Chrome OS - Saving items to the Download directory

For those of you lucky enough to be part of the cr-48 pilot program, you may have run into an issue with figuring out how to save items from a cloud-app to your Downloads directory. I ran into this problem when trying to email a friend via gmail something I'd created in Aviary. If you're not familiar with the Chrome OS filesystem or filesystems in general, it's easy to get confused.

The Problem: Attempting to attach a file to an email in Gmail/Apps Email via Chrome OS, Gmail only allows the user the option to attach files from the "Downloads" directory. Unless you've save a file in this directory, you cannot send it as an attachment in Gmail on your Chrome OS enabled device.

The Reason: Application developers who have created browser/cloud based applications have done so assuming users would be using their apps on traditional operating systems where the user has full access to the filesystem. For this reason, when prompting the user to save something, it brings up a file browser that dumps users into some "default" file path. In the case of Aviary, it dumps the user into /. In an effort to make things "easier" for users, Google has decided that if users are going to send files to people, they will either exist in the cloud (and have the option of being sent to users from the cloud based app) or the user will have downloaded the files to the only place native ChromeOS apps have access to, the "downloads" directory. Now to be fair, some of this is speculation on my part, so feel free to weigh-in with your own opinions (even though they're wrong!). And to be fair to Aviary, they allow everything you produce in their apps to be shared via public urls.

The Solution: When prompted with a save file dialog or a browse dialog, navigate to - /home/chronos/user/Downloads/ - and save your files there. From this spot, users will be able to access files via the "Downloads" shortcut (control+o) or from within Gmail when attempting to attach files.

Clear Print Queue in Windows 7/Vista

If you have a long list of hung print jobs in Windows 7 or Vista, you can clear the print queue easily by using these steps.

1. Click Start.

2. Type Command.

3. Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

4. Type net stop spooler then press Enter.

5. Type del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\* /Q then press Enter.

6. Type net start spooler then press Enter.

The print queue on your Windows 7/Vista system should now be cleared. Type exit and press Enter to exit the command window.

From: http://www.technipages.com/windows-7vista-clear-print-queue.html

Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin stalls when loading PDF

Issue:

When using Adobe Reader web browser plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome or other browser to load a PDF document hosted under IIS (Internet Information Services) 7.5 web server, the PDF document does not load properly or the browser appears to be hanging while loading the document. The browser may stall or display the error message, "a file i/o error has occurred." This behavior is not consistent; other PDF documents serve with no problems.

Note: This issue occurs because IIS 7.5 web server coalesces merged byte-range requests into a single byte-range request. The response generated for such requests is not handled correctly by the Adobe Reader web browser plug-in.

The same issue exists in the Firefox web browser. Firefox is designed to detangle the response and send it to the Adobe Firefox plug-in (which is different from the one in Internet Explorer), but it drops the response as well, resulting in the same behaviors.

The Adobe Reader Safari plug-in shares the same issue.

Solution:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/807/cpsid_80780.html

Unable to telnet to remote mail servers on port 25 SMTP

Issue: unable to telnet to port 25 (SMTP) of remote mail servers from windows based machines.

Solution: Your antivirus program may be blocking SMTP connections.

In my case, Avast 5.x blocks all outbound SMTP, IMAP, POP and NNTP connections by default. It's supposed to prompt you when it detects an unsecured connection, but I suppose that's only from actual mail clients, not from the CLI.

Avast specific solution:
1) Open Avast Control Panel
2) Click on Mail Shield
3) Click Expert Settings
4) Click on SSL accounts
5) Add the host name/ip, protocol, port and type of security your connection will use
6) OK your way out of there

If all else fails, turn off Avast/AV completely and test your connection.

This worked for me on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

GoDaddy SSL .crt File Won't Uncompress/unzip in Windows 2003

I ran into a problem today with Windows 2003 not wanting to uncompress or unzip all the required ssl certificate files from the GoDaddy certificate zip file you download from their certificate manager. The problem appears to be that post SP1 in 2003, the operating system blocks certain files from being uncompressed when they are downloaded from the internet. In this case, it would unzip the .p7b file, but not the .crt file in the archive. My solution:

1. Right mouse click the zip file
2. Choose "Properties"
3. In the general tab, click the button "Unblock"

Now you should be able to uncompress all the files in the zip archive.

Expanding Windows System NTFS Partitions in ESX

1. Shut down VM
2. Increase disk size in VIC or via command line with

#vmkfstools -X

#vmkfstools -X 30G /vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_name/vm_name.vmdk

3. Boot off Windows 2008 CD
4. At welcome screen choose "Next"
5. Choose "Repair Your Computer"
6. Choose "next"
7. Choose "Command Prompt"
8. At dos prompt, type: diskpart
9. Type: list volume
10. Type: select volume 1
11. Type: extend
12. Type: list volume
13. Type: exit
14. Type: exit
15. Choose "restart"

Reference: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1007266
KB Article: 1007266

WordPress RSS Feed Widget: Links in New Window

I saw a lot of people ask this question in various forums with little to no assistance from the community at large. The majority of the responses told people to install a different widget called "Better RSS Widget" - That's all fine and nice, but no one had an actual solution to the question of "How do I edit the default rss widget in wordpress?" Here's my solution (as of WP 2.9.2):

1. Open default-widgets.php
2. Look around line 842 for a line that contains the list item <li> for the link in the widget. I found mine by searching for the string: class="rsswidget"
3. Add to this link: target='_blank'

If the above instructions don't make sense to you, then you should probably save yourself the headache and just install the "Better RSS Widget". I have no idea if newer versions of WP are going to break this fix, so you're on your own. I suppose I'll be installing the "Better RSS Widget" as well if a WP update breaks this functionality.

Strip Owner Password from Encrypted PDF

This handy dandy command script will allow you to strip the owner password out of a pdf file:

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=unencrypted.pdf -c .setpdfwrite -f encrypted.pdf

Works in linux, mac and cygwin.

Alternately, you can crack the owner or user password from a pdf file using the open source utility PDFCrack:

http://pdfcrack.sourceforge.net/

Additionally, you can remove copy/print/save security from a PDF via Ensode's handy online tool over at: http://www.ensode.net/pdf-crack.jsf

Avast 5 - Thunderbird: Server is not an IMAP4 server

Fresh install of Thunderbird and Avast 5. Thunderbird is unable to connect to your mail server via IMAP. You receive the error message:

<servername> is not an IMAP4 server.

With the release of Avast 5, there are new heuristic methods used for allowing imap and pop connections to mail servers. Avast is supposed to automatically prompt you for an action to take, but this sometimes gets messed up.

Solution:
1) Launch Avast user interface
2) Click Real Time Shields
3) Click Mail Shield
4) Click Expert Settings
5) Click SSL Accounts
6) Manually add your IMAP mail server account information - if it is already listed, delete it and manually add it. Be sure you know what you're doing here. If you're unsure, contact your email provider for help
7) Check your mail. If you're still seeing the IMAP4 error, try closing and restarting Thunderbird.

This solution works for both Thunderbird 2.x and 3.x

Element CFID is undefined in SESSION

This is an issue I came across with a site hosted on a shared hosting server. The problem is a misconfiguration in the CF Admin. The solution:

1) Login to the CF Admin
2) Navigate to the Server Settings page -> Memory Variables
3) Un-check the option Use J2EE session variables
4) Check the options Enable Application Variables and Enable Session Variables
5) Submit the changes

Windows 2003/XP Time Service

I've had problems in the past with the time service in windows not working correctly or the Internet Time tab grayed out on the Date and Time Properties menu. Here is the best solution I have cobbled together to make it work again. From a commend prompt:

net stop w32time
w32tm /unregister [you might get an error]
w32tm /unregister [do it again]
> reboot the machine
> open another command prompt
w32tm /register
net start w32time

If your Internet Time tab was grayed out before, it should be back to normal now. For either case, you should be able to click the Update Now button and get the correct time.