A while back my Firefox (v.19.0.2) started completely out of the blue to mess up text in webpages, that is all webpages. Text would appear distorted and very hard to read. Scrolling up and down would fix some blocks of text but distort others.
Tested on IE and Dragon (Chromium based) showed no issues which made me go in a vain search after Firefox, vain as in the end it was a specific windows update that caused the issue as pointed out by AmiraliZ in the MS Community:
Since installing , random text in Firefox 19.0.2 under Windows 7 (sp1) appear pixelated, verticaly displaced, and shows irregularities in smoothing. this happens with different font types and languages. a screenshot of the problem is here:
/gBp4dXc.png
uninstalling the update fixes the problem.
Link to original:
Removing the update did fix it for me as well. Thanks AmiraliZ!
Dont know what exactly this does, quoting from MS:
This update improves the features and performance of the following components:
DirectWrite
Windows Imaging Component (WIC)
Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP)
Windows Animation Manager (WAM)
XPS Document API
H.264 Video Decoder
JPEG XR codec
A google search shows many other more serious issues (BSODs) that seem to be caused by this update, so have a look if you are experiencing similar issues.
I recently did a Trixbox v2.2 installation on a server which obviously needed RAID1 on its two disks. The GUI
installation is quite simple and straight forward, however it might be a bit confusing to some regarding RAID setup.
To setup RAID, begin the GUI installation, proceed with the keyboard / language setup etc..
At some point it will prompt you to initialize the disks, accept. Heed the warning that all current data will be lost!
The setup will then ask you regarding the partitioning type, where the default is the first option, “Remove all partitions…”. Change it to the “Create Custom layout” as seen below:
Also select both disks for use in this installation.
In the next window you will see two hd entries, one for hda and one for hdb, each having free space instead of partitions. Select the free space under hda and select new. Ignore Mount point, and under File System type select Software RAID as in the screenshot:
Be sure that under Allowable Drives, you only have selected the HD you are working on now (in this case hda) ; if not, after you create the RAID1 partition, instead of seeing the capacity of one of the disks (as you should in RAID1), you will see half. For example 2X250GB HDD’s=250GB total capacity for RAID1. If you leave both selected you would have 125GB total size for your RAID drive.
Proceed with the size requirements as you see fit, then select OK.
Do the same for hdb, only instead of selecting hda under allowable drives, only select hdb. Also select the same size you selected before.
When done, select the RAID button. You will see the below menu. Use / as for the Mount Point, the file system and RAID level of your choice (in this case ext3 and RAID1). Then OK and you will have your RAID1 array.
You now have a RAID setup for trixbox to continue its installation on. I havent mentioned swap space as this is clearly to show RAID setup, setup swap as you like.
trixbox will later ask you as to where to install GRUB, you should choose the MBR. Trixbox though will install GRUB on therefore if you have a HDD failure you will still have your data on the second hard disk, but your server wont be able to boot.
To fix this you need to invoke the grub menu once inside Trixbox, and install GRUB on the second disk as well:
grub& root(hd0,0)
grub&setup(hd0)
grub&root(hd1,0)
grub&setup(hd1)
You now have a RAID1 trixbox server.
Note: As you have probably noticed from the screenshots, I took them through VirtualBox. The trixbox setup wouldnt start initially, and I had to change the chipset from PIIX3 to ICH9, under Settings&System. Then it proceeded normally.
I have noticed this on both an XP machine and a W7 64bit. Out of the blue, the built-in microphone of the camera stops working, both in Skype and in Windows.
It seems that if you leave it up to Skype to automatically adjust volume settings, at some point it might put the slider all the way to the right (100%). If this happens the camera’s microphone stops working, and this also affects microphone operations in Windows (control panel tests etc).
Simply untick the automatically adjust microphone settings box, and slide the slider slightly to the left (say at 90%) percent. The mic should be working again!
Mikrotik make awesome routers based on their excellent RouterOS operating system, with awesome possibilities when you consider that one of their basic routers is only around $40.
This is a tutorial on how to setup a client/server vpn using a Mikrotik (with RouterOS lv 4 licence) as the vpn server and Windows 7 clients, in what basically is a road warrior scenario. OpenVPN will be used, bear in mind that the Mikrotik implementation does not support the UDP protocol or lzo compression. This however should not be a problem for typical VPN usage (e.g. remote desktop, accessing shares).
You will need:
Latest version of OpenVPN (2.1 rc15 at time of writing) for Windows and Linux
A Mikrotik Routerboard or pc running RouterOS with a lvl 4 licence, already configured as a basic router
The security modules installed on RouterOS
An Ubuntu or other linux VM to create the certificates (optional)
Create certificates needed as OpenVPN uses SSL for security:
First of all, avoid the method described in the
that uses CAcert.org, as this doesnt seem to work. Instead use easy-rsa that comes with OpenVPN. I found it easier to use an Ubuntu VM on Virtualbox, as the windows implementation of easy-rsa didnt work well for me:
Edit the vars file with your settings
Do not rename f file f, however tempted by the easy-rsa readme, it wont work!
sudo source vars
./clean-all
build-key-server server
and provide appropriate info/password where necessary. You will then get a ca.crt , server.key and server.crt file among others.
Import to your RouterOS router:
server.crt and server.key, open Winbox. Go to Files and paste. As simple as that.
then open the terminal and import the certificates:
/certificate import file-name=server.crt
/certificate import file-name=server.key
When asked, provide the password used during the creation of the certificate.
if you then do a /certificate print it should show you the imported certificate with a KR flag next to it, meaning it successfully decrypted the certificate.
Create an IP pool for the VPN users:
/ip pool add name=ovpn-pool ranges=172.21.0.10-172.21.0.20
/ppp profile add local-address=172.21.0.1 name=ovpn remote-address=ovpn-pool
/ppp secret add name=user password=pass profile=ovpn service=ovpn
/interface
ovpn-server server set default-profile=ovpn enabled=yes mode=ethernet
netmask=24 require-client-certificate=no certificate=cert1
replace user and password with your login credentials. You can use any IP range but better use a rarely found one so you dont have IP clashes while using the VPN.
Configure the client:
Copy the client.ovpn file in the sample-config folder in OpenVPN installation directory to the config folder.
Also copy the ca.crt you previously created here. Open it using Notepad++ or any other proper text editor. In it write the following:
remote your-external-ip-address
proto tcp-client
tls-client
auth-user-pass
persist-key
resolv-retry infinite
script-security 2 system
route-up “route add LAN-IP mask 255.255.255.0 172.21.0.1″
auth-nocache
which uses a bridge interface to connect to the Mikrotik, and authenticate using the previously created login details.
script-security 2 system is used to allow the route-up command below it to successfully push the default route to the clients routing table when it connects. Additionally for this to work you will have to open the OpenVPN GUI as an administrator every time.
If the default route isnt manually or automatically put on the client PC, the VPN will work but will be practically useless as the computer wont know what to do with requests for your LAN on the other side of the VPN. Unfortunately the RouterOS implementation cant push the routes over the VPN, so we have to resort to the above method (which works very well, it also removes the route after disconnection).
Thats pretty much it. It also works with portable versions of OpenVPN, thus all you need is a usb with portable OpenVPN on it, the client config and the ca.crt file and you’re good to go!
Note: Initially I played around with CAcert.org certificates following the Wiki. I didnt manage to get it to work, and additionally even after I removed all the certificates on the Mikrotik that were created with the CAcert.org website and imported the easy-rsa ones, I would get a
VERIFY ERROR: depth=0, error=unable to get local issuer certificate: /CN=my-domain
after authenticating. This was solved after a restart of the Mikrotik which seems to have cleared the value that was stuck in memory.
Recently I had to install VNC on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine… lets say it made my life a bit difficult.
It seems that none of the freely available solutions are any good out of the box, and require extensive modifications. I tried RealVNC, TightVNC, UltraVNC but all need some tweaking or dont work at all on the specific setup. Via hearsay, RealVNC enterprise seems to work so this issue is probably caused by marketing for now deliberately slowing down the development of the free line of said clients.
Anyway, heres the workaround: (again, this is only for the free versions of the aforementioned software at the time of writing, the paid editions should work fine)
First of all, forget RealVNC as a server, and as a viewer (at least in a Domain environment). As a server you will get connection errors at best, as a client with any of the other servers you wont be able to send the CTRL-ALT-DEL signal.
You will therefore need tightVNC or UltraVNC in my working setup I have UltraVNC as a server and I’m accessing it again by UltraVNC.
While installing, select the UltraVNC server driver install option.
This will allow you to connect (with any client) BUT you wont be able to login in a domain environment as you cant send the CTRL-ALT-DEL signal. This is due to the WinVNC service not working as it should due to Windows Vista and 7 security controls (more info
). To overcome this, you can issue a group policy but its easier to just run the
following on the server’s command prompt, in the UltraVNC directory:
WinVNC.exe -uninstall
WinVNC.exe -install -SimulateSAS=2
You should now (albeit with a bit of lag – only click once and wait) be able to issue a CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence and logon to your server.
Ok, ive noticed this one on two separate firefox 4 builds. Completely suddenly and randomly, the last tabs close button becomes obscured such as the pic below:
Changing themes, moving buttons around etc does not fix it. After messing about for a bit it turns out that its a bug with TabMixPlus. By default the “when tabs dont fit width” option is “scrollable with buttons on left and right sides”. Change this to “Scrollable without buttons” as below…
and voila! you get the close button back
Ive been bumping into this for some time now, a minor annoyance but still something that will put up your blood pressure when you need to get on that computer ASAP..
When you issue the CTRL+ALT+DEL combination to the client window, it will work but you wont be able to write anything in the logon/password field. The solution: minimize and restore the client window. Simple but effective.
A new version could probably fix this bug but the minimizing and restoring the window works every time.
Lately I got a Pre Plus off eBay (unlocked) with the intention of using it on the Cytanet network (carrier) here in Cyprus.
Unfortunately what the seller neglected to mention was that this was an AT&T Palm Pre +.
This is a slight problem for two reasons: The AT&T Pre is a GSM device (which is good) BUT the 3G frequencies used in the US this means I have to forget using 3G and rely on GPRS (dont mind though, as I still get email and GPRS is gentler on the battery – has better coverage too!)
The second issue though is more serious: when you first start a Palm device it needs a palm profile creation/activation. Unfortunately, Palm didnt really consider that folks may not have a descent 3G connection and there is no option to do this through WiFi for instance. This means you have to rely on a data connection.
Now, in my specific case here in CY even if you have some sort of data plan and proper coverage, you cant use it as
in the phone there is a built in database of “approved” carriers with their settings in it. Guess what, if your carrier is not in, or if its in but with outdated settings, it wont work. You can try putting your settings during the profile setup but it will give you either an “invalid carrier settings” error or “unable to write settings”.
Fortunately, due to the combined efforts of the Palm community, there is a workaround which involves the
Basically, you have to metadoctor your phone, which reflashes it with the WebOS software but with some tweaks. One of those tweaks is an activation bypass
Then you change an entry in the database, upp it to the phone and voila! GPRS.
Now a word of warning: Here you get your hands dirty. You need to install Cygwin (if on Windows), or do the process via Linux or a Mac. I wont go into the process in detail as the good folks who created metadoctor have an excellent Wiki you can follow. Also, most of the processes here if done without proper experience and knowledge co The author will not take any blame if the situation becomes FUBAR.
In our specific scenario I used the AT&T 1.4.5 image and enabled the following options in the Makefile:
BYPASS_FIRST_USE_APP (needed to bypass the palm profile creation/activation. Gives you a shortcut to run it when you have an internet connection available)
ENABLE_DEVELOPER_MODE (not necessary but useful to install third-party apps without using the
- beware though, as some consider constantly having the phone in dev mode a security risk)
DISABLE_UPLOAD_DAEMON (disables a user stats program that sends feedback back to AT&T. Definetly wont need it in Cyprus)
REMOVE_MODEL_CHECK (Not directly related to this scenario, I did it with no issues though - optional)
INCREASE_VAR_SPACE (Increases VAR space to 2GB for having more room for Linux apps - again optional)
I then proceeded with the MAKE process by using
make DEVICE=preplus all-att
You will then get a doctored .jar file which will flash your phone with WebOS 1.4.5 which will boot straight into the phone, allowing you to use it.
If you dont plan on using a data plan (or dont have one) WiFi, the phone and everything else will work. You dont need to do the following part. If you do need GPRS access, read on:
To access the database, you can either download it from the phone to your PC, or edit the database file already in the WebOSdoctor jar file. I chose the second as its not too hard and doesnt involve mucking about with the phone yet.
To extract the .jar file and other .tar files you will need .
To get to the database, extract the WebOSdoctor .jar file. In the Resources folder
you will then extract the following files:
webOS.tar->nova-cust-image-castle.rootfs.tar.gz->nova-cust-image-castle.rootfs.tar->gives you a directory
The database file (CarrierNetworkSettings.db3) can be found in
usr/lib/luna/CarrierNetworkSettings.db3
Open this using SQLlite Database browser:
Go to the Browse Data tab, and from the dropdown list next to table select the long option that ends in …CarrierNetworkSettings. The following are to correct carrier,voicemail and MMS settings:
I then found the relevant settings for Vodafone GR (Greece) in row 229 (under Vodafone Malta) and changed the following:
mcc: from 202->280
mnc: from 5->1
qOperatorShortName: from Vodafone-GR to CYTAMOBILE-VODAFONE
qOperatorLongName: from Vodafone - Greece to CYTAMOBILE-VODAFONE
voicemailNumber: from 121 to 123
mmscWapGateway: from 213.24.19.49 to 212.31.96.161 (not tested yet but should work - who uses MMS anw these days...)
mmscUrl: from http://mms.vodafone.gr to .cy/
mmscPortNumber: from 5080 to 8080
mmscMessageSizeLimit: from 500 to 300
Make note of the id value (in my case at least it is 1, youll need it to find it in the Data table)
Click on the save button.
Now select the …DataConnectionSettings table from the dropdown list.
Here you have to find the row by the id we noted previously: 1. In my case its row 571:
Now, here I was a bit lazy and didnt change anything in the WAP and MMS settings as Im not planning to use them. I changed the following for data (GPRS) to work:
apn: from internet.vodafone.gr to cytamobile
cshnUserName: leave the same
cshnPassword: leave the same
And save. You can also use internet
for the apn but with blank for both the username and password.
Now you need to replace the database on the phone with the modified one. To do this the easiest way is by using the
tool. Now for some reason version 4.04 does not seem to work on my PC (it opens up, but doesnt install any apps and always fails when sending files to the phone) so Ive used
with no issues.
Connect your phone via USB (with the “Just charge” option). Open the .jar file and send the file to the phone by going to Tools->Send File.
Select the modified database file you created before and send it to /usr/lib/luna/
Repeat the procedure again with /var/luna/data/ as the destination.
Reboot your phone, and you should now see the G icon on the top right. You now have GPRS access!
Note: In my case, in the next day my camera didnt work (showed a black screen with a cross) and neither vibration or audio of any kind, except from the earpiece worked. I have no idea why this happened, I repeated the process from the beginning and it hasnt done it since. Would be a good idea to have your contact info somewhere off the phone like an Exchange server or Gmail just in case you need to do a quick flash.
References and Kudos:
mthillis at the official Palm forums for pointing me to the right direction
The metadoctor guys for their excellent work
palmdoc2005 for summarizing various posts in the
Dick99999, hotdp and dubiki for sharing their database changes
Jason Robitaille for the WebOS Quick install tool
This site for the correct MCC and MNC values for the carrier
A huge thank you to the Palm community in general. Without you I would have a nice shiny pebble-brick ?
The other day I was building an HP server.. one of the more heavy-weight ones that has a preparation disk – you know, the ones where you put all the login info before hand, choose what OS you will then install and let it do its thing.
Then you put the OS installation disk in and its automated till the end (maybe not in every case but it was here).
Now Im pretty sure I put the usual password for the administrator account that I used, the preparation CD asked me twice. However, due to a glitch or maybe I managed to input the wrong password twice into the preparation disk, I couldnt log into the system when Windows was installed. Now this was a system that needed Terminal Services and all sorts of configs by the end of the day, so I had to get in. Reinstalling wasnt really an option (would take too long).
To the resque came
(via the all-mighty google ofc) with their sticky keys trick:
The basics are that you boot into the Windows Recovery Environment (RE) using the installation CD, and then backup the original sticky keys executable on C for example:
copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\
Then you copy cmd.exe over the original sticky keys executable, so that it keeps the same name:
copy /y c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe
Reboot the machine, and when you get to the login prompt hit the shift key five times. Instead of getting the sticky keys menu, you will get a handy command prompt.
Then you can simply use the net user commands to reset the administrator password:
net user you_user_name new_password
Now you will have access to the system with the new password set above.
It would be best though to put sticky keys back where it belongs, so boot yet again into the Windows RE and copy the backup you created back to the original place:
copy /y c:\sethc.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe
All done!! again thanks to
for helping me out of a sticky situation!
Disclaimer: I have no idea if 4sysops are the first to think/post this, what Im sure of is that it saved my ass.
Well I wanted to work a bit more on the general design/structure of the site but here comes the first post fresh out of the oven :]
If you were tempted to try the new Beta version of Google Adsense and are now pulling your hair out as in Firefox it doesnt show sh*t, and IE keeps refreshing just hit:
and the damn thing will revert.. Google we know its a Beta but make sure its stable first!! Ive seen better Alpha versions of things than this..
More to come