Weekend Dubai

Just got back from a deserved (ultra short) vacation from Dubai (United Arabic Emirates). Damn, it was hot. At night the temperature got as low as 35 degrees celsius(!!!!). I didn't want to know what the temperatures were during the day. Thank god for airconditioning. Four days of sun, and bloody good food. Dubai itself isn't that attractive, because most of the city is still under construction. Everywhere you look are construction sites, and every building company wants to deliver a bigger and more beautiful building. That results in a massive amount of 50+ floor buildings. Mind you that Dubai isn't the cheapest place to stay. I was gratefull for the "sponsering" we received. It's definitely a place for the rich and famous (which I'm not). It is, however, a good place (for our mortals) to make some good money in a relatively small period, since you don't pay taxes over there :), and they do need lots of hands to build the city.

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GPS unit

I'm looking for a (cheap) GPS unit for my holiday in Africa. The only thing it should do, is record coordinates and save waypoints (about 100-200). With these coordinates, place my photos on Google Earth, so everyone can see where those pictures were taken. I do have a iPaq handheld with GPS software and a separate GPS mouse, but this combination is a bit fragile, so I need something more solid. Minimum requirements:

• Lot's of batterylife (preferably an accu instead of loose batteries)
• Compass
• Altometer
• Waypoints
• Not too heavy
• PC interface (preferably USB and Mac compatible) for downloading the data.

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Cisco 876 router

Today I got a Cisco 876W router to play with at home. The router has an ADSL interface, wireless, and several fast ethernet ports. So it's an ideal replacement candidate for my Thompson ADSL modem. Since I'm a software nerd, I'm not that familiar with hardware devices (understatement), but since the router has a web interface for the configuration, I thought... "how hard can it be?".. Well, damn hard. I had the LAN part up and running within minutes (well almost :) ). I even got my WAN interface up after two hours (the dialer interface received my "almost-static-IP adress" from my provider). The only problem I have at this moment is that there's no routing (or whatever) being done between my LAN and the Internet. I SHALL NOT GIVE UP! HELP!!!!! b.t.w. I'll be posting my basic (future) working config later on (If I don't throw that piece of crap out of the window first).

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XS4ALL goes IMAP

XS4ALL is the quality (security/privacy) ISP in the Netherlands (I'm using them for years now). In the last couple of months they've introduced a number of (beta) services for their customers like;

• Blogging
• secured POP3 and SMTP access
• Webdisk (based on WebDav)
• Wiki's
• VoIP
• IPv6
• 5 POP mailboxes (each 500MB in size)
• etc.

Last week, they announced the support for IMAP. This makes it possible to store all your e-mail on the server. The mailclient synchronize the mail on the server. This means that you have all your mail available all the time. No matter what (IMAP) mailclient you use.

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Sigma 80-400 Telezoom with Optical Stabilizer

A couple of days ago I picked up my new Sigma 80-400 Telezoom lens with Optical Stabilizer. The lens costs a few dinero's, but you get one hell of a good lens for it. I'll try to post some photos demonstrating the Optical Stabilizer in the next couple days.

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Sigma Telezoom lens stock problems

We're going (back) to Africa in a couple of weeks. So for that occasion I would like to get a new Telezoom Lens to go with my Nikon D100. Some researching on the Internet left me with the "Sigma 80-400 F4.5-5.6 EX DG OS". Today was the to be the day to order it (got approval from the CFO :) ), but the Nikon mount has some stock issues. The lens is NOWHERE to be found in the Netherlands :x. This leaves me with two options:

1. hope that it's available BEFORE we fly to Africa or,
2. get another lens (e.g. the Nikon version of the 80-400). Which costs "a bit" more.

Damn those manufacturers! UPDATE: through some fellow "phototweaker" I got an address in Hilversum who might have them in stock. One phone call later I had it reserved. So the new lens will be here before the weekend.

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Flickr / Yahoo passwords

Today, I ran into a "little" annoyance regarding the forgotten password thing on Yahoo / Flickr. I access my Flickr Pro account from several PC's and use (don't ask why) different browsers (IE, Firefox and Safari). Somehow, my main PC "forgot" the password (or misplaced the cookie) for my Flickr account, so I needed to log in again. For some reason, my password didn't do the trick, so I thought; "let's reset it then"... Well there's a challenge. You need to know exactly what (personal) data you entered when you signed up. Thagt is date of birth, ZIP code, country etc. As if everyone tells the truth on the Internet??? Fortunately, I gave the proper dates etc. when I signed up. So that wasn't hard to remember. Anyway the first challenge was to get the right ZIP code into the form. In Holland we use 4 digits followed by 2 characters (e.g. 1234AB), but this is used in two ways. Namely with or without a space between the numbers and characters.... So what did I use? Furthermore, is this case-sensitive? Is it "1234ab", or "1234 ab", or "1234AB", or "1234 AB"??? I tried them all, and every time there was the error about not filling in things correctly AND not entering the security code correctly. So after a few retries, my account got locked :x :x, so don't expect any new photos on my Flickr PRO page soon...... Why not simply have an e-mail sent to the e-mail address you used when you signed up?? Almost every other service uses this method. UPDATE: Well, with no thanks to Yahoo (and all), I found my password hidden in a obscure file cabinet under the "M" for Miscellaneous :)

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WordPress Plugins / Hacks

I've been experimenting a bit with some of the plugins available on "the market" for Wordpress. It's nice to see that so many people participate in the enhancements of this great product. There is a BUT. Several plugins I tried were specially made for a none Windows platform. It would be nice if this was mentioned BEFORE I even downloaded them. It would save me a lot of trouble trying to get them to work. Anyway, I added some anti-comment-spam stuff (don't know yet if they work). Next 'project' will be to find a plugin (or hacks as they are sometimes called), which enables me to submit images by mail (or phone) to this blob. If I try to submit an image by mail, it just adds a bunch of gibberish (aka BASE64 encoded stuff) to the frontpage. The ones I found so far are non Windows-based :cry:. The quest goes on.

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Madonna in Concert (part 2)

The concert was awesome. I've had my fair share of concerts (Live, Robbie Williams, Coldplay, U2, Tina Turner, Genesis, Sting, etc.), but this one blew them all away (by far). It's the first time as well that I wouldn't mind visiting the same concert twice, and pay the full price again (€100 for a field ticket).

The concert itself was kinda split into two parts. The first part was mostly about displaying all the wrong doings in the world (cruelty to animals, hunger, aids and wars in Africa, Middle Eastern problems, position of women in the Islam). All these subjects were displayed on giant video screens, and supported by vocals, theatre etc. The combination of the music, and the multimedia on the giant displays was phenomenal. The second part was without a specific message (or the message would have been "Have Fun"), and lot's of great hits were played. The week before the concert, there were some protests about some Christian (extremist :) ) groups in the Netherlands. They wanted to "ban" the concert. During the concert, Madonna would appear nailed to a cross. The "event" took place during a revised version of "Live to Tell", which displayed all the horror taking place in the world, and those responsible for it (the Pope, our great friend George W. Bush, Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, Middle Eastern leaders, etc.). I don't think that anyone would protest against it (Madonna on the cross), if they would know the reason for doing it. I definitely didn't. The photos I made (20+) can be viewed on my Flickr page. Note that the quality is not that good, but that's what happends with a small digital camera (Canon Digital IXUS 400) with limited features for shooting in poor light, and an inferior flash (for large spaces). Anyway, I'll definitely visit her next tour if it comes along.

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Installing WordPress v2.x on IIS6.0

This entry describes the challenges I faced when I tried to install WordPress on a Windows 2003 webserver. The WordPress website has a page about installing WordPress in 5 minutes. Well, I know now that this is impossible. Especially, if you're trying to install it on a machine without PHP already installed and configured with MySQL. I started out with a webserver which had MySQL v5.x running. This server was configured correctly, since I used MySQL for ages. This post doesn't describe the MySQL installation. If you download the latest Windows installer, it shouldn't be that hard to install (Setup.exe -> Next -> Next -> etc. -> Finish). I started out with "installing" PHP v5.1.6 for Windows. Somehow I was hoping to get a nice installer, but all I got were some files in a zip container :(. Anyway, I extracted those files to "c:\PHP" on my webserver. All I needed to do now is to configure PHP by editting "PHP.ini" (I hate those long ini files :x). As a starting reference I used the recommended INI file in the PHP directory. Scrolling through the file (which is thouroughly documented inline) I changed the things that I needed. Since it was the recommended ini file I didn't bother much on all the possible features. I just wanted to get Wordpress to work. The following text is the result of a couple of hours trying, searching the Internet, and cursing that the (online)manuals failed in every single way. Step 1: Extract the PHP files to "c:\PHP". Editting the PHP.ini file is not necessary for PHP to work initially under IIS. This will be discussed later on. Step 2: Get PHP enable under IIS. I created a (standard) website under IIS which I called "Wordpress". After that I needed to enable PHP for that website. I used the ISAPI filter for PHP instead of the CGI processor. Open the properties of the "Wordpress" website, and open the ISAPI filter tab

Press the "Add" button

Call the filter name "PHP", and locaten the PHP ISAPI-filter (in my case "c:\PHP\php5isapi.dll"). When finished press "OK", and press "OK" again in the earlier screen. Now I needed to tell IIS what to do when it encounters .php files. This is done under the "Home Directory" tab.

Set the execution permissions to "Scripts only", after that, press the "Configuration" button.

Here I added the PHP extension by clicking the "Add" button.

The executable is (again) the ISAPI filter, which I configured as an ISAPI filter earlier on. Just click "browse" and locate the php5isapi.dll file in the "c:\PHP" directory. From this point on all open IIS windows can be closed by pressing "OK". The only thing left is to restart the Webserver.

Resetting IIS can be done by the commandline by entering "iisreset.exe" in a dos-box.

Step 3: Testing PHP Create a file called "phpinfo.php" in the root of the Wordpress website. The content of this file should be:

< ?php // Show all information, defaults to INFO_ALL phpinfo(); // Show just the module information. // phpinfo(8) yields identical results. phpinfo(INFO_MODULES); ?>

After saving this file, go with your browser to your website and open the phpinfo.php file. I received a nice page displaying various settings etc. from PHP. Note that the first table displays the location of the PHP.ini file used for the PHP engine. It points by default to the Windows directory. More on this in Step 4.

Now I needed to enable MySQL support for PHP

Step 4: Edit the PHP ini file

IMPORTANT: move the PHP.ini file to the Windows directory, and than start editting it. Somehow, the PHP engine expects the file over there. When I didn't get it to work initially (you get an error "Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL which is required for WordPress." when you try to install/configure Wordpress. Wordpress relies heavy on the MySQL database, so I needed to tell PHP to use the MySQL extensions. Extensions were disabled by default, so I needed to remove the semicolon infront of the extensions line, and point to the location of the "ext" directory within the PHP tree:

extension_dir = "c:/php/ext/"

Note that, eventhough I'm installing on a Windows server, I used forwarded slashes "/", instead of the regular backslash "\". If you use the backslash in the PHP.ini file it won't work!!!!

Now I needed to enable the MySQL extension itself. Around line 630 in the ini file are the supplied Windows extensions. Remove the semicolon from the following lines:

extension=php_mysql.dll extension=php_mysqli.dll After this reset the webserver (again) with "iisreset.exe" command from the commandline. Step 5: Verifying MySQL support Open the phpinfo.php page again in the browser to verifiy that MySQL is enabled. Some where on the page should be a table called "Mysql". If it's not there, than there's no MySQL integration, and the installation of Wordpress won't work.

From this point on, you can use the famous 5-minutes-installation guide on the Wordpress website. Step 6: Enable the upload of files though Wordpress When I tried to upload the images used in this post I gort an error stating that WordPress wasn't able to create the folders and files. It seemed that I needed to add the anonymous account to create/write files. Since I didn't want this on all my directories I added the IUSR_ account with write and modification right only to the wp-content folder of the WordPress installation.

This might impose some security risks. I will try to find out if there is an other (more secure) way of dealing with this.

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