mysiteonline™ - Software

Firefox Download Day

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:06:34 -0400

Today is the release of Firefox version 3.0. The world over plans to celebrate the release by pledging to download the browser in an attempt to create a Guinness Book of World Records entry for most downloads of a single product on its release day. Although there are no other holders for this entry, the Mozilla Corporation intend to beat Firefox 2's record set a few years back. Join in if you are a Firefox user!

In other news, Opera v9.5 is out, and is sporting some fancy CSS3 additions!

Microsoft System Restore and Apache

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:59:59 -0500

Just a note in case anyone else has this problem...

DO NOT RUN SYSTEM RESTORE IF YOU'RE RUNNING AN APACHE SERVER ON YOUR MACHINE AS A SERVICE. Apparently, Windows perceives the document files as system files when run as a service and will also undo any changes on these files... I have yet to find the saved/backed up version of my newer files to get back without undoing my restore. It was bad enough the restore messed up my Symantec Client installation; that took a good hour or so to fix (uninstall, clean registry, remove services, restart 6 times, NoNav, reinstall, restart, etc...).

I thought this might be a nice warning for anyone else. Guess you have to backup your webserver files before using the system restore (only when you run Apache as a service).

Update and Correction: It wasn't until after I was unable to find my updated folder structure (searched on a specific folder name) and ran an undo on my restoration that I realized...the files were still gone! ...or more correctly, they weren't gone, but for some ungodly and unknown reason the folder structure was migrated back to the way it was originally (when I ran the restore) and System Restore simply GUESSED (using some algorithm of sorts) where it thought all my files belonged. Upon my "undo", it was not restored to the way it was. I almost broke a ton of things around me until I noticed some of my files were just in the wrongly named directory. Either way, I still strongly suggest backing up webserver files before doing a system restore - especially if you've done any folder modifications recently. (I know, you should back up your stuff anyway, but what the heck...not gonna do a full system backup before a system restore from a week ago when it's not supposed to touch non-system files or folders anyway.)

Thank you, Microsoft! Thank you, Adobe!

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:25:11 -0400

As is common on the wide open internet, there are often simple online contests that people may enter to win some sort of software (or other) prize, and it can be as simple as signing up for a free service, entering an email, coming up with a catchy comment in a blog post, etc...

Microsoft recently had a contest that I was made aware of due to having a specific type of profile with my Microsoft Live! account. In order to enter the contest, all that had to be done was either subscribe to the Microsoft MSDN Flash Newsletter, or customize my MSDN Flash Newsletter. Since I was already subscribed to the newsletter and wanted to enter the contest (the grand prize was a trip to New Zealand), I decided a customization was in order...

Well, a couple weeks ago, I got the following in the mail:

Enclosed is your copy of Microsoft Windows Vista™ Business.

Congratulations again on being a winner in the Microsoft MSDN Flash Promotion sweepstakes for signing up and/or customizing your MSDN newsletter.

Thank you for being a part of the MSDN community!

Sincerely,

Mike Hartmann
Microsoft Corporation

...and of course, there was also a thin cardboard CD booklet that contained my very own Vista OS. I can also use this to upgrade to Vista Ultimate (which I plan to do, I've seen Business Edition, there's no Solitaire!) later on. I wasn't originally planning on upgrading when I created my new computer, but thanks to Microsoft's contest, I now will not only install Vista, but they'll be getting another ~$170 from me for the Vista Ultimate upgrade. Win/Win! Thanks, Microsoft!

Adobe: I'm in love with Photoshop CS3. I got my copy of the Adobe Creative Suite CS3 (why do they call it Creative Suite CS...seems a bit monotonous) Web Premium. So far I've only tried out Photoshop and Acrobat (though not purposefully with Acrobat, it loaded a PDF by default). Regardless, I was able to learn at least 5 new things right from the start to make my photographs look even more stunning than they were. I'm very pleased. It's much better than my old Photoshop version 5.1 that I was using. So: Thank you, Adobe! I'll be sure to try out the rest of the suite (and get my money's worth)!

The Fate of Money

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:02:12 -0400

So I wanted to purchase Adobe's Creative Suite 3 Web Premium... I decided to wait an extra week because I had some money to pay on my credit card and just wanted to take care of that before making another large purchase, it wasn't that big of a deal, and any money not used in paying off the credit card would have gone into the bank. Well, my luck doesn't seem to be all that wonderful. As you may know, I also just bought the Apple iPod and iPod+Nike kit, so add that into this equation...but I went out to a local fair (socializing, awesome!) which cost me a pretty penny by itself; just like going to the movies, if you're going to enjoy it you already know you're going to pay a premium.

Well, I ended up losing my cellphone on one of the rides. Granted, the rides were pretty awesome, but not quite $300 awesome (original retail value of the phone). At least it's only something physical that can be replaced so I didn't let it ruin my evening, but man... So I drive out the next morning, cancel my old phone and buy a new one while upgrading my contract to get a (small) discount. I was going to extend the contract anyway. If you're curious, I use AT&T Wireless, and no, I didn't buy an iPhone. I like the slim-line design of my phone, so I bought an upgraded model of what I already had, I now have a Charcoal-Silver Moto RAZR V3xx.

Okay, I can still deal with the monetary blow, I think... Wait, wait...what's this? MY CAR WON'T START! Hmmm, I didn't leave the headlights or any other lights on...it was fine this morning... Here's what happened: the plastic surrounding the positive side of the battery terminal (including the batter terminal) broke away from the battery itself. There was battery acid leaking in my battery compartment and I didn't even know it. Because of the broken piece and corrosion, the terminals couldn't make a connection. As silly as it was, the battery still had juice and was good to go...if it could make a connection. So that was yet another cost in a new car battery.

...I think it'll be another 6 weeks before I can purchase my Adobe Suite.

Online eStores - Direct from Adobe, or use Amazon?

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 15:13:41 -0400

I'm about to make a large software purchase in the form of Adobe's Creative Suite 3 Web Premium. Adobe is selling it for $1,599 US. Amazon is selling it for $1,553 (a total savings of 3%, plus free shipping). I've heard that Adobe's online store is horrible, but purchasing directly from the manufacturer, I'd presume I'd be certain to get the box, any paper manuals, wrapping, etc. that is supposed to come with it. Purchasing from a 3rd party (even Amazon) - sometimes the fine print is accidentally left out - I might get a partial product (such as some online stores selling the upsell version, which I cannot use as I still am using Photoshop v5 at home - too old for an upgrade/upsell purchase, and I don't think my academic version of Flash will suffice).

Does anyone have any opinions on the matter? I trust Amazon. I don't trust myself at buying the right product, but with Alex King's problem with Adobe's store, I'm not sure if I should even trust Adobe. What would you do?

...my work discount is negligible.

Safari 3 Beta for Windows version 3.0.2

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:27:30 -0400

If anyone's had any troubles with the text appearing in their versions of Safari 3 for Windows, make sure to update to the most recent version (3.0.2). It has now fixed the troubles I've had on both my work PC and personal laptop - neither of them would display the text. I am now able to properly browse the internet (I couldn't even type anything into the address bar before); and read the text on those pages. Absolutely wonderful! The Beta is now a workable one. The Apple team seems to have been working on this quite hastily, but doing a decent job. This'll probably be about the only product of theirs that I'll ever be using purposefully on a Windows machine (although, to be fair, it'll probably be just for testing!) except for QuickTime when I have to.

Installing and Setting up Subversion (SVN) Under Windows XP

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:30:43 -0400

For a long time I've wanted to start using Subversion. I see all the benefits of using such a system, but I haven't taken the time to learn it. I've installed it (v1.3.2) a long time ago, but I never really did anything with it -- it was simply so I could interact with SmartSVN (a SVN client) to download others' repositories. I think it's about time I start using it in a more meaningful way on my own projects. In order to do this, I thought it would be best to start from scratch (and therefore uninstalled all previous, remotely related software). (For further learning on SVN, please visit Red-Bean's SVN Book online.)

So, it had been so long since I've done anything with Subversion, where was I to begin? I've read about all the great and wonderful things SVN can offer, but...how do I get it, how do I install it, and then how can I access it?
Continue reading "Installing and Setting up Subversion (SVN) Under Windows XP"

Crimson Editor -- Source code released!

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:30:28 -0500

Crimson Editor is my favorite text editor for more than a few reasons, which I'll spare you with the details for; we all have our own preferences. Anyhow...

I was looking for a screenshot or documentation on how to integrate a compiler or external executable with CrimsonEditor as an example to clarify something, and I noticed that Emerald Editor was linked to from the main page of CrimsonEditor's website...that meant that Ingyu Kang was still around... It also made me wonder why EE was linked, so I went to the link.

On the main news page of Emerald Editor, the team leader announced that Ingyu Kang gave the EE team the source code to Crimson Editor to work from. The EE team decided to release it publically through Subversion. I know there's more than a few tweaks I've wanted to make to this editor (such as better regex support)!

It's written in C++ for those who wanted to know. It's also a Win32 application (sorry *nix guys). It could probably get ported though.

http://www.emeraldeditor.com/

An XHTML Strict, PHP Hello World from Scratch in Under 60 Seconds with Intype

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:09:08 -0500

Since others were having fun with it, I decided to show off a quick, poorly chosen framerate flash demonstration of Intype creating an XHTML/PHP file to do the all-famous Hello World script. Obviously, the point is not to demonstrate my coding knowledge (or mis-knowledge), but to show off the text editor's snippet control features, and how it can speed up development. In case you're curious how it interacts, for the first step I typed out the text xml and then pressed the TAB key, everything was automatically filled in for the XML header. I then typed in doctype and then TAB, but since there are multiple doctypes, it gave me a choice of which one I wanted to use, so I used the arrow keys to highlight the desired choice and pressed the ENTER key. To move through the parameter list within each snippet (fillable properties), you would also use the TAB key and enter whatever it is you want, or press the DELETE or BACKSPACE (I think) key to remove the entire property.

Please note the system clock window to know how long this actually took me -- you can clock it, heck you can even clock my hesitation since I'm not used to the tool yet.
Continue reading "An XHTML Strict, PHP Hello World from Scratch in Under 60 Seconds with Intype"

Windows version of TextMate: Intype

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 17:36:26 -0500

The very first alpha public version of Intype has been released for testing. The developers are looking for feedback on this release - but do keep in mind it is the very first release. If you've ever used an editor or IDE in Windows, you will probably wonder what's so special about something like this...there seem to be no features!
Continue reading "Windows version of TextMate: Intype"

Happy New Year

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:56:28 -0500

Well, I didn't have any updates since I left work on Thursday for two reasons:

I stopped off at a friends house to give her the Christmas gift I picked up for her only expecting to be there a half hour to an hour. I was there from about 5:45pm 'til 9:00pm, I never got to BestBuy to pick up the keyboard/mouse.
I took work off on Friday to drive down to New Hampshire to see my new niece (and nephew, sister, and brother in law), and also exchange Christmas gifts with them. I picked up the keyboard and mouse while in New Hampshire (no sales tax) but didn't bring my laptop or Mac Mini with me, so I finally got it set up today.

Okay, well, either every single Macintosh lover I've met in person is extremely incompetent at describing things in full detail (that actually matter), or Mac OSX makes things so easy that people go all up in arms if something doesn't work as expected, and get extremely confused.

The keyboard and mouse worked flawlessly right out-of-the-box as a standard mouse and keyboard. It was all I wanted. I knew I needed to use the USB dongle regardless of the Mac Mini's internal Bluetooth or not...so the reviews weren't completely useless, but here I was thinking I needed to spend another $15 on ControllerMate and I really didn't. The mouse is as smooth as can be, too -- and I'm using it on my multicolored bed spread (because I'm cheap like that).

As an aside, the Macintosh automatically detected my 42" 1080p LCD TV as a 42" LCD monitor and also knew it was capable of 1080p resolution. It's kinda fun watching the HiDef Apple trailers now. Too bad I'm listening to the sound through the internal Mac Mini speaker.

"Read More" for the picture of the Mac Mini, 42" LCD, and my "desk" at home.
Continue reading "Happy New Year"

Mac OSX, how thee hath forsaken me!!

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:11:49 -0500

According to Apple's new advertisement campaign, specifically the ad where "everything just kind of works with a Mac", I suspected that I'd have no problems when looking for a wireless keyboard and mouse combo for my new Mac Mini (first attempt at using the Mac OS, I figured it'd be good to add to my resume, and I also just enjoy learning new things -- no, I don't own an iPod, though I might buy a Nano purely for the ability to use the Nike+iPod functionality). So the Mac Mini comes with Bluetooth, and I needed more than a six foot (~1.8m) distance between myself and the computer as I plan on using my LCD TV as the monitor; that mean that standard wireless keyboards/mice won't work as their distance is averaging around 6', I needed something more like 12'. Bluetooth has a minimum distance of approximately 30', some advertise as ranging up to 100' distances.

...anyways...

So I start looking around for a keyboard that I might like. Nothing too expensive, I don't do all that "media function key button" stuff, I just want a standard keyboard that would hopefully have a above the Enter/Return key, and the two-column three-row set of keys above the arrow keys. Logitech's Cordless MX Duo would have been almost (I can't remember if it was Bluetooth capable or not, if it was then it really would have been) perfect...but they no longer make it, and it's virtually impossible to find for sale. So I kept looking, and looking, and looking. Keyboard/mice combos are pretty expensive these days! And some of them don't even have a base station recharger! Ridiculous!

Come to find out from reviews that many wireless keyboards (or mice) just do not work right out of the box with a Mac. Oh, and if you want to connect it -at all-, you'd better be ready to forget the internal bluetooth and use the USB dongle. As it is, to get certain things to work with the Mac, you need third party software that you either have to pay for, create yourself (with third party software), or go on a scavenger hunt. Oh, and then if you happen to have a NEW system that has not been booted once yet (ala mine), how do you install these drivers and/or pieces of software to get your non-wired devices to work? Right, find a spare USB keyboard. Luckily I actually have one - I'm not big on spare parts if it's just for my own stuff.

So, I now have to pay $15 extra, after getting a keyboard/mouse combo that I decided on because I had 4 requirements that didn't fit into Apple's plan:

I don't want Apple's Bluetooth keyboard.
I'd like to get a combo pack (keyboard & mouse).
I want a mouse charger so I don't have to continually buy batteries.
I need it to reach at least 12' (3.5m), thus the bluetooth - most cordless seem to advertise only a 6' reach...

I'll be going out to purchase my keyboard and mouse within the next hour or two and attempt getting it working over the weekend. I'll update things with my progress here. I hadn't posted any new blog entries lately because of all the unnecessary (at least it should be) research on getting standard devices (albeit over a non-standard, as far as drivers are concerned, protocol) to work on an OS. Other than this, I've been trying to work on an automatic image resizing script using someone else's class library. It should be quite easy to do once I finally decide how I want it to work.

Grisoft's AVG Free

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 17:36:08 -0500

Just a note to all those people using Grisoft's AVG Free (a free anti-virus software): they'll be discontinuing the 7.1.x version sometime (slated) in January 2007. Version 7.5.x will be taking its place, and will still offer a free version. I'm updating my father's right now and figured I'd just make a topic about it for the heck of it.

Grisoft's Free Website Section

Avast: a popular alternative to Grisoft

NSIS: Nullsoft Scriptable Installation System

nospam@example.com (Brendon Kozlowski) — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 19:57:05 -0500

Before I forget all about it, I figure I might as well post some informative links over an experiment I did a few weeks ago... My sister was having a problem installing some software on her computer that was made using some version of an InstallShield installer that was having serious incompatibility issues with her Windows system setup. I used LogMeIn Free to attempt to diagnose the problem and solve it, getting the software to install. I saw the error and had absolutely no idea how to solve it. The only similar problem that someone experienced (that I could find) was over a year old and had to do with a DreamWeaver install which only affected a few people and was fixed with a new version of the installer. I tried installing the software on my computer and it worked flawlessly.

In comes two packages to help with a solution (I think, she has yet to try it after all my research and work, haha): Sandboxie, and (of course) NSIS.
Continue reading "NSIS: Nullsoft Scriptable Installation System"

WAMP Architecture

nospam@example.com () — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 18:34:07 -0500

Setting up Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl on your own personal Windows' based machine? Don't really know how to do it? Worried about security? I'm not really much of an enthusiast over pre-made packages that auto-install all 4 (and, actually more) software packages on to your local computer for development purposes, but this one actually seems really, really nice. I can't take the full credit for finding this, as someone else pointed me to it as I was trying to help them install these packages individually, but the features seem really, really nice:

- The security of your server is one of our #1 concerns and with that, we tend to set every single default setting as if your server will be used in production.
- Other security measures we take is that we update our package with every new release of PHP, MySQL, Perl, phpMyAdmin, and the Apache HTTPd Server.
- Supports plugins
- Web-Based administration page (Alpha)
- SSL Support OUT OF THE BOX

Plugins:
- FTP (x2)
- Java servlet engine(s) (Resin and/or Tomcat)
- PHP4 downgrade
- ActivePython (I didn't even know this existed ... time for a new download)
- Stunnel
- Admin Panel and Web-Based Admin
- Zend Optimizer (future plan)

I would suggest this to anyone just starting out now that I've seen it. If it didn't use Apache 2.0, I might even use it myself.