It turns out there was a small problem that was severe enough to prevent the server from booting. During the BIOS sequence, there was a notice we had overlooked that read “CD-ROM not found.” Once we pulled the bad CD-ROM drive and replaced it with a good one, the message went away and the server booted without interaction.

Since the CD-ROM isn’t necessary for booting, it seemed odd that a missing (or bad) CD-ROM drive would prevent the server from starting up without keyboard interaction. Sounds like a flaw in the BIOS to me.

The code to include the WP theme in external pages used to look like this:

The newest version of WP merged the old WordPress Multi-User (WPMU) and the standalone version of WordPress. Since this merger, the new way to include WP in external pages is to change the require() statement to pull in wp-load.php (instead of wp-blog-header.php) like this:

Now your external pages work just like they used to! I found the answer on a BBPress forum post from nine months ago.

http://www.viper007bond.com/2010/06/12/so-apparently-wordpress-can-guide-missiles/

http:// 217.23.5.205/ index.html

The IP address appears to be owned by an outfit in the Netherlands.

This page had some simple attempts at Javascript obfuscation but essentially it covered up the browser window with a <div> that looked like an Explorer window with infected files. Bear this in mind while browsing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I recently purchased a Macbook Pro 15″ (aluminum unibody version) and I love it. Since I do most of my web development under Windows (at least for now, this may change!), one of the first things I did was install Windows on a Bootcamp partition. I did this before upgrading the installed OS X operating system from Leopard (10.5) to Snow Leopard (10.6). This installed version 2.1 of the Bootcamp drivers for Windows. These drivers allow the Apple hardware to work under Windows, including the sound card, video, multi-touch trackpad (like enabling two-finger scrolling, right click, etc.) and more.

Most of the drivers worked very well but there was one very annoying thing — it seemed the sensitivity of the multi-touch trackpad was dialed up to eleven. I had enabled the dragging feature, which is designed to let you double-tap-and-hold in order to drag and drop, like to move an application window, or move an icon or drag/drop text while editing; The problem was I kept accidentally dragging stuff around my screen when all I wanted to do was move the mouse. Desktop icons kept getting lassoed or moved around on my screen; words were selected and moved around in documents that I was editing; background windows were getting activated and brought to the foreground while I was typing; it was really quite frustrating.

Every now and then, I’d look for updated drivers or look to see if I had missed a setting somewhere that could tune the trackpad sensitivity but I never found anything that really helped.

After an especially frustrating evening, I decided to look again. Googling revealed several references to the Bootcamp 3.0 drivers and it turns out they were supposed to come with Snow Leopard. I figured maybe I should insert my Snow Leopard DVD while booted into my Windows partition to see if there was something there mentioning an upgrade path. Sure enough, after inserted the DVD, the Bootcamp installer auto-started and prompted me to upgrade. After a few minutes, the installer asked to reboot the system.

The drivers are now updated to Bootcamp 3.0 and now my trackpad drivers are working much, much better. If only I had thought about this weeks ago! Not nearly as many accidental drag operations or stray clicks. Woohoo!

The only problem is that there is still no two-finger horizontal scrolling, only vertical scrolling. Hey, Apple, when can we get two-finger horizontal scrolling in Windows? Or is that one of the secret features you guys are saving for OS X in order to get folks to migrate? ;-)

So Google thinks I’m a robot? I was doing a fair amount of searching because I had a server down and needed to fix it, but seriously?

Since I am very particular about my settings and preferences (fonts, palettes, brushes, code-views, views, etc.) in many of the CS apps (especially Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash) I was really dreading have to start over with all the default settings. I also had downloaded and installed some custom Dreamweaver extensions (adding support for Perl code, and some other stuff.) After placing a call with Adobe support, I asked if they had any kind of tech note or something that would help me figure out how to save or export all my settings so that I could restore them after reinstalling. The tech I spoke with said there was no way to do it, so I knew I was on my own.

After trying several different things, I think I finally figured out everything I needed to save in order to restore my working environment and preferences after the reinstall. This was all done using Windows XP sp 3 … Vista’s file locations would be different.

So, here’s what I backed up before uninstalling:

1. Custom file format plugins

   I use a couple of file format plugins not included with the Photoshop install (*.ico and *.wmf) so I had to back those up. They were stored in the following directory:

   C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Plug-Ins\File Formats

2. Custom/downloaded brushes

   In addition, I have a few downloaded and purchased Photoshop brushes. Those were stored in the following directory:

   C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes

3. Application settings from the disk

   Next I grabbed all the preferences and settings stored on the disk, which meant getting the following directories under C:\Documents and Settings\(USERNAME)\Application Data\Adobe\ …

   • Adobe Illustrator CS3 Settings
   • Adobe PDF
   • Adobe Photoshop CS3
   • Bridge CS3
   • Dreamweaver 9
   • Extension Manager
   • Flash Video Encoder
   • Plugins
   • Save For Web
   • Save For Web AI

   You have to delete a few things from the Dreamweaver 9 folder above before restoring to the new install … delete any WinFileCache*.dat files stored in Dreamweaver 9\Configuration as well as the entire Dreamweaver 9\Configuration\Temp folder.

4. Application settings from the registry

   It appears that a couple of CS3′s apps don’t store their settings in the Application Data folder above, but instead use the registry. This means you need to export the following registry keys:

   • HKCU\Software\Adobe\Flash 9
   • HKCU\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver 9

With all those files safely backed up, I started the process of uninstalling. Since the uninstall from Add/Remove Programs control panel didn’t work (it also failed with the “Source for this installation was not found” error) I used the instructions from http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/401/kb401090.html to remove it manually. Then I ran the CS3Clean script (from http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs3clean.html) to clean up any artifacts left from the previous install.

Next I reinstalled from my original media (which took a lonnnnnnnnnnnggg time.) When it finished, I launched Photoshop (to get the registration stuff over with) and then quit. I restored the registry settings from the export above, then restored all the files I backed up we well. The next time I launched, all my settings where there! So far, no glitches in Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Flash or Dreamweaver!

UALR campus is smoke free as of Aug. 16!

Then, a few seconds later, the very next message appeared:

Art of the Peyote Religion and the Native American Church

Hmm … cigarettes = bad but peyote = good?

Some may complain about the way Apple does things, but I recently had an experience with iTunes Music Store (iTMS) customer support that was incredible. I have to say that I’m even more of a fan boy of the iTMS than I was before.

First, you should know that I have always liked Winamp for playing music on the computer — not the really old version (Winamp 2.x) but the newer version with modern skins (5.x). Years ago, when the iTunes store first opened, I was very excited about the convenience of online purchasing of digital music, but I was not excited about being locked into using iTunes for playback. At the all the songs at the iTMS were encoded at 128KB and included digital rights management (DRM) which limited you to only using the songs on Apple iPods or (up to) five authorized computers, and only with iTunes as the playback software. This was a restriction I was willing to live with for the ease of online buying.

More recently, the iTunes store upgraded all their music to something called iTunes Plus, which is encoded at a higher bit-rate (=higher quality sound) and no DRM. This is freeing because now you can use any playback software you want (yay, back to Winamp!) Even better was how easy they made it to upgrade existing purchases to the new format: all you have to do is log into the iTMS and click the “iTunes Plus” link on the right side. You should be presented with the option to upgrade earlier purchases to the new format at a reduced cost, usually only 30¢ per song (if an upgraded version of the song is available.)

The problem was I didn’t get offered an upgrade for all of my old purchases. Specifically, I had 23 songs that I really wanted to update to the new higher-quality format but couldn’t through normal channels. Since everything sold is supposed to be iTunes Plus, I searched to see if all the songs I had were available and, with one exception, they were.

I called Apple support and they directed me to the iTunes Music Store support chat, http://tinyurl.com/c29va3 (bookmark that link!) After about one minute, Barbara B. joined me and asked how she could help. I explained the situation and she replied that it can sometimes take a while for the upgrade version becomes available — even if the higher quality version is available for new purchases. After a few more questions, she offered as a courtesy to let me purchase ALL 23 songs new and she would refund the charges!

So, not only did I get the rest of my library upgraded, I got to do it for free!

If you ask me, that just ROCKS!