John Hesch

I’m making this post from the newly released Wordpress application for the iPhone/Touch. Very cool. Check it out in the apps store.

I tried to update iTunes on my Vista machine but I kept getting the error Bonjour Service Cannot Start. I tried uninstalling iTunes but still could not get past this error. Finally I found a workaround. This solution is not the best answer because it installes iTunes without the Bonjour service which is used to share your iTunes music. That doesn’t concern me so it works for me.

Here are the steps:

1. Start -> All Programs ->Apple Software Update
2. Tools -> Open Downloaded Updates Folder
3. Move the following Downloaded files to the C: root directory: itunes.msi and Setupadmin.exe
4. Start -> Search for cmd
5. Type cd ../ twice to navigate to the C: root directory
6. Type setupadmin.exe hit enter
7. Type itunes.msi and hit enter
8. The installation begins

Now iTunes will install as normal but without the Bonjour service. I’m still hoping to find a fix which allows a normal install or update in the future.

I found this solution here.

Be sure to grab the latest version of Firefox from Mozilla on June 17. This is the fastest and trimmest version yet.

Speed tests are showing a 2-4x improvement over Firefox 2 and 9x over Internet Explorer 7. Memory usage tests measure that Firefox 3 is 2x more efficient than Firefox 2 and 4.7x more efficient than IE7. There’s been a tremendous focus on performance for this release, and an incredible amount of effort has gone in to achieving these numbers.

Field Guide to Firefox 3

Mozilla recently released Firefox 3 RC2. Get it while it’s hot.

Firefox is expected to reach 20% browser share by July of this year. Firefox 3 being released later this month will likely give Mozilla the boost they need. I’ve been using FF3 since Beta 1 and it seems to be faster, but I still don’t see much of a memory decrease over other versions. Too bad.

via ComputerWorld

Last night I installed all of the recommended updates for my Ubuntu 8.04 laptop using Gnome. Today I restarted and noticed that all of my windows buttons for minimizing, maximizing and closing were missing. In addition I couldn’t drag any of the windows around.

To fix this I opened a terminal window and ran the following command

metacity --replace

Be sure that you use two dashes together if you need to restore your window controls.

via Asktheadmin

I haven’t posted since August of 2007, I was using Wordpress 1.5, and I have had the same theme for years.

Today I upgraded to the latest Wordpress and changed the theme. I am going to try to post more often but these days I have been spending most of my time micro-blogging on Twitter. If you tweet on Twitter you can follow me at @boxfan.

Have you ever tried accessing a website and it didn’t respond? Of course you have. We all have! Mr Uptime is an extension to your Firefox browser that will keep trying to reach that website in the background while you continue surfing on other websites. When the website is accessible again, Mr Uptime will let you know. You can also use Mr Uptime when a website responds but doesn’t load correctly.

Get notified when an unavailable website starts to work again.

I'm building an online cash register and decided to use XAJAX as my PHP/Ajax toolkit. It was very easy to learn and begin using. In fact, I am amazed at how easy XAJAX is to use. The problem, it is still in the infancy stage and today I found that not all responses work as expected.

I needed to replace an element like this

The expected result would be the HTML tag and text,

would be replaced with

I just couldn't get it to work. It appears that the problem is with Firefox. I didn't try IE but from what others have said, addReplace works in IE.

I finally had to come up with a workaround because I needed this to work in both IE and FF.

Simple, eh?

I have noticed an unusual amount of emails being received with no body text, just a .pdf file attached. I don't open any attachment unless I am expecting it, so the email goes immediately to the trash. After doing some research, I found that apparently attaching a .pdf file is the spammers new method of choice.

Seems like a pretty benign method of spreading spam.

This is a fascinating look at how one person tracked down a hacker who broke into a buddy's Linux server.

I found a pretty cool list of Thunderbird Add-ons with some real gems like the add notes to email extension and the folder shortcuts.

I'm constantly reminded how much I love Mozilla applications!

CSS Redundancy Checker

A simple script that, given a CSS stylesheet and either a .txt file listing URLs of HTML files, or a directory of HTML files, will iterate over them all and list the CSS statements in the stylesheet which are never called in the HTML.

Basically, it helps you keep your CSS files relevant and compact. And it's reasonably accurate.

Unfortunately for me it requires Rubygems and Hpricot, plus a reasonably up-to-date version of Ruby.

Apple has a new website, looks a lot like iTunes on the web. Pretty cool. I also noticed that the Safari browser, formally only available to MAC users, now comes in a Microsoft version.

1. Blazing Performance - 2x Faster - Safari is the fastest web browser on any platform.
2. Elegant User Interface - Safari’s clean look lets you focus on the web — not your browser.
3. Easy Bookmarks - Organize your bookmarks just like you organize music in iTunes.
4. Pop-up Blocking - Say goodbye to annoying pop-up ads and pop-under windows.
5. Inline Find - Search any text on any website with the integrated Find banner.
6. Tabbed Browsing - Open and switch between multiple web pages in a single window.
7. Snapback - Instantly snap back to search results or the top level of a website.
8. Forms AutoFill - Let Safari complete online forms for you, automatically and securely.
9. Built-in RSS - RSS tells you when new content is added to your favorite sites.
10. Resizable Text Fields - Resize text fields on any website: Just grab the corner and drag.
11. Private Browsing - Keep your online activities private with a single click.
12. Security - Apple engineers designed Safari to be secure from day one.

All major browsers change the color of links users have visited. With some JavaScript, a web site can view the colors of the links in a users browser history and determine if they have visited a site. A web site can't pull a list of sites the user has visited from their browser, but they can test a predefined list of URL's to see if they have visited any of them.

Spyjax makes it super easy for web sites to spy on their visitors. With Ajax, thousands of links can be tested against a visitors browser history to determine which web sites have been visited.

Luckily, if you're a Firefox user, there is SafeHistory. A Firefox add-on that restricts the marking of visited links on the basis of the originating document, defending against web privacy attacks that remote sites can use to determine your browser history at other sites.