Windows Server 2003 Quick Launch Permission Errors

Problems | Posted by epistasis
May 17 2009

Problem: I’ve been trying to fix this for ages. Basically, when logged on as Administrator to my Windows 2003 Server box, using folder redirection (particularly for the Application Data folder, which is where the user’s quick launch is stored – App Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch), and redirecting over a share (even though the share is on the same server), clicking any quick launch items brings up an error saying “You may not have the appropriate permissions” etc.

Solution: After lots of googling I found the answer is to add the file server to the ‘Intranet’ zone under the Security tab of Internet Explorer. (i.e. add server or http://server). This will make the quick launch work again. If you want to reload the quick launch, go into task manager and kill explorer.exe, then start it up again.

The People’s United Community

Other | Posted by epistasis
Apr 20 2009

I’ve recently found out about an interesting cause known as The People’s United Community (TPUC).

The People's United Community

The aim of this ‘group’ is to prove how many of the things we take for granted are infact illusions, and that we should challenge and question these things.

I implore you to take a look at the website here, and also at the videos below of a very informative talk given by a prominent figure for this cause.

Video: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

Windows 7 </3 IE8

Windows 7 | Posted by epistasis
Mar 06 2009

Hmm, so Microsoft have confirmed that users of Windows 7 will be able to ‘turn on or off’ Internet Explorer. Or have they? Turning off IE8 in Windows 7 seemingly does what was already possible – that is, simply deletes the iexplore.exe file. This is hardly ‘disabling’ the browser, as many DLLs and other parts of the browser still remain, not to mention that Windows will probably ask you a thousand times if you’re sure you want to disable it.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that the only reason Microsoft are doing this is to appease Brussels. They’ve got the anti-trust case over including IE with Windows and this is a quickfix.. or should I say hotfix. Oh it makes sense now.. if it’s a hotfix.. it’s meant to be rubbish.

Anyway, I’m going to toddle off and find a copy of build 7048 now and check out the differences between it and the public beta (build 7000). Wish me luck 🙂

DKVM-4U not recognising keyboard

Problems | Posted by epistasis
Feb 09 2009

I bought a D-Link 4 Port USB KVM switch (DKVM-4U) to switch between my servers in their newly installed Node Zero, but I am experiencing a problem with it. Basically, the mouse and video bits work fine, but as soon as you plug in a usb keyboard the unit stops responding and needs a complete reset.

I emailed D-Link with my problem and was surprised to hear that my KVM is not really a KVM. For a transcript of the emails look at: http://www.epistasis.co.uk/site/dlink.html

The Snow

Other | Posted by epistasis
Feb 05 2009

Hope everybody is enjoying the snow. If you haven’t got any, then unlucky! Here’s an example of the snow fun I’ve been having!

Via Storage Server and MSI WindBox

Home Automation, Technology | Posted by epistasis
Jan 28 2009

Two things here really.. I’ve just seen that LinITX have started stocking the VIA NSD7800 Tower Storage Server. This amazing kit would be a great NAS device, perhaps running the open source FreeNAS software. It features an Intel Atom 1.5GHz CPU, and can support up to 1GB of RAM. If you pop on over to the Automated Home website there is a voucher code to get the full 1GB for free!

Second up, the MSI WindBox. The WindBox is an ultra-compact PC from MSI. It features a VESA mount interface allowing it to be wall mounted or simply placed on the back of your monitor. It also has the following I/O options:

  • Realtek 10/100 LAN
  • 3 USB 2.0 ports
  • a 3-in-1 card reader
  • VGA interface.

Pretty neat huh?

FreeBSD chown and chmod

FreeBSD, Problems | Posted by epistasis
Jan 28 2009

Problem: I was recently trying to use chmod and chown in PHP on a FreeBSD system. I found out that these two commands (for obvious) reasons, can only be used by the superuser, therefore I couldn’t change the owner of an uploaded file (via a website) from the www to the user who’s website it was. In Solaris you can just change rstchown to 0 in /etc/system – unfortunately I couldn’t find a similar way to do this in FreeBSD.

Solution: The main solution I have found to this is to just use a cron job as root to chown all the files  (by using an asterisk in the file path) in a certain directory (the upload directory) to the user.. This is also a lot safer than allowing other users to use chmod/chown.

Obviously, if anyone can think of a better way of doing this, please let me know.

Windows 7 Beta

Windows 7 | Posted by epistasis
Jan 28 2009

I am currently evaluating the Windows 7 Beta. Please watch this space for my review on it!

Windows Server 2008 – Server Core

Windows Server 2008 | Posted by epistasis
Jan 28 2009

Ok, so I’m going to start tinkering about with server core… it looks good from what I’ve done on it so far, and I hope to post some information on how to get started with server core very soon.