I was setting up a new Android phone today and wanted to be able to make calls through our VoIP system (voipfone.co.uk) from it. I tried a couple of free apps but could not get the settings to work for either of them. Then I discovered this link and decided to try Zoiper, afterall I've used it before and this seemed like a clear walk-through.
http://www.voipfoneuserforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5927
After following those steps it worked first time. So if you're looking to set up a SIP client on your Android phone then this is definitely the way to go.
Thursday 8 November 2012
Unable to Eject USB HDD
We recently found that on a server the USB Hard-disk used for backups could not be ejected and therefore safely removed. This behaviour only started after AVG was installed.
Bizzarley when using Process Monitor to see what program was accessing the disk it was showing wbengine.exe and vds.exe which are both to do with Microsoft Backup. The backup was however reportedly working correctly and finished hours prior.
We went on a wild goose chase looking into why the backup process was continually running, only to find a clue in the Event Log:
The application \Device\HarddiskVolume2\Program Files (x86)\AVG\AVG9\avgchsva.exe with process id 496 stopped the removal or ejection for the device USB\VID_0930&PID_0B1A\20111130220195.
Searching for information about this resulted in the following forum post at AVG:
http://forums.avg.com/gb-en/avg-forums?sec=thread&act=show&id=33311
So it would appear that the solution is to turn the cache off, at least until AVG respond with a fix, which given that this post is from 2009, I assume the fix is not coming.
So disable the cache in this way:
- Open AVG user interface and Advanced settings.
- In left branch select "Cache Server".
- Uncheck "Caching enabled" and save settings by OK.
Bizzarley when using Process Monitor to see what program was accessing the disk it was showing wbengine.exe and vds.exe which are both to do with Microsoft Backup. The backup was however reportedly working correctly and finished hours prior.
We went on a wild goose chase looking into why the backup process was continually running, only to find a clue in the Event Log:
The application \Device\HarddiskVolume2\Program Files (x86)\AVG\AVG9\avgchsva.exe with process id 496 stopped the removal or ejection for the device USB\VID_0930&PID_0B1A\20111130220195.
Searching for information about this resulted in the following forum post at AVG:
http://forums.avg.com/gb-en/avg-forums?sec=thread&act=show&id=33311
So it would appear that the solution is to turn the cache off, at least until AVG respond with a fix, which given that this post is from 2009, I assume the fix is not coming.
So disable the cache in this way:
- Open AVG user interface and Advanced settings.
- In left branch select "Cache Server".
- Uncheck "Caching enabled" and save settings by OK.
Kaseya Script to Silently Uninstall Symantec Endpoint Protection
When managing a number of computers you will likely find that sometimes you have to do repetitive tasks on all computers. The beauty of a management product like Kaseya is that this can all be automated. The tricky part is in creating the automation. One task that we had to do recently was install the Kaseya Endpoint Protection on all managed machines in an organisation in place of their existing product which was Symantec Endpoint Protection. Unfortunately the script does require a little bit of initial setup but will undoubtedly save you time and save the end-user time.
This is the script:
Copy and paste it into Kaseya under Procedures > Import
The thing to bear in mind is that this script requires a registry key in order to perform the uninstall. The key varies between OS and product versions so you will need to run this a few times if you have a mixed operating system environment. Prior to running, use Kaseya LiveConnect (KLC) to look up the registry key as detailed in the Symantec article below and quoted here:
*At this step you might find it easier to press F3 and search for "symantec" but this won't work in KLC.
See articles below for further details.
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH105827&locale=en_US
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH102470
This is the script:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<ScriptExport xmlns="http://www.kaseya.com/vsa/2008/12/Scripting" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> -<Procedure folderId="41478115882164111128226629" id="1621104132" treePres="3" name="Uninstall Symantec Endpoint Protection"> -<Body description="This script will silently uninstall Symantec Endpoint Protection. ***Before use please confirm the uninstall key*** ***Uninstall key varies between OS and product versions*** See article below for further details. http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH105827&locale=en_US http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH102470"> -<Statement name="WriteScriptLogEntry" description="Write an Entry into the Procedure Log" continueOnFail="true"> <Parameter name="Comment" value="Starting Symantect Endpoint Protection uninstall" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> </Statement> -<Statement name="GetVariable" description="Edit this constant value with the Symantec Product Key found in the registry." continueOnFail="true" osType="Windows"> <Parameter name="VariableType" value="ConstantValue" xsi:type="EnumParameter"/> <Parameter name="SourceContent" value="{3C1AE512-3C37-44FA-BA42-ABB721EC5B1D}" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> <Parameter name="VariableName" value="productkey" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> </Statement> -<If description=""> -<Condition name="CheckRegistryValue"> <Parameter name="RegistryPath" value="HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\#productkey#" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> <Parameter name="Condition" value="Exists" xsi:type="EnumParameter"/> <Parameter name="Value" value="" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> </Condition> -<Then> -<Statement name="ExecuteShellCommand" description="The value between {} is found in the registry HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall Search for the string with DisplayName = Symantec Endpoint Protection" continueOnFail="false" osType="Windows"> <Parameter name="Command" value="msiexec /x #productkey# /qn /norestart" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> <Parameter name="ExecuteAccount" value="System" xsi:type="EnumParameter"/> <Parameter name="Is64Bit" value="False" xsi:type="BooleanParameter"/> </Statement> -<Statement name="WriteScriptLogEntry" description="Write an Entry into the Procedure Log" continueOnFail="false"> <Parameter name="Comment" value="Symantec Endpoint Protection uninstall command completed successfully" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> </Statement> -<Statement name="Reboot with Warning message" description="Reboots a machine with a warning message to the user before the reboot." continueOnFail="true" osType="Windows"> <Parameter name="Parameter1" value="Symantec Anti-Virus has just been uninstalled. Your computer will restart in 15 minutes. Please save all work now." xsi:type="StringParameter"/> <Parameter name="Parameter2" value="15" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> </Statement> </Then> </If> -<Statement name="WriteScriptLogEntry" description="Write an Entry into the Procedure Log" continueOnFail="false" osType="Windows"> <Parameter name="Comment" value="Symantec Product key not found - uninstall procedure cancelled" xsi:type="StringParameter"/> </Statement> </Body> </Procedure> </ScriptExport>
Copy and paste it into Kaseya under Procedures > Import
The thing to bear in mind is that this script requires a registry key in order to perform the uninstall. The key varies between OS and product versions so you will need to run this a few times if you have a mixed operating system environment. Prior to running, use Kaseya LiveConnect (KLC) to look up the registry key as detailed in the Symantec article below and quoted here:
- In the Windows Registry Editor, expand the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
This key contains many<Product Code> keys. - In the left pane, click each <Product Code>
key.* - In the right pane, look at the DisplayName value.
- Find the
<Product Code> key whose DisplayName value is Symantec Endpoint Protection Copy this <Product Code> and paste it into Step 2 of the procedure that begins "Create variable productkey" - on the right-hand side shown in the image below as {3C1AE....etc.}
See articles below for further details.
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH105827&locale=en_US
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH102470
Friday 19 October 2012
Creating more space on C drive (installing a small SSD)
Quite often people run out of space on their hard-disk, or more specifically on their system disk or c-drive. This can make the computer run very slowly or crash. Or it could be that like me you want to install the latest SSD technology but couldn't afford a bigger drive.
Actually my drive is a couple of years old now and I've installed it into a new computer and transferred that computers operating system over to the SSD, which is only 30Gb. So how did I get over 200Gb down to 20Gb? That's a 90% reduction.
It might be a good idea to perform a full backup before attempting these steps. We use Acronis but Windows 7 backup will be better than nothing and make a recovery disk also, and make sure you store the image file somewhere safe, i.e. not a volume which you're going to delete later.
Actually my drive is a couple of years old now and I've installed it into a new computer and transferred that computers operating system over to the SSD, which is only 30Gb. So how did I get over 200Gb down to 20Gb? That's a 90% reduction.
It might be a good idea to perform a full backup before attempting these steps. We use Acronis but Windows 7 backup will be better than nothing and make a recovery disk also, and make sure you store the image file somewhere safe, i.e. not a volume which you're going to delete later.
- Empty the recycle bin
- Delete all temporary files
- Uninstall unnecessary programs
- You need additional storage on which to store the files we're about to move so either an internal HDD, or else a USB HDD or NAS (this procedure will assume an internal HDD as use of external drive may introduce additional problems)
- My additional storage was the existing HDD I was moving from, so I created a new partition as the temporary storage. Using Windows Disk Management, and Shrink Volume option. Once a temporary volume has been created, ideally give it the letter D (use of another letter will not be documented)
- Figure out what is actually using the space - using www.windirstat.info
- Using Windirstat I could see that most space was taken up by a hidden folder ~LD. This is actually the local cache for a cloud storage service known as Livedrive. So I then deleted some items from Livedrive which didn't really need to be there, such as OS isos, all my music collection etc. Once that is done you can move the Livedrive cache as follows:
- Select all files in Livedrive folder in explorer (Ctrl-A).
- Right-click and select Livedrive > "Do not keep a copy on my computer"
- Right-click the Livedrive icon in the bottom right-hand corner and select "Settings". Then choose the "Online Files" tab
- Now select a new cache location, such as D:
- Wait until the synchronization has completed.
- Select all the file again and choose to store a local copy
- For Dropbox the moving procedure is much more simple, but again, move the files to D: (Dropbox > Preferences > Advanced > Move dropbox location)
- Another source of large files is the pagefile. I suggest moving it from C: to D:.
- From the start menu launch "Advanced System Settings". Under Performance, choose "Settings", select the Advanced Tab, and then select the Change button.
- Unselect "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives", select D:, and set a custom size. Standard figures are 1.5x RAM. I chose to use an initial size of 8Gb and maximum size of 15Gb.
- Select C: and set to "No paging file".
- Press OK to all those windows and then reboot the computer (NB: Livedrive may still by synching and so best to not reboot until it is finished).
- After the reboot check that the page files are actually what you set them to be.
- The next biggest consumer was the Users directory but because moving it was so involved I wanted it to be the last step I did. At this point do the sums and make sure that you can fit everything onto the C-drive, you should only need Windows, Program Files, Program Files (x86) and ProgramData. There may be ways to move these too but I didn't need to.
- I did need to move the Windows Installer directory from within Windows to D:. The steps are similar to moving the Users folder but without the recovery console. From the Command prompt within windows enter the following commands:
- robocopy /copyall /mir /xj /MT C:\Windows\Installer D:\Installer
- rmdir /S /Q C:\Windows\Installer
- mklink /J C:\Windows\Installer D:\Installer
- Finally I needed to move the Users directory so I managed to get that moved using the instructions here: http://lifehacker.com/5467758/move-the-users-directory-in-windows-7
- NB: If there are files you don't need to keep, before is a good time to delete them (think ISO images, DVD images etc, also unwanted folders etc.)
- NB: When in recovery mode ensure that your additional storage volume has the letter D. You can do this using the command tool diskpart and the command assign letter=D. You may need to move some volumes around to made that volume D.
- NB: With robocopy I use the /MT switch all the time as it speeds up the transfers by 8 times by default.
- NB: When I rebooted I couldn't log in anymore after following these steps!! That's why I include step 13.
- When I rebooted having moved the Users directory I could log in "The User Profile Service failed the logon". If you received this error also then the fix below will hopefully work for you:
- Reboot into safemode, you should find that you can log on here but you won't have the usual desktop. Now you need to enable the Administrator account, type the following into an administrative command window:
- net user administrator /active:yes
- net user administrator Password1 (where "Password1" is a temporary password)
- Reboot the computer normally and log in as Administrator
- Next follow Method 1 here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215
- Reboot and log in as normal.
- So hopefully everything is up and running and you've got C-drive down to about 20Gb of space. Now shrink the volume again to 30Gb, or the size of your SSD and copy the volume over to the SSD. I used Acronis and took a full disk backup and then recovered the MBR and C drive to the SSD.
- Change the BIOS boot options so that the primary boot disk is the SSD and now you should be set to go.
If you need help with this or any other PC related problems then please speak to The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116
Wednesday 17 October 2012
Installing a New SSD
So you've got a new computer and along with it you bought an SSD, and why not, because the transfer rates are much faster, the power consumption is much lower and there is no noise associated with it. However, SSDs are more expensive and so while your new computer came with a 1Tb HDD, your SSD is only 120Gb, for example. How do you get everything from that HDD to the new SSD? The way we do it here is to use Acronis. We have the Advanced Workstation 11 version, although True Image Home 2013 will work more or less the same.
The method is simple:
1. Boot windows and resize the partitions to the size you require
2. Reboot into Acronis Recovery CD and perform a Disk Backup.
3. Install SSD into the computer
4. Boot into Acronis Recovery CD and perform a Volume Restore (select all Volumes)
5. Reboot the computer into Windows
I will assume that most of these steps you can figure out for yourselves but I will comment on a few of the steps.
Step 1. Use Windows Disk Management, you will likely find 3 volumes on Disk 0. SYSTEM, OS and RECOVERY. OS is the volume with Windows installed and takes up all but 10Gb of the drive. Right-click on this partition and select "Shrink Volume". You probably want this volume to take up all the space you can on the SSD. Which in this case is 120Gb - 100Mb (system) - 10Gb (recovery) = 109Gb, it is better to underestimate at this stage. If your SSD is smaller than 60Gb then see my next article on shrinking the boot partition.
Step 2. On the Sony Vaio that we recently upgraded, Acronis would not boot. The answer was to change the Boot option to legacy.
Step 4. You have to perform a volume restore because your disk is smaller, however, we've seen tutorials saying you need to do one volume at a time and create the partitions in advance. No you don't! At least not with the later versions of Acronis. Simply select all the partitions and restore them to the SSD.
NOTE: My latest post specifically about creating space on the system drive may offer further steps to help with installing an SSD http://pcsupportgroup.blogspot.com/2012/10/creating-more-space-on-c-drive.html
NOTE: UEFI boot records are becoming more common. The later versions of Acronis are EFI aware but prefer to create a new EFI partition rather than work with the existing one. In our tests this has resulted in an operational OS but the boot-time recovery options did not work. We felt this was acceptable as a separate image backup was being used anyway so it was unlikely that this recovery option would be required. We also kept the original HDD. There may be ways to correct this but we did no further investigation.
Please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116 if you require further help with this.
The method is simple:
1. Boot windows and resize the partitions to the size you require
2. Reboot into Acronis Recovery CD and perform a Disk Backup.
3. Install SSD into the computer
4. Boot into Acronis Recovery CD and perform a Volume Restore (select all Volumes)
5. Reboot the computer into Windows
I will assume that most of these steps you can figure out for yourselves but I will comment on a few of the steps.
Step 1. Use Windows Disk Management, you will likely find 3 volumes on Disk 0. SYSTEM, OS and RECOVERY. OS is the volume with Windows installed and takes up all but 10Gb of the drive. Right-click on this partition and select "Shrink Volume". You probably want this volume to take up all the space you can on the SSD. Which in this case is 120Gb - 100Mb (system) - 10Gb (recovery) = 109Gb, it is better to underestimate at this stage. If your SSD is smaller than 60Gb then see my next article on shrinking the boot partition.
Step 2. On the Sony Vaio that we recently upgraded, Acronis would not boot. The answer was to change the Boot option to legacy.
Step 4. You have to perform a volume restore because your disk is smaller, however, we've seen tutorials saying you need to do one volume at a time and create the partitions in advance. No you don't! At least not with the later versions of Acronis. Simply select all the partitions and restore them to the SSD.
NOTE: My latest post specifically about creating space on the system drive may offer further steps to help with installing an SSD http://pcsupportgroup.blogspot.com/2012/10/creating-more-space-on-c-drive.html
NOTE: UEFI boot records are becoming more common. The later versions of Acronis are EFI aware but prefer to create a new EFI partition rather than work with the existing one. In our tests this has resulted in an operational OS but the boot-time recovery options did not work. We felt this was acceptable as a separate image backup was being used anyway so it was unlikely that this recovery option would be required. We also kept the original HDD. There may be ways to correct this but we did no further investigation.
Please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116 if you require further help with this.
Tuesday 18 September 2012
Troubleshooting a Slow Server - SBS 2008
Speed issues are always difficult to troubleshoot because modern computers do so much, this is especially true of a server and doubly so of an SBS server. So when a customer recently said that their software was running slowly where did I start?
Task Manager
Open up task manager and have a look at those readings under the performance tab. Is memory usage high, is CPU usage high, is disk utilization high or is network utilization high? These would give a good indication of where to start. CPU usage was very low <10% but all other figures were 20% or higher.
Performance Monitor
Type perfmon /report in the "run" box and it will run a quick 1 minute diagnosis of the computer. It will give green, amber and red lights depending on what it considers to be of concern. This may not lead you to the cause of the problem in hand but it seemed like as good a place as any to get some more info. The problem with this approach is that it may indicate something as ok when it is performing much worse than usual so it is important to have a baseline performance benchmark. I did not, but I had a feeling an SBS server with 5 users should not have so much disk IO caused by 1 or 2 standard server processes.
Memory Usage
8Gb seemed like a perfectly reasonable amount of memory for an SBS 2008 server, but given the greater than 90% usage, I thought I'd try to bring it down a bit. Open up Task Manager and under processes select View and choose columns, then select PID. Sort the processes by Memory usage and I found sqlserver right at the top. Then open a command prompt (type cmd in the run box) and type at the prompt tasklist /svc |find "sql"
When the command returns it will display several processes each with their PID, now compare the PID to the one at the top of the list in Task Manager and see if you can find the exact database name from the other list.
SBS Monitoring seems to be one of the chief culprits of memory usage so I restricted this to under 1Gb
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/thread/d195baac-da8b-4387-9079-c55d5e1879b4
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/07/14/sbs-2008-console-may-take-too-long-to-display-alerts-and-security-statuses-display-not-available-or-crash.aspx
I have kind of run out of time to get this blog finished properly and I'd rather publish it than leave it here languishing, so perhaps I'll update it when I get chance but for now, I hope this helps. If you'd like to discuss it with me then please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116.
Task Manager
Open up task manager and have a look at those readings under the performance tab. Is memory usage high, is CPU usage high, is disk utilization high or is network utilization high? These would give a good indication of where to start. CPU usage was very low <10% but all other figures were 20% or higher.
Performance Monitor
Type perfmon /report in the "run" box and it will run a quick 1 minute diagnosis of the computer. It will give green, amber and red lights depending on what it considers to be of concern. This may not lead you to the cause of the problem in hand but it seemed like as good a place as any to get some more info. The problem with this approach is that it may indicate something as ok when it is performing much worse than usual so it is important to have a baseline performance benchmark. I did not, but I had a feeling an SBS server with 5 users should not have so much disk IO caused by 1 or 2 standard server processes.
Memory Usage
8Gb seemed like a perfectly reasonable amount of memory for an SBS 2008 server, but given the greater than 90% usage, I thought I'd try to bring it down a bit. Open up Task Manager and under processes select View and choose columns, then select PID. Sort the processes by Memory usage and I found sqlserver right at the top. Then open a command prompt (type cmd in the run box) and type at the prompt tasklist /svc |find "sql"
When the command returns it will display several processes each with their PID, now compare the PID to the one at the top of the list in Task Manager and see if you can find the exact database name from the other list.
SBS Monitoring seems to be one of the chief culprits of memory usage so I restricted this to under 1Gb
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/thread/d195baac-da8b-4387-9079-c55d5e1879b4
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/07/14/sbs-2008-console-may-take-too-long-to-display-alerts-and-security-statuses-display-not-available-or-crash.aspx
I have kind of run out of time to get this blog finished properly and I'd rather publish it than leave it here languishing, so perhaps I'll update it when I get chance but for now, I hope this helps. If you'd like to discuss it with me then please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116.
Forward Emails for a User who has Left
Suppose a user has left a small business (or even a large one) and their manager would like to ensure that no emails are accidentally sent to this user and thereby missed. To do this in SBS 2011 (Exchange Server 2010) do the following:
Open: Exchange Management Console from the Start Menu.
Expand: Recipient Configuration
Select: Mailbox
Double-click: The user who's left
Select: The "Mail Flow Settings" tab
Double-click: Delivery Options
Check: "Forward to:" and then enter the email address of the intended recipient.
To have emails forward to an non-company email address, this will need to be entered as a contact in:
Recipient Configuration > Mail Contact.
Open: Exchange Management Console from the Start Menu.
Expand: Recipient Configuration
Select: Mailbox
Double-click: The user who's left
Select: The "Mail Flow Settings" tab
Double-click: Delivery Options
Check: "Forward to:" and then enter the email address of the intended recipient.
To have emails forward to an non-company email address, this will need to be entered as a contact in:
Recipient Configuration > Mail Contact.
Tuesday 4 September 2012
SBS 2011 ran out of disk space
So the other day a customer phoned to say that they hadn't received any emails all morning. Upon closer inspection the Exchange Information Store service had been creating log files like there's no tomorrow.
A tool I use all the time is Windirstat - it should come as standard with Windows - this led me straight to the culprit.
To disable logging, go into the IIS Manager -> Right-click on Websites and select Properties-> Uncheck “Enable Logging”
For help with this or any other issue, please contact The PC Support Group on 0845 2233116, or visit our website at http://www.pcsupportgroup.com
A tool I use all the time is Windirstat - it should come as standard with Windows - this led me straight to the culprit.
To disable logging, go into the IIS Manager -> Right-click on Websites and select Properties-> Uncheck “Enable Logging”
For help with this or any other issue, please contact The PC Support Group on 0845 2233116, or visit our website at http://www.pcsupportgroup.com
Android Mail deletes email from Exchange server
So having recently migrated our mail over to Office-365, I was looking forward to using Exchange Active-Sync on my Android phone. The setup was fairly painless albeit a bit involved. There is a video guide here which I used to set mine up: http://www.gsu.edu/ist/email/configure-android.html
However, having set up active-sync I found that my phone was running out of storage space, even though I'd set it up to download only the last day's messages. So I deleted some messages to free up some space. I was surprised to find that they'd been deleted from my desktop computer also and were in Deleted items. This is perhaps useful behaviour for some people, as you have all email accounts with the same emails in them showing which one's you've read etc. However, phone's do have the issue of storage space which other devices generally do not. So what's the solution:
- Some people said K-9 mail app - but this doesn't support Office-365 - I tried.
- Some people said Touchdown app - but this costs £12.99 - apparently it does work - I've not tried it though.
For the time being I'm going to procrastinate over this one, delete an App or two and either hold off until my phone gets upgraded in about two months, or just pay the £12.99. I have to say, as good as the HTC Wildfire is, I am constantly getting low storage space warnings on it which drive me crazy!
However, having set up active-sync I found that my phone was running out of storage space, even though I'd set it up to download only the last day's messages. So I deleted some messages to free up some space. I was surprised to find that they'd been deleted from my desktop computer also and were in Deleted items. This is perhaps useful behaviour for some people, as you have all email accounts with the same emails in them showing which one's you've read etc. However, phone's do have the issue of storage space which other devices generally do not. So what's the solution:
- Some people said K-9 mail app - but this doesn't support Office-365 - I tried.
- Some people said Touchdown app - but this costs £12.99 - apparently it does work - I've not tried it though.
For the time being I'm going to procrastinate over this one, delete an App or two and either hold off until my phone gets upgraded in about two months, or just pay the £12.99. I have to say, as good as the HTC Wildfire is, I am constantly getting low storage space warnings on it which drive me crazy!
Tuesday 14 August 2012
Chronosync Permission Problems
Recently I helped a customer to overcome their chronosync permission problems. Going into the usual Disk Utility and repairing permissions did not solve the problem - apparently because in OSX Lion this utility does not repair permissions for anything in your home folder. So the trick to solving permissions problems with Chronosync when using Lion is done like so:
In Lion, there is an additional Repair Permissions application utility hidden away. This tool is located inside boot Repair Utilities. Here’s how to access it.
This should be done for all user accounts and on all Macs that are involved in the synchronisation. If there is still an issue following the permission repair then have a look at the file(s) concerned. In my case there was still a corrupt file on one of the computers that I could delete. I knew it was corrupt as one computer said its size was 40kb and the other computer said 0kb, so I deleted the 0kb one.
Instructions courtesy of http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/
If you would like help with this or any other fix for your Mac, then please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116.
In Lion, there is an additional Repair Permissions application utility hidden away. This tool is located inside boot Repair Utilities. Here’s how to access it.
- Restart Lion and hold down the Command and R keys.
- You will boot into the Repair Utilities screen. On top, in the Menu Bar click the Utilities item then select Terminal.
- In the Terminal window, type resetpassword and hit Return.
- The Password reset utility launches, but you’re not going to reset the password. Instead, click on the icon for your Mac’s hard drive at the top. From the drop-down below it, select the user account where you are having issues.
- At the bottom of the window, you’ll see an area labeled ‘Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs’. Click the Reset button there.
This should be done for all user accounts and on all Macs that are involved in the synchronisation. If there is still an issue following the permission repair then have a look at the file(s) concerned. In my case there was still a corrupt file on one of the computers that I could delete. I knew it was corrupt as one computer said its size was 40kb and the other computer said 0kb, so I deleted the 0kb one.
Instructions courtesy of http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/
If you would like help with this or any other fix for your Mac, then please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116.
Friday 10 August 2012
Paste a table into Blogspot / Blogger
Attempting a new approach of inserting a table into Blogger, I decided to try using a Macro in Excel to generate the HTML code. As usual, someone else had beaten me to it and provided some ready to use code: http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/xl2html.htm
To quickly get up to speed and have you table pasted into Blogger in under 5 minutes and in just over 10 steps by following these steps below:
1. Copy all the text from this page: http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/code/xl2htmlx.txt
2. In Excel press Alt + F11 to bring up the macro editor
3. Select Insert > Module
4. Paste the text from 1. into the right hand window (if it is not displayed already, double-click "Module 1" in the left-hand pane.
5. I had to delete the first 8 lines to get the code to compile so I recommend you do the same.
6. Save the file - when the dialog box warns you about the file-type (in 2010) then select no and then go on to save the file.
7. Return to your Excel table - create the table if you haven't already
8. Highlight the table that you want to paste into Blogger
9. Press Alt + F8 to show the available macros, select XL2HTML and then press Run.
10. Save the txt file when prompted, but more importantly a webpage will pop up displaying the table, now highlight the table here and copy it.
11. Go to Blogger and in "Compose" view, paste the table.
In the future you can use the excel workbook again and again for creating HTML tables, you can jump right in at step 7.
If you would like help with any of the steps above, then do contact us at The PC Support Group on 0845 2233116
To quickly get up to speed and have you table pasted into Blogger in under 5 minutes and in just over 10 steps by following these steps below:
1. Copy all the text from this page: http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/code/xl2htmlx.txt
2. In Excel press Alt + F11 to bring up the macro editor
3. Select Insert > Module
4. Paste the text from 1. into the right hand window (if it is not displayed already, double-click "Module 1" in the left-hand pane.
5. I had to delete the first 8 lines to get the code to compile so I recommend you do the same.
6. Save the file - when the dialog box warns you about the file-type (in 2010) then select no and then go on to save the file.
7. Return to your Excel table - create the table if you haven't already
8. Highlight the table that you want to paste into Blogger
9. Press Alt + F8 to show the available macros, select XL2HTML and then press Run.
10. Save the txt file when prompted, but more importantly a webpage will pop up displaying the table, now highlight the table here and copy it.
11. Go to Blogger and in "Compose" view, paste the table.
In the future you can use the excel workbook again and again for creating HTML tables, you can jump right in at step 7.
If you would like help with any of the steps above, then do contact us at The PC Support Group on 0845 2233116
Using Word 2010 and Blogspot
For my last post I needed to insert a table into Blogspot. This must be common enough, yet the only way I could find to do it was by typing out the html manually. If I'd had an HTML editor to hand then no doubt I could have used that, and I'm sure there are other tricks too. What I discovered was the Blogpost option in Word 2010, so I started investigating. I was sadly disappointed.
This post provided some hope: http://astralsnotes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/publishing-word-doc-to-bloggercom-with.html
This one also pointed to a possible solution: http://caflib.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/publishing-to-blogger-from-word-2007.html
This Technet post here seems to back up my findings that Google and Microsoft are not talking to each other as far as blog posts are concerned.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/word/thread/426b0f98-68f3-4a8a-9d88-a05fab1b6616
So to solve my original problem of inserting a table in Blogspot, I turned to Excel to solve the problem. See my next post for more info.
This post provided some hope: http://astralsnotes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/publishing-word-doc-to-bloggercom-with.html
This one also pointed to a possible solution: http://caflib.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/publishing-to-blogger-from-word-2007.html
This Technet post here seems to back up my findings that Google and Microsoft are not talking to each other as far as blog posts are concerned.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/word/thread/426b0f98-68f3-4a8a-9d88-a05fab1b6616
So to solve my original problem of inserting a table in Blogspot, I turned to Excel to solve the problem. See my next post for more info.
Real-world Storage Media Transfer Rates
Something that I did today was compare real-world transfer rates between different types of storage media using different interfaces. Now I recognize that there are many variables which will make a difference to these results, but this is no fancy setup and I believe these results are achievable by everyone using similar equipment.
HP Pro 3130 small form factor with 8Gb RAM running Windows 7 Pro x64
Startech USB 3.0 PCIe Card (PEXUSB3S2)
LG N1A1 NAS
Kingston Datatraveller Elite 3.0 16Gb
Zyxel Gigabit switch (GS-105B)
Zyxel Fast-ethernet switch (ES-108A)
Tests were performed using Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.1 x64
Conclusion
HP Pro 3130 small form factor with 8Gb RAM running Windows 7 Pro x64
Startech USB 3.0 PCIe Card (PEXUSB3S2)
LG N1A1 NAS
Kingston Datatraveller Elite 3.0 16Gb
Zyxel Gigabit switch (GS-105B)
Zyxel Fast-ethernet switch (ES-108A)
Tests were performed using Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.1 x64
Results
| Read (Mb/s) | Write (Mb/s) | |
| Sata 300 HDD | 83.11 | 89.53 |
| Sata 300 SSD | 136.7 | 35.26 |
| USB 3.0 | 80.62 | 35.7 |
| USB 2.0 | 21 | 5 |
| Fast-ethernet | 8 | 11 |
| Gigabit ethernet | 42.5 | 38.75 |
Conclusion
From these results we can conclude that USB 3 represents a very real 4 times increase in speed. Using gigabit ethernet to access network devices increases speed by 5 times. But, a cheap SSD may not improve speed in the way that you were hoping.
I now have a Wireless N router so I may shortly compare Wireless N to Wireless G for datatransfer so stay tuned.
If you are looking for speed improvements with you network and don't know where to start then as always contact The PC Support Group on 0845 2233116
Tuesday 7 August 2012
Create a mail archive in Mac Mail for OSX Lion
Today I was frustrated when I was helping a customer to set up a mail archive in the mail app for OSX Lion. This customer often exceeds their mail quota and then needs to find emails to delete. As any Windows or Unix user knows, when you exceed your mail quota you can instead set up an archive.
Believe it or not there is an archive feature built in to Mail on Lion, however if doesn't actually archive, as I understand the term. What it does is create a new folder called "Archive" and places the emails there. Useful... if you can't handle drag and drop! This obviously doesn't solve the mail quota problem I mentioned early, for that you need to move messages off the mail server and onto the local hard-drive (make sure you have a back up if you're going to do this).
If you require assistance with any of the steps below then please feel free to contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116
So to create a true archive in Mac Mail, you need to follow the guidance given here:
http://www.usc.edu/its/email/applemail/local.html
And should that page disappear at some point here it is again:
1. While in Apple Mail, select the Mailbox menu. Click New Mailbox. The following window will appear:
2. Under Location, select On My Mac.
3. Under Name, type in a name with which to identify the local folder, for example, local inbox or archive. Click OK.
4. You will see the local folders you created in the Mailboxes panel on the left-hand side of the window. If you do not see the Mailboxes panel, go to the View menu and select Show Mailboxes.
5. To move messages to the new folder simply drag and drop them, they will then move from the mail server to the local computer and thereby solve the quota problem.
Believe it or not there is an archive feature built in to Mail on Lion, however if doesn't actually archive, as I understand the term. What it does is create a new folder called "Archive" and places the emails there. Useful... if you can't handle drag and drop! This obviously doesn't solve the mail quota problem I mentioned early, for that you need to move messages off the mail server and onto the local hard-drive (make sure you have a back up if you're going to do this).
If you require assistance with any of the steps below then please feel free to contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116
So to create a true archive in Mac Mail, you need to follow the guidance given here:
http://www.usc.edu/its/email/applemail/local.html
And should that page disappear at some point here it is again:
1. While in Apple Mail, select the Mailbox menu. Click New Mailbox. The following window will appear:
3. Under Name, type in a name with which to identify the local folder, for example, local inbox or archive. Click OK.
4. You will see the local folders you created in the Mailboxes panel on the left-hand side of the window. If you do not see the Mailboxes panel, go to the View menu and select Show Mailboxes.
Friday 13 January 2012
Top 10 Regular Computer Maintenance tips
A quick post with my top ten twitter sized tips to do on a regular basis to keep your computer running smoothly. These are in no particular order and taken straight from my twitter posts in January 2012. Please add additional tips in the comments. And don't forget to follow us on Twitter @Chris_PCSG @PCSupportGroup
#1 Empty the recycle bin
#2 Run a full Anti-virus scan
#3 Defrag the hard-disk
#4 Check the event logs
#5 Check the backup is working
#6 Delete temporary files
#7 Clear browsing history
#8 Install software updates & patches
#9 Run an independent spyware scan
#10 Audit hardware & software
#1 Empty the recycle bin
#2 Run a full Anti-virus scan
#3 Defrag the hard-disk
#4 Check the event logs
#5 Check the backup is working
#6 Delete temporary files
#7 Clear browsing history
#8 Install software updates & patches
#9 Run an independent spyware scan
#10 Audit hardware & software
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