Nick Bartlett“Every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.” - Emerson

I setup a local test environment using Zend Server at my new job and copied the VirtualHosts from the live server, which is apache on linux, and put them in the httpd-vhosts.conf file that came with Apache 2.2 in Zend Server.  The simple solution to be able to use php inside of the css file is to do the following

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .css

Unfortunately, that didn’t work.  However, after a few hours I did find a solution.  In the httpd.conf file, find the following line

AddHandler zend-enabler-script .php

And change to -

AddHandler zend-enabler-script .php .css

I restarted apache and it now works.

Today I had the privilege of sporting my plumber’s crack again.  Our tub faucet diverter was not working again for about the third time this year.  I’m actually getting pretty good at this routine and can have that stem out in less than five minutes.   The problem was the same as last time… the brass screw on the end of the faucet diverter stem had twisted in half and broke.  I’m growing rather tired of fixing this every three months, so I went to LeVahn Brothers Plumbing in Maple Grove MN.  I talked with a very nice guy there, who was a plumber and may have been the owner of the store.  Unfortunately he didn’t have the diverter for my Union Brass bathtub faucet, but told me I could get one at Park Supply in downtown Minneapolis when they open on Monday.

I asked the plumber about alternative screw types to the brass screws that keep breaking, but he said other types of screws will just rust and get stuck in the stem.  I mentioned these screws turn a dark brown color after only three months when they break.  He said the brass screws are rusting or corroding and suggested I coat them in grease to repel the water when installing a new one this time.  I’ll have to check in my garage for some grease or I may use some silicone if I don’t have grease.  I’ll keep you posted as to the effectiveness of this solution.

For months I have been unable to print from Firefox.  Today after some searching and trying things, I found something that worked.

type about:config in the URL bar and hit Enter
Preference name = print.print_printer
Right-Click that preference and select Reset, then restart Firefox.

Hope that helps!

Today while working away as usual bouncing between websites and averaging one Google search per minute, my work came to a halt when Google kept displaying this message instead of returning search results:

Google we’re sorry… but your computer or network may be sending automated queries.  To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

I’ve been having problems using Google finance lately with Firefox. When I’d load pages in new tabs and attempt to switch tabs, the CPU spikes on my Win XP machine for a couple minutes, which pretty much disabled my browsing ability. I upgraded Firefox from 3.0 to 3.5 and still have the same problem. From what I’ve been reading, it’s not just Google finance, but youtube and various other pages that use flash. I’ve disabled a bunch of plugins / addons already to see if they were causing the problem and they weren’t. I’ve been using Google Chrome or Opera on sites that cause these problems lately. Anybody know of a solution?