I’m sitting at the Honda dealership waiting for my third visit in almost as many weeks for squeaky brakes. Keep in mind my brakes weren’t squeaking when I originally came in for routine maintenance. And that everytime I come here they say “a few minutes” but I’m here for two hours. If I knew it was going to take two hours I’d try to get work done. Instead I sit waiting, staring at the TV and looking around every few minutes for my hopefully completed and repaired vehicle.

Alas, here I sit… Still waiting… Ugh…

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Here’s my setup, and here’s what fixed it…

Windows 7 Ultimate 64
TortoiseSVN 1.6.6
Netbeans 6.8
BitDefender2010

Wait… BitDefender? Why does that matter? Honestly, I have no idea… But switching off the firewall and real time protection, doing my updates, and turning them back on fixed my checkout/update/commit issues.

How did I figure this out?

In an act of desperation I booted my machine up in Safe Mode + Networking (most of you probably already know how to do this, if not let me help you.) Safe Mode + Networking loads Windows up in a bare bones environment plus allows internet access (but still used 800MB of RAM in my case, blech…)

Anyhow, I noticed right off the bat that BitDefender wasn’t running, and everything worked perfectly. A quick reboot back to reality, and disabling my anti-virus and TortoiseSVN was good-to-go. Well, almost… The icons are still screwy, and for me the only ones that appear in the file area are the changed ones. No green check boxes for me, but at least I can see changed files.

So for everyone out there that’s about to have a stroke this holiday season from not being able to commit code changes on time, try disabling your anti-virus and firewall before admitting total defeat and see if it helps.

I wonder how long it takes for self-inflicted bald spots to fill back in… Hmm…

I am using NetBeans as my debugging IDE, and so far it works just fine.

First off, comment out in your active php.ini:
;extension=php_xdebug-2.0.0-5.2.2.dll

Then add this to the bottom of your active php.ini (Adjust your directories and xdebug filename accordingly.)

[XDebug]
; Only Zend OR (!) XDebug
zend_extension_ts="C:/Program Files (x86)/wamp/bin/php/php5.2.9-2/ext/php_xdebug-2.0.0-5.2.2.dll"
xdebug.remote_enable=on
xdebug.remote_host=localhost
xdebug.remote_port=9000
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.profiler_enable=0
xdebug.profiler_output_dir="C:/Program Files (x86)/wamp/tmp"

That’s it! Good luck and hope this helps someone!

Quiqr WordPress Widget

To do:

• Cache generated images on server
• Create admin interface for advanced options
• Integrate with Quiqr.org account

Actually, I noticed this some time ago, but never found it bothersome until this most recent project. Under most circumstances it actually creates for a rather visually pleasing web browsing experience, but falls noticeably short with white text on a dark-ish background.

The fix for web authors, it seems, is quite simple. Applying a wee bit of CSS magic to the objects’ text-shadow attribute will do the trick. I personally add it to the body object, but thanks to the wonders of CSS, this effect could be added or removed to individual objects as you wish.
text-shadow: 0 0 0 #000;
Now your type will look uniform across all browsers, without any inherent font smoothing, anti-aliasing, or silent visual adjustments.

I purchased my first Tropical Winds Beach Blanket as a gift for my girlfriend for her birthday. I contacted Lea through the address available on her website, as I had a few questions about durability and care. I was surprised to receive an almost immediate response. Lea answered all of my questions, and even threw in a Tropical Winds Blanket Bag for free since it was a gift for my girlfriend.

So far we’ve used the blanket only twice, since the weather here in Wisconsin has been less than desirable. The first time we went to the lake front in Milwaukee (which is Lake Michigan for you non-locals.) There was so much sand blowing around I was picking it out of my hair and ears for 3 days. But the second time… the second time a pterodactyl bird took aim and crapped all over the blanket, no lie… I’m not that funny, I couldn’t make it up if I tried… I think it may have dive bombed us…

Thankfully all of the answers Lea gave me about durability were right, and the blanket came out totally unscathed.

You’d be surprised the attention it gets too! Because of its size and the stakes that it comes with to secure it into the sand, people always comment about wanting one and where to find them. I gladly send them to Lea’s website and fully endorse this product.

Contact

• Lea
• http://www.thetropicalwinds.com/
• Telephone: # 941-426-6972
• Email: info@thetropicalwinds.com
• Hours: 9am – 5pm / Monday through Saturday

On with it!