Category Archives: Technical

Some of this computer stuff is hard! Who’s idea was that? Just like you I’m just trying to find my way through the maze of it all. This might help.

Logitech Harmony 785 Universal Remote review

August 23, 2007Gadget Fiend, TechnicalSean

Having become tired of the gaggle of remotes on my coffee table I’ve ventured once again into the one-remote-to-rule-them-all world of universal remote control. My prior purchase was a $20 cheapie that relied on the input of ‘device codes’ to identify your hardware. The Harmony line of remotes are a whole different kettle of fish.

The ‘secret weapon’ of the Harmony is that it’s ‘programmed’ using a PC. It’s a USB device. The interface used to configure the remote is even more sophisticated (and problematic) but I’ll get to that later. Continue reading Logitech Harmony 785 Universal Remote review →

Switching views in VS2005

November 30, 2006Programming, TechnicalSean

I use DreamWeaver. A lot. I also write ASP but have realised that it’s probably time to move to ASP.NET now that 2.0 is claiming to make a lot of things easier.

In making this move, I’m having to come to terms with the Visual Studio 2005 IDE. It’s formidable. The more I can get it to behave like DreamWeaver the happier I’ll be. Continue reading Switching views in VS2005 →

Memory Fails Me

August 7, 2006Technical, WorkSean

Every now and again I have cause to install MySQL. I wish I didn’t but, apparently,Â you can’t always get what you want. I try to make the process as painless as possible and get phpMyAdmin up and running almost immediately but always stumble on the creation of PMA specific tables as they are the only bit that need to be done from the mysql>| command line (yuk).

So I inevitably end up searching the MySQL help for how to do this. Well, no longer will I travail so for here they are.

Finally, a Home

August 2, 2006Identity, TechnicalSean

So, after 3 years of floating around various sites on the ‘net, my blog(s) have finally arrived at their intended home, seanys.com. I bought the domain a couple of weeks ago but I’ve only just got around to tranferring my blog across from it’s previous ‘temporary’ home at seanys.kicks-ass.net.

Thankyou’s go to WordPress, MySQL and phpMyAdmin for making the moving process relatively easy.

Overcoming SQL Server Express Security

April 10, 2006Technical, WorkSean

Despite the name this is not a hacking article.

In it’s default install SSE2005 only allows local connections. Getting it to talk to other systems is a bit of a pain.

Here are some hints.

SQL Owned

August 4, 2005Technical, WorkSean

Permissions in M$ SQL Server can be a pain in the ass.

Your application needs access to the database but handing out the ‘sa’ user password is generally a bad idea. For most people this doesn’t seem to be a problem. Most example code I’ve seen uses the ‘sa’ user account. Ouch! Continue reading SQL Owned →

Yet Another DW Fail-To-Start

August 1, 2005TechnicalSean

As per usual DreamWeaver proves itself to be a buggy PoS.

Corrupted site cache suspected? Try the de riÂ·gueur fix.

Nuke ‘Em!

August 1, 2005Programming, Technical, WorkSean

Fixed my first bug last Thursday. Didn’t write about it then because I couldn’t be buggered (no pun intended).

Seems DNN3’s skin and container preview thumbnails weren’t displaying in its admin interface. Unbelievably the <img src= URL had back slashes in it. On my W2K -> W2K3 server URLScan was blocking this. Continue reading Nuke ‘Em! →

Nuked!

July 27, 2005Technical, WorkSean

After an evening and a morning wrestling with a DotNetNuke installation it finally started working. Continue reading Nuked! →

Worthwhile

July 20, 2005TechnicalSean

Well, I’ve finally done something that turned out to be worthwhile.

I’ve spent the best part of the last two weeks installing Fedora Core 4 on one of my DEV machines and although it has been hugely beneficial for me learning Linux/MySQL/PHPMyAdmin/Webmin/etc it hasn’t been overly productive, work-wise. Continue reading Worthwhile →