I do a lot of development on computers that use different smtp servers when in beta and production. I also need to change my smtp settings in my E-mail client often when I travel. I found a solution to both problems, X-Ray Mail Assistant.

X-ray lets you setup a Windows service that becomes an SMTP/POP replay server on your local machine. You can set it up to forward localhost connections to multiple SMTP servers based on your IP address. Now I can setup all my PHP mail scripts to use localhost and travel without changing my smtp server setting in Thunderbird again.

Here’s another useful tool if you need a program to burn images.

http://www.imgburn.com/

I used Nero to burn my image so I did not get to test this software.

I decided to format my machine and install Windows XP fresh. I decided I wanted to update my XP cd so that it had service pack 2 (slipstream) and my Sis 3112 SATA drivers installed. I spent a few hours trying to edit the appropriate files and finally ended up utilizing nLite. nLite blew me away. All you need to know is where your drivers are and you are good to go.

Check it out:
http://www.nliteos.com/

If you are looking for a nice solution to create specific stats on your podcasts, check out podalyzer: http://www.hexten.net/podalyzer/

You will need a fairly up to date setup of Perl to utilize podalyzer. I ran some tests and found it is excellent for making stats from your mp3s.

I did have a problem trying to use stats from libsyn. Libsyn is doing some funky stuff with the logs, instead of 200 ok status messages there are 202 status messages and the path saved in the log is not the same path that is in the URL. Hopefully a future version of podalyzer will be able to handle this pitfall.

If you have found yourself developing a web site that requires printable reports, then you will love this blog entry.

A year ago I created a PDF reporting system that used the HTMLtoPDF library from RustyParts.com (http://www.rustyparts.com/pdf.php) This is a great HTMLtoPDF converter. It utilizes Ghostscript and a few other nifty Perl scripts to generate the PDFs. The only drawback to this package is it requires a few things to be installed on your server.

Today I came across a new HTMLtoPDF php library on Source Forge (http://html2fpdf.sourceforge.net/). This may be another alternative if you are in need of a report writing library but cannot install or modify the required software for the RustyParts HTMLtoPDF php library.