However, when I first got the phone, I activated the visual voicemail option, configured it, and enjoyed it’s functions for some time.

Until I reset the phone.

The phone then lost my visual voicemail settings. No customized greeting, no password. This continued happening every time I rebooted the phone, which you can imagine would be quite annoying to keep having to re-record my message.

I made a call to my provider who claimed it was a known problem that Apple was working on an update for. And stupidly I believed him, not that I had any other choice at that point. Google had revealed no real gems initially, since the phone was relatively new.

Eventually I stumbled across a solution. I wish I knew where it was I read it so I could refer to it, but basically it was this: recover your iPhone to factory defaults, then synch it to iTunes as a new device.

It was a drastic move, but fortunately everything I needed was already synched. Music, contacts, images. So all I really had to do is set it up as a new device and wait until it was done synching.

Since performing this fix, Visual Voicemail functions perfectly and has lost no settings.

It was a weird issue but I hope this helps someone somewhere.

However, recently my labours are starting to see fruitage. I have a number of high-quality clients that I maintain and I’m sure lots of opportunity will arise to explore issues and present fixes, hacks and other solutions. I loathe getting sucked into the business side of things, but it’s got to get done somehow.

Anyway thank you for visiting.

You can view the specifications at the link below but the gist of it is that it weighs in at around 350 lbs, and stands 6’10” tall.

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=AR1000A

In the long run I’m hoping to fill it with servers for various purposes: storage, hosting, backups, media streaming. In the short term I’ve loaded in my hardware and it doubles as an excellent sound dampener.

On another front, a good friend provided me with a brand-new 46” Sony Bravia that I had placed on my office filing cabinet for a time, but now that I need more space, I wanted to put up a wall mount. I managed to do so and I’ve been enjoying it as a secondary PC display for my office system.

Finally my office is coming together. It’s got a long way to go but I’m starting to see it develop.

1) That I haven’t written nearly as much as I should… as usual…
and
2) That I haven’t said anything about my work situation since I had a “positive” interview back in mid December.

Well, let me tell you.

I had three more interviews at the same venue over the course of a little over two months. Then they decided to go in another direction. At first I shrugged it off and said to myself “better luck next time”, but honestly – that was just rude. Don’t waste two months of my life if you’re not fully intending to follow through.

Disillusioned, I decided the only person I could rely on professionally was myself, so I decided to strike out on my own. Right now the focus of my business is mobile tech work, which I will write about (and have written about already) as it comes along. Programming will likely be less frequent but it’ll still happen.

In the meantime I’m keeping very busy promoting my business by day and delivering pizza by night to fill the gaps.

I used Microsoft’s “Easy Transfer” program to capture the profiles from an older XP system, then applied it to their brand-new Windows 7 system. Easy as pie.

The problem presented when I tried to reconfigure the printer and file sharing that had existed on the XP machine previously. I tried to connect via the network browser on a Vista laptop to the Windows 7 box, but was presented with a password dialogue box. I couldn’t very well leave it in a state where the printer doesn’t work over the network until you login first, so of course I immediately went to the “password protected file sharing” option in the “Network and Sharing Center”, and disabled it.

The problem persisted.

After a while I was getting annoyed. They were both in the same workgroup, no firewall issues, nothing came to mind. After a bit of reading on Google it appeared as if the Guest account may have somehow picked up a password (which was a possibility since the XP  machine was a bit of a mess). So I went in and reset the password to blank.

Still, the problem persisted.

I knew it had to have something to do with the profiles I migrated over. I could feel it instinctively.

What I eventually realized was that the laptop I was currently on had the same username as one of the accounts on the PC did, however they both had different passwords. So when I tried to connect, the remote system recognized the user but not the password, and so prompted me to fill out my username and password.

There wasn’t much on Google that addressed my situation but I now suspect that it must be fairly common, so I felt obliged to document my experience.

I’ve spent the last few days creating an application for myself to keep track of services performed and clients. I was making a simple “client search” form when I found I was getting inconsistent DB results. Sometimes the results would show up, sometimes not. I won’t go into the full story and how ridiculously long it took me to notice that I wasn’t submitting the form the same way every time. Sometimes I clicked the submit button, sometimes I just hit Enter.

I was invoking the search function based on a cfif tag.

Originally I’d coded this:

<cfif isDefined("FORM.Submit")>
     <cfinvoke component="client_tracking.functions.dbactions" method="searchclients" search=#FORM.search#>
</cfif> 

I did a relatively extended Google search since I wasn’t entirely sure how to word the question properly, but eventually I discovered a better way of checking if the form had been submitted.

Namely:

<cfif structKeyExists(form, "search")>
     <cfinvoke component="client_tracking.functions.dbactions" method="searchclients" search=#FORM.search#>
</cfif> 

This new code checks the form structure and the search key to check if it has value. It works both clicking the submit button and hitting the enter key.

Thanks for Ray Camden for having this figured out ages ago.

Today, my lesson was that yes, a microwave can bring a wireless network to its knees.

It was hard to believe at first, but after a few tests it was most certainly the microwave to blame. It seemed to me that this should be a cause for concern and that this sort of radiation could be a sign of something perhaps dangerous. Later, I began some research. According to this article, tests indicate a Microwave oven can degrade network performance by up to 85%. In the case I experienced today, it killed it entirely. However, the article also notes that Microwaves operate at a fairly narrow frequency range, which allows us to alter the WIFI frequency channel to compensate. Often, routers do a scan themselves to see which channel is the clearest, but unless the microwave is running while it does this scan, this will not help.

Some cordless phones are known to interfere with the spectrum as well. Wireless b products operate on the same frequency as older cordless phones (2.4 GHz – close to the same frequency as Microwave ovens) and thus can cause heavy interference. Newer “digital band” cordless phones are available in the 6 GHz range to combat this phenomenon.

Wireless N routers – the newest wireless format available and undoubtedly the best – can eliminate this issue by operating in the 5 GHz range instead of the 2.4 GHz, but all devices in the home would have to be Wireless j technology. Unfortunately, the technology is so new (the technology standard was only officially ratified in October of 2009) that most consumer devices are still b or g technology unless manufactured late 2009.

Most modern wireless routers should have an option to change the frequency channel. For information on how to do this, consult your device documentation or a local computer technician.

A couple days ago I noticed that although the registry fix effectively removed it from the menu when I right-clicked files, that fix apparently did not include the root drive context menu. If I were to right-click any of my drives in “Computer” (or “My Computer”), the menu returned.

So I eventually got around to contacting UPEK again, and once more they responded immediately. I must say I’m not used to this level of support. And I also appreciate not being coddled. I always hate dealing with support when they assume you know nothing about computers. I always have to assure them I’ve gone through all these troubleshooting steps. In this case I suppose there’s no troubleshooting to be done, but still the fact that they gave me a very straightforward registry edit made me very happy.

So here it is:

Delete the "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\SafearchiveContextMenu" registry key.

Windows Live Messenger on Windows 7 has a new home in the quicklaunch area and I’m not the only one who has found it annoying.

Want to put it back in the system tray (at the bottom right where other notifications show up)? All you have to do is go to the msnmsgr.exe in C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Messenger and right-click it, then go down to properties, then click the compatibility tab.

Fill it out as above (Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows Vista), hit OK, and you’re done. The next time you start the program, it will return to the system tray where it used to be.

A fairly specific title, to be sure.

I recently wiped my laptop and used this opportunity to streamline much of my system as well as to officially upgrade to Windows 7.

One of my favorite features of my laptop – the Dell XPS 1530 – is the built-in UPEK biometrics fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately, the dell-supplied drivers are incompatible with Windows 7, so I was forced to download the latest version directly from the site – which makes it sound like a bad thing but I actually prefer the “retail” version rather than the OEM stuff vendors get, so I was happy.

However, I eventually noticed something that always rather bugged me behind the scenes back on Vista as well with the OEM drivers/software. In the context menu (right-click) of any file, I was presented with two additional buttons: “add to new encrypted archive” and “add to existing encrypted archive”, neither of which I have used or will ever used. And if you’re like me, you prefer no clutter.

There’s an option inside the UPEK program to eliminate the “file safe” from the desktop and “My Computer” windows, but there is no option to remove the context menu. So I did what any responsible person with a complaint about a software product would do – I sent feedback to the developer. And I am quite glad I did, because their support staff gave me a response within just a few hours with the key to removing it. In this case, quite literally a key for the registry (I have no fear of the registry and had removed a number of UPEK-related keys previously, none of which worked – but I put them back).

To remove the FileSafe context menus just delete the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\SafearchiveContextMenu

Super easy, once you know where to look.

Thanks, UPEK. I’m very impressed with both your concise response and response time.

I looked around briefly to see if there was a “skin” or something similar for OO since it’s open source nature lends itself to that sort of thing. Alas, nothing to be found but rumors of Sun Microsystems working on a ribbon interface of their own.

Which was an enlightening discovery since reading the comments and reviews revealed almost universal rancor towards the ribbon interface – an attitude I fail to understand or agree with.

To me, the ribbon interface represents a logical solution to a big problem (especially with word-processors), namely feature-creep. There does not need to be a button for every function since there are so many. I don’t need four different visible buttons for left, center, right and justify. Of course I don’t believe the ribbon interface is necessarily appropriate for every suite and program available to the PC, but there is something to be said for a design standard.

So I guess for anyone reading this I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Observe and despair at my brain in action.

Spoons is a weird word. This sentence is wrong because you can’t refer to a plural noun in the singular, and so it could technically read “Spoons are a weird word” but of course that doesn’t make sense either because we are not talking about a plural noun, but rather the word referencing the object – ‘spoon’. The exception to this rule is when abstracting a plural into a singular collective noun, such as “group” or “bunch”. However in this case you could not say “Spoons are a weird bunch” and get the same meaning as was intended in the sentence starting the paragraph.

Of course you might also say “Spoon is a weird word”, which removes the confusion resulting from the plural noun, but even this is incorrect because neglecting to quote a word makes it the refer to the object instead of the word itself. I found the plural form of the word ‘spoon’ especially highlighted the issue when read or spoken aloud. So to say “Spoon is a weird word” would also be incorrect because it would be stating that a spoon is a word, which it is not – it is rather a utensil used to assist in the act of eating.

The only valid form I can imagine is “’Spoons’ is a weird word”. Notice the single quotes around ‘spoons’ which excludes it from the rules associated with proper noun use, and abstracts the “spoons” into a singular quoted subject.

After a bit of struggling, the first person I thought of who not only had the know-how to solve the problem, but also the inclination to do so, was Ray Camden whose articles I read often and I knew took on questions from readers.

I hadn’t realized that the first step in geocoding was translating addresses to latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. Apparently if you send too many addresses to geolocate too close together, you get a 620 error from google maps and throws an error (or many errors).

Thanks again to Raymond Camden for his help, and here’s the article he wrote about it: http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/index.cfm/2009/12/15/Having-trouble-with-too-many-map-markers-and-CFMAP

It is here in my hometown which is already a big plus, the position deals mostly with big-picture stuff (without the distraction of handling every little workstation hiccup) and features a team that seems to hold the same values as myself. There’s even a foosball table and a theatre room.

The first interview went long, which was great. It flowed more like a conversation than an interview. In fact it was the first non-tribunal interview I’ve had in ages. I’d almost forgotten how much I preferred one-on-one. Three days later and I’ve already been called for the second interview. I’m very optimistic about my chances.

Of course I will not neglect any chance I get to do programming or learning on my own time, but the focus may veer slightly to more server technology related issues and solutions.

…Assuming I get the job. I suppose I tend to get ahead of myself.

This is new territory for me since I’ve never experienced an almost universally complete lack of response from any employers. Things must be really bad. Like… really really bad.

My writing on ColdFusion will probably slow now until I have professional cause to work with it again. Perhaps I should start another site where I discuss pizza at length. Perhaps not.

But times like these, when local jobs have polarized into high paying jobs or low paying jobs and nothing in between, and the local government (who counts for a large percentage of local jobs) has cut down its budget for external contracts to almost nothing, looking for work now feels less like looking for a good fit and more like I’m the victim of a mean-spirited game of “Pig In The Middle”. I’m sure I’m not the only one, either.

I’m starting to feel like I specialized in all the wrong things. Windows instead of linux or Mac.  ColdFusion instead of PHP or Java. Network administration instead of database administration. Technical college instead of a computer sciences degree. Programming instead of design. That, and I was born in the wrong country.

Frustration abounds, and I’ve been essentially out of paid work since July, which kills any relocation budget I might have had.

If anyone reading this has any overflow work or say a lead on a ColdFusion telecommute job or contract position, I’m all over it. Otherwise, thanks for reading anyway and I’ll post my progress.

I recently switched hosts to Media Temple, partly because of some service interruptions on our last host and also as a strategic manoeuvre. I can say without hesitation that this site is much zippier than before – I hope you notice as well. I mean obviously the site doesn’t do anything, but even so I think it’s noticeable. The added benefit to this new host is we now have ultimate power over it, even to the extend of being able to install our ColdFusion license on it.

The problem here is when it came time to use code to display the list of a given user’s friends, I hit a bit of a wall. I didn’t think I could arrange the users in any sort of order because I would need to use two queries like this (assuming 1 is your ID as the user trying to query the database for a list of your friends):

		SELECT
		user_to_user.id,
		user_to_user.userA
		FROM
		user_to_user
		WHERE
		user_to_user.userB = '1'

		SELECT
		user_to_user.id,
		user_to_user.userB
		FROM
		user_to_user
		WHERE
		user_to_user.userA = '1'

The first query checks all results where you are the user initiating the “friend” connection, and the second checks results where others initiated the connection with you. I thought I would have to loop through the results with userA and then userB separately.

As it turns out, I was wrong. The UNION operator is used to combine the result-set of two or more SELECT statements. So all I had to do is put UNION between the two queries and finish up with an ORDER BY clause and I was in business. Incidentally, I’ll note that the results of this would have columns id and userA – but what about userB? W3Schools says it best: The column names in the result-set of a UNION are always equal to the column names in the first SELECT statement in the UNION. So all of the results – both userA and userB – will return under the userA column. If I were to swap the queries so I ask for the userB results first, then all results would be as userB.

So I decided to combine them.

Firstly you must download the jid3lib and place it in %CFHOME%\runtime\servers\lib and restart the application server.

Secondly, the file I used thanks to Ben Forta.
mp3.cfc:

<cfcomponent>
<!---<cfset mp3File = createObject("java", "coldfusion.util.MP3File").init(".\MP3")>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getBitRate() : #mp3File.getBitRate()# kbps</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getFrequency() : #mp3File.getFrequency()# Hz</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getVersion() : #mp3File.getVersion()#</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getDuration() : #mp3File.getDuration()# Sec</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.isCopyRighted() : #mp3File.isCopyRighted()#</cfoutput><br>
<cfoutput>mp3File.getChannelMode() : #mp3File.getChannelMode()#</cfoutput><br>--->
    <cfset variables.filename = "">
    <cfset variables.loaded = false>
    <cfset variables.id3tag = "">

    <cffunction name="init" access="public" returnType="mp3" output="false">
        <cfargument name="filename" type="string" required="false">

        <!--- create an instance of the java code --->
        <cfset variables.mp3 = createObject("java", "org.farng.mp3.MP3File")>

        <cfif structKeyExists(arguments, "filename")>
            <!--- read it in --->
            <cfset variables.filename = arguments.filename>
            <cfset read(variables.filename)>
        </cfif>

        <cfreturn this>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="checkLoaded" access="private" returnType="void" output="false"
                hint="Helper function to throw error if no mp3 loaded.">
        <cfif not variables.loaded>
            <cfthrow message="You must first read in an MP3!">
        </cfif>
    </cffunction>

	<cffunction name="getArtist" access="public" returntype="string" output="false" hint="Returns the Artist.">
		<cfreturn variables.id3tag.getLeadArtist()>
	</cffunction>

    <cffunction name="getAlbumTitle" access="public" returnType="string" output="false"
                hint="Returns the album title.">
        <cfreturn variables.id3tag.getAlbumTitle()>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="getSongGenre" access="public" returnType="string" output="false"
                hint="Returns the song genre.">
        <cfreturn variables.id3tag.getSongGenre()>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="getSongTitle" access="public" returnType="string" output="false"
                hint="Returns the song title.">
        <cfreturn variables.id3tag.getSongTitle()>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="getTrackNumber" access="public" returnType="string" output="false"
                hint="Returns the song title.">
        <cfreturn variables.id3tag.getTrackNumberOnAlbum()>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="getYearReleased" access="public" returnType="string" output="false"
                hint="Returns the song's release date.">
        <cfreturn variables.id3tag.getYearReleased()>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="hasID3V1" access="public" returnType="boolean" output="true"
                hint="Returns true if the mp3 has id3v1 information.">
        <cfset checkLoaded()>

        <cfreturn variables.mp3.hasID3v1Tag()>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="hasID3V2" access="public" returnType="boolean" output="false"
                hint="Returns true if the mp3 has id3v2 information.">
        <cfset checkLoaded()>

        <cfreturn variables.mp3.hasID3v2Tag()>
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="read" access="public" returnType="void" output="false">
        <cfargument name="filename" type="string" required="true">

        <!--- does the file exist? --->
        <cfif not fileExists(arguments.fileName)>
            <cfthrow message="#arguments.fileName# does not exist.">
        </cfif>

        <!--- copy to global scope --->
        <cfset variables.filename = arguments.filename>

        <cftry>
            <cfset variables.mp3.init(variables.filename)>
            <cfset variables.loaded = true>

            <cfif hasID3V1()>
                <cfset variables.id3tag = variables.mp3.getID3v1Tag()>
            </cfif>
            <cfif hasID3V2()>
                <cfset variables.id3tag = variables.mp3.getID3v2Tag()>
            </cfif>

            <cfcatch>
                <cfthrow message="Invalid MP3 file: #arguments.filename# #cfcatch.message#">
            </cfcatch>
        </cftry>
    </cffunction>

</cfcomponent>

Next, I modified Rupesh’s code to include the coldfusion.util.mp3file class – which you’ll notice I put inside the file loop because the class will not read a directory but will only read an individual file. I just made this the index.cfm file but it can be anything.

<cfset mp3 = createObject("component", "mp3").init()>
<cfset dir = "C:\ColdFusion9\wwwroot\Media Library\MP3\">

<cfdirectory action="list" directory="#dir#" filter="*.mp3" name="music">

<cfloop query="music">
	<cfoutput>filename = #name#<br></cfoutput>
	<cftry>
		<cfset mp3.read(dir &amp; name)>
		<cfset mp3File = createObject("java", "coldfusion.util.MP3File").init(dir & name)>
		<cfset minutes = #mp3file.getDuration()#>
		<cfset minutes = #numberformat(int(minutes/60),"00")#>
		<cfset seconds = #mp3File.getDuration()# mod 60>
		<cfoutput>
			artist: #mp3.getArtist()#<br>
			title: #mp3.getSongTitle()#<br>
			album: #mp3.getAlbumTitle()#<br>
			runtime : #minutes#':#numberformat(seconds,'00')#"<br>
			bitrate: #mp3File.getBitRate()# kbps<br>
			genre: #mp3.getSongGenre()#<br>
			track: #mp3.getTrackNumber()#<br>
			year: #mp3.getYearReleased()#<br>
			frequency: #mp3File.getFrequency()# Hz
		</cfoutput>
	<cfcatch>
		bad file <cfoutput>#cfcatch.message#</cfoutput>
	</cfcatch>
	</cftry>
	<hr>
</cfloop>

At this point it only reads files in a single directory and will not recursively check any subfolders. The output is pictured below:

Pretty basic formatting so you get the idea

I’m open to any suggestions on how to extend the class or code to include subfolders – obviously I derived most of the code based on the genius of others so I’m a bit hazy on how to take the ball and run with it. Another problem is the fact that the genre cranks out a genre code unless it’s a custom genre. You’ll notice Styx and Toto both have a genre code of 17 in the image above. This corresponds to “Rock”, but for some reason It won’t show a string.

It’s been a long day since my son decided he needed to wake up at 5:30 this morning and potty and wouldn’t return to sleep.

I’m staying in a Hilton and let me tell you, the thread-count on this bed is unbelievable.  So soft I can barely handle it. This room in general is pretty off-the-hook. I would post some pictures but I forgot my transfer cable back at home and the card is not compatible with my laptop.

I’ve forgotten about the size of American food portions. The layover in Seattle left us hungry so we made a quick stop at Burger King in the airport. The man asked me if I’d like a large drink, and my business partner quickly said to me “remember you’re in the states now”, which prompted me to ask for a medium. The man then presented a cup equivalent to the Super Big Gulp available at 7-11 (about a gallon). I then said I’d take a regular which is about the size of a Canadian large.

Not that I’m complaining. At least you get your money’s worth.

Just wiped my laptop again to prepare for my trip in the morning to San Diego.

I’ve had further opportunity to play with ColdFusion 8/9, but I haven’t discovered anything particularly noteworthy aside from finding that I suck at cfscript. I vastly prefer tag syntax, but I’ve done a bit of reading on it and it seems like something I’ll need to know, even though it is similar to JavaScript with I have a hate/hate relationship with.

I have enjoyed using ColdFusion Builder Beta. I don’t generally need “Live View” from Dreamweaver anymore – I am quite comfortable using a simple text editor so Dreamweaver comes across as a bit bloated at this point for my purposes. ColdFusion Builder has just what I need and it seems to do it well.

This last week has been prep work for a project that has been looming without funding for quite a long time (and has recently been funded). I fly to San Diego tomorrow morning and after that I suspect there will be plenty to write about; I only hope I have time to do so.

Not much to it – like I said, it’s just an experiment so I didn’t jazz it up at all, but it works.

<cfset fileOb = createObject("java", "java.io.File").init("/")>

<cfset usable = #fileOb.getUsableSpace()#/1024/1024/1024>
<cfset total = #fileOb.getTotalSpace()#/1024/1024/1024>

<cfset used = total-usable>

<cfchart format="flash" chartHeight = "300" chartWidth = "600" foregroundcolor="Blue">
<cfchartseries type="pie" colorlist="blue,red">
<cfchartdata item = "Available" value = "#round(usable)#">
<cfchartdata item = "Used" value = "#round(used)#">
</cfchartseries>
</cfchart>

I’m working off my laptop with a 220 GB partition, 60 of which is taken. It says 161 free because it’s rounding, but the numbers are essentially right. The repeated use of 1024 simply bumps the value up from bytes to kilobytes to megabytes to gigabytes. Everything else is pretty self-explanitory. Good thing Ray Camden is around because I never would have figured out that frst line for myself.

Edit: In case anyone wonders, the first line in which I put “/” can be replaced with a specific drive such as “C:/” or “D:/” but I chose to use the webroot. Any linux path will also work.

Storage graph