Advanced Software for Microsoft Windows and the Web

I installed MySQL’s Connector/Net v6.2 on my dev machine and used the Entity Framework to query a MySQL server without any problems.  Then I uploaded the same code to my hosting company’s server and I kept getting errors telling me “Unable to find the requested .Net Framework Data Provider”.  In order to make it work, I had to do the following:

1. Uploaded MySql.Data.dll to my bin directory
2. Uploaded MySql.Data.Entity.dll to my bin directory
3. Added the following lines to my web.config file:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<configuration>
…

<system.data>

<DbProviderFactories>

<add name=”MySQL Data Provider” invariant=”MySql.Data.MySqlClient” description=”.Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL” type=”MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data, Version=6.2.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d” />

</DbProviderFactories>

</system.data>

I hope this saves someone else some headaches!

Rob

After installing Windows 7 x64 on my PowerPro P 11:15, I still had some devices in Device Manager without drivers.  Included in this list were the following:

Base System Device

• Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0843&SUBSYS_002514C0&REV_12
• This is actually a “Ricoh SD/MMC Host Controller”
• Solution: Installed setup.exe from \08.CardReader\3.51.01(WHQL).zip

Base System Device

• Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&SUBSYS_002514C0&REV_12
• This is actually a “Ricoh Memory Stick Controller”
• Solution: Installed setup.exe from \08.CardReader\3.51.01(WHQL).zip (solving the Ricoh SD/MMC Host Contoller above will solve this simultaneously)

PCI Memory Controller

• Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_444E&SUBSYS_444E8086&REV_01
• This is actually the “Intel Turbo Memory Controller (Robson cache)
• I still haven’t gotten this working.

Unknown Device

• Hardware ID: ACPI\CPL0002\2&DABA3FF&1
• This is actually the “COMPAL Embedded System Control” (the Wireless Select Switch)
  • Solution: EMSC driver for the Wireless Select Switch can be downloaded from http://fl90.tumblr.com/.  Then install the setup.exe from \16.WirelessSelectSwtich\2.0.0.2
• This is NOT the “Smart Battery” as reported by many web sites
  • Smart Battery Driver: http://www.compal.com/Download/NB/JFL92_JFT02/Application/17.Smart Battery/1.0.0.10/20070605_CplSMB_V1.0.0.10_Release.zip

Unknown Device

• Hardware ID: ACPI\ENE0100\3&33FD14CA&0
• This is actually the “ENE CIR Receiver”
• Solution: Installed the drivers from \15.CIR\V1.3(WHQL)\Vista
• http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_ENE_CIR_Receiver (Consumer IR Receiver)

PowerPro P 11:15

Compal JFL92

Similar to Sager NP2090/COMPAL IFL90/PowerPro J 10:15 — these are all the same model and are lower-end than the NP2092

According to Sager, the NP2090, NP2092, FL90, and JFL92 all use the same drivers

Resellers:

• http://www.compal.com/asp/driver_dnd/index.htm
• http://www.powernotebooks.com/support/
• http://www.xoticpc.com/support-ip-18.html
• http://www.sagernotebook.com/information.php?information_id=19
• ftp://ftp.littlebit.ch/Littlebit%20Systems/Notebook/Stingray%20Z84%20%28FL90%29/Driver/

Another hosting company I use has both the old ASP.NET AJAX extensions installed and the .NET Framework 3.5 installed.  In order to resolve an ambiguity between the two sets of DLLs in the GAC, I had to modify web.config according to the instructions here:

http://weblogs.asp.net/javiervillarreal/archive/2008/01/30/the-type-system-web-ui-scriptmanager-is-ambiguous-it-could-come-from-assembly.aspx

I could not get our Windows XP SP3 machine to connect to our Vista SP1 “server” machine.  I found the solution at:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-support/windows-vista-support/227510-solved-vista-sp1-changed-sharing-behavior.html

Solution: The XP machine’s Local Security Policy had to be changed to enforce NTLMv2.

The user’s problem was described as follows:

I upgraded Vista Ultimate to SP1 today and after the update, I can no longer see the folder and device shares that used to be visible to another computer running XP SP2. If I try NET VIEW from the XP computer, I get “System error 58 has occurred” and no information. Priot to the upgrade, all of the network shares were visible to my XP computers. I also upgraded a laptop computer running Vista Home Premium to SP1, and it has no problem seeing the shares across the network, so the problem appears to be particular to either XP or maybe any non-Vista OS. Ideas?

And this was the solution:

I’ve solved the problem of not being able to see network shares on my Vista machine from an XP machine after installing Vista SP1. The problem was authentication level for LAN Manager. Vista defaults to NTLMv2, and my Vista machine only allowed that level. My XP machine was set for LM & NTLM, but did not deal with NTLMv2. I solved the problem by going into Local Security Policy on both machines and changing the Network security: LAN Manager authentication level to “Send LM & NTLM – use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated” on both. I had to reboot to have the change take effect, and the problem was eliminated.

Fix this problem by setting your hosts file entry “::1 localhost” to “:::1 localhost” (i.e. add an extra colon at the beginning of the line).

I found this solution at http://bvencel.blogspot.com/2008/05/aspnet-development-server-problems.html

Using EAC, here are the best settings (that I’ve found) for encoding audio:

• Check ‘Use external program for compression’
• Change ‘Parameter passing scheme’ to ‘User Defined Encoder’

• MP3:
  • Set file extension to .mp3
    
  • Locate ‘lame.exe’
  • Additional Command-line options: %l-V 5%l%h-V 0%h –vbr-new %s %d

• FLAC:
  • Set file extension to .flac
  • Locate ‘flac.exe’
  • Use command line -T “artist=%a” -T “title=%t” -T “album=%g” -T “date=%y” -T “tracknumber=%n” -T “genre=%m” %s

This was taken after the pond was completely finished.  Check out the fish!  Swanky patio furniture, too!

Footage recorded on October 25th, 2006

Here is the new pond before all of the greenery had been planted.

Video footage taken on July 18th, 2006

I ran into a problem recently where a third-party application could not launch iTunes and the Apple iTunes COM SDK also could not launch iTunes.  I have the 64-bit version of Windows XP Professional (x64 Edition) installed on my Athlon 64 computer and initially thought that perhaps MarkAble (an excellent tool for converting audio files into iTunes/iPod Audiobooks) was not working correctly on my 64-bit OS.  However, its problem was with launching iTunes, not calling any of iTunes’ functionality.

Technical Explanation

It was not a 64-bit issue at all. For some reason, my iTunes COM type library (TLB) was never registered on the system.  So, values like “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\iTunes.Application” and “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\iTunes.Application.1″ were not registered on my system. Neither the ITunes.Application GUID (DC0C2640-1415-4644-875C-6F4D769839BA) nor the iTunes TypeLib for all of the COM interfaces (9E93C96F-CF0D-43f6-8BA8-B807A3370712) showed up anywhere in my registry.

Possible Explanations

What caused this?  This may happen when iTunes does not complete its installation process or when the type libraries do not get registered correctly. Either situation could occur on a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Windows.

Solution

How did I fix it? I just dropped to a command-prompt, changed to the “C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes” directory, and issued the following command:

itunes /regserver

That did the trick!  Now MarkAble works like a charm.  The iTunes COM SDK should also work fine now.