Save disk space by converting files using iTunes

It's worth keeping an eye on your music and video files as these are usually what eats up disk space. If you have WAV files you can convert them using iTunes (or other programs like Audacity) into a more compressed format.

Find your files looking for the extension e.g. .wav using Mac search, Windows search, iTunes or some other means.

Using iTunes:

1. Check your encoding settings:
1. Go to Tools, Options (or iTunes, Preferences on a Mac)
2. Under General Tab, click on 'Import Settings'
3. Choose desired encoding (I use AAC for compatibility across devices)
4. Click OK to save settings
2. Create a new Smart playlist and select 'Kind' contains "wav" (without the quotes)
3. Select all the files
4. Right click and select "Create AAC version"
5. Once completed verify the songs have been converted and optionally delete the original. One way to do this is look at duplicates:
1.  Select Music on the left hand side
2. Select View Menu, View Duplicate Items 

iTunes: How to convert a song to a different file format

or using Audacity
AUDACITY: CONVERT WAV TO MP3

Windows: Blue Box appearing around active item

Today I discovered a most annoying feature of Windows by accident: the Narrator's highlight active area option. There I was just trying to use the computer and this stupid blue box kept appearing around where the cursor was.

It turns out this is a feature of the Narrator which I had turned on by mistake. The answer is to go into Narrator's options (it's a program): Start Menu\Programs\Accessibility\Narrator
Then uncheck "Enable visual highlighting Narrator cursor":

XBox Media Center Connection Troubleshooting

My Xbox used to work well as a Media Center Extender (streaming TV to my Xbox) but since I installed Win8 on the server it regularly fails to connect. I have found I need to remove the certificate and re-add the extender to get it to work:
Here are the instructions from:

Windows Media Centre | Xbox 360 Console | Set Up Windows Media Centre on Xbox 360 - Xbox.com

• Click Start, type mmc in the Start Search box and then press Enter. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password or click Continue.
• On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in.
• Click Certificates, and then click Add.
• Select Computer account, and then click Next.
• Select Local computer, and then click Finish.
• Click OK.
• In the Navigation Pane under Console Root, expand Certificates, expand Personal, and then click Certificates.
• Right-click Microsoft Windows Media Center Extender Host, and then click Delete.
• After you remove the certificate, uninstall the Extender and then restart Extender Setup.

Airport Extreme: How to Disable DHCP while Maintaining NAT

If you run a DHCP server on your network already you might want to use the NAT capability of an Airport Extreme without using the DHCP server functionality. With a bit of fiddling this is possible.

I found the answer thanks to this post:
kair: How to Disable DHCP while Maintaining NA: Apple Support Communities

To guard against link rot the nub of the process is to set the Extreme DHCP to a limited range (e.g. 249-50) and set your other DHCP server to cover the rest of it.

The bit I struggled with was "Be sure to specify the Airport Extreme (e.g. 172.16.1.1) as the default gateway or default router". In Windows Server 2008 this is under Server Manager, Roles, DHCP Server, [server name], Scope, Scope Options, right click, Configure Options. The option was greyed out for me until I de-authorised and re-authorised the Scope for some reason (and a customary reboot of course!).

Linux VNC via SSH

Prerequisites:

• On the server: 
• SSH deamon eg FreeShhd
• VNCServer e.g. tightvncserver (setup here)
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get upgrade
  sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
• On a Windows client:
• SSH client (eg Putty) on client.
• VNC view e.g. TightVNC

To setup Putty:

• Open Putty
• Enter the ip address, host or domain name of your linux box
• Click on Tunnels under SSH
• In Source port enter 5901
• In Destination enter 127.0.0.1:5901
• Click on add
• Click back to session in tree then specify a name and save

To connect:

• In putty click open
• In ssh session run vncserver if not already running e.g. tightvncserver
  tightvncserver :1 -geometry 1024x768
• Start a VNCViewer, and connect to:
  [IP address]:01
  or through a tunnel: 127.0.0.1:01

To end the session:

• vncserver -kill :1

How To: Run web.config Transforms on Build

When using web.config transforms you might need the transform to run on build (e.g. when debugging). I found the answer to this here.
In case of link rot the basic setup is:

1. Create web.Base.config alongside web.Debug.config and web.Release.config. This file will be the equivalent to your old web.config, as it will be the base for the transformation. You will end up with these files: web.config web.Base.config web.Debug.config web.Release.config web.config 
2. Add the following configuration to the bottom of your .csproj-file, just before the closing </Project> tag:
   <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />
   <Target Name="BeforeBuild">
      <TransformXml Source="Web.Base.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).config" Destination="Web.config" />
   </Target>
3. If you use TFS or similar source control your web.config will be read only so you will need to add a pre-build event to edit the read attributes on that file:
   ATTRIB -R $(ProjectDir)app.transformed.config

How To: Convert a SQLServer Named Instance to the Default

Having installed SQL Server as a named instance so you can have multiple instances running e.g. SQL2008, SQL2012 you might want to convert one to respond to the default so that you can use just the server name or the "." (dot) notation in connection strings for localhost.

This can be done in SQLServer Configuration Manager:

• Navigate to SQL Server Network Configuration, [version name] in the left hand pane.
• Select TCP/IP in the right hand pane, right click and select Properties
• Go to the IP Addresses tab
• Change TCP Dynamic Ports to be blank
• Make the TCP port the default value of: 1433

NB: This can only be configured for one of the instances.