I was reading the technology section of the BBC News website this morning and came across the article announcing that the plug has been pulled on Google Wave.

Back in November 2009, a friend sent me an invite to join the service (people were still clamoring for an invite at that time). I posted a review after I used it and definitely saw the benefit of it, in terms of a corporate or educational environment (namely for team working).

The BBC article stated that “Many people who tried Wave complained that it was too hard to use or that they did not understand why they would use it.”. I think this is probably true of the average computer user who might only own a PC for browsing the net, gaming and keeping in touch with friends and family. They wouldn’t have much of a need for this type of a collaborative tool, which is probably why it didn’t catch on in the way Google hoped it would.

I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this type of tool and no doubt Google is developing something just as innovative as we speak.

Mood : awake   Music : Bang A Gong  by  T-Rex

Yesterday evening, I decided that I wanted to try and install both ColdFusion and XAMPP on my MacBook, to try to get them working in conjunction with each other. I hit a few stumbling blocks along the way which were frustrating so I thought I’d write a quick guide so others could also attempt to install them. Before you start, there’s one thing to keep in mind (and it may seem a bit obvious), but you must have administrator rights as you will need to enter the password during the installation process.

Right, first things first, you’ll need to download a copy of XAMPP OS X and ColdFusion 9 (I’m a student so I use the developer edition). I’m aware that OS X does come with it’s own version of Apache however, I always used XAMPP on Windows and I wanted to continue with it.

1. Install XAMPP in the usual way- it’s really just a case of hitting next. If in doubt, follow the instructions on the XAMPP website

2. Now onto ColdFusion. Download the developer edition, unzip it and click on the installer.

3. The installer should load. Again at this stage, it’s a case of clicking “ok” and “next” to accept terms and conditions.

4. When prompted for a serial number (which you won’t have), check the box which says you are using the developer edition.

5. Then on the next screen, select the server configuration option. After that, you will be asked whether you already have a version of ColdFusion running on your machine. For an easy(ish) install ensure you don’t have an old version lurking about.

6. You will then be asked where you would like to install ColdFusion. Choose whatever you like but I found it easier to leave the default path- “/Applications/ColdFusion9″.

7. After this, you will need to configure the connector. Enter the details below:

• Web Server: Apache

• Config. Dir: /Applications/xampp/etc

• Dir and file name of server binary: /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/bin/httpd

• Dir and file name of server control script: /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/bin/apachectl

8. Hit next. You will then be asked where you would like to place the CFIDE folder. I put mine in /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/htdocs but had an issue where the file permissions didn’t allow me to write anything to the directory. Set the file permissions to read and write. You can do this by navigating to the appropriate folder in Finder, right clicking on it, choosing “Get Info” and editing the “Sharing and Permissions” option which is towards the bottom of the screen.

9. Once you’ve done this, you will be prompted to enter an administrator password for the CFIDE.

10. The next screen asks if you want to set a password for RDS. Off the top of my head, I’m not really sure what that is (can’t even remember if the installer explains it) but I just ignored it and didn’t set a password. After this, it should install.

Ideally, the ColdFusion administration login should then appear, prompting you for the password you previously created. On entering it, the install should complete and bam, everything should work. If it does, then great, go get a cup of tea. if it doesn’t, get a cup of tea anyway- you’re going to be sitting in front of your computer for a little longer.

In my case, whenever i tried to open a .cfm file, my browser tried to save it, meaning that it didn’t know how to render it into a webpage. “Easy fix” I thought. If something like this happens, you may need to tell Apache it’s ok and that these files can be opened. Navigate to /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/etc/httpd.conf. Make a back-up of this file just in case anything goes horribly, horribly wrong. Find the line that says DirectoryIndex and has something like index.php index.html beside it. Add index.cfm. This may solve your problem (if you’re having a problem that is).

I then decided to check out the ColdFusion connector log which can be found at /Applications/ColdFusion9/ConnectorInstall0.txt. In here, I discovered the connector hadn’t been created!

To recreate it, go to /Applications/ColdFusion9/ColdFusion Launcher. Hit the Webserver Connector Utility and enter the same information as provided in step 7. You will need to hit Advanced to enter all the info. The only checkbox which you must tick is the one which says to configure the webserver for ColdFusion9 applications. Once you hit ok, your httpd.conf file for XAMPP will have been edited. At around line 500 or so, you will see code which says something like-

# JRun Settings
LoadModule jrun_module /Applications/ColdFusion9/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/mod_jrun22.so

Don’t worry, this is good. Try and start Apache in the XAMPP control panel. Bet it still doesn’t work? Bet it comes up with an error saying that it cannot load mod_jrun22.so into the server (or something like that). Chances are, ColdFusion is still trying to use the wrong type of connector. I don’t know why it does it- it’s annoying. Anyway, the right version of the connector is sitting on your computer- you’re almost there….

Navigate to Applications/ColdFusion9/runtime/lib/ and copy and paste the wsconfig.jar to your desktop. Open it using the archiving utility and there should be a folder called “connectors”. Inside this, there is one called “apache”. Open it. Here’s all the correct connectors. If you are using a MacBook Pro, choose the intel-macosx folder. Within that, there’s a prebuilt folder and finally inside it, here are the appropriate files! Copy the mod_jrun22.so file. Put the file into the /Applications/ColdFusion9/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/mod_jrun22.so directory, overwriting the old one. Try starting Apache now. It should work. At this stage, you should then be able to complete the installation by following the steps for the CFIDE login in your browser.

So, XAMPP and ColdFusion will be able to work in harmony with each other. Cool, huh? It’s ok, you can thank me later

A guide which was particularly helpful at the early stages can be found at the following link- How I installed ColdFusion 8 on Mac OS X by Renaun Erickson

Mood : blah   Music : California  by  Phantom Planet

Well folks, the rumours you’ve heard are true.  I have indeed purchased a 13″ Macbook Pro.  You know what?  I friggin’ love it.

Since 2007, I’d been using a Dell Inspiron 1501 which I wasn’t especially happy with overall.  I had problems from the beginning: when I tried to connect to a wireless network in Windows Vista, I was presented with the Blue Screen of Death.  That’s something that shouldn’t have happened.  In addition to this, it seemed that the laptop (with 2GB of RAM and a dual-core processor) was incapable of running Netbeans and iTunes at the same time.  That’s something my old Acer from 2004 can *still* do.  Also, the sound was rubbish and the graphics driver caused a problem in that it constantly polled the keyboard, stealing focus and making anything you were typing lag.

Exasperated, I spent hours on the phone with tech support, culminating with me almost having a total meltdown (they are the most frustrating people to talk to).  After being passed to 4 different people, I got even more angry (not like me) and stated that if they didn’t send me a copy of Windows XP, I’d effectively bought a very expensive paperweight.  That seemed to do the trick.  Even after I installed XP, the computer still had problems, particularly with the keyboard stealing focus and entering a mysterious keypress once per second.  No one really knows what’s going on with that but there are many other Inspiron users with the same experience.

Anyway, enough of the old and on to the new!  So yes, I now have my MacBook Pro.  I’ll admit, I was a little nervous about getting it, wondering if I’d like it,  Mac OS X is totally new to me- I’ve been a Windows user since 1998/1999 so I thought it would be a major, scary change for me.  As it turns out, it’s not that much of a change.  OS X is very easy to use and makes the installation of programs simple.  It’s got a great GUI and I’ve found it pretty easy to navigate.  I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to use all the programs I use on Windows.  Again, that seem to be a bit of a myth- I’m quite happily using the majority of the same programs.

I have to make a quick mention of the way the MacBook is designed.  The multi-touch touchpad- two fingers to scroll, move fingers towards/away from each other to zoom in/out, touch the bottom right of the touchpad to right click.  All very nice.  The backlit keyboard is very cool too- sometimes I like to work with the main light off and the aquarium light on.  Now I won’t have to strain my eyes to see what I’m doing.  Oh, and the battery life- hours and hours and hours.  I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: I love it!

So it sounds like I’m an Apple fangirl.  Let the jibes begin now

Mood : bouncy   Music : Tomorrow Never Comes  by  Teddy Geiger

Has anyone else out there downloaded Firefox 3.6 yet? I must say, I’m impressed with the new Persona feature that it includes.

Remember Firefox Themes? If you wanted to install one of them, you first had to locate one which you thought might look ok. Yes, you could see a preview of the theme provided by the author but that wasn’t a guarentee of how it would look on your system. From there, you had to download and install the theme before restarting Firefox (the old theme remained in place until the browser restarted). Much of the time, on restarting Firefox, you would discover that the theme you had chosen looked awful and you ended up wanting to revert to what you originally had. Again, you can to choose the original theme before restarting Firefox once more in order to see the change.

All in all, themes were a bit of a pain in the backside, wouldn’t you agree?

The Persona feature included in Firefox 3.6 is similar to the old themes feature. It basically allows you to apply a skin to your browser with one click, customising it instantly. Unsure if the theme will look good on your system? 1 click and you can preview it fully in the browser. Like what you see? 1 click and its installed and ready to use. Personas certainly make things much easier in comparison to themes.

If you want to see the Persona gallery and get started, check out the Firefox website.

Here’s a rather rubbish screenshot of my system at the moment (and yes, I know this is a rather girly theme)-

Persona Screenshot

Mood : cheerful   Music : Mr Jones  by  Counting Crows

In case you haven’t heard about it, Dundee is holding a Twitter festival on the 25th March 2010, as part of a global effort to raise funds for Concern Worldwide.

For all the information you need, go to http://dundee.twestival.com.

I was lucky enough to get an invite to Google Wave 2 weeks ago and since then, I’ve been messing about with it (I believe the technical term is “testing” it?).  So what do I think of it so far?

A couple of nights ago, I was using it with my friend Grant (http://www.deadtreemedia.co.uk/) to see how it worked.  In amongst the random conversation we were having, we noticed some potential issues….

One of the big “selling points” of Google Wave is that you can see whatever your collaborators are typing in real-time.  This meant that when I was talking to Grant, I could pretty much second guess what he was trying to say and vice-versa.  Subsequently, this meant that our replies became a little jumbled.  Of course by using it as an instant messenger, it could be argued that we missed the whole point of Google Wave as a collaboration tool- the real-time typing wouldn’t be a problem if we used it correctly.

Another thing that irritated me in regards to the real-time typing is that if you’re not that great at typing properly, your collaborators can see all your mistakes.  Look at your keyboard.  Look how easy is it to type “die” rather than “for”.  Yes, that could be awkward.  Very awkward, particularly if you were using it in a work environment!

The day after I tested it with Grant, I tested it with another friend of mine, Colin (http://twitter.com/spawnofthemist).  Soon after starting a new Wave, we realised that you could edit the text which your collaborators had typed meaning everything could be turned into a joke.  I should note it did actually say who had edited what so it’s not like someone could type something awful and get away with it.  Perhaps if you use this in a professional environment you’re supposed to be mature enough to avoid doing this but I still think it would be better if Google let you edit your own text only!

Aside from that, I think it could be an exceptionally useful group collaboration tool.  I know from past experience while working on projects at university, it can be hard to circulate ideas and keep everyone up to date with what’s going on.  Google Wave would definitely make this easier for everyone involved.

On the otherhand, I think if I used it with my group of friends, it would descend into Wave upon Wave filled with lol cats pictures and hilarious videos.  Not saying that’s a bad thing of course

Mood : blah   Music : Knights Of Cydonia  by  Muse

When you’re building a website, it’s important to ensure it looks good in a variety of browsers. I’m currently working on a site at the moment and I wanted to see how it looked in Internet Explorer 6. The only problem is that my computer now runs Internet Explorer 8.

I found a useful tool called MultipleIEs which allows you to run standalone versions of Internet Explorer 6 and it’s predecessors.

Might be a good thing for web designers to have!

Mood : bouncy   Music : Stand Out  by  Tevin Campbell

On Thursday the 9th of July 2009, I graduated from university.

I got a ride to Dundee with my Mum and my Grandad- my guests attending the ceremony.  My sister was supposed to be there but she had a flight to Barcelona that afternoon and wasn’t able to make it.  On arriving in Dundee, I had to head straight for the Caird Hall to get my official photograph taken.  This involved going backstage at the hall, something I thought was pretty cool.  I got to see all the various committee rooms and also saw the “artists lounge”- where the stars hang out.

It took about 45 minutes for me to work my way through the photography process- there were different stages- check order, get a USB pen drive with order details on it, go to a photography room, wait, hoose your best image, get a cd with the image on it, find the frames area.  Quite tiring actually.

After all that, I got back to Caird Square where I met up with some of my friends.  We entered the hall at about 2.30pm and took our seats.  Mine was in the 5th row- seat E17 if you really wanted to know.  Graduation didn’t start ’til 3pm so much yapping was done until then.  Looking at the Graduation booklet we were given, it was so strange to note that only 6 of us were graduating with BSc (Hons) Computing- back when we were young, bright-eyed 1st years, there were 40 of us!

The ceremony began with crazy Phantom of the Opera music.  I have no idea what was being played.  In fact, I don’t even know if the organist was playing a distinct tune.  Perhaps they had a basket of cats which they emptied over the organ, and allowed them to step all over the keys?  It was loud, ominous and to be perfectly honest, would have been more fitting at a funeral.

The ceremony itself was pretty boring.  Throughout the first half, I felt quite nervous, because you know what I’m like before I have to go appear in front of people.  This is definitely the largest crowd I’ve been in front of- approximately 2000 people.  Before long it was time to go on stage.  I thought I’d be really nervous right before I walked on but interestingly, at the moment, I felt very calm and totally ok with it.  The dvd of the graduation ceremony I received afterwards tells a different story- I seem to be unable to smile.  In my defence, I was concentrating on not tripping over my own feet (I’m a bit clumsy).

After that, I just had the rest of the ceremony to sit through or, as it my case, I had the rest of the ceremony to talk (quietly) to the people sitting beside me.  What can I say?  I was bored.  We knew the hall was probably going to get very hot during the ceremony and thought we might be able to get some water, but no.  We ended up sharing a bottle of water that Kevin brought with him.  I’m fairly certain some of the academics gave us funny looks when they saw 4 of us sharing the same bottle.  Rest assured, we were not drinking alcohol- it really was just water.

At the end of the ceremony, we had to leave the hall, row by row and we were greeted in Caird Square by a Pipe Band which was quite nice .  Of course, my family noted that during the procession out into the Square, I still didn’t stop talking…oops.

I took some pictures in the square, talked to my friends then headed back to return my robe.  I had a message from my mum saying that she was at Starbucks with my Grandad so I made my way there to grab an Iced Chocolate.  After a long day (it was 7pm by this point) it was time to head home and relax.

When I got home, my family told me how proud of me they were and how proud my dad would be if he was still with us.  To be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever get this far.  Back in 2002, I was just a devastated 14 year old, coming to the end of her 3rd year in High School.  I didn’t ever want to go back to school after I lost my dad so it’s a testament to my friends, family and teachers/tutors for getting me this far.  Thanks guys

That’s it.  4 years, approximately 39200 miles travelled, 2 days where I was snowed in, that time I was up for 3 days straight, sleepless nights, days of stress, tears, laughter, good times in Whitespace, Ice Cream cake, the best Lentil Soup ever made, playing Hangman in lectures, rants about Scotrail, great friends, travel buddies, that time we got sent home because of the powercut, PC vs Mac, PC vs Linux, laptop wars, bring back the curly fries and a partridge in a pear tree.  Ok, the partridge thing didn’t happen.

The current economic climate isn’t exactly conducive to finding a job.  Even during the graduation ceremony, the principal pretty much said that it would be tough getting a job in our desired field.  After 4 years of really hard work, that’s a little disheartening to hear.  I know, I know- no one said it would be easy.

Here’s to new beginnings I guess, however they may turn out in these uncertain times.

Good luck everyone- I wish you all the best with whatever you choose to do

Mood : nostalgic   Music : Closing Time  by  Semisonic

Here’s a tip for you web designers out there.

Ever needed to spellcheck your website once it’s live online?  I’ve just found out that it’s possible to do this in Firefox.  Go to the website you want to spellchecked and then enter the following in the address bar-

javascript:document.body.contentEditable=‘true’; document.designMode=‘on’; void 0

This tip came courtesy of Urbanos Blog

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

Mood : blah   Music : Out Of Control  by  She Wants Revenge

Whilst I was away on my American and Canadian adventures, I received my marks for for my dissertation and all the other work I completed in semester 2 at uni.  In total I received 4 B’s and 1 A.  Overall, for the whole of 4th year, I got 7 B’s.

This afternoon, my degree classification was confirmed.  At 3pm, on Thursday the 9th of July 2009, I will be graduating with a 2:1 as a Bachelor of Science with Honours in BSc (Hons) Computing.

Now, I’m off to have a celebratory cup of tea

Mood : accomplished   Music : Supernatural Superserious  by  R.E.M.