My Dell E521: 2007

Friday, July 13, 2007

How to crash/hang PHPEclipse/Subclipse in Windows

Create a new php file

insert the following code



<?php
/*
* Created on Jul 13, 2007
*
* To change the template for this generated file go
* to Window - Preferences - PHPeclipse - PHP - Code
* Templates
*/
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC
   "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta
   equiv="Content-Type"
   content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>Product Info</title>
</head>
<body onmouseout="javascript:window.close();">
Comming soon:  some real cool stuff.
</body>
</html>

Save file

If anyone can save this code in PHPEclipse without hanging Eclipse in Windows send me your system details. If anyone knows a setting that will prevent this from hanging let me know.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Make your website compatible with CA Personal Firewall

If your website has pages originally written pre CSS that use bitmaps for spacing and to ensure minimum widths, then there is a good chance that your website is unusable/viewable for customers of CA Personal Firewall. If your online sales have dropped off since January, that is February's sales are 10%-20% less than February 2006 and your January 2007 sales were better than January 2006, then you need to install CA Personal Firewall or find someone that has it on their computer to test your website.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Asteroid Zone 1.5 for Motorola L2

This will probably work on other cellphones too, not just the L2 and probably not just Motorola cells. Asteroids.jad, Asteroids.jar

You can find the original version of Asteroid Zone 1.4 at http://jfdoue.free.fr/index.html. In 1.4 you could not hold down left to keep rotating left or right to keep rotating right or fire to keep shooting. So 1.5 acts more like you'd expect, to keep spinning, hold down the left or right. To stop spinning, let go of left or right.

Just For Fun

package carton;

public class Class {
public static void main(String[] args) {
long
a=0x89859e,
b=0x6c81ca,
x = 1000,
y=513,
z=(long)Math.pow(x*10,2),
w=51387901,
u=8,
t = b;
a = (
(
(
(a * x) + (y=108) + 405
) * z
) + (
w=10003301
) + 41384600
) * (
(u=10)-2
) + (
t = (
(
(
(b * x) + y
) * z
) + w
) * u
) - (b = t);
String n = "0" + a + b;
for(int i = 0; i < n.length()-1; i+=3) {
System.out.print(
(char)Integer.parseInt(n.substring(i,i+3).trim())
);
}
}

}

Install Java Applications Onto Motorola L2

Does anyone out there know how to install JADs onto a Motorola L2 via bluetooth?

Friday, February 23, 2007

So you already have a usb cable that fits your Motorola L2

If you already have a USB cable that fits your Motorola L2 and all you want to do is charge your cell phone via USB instead of carrying the AC adapter with you everywhere you go, you need to install the driver, without the driver installed, it won't charge the cellphone. You can download the driver here.

How to make your own ringtone for a Motorala L2

Record, edit, find, create the ringtone you want and save it as an mp3 file, let's say phone.mp3.
Download lame, extract to C:\Program Files\lame
Put C:\Program Files\lame in your PATH
lame.exe -b 32 -m m -h -B 48 --resample 24 phone.mp3 compatible.mp3
If your computer does not have bluetooth, buy a Targus USB Bluetooth adapter for $19 or cheaper.
Once you have bluetooth set up and working on your PC, then on your cellphone: Menu->Settings->Connection->Bluetooth Link->Setup->Find Me
On your PC, right click the Bluetooth logo in the Systray->Bluetooth Setup Wizard...->Follow the instructions until Motorola L2 is listed.
Enable OBEX File Transfer
On your Desktop double click My Bluetooth Places and then navigate to My Bluetooth Places\Entire Bluetooth Neighborhood\Motorola L2\OBEX File Transfer\audio
Paste your ringtone (In the example above it would be called compatible.mp3) into My Bluetooth Places\Entire Bluetooth Neighborhood\Motorola L2\OBEX File Transfer\audio
When the upload finishes, on your cellphone: Menu->My Stuff->Sounds->compatible->Menu->Apply as Ringtone

Saturday, February 17, 2007

What do you do if your Windows PC won't boot and you don't have or can't find the install CD.

Switch the boot order, usually F12 or F2, most modern PCs have a rescue partition that you can access via CMOS/BIOS/SETUP what ever you want to call it or by booting off the second partition on your hard drive instead of the first one.
If you don't have a rescue partition or can't figure out how to boot from it but you do have access to another computer running the same version of Windows:
1. Go to slax.org and download a copy of SLAX
2. Then from your working PC burn the CD from the SLAX ISO image. Don't just put the ISO file on the CD though, you have to Burn the Image.
3. Boot your dead PC off of the SLAX CD.
4. Next, if it boots you to command prompt, type root [ENTER] then toor [ENTER] then startx.
5. Once you are in the beautiful Windows like interface, click on the computer looking icon and pick Storage Media, in there you should find one or more icons that look like hard drives. If you don't know what a hard drive looks like, they will be labeled hda or hda1 or hdb1 or sda, you get the idea. Click on one, go inside, if you find one that contains windows or winnt and Documents and Settings and Program Files, that is your broken Windows hard drive.
6. Now, on your computer that works, share your C drive but make sure you password protect it so that no one can get in there and mess it up too.
7. In SLAX, next to the computer looking icon there should be on that looks like the Earth with half a gear around it from 5 o'clock to 10 o'clock. Click on that, it's called Konquorer. Konquorer is a Web Browser file manager a la Internet/Windows Explorer.
8. When you open Konquorer the default page will have links to various parts of you system and web sites, click on Network Folders.
9. Now, in Network Folders, click Samba Shares.
10. You should now have a list of all of the workgroups and domains on your LAN.
11. Find the computer who's drive C you shared by opening workgroups and domains until you find the computer, and when you find it click on drive C.
12. You should now have the computer who's drive C you just shared, if not, burn the missing files onto a CD or, if you are an antiques collector, a floppy disk.
13. Once you have the media with you needed files open in Konquorer whether via CD, Floppy, or Share, right click on the file you need and then click copy.
14. Now go back to the first copy of Konquorer that you opened in step 5 even before I explained what Konquorer was, and in the white space somewhere inside your C drive which will be labeled something like hda1 and not C right click and then pick paste.
15. If nothing happens, look around everywhere on the screen for some kind of error message or feed back. Some versions of SLAX mount NTFS file systems in read only mode which is not a problem. Open another tab in Konquorer or if you don't know how to do that open another copy of Konquorer and go to www.slax.org
16. If step 14 did not work due to write permissions it is because the ntfs driver used is a read only driver so you will click on modules at www.slax.org and then scroll to the bottom of the modules page and type Fuse-NTFS into the search field and click Search.
17. Click on the newest version of Fuse-NTFS for your version of SLAX. If the module does not say you can assume that it is compatible with any version of SLAX of the 5.x.x variety, if it says for SLAX 6, then it will work with SLAX 6. As of this writing, you want Fuse-NTFS 2.6.0.
18. Download, Save As, to Desktop, ....
19. Now, when it is done downloading, go to the Konquorer with your C drive (remember, something like hda or hdb2).
20. Right click on your C drive and pick Unmount.
21. Click on that black box at the bottom of the screen, it is supposed to look like a computer monitor, and in fact, it actually does - Konsole (Terminal Program)
22. You should now be at the command prompt, type, but don't hit enter afterwards: ntfs-3g /dev/hda1 /media/hda1
23. Now, before you hit enter, replace the hda1 with the actual name of your drive C which may in fact be hda1 but it might be something different, like sda1.
24. Now, if Konquorer's location/address bar said /mnt/hda1 instead of /media/hda1 replace media with mnt.
25. Hit enter.
26. Now you should be able to write (paste) to your drive C. If you still can't, try closing all copies of Konquorer. If you still can't, you will have to copy via terminal. The command to copy is cp, here's an example: cp /media/cdrom0/ntldr /media/hda1 Where ntldr is the file you are copying from a CD and hda1 is your drive C
27. Since your dead PC has network access and an internet browser, you can keep searching for solutions and try things out right there on the computer you are trying to resurrect.
28. If you still can't boot into Windows, maybe you should switch to Linux, I like Kubuntu myself.

1 vs 100 had an error.

They asked (paraphrasing): "If Dorothy from Wizard of Oz went for a walk in the NFL, which of the following animals would she not run into: lions, tigers, or bears?" They were asking which isn't an NFL team. Well, they all are, because Bengals are tigers, therefore, Dorothy would meet all three.

Integrated Video/Chipset Crap

My Dell E310 lets me use the integrated video plus a PCI Radeon 7000 giving me three monitors. My Dell Optiplex at work lets me use the integrated video plus a PCI Radeon 7000 giving me three monitors.
My Dell Dimension at work lets me use the integrated video plus a PCI Radeon 7000 giving me three monitors.
My brand new Dell E521 says in the manual that if you use a PCI Express x16 video card the integrated video is automatically disabled and can not be enabled. So I installed a PCI Radeon 7000 and it would not boot, and on the monitor that was plugged into the integrated video it said I would have to unplug the monitor plugged into the integrated video or remove the added video adapter card, otherwise it will not boot. So now you can not get a three headed system from Dell by purchasing a $49-$79 PCI card anymore, now you have to purchase a more expensive 3 headed card that usually run more expensive than $129-$200. So for the last 5 years, probably longer, Dell has made systems with integrated video that you could keep using even after adding additional video cards, but now, they make systems where the integrated video can not be used if you upgrade your system. Can someone explain to me how this benefits Dell? Can someone explain to me how this benefits Dell's customers?

Here's a list of the 64-bit applications I'd run if Dell didn't charge extra for 64-bit OSs

Apache 2.2 (currently use 32-bit version, the official 64-bit version for Windows does not exist yet, but there is this version: http://www.blackdot.be/?inc=apache/binaries, let me know if it works in Vista. Apache hosts test versions of 300+ websites I develop and maintain as well as phpMyAdmin, my MySQL IDE)
MySQL 5.1 (currently use 32-bit version, the 64-bit version for Windows does not exist yet, but I'm betting it will some day. MySQL hosts test versions of the tables for 300+ websites I develop and maintain)
PHP 5 (currently use 32-bit version, the official 64-bit version for Windows does not exist yet, but there is this version: http://www.fusionxlan.com/PHPx64.php, let me know if it works in Vista. PHP is the primary language for the 300+ websites I develop and maintain)
Java 6 (currently use 32-bit version, upgrading to 64-bit would make my IDEs [Netbeans and Eclipse] 64-bit [After making tiny edits to a config file for each. If upgrading from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit is supported. If not, and I have to do a fresh install of the OS and all of the applications, then no config file changes would be necessary since the initial install would be with a 64-bit version of Java thus their would be no need to tell Eclipse and Netbeans to use a different JDK]. Netbeans and Eclipse [along with VMware Workstation 6] are the main reasons I use more than 4GB of memory on a regular basis).
VMware Workstation 6 (beta) (currently use 32-bit version, this hosts Windows XP and Kubuntu allowing me to test web pages in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox, Konqueror, Mozilla, Opera, and Epiphany, all on the same machine without rebooting.)
Firefox 2 (currently use 32-bit version, Firefox [at least how I use it] usually uses at least 500-800 MB once I get all of the tabs and windows I use open.)
TortoiseSVN 1.4.3 (currently use 32-bit version)

Windows Vista Memory Specifications

Can someone confirm these details (see table below)? The table is my best guess based on the few details I have been able to pull together across multiple websites. I want to know exactly how much total memory, RAM and Virtual Memory combined is available. I also want to know how much of the Virtual Memory is usable by applications and how much can be used by the OS. What is each individual application limited to? If anyone knows of an online resource that spells out all the details of Windows Vista Memory, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, let me know.

Windows	32-bit				64-bit
Vista	Physical	Virtual Memory			Physical	Virtual Memory
Edition	RAM	OS	Per App	Total	RAM	Per App	Total
Home Basic	4 GB	2 GB	2 GB	16 TB	8 GB	8 GB	16 TB
Home Premium	4 GB	2 GB	2 GB	16 TB	16 GB	16 GB	512 TB
Ultimate	4 GB	2 GB	2 GB	16 TB	128+GB	128+GB	512 TB
Business	4 GB	2 GB	2 GB	16 TB	128+GB	128+GB	512 TB
Enterprise	4 GB	2 GB	2 GB	16 TB	128+GB	128+GB	512 TB

My Dell E521 is limited to 4GB of RAM, but with a 250GB SATA drive, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit would allow me to have 16GB of Virtual Memory which would be a huge benefit while running Netbeans 5.5, Eclipse 3.2.2 and VMware Workstation 6 Beta, heck if it only allows 8GB of Virtual Memory that would still be a huge improvement over my current situation.

This is what I got for a workstation at work.

My boss bought me a New Dell E521 as a development and test platform for the 300+ websites I am charged with developing and maintaining. Turns out that when you order a 64-bit Dell with Windows Vista you get a 32-bit copy of Vista (unless you pay extra for Vista Ultimate Edition). If you buy Windows Vista Home Premium from Dell for $239 you can use the product key at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/64bit.mspx to get a 64-bit copy. If you buy any Dell with any edition of Vista other than Ultimate, you have to pay Dell or some other 3rd party if you want to have a 64-bit version of Windows Vista. I think it is dishonest that Dell does not tell you while you are buying your 64-bit computer that, oh by the way, we will be shipping you a 32-bit version of the OS even though Microsoft sells that exact same edition of the OS for the exact same price in a 64-bit version.

Here is what my boss ordered:

Quantity	Item Number	Description

1	222-5671	Dimension E521,Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.00GHz, 512Kx2)
1	311-6581	2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
1	310-8025	Dell USB Keyboard
1	310-7965	Dell USB 2-button mouse
1	320-5179	Video ready w/o Monitor, DIM X2
1	320-4270	Integrated Graphics
1	341-3280	250GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
1	341-4028	No Floppy Drive Requested
1	466-2386	Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English
1	420-5769	Internet Search and Portal
1	420-5924	Icon Consolidation Application
1	463-2282	Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon after system set-up to access
1	420-6436	Vista, PC-Restore, Dim/Insp
1	420-6481	Dell Support, Vista, Dim/Insp
1	313-4911	Dell Resource DVD with Application Backup
1	310-1966	Mouse included in Dell Wireless or Bluetooth Package
1	430-0412	Integrated NIC card
1	313-4593	56K PCI Data Fax Modem
1	412-0914	Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0
1	313-4579	16X DVD+/-RW Drive
1	420-6464	Roxio Creator Basic
1	313-2758	Integrated Audio
1	313-2198	No Speaker Requested
1	420-6594	Network Associates McAfee 8.0 English, 30-Day Trial
1	412-0934	Earthlink
1	412-0933	AOL for Broadband
1	412-0912	MS WORKS 8.5
1	950-3337	1 Year Limited Warranty
1	950-9797	No Warranty, Year 2 and 3
1	985-1278	Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Initial Year
1	980-3310	Type 3- Third Party At Home Service, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year
1	960-2800	Warranty Support,Initial Year
1	465-7668	Thank you for choosing Dell!
1	412-0943	Basic digital Music,Photo and Game experience
1	310-8626	You have chosen a Windows Vista Premium System

Note that they cleverly omitted the Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English version, no where while ordering did they say which one it was, no where did they give the option to buy 64-bit (only those willing to purchase the more expensive Ultimate Edition can buy a 64-bit version of Windows Vista from Dell with their desktop order [and that is yet to be confirmed because while the retail version of Ultimate comes with the 64-bit and 32-bit install discs, the OEM version may only be 32-bit, please let me know if you know what you get when you buy Ultimate Edition with your Dell desktop]).

My Dell E521