After a bunch of iPhone programming I thought I'd jump over to the other side for a little bit and check out the Windows Azure platform: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx

It looks like a great way to develop for dumb terminals using a cloud, which is exactly what a lot of companies will be heading towards in the future.

From my point of view as a sysadmin/IT support I think it's a great direction for companies to head and will reduce IT maintenance costs considerably while giving support staff more time to focus on other projects.

Desktop support wastes so much time/money that a solution which works towards eradicating or even reducing it can only be good.

I am applying for the Microsoft Bizspark program (http://www.microsoft.com/BizSpark) to hopefully get access to Visual Studio to try Azure out and work on something (I'll post here when I've made progress). I've only ever used Xcode so I'm not sure how the transition will go.

My first project will be to develop a bug tracking system (like bugzilla, confluence) which will run in the cloud locally for a company. Lets hope my application is approved!

In addition to being a Sysadmin and Programmer, my side business is Wedding photography. My brother and I have experience in shooting and assisting in over 40 weddings and we're now teaming up to deliver a quality product on our own!

Check out Synergy Photography, we cover the south coast from North Sydney to Nowra and the Illawarra.

Click here for Synergy:
Wollongong Wedding Photography
Wollongong Wedding Photographer
Wedding Photographer Wollongong

To get Google Chrome working in Windows 7 64bit, you'll need to edit the launch shortcut.

1. Go to 'Start' > 'All Programs' > click 'Google Chrome' to expand the folder, and right click on 'Google Chrome' and go to 'Properties':

chrome1

2. Append '--in-process-plugins' after chrome.exe in the 'Target' field:

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Chrome should now work (at least, it did for me!)

Some people have found certain MSI based installers are crashing / not working at all in Windows 7. I experienced this while trying to install TortoiseSVN.

If this occurs to you, go to Start > type 'regedit' in the 'Search programs and files' section.

Navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\

Right click the 'DeletedSessions' folder and delete it and all its subkeys. Your installer should now work.

UPDATE:

Some people may have been successful with connecting to a samba PDC with Samba. Check out the following URL:

http://www.nabble.com/Windows-7-RC-td23405949.html

--

I've been trying for the past week or so to get Windows 7 to connect to our samba domain controller (pdc) without much luck.

The error is "The following error occurred attempting to join the domain "DOMAINNAME": The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted".

Browsing shares via \\server\sharename work without a problem, and the Vista fix of changing the 'Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level' policy to 'LM and NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated' hasn't helped at all.

I finally got annoyed enough to email the samba support lists (as my google-fu wasn't helping much) and found the answer which was in the samba-technical list: http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2009-January/062827.html

Sincere apologies, but wanted to confirm that there is an issue with NT Domain support in
Windows 7. We're trying to expeditiously track down exactly the issue(s), but the short of
it is I wouldn't spend time trying to get this functionality to work. We'll get some sort
of official notice out shortly (and I do mean shortly).

Jim Pinkerton,
Microsoft

So, I guess we wait and hope it's fixed before release.. or my company isn't touching Windows 7 (much like Vista).

It's not entirely obvious how to get the Windows 7 taskbar to appear like XP's with the Quick Launch bar, so I thought I'd post a little tutorial on how to do it.

The first two options are if you prefer the original Win2k look without the vista shinyness.

1. Right click your desktop and select 'Personalize':

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2. Select the Windows Classic theme:

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3. Now right click on your taskbar and select 'Properties':

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4. Select 'use small icons' and under the 'Taskbar buttons' pulldown menu, select 'Never combine'. (I don't know why Microsoft is forcing combined tasks under one taskbar button on us. It's stupid. 2 clicks to get to another window when it could be one? stop wasting our time!). Now click OK.

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5. Right click on your taskbar again and select 'Toolbars' then 'New Toolbar'

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6. Under 'Folder', enter this (with quotes): "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch"

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7. You'll now have a button on your taskbar called 'Quick Launch'

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8. Right click your taskbar and uncheck 'Lock the taskbar' to unlock it.

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9. Extra menu options have now appeared, right click on the 'Quick Launch' button you added and uncheck 'Show Text' and 'Show Title'

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10. You'll now probably see just one Quick launch icon:

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11. This part can be slightly tricky, grab the bar on the left of your task bar items and drag it all the way over onto the quicklaunch icon that you now see (in my screenshot it's onto the firefox icon). Doing this will cause the quicklaunch buttons to jump over to the left side of the task bar.

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12. Resize the quicklaunch bar how you like, and right click the task bar and lock it again.

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13. Enjoy your XP style taskbar with Quick Launch in Windows 7

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I received two emails today:

The status for the following application has changed to Ready for Sale.
Application Name: New Zealand Traffic Cameras

The status for the following application has changed to Ready for Sale.
Application Name: Western Australia Traffic Cameras

Yay! hopefully they'll hit the store soon

WATraffic

I've finally made and submitted my WATraffic application to the iTunes store. It uses cameras from http://map.mainroads.wa.gov.au/trafficam/SelCamera.asp , This one isn't free (sorry!) but it only costs $2.50. A toll in Sydney is double that :/ so hopefully it's not too much for you Perthians to pay. (I'm not allowed to sell the Sydney one, and these apps are made in my free time, and I've gotta pay for hosting/development fees!).

I submitted it two weeks ago, and it looks like someone at apple tried it almost 8 days ago, according to my web logs. I just can't see why it's taking so long to review (my previous apps/updates have never taken longer than a week). Hopefully it will be on the store soon.

Any comments/suggestions/bug reports for this app can be posted in the comments section of this app, or just send me an email at nick@triso.me

Nick.

nztraffic

Coming soon: NZTraffic has been created, I'm currently reviewing the application and it will be submitted to the iTunes store soon.

If you'd like to test it out before it hits the store, drop me an email at nick@triso.me

Nick.

For those of you who actually read this page, I'd just like to post an update on what's been happening.

I've basically finished the WA MainRoads cameras application, but due to my iPhone breaking (apple replaced it within 15 mins of me walking into their Apple store, which was fantastic), and my iTunes connect (the site you submit apps to itunes) account not working properly, my inability to get a new certificate to compile against on my new iPhone, i'm yet to release it.

New Zealand traffic cameras are planned after WA, and possibly http://coastalwatch.com.au surfcams (depending on how discussions with them go).

Apple developer support has "raised my issue to urgent" - even though they said last Friday that they would fix my login problem and get back to me asap. One tip for any iPhone developer out there: DONT CHANGE YOUR APPLE ID, it breaks everything.

Nick.