Been having a fun time today trying to get Magento CMS working. The bizarre situation was that PHP would work fine under the default web site, but not under any other web site, which would result in a 500 Internal Server Error caused by the ZendPHPviaFastCGI PHP handler mapping. See screenshot below. I of course tried every possible solution without success, the cause turned out to be rather obscure.

What was required to fix this was to manually add this attribute to the handler mapping in the applicationHost.config file, which you will find in C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config.

allowPathInfo="true"

This parameter does not seem to exist in the IIS Manager and is not even mentioned in the handler docs so I really do really not know why this is required or why it is not there by default and why you cannot add it via the GUI.

So the final entry for my ZendPHPviaFastCGI handler looked like this.

<add name="ZendPHPviaFastCGI" path="*.php" verb="*" modules="FastCgiModule" 
scriptProcessor="C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\ZendServer\bin\php-cgi.exe" 
resourceType="Either" requireAccess="Script" allowPathInfo="true" />

Credit must go to my buddy Matt Gahan for working this one out.

Overview

Q-waves Wireless USB AV Kit enables users to stream from any laptop, netbook or PC directly onto your TV screen quickly and simply, with full audio support. Great for PC Gaming! Make Skype video calls on your TV. Imagine BBC iPlayer on your TV - well now it's possible! Connect a TV or projector for home cinema, showing your photo's or playing your music and internet radio. Free yourself to watch what you want, when you want.

Read more...

In my efforts to give up smoking I decided to investigate these so called electronic cigarettes. To my surprise the reviews all seemed to rave about them and people were claiming they never looked back, what has a lot to do with the smoking bans, so I thought sod it lets buy one. There are so many out there it is damn hard to choose, but in the end I went for the one pictured left from Totally Wicked Eliquid where they call them Electronic Nicotine Inhalers (e-NI) rather than e-cigarettes, which is in fact what they are.

I have to say I am shocked at how good it actually is, not only does it taste very similar to a cigarette, but I actually prefer it and have been smoking it far more than I do cigarettes. You get all the things that keep you hooked on smoking, something to hold in your hand and put in your mouth, the taste, the inhalation of smoke and of course the nicotine high but without any of the nastiness, here are some of the benefits.

• They contain no tobacco,Nor do they contain any of the multitudes of harmful, carcinogeous ingredients found in traditional tobacco products
• No Smoke (it is actually water vapour)
• doesn’t make you or your clothes smell
• no chance of causing fire as it is not alight
• legal to smoke in public places due to above
• no where near as bad for your health
• no more mouth like a litter tray in the mornings
• will not effect those around you
• saves you money
• wont give you cancer
• you don’t have to go outside in the cold to smoke

There are many different types, some look like cigarettes and some don't, like mine above, and some look just plain weird, add to that the fact that there are 30+ different flavours of nicotine liquid (or cartridges) to choose from, and you can see the whole smoking experience suddenly has a bit more depth to it.

So far I have only tried regular and cherry flavour nicotine and I like them both. I used to only smoke menthol ciggies and couldn't stand anything else, but this is not an issue with the e-NI as it is far less harsh due to the lack of tobacco. I am a big fan of the flavours too, back in the days of pipe and tobacco shops I used to smoke flavoured pipe tobacco and use liquorice rizla papers, so itsa bit of a blast from the past and I expect I will have a nice selection soon.

So if you are a smoker, I would definitely recommend you give it a try, i'm sure those around you wont miss your stinky clothes and smelly breath either. If you are worried about looking like a bit of a ponce, all I can say is grow a pair? and stop worrying about what others think, it's your life after all.

PCI DSS compliance is now a legal requirement for anyone with merchant services, having just had to go through this myself and knowing that our clients are also going to have to do the same, I started searching for a simple guide that I could pass on to clients and came across this book.

Complying with the PCI Data Security Standard may seem like a daunting task for merchants. This book is a quick guide to understanding how to protect cardholder data and comply with the requirements of PCI - from surveying the standard's requirements to detailing steps for verifying compliance.

PCI Compliance for Dummies arms you with the facts, in plain English, and shows you how to achieve PCI Compliance.

And yes my company BlueThunder Internet is fully PCI DSS compliant before you ask :-)

My answer to this would be an emphatic NO, these review sites are all there to make money and simply give the highest rating to the hosts who pay the most. And as far as any reviews go, these can just as easily be made up by either the review site or the host as no real validation  takes place on most of these sites other than to maybe send out a verification email to the specified email address, which only goes to prove that the poster did not use a fake address.  Many of these sites will also doctor the reviews to favour the paying advertisers, notice that almost all host review sites have the same companies in their top 10. Just take a look at http://hosting-reviews-exposed.com/ for some real dirt.

Read more...