WebberLog

I’ve release a new version for ODD, my Oracle Database Dashboard. Go get yourself a copy. Upgrading is as easy a copying the new version into your existing ODD directory.

ODD has been downloaded almost 1500 times as I type this. If you rush, we can still make it to 2000 before the year is out

When I switched to Vista, my main browser switched from FireFox to IE7. The main reason for this was that, in my opinion, FireFox had lost it’s edge to IE. The newest IE incarnation felt snappier, looked better and had most of the features I was looking for in a browser.

Enter FireFox 3.0 b2 and suddenly things are the other way around. FireFox 3 is the newest incarnation of Mozilla’s finest. It has some nice new features which make it easier to use, but mainly it’s just damn fast. Pages render quicker and JavaScript runs stunningly fast.

Of course there’s a faster browser around, but let’s face it; I won’t be running Opera until it can render all websites without errors.

I’ll be using another default browser. Again.

A little over a year ago, I posted a Top 10 of tools “I couldn’t do without”. O how time changes. These days, some of those tools haven’t seen the light of day on my machine for months. Time to re-visit that list.

1. Firefox
   My personal favourite in the browsing department. My normal install includes atleast these extensions: AdBlock, Web Developer and NoScript.
   These days, my main browser is IE7. Firefox is still installed and gets to browse the Internet every couple of days, but it’s no longer my standard in browsing. Main reason being the tabs that are now supported in IE anyway.
2. PsPad
   The editor I use for just about everything. It has a pretty good syntax highlighter, manages to read big files in a reasonable amount of time and the project module is cool. FTP integration is great but I got another app for that.
   PsPad is history for me. I’ve switched to Notepad++ for a while but ended up using Activestate Komodo for my source file editing needs. It more or less starts where all other editors end.
3. FileZilla
   FTP client with an edge. I used to be a LeechFTP adept, but since they stopped updating that in the late 16th century I decided to look for something else which matches it in speed and quality. This is it.
   Still my number 1 FTP client. No doubt about it, nothing else compares.
4. TweakUI
   This is actually the first app I install on any new machine, so I can change the locations of special directories like My documents, without having to use my l33t registry editing skillz.
   I still use this on XP installs, but since my main working machine runs Vista these days, it’s not as popular as it used to be.
5. TaskSwitchXP
   Alt-Tab replacement. What can I say, I’m a keyboard user. This one has some really nice features, like a ‘Minimize to tray’ for every app, regardless of whether they support it or not. Good stuff. The same guy has built a very nifty screen snapper too, which is not on this list because I hardly ever need to capture screens.
   Some of the features this program had, like a sexy little preview of the screen, are standard in Vista. So this one too, is only in use on my “older” XP machines these days.
6. Winamp
   Don’t leave home without it. So it’s a resource hog these days? So what. Machines keep getting bigger anyway. I still like this one, using it’s ’simple’ skin, better than any other media player I’ve seen. Well, aside from the one I personally built for my media machine, but that one’s not widely available
   I have switched to WMP for a while, but that didn’t really cut it. Especially the library manager gets confused when your library consists of a couple of tens of thousands of files. So recently I went back to WinAmp, only to find that it still kicks the Lama’s ass.
7. GIMP for Windows
   An odd one on this list, cause I hardly know how to use 5% of this program, but still can’t do without it. It reads/writes most graphics formats, can do almost anything, too bad it’s UI is kind of… uhm… non-intuitive. (And that might be a bit of an understatement).
   No change here. GIMP rocks.
8. 7-Zip
   Archive manager that handles .zip, .7z, .rar, .tar, etc.
   No change here either. With it’s superior compression and handle-most-input-format-mentality, there’s no need to change. (And yes, this one does compress better than RAR. Sorry RAR lovers )
9. CD Burner XP
   Simple but effective CD burner. Too bad development on this one is a bit slowish. Great tool though.
   They’ve released a new version some time ago. Finally works on Vista, so no need to drop this one.
10. Psi
    Instant messenger based on Jabber. I’ve always been a fan of Jabber, but could never find a client that really hits the spot. This one comes closest. I actually liked Rival3 better, but it’s developer, Daniel Chote, stopped development on that one a long time ago. Too bad.
    I’ve mostly stopped using IM alltogether, but when I do these days, MSN is the game of choice. Not because its superiority, but “coz everybody else is on there”. Sad.

So basically, some 5 out of 10 tools are still in use. Time to make a new Top 10? 

Back in the old days, when I was a younger lad, scribbling my Clipper and C programs, I used QEdit by SemWare. (Nowadays the QEdit name seems to have been trademarked by another company).
It was an awesome little editor, blazingly fast and feature rich enough to stay with me for quite some years of programming. One of the great things about QEdit was I could carry it around on a floppy; the .exe file was only some 30Kb in size. When the time came and I needed more power, I tried Brief but quickly turned to Multi-Edit.

All these editors did a great job at what they were meant for while keeping their own footprint reasonable.

Today, I’m using ActiveState Komodo Edit, and as I type this, I’ve got a couple of PHP files loaded. Nothing special, maybe 50Kb worth of text. When I just started the Windows Taskmanager to see what was slowing me down, I was flabbergasted by the amount of memory that Komodo consumes; a stunning 100Mb.

Now, I’m sure the source highlighting and syntax checking come at a price, but this seems a bit steep…

Not being a regular poster, I’m always surprised to see a burst in pagehits. This time it seems to be because of an increase in RSS subscriptions.

Let me just say: Welcome

I’ve been reading a lot about people having problems getting this to run, so here’s a small HOWTO on installing. Starting point is a fresh Vista Ultimate installation, but this should work on other variants aswell.

Pre requisites:

• Apache install for Windows. I used: Apache 2.2.4
• PHP, full zip files. I used: PHP 5.2.2
• MySQL, full version without installer. I used: 5.0.41
• Turn of Windows UAC (feel free to turn it back on after installation, if you’re a big fan)

Steps:
Windows UAC
If you have this turned on, you will have problems creating services and Windows will bug you with install messages all the way. If you’re fond of those, feel free to turn it back on when we’re done.
Open up the Control Panel and go to User Accounts and Family Safety. Click on User Accounts. Select Turn User Account Control on or off. Deselect the option and click Ok. Restart Windows to complete the change.

Apache Install

• Run through the “normal” install of Apache. Alter stuff like domain name, servername and webmaster e-mail. The rest will do just fine.
• Remove the Apache Monitor from the Startup program group. Somehow, it doesn’t work properly and it’s functionality isn’t too impressive anyway.

PHP Install

• Create a directory for PHP. I will use C:\PHP, if you use anything else, make sure to change that in the installation scripts.
• Extract the contents of your PHP zip into your PHP directory
• Copy the file PHP.ini-dist to PHP.ini. This will be your PHP settings file, aimed at developing sites, not running them. (Then, who would be running sites from a Vista machine anyway?)
• Modify the PHP.INI file:
  • Find the setting for extension_dir and change it so the line reads: extension_dir = “C:/PHP/ext”
  • Find the line with the MySQL extension and uncomment it so it reads: extension=php_mysql.dll
• Add your PHP directory to the path. You can do this by right-clicking Computer in the Vista startmenu, select Properties. In the window you see now, select the Task: Advanced system settings. From the new window select Environment variables and find the PATH setting in the section with System variables. Double click it and add “;C:\PHP” to the end of the value. (Without the quotes of course).
• Locate your Apache configuration file. This will be in C:\Program files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf and it will be named httpd.conf. Edit it with your editor of choice.   
  
• Find the section which defines the DirectoryIndex. It will now only have index.html. You will most likely want to add index.php to this. The line will then read: DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
• Go to the bottom of the file and add the following lines:
      # PHP5 installation:
      LoadModule php5_module “c:/php/php5apache2_2.dll”
      AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
      # configure the path to php.ini
      PHPIniDir “C:/php”

MySQL Install

• Create a directory for MySQL. If you’re not going for the default of C:\MySQL, you will have to change the ini files and I’ve noticed some weird problems in there. So I suggest to stick to the yellow brick road on this one.
• Extract the contents of the zip file.
• Copy my-small.ini to my.ini. If you want to allocate more memory to MySQL, you can choose one of the other templates, but this one usually suffices for development machines.
• Using a command prompt, navigate to C:\MySQL\bin and type:
    mysqld –install
    net start mysql
    This will register the MySQL service and start it.
• Add your MySQL/bin directory to the path. You can do this by right-clicking Computer in the Vista startmenu, select Properties. In the window you see now, select the Task: Advanced system settings. From the new window select Environment variables and find the PATH setting in the section with System variables. Double click it and add “;C:\MySQL\bin” to the end of the values

That’s it! You should have a working install now. Of course there’s a zillion things you can change in your install. Personally, I always work with a bunch of virtual domains on my server, which makes it easier to develop more than one site at the same time. And due to size constraints, I park my MySQL data on another drive. All this and more can be changed in the settings.

Online TV service Joost has ended the closed beta and current users can send invites to “friends”. If you’re interested, let me know here and I’ll send you an invite. Of course, you’ll have to leave an e-mail address in your comment.

On his blog, Steven Talcott Smith writes about when Non-programmers write Software. He cites some stories of people creating software to help them do their jobs, some because it seems cheaper to do so, others because there’s just no software around that gives them the functionality they need.

I think all of us programmers have seen this before; in my own circle of friends I know of atleast one non-programmer who’s writing his own document-filing-system. The reason for doing it himself; he has simple needs and no available system can supply him with what he needs for a descent amount of money.

Now I wonder, shouldn’t us “real” programmers fill these kind of gaps by building cheaper, more accessible software?

As the author of Using the Internet to Pick up Babes and/or Hunks, I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to get more dates using my Oracle knowledge. I was doing pretty well with the line “I am an SAP consultant making $7000/day” but women in bars refused to go out with me when I couldn’t answer the following question: “Why doesn’t Oracle support ANSI SQL datetime datatypes?”

– Philip Greenspun

As you may have heard, Microsoft has been sending out Vista powered laptops to a handful of bloggers.

Of course I wasn’t one of them. Question is, do I need to feel insulted or glad…