With the current political and economical climate I was wondering how much tax I actually pay every month so I spent a quick five minutes working it out. Every month we’ve got those taxes we need to pay:

• Income Tax - 20% a month
• Council Tax - £113 a month
• Road Licence Tax - £15 a month

So that’s the big ones every month but it doesn’t stop there because for everything else (except rent in my case) you pay tax on in the form of VAT at 17.5%. And then if you have any money left after paying all the bills and want to enjoy yourself, you may have to shell out more on added tax on beer or cigarettes for example.

Then there’s the issue with fuel - as well as VAT, there’s also Fuel Duty Tax - an extra 43% per litre.

I’ve worked this out and for my wages it works out that by paying my bills and going to work every day, about 36% of my money goes straight in the governments pockets. And then they piss it all away building big wheels in London instead of using it productively to improve the conditions of living in the country.

Something to think about.

So, Microsoft have a released a new Internet Explorer and as per usual, we’re going to have to re-code all our sites for it. So, what’s this versions problem: file uploads.

I have a site that uploads a file in the usual HTML form way and then the PHP on the server checks if it’s a JPEG and uses copy() to move it to a desired folder. I tested it in FireFox and everything was working fine and since it’s so simple a script I left it at that. Then a client with IE7 called me because he was trying to upload a jpeg and nothing was happening. I fired up IE and gave it a go and when I clicked on the Submit button it just sat there, doing sod all.

A bit of digging and I found that the problem was because I’d included the following in the code for the Submit Button:

onClick=”this.disabled = true;”

This was being executed by IE and then it appears it just sits there and forgots you clicked Submit. You can give IE a good kicking and get it working again by changing it to:

onClick=”this.disabled = true; document.form.submit();”

I hate IE and M$

We use MySQL Databases with PHP front ends for pretty much all our organisations needs but occassionally we need to get something done before I can come up with a system for it. The most recent example was the collection of Contact data which would eventually be integrated into our main Customer database.

We let our Admin staff loose on the collection process and as I didn’t have any input, they used MS Excel to store the info. Now the time has come to add the info to our main MySQL Database and process it for any errors. To minimise the amount of work I’d have to do I wanted to use both Access and PHP to do some processing and data manipulation so I installed WAMP on my laptop and the Mysql ODBC Connector.

After loading up Access, I tried to connect to the MySQL table I’d created but after choosing:

File > Get External Data > Link Tables…

After choosing “ODBC Databases” from the Files of Type, nothing happens.

Turns out it is the “wonderful” Norton Internet Security at work again. You can fix it through the following method:

• In the System Tray, double-click the Norton icon
• Click Norton Internet Security.
• Click Settings.
• Click Additional Options, then Virus and Spyware Protection Options.
• Click Miscellaneous.
• Clear the Turn on scanning for Microsoft Office Documents check box.

Close Access if you had it open and then open your DB again. Should work fine now.

In a previous post I wrote about Outlook, Firefox and “General Failure” messages and a solution to stop these messages from appearing. I’ve just had an update to Firefox and had to go through the same process again because the error messages were coming back. This time it didn’t work though.

A bit of poking around the interweb has given me this little gem though. Basically it has to do with DDE, an old method of allowing applications to communicate with each other. The simplest thing to do is disable it for Firefox:

1. Go to Control Panel -> Folder Options -> File Types.
2. Click on: Extension: {NONE}, filetype: Firefox URL
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click Edit
5. Uncheck the “Use DDE”, and OK twice.
6. Repeat 2-5 for the the following:
   1. “URL: Hypertext Transfer Protocol”
   2. “URL: Hypertext Transfer Protocol with Privacy”

Hopefully this one should fix the problem permenantly

I was browsing the “My Pictures” folder and noticed that the previews of the various images in the folder were wrong. It wasn’t all of them and it wasn’t a certain file type either, just some of them were wrong. After a bit of poking around I found the cause.

I have recently got a new laptop and when I transferred everything across I just dumped things in a shared drive and copied it across, including certain files such as Desktop.ini and Thumbs.db. The last file was the cause of the problem and the simplest fix is this:

• Open Windows Explorer (or My Computer) and go to “My Pictures”
• Go to “Tools” > “Folder Options…”
• Uncheck “Hide protected operating system files [Recommended]” and click OK
• Delete the file “Thumbs.db”
• Change back the setting for hiding protected files
• Preview the folder again - everything should be back to normal

You might have to do this with every folder that contains images and therefore a Thumbs.db file.

Ah, more problems configuring a 1and1 Dedicated Server. This time it was getting up the proper holding page I wanted for any unused domains. By “Unused” I mean domains that are pointed at the server but have no website attached to them and therefore have no VirtualHost container within httpd.conf.

I’ve read through the manual and various other tutorial sites several times and still couldn’t find where I was going wrong. Instead of getting my simple company branded holding page I got 1and1’s holding page (but hosted on my server). I eventually gave up on trying to re-write my httpd.conf and instead did a search for the text “http://www.oneandone.co.uk” which was contained within the HTML document used in the holding page. You can search the drive using:

grep -R “http://www.oneandone.co.uk” /var/www/*

Among a few other files the main one I noticed was a file contained in the /etc/httpd/conf.d folder containing the apache configuration for Pleask and since this is loaded into httpd before any of my directives, this was causing the VirtualHost container I had created as default to be overwriten by a Plesk one which is higher up the series of config files.

Since I don’t give a crap about Pleask I just moved the file out of the conf.d folder and restarted apache and all was fixed!

Happy Birthday DevBlog. You’re 3 today.

Carry on…

Update There is a new solution at Still getting General Failure messages in Firefox

Original Post

This problem occurs when you click on a link in Outlook and the page opens in Firefox but also creates an error message along the lines of:

General Failure. The URL was:
“http://www.devblog.co.uk”. The system cannot find the file specified.

I think that this problem only occurs in Outlook 2007 but I could be wrong. Anyway, the problem appears on both XP and Vista and in both cases the same registry fix will cure the problem. Usual advice: back up the registry and important data and if it all goes wrong, moan to someone else!

Go to “Start > Run” and Enter “Regedit”. Or in vista I think you can just type “Regedit” in the box at the bottom (I can’t be more specific, I left my Vista laptop at work). When you’ve got regedit open head to the following path:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL\shell\open\ddeexec

Open the key “Default” which should have the value of “”%1″,,0,0,,,,”. Delete the string of crap and save it then exit Regedit. This will stop the warnings from popping up.

A quick warning though - If you tend to switch the Default Browser between Firefox and IE (for banking reasons or website testing such as myself) then when you switch back to FF the problem will come back and you’ll have to edit the registry again.

A few weeks ago I was taking a look at Windows SBS 2003 vs Fedora Core for using in the office as a primary all singing, all dancing server and for my particular needs, Linux won. Since then I have had the chance to spend a few days having a first look at Windows Vista and Fedora Core 8. This was not an intentional thing, I’d downloaded Fedora to install on the box I’d set aside for the new server and instead of going for the minimalist text based installation, I installed it as a usable desktop machine as well. At the same time I was given a couple of laptops running Windows Vista Business to set up for a remote user, plus a spare that I’m hanging on to so I can support Vista. This means I’ve had a chance to play with fresh installs of both, trying them out for the all major things an OS does:

• Setup and configuration
• Intuitivity of UI, usability and increasing productivity
• Software installation and built in functionality

As with the previous article, this isn’t meant to start a massive OS war in the comments section. I like both Windows and Linux and my choice of OS is only determined by the job that particular installation will be performing: I wouldn’t try and use Linux as a home entertainment/gaming machine and I wouldn’t use Windows as a web server. It’s just an evaluation for a particular task: a desktop machine for a Web Developer to use during the day, i.e.

• Browsing the web, checking email and various other standard Internet tasks
• Coding and testing of said code (usually on a separate machine)
• Dealing with other standard document types (.doc, .xls, .pdf etc)
• Listening to the radio online or MP3s when it’s quiet

As far as this goes, it’s a pretty even match. Anyone doing my job can easily install either Windows or Fedora and have it up and running within the office network without any issues. The Fedora installation procedure has come a long way in recent versions and it’s much simpler for the novice than it used to be. Windows is also a breeze and even though this one came pre-installed, looking at the various screenshots and reviews, the most trouble a novice would have would be getting the PC to boot from the right media.

So, UI, usability and productivity. This is again a tie in my book. Both operating systems are based around principles we’ve been working with for nearly 20 years such as Menu (Start or otherwise), Task Bar, Windows etc…. Which ever OS you use, they’re all there in one place or another and the only complication is finding the bit you’re looking for. For users such as myself where getting to know new software interfaces and systems it’s not something I worry about. I’m going to skip productivity at the moment as this is something that is affected by a number of factors:

• The software you’re using to do a particular job
• Dealing with bugs and cliches when or if they crop up
• Intergration with other systems used in your particular environment

The only one I will touch on is the last point. In the SME and in particular within my job role, we tend not to use a whole raft of Windows and Office technologies all interconnected with various Server and Client technologies. From this point of view, the need to be on a Windows platform is minimised and the technologies we employ all have open source equivalents that can be used in a mixed environment (Samba etc).

After a week of testing, I’ve come to a few conclusions:

• Fedora is a very good operating system but unless you have a specific need, there’s not too much to tempt me away from the safety net you get by running everyone on Windows. If you need to upgrade and want to save a bit of cash, take a look though.
• Windows Vista has some good user improvements and a very refreshing UI. Unfortunately after 6 or so years I was hoping for more of a leap from XP than a new paint job. If we get new machines running Vista then that’s fine but otherwise, I’m not forking out for it

Me and my girlfriend both have a Nokia 6300 but she dropped her’s into the sink and after drying it out, the screen doesn’t work. I wanted to try swapping the screen with mine to make sure it was the LCD that had blown before I head to Ebay for a replacement. First job: get the front screen off. Here’s how you do it

1. Remove the back cover (if you’ve never done it before, push it down with your fingers)
2. Remove the two screws at the bottom of the phone. They screws are apparently T6 screws but if you don’t have a T6 screwdriver you can use a 2mm diameter flat screwdriver
3. Take the screwdriver (or knife) and insert it between the silver case and the black plastic and then prise it apart.

From there you can mess around with the insides as much as you like!