Cheap Macbook Pro Docking Solution for about $30
I typically prefer developing on my desktop and large dual screen monitor setup as opposed to my Macbook. Recently, I've gotten into more PHP development and developing on the Mac is proving to be a more enjoyable experience only because Windows is still a second class citizen for most PHP libraries/tools. I still wanted a larger screen setup, so I considered buying a docking station to hook up to a larger monitor but I soon learned they feature the 'Mac Penalty' in that they cost more than they should just because it's for Apple products. I already have two large monitors and figured my Macbook could serve as third screen. Then I did some thinking and realized I could use one of the monitors for both computers. Assuming you have two HDMI screens already hooked up to your desktop, this would save you $150+ and still allow you to be more productive.
How to Copy and Paste into the Digital Ocean VNC Console
I recently signed up for Digital Ocean to test droplets for my development and linux management testing. I was securing the server and setup fail2ban, disabled the root login, and created a user account but forgot to change the user name from root to the user name I selected in my SSH client profile. I ended up locking myself out of the server and had to resort to logging into the admin panel on Digital Ocean's website and use their browser embedded VNC client to restore my access. I quickly discovered that one of the downsides of using this panel is that you can't copy and paste commands. Luckily there's a workaround and you can use the browser console to do sendkeys through Javascript.
Bring up the console in the browser developer tools. Here's a cheat sheet for keyboard shortcuts:
Steam is having trouble connecting to the Steam servers.
If you use Steam and  suddenly find yourself unable to connect receiving the error "Steam is having trouble connecting to the Steam servers.", check and see if you have Peerblock installed and running. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out why the connections wouldn't go through and finally went through apps running in the background one by one, until I closed Peerblock and discovered Steam suddenly started working. If you would like to continue to use Steam while Peerblock is open, follow these instructions for a workaround: 1. Start PeerBlock 2. Click List Manager 3. Click Add 4. Put something in the description like steam-allow 5. click add url and paste this: "http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=steam" (no quotes) 6. Choose type: allow 7. Click Ok then close the List Manager. This will download a list that adds exceptions for Steam and should let you connect with no issues.
ASP.NET MVC Model Generator
In making the switch to ASP.NET MVC, I've moved away from using my old Data Access Layer that I've used for years and have opted to use Dapper as my ORM of choice in the quest for optimal performance. My DAL was actually pretty optimized for WinForms and WebForms (using straight SQL Queries and SQL parameters) but mapping it to models wasn't something I had in mind when I created it. I'm finding Dapper takes some getting used too but it is still pretty fast. The downside is that writing the code for Models to wire it up is proving to be a little tedious. To that effect, I wrote a little application that has helped me generate the models from a database dynamically. It's in it's infancy stages and something I cobbled together in less than 8 hours but it works. I'll add more features too as time goes on if there's enough interest or to satisfy my own needs. In the meantime, I'm open sourcing the project as it may help others and I'd love to see it become something grander if others are willing to contribute to it. There's also some useful bits of code that others may find useful to reference like dynamically reading fields from a database, pluralization/singularization of words, amongst others. You can find the repository on Github: https://github.com/gregvarghese/MVCModelGenerator
Uninstalling Trend Micro Client/Server Security without a Password
Lost or forgot your Trend Micro Client/Server Password? How about inheriting a computer that had the software installed by an IT team or consultant that won't give up the password? I had to work on a network with the latter and it's rather annoying. The product is utter crap as the machine is spyware infested even though the antivirus is running and present. I went to uninstall it but can't because the previous person/company password protected it and nobody has it. Here's how to bypass the protection:
Drobo Dashboard Can’t Connect to Drobo when ESET Firewall is Active
Have a Drobo storage unit? If you have ESET Smart Security Firewall enabled, you'll probably find Drobo Dashboard can't connect while the firewall is on even after adding all the required ports and services to ESET's rules from the Drobo online help site (http://goo.gl/iVKVU). After enabling the detailed logging in ESET, I found that ESET's firewall was flagging Drobo Dashboard as an intrusion attempt and blocked it. From the Drobo help page (http://goo.gl/iVKVU):
Kill Multiple Processes at Once Via Command Line with Taskkill
Ever have a program or process that doesn't end properly and runs in the background continuously? I recently encountered this issue with VLC on one Windows 7 machine where it keeps the process never terminates. Since I never reboot the machine for other than Windows Updates, this amounted to 633 copies of VLC running in memory. Each process only used about 633k so it wasn't an astronomical memory hog but multiply that by 633, you begin to feel the machine slowing down. Task Manager doesn't let you kill multiple processes in bulk and I didn't want to go through killing them one by one or rebooting. The solution? Good old command line. Open up command prompt (start -> run -> cmd.exe). This snippet will kill all processes that start with the taskname: