Will with our new work laptops running 64-bit software sometimes the old 32-bit software doesn’t work as expected.  In this case it was effecting my screen capture program I typically use, Faststone.  So this is another alternative that works just as well (some features are actually better) This is also free software to use and download

PicPick Website

PicPick 2.2.1 Download

Ever needed to connect to a computer for a second to show something really quick but were having trouble walking anyone in your family through the screens.  I typically use VNC to connect and manage the computer but the biggest problem with VNC is that you need to go to the router tables and bounce the correct ports to the correct computer.  If you know anyone i my family that is almost impossible to explain.  That is where this tool comes in handy.

This is great you just have them go to the ShowMyPC website click the first file to download, have them open the file accept any firewall changes and have them share out the PC.  Then take the password and put it into your copy as view remote PC and you are in.  It is not the fastest or prettiest connection to remote machine but easy to get going and gets a long discussion over quickly.  And it is free.  I have also attached the file to this post.

ShowMyPC Download

Well I have never been a big fan of Windows explorer, but at the same time never really found a reason to change what it uses by default.  Well I have started using Q-Dir to manage my file directory contents and I find it extremely easy and time saving.  I guess I just got used to opening two explorer windows and dragging across the windows but this seems to be so much easier!  And using the Hotkey tool I found the other day it makes it as easy as a replacement for explorer as ever!

Qdir Website

This is a pretty amazing site and has a bunch of good content and links.  This is great for finding fonts, images, CMS tools, and just great links for web designers.  This can save a lot of time.

ForWebDesigners.com

Alright so after being up late last night until about midnight I finally found out how to get Mercury Server running for SMTP.  This is very helpful when you are testing on your XAMPP server and you are testing your email functionality and want to see the emails that it is sending out.  Below are the steps to get things working.

Setup DNS for your NIC

• Go to Start->Network Connections
• Edit the NIC you are using
• Double Click TCP/IP settings
• Manually enter in the DNS servers from your ISP

Disable unneeded Protocols

• Start Mercury from the Control Panel
• Go to CONFIGURATION->PROTOCOL MODULES
• Disable everything except the MERCURYC SMTP RELAY CLIENT and MERCURY SMTP
• Restart Mercury

Make Changes to Core Module

• Go to CONFIGURATION->MERCURY CORE MODULE then the GENERAL tab
• Check to make sure “localhost” is the value of “internet name for this system”
• Disable all but “send copies of all errors to postmaster”
• check tab “Local Domains” make sure Localhost is there
• Close and save

Edit MercuryS SMTP Server

• Open CONFIGURATION -> MERCURY S SMTP SERVER
• Choose general tab and enter name as SMTP
• Make sure port 25 is listed
• Add 127.0.0.1 to “IP interface to use”
• Go to Connection Control and add 127.0.0.1 to the list
• Un-check “do not permit SMTP relaying to non-local mail”
• Close and Save

Edit MercuryC SMTP Client

• Open CONFIGURATION -> MERCURYC SMTP CLIENT
• Enter in external SMTP client (smtp.google.com for example) on port 465 with SSL (or whatever ports are supported)
• Enter your login name and password to that external SMTP server
• Close and Save

Edit PHP.INI file to include from line

• Then go edit your PHP.INI file in XAMPP
• Under [mail function] add the line “sendmail_from = postmaster@localhost”
• Stop and restart Mercury and Apache

Yup 27 steps is why it took me so long to get this thing working!  The key is that last step to the PHP.INI file without that you will get an awesome syntax error on all your emails.

Looks like I finally figured out how to automate cpanel backups.  Since most of my sites are all hosted on the same account backup was a sinch with cpanel full backup.  Only issue was that I could not automate the task until now!

First I setup my own local FTP so I had a remote place to put the files.  Then using the script below edited it put in my cpanel variables and then created a cron job to run the file.  The issue wasn’t finding this script, I have had it for a while, the issue was getting the darn thing to work.  Looks like what I was missing was changing the $skin parameter to ‘lp’…thank you Lunar Pages Forum (yes should have looked there a long time ago but didn’t).  Lunar Pages would be my host and looks like they have their own skin for cpanel.  Once I got that in place everything worked perfectly and then I just scheduled the cron job below.

Here is the script cpanel_backup.php

Then schedule the script job via Cron
0 0 * * 1 /usr/bin/env php cpanel_backup.php

I have tried playing around with some different file archiving tools and basically have come back to 7Zip again as it seems to be the most functional and useful one I can find.  Plus it is hard to beat the price.  Well if you are worried about the way that yours looks (yes I know I am kinda a skinning crazy person) there is a theme manager out there that you can use to stylize your 7zip application.  I have attached the latest version as well as the website below:

Latest Version: Theme Manager 1.1

Website: 7 Zip Theme Manager

Well since I am a little partial to using Notepad++ for just about everything these days looks like with a few easy steps you can change the default source editor in Firefox to use Notepad++  It is very simple:

Go to about:config

Search for “view_source.editor.external”
Change this value to “true”

Search for “view_source.editor.path”
Change this to the path of your editor “C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe”

Well it seems that I have had a hell of a time cleaning up my website from its recent hack.  Gotta love it when the first time you find out about your site being compromised is via google.

So what happened to me is someone uploaded a whole bunch of files to my Wordpress directory with links to god knows what content.  So after going through those directories (numerous times!) and cleaning them up and deleting outdated random files I think it is finally clean.

I was looking for something to monitor my website directories for any file changes or any random uploads that I didn’t authorize.  I came across this PHP script that you can put in your root directory and then you set a cron job to run the script every so many hours.

The script emails a specified email address and lets you know of any changes since the last run.

Monitor Hacked Files Website

Download Monitor Hacked Files

Well if you have ever wanted portable apps on crack this might just be the application for you.  With USB keys getting up to 128GB these days trying to find stuff to fill it is about half the fun!  Well just ran across this application the other day, it puts Portable Apps to shame and has over 200+ applications that are easily updateable and easy to download new ones.  It also allows you to easily add applications that are not part of the general install package.

The ultimate package comes with over 200+ applications and download at about 200MB and unzips to about 600MB.  I finally have everything I could ever want on my work laptop without having to worry about actually installing software on it!

LiberKey Website