Windows Script Host error 800c0019 (VBScript) July 30, 2009
Posted by andrewgdotcom in Microsoft, Web.Tags: server 2008, vbscript, wsh
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Came across this gem today on a machine that had recently been upgraded to Server 2008:
Error: System error: -2146697191
Code: 800C0019
Source: msxml3.dll
Turns out that a custom VBScript was sending a form to one of our secure web servers and the certificate chain couldn’t be verified up to the root (even though we bought it from a reputable source). Adding the offending root certificate to the trusted root certificate authorities database fixed the problem.
This does not seem to be documented anywhere on the internet yet, so here it is.
Vuze+feedmytorrents.com, a match made in…? February 7, 2009
Posted by andrewgdotcom in A/V, Software, Web.Tags: feedmytorrents, rss, vuze
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Despite having played with Democracy Miro, I’m still rather attached to Azureus Vuze for one or two of its useful features*.
Being an addict of US scifi TV, I was excited to discover feedmytorrents.com, which provides vodcast RSS feeds for most current popular US shows, such as my current favourites BSG and Lost. The killer advantage over other RSS sources (such as the excellent EZTV) is that one can subscribe to a particular feed in Miro or Vuze and get precisely one copy of every episode of that show. No more remembering to search mininova to see if the new episode was up yet! This was exactly what I had been waiting for since discovering Democracy Miro’s channels system.**
Of course, it didn’t take long for the system to break. Vuze’s RSS FeedScanner plugin would display a new episode in the list but not start downloading, instead giving a constantly shifting error message: “Init” > “Scanning 1/64…” >>> “Scanning 39/64…” > “Init” (it never seemed to get past 39). This would eventually time out saying “No data”. This affliction would only affect those particular episodes that feedmytorrents had sourced from mininova, but not those from the pirate bay (easily distinguished by the torrent URL). There was nothing wrong with the torrent file itself, as I could right-click > copy link URL and paste it into firefox, which would happily download the torrent and open it in Vuze, the default application. But of course this completely defeated the seamless experience.
I searched on the Vuze forums and found several similar problems reported but few solutions. One suggestion was that the setting “Use URL as referer” might need to be turned off. Sure enough, this worked. For whatever reason, it seems that mininova doesn’t like the HTTP referer field to be set to the “URL”, whichever URL that may be (itself?). Turning this option off (thus sending no referer) didn’t seem to break piratebay torrents (and why should it: this is the behaviour when one types in a URL by hand), so I disabled it on all my feeds. This makes me ask two questions. 1: why isn’t this option off by default and 2: what the hell does the HTTP referer field have to do with it anyway?
* coughcoughtorcoughcough! Interestingly, the latest version (4.1) of Vuze has reskinned itself to look almost exactly like Miro…
** sorry guys, I don’t watch Rocketboom…
Widefox April 1, 2008
Posted by andrewgdotcom in Software, Web.Tags: google maps, mozilla, tabs
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I’m a Firefox user, but I used to like Opera back in the days before Firefox was available. I changed over once I discovered TabMixPlus and All-In-One Gestures, which collectively replicated most of Opera’s cool features – all except side-docked tabs, which doesn’t seem to be available in Opera any more either.
There are far too many things which like to dock with the top or bottom of my screen. Given that I use a Mac, I already have an extra menu bar to start with anyway. Computer screens are increasingly in widescreen aspect ratio, but documents read best in portrait mode. This is why most blog software (including this one) puts links and metadata at the side of the page rather than at the top, but there are still webapps out there (Google Maps being one of the worst offenders) that have a huge, wasteful banner across the top of the page.
So imagine my joy today when I found this Firefox chrome CSS hack:
The dropdown menu placement doesn’t match the tab bar location, but that’s a minor problem. I can now see Google Maps in a slightly less letterboxy format. Woohoo.
The ActiveX effect February 18, 2008
Posted by andrewgdotcom in Microsoft, Ranting, Web.4 comments
In my current job, Microsoft Sharepoint rules. The decision was made long before my time to employ it as the common document repository, and for most people it works reasonably well. I have to force myself to use it though, and I can distil the reasons down to one root cause: ActiveX controls.
In its vanilla, static-page form, Sharepoint is barely functional. It takes a minimum of four clicks (open, edit, modify, save) to change a radio-button option. Checking files in and out is a pain – it’s easier to just overwrite. And I’ve never managed to attach a file to a list entry. To make it really useable, you need to run IE.
Oh wait, you’re using a Mac. Well you can just piss off then.
It’s interesting that Microsoft poured thousands of programmer-hours into developing an alternative to JavaScript and not one of the other browsers makes any attempt to support the resulting spec – this in a world of Mono, Samba, Moonlight and OpenOffice. MS dropped IE support on the Mac but keep pushing ActiveX in their server products. I’m no expert, but the only thing I see ActiveX doing that JS can’t is installing software updates without bothering the user with dialog boxes. Which is a good indication of why nobody else will touch it with a barge pole.
The problem is not confined to Sharepoint. The motivation for this post was finding that Microsoft’s certificate management server requires scripting to be turned on (it doesn’t say what sort of scripting, but it isn’t JS) in order to process a simple form that could have been written in 1995. In this case there was no option but to boot up the VM and use IE.
So what to do? Struggle manfully with Sharepoint’s prehistoric static interface or retreat into the VM, cut off from my usual editing suite – Office X for Mac. Somebody somewhere is no doubt enjoying this juicy irony. But it’s not me.
Back to normal (ish) March 3, 2007
Posted by andrewgdotcom in Web.1 comment so far
I finally got my personal blog back to normal following my LVS account deletion. It was a long process, and proved the wisdom of always keeping a system image as a backup, and not just the files that you think have been modified.
I had forgotten that the wordpress software stores uploaded files under /usr/share/wordpress/, which is completely boneheaded. They should really be under /var, where all well-behaved programs keep their databases. Luckily enough, I had kept copies of all my uploaded pictures. Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to create thumbnails without uploading them all through the web interface one at a time. But most annoyingly, I had performed some surgery on the theme that I was using for gatewaytheatre.org, and all that work has been lost.
I was also reminded, as I was changing the records of all the domains that I manage, of the clunkiness of most DNS registrar web interfaces. What I wanted to do was change every domain I own to use my new virtual server as a nameserver. Every single record had to be changed by hand, using about four or five clicks each. There must be a better way.
