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Items filtered by date: December 2015

Tuesday, 06 October 2015 17:45

My OpenSearch Notes

OpenSearch is a collection of simple formats for the sharing of search results or adding custom searches to your browser.

This process is instigated by a preformed string of HTML in the webpage which gives the browser the information that it needs to create the custom search. Some of the variables that are supplied are the 'Name' of the search and 'search string' to be passed.

These custom searches can be detected either by looking in the HTMl or much easier on modern browsers there usually is an add button or icon change that will occur near the search boxes.

Example

<link href="http://quantumwarp.com/search?format=opensearch" rel="search" title="QuantumWarp" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" />

Links

Published in Web Design
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Tuesday, 06 October 2015 17:07

How do I renew my member certificate at StartSSL?

This article shows you how to renew you User Authentication SSL certificate for your StartSSL account.

I received the following mail:

The Class 1, client certificate for my@email.address and serial number 123456 (123456) is about to expire in about two weeks. Please log into the StartSSL Control Panel at https://www.startssl.com/?app=12 and get a new certificate for this purpose. Failing to update your client certificate might result in the loss of your account.

I logged in, but I cannot figure out how to get a new certificate. Could someone please give me a hint?

Answer

  1. Login -> "Validations Wizard" -> "Email Validation", get the code and validate.
  2. "Certificates Wizard" -> "S/MIME and Authentication Certificate" ->
  3. browser asks if you wanna install........ some more prompts and done.
Published in SSL
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Tuesday, 06 October 2015 16:51

Client Certificate Authentication remembers decision when canceling

Firefox remembers the selected certificate for client certificate authentication by default (Remember this decision). However when attempting to authenticate and clicking cancel (for various reasons, for example no certificate exists), Firefox apparently remembers that too.

Reproduce by going to https://www.startssl.com/?app=12 and click on "Authenticate" and hit cancel. Try to authenticate again and the request fails automatically. The only way to get out of this, is by restarting the browser completely.

Firefox should not send ANYTHING to the server when the request is canceled at the client side and certainly should not remember that decision. Users get very confused because they don't regularly restart their browser.

These instructions can be used to clear what SSL certificate is used for logging in to various sites including StartSSL.

IE

Note that IE has an option to forget/clear the remembered state with a button press. No need to restart the browser.

In IE8 : menu Tools / Internet Options / Content / Certificates / Clear SSL state

Firefox

Tools / clear recent history / time range: everything / details:

  • check "Active Logins"
  • uncheck everything else, so you don't lose that information
  • Clear now

Test Scenario

Scenario

I've tested this with www.startssl.com

  1. I have a personal cert
  2. I authenticate
  3. I select "remember"
  4. OK

On the web site, in the upper right, I click that logout icon (go out of the door). If I do, I will briefly see the start page, however, because Firefox has the use of the client cert remembered, it will immediately log in again using the client cert. Next, I use above steps to "clear active logins". Now, if I clock the logout icon on the StartSSL site, I will be really logged out.

Links

Published in Firefox
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Tuesday, 06 October 2015 16:28

Font Awesome Icons not displaying in Firefox

When using Firefox to browse the internet occasionally you come across websites where Font Awesome icons do not display but are fine when viewed in another browser. This seems to be caused by a couple of things.

  • using relative URLs
  • When that website is using a CDN
  • You are running an add blocker
  • possibly other things

The Fix

There are a few solutions and are quite easy. Not all might be suitable.

  • Use absolute URLs - This might be an issue but i would never use absolute URLs so i would recommend other solutions where possible
  • Add the following code to your server's .htaccess file 
    <FilesMatch "\.(ttf|otf|eot|woff)$">
  <IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
  </IfModule>
</FilesMatch>
  • Disable any Adblocker or similiar addons

Links

Published in Firefox
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Tuesday, 06 October 2015 15:28

Firebug keeps popping up | Google Groups

All of a sudden firebug pops open on every page I load, I did a fresh install of firebug but that doesn't help either.

Answers

  • In the opened pop-up, select the script tab, click options and uncheck 'Break On All Errors'. (Recommended)
  • I also suggest you try resetting the firebug options: Firebug Icon
    Menu (upper left) > Options > Reset All. Firebug 1.4.2 and earlier had
    a bug in activation and some people tried to work around it by using
    Open All options.
Published in Firefox
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Sunday, 04 October 2015 16:58

Email Marketing Campaigns and Sending Bulk emails

Nowadays we cannot just send an email to 100s of contact or send 1000s of emails to different people because of limits on your server:

  • Limited number of contacts that an email can be sent to in one email
  • Maximum number of emails per hour/day from your server
  • Your server could be put on a block list for send lots of unsolicited emails
  • Your server does not have a good reputation (used for SPAM analysis) or is already on a block list
  • Your SMTP service provider (usually for webhost) will not allow bulk emails to be sent as a policy

So how do all the big guys send emails to lots of people and not get blocked by my server?

The answer

  • Transactional Email Services
  • They have their own dedicated server and some IT staff looking after it

Transactional Email Services

Transactional Email Services are basically SMTP servers that are provided for you to use to send bulk emails without getting your email server on a block list and to get around any of the limitations mentioned above. Transactional Emails are normal emails, they do not have any per email tracking in them or anything you can use for analytics above and beyond what you put in the email yourself (ie links with tracking in them, but this would not be email specific but the same for all of the emails sent in that batch).

There are free and paid services but they work the same. Once you have signed up you can get their SMTP server details and replace the SMTP server details you are using with those and just send emails like you would normally.

You can get away with using a Transactional Email server to send mass emails from your favourite email program if the list is not too large, at most i would say 50 but it is definately worth checking out the rules for the service you choose to use.

What can I use these SMTP servers with?

  • Locally Installed campaign software
  • For your normal email (Outlook/Thunderbird ....)
  • Emails from your website platform (ie Magento/Prestashop/Wordpress/Joomla ...)

Why are Transaction Email Services better?

So i have explained that these services are better but why?

  • Increases the probability your Marketing/Normal Emails will arrive at their recipient and when it does help it not go into the dreaded SPAM/JUNK folder
  • Their servers are designed to send bulk emails so the normal limits from your hosting provider will not apply
  • Their servers will have a good reputation
  • SPAM companies know what the IP address of their servers are (this does not 100% guratee delivery but it definately helps)
  • Using this service will prevent your email server from going on a block list for sending large amounts of emails
  • The service providers put policies in place to make sure their clients do not SPAM people by monitor usage and activity.
  • You cannot just signup for account and send 40,000 emails
  • Over a period of time you are allowed to send more emails
  • They verify you are a real person
  • The servers are monitoreds to make sure they are not on block lists
  • If you abuse the rules they will actively remove your account

Email Marketing Campaigns

This is a related topic to Transactional Email Service because the next logical step is to be able to analyse and track the mass emails you send out and on a per email basis. This would allow you to see who opend and read the email, who recieved the emails, which ones got bounced and then even track the behaviour of those people who follow the links in the email you sent.

These features require two things to handle all of the tracking:

  1. Transactional Email Server
  2. A Platform/Software to handle all of the tracking information

There are two ways of building one of these systems

  1. Email Marketing Services - These are usally paid services and and these companies provide the tracking platforms and they use their own Transactional Email Servers. You can get per email analytics with these online services and it is one of their main advantages, these services also manage your mailing lists so when someone unsubscribes they take care of that. I have not used these enough to be able to tell you how they work but mainly you create the email and the lists on their platform and send from there rather than your own computer. Most of the paid services offer a Free service but they are usually so crippled that it is utterly pointless to use them.
  2. Locally Based Campaign Software - This method would require that you have a Transaction Email Service (or your own dedicated server with a unique IP) in place that you can use as the SMTP server. You would create the email in the software you have installed and send from that program using the Transactional Email Server for the configured SMTP server. The analytics is defiantly limited but you can control the lists and emails locally without having to pay a subscription. You definately have to put more effort in when using this method but it is a cheaper option and preferable if you do not like the cloud.

Links

Transaction Email Services

Email Marketing Services

Campaign / Bulk Email Software

Articles

Other

Published in SEM
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Sunday, 04 October 2015 15:32

Comodo Backup - Log file locations

There are a couple of places the log files can be located and logs might possibly be in 1 or more location.

  • %TEMP%\ComodoLogsFolder
  • \Windows\Temp\ComodoLogsFolder
  • The target location of the backup
  • A user specified location (but you should know where this is because you set it)
Published in Windows General
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Sunday, 04 October 2015 15:00

My Backup Up Notes

I currently have not fully explorer this topic but i am going to start by adding a list of programs i have either found or have been recommend to me.

Lists of Backup software

Articles

Published in Windows General
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Sunday, 04 October 2015 14:20

adobe reader X very slow to open some PDF under windows 7 64-bit

It takes 2 minutes to open a one-page PDF. When double clicking on the PDF, Adobe reader opens but the PDF content doesn't display. It says 'Not responding' for about 2 minutes before it can display the content of the PDF. The PDF is just a one page file. It can be opened by other versions of adobe reader instantly. It can also be opened instantly on another PC which is also W7 64 and Adobe reader X.

These are the various methods for resolving the slow opening and browsing of PDF documents using Adobe Reader:

  1. Use an alternative reader such as nitroPDF/FoxIt Reader/Firefox Browser
  2. Uninstall/Re-install
  3. Go to Edit / preferences / general - the uncheck box "Enable protected mode at startup" This got rid of the lag in opening adobe docs.
    The setting is now under the Security (Enhanced) Selection. Just uncheck the Protected mode and that will fix the SLOW ISSUE!
  4. Go to Edit / Preferences / 3D & Multimedia - then uncheck box "Enable hardware rendering for legacy video cards" This got rid of the lag in opening adobe docs.
  5. Closing the Tools Pane sped it up immensely!

Taken from adobe reader X very slow to open some PDF under windows 7 64-bit - Windows 7 Help Forums

Published in Applications
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Saturday, 03 October 2015 13:18

ExecuteCode Test

This has nothing to do with balloons.

Standard <pre> Tag

<style type="text/css">
.living-code{
	background-color: green;
	border: yellow dotted 5px;
	font-weight: bold;
	color: yellow !important;
	text-align: center;
</style>
<p class="living-code">This Code is Alive !!!</p>

Missing Key

Missing Security Key

Wrong Key

Wrong Security Key

Correct Key

This Code is Alive !!!

Published in Extension Development
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