It’s taken a lot to pull me away from good old Microsoft Internet Explorer but the latest beta of Firefox 3.5 has finally done it. I did have a brief fling with Google Chrome in between but it’s just not quite mature enough to settle down with. I have tried to use Firefox previously but had never fully embraced its greatest feature – its extensibility.  Firefox itself is a fairly vanilla and boring experience, but when you add some of the great user contributed add-ons to the browser it becomes a much more satisfying experience. This post is dedicated to some of my favourites at the moment.

Adblock Plus

Official Site | Mozilla Add-ons

This extension is, in my opinion, the most essential add-on for Firefox. As the name states it blocks ads on web pages, not only de-cluttering the page but making it load much faster. Normally I don’t mind putting up with ads but it was this add-on that played a part in pulling me away from Google Chrome when a site I frequent was slowed to a crawl by a broken ad server. A must have.

Autopager

Official Site | Mozilla Add-ons

This add-on was also instrumental in Firefox winning me over. It turns sites with multiple pages of results, items, forum posts and the like into a single continuously scrolling page. As you near the bottom of each page of results it loads the next and tacks it onto the bottom of the page current. I love this add-on as it always annoys me how hard most sites make it to click their tiny little page numbers or next page links to move through pages. The add-on comes with support for a huge amount of sites including Google, Digg and most forum software but you can also add and share your own support for just about any site you come across.

Speed Dial

Official Site | Mozilla Add-ons

Speed Dial adds a homepage similar to that found in Opera and Google Chrome which presents you with a grid of screenshots representing your favourite websites giving you easy access to them every time you open a new tab or window. It is highly customisable letting you specify how many items you want on the page, how often each thumbnail updates and even lets you specify a different URL for the thumbnail image than the URL it links to. An example is a speed dial I have setup to link to my Google Calendar week view which is represented by a thumbnail being generated from the agenda view so I can see a list of upcoming appointments at a glance and then open up the full week by clicking it.

IE Tab

Official Site | Mozilla Add-ons

IE Tab allows you to almost completely avoid having to open Internet Explorer to view those pesky and defiant sites that just don’t work properly in anything else. It does this by converting any tab into an instance of Internet Explorer allowing you to view these sites directly within Firefox. This can be done manually when you open a site by clicking the Firefox icon in the bottom right of the window or automatically using its very smart rules system. It comes default with support for Windows Update and works great with Outlook Web Access.

Peers

Official Site | Mozilla Add-ons

Peers adds instant search results to the location bar or search box for Google, Yahoo and any other search engine you have installed and setup with a keyword. I found this add-on invaluable as I got so used to the similar feature in Google Chrome and have removed the search box from Firefox completely.

Cooliris

Official Site | Mozilla Add-ons

This add-on isn’t so much a necessity as it is just plain cool. It turns pages of images from Google Images, Facebook, Flickr and a number of other popular sites into a fullscreen 3D experience letting you zoom and pan through pages of images in a single wall instead. It really must be seen to be fully appreciated so head over to the Cooliris website and check out the demo.

I’m currently evaluating Small Business Server 2008 on a machine which I also use for testing websites and learning PHP. With such tight integration of IIS7 to run the SBS services of remote access to Exchange email, SharePoint and even just web-based remote access of machine it makes it impossible to simply stop IIS and replace it with Apache. Instead we need to set them both up to run side-by-side.

At first I told Apache to run on a different port but got tired of appending the port number to the URL every time I needed to access it from my PC.

After some more research I found a way of giving the server a second IP address and running IIS7 on one and Apache on the other, both still on port 80. One caveat to this setup is that to keep outside access to Small Business Server’s remote applications is that external SSL connections on port 443 must remain routed to IIS7.

Add a Second IP Address

1. Login to your server’s desktop and click Start –> Control Panel then open Network and Sharing Center and click Manage Network Connections under Tasks in the left panel
2. Right-click the machine’s network adapter and click Properties, clicking Continue on the UAC prompt if enabled
3. In the list select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click the Properties button
4. In the Properties dialog click the Advanced… button down the bottom-right
5. On the IP Settings tab click the Add… button in the IP addresses grouping
6. Enter the new IP address of your choice and the required Subnet mask then click Add
7. You should now have two IP addresses assigned to your machine. Click OK or close all open dialogs and windows

Bind IIS to a Single IP Address

By default IIS listens on all IP addresses assigned to the machine. We need to change this and bind it to only one. I chose to keep IIS running on the original IP address (In my case 192.168.1.100) and run Apache on the second one I assigned to it (192.168.1.110).

1. Click Start, type “cmd” in the search box then right-click cmd.exe in the Programs list and choose Run as Administrator. Click Continue on the UAC prompt
2. In the command prompt type the following:
   netsh http show iplisten
   The list returned should be empty
3. In the command prompt type:
   netsh http add iplisten ipaddress=192.168.1.100
   Replacing 192.168.1.100 with the existing IP address of your machine
4. Type out the show command from step 2 a second time and you should see your IP address in the list
5. Reboot the IIS services by typing the following in your open command prompt
   iisreset
   It will take a few minutes to completely shutdown and restart IIS
6. Once IIS has reset close the command prompt and test both your IPs in a web browser again, this time IIS should only display on a single IP address

Install and Configure Apache

For the installation of Apache you’re on your own. You can either install it from scratch or use one of the combined WAMP packages out there. Personally I use XAMPP as I am quite lazy and no longer have the time to manually install all the required components separately.

Once you have installed Apache, we need to bind it to the second, unused IP address

1. Run notepad as an administrator using the method from step 1 above
2. In Notepad click File –> Open and navigate to the folder Apache installed in. Within this folder select the ‘conf’ folder then open up the httpd.conf file (NOTE: make sure you have All Files (*.*) selected in the drop-down box at the bottom right otherwise you will not see the files)
3. Locate the line
   Listen 80
   And change it to
   Listen 192.168.1.110:80
   Replacing 192.168.1.110 with the second IP you assigned to your machine.
   
4. Save your changes then go to File –> Open and navigate to the ‘extras’ subfolder of the conf folder and open the httpd-ssl.conf file
5. Locate the line
   Listen 443
   And change it to
   Listen 192.168.1.110:443
   Again replacing the IP address written here with your own
   
6. Save your changes and start/restart Apache

You should now be able to view IIS on your original IP address and Apache on the new one you added. To get external access to Apache instead of IIS you would simply change the port forwarding rule for port 80 in your router to point to this new IP address instead of the original one.

Make sure that you do not change port forwarding for port 443 though as this will stop all remote access to email and other SBS 2008 services!

Sources

• http://www.simongibson.com/intranet/multiip/
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733768.aspx
• http://weblogs.asp.net/steveschofield/archive/2007/07/06/iis7-post-44-iis7-and-apache-on-the-same-machine.aspx - Unfortunately I didn’t find Steve Schofield’s excellent guide on doing the same thing until after I had struggled through it all.

iTunes has some really advanced features for organising your music but seems to ignore the fact that a lot of people may have music libraries larger than their iPod. Its solutions of only adding manually chosen playlists or randomly selecting music itself to go onto the iPod aren’t very helpful for people who still want the majority of their library accessible on the go or want more control over the music on their iPod.

My solution is to create a master live updating ‘smart playlist’ for the iPod which ignores songs that have been tagged with iTunes Only in the Grouping field, unless they have a rating of higher than one star. The reason for the second condition is that it allows me to tag entire albums as iTunes Only but still have single songs off them show up on the iPod if I rate them.

The advantage of doing it this way is that new content you put into iTunes will still automatically get added to the iPod unless you tell it not to.

Create an iPod Master Playlist

1. In iTunes go to File –> New Smart Playlist…
2. Add the rule ‘Grouping does not contain iTunes Only’
3. Optionally add another rule ‘Rating is greater than one star’ and change the Match rule at the top to ‘any’
4. Make sure Live updating is checked, and the Limit and Match only… options are unchecked
5. Click OK and name your playlist ‘iPod’

Tag Selected Songs with ‘iTunes Only’

1. In your iTunes library, select the song(s) you don’t want on your iPod.
2. Right-click and select Get Info
3. On the Info tab, go down to the Grouping field and enter ‘iTunes Only’

Instruct your iPod to Sync with the iPod Playlist

1. Connect your iPod to your PC
2. Select your iPod under Devices on the left
3. From the iPod Summary screen, select the Music tab
4. Make sure Sync Music is checked then click the Selected Playlists radio button
5. Select your iPod playlist in the list and any others you decide you want on your iPod, click Apply in the bottom right then click Sync

Now you can easily select what songs you do or don’t want on your iPod.

I thought I’d do a few posts devoted to some of my favourite applications and utilities. In this post are a number of free utilities I use both at work and home on a daily basis.

IE7Pro

This is an add-on for Internet Explorer 7 (and IE8 beta) that adds a multitude of features not present in the original application. The list is quite long (see their website for a complete list) but my favourite features are the Ad blocker, Search shortcuts, Download manager and the ability to double-click a tab to close it. It also includes mouse gestures and user created scripts to change the appearance of pages or add new features (kind of like Greasemonkey for Firefox). Essential for any Internet Explorer user!

Ycopy

This tool is a life saver when trying to move around lots of data. Quite simply it copies files from one location to another without interruption. If it finds a file it cannot access to copy it adds an entry to the log file and keeps on going, allowing you to deal with it later on. This is in contrast to the Windows copy utility which stops dead at any file it can’t access making you start all over again. A must for computer stores.

SyncBack

SyncBack is a very powerful and free synchronisation and backup tool. Its main features I find useful are the scheduling options and the email function which allows it to email a log file if the backup fails. It has many options and filters to make sure you only get the files you want. The company also makes a Pro, paid version which is even better again and allows it to also backup files that are currently in use.

Taskbar Shuffle

Another simple tool with a single purpose – to allow the re-arranging of open applications on the Windows Taskbar. Very handy if you have a number of applications you keep open all the time and like to have them in a set order on the Taskbar to find them easier. Newer versions also allow you to re-arrange items in the System Tray.

Just a quick FYI post if you’ve installed PC-Cillin 2007; have SpyBot Search & Destroy installed; and have found your computer to have started running painfully slow, there is a known compatibility issue between the two security applications.

The issue relates to the immunisation feature of SpyBot and PC-Cillin’s Spyware scanner.

For more information and for instructions to fix the issue, take a look at this Support Bulletin on Trend Micro’s website.

Something I’ve noticed whilst using Windows Vista (which may be closely related to the issues I’ve had previously with my router) is that occasionally all access to websites will stop and all I’ll get is a “Cannot Find Server” error page immediately. I don’t know exactly what is causing it, but flushing the DNS cache seems to fix it.

To flush your system’s DNS Resolver Cache do the following:

1. Open a command prompt with administrator priveliges (Click Start, type “cmd” and right-click it then go to “Run as administrator” or press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER)
2. Click Continue on the User Account Control dialog
3. Type the following string:
   ipconfig /flushdns
   and hit enter. You should see the message “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache”
4. Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter.

You should now be able to access websites again. This is a perfectly harmless fix to try but there are no guarantees as to whether it will fix your specific problem. However I have found it to be an adequate fix for my own issue until I can pinpoint the cause of it.

Shortly after installing Windows Vista I went on an updating spree and updated all my device drivers and firmware to their most current versions. This included updating my Netgear DG834 v2 ADSL Modem/Router to version 3.01.32.

Somehow doing this ended up stopping Windows Live Messenger 8.1 from being able to login.

A lot of searching revealed that there are some known issues between Windows Vista and certain Routers. This has something to do with the way in which Windows Vista’s new networking stack can tune itself for the best performance. You can read more about the auto-tuning feature in this column on Microsoft’s website.

The easiest and best solution I found was to downgrade my router’s firmware back to version 3.01.25. I have been running this version successfully with no network issues at all for weeks now.

You can find Netgear firmware downloads at http://kbserver.netgear.com/downloads_support.asp. Consult your router’s manual for installation instructions.

If this doesn’t work for you, you’re already using that firmware, or you have a different model router, then you can try disabling the “Autotuning” feature:

1. Click Start and type “cmd” into the Quick Search box.
2. Right-click the “cmd” item that appears and select “Run as administrator” (Or hit ctrl+shift+enter). Click “Continue” in the resulting UAC dialog and a Command Prompt window will open.
3. In this window type the following string:
   netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
   and hit enter. The prompt will return “Ok.” If successful.
4. Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter, or by clicking the close button in the top right corner.
5. Reboot your computer.

I found that disabling auto-tuning worked great for restoring Windows Live Messenger functionality but I was still experiencing some random network issues. Try the router firmware option first if you’re able to.

If you’re using a “current model” ADSL Modem/Router then continue to keep an eye on the manufacturer’s site for an updated, Windows Vista compatible firmware version.

This small add-on for Internet Explorer published by IEForge replaces the standard “Find on Page” dialog box with a bar that appears at the bottom of the page instead similar to the one in FireFox.

It has a few extra features compared to the default find box like searching as you type and an option to highlight all occurrences of your search term on the page at the same time. The box will also turn red as you type if the term you enter doesn’t exist in the page which is nice.

The best feature of it though in my opinion is that it stays out of the way of the content of the page you’re searching on, unlike the default box that you need to drag all over the place to look behind it.

You can download it from IEForge’s site.

For some seemingly unknown reason tonight my copy of iTunes decided to start displaying the following “Saving iTunes Library” dialog whenever I quit the application.

The dialog would only be there for a few seconds but would make my PC completely unresponsive while it did its thing.

I remembered I had experienced this issue before but couldn’t find the site I’d originally found the solution on. A lot of searching later I found this thread on iLounge containing the solution — Exclude your iTunes folder from your Antivirus program’s active scanning.

I realised after this that I had just done a fresh reinstall of my antivirus program, NOD32, to fix another issue and in doing this had cleared out all my previous settings. Adding my iTunes folder to its exclusions list again worked a treat.

One of my most missed Windows XP utilities since moving to Windows Vista has been the Image Resizer PowerToy released by Microsoft a few years back. They released a whole bunch of PowerToys and this was hands-down the most useful out of them all.

This tool allowed you to select a bunch of images then just right-click on one and select resize to create smaller copies of them alongside the originals. I found this tool extremely useful when wanting to send high-quality photos I’d taken to friends over an Instant Messaging client like MSN.

Windows Vista comes with a handful of simple photo editing tools built into Windows Photo Gallery including tools to fix exposure, colour and red eye and it even comes with a tool to crop your picture, but an image resizing tool is nowhere to be found. Why they would skip such a fundamental photo editing tool I don’t know.

However, a quick search tonight has come up with an application that very closely mimics the operation of the original Microsoft PowerToy, and also adds a couple of extra features on top. The name of this application is VSO Image Resizer and it is available as a free download from their site, VSO Software.

Once installed it really does act just like the Microsoft PowerToy. Select a photo or two, right-click and select VSO Image Resizer from the context-menu then select the size you want and hit “OK”, it will create your resized images alongside the old ones.

Take a look at VSO’s website for some screenshots and more information and of course to download the application.

If you’re still using Windows XP and want the Image Resizer PowerToy you can still find it on Microsoft’s PowerToys page.