Software

Yes, you CAN try Google Chrome OS today!

David Vidmar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:13:02 GMT

If you go to gdgt you can download compiled version of Chrome OS pre-release in shape of virtual machine.

Don’t expect too much, since it’s quite unstable, slow and it freezes a lot. If I didn’t miss anything it’s just Chrome browser that boots on it’s own. So, it’s far from XP/Vista/7 killer for now.

So what would you rather do? Read more about Crome OS or try for yourself?

Here are quick instructions for running Chrome OS in VirtualBox:

Download and install VirtualBox or upgrade to latest version if you have it installed. If you have VMware, even better.
Download Chrome OS VMware image (don’t bother with VirtualBox image, it doesn’t work for many and it didn’t work for me).
Create new machine and

attach existing VMDK image as primary hard drive,
give it 1 GB of RAM,
leave network as it is (NAT),
give video card more RAM, I simply went with max - 128 MB.

Boot it! It should be up in seconds.
Login with Google Account.

If you get “wrong password” error message, remember that you have US keyboard!
If you get “no network” error message, turn network off/on, reboot and it will eventually start working.

WordPress email configuration on Windows/IIS

David Vidmar — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:52:27 GMT

WordPress is a breeze to install if you have PHP any MySQL in place. On Windows/IIS there are two dark holes, though.

One is URL rewriting and the other is sending email about comments, forgotten passwords etc. Let’s talk about the second one today.

If you enable SMTP email sending in php.ini you are halfway there. But there is a good chance SMTP server will not accept your email if the mailbox is not local, since WordPress sends email from hardcoded address wordpress@<your-domain>. Also, this will not work if your SMTP server requires authentication.

All this can be easily solved with Configure SMTP WP plugin. This plugin lets you configure SMTP sending details and even lets you use Gmail servers for sending mails. As usual, installation is dead simple, after you do it you just configure SMTP server details and it just works.

Free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate

David Vidmar — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:18:22 GMT

I was pleasantly surprised today, when I found out I’m eligible for free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate as a beta tester.

Although I didn’t report any bugs, I was granted a retail license key and a download of x86 and x64 version of Windows 7.

That’s just great! Thank you, Microsoft!

After installing Windows 7 of my wife’s laptop and couple machine at work, I’m more than convinced that Microsoft did few things right and Windows 7 will be a great system for years to come. I’ll repave my main home machine in couple of days.

Windows 7 RTM on MSDN/TechNet

David Vidmar — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:33:18 GMT

Gentlemen, start you downloads! Windows 7 RTM is available for download on MSDN and TechNet.

I haven’t seen Windows Server 2008 R2 yet.

MS-CRM 4: 404 when executing web service methods from plug-in

David Vidmar — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:38:57 GMT

I lost two days of my life over strange error in MS CRM in the past days.

(Almost) nothing changed on the production server of one of our clients but, MS CRM went koo-koo every time plug-in kicked in and tried to do something on update message. I got different errors – with one plug-in (Celenia CRM Connector) I got “Object reference not set to an instance of an object”, with some other plug-in I got “401: Unauthorized” error. I checked everything and then everything again, but no luck.

As a last resort I decided to write new plug-in and put some debugging code in. New plug-in that did little – it catched the update message and then retrieved current entity through web service.

I got 404… Click! This made me check if http://localhost points to MS CRM web site. It didn’t.

I dug deeper and realized that fully patched (Rollup 5) MS CRM has a strange bug (feature?) in context.CreateCrmService() method. This method is called inside plug-in and plug-in always runs on the server. To the web service always points to http://localhost[:port], which in my case, was terribly wrong.

After I restored the empty host header in my web site everything returned to normal.

I lost two days over couple of clicks. How typical!

Microsoft Office 2010: The Movie

David Vidmar — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:36:53 GMT

Office 2010 The Movie

Firefox 3.5 and LastPass 1.51.2

David Vidmar — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:53:45 GMT

If you just upgraded to still hot Firefox 3.5 and noticed that LastPass plugin is not compatible, don’t worry.

It seems there is a bug somewhere (FF or LP, who knows) and reinstalling the same version of LastPass Firefox plugin fixes it.

How do you like Firefox 3.5 so far? Did you notice any speed improvements?

The best new feature in Windows 7

David Vidmar — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:09:40 GMT

I just installed Windows 7 RC in Virtual PC and found that Windows 7 has a keyboard shortcut for creating new folder. Just press CTRL + SHIFT + N and you got it! Finally!

This alone will be the reason I’ll install Windows 7 as soon as it RTM’s!

Windows Home Server available on MSDN

David Vidmar — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:53:30 GMT

Since today, Windows Home Server is available for download for MSDN subscribers. The main goal is to “ncrease awareness of Windows Home Server with a larger community of professional developers and help further grow the ecosystem of software applications built for Windows Home Server”.

For more info, jump to Windows Homer Server Blog.

On the same not Power Pack 2 is now available. Download via Windows Update. Philip has more info.

Zenfolio Referral Code

David Vidmar — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:42:29 GMT

I have lately began using Zenfolio as my main photo repository and gallery. Why?

Picasa Web Albums is great for albums I want to show my mom/mother in law/sister/… since is dead simple to browse. I still use it.
Flickr is great, but not for galleries and albums, only for couple of photos ni the series. Also, it’s not mom-friendly for kids photos and stuff.
Smug Mug is missing something. Don’t know what, but we just didn’t click.
Zenfolio looks great, it’s easy to browse, can store all my photos in original format. It’s Picasa Web + Flickr + Smug Mug. I love it!

If you are going to buy a paid account, this is my referral code. If you use it, it’s $5 off for you and a 5$ bonus for me. Win win.

My Zenfolio Referral Code: NPG-DD8-JZE