Free download Axence NetTools includes a network scanner, inbound/outbound connection monitor (NetStat), port scanner, and other network and bandwidth measuring tools.
Also worthwhile is the Daily Cup of Tech’s PC System Repair System on a USB Key.
Category: General
Tail for Windows
The command line “tail -f” is so useful, it’s frustrating when you work on a Windows server that has no built-in equivalent. BareTail might be a reasonable download to use in its stead.
MediaWiki – Prevent Edit Unless Logged In
As Tim Joh found it is quite easy to change MediaWiki’s behavior. Just edit the file LocalSettings.php in the root directory and add the following line at the bottom (or anywhere else):
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
This will remove the edit-permissions from users who have not yet logged in.
Disable Windows-L
As per this article I found… you can disable the Windows-L = Lock Windows behavior on windows with a registry hack.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Add DisableLockWorkstation = 1 to disable.
Syntax Highlighter
Just installed the Syntax Highlighter from Alex Gorbatchev, and like it quite a bit… here’s an example.
public int factorial( int number ) {
if( number == 1 ) {
return 1;
}
return number * factorial( number - 1 );
}
The key is to use a name=”code” and class=”java” (or xml, or others…) in your pre-tag. Add the javascript calls required for the feature, and your code shows up nicely on the web page…
For easy copy and paste:
<pre name="code" class="java"> </pre>
PHP Installation
Just because I find it frustrating how obtuse the install directions for PHP are…
- Download and install Apache
- Download, install, and configure MySQL
- Download PHP and unzip to somewhere like “C:\php5.2”
- Update php.ini file in PHP install directory; update or uncomment the following line:
- extension=php_mysql.dll
- SMTP = localhost
- Copy these two files from the php dir to the apache\bin dir:
- php5ts.dll
- libmysql.dll
- Update your httpd.conf to have the following lines (they can be at the bottom):
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "C:/php5.2/"
LoadModule php5_module "C:/php5.2/php5apache2_2.dll"
- Restart apache service; test with phpinfo()
Kill the XP Language Bar
For those of us confined to one language in Windows XP, it is annoying to have the language bar constantly try to re-assert itself in your task bar. Here are the rather obtuse steps to turn that off.
Backup Software
I’ve been pretty happy with mozy as an intermediate backup solution. It gives me automatic backups in the background to an offsite, secure location.
Basically I have mozy running a backup of my Outlook and Firefox profile — stuff that changes every day. Then on the weekends I back everything up to a USB hard drive at home.
You get 2gb for free, or an unlimited amount of storage if you sign up for a $6/mo plan.
Use this link to sign up for an account, and we both get a nice little 256mb bump in both our quotas:
WikiMedia Config
To configure user behavior within WikiMedia software… start with the LocalSettings.php file that is typically in your web root folder.
# Specify who can edit: true means only logged in users may edit pages
$wgWhitelistEdit = true;
# only Sysops can create new accounts
$wgGroupPermissions[‘*’][‘createaccount’] = false;
Related Docs from the official manual/wiki:
Phatch
Phatch sounds like an interesting application… basically a batch processor for photos.
I’ve been using ImageMagick for a while now, and it seems to have more options, but Phatch might have some good uses for pretty drop-shadows, etc.
Something to play with later…