Overlapping Features in Orchard CMS

I was working on an Orchard website and installed the Vandelay FavIcon Module. A few days later I decided to install the Vandelay Industries Module that contained a while bunch of Vandelay modules including the FavIcon feature.

This broke my site with a 404 File not found error. Having a look at the error logs I found the following "Orchard.Environment.DefaultOrchardHost - A tenant could not be started: Default
System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added."

Obviously it was having trouble with two features of the same name. Another problem I had is that the site was on a shared hosting environment and all I could do at this point was access the site's folder via FTP.

So here's how to disable the features manually:
In the App_Data folder there is a cache.dat file. This file contains XML data about active features. I simply removed the Vandelay.FavIcon entry and the site came back online.

Just a warning though, modifying this file could have side effects, but at least it fixed my site for now.

Mom finally tried playing by herself

I got an SMS from my mom. Seems she's trying to play ME2 herself! She's having trouble with the controls it seems, but still very cool!

Going to call her during the weekend and hear if she tried again ;)

Achievement Unlocked: Got mom to watch an episode of an anime

So this is just a small post, but I thought I'd share anyway since I think its awesome.

Some time ago my parents and I got into a deep conversation and some of it revolved around topics like the matrix, human evolution, religion and ethics.

At some point I mentioned some stuff about Ghost in the Shell. My mom seemed really keen on the story when I told her what its about. She seemed keen to give it a try, but she wasn't so keen on the reading subtitle thing.

So I thought I'd try and find a dubbed version so she could watch it. Well, I haven't found a dubbed version yet, but I took my subbed version along to just show her bits of the first episode. We watched through the entire thing!

Its awesome. She made me copy it to her PC and she will try to watch it at some point.

Starting Mass Effect 2

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Yes, I admit it, I'm terrible at blogging, but here's the next installment :P

So we started playing ME2, but this time I wasn't driving :P So the first part of the game is a lot of "How to use multiple keys and the mouse at the same time". I won't lie, its kinda funny to watch, but at the same time I realize I've had a few years of experience with hand-eye coordination and PC gaming.

There was a lot of running into walls and struggling with the camera view, but eventually we got all the way to meeting TIM for the first time.

We even got around to Freedom's Progress. Took a bit of time to kill all the mechs, but my mom felt pretty good about killing that YMIR mech ;)

My mom did ask Tali to come back to the Normandy, but at the same time she decided to give Veetor over to Cerberus. Not sure what will happen because of this, since I only gave them the data.

She was happy to see Joker again.

Next up we landed on Omega to find the scientist salarian who will help with the agent to counteract the Collector Swarm effects :)

There is also a lady called Aria who insists we go see her ;)

Finishing Mass Effect 1 with Mom

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So we had a public holiday this past Thursday and my mom and I managed to finish Mass Effect 1!

We started on Wednesday evening. We got Wrex's family armour, helped Tali with her pilgrimage and went to deal wirh Dr Saleon for Garrus. After that we went to Virmire.

Virmire was exiting. She managed to calm Wrex down and enjoyed Captain Kirrahe's speech. Ashley went with Captain Kirrahe.

The conversation with Sovereign blew her mind. We set the bomb and went to give Ashley backup when she was faced with the choice to save her or Kaiden. She chose Ashley.

Thursday morning we went to Ilos to stop Saren from reaching the conduit. The conversation with Vigil was also very interesting and she was very surprised about the Keepers.

She enjoyed the fight in the Citadel, especially the part where we walked up the side of the Council Tower. We talked to Saren and he shot himself after trying to convince him that he's wrong. She chose the "Focus on Sovereign" option and the Council and Destiny Ascension got destroyed. She almost cried when it looked like Shepard got killed at the end.

She also chose Anderson to serve on the Citadel Council since she really dislikes Udina.

So loved playing through the story! I'm really happy about that and I'm looking forward to seeing what she'll do with the rest of the games.

She also ordered a computer screen so she can play the game when other people want to watch TV. She will be buying the Trilogy for herself and I need to bring the next novel over when I go visit again since she's finished with the first one.
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Mom on Noveria

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(NOTE: My blog contains spoilers, so if you haven't played Mass Effect 1, you have been warned!)

This would be a combination of a few days we played including some time over a holiday.

We managed to get the garage pass and went on our way to peak 15. We had a hilarious encounter where I tried to run over a geth trooper with the Mako. The geth model got stuck sort of inside the Mako model and it kept jumping around. It was hilarious.

We eventually managed to clear peak 15, killed Benezia (which was sad) and freed the Rachni Queen (Wrex was very unimpressed). She usually likes taking Wrex along and then cycles through the other party members.

We also managed to complete Feros over the holiday. After that we did a lot of assignments and talked to everyone on the ship. We've gotten Wrex, Garrus and Tali's missions and will be doing them before we go to Virmire.

My mom is finally starting to warm up to Garrus a little (which is great since she didn't trust him at all).

I also got my mom to read the first Mass Effect novel (Revelation). She's really enjoying it. I never thought I'd see her read a sci-fi book ever.

She wanted to take the second one home, but she has to finish the first game before I'll give it to her :P

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Mom & Liara

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I know I've been neglecting my blog a little, sorry about that guys! Life sometimes dishes up a lot of stuff to do at the same time and you only have so many hours!

So another Thursday came by where I was going to go visit my parents (I'm really excited about playing Mass Effect with my mom), but we ended up going out for dinner. So no gaming but we did discuss a holiday we'll be going on in March. My mom asked me if we can bring the game with on holiday o.O I found this funny because this is usually a no-no and the time is meant to be spent with family. Since we are playing this together, its not the same thing though :P

So eventually we did get to playing some more. I like to do a bit of a recap at the start of each session, since my mom might struggle to remember some details. Though she was quick to remind me that we need to go save that other lady (Liara). So we set off in the Normandy. My mom liked the space "flight" cinematic. Back on the Citadel she was disappointed with the Rapid Transit System because she was expecting to fly, but was given a loading screen instead. I'm renaming this to the Rapid Disappointment System (if you heard how my mom reacted you would agree)

I did take the time to show her what Assignments were compared to missions. I also showed her the Mako :) She's starting to at least recall the controls I'm using to drive stuff :)

We eventually went on the mission to go save Liara. Nothing really amusing happened other than her saying that the Krogan Battlemaster looked like a yellow frog. ("Geel padda")

After the mission we had a chat with Liara (my mom likes investigating) and found out about Benezia and Liara's dad. My mom is adamant to go to Noveria and find Benezia, so I guess we're skipping Feros for now.

We did go to the Noveria System, but got given a few assignments on the Citadel so we decided to stop off there first. We also got the mission with the escaped slave that you get when you take the Colonist background. I've never seen this and my mom and I both thought this was very sad but well done.

We eventually went back to Noveria and started the mission there. That's about how far we played.

My mom is still adamant about trying to play it herself, but she's experiencing a problem I used to have when I was a kid. Other people are using the TV :P

We hooked the computer up to my parents' television and we're playing it there. She was going to play today since she was home alone. I messaged her asking if she played, here's her reply:

"*sigh* I needed to go buy something. when I got back your sister was back and I couldn't play because she was watching TV. then I needed to make dinner"

She has the same problem when my dad is at home, but I expect her to play at some point.

Her opinion about the game so for "Dis so lekker!" (Its so fun!)
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