Photoshop Rounded Corners

February 26th, 2010

The latest buzz is web 2.0, and the web design is usually with lots of rounded corners. To achieve this effect is pretty simple. Open your image in Photoshop and let’s get started.

1. Create a new layer
2. Pick the rounded rectangle shape
3. Choose the “paths” and Set the radius to 10px
Rounded Corners
4. Draw a rectangle, but don’t worry about getting it all the way into the corners
5. Now, hit Ctrl+T and pull the shape into the corners
6. Make the path a selection
7. hit Ctrl+Shft+I to get the inverse
8. Select your (unlocked) background layer and delete the corners!

Hope that helps save you some time and gets you the web 2.0 rounded corners effect.

Facebook Options Greyed out on BlackBerry

February 25th, 2010

First, you need to have access to your BlackBerry Enterprise Server…or be friends with the IT department. This is a cool feature to have if you use Facebook like I do. All the pictures, phone numbers, and events will have access to your phone. If you don’t like what it does, you always have the option to turn it back off.

The directions are so spread out across multiple BlackBerry forums and BlackBerry’s actual website. I thought I would make one nice set of instructions here.

1. Grab the “Value Added” IT Policy here. At the bottom of the article is a link to a zip file that you will need to download the the BES server. Obviously, extract the contents.

2. Open BES Manager. On the left, highlight BlackBerry Domain then click Global tab. Next, along the right, expand Service Control and Customization. Click the Import IT Policy Definitions link. Navigate and find the XML document you extracted in #1 above.

3. Considering you only have 1 default IT Policy, it’s now time to modify it. While still on the Global tab in BES Manager, click Edit Properties in the tasks menu on the right. A new window will pop up. Now click IT Policy on the left and double-click IT Policies on the right. You will see your default policy listed, double-click it. Scroll down until you see RIM Value Added Applications. Find Disable organizer data access for social networking applications and set it to false.

4. For good measure, restart the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service, which will also restart all the BB services.

Give your BB about 15 minutes and the Facebook options will no longer be grey. Now you don’t have to remember calendar events or anyone’s birthday; your BlackBerry will do it for you! For corporate setup, click on Chicago IT Consulting Company.

Change RDP Port Number

February 4th, 2010

Here’s a quick reference to change the remote desktop protocol port number. This is helpful if you have multiple servers you need to access on a corporate LAN or if you want to create a backdoor for your business computer. Make sure to open the port in your firewall too!

1. Start Registry Editor.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber
3. On the Edit menu, click Modify, and then click Decimal.
4. Type the new port number, and then click OK.
5. Quit Registry Editor.

Align Image Vertically with Text using CSS

January 31st, 2010

Most people will try to wrap the text with a span class and try to vertically align it.

When what you really have to do is apply the class to the image instead.

For example:

  1.  
  2. <style>
  3. .imageMiddle {
  4. vertical-align:middle;
  5. }
  6. </style>
  7.  
  8. <div>
  9. <img src="pic.jpg" class="imageMiddle" />Some Text
  10. </div>
  11.  

Enjoy!

Delete Post From RSS Feed Display Box

January 19th, 2010

Well, the quick answer is..you can’t! I found this out the hard way after creating a test post in my Worpress blog and then deleting it. If you display your RSS feeds using MagpieRSS (or any other display box), this can be a real problem!! The problem being that it will break the RSS display box!!

To avoid this in the future, here are the only 2 options I can think of:

1. MODIFY the post instead of deleting it. You can always just modify the post to read “post removed”. Just make sure to keep the ID and stuff in tact. More than likely, you already deleted the post and found your way to this one :)

2. Create a new blog entry. Once I created a new entry, the display box was fixed! You might need to create enough entries beyond the displayed number in the box. For example, my display box has 3 entries at all times. You might need to create 3 or more new entries to fix the display box (depends how many you display).

Live and Learn

Upgrade BlackBerry Device OS Software

January 9th, 2010

This might sound a little intimidation but is actually painless.

1. Download (and install) the latest BlackBerry Desktop Manager Software:
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/desktop/

2. Download the latest device OS (save to your desktop):
https://www.blackberry.com/hhupgrade/

3. Close Desktop Manager, if it’s open, and launch the download from #2 above.

4. Connect your Phone with the USB cable.

5. After that installer runs, it should open Desktop Manager and you will see a button “update now”.

Installation time: (about 30-50 minutes).

**Not responsible for your data.
If your device gets “nuked”, this is a great link:
http://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-lecture-12-how-reload-operating-system-nuked-blackberry

Firewall Greyed out in SBS Environment

October 21st, 2009

Yet again a case where SBS trys to think for you. Like me, you probably checked the default domain policy and found nothing under firewall and started to scratch your head.

Go here:

Server Mgmet > Advance Mgmt > Group Policy > right click SBS Firewall > Edit > then browse to the Group Policy under Network Connections

You can edit the policy and get your firewall settings for your users back..or simply delete the GPO and work in the default policy as normal.

530 User cannot log in, home directory inaccessible

September 1st, 2009

For those setting up FTP in AD mode on Windows 2003 Server, here are some things to keep in mind:

Make sure you use iisftp /setadprop ftpdir
Make sure you use iisftp /setadprop ftproot

Where ftproot = c:\inetpub\ftproot (or whatever root directory you want)
Where ftpdir = test (or whatever you name the folder)

In the above example, the file permissions and structure should be set for:
c:\inetpub\ftproot\test

If it still doesn’t work, make sure you right-click the user properties in active directory and look at the security tab. Each user that needs FTP access has to have “read” set for authenticated users.

If you have any issues, please ask…

Also applies to Event ID 13
Could not access home directory

8004010F - Exchange Offline Address List

August 27th, 2009

This error usually means that your “Default Global Address List” somehow got disconnected from your “Offline Address Lists” object in Exchange System Manager.

To Resolve:

Method 1
Use this method to resolve this problem when you view Properties in the Address lists setting in Exchange System Manager.

Exchange 2003
In Exchange System Manager, expand the Recipients container.
Click the Offline Address Lists container.
In the right pane, right-click the offline address list object, and then click Properties.
On the General tab, verify that a valid address list is populated under Address lists. If a valid address list is not populated under Address lists, you must add one.

Note The default address is the global address list.
Click OK.
Right-click the offline address list object again, and then click Set as New Default if the offline address list object is not set.
If you made any changes, right-click the offline address list object again, and then click Rebuild.

Exchange 2007
In the Exchange Management Console, expand Server Configuration, and then click Mailbox.
In the Database Management window, right-click Properties on the mailbox store.
Click the Client Settings tab, click Browse, and then click the appropriate offline address book.
Click OK two times.

Method 2
Use this method to resolve this problem when you view Properties in the Offline address list setting in Exchange System Manager.

Exchange 2003
In Exchange System Manager, click Properties for the mailbox store, and then verify that the offline address list is populated with a valid offline address list object in Offline address list on the General tab.

Note If the offline address list is not populated with a valid offline address list object, click Browse to select a valid offline address list object.
Send an e-mail message from Outlook 2003.

Note In Outlook 2003, you may have to log off and log on again for a valid test.

This was taken directly from MS Support:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/905813

RAS Registers DHCP Address in DNS

August 19th, 2009

This caused some serious havoc on a client’s network for half a day. I setup RAS as normal, and it worked great for about 5 days. All of a sudden, clients couldn’t access the mail server.

I check DNS and found an extra record of the mail server in there. I checked the NIC to make sure there were no extra IP’s bound to it. At first, I thought someone else might have named their machine the same asa the server..and thought..no way.

I went into RAS and saw a DHCP address for the mail server! I figured it had to be DNS. Sure enough, the “interface” tab in the DNS properties was accepting all IP’s. Here’s the fix:

1. Start DNS Manager.
2. Right-click the computer name, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Interfaces tab, and then click Only the following IP addresses.
4. Remove any Routing and Remote Access IP addresses that are listed.

Hope this helps!