Windows Tips

Installing LAMP Stack on Windows XP, Vista and 7

February 18, 2012 By Ryan McCormick Leave a Comment

If you write PHP and are anything like me, you want to test your code before making it live to the world on your own LAMP stack. I have installed linux on separate computers, installed LAMP stacks on windows, created development environments on my live web servers and yet none of these are all that great to work with. Enter Virtualbox.

If you are reading this article and have already been working with virtualization technology for your own LAMP stack, I applaud you and to keep reading as I found a super easy way to set one up without a lot of configuration.

There is a version of Ubuntu linux call Lubuntu (Light Ubuntu). There is a distribution for minimal install called mini.iso from http://lubuntu.net/. When installing, the minimal distribution gives you options similar to the Ubuntu server distribution such as LAMP, SSH, DNS, MAIL, etc… This is a really easy way to install a LAMP stack.

I currently have Virtualbox https://www.virtualbox.org setup in a Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Kubuntu 11.10 environment. Virtualbox has been running well on all of these platforms.

So basically, if you want a LAMP stack that you have 100% control of on all platforms, install Virtualbox and create a new virtual machine with the minimal install distro of Lubuntu.

Resource Links:

Lubuntu | Light Ubuntu for faster computing
Oracle Virtualbox
Tux Linux Penguin Logo

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: apache, Install, LAMP, Linux, MySQL, php

How to Map filesanywhere.com as drive in Windows 7

April 4, 2011 By Ryan McCormick 4 Comments

Question:
How do I Map a filesanywhere.com account to a drive letter in Windows 7?

By mapping a network drive to filesanywhere.com in Windows 7, you will have easier access to your cloud storage. Advanced user access is required on your account as you will have to enable webdav access for this work.

NOTE: Only Advanced User’s on filesanywhere have drive mapping functionality.

Answer:
To map a drive in Windows 7 you need to click the start button:

Click on “Computer”

Click on “Map Network Drive”

Select what drive letter you wish to map your network folder to and enter your web folder path

Enter your username and password (if files anywhere account, your username is “username@filesanywhere.com”) Enter your password, and select “remember my credentials”

Once completed, you should see your new drive under “Computer” mapped as a drive letter. If you are having trouble connecting, make sure you have entered the correct username “username@filesanywhere.com” and password.

If you are still having trouble, make sure your “WebClient” service is running by browsing to:
START>CONTROL PANEL>SYSTEM AND SECURITY>ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS>SERVICES

If you are having trouble logging in to your account, make sure that your user account is an Advanced User account. If you have an Advanced User account and you are still experiencing problems logging in, check your username. Your username will be USERNAME@filesanywhere.com. NOTICE the @FILESANYWHERE.COM and not your e-mail address.

External hard drives can be a great way to store large amounts of files, but are still susceptible to hardware failure. Make sure that you are backing your most important files with a redundant cloud backup solution. There are many solutions available, but after some research I found that, filesanywhere.com offers a great secure and cost effective solutions for backing up files.

As always, please comment with questions/suggestions.

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: filesanywhere.com, map drive, Windows 7

Thunderbird Settings SMTP for q.com Mail

January 20, 2011 By Ryan McCormick Leave a Comment

So, after messing around with these settings for about an hour, I got Thunderbird to finally send mail. I have had this problem before and I have decided to blog about this so everyone can take a shortcut. The correct settings for the q.com SMTP mail server as of 01/19/2010 are:

Thunderbird q.com e-mail settings SMTP
Server name: smtp.live.com
Port: 25
Username: email address
Authentication method: Normal Password
Connection Security: STARTTLS

YOU ARE WELCOME!!!

Please comment with any questions, or, if q.com decides to change to other settings – comment about it!

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: current, email, q.com, settings, smtp

Sharing a Printer Over a Network

August 5, 2009 By Ryan McCormick Leave a Comment

So, how do you share a printer that is on another computer located on a home wired or wireless network? I actually received this question from an old friend on Facebook.

MY DISCLAIMER: This article is intended to be a guide on how to properly set up a networked printer. Before you proceed, please understand that I take no responsibility for any use, misuse, or errors caused by performing the steps outlined in this article.

The process of setting a computer up to share a printer is not usually a difficult task. I will go over a few steps on how to accomplish this task and you will be printing in no time! One important thing to know about using a shared printer however, is that the computer the printer is directly connected to for sharing MUST be turned on and LOGGED IN whenever you want to print from any other client printers.

Before you start, you should locate your printer driver disk, or download some updated drivers from your printer manufacturer’s website. You will need to install these on the client computer to connect to your printer on the last step.

NETWORKING
Before we begin setting a printer up to be shared, you need to make sure your two computers can communicate with each other. The menus and directories may slightly differ between XP and Vista, but this should work on both. STEP 1: You need to make sure your computers are on the same WORKGROUP. You can check this by right-clicking on My Computer or Computer (vista) and scrolling down to “Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings.” Generally, the workgroup will be WORKGROUP, or MSHOME – both computers MUST have the same workgroup displayed.

FILE AND PRINTER SHARING MUST BE ENABLED
If the shared printer is on a Windows XP computer, this is a simple config. Click on Start>Control Panel and go into your network connections. Right-click on the network connection you are using and click properties. You will see a bunch of checkboxes next to different listed items. You want to make sure the box for “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” is checked. For vista, you will get to your network connections by going Start>Control Panel>Network and Sharing Center – then click the “Manage Network Connections” link on the right.

SHARE YOUR PRINTER
On the print server computer, you want to go to your control panel and open your printers folder. Right click on your printer and select “sharing.” Set up the shared printer name, etc… click apply (if applicable) click save or ok. Now that your printer is shared, you need to connect to it from your other computer.

CONNECT TO YOUR PRINTER
First you need to find the computer name of the print server computer by right-clicking on my computer and scrolling down to “Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings.” Now, to connect to you”r printer from your client computer, pull up the RUN command line: Start>Run OR Hold Windows Key and Press R.

Now that your RUN command line is up, you want to type: “<name of print server>” without the quotes. You should either see a folder pop up with a folder inside that says printers, or you will receive an error. If you have an error, check your network and sharing settings, otherwise, double-click on the printers folder. Right-click on the printer you want to connect to and click “connect.” If all goes well, your client computer should have connected to your print server computer and it will generally ask you to install printer drivers for the printer you are connected too.

RECAP
Set your network settings, set up file and printer sharing, set up sharing on your printer, connect to your printer, install drivers, and print!

TROUBLESHOOTING CONNECTION PROBLEMS
If you have a firewall enabled on either the server or the host, it may interfere with your ability to connect. If you are experiencing connection problems, disable your firewall software on both the server and any client computers. For safety reasons, remove any internet connection before you take down your firewall guard.

E-Book Recommendation
If you would like to learn more about repairing your own computer, etc… Check out this e-book

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: networking, printer sharing, vista, xp

The Requested Operation Requires Elevation in Vista

July 27, 2009 By Ryan McCormick 2 Comments

If you are using Windows Vista and are performing operations that require Administrator Privledges in the “cmd” command line area, you may receive an error “The Requested Operation Requires Elevation.”

The way to properly run privileged commands in the command line area is to start the command line interface in administrator mode. This can be done by clicking START>All Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt(Right-Click and Select “Run as Administrator”).

After running the command prompt as Administrator, all privileged commands will work.

As always, this post is to be used as a guide on how to properly use the command prompt interface in administrator mode. I take no responsibility for it’s use.

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: permissions, requires elevation, windows vista

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME in Windows XP

July 24, 2009 By Ryan McCormick 16 Comments

I haven’t posted in a while, and I encountered an UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME error on a clients machine earlier this week. This error is displayed while booting Windows XP and appears in the form of BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). The reason for this problem/error, the boot.ini file is corrupt.

I would recommend that only someone with knowledge of installing windows and changing BIOS settings performs this fix. This is ment to be a guide, and I take zero responsibility for any errors that may arise.

To fix this problem, you need to boot to a bootable Windows XP installation or boot disk and do a repair on windows. This can be accomplished by placing the boot disk in the CDROM drive and rebooting the computer. Before the computer passes the setup screen, you need to enter the BIOS (generally by hitting f1 or f2 for setup) and change the disk boot order to boot to the CDROM drive first, Save Settings, exit the BIOS, and if needed reboot the computer by hitting ctrl-alt-delete. Doing this will force the machine boot to the CDROM drive (if you encounter the blue screen error again, the machine booted to the hard drive instead of the CDROM drive, check your bios boot settings and try again).

Once you have booted into the windows boot disk, you need to make the ‘R’ selection for Recovery. This selection will be on the first screen after the CDROM boot process has completed.

Once the selection has been made for the recovery console, it will look like a DOS-Type prompt. Type these commands:
chkdsk /p
the check disk process will run, once this process has completed, type this command:
fixboot
Select yes, by hitting Y

Once the boot has completed it should boot into windows. IMPORTANT: remember to change your BIOS boot settings back to normal. The boot settings should resemble something like this:

a: – floppy drive (if you have a floppy)
c: – hard disk drive
d: – cdrom drive

Once the BIOS settings have been properly set back to normal, save, exit and reboot. The computer should now boot back into Windows XP.

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: unmountable boot volume fix, windows xp

Shortcut Keys in Microsoft Windows

May 5, 2009 By Ryan McCormick 2 Comments

Keyboard shortcuts can save time, and make the user experience so much better. You can also impress the heck out of people when you do something in the blink of an eye without a move of the mouse (They will probably think you are using some kind of voodoo magic). This is not a full list of shortcuts by any means, but it is a very useful list of common keyboard shortcuts.

Before playing with shortcuts, be sure to save any file you are working on, just in case you make a mistake of using the wrong shortcut at the wrong time. This moment is called an ‘ono’ second(this is the moment as you are clicking or doing something that cannot be undone, and it was completely unintentional). On another note, I cannot take credit for the ‘ono’ second term. Although I have experienced it before, credit has to go to Professor Tim Scott at Minnesota State University Mankato.

Okay on with the shortcuts…

General Shortcuts

Text Formatting Operations
CTRL+A = Select All
CTRL+B = Bold
CTRL+I = Italic
CTRL+U = Underline
In certain programs, you have the ability to cut, copy and paste
CTRL+X = Cut
CTRL+C = Copy
CTRL+V = Paste
Home = Start of line of text
End = End of line of text
Insert = Write over line of text. Special note: If you are experiencing a problem where you can’t add text and you are just writing over current text, chances are the insert key has been pressed.

File Operations Commands
CTRL+N = Create New File
CTRL+O = Open
CTRL+S = Save
CTRL+P = Print
CTRL+F = Find in text

Exit Commands
CTRL+W = Close Window
Alt+F4 = Exit Application

Undo Commands
CTRL+Z = Undo the last operation
CTRL+Y = Redo the last operation

Windows Logo Key Commands
Windows Logo Key: Opens the start menu
Windows Logo Key+R: Opens the windows run dialog box
Windows Logo Key+M: Minimizes all windows
SHIFT+Windows Logo Key+M: Undo minimize all windows
Windows Logo Key+F1: Displays Help
Windows Logo Key+E: Opens windows Explorer
Windows Logo Key+F: Opens find files or folders Search
Windows Logo Key+D: Minimizes everything and shows the desktop
CTRL+Windows Logo Key+F: Opens find computer
Windows Logo Key+TAB: Cycle through taskbar buttons
Windows Logo Key+Break: Opens system properties dialog box

Anyone, please feel free to add more via comment box if you feel I missed an important one.

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: microsoft windows, shortcuts

Adobe Acrobat Freeze

May 1, 2009 By Ryan McCormick Leave a Comment

Occasionally, when opening PDF files off of websites through Internet Explorer, Adobe Acrobat will freeze up and temporarily stop or slow Internet Explorer from working properly. This problem also has the tendency to freeze up a computer all together.

I have personally encountered this problem on Windows XP numerous times, and may have caught it on Vista once or twice.

If your computer freezes after opening an adobe PDF from Internet Explorer, open the Task Manager by holding ctrl+shift+esc simultaneously.

In the task manager, find the file listed as Acrord32.exe and left-click once to highlight it. Once highlighted, click the “End Process” button. After clicking the “End Process” button, a warning window will open, click “yes”.

This solution should work if your system is frozen because of opening an Adobe Acrobat PDF file in XP or Vista. After unfreezing your system, I would recommend saving any files you are working on, and restarting your system.

Filed Under: Windows Tips Tagged With: adobe acrobat, freeze, windows xp