HowTo: Change Dreamweaver to Default HTML Editor on Windows Vista

I encountered this problem on my work PC when I went to "edit" an .html file and Word opened...

To do this, we have to edit the registry. If you are uncomfortable doing this, then please do not attempt this hack. As usual, please back up your registry before you begin hacking away, as your registry controls your entire operating system.

1. Click start -> type "regedit" into the search box and press enter
2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSSES_ROOT -> .htm -> OpenWithList and verify that "dreamweaver.exe" is listed as a key. If not create it.
3. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSSES_ROOT -> applications -> dreamweaver.exe -> shell.
4. Create a key and name it "edit".
5. On the default string that is within the edit key, double click on it and set the value to the following(assuming you have Dreamweaver CS3 and you installed into the default path, otherwise edit as necesary, include the double quotes) - "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Dreamweaver CS3\dreamweaver.exe", "%1"
6. Press ok and exit regedit by hitting the x in the corner.
7. Open IE, click tools -> internet options.
8. Navigate to programs -> select the drop down for html editor and choose Dreamweaver. Press OK and you are all done.
   

HowTo: How to Get iLife Back After a Fresh Install of Mac OSX

A while back thru Apple Developer Connection, I received the new version of Mac OS X, Leopard. I was delighted to have the newest OS from Apple for my MacBook Pro. From natural choice I chose to install from a fresh hard drive, meaning that I erased the hard drive and installed a fresh copy of the OS.

Once I was in the OS I was excited to try all the new features, especially spaces, but I was disappointed to find that I no longer had Photobooth or iPhoto which is two applications I began to enjoy with my new mac laptop. I figured that they were lost to me, until recently when I chatted with a Genius at the Genius Bar of our local "Apple Heaven". This "Genius" informed me that I can take my original equipment cds that came with the laptop and install the software onto Leopard. I was originally unaware of this being a "PC Refugee", so I am so delighted to find out this information that I am sharing it with all of you.

1. Load the install disk 1 into your mac
2. navigate to the drive in finder
3. open optional installs
4. follow the prompter.

Congrats, you once again have iDVD, iPhoto, iWeb, Photobooth and more. Enjoy.

HowTo: Convert Cellpadding & Cellspacin into CSS

A while back a friend of mine were working on a project together. He used tables heavily for layout design and I used a good mix between styles and tables to manage layout. We had to work together which means we had to meet each other in the middle. We came upon the problem of converting HTML's table attributes CellPadding and CellSpacing into CSS attributes. Below is the equivalents of cellspacing="0" and cellpadding="0" respectively in CSS.

table { border-spacing: 0; }

table { border-collapse: collapse; }

I hope this helps others. I still have not perfected this. But I hope I am getting closer

HowTo: Index a ColdFusion Site for Search with VSpider

So in my studies of learning ColdFusion and working on my first few projects, I came into an issue. I was redeveloping the public website for the company I am currently working for. The previous site was poorly built with little or no code reuse ability and quite a bit of static navigation and content.

I redesigned and developed the entire site. When I finished I entered the coldfusion administrator and re indexed the search collection. I performed a search to test it and was immediately alarmed. My search results were displaying code... I was confused and immediately grabbed my book on ColdFusion to learn that the built in search indexing collection could be prepared two ways, by reading the raw source code and indexing it (which is fine for completely static pages) or by using the search spider that is built in from Verity.

The clear solution is to use the Verity Spider. So this post is dedicated to how I was able to index my dynamically generated site with the Verity Spider.

1. Make your site available on localhost, even if your site will not stay there. For example, http://localhost/mysite/


2. Create a text file called mysiteCmds.txt and save it to the verity folder within the ColdFusion directory. For Example, C:\ColdFusion8\verity\mysiteCmds.txt


3. In this document will be all of your commands for the vspider such as starting point, files to exclude from the index and so on. For Example, mine looks like the following:
   

   
   -style c:\ColdFusion8\verity\Data\stylesets\ColdFusionVspider
   -collection c:\ColdFusion8\verity\collections\mysite
   -exclude http://localhost/mysite/admin/*
   -indmimeexclude text/css
   -start http://localhost/mysite/index.cfm
   -cgiok



4. Then I open up the command prompt (start->run->cmd) and run the following line,

   vspider -cmdfile c:\ColdFusion8\verity\mysiteCmds.txt



5. Then you need to navigate to the CF Administrator (http://localhost/CFIDE/Administrator/) and add the collection under Verity Collections. Name it the same as you set it in the CmdFile, mysite. Be sure to select English Advanced.


6. Next you need a search form.
   

   
   <_cfform action="search.cfm" method="post" name="submitSearch" ><_INPUT class="btn" type="submit" value="SEARCH" /><_/cfform>



7. Last, you need to be able to display the results.
   

   
   <_cfsearch collection="mysite" name="results" criteria="#searchterm#" type="simple">
   <_cfloop query="results">
   <_cfset score2 = (score * 100)>
   <_span style="font-weight:bold ">#currentRow#. #score2#% : <_a href="#replace(url,"localhost/mysite/","www.mysite.com/")#">
   <_cfif title eq "">
   #replace(url,"localhost/mysite/","www.mysite.com/")#
   <_cfelse>
   #title#
   <_/cfif>
   <_/a><_/span>
   #left(summary, 150)#
   <_/cfloop>
   

   
   Remove the underscores, I had to add them so that the code would display.
   

Resources:

http://www.monkeyflash.com/coldfusion/using-vspider/
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/vspider.html


Chris

HowTo: Create a Text File with SQL Server 2005

I recently had the need to create a text file from within SQL Server. I have never heard of anyone doing this before, but since I started developing with SQL Server, it keeps amazing me on its capabilities. So when I decided this is what needs to happened, I put in the research to figure out how to do it.

It is actually much easier than anticipated. The first thing we had to do was to enable the xp_cmdshell stored procedure by executing the following (courtesy of Microsoft):

-- To allow advanced options to be changed.
EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
GO
-- To update the currently configured value for advanced options.
RECONFIGURE
GO
-- To enable the feature.
EXEC sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell', 1
GO
-- To update the currently configured value for this feature.
RECONFIGURE
GO

Once we had enabled xp_cmdshell, we could utilize the built in stored procedure that allows you to perform external processing. Basically you are performing a Windows command to create / append a text file. The syntax to do this is:

xp_cmdshell { 'command_string' } [ , no_output ]

I created a stored procedure to use when writing to a text file:

create procedure dbo.writeToFile
@msg VARCHAR(7800) = null, @file VARCHAR(200) = null, @overwrite BIT = 0
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @execStr VARCHAR(8000)

SET @execStr = RTRIM('echo ' + COALESCE(LTRIM(@msg),'-') + CASE WHEN (@overwrite = 1) THEN ' > ' ELSE ' >> ' END + RTRIM(@file))

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell @execStr
END
go

HowTo: Stop ColdFusion Cookies From Vanishing

I encountered this problem recently in my exploration of ColdFusion where I set cookies within the session start function of the application.cfc to track information about how a user found our site, what browser they are using and their general locale.  Using debugger, I could tell that the cookies set properly when I first entered the site.  Once I navigated away from the first page the cfcookies were dropped or missing.

It was driving me nuts.  I did about 20 minutes worth of research before I found a solution.  Basically if I had not set client cookies to no, ColdFusion would try to automatically handle cookies being set on the users machine and apparently it just causes problems.  So I set this by entering the following line of code into my application.cfc.

< cfset setclientcookies="no" >

After I set that, closed and opened the browser and the cookies worked properly.  Hopefully this helps others who have experienced the same thing as me.

Chris

HowTo: Get Files From Mac OS X Leopard to Windows Vista

I started new work this passed week and the machine provided to me had no music on it what so ever, so I brought in my personal laptop. I have never attempted to copy data from Mac OS X Leopard to Vista before so it took me a little bit to find a method that worked. This is what I did:

1. On your Mac: System Preferences --> Sharing.
2. Check the box that says File Sharing.
3. Click options, I enabled FTP.
4. Make sure you have the permissions setup for your user account to read & write, as well as a password.
5. I used FileZilla, but you can use any ftp client.
6. Type into the host field the ip address of your Mac OS X computer.
7. Then for the username and password, use the same ones that you use to login to your Mac.
8. Once connected you are good to go. Download or upload as many files as necessary.

Hope this helps.

chris

HowTo: Marketing Efforts of a Startup -- Part 2

This article is part 2 of an article series, discussing how we are building brand awareness for our online property management startup. If you have not read part 1, please do as I will be continuing where I left off.

So I would like to start with a mini-update on Property Stampede's business and product development. We have business cards! We also designed a letterhead. We are about a third the way to our beta goal of 100 testers and 3000 units. We are moving a long quite nicely, and in fact we have had a few of our local beta testers ask if they can become shareholders. :D

As for product development, we are almost near completion of the main core components. We are on target for our May 15th private beta launch and we are looking really good for our public launch in September. We are extremely excited.

So now, lets continue on with the marketing efforts for the soon to be #1 online property management application.

Step 6: Create a Twitter Account
Now I realize that creating a twitter account seems like you are just giving in to the social media trends, but it is a powerful tool to keep followers updated. I am learning more and more about utilizing Twitter to increase our exposure. We created an account that reflects our name, propertystamped. We also used Twitter's Blogger widget to display our twitter feed on our blog. Then we used TwitterFeed to broadcast our blog posts to our twitter account. Lastly, follow other twitter users that make sense and that are related to your startup.

Step 7: Its Time to Get Viral
Once you have a lot of the building blocks in place, it is time to start getting viral. It is time to start offering expertise on your blog in regards to industry related news and topics. If you are not a good writer, then you better start practicing. Your ultimate goal is to create enjoyable content that people will want to reference or post on sites like Digg, reddit, and del.icio.us. You can start the seed by making those initial entries yourself into those sites.

The last component of getting viral, is using a tool like Google Reader to subscribe to blogs and news feeds that are related to your industry or startup. Pick enough feeds so that it builds a pretty handsome list of new posts daily. Go through them and pick ones that you can provide a valuable comment to. Do not spam other blogs, if you do not have something valuable to add to the discussions then it is better not to post than to post something that could possibly tarnish your image.

Step 8: Visit Local Business Organizations
Not everyone has the luxury of starting their company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley, but I can venture a guess and say that there is at least one business organization within your community. Reach out and find out what organizations are in your area.

We are fortunate here in Buffalo to have many organizations tailoring to the needs of general business networking and specific industries. One organization that I used to be in and I still get together with some of my co-participants, is BNI. BNI has a vast network of professionals and most cities have many BNI chapters. It is a networking group that only allows one person from each industry or profession. As a member you are allowed to visit other chapters anywhere in the world twice per year. So part of my marketing strategy is to go to as many chapters as I can and directly interact with professionals that provide the best opportunity for referrals. Remember, it is all about "Who You Know, Who ..."

Step 9: Begin Assessing Your Traffic
I know at this point it may seem like assessing 5 unique hits a day is pointless... but I argue that it is definitely not. You have to gauge what sources are worth your time for viral marketing. If you posted 5 comments in a month on www.whatever.com, and you only got 2 unique referrals, well then I think you should stop wasting your time or figure out why no one is following the link to your blog. Now if you have 2 comments on www.whateverelse.com in a month, but you collected 22 unique referrals, well then you better post more on that site. To be effective in viral marketing you have to know what works, otherwise it is like spinning your tires on ice, you will not get far very quickly.

Step 10: Know Your Target Audience, Create Keywords, and Start PPC
At this point, you are up and running. You are building a brand and making people know about who you are. It is time to use your viral marketing statistics to determine what keywords have worked well to this point. Once you pick your keywords, its time to take a crack at Google AdWords, Overture, or MS' Ad product (can not remember the name, have never used it). Start small until you are sure those keywords are reaching the right audience and increase from there.

I hope the above steps help you get a little bit further. Right now that sums up our efforts to date, but soon we will be exploring making a YouTube Video, hosting a webinar, and releasing Press through a service like PRWeb. It should be a fun ride and I will post my summary on here with Part 3 in the near future.

Chris

HowTo: Marketing Efforts of a Startup -- Part I

Ok, so Property Stampede LLC is still in its infancy. We don't have a finished product nor an office. We are working on setting up the mail server and have not decided on a design for our business cards. And yet, we already have users signing up for our early beta. We must be doing something right...

Before I go on with this post I would like to tell you a bit about my experience and knowledge in marketing. I have been self employed for 3 years. Being self employed I have learned a great deal about word of mouth marketing and first appearances. I have learned that customer service far surpasses technical expertise. Not to say that anyone can be an IT Consultant, but what I am saying is that by no means am I the most decorated consultant out there. I have no formal training, I have meet people that blow my mind away when it comes to technical expertise, but I have been extremely successful with my clients.

I have had my blog for almost 4 years, actively writing for almost 1 year. I have learned a great deal about online and offline social networking through my involvement in BNI, local chambers, linkedin and others. Building networks is important and essential to marketing a product, services or yourself.

The two things that I have learned is that great customer service and strong relationships with friends, family, colleagues and other complimentary professionals will build a great foundation towards a successful marketing campaign.

Now to our marketing efforts for the soon to be #1 Property Management Application on the web.

Step 1: Tell Everyone
Hey we are starting a company! Tell everyone! Tell family, friends, co-workers / colleagues, and clients. You may be surprised who is and who isn't interested.

Step 2: Get Domain Names
Its hard to find a good domain name... but guess what? You have to. You have to find a domain name that makes sense but contains at least one of your top keywords. Once you find a domain name, find one for your blog. Once you have those two, think about if your business is one that will go global in the future, if so register those domain names in the countries you think you would expand to first.

Step 3: Update Social Networking Profiles
For those of you who are knee deep in social networking sites, this is a no brainer. But for those of you who are just getting your toes wet, go sign up with linkedin, facebook, myspace and twitter just to name a few. There are hundreds more, many that surround specific industries. Pick the best ones to match your startup and be thorough. Fill out the entire profile and begin networking. If there is a Q n A section, join in the discussions and share your expertise. Don't be a slouch and don't just spam plugs of your startup the whole time. Provide valuable information and people will learn about your startup.

Step 4: Focus on Your Easiest & Cheapest PR, Your Blog
Be transparent. Tell your audience how your progress is going. Tell them what you are trying to do and your planned time line on completing it. Remember proof read and stay professional... but keep it personal.

Step 5: Tell Everyone! Again...
Tell everyone again. Point them to your blog. If you wish you could select the people who you think would be genuinely interested in your startup and sign them up for email subscription to your blog. Let them know that you signed them up and that they could unsubscribe at any time. Get traffic to your blog.

Listed above is just some of the things that we have done up to this point. I will post part two sometime next week.

Chris

HowTo: Repair Adobe CS3 Installation (Application has unexpectedly closed)

I was running Adobe CS3 for about a week after upgrading to Mac OS X Leopard when all of a sudden  I could not open Dreamweaver.  The application would open, make it to my welcome screen, and then crash.  Annoyed, I attempted to open every Adobe CS3 application in my Master Suite, every app has crashed.

I fixed it using the same fix as my 'apple+c' fix that I wrote about previously.

1.  Navigate to /applications/utilities/

2.  Open Disk Utility

3.  Choose Repair Disk Permissions

4.  Reboot

All set.

HowTo: Restore Copy & Paste Commands on Mac OS Leopard

So I am running Leopard and I had a strange error.  I began to experience the strangest thing, my 'apple+c' command stopped working.  I tried to use the copy and paste from the edit menu but still no dice.  So I searched Google and found this fix.

1.  Navigate to /applications/utilities/

2.  Open Disk Utility

3.  Choose Repair Disk Permissions

4.  Reboot

All Set.

HowTo: Backup Mac OS X

I recently sent my laptop in for diagnosis as I was experiencing wireless issues.  They kept the laptop for approximately 20 hours and then called me.  They notified me that the issues were software related and recommended that I did an archive install or a fresh install.  I opted for the fresh install, so here is my backup HowTo / Checklist for Mac OS X Leopard.

Backup Safari Bookmarks:

Backing up Safari turned out to be much easier than expected.

1.  Navigate to /library/safari

2.  Copy the file named bookmarks.plist

Backup Address Book

1.  Choose File --> Export --> Address Book Archive

2.  Choose a name for the file, and select where you want to export the file to.

Backup Mozilla FireFox

1.  Open FireFox.

2.  Choose FireFox --> Advanced -->  Clear Cache Now

3.  Completely exit FireFox

4.  Navigate to /users/(your username)/library/application support/firefox/profiles/

5.  Copy the folder titled xxxxxxxx.default

Backup VMWare Fusion

1.  Navigate to /users/(your username)/documents/virtual machines/

2.  Copy your desired virtual machines from here

Backup iTunes

1.  Open iTunes --> Store --> DeAuthorize

2.  Quit iTunes

3.  Navigate to /users/(your username)/music/

4.  Copy iTunes folder

Backup Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars

This will backup your maps and saved games, surprisingly enough this was my most important backup :D

1.  Navigate to /users/(your username)/library/preferences/Command and Conquer 3 Preferences/

2.  Copy p_drive

Backup Mail

1.  Navigate to /users/(your username)/library/

2.  Copy Mail

3.  Navigate to /users/(your username)/library/preferences/

4.  Copy com.apple.mail.plist

DONE!  I hope this helps anyone else.

Chris

HowTo: Use GTalk on Mac

So when I first bean to be a mac user I was upset that there was not a version of GTalk available on Mac OS X.  So I gave up on the issue for a while, just using gmail's web based chat until the other day.  I found out that you can use iChat to connect and chat with your GTalk account.

To do this:

1.  Open iChat.

2.  Choose iChat --> Preferences --> Accounts

3.  Choose + --> Google Talk Account under account type -->  Google Account name --> Password --> Done

All set.  Now this was done on Mac OS X Leopard, I believe you use a jabber account as the account type for older versions.

Chris

HowTo: Connect to a pptp vpn on Mac OS X Leopard

I recently setup a Windows based pptp vpn and had the necessity to connect to it from my PowerBook running Mac OS 10.5 aka Leopard. It is really quite simple.

1. From your dock click system preferences --> Network.
2. Click the little + sign in the lower left. Cick on interface and select vpn.
3. Select pptp in vpn type, give it a name and hit create.
4. Now select your new vpn connection on the left hand side.
5. Enter the server address and the username.
6. Click authentication and select password, then enter the password for the username you entered earlier and hit ok.
7. Hit apply, then connect and you are connected.

I hope this helps. For more info on setting up a pptp vpn, read my earlier post.

Chris

HowTo: Setup PPTP VPN using Windows 2003 Server

Have you ever come across the need to access files remotely, either at work or at home? Well this is a quick way to setup a vpn.

1. On your server, click start, then Manage Server. Add or Remove a Role. Select Remote Access/VPN Server. Then click next.
2. Follow Prompts, when it asks what type of server select custom configuration if you only have one network card.
3. Once your vpn server is working, then right click my computer, select manage computer.
4. Local users and groups. Select the user that you want to allow remote access or create a new one and select properties.
5. Click the tab that says Dial Up Access.
6. Then select allow remote access.
7. Last but not least, you need to port forward port 1723 on your router, as well as enable vpn passthrough for pptp. Now this is where the difficulty occurs. Linksys routers are notorious for not supporting pptp properly, but not supporting the gre authentication protocol on port 47. Make sure your router has the most up to date firmware.


All set.

Chris

HowTo: Resolve Norton Installation Errors

I recently attempted to install Norton Internet Security 2007 for a family member. This computer was an old P4 Dell Dimension running Windows XP Home with 512mb ram. It was poorly maintained and the owner was having issues attempting to install and or remove applications.

So I hopped on the machine, ran my standard PC TuneUP. I uninstalled older versions of Norton Internet Security and System Works. I began to install the new version of Norton Internet Security 2007. It took forever only to display error 9999,171. I tried again and same result. So I hopped on Google and found a solution so I am sharing it here.

1. Go to the following link http://symantec.com/autotools. Download the Norton Removal Tool that matches your operating system.
2. Run the tool, it will remove any debree from older versions from of Norton or attempted installs that failed.
3. Reinstall the Norton product that would not install properly earlier.

Now I would not normally recommend Norton Internet Security 2007, but this family member had already paid for a new years subscription. My recomendation is to run the removal tool, and then use another security suite or application like Grisoft's AVG or Eset's Nod32. Couple that with Spybot Search and Destroy and a good router with built in fire wall and you are all set.

Cheers,
Chris

HowTo: Connect to Windows 2000 Server from Mac

At one of my contract jobs, they do not support Mac, they have no need to. So I found myself feeling somewhat of an outcast which I am sure is not a new feeling for many of Mac users. I the beginning I found a quick method to being able to perform my work at the office by using VMWare Virtual Machine. But the downside is then I am sacrificing the intuitive GUI that is MAC OS X. So I hit Google for an answer, and I learned how to connect with my Mac to Windows based computers wthout using VMWare.

The main server that I needed to connect to is a Windows 2000 Server. Now in order to connect a Mac to Windows without installing any 3rd party software, there are a few pre-requisites.

1. Logon the server directly or using Microsoft's RDP for Mac.

2. Click Start, Run, type 'appwiz.cpl' and hit ok or press enter.

3. Click add/remove windows components.

4. Click Other Network File and Print Services.

5. Click Details.

6. Check File Services for Mac and press ok, then finish.

7. Create a user account if one is not already created, that is to be used when accessing the share. **Note: Make sure password is not blank.

8. Right click My Computer and select Manage.

9. Click Shared Folders, then Shares.

10. In the nav bar click the New Share icon.

11. Click Apple Mac, uncheck Windows if desired. Select the folder to share. Fill in desired information and select next.

12. Select the appropriate permissions. Make sure to give access to the user mentioned in step 7.

After that, its time to connect.

1. With finder selected, click go, click connect to server.

2. Type the server name in the bar with a / then the share name.
I.E. 192.168.1.100/macShare

3. Type in username and password setup in step 7 above.

4. Hit ok. Make sure if desired you save the server as a favorite as well as save user login info in keychain.

Hope this helps.

Chris

HowTo: Enable Alternate File Types in Dreamweaver 8

I ran into a problem when developing a module for Drupal. For a Drupal module, the php files end in a module extension. But when trying to open one of these documents in Dreamweaver, you receive the following error, "Can't find a valid editor for this file extension."

To fix this problem, you have to edit two files that control how Dreamweaver operates. To edit these files, you can use any text editor. Since I am doing this on a windows machine, I am going to use notepad.

The instructions below were taken from Adobe's Support Site which can be found here. Below are the instructions for Windows XP and Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. The source for these instructions also has instructions for Mac OS X and Vista as well as CS3 Dreamweaver.

First we need to enable viewing of hidden filesTo show hidden files, hidden folders, and extensions for known file types:

1. In Windows Explorer, do one of the following:
* In Windows XP, choose Tools > Folder Options.
* In Windows Vista, choose Organize > Folder and Search Options.
2. Click the View tab in the Folder Options dialog box.
3. In Advanced Settings, select Show Hidden Files And Folders.
4. Deselect Hide Extensions For Known File Types.
5. Click OK.

To add file types to the Extensions.txt file:

1. Locate the Extensions.txt file within the Dreamweaver user configuration folder. The location of this folder depends on the operating system and the version of Dreamweaver:
   • Dreamweaver 8 on Windows XP & 2000:
     C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Macromedia\Dreamweaver 8\Configuration
   
   
2. Open Extensions.txt in any external text editor like Notepad or Text Editor. Do not modify the Dreamweaver configuration files in Dreamweaver itself.
   
3. Add the extension to the All Documents line. Extensions must be in uppercase letters and separated by commas.

   Example: HTML,HTM,SHTM,SHTML,MODULE

4. To add extensions to an existing document group, add the extension to the extension list for the desired group.

   Example: PHP,PHP3,PHP4,PHP5,TPL,MODULE:PHP Files

   (This can also be added to the Server Side Include list already within the file.)

5. Save the file and restart Dreamweaver.

Steps to add extensions to a document type definition in the MMDocumentTypes.xml file:

1. Locate the MMDocumentTypes.xml file in the main Dreamweaver configuration folder (not the Dreamweaver user configuration folder). The location of this folder depends on the operating system and the version of Dreamweaver:
   • Dreamweaver 8 on Windows Vista, XP & 2000:
     C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver 8\Configuration\DocumentTypes
2. Open MMDocumentTypes.xml in any external text editor like Notepad or Text Editor. Do not modify the Dreamweaver configuration files in Dreamweaver itself.
3. Find the tag set for the desired document type. Below is the default document type definition for PHP documents from the MMDocumentTypes.xml file:
   
   
4. Add the desired extension to the winfileextension and macfileextension attributes of the documenttype tag. For example:
   winfileextension="html,htm,shtml,shtm,stm,tpl,lasso,xhtml,module"
   
   
5. Save MMDocumentTypes.xml and restart Dreamweaver.

I hope this helps other people, as it took me a while to find a fix for this myself.

Chris

How-To: Update to Unlocking the Apple iPhone

George has posted on his blog some updated information regarding his steps to unlock the iPhone. They can be read below.

First of all, I don't solder anymore on the phones I unlock. Just get tweezers with a sharp point, scratch away the trace, and use the two prongs on the tweezers to touch the side of the cap and the trace. It's much much easier.
Second, kiwi66 pointed out and fixed some problems with ieraser not connecting to the bootloader. The download link has been updated.
Third, you cannot reboot between ieraser and iunlocker. The wifi will stop working, which I saw happened to several people on the forums. If you do reboot, simply make a launch daemon to run bbupdater -f myver.fls That restores the firmware.
Also using that termcap I have linked seems to make ssh and minicom init slowly. Anyone find a better way, perhaps with just the vt100 file?

HowTo: Succeed as a Consultant in a Sea of Direct Hires

Working as a consultant has its ups and its downs. Recently I have come to the realization that the direct hires that I work with do not like me. Or at least it seems that way.

Honestly, its not that they do not like me, but that they are threatened, jealous, or they just feel cheated that their boss hired a "consultant" to do work that they could have done. Whatever the employee's reason to be emotionally distressed, two people suffer. The employee and the consultant.

The employee suffers, because every encounter with the "consultant" is a tension filled battle of wits. In many cases the employee the employee in question armors up and begins wielding his or her sword. Now, can someone explain to me, as a consultant being hired for a project, why on the first or second day on the job you are going through an interview. Now this employee's main goal is to make you look stupid, make you feel uncomfortable and out of place. The employee becomes obsessive, telling his tale of his victorious encounter with the new "consultant" that he is assigned to work with. He then goes home to his or her spouse and complains about how they are not appreciated by their organization or that they are being cheated and etc. It is not pretty.

For the consultant, he is left working in tense environments where the employees that are supposed to be assisting him with his quest are resentful and resilient to being helpful. These situations only end badly. The consultant completes hours and hours of work, presents his work at the big meeting, only to find out a critical flaw that could have been avoided had the employee notified him of a crucial limitation. The end result, the consultant looks like a fool and the employee has triumphed. Only this is what the employee hopes for.

Luckily for me, I was taught this lesson on one of my first consulting jobs by another consultant. He warned me of this problem, so I made a plan to follow when entering into a new organization as a consultant.

1. Quickly analyze the importance of each person on the team. Determine the hierarchy of the team. Determine who is the most critical when it comes to you completing your project. This will allow you to realize who you should be making friends with, and who you should not waste your time on.

2. Once you determine the important players on the team, be genuine. Find common grounds of interest. Connect with them, do more listening than talking. If you take time to listen, you may find ways that you can help that person, so when it comes the time that you need help, they will not hesitate to provide you with what you need. The phrase that BNI members live by is "Giver's Gain" and as a consultant, this becomes something your use on a daily basis.

When I started with the county, it was the final stretch of the NHL season. With the Sabres having nearly their best season ever, I had an instant conversation topic that spurred the emotions of any Buffalo resident. (Literally!)

3. When you determine the employees that are going to give you trouble, don't avoid them, don't insult them, but learn to tolerate them. I know the biggest thing you want to do when that employee is ruffling his main, is tell him where he can shove his boot, but you need to refrain. Being a consultant is not just about getting the project done, but you are also trying to build credibility for yourself. No one wants to be remembered as the guy who did a good job but had no self control and picked a fight with one of the direct hires.

4. If you make a mistake, or someone else makes a mistake but it is your project. Take full responsibility for the mistake, even if it is not your fault. Respond to the mistake, get it resolved as quickly as possible. This will show you have class, composure and respond quickly under stress. The boss will respect that, and the employee that may be responsible has been foiled because you do not look like the ass.

Chris