Network settings from Run box in Windows 7

On XP and Server 2003 it was only a few clicks, Start > Network Connections, to get at the config screens for IP/DNS/DHCP etc.

In Windows 7 its hidden a million layers down behind all kind of user friendly fluff.

Luckily you can simply type this into the search box (the Windows 7 version of the Run box...):

ncpa.cpl

Much better!

Avoid Sharepoint Authentication Popup

One of the most galling things about Sharepoint in the configuration we have at my place of work is that you end up retyping your credentials all the time.

I've previously posted some ways around this by editing security settings in IE to ensure your AD credentials are always posted through.

However I've found a much better solution! Use Google Chrome. Type in your credentials and the experience is seamless.

Cannot pin Netsupport Manager to taskbar in Windows 7

I access some Windows Server boxes via Netsupport Manager at work. I'd like to pin this app to the taskbar, but as it has the word "Support" in the title Microsoft have explicitly excluded this.

I would have enjoyed attending the product management meeting at Microsoft where the decision to exclude any apps with "Support" in the name was made. I hope they had tea and nice biscuits!

To lift this slightly baffling restriction, you can amend the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileAssociation\AddRemoveNames


It will probably look like this:

SETUP.EXE;INSTALL.EXE;ISUNINST.EXE;UNWISE.EXE;UNWISE32.EXE;ST5UNST.EXE;MSOOBE.EXE;LNKSTUB.EXE;CONTROL.EXE;SUPPORT;WERFAULT.EXE;WLRMDR.EXE;GUESTMODEMSG.EXE;MSIEXEC.EXE;DFSVC.EXE;WUAPP.EXE;


Mine now looks like this:


SETUP.EXE;INSTALL.EXE;ISUNINST.EXE;UNWISE.EXE;UNWISE32.EXE;ST5UNST.EXE;MSOOBE.EXE;LNKSTUB.EXE;CONTROL.EXE;WERFAULT.EXE;WLRMDR.EXE;GUESTMODEMSG.EXE;MSIEXEC.EXE;DFSVC.EXE;WUAPP.EXE


And I can now pin NetSupport.

SYSDATE in Postgres

The equivalent of Oracle's SYSDATE in Postgres is CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.

At least in the context I needed it in!

I learnt about timestamp arithmetic in Postgres from here: http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Working_with_Dates_and_Times_in_PostgreSQL#WORKING_with_DATETIME.2C_DATE.2C_and_INTERVAL_VALUES

IntelliJ hang

If you find IntellJ just hangs and you have the kill the process, then you restart and it hangs again, its probably an issue with your JDK. I followed the steps here marked workaround:

http://devnet.jetbrains.net/docs/DOC-1193

Basically this involved editing the JVM startup properties to disable cardmarking or some such. The details are all contained in the link.

IntelliJ worked perfectly afterward. Its quite ironic as I was thinking how much I liked IntelliJ just before it happened. At least it was an easy fix. I am using the version 10 Community edition.

Windows 7 RDP Slow

If your RDP connections in Windows 7 are slow, over a VPN or whatever then go:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=highlyrestricted

From an administrator command shell on the machine initiating the RDP connection.

Automating VMWare ESX

* http://ben.neise.co.uk/index.php/2009/03/intro-to-powercli/

Various Thoughts on Puppet

For: http://lsimons.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/fusion-puppet-gitolite/

Against: http://blog.ianbicking.org/2010/03/10/configuration-management-push-vs-pull/

Behaviour Driven Development

http://dannorth.net/introducing-bdd/

WebLogic silent.xml for Centos / RHEL 5.5 Production

Oracle do provide a sample, and there are links on the Web but after much frustration, this one actually works.

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<bea-installer>
	<input-fields>
	<data-value name="BEAHOME" value="/opt/Middleware" />
	<data-value name="WLS_INSTALL_DIR" value="/opt/Middleware/wlserver_10.3" />
	<data-value name="COMPONENT_PATHS" value="WebLogic Server/Core Application Server|WebLogic Server/Administration Console|WebLogic Server/Configuration Wizard and Upgrade Framework|WebLogic Server/Web 2.0 HTTP Pub-Sub Server|WebLogic Server/WebLogic JDBC Drivers|WebLogic Server/Third Party JDBC Drivers|WebLogic Server/WebLogic Server Clients|WebLogic Server/WebLogic Web Server Plugins|WebLogic Server/UDDI and Xquery Support" />
	</input-fields>
	</bea-installer>

view raw silent.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Assuming the bin file has been downloaded from Oracle, then:

• Create the Middleware directory beforehand.
• Specify -mode=silent -silent_xml=/full/path/to/silent.xml on the command line.
• This will install everything required,  but not the Server examples domain, which is dangerous on a production server.

Postgresql Repo for CENTOS

http://yum.pgrpms.org/rpmchart.php

Install EPEL Repository on CENTOS

Just putting this here:

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm

Install latest Python on Centos

This script will download, compile and install a newer version of Python on CENTOS / RedHat 5.* in a way which respects the underlying Python 2.4 used by Yum etc.

Based on http://www.venkysblog.com/install-python264-modwsgi-and-django-on-cento and http://binarysushi.com/blog/2009/aug/19/CentOS-5-3-python-2-5-virtualevn-mod-wsgi-and-mod-rpaf/.

	# wget -O install_python.sh https://gist.github.com/raw/777001/install_python.sh
	# chmod +x install_python.sh
	# ./install_python.sh
	#!/bin/sh
	echo "******************************************"
	echo "Configure Centos box with a recent version"
	echo "of Python. "
	echo " - jgumbley 12/jan/11"
	echo "******************************************"
	echo " - Get source for Python"
	cd /usr/local/src
	wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.1/Python-2.7.1.tgz
	tar xvfz Python-2.7.1.tgz
	echo " - Install compilers"
	yum -y install gcc gdbm-devel readline-devel ncurses-devel zlib-devel bzip2-develsqlite-devel db4-devel openssl-devel tk-devel bluez-libs-devel make
	echo " - Compile Python source"
	cd Python-2.7.1
	./configure --prefix=/opt/python2.7.1 --with-threads --enable-shared
	make
	make install
	echo " - Add shared libraries in"
	touch /etc/ld.so.conf.d/opt-python2.7.1.conf
	echo "/opt/python2.7.1/lib/" >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/opt-python2.7.1.conf
	ldconfig
	echo " - Create SymLink to updated version"
	ln -sf /opt/python2.7.1/bin/python /usr/bin/python2.7
	echo " - Install SetupTools."
	cd /usr/local/src
	wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.7/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
	sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --prefix=/opt/python2.7.1
	echo " - Install pip."
	/opt/python2.7.1/bin/easy_install pip
	ln -sf /opt/python2.7.1/bin/pip /usr/bin/pip
	echo " - Install virtualenv."
	pip install virtualenv
	ln -sf /opt/python2.7.1/bin/virtualenv /usr/bin/virtualenv
	echo " - Pipe alias into .zshrc "
	echo "alias python=/opt/python2.7.1/bin/python" >> ~/.zshrc
	source ~/.zshrc
	# wget -O install_python.sh https://gist.github.com/raw/777001/install_python.sh
	# chmod +x install_python.sh
	# ./install_python.sh
	#!/bin/sh
	echo "******************************************"
	echo "Configure Centos box with apache and "
	echo "mod_wsgi for running flask apps "
	echo " - jgumbley 15/jan/11"
	echo "******************************************"
	echo " # install required apache pre-reqs "
	yum -y install httpd httpd-devel
	echo " # download mod_wsgi source "
	cd /usr/local/src/
	wget http://modwsgi.googlecode.com/files/mod_wsgi-3.3.tar.gz
	tar xvfz mod_wsgi-3.3.tar.gz
	echo " # compile mod_wsgi source "
	cd mod_wsgi-3.3
	./configure --with-python=/opt/python2.7.1/bin/python
	make
	make install
	echo " # pipe module into httpd config"
	echo "LoadModule wsgi_module /usr/lib64/httpd/modules/mod_wsgi.so" >> /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
	service httpd restart

view raw install_python.sh hosted with ❤ by GitHub

ZSH and .zshrc

Apparently ZSH is quite good so I'm going to try it out. On most Linux distros this is going to be installed anyway, but the steps are:

yum install zsh
chsh -s /bin/zsh


Here are some links about customizing it:

• http://grml.org/zsh/zsh-lovers.pdf
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/171563/whats-in-your-zshrc
• http://pthree.org/2008/11/23/727/
• http://aperiodic.net/phil/prompt/
• http://jeff.robbins.ws/reference/my-zshrc-file
• http://my.opera.com/blackbelt_jones/blog/2007/06/05/zsh-prompt-configuration-issue-solved

Unicode

Seems like a good article, this has always seemed a little mysterious.

• http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html

I especially found the part about http-equiv content type useful. It had always bothered me how you could specify the character encoding after the start of the file. As it turns out it is a compromise and I am not the only person who had wondered about it.