter and the 1.2.1 version of jQuery.

Variations on Updating WordPress

The folks have updated WordPress again and I have been evaluating different methods of upgrading. The standard method works but I have been wanting to streamline the process for remote hosts.

For my locally hosted blog I used the Updating WordPress with Subversion method. This is pretty slick! I had previously checked out a copy of WordPress using Subversion and integrated the wp-content and a couple other files into the working copy. All I had to do this morning was to crank up TortoiseSVN on the checked out directory, change its tag to 2.3, and let Subversion do the rest. When I logged in as Admin, it updated the database. I did get some database errors about duplicate entries into wp_terms and wp_term_taxonomy but I do not think these errors are critical since this is the blog I use to test changes with. Its pretty funky!

Yesterday I got carried away again and did a little research on using Subversion on remote hosts. I found that some host providers provide it but most do not it. My host provider, bluehost.com, does not provide Subversion support directly but I found a post on a forum that described a method I could use to install it.  I kind of followed their instructions. It is working as a client and here are my instructions.

  1. Log in using SSH. I used PuTTy.
  2. Create a bin directory.
  3. Edit the .bashrc file to add the path statement to the bin directory.
  4. Create a source directory and then change to this directory.
  5. Use wget to download the tar version of both the Subversion package and the dependencies package.
  6. Untar both packages.
  7. Run configure, make, and then make install. You should have several executables in the bin directory. 
  8. Make sure that subversion works by typing in “svn –version”.

Here is the command line version: 

mkdir ~/bin
# Use your favorite editor to edit the .bashrc file and add the path statement to the bin directory
mkdir ~/src
# get the subversion and dependencies tarballs
cd ~/src
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.4.5.tar.gz
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-deps-1.4.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf subversion-1.4.5.tar.gz 
tar -xzf subversion-deps-1.4.5.tar.gz 

# Build it
cd subversion-1.4.3
./configure --prefix=$HOME --without-berkeley-db --with-zlib --with-ssl
make
make install

# check it works!  
svn --version

I am now able to check out a copy of WordPress and update it on my bluehost.com website. I am not sure this is much better than the WPAU plugin I used recently. I will probably continue to play with both methods. I am still working at setting up a repository on bluehost. I do not mind using the Subversion client to update the WordPress files but I would like my bluehost account to be a server for the wp-content files since I would like version control on my theme files. It would be nice if the folks at bluehost decided to directly support Subversion, too.

WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin update « Techie Buzz

WordPress Automatic Upgrade (WPAU) is a plugin that automatically upgrades your wordpress version to the latest files provided by wordpress.org

WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin update « Techie Buzz

Okay, I was short on time and was willing to take a chance on a minor WordPress upgrade. I had several sites I wanted to upgrade and this looked like it would make the process quick and painless if it worked. For me, the plugin worked and the upgrade was complete in a few minutes. Yea!

jQuery 1.1.4 works but JQuery 1.2 breaks tablesorter for me

I tried jQuery 1.2 this week on my phpWebsite demo site but the zebra tables in tablesorter did not work for me. I got a dark gray table rather than a striped table. The folks know about the problem and it looks like someone has offered a fix. I will wait for those folks to work things out. Version 1.1.4 seems to work just fine!

What is good for Ubuntu Feisty is also good for Centos 5!

The Joe writes:

The install goes great, but when I run the server I get the following error:
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2)

As far as I can tell, the libpng12.so.0 that gets installed to the /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0 directory is the wrong version, your system should have a current version installed. To fix this just delete or rename libpng12.so.0 from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0

www.TheJoe.com » Ubuntu Feisty Vmware Server and libpng12.so.0

I was getting the same error message under Centos 5. Thinking that a solution for Ubuntu Feisty might work for Centos 5, I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised. I renamed the file and restarted the Vmware server. The error message no longer appears and the server appears to be working fine. It also fixed the bigger problem I was having with accessing the virtual machine from PCs on the same sub-network other than the host.

jQuery 1.2: jQuery.extend(”Awesome”)

This is a massive new release of jQuery that’s been a long time in the making – and it’s ready for your consumption!

We’ve put the full jQuery 1.2 release notes on a page of it’s own, since there’s so much to dig through. REMEMBER, features were removed in 1.2, so please be sure to read the notes on how to upgrade before doing so.

Recently I have become a fan of jQuery. It allows me to add some  neat functionality into web sites. A week ago I downloaded the 1.1.4 version which promised some pretty impressive performance improvements over 1.1.3 but I had not gotten around to testing it out. Now I see that the 1.2 version has been released! I am real confused about their version numbering scheme. The 1.1.4 version looked like a small change based on its version number but a pretty big change code wise. Version 1.2 is a big code change since it deprecates a variety of functions. I guess I will try the 1.1.4 version first. That is what the release notes recommends. Whew!

Rebuilding my PC again

My WinXP desktop was having serious problems. I tried to debug it for two days but finally decided to rebuild it. I was getting 100% CPU utilization with winlogon.exe. So I went to http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/ and built a new CD with most of the WinXP patches integrated. While I was at it I updated the client applications available via the SBS installation procedure. This helped the rebuild process go much faster. A new feature to my restore process was Fab’s Autobackup, http://fabs.dyndns.org/autobackup. It did a nice job of restoring my Firefox settings. I was hopeful that it might restore my Outlook categories and signatures but no luck!

OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster DNS

I finally got around to looking at OpenDNS. I have seen its name mentioned before but its name does not do justice to what it can do for you. Just looking at its name you have to wonder what can an open DNS do for me. One of the mailing lists I read recommended it as a way to block adult sites. It can block Malware sites, too. Hmm….

Last week I was talking to some folks about network monitoring and the problems I find with using pings to determine network status. Users consider a site or application is down if they cannot use it. They do not care if you can ping the site. In the case of my most obnoxious user, my son, the network problem was typically related to the server he was trying to get to, World of Warcraft. He had an important date at 700 PM and “my” Internet was the problem! Typically the problem looked like a server load issue. Sometimes his problems were related to the route being to the server being congested and occasionally it was directly related to the DNS being out to lunch. So I am going to give OpenDNS a whirl. It probably will not solve any problems for me but it may reduce the number of problems being shot in my direction.

OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster DNS

Updated phpWebSite Bleuprint theme

In a previous post I started creating a phpWebSite theme based on Blueprint. My plan is to convert an existing phpWebSite to the latest version but a theme for the latest phpWebSite(1.3.0) is not ready yet. Since my idea of humor is frequently referred to as cheesy I am calling this new theme, Bleuprint.The theme has a lot of neat stuff since I incorporated a lot of toys into the theme. However, it is not ready yet. It is still a work in progress. At this time I have both the web page and article module pages on my front page. I am leaning to using the Article module for most of my content but I am still working through various annoyances. Make me a believer, Eloi!

My demo site is at http://demo1.wehuberconsultingllc.com/.

  1. Merged Blueprint into the default phpWebSite theme.
  2. Fixed phpWebSite annoyances.
    1. Create new module templates to replace the <h1> element with the more search engine friendly <h2>.
      1. Sitemap
      2. Blog
    2. Create a tabbed menu for the new site. I want to keep the tabbed menu design from the old site.
    3. Change the calendar colors and layout.
    4. Fix control panel layout problem for form designer with Firefox.
  3. Add new features to the template.
    1. Add jQuery support(http://jquery.com/) so I can use ThickBox for viewing photos(http://jquery.com/demo/thickbox/). Thanks to Cody and the folks supporting jQuery development.
    2. Add zebra table suppport via jQuery(http://tablesorter.com/). Thanks Christian! Note: You must edit the /config/core/textsettings.php file to allow <thead> tags. No thead, no worky!
    3. Add drop shadows to photos. I ported this visual toy from one of my favorite WordPress themes, Misty Look(http://wpthemes.info/misty-look/). Thanks to Sadish for creating a great theme!
    4. Add a rounded corner search box with jQuery field replacement. Thanks Brian! http://blog.reindel.com/2007/08/13/howto-spruce-up-your-search-box-with-css-and-a-background-image/
    5. Add CSS liquid rounded corner box to template. Thanks Mark! http://www.search-this.com/2007/02/12/css-liquid-round-corners
  4. Evaluate module support.
    1. Article 4.0 module(Remember to patch the control panel per the instructions).
    2. Mailto module(Not supported)
  5. Bugs and Redesign(?!)
    1. Where is Coming Soon in Calendar?
    2. Where is What’s Popular block for Articles
    3. See if I can create a list menu template of just simple <li> links.
    4. Redesign comment template to be more like copyblogger.