tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108425892024-03-14T05:55:45.403-04:00Technology HeadTechnology Commentaries - Software and Beyond<br>A <a href="http://bit.ly/2lyh9a"> Knowlengr</a> siteknowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-6089062789377968052015-03-01T20:33:00.003-05:002015-03-01T20:33:34.299-05:00Not iTunes: Standardizing Podcast RSS for MediaMonkey<div style="text-align: justify;">
The popular and mature freemium app MediaMonkey was designed to manage and play back podcasts (i.e., "podcatch") as well as other audio formats. Doing so may require the use of iTunes if you can't find the RSS feed originally used by originator. A free third party service called <a href="http://bit.ly/1E6Imio" target="_blank">Feed Flipper</a> will convert an iTunes URL to RSS so that MediMonkey can process it.</div>
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This information was provided elsewhere, but without screenshots. As an infrequent iTunes user, I had some trouble finding the internal URL. </div>
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Here's the iTunes catalog page (my terminology) information provided for the <a href="http://bit.ly/18BA8Ds" target="_blank">WNYC podcast <i>Soundcheck</i></a>, hosted by <a href="http://bit.ly/18BAji6" target="_blank">John Schafer</a>. A dropdown next to the Subscribe button discloses the URL for the podcast.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHMMTIh0hdpKaXiuxyB0FTKKT7KUXZx-G5BeUNYDOAsriLJFnFv81_Ez5OXCoxc54WaAweto3gq6vZm3bfQLICpRyR_9__g5LkWwxIfHGZmm57_dpmddRbmU-Lz7mJIhtow8K8/s1600/itunes-podcast-URL.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHMMTIh0hdpKaXiuxyB0FTKKT7KUXZx-G5BeUNYDOAsriLJFnFv81_Ez5OXCoxc54WaAweto3gq6vZm3bfQLICpRyR_9__g5LkWwxIfHGZmm57_dpmddRbmU-Lz7mJIhtow8K8/s1600/itunes-podcast-URL.png" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
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Once you have the URL, ask Feed Flipper to do the conversion.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYP5sYszGYL4uGRKBtcNWkMPxXlebro4JLulIRXGspPMVmZ1LRcaQEl8mmN3pFl4KGSqLFk9GDrgKPOQfMsAmfqXhAKQEi9CJ6xivpqAukjiZhMKJe8ykSrdNYY16_J6V_70St/s1600/feedflipper-screenshot-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYP5sYszGYL4uGRKBtcNWkMPxXlebro4JLulIRXGspPMVmZ1LRcaQEl8mmN3pFl4KGSqLFk9GDrgKPOQfMsAmfqXhAKQEi9CJ6xivpqAukjiZhMKJe8ykSrdNYY16_J6V_70St/s1600/feedflipper-screenshot-1.png" height="215" width="400" /></a></div>
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The URL in this case is http://feeds.wnyc.org/wnyc_soundcheck. It may be on the WNYC site somewhere, but I didn't find it. (The formats apparently aren't uniform there, as the Sex Death and Money podcast URL uses Feedburner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/deathsexmoney. )</div>
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In MediaMonkey, adding the podcast URL is straightforward.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1jtXCNcibs42sE1PXraVlloYO-jVTanshhTXAoCq6IDlGP53CfMUk038Ylou7feZSZII37RAiRvW2V5vRdUnEjSKX99wlZO5ksco8yJoFBrzkPra-rsfon3S8Ue9wo43u8geH/s1600/mediamonkey-podcast-edit-pages.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1jtXCNcibs42sE1PXraVlloYO-jVTanshhTXAoCq6IDlGP53CfMUk038Ylou7feZSZII37RAiRvW2V5vRdUnEjSKX99wlZO5ksco8yJoFBrzkPra-rsfon3S8Ue9wo43u8geH/s1600/mediamonkey-podcast-edit-pages.png" height="270" width="400" /></a></div>
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Sharing MediaMonkey Across Devices </h2>
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Apple iTunes solves the problem of accessing podcasts across machines, but what if you want to do this with MediaMonkey? Stay tuned. There doesn't seem to be a clean solution for this, so it's likely a scripting kludge.</div>
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MediaMonkey has an Android and a Windows Mobile client.</div>
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Subscription sharing is also possible by exporting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML" target="_blank">OPML</a> feeds. </div>
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<ul>
<li><b>More information at MediaMonkey <a href="http://bit.ly/18BB4Ib" target="_blank">FAQ on Podcasts</a> </b></li>
<li><b>More on <a href="http://superuser.com/questions/78415/get-rss-feed-from-itunes-podcast-links" target="_blank">this problem</a> </b> </li>
<li><b>Related formats: Google Currents, Flipboard</b> </li>
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<br />knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-67253895734889865842014-09-14T13:34:00.005-04:002014-09-14T13:34:54.405-04:00Cloud Impact: Residential FiOS Benchmark for July 2013 (Mid-Day)<div style="text-align: justify;">
Of late the internet connection over which this blog's content is created has received a lot of use. The cloud is playing a larger role, both from Office365, streaming audio, Netflix, Google Drive, and some of the computers on the network are synchronized to Drive. The download requirements are still primary, especially during the occasional Netflix "purchase," but uploads are increasingly important as the cloud assumes increased importance as a backup "device."</div>
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It seemed like a good time to benchmark the reported network speeds -- sort of an integrity check on the attempted average speed provided by Verizon FiOS.</div>
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Verizon is promoting a 50/25 plan, but it appears that upload speeds would be even more adversely affected. </div>
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Verizon offers a <a href="http://my.verizon.com/services/speedoptimizer/FIOS/FiosOptimizerDownload.aspx?CusType=RES" target="_blank">speed optimizer</a> that changes TCP/IP settings, but the effects of this tweak was not tested.<br />
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The FIOS connection described here has been recently updated and will be reported on in a post later in Fall 2014.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmVDRVoI89mHPOGypiLaKDaij-bscLRY7v22XJ_wrSaBHIx_T0DiNMN5c-epTCDHKyS_jLD9AW1XJz1sTB2v6IhV-RBg_SVGgLv57cTHAxTiT-fY0BgTLsv_lJs9FQUjZ8T2JZ/s1600/verizon-speedtest-535px-201307181152.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmVDRVoI89mHPOGypiLaKDaij-bscLRY7v22XJ_wrSaBHIx_T0DiNMN5c-epTCDHKyS_jLD9AW1XJz1sTB2v6IhV-RBg_SVGgLv57cTHAxTiT-fY0BgTLsv_lJs9FQUjZ8T2JZ/s1600/verizon-speedtest-535px-201307181152.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Verizon FiOS Benchmark via Speedtest.net</td></tr>
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Test results from TestMy.net:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8spMa-jZfF6LMmGlGyZZUJIgYTQ7cOwpDEFagewdkl1QC4sDcq_qZn4WQor9sux1W4ktJJUNjxpGSHYy6JHze4a7uUqU5CDshHOJ5dmjKOhv1oeF-lJSXtY43Xk67RrFfHdlE/s1600/testmy-net-speedtest-545px-201307181206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8spMa-jZfF6LMmGlGyZZUJIgYTQ7cOwpDEFagewdkl1QC4sDcq_qZn4WQor9sux1W4ktJJUNjxpGSHYy6JHze4a7uUqU5CDshHOJ5dmjKOhv1oeF-lJSXtY43Xk67RrFfHdlE/s1600/testmy-net-speedtest-545px-201307181206.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Verizon FiOS Benchmark via TestMy.net</td></tr>
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Test results from OOCLA (Verizon-hosted), using the Los Angeles server to our Greater Metro New York location.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWxOTnliEzyK0DHZvThfFpb9kRetJKkSDFTRPqOHPqaT0vXpIv70nWBJkmPR7Q4Z_tCyYJsOz52wdaAfrq1_sOsXU5xG72cpOgGncIB49O2wfAxucj75muKIIs8lChtoWLnm5/s1600/verizon-ookla-speed-test-545px-201307181211.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWxOTnliEzyK0DHZvThfFpb9kRetJKkSDFTRPqOHPqaT0vXpIv70nWBJkmPR7Q4Z_tCyYJsOz52wdaAfrq1_sOsXU5xG72cpOgGncIB49O2wfAxucj75muKIIs8lChtoWLnm5/s1600/verizon-ookla-speed-test-545px-201307181211.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Verizon-hosted OOLA Speed Test (Los Angeles to NY)</td></tr>
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Lastly, here is the Speedof.Me benchmark result.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxwimzfPD-rGKb2ZP5Q-w7dO8YgEb9xtaB49nXfrUbXYniu8QSgHZ_RXb3Zava2uFYziXgSB4gPDmw2hUDHNTf2Qv8E9DIM6BBCJXGLGrFvBYFG-BONuKGHQLbJlT5qO0V7qMl/s1600/speed-of-me-benchmark-545px-201307181218.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxwimzfPD-rGKb2ZP5Q-w7dO8YgEb9xtaB49nXfrUbXYniu8QSgHZ_RXb3Zava2uFYziXgSB4gPDmw2hUDHNTf2Qv8E9DIM6BBCJXGLGrFvBYFG-BONuKGHQLbJlT5qO0V7qMl/s1600/speed-of-me-benchmark-545px-201307181218.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SpeedOf.Me Broadband Benchmark</td></tr>
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<br />knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-40990314367719390712014-09-14T13:29:00.000-04:002014-09-14T13:29:04.242-04:00Malware or Broken Windows Vista Install? Symptoms and Chronology<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAxwxM9PuX16zw_qP6RSejtxa2HPI9n2HI1z7F60JeApo4R-4InHIdYBTDQX_igSxZRP5ycnVwz0PzFpDkA9WsKzUjH6OjwbeU2OTyO1_zfLBdL4O6cZYyva2O5sSUWQT2WDcW/s1600/Windows-vista-logo-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAxwxM9PuX16zw_qP6RSejtxa2HPI9n2HI1z7F60JeApo4R-4InHIdYBTDQX_igSxZRP5ycnVwz0PzFpDkA9WsKzUjH6OjwbeU2OTyO1_zfLBdL4O6cZYyva2O5sSUWQT2WDcW/s1600/Windows-vista-logo-1.jpg" height="234" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Case Study a Possible Virus / Windows Vista Failure</td></tr>
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I have been retained to remove a Windows virus. Here are some notes to assist others.<br />
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A Windows Vista computer with all patches applied regularly exhibits these symptoms while booted fully:<br />
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<li>Browser connections time out </li>
<li>Nothing can be installed as the shell has been taken over (.EXE launches produce an error message) </li>
<li>AVI 2004 had been disabled but was re-enabled and is "working" </li>
<li>The network is working: local and WAN pings succeed</li>
<li>Email traffic is normal </li>
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What's been tried so far: </div>
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<li>Restore failed. This could be a Windows issue particular to this machine, or possibly one caused by the malware. Detailed logs were not examined as the problem predated the infection.</li>
<li>Booting into Safe mode allowed for AVG 2014 to be re-enabled, both while in Safe Mode and upon return to normal mode </li>
<li>Malwarebytes found no errors in Safe Mode, but did hang after scanning about 28,000 objects </li>
<li>Hitmanpro ran to completion with Malwarebytes disabled and did not find any errors.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/most-common-registry-key-check-while-dealing-virus-issue" target="_blank">shell open registry keys</a> were checked, and they are OK (recall that EXE's can be run in safe mode)</li>
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The symptoms are evident during full Windows mode, not safe mode. </div>
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Strategy</h3>
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I used some of the <a href="http://bit.ly/1aUV2dF" target="_blank">tactics used by William Rowland</a> (Jan 2013), though the Safe mode block reported there is not one of the symptoms for this attack.<br />
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Result </h3>
None of the safe mode tools proposed by W.R. turned up anything definitive. There were additional suggested tests that might have been fruitful, but as mentioned, running on "unsafe" mode was not possible -- especially Windows repair solutions -- none of which could be run in the operable safe mode.<br />
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A time-consuming Windows reinstallation was the only alternative.</div>
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knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-74203342827787934712014-09-14T13:09:00.001-04:002014-09-14T13:09:15.860-04:00Google Chrome Browser Defaults to Italics: c. v37.x<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaQgyssCpWZaARoW5l1Pc7DQPwag-DL3hGjfkEo2I_L-qrcLsnyz06mhkY6CnpiXcqmjvg4NbiQY8X2lst7op9JIBfp8ozG1DrZr0RLdGnQPAboAzVkjGwYUmBNHqL2a1ZGRRs/s1600/chrome-font-settings-20140913.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaQgyssCpWZaARoW5l1Pc7DQPwag-DL3hGjfkEo2I_L-qrcLsnyz06mhkY6CnpiXcqmjvg4NbiQY8X2lst7op9JIBfp8ozG1DrZr0RLdGnQPAboAzVkjGwYUmBNHqL2a1ZGRRs/s1600/chrome-font-settings-20140913.png" height="216" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Workaround for Google Chrome DirectWrite Fail</td></tr>
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Starting a couple of weeks ago, or so, Google's Chrome browser started displaying italics instead of the browser default font. It was especially annoying when using Google Docs, since there was no distinguishing the default font from intentional italics settings. </div>
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Upon further examination, the symptom varied somewhat depending on what the page was calling for. Checking the font settings in the Chrome browser itself turned up nothing new. Disabling extensions didn't help. Google search for this problem mainly turned up threads in Google Groups. These called for reinstalling Windows fonts or tweaking Windows settings. None of these sorts of solutions worked -- as they didn't apply. Further, the symptom does not appear in other browsers on the subject computer.</div>
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After several days of testing, a <a href="http://yhoo.it/1nVtpVL" target="_blank">Yahoo Answers post provided the answer to the Chrome default font italics mystery</a>. Google's <a href="http://bit.ly/1nVtEA6" target="_blank">Chrome team is rolling out support for Windows DirectWrite</a> and in this version, the release fails under some circumstances.</div>
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Stayed tuned for commentary on this scenario at SoftwareQC.com.</div>
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<b>Configuration</b> Windows 7 Pro, Intel i7, Chrome Version 37.0.2062.120 m. </div>
<br />knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-75669624282439467902013-08-13T23:27:00.001-04:002013-09-28T16:44:58.348-04:00Google Play Music Manager Takes a Silent Bow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjL4Ae8XDZ6JTAZIAEychYdfaUD-7eejzKcuLw6MUW1gEZ6Rupy6j_fPuYsos8qr9ikLNFIqk670PatvvTMrdhA_0bomho2vAxL6Kt9phFG0vvGHZ21zAxBcPyhO9TEKnxtWyu/s1600/google-music-manager-log-20130813-555px.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjL4Ae8XDZ6JTAZIAEychYdfaUD-7eejzKcuLw6MUW1gEZ6Rupy6j_fPuYsos8qr9ikLNFIqk670PatvvTMrdhA_0bomho2vAxL6Kt9phFG0vvGHZ21zAxBcPyhO9TEKnxtWyu/s1600/google-music-manager-log-20130813-555px.JPG" /></a></div>
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Is it a crash? Is it a polite exit, like a date that goes badly but the girl has the kindness never to call again? </div>
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Something like it seems to be going on with <a href="https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1229970?hl=en" target="_blank">Google Music Manager</a>, which is responsible for uploading files to Play's cloud music storage. The application launches, occupies its rightful place in the tray, but a mouseover event causes it to close. Nothing is thrown in the event log.</div>
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Google Support is accessible through Play help screens, using an Amazon-like Click-to-Call. On the second day of trying, contact with support was made. That was when the presence of this log was mentioned. Echelon 2 help will now take a look.</div>
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<b>Analysis</b> There's an application log, but the user isn't given any hints as to its location or how to interpret its contents. This is intentional, but for knowledgeable users -- equipped with a thoughtful FAQ -- some problems may be solved without help from the vendor. Whether it would help with this problem or not is unknown.<br />
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<b>Update</b> (28 Sep 2013) The only way to successfully re-install the application was to remove and recreate the working folder where the logs and other message files are stored. If you need the logs to later analysis, store them elsewhere before recreating the folder. The installer, probably by design, leaves the contents intact, but if there are problems there, they are never resolved. The original cause of the problem remains unknown, but the app becomes usable again after following this recipe.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">C:\Users\[<i>username</i>]\AppData\Local\Google\MusicManager</span></div>
knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-22615442224273858072013-08-05T10:53:00.000-04:002013-08-05T11:07:58.619-04:00Disable Magic_quotes_gpc in PHP for Joomla 3.1 (Pair Networks)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyk3-qF8TMreGZFAg1q5W5szyK2Uxe9DFZxdQDmh8vfO7CvQ5G3kntwMJHMVWxHL9mC2ux2XOrZ9YT39KpJOwnTyEf3Kbpyqo5EWIZpCRkfQRP9ks-VOfD99dCFMKebhmMFwRm/s1600/joomla_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Joomla logo" border="0" height="73" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyk3-qF8TMreGZFAg1q5W5szyK2Uxe9DFZxdQDmh8vfO7CvQ5G3kntwMJHMVWxHL9mC2ux2XOrZ9YT39KpJOwnTyEf3Kbpyqo5EWIZpCRkfQRP9ks-VOfD99dCFMKebhmMFwRm/s320/joomla_logo.png" title="Joomla logo" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Joomla 3.1 requires that magic_quotes_qpc, a PHP setting, be turned off -- for a security <a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/security.magicquotes.whynot.php" target="_blank">reason related to PHP</a>. As others have noted, this can be done in various ways --maddeningly -- depending on numerous configuration permutations.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>How can you tell if it is turned off?</b> Check phpinfo if the Joomla preinstallation checklist is not providing that information. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At Pair networks, changing <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">.htacesss</span> and <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">php.ini </span>did not work. The web host technician advised using <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">user.ini</span>. It is worth reading the <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/configuration.file.per-user.php" target="_blank">PHP documentation (and comments) regarding <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">user.ini</span></a>. This setting is apparently per-directory, in this documentation, but this <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13424502/php-ini-to-affect-all-sub-folders" target="_blank">StackOverflow post</a> indicates user.ini works recursively. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whether this solution works for you depends on the specific configuration, so check that first.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The issue is broad in scope and complex, as pointed out in this lengthy and ongoing post by "AITPro Admin" titled "<a href="http://bit.ly/194kf6R" target="_blank">PHP5.3.X – PHP5.4.X .USER.INI FILE DOES NOT WORK – KNOWN PHP5.3.X .USER.INI FASTCGI WORDPRESS ZEND APACHE ISSUE</a>." Read this if you are contemplating a career in software and expect it to be smooth technology sailing.</div>
knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-36703800993526865422013-07-22T14:42:00.002-04:002013-08-04T17:37:24.898-04:00Godaddy WIMP Wordpress Web.Config Error To LAMP Parent Directory Writeable?<div style="text-align: justify;">
Normally this screenshot would be posted over in <a href="http://bit.ly/19vEI4t">Errorprocessing.com</a>, but since this error wasted many hours, I'm posting it here.<br />
<br />
This is how it started -- seemingly just an ASP.NET or hosting configuration issue.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwy1BKQZwOdrzzQJZRDhQLyz_wrDbVnzw_WKI5QWEGBJTHl5sXhDM92JXTdSTZiiHRdJ1a7C6cgUKWEjBKvrvq6ESOLBzT9Vs-DC5CDDXoVmKd4bleonnnuCGX6TarkO0FFAY/s1600/godaddy-web-config-error-545px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwy1BKQZwOdrzzQJZRDhQLyz_wrDbVnzw_WKI5QWEGBJTHl5sXhDM92JXTdSTZiiHRdJ1a7C6cgUKWEjBKvrvq6ESOLBzT9Vs-DC5CDDXoVmKd4bleonnnuCGX6TarkO0FFAY/s1600/godaddy-web-config-error-545px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Godaddy Windows Shared Hosting: Error Thrown after Wordpress Install</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h2>
Configuration</h2>
IIS7.ASP.NET 4.0/4.5, MySQL (Win), PHP 5, root D:\Hosting\7207009\html<br />
<br />
There have been eight back and forth emails and three phone calls so far with Godaddy support. As has been noted elsewhere, Godaddy support is more conversant with Linux Wordpress than with their IIS - Windows platform, though this is not reflected in anything official.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A significant benefit with Godaddy (and other web host firms) is that they perform the function of installing the application through the use of wizards. When it works -- and most of the time it does work, even in Windows -- it's a timesaver. I'm conversant with self-installing, and am a former virtual host customer of Godaddy's, but found that one inherits unwanted system administration duties along with the benefits of having root access.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This error appeared after the Godaddy wizard that installs Wordpress on Windows, which has this menu tree:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Account | Web hosting | Hosting Account selection (by domain) | Applications | Wordpress | Install</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The subject hosting account already had two successful Windows installations of Wordpress. One of these </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFJucViIFPgFInbur6yaKw8Z5JXcfuQ5ZbS-9eEJ3b81gWfD6slbXXPsa2TaKVNhFqkMlbWHioISVi5q9lwYhlbatTiEwtbtaGcmzl_T28cmX6Gkept6V_J4JuUfN9Y0FOshH5/s1600/godaddy-wordpress-ready-msg-250px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFJucViIFPgFInbur6yaKw8Z5JXcfuQ5ZbS-9eEJ3b81gWfD6slbXXPsa2TaKVNhFqkMlbWHioISVi5q9lwYhlbatTiEwtbtaGcmzl_T28cmX6Gkept6V_J4JuUfN9Y0FOshH5/s1600/godaddy-wordpress-ready-msg-250px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Godaddy "Wordpress Is Ready" Email</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
continues to work OK (launching after a painful wait of 20 seconds before the home page displays, but that's a different issue), as did the previous installation.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There is no visible <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">web.config</span> file, either via ftp or the file browser provided in Godaddy's hosting control panel, though obviously one (or something that is a proxy for one?) is in play based on the error being thrown. That includes both the root of the hosting site (\) or the subfolder where Wordpress was installed (\foo).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To sum up the current status, the wizard installs an inaccessible version of Wordpress that cannot be browsed from the post-installation link given by the notification email sent by Godaddy.<br />
<br />
Tips on the web? Most deal with fixing Windows permalinks on Wordpress, which is an issue one encounters <i>after</i> the administrative interface is breathing.<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
What Was Tried? </h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ol>
<li>Uninstalling an install at the root</li>
<li>Reinstalling at a subfolder (but tested at the root (see #10).</li>
<li>Putting a dummy web.config at the root </li>
<li>Installing the rewrite-enabled web.config recommended at <a href="http://www.amixa.com/blog/2011/01/07/wordpress-windows-2008-web-server-r2-iis-7-5-setup/" target="_blank">Amixa.com</a>. </li>
<li>A test testphp.php file to verify php configuration setup on this virtual site. It failed with "No input file specified". This typically means IIS and PHP aren't collaborating, but in fact PHP runs on the operational site, so this error was misleading.</li>
<li>Changed php.ini so that <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">doc_root</span> pointed to the physical root of this site. No change.</li>
<li>Reviewed "<a href="http://enabling%20per-site%20php%20configuration/" target="_blank">Enabling per-site PHP settings</a>."</li>
<li>Checked IIS Management, and the virtual server site had not been set up. One was created. The application pool was manually recycled. No effect (but see #10).</li>
<li>A CSR suggested enabling error display (as suggested <a href="http://wordpress.visitmix.com/development/installing-wordpress-on-sql-server#iis" target="_blank">here</a>, errormode = "Detailed"). This had no effect. It was as though a local web.config was not being accessed.</li>
<li>When verifying that HTML could be read on the site, this also failed. This suggested a DNS setup problem. That was a key insight for this phase of the solution.</li>
<li>The primary domain was changed to an idle domain name. This created a new Wordpress instance that was one of two secondary domains on the hosting account.</li>
<li>Permissions on the entire Wordpress folder were changed to read/write.</li>
<li>The application pool for the hosting account was recycled.</li>
</ol>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h2>
Status After Round 1 of Remediation Attempts</h2>
At this stage, the "primary domain" was <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">abc.com</span>, but the Wordpress instance of interest was in a subfolder. Despite using the wizard, and probably for good reason, the domain continued to point to the root even after the Wordpress install and re-install. Accordingly. the site must be accessed at:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">http://abc.com/subfolder/wp-admin</span></blockquote>
OK. The original web.config issue remained unsolved when Wordpress was installed to the root, but this issue is masked when Wordpress is moved to a subdirectory. This was probably working after the reinstallation of the Wordpress instance, but I erroneously tested it from the subfolder URL.<br />
<br />
That change resolved the <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">web.config</span> issue for the secondary domain. As noted. the primary domain throws the <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">web.config</span> error, but that's tolerable.<br />
<h2>
But . . .</h2>
Now it was not possible to upload any images to the <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">wp-content\uploads</span> folder. See below.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBRXpsnNkJ1Iq5rGCc8F4kEgK3iKRFy9yzyZwyI2ZBYLgdu3KkgnN_Z-SlzVGIHEiCwJ8i5ew0Mypt7kfKtrLlqwbZFsepXSAyt7JgwBABJncimkCi8_XBXmiqXlc0YslQeps/s1600/godaddy-win-wordpress-upload-fail-201307231308-555px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBRXpsnNkJ1Iq5rGCc8F4kEgK3iKRFy9yzyZwyI2ZBYLgdu3KkgnN_Z-SlzVGIHEiCwJ8i5ew0Mypt7kfKtrLlqwbZFsepXSAyt7JgwBABJncimkCi8_XBXmiqXlc0YslQeps/s1600/godaddy-win-wordpress-upload-fail-201307231308-555px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wordpress Upload Permissions Error (Windows - IIS - MySQL - PHP)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Error message:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<filename> has failed to upload due to an error. Unable to create directory abc.com/uploads/2013/07. Is its parent directory writable by the server?</filename></blockquote>
The browser uploader likewise failed with the same message.<br />
<br />
Did ftp work? No problem to ftp to the folder, but that was no help. It showed that ftp had write permissions, but does not allow Wordpress the chance to index and otherwise manipulate the images as needed to stick them in a post.<br />
<br />
I unsuccessfully implored the Godaddy CSR to have "Advanced Hosting" look at the event logs, which might be tedious as the error is diagnostic rather than serious, but that could help determine the cause of the permissions error. (In retrospect, it is unclear whether this would have helped much.)<br />
<br />
There are also other solutions (see References below) that were tried with some success by other Windows Wordpress users (unclear how many of these were on hosted accounts), but since the conversation was had with a Tier 1 rep who was relaying information to the Advanced Hosting resource, I did not try to suggest them.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Second Strategy and Results</h2>
The primary domain was changed to an idle name, then reinstalled a second time at the subfolder. This left the primary domain with the original <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">web.config</span> error.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, media uploads are now not possible, even though there is another secondary domain running Wordpress in a parallel folder on this hosting account whose uploads work fine.<br />
<br />
After seven overall tickets with Godaddy support, their last recommendation was to "Contact Wordpress" or move the hosting to Linux instead of Windows.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Move to Linux and Resolution </h2>
The move to Linux from Windows was requested of Godaddy's hosting ops on a Friday and completed on the following Tuesday. There were some unexpected twists.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>There were three domains associated with the hosting account; one of these was the pesky one described in this blog post. The other two domains were working OK under Windows, but Godaddy only restored two domains to working order.</li>
<li>The Wordpress instance with the problem was erroneously attached to the wrong subfolder, which made testing a big confusing until I noticed the mistake.</li>
<li>Here's the big twist. Once the folder issue was identified, <i>the identical problem recurred</i> -- the exact error message ending with the nagging query ". . . Is its parent directory writable by the server?"</li>
</ul>
<div>
Following this odd finding -- that the presumed Windows problem moved intact to Linux -- permissions on the folder tree were reset (step 12 above), this time under Linux. The result was the same. It had no effect.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Clearly it was time to return to Google Search for more findings (i.e., other user frustrations), since this now seemed to be a Wordpress, rather than an operating system-depending issue. Eventually what turned up is what I'm calling the "Morigirth Fix" (see below). It involved toggling a boolean in Wordpress Media Settings.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Most Wordpress media settings screens look like this, shown at Wordpress.org.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTfu2k5QWMuoBipBeUwJDvhYm_xSAKWCvGp2XFQYk1AW60drHzw4rcn0h_5Qu3JmZ-Afe4B_C7E77IK1qJaiSxIW-yJTZypgkuHdOo5ToLPn3g-v1KbLvLrt39KX_N1NqNrIKw/s1600/wordpress-media-settings-screen-555px.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTfu2k5QWMuoBipBeUwJDvhYm_xSAKWCvGp2XFQYk1AW60drHzw4rcn0h_5Qu3JmZ-Afe4B_C7E77IK1qJaiSxIW-yJTZypgkuHdOo5ToLPn3g-v1KbLvLrt39KX_N1NqNrIKw/s1600/wordpress-media-settings-screen-555px.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wordpress Media Settings Screen: Default Settings</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Note the boolean:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">"Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders." </span></blockquote>
<div>
To "fix" the permissions error, this was unchecked, and the problem was resolved.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Wordpress seems to want to reset this flag to "on," because the next day it was reset to true. Uploads are working fine.<br />
<br /></div>
<h2>
Analysis </h2>
<div>
This was a Wordpress issue whose solution should be suggested as part of the error thrown. In addition, the web host is likely to have seen this before, but hasn't created a knowledge base record for it. I am unclear as to the original cause for the problem, but it is clearly in the Wordpress - php interaction with the file system.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
Suggestions by Others </h2>
<div>
This section of the post is for reader use. None of these suggestions worked directly -- this time -- but may be useful for others with similar symptoms.</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_on_Microsoft_IIS" target="_blank"><b>Tweaks to web.config</b></a> Tip shows use of Microsoft Platform installer (using IIS), not applicable here, but the author provides a glimpse of the <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">web.config</span> tweaks made for rewrite rules. In the example shown, <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">web.config</span> is placed in the subfolder.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.saotn.org/wordpress-35-iis-80-unable-to-save-web-config/" target="_blank"><b>Failure to Detect IIS 8</b></a> There's a failure to detect IIS 8 in a Wordpress php file, but the suggestion had no effect on this issue.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.mbrauchler.com/wordpress-image-upload-problem-using-iis-on-windows-server-2008/" target="_blank"><b>Review IIS Authentication</b></a> This post suggests changing the IIS7 authentication. According to them, “Anonymous Authentication” was set to a user that did not exist. So they changed it to use the application pool identity. It is unclear to me whether the Godaddy data center (1) has that option given their shared hosting setup, and (2) tried it when it was suggested.</li>
<li><a href="http://wordpress.org/support/topic/permissions-problems-with-new-uploaded-media?replies=9" target="_blank"><b>Review temp directory settings</b></a> This post suggested changing permissions on the PHP temp directory, but since a different instance on the same hosting account worked, it was not attempted. A <a href="http://bit.ly/13fbrSE" target="_blank">variation on this was also suggested</a>: give the ‘IUSR’ account modify permissions on the WindowsTemp directory and restart IIS. This idea was similarly phrased by another user as "Changing permissions on windows/temp so that IIS_USR could access it." That was not tried, either, as access to this folder is not permitted on shared hosting accounts.</li>
<li><b>The "<a href="http://wordpress.org/support/topic/media-upload-pronlem-permission-denied-in-includesfilephp-on-line-348" target="_blank">Morigirth Fix</a>"</b> This is the Wordpress setting that resolved the permissions problem presented in this post.</li>
<li><a href="http://wordpress.org/support/topic/i-want-a-single-uploads-folder-not-organized-by-monthyear" target="_blank"><b>Set Media Loads to Use One Folder</b></a> This forum post suggests that it is possible to unstick the boolean.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br /></div>
knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-3277686002284678892013-07-22T06:00:00.000-04:002013-07-24T14:32:52.290-04:00Let Your Mouse do the (FiOS) Dialing <div style="text-align: justify;">
Many in Port Washington use Verizon FiOS for entertainment. Did you use your FiOS broadband to see the Netflix Emmy-nominated series, “House of Cards?” It would not have been possible without beefy internet download capability. </div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUiqujZYDbN9BwyhN18BM0k_0OAPZaLPGf_TlqI4U0bvNv2gQMYcjupPT-33tyY7BuGftEfhBWK63s6eJxuEcmWCD5XT8Wu2l8h2UVkwTfLJnL0VwFcjdOTD-4SqBGXVatn6I/s1600/verizon-digital-voice-phonebook-logo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUiqujZYDbN9BwyhN18BM0k_0OAPZaLPGf_TlqI4U0bvNv2gQMYcjupPT-33tyY7BuGftEfhBWK63s6eJxuEcmWCD5XT8Wu2l8h2UVkwTfLJnL0VwFcjdOTD-4SqBGXVatn6I/s1600/verizon-digital-voice-phonebook-logo.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Verizon.com Residential Voice Web Page</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There’s generally high satisfaction with Verizon’s fiber optic broadband offering. When sheer speed is considered, it’s sometimes rated as one of the fastest broadband offerings in the United States. We will discuss FiOS broadband speed testing in a later post.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h2>
What About FiOS Phone Service?</h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When consumers sign up for FiOS to get the benefit of the fiber optic connection, some are unclear about Verizon’s FiOS phone service. I will try to clear up a little of that in this post.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In some locations, Verizon continues to offer, when last we checked, a copper non-fiber optic telephone connection. It does not use a digital connection. Rather it uses the same copper wire that our parents used. No, it is not the fastest for internet (that was “DSL” if you’re old enough to remember), but it does have the advantage that it doesn’t require the apparatus to support carrying a voice signal over the Company’s digital network—so-called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). That apparatus requires power. When power goes out, the voice and internet services only work as long as the battery holds up – which is a matter of 4-8 hours according to estimates</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There are many features that can be offered on a digital voice signal that are often not available with copper. Many features offered on a digital voice signal are often not available with copper. Regardless, one of those features is not continued service in an extended absence of power. During Hurricane Sandy, Verizon and Cablevision copper wire customers using ordinary unpowered handsets would see their service restored first – once downed wires had been repaired – even if house power had not yet been restored.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQqZRhOb9a1gtjkmqYwfgeYJLDLVynqRNHU2n8fseI99UK1BTB-vWIiIJhpj2981LhruSKCpNYj7qUr4l-Ps2RBa4nrt5ZPDfAgcPyjCmg_1GEX-0d2C6CbwlGzSBjVmifjP8t/s1600/verizon-digital-voice-menu.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQqZRhOb9a1gtjkmqYwfgeYJLDLVynqRNHU2n8fseI99UK1BTB-vWIiIJhpj2981LhruSKCpNYj7qUr4l-Ps2RBa4nrt5ZPDfAgcPyjCmg_1GEX-0d2C6CbwlGzSBjVmifjP8t/s320/verizon-digital-voice-menu.JPG" width="149" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Menu Options</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
How did you end up with Verizon’s Digital Voice? Verizon’s competitively priced packages include only its digital voice option. Verizon will separately sell its copper line service to some residents, but not as part of its heavily promoted bundles.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h2>
Dialing “1-5-1-6”</h2>
For some users, a nuisance with the residential Verizon digital voice service is that it behaves as though it does not recognize the calling party’s area code – i.e., 516 in our area. Therefore, a call to the Landmark to check on the dates for the next show requires an additional “1516” in front of “7676444” – even if you are calling from the library across the street.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was not able to find a definitive explanation, but one reason given is the <a href="http://vz.to/1b5SED3" target="_blank">explosion of numbers</a> due to mobile phones. Another explanation is the problem of adjacent areas codes, or “overlap areas,” such as one finds at the border between Nassau and Suffolk, or Nassau and Queens. A person wrote into a Verizon forum that 10-digit dialing has been mandatory in some areas of Texas for more than a decade.<br />
<br />
It may also depend on wide area calling pricing. Some local businesses with FiOS do not have to dial “1516-,” but they are charged for some calls made into adjacent area codes. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In today’s gadget-filled world, you would think it would be possible to program a phone to handle this dialing aberration. Instead, a much more profitable mobile phone market eclipsed old school handset offerings. Try finding a phone that will hold 50 phone numbers like my 1990’s era Nortel.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>SIDEBAR</b> <i>An <a href="http://bit.ly/1aCxj0q" target="_blank">lively debate</a> is underway about Verizon’s plan to use a new wireless service to replace its Sandy-damaged copper infrastructure on Fire Island.</i></blockquote>
<h2>
FiOS Voice Pros</h2>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3espiTK61vxrxLJajEq3xasZZG3KYPEoz7ZDhcZa-lHcu67tjbXqjCcdxrCWCErNerg0XOBDajgCyHyk-1If64eroAUWX3F3UFnOnqx-Kn5BS1D9ks-updO8N1kT9y2gAo_e/s1600/verizon-dial-from-phone-book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3espiTK61vxrxLJajEq3xasZZG3KYPEoz7ZDhcZa-lHcu67tjbXqjCcdxrCWCErNerg0XOBDajgCyHyk-1If64eroAUWX3F3UFnOnqx-Kn5BS1D9ks-updO8N1kT9y2gAo_e/s320/verizon-dial-from-phone-book.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Select "Call" to Dial the Landmark via Browser</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here's the payoff. Despite these nuisances, those with routine computer skills and a web browser (via mobile phone, iPad, Chromebook or desktop) can log into a Verizon account, maintain a <a href="https://www36.verizon.com/FiOSVoice/members/PhoneBook.aspx" target="_blank">large phone address book</a>, and dial a phone number from there using just a mouse. It's simple.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Create an address book of numbers. No "1" prefix needed.</li>
<li>Leave your phone in "hung up" position, or on hook.</li>
<li>Select the person you want to call with your mouse.</li>
<li>Select “Call.” </li>
<li>With your phone still on hook, wait for the phone to ring. It will ring pretty much immediately. </li>
<li>Pick it up and listen. It’s ringing. Yup. </li>
<li>It’s now dialing the person you selected.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You can do more on the web site, too. Check voice mail. See caller-ID for your missed calls.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Tip</b> You can initiate calls from anywhere. If you want to dial the doctor’s office so a family member can speak with a provider, instead of painstakingly reading a phone number, you can initiate the call yourself. And you can do it from Milwaukee’s Mitchell Field or the San Diego Zoo </div>
<h2>
Cons</h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The web site will time out your session rather rapidly. If you’re going to use this feature often, use a password manager, or periodically hit refresh to keep the session active. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Verizon offers a desktop application called the Verizon Call Assistant. At one time, it offered additional functions that made it unnecessary to use the web browser version to accomplish certain tasks. Unfortunately, it now appears that support has ended. I was unable to install it under Windows 64-bit 7 or 8.</div>
<br />
<h2>
Wrapup </h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More computer questions or needs? Write us at <a href="http://bit.ly/18u4bHP" target="_blank">Patch PW</a> where some TechnologyHead posts originate, here or online at <a href="http://kryptonbrothers.com/" target="_blank">Krypton Brothers</a>.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Caveat</b> Discussion is for Verizon services in the Long Island New York area, not Verizon's wireless service. Your mileage may vary.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-13321179583444600902013-07-15T23:17:00.002-04:002013-07-16T13:10:13.391-04:00Home Computer Power Management Tips<i style="text-align: justify;">Most of us need a UPS -- and maybe more power-related gadgets -- on every workstation in the home. The reasons may not be clear to everyone, as was made obvious by an extended conversation with a friend. Go to the <b><a href="http://www.technologyhead.com/p/featured.html#.UeS6o0F9DHQ">Featured Post</a></b> to get the story.</i><br />
<i style="text-align: justify;"><br /></i>
<SCRIPT charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fstarwhisperer-20%2F8003%2F98352f38-061f-4450-b3f3-1073dc336097&Operation=GetScriptTemplate"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT><A HREF="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fstarwhisperer-20%2F8003%2F98352f38-061f-4450-b3f3-1073dc336097&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</A></NOSCRIPT>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><br /></i>
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<br />knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-55720509431907104092013-07-13T16:41:00.000-04:002013-07-13T15:55:20.607-04:00Google Chrome Freezes Windows 7 on Tab Close<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tQZrZlNQvz0UgkQVpMizEifx4trRilC6UqUmknZuOn4YEysEyJ3Zbdw4VPjF_s52xky07J4lz-8dPXLNdaLeysfZ5gkRZNJtGhKFzNFZbpb0nqcaOYWEyPrSi1FOJfe9JD-r/s1600/chrome-about-20130611.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tQZrZlNQvz0UgkQVpMizEifx4trRilC6UqUmknZuOn4YEysEyJ3Zbdw4VPjF_s52xky07J4lz-8dPXLNdaLeysfZ5gkRZNJtGhKFzNFZbpb0nqcaOYWEyPrSi1FOJfe9JD-r/s320/chrome-about-20130611.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
A substantial delay is being experienced in closing idle tabs on a system using Google Chrome Version 27.0.1453.110 m on a Windows 7 x64 machine with 16GB. Chrome settings are used to launch Chrome with around 30 tabs of commonly used sites. This had been standard practice for the past 18 months or more, and previously this didn't present any problems.<br />
<br />
<b>Symptom</b> Tabs that have been idle for some time (swapped out?) cannot be closed without locking up Windows 7 (freezing of cursor and keyboard) for almost 45 seconds. The Windows swap space was set to be self-managed by Windows, and was set to 16GB. More recently used tabs could be closed without difficulty. Further, even tabs that showed difficulties closing could be activated and browsed normally without latency.<br />
<br />
<b>Update</b> 12 July 2013 This appeared to be caused by Windows 7 not having enough swap space. New setting shown below.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO844kOuDIakQoxgmVWEeAA9E4ezqFci5DVynXrPUBjXSdfDJgXbVHz2_3un-5FV_5Xjxo9aCoSpSeUNlVnICJKjNhffmceQpEnlWnnTOMPw0iajB9KW5YBBk_v0w5IJNaTKQa/s1600/dickinson-swap-space-201307.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO844kOuDIakQoxgmVWEeAA9E4ezqFci5DVynXrPUBjXSdfDJgXbVHz2_3un-5FV_5Xjxo9aCoSpSeUNlVnICJKjNhffmceQpEnlWnnTOMPw0iajB9KW5YBBk_v0w5IJNaTKQa/s320/dickinson-swap-space-201307.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-77950980363652669252013-04-07T14:55:00.002-04:002013-04-07T15:03:03.345-04:00O.S. Upgrades and Home Depot: Why You'll Need a Hammer<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sometimes obvious deficiencies become invisible because they are long-running or prevalent problems. An example of this is how software and hardware suppliers manage operating system upgrades. Within the past three months, three O.S. upgrades have failed for various reasons, and not only Windows (e.g., Vista to Windows 8, or Windows 7 to Windows 8), but also Apple (whose applications don't migrate from some versions when upgraded).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today this message from HP was a reminder of how pervasive this deficiency is:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you purchased your computer prior to October 1st , 2011, HP has not tested or developed drivers for your model computer. Therefore an upgrade of your computer may be difficult or impossible.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">With a shrinking market for desktop computers, support for O.S. upgrades may get worse, not better.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ2otlYMta-P9_VIniY66FjGF_48_TVoDidQKZcnnuBytrkYVmmpupEdI1PdihyphenhyphenijTzdjk_R0DOL2vgTtWl58Xfqml72xAq7cecmB3csEawyMYQ5nrLl3cFQNRUFBVsYhkgbdP/s1600/home-depot-computer-sales-20130407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ2otlYMta-P9_VIniY66FjGF_48_TVoDidQKZcnnuBytrkYVmmpupEdI1PdihyphenhyphenijTzdjk_R0DOL2vgTtWl58Xfqml72xAq7cecmB3csEawyMYQ5nrLl3cFQNRUFBVsYhkgbdP/s400/home-depot-computer-sales-20130407.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But, sure -- go ahead and try anyway. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now that <a href="http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZc32q/h_d2/Navigation?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051" target="_blank">Home Depot is selling computers</a>, you may as well invest in a new hammer, which you'll want to use on your 18 month old computer when it's time to upgrade the O.S.</span></div>
knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-85615172169148343432013-03-02T09:37:00.000-05:002013-05-14T03:40:28.591-04:00'Scan and Fix' Warning Message for USB Disk Drive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I posted an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/ROS31NH9W52JI" target="_blank">Amazon product review</a> of the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro FireWire 800 USB 2.0 Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive for Mac and PC (STBB750100). Some may be interested in the Windows 7 error message that periodically appears when this drive is installed on Windows. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's unclear, but because the quick scan runs in under a couple of seconds, it may sometimes be a false positive for actual drive corruption. However, at times, it's been necessary to run the full "correct errors" option, because Windows would time out trying to read a file from the drive.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_TvVYKqo5QWNiqbGy-NulBLRgSdKoMLr-VlJJhkl-IiILm8H1GSN-yY336nJZyffDVl5pILgN-Mtfb6o1vk5vcDyX0BLHTn9OPt7uhaWKwR2Enp5NrQQJ_T_VBy8OUPjEHx0C/s1600/seagate-scan-and-fix-message.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_TvVYKqo5QWNiqbGy-NulBLRgSdKoMLr-VlJJhkl-IiILm8H1GSN-yY336nJZyffDVl5pILgN-Mtfb6o1vk5vcDyX0BLHTn9OPt7uhaWKwR2Enp5NrQQJ_T_VBy8OUPjEHx0C/s400/seagate-scan-and-fix-message.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Windows Warning about a USB Drive Error</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-75623619008997869212013-02-23T12:09:00.003-05:002017-03-27T23:59:02.300-04:00Detection and Removal of Trojan JS/Medfos.B <div style="text-align: justify;">
A Windows 7 Pro computer at some point was infected by the search engine malware known as JS/Medfos.B. The symptom of this malware is that search results are not processed by the selected search engine; instead results are clumsily merged with advertising and related links. A knowledgeable user sees this almost immediately, but that was not the case with the user of this computer.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This computer uses Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). MSE was able to detect the presence of JS/Medfos.B, probably at the time it was invoked. MSE quarantined it, but after removal, Medfos.B "returned" within 24 hours. Unclear if that was due to the user visiting an infected site or reloading the malware.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcT5vS2W4-dt5c287v-g6WGaP_DA9Lj-JnYALJ4Y8XHfiK_-5qxh-vaVi0LuVpWNP-Mh6zhWoSkc5xwyylB1-W9tSjEFfqhOyoCS2WcvfgPNGVaJbZGi1e1vTV9mEUsbYafaUo/s1600/medfos-b-and-mse.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcT5vS2W4-dt5c287v-g6WGaP_DA9Lj-JnYALJ4Y8XHfiK_-5qxh-vaVi0LuVpWNP-Mh6zhWoSkc5xwyylB1-W9tSjEFfqhOyoCS2WcvfgPNGVaJbZGi1e1vTV9mEUsbYafaUo/s400/medfos-b-and-mse.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Microsoft Security Essentials Detection of Medfos.B</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The browsers on the machine didn't show any obvious rogue add-ins or redirects, and there were no network forwards in the obvious places. The <a href="http://kbros.co/2o4xguC" target="_blank">Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool</a> also found nothing.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A <a href="http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_defender-protect_scanning/how-to-remove-the-trojan-jsmedfosb/85fcb63a-8e66-41a3-b291-dc6ba6cda1ef" target="_blank">thread</a> at Microsoft community provided some suggestions. In the past, my usual methods have been to use Malwarebytes, then Superantivirus, and then a root kit removal tool such as Kaspersky's <a href="http://support.kaspersky.com/5350" target="_blank">TDSSKiller</a>. Two weeks ago, on a different computer, TDSSKiller had been the magic bullet to remove a different adware trojan. But on this occasion, none of these tools detected anything. The thread recommended Hitman Pro (trial), a sort of cloud-based malware tool aggregator, and it did find malware to remove, but the version downloaded wanted me to buy the tool to remove them. It didn't identify the evidence clearly enough ("tracking cookies?") for a connection to be made with JS/Medfos.B, but it was alarming enough.<br />
<br />
At this point, the last MSE-detected appearance of the malware was 18 Feb 2013. I'm going to wait and see.<br />
<br />
Also suggested: The <a href="http://kbros.co/2o4u8yK" target="_blank">Comparitech Guide to Windows Malware removal</a>.<br />
<br />
<i>Update June 2013:</i> All is well.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-15832802384670431642013-02-18T23:39:00.001-05:002013-02-18T23:40:48.775-05:00Windows Vista Broken Event Log<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not the first time I've encountered it, and when an event log goes bad (the word "corrupted" gets thrown around), it will pretty much render Windows useless except as an benchmark for reboot times.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Symptoms: applications won't start, though no errors are thrown. Eventually one looks into the event logs. Or tries to.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On Vista, the</span></div>
<div>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">%winroot%\System32\winevt\Logs</span></blockquote>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">directory contains the logs. On the machine under investigation, these were numerous. The main interest was the Windows system log, but it wasn't obvious which of these reflected that. A Google search turned up the forensics utility "<a href="http://murphey.org/fixevt.html" target="_blank">fixevt</a>," so this simple exe was transferred to the offending machine. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Windows event log service must be disabled / stopped before the logs can be disturbed.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Log into an administrator command window in Safe Mode (possibly not necessary, but since the cause of the corruption was unknown, this was prudent), and run <b>fixevt</b>.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An attempt to run <b>fixevt</b> with the argument "*.evt" resulted in an immediate crash of <b>fixevt</b>, so simply "s*.evt" was attempted. Same result. A spot-check of a few event logs here and there ensued. A few would rebuild, but crashing was regular.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There was no time for further research, so the entire </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">\Logs</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> directory was renamed, and the service restarted after a restart. The services wouldn't start, so the \Logs directory was manually recreated, and then the services would start. Windows recreates the logs anew. The history is gone from view, but the machine is usable again. Monitoring the logs for unusual activity and malware scans are advisable.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvKWA_RpmsnXsesuNDbhMi8S2VYVkgMTKfBcjwQt28w5HvwSD2U22Cb_whMgOTusZCSJPyLZeST0XnYO9YE8CkDoiIvzZVhBDBZ46dlvDeubg8ExOuG6DVgOAu3V_pogh1FCB/s1600/eventviewr-snip.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvKWA_RpmsnXsesuNDbhMi8S2VYVkgMTKfBcjwQt28w5HvwSD2U22Cb_whMgOTusZCSJPyLZeST0XnYO9YE8CkDoiIvzZVhBDBZ46dlvDeubg8ExOuG6DVgOAu3V_pogh1FCB/s400/eventviewr-snip.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-79261664190925610912013-02-16T21:31:00.004-05:002013-02-16T21:31:44.014-05:00Windows 8 Upgrade Note: Keep Microsoft Office Keys Handy<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Windows 8 upgrade script isn't bad, though you'll still have to reinstall plenty of applications. The script's UI is silent on which applications it either removes or leaves stranded from Vista (my latest use of the app) and, presumably, Windows 7. The upgrade seemed to remove Office 2010 completely. With a product key in hand, download it here as described in a <a href="http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-office_install/microsoft-office-deleted-after-windows-8-upgrade/38a51b97-3b8c-4319-a734-9b077a528a64" target="_blank">Microsoft Community tip</a>. Budget a little time for this. After the reinstall, a restart was needed, and some updates pushed after that. </span></div>
knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-76352965142538338252011-05-26T00:35:00.002-04:002011-05-26T11:42:14.956-04:00Four Monitors, Anyone? A PCIe Card for X1, X4, or X8 Lane Slots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40WIrC6Gb6gN2Y8V99_Qj4FL-8UPGHhAoYbptUOTdYwqtFBQxS85LGhyphenhyphenE2Rr_c2YyOt6lw9L9TzWyN2JcrUpUeekQDoggmpkLt7JbM2Q1TSZavwWTOuhq6bhNZ021L2QZMsq7/s1600/firepro-2270-image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40WIrC6Gb6gN2Y8V99_Qj4FL-8UPGHhAoYbptUOTdYwqtFBQxS85LGhyphenhyphenE2Rr_c2YyOt6lw9L9TzWyN2JcrUpUeekQDoggmpkLt7JbM2Q1TSZavwWTOuhq6bhNZ021L2QZMsq7/s200/firepro-2270-image.png" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After several dead ends (PCI cards with unresolved PCI-to-PCI bridge issues, x16 extender cards that didn't work in the form factor of the chassis, interrupt conflicts with NIC hardware), one solution has been found that works in my Dell PowerEdge 2900. This is a low end server being used as a workstation. It wasn't designed to support an x16 PCIe card, so it's been difficult finding a substitution. The <a href="http://bit.ly/iJxbGZ">AMD ATI FirePro 2270 x1</a> version nicely supported dual monitors and installed without a hitch. Others with older machines where PCIe x1, x4 or x8 lanes are needed may wish to consider this alternative. Note: A "pro" not a "gamer" class device, but you can use two or more to support more than two monitors. Very tempting.<br />
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p.s. Another viable option for Nvidia users may be the <a href="http://www.pny.com/products/quadro/nvs/440x1NvsPciEx.asp">PNY NVS Quadro 440 x1</a>.</div>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-65543950876253644892011-05-14T11:25:00.003-04:002011-05-22T20:30:06.643-04:00Update on Elitebook Windows Event 17: HP HW Repair Process Insights<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4pZeOmpI9bOdRf-3mqegx8jZ9RvWIwHBs13I_5BOEd8IzGLHMdxW-JXJlO2OCZZ1rG6QFQ4j2Mr9g2JS8MVHnExBVjHK5kLHqZrMJf-WyGC7kmIJVaJijLMAs8RTk5oZ4GYd/s1600/hp-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4pZeOmpI9bOdRf-3mqegx8jZ9RvWIwHBs13I_5BOEd8IzGLHMdxW-JXJlO2OCZZ1rG6QFQ4j2Mr9g2JS8MVHnExBVjHK5kLHqZrMJf-WyGC7kmIJVaJijLMAs8RTk5oZ4GYd/s1600/hp-logo.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Update 19 May 2011 </b>Laptop was repaired after 2 working days. The fan problem was corrected, but the Event 17 errors have returned. The rep from the team handling repairs in progress insisted on dialing into the machine and reading the event log messages herself, then issued another RMA number. She indicated this would be "priority" (what is that?). Another box was shipped and the laptop has been returned to the depot.<br />
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<b>Update 14 May 2011 </b>As reported earlier, <a href="http://www.technologyhead.com/2011/05/when-pc-is-not-point-and-shoot-whea.html">an HP Elitebook (c. 2010) was returned for repair after much investigation</a>. The laptop was returned by overnight service from HP Depot repair with a new Nvidia 5100M graphics card. Impressively, a technician phoned form the depot facility to verify the nature of the complaints and to understand whether WLAN problems were also being experienced (Answer: Unclear). Unfortunately, the machine turns itself off a few minutes into the HP run-in test. Maybe fan or fan sensor disconnected or failed? The machine was returned to the depot the next day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Internal Repair Processes</b> Interestingly, HP hands off duties for repairs in progress to a different team. The chat channel used for triage is seemingly abandoned, though it can be assumed that transcripts are available for downstream technicians to read. Also, HP sends a new box for shipping rather than simply having customers print a new prepaid shipping label. Odd, considering that a day is lost while the box is shipped, and there's another box to be disposed of (the packing material used is not recyclable).</div>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-19156103052450270302011-05-06T19:01:00.000-04:002013-05-13T15:41:32.518-04:00Gotcha! Different Notch Offset for Fully Buffered DIMMs (FB-DIMMs)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSjmB7iPWGsCLu1Xso58Aqc-A1jm6ca8sCRv9iamXaHk_7LxWvfBPF-ZSMS69ZgD0rcfhaCkSo-AfdvoOO_JJMQm-_3dV0kUu4VEWRJiFn1NbX59aKZo3ZS2cXF42fAusB_r3d/s1600/dell-2900-fbdimm-photo-2-annotated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSjmB7iPWGsCLu1Xso58Aqc-A1jm6ca8sCRv9iamXaHk_7LxWvfBPF-ZSMS69ZgD0rcfhaCkSo-AfdvoOO_JJMQm-_3dV0kUu4VEWRJiFn1NbX59aKZo3ZS2cXF42fAusB_r3d/s400/dell-2900-fbdimm-photo-2-annotated.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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An aging Dell 2900 server needed more RAM to extend its life. The used marketplace for RAM seemed like the right place to go. The specification called for ECC buffered, 555 or 667mhz PC2-5300 DIMMs, deployed in pairs. Straightforward enough. Or so it seemed. After reading the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIMM">Wikipedia entry on DIMMs</a> to refresh my memory of standards in effect at the time that this machine was new, a pair of 4GB DIMMs was purchased.</div>
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What was immediately apparent, but which presales research had failed to discover, is that PC2-5300 FB-DIMMs have their single notch in a different location than otherwise identical PC2-DIMMs. To avoid this mistake in the future, refer to the photo above, which shows the offset position of the FB-DIMM notch.</div>
knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-79619566763833231612011-05-06T18:50:00.001-04:002011-05-09T11:39:27.122-04:00When a PC is not Point-and-Shoot: WHEA-Logger EventID 17<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-CPKlqqnxfFckL0IkziHktNjcfC3MXeEuDQ8PnpXOYeOPbzlFvJhzJ-cR-iEYz9lH9tqVSgP4lUsuDhg4fezAISxD_qzkVwrw8UZCyBA2h3_KVhtynGCaEfNk-EjVvo8QVi17/s1600/event-log-error-whea-logger-with-toaster.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-CPKlqqnxfFckL0IkziHktNjcfC3MXeEuDQ8PnpXOYeOPbzlFvJhzJ-cR-iEYz9lH9tqVSgP4lUsuDhg4fezAISxD_qzkVwrw8UZCyBA2h3_KVhtynGCaEfNk-EjVvo8QVi17/s400/event-log-error-whea-logger-with-toaster.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When everything's working smoothly, a PC seems a simple device, like a toaster, or, to use a better example, like a digital camera. Turn it on, launch an application, do work, and turn it off. A smoothly working PC offers its own quietly efficient version of Point and Shoot. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Beneath the covers, with both devices, but more so with today's PC, a lot needs to go right to produce the appearance of a carefree toaster-like experience. Some problems are comparatively common (if not frequent) but straightforward to diagnose and correct. Disk drives still fail, and for most, while <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.">SMART</a> doesn't generally provide warning of pending failure, it's usually obvious when it happens and the corrective action is also obvious. But once in awhile, problems arise that are a reminder of how much complexity lies beneath that ever-thinner chassis.<br />
<br />
An incident in this latter category has been occurring with an HP Elitebook 8540p laptop. Several times a minute, Windows 7 throws this exception to the event log:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Event 17, WHEA-Logger<br />
Component: PCI Express Root Port<br />
Error Source: Advanced Error Reporting (PCI Express)<br />
Bus: Device:Function: 0x0:0x3:0x0<br />
Vendor ID:Device ID: 0x8086:0xd138<br />
Class Code: 0x30400</blockquote><br />
More details are provided by Windows in the full WMI-interfaced <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff559421.aspx">Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA)</a> message. There were several problems with the laptop that could have been related to this error, which was thrown at least several times a minute, and sometimes more often depending on what processing was occurring. These included infrequent blue screens, fairly frequent glitching in pro audio devices (e.g., <a href="http://www.echoaudio.com//Products/FireWire/AudioFirePre8/index.php">Echo AudioFire Pre8</a> and <a href="http://www.ableton.com/">Ableton Live</a>, as well as various <a href="http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=1094&ParentId=436">USB audio devices</a>), and an unsatisfactory rating by the Echo-recommended <a href="http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml">DPC Latency Checker</a>.<br />
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Over several months, HP support and I worked on this issue. New device drivers were tried, USB device drivers were removed and added, self-tests and diagnostics were run. Nothing turned up. Finally, the hated "reinstall Windows" suggestion reared its head. Since everything else had been tried, the partition was erased and Windows 7 x64 was reinstalled. Result? Even before all the HP utilities were reinstalled, the problem recurred.<br />
<br />
The last HP technician suggested it could be an issue with the Nvidia NVS 5100M discrete graphics card. There are two related threads in forums that illustrate the scope and diligence of some users in trying to resolve this error. One is in <a href="http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/547487-g73jh-whea-logger-eventid-17-a-2.html">NotebookReview</a> (more related to Asus motherboard problems) and the other in an <a href="http://communities.intel.com/message/123993#123993">Intel Community forum</a> (where most of the blame was laid at the feet of AMD ATI graphics cards.<br />
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The laptop is off to HP for a repair attempt. Stay tuned. In the meantime, should this post have appeared in <a href="http://technologyhead.com/">TechnologyHead.com</a> or in <a href="http://errorprocessing.com/">ErrorProcessing.com</a>? Arguing in favor of the later, for instance, were several remarks by hardware technicians consulted by worried forum posters that "these problems didn't used to be reported anyway, and can easily be ignored." Arguing in favor of TechnologyHead was the aspect of complexity; after all, the error message was close to what passes for best practice these days in error reporting (if not recovery).<br />
<br />
</div>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-53375111741359181572011-03-01T21:46:00.003-05:002011-03-02T13:27:00.344-05:00Acrobat Pro #Fail: Why Software Standards Matter for Accessibility<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcia7cUMJIRbypb5LxibWElo9HFpRdHmkfJpL6yhV9aftmmnl2sR1JLnXyHzLmXLXFLkRkvjvkRiXsUbMFJf4i-GUua1QSYrlGyODscfkKxA4dTuOXQcGgEo_vGkFSdC_I5AXM/s1600/acrobat-bates-numbering-screen.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcia7cUMJIRbypb5LxibWElo9HFpRdHmkfJpL6yhV9aftmmnl2sR1JLnXyHzLmXLXFLkRkvjvkRiXsUbMFJf4i-GUua1QSYrlGyODscfkKxA4dTuOXQcGgEo_vGkFSdC_I5AXM/s400/acrobat-bates-numbering-screen.png" width="377" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Acrobat Pro Resolution-dependent Window</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Acrobat Pro 9 -- not just the Reader, but the commercial off-the-shelf product -- is a mainstay product of Adobe. Adobe is a publicly held company with more than 7,000 employees. It's Fortune rank in 2009 was 601. It is reasonable to expect that Adobe has in place solid standards for its products. These standards make Adobe products similar across platforms, consistent with each other, and consistent with platform-specific standards -- that is, Windows, Apple or Linux platforms. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For these reasons, coupled with the maturity of Acrobat 9 Pro, when a customer contacted me with a Windows problem, the working assumption is that the user had accidentally clicked on some setting. The symptom was that a dialog box used to control automatic insertion of headers and footers, such as Bates numbering, was partly off screen. There was no scroll bar for this dialog box, which had apparently been coded using the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface">Multiple Document Interface</a> (MDI) standard. Unlike some daughter windows in Acrobat, this window could not be maximized, minimized or resized. The standard Microsoft Windows "Move" <a href="http://bit.ly/gscZU0">command</a> worked, but the "Size" commands did nothing. As a result, the user couldn't see all the settings available, nor even click OK to invoke what few settings were visible.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A little casual research showed that my customer was <a href="http://adobe.ly/iiWRxa">not alone</a>. There is no solution for customers who use 800 x 600 resolution, single monitor displays. The "fix" is to increase resolution.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not only is this a major nuisance, but for visually impaired and some netbook users, it creates a serious obstacle. Adding to the annoyance factor are the abundant comments in various forums which show that this problem must be known to Adobe. I don't know whether it's been "fixed" in Acrobat Pro X, which <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tech-specs.html">specifies</a> a minimum resolution of 1024 x 576 (a bit odd, but there are a few netbooks that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_netbooks">use this resolution</a>), but the analyst producing requirements for the Acrobat Pro developer team should have either specified that all dialog boxes must operate within 800 x 600, or alternatively, since this is by today's standards a low resolution, provide an Acrobat startup warning that the resolution was below the minimum required.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Update</b> I cross-posted this message to the <a href="http://adobe.ly/fkxnDB">aforementioned Adobe forum</a>, and a user requested an explanation. One was received. In essence, no patch for the V9 problem was ever produced, but Adobe did address the problem in version X. The message as relayed by user <i>cyberbiker1</i> follows. I'm not fully convinced that the accessibility issue has been addressed:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> "Unfortunately the 9.4.2 patch did not address anything relating to screen resolution. The system requirements for Acrobat 9 on Windows operating systems includes a minimum resolution of 1024x768. Simply put, Acrobat 9 and previous versions weren't designed for netbooks. During the Acrobat 9 development cycle, netbooks were in their infancy. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Acrobat X however, was designed with netbooks in mind, supporting a minimum resolution of 1024x576."</span></blockquote></div>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-76545959562221794522011-01-12T20:41:00.000-05:002011-01-12T20:41:25.174-05:00Windows 7 Self-Lockout Feature: "User Profile Service Failed to Load"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPiNBIoTBzywxkY05jYi2wjxUoxrFuzrHU21xs77hLK9RjzkhBTvzqpgBqB-MoZdkqmq1g_A0umf07AwtfT11zpjSfgEGfExtNXkjwrwhJF9woVDPY-cMUHpJjOEYlj41k5XFS/s1600/windows7-logon-screenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPiNBIoTBzywxkY05jYi2wjxUoxrFuzrHU21xs77hLK9RjzkhBTvzqpgBqB-MoZdkqmq1g_A0umf07AwtfT11zpjSfgEGfExtNXkjwrwhJF9woVDPY-cMUHpJjOEYlj41k5XFS/s200/windows7-logon-screenshot.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Being locked out of one's own computer is a proven precursor to madness. It's now happened to me several times on several different machines -- both under Vista x64 and now twice under Win7 x64. Windows is restarted, and either user desktop fails to restore, or, on this occasion, Windows refuses to log in the user, because "User Profile Service Failed to Load." When this happens, you'll be left dumbfounded at the Windows login screen. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">From what I've seen, chances are good that you didn't do anything wrong.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There was a recent set of Windows Updates in the last 48 hours that I am tempted to blame for this, but there's no proven connection.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Some tips:</span></div><br />
<ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If the "locked-out" account is the only account on the machine, you will have to create 1-2 new ones, depending on how you decide to try to recover your data.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's unlikely that a heavily used account (lots of customization and licensed software installed) will get back 100%. Prepare expectations.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You'll need to boot into safe mode to gain control long enough to create a new account if one isn't already available.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Remember that if F8 during startup to get to Windows safe mode option isn't working, it could be because Windows won't recognize F8 over USB or wireless. Use a regular wired keyboard or the main keyboard on a laptop. </span></li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Microsoft <a href="http://bit.ly/g76YHW">suggests</a> several possible solutions to correct "a corrupted user profile." The first option is to restart -- which of course had been tried several times before reading their tip. Then the <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9734641">FixIt</a> solution was attempted, after creating a new admin account in Safe Mode. No love there, either.</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That left a third option. This is a messy process of creating a third account from which to copy profile data from the stranded profile to a new one. That is, a User3 is needed to copy stranded User1 data to a new User2. The details are in the Microsoft prescription. However, you'll be mildly unsatisfied with the results, depending on the situation. In my example, the user profile directory was 3.6GB which had to be copied to User2's directories. The "corrupted profile" files and registry remnants remain to be disposed of. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">How do things work out with new User2? While most apps will launch, many will have to be reauthorized, which took several hours in my case. Further, many had lost settings and these had to be relearned, rediscovered and painstakingly restored.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A quick search for Windows or third party backup/restore processes specifically addressing a Windows user profile didn't turn up anything specific; the goal would be to address this specific failure which it's fairly clear is likely to recur. Ideally, one would want a backup/restore solution that addresses any registry changes as well as the files associated with %USERPROFILE%.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am fairly certain that users aren't doing anything especially unusual when the "corruption" occurs. I fully expect that it will recur unless the underlying causes are addressed.</span></div>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-26248167117509647322010-12-09T02:21:00.001-05:002010-12-09T02:21:47.380-05:00Yahoo Mail: Object Lesson in Failed Scalability?Elsewhere I had begun a lengthly blog post detailing my often unsavory history of interactions with customer service at Yahoo! Mail. A paying customer who intentionally accumulated considerable mail, increasingly that mail could not be searched or retrieved. The symptoms varied, so in the beginning it seemed to be a flaw rather than a design problem. The example below was typical of the initial symptoms.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7QVI4tokW8B-24CqP2eCejxLj_v72Oh5Z2iRxR44Xuq0HYu-XfLalMyyfYAVvh-gukUpm4CMoIYsF1_CXVBBvXLPV9pOB0XIBlzPTPIVn-KPiUZtucsHlpRjQSAzixnvS9sPS/s1600/yahoo-mail-failure-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7QVI4tokW8B-24CqP2eCejxLj_v72Oh5Z2iRxR44Xuq0HYu-XfLalMyyfYAVvh-gukUpm4CMoIYsF1_CXVBBvXLPV9pOB0XIBlzPTPIVn-KPiUZtucsHlpRjQSAzixnvS9sPS/s640/yahoo-mail-failure-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
After several months of back and forth with level 1 and 2 support, I began to question the initial assessment of "bug." During this time period, Yahoo developed a new, nicer interface. There was good functionality in this new work, but my problems persisted. <br />
<br />
I'll post more details here later as time permits (I'm in the middle of a tedious migration to escape all this), but it's become clear that Yahoo does not intend for its users to keep large quantities of mail online. Or perhaps its testing environment is insufficient.<br />
<br />
Gmail? Gmail is so far scaling nicely, though I have only a fifth as much mail there.knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-48844851959702697792010-08-08T21:37:00.000-04:002010-08-08T21:37:56.156-04:00Single-track Playback for WMP and MediaMonkey<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cause unknown, but some MP3 files play back only one track in Windows Media Player 11.0.6002.18111 and MediaMonkey 3.2.1.1297, Songbird 1.7.3 Build 1700 and VideoLan 1.1.2 are fine. I found myself looking for pan controls (are there any in these tools?). Platform: Vista x64. (Not mono; one of the stereo tracks won't play.)</span></div>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-47552211147415306572010-07-21T11:23:00.000-04:002010-07-21T11:23:58.306-04:00Stuxnet: SCADA System Threat Real This Time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqC-NH1oD9zmLeF_v_dR1bFQ0RKwogx3H4gN4qST7wLw-ZCG524G5iQrtG-jroSRVNBRwyYYsLrTOjOcd0lPTpaMlTd5WOD7TyUNs5dnGu3KKYARWVPxPC8WRAJmF8LE6Buah/s1600/techrepublic-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqC-NH1oD9zmLeF_v_dR1bFQ0RKwogx3H4gN4qST7wLw-ZCG524G5iQrtG-jroSRVNBRwyYYsLrTOjOcd0lPTpaMlTd5WOD7TyUNs5dnGu3KKYARWVPxPC8WRAJmF8LE6Buah/s320/techrepublic-logo.png" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">TechRepublic is running <a href="http://bit.ly/byiKcq">my blog post on the SCADA worm</a> that was publicized last week. The incident takes place after considerable alarmist rhetoric. As I wrote in the piece, my biggest concern is the Dependency Syndrome, which I've consciously lifted from the film <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Syndrome">China Syndrome</a></i>. </span>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10842589.post-1622079636315234762010-07-08T17:13:00.010-04:002010-08-03T15:22:43.273-04:00Zope Plone and Apache Rewrite Rules<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4775562410_85dd35ea5e_m_d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="76" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4775562410_85dd35ea5e_m_d.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This post is simply a list of links that were consulted when solving a problem with Apache rewrite rules. Apache can be used in front of a Plone - Zope web server. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Note 1: This stuff is the opposite of friendly and resilient to human error. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Note 2: <a href="http://bit.ly/a1DR0u">Plone Redirection Tool</a>. (I haven't gotten this product to load in Plone 2.5, but its author indicated to me that it should -- though it was replaced by a <a href="http://pypi.python.org/pypi/plone.app.redirector/1.0.7">plone.app.redirector</a> in Plone 3). </span><br />
<br />
<div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://plone.org/documentation/kb/plone-apache/virtualhost">http://plone.org/documentation/kb/plone-apache/virtualhost</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/ZopeAndApache">http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/ZopeAndApache</a> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><a href="http://www.chrisabernethy.com/force-lower-case-urls-with-mod_rewrite/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://www.chrisabernethy.com/force-lower-case-urls-with-mod_rewrite/</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/VirtualHosting.stx">http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/VirtualHosting.stx</a> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
<b>Not Plone/Zope-Specific</b> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_rewrite.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_rewrite.html</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/misc/rewriteguide.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/misc/rewriteguide.html</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><a href="http://hotware.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/using-mod_rewrite-to-rewrite-a-url-to-lowercase/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://hotware.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/using-mod_rewrite-to-rewrite-a-url-to-lowercase/</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/rewrite_guide.html">http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/rewrite_guide.html</a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.makina-corpus.org/blog/use-rewritemap-prevent-proxying-some-static-contents">http://www.makina-corpus.org/blog/use-rewritemap-prevent-proxying-some-static-contents</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php">http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php</a> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.makina-corpus.org/blog/use-rewritemap-prevent-proxying-some-static-contents">http://www.makina-corpus.org/blog/use-rewritemap-prevent-proxying-some-static-contents</a> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/apache-mod_rewrite-examples">http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/apache-mod_rewrite-examples</a> </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/mod_rewrite-cheat-sheet/">http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/mod_rewrite-cheat-sheet/</a> </span></div><div class="Bullets" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><br />
</div>knowlengrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01857586646777639084noreply@blogger.com0