Syn.acK

I use Windows Live Messenger ( also known as MSN Live Messenger ) often for instant messaging. The other day I got the “80072efd” error.

Luckily, I found a few things you need to check to get MSN Live Messenger working again:

• Make sure your firewall does not block MSN Messenger
• Make sure your Windows is updated

If you checked the above things, this is a method you can try to solve the problem:

1. Go to Start, and click on “Run”.
2. Type cmd and press enter.
3. A black screen with white letters will open. Typ in the following: ipconfig /flushdns
4. Press enter
5. Type exit and press enter
6. Try if Windows Live / MSN Messenger works now

If the above method does still not solve the problem, this is a last method that might solve the problem:

1. Go to Start, Run
2. Type in the following and press enter:
3. REGSVR32 softpub.dll initpki.dll wintrust.dll
4. Click OK
5. Try if Windows Live / MSN Messenger works now

If Windows Live Messenger still will not work, then there is another thing you can try:

1. Start Internet Explorer
2. Go to the Tools menu. Click on Internet Options
3. Click on the connection tab and click on LAN settings
4. Uncheck / clear the the “Automatically detect settings” box
5. Click on OK, and then again on OK.
6. Try if Windows Live / MSN Messenger works now

I hope this will help anyone with the problem!

A few days ago, I was updating Windows XP and got the Windows Update error 80070420. Here is a method on how to fix it. Take the following steps:

• Go to Start, Control Panel
• Open Add / Remove Programs
• Search for the following:

• If you see the above item, click Remove. Reboot your computer afterwards. If you don’t see the link, proceed to the next step.
• Open the following link and install the software: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=889482fc-5f56-4a38-b838-de776fd4138c&displaylang=en
• Reboot your computer.
• Try Windows XP update again.

The problem should now be solved!

A few weeks ago, I had a problem while updating a brand new Dell laptop with Windows Vista on it. Anyway, while I was updating Windows Vista through Windows Vista Update, I got the following error:

Windows Vista Update failed with Error 8024D00F

Here is a solution for this problem:

• Click on Start
• Go to Programs -> Accessories
• Right click on Command Prompt and choose “Run as Administrator”

Then type the following and press enter:

reg delete HKLM\Components /v AdvancedInstallersNeedResolving

After this, reboot your computer. Windows Vista Update will now work fine!

iSlsk is a great app for the iPhone that enables you to use p2p on your iPhone. You can use it to download music to your phone.

I installed it through Installer.app, but I a got an error message when I tried to put the music into my iTunes database.

The error message I got was “Your Firewire GUID couldn’t be recognized and therefore music importing will not be available“.

There are 2 possible fixes for this problem.

- You can do this automatically:

Add this to your sources in Installer.app:

http://i.hijinksinc.com

Install the following application via Installer.app. Look at the Hijinks Inc. category and install this:
Firewire GUID Patch for iSlsk

- You can also do this manually through SSH’ing to your iPhone ( if you don’t know how to do this, use the automatic way ):
1. Make sure that you have the “ioreg” binary in /usr/bin/
2. If you do not have it, download it here. After that, move it to /usr/bin/
3. Run the following commands:
4. chmod 755 /usr/bin/ioreg
5. chown -R mobile:mobile /Applications/iSlsk.app/
6. Download libncurses.5.dylib
7. Upload libncurses.5.dylib to /usr/lib
8. chmod 777 /usr/lib/lib*
9. Restart your iPhone

If you still have the FireWire GUID error, continue with the following commands:

10. mkdir /var/root/Media/Downloads
11. chmod 777 /var/root/Media/Downloads/
12. ln -s /private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control /private/var/root/Media

Is there something like a “programmers block” ?

If there is, I’m sure experiencing one lately. I guess every programmer knows this. You wrote a piece of code and the following day you want to change it. The next day you want to change it again because “it isn’t the right way to do it”. Is there a right way to code software? Is there a right way on how to engineer a piece of software?

The other day I read a comment from Linus Torvalds on the “programmers block”. His solution was just to get coding. I tried that, but it just doesn’t work. I get dissatisfaction from doing this, the code you’re writing is not the thing you want to create. I guess kernel developing and writing web applications are two worlds apart.

The problem with the programmers block is that you get slacky. You know what I mean, you surf on the web, find a few interesting news articles and you’re reading those. You can keep doing this for hours without even getting a step further. Just doing something else for a while and then get back to coding doesn’t work either. At a certain time you think you’ve found a good way to code something. A few hours later you discover that this method you’ve developed actually is way to complicated to actually work well. The problem you’re getting into is that you’re spending more time deciphering your own code than using your own code to get something done. I’ve seen this happening in other software projects as well. It’s a hell.

The problem nowadays is that there are a lot of ways to get a piece of software to work. A few years ago I encountered badly written software that was kinda of a portal like thing. Clients could login and manage information ( I’m not going to bore you with the details ). Although the source of this project was a mess, this software actually worked pretty well. I was surprised that someone with almost no knowledge on how to build software could get this far. A few years later I myself have to design software projects. You’re trying to think about everything: usability, modularity, security, speed. Every time I start coding I want to include all that in one framework. Every time I encounter my code or my designs I notice that this is way to complicated. Is it even possible to include all that in one framework that works? Isn’t it smarter just to get coding and make your software modular later on? I think it would be easier to do that. You already know what the software does and if you improve the source code you know that the software has to work the same way it already did.

Another thing I encounter are projects that are almost fully OOP orientated. I’ve already written about this in the part. The more of this code I see, the more I think OOP isn’t that bad at all. It’s just about how you implement it. If you have a class, that uses a function of another class and that functions in itself uses a function from the original class, the code is a mess. There are ways to keep your code clean and use OOP code at the same time though. I would like to test that approach if I’ve got the time. That’s right, “if I got the time”. That’s the third problem I encounter when writing for software projects.

It used to be fun to code software for your own pet projects. The problem is, at the moment the project get things like deadlines and features that need to be implemented it isn’t that fun anymore. It’s just boring. When you have to do something it suddenly isn’t as fun anymore as it used to be. When you haven’t got a lot time and you have a programmers block things can get frustrating.

I think I just will throw a large part away of the code I have now and start again. I think. What’s your opinion on how to design good software and keepin’ it real?

A few days ago I needed to code a little calendar in JavaScript. While I was doing this, I needed a piece of code to get the week number of a date.

If you, for example, need to get the day of the month with JavaScript you can use this:

var mydate = new Date();
month = mydate.getMonth();

I wanted to get a ISO 8601 week number with the same method. You can use this piece of code to get this actually working:

<script type="text/javascript">
Date.prototype.getWeek = function() {
    var determinedate = new Date();
    determinedate.setFullYear(this.getFullYear(), this.getMonth(), this.getDate());
    var D = determinedate.getDay();
    if(D == 0) D = 7;
    determinedate.setDate(determinedate.getDate() + (4 - D));
    var YN = determinedate.getFullYear();
    var ZBDoCY = Math.floor((determinedate.getTime() - new Date(YN, 0, 1, -6)) / 86400000);
    var WN = 1 + Math.floor(ZBDoCY / 7);
    return WN;
}
</script>

Example – Get the week number of the current day:

<script type="text/javascript">
var mydate = new Date();
var weeknumber = mydate.getWeek();
</script>

Example – Get the week number of 2 May 2008:

<script type="text/javascript">
var 2may2008 = new Date();
2may2008.setFullYear(2008, 4, 2);
var weeknumber = 2may2008.getWeek();
</script>


I tested the above method on IE 6+ and FF 2 and it works perfectly.

I read a lot about the speed of programming languages that can be used for web apps lately. A lot of people think Ruby is cool because it’s so easy to build stuff. On the other hand, it will be probably be very slow. This is the same for everything that’s build in ASP and .NET. The last language can’t even be called a proper language, it’s just pure crap.

The main thing everyone is discussing about is how fast a language is once you’ve written a program. I still think you need to choose the right tool for the job, but I think PHP is great. It’s easy to program and it can do virtually anything. ( In comparison to other languages that are commonly used for web apps ). Maybe I will give Python a go in the future too. Anyway, one of the big reasons people would not use PHP for their web apps is the speed. PHP isn’t the fastest language there is, no. So I thought: how can I improve this speed?
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Something that I can really be pissed off about lately is when people make statements that just don’t make any sense. They don’t have a good reason why they have such an opinion. The last time this happens a lot at my work at some big company.

People that are above me in the chain of command just don’t agree with you because it’s fun to disagree. I call this “Just because it sounds cool”-statements. It’s a bit like this:

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Just a quick post about a problem I had a few days ago.

I noticed after upgrading to Ubuntu Feisty from Ubuntu Edgy the last time, PhpMyAdmin didn’t work anymore. I got the following error:

#1045 - Access denied for user: 'www-data@localhost' (Using password: YES)

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Yesterday my internet connection was down due a problem with the line. It’s often when I don’t have a connection to the internet I come up with good idea’s.

A while ago I read in a blogpost that someone had a problem with wp-cron.php. It brought the server of the blogger to his knees. It was a bug in wp-cron.php that caused Wordpress to keep starting these jobs bringing the webserver down. I don’t know if this bug is fixed now but I thought it would be one of those things you would check while progging the code.
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