web_log :: ebrentnelson.com

Installing Magento: Notes

2011-09-25T02:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight I installed Magento and it took much longer than I expected. Here are some notes to consider the next time:

The following folders MUST be 777 enabled: /var, /app/etc, /media
Even though the Magento website sort of makes it sound like the sample data is optional, IT IS NOT. Make sure you install that first.
If you are installing this on a local device you won't be able to validate the URL. You'll be able to prevent this check on the installation screen.

If you don't follow these rules you might run into the following:

Page Error: The URL "http://www.example.com/magento/" is invalid. Response from server isn't valid.
Page Error: Server Error...It may be down for maintenance or configured incorrectly.
The installation process might hang and the CPU might spike.
You might get the following in your error log: Call to a member function getFrontNameByRoute() on a non-object.

Good luck guys.

RPC Over HTTP for Outlook on Windows 7 Using a Self Signed Certificate

2011-04-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I was faced with a goofy problem with something I have done a million times before. You see, usually I set up Outlook on laptops to use RPC over HTTP so that I don't have to use VPN to get to a corporate Exchange server. The problem is that I had never done it with Windows 7 yet (things are still kind of stuck in XP land over here). Anyway, the exact methods used on Windows XP weren't working on Windows 7. So here's what ended up working:

Find an XP box and visit the OWA website for your organization (I'm assuming you're using one since I believe RPC over HTTP uses it)
Export the X.509 Cert w/ chain (PEM) version of the certificate using these instructions
Save the certificate somewhere (add a .cer extension if needed)
Transfer the .cer file to the Win7 machine and open it
Click Install Certificate...
Click Next >
Select "Place all certificates in the following store"
Click Browse...
Select the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities"
Click OK and finish the process
RPC over HTTP will now connect where it wouldn't before

Booyeah!

Proove.it!

2011-04-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

Best image service I've ever used. Super fast. Super easy. Super awesome.

http://proove.it

To find out about all the awesome ways you can use proove.it, visit the blog at http://proove-it.blogspot.com.

(Yes, I created this service.)

Using a Query String with Segmented Controller/Method URLs in CodeIgniter

2011-04-05T13:40:00.001-07:00

CodeIgniter has some awesome segmented URL functionality baked into its core, but sometimes you want to be able to do things like this:

http://my-domain.com/my_controller/my_method?some=more&sweet=stuff

You can do so easily by doing the following:

In config.php change:

$config['enable_query_strings'] to TRUE
$config['uri_protocol'] to 'PATH_INFO'

In your controller:

Fetch the query string using $this->input->get('some');
(this example corresponds with the above URL)

And that's all folks! It works when a query string isn't present, it works with any number of query string variable pairs, it works with method parameters (e.g. /my_controller/my_method/my_param?some=more). It just works! Sweet, eh?

Custom Table Filtering with jQuery

2011-03-01T12:41:00.000-08:00

Can't Set Fireworks as Default Application for PNGs

2011-01-24T19:57:00.000-08:00

So I use Adobe Fireworks heavily for all my graphical needs. This past weekend I inherited Adobe Creative Suite 4 (I used to have CS3) from a friend. After installing CS4 I uninstalled CS3. From that point on I was unable to have *.PNG files automatically open in Fireworks CS4. Heck, I couldn't even Open As... and have them open in CS4. Finally I found the problem in the Windows registry.

In order to fix this:

Run regedit.exe.
Drill down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Applications\Fireworks.exe\shell\o pen\command.
Update the REG_SZ data to point to the proper path on your machine (i.e. I set mine to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Fireworks CS4\Fireworks.exe" "%1").
Close regedit.
Try associating the file again.
Success.

How To: Create a iPhone/iPad Project in FlashDevelop

2011-01-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

Download the following:

Then:

Install FlashDevelop via the installer (select “Install Flex SDK Automatically”)
Copy Packager for iPhone files into C:\{FD_install_path}\Tools\flexsdk\ (copy over existing files)
Copy iPhone/iPad Template files into C:\{FD_install_path}\Projects\

Now you can create new iPhone or iPad projects using FlashDevelop! Just use Project > New Project...

Further Tips:

You'll want to make sure that the "Custom Path to Flex SDK" (under Project Properties..." is set to C:\{FD_install_path}\Tools\flexsdk\
Also, each iPhone/iPad project will contain a PackageApplication.bat for building your project for the App Store. Make sure the FLEX_SDK variable is also set to C:\{FD_install_path}\Tools\flexsdk\bin
Lastly, FlashDevelop has some sweet SourceControl functionality built in. In order to use it you need to enable it in the FlashDevelop settings (press F10). In order to have source control functionality you need to check out the project using TortoiseSVN BEFORE pulling it into FlashDevelop (that's the tricky part).

Thanks to geo for the awesome FlashDevelop templates!

Linux, PHP, and MSSQL Server

2009-08-26T09:19:00.001-07:00

I don't know if this will work for everyone, but it took me 2 days to figure this out so maybe it will help you.

Problem
I wanted to connect to an external SQL Server 2000 database from a hosted Linux database. From the Linux box I was able to ping, telnet, and tsql the database server, but PHP would always throw a "unable to connect to database error".

Solution
PHP, in my case, uses FreeTDS to interface with MSSQL. My hosting provider has the default version of FreeTDS set to 5.0. After many hours of research I figured out that I needed to use version 7.0. So to get it to work I just set the version to 7.0 in my PHP script with the following line of code:

putenv('TDSVER=70');

And that was all folks. (Remember that when you use mssql_connect with Linux that you want to probably add the port number to the host. e.g. mssql_connect( 192.168.1.1:1433, $user, $pwd ) ).

How to Scrobble Internet Radio (Windows)

2009-08-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

This is a step-by-step guide on how to scrobble internet radio using free apps:

Download and install SqueezeCenter from Logitech
Start SqueezeCenter (this automatically started for me)
Open Winamp or iTunes and connect to http://localhost:9000/stream.mp3

In iTunes go to Advanced > Open Audio Stream...
In Winamp to go File > Play URL...

Once you are connected, open SqueezeCenter (right click on the icon in the system tray and select "Open SqueezeCenter" (this will open in your browser)
Press the settings button down in the bottom right corner
Click on the "Advanced" tab
Select "Last.fm Audioscrobbler" from the drop-down menu
Enter your credentials and make sure that both drop-downs are set to "Yes..."
Click the "Apply" button at the bottom right
Select the "Player" tab
Select either Winamp or iTunes from the drop-down
Select "Last.fm Audioscrobbler" from the drop-down next to the player selection
Enable scrobbling
Click the "Apply" button at the bottom right
Now you are set up to route internet radio through SqueezeCenter to your media player and have it scrobble...
Close the "Settings..." portion of SqueezeCenter
Leave iTunes/Winamp alone, go to the home page of SqueezeCenter
Expand Internet Radio at the left
Choose the station of your choice (I chose to search for a Boston station I like a lot)
Push the play button on the station you choose
Audio should start playing through iTunes/Winamp
Booyeah you're done.

NOTE: If you get "chipmunk" sounding audio (I did), just press the stop button on iTunes/Winamp and then press play again. This fixed it for me.

Happy scrobbling.

EncryptedLocalStore may not use publisher IDs passed in from ADL

2009-07-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

To prevent the "EncryptedLocalStore may not use publisher IDs passed in from ADL" error in your AIR application:

Adding Windows Home Server to a Domain

2009-06-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Follow the following steps to successfully add a WHS box to a Windows Server 2003 managed domain:

Remote into your WHS box using the username "administrator" and the password you created when you set up the box.
After logging into the box, right click "My Computer" and click on "Properties".
Select the "Computer Name" tab.
Click the "Change..." button next to "To rename this computer or join a domain, click Change".
Click the "More..." button.
Uncheck the "Change primary DNS suffix when domain membership changes" checkbox.
Select the "Domain:" radio button.
Enter your domain name.
Click the "OK" button.
Enter in the domain controller's Administrator account user name and password to join the domain.
Restart the WHS box.
You are now part of the domain.

Various notes:

Your firewall settings might have been changed during this process. If you are attempting to share files and printers you will want to make sure that the exception for such services is checked in your firewall settings.
If you are sharing files across subnets you will want to make sure you change the scope of the "File and Printer Sharing" exception to allow the associated subnets (I just set mine to any).
You might want to disable the SBCore service after doing this (some people on the forums have stated that it causes issues). You can do this by:
1. Click on the "Start Menu".
2. Select "Run...".
3. Type "services.msc" and click "OK".
4. Find the SBCore Services service and right click on it.
5. Select "Properties".
6. Click on the "Log On" tab.
7. Select "Profile 1" from the hardware profiles.
8. Click the "Disable" button.
9. Click the "Apply" button.
10. Restart the WHS box.
I never got the WHS connector to run on boxes that were on a different subnet. I really didn't try too hard as I really didn't need that functionality (I'm just sharing folders for a bigger server to utilize).

Hope this helps.

Joomla! + jQuery = "el.set is not a function"

2008-10-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Storytime: Joomla! has a best friend (BFF) called mootools. Along comes the jQuery and tries to get in on the BFF action by stealing Joomla!'s friendship away from mootools. There is a fight. jQuery pushes mootools, mootools falls over, mootools boo-hoos dramatically to the teacher (mostly Internet Explorer) and then Joomla! looks bad for not having decided initially to only ever have one friend. It's quite the pitiful story actually.

$ is the Root of All Evil

The reason this error occurs is that both jQuery and mootools use the $-function. Thus in order to implement jQuery in with Joomla! without changing the later you have to override jQuery's $-function. You can do so by using jQuery.noConflict():

<head>
 <jdoc:include type="head" />
 <script type="text/javascript"
   src="/templates/ebn/jquery/jquery.js"></script>
 <script type="text/javascript">
   jQuery.noConflict();
 </script>
 ...

Using this fix will cause all jQuery $-functions to malfunction. You will need to convert them all to jQuery (e.g. $( document ).ready becomes jQuery( document ).ready ). Good luck!

PHP and MSSQL

2008-09-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

If you are having trouble getting PHP5 to connect to Microsoft SQL Server (and you, like me, are unreasonably being forced to use that database instead of this one) try the following steps below:

Download the good version of ntwdblib.dll (2000.80.194.0)
Overwrite ntwdblib.dll in your apache/bin folder
Overwrite ntwdblib.dll in your php folder
Overwrite C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntwdblib.dll

You probably then want to restart everything (to be on the safe side). Good luck!

Joomla! SEF URLs and IIS

2008-09-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Recently I was setting up a Joomla! website on a Windows server that had previously been configured. Everything installed properly and worked just fine... that is until I turned on "Search Engine Friendly URLs" in the global configuration. Here is what I did:

White Screen Solution
When I first went to the website after turning on SEF URLs all I got was a white screen. I discovered that this was caused by URLSCAN—an ISAPI filter that is applied in IIS by default. In order to get Joomla! SEF URLs to work with this, you must:

Navigate to C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\urlscan\
Open urlscan.ini in your preferred text editor
Find AllowDotInPath=0 and change it to AllowDotInPath=1
Open the command prompt and run iisreset /restart (or restart IIS however you'd like)

Since Joomla! SEF URLs are formatted as http://www.ebrentnelson.com/index.php/my-blog.html URLSCAN was preventing the second dot from existing in the URL. This reaped some havoc on the SEF functionality.

Only Displaying index.php Solution
Unfortunately after I fixed the URLSCAN issue I was still having problems with getting my links to work. Whenever I would click on a link it would take me to my front page (index.php) instead of the desired link location. Eventually I figured out that this had to do with the IIS server being configured to use php.exe instead of php5isapi.dll. I am not exactly sure why the php.exe configuration doesn't work, but I think it has to do with the method and timing of the URL/server variables being passed (if it is even passed at all). Anyway, here is how you configure IIS to use php5isapi.dll:

Open IIS ManagerClick the name of your computer then click "Web Service Extensions"
On the right, click the link titled "Add a new Web service extension..."
Set the extension name (doesn't matter what you use)
Add the php5isapi.dll to the required files (this was found at C:\PHP\php5isapi.dll in my case)
Make sure Set extension status to Allowed is checked
On the left, in the Web Sites folder, right click your Joomla! website, select Properties
Select the Home Directory tab, click the Configuration... button under Application settings
Click Add... on the Mappings tab
Set the executable path to the same thing you did in step 5, set the extension to ".php", click OK
Click Apply
Restart IIS

With all of this done, I was able to use Joomla! SEF URLs in IIS without a problem. Please note that the server hosting this site was using IIS 6 and PHP 5. This might not be the answer in all circumstances, but if you are having SEF issues first check the URLSCAN and then your PHP configuration. Good luck!