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Category: Life: Work and Techy

Web: Bad eset emails

December 2, 2009
2 Comments

Just tried to signup for a trial of the eset antivirus from eset.co.uk and received the following useful emails…. After trying a second time, I just went to eset.com and downloaded the 64bit antivirus software without having to register…

Here’s the email:

Subject:ESET NOD32 Antivirus Home Edition – Trial Licence
Layout[‘Header’] Content[‘Generic-TrialIntroduction’]

Content[‘Generic-TrialLicenceInformation’]

Content[‘ENAHE-Instructions’]

Content[‘ENAHE-SystemRequirements’] Info[‘CustomerSupport’]
Info[‘AdditionalInformation’]
Info[‘awards’] Layout[‘Footer’]

Yep, useful!

Bouncing Emails – Some Stats

September 25, 2009
3 Comments

Well, yesterday at work we launched Manga High’s Educational Maths Games and we were featured on Radio 4’s “Today” show (6.6million listeners), the Guardian newspaper (0.35million paper readers) and Guardian website (25million uniques per month) and Channel 4’s “News at Noon” (around 1million viewers) and apart from a 3.5hour “outage” between 7.30 (Today show’s broadcast time) and 11am when the site was under terrific load, things went well and we had a very very high number of registrations and visitors.

However, we did have a number of incorrect email addresses entered into the system which caused bouncebacks the the stats were quite interesting:
* We had 1 bounce back from Yahoo
* We had 6 bounce backs from Hotmail
* We had 1 bounce back from Gmail (disabled account)
* We had 3 other bounce back – each from a different domain name
* We had 5 people who entered an incorrect domain name (which didn’t even look like Yahoo/Hotmails/Gmails domains).

I wonder what this indicates – that you are more likely to get people who cannot enter their email address correctly from Hotmail?….

Techy: Internet Explorer 8, Reload Rendering Issues – Fixed!

September 4, 2009
Comments closed

I’ve just had a very very irritating time trying to debug a web page. It would load correctly into Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 8 and display/render correctly, but then when the page was reloaded or refreshed, it would be rendered incorrectly with a few sections offset and just generally looking wrong.

Thanks to a lot of search and trying different keywords, I found the IE8 Inconsistent Rendering when Reloading post on StackOverflow which said it was a problem with I.E. 8 and CompanionJS and/or DebugBar. Removing both of them (via the Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs / Uninstall Programs section) allowed the site to start working correctly.

Woopie!

This keyword rich post was created to try and help any other people suffering from the same Internet Explorer Page Rendering Incorrectly Upon Reload issue as I had from losing as much hair as I did!

Techy: Resetting a Windows Vista Password

July 14, 2009
4 Comments

Due to staff changes at work, we had two Windows Vista PCs (Business Edition, but these instructions should work all all versions of Windows XP and Vista) which had installed/purchased software on them, but we did not know the user passwords and/or administrator passwords. We also did not have a “Password reset disc”. We therefore needed to “break into” them and it’s a lot easier than you expect.

  • First of all, from a machine which you do have access to, download the Trinity Rescue Kit (TRK) from http://trinityhome.org.
  • Now burn the ISO image to a CD/DVD (instructions will vary depending on which platform you downloaded the ISO from and what software you are using). Make sure you burn it as a “Disc Image (ISO)” (aka a “Bootable CD/DVD”) and not just storing the file “as is”.
  • Insert the TRK CD into the machine you need recovering and get the machine to boot from the CD drive (on Dell machines, just press F12 as it is booting for the “Boot Menu” and select “Boot from onboard or USB CD/DVD drive”).
  • Wait for TRK to load.
  • Select the first option on the TRK menu as you don’t need any fancy extras
  • Once booted, type “winpass -l” (that’s all in lower case and finishes with a hypen and then a lower case L for lima)
  • If you get a message about Windows already being mounted, just select the “Force” option.
  • You may then be asked to select a Windows installation – select one and see if it lists the username you are trying to reset. If it doesn’t, repeat the previous step and select another Windows installation
  • Make an exact note of the username as the spelling, spacing and capitalisation will matter
  • Type “winpass -u 'User Name'” where ‘User Name’ is the exact username you are changing. Select the same Windows installation as you did previously.
  • Select option 1 to reset the password for that account to “blank” and, if necessary, unlock the account with option 4 (if there have been too many resets previously).
  • When finished, type “q” and press return to exit winpass.
  • Eject the CD/DVD and reboot.
  • You should now be able to log into that user account without using a password (if it is the only Windows account on the machine, it should auto-boot into that account)

Needless to say, neither myself nor the makers of Trinity Rescue Kit can take any responsibility for any damage/problems caused by following these instructions and I can only say “it worked for me!” (twice).

Tech: Apple iPhone 3Gs in the UK

June 8, 2009
Comments closed

Well, the Apple iPhone 3GS (3G Speed) has been announced on at the Apple WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) and thanks to O2 on Twitter, here’s the key points for UK people wanting the iPhone:

  • The 3GS be available on the O2 Mobile Phone Network in the UK on the 19th of June
  • The 16Gb version will cost up to £184.98 and the 32Gb version up to £274.23 depending on the contract you chose: an 18month contract will be £29.38 for the 16Gb and £34.26 per month for the 32Gb (and these are the highest prices). In the US, the 16Gb version costs $199 and the 32Gb costs $299.
  • You will be able to upgrade to an iPhone 3GS from another O2 contract phone when you are eligible for an upgrade. You will be able to leave your current contract early if you want it the new iPhone asap: however, you’ll need to speak to O2 and they’ll explain to you how much “early termination” would cost.
  • O2 will be supporting MMS (out of your normal text message allowance: one Multimedia Message will cost four SMS from your allowance)
  • O2 will also be supporting tethering (allowing your computer to use the iPhone as a 3G modem). However, this will be an extra Internet Tethering Bolt One costing £14.68 per month for 3G and £29.36 per month for 10Gb. Both include access to The Cloud’s Wifi points.
  • More information will be available on o2’s website at o2.co.uk/iphone as soon as possible