I recently decided sto give OpenX a shot for managing my advertisement inventory. I primarily use Google AdSense, but I wanted to be able to rotate through other ads when the opportunities are available. I had played a little bit with OpenX back when it was phpAdsNew but never got too far into a full implementation. Looking at the screenshots, documentation, and features, OpenX looked like a very good option.

After getting the current version (2.8.5) installed, unfortunately, I encountered a problem as soon as I logged in for the first time. After logging in I was directed to a dashboard page, which was one of my key reasons for trying OpenX again, and it failed to load, showing the following error: "Dashboard Error: M2M authentication error – password invalid (code: 823)." (You can also see the screenshot above). Fortunately, there is an extremely easy fix.

After a few Google searches I was able to find out that the error was occurring because I had used Fantastico to install OpenX, and this was not the first time I tried. I had forgotten that I had installed and uninstalled OpenX once before. Because I had installed it once before, it failed to create a valid m2m password the second time OpenX was installed. The invalid m2m password was causing the authentication error on the dashboard page.

The Fix: Simply go to http://(your path to OpenX)/www/admin/regenerate-platformhash.php

It seems too good to be true, but it is really this simple. I followed that one step, and it worked like a charm. The next time I opened the dashboard I was able to see it without any problems. (See screenshot below of working dashboard). I hope this helps!

Image from http://cs5launch.adobe.com

Adobe is set to release the newest version of its popular software suite, Adobe Creative Suite CS5, on Monday April 12, 2010. There is an online launch event that you can register for. I haven't done a lot of research on CS5, but there are some really cool sneak peek videos showing new features like Puppet Warp and Content-Aware Fill.

If you are interested in some good information regarding CS5, check out http://cs5.org/.