dreadys' blog

PHP 5.3 DirectoryIterator::getPathname bug on root

2011-03-02T10:52:00.002+01:00

Using DirectoryIterator on root results in a different behavior of getPathname.

before 5.3 the output would be something like:

/var
/etc
...

after 5.3 it is:

//var
//etc
...

what the heck is it with the doubleslashes? It's only happening if you are using Root as the Directory to start with

new DirectoryIterator('/');

Although it seems to me like a bug, i found nothing on google. Reporting it was not possible as i am using a debian distributed version and i already know their answer. "Use the original one first"

Maven troubles on Helios

2010-10-14T00:00:00.001+02:00

I created a new working environment on my laptop and checked out my source via clone. After setting up everything i still had troubles deploying my application on glassfish:

|WARNING|glassfish3.0.1|javax.enterprise.system.container.web.com.sun.enterprise.web|_ThreadID=23;_ThreadName=http-thread-pool-4848-(1);|java.lang.IllegalStateException: ContainerBase.addChild: start: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
java.lang.IllegalStateException: ContainerBase.addChild: start: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener

Searching in the net i found out that maven on helios has a bug deploying dependencies on helios.
Here the Link:
http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=msg&goto=544809&

I installed and checked everything, in the end i had to change this file:
${PROJECT_HOME}/.settings/org.eclipse.wst.common.component

             consumes

Moving from MySQL to Derby

2010-10-09T09:20:00.010+02:00

Developing locally i wanted to move my Database from MySQL to Derby on my laptop. Since i use JPA Entities i thought it's an easy task just clicking some menus.

Unfortunately triing to create the Tables from Entities were not as easy as i hoped.

Constraints 'SQL101008073950601' and 'SQL101008073950600' have the same set of columns, which is not allowed.

This was the first Problem i had to fix. Since google (or any other search engine) is the developers best friend i found this bug information:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-789?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel

This Link is also very informative:
https://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=998193

In the end it was this little Attribute in Column (unique = true)

@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy = IDENTITY)
@Column(name = "hi_id", unique = true, nullable = false)

derby column, or type mapping 'VARCHAR(65535)' is not valid
I found this link:
http://opensource.atlassian.com/projects/hibernate/browse/HHH-1501

@Column(name = "hi_text", length = 65535)

I had to cut the length to 32000.

Hamcrest 1.1 Security Error on Eclipse Gallileo With JMock

2010-08-17T10:10:00.002+02:00

Finally i started working on unit tests and already got a gotcha on eclipse galileo with jMock 2.5.1.
Galileo Ships with jUnit 4 but unfortunately without org.hamcrest.TypeSafeMatcher which is needed by jMock.

Adding jMock through Maven still leaves the Problem with Classpath and who comes first.

I tried the following links with no luck:
http://www.southsearepublic.org
http://cedar715.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/86/

Then i removed jUnit Libraries in Project Properties under Java Build Path => Libraries and added jUnit through Maven Dependencies.

Works like a charm now.

jPitfalls - Enums in Hibernate

2010-07-27T15:32:00.000+02:00

In Hibernate you have two ways defining the association between database fields and Java properties. You can use xml definitions or Annotations.

I for example started with xml and later changed everything to Annotations. Either way, i used jBoss Hibernate Tools in Eclipse for generating the Java Class Files and xml Configuration.

Fortunately both Database and Java have Enums. Unfortunately the Hibernate Tool does not. (don't get me started on Hibernate at this point) So while you may think "Hey, i used Enums in my Database Design because i am a genius" and "That's great, now i can use them in Java" you can't. (Who is the genius).

Using Annotations it's easier. Creating Enums, adding them into the Hibernate Class Files and voila, you have Enums. (But don't forget to maintain them = meaning if you change the Enum in Java or the Database you have to change the other Part two by hand).

Using xml is a complete different Story. You have to Define the Type and adjust it by Hand. There is even a GenericEnumUserType explained in the jBoss Community.

In the end i still think that it should also be possible to create Enums automatically and some day it might, but in the meantime stay sharp and check you Enums.

Linktipps:
http://community.jboss.org/wiki/Java5EnumUserType
http://weblog.dangertree.net/2007/09/23/mapping-java-5-enums-with-hibernate/

jPitfalls - log4j adding through maven

2010-07-07T15:17:00.007+02:00

One of the first thing a developer want to add is logging. Without logging there is no development. And i mean it... no development.. seriously!

Therefore i looked up in the net which logging Facility i should use and ended up with log4j. (And because all the Tutorials and Books i looked up used it as well). It's really great and flexible. (Enough advertising.)

But being not accustomed to Maven and Dependency Management and everything automatic, i had to learn another hard lesson.

The Thing with log4j is, there are several ways the output can be collected. Console, File, Database, you name it. The Thing with Maven and log4j is, if you add a plugin, it's automatically included and you don't even have to do much more work.

Being accustomed that every little peace has to be configured by hand i was unprepared for the *automaticallywedoeverythingforyou* world. Adding more than one log4j plugin i ended up with no output at all.

Nothing worked and i was starting to gave up my hopes. Fortunately a colleague of mine helped me out (we were sitting together, no clue at all) and found the reason for the misbehavior.

Use only the one output you need, no more than that and everything worked like a charm.

So today's Mantra is "Only use what you need, no more than that" (young grasshopper)

Thanks again

PHP Programmers Way to Java Heaven .. or jPitfalls

2010-07-07T13:16:00.005+02:00

That's a nice Title.. or "Typical Java Pitfalls if your a PHP Programmer" or something like that .. in short Java Pitfalls or jPitfalls. (That's a nice short word!)

In short: i started programming in java/eclipse a while ago and decided to write all my troubles down so it might help someone else getting a clue what's happening...

And because my college urged me to do it over half a year.. so here it comes. A complete Series about all my troubles with the Name jPitfalls.

Now i need to tell you a little about the environment of the project i am working on. It's a typical WebShop with Database connectivity serving a handful of people so it's not a big deal. But this are my first baby steps into the wonderful world of compilation, debugging and so much more.

Without any help it's not as easy as it sounds when you need to find the right peace of software for your work. Frameworks, Database Connection, Template System... learn everything from scratch. So i worked my way through Struts 1,2, Spring, Hibernate, Plugins for that Frameworks and of course Eclipse and it's Plugins, unsure where it ends.

Also there was/is the question where will it be hosted. Finding a decent and pricable Hoster isn't easy if you know what technology you are working for. But now it's also a Question if you want an EJB 3 Container or not. Is Tomcat enough or do we need something more extravagant. (Glassfish?)

I ended up in several discussions with myself about the way i should go. (I am still having these discussions, but man, i have gone a long road already) For example the Framework: First i decided to use Struts1 because i thought it's old, so you find a lot of helpful information and it's really complete, nothing beta.

After working hard on the project for several weeks i thought that upgrading to Struts2 would be a good Idea, but not yet. Don't change something important as the Framework in the middle of the implementation cycle. Remember: You want to complete the project asap.

But then some Problems occurred which led to the decision to refactor everything and use Struts2 instead. (It was after all the right decision). In the meantime i use Spring for some parts (as they really work great together) and Hibernate as Database Layer.

My Intention was always to keep it as small as possible and as simple as possible. And for christs sake: Get the job done, will you!

Could not open the Visual Page Editor: No more handles [Could not detect registered XULRunner to use]

2010-01-07T13:45:00.004+01:00

If you have installed the struts tools from the jboss development update site in eclipse under windows and get hit by that error you might want to check if you also installed the xul runner from the jboss update site.

Might save you a lot of troubles and hours of searching what's been happening.

cheers

Microsofts Ticket System sucks big time

2008-11-27T11:10:00.002+01:00

After finding this little bugger i naturally wanted to share it where people like would look for, therefore i thought i should share it with the IE8 beta bugs place at ms. (since quirksmode does not seem to be accessed often anymore and it's recommended on http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/ie8-beta-feedback.aspx)

Being a google naive user i never needed a Windows Live Account, therefore i had to create it. Ok, if that's the price it would be ok.

I already checked the newsgroup and bugs database. So i went to the connect website.. but my Windows Live Account is not the only thing needed, i had to Register there too (so why did i need that Live Account again?) and they wanted much more information.. personal information they don't need to know.. i mean it's about sharing in a global community, not buying things or any other secure workflow.

Ok, registered there too i had to acknowledge again that the email is correct. (Why did i need that Live Account now?) Then i was able to check that my bug was not listed so i wanted to create it.. oh, no you need to send a post into the newsgroup, our people will create it then if it's worth it..

Of course they could not use just another trac or bugzilla system where anybody was able create bugs, that would create a much bigger mess, i understand it, but still it gets me pissed even more.

Good, let's go to the Newsgroup... at that time i was really in an angry mood so i am not sure anymore if i had to register again, but i am pretty sure they wanted another check if my email is valid (i already confirmed that when creating that damn Windows Live Account, why the heck do you need it AGAIN????)...

But i was able to regain myself and send the post on Friday last week (of course no reply) and shout afterwards...

Conclusion:

3 Email Verifications
2 or 3 Registrations
1 News Post
no way of creating a bug report

Where do you want to go today?

IE 8 beta 2 1px Background Image Zoom Bug

2008-11-27T11:05:00.002+01:00

IE 8 beta 2 has a nasty little bug with Background Images. If they have a width or height of 1px because you use it for repeat-x or repeat-y backgrounds you will get very dissapointed if zooming your Template smaller than 100%.

Somehow IE calculates 1px < 100% must be 0px which means the background dissapears even with repeat statement.

Workaround ist to use bigger sizes, at least 2px but i am not sure if you will get problems at < 50% so i use 10px now, at least for IE8 (conditional comments are a savior).

Apache 2.2 PAM troubles

2007-09-28T15:18:00.000+02:00

This time i had to configure an apache to use pam to connect through winbind to an Active Directory.

Basically i was trying to port an Apache 2.0 vhost to Apache 2.2 since we are switching servers.

It took me some time until we found a bugreport indicating why it is not working anymore..

AuthBasicAuthorative Off

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=394097

SATA Problems Part II

2007-09-24T10:36:00.001+02:00

Last weekend i got the replacement disk for my broken sata disk and reinstalled it. I found a manual quite quick but had some serious problems since i either got one of the two following errors while trying to rebuild the raid 1 array:

ata1: Timeout
ata1: DMA Timeout

Although i had some ideas what could be wrong my last solution was to change the SATA Cable and that was all it needed...

Rebuild Array

To rebuild an array with a clean disk i found this guide useful:
http://www200.pair.com/mecham/raid/raid1-degraded-etch.html

Although it was written for IDE Disks you can use it also for SATA..

Here the needed parts extracted:
We start by copying the partition structure from /dev/hda to /dev/hdc. We do this for what should now be an obvious reason: the secondary drive is empty, but it needs to have the same structure as the primary drive. If the disk was first cleaned, and is large enough, you should have no errors (but you may still have to --force it):

sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk /dev/hdc

We make sure the superblocks are zeroed out on the new drive (as always, be careful you do this to the correct drive). Edit as needed:

mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/hdc1
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/hdc5
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/hdc6

Now we add our three hdc partitions to the corresponding md's.
Understand what you are doing here before you do it, edit as needed:

 mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/hdc1
mdadm --add /dev/md1 /dev/hdc5
mdadm --add /dev/md2 /dev/hdc6

Watch them sync:

watch -n 6 cat /proc/mdstat

Once the recovery is complete (and not until then), create a new boot records on both drives:
grub

From the grub> prompt (edit partition number if needed):

 root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
root (hd1,0)
setup (hd1)
quit

PHP5 DomDocument schemaValidation problems

2007-09-24T10:12:00.001+02:00

First i have to tell about a SOAP Connection to a webservice. I don't know if the developers ever thought about SOAP more than just a quick thought how can we transfer data, since from my end it looks as if they have absolute no idea what they were doing.

We have a Service that holds a bunch of personal data which we have to transfer to the webservice of an higher instance. Now you would think they provide a SOAP Connection where there are a lot of functions to send them the data for every person.. but no.. there are only two functions:

One which wants a XML String where all personal data has been collected together and
a second one which wants the same string as zip

So you see the whole point of the SOAP connection is just to send them the already prepared XML Files and then they work with the collected data somehow internal.

Fortunately they provided a xsd file so i was able to add additional validation to ensure the data is valid.

Now i created the XML Files using php5 DomDocument. The library makes it really easy to create Elements and it also holds a schemaValidation functionality.

I don't want to get into to much detail but when i said that they want all personal data of all people collected in one file you will notice that it would not be a good idea creating first all users in one file and then check if that file is ok... or perhaps i am just the only paranoid here, but i wanted to know exactly which person is making troubles.

So my code first creates the xml data for each person separately (although cached) and then i add the xml data to an prepared xml so i can validate against the schema.

The Problem
Now we get to the point. My Function first creates a Validation XML which helds all the markup and then adds the XML Data of the person using DomDocument->importNode and then appendChild at the correct position.

Unfortunately the schemaValidation finds errors where there are not really one, or so i thought. I got Error Messages which i was unable to see anything wrong. But i found a workaround.
Using DomDocument->loadXML(DomDocument->saveXML()) just before the validation i was able to sort of "normalize" the DomDocument and the schemaValidation worked.

I am not sure if the schemaValidation was just not designed for such a work or i did misjudge and used it completely wrong. But since there is not much documentation at php.net i had no other way.

SATA problems

2007-09-10T12:33:00.000+02:00

I had some serious problems with my Server concerning some sata harddisks. Unfortunately not only my raid 0 system with a one year old Samsung SpinPoint was broken (i sent the disk to samsung) also another disk failed with serious failures and locked my system.

So i bought a new one and wanted to transfer the data from the broken one as good as possible to the new one before it completely fails. But i was stopped by my own ignorance.. the new 500GB disk was not working with the sata Controller onboard.. so when i went back to change it into a smaller disk (since i thought there are some size restriction in effect which stopps my controller to get it working with the disk) they just told me to jumper the disk to sata I and try again..

Not only is this jumper setting not explained in the small tiny manual which is normally shipped with the disks, i also called the support Hotline preview to this incident to confirm my theory (with the size) and was a little angry they have not told me this on the phone before.. Not that i have much to do, i am just a workaholic with a family and a little girl....

Never less i used the jumper setting they told me and tried again.. first the controller had troubles recognizing the disk but after another restart it was finally there.
Good, now all i have to do is partioning the disk and then create a filesystem.. but then the same errors appeared on the disk as on the old one.. NOT AGAIN...

Another mistake of me was to define the problem with the Controller... ok it's a via chipset and it has some troubles with maxtor 500GB disks and i am not very found of it and maybe it is also a reason for the problems. Either way i just bought a pci sata Controller and installed it.. and it found both sata disks (not my raid array, that is on another sata controller.... ok now that sounds more complicated than it really is.) and after booting linux i tried to mount both disks.

The new one did not have any problems, i was able to recreate the partition and installed a filesystem, but the old one still got some errors by mounting readonly:

sd 5:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x8000002
sdc: Current: sense key: Aborted Command
Additional sense: Scsi parity error
end_request: I/O error, dev sdc, sector 206307443
lost page write due to I/O error on sdc1
ATA: abnormal status 0xFF on port 0xFFFFC2000004439C
ata6: status=0xff { Busy }

Luckily i found a site which proposed to change the sata cable. Since i changed it to the one shipped with the controller the disk run as smooth as ever.

Now i could be pretty angry for searching this little fellow for about two weeks but i am just relieved that the data on the disk are ok. Naturally the first thing i did was to backup the complete disk to the new one before laying my hand into the fire ;-)

vserver with different Architecture

2007-09-06T11:21:00.000+02:00

My system is a little weird since i did a poor job installing linux: i installed a 32 bit system on a 64bit architecture and then just changed the kernel.

Now installing a new vserver with debootstrap it automatically uses the source system which in my case is 32bit and therefore i got the errors:

kernel: IA32 syscall 311 from ...

It finally annoyed me enough, so i asked a friend and with his help i finally managed to change the architecture when installing a new vserver:

newvserver --hostname name --domain domain --ip ip --dist testing --interface eth0 --arch amd64 --context context

Not only i got rid of the warnings, i experienced a slight boost in performance. But maybe this is because of the source of the error. Now i am installing all vservers again in 64bit and move forward.

LDAP the second - Apache2

2007-08-31T13:30:00.000+02:00

After getting LDAP Working on PAM the next move was to get it working with Apache. I tried several ways:

direct contact to the AD through LDAP
using PAM
using Kerberos

and i was able to get it working through LDAP. For that i needed the module authnz_ldap and lap. Then all i had to do is to get the correct Authorization config into the virtual host:

<directory>
...

AuthType Basic
AuthName "LDAP"
AuthBasicProvider ldap
AuthLDAPBindDN cn=ldapauth,ou=Users,dc=your,dc=domain,dc=com
AuthLDAPBindPassword password
AuthLDAPURL "ldap://yourdomain.com:389/ou=Users,dc=your,dc=domain,dc=com?sAMAccountName?sub?(objectClass=*)"
AuthzLDAPAuthoritative off

Require valid-user

...
</directory>

Some Explanations: The AuthBasicProvider is needed as of Apache 2.2 since else you will get an error Message.

Links:

Ldapping the World - Active Directory and PAM

2007-08-31T12:29:00.001+02:00

Introduction
Working with multiple vservers we started thinking about using a single user database for all authentications. Since we are using a MS Server with Exchange and so on it was decided that the Active Directory (AD) of that Server is our User database.

Next we had to get everything under Linux configured to authenticate against our AD, which meant we had to configure PAM to use our AD. Now there are two ways to do that: Winbind and LDAP. Winbind was used before and we had some real bad problems when the Windows Server has been restarted so we thought of using LDAP. Beside that, we did not want to install Samba on all Vservers.

Now to get LDAP working there are some small thoughts you have to consider: First, you need openldap (or similar) to get information from LDAP, but to authenticate you have to use at least kerberos. There are other ways also, but i wanted to keep it as simple as possible and security measurements (clear text passwords,...) were not in consideration at this point.

Our System:
- Windows Server 2003
- Debian Linux testing (at this point)

Windows
You will have to adjust also the Windows Server since it has to add some more Fields for Unix to the Active Directory. Depending on your system there are multiple ways and they are all explained in the links i added at the end. We used Microsofts Services for Unix 3.5 (SFU).

Then i added a new user ldapauth for the communication, and i adjusted my own user for testing, which means i activated the Unix Attributes and set everything.

ldapsearch
First i had to get ldapsearch working. For that i installed ldap-client

apt-get install ldap-client libnss-ldap

and then i backuped the /etc/ldap/ldap.conf file because i made a symbolic link to /etc/libnss_ldap.conf:

HOST yourhost.com
base ou=Users,dc=your,dc=host,dc=com
uri ldap://yourhost.com/
ldap_version 3
binddn cn=ldapauth,ou=Users,dc=your,dc=host,dc=com
bindpw password
nss_base_passwd ou=Users,dc=your,dc=host,dc=com?one
ss_base_shadow ou=Users,dc=your,dc=host,dc=com?one
nss_base_group ou=Groups,dc=your,dc=host,dc=com?one
nss_map_attribute rfc2307attribute mapped_attribute
nss_map_objectclass rfc2307objectclass mapped_objectclass
nss_map_attribute uniqueMember msSFU30PosixMember
nss_map_objectclass posixGroup Group
nss_map_objectclass posixAccount user
nss_map_objectclass shadowAccount user
nss_map_attribute uid sAMAccountName
nss_map_attribute shadowLastChange pwdLastSet
pam_login_attribute sAMAccountName
pam_filter objectclass=User
pam_password ad
ssl off
nss_map_attribute uidNumber msSFU30UidNumber
nss_map_attribute gidNumber msSFU30GidNumber
nss_map_attribute userPassword msSFU30Password
nss_map_attribute homeDirectory msSFU30HomeDirectory
nss_map_attribute loginShell msSFU30LoginShell
nss_map_attribute gecos name

Then i was able to use ldapsearch:

ldapsearch -x -Hldap://yourdomain.com/ "(cn=User Name),dc=your,dc=domain,dc=com" -W -DAdministrator

passwd
Now i had to change the /etc/nsswitch.conf:

passwd:         ldap files
group:          ldap files
shadow:         ldap files

normally getent passwd should first show the activated AD User and then the linux user. I had some troubles get it working correctly and used strace getent passwd to see that my users from AD have been parsed but somehow did not return in the list. Unfortunately i am not sure anymore what i have done to get this working, but i am pretty sure that it was some change in the /etc/libnss_ldap.conf.

Kerberos
Now after we have got ldap talking with AD we need kerberos installed for PAM.

apt-get instal heimdal-clients libpam-heimdal

and then i had to configure the /etc/krb5.conf:

[logging]
default = FILE:/var/log/krb5lib.log
[libdefaults]
ticket_lifetime = 24000
default_realm = YOURDOMAIN.COM
default_tkt_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc
default_tgs_enctypes = des3-hmac-sha1 des-cbc-crc
krb4_config = /etc/krb.conf
krb4_realms = /etc/krb.realms
kdc_timesync = 1
ccache_type = 4
forwardable = true
proxiable = true
v4_instance_resolve = false
v4_name_convert = {
host = {
rcmd = host
ftp = ftp
}
plain = {
something = something-else
}
}
fcc-mit-ticketflags = true
[realms]
YOURDOMAIN.COM = {
kdc = yourdomain.com:88
admin_server = yourdomain.com
default_domain = yourdomain.com
}
[domain_realm]
yourdomain.com = YOURDOMAIN.COM
.yourdomain.com = YOURDOMAIN.COM
[login]
krb4_convert = true
krb4_get_tickets = false

You can test it with:

kinit testuser

PAM
Now finally i had to configure the pam configuration files:

common-account

account sufficient pam_ldap.so
account required pam_unix.so

common-auth

auth sufficient pam_krb5.so ccache=/tmp/krb5cc_%u
auth sufficient pam_ldap.so use_first_pass
auth required pam_unix.so nullok_secure

common-password

password required /lib/security/pam_ldap.so use_authtok md5
password required pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8 md5

common-session

session required pam_unix.so
session required pam_mkhomedir.so skel=/etc/skel/ umask=0022

Enjoy!

Links:

Apache2 proxy on vservers

2007-07-17T16:24:00.000+02:00

I have recently changed my internal structure from chroot to vserver, and therefore i was able to split my development system from my live system.

But unfortunately that also meant that there is only one vserver who gets the port 80 requests. I thought a long time about that and decided there must be a possibility to use apache2 as a proxy, but also to use wildcards. (I did not want to have multiple files on different systems).

For that i have installed apache2 on both machines. On the live one i have one configuration file for all proxy requests:

<virtualhost>
ServerName www.sub.example.com
ServerAlias *.sub.example.com

CustomLog sub.example.com-access.log combined
ErrorLog sub.example.com-error.log

ProxyRequests On

<proxy>
Order deny,allow
Allow from live-ip
</proxy>

ProxyPass / http://develop-ip/
ProxyPassReverse / http://develop-ip/
ProxyPreserveHost On
</virtualhost>

That way all Requests are send to the development vserver and i don't have any more headaches about it.

See also:
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/358
http://kpumuk.info/ruby-on-rails/upgrading-apache-to-version-2-2-in-debian/

iTunes has detected an iPod in recovery mode

2007-07-09T10:08:00.000+02:00

I have an iPod of the 5th Generation for about a year now and use it whenever i can. At work i use iTunes to control the iPod, but i am not using it for sharing my music otherwise.

Now i had this problem that iTunes showed an Error "..iPod in recovery mode.." ... what the hack? Since i sync my iPod with my home iTunes i had to recover it there (although it did not have any Problems).. now i tried it again at work: same Problem..

After a quick search i found this: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304503

It suggest that the Drive Letter the iPod wants to use is used already... and that was the whole Problem all the time.

Now i ask: Why the hell could it not say it at the first sign? I mean it did never occur to me that this could be a Problem.

The Drive Letter support with USB and Network was always a Problem with XP (which had to be configured by hand) but at least there could be some information at iTunes.

life span of a LCD Beamer

2007-06-28T11:39:00.000+02:00

My PT AE 700

About three years ago i bought a Panasonic PT AE 700 Beamer. Calulating the time how long a Lamp may live i thought i have worked it all out.. but i was wrong.

LCD Beamers are not supposed to be used the whole day, every day in the year.. just as you would use a TV.. but i thought it would only need more Lamps..

Unfortunately that's not the whole story. Without going into much technical Detail about how they work there is one piece which is the heart of it.. the LCD Panel. Basically it holds all three Panels (one for Red, Green and a Blue one) and the replacement unit costs as much as a new Beamer.

That's supposed to be a black Image.

I have now seen about 5000 Hours with that Beamer and after about 4500 there was a Blue Cloud in the Picture... this week i have some black artifacts in the Cloud... My Panel has broken before i even had changed the Lamp in it...

So my advice is: If you want to use the Beamer more than once a week, don't by a LCD.

Looking for a replacement i either would take a Plasma screen or maybe a DLP, but i am not entirely sure what costs you have with an DLP.

WinXP not as secure as some thought

2007-06-19T08:59:00.000+02:00

Working as a Programmer in a Company i have to deal with Windows XP, since they are installed on our Machines. That includes a Windows Server where we are connected together.

Now normally i configured a Screensaver with Password to activate after a period of time so nobody can make nonsense here.

Unfortunately WinXP is not as secure as i thougth. Althought the Screensaver is active i am able to activate the special keys on my Logitech Keyboard and Start my Browser, Email, Media Player etc.

In my Opinion if the Password has to be entered to get back, you should also not be able to start anything without that Password. I think it's a serious breach, even when you can not do anything but start programs, that should not be possible.

To be complete, i always have the latest updates installed through automatic update.

ubuntu your way

2007-06-05T22:03:00.000+02:00

I just installed ubuntu on my new/old company notebook and must say it was quite easy. Last time i tried this i had troubles with about everything, but that was about two years ago. This time everything went smooth.. i mean i had some troubles and had to install it about two times to get it up and running, but that's my fault.

The only real Program which made serious troubles was eclipse. Normally i use Vim to code but with growing projects i had to use a ide which was able to handle them. So i use eclipse and configured it to use Vim whenever i like to. (Added the editor to the php files).

Since i have a windows client i thought i just have to export my eclipse bookmarks and import them on the notebook.. wrong way.. i had so many errors that i did not know which way to go. Fortunately all was saved in the .eclipse directory in my home and i just had to delete it to start from scratch.

This time i started with one Bookmark after another, starting with PDT (since i code php) and installing all needed addons. Finally got it working.

Then subversive where i had to disable a certain update since it uses Win32 libraries (at least that what's the error message told me.)

After installing all addons i had troubles getting svn working since it showed me some kind of PROPFIND error..
Luckily i found some Sites which described the error and that i had to update java at least to version 6 and then tell eclipse to use it instead of the gcj runtime. (german site: http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/viewtopic.php?p=757773#757773)

Installing Java was not the problem, getting eclipse use it was harder. Although i changed it in my private eclipse settings (eclipserc) it still used the global java_home configuration instead so i had to change it there too.

Then finally I got it up and running with all I wanted ever..

Last Program I installed was synergy which is pretty cool! (you should try it)

apt-get has super-cow-powers

2007-04-12T13:05:00.000+02:00

Working on the server i was puzzled when i found out my apt-get has super-cow-powers.. now i am relieved that it finally can show it's real identitiy to the world ;-)

eclipse CVS repository

2007-03-01T12:56:00.000+01:00

Although i generally use VIM for cooding for some purposes i use eclipse.. one is a project from a colleague.

Normally i have a workspace on my own Computer while i link the project directories directly to the Server Share. That worked quite good, until now. The project is managed through CVS (although i am a fan of SVN), but eclipse has a built in CVS Client. Ok i thought, but with linked Directories i was not able to get it working.

I had to change the Project to sit directly on the Server share, not my workspace, and now it works as suspected.

Starforce at freeware

2007-02-12T11:57:00.000+01:00

We regularly get Computer Magazines which held from time to time some CD's with data on it.

Last Year in December on one of the Discs was the Game Trackmania Nation, as free ware. Since it was entitled as free ware i thought, cool, and installed it.

What i was not aware is, that i also installed Starforce with it.

HELLO?!! F R E E W A R E ? !!

I was able to uninstall the damn thing, which of course meant i am unable to play Trackmania anymore. That led only to one conclusion.. bye bye!

I don't understand why someone was adding a software like starforce for a freeware game...

Boykott Starforce

not cost effective...

2007-02-01T10:26:00.000+01:00

Working as a programmer for websites i have naturally to do with hosting companies. In Austria there are only a handful big Companies, e-Tel is one of them.

In e-Tel there are combined the old Hosting Companies eunet, nextra, e-Tel (of course) just to tell some big fishes. With the new year e-Tel has been bought by Telekom Austria, the biggest austrian phone provider.

We are now in the concept phase of a very big project, which i can't tell much about, but what i can tell is that it needs a whole bunch of servers load-balanced of course.

Getting offers from different Providers via Email, e-Tel called in and someone told me that it is "not cost effective" since they would have to create a whole infrastructure for our project.

I got offers from companies who are that small, that they may be smaller than the smallest branch of e-Tel. (i don't know for sure, but just to make my point).

I wonder what that means: is the company just not flexible enough or should somebody who's site is hosted there should be worried?

Worried or not i am puzzled.

Google Desktop

2007-01-11T09:35:00.000+01:00

I am using Google Desktop in the company to quickly find files.. since Outlook and other Applications from MS are rather slow and you can't find what you really want.

But the Problem i had is that you are unable to change the Directory where to save the Indexing Files. Since it saves them onto the Local Settings of my User Account that Data would be moved back to our server with my whole profile.

I am working on the same Client PC every day, so i don't need them to be moved to the server and back, it's an unnecessary waste of resources.

Luckily i found this: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2004/10/14/google_desktop.html

In short:

If you want to change the location of the cache, you just need to change a registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop\data_dir

It defaults to C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Desktop Search

I just exited the search with the tray icon, changed it to a folder on my D drive and moved the existing files over to the new location and then restarted it and it is now updating at the new location just dandy..

It worked like a charm ;-)

IE7 a little funny?

2007-01-04T19:23:00.000+01:00

Recently i got some weird Warning Messages at my PC. Starting exe Files like Installation Files or even my context Menu on rar Files on my Network Drive would create a Warning Popup telling me that it is insecure and if i know what i am doing.

At first i did not have much time so i did not really care but today it was getting really on my nerves. So i thought about who could be responsible ... a security update? No, ... but i updated to IE 7 last year and it is common knowledge that IE has some power over the Windows Explorer.

So i looked into the Options of IE and found a Security switch in the Tab Security in the Options of Internet which is called something like Misc->Start Applications and unsafe Files (since i have a German Version it is called something different). After i changed this to yes i got no more messages anymore.

But IE7 is going nuts that it is now insecure and wants to change that Switch every time i start IE.

First: Why the hell is a Web Browser changing rules for my Operating System?!! And Second: Why is my Network Drive now in the Internet Group?

Ok i found this site: http://polemic.hostingdirect.co.nz which tells you how to add your server to the intranet security options in IE7.

Still i think that a Web Browser should not be able to change my OS Settings.

debian update removes packages

2006-12-07T10:04:00.000+01:00

I have a debian testing server and make from time to time some updates to be up to date.

But i discovered a interesting behavior, sometimes after an update i am missing packages. Yesterday samba was missing again.

apt-get install samba did the thing, but hey? what the fu$%!! Why are packages missing after an update?

Strange!

damn Windows Word Charset

2006-11-20T17:04:00.000+01:00

Although i thought i may have some more time working than eventually fixing some weird IE 6 Bugs i found one which held me up all day.

It looks like IE 6 sends illegal (malformed) HTTP POST request from forms which held some non ISO chars.

The thing is: i was able to find this site which helped me identify what my bug was, but then i traced it to one simple char.

It was one of Microsoft Word fu%$&ing Chars for - which where copied through to the textArea and so IE 6 was unable to work properly.

In the end two Microsoft Products were creating a Problem because they are unable to work correctly together.

If i wouldn't be such a nice guy i would curse the inventor of Words Charset!!

Firefox 2 missing Addons

2006-11-20T16:58:00.000+01:00

Firefox 2 has been out for some time now and there are still some Addons which have not been updated from their authors.

But since there is a big community there are several updates from other people to get the add on running on FF 2.

Add'n Edit Cookies (Erics Comment has a link: http://zektek.com/cookie.xpi)
ScreenGrab
Tails Export

svn your system

2006-11-14T19:09:00.000+01:00

After my friend used subversion also for the linux system for quite some time now i thought i give it finally a try.

Installing svn or importing the system was not the problem, but how am i able to add the system into svn without having to checkout at the end.

Goggling with the right words i found this.

The Trick is to add the directories by hand into the svn with mkdir and then checkout the empty directory into your system. Then all you have to do is to add all files and directories and commit everything:

# svn mkdir file:///root/svn-repository/etc
      -m "Make a directory in the repository to correspond to /etc"
# cd /etc
# svn co file:///root/svn-repository/etc .
# svn add *
# svn ci -m "Initial version of my config files"

Firefox will not start after installing SiteAdvisor

2006-11-13T10:30:00.000+01:00

Today my Firefox did not start which was quite annoying for a Monday morning. The Safe Mode feature of FF was very helpful since i easily was able to find the course of the problem.

I have installed the SiteAdvisor extension from McAfee and after some googling i found this Article.

On Friday i changed my Proxy Settings from Direct Connection to Automatic (we had some problems with our servers) and forgot to undo this...

quite annoying "Feature" of the Extension.

debian update => uninstalled samba?

2006-10-31T08:56:00.000+01:00

I did not update my etch installation for a longer time so i thought it's time to run the update...

The long list of updates was another indication of the long time i missed updating, but i looked it through and started the process.

After it was finished i had a problem with my network directories.. there were no network directories anymore... so i looked the status of samba, not running.
Ok then start it up, nothing in return... status, nothing... what the f*** ??

After some research (which did not get me any conclusion) i tried to get the version by using
apt-show-versions samba

but it returned that samba is not installed... what?

apt-get install samba and it runs smooth as before. But why the hack was it uninstalled when i tried to update it?

MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION

2006-09-29T22:57:00.000+02:00

Yesterday my pc welcomed me with a blue screen including the the failure: page_fault_in_nonpaged_area

Somehow it has problems with my ati Drivers so i had to restart,... and switch harddisks (since somehow windows change them) and after some hard works (hours and hours, some restarts in safe mode and ubuntu) i was able to get windows loading again...

I deinstalled all software i installed lately, downgraded my ati driver to a version which worked over some months and updatet my chipset and bios... and nothing worked..

All i was able was to change the message to a machine_check_exception... Googling about it i found out it could be with jre or daemon tools or something else...
Of course there was also some information that the harddisc may be defect, but since it was more or less new i did not think about that it could be a problem...

But since i had the same drive again (i had them working as raid 1 until some months ago) i mirrored the defect disc to it and restarted with the new drive...

No problems anymore.. now i finally found out why i had so much trouble running them as raid ...

hdcp compliant

2006-09-28T12:11:00.000+02:00

I feel like in a humorous story.. well all you can do at a certain point is just laugh.

Some months ago i bought a new Sapphire X1600 Graphic Card (ATI), a HDMI cable and an Adapter for DVI to HDMI so i could connect my Beamer to the Card through HDMI.

Both, Beamer and Graphic Card can HDTV so why don't use it.. that were my thoughts... but in reality nothing works as expected. All i was able to get is 800x600 and that's not funny.

So i first asked ATI (in the Support Ticket function which registration is a hard try itself) and they told me (after some typiing) to ask the Beamer manufacturer.

Ok i asked Panasonic (since i have a PT AE 700) how i can resolve this and they told me the Beamer can HDTV but only with HDCP and therefore the Card has to be HDCP compliant.

Good argument, i thought so i went back to ATI who returned: The Cards are not HDCP compliant... *grrr*
Ok, looked again at Sapphire's site and voila there is some misterous sentence which does not really say it can HDCP but it also does not say it can't... so i asked Sapphire about it.

They told me that the ASIC (chipset) is compliant but the firmware not and i have to asked another company about it... ?? what the heck??

Ok, let's just asked for fun how it is going to end:
I asked if there is a way for a standard user (please without soldering gun) to update the firmware and the first reaction was that sapphire lacks of the licence and they will ask them if they want to buy it first...

?What?? I don't quite understand.. but then i got another answer:

I checked with HKG and they said that to-date the drivers are still not yet compliant. Hopefully future drivers will resolve, we have been promised for over a year now.

Now i had to laugh since HDCP is the reason for the movie companies to use HDTV and therefore every peace of equipment has to be HDCP compliant.. all but not the graphic cards..

One more note: ATI told me that the only product they have released so far which is HDCP compliant is the X1950 series cards.. (do they have got the new firmware?)

ie6 floates just the background...

2006-08-09T11:57:00.000+02:00

I had the problem that the background in a floated environment was not shown in ie 6 and clear:both was not helping much.

Pinpointing the problem down over 1 hour i found the reason in the width of the floated div. It was exact 1 px wider than ie liked it. So if i set it 1 px smaller the background as shown right, if i set it 1 px wider the content is also moved down. (since we are talking about 2 boxes floated, and the right one is the problem).

So it seems like ie is floating the background and the content separately.

I looked also in IE 7 (Vista Beta) and the problem is there also... and i found what seems like the peekaboo bug??..

Since i am really in a hurry and don't have time i have to postpoint writing a testcase for it.

Win XP Shares

2006-07-30T11:11:00.000+02:00

Since i had my part of Harddisk failures i implemented a backup system (rsync and cron) to my linux server to prevent any dataloss. But i had some error messages and never got the time to look into that matter, until today.

I was never sure if it is a Windows or a samba problem but first what my script does:
1.) connect a windows share through samba mount.
2.) backup via rsync the data to my linux system
3.) disconnect.

So everythin i have to do is to share a directory under xp and that's all... or is it not. Working through my google results i learned that there are some difficulties to think of. First: i don't like the guest account and i left it disabled. I just used the "easy" sharing model of xp and that worked fine.

Ok, so where is the Problem: The Problem is when you are sharing directories under a folder that is not accessible by everyone (for example, individual folders under "Documents and
Settings").

Although i clicked on share this Directory and User have all rights, windows don't give you this rights. You have to disable the "easy sharing" model and then go to the folder permissions (of the shared directory) and on the security Tab.

There you can find a setting which tells that if there are permission settings on the parent directory (which there are for Documents and Settings) it will use them instead of anything else. Which meant: Nobody has rights on that Directory except the User who owns the individual parent folder...

%$&!! only windows can be so complicated. That's why i like linux. You tell the right permission to a folder and that's all, nothing more....

So all you have to do is to disable that parent overwrite.. (or to be exact: enable the overwrite parent settings checkbox).

Now i don't get any permission denied errors anymore!

Monkey Island

2006-07-22T01:31:00.000+02:00

My collegues and i were talking about it over months before we finally could agree on a date, but we did and just 5 minutes ago we got through: Playing Monkey Island 1 once more over my video beamer with the cordless mouse and keyboard from my colleque.

Here is an image from the test (if it works on the beamer):

sync your google calendar with your ipod

2006-07-22T01:28:00.000+02:00

I just bought a black 60 GB iPod for myself. (I was looking forward it a long time) Of course one of my first questions was: how will i get my google calendar data to my ipod.

Well i found a small program which does that, but the catch is, you have to do it manually when your ipod is connected.
As a programmer i would hope that iTunes would be more flexible than just standard Outlook connection.

Here is the Program: The Calendar works fine, but i was not able to sync my Contacts with that other tool:
http://johnny.matthews.googlepages.com/getcals

ide troubles

2006-07-19T12:08:00.000+02:00

After i got my Raid Array working i had another Problem with the debian kernel i upgraded (kernel-image-2.6.8-11-amd64-k8), my ide harddisk was not working..

Tracking the problem i found that there were no hd devices in /dev. I checked the config of the kernel and the kernel uses ide as a module. Ok, now all i had to do is to load the right module.

Since i was not very familiar with installing specific modules, or knowing which module was the right i had some troubles getting it working. ide-cd and ide-disk were loaded, still something was missing.

Today i found it: ide-generic. After loading it with modprobe everything was there in /dev and i was able to mount the disk. Now all i had to do is to add it in /etc/modules.

Promise Raid at Linux

2006-07-16T22:32:00.000+02:00

For two days now i have been tracking a problem on my new server. Grub was not able to read the updates debian at the menu.list. I was triing almost everything, but everytime i booted, the Menu from Grub did not change, until i found the Problem this night.

The Reason i had so much trouble was that the Promise (378) Raid Array was not recognized right by sarge. So every change i made was written to the second Disk, while the first Disk was the one i booted from...

After some research i found out that Promise has stopped supporting drivers for their controllers after kernel 2.4.22 (or so.) So the only good way is to create a linux software raid instead.

Took some time to get that information.

If you want to create a Raid 1 system with mdadm you can try that:

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --chunk=64 --level=raid1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/hda1 /dev/hdc1

Some times /dev/md0 is not there yet, so you can either add it manually or add --auto to the mdadm string and it will create it automatically.

Oblivion Patch is out

2006-06-08T10:51:00.000+02:00

Waiting for it for a long time it is finally out. Bethesda released the Patch for Oblivion:
http://www.theelderscrolls.com/
It has a lot of Bugfixes, unfortunately they did not add this Fix into it which gets the fence Fathis Ules back to the Imperial City after the Quest in Chorrol. (Needed for the Thieves Guild Quests).

iTunes@home

2006-06-08T09:42:00.000+02:00

I used to work with winamp for a long time so i never thought about iTunes before. But now i am triing to build my own Music Database so i can hear my music in every part of my Home and Working with Winamp did get a little confused and complicated.

A collegue of mine uses iTunes and after some talking i installed it and imported my Files into it. And here the odysee started. Importing my Files didn't run as smoothly as i expected since iTunes seems to have a problem importing Files which have a Filename that is too big.

Unfortunately the Filename should be very small, after that iTunes just cuts the Name and if the Filename is bigger than a certain point it just does not import the file.
Since i used the Term "Artist - Album Name - Audiotitle - Track#.mp3" i had some difficulties.

But after i found out about that problem it got a little easier.. although i had to import many of my CD's from scratch since the Tags were not right.
Working with iTunes has some very good advantages and it really helps finding your music very quick. I like the search engine..

So the next step was to find a iTunes Server for my linux server: http://wiki.mt-daapd.org
It works great, but has several disadvantages i want to share with...

If you use a iTunes Library on your PC and want to add the Files to the Server there is no Possible way to just move them in iTunes. Also if you have another PC which shares the Music iTunes does not support copiing or moving between them. (Possible becouse they don't want you to copy music to a third person which is not allowed by law.. buy the music you want to hear instead.)

One way which works fine for me is to tell the iTunes of my PC to use as source the same iTunes directory my server uses. (Which is not a big deal with samba..)
Now i am able to import all the other CD's of mine (not a small amount) and to share it even in the farthest away room where we have our roleplaying meeting every second week.

Maybe some time in the Future i find a way to import Music from any iTunes to my server, until then i try to find a way to connect to my server from any point i am over a secure line so i am able to here my music wherever i am (and have a internet connection)..

labeling the world

2006-04-27T15:42:00.000+02:00

Using labels for any form has become a standard habitat for me. From time to time i get angry when i am using some form on the internet which does not know about labels.. so you have to click right on the element.. not left... ah...sh*$$ not right.. now i have it ;-(

At first i did not think much about it but now, it's always an indicator if the site i am looking at is well programmed or not.

Unfortunately css3 is not starting early enough and we have to keep with css 2.1 and Windows without Cleartype activated.. which means the designers want graphics everywhere .. even in a form. (From time to time).

Using Firefox as my primary Browser i did not detect the error at first, but it looks like IE does not like images in labels.. which means, it does not work.
<label for="foo"><img .... /></label>

I don't know if it's a bug in IE or it is not in the specification for html, so shouldn't work at all.. but i tested it also with IE 7 Beta 2.. it does not work.

googles personalized home

2006-04-26T15:50:00.000+02:00

Today i got a call in the morning that we need a module for the personalized home at google and it's urgent.

Well of course i knew about the personalized home feature, but i did not have any time to look how to implement something for my own.. until now.

And it is really easy, just look at the guide from google. It's just a xml File with the Data in it. Ingenious, although there is a little problem involved.

I don't know why, but when i tried testing my module i got an error until i found a server which correspond with google. I looked into the groups and all i could find was someone from israel having the same problem, but no answer.

After some testing all i could find out is that google does not like certain websites. Best is you use a server at US.

javascript handling fileupload through popup

2006-04-25T15:29:00.000+02:00

Since the dawn of Ajax everyone tries to implement it even more often than before.

I, for instance happen to work on an old project, which already uses ajax technology for about 2 years. There is a form where the user can enter data and at one part you can add additional information indefinetly by clicking on a button which generates a popup to add the data, then click on save and the data is in the form.

Everything was fine, until i had to also add files ... and that was a little tricky. Everyone knows
that you can't change the value of a file input field for security reasons. But i had to find a way the user can add a file in the popup and then it apears in the form.

The idea took about 12 Seconds.. the implementation took longer ;-)

In the Popup i have a js Routine that sends the data to the js Function of the Form. I changed it so it also sends the File Input field with it. (document.getElementById();)

The Form Function takes the data and build the new elements into the dom. Now i look for the File Input Field and if i get it, i just append it where i need it.

So i have the Input Filed moved from the popup into my Form with all the data it has in it. Now i can submit the Form and get the Files i added in the popup.

Oblivion Quest "GoFish" (Warining Spoiler)

2006-04-07T10:09:00.000+02:00

Since i have some Problems with that Quest and after searching found that i am not the only one i thought i just write a post for it. But warning, it's a spoiler, so if you don't want to know stop right here.. or here... or here ;-)

The main Problem with that Quest is to find the right Slaughterfishes, becouse the Green Marker will not show it to you after you killed about 6 of them. It will still show the location where the dead ones swim.

I am not completely sure yet, since i have not finished it yet but most of the threads i read say they have just left and made some other quests. After they went back there were additional fishes.

My guess is, there aren't all 12 Fishes there at the same time. You have to wait until new ones have been bread, only i don't know how long it takes and if you need at least one or two fishes alive for it.
I don't think they added it, but it would be funny if you killed all fishes in that water and there are no more fishes, since there are no descendeds any more.

I already killed all the ones i found and now i wait and go for some other quests, maybe the main quest, which i did'nt follow yet. If there are another Fishes then, we know.

Oblivion Teaser

2006-03-28T11:01:00.000+02:00

Yesterday i got oblivion and well.. it's just great! I am not really able to tell much more, but in time i may write some impressions.

Until now i just played the tutorial and my first dungeon.. and the only thing that stopped me was my wife towing me into bed so i am able to work the next day ;-)

The only thing i want is a safe deposit ingame so i can keep their my precious stones and other things.

Now another adware: if you like some information about alcemy go to Darliandor's Alchemy Lab.

Don Quijote's way of life

2006-03-25T13:53:00.000+01:00

Working in a webdeisgn firm i always thought there is a place for design and programming standards. When i started there was just design and some barbarous programming. I was not very happy about it but i adapted.

A couple of years ago we had a high peak for programming standards due to a new programmer in the team that changed our complete behavior. Standards were right and fundamental and the firm tried to have both, high design standards and high programming standards. I always thought that would be a good thing and i always thought that both can live together.

But since then some things have changed. Our lead programmer left the firm and i was the one in charge about programming standards. I always tried to be like a rock and getting at least the standards of capital importance in every project.

But it seems i was more like don quijote fighting with windmills. At least from my part of view the firms path is just design, and if comfortable we also like some standards, but that's not important.

My problem is: I like to work and i want to make projects which i am proud of. Unfortunately that means i also want to use standards whenever possible and try to even more enhance our goal to maintaine maximum accessibility.

But to what end? I am tired of telling why we should also program a textonly version, or why we should let people increase their font size, as they wish.

For the first time I found myself thinking if i should leave the company or just stop using standards, and just doing my job without pride, without fun. Using them only in private little projects and do whatever they want.

I found myself asking if i lost something or just found something i don't want to loose anymore..
I found myself asking why do we work all day triing to use standards, doing things "right".. when there is no recommendation, no one that we see it was the right thing to do.

I may sound depressive.. well i am, but where should we go from here... Triing to better our techiques to build more websites which use all standards and have maximum accessability or not..

Is the war worth fighting for?

A Tribute to Raid

2006-03-22T08:47:00.000+01:00

Since i was having some difficulties while changing my motherboard with onboard Raid and maybe someone has the same problems i wanted to post this little story.

I had an Asus A8V board with Promise Raid onboard and used it with two SATA 160GB Harddisks in a Raid 1 (mirror) Array. It was working fine and i was getting used to how the Promise Bios works.

Unfortunately the Mainboard was AGP and i needed an upgrade to PCIe.. so i bought the Asus A8N-E with onboard Raid from VIA.

The first impression was good. I activated the Raid controller, set the two SATA ports to Raid and looked into the Raid Bios. Raid was found and worked "Healthy"... Very good, i thought and started up, since Windows was already on the harddisks....

But Windows is not as easy as i hoped for which the bluescreen told me even in Safe Mode. Now i had two options.. try to boot somehow and backup all data (160GB is a little too much) or just disconnect one drive from the array and boot up with one harddisk. Install everything on that and then copy everything i need (like profile) from the disconnected drive.

At this moment i loved Raid 1, since i did not have to backup everything.. i had a backup. To make the story short: i disabled the Raid, installed everything on one disk, connected the second drive and copied everything from one disk to another.

Then things got wired. I reactivated Raid and the Bios told me the Array was healthy.. that could not be since the data on both disks differ... I tried to boot, but it did not (which i later discovered was my fault since Windows never installed a raid driver, becouse it was disabled)..

The Bios was also very wired since there is an option for rebuild an Array, but when you press R for rebuild you can choose a disk from the Array.. but no info what will happen. Am i choosing the master disk or the disk which is going to be rebuild? The documentation on this part is .. well there is no documentation.. All it says is: then press enter and the rebuild process will start...

Very good.. really... Who wrotes crap like that? Did people actually get paid for manuals which don't help?

The best part, after you choose a disk nothing happen...absolutely nothing.. With the Promise Bios you see a progress Bar and everything.. but here.. nothing..

After i realized that windows could not even start without the raid driver i was finally able to boot and then something happend i did not think of.. automatically in windows a info tray window appeard telling me the reconstruction of the array is in progress...

Ahhhh... now it's rebuilding the array... in windows.

So at the end i have to say i made some mistakes and should just have installed the Raid Driver in Windows to make everything work.
But i also have to say that VIA should rebuild their Bios so people are able to make this things in the Bios.. doing that kind of things in Windows is.. well it's not only bad.. it's ..unthinkable....

Battle for Middle Earth 2 Review

2006-03-15T14:33:00.000+01:00

I happen to get a look at the game through a friend of mine and was like in the demo impressed by the stability of the game.

When playing BTFM 1 the game was a little laggy, meaning you had problems navigating through the menu since the animation of the "eye" made everything uneasy. But they improved everything and also the game itself runs good. And that on the same machine where i had problems with the first game.

Another goodie are the new Races, Goblins and Elves. Two Races, Rohan and Gondor, has been put together and are just called Men. And they added more Weight on Heroes by allowing the User to create their own Heroe. This is really nice, becouse you can adjust a little the look of the Heroe and some stats. But it is also limited, since a friend of mine created a Harradrim which was able to disguise and kill a Person in an instance, but was also very slow. There was no indication how quick he will be and there is no way of changing the speed.

As a rpg playing gamer i would expect another advanced button to change more stats, but that's just a love to have, not a need to have.

What's really bothering me is that when you capture a building you use the Flag of the building. That Idea is great, but what i don't like is that when you move the cursor over the Flag you see the same cursor which was used in C&C Generals... hello? That should not have been necessary.

As in BTFM1 the Maps have not very improved. There is only on Map for 8 Players and most of the Maps have moved from BTFM1 to 2. What's good is they added a nice Minas Tirith, Helms Deep Map and some other cool locations. We already started searching for new maps, especially which needed a little more water.. I would like an Osgiliath Map for 8 Players with a huge Water Part in it.

Another good invention is that you can build your own Walls, which means you can make your own minas tirith if you'd like (i usually do) ...

But speaking of Walls, there is one catch i definetly don't like. Every good race is able to build a Wall, every single one. On the bad side there is only Isengard... hello? Did they hear about the lack gate? You know the one from Moria...

It's really anoying since you can't stop a group of Horseriders with some Archtowers. But with a wall they would have some problems. Looking at the Races in General it's like in BTFME 1, the good have a greater advantage like healing, they can build fountain, walls, legolas...

My conclusion is: if you had liked BTFME1 it is not bad to buy BTFME2. They have improved much, but i don't know if BTFME2 would kept me from playing C&C Generals Zero Hour in the Future..

oblivion - will there be a generate button?

2006-03-09T11:34:00.000+01:00

Hi!

As many others i am already waiting for the release. A friend of mine made a site for it: http://oblivion.melian.cc

But that's not why i started the post. I was thinking while looking at the screenshots, that the trees and nature are completely generated by the computer. So when i start the game it will generate my version of oblivion. But will it remember it or will it generate it new every time i enter the game or dungeon or.. i don't know, like diablo 2 the map.

I thought of running through the forest in circles becouse everything is generated over and over again and you have no point of reference (except of a map) where you have to go..

Playing Gothic 2 we started to memorize which plants we find on which sites.. like a specific tree... now what? The tree is there but the plant not... the tree and the plant are moved 50 meters to the west.. the plant is there but the tree not..
That's a new way of playing scottland yard.

The other way would be that the forest is generated only one time after creating a new character, specific to the hardware you have installed. But then, what if you change it to a better one, will you still see the old version. Will there be a generate button to recreate the forest?

Let the question enter yourself and think of it as activity for the break until the game is in your hands.

googlemaps api

2006-03-09T11:27:00.000+01:00

As i was thinking the other day why shouldn't somebody try to use the googlemaps engine, or sort of it for fantasy worlds, it just happen to be me one week later ;-)

My first approach was to try to understand the engine just by examing their code and the dominspector... but after a while of searching i found something great. You can use the googlemaps api from google themselves. Just create your onw code and voila everything is working..

http://www.google.com/apis/maps/

Also there are a mass of tutorials and helps how to work with the api and how to add custom maps, although they only think of adding just parts of the map and not a completely new map.

http://www.mapki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/googlemaps/index.htm

I would also recommend looking into the Google Group for the Api for help. There is always something you can work with.

Happy mapping!

Honeymoon

2006-02-15T19:23:00.000+01:00

Now something intechnical.. since i wrote most times something about php, css or mysql ;-)

I just got back this week from my honeymoon at Buenos Aires and i have to say, it was really lovely there. Living in the City, talking to people and dancing was really helping shutting down the normally technical problems ..

I should add i did not speak spanish, so i had to learn some words to make my way through, although they all speak english and there is always a way to comunicate, even without words...

Finally i managed to ask how much something costs in spanish, but the problem was, i did not understand what they were answering.. *lol*.. so i had to learn some new techniques to find it out without using english and without looking like someone who is not able to speak spanish...

But i managed and now i am going to take some lessons so i may do more than just ask a few questions.. I think this is one reason to travel to a foreign country, to learn about their culture, their language, their life... it's not always different then ours, but it's definetly fun!

Of course i also had some Troubles to realize that i am married now.. i mean nothing changed except now i have a wife... i mean a real Wife... well, let's take one step after another.. tomorrow i will realize that we will have to get some childrens some day.. ;-))

get rid of the white flashes when loading a flash

2006-02-15T19:20:00.000+01:00

Everyone knows it... the little white flash when loading a flash into your website... and it get really on our nerves....

Well finally i managed to find a very little trick.. it is so easy i feel ashamed i did not come up with it further..

just add the wmode="transparent" to the object (and of course the same to the embed part) and you have no more flashes. Of course you should check if the background is working accordingly and does not add aditional problems..

PHP5 parent:: Object

2006-01-20T13:13:00.000+01:00

Working with PHP5 getting you used to work with real Object Orientatet Classes. Extended Classes or using the parent:: Object in such an extended Class is nothing new.

But i did not know (till now) that it is possible to jump over an extended Class to that parent.

To explain what i mean we have this Example:

class foo {
protected $iFoo = 0;
protected function bar() {
$this->iFoo++;
echo "foo: {$this->iFoo}
";
}
}
class fooA extends foo {
protected function bar() {
$this->iFoo++;
echo 'fooA:';
parent::bar();
}
}
class fooB extends fooA {
public function bar() {
$this->iFoo++;
echo'fooB';
parent::bar();
}
}

$oFoo = new fooB();
$oFoo->bar();

In this example we have 3 Classes, each extended by the next. Normally calling $oFoo->bar(); will output: "fooBfooA:foo: 3" which indicates that it starts with the latest class fooB, then runs through fooA to foo.

But what if you need an extend on fooA, but you don't want to run through it, you just want to run through fooB->bar and then foo->bar, without fooA?

I thought there is no solution for it, but there is! If you just change the function in fooB, where it says: "parent::bar();" to "foo::bar();" it will jump directly to foo, without fooA and it is not static as you may first think!

The Result will display: "fooBfoo: 2"

PDF Bookmarks

2006-01-10T22:59:00.000+01:00

When you think of PDF you automatically think of Adobe Acrobat. I use Acrobat since .. well i don't know but as long as i can remember. Normally i just take a quick look over a pdf, but nowadays it is getting more and more common to post free downloads of books as pdf's.

I found such a download about a PHP book which i thought to read over in time since i need it for work. After 10 pages (the index ;-) i had to make a break becouse of some work which had high priority and just wanted to bookmark the page i was on ... but i was unable to find such a feature...

After i had the work done i looked over Acrobat a couple of Times.. there is a bookmark Toolbar.. but where can i make myself a bookmark... well after some research in the help i found out i had to "upgrade" to Acrobat Writer.... Hello? I don't want to write PDF's ... i just want to make a Bookmark where i am.. like in the Book i read in the moment when driving to work or home by train....

I mean we are in the Year 2006... we have Browsers with Bookmarks, Winword with Bookmarks but why the hell not in Acrobat?

So i googled in the net to find some open source software... maybe there is something which is better or at least able to make personalized bookmarks.

Well i found Foxit, which is the quickest way to open PDF's i have ever seen. The Program is about 2.6 MB in size and does NOT need to install. It opened the PDF in notime... but unfortunately no Bookmark function.

Then i found a Hack from OReilly for Adobe Acrobat ... a Javascript which enables to make Bookmarks.

Unfortunately i did not find any Hack for Foxit, that would be ingenious.

debian updates Berkely DB => svn troubles...

2005-12-21T13:18:00.000+01:00

Usually i update our linux server in periodic times. Now there was this bis security update where they also switched to Berkely DB 4.3. Subversion Users may notice that this is a little tricky, since you have to move your repository from 4.2 to 4.3.

It really can be messy, if you haven't updatet yet, look here for instructions.

Otherwise there is a good description here, how to get your old 4.2 repository to work on the new 4.3 Database when you already updated the Database.

Took me some time to backup our repository here.

clear:both margin bug?

2005-12-21T11:00:00.000+01:00

Monday i compared a project on IE and FF 1.5 and was puzzled by a problem at FF since it worked when i programmed it. So i installed FF 1.0.7 again and "tata" everything worked as expected.

Seems like that FF 1.5 and 1.0.7 changed it s way of behaving when using on a div both: clear and minus margin.

When using minus margin and clear, FF 1.5 is ignoring the minus margin.

I created a testpage and posted it at quircksmode.

Antivirus on Windows XP 64

2005-12-21T10:47:00.000+01:00

I posted earlier that the only free Antivirus i found was Avast, but it was working quite good.

Well on the weekend it stopped by using every ressource of my computer just after start of Windows.. i was not able to find the problem until i restarted in Safe Mode and disabled the automatic start of the Avast Services.

Now i am able to startup and even to make a manual scan, but the automatic check is not working. As soon as i start it its going mad and using everything it gets.. or so.

I posted the problem but it seems unlikely to get a solution for it, becouse they are unable to recreate the problem.

Looks to me that i finally have to drop XP64 and go back to normal XP.

venkman for Firefox 1.5

2005-11-30T11:08:00.000+01:00

I just installed Firefox 1.5 and tried to update my venkman.. *shocking* it's not working!!
Without Venkman i can't work properly.. i need it, i want it, o baby, o baby...

Well i found a link in the comments of the mozilla.org page of venkman:
http://getahead.ltd.uk/ajax/venkman

Now get it ;-)

ssh problem solved

2005-11-27T12:27:00.000+01:00

I actually can't belive it yet.. i solved my ssh problem which was givin me some sleepless nights since april this year.

I have a debian sarge running with a chroot environment (debian etch). In etch i was not able to get ssh running after an update. It was always saying: Server was not able to allocate pty...

Now i found my mistake.. somehow the mount option was deleted and so it was never able to activate the pts..

Here is what was missing:
mount -t devpts devpts /chroot/dev/pts

Where chroot is the Directory to your chroot System. Maybe there are also some people having problems with this..

PHP5 reading XML using DOM

2005-11-22T09:48:00.000+01:00

Working with XML Files in php5 you definetly want to work with DOM. Using DOM is very easy, but unfortunately the documentation is not complete and there are one or two things missing, which stop your work for several hours.

We use XML for multiple languages on websites, so our content is in the XML File written in XHTML.
If you use XML Files for different Languages like for example german, you need specific characters. This made us some troubles, but in the end it's more than easy.

First you have to tell the xml File which language you are using in the "xml" header through using encoding. For Example a german File looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1">

Next if you are using HTML Entities like or ü you have to define a DOCTYPE. Since we used XHTML Entities we used a dtd from w3.org:

<!DOCTYPE shiva SYSTEM "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml-lat1.ent">

Now we get to the PHP Part:
Loading a XML File using DOM is very easy. First you have to create a new DOMDocument Object and then load the File:

$oXML = new DOMDocument();
$oXML->load(Filename with Path);

Now if you have a external DOCTYPE like we did, you have to enable a Variable or it will not work before the ->load(..) Function:

$oXML->resolveExternals = true;

This enables to read external DOCTYPE Files.
Remember: If you are just using a couple of Entities, it's quicker to just put them directly in the File or create your own File with just the entities you need and link to that File. There were some comments on php.net that enabling that Variable will slow down the load Procedure for some time.

Now the load Procedure will not send you any more Warning Messages and possible an Exception, but you will still miss the HTML Entities in your Object.
Instead of Hello World which should look like that: Hello World, you will get a HelloWorld. You are still missing the Final Variable:

$oXML->substituteEntities = true;

With that you will get your Hello World and all other Entities your DOCTYPE defines.

Addition:
We had the additional Problem that we used htmlentities in the text like "&" .. but we needed it also in php this way and using a doctype from w3c converted our entity into &, so we wrote our own Doctype File where we made a little hack so we could use htmlentities.

To use "&uuml ;" for ü we wrote into the dtd File the following:

<!ENTITY uuml "&uuml ;">

Civilization 4

2005-11-17T11:59:00.000+01:00

Playing Civilization since Civ 2, i had to buy the new version. Civ 3 did not have any multiplayer posibilities so i just played it once or twice. But with Civ 4 they have really made a multiplayer Gamers Dream come true. Not even the Hot Seat Function is a ingenious old fashion Idea, which nowadays is very rare, but also the Email and LAN Game Possibilities are good.

And they really made a good Job with the LAN Option. In CallToPower2 we always had Problems at some time where we had to save and all had to load it again becouse the LAN mode was collapsing from time to time. But in Civ 4 we had no Problems at all.. even when somebody touched the Windows Key in Error... no Problem. That's a big THANKYOU!

The new Animations are also quite nice as the Idea not having one scout, but a scout unit. That shows how much work they put on it. The new Startmusic is great and also generating a new World when you start a new game.

What i am not able to understand is the diplomatic part. I am searching for threats and so on, but can not find anything. There is also no trade part as in CallToPower, where you built camels and trucks to ship goods through the continents.

And what they completely fucked up are spies. All they can do is show you were all Units of a country are or you can sabotage the current production of a city. Wow.. really.. where the hell are the features like steel technology?
Why isn't there an option to spread false information somewhere? Why can't i start a demostration in a foreign city so they begin a revolution and join me?

I really would like to spread false information to foreign countries so they start a war against each other and i just help one of them.... that's what i am missing... more possible options on spies and foreign affairs.

In war when you are winning, you can not force a surrender so they join you, no way, you have to fight until the last man.

And one more thing about the Mulitplayer Mode: In Singleplayer you get a Window with a Video when producing a Worldwonder, but in Multiplayer there is nothing like that. I miss an option for that.

Last but not least i want to talk about Religions. I think it is good to have the Religions now, but why do i have to invent them all to get throught to the end of technology? Why can't i just find one and be like that for the rest of the game, if i wish it?

I think Civilization 4 is a great game when it comes to Grafix, stabilitiy, Mulitplayer. But they have to work more on the diplomatic and spy part again. Hopefully a new addon will make some adjustments there.

squid error maybe solved

2005-11-07T12:53:00.000+01:00

I might have solved my squid error Problem today. It seems like i just reached the memory limit of the host, but i would have supposed to get an php error instead.. or an apache error.. but nothing at all is not ok.

I found the calculation you need for imagecreatetruecolor at: http://www.boutell.com/gd/faq.html

Of course, opening truly huge images can cause real memory problems, if several are open at once. 8,000 pixels times 8,000 pixels times four bytes for truecolor equals a walloping 256 megabytes.

So you need 4 bytes per pixel and that meant 26MB just for the source image.. and i have about 32 MB to work with ;-(

Firefox ignores http-equiv Attribute in Meta Tag?

2005-11-07T11:46:00.000+01:00

I just solved a bug which was keeping me busy the last hours. A Form for multilingual input went crazy in IE since it always mixed up the special characters.
The funny thing was, Firefox had no Problems with it at all.. so i tested different charsets, but IE never showed any change in reaction and i almost went beserk until i found an error in typing of the meta tag:

<meta equiv="type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

You see the failure in http-equiv, which should say Content-Type. IE is very particular here, but Firefox seems to ignore it, since it reacted to all my changes perfectly...

For those who want's to see the right meta tag, here it is:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

squid error while Uploading Image with PHP

2005-11-04T12:28:00.000+01:00

I have a very strange problem with Squid on a host provided by a company in vienna. While triing to upload an Image with HTTP Post (normal Form Element with input File) i get a

Zero Sized Reply

ErrorMessage from Squid. The Problem only occures only when using Images greather than 1MB.

At first we checked the Parameters for php and apache (post_max_size,..) but they were set at least at 16MB... So this is not the source of our problems.

I have to clarify one thing: The Image normally would be uploaded, resized and then saved. Becouse of the Problems i changed the upload to first upload the image to a temporary File and then work with it, same Problem, but the File has been uploaded before the Error occured.

That made me a little curious and i checked the code where the Error exactly happen to be...
Another little Info is required here:

First i upload the File, which works fine.
Then i create an object from that image, which happens to be in jpeg Format, so i use imagecreatefromjpeg.
After that i have some code for resizing the image and
then i create a new Image Object by using imagecreatetruecolor with the calculated Size and copy the image into that new Object
At last the Object is saved as a File.

Well i used some var_dumps and exits and found the point where everything stopped working.. imagecreatetruecolor.

Odd, i though, and tried to create a Image with a less size... worked perfectly. Then i aligned the size step by step to the one calculated... and at about 300x200 there was the end.

Ok, this meant for me: The Function has not enough Memory to acquire for the Image.. The Provider also worked on the Problem on their site and they have another Problem: It works Perfectly on their site... why is it working when they are triing and when i try it not?
They asked me to outsource the code to a single file for testing, which i did. I tested it myself first and wow, everything is working...

Now i thought: That's it, here it ends, i am completely at the end of my knowledge and went home for some sleep ;-)

The next day i thought over it again and found the reason.. i used a couple of classes for the System, which i did not use on the outsourced File. This classes also needed some Memory which now they don't, so i have more memory for the Upload.
The quickest test was to change the end Resolution to 800x600, which worked on the server at my work fine, but not on the other host. (Got Ya!)

I simplified the outsourced code, killed the calculation code (since the end Size is 800x600) and so on until i just had the basic part. While working on that i found out if i don't call session_start() at the end of the file, the Code also stopps at the same position, but no error Message was called... (no Zero Sized Reply)...

Now we are still searching for that error.

mysql changed format for Timestamp

2005-10-25T14:39:00.000+02:00

As you can see on the Mysql Homepage they changed the Format for Timestamp:

From MySQL 4.1.0 on, TIMESTAMP display format differs from that of earlier MySQL releases:

TIMESTAMP columns are displayed in the same format as DATETIME columns. In other words, the display width is fixed at 19 characters, and the format is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.
Display widths (used as described in the preceding section) are no longer supported. In other words, for declarations such as TIMESTAMP(2), TIMESTAMP(4), and so on, the display width is ignored.

Of course i searched some time for an error in my code.. ;-(

Windows XP 64

2005-10-22T11:17:00.000+02:00

Since my Raid Array Failed and my Windows Installation just died, i had to reinstall my PC ... and becouse i have a Athlon 64 i decided to install Windows XP 64...

First some word about the Windows Recovery Console... my old Windows XP (normal) CD does not have an option to start the Console.. the XP 64 CD showed it.. that's a good start.
The Problem with the damn thing is: You can not change anything on other Directories than in the Windows Directory...
So if you wish to backup some very important File from your My Documents Directory, which concidential happen to be, you get a "Access Denied" Message ... WHAT THE %&$*%!!! How am i suppose to backup any files so i can reinstall Windows?

The Answer: You have to get into regedit and change it there... well without windows (which still was not able to start, what a coincidence) there is no possible way.... good work microsoft... really ;-(

Finally i found a Bootdisk for Dos, with a driver which is able to read ntfs partitions, and copied the files by hand (and with Norton Commander 5.0... still great tool)

Then i installed the new Windows without formating the harddisk, which i would have done if i could backup the files in the Recovery Console... the Problem.. dos is only able to work with Filenames which have a length of 8....

Ok, i installed the OS, i downloaded the newest drivers for my mainboard an graphic card (which were still Beta) and voila i had windows installed..

After some Windows Updates the next part for me is installing Antivirus Software.. and well look at that, Symantec is currently not having Antivirus Software for noncomercial People for Windows XP 64.. ok, what now? I mean what the hell should i do without an Antivirus Software? My first ideas of reinstalling the old windows were coming... but i finally installed the Freeware Antivirus Software from Avast.

I do not know if the Software is good or not, but if i find anything out i will probably write it down.

My Mouse (a razer diamondbback) is still not working with the razer drivers.. becouse i could not find any razer drivers for windows xp 64... they are still developing those and tuneup is also not working...

So it may be that XP 64 has some advantages, but you will definetly have problems installing your drivers and applications to it...

Raid? What for?

2005-10-21T08:32:00.000+02:00

A couple of months ago i had a terrible Harddisk crash and lost all my data. Therefore i buyed 2 SATA Discs and build a RAID Array for more protection.

Yesterday i thought it is about time to make a Backup (which means burining all sensitive Data on CD)....

As i went home and started the computer my Raid Controller said good Evening and i have a critical Error in the Array.... WHAT THE *%/§)%"!!!

I mean 3 months and already problems is not a good way is it? I am now triing to save as much as i can, but why had i build the damn array if it fails so soon?

Fable incompatable to WindowBlinds

2005-10-07T11:08:00.000+02:00

I just got Fable and wanted to play it... but as soon as it starts it crashes...
Then i tried multiple things until i found out: it has a Problem with windowblinds...

You have to thing about it: A microsoft programmed game does not work on a microsoft operating system with an in coporate with microsoft prgrammed styling tool....

Damn microsoft, another reason they don't know what they are doing!

Fortunately you can unload windowBlinds any Time and play fable...

As for Fable: The Intro is nice.. but has no real Story.. and What the hell with that BIG microsoft logo?? If the Title of the Game is that Big ok, but for microsoft?

I know. . it already says in Fable narcism is perfectly normal.. seems like microsoft thought of themselves...

DbDesigner Problems with MySQL

2005-10-02T18:41:00.000+02:00

When working with Databases i use DbDesigner, since it is a free tool and is working great although they have stopped working on it a long time ago. The whole development team is working for MySQL now and are working on MySQL Workbench, but there is only an alpha yet.

So the only open source solution is still DbDesigner..
A couple of days ago i come up with a big problem .. DbDesigner on my PC was not able to connect to my Servers Database... i was looking over an over again and found the Problem...

Since i am using Debian, my MySQL Version was updatet a couple of times now and now there is a new adjustment in the my.cnf File called bind-address.

If you use:
bind-address 127.0.0.1
only the localhost can access the database. Since i am using a Server behind a FireWall and only for development purpose i just had to disable the Line and now everything is working again.

Thanx for this tipp to a good friend of mine ;-)

css3 multi-column layout with javascript

2005-09-29T09:40:00.000+02:00

I just got a link from a friend with an ingenous code. It provides the posibility to change normal Text plots into a multiple columns layout.

The cool thing, it is a javascript providing the possibility to use the new css3 features for multi-columns in css.

check it out!
http://www.csscripting.com/css-multi-column/

Webdesign Tools

2005-09-23T09:42:00.000+02:00

Just for info for people having trouble getting mails in the last time ;-)

Opera is now freeeeeee... no banners noting more: http://www.opera.com

And then there are some Toolbars which are making our lives a little bit less complicate:

WebDeveloper Toolbar for Firefox:
Web Standards Project BUZZ post
Download the extension here

Finally there is something really great.. a WebDeveloper Toolbar for IE... all those hours of searching the damn problem in IE while everything looks ok in Firefox... now you have the tool!
Web Standards Project BUZZ post
Download link to microsoft

Thunderbird Attachment Problems

2005-09-23T09:30:00.000+02:00

Since i had a Harddiskcrash and reinstalled my System new, i also changed my local Email Program to Thunderbird.

But now i have serious Troubles getting Attachments from Outlook Sender... the Attachments i receive all are called Part1.2 ..

I am having a gmail Account and therefore i also checked it over the Browser.. the Attachments look all very good.

In the web i just found the following:

Actually it's a compatibility issue between Outlook and Thunderbird (Mozilla). It is because Thunderbird cannot decode the MS-TNEF MIME format HTML or Picture which was composed into the mail body by Outlook. You can find the MS-TNEF BASE64 encoding part in the mail source, and Thunderbird regards this part as an attachment named Part1.2.
------_=_NextPart_000_01C4E756.ED7E9F5E
Content-Type: application/ms-tnef
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

since that Post was written December 21, 2004, i hoped there is already a fix or something for it.. but i am unable to find one...

any ideas?

FireFox 1.5 Beta and Extensions

2005-09-10T01:27:00.000+02:00

As everywhere posted the beta of Firefox 1.5 is out. I have to say, the new handling of the tabs is ingenious..
Unfortunately some extensions are not working with the beta.. now i hope there will be updates to them or the final of Firefox will be able to work with them...

I mean, the last update from Venkman was in August 11, 2004... so i don't think there will be a new one in the next days... and without Venkman javascript coding will get as ugly as before Venkman ;-(

FireFox and Flash Player 8 Beta

2005-08-22T10:31:00.000+02:00

If you have found this link http://www.macromedia.com/software/studio/experience/ to macromedias demo for studio 8 you will have to install the new Flash Player 8 Beta...

My advice: don't! After installing the damn thing no flash file was working any more until i found a post in a forum where they said that add block does not work with the new Player ... i tried to install Flash Player 7 but it will not work.. so i had to disable Add Block in my Extensions...

Hopefully they will have an update soon.. or i have to reinstall Firefox ...

bad holidays

2005-08-22T10:26:00.000+02:00

What is the best argument that you had bad holidays.. if you think that it would not have mattered if you stayed in the office and worked the whole week...

I mean i like my work, but from time to time you have to get somewhere else just for a couple of days.. but there is something that can kill the best ideas ... rain ;-(

hope you had better days.

CSS vertical-align and images

2005-08-08T12:25:00.000+02:00

For webdesigners aligning images vertical in a div is a problem which could be easily solved if IE would support the full display posibilities like "table" (CSS 2.0).. but as usual it does not work that way.

Since i don't like to use tables in a css design until it is really necessary (like information in table design or forms) i searched further more to find a solution that did not need a table i found one way that worked.

You have to use position relative and absolute for it. In short you have 3 different div's and you use 2 different ways, one for IE and one for the rest which have full CSS 2.0 support ;-)

Here the links:
http://www.jakpsatweb.cz
http://workingbath.com/

found then lost?

2005-07-27T00:18:00.000+02:00

I forgot to tell a really funny story.. well it starts a little weird.

To be short my mother's car was stolen.. but let's start at the beginning.
My sister, who is a teenager, went home at about 4:00 am on a borrowed bike without light. As she rode a police car followed her, about 2 Minutes before she got home. Of course she started to ride faster and went home as quick as possible..

The door just closed when the police ring on that door and when she opened the door they wanted to talk to our mother. I think she that was the most afraid time of her life ;-)

She woke my mother up to get informed they found her car about 300 km away. At first they thought the police must be joking.. but the car was not were it should be.. the next thing was to check if i borrowed it without telling anyone... as unlikely as it sounds...

Since she woke me up at home, which is about 50km away, (in the other direction) they know it must have been stolen. So she had to go to a police station to report her car as missing, since the police found it ;-)

For those who want to know how exactly it could be that the police asked my mother in the first place: My mothers car was just aside to an other car which some people tried to steal. Somehow they must have been scared away... my mother did not know the status of her car becouse they did not know it until morning.

Bad weekend

2005-07-18T09:31:00.000+02:00

As murphy's law says: if something bad happen, it will probably be just the beginning of getting much worse.

This weekend we planed to go camping with a group of roleplaying friends. The Idea was to play the whole weekend in the nature to get a better feeling for the game and of course we did not want to get disturbed by anything or anyone. A friend of mine who organised everything, first talked about 20 People or so which should come. On Firday he told me that we should be at least 12 People... in the end it was just our group of 5 plus one.

The small size of the group was a problem since the story my friend prepared for the weekend needed at least 10 People.
And nature itself did not like us, since we had more rain than anything...

So we stopped the whole thing at Saturday evening and drove home, where we all enjoyed a good hot shower and played another story at my place... since we still wanted to do some roleplaying...
But we all were really tired from the whole day and it did not went really good, so we ended the game early.

On Sunday i woke up and my girlfriends told me: The computer crashed and now nothing works anymore... shi* ... ok, i looked over it ... harddisk will not boot... even the bios has problems with it... i downloaded a service tool from the harddisk manufacturer.. (it is a quantum fireball so i used maxtors powermax).. and after booting from a disk and entering: Quick Check it immediately showed a Number and told me to contact support... Yipeee... i hate sundays....

Of course i had some serios work on that disk and my girlfriend kills me if i am unable to get her data of the disk... did i mention i hate sundays?...

All i could do is find a company which is able to retrieve the data of the disk and pay possilbe a horrific prize for it... i hope they are able to get the data or i am in serious trouble!

For what its worth, i think i will install a raid system on my computer...

running PHP4 and PHP5 parallel

2005-06-21T09:33:00.000+02:00

I have installed both versions on my development server and am running two instances of apache, one for each. Now this is running since last year and i have got no problem what so ever.

Now i have got this new Project, which is a relaunch of a website. The site, as you can imagine, is written in php4, and is pretty big. So they decided a step by step relaunch, beginning with its shop system.
Naturally i decided to write the new shop module in php5, because the data is too sensitive to handle it just in php4, no offense intendend.

Now we have got the Problem, the administrator of their server is not really a technical genius.. in other words, he is able to keep the machine going, but has abolutely no idea how to install php5 parallel to php4.

While my solution (2 instances of apache) works fine for me, i don't think it is the solution for the customer, so i looked into the net and found a real cool solution. (in a matter of seconds ;-)

This solutions works like this: They install both PHP versions (one, php5, from source) and configured apache that it will use php5 in the directory you like, by enabling mod_action.

Real cool! Here is the link

Hitchhikers Guide

2005-06-17T14:14:00.000+02:00

Yesterday i saw the movie. Well i have to admit i have not read it fully, i am currently in the end of book four, but that does not matter for anybody could see the mix they have made.

I did not expect to see a complete movie with all content from the book inside it, but i did thought they will at least try to avoid changes in the story.

Although i already was a bit startled about Arthur Dents moves in the book (for example: Why he left the Heart of Gold to be on Krikket), and i liked that Arthur and Trillian got together.. but they completely blowed Zaphrods Character by given him this dump quest about Deep Throat...

What did they do with Zaphrods Heads anyway, i mean they should be side by side and not one below the other... And why did they have to mumble so in the beginning.. if i had not read the book, i would not have known what the hell they have talked about...

To summarize all: The Beginning was ok, but in the middle you know that it will not be like you hoped for and at the end it was a little weak. But i did like marvin!

MySQL relevance in FULLTEXT Search

2005-06-17T14:04:00.000+02:00

While searching for a way to implement a Textsearch Engine into a clients website, a friend of mine told me about MATCH .. AGAINST().. and the relevance output.

Here the MySQL Reference Manual for it.

Good for us, all texts where in a mysql database and i added the needed index to all tables we wanted to search through. Then i programmed a php algorithm which searched all databases using the match against statement and put them all into one Array, sorted by their relevance.

Our Result Algorithm then took the Array, and prepared the text for output by cuting it and highlighting the searched word. (using css ;-)

Naturally i wanted to add a Percentage to it, but was not sure how to calculate the right one.
After searching a while in the Internet i found that source.

In Short:
a = the relevance of the current Array Value.
b = highest relevance of the search

percentage = (a / b) * 100

The first one gets 100 Percent, and then it drops in direct proportion...

Battlefield 2 Demo

2005-06-14T08:28:00.000+02:00

I just downloaded and installed the demo. Since i first saw some footage, i definately wanted the game.
This morning i was able to test the Demo for some minutes, enough to get a first impression: WOW! I mean, i thought the game will be cool and so, but i definetly thought although my computer is not the weakest, i will have to lower some details, or it will at least bucking or laggin....

no way, it runs as smooth as btf vietnam...

And for that i am really glad. They did their homework and i will buy the game as soon as possible.

OpenOffice vs. MsOffice

2005-06-13T11:35:00.000+02:00

Matt did a performance test between Word and Writer.. it is kind of interesting since Microsoft decided some time ago to save the data also in the XML Format.

Here is the Site.

CSSBug macIE: space in classname

2005-06-10T10:35:00.000+02:00

If there are Spaces in classnames, macIE uses an internal css class called .infobox.
So if your document contains a css class called .infobox, macIE will use it ;-))

Here is a TestPage.

debian sarge released stable

2005-06-07T15:06:00.000+02:00

After several years and a week later they finally managed to release sarge as stable....
My first action was to update my woody/stable debian installation to sarge...

Error?? ... ok .. look into the sources.list... ahh.. some servers are not up to date.. ok change it... all worked fine!!! ;-)

Then i did something i don't like.. i let them update everythink... waited and then rebooted the server..

If everythink worked fine it should get up without problems, if not, i will not get any sleep today...

And then everythink worked just perfect....

Today i will update my sarge/testing chroot installation to etch...

rise

2005-05-23T14:04:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we had a Epsiode day. First we have seen Epsiode 1 and 2 at my place, and then we went to the cinema for Epsiode 3.

Well i have to admit that i am pretty impressed by the movie. They have managed closing the gap between the old and the new trilogy real fine.

If you like Star Wars, you have to see it.

bye bye good old anonymity

2005-05-20T08:36:00.000+02:00

A thing so obscure and so brutal to the internet communitiy, that i could not even imagine it, just happend. Austrian citizans are now required to give their real names and address on their private Homepage, even if it is just a Site with photos from their 6 month old child!

Hello??? Where is the privacy in that? It is also unlikely that they will now start to search for sites without proper data. So what is it then for?

Another point for the police state without privacy..

DOM Inspector

2005-05-11T09:22:00.000+02:00

The DOM Inspector is a very good Tool, and needed desperately while programming websites. FireFox for instance has it's own and you can install it with FireFox for free.

Internet Explorer on the other hand has nothing shipped with it. Now i read at IE Blog that there will not be any Inspector, because "3rd Parties have already programmed it"... and you can download it ... or better say B U Y it from them...

What the hack ... buy????

Well, again one point for FireFox.. they are not as lousy programmers as at microsoft ;-)

never change a running system

2005-05-09T11:45:00.000+02:00

This is the first rule every technician learn. But what if the server will not work anymore... After about 8 months our Debian Server run without big problems.. but today when i got to work, nor ssh or samba was working. Only apache still ran without any problems.
I went to the server room and triied to start ssh by hand.. but nothing happend...

So i took a good breath.. waited a little time and then entered this magical words... shutdown...-h...now .... and stared shocked at the monitor if anythink bad happend and wondered if i did the right thing...

Then i waited .. it must have been hours.. but it was surely not more than some seconds... boot screen... linux starting up... no error message.. good..initilizing... ok... login prompt...wow.. nothing happend?... i logged in to check further... samba is running, ssh is runnning.. apache ...and everythink else...

I got up and back to my workstation and checked again.. everythink is working fine.. i checked the log files.. nothing reported between the 4 of Mai and today after i rebooted the server.. strange very strange..

although everythink works probably normal, i don't know why it did not work in the first place.

loong weekend

2005-05-09T11:42:00.000+02:00

I used some of my overtime and rode away last Wednesday until i got back on Sunday. I have to say, although it have been 5 days, i usually will need additional two weeks ;-)

And naturally the weather was as bad as it could be.. rain, cold temperature.. but it did not matter... i had enough to reed and relax.

new Handies and Technologies

2005-04-28T08:58:00.000+02:00

This week i bought a new Handy... it is a SonyEricsson K700i. After charging the phone about a day (i was at work) i finally was able to install the PC Software. Then i connected my phone with the PC through Bluetooth. After that i started downloading all Sounds and Videos for backup reasons... well i started it yes... but it did not end...

After a couple of hours i was able to backup everythink.. the problem: the phone froze and nothing worked.. that happend a couple times and it was really going to be anoying...
I could only finish the job by using my old infra-red connection .. what's that all about?? Hello.. bluetooth did not come to life yesterday... it is now some years old...

well i contacted today the support and will try to get this thing to work.

Next Problem: Software
I want to manage my address book through my pc as i did with my old nokia handy. But all i could find is a sync tool for Outlook... HELLO? Who the hell has Outlook installed on a private Computer? Is there nothing else? Someting Open Source?

ssh Problems after upgrade

2005-04-26T18:48:00.000+02:00

My development server at home runs with debian. At First i installed debian woody with a chroot sarge environment. Then i bought a 200 GB Harddisk and was forced to upgrade my woody kernel to 2.6.10. I managed to get woody to work with the new Harddisk and everythink else, but in my sarge chroot environment my ssh will not work anymore.

It says: could not allocate tty or stdin: is not tty.

I checked the usual thinks, /dev/pty are more than enough, mtab and fstab are ok for an chroot environment. The sshd_config is also allright. The only version how i managed to get ssh to work was from linux typing: ssh root@localhost -p sh -i

Uninstalling and then reinstalling ssh again will not work. And i could not find anythink on the net. I will not give up, but i do not know what option i have to try?

Poem

2005-04-22T09:02:00.000+02:00

Yesterday i have heard this poem and i love it, although i do not know who wrote it:

Dear White Fella,

Why do you call me colored?

I am Black
I was born Black
When I'm scared, I'm Black
When I'm sick, I'm Black
When I'm in the sun I'm Black
When I die, I will be Black

White Fella,
You are White
You were born Pink
When you're scared, you're Blue
When you're sick, you're Green
When you're in the sun, you're Red
When you die, you will be Gray
So, why do you call me colored?

The Incredibles

2005-04-21T12:54:00.000+02:00

I also did not make it into the cinema for this movie, but i bought the dvd because it is a pixar movie and they never did a movie i did not like... one moment.. ok there is actually one movie i never saw... A bugs life.. because i have seen ants and did not want to measure them i thought i had to make a pause before watching that one...

But to get back to track i wanted to say something about the Incredibles. Well at first i thought ok, lets see it, but i don't think they can top nemo. But i have to say it started low, but it actually get real better and better. I love this analogy to James Bond.. really cool. The sounds, the Camera settings.. wow..

Some of my friends actually thing they have managed to top nemo.. i don't know.. i think you can't see it quite that way. I think of course both are good, but i can not decide which one is better.. they are so different in many ways.

Adobe bought Macromedia

2005-04-19T08:45:00.000+02:00

When i did read this message i thought: "Oh my goodness...." now it is over. Then i looked to the comments and i agreed with all of them: "Why can't Adobe remain in the Photoshop, Premier, Acrobat,... business... i mean Go Live was a criminal act, now they got Dreamweaver and Flash to work on..

I hope we are exaggerating, but if not, then we are doomed.

hide and seek

2005-04-19T08:30:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we went to the cinema for "hide and seek" with Robert DeNiro. We got free tickets and did not know what will await us there. But i was able to see the trailer before the movie, so we were a little prepared.

The beginning was tragic, as you can gess, and then the director let you belief something mystical is going on... it got a little bit from stephen king.

But the second Plot Point then was ingenious. I mean, i have not seen such a good Plot Point since Sixth Sense.
I mean, you sit there in the cinema and are making thousands of different versions who the bad guy is, and then finally it all come to one person in the end.

It is really a good movie, although i will not buy the dvd. It is not my genre.