This blog is an ongoing project by Mike Maddaloni, president of Dunkirk Systems, LLC, to archive the myriad of tech tips and resources he has collected along his 10+ years as a Web developer.
Recently I migrated to a new Dell Latitude E6320 and in the process of moving my software from my old PC to this one, I needed to activate my license for Microsoft Office XP. When I chose to activate it online, for some reason it didn’t work. Then I was given the option to activate it by phone. However, no phone numbers were displayed. So who was I to call?
Recently when trying to recover my PC from the dead after a botched encryption attempt (a story for another time) and I needed to boot from my DVD/CD drive with a CD, but all I had was an ISO image, which I needed to make into a CD. After all these years, I never had to do this before and didn’t know what to do.
First I needed to track down a blank CD-ROM (thanks Chris!) then I needed to see how to put this ISO image on it so I could boot it. I found Free ISO Burner and it did the trick and allowed me to make my bootable CD. Of course my recovery failed, but it was not for lack of trying.
Recently I migrated from an old, chugging notebook running Windows XP to a shiny, fast and new Dell Latitude E6320 running Windows 7, and among all of the files and software I needed to port over was my email, for which I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird version 2 for several years. I was aware of the newest version 10, however I was more interested in getting my email up and running on the same version, or a lower one if necessary, then make the upgrade at a later time. Productivity and a tight timeline were the overarching factors in this decision.
When I researched into how to best move it, I found that version 2 was no longer available, and version 3 was the lowest supported version. I then looked into various sources across the Web, including Thunderbird’s own great support site.
One item to note is that I had the toughest time determining how to get the dialog to choose your profile when I first launch Thunderbird. This is driven by a file names profiles.ini, which lives in the application data folder of both Windows XP and 7. This file needed to be copied over manually – and in my case modified for new file paths – in order for Thunderbird to launch with the dialog to select which profile I wanted to access. I have 3 profiles for my install, and love this feature and wanted to preserve it. In previous versions of Thunderbird (I don’t know which number0 you could “launch” this dialog, but I don’t know if that still exists.
Also note I keep my mail folders at the root level of my hard drive, and not nested under a Thunderbird or application folder.
Following this research I put together and executed on a plan that worked, and I am outlining it here for your own ease of migration.
1. Backup all mail folders, the Thunderbird 2 folder and the profiles.ini file on the old PC.
2. Install Thunderbird version 3 over version 2 on the old PC.
3. Launch Thunderbird version 3, testing everything on the old PC.
4. Copy all mail folders and the profiles.ini file from the old PC onto a Flash drive.
5. Install Thunderbird version 3 on the new PC.
6. Copy all mail folders to the new PC.
7. Copy profiles.ini to a temp folder on the new PC, make a backup copy of it, and modify the original to set the new paths for the mail folders.
8. Make a backup copy of the profiles.ini file in the application data folder on the new PC, and move the edited file from the temp folder to the application data folder.
9. Launch Thunderbird version 3, testing everything on the new PC.
10. Get back to work.
I have also set my online backup software to backup the profiles.ini file as well as the mail folders, for if I need to restore it, I will need all of it.
Your comments are welcome on this process. Have you done it another way? Was this useful?
It seems installing an SSL certificate is much more time consuming and laborious than the application process for getting one, including providing all sorts of business documentation to prove who you are!
Some SSL providers offer better instructions than others. When I am looking for information on installing SSL certs, one site typically gives me all the help I need, SSL Shopper. For example, this article on how to use SSL certificates with Exchange 2007 was extremely helpful when I was not getting the support from my “managed” server vendor.
SSL Shopper is an independent SSL comparison site, and not a provider of SSL certs themselves. If you need help installing a cert, in my opinion they are the best place to start. I’d welcome your thoughts if they are helpful for you, or if you have another source of information - please post it in the comments.
Wondering why you can’t do wildcard host header binding in IIS7? I was too, and I dound this great article on wildcard host header binding and subdomains in IIS7 at Dirk.net In short, you need a dedicated IP address for the site if you want to do it. With the shortage of IP addresses, it’s probably not likely for a small Web site. The post also references this forum thread on IIS.net on the topic, with a pretty lame response from someone at Microsoft. Here’s to it being added in the future!
Have you moved away from the Palm OS platform but still want to run your apps on your new device? Then you need to get StyleTap Platform, where you can run your apps on Windows Mobile, Symbian/Nokia or iPhone platforms. You can get a 14-day trial of StyleTap Platform if you want to try before you commit to purchasing it.
This is a list of Flash video stream recorders for capturing video from a Web page. I have not tried all of these myself, but share them in case you have a need for this.
Nokia has a part of their Web site dedicated to mobile codes- both QR and Datamatrix codes. It has a page for creating codes, and one for downloading a reader. The code generation functionality is not the most robust as compared to other sites, but it works. The content is somewhat basic, but for those who have a Nokia device this is a site to be aware of, especially for the native reader download.
Stack Overflow is a free Q&A community for programming questions. I subscribe to their feed and watch for items of interest and ones I may be able to contribute to the answers. If you are a programmer, it’s worth taking a look, and search.
Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware utility to retrieve the product keys for installed Windows software. They also offer a paid version with more features.
Accessible Captcha is an extension for ExpressionEngine 1.x where instead of showing a graphic and the user has to figure what hidden message is displayed, it displays a question randomly from a admin-defined list. Much more friendly than those hard-to-read images, not to mention the benefit for those who are visually impaired! I use it on all of my EE sites. It is free, but they accept a donation.
Recently I migrated to a new Dell Latitude E6320 and in the process of moving my software from my old PC to this one, I needed to activate my license for Microsoft Office XP. When I chose to activate it online, for some reason it didn’t work. Then I was given the option to activate it by phone. However, no phone numbers were displayed. So who was I to call?
