Month: June 2010

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When Firefox won’t launch Java applets

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If Firefox won’t launch java applets, but Internet Explorer will, you may need to change some settings in the Java control panel to turn on Applet support for Firefox. (Expert users: One sign that this is the issue rather than some Java security exception is that the Java console will be completely blank when you try to launch the applet in Firefox. _

Unfortunately on many PC’s, the Java control panel can be a challenge to find. First, check in the control panels area for “Java.” If it is not there, you may have to look in

C:Program FilesJava

for JRE (Java Runtime Environment) folders.

In the image below there are several of them. Usually you should pick the most recent one, as that is the one that is probably in use.

javacontrolpanel.jpg

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Create an iCal file from your data using ASP

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Google Calendar and many other calendar apps will import or subscribe to iCal format files (.ics) If your event data is locked away in a database, you may find it useful to display and distribute it using Google’s extensive calendaring features.

Following is an example of an ASP file that will write an iCal file.

Generate the iCal file in a web-accessible directory, then have Google Calendar or other iCal compatible application subscribe to it.

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Set up a Cron job in Windows to run an ASP script

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If you are used to Linux environments, and working on a web application which needs to execute a function at regular intervals, you’d use a cron job. On Windows, you’d use a scheduled task instead. There is one part of the process that isn’t obvious, so here are the steps involved:

  1. Create the web page that executes the desired tasks – sending email, creating files, etc. For example, I have some ASP scripts that create RSS and iCal feeds from a proprietary database, that need to run daily. Record the URL for later.
  2. You will also need a domain account that can run the task, or a server account that can be used in perpetuity to run these types of tasks. I usually have a “fake” account that will never expire created for this type of thing.
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