Items filtered by date: December 2015

Software Method

Try running pixel fixing software. Stuck pixels can often be re-energized by rapidly turning them on and off.

• JScreenFix - A web-based Java Applet that randomly turns on and off each pixel at up to 60 times a second to fix stuck pixels.
• UDPixel 2.1 - A free windows application which help you to locate and fix 1 or more stuck pixels.

If this fails, complete the following methods.

Pressure Method

1. Turn off your computer's monitor.
2. Get yourself a damp washcloth, so that you don't scratch your screen.
3. Take a household pen, pencil, screwdriver, or some other sort of instrument with a focused, but relatively dull, point. A very good tool would be a PDA stylus.
4. Fold the washcloth to make sure you don't accidentally puncture it and scratch the screen.
5. Apply pressure through the folded washcloth with the instrument to exactly where the stuck pixel is. Try not to put pressure anywhere else, as this may make more stuck pixels.
6. While applying pressure, turn on your computer and screen.
7. Remove pressure and the stuck pixel should be gone. This works as the liquid in the liquid crystal has not spread into each little pixel. This liquid is used with the backlight on your monitor, allowing different amounts of light through, which creates the different colors.

Tapping Method

1. Turn on the computer and LCD screen.
2. Display a black image, which will show the stuck pixel very clearly against the background. (It is very important that you are showing a black image and not just a blank signal, as you need the backlighting of the LCD to be illuminating the back of the panel).
3. Find a pen with a rounded end. A Sharpie marker with the cap on should be fine for this.
4. Use the rounded end of the pen to gently tap where the stuck pixel is - not too hard to start with, just enough to see a quick white glow under the point of contact. If you didn't see a white glow, then you didn't tap hard enough, so use just slightly more pressure this time.
5. Start tapping gently. Increase the pressure on the taps gradually for 5-10 taps until the pixel rights itself.
6. Display a white image (an empty text document is good for this) to verify that you haven't accidentally caused more damage than you fixed.

Tips

• If the pressure and tapping don't work directly on the stuck pixel, start moving outward around the stuck pixel. If you see the pixel flicker while doing this then you know where you can focus the pressure and tapping techniques rather than directly on the pixel.
• Many people report success with this technique but these instructions won't work in every case. It may take a few attempts to make sure you are pressing exactly on the stuck pixel.
• These instructions will fix "stuck" pixels, not "dead" ones. Dead pixels appear black while stuck pixels can be one constant color like red, blue or green.
• An alternative, but similar technique involves gently massaging the stuck pixel with a warm damp (not wet) soft cloth.
• Alternative technique to tapping: Using a rounded pencil eraser, push with moderate pressure into screen at stuck pixel.
• If these instructions don't work, you can hopefully get the monitor replaced through your manufacturer. If your monitor falls under the specifications of replacement, get in contact with the manufacturer to set up replacement plans.

Warnings

• Do not attempt to open the monitor as it will void the warranty and the manufacturer will not replace it.
• Make sure you don't get any electrical equipment wet or it may break.
• Some people claim that touching the screen can cause more pixels to become stuck, although this has not been proven.
• Be prepared to suffer a complete loss; you may crack the glass when tapping or putting pressure on an LCD assembly.

Method 1

Create a favourite with the URL below, whenever the right click is disabled, click on the favourite.

javascript:void(document.onmousedown=null);void(document.onclick=null);void(document.oncontextmenu=null)

Method 2

When you right click on an object you get a box poping up to say right click is disabled, or something to that effect.

1. Do not close the box, move the box so the 'OK' button is over where you want to right click.
2. Press the left mouse button and hold, now press and hold the right button and hold.
3. Now let go of the left button, then the right button.
4. Now the right click menu should appear.

If you cannot view or access secure web pages (those beginning with an https:// URL) you may experience an of these symptoms:

• You cannot get into hotmail and yahoo email accounts.
• Cannot view secure web sites
• Cannot get into pay pal
• Cannot do a windows update
• Cannot get into bank web sites

Use Dial-a-Fix or:

To resolve this problems, these steps to reset a dll file required to view secure web sites.

1. Click Start.
2. Click Run.
3. Type regsvr32 softpub.dll
4. Click OK. A pop-up should display with the message Dll Register Server in softpub.dll Succeeded.
5. Click OK.

I'd like to share with everyone a way to tweak your gamma, brightness, and contrast for your LCD screen. As you know, the Ferrari keyboard only allows you to adjust the overall brightness of the picture. Using ATI's Catalyst control panel, you can further adjust the individual levels to help you find just the right settings.

Depending on your tastes, the default screen settings might appear a bit bright and not very saturated with color, at least to my liking. After I updated my ATI Mobility Catalyst drivers to the latest and greatest, I updated the following settings in the ATI control panel as follows:

Gamma: 1.00
Brightness: -45
Contrast: 95

To adjust your settings:

1. Load up the ATI control panel (either right-click the desktop and select the ATI Catalyst Control Center or get to it via Display Properties)
2. On the "View" button on the toolbar, make sure you have 'Advanced View' selected
3. In the "Graphics Settings" area (the treeview), select "Color"
4. Adjust the sliders until you find the levels that suit you best.

After doing so, the screen is much more readable and I can easily see higher color contrast and definition.

ATI Mobile Catalyst drivers:
http://www.ati.com/online/mobilecatalyst/

These methods should work for XP, Vista and Windows 7

1. Go to the Start Menu and the Run box.

2. Type in the following and click OK:

control userpasswords2

3. In the new Windows that appears select the account you wish to make the primary logon.

4. Now uncheck the "Users must enter a username and password..." box.

5. Hit Apply and a dialog box will appear asking you to confirm the selected users password.

6. Click OK and you are finished.

For Vista, if the above does not work try:

a) click Start and type ‘netplwiz’ or click that name on the Start menu
b) in the GUI window that comes up, uncheck the “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” box
c) click ‘Apply’
d) in the new dialog box that opens type the name of the account you want to auto-logon by default (if the account is not normally passworded then it blank)
e) click OK and exit

Make sure you are not connected to the internet !!!

Vista was installed using a trial key and has now run out

1. when prompted select go online to buy a new key.
2. type C: into the address bar and press enter.
3. enter any folder.
4. right click and create shortcut, enter cmd click next and finish.
5. right click on the shortcut and run as administrator, and allow if needed.
6. type slmgr -rearm , if needed run slmgr -cpky (this removes serial number from the registry).
7. restart the PC.

Your Vista should now let you in, this method might only reset the license 3 times.

A hacked vista was upgraded

If you have upgraded vista which had been activated by the clony one click activator it will give you similiar fault to above, however it will no be successful until the clony hack is removed.

To do this, type 'control panel' into the webbrowser, close all uneeded windows down as there is a limit on them. remove the clony activator as normal, reset the machine and then follow the above instuctions.

Still asking for product key

in the unlikely event of vista asking for a product key enter one of the following default keys

Ultimate     VMCB9-FDRV6-6CDQM-RV23K-RP8F7
Business     VMCB9-FDRV6-6CDQM-RV23K-MRW4W
BusinessN    VMCB9-FDRV6-6CDQM-RV23K-QXX44
HomeBasic    VMCB9-FDRV6-6CDQM-RV23K-3V4VD
HomeBasicN   VMCB9-FDRV6-6CDQM-RV23K-GFJBT
HomePremium  VMCB9-FDRV6-6CDQM-RV23K-76PKF

WinXP's setupp.ini controls how the CD acts. IE is it an OEM version or retail? First, find your setupp.ini file in the i386 directory on your WinXP CD. Open it up, it'll look something like this:

ExtraData=707A667567736F696F697911AE7E05
Pid=55034000

The Pid value is what we're interested in. What's there now looks like a standard default. There are special numbers that determine if it's a retail, oem, or volume license edition. First, we break down that number into two parts. The first five digits determines how the CD will behave, ie is it a retail cd that lets you clean install or upgrade, or an oem cd that only lets you perform a clean install? The last three digits determines what CD key it will accept. You are able to mix and match these values. For example you could make a WinXP cd that acted like a retail cd, yet accepted OEM keys.

Now, for the actual values. Remember the first and last values are interchangable, but usually you'd keep them as a pair:

Retail = 51882 335
Volume License = 51883 270
OEM = 82503 OEM

So if you wanted a retail CD that took retail keys, the last line of your setupp.ini file would read:

Pid=51882335

And if you wanted a retail CD that took OEM keys, you'd use:

Pid=51882OEM

Note that this does NOT get rid of WinXP's activation. Changing the Pid to a Volume License will not bypass activation. You must have a volume license (corporate) key to do so.

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.

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):-

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

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;

Run the Setup

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