Damn You Microsoft

I finally had enough of the Windows XP Mode and Virtual PC images that Microsoft setup for Windows 7. Drag and Drop disappeared and all the developers on Microsoft's MSDN message board couldn't tell me why. I used that all the time. Especially testing software...

I've got about 15 virtual machines setup under various known scenarios. The only way to transfer files over without drag and drop was sharing folders or setting up an FTP server or whatever. It was a pain.

So I uninstalled Windows XP Mode and reinstalled Virtual PC 2007 with Service Pack 1 and I'm happy again.

Linux in a Virtual PC Image

I develop Microsoft Windows software during the day (yeah, yeah, I know - really it's not that bad), but I needed to test some open source C++ code and needed to check that it worked on a Linux box, so I had to install Virtual PC RC under Windows 7 and install Ubuntu 9.04 to try it out. Unfortunately I had to add the following string to Virtual PC to get it to boot correctly.

file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu-server.seed initrd=/install/initrd.gz vga=791 noreplace-paravirt

Postfix and Blink Carbon Copying

We have a policy and the Fed's mandate it (if you're involved in a Federal lawsuit you must follow this) of keeping all incoming and outgoing email related to the corporation.

We do this using Postfix's BCC configuration as follows

In your /etc/postfix/main.cf
#ZHB ADDED THE FOLLOWING PER FEDERAL GUIDLINES
sender_bcc_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sender_bcc
recipient_bcc_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/recipient_bcc

Then in /etc/postfix/sender_bcc
mailbox@domain.com tobcc@offsitedomain.com

Then in /etc/postfix/recipient_bcc
mailbox@domain.com tobcc@offsitedomain.com

Then run the following
postmap recipient_bcc
postmap sender_bcc

Then run
postfix reload

You're all set - I LOVE Linux!!!

Remote Debugging

I always forget how to setup remote debugging so here's some notes for me...

Prepare your remote host

First of all you need to prepare your remote host for accepting incoming debugging requests, this is done by running the Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor on the remote machine, which is found under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\. Copy that folder to your remote host and place a shortcut to the msvsmon.exe on the desktop, so you have fast access to it whenever you need to debug.

The Remote Debugging Monitor is the one accepting your debug calls and the talking back to Visual Studio on your client, so to get these things to work you have to start the client as the user running Visual Studio (or have administrative permissions on the client). You can either log in to the remote host using that user or, as I prefer, right-click on the msvsmon.exe and choose Run As... Make sure that the user you are using to run the monitor with is member of the local Administrators group.

Now the Remote Debugging Monitor has started to waiting for new debugging connections. The debugging server was named with the username that is running the application and the server name, separated with an @-character. You can rename it using Tools->Options.

Prepare your client

Now it's time to prepare your client. First of all you have to run the Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger Configuration Wizard, which will open up the correct ports in your firewall. You will find the wizard under the Visual Studio Tools in your start menu. The wizard also allows you to run the Remote Debugger as a service on the machine which the wizard is run on, skip this step for this guide. When the wizard asks you for how you would like to configure your firewall, choose the Allow only computers on the local network... option and the finish the wizard.

Start Debugging

Now it's time to start Visual Studio 2008 and load up your solution and hook up the debugger to the remote machine. Prior to this you need to deploy the application to be debugged on the remote machine, including the .pdb files.

In Visual Studio choose Debug->Attach to process. In the Qualifier you have to enter the name that was given to the Remote Debugger Monitor and hit Enter, then all you need to do is attach to the process you would like to debug and set some break points!

That wasn't to hard?

Problems

Here are some problems that I have stumbled upon when trying to get these things to work.

Unable to connect to the Microsoft Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor named 'XXX. The Visual Studio Remote Debugger on the target computer cannot connect back to this computer. Authentication failed. Please see Help for assistance.

This one is due to the fact that the user running the debugging monitor are not allowed to access the client machine, make sure that the user running the monitor is either the same user running Visual Studio or the member of the Administrators group on your client.

You only see a few processes in the Attach to Process dialog.

First of all make sure you have checked the Show processes from all users check box, then make sure that the user running the monitor has access to the process on the machine, that is you have to make the user member of the local Administrators group. After adding the account to the Administrators group you have to restart the monitor.

Unable to connect to the Microsoft Visual Studio Remote Debugging Monitor named 'ibvsretail'. Logon Failure: The target account name is incorrect.

This one is pretty uncommon, but still I have had it. Somehow the server account in Active Directory had gone wrong so I hade to remove the machine from the domain and add it back.

MacBook Pro

I love it. That's it - pure and simple. Been using it for a couple of days. The only things I had to handle was the following....

I use 1 24" monitor at home so I close the MacBook, let it go to sleep and then hit a key on the external keyboard/mouse and it wakes back up on the main display and I can keep the MacBook closed.

Other than that - I still like having a two/three button mouse. I makes sense. Having to move your hands to create a right-click is time consuming and I don't use a Mighty Mouse - I don't like the feel or design of that.

I'm also running VmWare Fusion for the Windows 7 installation and it's working like a charm.

Installing Software to New Windows 7 Machine

I always forget what order to install the software in (in order to get a Officially Microsoft Supported Solution) when doing a new Operating System. I had to do this again with Windows 7. And this is more for my memory than anything else...

Zack's Installation List for New Operating Systems
Lastest List Update 8/6/2009 - Windows 7
I'm running all this with Windows 7 x64 on a Dell Latitude E6500 - and working fine. Your mileage may vary.



Before You Do Anything!
-----------------------
1.) BACKUP EVERYTHING using Acronis TrueImage to NAS or External HD
2.) Verify the Image - Make sure you can restore files from this image
3.) Also copy files and other project via Explorer if you want
4.) Backup Microsoft Outlook Folder (C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook



Software I Use Daily (Install in this Order to achieve a fully supported system
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.) Clean Install Operating System and All Service Packs
As of date above - there are critical updates for Windows 7
2.) Install Office 2007 (Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access/Outlook/OneNote/Publisher) and All Service Packs
As of date above - at Service Pack 2
3.) Install SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition and All Service Packs
After SQL Server Update - Install Service Pack 1 to address compatability errors
4.) Install Microsoft Project 2007 and All Service Packs
As of date above - Service Pack 1
5.) Install Microsoft Visio 2007 and All Service Packs
As of date above - Service Pack 1
6.) Install Visual Studio 2008 Team Developer Edition
See Service Pack Notice Below - also step 6-8 MUST BE installed in this order!
7.) Install Team Developer Foundation Software
8.) Install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1
9.) Install Expression 3 Studio
10.) Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio SP1
11.) Install DevExpress Studio
As of date above - at version 9.5.1 (with Beta 9.5.2 if you want)
12.) Install ESET Virus Scanner and Apply Updates Updates


Additional Tools
--------------------
1.) Mozilla Firefox
At Version 3.5.2
2.) Process XP/Process Monitor/FileMon - From Microsoft TechNet
3.) Virtual PC 2007 and All Service Packs
Don't Forget Service Pack
4.) Magic Disc (ISO Mounter)
5.) SQLiteMan
6.) SQLite.Net
7.) 7zip
8.) VideoLan.Org
9.) XVI32.exe
10.) iTunes 8.0.2
11.) SlingBox SlingPlayer
12.) SQLYog Enterprise
13.) FileZilla Client
14.) SyncBack Pro
15.) Putty and Tools
16.) Agent Ransack
17.) Pidgin
18.) PDF Creator
19.) FoxIt Reader


Addtional Notes
-----------------
All Drivers are installed as part of Windows 7 except Video. You can download a working driver from Nvidia
Video Drivers - 256MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M for Black Latitude E6500

Just Say You Don't Know

So part of my day job is doing development for another company. I pride myself on attempting to know as much as possible about technology, computers, software development and the like. You just have to, in order to be a competent developer.

Recently we had an employee in our head of marketing and public relations department, get fired. The boss decided to hire a relative that supposedly knew web development and was proficient in designing fliers and marketing pieces for the business using Photoshop and InDesign.

His first day here we set him up with a new computer, Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Design Premium CS 4, dual monitors, etc. Hey if this guy was as good as he said he is - great.

Well I'm starting to find out that this guy knows jack shit about development and computers in general.....He calls my desk and it goes from there...

He says "I need more memory in my computer. Got any sticks of RAM?"

Me: "Why?"

Him: "I'm rendering on my computer and it's taking too long."

Me: "Ok let me come over and check it out. I'm not sure how much memory we stuck in that computer." I come to find out it's Windows XP Professional with 2 GB of memory. Should be plenty, but I can always kick it up if I need to.

Him: "I'm rendered this Photoshop picture and it took about 10 seconds."

Me: "That sounds acceptable to me. I can max out your computer with 4GB of RAM - but it won't help since 32-bit XP won't see all of it. We'd have to blow away your OS and put 64-bit Windows on it."

Him: "Oh - you can do that?"

Me: "Yes, but I'm not going to. You don't need it. I see you've got Photoshop, InDesign and Outlook running." (That's about the most memory hungry bunch of applications you can find on a computer - and he's got them all running at the same time. It's Microsoft Windows - not a Mac or Linux OS!)

I explain the whole process of OS memory management and 64-bit vs 32-bit memory addressing and all the other nuances. Keep in mind - I'm a developer. I know this stuff, but I'm no Raymond Chen of Microsoft. After his eyes finish watering from the fire hose of information I gave him....

Him: "Ok. I'll just save this and send the email."

I get back to my desk and a couple of minutes goes by and he calls me again.

Him: "My computer is running slow. I'm trying to send a 2 sentence email and it won't go."

I go over there again and he's right - his computer is slow. No Photoshop or InDesign running - just Oulook. I quick look and it's consuming 500+ MB of memory and growing. I check his Outbox and he takes a call. He's got an outgoing 88MB file! I whisper "You can't send that!" and he finishes his call and I go back to my desk. I'm assuming he has some knowledge - he's supposed to be a web developer and those guys have some tech savvy right?

I guess not....he calls my desk again.

Him: "How much bandwidth am I allocated?"

Me: "What do you mean? Do you want to know how big of a file can you send out via email?"

Him: "Yes"

Me: "It's not us - the system is currently set at 25MB files going in/out of our server anything else and your at the mercy of the recipient's mail server. But most balk at 10MB or larger" (yes I've got ours set generously - mostly because the rest of the employees for the company in question are about as bright as this guy.)

Him: "How do I send this to them?" (Keep in mind it was a list of like 10 people)

Me: "If it's a PDF - what are they going to do with it? Are they going to print it at a publishing house?"

Him: "No, it's just a flier for the company picnic."

Me: "Where are they going to print this then, their local printer?" (At this point I'm becoming irate about the whole situation - and I'm normally pretty cool.)

Him: "They'll probably take it to a Kinko's to get copies."

Me: "Really? Then they probably just need a 300dpi or 600dpi copy printed out. Why don't you re-render your flyer." (Whatever it is, there is no way a 1 page flier is going to even come close to 10MB)

Him: "How do I do that?"

Me: "Seriously? I thought you did this stuff at your last job. You click on File->Save As and when Acrobat comes up you can choose an output type and dpi setting." (My 5 year old knows this)

Him: "Ok. I'll try to figure it out and call you if I have problems"

The boss thinks this guy's going to eventually doing web development. Hah! I'm not letting him check in 1 character into source control. No way!

I'd love to check this guy's resume out. If you don't know what your talking about - don't fake it - but you have to get a clue at some point!

God help us all!

My Mac's Worldly Journey

Well, I got myself into a little pickle, but I won't go into that here.

Just writing to say that my MacBook Pro (and the free iTouch that came with it) are on it's way via FedEx. It's actually a neat journey they are taking....

The MacBook Pro is shipping from Shanghai, China and is currently in Anchorage, Alaska.

The iPod Touch is shipping from Shanghai, China (via Kunshan, China) and is somewhere in a cargo hold traveling at 40,000+ feet in a FedEx plane.

I just hope some crazy Sars or Bird Flu or other unknown illness comes with them!

The software shipped from trusty MacMall and that should arrive today - I just hope UPS leaves it on the porch or with a neighbor. I hate picking up signed for packages in Maumee - it's a pain.

One More Reason to Love Linux

I forget how much I love the Linux movement sometimes...

We have several servers (Windows and Linux) here and keeping them up to date is a pretty easy process. We had few Ubuntu 6.06LTS servers that needed to get upgraded to 8.04LTS. In the Microsoft Windows world, that would entail a complete reinstall wasting countless hours/days. In the Linux world I just did the following on the Ubuntu 6.06LTS boxes (as sudo of course)...

1.) lsb_release -a
2.) apt-get install update-manager-core
3.) do-release-upgrade

It literally, took 20 minutes to do 4 machines! This was awesome! Can you imagine upgrading 4 Windows 2003 machines to Windows 2008 like that? I wish!

Welcome Home Discovery

Just an FYI....At 3:14pm EST Space Shuttle Discovery landed at Runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center. It marked a successful mission and was as always a picture perfect landing.

Skywarn Training Complete

As you may (or may not) know, I'm a fan of severe weather. Yeah, sunny days are nice, but there's nothing like watching a summer storm roll in. Today I was joined along with over 500 other individuals for the yearly Skywarn renewal training class. It's a pretty broad class covering items that the National Weather Service Office in Cleveland, OH wants reported during severe weather outbreaks (damaging wind, flash flooding, hail, snowfall, etc).

Along with normal means of communication (phone, Internet, cellular, etc) once a severe weather warning has been issued, the Toledo area (Skywarn District 1) Ham-Radio repeater network is activated and Ham Radio operators begin assisting the National Weather Service in tracking and reporting the storm. This along with other measure give us direct access to meteorologits in Cleveland, OH so we can report potential life and property threatening weather.

You can obtain more information about Skywarn by visiting www.skywarn.org

IE8 Released

Microsoft finally released Internet Explorer 8. It's pretty close to IE7, but is more standards compliant. We've ran into a couple of clients that have some old IE6 and IE7 compatibility issues when rendering since some hacks were put in to deal with IE7 way back when.... In a pinch we enabled the IE7 compatibility mode on the website so it would work for them without any redesign and they've been quite happy with the results - everything renders just fine. So I would say go ahead, IE8 has my stamp of approval for anybody that wants to install it.

Just incase anybody wants to know the compatibility mode settings, I've summarzied them below (for you other web developers out there). There are essentially 3 ways to turn on compatability mode without any user interaction: Per Web Page, Per Web Application, or Per Web Site...

Per Web Page works like the following example:



<html>
<head>
<!-- Mimic Internet Explorer 7 -->
<title>My Web Page</title>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />
</head>
<body>
<p>Content goes here.</p>
</body>
</html>




Per Web Application works like the following web.config file example:



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<httpProtocol>
<customHeaders>
<clear />
<add name="X-UA-Compatible" value="IE=EmulateIE7" />
</customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>





Per Web Site works like the following (just change your IIS/Apache settings)



You can also configure IIS 7 on a Windows Server 2008-based computer to include a custom HTTP response header by following these steps:

Click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
In the connections pane, expand the node for the server, and then expand .
Click the Web site where you want to add the custom HTTP response header.
In the Web site pane, double-click in the section.
Under Actions, click Add.
In the Name box, type X-UA-Compatible.
In the Value box, type IE=EmulateIE7.
Click OK.
To configure IIS 6 and earlier versions to include a custom HTTP response header, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type inetmgr.exe, and then click OK.
Expand the server you want and then expand Web Sites.
Right-click the Web site you want and then click Properties.
Click the HTTP Headers tab.
Under Custom HTTP headers, click Add.
In the Custom header name box, type X-UA-Compatible.
In the Custom header value box, type IE=EmulateIE7.
Click OK two times.




Apache Administrators would do the following:



Apache 2.2
To specify an HTTP response header for your Web site using Apache 2.2, you can use the Header directive provided by the mod_headers module. The Header directive can occur almost anywhere within the various configuration files, but the main configuration file is httpd.conf. It can be limited in scope by enclosing them in configuration sections such as , , , and .

By placing the directive in httpd.conf, all pages sent by your server within that scope will include the X-UA-Compatible HTTP response header. This will force Windows Internet Explorer 8 to use the EmulateIE7mode when rendering your pages.

First, you need to ensure that the headers_module is loaded during server initialization. In the httpd.conf file, uncomment the line by removing the “#” at the start of the LoadModule line for headers_module. You can use a text editor such as Notepad to do this. When complete, it should read as below.

LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so

To add the header to all pages on the server, add the following line to the httpd.conf file after the LoadModule lines.

Header set X-UA-Compatible “IE=EmulateIE7”

It may not be desirable to apply the header to every page on the server. The directive can be used to change the configuration for content in the Web space, relative to the document root. For example, the following configuration applies the HTTP header to any URL-path that begins in /store. It will apply to requests for http://yoursite.com/store and http://yoursite.com/store/file.html as well any other requests beginning with the /store string.

<Location /store>
Header set X-UA-Compatible “IE=EmulateIE7”
</Location>




Dell Mini

Well I finally hit 35 years old last weekend and my wife bought me a Dell Mini 9" ultra-portable laptop for my birthday. I wonder how she knew?

When unboxing it, the first thing you notice is how small and light it is (less than 2 pounds). I fired it up and removed all the crap that they ship with it (except the webcam application - that's fun to play with). It boots up pretty quick and the screen is clear, bright and very easy to read. The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to but it's pretty usable.

I got the unit with 1GB of memory and the 8GB SSD (Solid State Drive) and when it's running you hear NO noise whatsoever. None! I have it on my night stand and hear nothing!

Today, I'm backing it all up - I have it all setup with Windows XP, Slingbox, Firefox, etc and I'm going to install Mac OSX on it for testing some development work I'm doing. That'll take a little bit of time, but should be a lot of fun.

Discovery....Go For Launch!

Here at Burns Software we're fascinated by the United States and International Space Programs. It's very rare that we get to see the live launch sequences, and all the things and people that make it a successful mission.

Today I got the chance and the launch window fit into my schedule, so I decided to sit and watch the STS-119 Space Shuttle pre-launch and launch events. It's all a wonder it works! But recalling from my days as a private pilot, you've gotta have the checklist and a good crew! :)

Here's a view at the T-Minus 9:00 hold pattern from the developer lounge here at Burns Software.

Just for those that missed it, it was a beautiful launch! You can check out some footage over at www.nasa.gov. God speed Discovery and good luck accomplishing your mission objectives. We support you!

Sony - Stepping Up?

I'm normally not a big fan of Sony. In any way what-so-ever! (I can go into it if you want, but I won't for the simplicity of this post.)

Anyway, back in 2004, Amy bought me a Sony mini-DV Handycam. It was and still does have an excellent Carl Zeiss lens. It took pretty good standard definition movies.

This camcorder would get pulled out on Christmas, birthdays, etc for shooting some home movies and until recently we just stopped using it. Well, back when Sydney went to Safety Town I had to work so I asked Amy to record the production. When she brought it home she said she had problems taping the performance, but she finally got it working. But I noticed that during playback the screen was playing green pictures and cutting in and out. I was chewing Amy out saying how bad of a photographer she was, etc, etc.

Well, I just so happened to plug this camcorder in today and was going to get some of the DV recording for some compilations and noticed that the Camera portion was just recording black. The audio worked, the LCD screen playback worked, etc. The only problem was recording.

So I hopped on Sony's site and after some digging noticed a post back in 2006, that they finally acknowledged a problem in the CCD sensor and my unit was exhibiting the same issues. The bulletin says they'll repair the unit for cameras with this issue until March 31, 2009. Holy smokes! I might get lucky. I filled out the form, paid the $15.00 shipping fee and am awaiting a UPS label that Sony's shipping me. Awesome!

This might actually get me to change my mind about Sony! Wish me luck.

Server Safari

As you know, here at Burns Software, we do more than just software development. We do it all from web hosting, to server building and maintenance, web development, iPhone development, you name it - we do it!

Anyway, we've got several internal servers here for production and development work. I was doing some video production (yes - we do that too) last night and when uploading it to our backup server it was taking way too long over our 100M-bit network. It was getting kinda late and I didn't feel like digging into the problem, so I went to bed and woke up this morning headed down to the basement (were our data center is) and noticed the following on one of our servers....

Oh great! Looks like I've some some hard drive issues. So that's my chore today - to make sure I get the data off the mirror and over to another place before swapping out the hard drive and putting a new one in. (I like to make double sure I've got the data in more than 1 location - just in case - I've been burned by hardware before!)

Anyway, the wife has a birthday dinner scheduled for5:00pm tonight and I'm trying to wrap it up by then. Another thing I noticed was that some of the rats nest I have going on for the video distribution network (below). I've got to clean that up before it gets worse!