While the printer used to work on XP no problems with the disc supplied, i had to download a new Windows 7 full package (306meg) from HP and install it that way along with a couple of extra settings.

Turns out the correct Windows 7 software would not pickup the USB printer when it was plugged in (when prompted by the installer software). The install was around 94% and had to cancel and figure out why.

So the steps I used to get the HP CM1312 working with Windows 7 are:

HP CM1312 64bit WIndows 7 Retail install.

1 -  Download: CM1312series-win7-full-solution-AM-EMEA1-v5.1.exe (308 MB)
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=3558902&prodNameId=3562006&swEnvOID=4062&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=tw-77243-1

2 - Right-click the file and select “Properties.” Click the “Compatibility” tab at the top of the resulting window.

3 - Check off “Run this program in compatability mode for:” and choose “Windows Vista” from the pop-up menu.

4 - ALSO check “Run this program as administrator” at the bottom of the window.

5 - Press “Apply,” then “OK.”

6 - Now you can double-click the “Setup” file and run the software installer.
* I followed most of these steps to successfully install the printer, but at step 3 the option to change the compatibility mode was greyed out but Vista was selected.

For further information and where i found the fix, see: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproappcompat/thread/e46bf739-3a80-4200-96b9-0312448f9423

After using it for 20mins i noticed condensation covering about 25% or so of the glass screen in the bottom right.

The weather was very humid as this area just had 4 days of rain and the air conditioner was not running.

I used a hair dryer on cool mode in the vents at the rear of the Mac and turned the air conditioner on. The machine had about 15 apps open and was running pretty hot.

Once the humidity came down a bit it took about 45 mins for the condensation to disappear in full.

I read the Apple Support forum on it and others have had the same issue and leaving the unit on for a few hours will fix the problem.

I assume running your machine day to day it wouldn’t occur too often.

To make a bootable USB stick with WIndows 7 on it do the following thanks to www.bootdisk.com.

There are a few methods, but i found method 6 to easy and quick:

Bootable USB guide, here we assume that you are using either Vista or Windows 7 to create a bootable USB.

1. Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable) stick to the system and backup all the data from the USB as we are going to format the USB to make it as bootable.

2. Open elevated Command Prompt. To do this, type in CMD in Start menu search field and hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Alternatively, navigate to Start > All programs >Accessories > right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.

3. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

DISKPART and hit enter.

LIST DISK and hit enter.

Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the below image my USB drive disk no is Disk 1.

4. In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.

SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)
ASSIGN

EXIT

Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

5. Insert your Windows DVD in the optical drive and note down the drive letter of the optical drive and USB media. Here I use “D” as my optical (DVD) drive letter and “H” as my USB drive letter.

6. Go back to command prompt and execute the following commands:

D:CD BOOT and hit enter. Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.
BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 H:

(Where “H” is your USB drive letter)

7. Copy Windows DVD contents to USB.

You are done with your bootable USB. You can now use this bootable USB as bootable DVD on any computer that comes with USB boot feature (most of the current motherboards support this feature).

Note that this bootable USB guide will not work if you are trying to make a bootable USB on XP computer.

Coldfusion will error if you try and pass a variable within the include tag Eg. <cfinclude template=”mypage.cfm?myvariable=1″>

To get around this all you need to do is pass in the variable before the include tag, appended with URL..

Eg.
<cfset URL.myvariable = 1>
<cfinclude template=”mypage.cfm”>

Now mypage.cfm will grab the URL.myvariable and go about business as usual.

Our latest product road test is on the Dexim MHub Dock Station for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry.

I really was impressed with the value for money you get straight out of the box.

In the box you get the docking station, AC adaptor, a travel bag (handy), a Micro USB cable 1.2m (Blackberry charging), 2 x Mini USB cable 1.2m (connect to Mac) and a USB AC charging cable for the dock.

The dock itself has 2 USB ports in the side, and also the very cool Hi-speed SD (MMC & HCSD compatible) card slot for those Canon cameras which OSX doesn’t seem to like (my Canon Ixus for example).

There are 3 lights on the front of the unit for card reader slot, iPhone/iPod light and a power light.

Pros: Great for travel, Small to pack up in the travel bag and throw in your suitcase. Charges and syncs your phone at the same time. SD card reader slot and 2 extra USB slots. It’s slim and silver in color. There’s a quick adjust lever at the bottom of the cradle to fit all your different models.

It can also charge Blackberry’s too (if you are that way inclined).

Cons: I couldn’t take my iPhone off the dock with 1 hand, as its quite a sturdy connection from iPhone to dock station. There’s possibly too many cables poking out, they could have made the connections at the back so the unit is a little neater, or have 2 options for the Mini USB side and back.

It’s possibly a little uglier than the Apple dock but that’s up to the owner.

Verdict: Great docking station, plenty of features, value for money, heaps of cables, great for travel. Fits in with the rest of gear plugged in at my desk.

The Dexim MHub Dock Station RRP is $149.00. Thanks to iWorld Australia.

The page wouldn’t load at all and 204 errors where appearing.

Turns out its a Firebug and Firefox 3.0.7. issue which can be solved by turning off “Support for JavaScript debugging”

You can read about it here: http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/browse_thread/thread/68218c6665dd527e

And a further fix for it here: http://code.google.com/p/fbug/issues/detail?id=1580&start=500

Using a MAC for development purposes i noticed i couldn’t resolve any PC names across the network.

This is due to the MAC having no DNS server to tell it the names to resolve to.

After some searching i found you can modify the hosts file on the MAC (i’m using Leopard) to resolve the names you need for development purposes.

The old NetInfo on OS X has gone so you need to either modify the hosts file itself by opening the file or using Terminal to achieve this.

Firstly i tried opening the file but i ran into read-only permission problems when trying to save the file.

NB. The etc/ folder where the hosts file lives is hidden. You can find the etc/ directory (or ANY hidden directory for that matter) using the Finder –> Go –> Go To Folder option.

Anyways, i found a method using Terminal with the following commands.

1. Open Terminal through Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal

2. type in the command line of Terminal the following:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Terminal will ask you input a password as you have envoked the Super User profile on the system. Nano will now open.

You will see the following come up on your terminal window:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

3. Move the cursor down the page with arrow keys and type in your desired IP address and tab once then the PC name.

127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
192.168.0.112 YourPCName

You need to save the changes by hitting ctrl+o or ^o.

Hit enter to name it hosts, then hit ^x to exit nano.

Your cache needs to be flushed to see the changes.

There is a new command for this in 10.5 Leopard.

dscacheutil -flushcache

After this is done you should be able to resolve the PC name on your MAC.

Happy Days!

You’ve probably got a great CMS running all your content, but your URL’s have special characters in them and can be very long in length.

Google doesn’t like special characters and you are giving yourself every opportunity to go higher in rankings if you have keywords within your URL.

Eg. http://www.yourcompany.com/index.aspx?page=product_detail&id=55

This doesn’t really mean much to anyone (or your customers when you email them links) only that it might be a product of some kind.

Re-Writing your URL using an ISAPI filter can acheive results like this:

http://www.yourcompany.com/home-entertainment/sony-surround-sound-system.html

Instantly you know its a Sony surround sound system in home entertainment. The link looks quite tidy. Google loves this. The shorter your URL the better, and especially if it has keywords contained in within.

Don’t go crazy in your slug creation, less is more in the world of SEO.

If you are using IIS 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 7.0 on your servers, you should try out Ionic’s ISAPI ReWrite Filter.

RewriteRule ^/go/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ /go.cfm?page=$1
MaxMatchCount 50

Here’s a quick sample of how to write a basic ReWrite script.

Your web host can usually help out with what is pre-installed on your server so you can get scripting immediately and write beautiful URLs.

Generate an XML file (Google Sitemap Generator) or make your own, making sure it is within the Google webmasters guidelines and standards. Most of the generators do a good job, but you will need to cull links if you haven’t excluded them in the filters properly.

When you have generated the final XML, upload to your specified directory and then submit in webmasters. Your XML will pass or fail with results in reporting of webmasters.

This will allow Google to know exactly what you want it to see and also dig up any broken links or unwanted pages you might have.

Dexim’s Blue Pack battery pack lets you charge your iPhone on the run.

The kit includes 1000mAh battery pack (also available in 1200mAh) and the funky compact retractable USB charging cord.

Power users of the iPhone will find using emails, browsing and maps to to their full extent will drain the iPhone and they won’t see out a full work day.

Simply plug the battery pack into the base of the iPhone and enjoy 3.5hrs of extra talk time, 7hrs of video and a massive 36hrs of audio playback.

It took just over an hour to charge the iPhone back to full. The battery pack itself takes around 2hrs+ to charge up, so make sure you have it ready the night before.

It does look a bit dorky if you are making calls with the battery pack plugged in, but once your phone is charged again, simply remove the pack.

If you are the travelling iphone power user like some of us - you need one of these by your side for those long hauls.

Available from iWorld Australia.