Solving technology problems, one at a time
If you need to browse source code repositories to get the latest build of some application (e.g. the JW Player), one of the easiest ways is to use the SC Plugin for OS X by Tigris.org.
The SCPlugin is a free system extension that allows you to use the Finder’s “Connect to Server” command to connect to the repository as if it were another drive.
After installing “Umbraco,” you may get the following error:
The virtual path ‘/install/steps/welcome.ascx’ maps to another application, which is not allowed.
This is because you have installed Umbraco in a virtual directory (not at the web root of the “Default Web Site” in IIS terminology). It is a path problem, easily corrected by fixing the paths in the web.config file.
Continue readingWhen using Microsoft’s Web Platform Installer to install Umbraco on a Windows 2003 server, everything seemed to be going right until I tried to view the site. I saw only this error message:
Images from a flickr gallery devoted to CHDK (these are not my images!)
I’ve experimented with all the features on my Canon point-and-shoot camera, but one thing it is missing that would be very nice to have is auto-exposure bracketing, so I could create HDR images more easily.
It turns out there is an alternate operating system, CHDK, or “Canon Hack Development Kit,” that you can install on an SD card. When the camera boots up with it, lots of new features are available. It doesn’t hurt the camera, and disappears the minute you boot up without the special SD card.
CHDK makes it possible to do some camera hacking by writing scripts in BASIC that can be run on your camera.
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There is a Mac version of Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection available here: [Download here]
Among other things, this means you can log on and manage Windows servers from your Mac!
Continue readingAdobe Captivate, Articulate and Adobe Presenter can all add annoying clicking sounds or “pops” between slides when there is narration. These clicks often are associated with either picking up the actual mouse-click used to switch slides, are added in by the application by design, or added in as an audio artifact. The solutions vary depending on the application and cause.
Ever since I spent some time adding and organizing some new fonts, Firefox has developed the annoying habit of showing repeated alerts that ask:
Firefox wants to use the font “__” on the volume _____”. This
font is not installed. Allow Firefox to use this font?
If I click “Don’t ask me again for Firefox,” it completely ignores it. Really, why do they even have that checkbox if it makes no difference!
This minor irritation became more critical today when it would not stop popping up those messages. Finally, I found the answer:
Open Firefox > Preferences, and click “Content“. Click the Advanced button as shown:
Mail.app has been misbehaving lately on my iMac. It seems to be slowing down in general. I see way too much of the spinning beachball, so I’ve been trying all sorts of fixes, most of
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I carry a little Canon PowerShot SD 990 camera everywhere. After all, you never know when you’ll see something worthy of memorializing. But a consequence of my “shoot now, ask questions later” attitude is that memory cards fill up very fast!
A while back, I decided to handle the problem once and for all, and got a 32GB SD card. Most of the time only about 8 GB of it is really full, but sometimes if I shoot a lot of video clips, it can get higher.
This has caused several issues. iPhoto began crashing on trying to display the new images when I connected the camera directly. Switching to a card reader, the iMac (running Leopard) still had trouble sometimes mounting the SD card on the desktop. There were so many files in one folder, I was nearing some kind of ultimate limit for the OS.
Continue readingI’ve been using DimDim lately to share screens and host impromptu meetings. I recently hosted a three-person meeting for the purpose of screensharing an application we were all working on. Previous meetings of this type had gone well, but this time we kept having problems with “Another meeting room running” errors which prevented screensharing.
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