Items filtered by date: December 2014

High Speed Copies

To print multiple copies of your document faster, select High Speed Copies. This speeds up printing by using your hard disk space as a cache when printing multiple copies of your document.

Disable EPSON Status Monitor 3

The status monitor can cause printing over networks to stop completely, either remove it or disable it monitoring printer over a network.

Always spool RAW datatype (for Windows XP and 2000)

Select this check box to have Windows NT based clients spool documents using the RAW format instead of the EMF (metafile) format (Windows NT based applications use the EMF format by default).

Try using this option if documents spooled in EMF format do not print correctly.

Spooling RAW datatype requires less resources than EMF, so some problems ("Insufficient memory/disk space to print", "Slow print speed", etc.) can be solved by selecting the Always spool RAW datatype check box.

Printing in RAW format can also speed up printing.

Page Rendering Mode (for Windows XP and 2000)

Select this check box when the print speed is extremely slow or when the print head stops for a few minutes while printing.

Print as Bitmap (for Windows XP and 2000)

Select this check box when the print speed is extremely slow or when the print head stops for a few minutes while printing. Try this option if Always spool RAW datatype and Page Rendering Mode do not solve the problem.

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Apply these settings (except Epson monitoring prefernces where appropiate) to all computers, server or client.

I had been having problems with XP taking several minutes while "loading personal settings" I tried all the usual suggestions eg taking all unneeded items out of start up, and checking I wasn't having any DHCP problems.

Then I discovered this Reg Hack which shows which files are actually being executed while windows is loading (rather than just saying loading personal settings):-

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Show Verbose Security Status Messages (Windows 2000/XP) This setting allows you to configure Windows so that you receive verbose startup, shutdown, logon, and logoff status messages. This may be helpful to in troubleshooting slow startup, shutdown, logon, or logoff behaviour.

Open your registry and find or create this key:-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Policies -> System

To enable verbose status messages create a new DWORD value called "verbosestatus" and set it to "1". (verbosestatus REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1))

An additional value called "DisableStatusMessages" forces status messages to be disabled, make sure this value does not exist or is set to "0". (DisableStatusMessages REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0))

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

 

Registry Settings

System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies
System]
Value Name: verbosestatus
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = default, 1 = enable verbose status)

System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies
System]
Value Name: disablestatusmessages
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (1 = default, 0 = enable verbose status)

During installation of MediaWiki you receive the following error:

Query "CREATE TABLE `job` ( job_id int(9) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, job_cmd varchar(255) NOT NULL default '', job_namespace int NOT NULL, job_title varchar(255) binary NOT NULL, job_params blob NOT NULL default '', PRIMARY KEY job_id (job_id), KEY (job_cmd, job_namespace, job_title) ) TYPE=InnoDB, DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 " failed with error code "Specified key was too long; max key length is 1024 bytes (localhost)

or

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Fix

open file: tables.sql

Search for:

CREATE TABLE /*$wgDBprefix*/job (
 job_id int(9) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
 
 -- Command name, currently only refreshLinks is defined
 job_cmd varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',

 -- Namespace and title to act on
 -- Should be 0 and '' if the command does not operate on a title
 job_namespace int NOT NULL,
 job_title varchar(255) binary NOT NULL,

 -- Any other parameters to the command
 -- Presently unused, format undefined
 job_params blob NOT NULL default '',

 PRIMARY KEY job_id (job_id),
 KEY (job_cmd, job_namespace, job_title)
) TYPE=InnoDB;

Replace With:

CREATE TABLE /*$wgDBprefix*/job (
 job_id int(9) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
 
 -- Command name, currently only refreshLinks is defined
 job_cmd varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',

 -- Namespace and title to act on
 -- Should be 0 and '' if the command does not operate on a title
 job_namespace int NOT NULL,
 job_title varchar(255) binary NOT NULL,

 -- Any other parameters to the command
 -- Presently unused, format undefined
 job_params blob NOT NULL default '',

 PRIMARY KEY job_id (job_id),
 KEY (job_cmd (160), job_namespace, job_title (160))
) TYPE=InnoDB;

open file: /maintenance/tables.sql

Search for:

CREATE TABLE /*$wgDBprefix*/job (
 job_id int(9) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
 
 -- Command name, currently only refreshLinks is defined
 job_cmd varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',

 -- Namespace and title to act on
 -- Should be 0 and '' if the command does not operate on a title
 job_namespace int NOT NULL,
 job_title varchar(255) binary NOT NULL,

 -- Any other parameters to the command
 -- Presently unused, format undefined
 job_params blob NOT NULL default '',

 PRIMARY KEY job_id (job_id),
 KEY (job_cmd, job_namespace, job_title)
) TYPE=InnoDB;

Replace With:

CREATE TABLE /*$wgDBprefix*/job (
 job_id int(9) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
 
 -- Command name, currently only refreshLinks is defined
 job_cmd varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',

 -- Namespace and title to act on
 -- Should be 0 and '' if the command does not operate on a title
 job_namespace int NOT NULL,
 job_title varchar(255) binary NOT NULL,

 -- Any other parameters to the command
 -- Presently unused, format undefined
 job_params blob NOT NULL default '',

 PRIMARY KEY job_id (job_id),
 KEY (job_cmd (160), job_namespace, job_title (160))
) TYPE=InnoDB;

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Run the Setup

After uploading the modified files you should now be able to install MediaWiki succesfully.

 

Overview

First let me start by saying that one of the main features of Windows Vista is the new user accounts security enhancements, but sometimes, defaults don't meet everyone's taste when it comes to how we deal with our PCs. I for one, always used full administrator accounts since I first knew what a Windows user account is, and never been hit by a virus/spyware/crap, using common sense and updated AV software, so I don't want to give permissions to myself or face strange error messages every time I do a simple task on my computer.

We know UAC feature in Windows Vista, and we all know how to disable it, this is not the purpose of this thread, because even after you disable UAC, you'll have other prompts about folder/file permissions errors sometimes (I faced it in strange, unexpected occasions, like deleting an empty folder for a program left by the uninstaller), or you'll need to right click and select "Run as Administrator" for most applications to work/install correctly.

That's because Microsoft made the administrators accounts (in local administrators group) run as standard users, unless we give permissions for every and each administrative tasks, with a little difference when UAC is turned on/off.

Enough introductions, lets get our hands dirty:

Remember that cute "Administrator" account you see when you login to safe mode in XP? That's the built-in administrator account that's installed by default, and disabled by default too, after a little digging-in I made this tutorial that'll let you enable and use this account in normal mode, and with a little other tweak, enjoying an XP-like administrator experience, while UAC is left ON (or off, it doesn't matter), but with no prompts or right clicks.

For Windows Vista Ultimate/Business/Enterprise:

1- Click Start, and type "secpol.msc" in the search area and click Enter. (You may receive a prompt from UAC, approve/login and proceed)

2- In the left list, choose "Local Policies", then "Security Options"

3- Set "Accounts: Administrator account status" to Enabled.

4- Set "User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account" to Disabled.

For Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium:

1- Click Start, and type "cmd" in the search area, right click on "Command Prompt" and select 'Run as Administrator".

2- In the command prompt type "net users Administrator /active:yes" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

3- Click Start, and type "regedit" in the search area and click Enter, navigate to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System] Double click on "FilterAdministratorToken" and set it to "0"

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Now log-off, and you'll see new account named "Administrator" is available, click on it to login.

Now you are the master of your domain! I recommend if you're going to use this method is to apply it as soon as you do a fresh install of Windows, so you can simply delete whatever administrator you've created in the setup process, and make this one the "real" administrator for your PC, also you can rename this new admin account or change its password like any other account from "User Accounts" in the Control Panel.

 

A last note/disclaimer:

Please note that disabling UAC and using the built in Adminstrator account will also disable IE7 "Protected Mode", fore more information and a work around please see this post.

NiCad

These batterys discharge after time and have something called 'battery memory' this is where a battery if not kept fully charged will have a tendancy not to hold a full charge.

Suggestions:

Charge the battery fully and then Discharge fully / use till dead

It can be helpful to overcharge (leave on the charge for longer than needed by up to 20%). 

These will reduce battery memory and prolong life. A NiCad battery left discharged will not last as long as a charged battery

Lithium Ion

With these batterys it does not matter from what level they are charged from they will not suffer from a battery memory, however a Lithium Ion battery that is left fully charged will not last as long as an uncharged battery.

Suggestions:

Leave battery fully discharged when it will not be used for a long time.

1. Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive.

2. Click Start, and then click Run.

3. In the Open box, type d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons where d is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive.

4. A Windows Setup Dialog Box appears. The Windows Setup Dialog Box describes the Recovery Console option. To confirm the installation, click Yes.

5. Restart the computer. The next time that you start your computer, "Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" appears on the startup menu.

The NT BOOT diskette allows you to boot from a floppy using the NT OS Loader menu to select the NT partition to load the kernel from. This can be very handy if you have lost your NT boot sector by installing another OS which copies over the partition boot record.

Supports up to 2 harddisks (any partition).

The steps are:

1. Format a floppy disk using a Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP or Server 2003 machine (not windows 9x!) format a: /u

2. Copy NTDETECT.COM and NTLDR onto the floppy disk

3. Download this BOOT.INI file and put it onto the floppy disk

 

BOOT.INI file

[boot loader]
timeout=-1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="First harddisk, first partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="First harddisk, second partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="First harddisk, third partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="First harddisk, fourth partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Second harddisk, first partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Second harddisk, second partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Second harddisk, third partition" /sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Second harddisk, fourth partition" /sos
C:\="Previous Operating System on C:\" 

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This boot.ini assumes that windows is installed in the "WINDOWS" folder, for terminal server you must edit the boot.ini and replace all "WINDOWS" into "WTSRV", for Windows NT 4.0 you must edit the boot.ini and replace all "WINDOWS" into "WINNT".

This boot.ini will not work for SCSI Controllers without a SCSI BIOS (need NTBOOTDD.SYS on the diskette)

Done, try and boot it!

Vaseline Method

1. Clean the surface of the screen.
2. Take some Vaseline and fill the scratch with it.
3. Gently wipe off the excess Vaseline, being careful not to press too deeply so as to leave some inside the scratch.
4. Voila. This works because the optical density more closely matches the LCD face than air.

Pencil Eraser Method

1. Find a pencil with a clean, soft eraser. It must have no pencil graphite on it as you won't want to smudge that on your monitor.
2. Lightly rub the eraser over the scratch or nick on the screen.
3. Keep rubbing until the scratch completely disappears.

Warnings

• Users report mixed results with these method.

List of the environment variables callable in windows 2000. e.g. Open a cmd prompt and type echo %appdata% which should return the full path to your profile's Application Data directory. If calling from a batch file remember to quote the %variable% e.g.

IF EXIST "%appdata%"\workrave\historystats. (mkdir D:\AllMyFiles\Workrave.) ELSE echo Workrave. missing

Here's the list with percentage included:

ALLUSERSPROFILE	%ALLUSERSPROFILE%	Local returns the location of the All Users Profile.
APPDATA	%APPDATA%	Local returns the location where applications store data by default.
CD	%CD%	Local returns the current directory string.
CMDCMDLINE	%CMDCMDLINE%	Local returns the exact command line used to start the current cmd.exe.
CMDEXTVERSION	%CMDEXTVERSION%	System returns the version number of the current Command Processor Extensions.
COMPUTERNAME	%COMPUTERNAME%	System returns the name of the computer.
COMSPEC	%COMSPEC%	System returns the exact path to the command shell executable.
DATE	%DATE%	System returns the current date. This variable uses the same format as the date /t command. Cmd.exe generates this variable. For more information about the date command, see the Date command.
ERRORLEVEL	%ERRORLEVEL%	System returns the error code of the most recently used command. A non-0 value usually indicates an error.
HOMEDRIVE	%HOMEDRIVE%	System returns which local workstation drive letter is connected to the user's home directory. This variable is set based on the value of the home directory. The user's home directory is specified in Local Users and Groups.
HOMEPATH	%HOMEPATH%	System returns the full path of the user's home directory. This variable is set based on the value of the home directory. The user's home directory is specified in Local Users and Groups.
HOMESHARE	%HOMESHARE%	System returns the network path to the user's shared home directory. This variable is set based on the value of the home directory. The user's home directory is specified in Local Users and Groups.
LOGONSERVER	%LOGONSERVER%	Local returns the name of the domain controller that validated the current logon session.
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS	%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS%	System specifies the number of processors installed on the computer.
OS	%OS%	System returns the OS name. Windows XP and Windows 2000 display the OS as Windows_NT.
PATH	%PATH%	System specifies the search path for executable files.
PATHEXT	%PATHEXT%	System returns a list of the file extensions that the OS considers to be executable.
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE	%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%	System returns the processor's chip architecture. Values: x86, IA64.
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER	%PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER%	System returns a description of the processor.
PROCESSOR_LEVEL	%PROCESSOR_LEVEL%	System returns the model number of the computer's processor.
PROCESSOR_REVISION	%PROCESSOR_REVISION%	System returns the revision number of the processor.
Program Files	%PROGRAMFILES%	returns the location of the default install directory for applications.
PROMPT	%PROMPT%	Local returns the command-prompt settings for the current interpreter. Cmd.exe generates this variable.
RANDOM	%RANDOM%	System returns a random decimal number between 0 and 32767. Cmd.exe generates this variable.
SYSTEMDRIVE	%SYSTEMDRIVE%	System returns the drive containing the Windows root directory (i.e., the system root).
SYSTEMROOT	%SYSTEMROOT%	System returns the location of the Windows root directory.
TEMP	%TEMP%	System and User return the default temporary directories for applications that are available to users who are currently logged on. Some applications require TEMP and others require TMP.
TMP	%TMP%	System and User return the default temporary directories for applications that are available to users who are currently logged on. Some applications require TEMP and others require TMP.
TIME	%TIME%	System returns the current time. This variable uses the same format as the time /t command. Cmd.exe generates this variable. For more information about the time command, see the Time command.
USERDOMAIN	%USERDOMAIN%	Local returns the name of the domain that contains the user's account.
USERNAME	%USERNAME%	Local returns the name of the user currently logged on.
USERPROFILE	%USERPROFILE%	Local returns the location of the profile for the current user.
WINDIR	%WINDIR%	System returns the location of the OS directory

I guess I should first make clear what a messy URL is, and what a clean URL is. Here's a messy URL:

http://www.desiquintans.com/index.php?page=articles

And here's a clean URL:

http://www.desiquintans.com/articles/

Notice how much nicer the last one looks. Clean URLs are great for 6 reasons:

1. They look prettier
2. They are easier to remember
3. They help you save filespace on pages which have many links
4. They are easier to link to, both for you and for other webbies
5. They help cut down on typos because there is less confusion about what exactly to write and type

And the really big reason as to why you should use clean URLS:

6. They allow search engines to spider your site.

Why are spiders so picky?

Search engine spiders usually stay away from messy URLs because chances are the code is really bad on whatever script you use and the spider could become stuck in a loop, requesting the same pages over and over and draining you of your bandwidth.

.htaccess is your friend

Anyway, how do we make our URLs clean? Well, you need a server that runs Apache. This solution only works for Apache servers, so Win2k users have to go somewhere else for their kicks.

The first step is to make an .htaccess file. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy.

1. Open Notepad or EditPad Lite or whatever the hell you use to make plain text files (that is, a program with no text formatting)
2. Save a new blank document as .htaccess

There’s your .htaccess file.

.htaccess hackery

Now for the actual commands. The ․htaccess is really just a container that holds the commands that you want Apache to execute. Paste this into your file:

RewriteEngine On

That tells Apache to turn mod_rewrite on, but I don’t know anything about that, and you don’t need to either.

Now figure out the query string that your site’s messy URLs use. My example was http://www.desiquintans.com/index.php?page=articles, so my query string is index.php?page=articles. This would be what I put in my .htaccess:

RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)/$ index.php?page=$1

RewriteRule explained

Let me explain the components of the above command.

The caret (the ^ symbol) means “all the stuff before this.” It’s the URL where this particular .htaccess file is located, so if you put it in www.x.com/hi/ it will stand for www.x.com/hi/, and if you put it in www.x.com's public folder, it will stand for www.x.com.

([a-zA-Z0-9]+) is a variable set that means, “any amount of characters that are lowercase alphabetical, uppercase alphabetical and numerical.” The stuff inside the square brackets is the variable itself, the plus sign outside the square brackets tells it that any amount of characters is fine. If I didn’t have the plus sign I would only be allowed one character in each clean URL. A list of common variables is at the bottom of the page.

$ means that this is the end of the clean URL, and that the messy one that Apache is supposed to fix up is following. Please note the slash just before this dollar sign -- you can either leave it out or keep it, but it’s best to do both in their own RewriteRules.

$1 is the number of a specific variable. Since I have only one variable set ( ([a-zA-Z0-9]+) ) I only need to specify one variable. If I had several variable sets, like section/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)/page/[0-9] then I would have to specify $1 and $2 variables.

Save the .htaccess file and upload it to your root public directory—the directory with your main index page.

My .htaccess file

My sample .htaccess file has this:

RewriteEngine On  
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ index.php?page=$1  
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)/$ index.php?page=$1

Notice that the two RewriteRules allow the user to have a trailing slash or no trailing slash when they enter a URL. You should allow for both of these instances, because there isn’t a person alive who won’t skimp on a slash when they think they’re accessing a directory. A clean URL is not a directory—it’s just a redirected messy URL.

Common variable sets

• [A-Z] The variable can have uppercase letters
• [a-z] The variable can have lowercase letters
• [0-9] The variable can have numbers
• ([a-zA-Z0-9]+) The variable can have any of the above, and has no limit to the number of characters.