OK so I think this one is entirely my fault but it was still driving me nuts.  Whenever I tried to use the Page Up or Page Down key while viewing a web page in Firefox it would move the page down then almost immediately shoot back to where I was viewing before.

In addition to this using the arrow keys to move up and down was also a iffy prospect.  One day when I was low on sleep and using my computer this happened.  I had simply been ignoring it for so long.  I finally typed this sentence into Google search:

firefox page up page down fuck

And obviously I wasn’t the only one who was incredibly irritated by this because one of the first forum posts I read had my answer.

Go to Tools–>Options–>Advanced–>General.  Turn off the option to “Always use cursor keys to navigate within pages”.  Also try turning off the “Search for text when I start typing” option.

After this your Page up/Down buttons should function like normal.  You can toggle between this caret browsing mode by simply hitting the F7 key.  And alternatively in Firefox you can page down with the Space bar and page up with Shift+Space bar.

I’m not sure if I was the one who enabled this function or it comes that way by default but whoever thought it was a good idea should be flogged.

UPDATE [6/19/2009]:  Below is my original fix for this problem however in the comments section frymaster provided an alternative.  I am no longer running Vista 64 so haven’t tested it but another user has confirmed it worked for him.

Try deleting this file:

%userprofile%\appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\MMC\dsa

It will be recreated after you shut down your MMC console.

Thanks to frymaster for the update!

I installed the newest version of RSAT for Vista Service Pack 1.  I am running the 64-bit Version of Vista.

After installing this newest version I got this error when trying to start Active Directory Users and Computers:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
“the application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way”

I could not find an answer anywhere, I was able to open up the Management Console (mmc.exe) and browse to the .msc file (dsa.msc) manually and it would open just fine.

I went looking for command line parameters for mmc.exe and here is what I found:

MMC command-line options

Using MMC command-line options, you can open a specific MMC console, open MMC in author mode, or specify that the 32-bit or 64-bit version of MMC is opened.

Syntax

mmcpath\filename.msc[/a] [/64] [/32]

Parameters

path \ filename.msc

Starts MMC and opens a saved console. You need to specify the complete path and file name for the saved console file. If you do not specify a console file, MMC opens a new console.

/a

Opens a saved console in author mode. Used to make changes to saved consoles.

/64

Opens the 64-bit version of MMC (MMC64). Use this option only if you are running a Microsoft 64-bit operating system and want to use a 64-bit snap-in.

/32

Opens the 32-bit version of MMC (MMC32). When running a Microsoft 64-bit operating system, you can run 32-bit snap-ins by opening MMC with this command-line option when you have 32-bit only snap-ins.

• Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757725.aspx

The short cut for Active Directory Users and Computers points to:

%SystemRoot%\system32\dsa.msc

Adding the “/64″ flag to the Target of the shortcut fixed the problem

%SystemRoot%\system32\dsa.msc /64

After that, no more errors!

I use this one quite a lot because people always want to know who all is in an Active Directory Group.  Here is my quick and ugly Powershell script to find this info.

$ldap = “your ldap path here“
$de = new-object directoryservices.directoryentry(“LDAP://” + $ldap)
$ds = new-object directoryservices.directorysearcher($de)
$ds.filter = ‘(&(samaccountname=*))’
$rc = $ds.findall()
$rc[0].properties(‘member’)

I got a call at the Helpdesk today about a scanner in one of the faculty’s labs.  It was an HP 4570 Scanjet.  The scanner worked fine it was the software that came with it that was a problem.

They wanted to use the HP Director software, which is fine it just wouldn’t start when you clicked on the program icon.  I was pretty stumped until I thought “Why not look at HP’s site?”  So I did.

And there it was a patch to fix this very problem (link)

It turns out that IE 7 causes a problem.  Why??!?!  I have no idea but the patch fixed it.

Every once in a while I have to remind my self that the soultion is probably easier than I think AND someone else has already fixed it.

In an earlier post I mentioned a useful link for Powershell users.  I am happy to say I used the cheat sheet today.

Sometimes you want to grab a property from an Active Directory entry.  I wanted to be able to do it from Powershell.

One of the cool things about PowerShell is that you can access the Namespaces in the .net framework.  So you can put together a script that can access Active Directory the same way you do it from .net Code using Directory Services.

Here is what I came up with:

Write-Host “”
$id = Read-Host “Which username?”
$prop = Read-Host “Which Property(Leave blank for all or type ‘list’ for property names)?”

$de = new-object directoryservices.directoryentry(“LDAP://your_LDAP_path“)
$ds = new-object directoryservices.directorysearcher($de)
$ds.filter = ‘(&(samaccountname=’ + $id + ‘))’
$results = $ds.findall()

if ($prop -eq “”)
{
Write-Host “”
$results.item(0).properties | more
}
elseif ($prop -eq “list”)
{
Write-Host “”
$results.item(0).properties.propertynames | more
}
else
{
Write-Host “”
$results.item(0).properties.item($prop)
}
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “”

So you just save this script as your_filename.ps1 and run it.

The LDAP filter is set to filter by the “samaccountname” which is usually the user name/id of the user.  If you wanted to filter by something else you could do so by changing the filter string.

After you run it you will be prompted for the variables and presto!  Some kick-assery ensues.

Ever use Powershell?  I run into situations every once in a while where it is really useful but I always seem to forget the syntax.  I found a link to a really cool cheat sheet that I just tacked onto my wall so I won’t ever be lost again.

Check it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/attachment/1521595.ashx

I have a base of knowledge in Java and VB ,net but coming up in my school career is a class called “Problem Solving in C++” So where do you start learning a new language? The Hello World! program

This summer while I waste some time at work my plan is to get prepared for this course by grabbing a book and learning about the C++ language.

I chose a book called “C++ From the Ground Up” by Herbert Schildt.  So far it is well written and seems like an excellent choice.

This is probably the same example you are going to find if you do a search for a C++ Hello World!  It’s nothing special but it always fun when you start learning something new.

So here it is, enjoy!

/* Hello World in C++*/

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
//this is so you don’t have to qualify
//each thing like std::cout, you can just use cout

int main()

// main() is where program execution begins
{
cout << “\nHello World!!\n\n”;     //write the string to the buffer
cout << endl;            //clears the buffer
return 0;            //return success 0
}

That’s it! Exciting stuff I know.  I saved it as HelloWorld.cpp. As far as compiling it I am using Ubuntu Linux at home so I used the g++ compiler you can install the compiler using this command in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install g++

Then to compile you can use this command (make sure you are in the directory where your code file is located:

g++ filename -o what_you_want_executable_to_be_called

so in my case

g++ HelloWorld.cpp -o -hello

Then to run this bad boy you just type:

./name_of_executable

in my case

./hello

Obviously this is just a incredibly small peek into the very basics of C++.  There are different compilers for different systems and even different versions of C++.  Hopefully this was helpful to another noob like myself.  Leave a comment if it was.

Further Reading:

• WikiBook on C++
• C++ From the Ground Up (Amazon Link)

Ever typed an email in Microsoft Outlook and went to put in the recipient and you were delighted to see that after you typed a few letters it had already guessed the right person?

Cool, ever reinstalled an OS or Office and went to do the same thing and Outlook did not finish your thoughts for you? Crap! Were you depending on the auto complete?

First off don’t do that!

Working in an IT office I have had a few calls from people asking why Outlook isn’t auto completing their To: field and they have lost the contact. They were actually using the auto complete function as a contact list!

Things can happen: re-installs, crashes, etc. So relying on the auto complete is a bad idea but if you would like to back up your auto complete data you are in luck.

The auto complete data is stored in a file with the extension of nk2 and can be found in the following locations:

Windows Vista:

drive:\Users\your_username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

Windows XP:

drive:\Documents and Settings\your_username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Your .nk2 file will be named the same as your Outlook profile. By default it will probably be called outlook.nk2

Copy this file and save it into a safe location for use later. I suggest an external drive.

Now if you ever need to transfer this file to another install of Outlook you know where to look. Just copy and paste it into the directories listed above.

In a website created using ASP .net there is a file called web.config . This file holds information about the website’s configuration.

From web.config’s Wikipedia entry:

Web.config is the main settings and configuration file for an ASP.NET web application. The file is an XML document that defines configuration information regarding the web application. The web.config file contains information that control module loading, security configuration, session state configuration, and application language and compilation settings.

One setting that is useful is the connection string setting. If you are connected to a database you can store all the connection string variables in the web.config file and reference them from pages within the website.

This is a good thing since there is only one place to edit the connection string. So if something changes you only have to look once for the string.

But how do you retrieve the string from the config file and use it in a page?

Let’s say you are creating a connection to an SQL database in the VB code behind. Instead of writing out the connection string each time you write some code to connect to the database, try using the ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings() method.

• SqlConnection = the connection object. It takes a connection string as it’s parameter.

Example in VB w/ color enhancements!:

Using conn As New SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings(“name of connection string from web.config“).ConnectionString)

‘in here will be the rest of your code

End Using

See, now if something changes you can go to one place: the web.config file, instead of having to change code in multiple locations.

So you are putting together a web page using Microsoft’s ASP .net. You are looking through forums and examples for help and people keep talking about the code-behind.

What the hell is it? Well, in classic ASP (i.e older) the programming code was actually written into the same page as the HTML. This would make the pages unwieldy.  Apparently some developers prefer to have all of their code in the same place but a better method might be to separate the visual presentation from the logical.

Enter code-behind. So basically if you simplify it; in ASP .net you have a file that is the web file. This is the file that holds the HTML and such. After all the server side processes have finished this file is sent to your browser.

The code-behind file sits on the server and is executed there, not on the client side. This keeps the two separate. The code-behind file is where you write your computer code such as VB or C#. It is kept hidden from the user so you do not have to worry about them seeing your code and possibly the inner workings of your system.