Just because I don't want to have to look this up again. Windows 8's driver signing enforcement prevents installing GBridge's network drivers. I posted how to work around that on gbridge.net forums when I was testing the Windows 8 preview, but their forum is offline now.

Windows 8

This method works for Professional or Home versions.

  1. Using the Settings charm (swipe from the right side of the screen), select Change PC settings > General > Advanced Startup > Restart
  2. In the restart screen, select Troubleshoot > Advanced Settings > Startup Settings > Restart
  3. At the startup options screen, select item 7, disable driver enforcement (or press F7)
  4. Install GBridge!

When I upgraded one of my computers from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, GBridge had problems starting. The first issue I had was, Windows indicated that SecureBoot wasn't working (message at bottom right corner of the desktop). My BIOS setting was set to a legacy boot mode that didn't allow SecureBoot to work. Once I disabled the legacy mode and enabled SecureBoot, I was able to restart with unsigned driver enforcement disabled.

Windows 8.1:

  1. Settings charm > Change PC settings > Update and recovery > Recovery > Advanced startup > Restart
  2. The rest is the same as for Windows 8 steps 2 through 4 above

Windows 10 Technical Preview:

Windows 10 Preview is essentially the same, as of October 31, 2014.

Edit 2015-01-25, 2015-03-20:

With build 9926 (Jan 24) of the Windows 10 Technical Preview, I had to do some messing around to get GBridge to work. (And now again with build 10041, March 20). Perhaps it's because I didn't do a full uninstall and then reinstall. At any rate, GBridge kept telling me that it couldn't find a connection, even after running the installer a couple times (and using the built-in removal the second time). Here's the fix:

  1. Reboot with signed driver enforcement disabled (as described above).
  2. If you have GBridge installed, open Device Manager and remove the unrecognized adapter device (I don't rmember exactly where it appears, but it's not under network adapters now).
  3. (You might not need to do this step... I skipped it and it worked) Run the installer and choose the removal/full install option.
  4. Start GBridge to see if it's working now. If not...
  5. Open the Windows Start menu and type 'cmd.exe'. It will find an item called "Command Prompt". Right click this and select "Run as administrator"
  6. Navigate to the GBridge Installation folder (something like C:\Program Files (x86)\GBrige LLC)
  7. Execute this command line: GbridgeInstallHelper64.exe -i
  8. The helper installs the GBridge network adapter, and I think might add something to the firewall.
  9. Start GBridge again. At this point, mine was fixed. There were some other command line options, which it lists when started without one. I have no idea what they do; I just tried the first one and it worked (-i).

 

Tags

Selecting PHP command line version on HostGator shared host

This took me a while to find, so I'm saving it somewhere I can find it again.

The easy way to select the PHP version used for web applications is to use the CPanel configuration tool. However, that doesn't work if you're using SSH and need PHP on the command line. Also, on HostGator, you can't create a symlink outside of your directory (such as to the global php).

You can find out what version you have with

$ php --version

If that's not the version you want, try a specific version like this (php55 is 5.5, etc):

Book Scanning Process

 

Just to document this for next time. For reference, my books are 8 x 10.75 inches and other dimension below work for this. For approximately 100 pages, It takes me about 45 minutes to scan, an hour to crop and rotate, and 30 minutes to organize and generate the PDF.

Fixing features for hotfolder

Here is some documentation about the process I used to solve some issues with hotfolder and the features module. I was doing this partly through the web interface and partly through a console, so this is a reconstruction of what I remember and the console log. 

 

I was getting the following error message when I tried to check hotfolder watches (see https://www.drupal.org/node/2453659):

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$field_watch_config_scheme

 

GIMP for Kids

 

My daughter likes to draw on the computer. I don't remember exactly how it started, but she draws in GIMP using my Genius pen tablet, on my secondary monitor. I used to have Linux running in a VirtualBox with GIMP running on my second monitor for her, but VB doesn't completely work in Windows 10 yet. A while back I tried running GIMP on one of my Raspberry Pi's but it was just too sluggish to be useful, frustratingly slow for a (then) 3-year-old. It runs much better on a Raspberry Pi 2. It still lags if she goes crazy with a big brush, but it works.

Die Fly: Designing a better fly swatter

I was looking through some of my old stuff for something and ran across this gem. If you need to put together a quick flyswatter, try this one I designed for a class in college (the famous Rube Goldberg project).

Here are a few excerpts from the attached PDF. If this doesn't convince you to build one (perhaps with several improvements as noted in the document), I don't know what will.