Once again I looked into robust, cross-platform video support for a client site. And once again, I cringed at how fragmented browser video support is. For example, it appears that the only format officially supported by both Windows Media Player and Apple QuickTime is the old .AVI format. Really? Really!

So what's a web developer to do? Have your client upload the video to YouTube and then put an embedded player on your site. (YouTube will generate the code snippet for you). Done.

I've noticed that since I've started using my new iPhone to check my email, sometimes Mac Mail on my iMac desktop computer will report a message like this:

The POP server "mail.CompanionSoftware.com" rejected the password for user "Username@CompanionSoftware.com"

and I'm asked to enter my password again and again and again. Very annoying!

This error has nothing to do with my password (which is saved properly on the Mac Keychain). Instead the problem is with my free mail server software (MailEnable Standard Edition).

 I am building another DotNetNuke website with the wonderful Flex2 skin. My client asked that the Search field have some sort of label to make it more clear what the function was. I wanted to to do what the "cool kids" do: put the text "Search" in the field when it is "empty" and then automagically remove the text when the user clicks in the box.

Since this is a DNN 5 site that has jQuery support built in, I could use a slightly modified version of this simple jQuery code from Brian Reindel (that I tucked into the skin's drnuke-height.js file that is already loaded by the skin):

/* Doctor the DNN Search field to display the word "Search" when it's "empty" and remove this text when the user clicks in the field. jQuery code compliments of 5 JavaScript Tricks Made Easy with jQuery jQuery JavaScript Samples by Brian Reindel http://www.reindel.com/five_javascript_tricks_jquery/ */ $(function() { swapValues = []; $("#dnn_dnnSEARCH_txtSearch").each(function(i){...

I thought my mission was an easy one:

Code sign an existing MFC application (Metafile Companion) setup installer

I should have known better. :-) I was successful and it really isn't that hard once you find out what to do. But there's the rub - the web is full of options that end up being dead ends. Below are some of the lessons I learned.

Lesson 1: You really can pay $99 for a one-year signing certificate from K Software.

There are other more expensive Certificate Authorities (e.g. VeriSign and Comodo) that charge more than this. But the K Software certificate (issued by Comodo) seems to work just fine. I would recommend using either Firefox or Internet Explorer to place your order and later downloading your certificate so it is added "automagically" to the system certificate store. Also, follow their export instructions so you have a backup of your certificate.

Lesson 2: To see what certificates are on your system, run "certmgr.msc". 

This is how you can be assured...

I've been using Outlook 2003 for a long time. A couple of days ago, Outlook no longer filtered junk mail into the special Junk Mail folder. All the spam just accumulated in my Inbox. Since I have public email addresses, I get literally hundreds of spam messages an hour. I rely on the Junk Filter working properly.

I am suspicious that this behavior began right after I installed the trial version of Microsoft Publisher 2007 (so I could view a .pub document someone sent me). I'm my search for a solution to the problem, I did see some other reports of people suspecting Office 2007 (and other Microsoft updates) affecting Outlook.

I stumbled on the solution that worked for me in a forum article titled "Junk mail filter stopped working". This solution is very simple:

1. In Outlook 2003, select Help > Detect and Repair from the menu.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

After this, I restarted Outlook and the Junk Mail filter started working again!

On DNNStuff.com site, there's a great article (with source code) IMC Example (DotNetNuke Intermodule Communication) that demonstrates how to implement IModuleCommunicator and IModuleListener interfaces in DNN using two simple modules, one that sends text and one that receives it. It is great to have simple, working code to explain a concept like this. (Note: You'll have to register (for free) on the DNNStuff.com site before you can view the article.)

 

I would like to offer one suggestion for an improvement…

 

IMC works great unless you check "Supports Partial Rendering" (i.e. AJAX) for the sender and receiver controls. This is desirable to have one module update the other without the entire page refreshing.

 

A few simple changes to Receiver.ascx.vb (steps 1-3) and ImcExample.dnn (step 4) will enable AJAX rendering to work:

 

Add a reference...

If you try to view your webmail for a domain managed by Plesk and get either the default Plesk web page or a "page not found" error, here's a fix that worked for me (on Plesk 8.1 on Windows Server 2003):

1. Set Plesk > Server > Components Management > Webmail to "None". Click on OK. Then set it back to "Horde IMP H3 (4.1.3)" and click OK to reset the webmail server.

2. Remote Desktop to IIS. Navigate to the "webmail(default)" web site. Properties > Web Site > Advanced. Make sure the domain you want is in this host header list. E.g.

    208.109.27.122
    80
    webmail.LarryDaniele.com

Sometimes disabling and re-enabling web mail for the individual domain will fix this, but not all the time (in my experience).

If you are reinstalling Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express on a server running ASP.NET and Plesk, when you try to view an ASP.NET web page, you might see a message like the following:

Cannot open database "TellUWhen" requested by the login. The login failed.Login failed for user 'MIGHTYMOUSE\IWAM_plesk(default)'.Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.Exception Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Cannot open database "TellUWhen" requested by the login. The login failed.Login failed for user 'MIGHTYMOUSE\IWAM_plesk(default)'. The basic solution to the problem is to make sure that the specified user name (e.g. ASPNET or IWAM_plesk(default)) is a member of the SQLServer2005MSSQLUser$server$SQLExpress group.Here are the specific steps to do this for the user "" on "":

Right-click "My Computer" and choose "Manage". Navigate to "Local Users...

It seems there have been heated debates about whether DotNetNuke can be installed on a GoDaddy.com shared web hosting account. I am here to say that it can be done since I did just that on the website of my artist friend Debbie Hennes. Specifically, I installed DotNetNuke 4.8.0 on GoDaddy with the Hosting Control Center v2.4.2.

I basically followed the instructions on the Northern Star Solutions site. However, like over 70% of the people surveyed on that site, it didn't work by just following the instructions. Here are some points of confusion and suggestions:

When the instructions talk about going to Content > Directory Management, this is now Content > IIS Settings. Adding a Directory in this section makes the folder "read and write only". Checking...

I recently had a problem where overnight most (but not all) of the domains hosted on my GoDaddy.com virtual dedicated server could not be reached via ping, web browser, email, etc. The machine was running fine, so I suspected a problem with the Plesk DNS service. However, unlike past times, this was running fine. However, when I checked the file "C:\SWSoft\Plesk\dns\etc\named.conf" (a source of previous problems), I found that all the problem domains were missing from this zone file. So this was a clue. But even restoring these entries in the named.conf file didn't help. Then I noticed that this file references files in the folder "C:\SWSoft\Plesk\dns\var\". The files it references were missing from the folder. Another clue! After trying lots of reboots, etc., the final solution was agonizingly simple. Go to the Plesk control panel for each domain and click the Disable button for the domain. Then click Enable. Voilà - the domains came back! (Checking "C:\SWSoft\Plesk\dns\var\" showed that the files...