Monthly Archives: March 2010

Software developement

Posted on by
Reply

There is a slight difference between software programming and software developement.

Software programming is just restricted to the task of writing lines of codes to create a program that fulfils a function.

Software developement entails not just programming but also the following:

  1. ensuring that what was created fulfills the function it was intended for
  2. that the function was defined properly
  3. that all possible permutation has been tested to ensure software is robust and does not crash due to unforeseen circumstances.
  4. that software be deployed and is in working order in the live environment.

No wonder software developers gets more pay than programmers.

This is most especially true for mission critical systems

Restoring an MOSS site

Posted on by
Reply

Given an MOSS bak file which looks something like blahblah.DAT. You will need to do the  following to install it on your MOSS installation.

First you will need to go to your MOSS Central Administration Page and create a site collection. For example

http://localhost/sites/test_site_collection

of you could simply go to

C:\program files\common files\microsoft\shared\web server extensions\12\bin

and type the following

STSADM.EXE -o createsite -url <url-to-site-collection> -ownerlogin domain\user -owneremail <email-address>

Next you will need to navigate to the following location using command prompt

C:\program files\common files\microsoft\shared\web server extensions\12\bin

Once you are here type in the following command

explorer .

This command will open this location and you can copy your blahblah.DAT file here via copy and paste.

Next go back to your command prompt you can type in the following command

stsadmin -o restore – url http://localhost/sites/test_site_collection -filename blahblah.DAT -overwrite

Click enter when you are done.

To see the restored sitetype

iexplore http://localhost/sites/test_site_collection

Upgrading MOSS server to use Active Directory

Posted on by
Reply

I recently upgraded one of my Virtual PC windows 2003 servers to use Active Directory. The very first thing that happened after the upgrading was done was that I encountered tons of errors. Apparently the Active Directory installation process by windows did not automatically update the logon details to services. Hence as a result MOSS which relies on quite a lot of these services to funciton properly was pretty crippled. The first thing I did was to open the service dialogue box and change the logon details for the following services

  1. Windows Sharepoint services administration
  2. Windows SharePoint Services Search
  3. Windows SharePoint Services Timer
  4. Windows SharePoint Services Tracing
  5. Windows SharePoint Services VSS Writer
  6. SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition (Microsoft##SSEE)
  7. SQL Server VSS Writer

Apparently MOSS uses an embedded SQL server to store all its configuration as well as Web instances

Next I had to do some configuration at the following location

Start > Administration Tools > Component Services > Double Click to Open

Console Root > Component Services > My Computer > Right Click to Open Dialogue Box > Open Properties

Navigate to Tab > MSDTC and then click on the Security Configuration button

Basically in that view click on all checkboxs and then indicate No Authentication Required

Once you click  ok the MSDTC service will restart itself.

With that done, there is only one last thing to do.

Go To Location C:\Windows\ right click on the Temp folder, click properties and then navigate to the Security Tab

Even thought I have added Administrator and ASP.Net as the users with full control of this folder it seems it is still causing problems with some MOSS services, so I have instead given full control to Authenticated Users as well.

Please note while all these configurations ensure that your sharepoint services gets up and running, it is not all together secured because of the lax security rules. If you really need help please hire a MOSS professional

Random thoughts on a Tuesday evening

Posted on by
Reply

It was our usual post dinner conversation again. Once again I got both my parents utterly pissed not because of the fact my views differ from them but precisely because my views exactly conincided with them and more than that I brought our shared opinion to its logical conclusion and proved once again that I, myself and all who share the same view as I do are no better than animals.

Seriously if this latter statement of mine holds true then all humans I see around me including me myself are no better than animals beyond redemption or any hope of salvation. Now sitting alone in front of my computer, thinking back to our topic for discussion, I could not help but laugh hysterically at both the utter hilarity of the situation as well as the hopeless of it.

How is it even possible for anyone at all to do good, when chances are knowingly or unknowingly we commit evil by our very actions on a daily basis!

To help but not at the expense of oneself. But then to help is to impose expenses on oneself one way or the other. Then not to help then but to devote onself to become utterly selfish. But to be utterly selfish is to impose oneself as much as possible on one’s neighbour unknowingly even when one doesn’t try.

To love but to at the same time protect oneself. This is not love at all then. Seems more like some scheming calculative game we are playing over here. But look! I play this game all the time. How the hell is it even possible to love?

To devote oneself to acquiring wealth, power and success. But doesn’t wealth, power and success comes at the expense of the same of those around us? Is it not to push other weaker ones out of the way in the process of it? Perhaps deprive them too of life. So are we not murderers now?

We eat 3 square meals a day. (some eat more than 3 too) The world does not have enough food. Whatever food we eat, we eat at the expense of others. Some where in the world some one starves to death precisely because you had your hamburger this afternoon. If you need more details please refer to the butterfly effect. No it is not my fault we may argue. But look it is your fault! Just because you don’t understand how you caused the death of the person beside you doesn’t mean that you are altogether free from crime.

Still I find no answer however much I ponder upon this annoying subject. Damn me and send me to hell then.

System – RokCandy causes erratic behaviour in Joomla

Posted on by
Reply

For the past two  days Catherine from Fit-Physique.com has been telling me that the editor of Kunena was not working properly. I was seriously puzzled. How could  this be the case.

But apparently [b]something[/b] gets automatically translated to become <strong>something</strong> when it gets displayed. This really screws up the editor of Kunena.

As I was just looking for the source of the problem in a Joomla system with just Kunena and no RokCandy installed, I failed miserably for one hour. I could find no problems.

Finally giving up, I downloaded the entire Fit-Physique.com site to my local server for testing.

I realized [b]testing[/b] gets translated automatically in not just the Kunena Component but in the standard Content Component as well. Hence this is really a system wide issue.

This prod me to adopt a system wide problem isolation tactic. Thus I deactivated one Joomla Component at a time followed by the Plugins. When I finally reached Plugin RokCandy, I realised I found the source of the problem System – RokCandy automatically translates BBcodes like [b][/b] to html tags. While it maybe helpful. It is painful if you are unaware of its existant.

Thus one problem solved. Seriously, more and more as I do these stuff do I realize solving problems are easy. Identifying are the hardest!

Debugging some errors in Joomla Component Kunena Forum

Posted on by
Reply

I have a Joomla installation hosted on GoDaddy.org. I have recently installed the Forum Kunena to this Joomla Installation. All seems to be  working fine on my local server, however this is not the case with the server on GoDaddy.org

On the GoDaddy.org hosting server, my emoticon for the Kunena does not work. This is because some codes on my javascript got mysterious transformed to something else. To work around this I have modified the code.

Below is the modification at line 98 of  components\lib\com_kunena.bbcode.js.php
color = String(numberList[r]) + String(numberList[g]) + String(numberList[   bb ]);

for (bb = 0; bb < 5; bb++)    {
color = String(numberList[r]) + String(numberList[g]) + String(numberList[   bb ]);
document.write(‘<td id=”‘ + color + ‘” style=”background-color:#’ + color + ‘; width: ‘ + width + ‘; height: ‘ + height + ‘;”>’);
document.write(‘&nbsp;’);
document.writeln(‘</td>’);
}

Also I have identified two bugs which cause the inbuilt avatar images not to show when choosen for use by users. The fixes are here

Replace code at line 162 of components\com_kunena\template\default\plugin\myprofile\myprofile_avatar_upload.php

$kunena_db->setQuery(“UPDATE #__fb_users SET avatar=’{$kunena_db->getEscaped($avatar)}’ WHERE userid=’{$kunena_my->id}’”);
Replace code at line 335 of components\com_kunena\template\default\plugin\myprofile\myprofile_avatar_upload.php

$kunena_db->setQuery(“UPDATE #__fb_users SET avatar=’{$kunena_db->getEscaped($newAvatar)}’ WHERE userid={$kunena_my->id}”);

Hope this is helpful in fixing your Kunena Forum Joomla Component Bug. :)

Reinstallation of Brother HL-2070N Printer driver to improve performance drastically

Posted on by
Reply

After being seriously annoyed with the lag in all my programs that allows for a print functions, I decided that today was the last straw.

I uninstalled the existing HL-2070N printer driver and configuration and reset it up once again.

Apparently there were two configuration options available in the installation process.

First option ask for the driver to search for the printer in the network each time it is activated.Good if you dont know nuts about which LAN IP address your printer is residing on. However very painful in the long run since it slows down all your programs.

The second  option ask that an IP address be specified and driver automatically prints to that IP address each time a print job occurs. This is good if you have already set a fixed LAN IP address for your printer and you do not want performance lag while you are using other applications. This is bad if you know nuts about network and router configurations.

Not unknowing better I choose the first configuration. It was painful every time I print. Now that I feel the pain, I opted for configuration number which is to me very painless.

Video Conversion with Virtual Dub

Posted on by
Reply

I tried to convert a video from VOB format to AVI format. It took me quite a while. This is because there are so many different softwares around and most of them at first appear to be free but attempts to force payment from the users when users really try to do any video coversion.

Eventually I came across this post http://tigredefogo.blogspot.com/2007/05/tutorial-how-to-convert-dvd-vob-mpeg-2.html. It was a life saver. I managed to download the version of  VirtualDub MPEG-2 that can edit Mpeg 2 files. as well as the necessary codec AC-3 ACM Codec.

Once done I not only could VOB files to AVI files without stupid watermarks, I could also indicate the exact range of frames (time in minutes and seconds) to include for conversion.

Pasha did recommened it to me before. But I guess the version i downloaded was not extensive enough and I did  not configure it properly too. Anyways two thumbs up for Virtual Dub!