Whole disk encryption with UEFI and Windows

Tests of several encryption products on a UEFI based board.

Google Calendar - last weekday repeating event

I wanted to add a reminder to do my timesheet on the last business day of every month, but there's no easy way to do it within Google Calendar itself.  An anonymous post here worked perfectly:

Steven Occhipinti: Google Calendar - Repeating an event on the last <weekday> of the month


BEGIN:VCALENDAR
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20120131
DTEND:20120131
RRULE:FREQ=MONTHLY;BYDAY=MO,TU,WE,TH,FR;BYSETPOS=-1;WKST=SU
SUMMARY:Payday
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

Save the above to a .ics file. In google next to other calendars choose import calendar.

Deleting networks on Windows 8

Manually added a wifi network on Windows 8, but it wasn't configured right.  Couldn't see how to delete that network until I found this thread that had this quote:

"This was driving me crazy today, there is no “manage wireless networks” in Windows 8, not sure why. So once you set up a network you are not able to alter it unless it is broadcasting near you and you set it up with the right security. Well I found a fix, if you go to device manager and uninstall your wireless network card and then reinstall it (should only take about 20 seconds) it will reset your network profiles, allowing you to recreate one that may be setup incorrectly. Hope this helps."

Guide to Regular Expressions

Mozilla's Javascript guide to regular expressions

Script loading with headjs

From headjs.com:
"Load scripts like images. Use HTML5 and CSS3 safely. Target CSS for different screens, paths, states and browsers. Make it the only script in your HEAD. A concise solution to universal issues."

Android and user-agents

Changing the user agent on Chrome:

1. Open Developer Tools (right-click-Inspect, or Menu->Tools->Developer Tools, or Ctrl+Shift+I).
2. Click the Settings gear icon on lower right of the Developer Tools window.
3. Go to Overrides tab, check "User agent" and select the device from the dropdown.

List of user-agents at user-agent-string.info.

Restoring a content database from old to newer version of SharePoint 2010

Assuming the source (say, production) server has an older update of SharePoint, and you need to copy one of its site collections to a development environment that has a later update.

Based on one of the answers in this thread:

1. Backup the WSS Content Database using SQL Server Management Studio,
2. Restore the database backup to the target server using SQL Server Management Studio,
3. Make sure the farm login and SharePoint service login have db owner rights to the restored database.
4. Go to Central Admin of the dev farm and create a new web application, and enter the name of the restored database instead of creating a new one.
5. Go to "Change Site Collection Administrators" and enter valid logins. 
6. On Central Admin, go to Upgrade and Migration -> Review database status.  Check if the content database has this note:  "Database is in compatibility range and upgrade is recommended."  See possible reasons.
   [update 05/22/2013: added this step]

Other useful info:

• SharePoint 2010 How-To: Copy your production content database to a development server
• Simple concept: How restore a SharePoint 2010 content database on the different farm

SharePoint navigation

This post applies to Moss 2007, but links also reference SharePoint 2010 resources, so it's good all around:
SharePoint static 2nd level current navigation in MOSS 2007

For global navigation:
TOP NAVIGATION / GLOBAL NAVIGATION

Microsoft's Sysinternals Utilities

Sysinternals Suite

Steam and Avast false positives

From an Avast forum thread:

"Remember to get Steam service to work you would need to add the file/s that have been given the false infection report; too both the 'Scan exclusion list' and the 'Real time shield' - 'File system shield' - 'Expert mod' - exclusion list."

Popup info, hoverIntent, and doTimeout

A Really Nice Way To Handle Popup Information, with mention of hoverIntent and doTimeout.

SharePoint 2010 boundaries and limits

This Technet article describes software boundaries and limits of SharePoint 2010.

Other Twitter widget notes

Found some accumulated old notes about Twitter feeds:

• jQuery Twitter ticker
• How to make a custom Twitter feed for your website
• Widgets from Twitter.com

SPSiteDataQuery CAML query for all publishing pages

Reminder to self:  CAML is case-sensitive!
Been struggling with an SPSiteDataQuery that was not returning anything.  Needed to search all publishing pages so I used the following Lists setting:

  <Lists ServerTemplate='850' Hidden='TRUE' />

Except it got coded as:

  <lists ServerTemplate='850' Hidden='TRUE' />

which returned no results.  Worked fine after changing "lists" to "Lists".

Other notes:

• How to query all lists that use a certain content type in SharePoint?
• Get all Pages in a Publishing site in Sharepoint
• How can use API to get all Publishing pages in the site collection using a specific Content Type?
• .NET : Programmatically Read A Publishing Page in SharePoint

Ice cream recipes

Recipes to try someday:

• Espresso Gelato (Chow)

Ice pop recipes

Recipes to try someday:

• Vietnamese Coffee Popsicles (David Lebovitz)
• Vietnamese Coffee Ice Pops (Chow)
• Red Bean Ice Pops (Chow)
• Halo-Halo Ice Pops (Chow)

Making ice cream without a machine

Some notes:

• How To Make Ice Cream Without a Machine (David Lebovitz)
• The Food Lab: Real Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Machine (Serious Eats)
• Ice Cream: No Machine Required

Responsive Web Resources

• web demo:  Robot or Not
• respond.js by Scott Jehl - "A fast & lightweight polyfill for min/max-width CSS3 Media Queries (for IE 6-8, and more)"
• css3-mediaqueries.js by Wouter van der Graaf - "a JavaScript library to make IE 5+, Firefox 1+ and Safari 2 transparently parse, test and apply CSS3 Media Queries"

Issues with percentages:

• Percentage bugs in webkit
• Sub-pixel problems in CSS

CSS, HTML, Javascript Reference

SitePoint's CSS, HTML, Javascript Reference

CSS3 Gradient Buttons

Tutorial at Web Designer Wall

Semantic Web Resources for the Beginner

Links videos and articles about the semantic web:  collected by Aaron Bradley at SEOSkeptic.

CSS Style Guide

Idiomatic CSS

How to open a Victorinox Swiss Army watch with a snap off case back

From a comment by Nick Farley in this thread:

"The easiest way to open them is to gently rest the case opener blade in the tiny gap between the case and the back and smartly tap the case opener with a hammer. If the blade has been properly positioned the back will either pop off or reveal a larger gap which makes opening the case much easier. This method minimizes the chances of marking either the case back or the case itself, which is hard plastic."

Mobile Web Site

• How to Build a Mobile Website from Smashing Magazine

Preserve font-size in iPhone landscape orientation

Add the following in a landscape-specific media query (see StackOverflow article):

html {
-webkit-text-size-adjust: none; /* Prevent font scaling in landscape */
}

TV Antenna Tools

• TV Fool - found this on DBSTalk
• AntennaWeb - doesn't seem to be as useful as it used to be anymore

How to Delete hiberfil.sys When Hibernation is Not Supported by Firmware

When "powercfg -h off" doesn't work, then disable it using the registry (usual warnings about possibly messing up your registry):

Run regedit, and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power.
Change the value for "HibernateEnabled" to 0 (zero).
Click OK and restart.

(See article by Fergus Macdonald.)

CSS media queries

Article on CSS Media Queries & Using Available Space by Chris Coyier.

Daily T-Shirt Roundup

To check out those limited-run shirts:
TShirt Roundup

The Bible told with Legos

Read about The Brick Testament from The Geek Couch.

YouTube API fields

YouTube elements reference

See an example here.
And watch out for cross-domain restrictions.

jQuery delay anything other than jQuery's effect functions

Stefan Siebel says here:

"Taking a closer look at the delay function showed me that only functions that are queued in jQuery’s default 'fx' queue are delayed by a delay-call like the one [here]. If you want to delay e.g. the trigger function you either need to queue it in the fx-queue or in a separate queue."

jQuery fadeIn and IE7-8 opacity

FadeIn on an absolutely positioned div with opacity=80 wasn't working on IE7-8.  Found the solution on stackoverflow:  set filter on the element before calling fadeIn.  For example:

$("#testdiv").css('filter', 'alpha(opacity=80)').fadeIn();

Set IE compatibility to highest available

Use:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"/>

See:  Specifying Document Compatibility Modes

Courses at Tuts+

Courses at Tuts+ cover various topics, including html & css, html5 & css3, jquery, photoshop, web design, photography.

10 Rare HTML Tags You Really Should Know

See 10 Rare HTML Tags You Really Should Know (with descriptions and live demos):

• <cite>
• <optgroup>
• <acronym>
• <optgroup>
• <address>
• <ins> and <del>
• <label>
• <fieldset>
• <abbr>
• rel
• <wbr>

Compare Cameras

Great site for comparing cameras:  Snapsort

Version error restoring SharePoint site collection backup

Recently I tried restoring a site collection backup and got the (dreaded) error:
"Your backup is from a different version of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and cannot be restored to a server running the current version. The backup file should be restored to a server with version _____ or later."

So I installed the service packs and cumulative updates.  Still didn't work.  It may be because I overshot the cumulative update of the backup.  Then tried creating a fresh application and site collection, instead of trying to restore over a site collection that was there before the updates.  That worked!

Slideshow: CSS line-height

Line Height by Russ Weakley on SlideShare
"A simple, step-by-step presentation on CSS line-height. Covers leading, how to apply various line-height values, as well as line-height and the inline box model." by 

SharePoint Search Center notes

SP2007 notes:

• How to: Use the Search Box as a Web Control

To clear out bad TFS workspaces

See:  TFS Workspace for another user

To automatically connect to TFS under another user account

Use stored credentials under "Manage Windows Credentials".
See:  Automatically connect to TFS under another user account

SharePoint Tabbed Search Center notes

SP2010 info:

• Search box webpart properties
• How to: Add the Search Tab Navigation Control to a Page
• Enterprise Search: Tabs with custom scope

SP2007 info:

• Creating a Custom Search Page and Tabs in the Search Center of SharePoint Server

The Essential Guide to @font-face

The Essential Guide to @font-face
-- "This guide will teach you how to implement @font-face with cross-browser compatibility and will also look at a number of the supporting services that have arisen, making it even easier to use custom fonts in your web designs."

[edit 03/02/2012]
Found from this StackOverflow thread that IE9 uses .woff, and also needed to go to IIS and add the MIME type for .woff (set to application/octet-stream).

List of SharePoint 2010 Placeholder Controls

Default content placeholder controls on a master page
- "...includes the name of the content placeholder control and a description of each."

How to get the YouTube thumbnail

How to get a YouTube video screenshot image (thumbnail) URL using JavaScript

SharePoint Ribbon Fonts and Styles

Modifying Ribbon Fonts and Styles for Publishing Page HTML Field Controls

Empty DIVs moved around by XSLT

DIVs moved around by XSLT

XSLT: Parsing embedded HTML

Couple articles from StackOverflow:

• XSLT: Parsing HTML embedded in XML?
• XSLT parse escaped HTML stored in an attribute and convert that attribute's content into element's content

SharePoint Client Object Model and jQuery

Excerpt from Professional SharePoint Branding and User Interface Design by Randy Drisgill, John Ross, Jacob J. Sanford, and Paul Stubb:
The Client Object Model and jQuery

How to compact a dynamic VHD

How to compact a dynamic VHD (Virtual Hard Disk)
If it gives an error due to a file system limitation, see:
Unable to Compact a VHD Due to a File System Limitation Explained

How to create custom properties in Visual Web Parts

Article by Patrick Lamber

Web-safe Fonts

Nice table of fonts showing various levels of web-safetiness at Speaking in Styles.

AT&T U-verse Internet Notes

• 2Wire Gateway
• 2Wire router does not connect wireless devices - I ended up doing these:  switch channel to not 11, change to 802.11g, unplug 30 seconds then re-plug.  Nothing seemed to change until the power cycle was done.

AT&T U-verse Voicemail Notes

• Setting up your U-verse Voice Mailbox
• Accessing your U-verse Voice Mailbox

And, if not using the Voice Mailbox:

• How to Use My Answering Machine With Uverse Voice

Cool styling: CSS1K

Remember JS1K?  There's one for CSS too:  CSS1K.
(Found through Wired Webmonkey.)

this.href vs $(this).attr("href")

this.href -- returns the fully qualified URL
$(this).attr("href") -- returns the exact value of the "href" attribute
(see Stackoverflow discussion)

Google Analytics notes

• Google Analytics Docs
• Troubleshooting the Tracking Code
• Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger
• Google Analytics Realtime Sandbox Environment

Notepad++ intellisense

To enable auto-completion on Notepad++, go to Settings -> Preferences -> Backup/Auto-Completion tab, and put check marks on the auto-completion options (go for Function completion). Not exactly context-specific intellisense, but not bad.
(see: How To Enable Intellisense In Notepad++)

If auto-completion is not enabled, click Ctrl-Space to display the autocomplete list.
(see: intellisense help!!! in notepad ++)

Cool stuff, including Google Gravity

Mr.doob GLSL Sandbox

10 cloud startups to watch in 2012

Story from Gigaom