Just created another screen video using Camtasia 5. This is the latest version and its really cool. You can put in a picture in picture (I know you don’t want to see my ugly mug!), which might be useful in some situations. However, the filesize increases dramatically with PIP.

See what you think…

I’ve just been writing some code to run a TCP socket on a specific port. I was having trouble reading the response from the socket, which promted me to luckily find this damn good port scanning utility that I want to tell you about.

Its called JFirewallTest and it’s a nifty little Java program that can be run from the web page and will perform  a full port scan. All 65,536 ports are scanned very rapidly to find possible security holes in your firewall.

My sincere thanks to Michael Gardiner for developing and making this utility available free. You did a great job!

I had to download the Java runtime on all my servers and then checked them all. I’d wanted to do this for some time just to check. I new they were pretty secure and my firewall is locked down tight. Now I’m sure of this thanks to JFirewallTest.

It downloads and installs quickly and the port scan is performed in two phases and only takes a couple of minutes! Bloody marvellous! Thank you!

I was recently turned on to a product called RoboForm by a top internet marketer called Mike Filsaime. I had seen various password management products and thought about getting one, but was dubious.

After Mike mentioned how easy RoboForm is to use, I thought I would give it a try. And I must say I’m mightily impressed. So impressed in fact, I bought the pro version and add-ons for my smartphone and a USB version too. It’s really wicked!

Until I bought RoboForm I was using a spreadsheet to manage all my logins and passwords to various registrars, affiliate systems, client systems etc. The list was getting longer and longer. In fact, as you might guess, as I’m in the IT business related to web development, it’s huge.

Having RoboForm manage this for me is such a timesaver and makes my life so much easier, that I am truly grateful!!

If you have to manage a lot of logins and passwords to systems, you should try it and see how good it is! I think once you have used it for a few days, you’ll be very impressed. I am! It’s a free 30 day trial by the way, so you have nothing to loose!

Thanks Mike!

I run Computer Associates ARCSEVE 11.0 to backup all data every night. I recently installed SP2 on the Windows 2003 server that runs the ARCSERVE backup.

After the install I found that ARCSERVE crashed after running for a while, with nothing indicated in the Arcserve log or the Windows event log.

I found a usefull post that enabled me to fix the problem. I found this just before I almost upgraded to Arcserve 11.5, which would have cost me about 550 bucks! So try this first, its pretty straight forward and my backup is now running properly again. I wasn’t happy about being forced to upgrade but CA apparently don’t support anything less than Acrserve 11.5 on Windows Server 2003 with SP2 installed.

The file that needs to be renamed is asrbckup.dll and in version 11.0 it’s location is C:\Program Files\CA\SharedComponents\BrightStor\asrbckup.dll.

I haven’t tried doing a restore yet, but at least the backup completes properly.

I saw the news recently about the uproar, yes, uproar no less, cause by a group of hackers at a security conference where some apparently managed to hack Mac OSX. WOW!

This has re-opened the debate as to wether the MAC operating system is more, ahem, secure than it’s rivals, especialy, dun dun daahhhh, Microsoft Windows. Apparently the bug was in Quicktime, which is Apples media player.

I’ve noticed that, imho, many Mac users seem to be very anti Windows, particularly those who are not, again imho, qualified to make any kind of judgement about security or anything else for that matter. But developers too have said to me things like ‘oh not Windows, how can you work with that, its so bad’ and similar nonsense.

Now, first I must say I could care less but lets get real here for a minute.

1. OSX is a Unix variant and as such I wouldn’t bet on that being secure unless I’d brought in some security experts to harden and test that sucker (i’m talking about in a production environment)

2. It would cost a lot of money to do that as installation and configuration is apparently still a bugger!

3. MACs market share is around 6% so if you do the math there will be something like 90% more attempts to hack a Windows PC than a MAC. That doesn’t make a MAC more secure or less vulnerable, it simply means that more people try to hack a Windows system in one month than they do all year on a MAC.

4. All software has bugs. Period.

Here’s the original article and some interesting stats from MacDailyNews.

And the story continues…

As a developer of software systems for small and medium sized businesses I know that project documentation, while normally required in some form, is usually sparse at best and often non existent. Sure some sort of design document may be generated and then the development starts and the thing evolves somewhat and you end up with (hopefully) a good system that works well and its on time and within budget.

Now we’ve got to this point the next cycle begins and the supporting documentation falls by the wayside. Six months later you really wish you had that when you’re doing maintenance or enhancements to the original system.

Well, I’ve honestly found the answer to this dilema with a tool that is easy to use, allows you to quickly outline a system and fill in the details and share that with anyone using a viewer. What is this product from heaven? It’s called Mindjet Mindmanager and its fabulous. I used it recently on a project and it was quick and easy to generate a system design document with supporting text, graphics, url links, whatever you need really. And that’s just one use for this tool. I wish I’d found it sooner. There’s a free trial so try it and see if it works for you!

I noticed that IE started to quit on me again after I ran Microsoft Outlook. When I rebooted and opened IE, no problem. After opening Outlook (2007) IE immediatley started to shut down. So I decided to uninstall the Windows Live Messenger sign-in helper and the Windows Live Search IE toolbar.

That seems to have fixed that problem and I still have Windows Live Messenger running. No other problems so far. Nice one Bill!

I’ve just upgraded to Live Messenger 8 with the IE toolbar and immediately had a problem after installing where Internet Explorer (i’m running 7) crashed upon opening. A real pain in the butt!

I seem to have overcome this immediate problem, though it seems there may be many more! To fix my IE problem I disabled file sharing in Live Messenger. To do this go to Tools>Options\Shsring Folders\ and uncheck the sharing folders box. You will have to restart before the problem goes away. Please note: after you restart, if you go back and check the sharing folders box and apply the setting, you will have to uncheck it and restart your computer again (or so its seems).

Here’s a link to a great deal of info about this problem with Windows Live Messenger which you may find useful! I did!!

This has been a royal pain in the arse and wasted a good hour of my morning! Good luck.

This guide will show you the necessary steps to install and configure PHP 5.2.1 (5.x) on Windows server 2003 using IIS 6 as the web application server. This guide does not show you how to install Windows server or install IIS, just the config steps neccesary after install.

Here are the steps;

1. Install PHP
2. Configure PHP
3. Configure IIS
4. Test the install

Here we go…

Step 1: Install PHP

1. Get the latest version of PHP from php.net. Get the latest binaries but not the Windows installer as we are going to do all the dirty work by hand… Don’t worry, there’s not too much…
2. Get the latest version of the PECL Modules too if you need these specific extensions for you application. If you’re not sure, get them anyway and wait until later in the install before loading them onto your server…
3. Create a directory on the root of your server system drive in which to extract the PHP files. I use C:\PHP (tada!).
4. Unzip the binaries into the C:\PHP folder. You will now have a directory structure that looks like this:
   • C:\PHP
   • C:\PHP\DEV
   • C:\PHP\EXT
   • C:\PHP\EXTRAS
   • C:\PHP\EXTRAS\MIBS
   • C:\PHP\EXTRAS\OPENSSL
   • C:\PHP\EXTRAS\PDF-RELATED
   • C:\PHP\EXTRAS\PEAR

   This is the basic directory structure as of version 5.2.1.

5. If you know you need the PECL extensions you can extract those now. If you’re not sure you can come back to this point later and extract them. Either way, extract the files into;
   • C:\PHP\EXT

Step 2: Configure PHP

1. In your C:\PHP directory you’ll find a file named php.ini-recommended. Rename or copy and rename that file as php.ini.
2. Open php.ini up in your favorite text editor and preform the following edits (I’ve listed them in order as of PHP version 5.2.1)
   • extension_dir = “c:\php\ext\”
   • cgi.force_redirect = 0
   • browscap = “c:\php\extras\php_browscap.ini”
   • session.save_path = “c:\php\sessions\”
3. Install a browscap.ini file. This is optional but prefered so right mouse click and choose Save Target As… here to get the php_browscap.ini that I’m using or else search and find the one you want. Then copy it to c:\php\extras\php_browscap.ini (rename it from .txt to .ini).
4. Create a directory for the PHP session files. I chose to use C:\PHP\SESSIONS\ initilally. Create it here to start and when the install works then move it onto a different drive if you want.
5. Add C:\PHP to your servers path environment variable.
   • Right click My Computer, Properties and select the Advanced tab, then click on the Environment Variables button.
   • Select the Path variable and click the edit button.
   • Add C:\PHP; to THE BEGINING OF THE ENVIRONMENT STRING
   • Click on OK.
6. Add New variable PHPRC to the Environment Variables.
   • Click the New button
   • Variable name is PHPRC
   • Variable value is c:\php
   • Click OK.
7. Clcik OK back to desktop.

Step 3: Configure IIS

Add PHP ISAPI Extension

1. Open IIS Manger
2. In the left pane select Web Service Extensions
3. Click the link Add A New Web Service Extension…
4. Extension name is PHP 5.2.1 Extensions (Name can be whatever you want)
5. Click the Add… button
6. The path to the file is C:\PHP\php5isapi.dll
7. Check the Set Extension Status Allowed… checkbox
8. Click OK to finish

Add .PHP Extension

1. Right click on Web Sites and choose Properties
2. Select the Home Directories tab
3. Click on the Configuration button
4. On the Mappings tab click the Add… button
5. Executable browse to C:\PHP\php5isapi.dll
6. Extension is .php
7. Select Limit to: and type GET,POST,HEAD
8. Check Verify that file exists and click OK. Then OK again to get back to the Home Directory tab of the Web Sites properties dialog
9. Set Execute Permissions to Scripts only

10. Click OK.

REBOOT THE SERVER!

Step 4: Test the Install

1. Download this test file and copy it to a working website folder on your web server. i.e. yourdomain.com/info.php (rename it from .txt to .php)
2. Open the url in a browser http://yourdomain.com/info.php
3. If the install is good you will see something that starts off like this;

Please look at the 6th entry, the path to the php.ini file. If it’s your path, you have a good install and you can continue with the rest of your setup for the particular PHP system you are putting in. If it’s not your path, go back to the Environment Variable setting and make sure you put the variable at the FRONT of the path string.

That’s about it, good luck!
Stephen Tickner

I’ve started promoting an online remote backup service. I’ve setup and used the product and its very good. I recently had an Iomega REV drive that I use every night for my backups fail. I had to rectify that situation quickly as I’m very serious about backup and recovery. I’ve been in this business long enough that I’ve seen grown men (and women) cry when they have lost all their data.

The REV drive in question was only a year old, but out od warranty, so I went and bought a new unit plus a 3 year warranty. Hell, who wouldn’t if they only seem to last a year before they take a big crap and die! Total cost to me was about $450. NOT GOOD!

Then I was introduced to Enveloc, who provide this online backup service. If only I’d known them a couple weeks before, I could have saved $450!

With this service I have a nightly backup to 2 remote servers that I can restore from any PC!

Bloody marvelous!