The Leprechaun Works, LLC » Tutorials

Problem and Fix: Internet pauses or hangs for minutes and eventually resumes

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:49:45 +0000

We recently had several computers that had problems with the computers hanging for several minutes at a time. At the time, it was hard to diagnose what the cause might be. We even thought that the hardware was failing in several locations.

The symptoms of the internet hanging also seemed to hang the entire computer. Accessing other applications was slow or inaccessible. We tried multiple browsers, new network cards, and ran the latest anti-malware, anti-spyware, and anti-virus scans all with no success.

In the end we removed Microsoft Security Essentials and our problem went away. There were a few posts regarding problems with Symantec Workspace Virtualization and Microsoft Security Essentials. In our case, we did have the Symantec Workspace Virtualization application installed but needed it for other applications.

Microsoft Security Essentials had worked flawlessly up until this point and is considered a reliable anti-virus application. We chose AVG Free as an alternative anti-virus. This application is also free and allowed us to keep the virtualization software.

Note: There does not seem to be anyway to disable Microsoft Security Essentials. Because of this, you need to uninstall to see if this fixes your problem.

AVG Free, http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-avg-anti-virus-free
Microsoft Security Essentials, http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Better Image Selection with NextGen Gallery and WordPress

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:02:44 +0000

By default the NextGen gallery plugin for WordPress displays images by their gallery id and filename. We find it hard to find our desired image in galleries with numerous images based on filename. Most of the time our filenames have no meaning. However, a simple change to a source file will display the description in the selection dropdown menu making searching much easier.

Note: This method depends on having descriptions for your images. Obviously, if you do not fill in descriptions then your dropdown menu is going to display blank listings. Manage galleries allows you to edit numerous details of your images including the description.

We are looking for a file named window.php which is inside the tinymce directory under the admin root.

Open the file in your text editor of choice and navigate to the section that starts with

. There will be a second

at the end of the section.

All we need to do is to change the id and filename to description. Alternatively, you could use the alttext property instead of description ($picture->alttext).

Here is the original code.

foreach($picturelist as $picture) {
echo ”. $picture->pid . ‘ – ‘ . $picture->filename.”."\n";
}

Here is the modified code.

foreach($picturelist as $picture) {
echo ‘ ‘. $picture->description .”."\n";
}

Keep in mind that you are editing a plugin directly. This means that you will need to repeat this step whenever you update your NextGen gallery plugin.

How to use Freecycle™

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:05:52 +0000

Clive Grace / CC BY 2.0

" class="shutterset_singlepic54" >

Clive Grace / CC BY 2.0

Freecycle™ currently has over 6,827,000 members across the globe. A non-profit movement / organization of people giving and getting items. People passionate about finding homes for items rather than seeing them end up in the landfill.

Using Freecycle is truly simple. The entire mechanism relies on simple email. When you have something to offer, you send an email to the group. See something you want? Just send an email to that person.

First, find your local group. The Freecycle™ web site, has a form to find the nearest group. Once you join your group, you will be notified of the group’s email address. You use this address to communicate with the group.

The most important rule is that absolutely everything must be free. No strings attached.

Emails should be formatted in the following format.

subject: Prefix, item description, location

The prefix, can be:

Offer: Something you are offering
Wanted: Something you are looking for
Taken: A posting that your offer was taken
Received: A post saying that someone offered what you were looking for

The location is often your zip code in the United States, but many users use simple city names as well.

Your subject should be something like Offer: One gently used backpack 43075

It is up to you to decide who gets the item you are offering. Maybe, first to request it, gets it. Maybe, someone responds who seems like they really need your item. Totally up to you. Expect several emails requesting your item.

That’s essentially it. So, if you find yourself, wishing the ten lamps in your garage could find a new home, look no further. Take a small step and connect with other people in your city to recycle, and reuse items that you no longer need. You may indeed find someone offering something that you really want.

For more information on the Freecycle™ organization, visit their website.

For more information on The Recycler, our Outlook addin to help you manage your network, visit our product page.

Freecycle and the Freecycle logo are trademarks of The Freecycle Network in the United States and/or other countries.

The Leprechaun Works is not affiliated with the Freecycle network.

Updating Netbeans installations

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:42:50 +0000

Different download options highlighted

We love Netbeans but like many Open Source projects, they release new versions on a regular basis. The community is also very active in fixing bugs. You can report bugs and download a nightly build as soon as the problem is fixed. Each download always installed into its own directory. In the beginning this bothered us because we would end up with many versions of the application installed on our system. In the end, this is in fact a very good thing.

By having multiple versions installed in different directories, you can use any of them and know that they are isolated from each other. So, you can go grab that nightly build and know that it isn’t going to break your stable development platform. Furthermore, if you follow a couple of simple steps, the platform will also update its plugins.

If you want to try a new build, simply download it and install it. After this, just start the application. The application will then detect and ask if you want to import settings from a previous version. Once the application fully opens, it will then look at any installed plugins from previous versions and ask if you want to import them. It will also warn you if an older plugin isn’t compatible with the new build.

So, in the end all you really need to do is run the new build before you uninstall any previous builds. Eventually, you will need to uninstall old builds, but there really isn’t any rush since they are isolated.

Have fun and go grab the newest build of Netbeans.

Letters to mom and dad: Use your keyboard shortcuts

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:29:33 +0000

spadgy / CC BY 2.0

" class="shutterset_singlepic52" >

spadgy / CC BY 2.0

This is the first in a series of letters to mom and dad. Many of us have or are parents who are computer literate, but sometimes wish we knew more. This series will explore technology that may be unfamiliar to us.

With the explosion of laptops and netbooks, many of us are tied to a little touch pad to move around our computers. It usually isn’t practical to hook up a mouse even though this makes navigating easier. The alternative is to use your keyboard.

We are still surprised that so few people know the shortcuts for simple tasks such as copying and pasting. We will cover the most common shortcuts and try to cover a few that may be less obvious.

First, what is a keyboard shortcut? It usually involves holding two or more keys are once, although some shortcuts only use a single key.

On Windows based computers, most shortcuts involve holding the control (CTRL) key and the pressing another key in combination. If you are using an Apple computer, then you likely will hold down the Command key. In the past, many of our friends called it the flower key. It looks sort of like a four leaf clover. It also may sometimes have an apple logo on it. On either Windows or Mac OS based computers, the key is usually to the left of your spacebar. Sometimes, you will have more than one Ctrl key on Windows computers.

Let’s get to the meat of this tutorial. From now on, we will use ctrl to describe the shortcut. If you are on an Apple computer, substitute the Apple command key for the Windows ctrl key. We are using the plus symbol to connect the two keys. So, if you see ctrl + c, we want you to hold the ctrl key and the c key at the same time.

Absolutely, MUST know keyboard shortcuts.

All of our copy and paste commands. Obviously, you need to have text selected to use cut and copy.

Ctrl + c: Copy
Ctrl + x: Cut
Ctrl + v: Paste

Some navigation keys

Tab: The tab key will move between controls and will move text to the right in tab increments.
Shift + Tab: This moves backwards through controls and moves text to the left in tab increments.
Ctrl + arrow keys: By holding down the CTRL key and the left or the right arrow, you can skip through sentences, by one word at a time.
Shift: This allows you to select text. If you hold shift with another modifier key(s), you can move through a sentence.
For example, hold Shift and then pressing either the right or left arrow keys will add to or take away letters from a selection
Additionally, hold Shift + ctrl and then pressing your right or left arrow key will add or take away entire words from a selection

Home: Takes you to the beginning of a text line.
Ctrl + home: Takes you to the top of the page and the beginning of the line.

End: Takes you to the end of the line.
Ctrl + End: Takes you to the end of the page and the end of the line.

Some other useful keys

Ctrl + A: Selects all, this might be all text or an entire image.
Ctrl + P: Prints
F1: Open Help. This is the first function key we have covered: Function keys do different things in almost every program. But F1 is usually reserved for accessing Help.

A couple of web browser specific shortcuts

Ctrl + L: Selects all text in the location textbox. This allows you to start typing a new url
Ctrl + E: Jumps to the search Window
Ctrl + Enter: This is an interesting one. If in the location textbox, just type the center portion of your url and the browser will complete the rest.
For example, you want to go to http://www.outlookutilities.com. Simply type, outlookutilities and then hit ctrl + enter. The web browser will fill in the www and com portions for you.

Lastly, if stuck, use your Esc key. It will get you out of most binds. Take the time to learn your shortcuts. They can save a huge amount of time and make your time spent in front of a computer, much more enjoyable.

Check back for future articles in this series.

NetBeans and Ant, a great combination

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:16 +0000

We love NetBeans! It neatly fills our needs for developing php applications. It does seem to have some minor annoyances, but at least one of them can easily be overcome by using Ant. NetBeans with php allows you to designate a local web server for testing. The IDE automatically will copy files to the web server… well, most of the time. Sometimes, for whatever reason, NetBeans, doesn’t know if it needs to copy files. This often happens with our image files. It always will copy a file if you modify it, but this doesn’t work very well for files like images that aren’t normally modified in the IDE. Furthermore, it is annoying as mentioned earlier. You can update your files quickly by building a simple Ant script to copy your local files to your web server or another location.

For this tutorial, we will assume that you know about NetBeans, and how to create a new project. We are planning a couple of tutorials on using NetBeans for WordPress development in the future. These will cover more basics of using NetBeans.

If you would like to try NetBeans, go to http://netbeans.org/ to download the newest version. They have many different configurations depending on what your needs are. We use the php version.

On top of what comes in the php version of NetBeans, you will need to add the Ant plugin. The plugins dialog is located under the tools menu.

Next, click on the available plugins tab. If you click on the name column head, the plugins will sort alphabetically putting Ant at the top. Simply check the checkbox next to Ant and click the Install button at the bottom of the dialog. That’s it.

So, how do you use this? NetBeans will automatically recognize any Ant build file. So all we have to do, is create an Ant build file. The default build file is usually named build.xml.

Simply, create a new empty file named build.xml and add the following code.

name="Netbeans push" default="copyLocal" basedir=".">
>
pushes files to local web server
>

name="local.web" location="C:\xampplite\htdocs" />

name="copyLocal" description="Copy site locally for testing">
todir="${local.web}\testing">
dir="${basedir}">
name="**\.svn\**"/>
name="**\nbproject\**"/>
>
>
>
>

It simply starts with project, everything except for the name is optional. The default attribute names the default target. Basedir simply defines a property for a basedir that can be used later.
The description should be self-explanatory.
The property statement allows us to create a variable that we can use repeatedly in our code. Obviously, in this example, it actually adds typing, but you can imagine the time savings if you have a large build file with multiple targets.
The target is the meat of the file. This is what gets called when the build file runs. Targets can even depend on other targets.
The name must be unique within the file.
The copy line inside of the target is called a task. There are many ways to write almost all tasks. In this case, we are simply saying that we want to copy everything in our base directory to our local web server. As you can see, we can put any property inside of ${ } to use it within attributes. Additionally in this example, we have added a couple of exclude statements that are common in our work. The first ignores any Subversion files. Since we use Subversion as our Versioning system, it isn’t necessary to copy these to our local web server. The second ignores all of the Netbeans project files. You may or may not have your project files with the projects.

All that’s left is to use the file. In Netbeans, you can access the targets in multiple ways. The most common access points for us, is to right click on the file itself in the project window and click run target.

You can also view targets inside of the navigator window. Right clicking on the target you want to run, and selecting run is all there is to it.

You should see the results in your output window. This will also display any errors in your build file if you run into problems.

For more information on Ant, visit http://ant.apache.org/

As a final note, it is likely that Netbeans is caching information regarding the modification times of the files to accomplish its copy to server functionality. In our experience, we have not seen any problems, but you should proceed with caution.

Mapping a drive letter to a folder, the easy way

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:00:06 +0000

When sharing data between computers it is often helpful to have a method for structuring your data. In our case, even sharing our development code between a laptop and a desktop computer can produce pains. Sometimes, hard coded paths are impossible to avoid.

We simply structure our development code under a single folder and then we map that folder to a drive letter. There is a Windows utility called subst to accomplish this but it doesn’t maintain settings if the computer is turned off. We recently ran across a utility from NTWind that provides a visual GUI for this utility and furthermore, allows the settings to be persistent.

A note to keep in mind: If you need to run another application that needs elevated permissions and also need access to this drive, you will need to elevate the permissions for the Visual Subst utility as well. Just right click on the shortcut, click on the compatibility tab and check the checkbox next to run as administrator.

http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/visual-subst.html

Simple OSX style Folder Stacks in Windows 7

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:08:57 +0000

We were surprised that we couldn’t easily add folders to the taskbar when we moved to Windows 7. This seemed like a natural fit, but as near as we can tell is absent.

First off, we should point out that the easiest way to add folders to the taskbar is through the explorer application which is by default pinned to the taskbar. Right clicking on any folder in the frequent list will give you an option to pin it to the menu. Obviously, clicking on the thumbtack does the same thing. The thing that annoys us is that we can’t find a way to pin a folder outside of the jumplist.

We had written about another way to simulate a clean hack to display a hierarchical menu in Windows XP. This same technique works fine in Windows 7 and allows quick access to common folders. We are quick to admit that it may not have the graphical pizazz but it is certainly effective. It also, most importantly, doesn’t require any application launchers.

Simply create a folder anywhere in your file system. This folder will hold shortcuts to your common folders. Inside this folder drag or create shortcuts to your folders that you frequently access. If you want to categorize your shortcuts, no problem. Just create another folder and then add more shortcuts inside of the new folder. An example folder from our machine looks like this.

Once you are done adding your shortcuts, you need to get it on to the taskbar. All we have to do is right-click and select Toolbars -> New Toolbar. This gives us an option to select a folder. It is here that we select our folder full of shortcuts. A note: It seems that it is best to add the new toolbar with the taskbar locked. If the taskbar is not locked and then you decide to lock it at a later time, part of the first shortcut’s icon peeks out.

Once complete, you should see the name of the folder with your shortcuts next to a double arrow. Clicking on the arrows, will display your popup menu. Clicking on folders that have submenus will popout their respective shortcuts.

Using a thumbdrive as a journal

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:00:00 +0000

We often get pulled back and forth between projects. Sometimes we find it hard to remember what we were doing last. Our thumbdrive journal gives us an instant “tickler” file that can be searched. Tagging our individual posts makes this even easier to find our last task. Of course, you could use this method to keep a diary or just simple organized notes. We do all of our work on Windows based computers, but you can follow the same steps to create a thumbdrive journal on Linux or Apple computers.

To get started you will need to following resources.

WordPress - this is the blogging software that you will install on your thumbdrive
Thumbdrive – you don’t need a huge drive for this purpose. 1 gig is plenty but more will not hurt
XAMPP - your web server. Alternatively you can use UniformServer, but for this tutorial we will cover XAMPP

That’s it!

Downloading software:

Simply download the latest release of WordPress from their web site using the link provided above. The default zip file is just fine. When downloading XAMPP, you will want to choose the ‘lite’ version. This requires a manual install but this does not make installing the software more difficult.

Installing the software:

Copy XAMPP to your thumbdrive
Copy WordPress to your thumbdrive

Wordpress depends on the web server so we need to install this first. The only difference between the exe and zip file for the lite version is the exe version will run the setup batch file after it finishes copying files. In our case, you DO NOT want to run the setup. So all we need to do for XAMPP, is to unzip the files onto the root of our thumbdrive.

By root, I mean that you should have xampp directory directly after your drive letter. DO NOT create a directory.

For example: (replace i with your thumbdrive drive letter)
i:\xampplite (correct)
i:\journal\xampplite (incorrect)

Depending on your file, the folder inside of the zip may be called xampp or xampplite. This does not matter, either is fine.

To install WordPress, we follow the same steps. We simply unzip the file into the htdocs directory. In our case we also made a subfolder called journal. This isn’t necessary but allows us to have more web sites or applications using our web server in the future. When you are done, it should look like this.

Configuration:

Start Apache (the web server)
Start MySQL
Create a database for WordPress
Create a new database user
Give new database user full rights to the database for WordPress
Edit Wordpress Config file
Run install file for WordPress via web browser

Now to start using the products, we will need to start the web server and database server. We do this by double clicking on apache_start.bat and mysql_start.bat. Alternatively, you can launch the xampp_control.exe which will open a console window that will allow you to start the two servers.

Next open your web browser and go to http://localhost. This should redirect to the following page.

We need to create a database for WordPress. To do this, click on phpMyAdmin in the bottom left of the page. When prompted for a login, you will login with the user ‘root’ and a blank password. If this doesn’t work, check the readme file in the root folder of the xampp install. This should have your login information. Next create a database. We chose journal as the name of our database. The name is not important as long as you remember what you named it.

While still in phpMyAdmin, create a user for your new database. Go back to the main page and click on the Privileges tab at the top. You can get back to the main page by clicking on the text link that shows localhost at the top of the page. About half way down the page you will see a link for adding a new user. Here is the information we used. You can change the user and password to whatever you would like as long as you remember it.

User: wpadmin
Host: Localhost
Password: journal2009

Click the Go button at the bottom of the screen. When the screen refreshes, click the privileges tab again to see all of the users. To the far right of the wpadmin user, click the pencil icon. About half way down the page, there is a section for database specific privileges. From the database drop down, select the journal database. Click Check All when the screen refreshes. This will give your user full access to this database. Don’t forget to click go at the bottom right of that section.

We still need to edit the config file so WordPress will know how to connect to the database. In our example, the Wordpress config file is located at I:\xampplite\htdocs\journal\wp-config-sample.php. Just open this file in notepad and edit the top section. Change the following text

// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘journal’);

/** MySQL database username */
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘wpadmin’);

/** MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘journal2009′);

/** MySQL hostname */
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

Save the file as wp-config.php. Start the WordPress install by opening http://localhost/journal/wp-admin/install.php in your web browser. Once the install completes, make sure to write down or record the admin’s password. The admin is the main user inside of WordPress and there is no way to recover the password if lost.

Using the journal

How to add a post
Optionally change theme

To add a new post, you will need to log into WordPress. Most default themes give some link to the login script. If one is not available, just navigate to wp-login.php in your site. If following along with our example, you would go to http://localhost/journal/wp-login.php After logging in, you should see the following screen.

If you wish to record something quickly, you can use the quick post. You can enter the main post editing dialog by clicking the new post button at the top right. For a journal, it is unlikely that you will care about anything other than the title and body. I usually title my journal posts with the date, something like 2009-07-04. I do use tags when I enter my notes for the day. This makes it easier to find my notes at a later time.

Wordpress has the ability to change the look of the content by using themes. WordPress.org has a list of themes as do many other web sites. WordPressThemesbase.com is another one. Look around and find something you like. I chose a very plain Jane type of theme for my journal because I didn’t have needs for ads, widgets, other users etc..

Have fun. Leave any questions in the comments.

Virtualizing applications

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:19:53 +0000

You have probably heard of Virtualization if you are involved with technology. What you may not know is that it has a lot of different nuances and levels at which it is used.

We use Virtualization every day while developing and testing our applications. But, for those of you who may not know as much about Virtualization, we want to show you how it can help keep costs down and save time.

We use two different types of Virtualization. One technology allows us to create an entire virtual computer inside of our computer, essentially creating a second computer that runs inside of a window. Absolutely, fantastic technology.

Some major virtual machine software

The second technology that’s the focus of this article is virtual applications. The software that we use for this is called Workspace Virtualization and is available for free for personal use through Symantec. Symantec doesn’t make it easy to find the software. They sell a couple of products that are similar and most links take you to those pages. We searched for Software Virtualization Solution on their web site and found Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite. At the bottom there is a link to trialware that will take you to the download pages.

You are looking for Symantec Workspace Virtualization 6.1 SP1. You will also need to download a personal license. You can find that here

OK, the hard part is done. You found the software and a license! No? If you are still having problems, try this link.

When installing the software, you will need to check the admin console tool. The admin tool is necessary to create virtual layers.

So, hopefully, you have the software installed and all is well. So, why use this software? We can think of a couple of reasons. One reason, is that you need to run two different versions of the same application. In our case, we run multiple versions of Microsoft Outlook and have virtualized the Microsoft Office suite. The second reason might be to test a new piece of software. We are always looking for new software and many companies offer trial versions. There are a couple of benefits to virtualizing this type of application. First, would be to keep junk out of our system. Since the entire application including all registry keys are kept in the layer. You can delete the layer and be confident that you have removed ALL of the application. Second, is to try a time-limited trial without preventing you from trying it again at a later date. Time limited software often leaves registry keys or files in your system to track when you first installed the software. So, what happens if you want to test software but get pulled away on a project only to come back to it several months later and find out that the trial period has expired? Unfortunately, under normal circumstances you are likely out of luck. Most often you will find that the trial will be expired even if you install a new version. However, if you had installed it in a virtual layer, then you could delete the layer and install the newest version. Of course, you will install this one in a virtual layer, right?

Let’s get to creating a virtual application. You will install your application into a layer. This layer is usually a single application but can hold more than one. Layers can also be dependant on other layers. This makes it easy to activate multiple layers. To create a layer is really quite simple. Just start the admin from the start menu or desktop shortcut.

From the file menu, select ‘New Layer’.

You will then be prompted with a choice, select ‘Install Application’ and click next.

Next, you need to name your layer. I usually use the application name including the version number. This makes it easy for me to know when to update my layers.

Next you will have a choice between application or global. Again, you will want to select ‘Application’. You will also need to browse to your application setup file. Once you click next, the install will start. You will see an icon in the task tray that spins during the install. Most of the time, when your install is finished, the layer capture will open another dialog asking you if you want to install another application in this layer. If this doesn’t happen, just click on the spinning icon to finish the install process. That is it. You can now, activate or deactivate your layers when ever you need them.

The application offers way more possibilities than what is presented here, but this should get you started. A couple of closing notes. All layers need to be deactivated before creating new layers. A layer needs to be deactivated before you can view it’s registry and file information. This information is available from the Layer menu. The export option on the layer menu is used a lot by our company. This allows us to move virtual layers to other computers. You can even create patches for layers which minimizes how much data is being pushed back and forth across your network.

Lastly, there is an active community that Symantec calls ‘Connect‘, previously known as the Juice. You are likely to find many interesting and helpful notes about their virtualization technology.