One of the reasons why you might get the “outlook cannot log on. verify you are connected to the network” error is when there is a setting missing in the “Microsoft Management Console”. I recently worked at a client who’s PDC went south big time. Long story short they were getting the “outlook cannot log on. verify you are connected to the network” error every time they tried setting up a new user in outlook. Also if they selected a group from the Outlook Address Book (OAB) non of the contact of the groups would display.

The item that resolved this error for me was:

In Exchange Management Console, Right Click “Organization Configuration”and select “Modify Configuration Domain Controller”… setting.

A new window will open. Browse for the proper info. Active directory will need to be working as well as some kind of name resolution (namely DNS) in order to select the domain and domain controller properly.

Once done hit OK. You will need to restart the services or restart the whole server. I restarted the services and that was all that I needed to do. Some people have had to do a full reboot of the exchange server after applying these settings.

This was done on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 running on Windows 2008 64bit.

The most likely reason why next_post_link() doesn’t work in your theme is mostly do to how you setup the loop. The part of the loop that is most likely not setup is the “paging” part of it. Because paging isn’t setup you display the same content OVER and OVER each time you click on the “Newer Entries”. By setting up paging you are telling WordPress to display “X” amount of posts per page. The “offset” tells WordPress where to start on the next page.

I will post a screenshot of some code and go over what you need to do:

We need to use the “query_posts()” function (Line 15). In order to get the query that you want you should make a few variables first.

• On line 12 we create a variable called “ppp” (Posts Per Page) and give it a number.
• On line 13 we create the offset variable. This will help with a term called “Paging”.

Now that we have the variables setup we are going to create a custom WordPress Loop. To do this we need to make a new query.

• On line 15 I show you how to make a custom query using the variables we created earlier.

The query basically says: Go out and get me all the posts. I know I am going to be displaying “2” posts per page. Each time I go and click on “Newer Entries” start at the “offset” and then display another set of posts equaling whatever you set the “ppp” to be.

You might be asking yourself is there another way of doing this? Actually there is if you are using this as the only loop on a page and you want just spit out the blog entries.

Create a page template file and name it “pagetemplate.php” and put it into your theme directory. If you are using the same info in the screenshot the template name you will be able to select in the next step is going to be called “Playing with Loop”. *NOTE* – You won’t need lines 12 to 16!

Create a new page in WordPress and open it. I’m going to call my page “Blog”. On the right hand side under “Page Attributes” you see “Template”. Select “Playing with Loop” and hit update. You must now go and make some changes in the WP Admin area. Go to “settings” and “reading” and select the page that you want to be the default “Posts” page. Since as I previously mentioned I called my page “Blog” I am going to select “Blog” and voila. WordPress now knows that since this page is going to be displaying the posts, the paging will already be setup.

Let’s say you want to re-brand Zarafa with your own images. Can this be done? Sure! It’s opensource!

In this “How to” article on Zarafa I am using Zentyal as the distribution. These files may be located in another directory if you are using a different distro. For you that are using a different distro and have it working then you should check your apache virtual server config files.

On my server the files needed are located in this directory:

There are 3 main files that need editing:

1. login.jpg (Full Webmail Client)
2. zarafa_top_logo.gif (Full Webmail Client)
3. favicon.ico (Icon displayed in the URL Bar)

Here’s some example of how I changed mine.

How you go about changing those files is up to you. The easiest way to do that is to create a Samba share directly pointing @ the directory noted above. Make sure to remove the permissions once you have finished editing the files.

You could also copy it to another share on the server. Using the copy command “sudo cp” you could copy the files from the share you copied the files to, to the folder that was mentioned above.

Here’s a few screenshots of the new files in action:

Hope this helped you figure out how to re-brand Zarafa to your liking.

Enter CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is an amazing product. Don’t let the name discourage you. It works on pretty much any Windows computer all the way up to Windows 7. If you are sick of how bloated Easy CD Creator or Nero has becom you will love CDBurnerXP. CDBurnerXP reminds me of what NERO was like but even more optimized. Anyways this post is about creating ISO files from a disk so here’s the how to:

1. Download CDBurnerXP
2. Install CDBurnerXP
3. Put in the Disk you want to make the image of in the machine.
4. Open CDBurnerXP
5. Select “Copy Data disk”
6. Change the default selection of the “TO” drive to “Hard drive”. This means that instead of cloning the drive from one drive to the next it will make an ISO file for you that you can then burn later at any time.

One thing I have found that helps me is I build out the shell of what I want to do and then fill in the details later. While this might seem like a waste of time or slower I find with the auto complete in Netbeans that I spend much less time later troubleshooting things when I make a mistake typing.

The first thing I do with animate is start with the basic by programming out the shell of the code.

First hit “$” and then “(“. Netbeans will automatically fill in the “)”. Great!. Now hit ‘ and a second ‘ will be entered automatically for you in Netbeans. Keep typing. Enter your jQuery Selector which is normally the DOM element that you want to select. Hit the “right arrow twice and hit the “.” key. Great you are on your way.

You should have something that looks like this:

You really want to see this drop down box as it will save you a lot of time. You can either manually go through it or keep typing to narrow your results. In our case we are wanting to use animate. Let’s type animate and see what happens.

As you can see I’ve only typed “ani” and Netbeans is smart enough to grab the functions from the jQuery file. Just hit enter and Netbeans will start to build out the template for you. You will see something like this:

Netbeans is smart enough to tell you were the parameters go and where the option go. At this time I recommend just typing “{“ in both the params section as well as the options section. When you hit “{“ the right “}” will automatically be entered. After entering the “{“ just hit enter to move on to the “options section”. Hit “{“ and again the second “}” will auto complete. Hit Enter and the cursor will automatically move to the end of the line. Hit “;” and you are now done making the shell of the animate function. It should look like this:

Now some people might not agree with this next step. WHEN programing I like making my code easy to read even if it means that the file that the code is in is larger! When I am done everything I normally run a minifier on all my code that goes up to the server.

Let’s make the code more readable. Doesn’t this look more like something you see in other languages?

Let’s go and enter the code that will actually do something.

In the above code example notice how I entered what I want the animate to do. jQuery is VERY tied to CSS. If you don’t know CSS then you should really become a CSS Ninja before heading in jQuery. One thing to note on line 3. If the CSS element has “-“ in it you should use camelCase. If you aren’t sure what that is search my site for “camelCase”. Notice on line 3 that there is NO trailing “;”. With so much of jQuery requiring a trailing “;” I like to point that out since I find I get in such a habit of close everything off. If we needed to do a second animation we would hover end the line with a “’,”. You will see in the next section called “options”.

In the above code example I have added two options to the command. I have put them on separate lines for easy reading and put a “,” at the end of the duration. This code is now very easy to read, the chances for error has gone down dramatically which means you have more time to code.

I mentioned about minifying the code so once that is done it might look more like this:

1. Height and width not set. This really seems to slow things down in all the browsers.
2. Margin set on element above the element that is sliding open/shut.

Always keeps these things in mind and you should always experience super slick jQuery animation. Don’t you just hate jerky jQuery animations?

Here’s an example to try (I am using jQuery and jQuery UI:

xhtml

CSS

jQuery

If you remove the height and width from the “p” tag then the animation will be really sluggish/jerky.

jQuery

Please note lines  3 and 4. The CSS values “margin-left” and “margin-top” are surrounded by ‘s. Most people don’t know that there is a shorthand method that I think looks much better (IMO) and saves you a few keystrokes. Using “camelCased” coding you can change the jQuery code into this:

jQuery

As you can see you can remove the ‘ and the – but you HAVE to uppercase the second word’s first initial. I like using this because not only does it save keystrokes I also find it also helps me with closing the ‘s! Hopefully this trick will help you with jQuery’s most versatile function.

As a bonus I figured I through in another example:

jQuery

This time you cane see that I used “paddingLeft” instead of “padding-left”. This code basically will take the paragraph element and slide it to the right 200px when you hover over it. It will slide back to it’s original spot when you take the mouse off.

I saw a really funny pic on Facebook  the other day and I thought of it after the setup of the iPad.

You will see how setting up the iPad is like the “paying customer example”. While the setup really ticked me off, you will see I am pleasantly in love with my device.

The missing iPad manual – Un-packing the the iPad

When you get home from purchasing the iPad you are going to be very disappointed in a couple of things. There is no real manual and the tiny bit of information that is given will be obsolete as soon as you update your iPad.

The missing iPad manual – Setting up the iPad for it’s first use

First thing I recommend you do is charge the device for a couple of hours. Darn it. You probably wanted to use it right away right? Guess what? Because you can’t replace an iPad battery you really want to make sure you fully charge the device from the beginning.

Now that you charged the iPad you want to turn it on, connect it to your wireless router and read a few websites. Well… again you will be very un-happy. As soon as you turn on the device it say “connect to iTunes”. Apple no longer ships iTunes on a DVD. You have to download it. Again. You have to wait.

Ok. Now you download iTunes and install it. You now connect the iPad. Yippee. 3 hours later and I can finally read a freaking web page! Crap.. Disappointment again. Now it is asking me to enter a name for my iPad. Oh well this won’t take long.

What! Now I HAVE to enter my credit card number? WHAT??? Haven’t I given Apple enough? Ok. Enter the information. Side note. I don’t know about you but what kid has a credit card? Is this done yet? Nope. Now I need to create a freaking Apple ID?!?!? Ok enter that info. Then go to my email and confirm that I am who I say I am.

Just when you think you are done. There is an update from Apple. It will take around 10 minutes to apply this update. This update helps with battery power, the ability to play music in the background. It also changes the functionality of the switch above the volume buttons.

Picture this. Any company other then apple that makes devices. Let’s say your stove, your microwave or even your fridge manufacturer. Can you imagine if at some point say the button to broil get’s changed to the timer button? How about if you Microwave had a button that said “defrost” was changed to “Level High”.

1. Would you be upset?
2. Would you take that and then continue to say the company that does something like that is the BEST ever? Probably not!

Apple changed the position lock on the side to a Mute button. While I understand the device should have had a mute button and it should have gone where the position lock is located. They didn’t do that. They just get up one day and change it on you. I will show you later how to get that functionality back.

Just when you think things are done the darn thing needs a reboot.

Time to go to bed

The missing iPad manual – Tweaking the iPad

Questions I asked myself when setting up my iPad:

The missing iPad manual – How to install an Application on the iPad.

Let’s add some app? How do I do that. Well you can do it through the browser. Using your favorite search engine should bring you to the iTunes store page. It will tell you how much something costs or how to download it. Look for the applications I recommend that you download. You can also search for apps in iTunes on your computer.

The Missing iPad manual – Reading PDF

You need to download and install iBook in iTunes. Once downloaded you need to go to the file menue and import file into library. Pick your PDF’s and sync the iPad.

The Missing iPad manual – How to connect to a Wi-Fi network

Go to Settings – Wi-Fi – Make sure Wi-Fi is on, You select your wireless network and enter the password.

The Missing iPad manual – How to connect to delete an App off the iPad

To delete an application off the iPad you will need to hold down the icon on the iPad for a few seconds. When it starts to shake how you should see an “X”. Use this to delete the app. You can also do it in iTunes. iTunes doesn’t actually delete it. It just sends the file to your recycling bin.

The Missing iPad manual – How do I lock the screen position on the iPad since the patch?

Well here’s how it used to work (I Prefer it to the new way):

Now you have to

1. Make sure that you have the orientation that you want the iPad in.
2. hit the home button twice (quickly) – A menu on the bottom will now open up.
3. Slide your finger to the right.
4. Do this till you see an iTunes like interface. (It should normally only take one swipe)
5. On the right there is an Orange IPad symbol (Why orange???) and to the far left there is a circle with an arrow on it. If you touch it, it will put a lock symbol in the middle.

Now the screen won’t accidently flip on you.

The Missing iPad manual – How to save a picture off the internet on an iPad?

Touch the picture and hold down for a few seconds. You will be prompted to save the picture.

The Missing iPad manual – How to use Remote Desktop on the iPad

You have to pay for it but the only program I have found that does a good job is called “Desktop Connect”.

Is there anything else that a new iPad user might wonder how to setup on their iPad? Let me know!

Some people thought I just cut off half the mustache and then put a line on the picture. Other people thought there was some Photoshop magic where I some how aligned half my head to another picture of half my head and combined the two pictures.

No one has guessed correctly yet. Basically I had two photographs taken. I tried getting Delila to take them at very similar focal distances, lighting etc. Even that the first picture was taken 6:00pn Nov 30th and the second picture was taken before going to bed. You might think that lighting alone might have made things hard enough let alone that it’s almost impossible to duplicate the same smile or facial features.

Here’s the two pictures that I used for this little mock up.

*Note* – Please don’t try to laugh. It was for a good cause

One thing I used that I find really helps is a Wacom Tablet. I just have a Bamboo which is the smallest and cheapest of the tablets. It does have pressure sensitivity which is REALLY nice!

The first thing I did was look at the  two pictures. The right hand side is a tine bit bigger picture then the left side picture. I figured if I could just mask in the left side mustache then I would get the best results since my eyes were not aligned etc.

Here’s what I did:

First thing I wanted to do was to get my skin tone to look similar in the right side. It’s got a bit more red in it as well as more mid skin tone color.

I made the tones a little light by using curves to brighten the picture. I masked out (hid) what I just did with the curves. Using a white paint brush I painted on the black mask. By painting white I slowly brought in the coloring where I needed it. I used my tablet for all custom tweaks.

Below I pasted the mustache picture overtop the image I was just working on. Because I wanted to try and align things up I took the new layer and made it transparent so I could use the arrow keys to align things up.

I chose getting the eyes and mouth aligned up as close as possible. After that is done you need to bring the mustache layer back to 100% opacity. Once there you need to apply a black mask of nothing to the mustache layer. Again it won’t look like there is even a layer there. Next you need to use a white paint brush and paint in where you want the mustache to be.

Here’s what the layer looked like.

Since I look absolutely crazy here I decided I just put a line down the middle to hide and “mistakes” I had made. I then added the words to the picture as well.

That my friends is how I created the half face, before and after picture.

The only cost involve is the initial setup. After that Winnipeg Experts partner will preview the domain name before giving your computer directions to the website. While this service isn’t 100% accurate, it sure is close.

Another plus for the service is that it is PC, Linux, Mac, iPad and iPod touch compatible. All of these devices automatically get all the info as long as you have a router. Most people have one of these devices in their home now.

Here’s an example of some link baits that were shown on Facebook:

How temping is it to Click on this link?

Using the service setup by Winnipeg’s best IT Consultants you would see something like this:

You might think this is neat but ask why is this worth the setup fee? I would answer:

1. If you mainly use the laptop at the place of setup (ie home/work) then definitely yes!
2. If your antivirus is not up to date, or doesn’t know about this software you are still have a high probability of getting something. Fortunately the antivirus companies know where these virus makers send out their malware from. Because the Virus writers are constantly changing things like size, date, behavior and hash tag. It makes it very hard for rouge software to be detected.
3. I would also say this is the next generation of protection service. Unlike Norton or AVG where they provide link scanners for you, our service has a only a very minimal performance hit. With Norton and AVG link scanners your browser feels like it grinds to a halt. The reason for this is your computer has to manually check all the links on the page BEFORE the page is loaded. Because our service is does the time consuming process of scanning links in advance, your computer has all the speed without any of the slowdown. What’s so great about this service is that no matter what a user does, they won’t be able to “accidently” go to that page.
4. This is GREAT for families with small children who always seem to click on things they shouldn’t.

Let me know if you would like this service setup for you. The process honestly takes a very short time and I can normally even do it remotely depending on the devices in your house or business!

Email me or use the contact form to book a time!