Quarkstar - Technically Working

Twitter Access Problem - Mobile Web

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:17:00 +0000

Problem: Recently I have been unable to access twitter on my cell phone. I would get to the log in page but constantly get a "403 Forbidden" error when trying to access the site.

Solution: Make sure you are going to m.twitter.com and not www.twitter.com. This small change fixed the problem for me.

Service Pack 3 Install Error - Not Enough Disk Space

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:30:00 +0000

Problem: When attempting to install service pack 3 for Windows XP an error appears stating that there is not enough disk space even though there is plenty of free space on the computer. Error shown below:

"There is not enough disk space on C:\\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$ to install Service Pack 3. Setup requires a minimum of 4 additional megabytes of free space or if you also want to archive the files for uninstallation, Setup requires 4 additional megabytes of free space. Free additional space on your hard disk and then try again."

For me the problem showed up in my bootcamp install of Windows XP on my mac.

Solution:You need to add a key to the registry.
- Go to: hkey-local-machine\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\setup
- Add a new string value named "BootDir" and set the value to C:\

Apparently it was trying to install the update to the recovery partition and not the C: partition.

Online Tools - Stopwatch

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:55:00 +0000

This is a handy site when you are on the computer and need a stopwatch or timer. Very simple interface making it easy to use.

http://www.online-stopwatch.com/

IE 7 Messing Up Large Icons on Desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Problem: After installing Internet Explorer 7 on my lab machines I noticed that all my desktop links with custom icons were now showing the default IE7 icon. I have all my icons display in "Large Icon" view and every time I would try and change them the icon would reset to the default.

Solution: The problem is caused by a settings change in the registry and is fairly easy to fix if you know how to modify registry settings. You need to change the following keys to '47':

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics\Shell Icon BPP
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics\Shell Icon Size

Then reboot the computer and the problem should be fixed.

Adobe Reader - No Printers Available

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Problem: When I go to print a PDF from Adobe Reader or Acrobat an error box appears and says the following:

"Before you can perform print-related tasks such as page setup or printing a document, you need to install a printer."

It's not a problem of not having printers, I actually have 19 printers available to me on this computer.

Solution: I did not have a default printer specified and if that setting isn't there Adobe Reader cannot launch the print dialog.

Google Analytics and Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:12:00 +0000

You can run Google Analytics on a web page through Blogger but you have to set it up exactly right.

Go to www.google.com/analytics and sign up for an account. During that process you will be given a bit of code to add to your site. You add this code to your template but you have to place it right before the </body> near the bottom or it won't work. It will just endlessly show as "tracking unknown" on the Google Analytics website if the code is placed anywhere else. See code sample below:

This is a feature I think would be nice if it was integrated into Blogger itself.

For those that don't know what Google Analytics is; it's a site tracker from Google. It was originally designed around their AdSense but you can use it without running AdSense on your site. It gives you information about number of visitors and such.

OS X Tips - Changing File and Folder Permissions

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:26:00 +0000

Sometimes I find that in OS X the file and folder permissions are not set correctly and I start getting errors. Below is how to change the file and folder permission settings. You will need an account with administrative rights to complete these tasks.

Ctrl-Click or Right Click on the folder or file you need to change the permissions for:

Open the Sharing and Permissions settings:

Click on the padlock in the lower left corner and provide a user name and password for an account with administrative rights when prompted. This unlocks the settings so that you can make changes.

Select the user that you want to change permissions for and modify them using the pull down area under "Privilege"

You can also change the ownership and apply settings to enclosed items (for folders) by using the pull down menu shown below:

Once you are done click the padlock icon again to prevent further changes to the new settings.

Installing Lotus Notes on a Mac, part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Using the Lotus Notes 8.5 install I was able to finally get the iMac to run Lotus Notes and the user now has access to his email and calendar. The only odd part is that it is still pulling some of the design settings from Lotus Notes 7. I tried doing a replace design but that didn't seem to fix it. This sometimes happens with our upgrades and we don't really know why. Since he still has access to everything and the overall look is fine I can call it done.

There is a chance that a server push in the near future might take care of the problem, if it is even a problem at all.

Installing Lotus Notes on a Mac, part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:45:00 +0000

I decided to do a test install of the new 8.5 client on a coworkers MacBook before moving ahead with end user installs. I have to note that I am using a custom installation package that I got from our Notes team so there might be variations on what other people are using.

This MacBook had never had Lotus Notes on it and my coworker really has no need to run it on his MacBook. The installation went flawlessly but seemed to take a little bit of time to fully finish. I didn't even have to do a design refresh/replace for the Lotus Notes 8 features to be available so I wonder if that is part of the custom install pack.

I pulled his ID file down off the server where it is stored and the setup ran fine. No weird file permission problems, no 'file not found' problems - just a nice clean install.

I wonder if this will hold true for doing an upgrade from 7.02 to 8.5, which is my next attempt.

Installing Lotus Notes on a Mac, part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:40:00 +0000

We only have a handful of Apple computers in the building and I am the go to person for all things Apple related. One of the hardest tasks I have found is installing Lotus Notes correctly for end users in OS X. Just last week IBM finally released Lotus Notes 8.5 for Mac out of beta but it is for Leopard only.

This is fine for all but one of my users who has a Mac Pro running Tiger. I have a Leopard license for him but because he is running Creative Suite 2.3 I can't upgrade him yet. Creative Suite 2.3 is not compatible with Leopard. Even at academic prices that means dropping an additional $330 for the Design Premium pack in order to get both Photoshop and InDesign. It's actually cheaper to buy more software than needed because the Photoshop license alone is almost $300.

We have a new employee, a web programmer for one of the departments, that has a brand new iMac running Leopard. Last week, before 8.5 was out of beta, I tried to install the Lotus Notes 7.02 client on his computer. I installed it while logged into his user account, which has administrative access, but had lots of file permission problems just trying to finish the setup process.

Apparently, even though it was installed as the user, the default permission settings do not allow him read/write access to his data folder. I had to go into the data folder, manually give him ownership and the propagate those settings to the enclosed items. Usually this takes care of the problem but now I am just getting a random "file permission error" that tells me nothing - no information about what file or what the problem is.

My next plan of action is to start over with the new 8.5 client and see if that fixes the problem. Since he is gone for the next three days at a training class I have time to trial and error things without interrupting his productivity. I will keep you all posted on how it goes.

Fixing a Dead Display Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:31:00 +0000

A little back story is required for this and this solution probably won't help most people but here it goes:

At work we have been a customer of MPC computers for going on 5 years now. Recently MPC acquired the business side of Gateway and they became MPC/Gateway. Fast-forward to yesterday - the company is out of business. What this means for us is that all our warranties are now void and there's no one to service the systems for us. The bad side is that my machines are about 99% proprietary all-in-one systems and don't use all standard parts. I have 5 machines with dead inverters for the LCD panels and there's nothing I can do to fix that. I cannot find inverters to save my life that match what I need.

So one of these systems is a specialized access station that runs ZoomText which is software that magnifies the screen and makes it easier for those with vision problems to use the computer. This is one of only 5 machines of this type - 19-inch All-in-one - so I don't have swapping options or anything. The nice thing is that they all do have an external monitor hook-up but it has to be configured.

So I hooked up a secondary monitor to the all-in-one and had to change display settings so that it would display. This is where the problem came in - the screen on the all-in-one is dead, sort of. You can just barely see the screen so if you work it just right you can kind of see the screen. This one was really dark though and it was getting close to impossible and I was about to give up.

That's when I remembered that I had my LCD flashlight with me and I used that to light up small parts of the screen so I could see. Once I got the dual monitors setup I was about to move the screen over and actually get the settings the way I wanted.

The important thing I figured out is that you can't just use Windows display settings - I had to go into the display adapters settings and use those to make the primary display the monitor and not the "notebook" screen of the all-in-one.

It looks a little awkward because there is a monitor in front of the all-in-one, but it works and isn't that what matters?