Fenux.Net: Latest Entries

Google Chrome and Windows 7 x64 Fix

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:53:32 -0600

When you first install Google Chrome in Windows 7 x64, it doesn't work. It installs. It runs. But it doesn't actually display anything. I've found several fixes for the problem, but they're not complete. They only work if you launch Chrome from its icon.

The fix for launching Chrome from its icon:

Right click the icon and select Properties
Select the Shortcut tab
Add a space and --in-process-plugins to the Target field, after …\chrome.exe"
Click OK

It's a pretty simple fix, but it works; however, it does have one disadvantage. If Chrome is not already open, opening a link from another program (if Chrome is your default web browser) or from Open With doesn't work. It's not a big deal, but after a few times, it can get on your nerves.

To completely resolve the problem requires a few changes to the registry. Essentially, we're applying the same fix to four locations in the registry with one minor change. The registry commands to launch Chrome contain additional arguments.

Each key needs to be changed from looking like
…\chrome.exe" -- "%1"
to
…\chrome.exe"--in-process-plugins -- "%1"

The registry keys to change:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\chrome.exe\shell\open\command
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ChromeHTML\shell\open\command
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Applications\chrome.exe\shell\open\command
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\ChromeHTML\shell\open\command

Disappearing Profile in Windows 7? Don't Panic.

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:34:00 -0600

When I sat down at my computer today, it had rebooted on it's own during the night. When I logged in, Windows 7 notified me it had recovered from a crash. Then I noticed I was staring at a default profile. All of my settings and data were missing.

Upon further investigation, a new profile had been created in C:\Users\TEMP. At first, I thought maybe something had been corrupted in the profile and it was creating a new one. I've seen it happen as far back as Windows 2000. It's a pain, but that type of error is possible to recover data from by forcing it to recreate the profile in the right place. The first step of which, is logging off.

After logging into the other account on the computer, the TEMP profile had completely disappeared. When I logged back into my account, my settings and data had returned, though the system was running a bit sluggish.

A reboot later, everything was back to normal. I suspect this is a debugging feature, but I can't be certain. I thought I would share my experience in case anyone else out there experiences a similar problem.

Useful Advice

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:06:22 -0500

Click here for a wallpaper sized version.

'Tis the Season (for Brownouts)

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:20:15 -0500

The weather outside is getting hotter, and all those lovely air conditioners are sucking the power right out of my computers… It happens every year.

So far this year, it happened twice… within 24 hours. I learned long ago to live by the words "save early, save often," but losing 10-30 minutes of work is still 10-30 minutes of work.

At my last job, I had a UPS on my workstation. It was the same one the servers were plugged into, a side effect of having them directly behind my desk.

However, since last summer, I've been working from home and no longer have that benefit. I didn’t' have the money last year to go out and buy a big enough UPS to sustain me, so I lived with it. I probably lost power a dozen or so times in 12 months. Very annoying.

This year, I'd had enough (and happened to have the money in my pocket at the time), so I went out and bought one after the second time. I ended up buying a GeekSquad brand UPS from Best Buy (which is really a CyberPower UPS with a different cover on it) because I didn't have quite enough on me to buy the equivalent unit from APC (a brand I know and love, at least on it's higher end products). We'll see how it does. I haven't had another outage to test it on, but it didn't seem to mind too much when I unplugged it to clean behind my desk earlier today.

The Internet Has Failed Me (or Ninjaphobia Is Not A Real Word)

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:44:34 -0500

In an attempt at a witty subject line for an email, I set out on a quest to find the name for an irrational fear of ninjas. But alas, the Internet has failed me today. I could find no references other than "ninja-phobia" (which is just silly) or "fear of ninjas" (which would not be witty).

During my search, I did come across astraphobia, which made me laugh. I have a friend I like to give a hard time about that one, and my computers no longer suffer from it, but that's another story….

FAT Sorter v1.0.4

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:27:39 -0500

What is it?

A "simple" program to sort files on a FAT file system. The target scenario for it is to sort the files and folders on a USB flash drive alphabetically, so they are loaded properly on devices that read them.

But why?

I bought a cheap car stereo about a year ago that plays MP3 files from either CD or from a USB flash drive or a compact flash memory card. However, it plays them in the order that they were added to the device.

Sometimes, Windows doesn't copy the files over in the right order, or if files are added at a later date, they stay at the end. When I listen to full albums in the car, it bugs me when they play out of order.

I searched around for a utility to correct the problem, but none of them supported recursion of subfolders. So I decided to make one.

Why it is necessary

The FAT file system doesn't support sorting directory entries. However, this is the only file system for USB flash drives that is widely supported. Unless the hardware or software accessing the device (like your computer) resorts them for display, the files will show in the order they were added to the directory.

How we get around it

To get around the problem, we cheat. By making a temporary directory, moving all the files to it, and then moving them back, in the new order, we effectively resort the directory. We then repeat the process in each directory listed. Sorter does this in reverse order, but not for any reason other than it makes the progress bar more accurate, because it knows how many files are there before it starts.

Why do you say it's a "simple" program

The actual sorting process is fairly straight forward. However, it offered me an excuse to play with technologies I hadn't gotten to use yet, like WPF (Windows Presentation Framework) and threading. I've also added basic support for localization, but as I don't speak any other languages, I haven't made any translations for it. With all that in mind, the program ended up quite a bit more complicated than necessary, but it doesn't hurt anything.

What does it require?

The program requires Windows XP or later and the .NET Framework 3.5. It will allow you to download the framework when you install it, so you don't have to install it beforehand.

Where can I get it?

You can download the file directly here. It also includes (most of) the source code for the program, if you want to take a look. I've released it as open source (see the included license for details).

Where'd Everything Go?

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:15:35 -0500

The short answer is, it broke.

I'm not entirely sure what happened. I think part of the GeekLog installation the site was running on got corrupted during the migration to the new server several months back, but I'm not certain. I went to use part of the site I hadn't used since before then, and it wouldn't work at all. I tried updating to a newer version of GeekLog and that only made things worse.

At this point, I had two options at this point. I could either trying rebuilding the installation from the existing data using GeekLog, or I could rebuild the whole site from something else. I've gone with the latter.

However, this time around, I building the site software up from scratch using CakePHP. I've been itching to play with their 1.2 beta version for awhile now anyway. The 1.1 version serves as the foundation a few sites I've written, but the beta has some new toys for me.

So far, I've gotten very basic entry functionality up and running, as well as the list of links. I'm hoping to have the comments, files and gallery added within the next month, as I get time to add them. We'll see how that goes.

And for the record, I haven't written any of the admin interface for the site yet. I'm posting this entry directly into the database.

Javascript vs. the Sound Card

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:04:00 -0500

Adding sounds via javascript is a pain. After trying out several APIs, I finally came across SoundManager 2. It's the only API that worked immediately for me.

On a related note, I've also been trying to find some royalty free sounds for use in the project and I came across a pretty good source.

Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects Download the music and sound effects you need for your multimedia project today at Partners In Rhyme.

Where'd the new comics disappear to?

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:01:00 -0500

I set up a website for them called Daily Wisdom. There's also an RSS feed for those that use them.

I'm having fun with the project and I hope you're enjoying it too. I feel like today's comic captures the American Spirit rather well.

Spectre Gets Smarter?

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:44:03 -0500

I got another gigabyte of RAM for Spectre today. Now, hopefully, I won't have to watch the memory usage spike and the machine drag every time I switch between the 15-20 programs I have running at once. That's only a slight exaggeration, but Zend Studio and Photoshop both should count as 5 each.

I'm sitting at work on my lunch break looking at the stick of RAM as it sits on my desk. And I'm laughing to myself because there's not a single computer in the building that I can recall using DDR2. My work computer needs an upgrade, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.