Tag Archives: guides

Dynamically resizing WordPress images on nginx with ngx_http_image_filter_module

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
9

Ever notice that image galleries on WordPress.com load faster than those on your own? WordPress.com can serve dynamically-resized images on-the-fly to improve page load speeds and create pretty-looking image galleries. You can achieve this on your own server too, with a few simple tricks in your nginx.conf, taking advantage of URL parameters WordPress appends to image uploads and the nginx libgd-based ngx_http_image_filter_module.

WordPress’ dynamic image sizes serve two main purposes: aside from resizing the source images to a smaller size, it also lets you crop rectangular images to a thumbnail without completely skewing the aspect ratio and butchering the result.

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Make Old Java Applications Fully Snow Leopard Compatible

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
31

If you have a bunch of old Java applications lying around in your Mac’s /Applications folder, chances are, you’ll come across this message box when you attempt to run them on Snow Leopard:

To open JavaApplicationStub, you need to install Rosetta. Would you like to install it now?

To open JavaApplicationStub, you need to install Rosetta. Would you like to install it now?

Personally, I try my best to avoid legacy Mac OS apps and haven’t found the need to install Rosetta on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as of yet. Whether you have need of Rosetta for your other applications or not, there’s no reason you should be running your Java-based applications through the Rosetta environment — they’ll run just fine on native Intel Java on OS X… with just a little bit of a prod in the right direction.

Java applications are CPU agnostic (hence the “write once, run everywhere” Java motto). The Java applets you download and use can theoretically be run on any PC machine that supports Java; be it Intel, PPC, ARM, SPARC, or more. The native Java virtual machine will translate the “Java bytecode” into the equivalent machine assembly that your PC uses and understands, and therefore, Java code written for legacy Mac OS should run just fine on Snow Leopard

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How to Repair the Windows Vista Bootloader

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
8

There’s a section of the EasyBCD documentation/user manual/wiki that contains more than just information on how to use the program. If you’ve corrupted your bootloader, run into one or more bootmgr-related errors, installed Windows XP or Linux after installing Vista, or otherwise managed to fry, crack, melt, or break the Vista bootloader, then here’s how you fix it.

We’ve compiled information from over twos-years’ worth of experience with fixing broken bootloaders into a single guide, broken up into subsections for varying levels of damage to the bootloader. If you can get into Windows, we advise that you download & install EasyBCD, then follow the instructions in this section of the guide to repair the Vista bootloader from within Windows.

If your bootloader is so damaged that you cannot get into a Windows operating system, then get your Windows Vista DVD out and boot from it. If you don’t have a Windows Vista DVD, grab a copy of our Windows Vista Recovery DVD instead, stick it in your CD-ROM drive, and prepare to boot from it.

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January 2008 Update

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
1

There’s been a lot going on so far at NeoSmart Technologies, and 2008 is shaping up to be an exciting year… Yes, January is almost over; so, no, this isn’t a New Year’s resolutions list. The thing about New Year’s resolutions is that they’re almost always left unfulfilled. But that doesn’t mean we can’t share the good times, does it? Here’s some stuff to look forward to out of NST’s camp in the coming days/weeks/months:

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How-To: Changing the Windows Vista Startup Sound

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
66

Of the many controversies surrounding Windows Vista, probably the most infamous (and pathetic) issues brought to the table is the Windows Vista Startup sound – and how to get rid of it. If  you were anywhere but under a rock during the beta, it’s impossible to have missed the posts going back and forth by haters and supporters of Windows Vista’s new startup sound – which, like almost everything else in Windows Vista, doesn’t even always work.

This sound isn’t the one you get on startup (which is still there, just like in previous versions of Windows), but rather the one that plays right when Windows finishes loading – and you can’t do a thing about it. In our opinion, it’s a quite nice sound, but unfortunately you don’t get to hear it (most of the time) if you have a analog/digital sound card with analog being the default. At any rate, for those of you that don’t like it, chin up: it can be changed!

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How to: Install the Vista Bootloader on Windows XP

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
45

Ever since Windows Vista came out, a lot of hype has been going around the new bootloader. That’s the hype that drove us to create EasyBCD, and that’s the same hype that’s been driving people to ask all around the web: “Is it possible to install the new Windows Vista bootloader on a non-Vista machine? Can I get XP to use the new Vista bootloader? How can I install the Vista bootloader on my XP-only machine?”

First, a disclaimer: In order to use the Vista bootloader, you’ll need some licensed Vista files. The only legal way to get these is by already having Windows Vista legally installed on another machine and grabbing the files from there. Kapish? Second, the answer: Of course you can. And here’s how!

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