Category Archives: Software

Things I Learned About CiviCRM This Week

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I was introduced to CiviCRM a few years ago when a new customer needed a replacement for an old poorly designed database solution and needed it quickly. After getting quotes starting at $10,000 for systems supposedly designed for non-profits, I stumbled on CiviCRM which was free, open source and seemed to have a good community behind it.  The project became one of my notable success stories as I was able to discover a new product and learn enough about it to implement it in a short time.  I even managed some advanced customizing of the system.

The system has worked without any serious issues for the past few years and I hadn’t heard from the customer very often.   Then, last week, I got an e-mail stating they’d moved their offices, made some changes to their network and needed me to come in and get the software working again. Everything went smoothly for the first 10 minutes I was there. Then I realized that CiviCRM was running incredibly slow and its top menu had disappeared which pretty much makes it unusable for anyone who doesn’t want to type in a lot of complicated URLs.  Again, it had been quite a while since I’d touched CiviCRM or dealt with the specifics of their system so I ended having do do a bit of research to find out what was going on.

In the end, the solution came down to updating the civicrm.settings.php file with the new network information. Once that was done, the system worked great but I ended up taking the long way around to discover it. Along the way, I refreshed my knowledge of CiviCRM and learned a few new things as well. This was just as well as I was able to be even more confident that no other problems lurking in their system when I was done.

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Coming in 2019 – CodeScholar Software Development Training!

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CodeScholar Logo

CodeScholar is a new type of software development training specifically for educators and self-educators. Coming in 2019 from ComeauSoftware.com and OcalaITPros.com.

A simple Google search turns up hundreds of options for learning programming, many free, but where do you start?  There are many excellent reference sites and YouTube channels out there but many focus on the mechanics of a single language without explaining the broader concepts and best practices. Many are written by developers for (aspiring) developers and might leave you with a sink-or-swim feeling as you pick your way through incomplete answers and abandoned message threads that don’t quite apply.

As a programming instructor, I’ve spent the last couple of years searching the web for the best resources I could find for my students as they struggled to understand concepts such as database normalization and object-oriented programming.  A textbook or two and classroom lectures are not enough when you’re trying to reach a variety of students from different backgrounds.  Seemingly limitless online resources become very limited when it comes to information on a less popular topic such as pass-through queries or deadlocking and you’re trying to find something that will provide enough detail but won’t utterly confuse the students or cause then to tune out from boredom.

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How To Create a Local WordPress site with XAMPP

XAMPP is one of many AMP software stacks (Apache – MySQL – PHP) that can be used to create a local web development environment for design and testing.  It automatically installs and configures Apache as a web server so that you can view your pages through http://localhost, MySQL as a database server for website data and PHP to render any PHP code within your pages.

Once you have XAMPP installed, you can install WordPress or other content management systems locally so that you can easily develop and test your web content and programming before uploading it to the web or an intranet.  I also use WordPress as a local CMS for organizing my own content.

Setting up XAMPP and WordPress takes as little as 10 minutes and can be done either on your hard drive or a USB flash drive as I show in this video. The flash drive option is a little slower but it is easily portable between systems as XAMPP runs entirely from the directory it’s installed to.

Downloads: XAMPP is developed by ApacheFriends and maintained by Bitnami. The download is available through SourceForge or from ApacheFriends.org: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/ https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html

The latest version of WordPress is available from WordPress.org. https://wordpress.org/download/

 

Screen Rapidly Flashes On and Off After Windows 7 Update

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Problem

After installing updates in Windows 7, I found that my primary display flashed on and off rapidly and I was unable to activate any menus on the screen. My extended display, powered by a StarTech USB to VGA Adapter, remained off even though the drivers were properly installed and everything had been working prior to the updates. Unplugging the StarTech adapter restored the primary display to normal but left me without a second monitor.

Cause

The recent update had included dozens of individual security updates so I researched the issue online and found the symptoms linked to the following Windows update:

KB2670838 – Platform update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

This is a graphics performance update that has had a number of reports of compatibility problems and other issues.

Solution

My solution was to simply uninstall the update. This required a restart of the system, after which both monitors worked fine.  The KB2670838 update is a prerequisite for Internet Explorer 10 / 11 and removing it will cause these versions of IE to malfunction or be removed from the system. Re-installing IE 10/11 will also reinstall KB2670838. Removing it did not affect my installation of Google Chrome, however.

Installing MySQL on Mac OS X El Capitan

A few months ago, I wrote about how to install MySQL on Windows with IIS. Now I want to show you how to create an AMP web programming stack (Apache, MySQL & PHP) on Mac OS X. As with Windows, you could just go with a ready-made development environment like MAMP but, if you’re going to be doing real database and web design work with MySQL, it’s best to know how everything works.

Background

For this demonstration, I’m going to be using Mac OS X El Capitan (v.10.11), the latest version as of this writing.  My installation environment is a hosted Mac server with 1 GB of RAM and 40 GB of disk space. I will be demonstrating the process using the Terminal commands.

Unlike Windows, OS X already includes the Apache web server and PHP language pre-installed so it’s a much simpler process to ensure that everything is working together. You will need root access in order to install and configure the components.

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On the Importance of Backups and Storage Decisions

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Windows 7 installation routine

Re-installing Windows 7 ….

I admit it’s a little bit of a geek thing but I’m in the habit of wiping and reloading my computer systems at least once a year to keep everything working right. I find that, even as careful as I am about what I install, I still work with some major software and Windows systems start to slow down and get a little flaky after awhile with random hiccups that take time to track down. Sometimes, it’s easier just to take a day, back everything up and re-install Windows from scratch.

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Creating Virtual Machines with Oracle VM VirtualBox

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What is Virtualization?

Win7-XP

Virtual machines enable the user to run multiple guest systems on the same computer. This image shows a virtual machine with Windows XP installed, , referred to as the guest system, running on a Windows 7 host machine.

Several years ago, I wrote an article for this site about Microsoft Virtual PC, Microsoft’s implementation of virtualization technology for the Windows desktop. Virtualization software enables a computer to act as a host, running multiple computer sessions with different operating systems for the purpose of testing software, isolating specific programs from the rest of the software on the host machine or maintaining older operating systems as needed after an upgrade. Virtual PC was a somewhat simplified virtualization software which officially supported various versions of DOS and Windows and made the virtualization concept a little more accessible to the average user. With the release of Windows 8, it was succeeded by Hyper-V on machines with the necessary hardware requirements and Windows 8 editions.

Oracle VM VirtualBox

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Favorite Android Apps – Hi-Q MP3 Recorder

One of the many advantages of carrying an all-in-one device like a smartphone is the ability to record notes to myself, whether it’s short reminders or dictation of study notes. A device with some storage space can even store longer recordings including lectures and meetings. The old micro-cassette recorders and other voice recording technologies have easily been made obsolete by the near-ubiquitous recording features of the current generation of phones.

The only drawback for me was the AMR format that is standard with Android sound recording apps. If I’m going to be recording, I want to use the standard MP3 format that can be played on pretty much whatever device or software I’m using and can be recorded in various bit rates to balance the need for quality against the length of the recording and the space available. After comparing a few apps, I settled on the Hi-Q MP3 Recorder from Yuku.

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Microsoft Access for Beginners / JobSearch 2010

I’ve started to see some sales of the eBook version of “Microsoft Access for Beginners” and was happy to hear from one of the readers today, despite the fact that he was reporting a problem …

It seems there was an issue with the Access 2007 / 2010 version of the program that I believe had to do with differing installations of Access 2007.  I’ve corrected the problem and the corrected version is available for download.

Whether or not you’ve bought the book, JobSearch 2010 is definitely worth a look.  This is a free program designed with Access 2007 that helps to organize your job search by enabling you to store complete information on every job lead in one place, track the progress of individual leads and follow-up on opportunities more effectively.  If you don’t have Microsoft Access, there’s a version that includes the Access 2007 run-time, a free version of Microsoft Access that will enable you to run the program and change data while preventing any design changes to the program.

For more information, check out the download page where you’ll find links to all the versions available and a program manual to help you get started.