ColdFusion 8 on CentOS 4 with BlueQuartz

When starting ColdFusion for the first time connector wizard cannot configure web server correctly.

Starting ColdFusion 8...
The ColdFusion 8 server is starting up and will be available shortly.
======================================================================
Running the ColdFusion 8 connector wizard
======================================================================
Configuring the web server connector (Launched on the first run of the ColdFusion 8 start script)
Running apache connector wizard...
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 12 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 11 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 10 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 9 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 8 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 7 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 6 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 5 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 4 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 3 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 2 more time(s)
ColdFusion 8 not started, will retry connector 1 more time(s)
The connector wizard has not been able to contact the local ColdFusion 8, connector installation aborted.
======================================================================
ColdFusion 8 has been started.
ColdFusion 8 will write logs to /opt/coldfusion8/logs/cfserver.log
======================================================================

How to compile Strongbolt kernel on Cobalt RaQ4

Cobalt RaQ4 was laying around collecting dust so I decided to give it a second chance. Guys from OS Office (http://www.osoffice.co.uk) put together Strongbolt – excellent Linux distribution based on CentOS with Cobalt RaQ support.

I wanted to use Cobalt RaQ4 to test highly available and load balanced cluster configuration. However current Strongbolt kernel 2.6.16i586 doesn’t have IP virtual server support and had to be recompiled.

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Compressed Nifty Corners

Recently I was experimenting with different techniques and libraries that implement rounded corners with no images. Nifty Corners Cube by Alessandro Fulciniti was among them.

I liked the fact that the library detected background color and padding of the target element. This allows the technique to degrade gracefully if JavaScript is disabled.

I usually compress the libraries I use with JavaScript packer written by Dean Edwards and Rob Seiler. However niftycube.js had to be corrected before since there is a semicolon missing on line 24.

niftycube.js:
String.prototype.find=function(what){
return(this.indexOf(what)>=0 ? true : false);
}; // Missing semicolon

Download Nifty Corners Cube (compressed), 4.66 KB.

Hungry Microsoft mouse

Recently I was in the nearest Circuit City store and picked up a laptop mouse. It is a regular mouse with no additional buttons or features.

When I saw system requirements printed in fine print on the back of the package, I didn’t believe my eyes at first – 100 MB of free space on hard drive! It is totally unthinkable considering the fact that there is a great chance that Microsoft XP/Vista will support it without any drivers. Where did those days go when developers cared about optimization?

PHP 5 / WordPress on Windows

Before going live with WordPress I have decided to try it out on my laptop. It was a time to upgrade my PHP installation as well. I downloaded and installed the most recent version of PHP 5 using ZIP archive and configured Apache accordingly. However the following message appeared when I tried to install WordPress:

Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.

It turned out PHP 5 was not configured to use MySQL by default. This is what I have changed in php.ini compared to php.ini-recommended.

extension_dir = "c:/php5/ext/"
...
extension=php_mysql.dll
extension=php_mysqli.dll
...
session.save_path = "c:/windows/temp/"

Unfortunately it did not help. I was still getting the same error. It was a time to finally read the PHP installation manual.

And then the mystery was uncovered. In order for PHP to access MySQL database, file libmysql.dll from PHP distribution “needs to be available to the Windows systems PATH”. I copied the file to C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder and it worked!