Category Archives: Programming

This tutorial was very helpful in getting GULP to work with php. See also, this tutorial.

Also, you then need to set the Apache document root to the directory of you project.

Outlook COM Object Advanced Search

Not much seems to be known about the advanced search syntax used in Outlook. But this blog article has a couple of useful links.

And here is the Microsoft Dev page on the Advanced Search method.

Outlook Spy might be a good tool to figure this out.

Destroy Powershell COM Object

While working with Outlook email using Windows Powershell, I noticed that Outlook did not close. This is because Windows will not close the Outlook process until all programs are done with it. This blog post has a nice discussion about it as well as the method for forcing the COM object to close.

Upgrading XAMPP

Upgrading XAMPP from ver 5.5.19 to 5.63 was easier than I could have imagined. I wanted to take advantage of the new PHP 5.6 ‘argument unpacking‘ feature using the splat operator. I was afraid that the process of transferring test websites, including a full WordPress installation, and command line scripts would be painful. It was not. Here are the steps I took.

Renamed the old xampp folder from \xampp to \xampp Old
Unpacked the new xampp package to \xampp
In the new installation, renamed the following files and folders by appending “Old” to their names:
1. /apache/conf/httpd.conf, apache configuration file where the virtual host settings reside;
2. /mysql/data/, the entire mysql data folder
3. /php/php.ini, the php initialization file where there have been many customizations over time.
Copied the files and folders in step 3 to the corresponding location in the new installation.
Copied the website folders I wanted to transfer from /htdocs/

Fired up the new installation, and everything worked perfectly! Even the WordPress site picked up right where it left off on the old installation without a hiccup.