Joe’s Tech Blog

I am happy to announce that my wife, Devyn, and I are now happy (and tired) parents. Elijah was born to us on May 1 at 3:50pm. He was 7lbs, 7oz and 21″ long. Pictures are on our family photo gallery at http://www.joedevyn.com.

God has truly blessed us!

For those of you who use Access databases in web applications, you will love this utility. MyAccess allows you to modify tables, views, indexes, keys and content stored in MS Access databases via a web browser. Simply upload it to your web server, set a few minor options in the config file and your done.

I had to change the DB_DIR directive in the config file to an absolute path because I couldn’t make changes to the database using the default settings. It was kind of strange, the path worked fine unless I was trying to write a change to the db. Here’s what I did:
Changed DB_DIR = server.mapPath("..\..\_db\") & "\"
To DB_DIR = "D:\HostingSpaces\websites\blahblah.org\_db\"

If you use Access databases on the web, give MyAccess a try. Let me know what you think.

I created this script a few years ago to fill a specific need of having the ntbackup log emailed to admins everyday. When I created it, I didn’t think I would ever need it again because the places I tend to work for have enterprise backup systems in place. Well, I was wrong, I am working for a company that does not have an enterprise backup solution for it’s R&D lab. I went hunting for this script and couldn’t find it anywhere. I ended up contacting one of the admins at the client I originally created for and had him send it to me. I decided to post here because I am sure that I am not the only person who has needed this script.

While the script isn’t perfect, it does get the job done. All it does is check the backup log directory for the most recently modified .log file, ports the contents of that file to another text file and then uses Bmail to send it in an email. I had to port the contents of the original log file to plain ASCII text file because of the formatting of the log file.

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I attended a SharePoint Development training course in Las Vegas last week. The course was taught by Andre Abramenko of Pilothouse Consulting.

I have been administering SharePoint for some time now but I wanted someone to tie everything together for me. The folks at Pilothouse did just that. Their course was well documented and they were well prepared. If you are looking for SharePoint training, I suggest you give them a try!

As you may know, SquirrelMail does not support a users forum. A member of the hMailServer community forum has decided to start such a forum and it is located at http://www.squirrelmailforum.com. So, if you are having trouble with SquirrelMail, head over to the new forum and see if someone can help. If you are a SquirrelMail guru, please join the forum so you may be of assistance to others.

You have got to check out Microsoft Surface! This is the kind of thing that keeps technology exciting. MS may have the upper hand on Apple here. Apple Touch, eat your heart out!! http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

I posted this article with WordPressDash, a blogging tool for your Mac OS X Dashboard. You can check it out at http://www.paniris.com/wordpressdash/

Server Core is an option for installing Windows Server 2008. “A Server Core installation provides a minimal environment for running specific server roles that reduces the maintenance and management requirements and the attack surface for those server roles.” - Courtesy MS

After the installation of Server Core you are prompted to login. The only active account on the machine is the administrator account and the password is blank. You are prompted to change the password immediately after successfull authentication.

Installing services is done from the command line. Unfortunately, it is not the Power Shell command line like many had hoped. Instead it is the classic Windows command line but if you are an old Dos Junkie like myself, you won’t have any problems with that.
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Web based IM at its best is named Meebo. Connect to MSN, Yahoo!, Jabber, ICQ, AIM and Google Talk without installing or downloading anything! The interface is clean and efficient. The connections are quick and it is FREE. Registration is completely optional but comes with some added features like saved chat logs and preferences.

I suggest you take a look. http://www.meebo.com

I use KeePass to store my passwords and I need access to my passwords everywhere I go. KeePass portable allows me to do just that. I simply save the application on my USB drive and I’m on my way. There are many applications which have “portable” versions. KeePass, Notepad++, FireFox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, OpenOffice, ClamWin, 7zip just to name a few. PortableApps.com takes this idea a step further, they have compiled a large list of portable applications and have built a framework to consolidate them into a neat little package. After installing the PortableApps Suite on my USB drive, I have a single executable StartPortableApps.exe which opens a “start” menu like application which allows one click access to all my portable applications. You should definitely check it out.