IIS 7 Permissions

Posted on 24 March, 2011 by Stephen Pickett

I’m new to IIS 7 (7.5 to be specific) and have just been struggling with an issue which I’d like to share the solution to – IIS 7.5 no longer uses the IUSR_machine_name account to apply write (or other) permissions to a directory. Instead you have to use IUSR.

However, if you try resolving this (with Check Names) it will try to give you something else – instead you need to open Object Types (when the Select Users or Groups window is open) and select Service Accounts, and then go to Locations and select the local computer name.

You can then apply the correct permissions and away you go. I was installing eFront when I came across this particular issue.

Scan to FTP on Dell 3115cn

Posted on 21 January, 2011 by Stephen Pickett

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and since I created this primarily for making a record of obscure problems that will hopefully help others I thought I’d just post one I experience today:

I’ve been trying today to setup scanning to a network location on our Dell 3115cn multi-functional printer. We already have an FTP location that is setup for another photocopier so I was able to utilise this. The eventual settings used were:

Name: [the name of this address e.g. Share, Scan or anything else appropriate]
Server Address: [the IP address or name of the server, if you have trouble with name use IP]
Server Port Number: [21 for FTP, change if you have altered your FTP port on the server]
Login Name: [anonymous, or if you have setup users then the username]
Enable Password: [unticked if anonymous, otherwise ticked]
Login Password: [blank if above is unticked, otherwise the relevant password]
Server Path: [the path to the location excluding the address e.g. / for root, or /files/scans to access "scans" folder within "files" folder residing in root]

And that’s it. Quite simple when you know how but as Dell provide awful documentation and no help on their site it can take some trial and error to get to this point.

Computer Upgraded

Posted on 17 November, 2010 by Stephen Pickett

Well due to MSI providing me with a dud replacement motherboard I finally decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my system. I completely avoided all MSI products this time round and now my computer is running smoothly again, with some slightly faster kit.

I shall get back to ThinkTwit development and will do my best to get some updates out in the next couple of weeks.

Update

Posted on 3 September, 2010 by Stephen Pickett

Well it’s been a while since I’ve been able to post – just thought I’d let anyone reading what’s going on and why I’ve not posted any ThinkTwit updates in a while. As you will have seen from previous posts I’ve had issues with my PC – after getting my motherboard fixed I received further issues and had to fight with MSI again to have my motherboard replaced. They eventually relented after the threat of being reported to Trading Standards and they replaced the motherboard with one that was refurbished. However, that motherboard also has an issue but that’s another story – needless to say I won’t EVER buy an MSI product again.

Since all that palava I have also bought and moved in to a new house. I’m currently without Internet and my PC is still in pieces but once I’ve got everything sorted and I’m settled (probably another month) I hope to get some time to start updating ThinkTwit again. Apologies to anyone this may have affected but I’ve not seen any complaints so I’m hoping all is well.

Graze

Posted on 8 June, 2010 by Stephen Pickett

I had my first “Graze” box last week. I’m not really a fan of healthy foods like dried fruits, nuts, seeds etc. but I decided to get one of these boxes as they were free. How wrong I was, it tasted great! They send you a mixture of different things, rather than let you choose, and I decided to be open minded. If anyone else wants a free box (first one is free, second is £1.50, every other is £3) then please feel free to use this code: LH5KW7HN at http://www.graze.com.

PC up and running again

Posted on 24 April, 2010 by Stephen Pickett

My PC is FINALLY working again! MSI stuck to their work, fixed and returned the motherboard no questions asked, for a small fee of course, although it took about 4 or 5 weeks!

I shall try my best to get working on ThinkTwit again this week and finall roll out the changes I was working on when my system died (I think caching and filters). Sorry again for any trouble this may have caused anyone!

Computer out of action

Posted on 25 March, 2010 by Stephen Pickett

My computer is currently out of action. Had a lot of trouble with it ever since I built it 2 years ago and it’s only emerged recently that it seems to be due to the motherboard. After a LOT of wrangling with MSI, who make the motherboard, they have finally agreed to repair or replace it for me. After all the trouble though I will probably never buy a product from them again – they are great products and at great prices but their post-sales support is dreadful!

Anyway, this means I don’t have access to my PC or my files and tools so ThinkTwit development is on hold at the moment. Hope to start back up with it in a couple of weeks once MSI has sorted my motherboard out. I apologise if this affects anyone but please feel to write here if you need any help or advice.

ThinkTwit Update 1.1.4

Posted on 10 March, 2010 by Stephen Pickett

I’ve added another update to ThinkTwit as of yesterday; this includes use of ordered lists (ol) instead of unordered lists (ul) as it is more semantically correct, removed some old code left over from some time back that was no longer necessary, and added the ability to output usernames instead of Twitter names.

The roadmap has been updated – check it out if you want to know what features will be coming soon, and feel free to provide suggestions.

AJAX-ifying WordPress Widgets

Posted on 4 March, 2010 by Stephen Pickett

I recently found the need to give AJAX abilities to a WordPress widget. Notably, I had a request from Kjell Martin Bovre of Scribo.no to allow ThinkTwit to update when used with a caching engine, for instance WP Super Cache. Caching engines work by converting the pages of a site in to HTML and, rather than loading the website code using calls to its database, calling these pages directly when a user makes a request.

The first time that a user visits a site with a caching engine the pages they visit will be converted to HTML. After a period of time these pages will get updated, but if you have a particular item on that page that should be updated more often this will not happen. One way to ensure this item is updated correctly is to enable it to use AJAX. The AJAX code will get called whenever the site is loaded, even in its HTML format – therefore it will work even when cached as the Javascript will make a server call, the server will respond with the up-to-date data and the Javascript will then update the HTML within that page.

After a good few hours research I was able to find a site that helped me do most of this, but there were some errors and it did not work with WordPress widgets as it would break their ability to create multiple instantiations. It was therefore necessary to update the code to allow this, so I thought I would just write a quick and easy guide to writing AJAX capable widgets to allow other developers to quickly and easily resolve this issue. I hope it comes in handy!

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Minor ThinkTwit Update 1.1.3