Set Up PostgreSQL for Rails 3.1

Mark Berry October 7, 2011

Heroku requires PostgreSQL for production and recommends it for development. Here is the process I worked out for installing PostgreSQL 8.4 and setting up a Rails 3.1 project. I’m working in Ubuntu 10.04.

Install Rails 3.1 for the Rails Tutorial

Mark Berry September 27, 2011

I’ve been working through Michael Hartl’s Ruby on Rails Tutorial. I had some trouble in chapter 13 installing the released version of Rails 3.1.0, so I thought I would post what worked for me.

Copy an IIS7 Application Pool

Mark Berry June 14, 2011

Today I needed to create a .NET v4.0 version of an existing application pool. The old app pool was installed by a vendor install and uses a custom identity that gives it access to the vendor’s application. I don’t know the password to the custom identity, so I couldn’t create a new app pool from scratch.

I wondered about copying and modifying .config files, but this thread has a more elegant solution:

1. Start PowerShell
2. import-module webadministration
3. copy IIS:\AppPools\oldpool IIS:\AppPools\newpool –force

Voila! The new app pool is there, referencing the same identity. Change its other properties as needed, then assign your application to the new app pool.

Install Microsoft Document Explorer

Mark Berry June 14, 2011

If you ask Visual WebGui 6.4’s installer to include documentation in the install, it looks for Microsoft Document Explorer. But Document Explorer is no longer included in Visual Studio 2010 (complaints, Microsoft’s story). So where can I get Document Explorer?

PowerShell: Get-WinEvent vs. Get-EventLog

Mark Berry April 1, 2011

I’ve been working to write a flexible PowerShell script to retrieve and email warning and error events from computers in a small network. The computers variously run XP, Windows 7, Server 2003, SBS 2008, and Server 2008 R2. I wanted to include the new Applications and Services logs for Vista/2008 and beyond, so for those OSs, I use the new Get-WinEvent cmdlet that is part of PowerShell 2.0.

Using Path in Local System Context

Mark Berry March 10, 2011

I’m using GFI MAX Remote Management to deploy some PowerShell scripts to servers. The scripts need access to a new directory I set up, C:\Scripts\PowerShell, so I used a PowerShell command to add that path to the Path environment variable in the machine scope.

PowerShell: Remove Blank Lines from Command Output

Mark Berry March 8, 2011

For some reason, when you run some shell commands in a PowerShell script, the output has an extra blank line after each line. It doesn’t seem to affect commands run in the console, but it is evident using the command line in the PowerGUI Script Editor. Examples are ipconfig and tracert.

The thing to keep in mind is that when you run a shell command, you are actually getting back an array of objects, one item per line.

Set up Windows Authentication in IE8

Mark Berry December 21, 2010

If you have a web site that requires logging on with Windows Authentication, you can set Internet Explorer 8 to pass through your current credentials, thus bypassing the logon prompt. Vernon gives short and sweet instructions on how to set your Internet Options in this thread:

1. On the Security tab, make sure the site is added under “Trusted Sites” and set the Security levels for this zone to Low. (Actually, I would try Medium first.)
2. Click on the Custom level… button and go right down to the bottom, under User Authentication make sure the radio button is in “Automatic logon with current user name and password”.
3. On the Advanced tab, under Security, make sure “Enable Integrated Windows Authentication *” (requires restart) is checked.