January 2016 – Lighthouse Knowledge

Is it time to rotate the tires on your computer?

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

Over the last 20 plus years I have learned a few things about computers. One of them is that you need to “rotate the tires”. By this I mean general servicing of a computer. Most of this is not that hard and really is never talked about. It is like some dark secret that “they” never want you to never know.

So here are a few things you can do to make your computer run slightly better. And can be done overnight while you sleep.

Defrag the hard drive.

Defragmentation of files on your computer can improve your performance. What happens with computer use is that multiple files are always be written to the hard drive at the same time. And the system just uses the first available slot that it can find to store part of a file in. Then jumps to the next free space and so on and so forth until the file is completely written to the hard drive. In some extreme cases a 10MB file might have the first 3 megabytes on the first 25% of drive. Then the rest of file might be dispersed over the rest of the drive.

It is like when you read a newspaper or magazine and they tell you that the story is continued elsewhere. That is kind of annoying. To read something, store it in memory, then jump to page 34 to read more of it. Then find out that you now that to jump to page 40 to finish. But, what if you could defrag the story into one set of pages and be able to read it straight through? Would that not save time from having to flip pages and locate where the story continues from?

Well that is what programs would like to have done. Have all the files needed in the same general area without having get them from all over the hard drive and not have to piece them back together.

Here are few defragging programs that I use periodically to speed up my program loading and file access. You can download more than one. I mainly run two of them. One, Defragger allow you to not only defrag the whole hard drive. But, also just a single file if needed. This is handy on large file like VM images and ISO files that are a few gigabytes in size. The Second, defrag program is Smart Defrag. This one does a cool thing. It will reorder programs based on the usage. This helps if you are using the same program(s) all the time.

There are tons of other defrag programs on the market. Each does things a little different. You will need to read up on them to see if one is better for you. You can do that at CNET.

Uninstall programs

Somewhere on your computer there is at least one program that is installed that you have not used in months. Do you still need it? How much space is it using?

Some games can use a few hundred megabytes. Maybe you should get rid of it. Not just to save hard drive space. But, to increase performance.

How is that done you ask. Well, by removing an application from the system you delete references to is in the system registry and on the hard drive. Then the computer does not have to remember where it was stored or the settings that were stored in registry. And, in some cases that application or part of the application is running in background even if you never run it.

Use the Control Panel to select Programs and Features. You should then see a list of all the programs that can be uninstalled. Select the one you want and click uninstall.

Please note three things. One, some programs require other programs to run correctly. iTunes has several helper programs. Apple Application Support, Software Update, Bonjour, and QuickTime. Be careful which ones you decide to remove. The second thing is that it might be best to shut down your computer for a minute or two after uninstall some programs like trial version of Microsoft Office. This helped in the old days by forcing items in memory to be released and shut down services that might be running still on a restart. The third thing you might want to do is defrag the hard drive after removal and clean the system registry.

Clean the registry

The registry is used to keep track of where and what applications do. I can store default settings for an application and remember on what monitor you last used an application.

Over time the system registry can grow from a few hundred megabytes to several gigabytes. The larger the file the longer the read time. Thus slowing the system down.

So, from time to time you need back up and defrag the registry. Removing old pointers and setting for applications that are no longer on your system.

Two of the products that I used to do this is Wise Cleaner and SpyBot Search & Destroy. WiseCleaner will also defrag the registration file.

It is important to note that in some cases touching the registry might be a bad thing. In some cases it can lead to strange behavior issues with the operating system. I always back up the registry file before performing any changes to it. And playing with it should only be done at your own risk!

Android apps to help me maintain sites when out of the office

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

Over the years I have noticed that everything breaks when I am away from my workstation.

To avoid have to drive back to the office, my home, or the hotel I have been looking for a good set of Android applications that will allow me access to my code and publish it back to the server or a SVN repository.

The keyboard – A.I. Keyboard Free

The first thing I needed was a full keyboard. Let’s face it you cannot edit long blocks of code or URLs with default touch screen keyboard. So, I downloaded A.I. Keyboard Free.

This keyboard allows for the most important thing needed to navigate source code. Arrow Keys. I know that does not sound like much. But, I have issues with touch devices to going to the spot that I clicked in the URL or in a paragraph.

The keyboard also offers keys to undo and redo text or cut and paste items, use extended symbols, and allow the user to adjust the keyboard size to that which best fits your typing.

SVN – OASVN Free

I will admit there are not a lot of choices for SVN on Android. But, OASVN does a good job for when you are out of the office.

To down load your repository you just need to fill out a few form fields. Set the path where you want to store everything on your mobile device. Then you are ready to check out.

The editor – DroidEdit Free

I needed an application that would do more than a simple text edit. DroidEdit does syntax highlighting, undo, and redo. As an added bonus you open file from the local path, Dropbox, and Box.

When opening a document you can have the application prompt you to select the encoding. This is helpful when working with document such as XML that require UTF-8 encoding.

SSH – ConnectBot

I use a Linux server to host and test my sites. So, I need to be able to SSH to my servers and update the local SVN repository. ConnectBot allows me to that.

Browsers – Firefox,Google Chrome,Dolphin,Opera, etc.

There are several browsers these days for Android. Each behaves and renders things a little differently. So, you will need to find the one that best fits you testing and development needs.

For my sites I like to use Dolphin. It seems to render more like a desktop browser. It allows you to toggle the User Agent between Android, Desktop, iPhone, iPad, and Custom triggering sites to load different versions or a web page. Not all sites will load correctly in Dolphin. This is because of developers limiting what browsers are support on their sites. Just another reason to test things in various browsers and on different devices/platforms.

Redmine SVN set up.

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

For those of you that do not know, “Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using the Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database.

Redmine is open source and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (GPL).”

We are using the TurnkeyLinux version of Redmine which allows us to run a pre-built Virtual Machine image.

It works pretty good right out the box. One of the nice features is being able to run Subversion (SVN). Allowing you to version control, archive and back up your code.

To tie a project into SVN you need to manually set a few images in the web interface.

Log into Redmine via web interface

Create/edit a project
Go to “Repository” tab
- Select SCM as Subversion
- file:///srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}
- Create a Login
- Create a Password
Click Save

Next you will need to log into Redmine server via SSH and complete the following steps.

Create a folder to store the new repository:
```
mkdir /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}
```

Create the repository.

svnadmin create /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}

If need to you can verify the repository with the following line of code.
```
svnadmin verify /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}
```

Edit the configuration file for the repository.

nano /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}/conf/svnserve.conf

Unhide the following items:

anon-access = read

auth-access = write

password-db = passwd

Save file
Edit the password file to mamange user names and passwords
```
nano /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}/conf/passwd
```
When finished adding the user accounts save the file and exit the editor
You may need to restart service/server
```
touch /etc/init.d/svnserve
```

Finally connect to the Repository via tortoiseSVN

Use tortoiseSVN “repo browser” to connect to svn://{IP ADDRESS}/svn/{PROJECT NAME}
Add the following folders:
- branches
- trunk
- tags
Set folder on development machine.

Installing Samba on Ubuntu

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

Samba is a Local Area Network (LAN) file sharing service for Linux and Unix.

To download the Samba pages need run the following line.

sudo apt-get install libcups2 samba samba-common

After the packages are loaded we need to edit the Samba configuration file. To do that we will use the text editor nano.

nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

In the global section, remove the “#” at the beginning of the line security = user so that it looks like this:

[...]
# "security = user" is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See
# /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/ServerType.html
# in the samba-doc package for details.
   security = user
[...]

This enables Linux system users to log in to the Samba server.

Close the file and restart Samba.

Adding Samba Shares

If you have not already determines a share directory you may wish to create generic share for system user accounts.

mkdir -p /home/shares/allusers

Next adjust the owner of directory and all the files and subfolders for the directory share

chown -R root:users /home/shares/allusers/

Now you can set the user permissions for all the files and subfolders for the directory share

chmod -R ug+rwx,o+rx-w /home/shares/allusers/

Now we can edit the Samba configuration file to set up the share.

vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

Add the following lines of code to the end of the smb.conf file

[allusers]
  comment = All Users
  path = /home/shares/allusers
  valid users = @users
  force group = users
  create mask = 0660
  directory mask = 0771
  writable = yes

You may want to also add a line to the configuration to limit which users have permission to write to file

write list = userX

Next restart the Samba service to load you changes.

Managing Users

Setting the user account up

Before adding users to Samba you must add them to the system. Do this by running the useradd command. Then the user name. Followed by -m -G. Lastly the name of the group. In this case users

useradd userX -m -G users

Set the user account password

Now that we have created a user account we need to set a password for said account.

passwd userX userY

Adding the User Account to the Samba User Database

Now we can add the user to the Samba database. You will be prompted to create a password for the Samba account. In most cases you want the system user account password and Samba password to be the same.

smbpasswd -a userX

Connection to a Samba Share

Windows

To connect to a Samba share you will need to open the Windows Explorer program. In the address bar type \\ and the IP address of the machine you are trying to connect to.

\\10.0.0.11

cfc – full SMTP method

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

I have been wanting to update my ColdFusion skills writing code in full cfscript. So, one of the first things that I did was write a method to send me email from a contact form for my UX site.

To do this I created the following CFC. Most of which is written on page 22 of the 25Meg PDF file Developing Applications ADOBEï¿½ COLDFUSION 10.


component displayname="contactUs" hint="Allows users to send email." output="false" {
  remote any function setEmailMessage(
    required string fromName,
    required string fromEmail,
    required string message,
    string subject = "Contact Form",
    string toEmail = "to@fake.com",
    string failToEmail = "fail.to@fake.com",
    numeric priority = 2,
    array attachements,
    required string smtp,
    required string smtpUsername,
    required string smtpPassword
  )
  returnformat='json' {
    /***** BEGIN DEFAULT RETURN VALUE *****/
      // Pre-populate the JSON structure that is to be returned on failure or success.
      // This can be adjusted to meet your needs.
      local.returnValue = {
        "statusCode" : 1000,
        "requestID" : createUUID(),
        "permissions" : "VALED",
        "data" = {
          "message" : "Success"
        },
        "eventName" : "/com/modules/contactUs.cfc",
        "requestParams" : arguments
     };
    /***** END DEFAULT RETURN VALUE *****/

    /***** BEGIN EMAIL PROCESS *****/
      try {
        // Create an instance of the mail object
        mail=new mail();

        // Set it's properties
        mail.setSubject( arguments.subject );
        mail.setTo( arguments.toEmail );
        mail.setFrom( arguments.fromEmail );
        if ( arguments.ccEmail !== "~") {
          mail.setCC( arguments.ccEmail );
        }
        if ( arguments.bccEmail !== "~") {
          mail.setBCC( arguments.bccEmail );
        }
        if ( arguments.failToEmail !== "~") {
          mail.setFailTo( arguments.failToEmail );
        }

        // Set the priority (1, 2 or 3 - High to Low)
        mail.addParam(
        name="X-Priority",
        value= arguments.priority
      );

      // Add email body content in text format
      mail.addPart(
        type="text",
        charset="utf-8",
        wraptext="72",
        body=REReplace( arguments.message, "<[^>]*>", "", "All" )
      );

      // Add email body content in HTML formats
      mail.addPart(
        type="html",
        charset="utf-8",
        body=arguments.message
      );

      // Set SMTP account access
      mail.setServer( arguments.smtp );
      mail.setUsername( arguments.smtpUsername );
      mail.setPassword( arguments.smtpPassword );

      // Send the email message
      mail.send();

      // Update JSON status message
      local.returnValue.data.message = "Email Sent";
    } 
    catch (any e) {
      local.returnValue.statusCode = 5000;
      local.returnValue.data.message = e.message;
    }
  /***** END EMAIL PROCESS *****/

  /***** BEGIN JSON CLEAN UP OF ARGUMENTS TO RELAY BACK THE USER *****/
    StructDelete(local.returnValue.requestParams, "smtp");
    StructDelete(local.returnValue.requestParams, "smtpUsername");
    StructDelete(local.returnValue.requestParams, "smtpPassword");
    StructDelete(local.returnValue.requestParams, "failToEmail");
    if ( local.returnValue.requestParams.ccEmail == "~" ) {
      StructDelete(local.returnValue.requestParams, "ccEmail");
    }
    if ( local.returnValue.requestParams.bccEmail == "~" ) {
      StructDelete(local.returnValue.requestParams, "bccEmail");
    }
  /***** END JSON CLEAN UP OF ARGUMENTS TO RELAY BACK THE USER *****/

  return local.returnValue;
}

Minimal event listeners with jQuery

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

I have a few pages on a project that use lots of buttons and event listeners. The developers that worked on this page created a single event listener for every button and every state (click, hover, mouseover, mouseout, etc). This seems to standard development practice.

But, to save 600 lines of code I created only one or two listeners using regular expressions and made up HTML tag attributes. For example, we created a video player interface for JWPlayer which included a play, pause, and stop button.

<span ref="playButton">Play</span>
<span ref="pauseButton">Play</span>
<span ref="stopButton">Play</span>

Normally most people would create an event listener for each button and their click event. But, by using the regular expression I only need to create on event listener for the page. Once clicked I can check to see what button was pressed and run a method call for that button pressed.

jQuery( "[ref$=Button" ).click(
  { 
    if ( jQuery( this ).attr( "ref" ) === "playButton" ) {
      playJWPlayerVideo();
    }
    else if (jQuery( this ).attr( "ref" ) === "pauseButton" ) {
      pauseJWPlayerVideo();
    }
    else {
      stopJWPlayerVideo();
    }
  }
);

For more than 5 click events you might want to use a switch/case statement to make it run faster and to group similar events together to run the same method.

Regular Expression to test for ColdFusion ODBC data time

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

I started writing a Javascript library to convert dates in Javascript notation to ColdFusion ODBCDateTime format and back.

One of the first things that I needed to do was to check to see if a client-side ColdFusion ODBCDateTime was being returned from the server. To do this I created a Regular Expression in Javascript to make sure that the value was indeed a valid ODBCDateTime object.

Here is the Regular Expression that I used.

/^[{ts]+\s+[']+\d{4}(\-)+[0-1][0-9](\-)+[0-3][0-9]+\s+[0-2][0-9](\:)[0-5][0-9](\:)[0-5][0-9]['][}]/gi

To test that a date being returned by my server is in ODBCDateTime format I created this test:

var isODBCDateTime = /^[{ts]+\s+[']+\d{4}(\-)+[0-1][0-9](\-)+[0-3][0-9]+\s+[0-2][0-9](\:)[0-5][0-9](\:)[0-5][0-9]['][}]/gi.test( <em>date to test</em> );

Do you know your hotkeys?

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

For the last few days some colleges and I have been discussing the skill levels of computer users ( I will have to write a posting on this at another time). One of the topics that I brought up is that few people know what hotkey are.

For those of you that do not know what hotkeys are, they a series of keyboard shortcuts that perform tasks and run programs. Your Window key and Apple Key on your keyboard are short cut keys.

In the old days of Windows. Almost 20 years ago there was not a “Windows” key on the keyboard (Gasp!!!). So you had drag the mouse the Start button bring up your list of installed programs. But, if you knew the long running hotkey combination Ctrl-Esc you could activated the Start menu and use you arrow keys to navigate the menu and find your application.

“But, why would I care about this. I have a mouse.” True. But, using hot keys speeds up routine tasks.

For example. Think about how much time it takes you to save a document with the mouse.

If I am working on a paper for a class I have to scroll down to the end of the document with the mouse to make changes. I leave my mouse pointer / cursor in the bottom right of the screen. I start typing. I feel good about my changes and now have to my mouse to to the application tool to find and click the save button.

Now open a document. Hold down the Ctrl and press the End key to take you to the of the document. Append your document. When finished hold down the Ctrl and press the S key. You have just saved your document.

Just think about all the time you could save if your hand never had to leave the keyboard to reach for your mouse.

Every program and operating system has different hotkeys. I don’t know them all. But, I have a few URL addresses to help us find them.

Here are some generic keyboard short cuts. That work in 90% of all windows programs.

Generic
Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert:	Copy.
Ctrl + X or Shift + Delete:	Cut.
Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert:	Paste/Move.
Ctrl + N:	New File, Tab, Entry, etc.
Ctrl + S:	Save.
Ctrl + O:	Open…
Ctrl + P:	Print.
Ctrl + Z:	Undo.
Ctrl + A:	Select all.
Ctrl + F:	Find…
Ctrl + F4:	Close tab or child window.
F1:	Open help.
F11:	Toggle full screen mode.
Alt or F10:	Activate menu bar.
Alt + Space:	Display system menu. Same as clicking the icon on the titlebar.
Escape:	Remove focus from current control/menu, or close dialog box.

Generic Navigation
Tab:	Forward one item.
Shift + Tab:	Backward one item.
Ctrl + Tab:	Cycle through tabs/child windows.
Ctrl + Shift + Tab:	Cycle backwards through tabs/child windows.
Enter:	If a button’s selected, click it, otherwise, click default button.
Space:	Toggle items such as radio buttons or checkboxes.
Alt + (Letter):	Activate item corresponding to (Letter). (Letter) is the underlined letter on the item’s name.
Ctrl + Left:	Move cursor to the beginning of previous word.
Ctrl + Right:	Move cursor to the beginning of next word.
Ctrl + Up:	Move cursor to beginning of previous paragraph. This and all subsequent Up/Down hotkeys in this section have only been known to work in RichEdit controls.
Ctrl + Down:	Move cursor to beginning of next paragraph.
Shift + Left:	Highlight one character to the left.
Shift + Right:	Highlight one character to the right.
Shift + Up:	Highlight from current cursor position, to one line up.
Shift + Down:	Highlight from current cursor position, to one line down.
Ctrl + Shift + Left:	Highlight to beginning of previous word.
Ctrl + Shift + Right:	Highlight to beginning of next word.
Ctrl + Shift + Up:	Highlight to beginning of previous paragraph.
Ctrl + Shift + Down:	Highlight to beginning of next paragraph.
Home:	Move cursor to top of a scrollable control.
End:	Move cursor to bottom of a scrollable control.

Generic Web Browsers
Ctrl + Tab or Ctrl + PageDown:	Cycle through tabs.
Ctrl + Shift + Tab or Ctrl + PageUp:	Cycle through tabs in reverse.
Ctrl + (1-9):	Switch to tab corresponding to number.
Ctrl + N:	New browser window.
Ctrl + T:	New tab.
Ctrl + L or Alt + D or F6:	Switch focus to location bar.
Ctrl + Enter:	Open location in new tab.
Shift + Enter:	Open location in new window.
Ctrl + O:	Open a local file.
Ctrl + W:	Close tab, or window if there’s only one tab open.
Ctrl + Shift + W:	Close window.
Ctrl + S:	Save page as a local file.
Ctrl + P:	Print page.
Ctrl + F or F3:	Open find toolbar.
Ctrl + G or F3:	Find next
Ctrl + Shift + G or Shift + F3:	Find previous
Ctrl + B or Ctrl + I:	Open Bookmarks sidebar.
Ctrl + H:	Open History sidebar.
Escape:	Stop loading page.
Ctrl + R or F5:	Reload current page.
Ctrl + Shift + R or Ctrl + F5:	Reload current page; bypass cache.
Ctrl + U:	View page source.
Ctrl + D:	Bookmark current page.
Ctrl + NumpadPlus or Ctrl + Equals (+/=):	Increase text size.
Ctrl + NumpadMinus or Ctrl +	Minus: Decrease text size.
Ctrl + Numpad0 or Ctrl + 0:	Set text size to default.
Alt + Left or Backspace:	Back.
Alt + Right or Shift + Backspace:	Forward.
Alt + Home:	Open home page.
Ctrl + M:	Open new message in integrated mail client.
Ctrl + J:	Open Downloads dialog.

Portable Apps

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

I had a posting on my old blog about Portable Apps and want to talk about them for those of you that do not know what they are.

Basically Portable Apps allow users to take some of their favorite apps with them where ever they go. For instance I installed the portable apps to my iPod, which I can use as a portable hard drive for backup.

I get calls from people all the time that need help fixing their computers. To avoid downloading software to install on a clients machine. I simple connect my iPod to their computer, run the Portable Apps menu, and now have access to all my applications. I can scan for viruses, trojans, malware and spyware. Check hard drives for bad sectors, recover deleted files, and defrag. Additional apps allow me to packet sniff network traffic, surf the internet, make Skype calls, manage passwords, edit and browse the photos. And if you really need to there a ton of games.

These are some of my day-to-day apps. But there are tons more at PortableApps.com

Fire Fox – Web browser
Google Chrome – Web browser
Opera – Web browser
FileZilla – FTP Client
Mozilla Thunderbird – Email Client
Pidgin – Chat with AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc.
PuTTY – telnet and SSH client
OpenOffice – word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with Microsoft compatibility
LibreOffice Portable – word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with excellent compatibility
ClamWin Portable – Antivirus
Eraser Portable – securely delete files and data
KeePass Password Safe – Secure, easy-to-use password manager
Spybot – Search & Destroy – Spyware detection and removal
7-Zip – File archiver and compressor
CrystalDiskInfo – disk health monitoring tool
Disk Cleaner – cache, temp file and history cleaner
Smart Defrag – disk defragmentation and optimization
TeamViewer – remote PC support and screen-sharing
Toucan – backup, sync and encrypt for advanced users
VirtuaWin – virtual desktop manager
Wise Registry Cleaner – registry cleaner and optimizer
Wise Data Recovery – data and file recovery
Notepad++ – A full-featured text editor with syntax highlighting

Visual Trace Route via VisualRoute.com

January 31, 2016February 23, 2016lighthouseknowledge

I some times get calls from a client telling me that their connection to a site is bad or slow. As always, testing from my office is fine. But, how do you check a server from out side you network?

Well, here is one way. As you know there is tracert for DOS and shell. But, is only for the network that you are connect to. To test out side you network you might want to use VisualRoute.com and follow these steps.

Go to VisualRoute.com
Click Live Demo on the gray menu bar.
Select which region of world you wish to connect from (“North America”)
Select a push pin to select a server to test from (“Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
Next the site will try and run the Java app that talks to the server you selected. You may be prompted to verify that you want to run this Java app.
Once the app is loaded you should see field labelled Perform connection test to. The filed is per-populated with your IP address.
To test a URL or IP address other than your own. Change the field value for Perform connection test to ( http://www.lighthouseknowledge.com )
Click the start button to the right of the field.
When the test is complete the Summary will give you a visual representation of the network path it took, a performance chart of said machines, text analysis information, and a map of the path it took. All of which are clickable for more information or to load each segment in its corresponding tab.

Visualware, the developer of VisualRoute.com, allows you purchase a desktop application from them perform the same task but from with the network you are in.

If you wish you can also download the server version from Visualware and be added to the world wide network list of trace route servers.