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My workstation is almost working

After fighting with trying to clone my old 60 GB hard drive to my new 500 GB hard drive, I finally gave in and started from scratch. Since I was installing from Windows XP sp1 I was limited to 137 GB partition. Once Windows XP installed successfully I upgrade to sp 2 then sp 3 and installed all security patches and updates. Then I began reinstalling software beginning with Avast antivirus first quickly followed by iTunes.

Everything seemed to be going very well until I decided to actually switch back to working on the machine. I tried to remap my development servers but cannot browse my network. I get the error message:

WORKGROUP is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

This list of servers for this workgroup is not currently available

Guess I’m network troubleshooting this weekend.

Update: I made an important discovery today. None of the computers in the house see each other anymore. I used to be able to open Windows explorer and browse to My Network Places then to Entire Network then to Microsoft Windows Network then to MSHome (the workgroup) then to a specific machine that was visible on the network. However at the workgroup level the error message above occurs. I thought it was specific to this Windows XP machine but I reproduced it on another Windows XP machine. Then I tried browsing the network with Windows Vista and also could not see any of the LAN. So on my newly installed Windows XP machine, I tested pinging various machines on the network with success. So in Windows Explorer I typed a machine name and a known shared directory "\\mickey\www" and successfully browsed the remote directory. I then successfully mapped the drive. On my Ubuntu Linux 8.04 workstation, I clicked Places then Network Servers then Windows Network and get the message "Unable to mount location – failed to retrieve share list from server" which in the past would have simply listed all the devices on the local area network.

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Yes, I’m a geek that works on computers

I primarily work with people who have clients that need digital magic to happen. The tag line on my business card is "I solve problems". For the longest time, I was drawn to projects that started off with descriptions like "We’ve had 3 other developers fail to get this done" or "That expert in Florida says this can’t be done." I liked these projects. I liked the challenge and I could usually get it done. However, they are high risk and often not very profitable. Usually the reason three other developers fail to accomplish the task has less to do with a programming problem and more to do with a management problem. It is hard to pay the mortgage with "man that felt good!"

I still work with people who have clients that need things done. Effectively I build web applications for businesses but I usually go through a middle (wo)man. In the past this middle person has been a venture capitalist trying to launch his clients with the greatest of success. It has been other developers with too much on their plates. Most often, designers/artists that need functionality programmed into the website. Imagine you had a bookstore and wanted to sell your books online. I’d be the person who writes the shopping system that allows your customers to browse books online, add them to a shopping cart, and make the purchase online. The part of a website like that which most people never see is the inventory control part. That’s where the employees log in to add or remove books from the system. It’s just a big a project as the front end where the shoppers go but instead of thousands of people seeing it, 2, 3 or 10 people use it. Of course, you cannot sell books online without a tracking system for shipping so I would write the code that generates shipping labels, ties into UPS or Fedex or the post office, and tracks the packages. Then if your bookstore decided that it wanted to manage it’s human resources through the web with a punchcard system for managing when employees clocked in and clocked out, scheduling of employees, and payroll (tying the system into Quickbooks), I’d write that. Next if you decided the punchcard system wasn’t efficient enough and you wanted the employees to wear RFID id badges and used those for clocking in and clocking out, I’d write that.

Now there isn’t a computer person alive before the time of the Geek Squad who didn’t say, "wow! I need to create a business repairing people’s computers." The Geek Squad was not an original idea. I know I had the vision of teams of nerds running to people’s homes fixing computers. I did it for awhile. I know I have friends who had the same vision. But Best Buy had the resources that we lacked to launch. Tthere is not profit in repairing computers. Computers have become disposable. What holds value is data. If people would move their work primarily to The Cloud or create and understand a backup system that removed the dependence upon a particular machine, then instead of paying a geek to repair your computer, you could just buy a new one! The Geek Squad doesn’t make money on repairs. It makes money on upsales. When you get a repair and they sell you an Antivirus program or a new hard drive or another memory stick then they make money.

I do fix computers for friends and family. I charge a flat rate of $135 which is less than what you will pay the Geek Squad. I don’t know if it is true but I’ve read that the Geek Squad will also put in a limited number of hours and then declare that the computer needs reformatting. I won’t do that. Usually I put 5 hours into a machine plus I run some diagnostic software overnight and dust out the computer. It’s a nice thing to do on a weekend. My effort amounts to substantially less than I charge hourly for programming but there is a good karma to making sure someone’s computer is functioning correctly.

However, sometimes I get bitten. I took in a friend’s laptop because it was hanging/locking up. I was thinking some malware had a hold of it. A week later the computer is still with me and starting to get in the way of my real work and my friend is becoming frustrated. It may have some defective hardware but the diagnostics I have run have not found any physical problems. It might be a driver problem but downloading the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s website didn’t help. This is a Dell Inspiron 1525 running Vista with service pack 1. Any attempt to install service pack 2 takes an hour to install and at the very end of the process, the installer announces "failed" and reverts back to sp1. Right now I’m sitting on a BSOD:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If this is the first time you’ve seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or sofware manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or sofware. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000000A (0x00000018, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x81C590FC)

This screams bad hardware or a bad driver. However, I’ve read that this goes away by installing service pack 2. That would be the thing that installs 100% then reverts back to service pack 1. Oh the irony!

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Windows won’t boot past the logo

In trying to clone my 60 gb hard drive to a 500 gb hard drive, I ran some utilities on the 60 gb hard drive to fix bad sectors and find missing data. Apparently in the process, I damaged something in Windows. Right now the drive will not boot beyond the blue screen with the Windows XP logo in regular mode nor in safe mode. I’m documenting my steps here because the usual troubleshooting steps have failed and I need to make sure I’m not repeating the same steps twice. Continue reading Windows won’t boot past the logo

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WordPress 2.8.3 broken! Upgrade to 2.8.4 immediately!

In case you missed it, WordPress 2.8.3 has a programming error which allows anyone to reset your administrative password and takeover your WordPress blog. With administrative access, the hacker could destroy your content, lock you out, and repurpose your website for wrong doing, spamming, pornography, slander, or whatever they want. Upgrade to WordPress 2.8.4 immediately! Learn more at darknet.org.uk.

This vulnerability could be prevented by securing the /wp-admin directory.

BlogSecurity has recommended before that the /wp-admin/* directory should be password protected or restricted to IP address. This would mitigate this problem. See our advisory here for details. [Source, BlogSecurity, WordPress <= 2.8.3 Reset Admin Password Vulnerability]

See details of the exploit at milw0rm.

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WordPress 2.8.3 upgrade bizarreness

I decided to take some time to make sure that all of our blogs and websites relying on WordPress were brought up to version 2.8.3. Everything seemed to be going well until we started testing Cathy’s blog Domestic Psychology. She can post but cannot add tags. Categories work find but clicking in the "Add new tag" tag box acts like it is disabled. She can type words in the box but the Add button does not function. Tags do not get saved to the post.

So I jump over to Reality Me to see if it exhibits the same behavior. On Reality Me, I can create a post with tags with no problem. But on the dashboard under Incoming Links, Plugins, and WordPress Development Blog, I get a fatal error:

Fatal error: Please call SimplePie_Cache::create() instead of the constructor in /home/www/htdocs/realityme_net/wp-includes/class-feed.php on line 13

I have not tested the other blogs and sites yet. For both Reality Me and Domestic Psychology, I went back and deleted almost all files with the exception of the wp-content directory, the robots.txt, and the .htaccess. I rebuilt the WordPress installation and yes cache directories were removed. WP-Cache is not used. I also repaired and optimized all database tables. Active plugins on Reality Me: Audio Player, Seesmic, ShareThis, SimpleLife, Spam Karma 2, Subscribe to Comments, WordPress.com Stats, and WordPress XHTML Validator. Active plugins on Domestic Psychology: Audio player, Get Recent Comments, Lifestream, ShareThis, Spam Karma 2, Subscribe to Comments, and WordPress.com Stats.

In typing this, I realize that the SimpleLife plugin uses SimplePie and is likely to be the root cause for the Reality Me problem.

Update: Deactivating SimpleLife fixed the Reality Me problem.

Update: Disabling all plugins on Domestic Psychology did not change the fact that Post Tags could not be added to to the post.

Update: I’ve narrowed it down to Cathy’s theme. None of the active plugins on Domesticp Psychology are causing the problem. She is using a Woo theme called irresistible. Disabling this theme fixes lets her use tags with posts again. Time to see if Woo Themes has posted a fix. Yes. irrestible 2.0.0 fixes the post tag problem.

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Ultimate Boot CD for Windows 3.50 out with 1 error

If you ever have to do some serious troubleshooting on a Windows XP machine, you need the Ultimate Boot CD (Linux version) and the Ultimate Boot CD (Windows version) (see also Ben Burrows blog). The windows version recently released version 3.50 and may have an error. If you get the following error message:

Section:SourceDiscsFolders.2600
Cannot find folder: wnt5
Section:SourceDiscsFolders.2600
Cannot find folder: wxp

Then follow these instructions. In summary:

Click the Plugins button.
Select # DriverPacks.net – BASE
Press the EDIT button.
Change: CONFIG=DPs_BASE.exe /API: /settings:
To: CONFIG=DPs_BASE.exe /settings:
[Source, ubcd4win forum, hilander999]

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When should you buy a new computer?

Occasionally somebody will ask me for my expert advice and question, "when should I buy a new computer?" My answer is often to discuss the benefits of a new machine, and how in many cases it is cheaper to replace rather than repair and upgrade, but ultimately my answer is a question, "is the machine doing what you need it to do?" If the answer is yes, then don’t buy a new computer.

I just turned on my Windows 98 machine. Yes. Windows 98…first edition not second edition. Why? Because GIMP frustrates me and my copy of Adobe Photoshop 5.5 still produces great imagery for much of my work. See, this machine still does what I need it to do. So, I have no need to upgrade this 11 year old box.

Update: I’ve been introduced to GIMPshop. Feels like a crutch but I may have to try it anyway.

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Left mouse button becomes right mouse button

Not long ago, I took a computer that was passed onto us, reformatted it, installed a fresh copy of Windows XP, and passed a shiny "new to her" computer onto Cathy. It was faster than her old computer and should have been completely problem free. It was for awhile but it’s developed an odd behavior. Every now and then, the operating system will appear to hang. For instance, this morning her menubar was visible, and I could move the mouse, but clicking on anything did nothing. I could not bring an application to focus. I had Computer Management open to the event log and left clicking on one of the event viewer items, instead of opening the item, showed the context menu (normally seen by right clicking). But unlike right clicking, once the context menu was open, clicking an item in the context menu such as "open log file…" simply closed the log file. The machine has been thoroughly scrubbed of malware, spyware and viruses. All software is updated with the exception of not yet installing Internet Explorer 8. The way I regained control of the machine was to close an open Skype chat window.

The slow downs seem to correspond to this error in the event viewer (\Device\Harddisk1\D refers to the Seagate external USB Freeagent drive):
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\D during a paging operation.

This is bizarre.

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Ubuntu Accomplishments – Seesmic Desktop Install

The machine on which I do most of my work is not terribly robust. My work environment would make a good premise for a Disney movie..you know..old clunker equipment doesn’t look like it should be able to pull through manages to win the race. Anyway, Seesmic Desktop in all it’s glory was dragging this machine down. Everything would work fine but I needed one more reboot than normal throughout the day. On days like today, when the work was too intense, I just couldn’t run Seesmic Desktop (maybe not a bad thing). Now that I’ve successfully installed Seesmic Desktop on Ubuntu, it can run all the time and I can occasionally glance over at the streams to see what’s happening. Installing Seesmic Desktop on Ubuntu was incredibly easy. First install Adobe Air then install Seesmic Desktop:

  1. Open the Terminal
  2. Use wget to download http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/1.5/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
  3. Set the file to be executable: chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
  4. Run it: sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
  5. Accept any AIR updates
  6. Use wget to download Seesmic Desktop from http://d.seesmic.com/seesmic/SeesmicDesktop-0.2.1.air
  7. On the Ubuntu desktop, not terminal, look under Applications->Accessories or Applications->Other for Adobe AIR Application Installer and run it
  8. Select SeesmicDesktop-0.2.1.air and the normal Seesmic Desktop installer will run

That’s it! Frankly, I think Seesmic Desktop is performing much better on Ubuntu than Windows. My only complaint would be that it failed to put a shortcut in the Applications menu.

Update: I lamented that Seesmic Desktop needed an import/export feature to get userlists and data from one computer to another and @askseesmic responded with a document explaining now to move the xml file with the necessary data. It worked great! The userlists I had organized on Windows now are on Linux. Move the xml file from one machine to the other after backing up the original:

  • Max OS X:
    /Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/com.seesmic.desktop.client.<RANDOM>/Local Store/config/xmlAdapter.xml
  • Windows XP:
    C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\com.seesmic.desktop.client.<RANDOM>\Local Store\config\xmlAdapter.xml
  • Windows Vista & Windows 7:
    C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\com.seesmic.desktop.client.<RANDOM>\Local Store\config\xmlAdapter.xml
  • Ubuntu & most Linux distros:
    /home/<user>/.appdata/com/seesmic.desktop.client.<RANDOM>/Local Store/config/xmlAdapter.xml

[Source, Seesmic Help Desk, Transferring Settings between Computers – workaround]

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How is Firefox reading my mind and will it cause cancer?!

In Firefox’s search box, I typed "Mysql error no. 1130" and almost as fast as I typed the individual letters, the drop down box was recommending potential searches. It does this incredibly accurately and quickly for bizarre terms that under normal circumstances would never be put together. How are they doing this?! Programmaticly I can conjecture at how they’ve pulled this off. It’s a very impressive feature! (particularly if it really is using mind reading)

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OOOooh NO!

Khaaaaaannnnnn!

Starting on or about the third week of April, users still running IE6 or IE7 on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008 will get will get a notification through Automatic Update about IE8. This rollout will start with a narrow audience and expand over time to the entire user base. On Windows XP and Server 2003, the update will be High-Priority. On Windows Vista and Server 2008 it will be Important. [Source, IEBlog, Prepare for Automatic Update distribution of IE8]

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ShareThis WordPress Plugin Broken – Easy Fix!

I recently added a ShareThis link ShareThis.com to each of my posts. I chose ShareThis.com because it seems to be very robust while leaving a relatively small footprint on the blog and appears relatively unintrusiveness and benign. Of course, some folks will be quick to point out that the tracking features and having the icon linked back to sharethis.com is very intrusive and anything but benign. In this instance, I don’t see it as that big a deal. One of the attractions to ShareThis.com was its WordPress plugin making setup as easy as going to the website to generate the widget code, then inserting that code in the settings box on the admin screen in your WordPress blog. But it didn’t work.

At ShareThis.com, a publisher generates a script that looks like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=abcdefgh-ijkl-mnop-qrst-uvwxyz012345&amp;type=wordpress&amp;embeds=true&amp;post_services=facebook%2Cdigg%2Cdelicious%2Cybuzz%2Ctwitter%2Cstumbleupon%2Creddit%2Ctechnorati%2Cmixx%2Cblogger%2Ctypepad%2Cwordpress%2Cgoogle_bmarks%2Cwindows_live%2Cmyspace%2Cfark%2Cbus_exchange%2Cpropeller%2Cnewsvine%2Clinkedin%2Cfriendfeed&amp;headerTitle=Thank%20you%20for%20sharing!"></script>

After updating, the code will have a 2nd publisher id appended to the end. With two publisher ids, ShareThis will not register your site nor collect statistics.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=abcdefgh-ijkl-mnop-qrst-uvwxyz012345&amp;type=wordpress&amp;embeds=true&amp;post_services=facebook%2Cdigg%2Cdelicious%2Cybuzz%2Ctwitter%2Cstumbleupon%2Creddit%2Ctechnorati%2Cmixx%2Cblogger%2Ctypepad%2Cwordpress%2Cgoogle_bmarks%2Cwindows_live%2Cmyspace%2Cfark%2Cbus_exchange%2Cpropeller%2Cnewsvine%2Clinkedin%2Cfriendfeed&amp;headerTitle=Thank%20you%20for%20sharing!&amp;publisher=a1b2c3d4-ijkl-mnop-qrst-u4w2y10a2r4d"></script>

After reviewing the plugin code, I realized the way ShareThis generates the script must have changed overtime. Crowd Favorite wrote a great plug-in but it expects the publisher=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx to be at very end and if it does not find a publisher id at the end, it puts one there which is why you will end up with two publisher ids. To fix this, simply move the publisher id to the end of the script before pasting the code into the ShareThis settings box in the WordPress admin:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#type=wordpress&amp;embeds=true&amp;post_services=facebook%2Cdigg%2Cdelicious%2Cybuzz%2Ctwitter%2Cstumbleupon%2Creddit%2Ctechnorati%2Cmixx%2Cblogger%2Ctypepad%2Cwordpress%2Cgoogle_bmarks%2Cwindows_live%2Cmyspace%2Cfark%2Cbus_exchange%2Cpropeller%2Cnewsvine%2Clinkedin%2Cfriendfeed&amp;headerTitle=Thank%20you%20for%20sharing!&amp;publisher=abcdefgh-ijkl-mnop-qrst-uvwxyz012345"></script>

Note: In the settings box, the &amp; will be converted to just & but the code correctly uses &amp; with the post. Your code will still be xhtml compliant.

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URL Shorteners Causing a Stir

The Internet is in an uproar this morning. This uproar will probably be done in the next couple of hours for all but a few select people like the programmers at Twitter and Delicious. The debate? Are URL shorteners good or evil?

URLURI shorteners take a long URL like http://realityme.net/2008/08/21/can-you-rely-on-twitter-for-breaking-news/ which search engines love for the embedded keywords and reduce them to as few characters as possible like http://tinyurl.com/43abj6 which search engines may or may not like. Joshua Schachter has posted about the evils of URL shorteners with a plethora of comment from people on both sides of the fence. Dave Winer, who pioneered RSS, says that URL shortners are risky. Basically the concern is that we are creating a situation where broken links may abound on the Internet. Since two URIs go to the same place, content is being duplicated in search engines and bookmarking services and since some of these services use 301 redirects while others use 302 redirect we have no good way of crediting the link to the source. (301 means the uri has been permanently moved to a new uri, ie. the original long uri, and 302 means that the uri has been temporarily moved meaning the search engine or bookmarking service should record the short uri as the permanent resource). Other concerns revolve around archiving and longevity of these shortening services. If Twurl goes out of business, most of my shortened uris will break. As an example of this, Twurl.nl is no longer Twurl.nl but is now Tweetburner. After reading this analysis of uri shortening services, I don’t think I will be using Twurl/Tweetburner anymore anyway; I love their stats but a 302 redirect is deplorable.

To shorten or not to shorten, that is the question. A proposed solution is that publishers should automatically offer their own shortened URLs which could hurt your searchengine-fu. Personally I am going to keep my long URIs but I think I’ll switch to bit.ly or tinyurl.com while they are using 301 redirects (that is until the day they decide not to use 301 redirects…letting other people control your data is confusing isn’t it?!).

Aside: A URL is a subset of a URI. There is some debate about whether URL has be deprecated or not. See Yuri not Earl.

Update: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

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Hardware/Software Support

A service I provide to friends and family is cleaning up their computers when they start reporting, "it’s moving so slow!" or "I keep getting these popups." or error messages or whatever. Usually they are having a virus, spyware or malware issue. I’ve published my trade secret on how to fix this yourself. It takes me roughly 5 hours to clean a machine thoroughly. Granted, I usually do it overnight by sitting the computer beside me and taking breaks between programming tasks to evaluate the problems. You take smoke breaks; I take computer repair or social media breaks. For the service of cleaning a machine, assuring it has adequate virus protections, and making sure all the latest security patches are in place, I charge $135. In addition to software/hardware upgrades, I have replaced keyboards on laptops and even re-soldered a power connector on a laptop to its circuit board.

Yesterday a friend brought her computer and speakers by the house so I’ve added a service…speaker repair (I’d recommend just buying new ones).