Archive for 'Web Dev/Tech'
VMware Player – Now creates 64-bit VMs!
Posted on January 25, 2010, under General, SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.
At home, I recently moved from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. On my Vista setup, I had VirtualPC installed to set up my own labs, installing servers and learning more about various server applications.
I was disappointed to see VirtualPC is no longer supported for Home versions of Windows. I was also disappointed to see the free VMware Server equivalent of VirtualPC had disappeared.
However, I just discovered the free VMware Player now not only runs VMs, as it always has, but also allows you to create them! You can also create and run 64-bit guest VM’s if you have the appropriate hardware, which I do. VirtualPC can’t do that. Sweet!
Update: A co-worker (thanks Shane!) mentioned to me the free VMware Server is still available. I’m going to try out Player, hoping it is more light-weight, and see how it goes first.
Nintex Workflow – “Run If” is King
Posted on November 17, 2009, under SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.
If you run into logic nesting issues using Nintex Workflow, remember that “Run If” is better than “Set a Condition”.
Windows 7 – Homegroups
Posted on October 25, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
Finally! Easy home networking. I bought a Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack (3 licenses), set up a Homegroup to share files and a printer, and I’m loving it. Super easy.
Presidential control of the private Internet
Posted on August 28, 2009, under General, Security, Web Dev/Tech.
Bill would give president emergency control of Internet | Politics and Law – CNET News.
“Translation: If your company is deemed “critical,” a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.”
Yikes.
UBCD for Windows
Posted on May 31, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
We went out to see some family this weekend, and they were having some issues with their WinXP computer. I was thinking about taking a Linux Live CD, but ended up giving the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows a try. It is pretty slick. You have to have your own copy of the Windows XP install files to create the boot disk ISO, but after that you can configure all types of software to be included on the CD image. Worth checking out as a handy tool to have lying around.
Delicious Toolbar hangs IE8
Posted on April 27, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
Update 9/5/2009: The newest version of the IE Toolbar released recently works now. WOOHOO!
I’m running into a problem with the Delicious Toolbar 1.12.273.0 causing IE8 to hang on Windows XP SP3. It is super annoying, as I would like to use the Favorite Tags functionality on this machine.
worksforme – On Vista
I have the Delicious Toolbar running with IE8 on Vista with no problems. However for some reason the other computer I use running WinXP is choking on the Delicious addon.
Issue
After I install the Delicious Toolbar, I can open IE8 for one session. After closing the browser, the IE window disappears like everything is normal. When I try to open IE again, the chrome starts to load, but the window hangs. My home page doesn’t open, and the IE functions are frozen.
Behind the scenes, there are two iexplorer.exe processes, and one DeliciousManager.exe process still running. IE8 becomes responsive again once I kill the DeliciousManager.exe process in the Task Manager. Once I kill the DeliciousManager.exe process, the iexplorer.exe processes are freed up and end normally. Then I can start a new web browser session, until I run into the issue again when I close IE.
Attempt 1 – Disable potential conflicts
I tried disabling all other IE addons, setting exclusions in antivirus for real-time scans on the Delicious Toolbar data directories, and disabling the firewall. The DeliciousManager.exe task would still hang IE8.
Any Ideas?
Does anyone out there have any other ideas? If I find a solution, I will post a follow-up here.
Chinese Ghostnet
Posted on March 31, 2009, under Current Events, Web Dev/Tech.
Everyone in normal IT is focused on Conficker right now, but the news on a Chinese Ghostnet is pretty fascinating:
…is controlled by computers almost exclusively located in China and has infected 1295 computer in 103 countries in the last two years…
They report that, not only can the espionage software monitor email and documents on infected computers, it can also control a PC remotely, switching on any cameras or microphones attached to it, to carry out surveillance of its surroundings.
Creepy.
IE8 Performance Problems
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
I am still testing IE8 on my home machine, and ran across a page that shows some performance issues with the new browser.
When I open up this page in IE8, the browser is extremely slow after the page finishes loading. I have not taken the time to dig real deep, but AJAX is being used to bring in the body content, and I see jQuery in use quite a bit behind the scenes. For what it’s worth, I used the “Report a Webpage Problem Internet Explorer 8 Add-On” to let Microsoft know of the performance issue.
When I use Firefox 3.0.7, I have no performance issues on the test page. I have not tested IE7 yet to see if the performance problem is in that version as well.
IE8 out today
Posted on March 19, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
Microsoft has announced IE 8 is out later today.
I still primarily use Firefox for personal usage so far, but am fairly excited by what the IE team has done with version 8 in supporting web standards and adding extra security. I’ll have to give it a good spin.
Book Recommendation: MOSS 2007 Best Practices
Posted on December 17, 2008, under SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.
There are several books that stand-out in my career where the value is well over the $50 spent on the book. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices is definitely one of those books.
P.S. Wordpress 2.7 is pretty slick