Items filtered by date: December 2014

Here is my list of public DNS servers that offer faster DNS resolutions speeds, security by preventing successful DNS lookups of poisoned or malicous sites and some also offer control of what content is delivered.

Not Public

These might not be public but if you want to temporarily revert your settings locally on your PC and not network wide, these settings can save you a bit of time.

PlusNet
212.159.6.9
212.159.6.10

Links

• Public DNS Servers | tech-faq.com
• Top Free Internet DNS Servers
• Free and Public DNS Server List (Updated June 2015)
• Security Benefits of Public DNS | Google Developers
• Quad9 9.9.9.9 might be a good Google Public DNS 8.8.8.8 alternative, claims better privacy and features DNSSEC, DNS Benchmark indicates better speeds | TinkerTry IT @ Home

Most designers know about lists and occasionally want to center them, but when we apply center (style="text-align: center;"), the list does indeed centers but so do all the <li> items so the list will display as below.

• Electrician in Kent
• Electrician in Canterbury
• Electrician in Dover
• Electrician in Ashford

Solution

Now to those in the know there are some easy solutions to get the the list centered without loosing the left align of the <li> items, just like the examples below.

Table Method (Prefered Option)

This method is by far the easiest. The display: table; (Centered Table / Center Table) option treats the <ul> as a table. This has the affect of allowing it to be centered. This is not the same as display: block; as this method does not work.

<ul style="display: table; margin: 0 auto;">
    <li>Electrician in Kent</li>
    <li>Electrician in Canterbury</li>
    <li>Electrician in Dover</li>
    <li>Electrician in Ashford</li>
</ul>

• Electrician in Kent
• Electrician in Canterbury
• Electrician in Dover
• Electrician in Ashford

Static Width Method

This method requires you to set a fixed width for the <ul>. This has the downfall that you must figure out what size you want the <ul>, but you can use other width descriptors not just px. You should note that if you make the width too small the <li> items will span lines and if you make the width too large you will get whitespace. A width must be set otherwise the centering will not work.

<ul style="width: 165px; margin: 0 auto;">
    <li>Electrician in Kent</li>
    <li>Electrician in Canterbury</li>
    <li>Electrician in Dover</li>
    <li>Electrician in Ashford</li>
</ul>

• Electrician in Kent
• Electrician in Canterbury
• Electrician in Dover
• Electrician in Ashford

Further Notes

If you want to get rid of the left-side padding, thus genuinely centering the list, add to the <ul>

ul {padding-left: 0;}

If you want to remove the bullet points

ul {list-style: none;}

These are examples of hot to clear a float in different ways.

Clearing a Float with <div>

This is the standard way of clearing a float that works in all wysiwyg

<div style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</div>

Clearing a Float with <p>

This is another standard way of clearing a float that works in all wysiwyg. Sometimes it is better to use this in a wysiwyg as a <p> usually adds a gap below and above it.

<p style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</p>

 Clearing a Float with <span>

I have not really testest this. i am not sure this actually works because it is not a block element.

<span style="clear: both;"></span>  		- this seems wysiwyg (but does not clear)
<span style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</span> 	- this seems wysiwyg (but does not clear)

 Clearing a Float with <br>

a <br />  can be used to clear a float from within an <p> element (or <div>)

<br style="clear:both;" />   -  it gets removed
<br style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</br> - (tested at the end) it gets converted into <br style="clear: both;" />&nbsp;

 at the end, and note the escaped space, this prevents it from getting wiped by the wysiwyg

<li><br style="clear: both;" />&nbsp;</li>

WYSIWYG Notes

dont forget that empty tags will be removed, either give them an 'id' or put something in the tags to prevent removal

<div style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</div>
<p style="clear: both;">&nbsp;</p>
<br style="clear: both;">&nbsp;

With ID - not 100% tested
<div id="keep-me" style="clear: both;"></div>
<p id="keep-me" style="clear: both;"></p>
<br id="keep-me" style="clear: both;">

When you open up JCE editor you see the following black background.

• This does not occur when i use tinyMCe
• Reset Editor Styling make no difference
• jce 2.3.4.4, joomla 3.3.0 does not do it
  jce 2.4.2 joomla 3.3.0 does not do it
  jce 2.4.2 joomla 3.3.3 does not do it
• browser makes no difference

Causes

• JCE is possibly incorrectly loading CSS files

• compressing of JS and CSS files in JCE editor causes this + set use Default.css in JCe configuration. this fixes it (not custom or template). it must be getting the html{} setting from a template and then when you comperesss it, JCE stores a cached version somewhere. turning the css and js compression of must purge its cache.

• This black background can be template specific
• Template JS and CSS compressors are causing issues
• 3rd party JS and CSS compressors (not come across this yet but is a logical extension)

• the template.css has a statement in setting the background for HTML or BODY

  html{
  	background-color:#000
  }

  or

  body{
  	background-color:#000
  }

Solutions

Make sure you disable your cache while trying to get this to work, especially in firefox where i disable cache using the Web Development Toolbar.

Disable CSS and JS compression in

• JCE editor
• your template
• in any plugins that do these functions

You should be able to get away with just disabling CSS compression and once you identify the dodgy compressor you can turn the others back on.

Edit the template.css

the offending line in template.css might vary but it is most likely the following or similiar:

html {
	background-color: #000;
}

or

body {
	background-color: #000;
}

If you edit this template.css this will change the styling globaly and might affect the template as a whole, so this method should not used routinely

Add editor specific code to your template.css

you can add the following to your template.css file (not good to edit direct on template files) to overide this for the JCE editor only
i have not found any that works but you need to attack the BODY or HTML tag with a class similiar to .mceEditor only {add code here}

These will get removed if you upgrade the template, but are not hard to re-add.

Examples

.mceContentBody html {background: white !important;}

.mceContentBody {
height: 100%;
min-width: 90%;
padding: 5px;
background: white !important; // Add background here
color: red !important; // Add color here
}

Edit the Editor content.css

some of this is taken from the joomlashine forum thread i was involved in here.

The CSS file to edit is located here

components/com_jce/editor/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/skins/default/content.css

Option 1

Add this code into the content.css

.mceContentBody {
height: 100%;
min-width: 90%;
padding: 5px;
background: black !important; // Add background here
color: white !important; // Add color here
}

This code also does not affect fonts in a table.

Option 2

edit the 2 following sections (if the content.css is not minified, if it is! figure it out)

body,td,pre{color:#000;font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:11px;margin:8px;}

body{background:#FFF;}

Option 3

At the very beginning of the content.css the HTML and BODY tags are reference

html,body{height:100%;}

change this to

html,body{height:100%; background-color: #FFF !important;}

This will change the background for both BODY and HTML style background setting to white

Also Try

• in configuration 'Reset Editor Styling' which will force black writing on a white background amongst other things. This will not work for all templates. This option will only reset backgrounds based on BODY and not HTML . You should not use HTML to theme a site anyway.
• de-select using template.css (from your template) as the styling css that is loaded by JCE. This is not a prefered options because you will loose some template specific styling.

If you get the following message, usually in firefox, and most likely just after you have installed a new SSL.

The OCSP server has no status for the certificate.

(Error code: sec_error_ocsp_unknown_cert)

It is caused by a new service offered by the SSL companies and only supported by some browsers (firefox for one). It is a revocation service which the browser uses to check to see if a SSL certificate has been revoked. The reason why you get this after installing a new certificate is that the new certificate details need to be synced up with this service.

Some companies sync their data quicker than others.

In Firefox

This feature can be turned of in (options/advanced/cetificates/certificate validation)

Links
StartCom • View topic - Certificate OCSP Validation Failiure in Firefox - forum thread on startssl.com
How to resolve the ''The OCSP server has no status for the certificate'' error? - a work around

This is a collection of my notes whilst i fixed a PC that would not boot after a failed update.

I am pretty sure the issue was down to reboot.xml and pending.xml, these needed to be altered toa llow the completion fo the update.

• element not found when rebuilding the boot loader, possibly a winx86 x64 issue. ie not compatable
• remove the other drivers, then rebuild the boot thing
• if you get an error when using a 64 bit repair disk, try a 32bit disk, this sometimes will repair enough so you can then finish the repair with a win7 PE.
• dont forget that the boot error with the 64 bit disk could be a memory configuration issue. also check windows installation failure issues in wiki as they will be related.

when running SFC

"there is a system repair pending which requires reboot to compltete. Restart windows and run SFC again."

read this - How to removing a pending update that is preventing a successful boot

read this - How to Perform an Offline System Integrity Verification

NB

• the repair option on the hdd prompts for username and password where the one of the disk does not
• disableds that auto repair thing, also if you hit esc quick it will cancell the scan.
• ran sfc offline repair from the bootable dvd, not the hdd. maybe try this.

there was an update performed on 30/09/12 but all system restore before this are removed. this might be because of the several drive phils PC has, and then they got mixed up when recovery was run because of all the external drives. maybe this is wehere all his system restores are.

i replaced all the missing driver files on phils pc with ones of mine. this then stop taht issue but a 0x0000007B is not present.

windows crashes when loading classpnp.sys according to the netblo.log file

i am now trying ren classpnp.sys to classpnp.old and then run startup repair off the hdd. i rebooted the pc aswell because when i tried to run the startup repair immediately after renaming the file said there was no startup issues.

dism will only load the drivers into the driver store and not make them active.

i have also tried diosabling all usb and, ACHI - IDE - RAID setting to see if it would load as this is the usual  cause of the 0x0000007B issue

NB

• This is issue might be caused by the location of the system reserved partition
• try pulling all hardware
• Look at dpinst for driver injection
• when sfc run there were errors, cbs.log it appears an update has not finished. can this be removed.
• ren classpnp.sys and then startup repair from hdd did not work, maybe retry sfc

the system reserved partition if present ,should be set to boot. if needed do set to boot and then re-run the startup repair, alternatively you can remove the system reserved partion by following the article (this partition is caused by there not being a ntfs partition selected on install or the selected parttion not having 4k cluster size)

• try removing the reboot.xml in the winsxs folder. this can cause similiar issue tot he pending.xml. i am going to removve it and then try system restore again.
• Windows 7: Cannot clear "System repair pending which requires reboot to complete" - this briefely exaplains on how to revert changes using the dsim manager
• use diskpart method (article ) to properely select partiontons for offline repair. not 100% if this all works. ie c:\ c:\ rather that the system reserve being a different partion that need to be selected for the boot dir
• when doing a bcdedit it will try and repair the boot sector on the active partiotn, so say your system reserve partition is not set as active but the windows partition by acident or not then the BCD will try and rebuild the boot files on the wrong partition and might cause it not to work. solution, make system reserved active and then rebuild bootsector
• bcdedit works on the active partitions bootsecotr config files etc...
• bootrec command to rebuild boot sector and rebuild bcd
• be aware of the partitions and this sytem reserved partition. it might be better deleteing this and moving the boot files as per the article
• dism /cleanup reapir thing didnt work
• remove secondary disk while trying to fix
• bcdedit  /store  c:\boot\bcd  /set  {bootmgr}  device  partition=C: did not fix 0x0000007b
• turning trusted installer on before running offline sfc does nothing. the error is most likley a missin non windows system file
• dont foget drive letter matters, make sure boot drive is C: etc
• sometimes the system repair on the hdd will not locate the Os, so use the boot DVD

• 7hd thing gets you to load drivers ans then adds the best one and can enable drivers
• terabyte has a scripting language which can add the driver in to an offline install
• use partition magic and stretch the partition to fill the gap and then delete and reload mbr, fixboot and delete teh BCD store

• edit the bcdstore offiline on another computer. located usually c:\boot\bcd
• if netlog file in windows is not created updated (delete file and see what happens when bootloggin enabled) this indicates that the drive is never mounted pointing to driver issue and 0x0000007b
• loading windows in safe mode and watching which file crashews and then remove it. does not work as some are corrupt or absoulutely required.
• install a fresh copy of windows and then copy the driver files from the standard install back in to phils install.
• windows loader loads all drivers in c:\windows\system32\drivers alphabetically reguardless of any settings in the registry

you have a pendrive that works ok but will not show you its drive label in the my computer window but it does if you look at its properties.

Try these

• uninstall microsoft AV my usb pendrive is now recognised as Kingston
• formatting the pendrive allowed the name to be displayed again

This is a windows .Net extension and if when you rtry and run something with a .diagcab extension but it has no associated program to execute it is because of 1 or more of the following:

• no .Net installed
• you do not have a late enought version of .Net installed
• the .Net install is corrupt

so to fix try:

1. Clean the update cache in Window
2. Re-install .Net

uninstall via add/remove programs

scan your system with sherlock, this will show you broken codecs nice and easy. also file locations

CodecTweakTool will allo you to list codecs and remove the dodgy ones. this will most likely only remove the registry enteries hence why you need sherlock to find the files and remove them

directshow filter manager (which is also what this groiup of softeware is called) should be able to find and remove codecs in one go but it does not seem to work properely. but worth keeping for refernce.

shark007 - uninstall old version first. for x64 install 32-bit and then 64-bit

klite possibly has a codec repair utility where it removes old knakered ones etc ..

IE10 would not install and kept failing on a windows 7 PC almost fressh install.

package manager command not only removes the corrupt files but removes the referrence to it in the package store

is SURt has not fixed your update issue it migth becaus it does not contain your a good copy of your fault package to replac=e it with)
surt will leave a log file  (in cbs folder)which can examine and then follow the procedures in the technet article

to fix the ie10 issue follow the superuser article with package manger, noting that you might need to replace amd64 with x86 depending on you PC

• i did not remove all the 8.x internt explorer packages or the 6.x version
• ie10 installer says after running for a bit, 'Internet Explorer did not finish installing'

• i unistalled ie8 via windows add/remove windows features
• ie10 installer says after running for a bit, 'Internet Explorer did not finish installing'
• i am now ruinning the surt to see what the error log says
• no errors found with the surt
• this is all indeicating to a corrupt packahe

• when i now run windows update internet explorer of any verison is not available point to ie8 being a prerequsite
• installed ie8 via features, both ie9 and ie10 were available
• ie10 installer says after running for a bit, 'Internet Explorer did not finish installing'
• installed ie9 successfully
• installed ie10 via windows update and got the following error - 9C59
• tried installing as the Administrator account - no joy either
• redownload ie10 direct from http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/info/downloads/Default.html, this then installed correctely  (done in administrator)
• loggged out and back into other account, diactivated administrator

[solved]

• that * pck command did not find any packages
• the offline installer i had might of been corrupt
• uninstalling chrome makes no difference
• glary utilities registry clean - no difference
• surt gave corrupt pack info - possibly just cleaning these and then using the new download would of worked (direct fromt he link above)
• installing office 2010 sp2 made no difference
• i think all ie10 prerequsites were already on
• not the graphics card as some people say
• error coe 9C59 only appears when using windows updates (apparently changing this from hex to decimal and then searching knowledge base, not sure)
• sfc found no integrity violations