New christmas mobo issue

Merry Christmas everyone,

 

There is nothing like treating yourself to a new motherboard for Christmas…. Remember it’s always worth checking the legacy hardware you have to make sure its compatible, even when the manufacturer says yes it is… things can still go wrong. As Steve found out;

 

Message: After I upgraded my mo/bo to asus extreme striker all the h/w seems to be good, but I can't repair windows xp or even get a new installation of it to talk to the modem. Given that this has put me offline maybe calling me would be a good idea...

 

-          I recommended changing the RAM out one by one, as I have had dodgy RAM do all sorts of weird and wonderful things…

 

Thanks for your reply - I stayed up all night last night and fixed it... It was bad hardware but it was the sound card from my old system that was the problem. When repairing windows xp it would try to find drivers for it but then hang so I couldn't tell it to skip it. I ripped the old card out and put the new one from asus in. The old mobo was foxconn with a creative soundblaster sound card. the new mobo is asus extreme striker and a new q6600 processor. Then windows repaired itself - I got all my old stuff back and was able to go on the net as before. Your ram point is also good - an early prob was a bad mixture of ram so I pulled all but the newest stick. It ran like shit but at least it ran. 2Gig of OCZ fixed that. I learned a helluva lot last night... Steve.

 

 

Old hardware can always be a pain, if you are upgrading a large piece of hardware (or even to a new OS) its always a good idea to start with a barebones machine and add the bits and bobs after you get it to boot. It will take longer this way but it will narrow down the bugs as they happen…

 

Happy computing..

 

//craig

Mitel Your Assistant Error on XP SP2

This is the error

System.ArgumentException: Delegate to an instance method cannot have null 'this'.
at System.MulticastDelegate.ThrowNullThisInDelegateToInstance()
at NewHeights.YA3.MainWindowController.OnBootProgress(ProgressEventArgs args)
at NewHeights.BootStrapper.BootManager.ProgressEventHandler.Invoke(ProgressEventArgs args)
at NewHeights.BootStrapper.BootManager.OnProgress(ProgressEventArgs args)
at NewHeights.BootStrapper.BootManager.Shutdown(ArrayList bootables, BootableType bootableType)
at NewHeights.BootStrapper.BootManager.ShutdownImpl()
at NewHeights.BootStrapper.BootManager.Boot()
at NewHeights.YA3.MainClass.Start(BootManager bootman)

My PC is XP SP2, after a Restore to factory settings I installed Mitel Your Assistant, it wouldn't even load up.

Simple fix, install .net Framework 1.1!

Why this is needed as the product states .net 1.1 and later, it should say you can runany version of the .net framework, as long as you install 1.1 as well.

Google Earth easter egg

If you have google earth (version 4.2) and have a few minutes to spare.

danger this could be addictive.

open google earth, hold down CTRL + Windows + A

then goto here for more instructions, its very cool, great idea, microsoft did this once in Excel from memory!

aquent financial scam!!

I just recieved this sms text message:

You have recieved J30 from a friend! To collect them go to AqueuntFinance.com/login, temporary username: a571tnk password: gh2x3
best regards, Aquent Financial


The site is very new although it says copyright 2002 on the bottom, and apparently I had £30 in my account, lucky me!

ALl I had to do was leave my personal details and login in to my bank account via their Flash player widget....so easy......

The best bit is this - http://aquentfinance.com/fastcash/test-esl.swf just before they take your login details....

I smelt a rat so did a few google searches, and came up with aquent UK (http://www.aquent.co.uk/Contact/Locations/Europe/london.html) . They offer services to freelance/IT professionals. So the scammers are being dumb and targeting geeks...

I called Aquent UK and they said it was a fraudulent sms and to ignore it, there is an Aquent Finance in th eUSA but it is not the company running the aquentfinancial.co.uk site.

Aquent UK are investigating the scam, so drop them a lime if you get the sms.

Scamming is now coming to a mobile phone near you.

update: 13:51 BST - WHOIS details for anyone looking to find these guys

Domain Name: aquentfinance.com

Status: ok

Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE
Whois Server: whois.melbourneit.com
Referral URL: http://www.melbourneit.com

Expiration Date: 2008-10-04
Creation Date: 2007-10-04
Last Update Date: 2007-10-04

Name Servers:
ns1.aquentfinance.com
ns2.aquentfinance.com

IP Address: 72.232.255.59
Website Status: active
Server Type: Apache 3
Cache Date: 2007-10-05 12:49:05 MST

After being asked everyday 'how to find a good immigration company/consultant?'

I have put together a PDF of a few things to look out for, a checklist if you want to call it that.

How to find a good immigration consultant (pdf download)

its free, there is no advertising, and best of all it will hopefully stop you from being ripped off by dodgy visa companies.

we aren't OISC registered, but then we dont give visa advice make sure they are!!

good luck with the visa!

Workpermit Advice Gateway team

touch local Woking / Guildford, keeping it local

If you live in Woking/Guildford have a look at what we can do for you


http://www.touchguildford.com/business/list/bid/5614098

Honest IT support

Well the need ageek service has started, my aim is simple, to make your IT lives easy.

I get calls from friends and customers everyday asking for help doing what I would call the simple IT stuff, but I do this day in and day out, know most of the shortcuts and generally know how it works inside.

So need a geek was setup to break the barriers of IT mysticism, I dont use techie talk with customers, everything is in plain english. ANd we educate you to make it easier next time.

We deal with all of LOndon and most of surrey, offering IT support, training, Home worker support, networking advice, wireless networking security/setup, home cinema help, virus removal, broadband setup etc etc etc, basically if it plugs in and has buttons on the front we can deal with it.

So dont be afraid, book your date with a geek (we promise they wont turn up with tape holding the middle of their specs toghether) at www.chillfire.co.uk/geek

following on from Outlook via HTTPS://

I missed something off the earlier posts regarding setting up Outlook to connect to your exchange server via https;

When you try and connect (after it asks for your login details) this message appears in a pop up;

There is a problem with the proxy servers security certificate.
The security certificate is not from a trusted certifying authority.

Outlook is unavailable to connect to the proxy server
mail.xxxxxxxxx.net (error code 8)


I forgot to add the certificate that the mail server creates to the trusted certifcates on my laptop. There is probably a fix so this is not a required step, but for me it makes sense as I dont want 'public' access anyway, I can control which PC/laptop/user has access this way.

so to fix: (thanks to some info here: http://www.thebitguru.com/articles/13-Importing+a+Trusted+Root+Certification+Authority+in+Windows+Vista/188-Installing+the+Certificate )

save rar file attachment, extract content (1 file) to c:\


hold windows key and hit the 'R' key
type certmgr.msc
right click on 'Trusted Root Certification Authority' - click 'All Tasks' then 'import'
Click next
click browse - find the .crt file from the mail server
click next
click next
click finish
then ok if it asks you if you are sure you want to do this.

bingo!

Securing IIS with Https

Really easy step by step for securing IIS 6.0 with Https://

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324069

Pounds SHillings and Sense

A New OCRE site launched - Pounds Shillings and Sense for Cascade Resources Ltd.
This site will form the basis of our new "Small Business Site", please email us at ocresmb@chillfire.co.uk for more information regarding pricing.

Lead time at the moment is approximately 3days/

No access to hotmail from outlook

After 3 days of hotmail and outlook not talking I deceided to find out why and found this

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en

Micrsoft have released their office connector plugin for Outllook 2007/2003. I ahve been using the beta version for quite a while now and it looks like it just stops working without telling you it has.

After downloading th plugin install it, follow all the prompts, then restart outlook.
Got to tools -> options -> mail setup -> email accounts

(your hotmail may have been removed but you have to add it again)

Clcik new, then select the tick box for 'Microsoft Office Connector', on the next screen fill in your hotmail details.

Done.

linkedin Q & A transcript; - linked.com - moving site to CMS/wordpress

RE: Converting 5mil pageviews site to Wordpress. Question: Adsense

Hi Tom,

Right I have had a look at the vbSEO site, and it looks like most of what it does you can probably do yourself, although it may take a bit longer.

Quick question what do you mena by static url? All urls are static event he dynamic ones ie: http://www.tier1-workpermit.com/tier-2-work-permits_ocre4.aspx is a dynamic page, but the URL is static - it will never change during the life of the page.

Secondly I am not big on ad revenues, I know there are people that make money with ads and banners etc, but the times I have been involved the return is small, with 5mil pages though you might be alright if you can get the volume through.

Most CMSes are pretty much the same, its apersonal preference on which one you go with, my own one OCRE is live on a number of sites, so far no complaints.

I generally steer clear of any 'big corporate' system ie word press and write my own. So I cant really comment on them.

Structure is really important, using folders for example is a good way to give the site URL structure, my.com/news and my.com/new/uk for example are a guide to the user as well of where they are in the site. Although not everyone uses the URL like this web/technical people do as they know how it works.

I use _ instead of folders sometimes as its an easy way to parse sections out of urls ie: http://www.visalogic.net/United-Kingdom_Immigration-Compliance_pie.aspx?t=4&t2=22
where Immigration Compliance is the page title (and meta title and H1 title etc etc), and United Kingdom is the section.

Before the site is changed site down and pencil out a URL structure that makes sense to you and hopefully makes sense to the client. then try and stick to it.

Remember to set up the redirects for any pages you are moving to point to the new page correctly.

goodluck, and fire any questions you have and I will ahve a go at answering them.

//craig

On 8/14/07 6:22 AM, Tom Goh wrote:
--------------------
Hi Craig

I'm not exactly trying to convert the whole site. I must have not put down my question properly.

I am looking at converting the news/features/content part of the site to a wordpress version or something like that, which could easily solve my problems on search engine friendliness, user friendliness and ease of managing and developing content.

I have VBSeo which apparently is claimed to boost search engine optimisation with static urls and some tweaks that also includes sitemaps creation and notification.

the 5mil pagviews comes from the forums which includes discussions and classifieds section.

I agree with the speed being a problem. In fact, i have a huge problem with speed and processing power. The current servers just can't keep up with the traffic and possibly the sql queries increased with these search engine optimising features. I am looking at moving the site to a much better server(s)

What do you think? regarding the adsense revenues from wordpress based sites or other CMSes and possibly your though on the structure of the site, which you may be able to give me some pointers?

Thanks so much for your reply!

Tom




On 8/14/07 5:42 AM, Craig Hogan wrote:
--------------------
I agree with Stuart, google (and other search engines) doesn't really care about what CMS/ content engine you use to generate your page.
It does look at lots of variables, ie speed of display, traffic volumes, links to pages etc.

With that many pages some of them will be old and out of date? Because google spider your pages for new content all the time it may be worth looking into adding a sitemap (XML) that shows the newest pages at the top so older pages are spidered last.

I dont think you should worry about changing the sites back end system too much as if it upsets the structure of any of the site all your PR/value will be lost. I always advise 'tweaking' the current site before trying to start from scratch - better the devil you know.

If you need a hand feel free to contact me

Question Details:
--------------------
Converting 5mil pageviews site to Wordpress. Question: Adsense

I currently run an automotive website that is based of vbulletin. The CMS i used is Vbadvanced.

I am looking to convert the CMS main page into a Wordpress based one.

Why:
-Realised the advantages of wordpress being google-friendliest
-Ease of use for me my contributors
-Limitles plugins
-Expandability
-Extremely well designed piece of software
-Loads very well
-End-User Friendly

I need to know, from all web publishers and people who's have similar experiences:
-How does it score with Google Adsense with the classic placements:
----Top link unit.
----Adsense units within and between 3 latest articles
----Adsense units within full articles

Do high traffic wordpress based sites get better revenues when converted from say custom main pages, cms, drupal, joomla and etc?

Or do any web publishers forsee greater revenues from Wordpress sites?

Thanks!
Tom

Compiler Error Message: BC30456: 'InitializeCulture'

This error:

Compiler Error Message: BC30456: 'InitializeCulture'

just arrived on our live server?
It was only affecting the home page, a page that hadn't achnaged for over 4 weeks.
The site is not a compiled site, ie all code behind files are on the live server, (not the best way, however we change the code alot so its quicker to make chanegs).
The error was not found, but I am sure it is caused by a multiple files with the same class name, ie default.

Fixed it by removing the codebehind reference, I was lucky this page has no requirement for code as all content is driven by web user controls, not the page itself.

Google index and PR (Page Rank)

I am going to go out on a limb.

After much debate and discussion in the office I have come up with a hypothesis on googles index updates and PR updates.

Many of you would have seen your sites lisings change in the last few weeks on your key keywords. Some good changes and some not so good probably, keep those meta tags up to date and change them to be current with your content.

These changes happen when google (and other search engines) decide to rollout their new index of sites/pages they have found while spidering the internet.
This is normally done every few months to keep the results they show you when you do a search up to date and 'real'.
They all have secret algorithms they use to generate this list and these are tweaked to adapt to to the way the web is used/searched etc.

The last update seemed to take a long time, actually we have seen pages from some of our sites move up and down the search lists continuously for the last month or so. Some on a daily basis.

So I am guessing that the index changes are going to continue all the time and the days of big index updates may be a thing of the past.
As an SEO person this is good and bad. Good it makes it harder for 'black hat' search engine companies to achieve faked/forced ranking, Bad I have to work harder and more efficiantly to amke sure all of your sites are stabile.

Remember there is no 100% guaruntee with search engine listings, they can go down as well as up, with these changes it just menas the time they stay where they are is not set in stone anymore, a year or so ago you could have said it would stay put for a month maybe 2 in the same palce, now well, its like watching the tide come in and go out over a piecec of driftwood.

I could be completely wrong, it may just be a really big update and algorithm change, I cant be sure.

Check it yourself, this is a good idea to do anyway irrespective of this scenario, open a spreadsheet, add a column with your keywords in it and a nother with todays date. Do a search in google (or any other search engine), count how many sites are listed before your and chuck that number in the corresponding cell.
Next week do the same, and so on and so on.

Please leave any results here (or email me) as I am really keen to see what the results will be.

goodluck with the SEO results

August

It has been a while since I have added anything here, it has been a busy month, with moving house and getting ready for a wedding, not long now.

I have updated (at last) my Linked In profile

Please leave any feedback here for me and my future customers to read and review.

Ocre CMS has had number of additons, mainly to fix external problems with search engines spidering bad urls. The 404 page not found system if finished and will be rolled in to the next release.

Lambert Howarth Plc - has gone live recently, thanks to Darren and Ian for the help over there with the issues.

The new chillfire site is on the drawing board (up to v5 now, cant make my mind up), I am looking to have a full customer support system, tickets, forum etc built in and an online crm, once its done I will post the screenshots of the new additions.

Thanks to everyone who has helpeed with Ocre, a new interface will be available in the next few months, I know the black and orange can be a bit depressing, if anyone has ideas for colour schems please drop me a mail.

Windows Server 2003 R2 - network connection error

This is a weird one that I have heard about from one other person,

I have just installed Windows Server 2003 R2 onto an HP DX2000 desktop, setup went perfect, very fast and simple. I liked the fact that nothing installed by default so install time was approx 40mins from CD Boot.

However 3 hours later I still could not connect to the LAN?
And as this release of the server family is supposedly the easiest to configure and get going I was perplexed. I installed every version of the network drivers available.
Still the same error, the network would connect and start dhcp then drop after a few seconds then a few minutes later the same over and over etc etc.

A few years ago I was told of aadsl modem that would not connect to a certain brand (top level one - red) of firewall with similiar symptoms, this was caused by something to do with the phasing of the network card firmware. I am not an expert so if anyone can shed some light on how this really works I am interested in hearing the real explanation.
As far as I understand the sitch/hub/router trys to talk with the network card at random intervals, and the network card does the same to the sitch/hub etc.

But what if they both are using the same algorithm to guess when to talk next?....

I fixed my problem the same I was shown to fix the firewall modem put a hub/switch between them and hey presto it works as the in between device will get both lots of talk at the same time but adjusts the pasing to suit itself... easy

Would have been a quicker fix if I had remembered it earlier.

safe SEO - asp redirect

Is it a permitanent redirect? or tenporary?

If permanent;
In the index.asp (or default.asp) put the code below in the <> section, the location url has to Fully qualified

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.new-url.com/");
%>

If temp change 301 to 302 in the script

once in place check the redirect is giving a 301 status, otherwise search engines may see it as a spamm site

http://www.webconfs.com/redirect-check.php

new microsoft surface is here!

I saw this in development via the web about three years ago, and now out of (seemingly) nowhere microsoft launch it as "Surface", based on the silverlight platform, it is the next step in the 'flas' type platform where web/interfaces are now multimedia rich applications, the surface platform just adds the touch sreen world to this and combined makes my job as a web developer tough (I am not complainin though).

No more will people be happy with flat, no media websites, they will want by default a feature rich site that works on all browsers with embedded video, sound, moving living information.

To be honest I am happy, the 'web' at last can break free from its static life (I am not a great fan of flash as its not SEO friendly, silverlight is written in XAML (text) so can be 'read' by search engines) and move into the realms of desktop software where everything is live now not waiting for a click of a mouse etc.

It may be a while before Surface and Silverlight make it into everyday websites/stores, when it does it will definately change the face of both highstreet and web experiences and bring them so much closer.

semi conducter geekness

It is amazing who you meet at weddings.
I was chatting to a guy called B , who said he was an engineer, he was german over 2m tall.
His job is to make things smaller, if you have ever thought to yourself, 'there is no way thy can make my mobile any smaller' and then a week later you see they have.... Well B is one of the men on the planet that understands all of those IT articles that explain how stuff is stored onto semiconducter chips (ie flash memory.....). Not ony does he understand it he has a pretty good idea how to fit more information into the same space.

The smallest amount of space we can have curenntly without going into quantum physics is one atom big, from memory we are in the 600nm (Nanometre - approx 3 atoms per nanometer), so if moores law holds true we will be naring capacity shortly (a few years...) Oh no he says that is only if we use 2 dimensional storage....

I cant recall alot of the conversation after this I was just like the thought of a 200Gb SD card, a few years ago these were limited to 32Mb of storage, now you can but 4Gb cards, albeit pricey.

It looks like the age of solidstate storage is going to hit shortly and the ideas are endless, can you imagine downloading an entire DVD and storing it on a piece of silicon the size of a grain of rice?
Its all poosible before we even get to quantum ideas.

You sometimes forget there are people out there who are passionate about their job, we take them for granted but thout people like B and the companies they work for we would still be draggin briefcase size mobile phones around while waiting for the post to arrive...

hats off to all those who do the work we all take for granted!

Summer is on its way - albeit not today

With summer on its way (its raining today, but I am assurred the English summer will be here soon) its that time of year again that I wonder if the old server sitting in the corner in the sun will survive just one more year.

To quote a blog post - "Note to future IT hopefuls:Computers make heat. Heat is BAD."

PCs, servers especially run hot, all the time, there are warning stickers on some of the servers I have seen that say 'Do not run this server with this side panel off'.
Every time you Server/PC shuts down due to heat (called a thermo-shutdown, its normally automatic once Processor gets to 60+ deg C) it looses 1 yr of its life and they are not designed to last forever (well some are - HP competiton )

So with a scorching summer on its way here are a few tips to keep it cool, (note they dont run under water);
- Air con is good, it may be hard on the electricity bill and maybe the environment but the cost of downtime and early server retirement may be worth it)
- Keep access to the servers limited, I have seen a server room door left open to cool the rest of the office as there was only one air con unit in the place and in the open plan space
- You could look at virtualising some of the server functions - consolidating the number of machines running your company will mean less heat created etc, leaving the released servers to be used as backups?
- Keep the severs in the same cooled or at least well vetilated room, this aids security as well.

I currently have 4 servers in the crypt of a church....cool no really it is, as the room is below ground level under the chapel it is naturally cooler down there. With a portable air con unit on standby incase it gets too hot, the room sits at around 35 de C, which is probably a little warm, but the aircon cant cool it any more than 30 deg C as the heat outlet pipe heats the room up as its cooling. However the system works well.

Make sure you have a backup system in place as the heat can kill: http://h40059.www4.hp.com/campaigns/golddust/index.htm

If you need any advice on server virtualisation, cooling or security feel free to drop me an email craig.hogan@chillfire.co.uk

goodluck with the summer heat.