theDigitalRyan

This is my software. There are many like it but this one is mine. My software is my best friend. It is my life. I must master my it as I must master my life. My software, without me, is useless. Without my software, I am useless. I must build my code true. I must code faster than my enemy who is trying antiquate me. I must release my code before my enemy releases theirs. I will…

My software and myself know that what counts in this version is not the bugs we miss, the click of our keyboards, nor the caffeine we drink. We know that it is the features that count. We will program…

My software is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its objects, its classes, its syntax and its compiler. I will ever guard it against the ravages of viruses and poor code formating as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my software clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will…
Before God, I swear this creed. My software and myself are the defenders of my company. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is mine and there is no enemy, but sales!

Uncategorized

Execution is worth well more than the software it’s written in. With all the options out there just pick one that you’re comfortable with and run with it. Change is the only constant and you will never get it right the first time.

My Thoughts

Recently I had a run in with setting up a TLS encrypted SMTP connector on an Exchange 2003 server. The problem ended up being with the Cisco ASA/PIX firewall device dropping the TLS encrypted SMTP packets. If you notice that your SMTP connector works fine without TLS encryption but fails with the encryption turned on then you are experiencing the ESMTP inspection feature on your Cisco ASA/PIX firewall. The fix is to turn off the protocol as follows.

In order to allow the e-mails with TLS enabled, disable the ESMTP inspection feature as this output shows:

pix(config)#policy-map global_policy
pix(config-pmap)#class inspection_default
pix(config-pmap-c)#no inspect esmtp
pix(config-pmap-c)#exit
pix(config-pmap)#exit

Instruction verified by Cisco…
Disable ESMTP inspection

Microsoft Exchange 2003, Microsoft Exchange 2007, Networks

Let me just say, when you are writing a new web application, Ajaxify it!

Ajax takes your web app to the next level. The ability to access server side scripts and databases without having to reload the web page makes it absolutly amazing.

If you are unfamiliar or new to the concept then allow me to explain the basics. Ajax is not a new technology or programming language but rather a group of web languages that work together. While the official acronym stands for Asyncronous JavaScript and XML technology, the real explaination is the ability for client side JavaScript to access/run server side scripts like PHP and then apply the output of that server side script to the current web page without reloading the page or submiting a form.

So what are you waiting for? Here are some great places to get started:

www.w3schools.com
www.ajaxian.com

Enjoy!
Blogged on my iPhone

Online Software, Web Design

If you just switched office computers and you’re wondering why the TO box in Outlook doesn’t autocomplete your co-workers email address like your old computer did then what you have encountered is a missing Outlook.NK2 file. The Outlook.NK2 file is a cached list of all email addresses that you have sent to for future autocomplete use.

If you still have the old computer then you can simply copy offer that nk2 file to the new machine. Here is the file path:

C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.NK2

The filename may also be the name of the user account but still has the .NK2 file extension.

These files may also become corrupted (like anything microsoft). If that is the case then you can try to recover the data with a utility like NK2View.

Microsoft, Microsoft Exchange 2003, Microsoft Exchange 2007

I would just like to preface this article by saying IE sucks. Seriously… standards have been made, all browsers comply EXCEPT Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft = marketing not quality.

I have just recently tried to dynamically generate an option element list for a select element via an AJAX call. This works great in FF and Chrome, but IE7 is just a giant fail. After some research and viewing several solutions, here is mine… straight forward and simple.

HTML:

<span id=”elementid”></span>

JavaScript:

document.getElementById(“elementid”).innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;

Server Side Script (PHP):

$result = mysql_query($sql,$dblink);
echo “<select name=’item’>”;
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
     echo “<option value=’{$row['ID']}’>{$row['ItemName']}</option>”;
}
echo “</select>”;

I ended up generating the select elements and the option elements within the JavaScript because IE would not allow me to use innerHTML to place option elements within the select element.

IE = fail

JavaScript, Web Design

Introduction

Microsoft Exchange 2003

Random

Is it Windows 7 or KDE 4? In this video, we take to Sydney’s streets to find out what people think of what they think is a Windows 7 demonstration.

Microsoft

Random