Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology
There are times when I just need to share some links outside the fleeting environment of Twitter, and this is where they might appear. The practice is very much in the spirit of the original weblog idea when it was about link sharing and not about writing down one’s thoughts as it subsequently became before sharing of photos, videos and other multimedia content became a mainstay of (legal) sharing for some people.
17:34 January 21, 2024
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17:33 January 16, 2024
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13:23 January 15, 2024
18:44 January 14, 2024
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13:32 January 5, 2024
21:47 December 23, 2023
How to stop websites from sending Bitdefender Safepay notifications
18:19 December 18, 2023
18:18 December 18, 2023
16:33 December 18, 2023
22:26 November 19, 2023
19:02 November 10, 2023
19:14 November 9, 2023
23:04 October 20, 2023
20:26 July 31, 2023
So you want to build your own open source ChatGPT-style chatbot…
16:42 July 31, 2023
16:37 July 31, 2023
16:33 July 31, 2023
19:52 July 4, 2023
09:32 May 12, 2023
16:30 March 17, 2023
13:42 March 15, 2023
19:35 March 14, 2023
13:15 March 10, 2023
Set Up SSH Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) on Debian 11 Server
13:51 March 9, 2023
10:25 March 6, 2023
WordPress 4.6 Admin Font Change Fix – How To Restore Open Sans Font?
10:24 March 6, 2023
20:14 February 24, 2023
20:11 February 24, 2023
14:35 February 24, 2023
01:31 February 20, 2023
01:31 February 20, 2023
Why is the Filter Gallery Greyed Out in Photoshop and How to Fix it
10:18 February 7, 2023
11:00 January 27, 2023
How to take a full-page screenshot with a hidden Chrome shortcut
14:53 January 23, 2023
15:52 January 19, 2023
10:15 January 12, 2023
10:12 January 12, 2023
18:08 January 10, 2023
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Proton Mail Bridge Microsoft Outlook for Windows 2019 setup guide
08:07 January 4, 2023
22:39 December 4, 2022
10:50 December 2, 2022
21:48 November 22, 2022
10:00 November 21, 2022
09:59 November 21, 2022
14:29 November 18, 2022
14:08 November 14, 2022
15:17 November 1, 2022
19:51 October 29, 2022
How to Upload or Download Files/Directories Using sFTP in Linux
19:50 October 29, 2022
19:49 October 29, 2022
17:00 October 27, 2022
[FIX] Memory integrity due to Incompatible drivers cannot be enabled in Windows 11
19:20 October 25, 2022
How can I redirect and rewrite my URLs with a .htaccess file?
13:49 October 25, 2022
How to change the maximum number of IMAP connections in Mozilla Thunderbird
20:49 October 23, 2022
18:06 October 23, 2022
13:46 October 23, 2022
11:49 October 22, 2022
11:49 October 22, 2022
Secure Tutanota desktop clients for Linux, Windows and Mac OS
11:48 October 22, 2022
11:47 October 22, 2022
11:47 October 22, 2022
How to Access the Hidden Symbols on Your Android Phone’s Keyboard
08:43 October 22, 2022
10:31 October 13, 2022
Enable or Disable Automatic Sign-in at Startup in Windows 11
10:25 October 13, 2022
13:25 October 12, 2022
12:03 October 12, 2022
11:52 October 12, 2022
4 Ways to Embed User Privacy & Data Security in Your Business
11:48 October 12, 2022
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11:33 October 12, 2022
09:46 October 12, 2022
09:30 October 12, 2022
Introducing Improvements to the Opt-Out Form Feature in Matomo
14:14 October 11, 2022
17:51 October 3, 2022
12:06 September 29, 2022
15:01 September 28, 2022
10:58 September 15, 2022
How to automatically decline meeting invites from specific people in Outlook
10:46 August 25, 2022
16:06 August 20, 2022
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09:16 July 25, 2022
19:03 July 22, 2022
What is a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)?
17:43 July 21, 2022
17:40 July 21, 2022
14:20 July 21, 2022
17:47 July 20, 2022
How to set rsync speed limit from eating all bandwidth with ‐‐bwlimit option
17:47 July 20, 2022
09:20 July 14, 2022
09:03 July 11, 2022
09:05 July 1, 2022
09:00 July 1, 2022
14:05 June 29, 2022
14:05 June 29, 2022
11:05 June 29, 2022
16:43 June 26, 2022
13:26 June 26, 2022
How to Reduce Eric Jones Spam (and all the other Contact Form Spam)
12:43 June 26, 2022
12:42 June 26, 2022
12:41 June 26, 2022
12:40 June 26, 2022
19:36 June 25, 2022
17:13 June 24, 2022
15:32 June 20, 2022
14:13 June 14, 2022
Handling False Positives with the OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set
11:10 June 14, 2022
How To Use a Multimeter to Measure Voltage, Current and More
13:11 May 26, 2022
13:10 May 26, 2022
15:36 May 9, 2022
14:53 April 27, 2022
19:28 March 27, 2022
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20:25 March 17, 2022
15:22 March 16, 2022
09:10 February 26, 2022
Show Amount Of Posts, Pages, Categories, Tags, Comments For WordPress Themes
09:09 February 26, 2022
How to Develop a WordPress Theme from Scratch – Beginners Guide
09:08 February 26, 2022
Count the number of posts in the custom post type in WordPress
09:41 February 23, 2022
09:41 February 23, 2022
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10:19 February 22, 2022
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18:51 February 18, 2022
18:50 February 18, 2022
How To Configure Apache HTTP with MPM Event and PHP-FPM on Ubuntu 18.04
16:45 February 18, 2022
Protecting WordPress with Open Source Web Application Firewall ModSecurity
14:35 February 16, 2022
14:35 February 16, 2022
09:32 February 16, 2022
09:26 February 15, 2022
18:56 February 14, 2022
How To Configure Nginx to Use Custom Error Pages on Ubuntu 14.04
09:24 February 14, 2022
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08:55 February 13, 2022
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08:53 February 13, 2022
How To Install Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP (LEMP Stack) on Ubuntu 18.04
09:03 February 11, 2022
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Talkyard with Nginx as a reverse proxy and Letsencrypt for HTTPS
09:53 February 8, 2022
09:52 February 8, 2022
To Fix The Docker and UFW Security Flaw Without Disabling Iptables
09:51 February 8, 2022
09:47 February 8, 2022
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Comments on a static website? That’s possible with utteranc.es!
09:39 February 8, 2022
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09:29 February 8, 2022
09:29 February 8, 2022
15:35 February 5, 2022
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Tutorial: How to Add Self-hosted Comments to Your Static Site
15:33 February 5, 2022
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10:30 February 5, 2022
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15:59 February 4, 2022
Build a Search Bar for Your Hugo Blog With a JSON Index and Some Vanilla JS
15:59 February 4, 2022
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21:54 January 29, 2022
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How the Bootstrap 4 Grid Works
This also helps with understanding Bootstrap 5 as well. That was something that I discovered while porting a website from WordPress to Hugo.
21:14 January 29, 2022
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How to Open Link in New Tab with Hugo’s new Goldmark Markdown Renderer
21:04 January 29, 2022
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Overview of the best commenting systems for your static website
11:55 January 27, 2022
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08:36 January 23, 2022
How to upgrade Debian 10 to Debian 11 Bullseye using the CLI
08:32 January 23, 2022
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15:11 November 30, 2021
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[Postfix] – warning: mail_queue_enter: create file maildrop Permission denied
14:52 November 17, 2021
14:42 November 17, 2021
08:16 November 17, 2021
09:05 November 13, 2021
13:18 November 9, 2021
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09:01 November 5, 2021
How to Enable clipboard and folder sharing in Qemu/KVM on Windows Guest
08:59 November 5, 2021
08:50 November 5, 2021
“Error 1067: The process terminated unexpectedly” on Windows 10, 7 & 8
16:38 November 4, 2021
Error: No CurrentVersion entry in Software/JavaSoft registry
10:00 November 4, 2021
20:40 November 2, 2021
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20:37 November 2, 2021
20:37 November 2, 2021
13:43 November 2, 2021
How to Change the Default Browser in Windows 11, Even for Widgets and Search
How to Move the Taskbar to the Top in Windows 11
How to Replace the Start Menu in Windows 11
13:57 October 30, 2021
20:09 October 26, 2021
16:15 October 26, 2021
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How To Convert VirtualBox Disk Image (VDI) and img to Qcow2 format
17:08 October 24, 2021
17:07 October 24, 2021
17:06 October 24, 2021
21:07 October 22, 2021
How to Enable HTTP/2 in Apache Web Server on Ubuntu and Debian
10:29 October 21, 2021
10:29 October 21, 2021
15:46 October 19, 2021
How to Run Windows 11 on a USB Drive (and Take it With You)
How to Bypass Windows 11’s TPM Requirement and Upgrade from Windows 10
13:12 October 12, 2021
15:31 October 8, 2021
15:30 October 8, 2021
15:29 October 8, 2021
Enable Virtualization-based Protection of Code Integrity in Microsoft Windows
15:28 October 8, 2021
18:25 October 5, 2021
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11:47 October 2, 2021
11:46 October 2, 2021
19:21 October 1, 2021
13:26 September 29, 2021
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15:14 September 25, 2021
Whitelist an IP using WAF -- ModSecurity Whitelisting IP addresses
10:59 September 25, 2021
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08:35 September 20, 2021
Integrating AbuseIPDB with Fail2Ban -- Automatically Report Bad IPs
21:10 September 19, 2021
21:09 September 19, 2021
13:24 September 17, 2021
12:19 September 4, 2021
09:46 September 4, 2021
16:58 August 31, 2021
How to backup and load Cron Jobs from a File in Linux and UNIX? Crontab Command Example
16:58 August 31, 2021
14:19 August 27, 2021
14:19 August 27, 2021
08:46 August 18, 2021
18:26 August 17, 2021
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18:25 August 17, 2021
Webmin: One big drawback to using this data centre management tool
10:32 August 13, 2021
18:09 August 12, 2021
18:05 August 12, 2021
How to prevent the “are you sure you want to leave this page?” prompt on Facebook?
18:05 August 12, 2021
Extending a Logical Volume on a Linux Virtual, Cloud or CloudNX server
11:41 August 11, 2021
11:41 August 11, 2021
11:40 August 11, 2021
18:00 July 27, 2021
17:59 July 27, 2021
17:59 July 27, 2021
19:07 July 24, 2021
11:03 July 23, 2021
Change user password in MySQL 5.7 with “plugin: auth_socket”
11:03 July 23, 2021
How to enable AMD Virtualization on the Aorus X570 Motherboard
09:30 July 15, 2021
08:04 July 15, 2021
18:09 July 13, 2021
08:16 July 13, 2021
13:58 July 11, 2021
08:36 July 8, 2021
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15:40 July 6, 2021
09:28 July 3, 2021
09:06 July 2, 2021
10:13 July 1, 2021
How to install Windows 11 Insider preview on unsupported devices
14:55 June 28, 2021
13:30 June 24, 2021
23:47 June 5, 2021
16:38 June 3, 2021
13:27 June 3, 2021
10:02 June 1, 2021
11:00 May 28, 2021
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10:57 May 28, 2021
dbxcli: A command line tool for Dropbox users and team admins
09:00 May 27, 2021
08:58 May 27, 2021
08:57 May 27, 2021
How to stop loading Microsoft Edge processes at startup on Windows 10
13:50 May 16, 2021
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13:42 May 16, 2021
09:34 May 13, 2021
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Connecting to Microsoft Exchange Calendar from Mozilla Thunderbird
13:03 January 27, 2021
11:10 January 10, 2021
11:09 January 10, 2021
11:08 January 10, 2021
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11:07 January 10, 2021
09:26 January 7, 2021
09:41 December 17, 2020
Using mod_security2 with WordPress
WordPress – Mod_security problems with posts and comments fixed
17:59 December 14, 2020
17:46 December 12, 2020
20:54 December 6, 2020
20:53 December 6, 2020
14:51 November 23, 2020
How to force your computer to download the Windows 10 May 2020 Update
14:44 November 11, 2020
16:00 November 10, 2020
09:18 November 9, 2020
09:27 October 19, 2020
14:16 October 18, 2020
09:31 October 18, 2020
13:36 October 10, 2020
16:12 October 7, 2020
14:59 October 7, 2020
10:55 October 6, 2020
15:15 October 1, 2020
14:03 September 29, 2020
14:02 September 29, 2020
12:36 September 18, 2020
12:35 September 18, 2020
12:34 September 18, 2020
12:33 September 18, 2020
Everything you need to know about DNS -- Plus a list of free public DNS servers
12:27 September 18, 2020
Securing DNS across all of my devices with Pi-Hole + DNS-over-HTTPS + 1.1.1.1
10:47 September 18, 2020
16:11 September 17, 2020
17:04 September 11, 2020
Improve Firefox Performance on Linux by Turning WebRender On
16:46 September 9, 2020
How to Embed an External RSS Feed in WordPress Posts via Shortcode
13:43 July 31, 2020
19:03 July 18, 2020
13:43 July 13, 2020
17:51 July 4, 2020
09:33 June 16, 2020
Linux Mint 20 Blocks Snap App Installs, So Here’s the Workaround
09:30 June 16, 2020
08:11 June 10, 2020
09:31 June 4, 2020
13:48 March 8, 2020
17:11 March 2, 2020
14:27 February 29, 2020
17:05 February 26, 2020
14:55 February 23, 2020
14:51 February 23, 2020
10:35 February 20, 2020
Change User’s MySQL Password | Reset MySQL Root Password Guide
12:38 February 19, 2020
09:35 February 17, 2020
09:34 February 17, 2020
09:32 February 17, 2020
13:14 February 16, 2020
13:10 February 16, 2020
20:34 February 15, 2020
14:29 February 14, 2020
14:29 February 14, 2020
09:46 February 14, 2020
09:45 February 14, 2020
How to move docker data directory to another location on Ubuntu
09:45 February 14, 2020
The Complete Guide to “useradd” Command in Linux – 15 Practical Examples
09:43 February 14, 2020
09:42 February 14, 2020
20:30 February 12, 2020
How to Optimize and Compress JPEG or PNG Images in Linux Command Line
17:41 January 29, 2020
20:21 January 28, 2020
18:37 January 17, 2020
12:45 January 17, 2020
12:44 January 17, 2020
12:43 January 17, 2020
12:43 January 17, 2020
12:42 January 17, 2020
12:41 January 17, 2020
21:01 January 16, 2020
20:59 January 16, 2020
At the time of writing, this website uses an older version of TLS so you may see browser messages on visiting it. Hopefully, that will get sorted since it looks out for a security tool website.
20:57 January 16, 2020
12:19 January 15, 2020
12:17 January 15, 2020
The most important steps to take to make an Apache server more secure
12:17 January 15, 2020
How to Implement Security HTTP Headers to Prevent Vulnerabilities?
12:16 January 15, 2020
21:38 December 31, 2019
21:37 December 31, 2019
14:41 December 24, 2019
14:24 December 24, 2019
How To Protect an Apache Server with Fail2Ban on Ubuntu 14.04
This may refer to an older Ubuntu version but the advice contained in the article remains relevant to current ones. In fact, I have used it to harden some VPS systems that I have. Now, I only need to see what impact this action might have.
13:12 December 23, 2019
16:47 December 6, 2019
16:01 November 26, 2019
21:28 November 7, 2019
15:40 November 7, 2019
12:51 August 31, 2019
22:09 July 6, 2019
14:16 June 11, 2019
14:14 June 11, 2019
14:46 June 10, 2019
10:55 June 8, 2019
How to disable Sign-in screen acrylic (blur) background on Windows 10 May 2019 Update
11:47 May 22, 2019
11:39 January 30, 2019
Psensor – A Graphical Hardware Temperature Monitoring Tool for Linux
13:34 January 29, 2019
20:03 December 8, 2018
How to commit changes to a docker image
Five Ways to Slim Your Docker Images
09:59 December 8, 2018
09:58 December 8, 2018
14:04 December 6, 2018
15:53 December 5, 2018
Show the slide number and total number of slides on every PowerPoint slide
21:28 December 4, 2018
19:53 December 4, 2018
18:03 November 26, 2018
Configure Postfix to Send Mail Using Gmail and Google Apps on Debian or Ubuntu
18:02 November 26, 2018
Configure Postfix to Send Mail Using an External SMTP Server
18:01 November 26, 2018
18:01 November 26, 2018
18:00 November 26, 2018
11:09 November 26, 2018
11:07 November 26, 2018
How to Setup a Complete Mail Server (Postfix) using ‘SquirrelMail’ (Webmail) on Ubuntu/Debian
14:51 November 25, 2018
11:43 November 25, 2018
How to Configure WordPress to Use SMTP For Sending Emails Tutorial
11:42 November 25, 2018
11:41 November 25, 2018
11:41 November 25, 2018
11:39 November 25, 2018
11:38 November 25, 2018
11:38 November 25, 2018
11:37 November 25, 2018
10:51 November 25, 2018
10:45 November 25, 2018
20:31 November 24, 2018
20:30 November 24, 2018
17:44 November 24, 2018
17:37 November 24, 2018
Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS Using .htaccess File: Step by Step
21:45 November 22, 2018
21:43 November 22, 2018
12:10 November 17, 2018
12:08 November 17, 2018
apt-get install linux-image-extra getting “W: mdadm: /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf defines no arrays.”
12:04 November 17, 2018
15:40 November 4, 2018
Here are the 13 most useful Mac shortcuts that will help you do everything faster
11:02 October 21, 2018
09:05 October 13, 2018
11:48 September 22, 2018
16:12 September 20, 2018
Use an Easy PowerShell Command to Search Files for Information
12:20 September 19, 2018
10:06 September 9, 2018
21:18 August 5, 2018
13:42 July 22, 2018
17:27 July 21, 2018
14:27 July 15, 2018
16:27 July 13, 2018
10:13 June 25, 2018
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12:24 June 8, 2018
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15:13 May 31, 2018
20:48 May 29, 2018
20:47 May 29, 2018
11:02 May 28, 2018
10:26 May 28, 2018
09:54 May 28, 2018
16:02 May 25, 2018
Performance optimizations you can apply today to load the Matomo JavaScript tracker faster
16:01 May 25, 2018
Different ways of embedding the Matomo tracking code for faster website performance
11:24 May 16, 2018
23:18 May 13, 2018
23:15 May 13, 2018
23:13 May 13, 2018
11:02 May 12, 2018
10:59 May 12, 2018
10:52 May 12, 2018
10:32 May 12, 2018
10:30 May 12, 2018
10:27 May 12, 2018
21:42 May 5, 2018
12:23 April 18, 2018
How to troubleshoot the error code “SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER” on secure websites
09:34 April 15, 2018
10:08 April 14, 2018
22:25 April 13, 2018
18:20 April 10, 2018
Write your best resume in Word with help from LinkedIn in Resume Assistant
09:59 March 29, 2018
16:37 March 28, 2018
15:58 March 28, 2018
14:12 March 28, 2018
14:00 March 28, 2018
10:35 March 27, 2018
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14:01 March 17, 2018
13:59 March 17, 2018
11:11 March 17, 2018
13:53 March 7, 2018
10:17 November 25, 2017
10:17 November 16, 2017
Diving Into the New Gutenberg WordPress Editor (Pros and Cons)
19:11 November 15, 2017
19:09 November 15, 2017
16:44 October 31, 2017
23:34 October 25, 2017
The care and feeding of software engineers (or, why engineers are grumpy)
23:32 October 25, 2017
23:31 October 25, 2017
19:20 October 24, 2017
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19:18 October 24, 2017
23:37 October 22, 2017
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23:25 October 22, 2017
10:19 October 14, 2017
17:03 October 7, 2017
17:01 October 7, 2017
Get rid of those extra TIFFs & PSDs in your Lightroom Library fast!
11:57 September 15, 2017
09:47 September 11, 2017
09:45 September 11, 2017
17:11 August 13, 2017
14:21 July 22, 2017
12:13 July 8, 2017
20:03 July 1, 2017
18:58 June 21, 2017
17:03 April 24, 2017
12:01 April 2, 2017
Windows 7: Windows 7 Not Updating
Windows Update error “0x80070002” or “0x80070003”
Fix Windows Update errors by using the DISM or System Update Readiness tool
18:17 March 22, 2017
23:25 March 12, 2017
22:08 March 7, 2017
Review: Evoluent Vertical Mouse 4 (and how to make it work in Ubuntu)
11:14 February 25, 2017
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Get rid of the annoying formatting pop-up when you paste in Word
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Fedora 23/22/21 nVidia Drivers Install Guide
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The Command Prompt is Outdated: 2 Command Prompt Replacements for Windows
6 Great Windows 10 Features You Can Get Today on Windows 7 or 8
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How to fix “System program problem detected” error on Ubuntu
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Google Translate CLI Lets You Translate Text From The Command Line
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Switch Windows by Hovering the Mouse Over a Window in Windows 7 or Vista
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The crop tool is stuck in a fixed shape. How can I make it work properly?
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How To Install MATE Desktop on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
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Archive area of old releases of Java for those who need them.
While I never have been a home user of refurbished or second hand kit, there are those who do and there do appear to be some bargains to be had. For some reason, I get the sense that computing and photographic hardware seems to heading more upmarket as time goes on so it may be that this becomes the only way of getting cheaper computers unless you stick with Chromebooks and their like. Interestingly, the now defunct Micro Mart magazine did a feature on the subject and even Apple has legitimised the idea with its presence.
Manufacturers
With the premium reputation that Apple has, the chance of bagging any sort of a bargain from them is too good to overlook and they have had a refurbished goods store for longer than many. There are no iPhones here but Macs, iPads and iPods are made available in this way so it is worth a look. The chance of a cheaper Mac of some sort is a tempting idea.
A colleague of mine at work swears by this so much that it is where he looked when buying a laptop for his father. There are home and business sections too so even servers are available along with laptop and desktop PC’s as well as tablets.
Resellers
This is a computer kit reseller who I have never used so far but there have been qualms expressed about their customer service. Like many, they too have a clearance section so it may be worth a look if fancy taking a little risk.
The mainstay of this lot are pre-used computers and they have been around a while too, even if they disappeared from the web for a while at one stage. They also had a shop near Manchester’s Piccadilly train station though I am left wondering if any of the apparent bargains tempted anyone.
Specialists
Giga Refurb
MicroDream
Pure IT Refurbished
Tier1online.com
Itzoo
These have the quality of their work approved by Microsoft themselves so there should be some confidence here. With Microsoft having put Windows XP out to grass, Windows 7 is being promoted on machines with at least Intel Core 2 Duo CPU’s and prices can be very reasonable too.
It seems that, almost in spite of the uncertain times or maybe because of them, it feels like an era of change on the technology front. Computing is the domain of many of the postings on this blog and a hell of a lot seems to be going mobile at the moment. For a good while, I managed to stay clear of the attractions of smartphones until a change of job convinced me that having a BlackBerry was a good idea. Though the small size of the thing really places limitations on the sort of web surfing experience that you can have with it, you can keep an eye on the weather, news, traffic, bus and train times so long as the website in question is built for mobile browsing. Otherwise, it’s more of a nuisance than a patchy phone network (in the U.K., T-Mobile could do better on this score as I have discovered for myself; thankfully, a merger with the Orange network is coming next month).
Speaking of mobile websites, it almost feels as if a free for all has recurred for web designers. Just when the desktop or laptop computing situation had more or less stabilised, along come a whole pile of mobile phone platforms to make things interesting again. Familiar names like Opera, Safari, Firefox and even Internet Explorer are to be found popping up on handheld devices these days along with less familiar ones like Web ‘n’ Walk or BOLT. The operating system choices vary too with iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows and others all competing for attention. It is the sort of flowering of innovation that makes one wonder if a time will come when things begin to consolidate but it doesn’t look like that at the moment.
The transformation of mobile phones into handheld computers isn’t the only big change in computing with the traditional formats of desktop and laptop PC’s being flexed in all sorts of ways. First, there’s the appearance of netbooks and I have succumbed to the idea of owning an Asus Eee. Though you realise that these are not full size laptops, it still didn’t hit me how small these were until I owned one. They are undeniably portable and tablets look even more interesting in the aftermath of Apple’s iPad. You may call them over-sized mobile photos but the idea of making a touchscreen do the work for you has made the concept fly for many. Even so, I cannot say that I’m overly tempted though I have said that before about other things.
Another area of interest for me is photography and it is around this time of year that all sorts of innovations are revealed to the public. It’s a long way from what we thought was the digital photography revolution when digital imaging sensors started to take the place of camera film in otherwise conventional compact and SLR cameras, making the former far more versatile than they used to be. Now, we have SLD cameras from Olympus, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony that eschew the reflex mirror and prism arrangement of an SLR using digital sensor and electronic viewfinders while offering the possibility of lens interchangeability and better quality than might be expected from such small cameras. In recent months, Sony has offered SLR-style cameras with translucent mirror technology instead of the conventional mirror that is flipped out of the way when a photographic image is captured. Change doesn’t end there with movie making capabilities being part of the toolset of many a newly launch compact, SLD and SLR camera. The pixel race also seems to have ended though increases still happen as with the Pentax K-5 and Canon EOS 60D (both otherwise conventional offerings that have caught my eye though so much comes on the market at this time of year that waiting is better for the bank balance).
The mention of digital photography brings to mind the subject of digital image processing and Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 is just announced after Photoshop CS5 appeared earlier this year. It almost feels as if a new version of Photoshop or its consumer cousin are released every year, causing me to skip releases when I don’t see the point. Elements 6 and 8 were such versions for me and I’ll be in no hurry to upgrade to 9 yet either though the prospect of using content aware filling to eradicate unwanted objects from images is tempting. Nevertheless, that shouldn’t stop anyone trying to exclude them in the first place. In fact, I may need to reduce the overall number of images that I collect in favour of bringing away only good ones. The outstanding question on this is can I slow down and calm my eagerness to bring at least one good image away from an outing by capturing anything that seems promising at the time. Some experimentation but being a little more choosy can save work later on.
While back on the subject of software, I’ll voyage in to the world of the web before bringing these meanderings to a close. It almost feels as if there is web-based application following web-based application these days when Twitter and Facebook nearly have become household names and cloud computing is a phrase that turns up all over the place. In fact, the former seems to have encouraged a whole swathe of applications all of itself. Applications written using technologies well used on the web must stuff many a mobile phone app store too and that brings me full circle for it is these that put so much functionality on our handsets with Java seemingly powering those I use on my BlackBerry. Them there’s spat between Apple and Adobe regarding the former’s support for Flash.
To close this mental amble, there may be technologies that didn’t come to mind while I was pondering this piece but they doubtless enliven the technological landscape too. However, what I have described is enough to take me back more than ten years ago when desktop computing and the world of the web were a lot more nascent than is the case today. Then, the changes that were ongoing felt a little exciting now that I look back on them and it does feel as if the same sort of thing is recurring though with things like phones creating the interest in place of new developments in desktop computing such as a new version of Window (though 7 was anticipated after Vista). Web designers may complain about a lack of standardisation and they’re not wrong but this may be an ear of technological change that in time may be remembered with its own fondness too.
Anyone who has ever been on HennessyBlog will know that I enjoy walking in the countryside and that I always have a camera with me when I do. Like many digital SLR owners, I am beginning to see the tell-tale spots in my photos that are caused by a dirty sensor. And it isn’t that I am continually changing lenses either: I rarely remove the Sigma 18-50 mm DC zoom lens that I use with the camera. Rather than trusting myself with the cleaning (I have had a go already without much success), I am giving serious consideration to letting the professionals take care of my Canon EOS 10D, my only digital camera. I have already been quoted something of the order of £35 by a Canon service centre not far from me and am seriously considering taking them up on the offer.
Of course, sending it away to them means that I will have to forego the ability to include photos with posts on HennessyBlog describing my walks in the kind of timescale to which I have become accustomed; of course, this is where digital really scores. I will still have a camera with me as film remains my mainstay, even in this digital age. The camera in question is another Canon, an EOS 30 that I acquired used from Ffordes Photographic. While taking a recent peek at their website, I have just spied a used EOS 1V going for £399, a song for what remains Canon’s top of the range film SLR. Yes, I am tempted but I must stay real. In fact, I did not pay full price for my EOS 10D. That was part of the run-out stock that 7dayshop.com were selling off at next to half of the EOS 10D’s original asking price in the wake of its being superseded by the EOS 20D (itself since replaced by the EOS 30D: digital is a fast-moving world).
Sending a camera away for attention is not new to me as I also acquired a used Minolta X-700 manual focus SLR, again obtained from Ffordes, and that needed a spot of maintenance after a year in my possession. There was a problem with the shutter that cost me £75 to get Minolta to fix. Now that Minolta as a camera maker is no more, I was wondering who would attend to it in the future. That question was answered by a recent look on the web: in the UK it is JP Service Solutions, a division of Johnson’s Phototopia. Konica Minolta retain this information on their website. Konica Minolta’s failure to capitalise effectively on the digital revolution in its early days, particularly in the SLR area where they gifted their competitors a massive head start, cost them their future in the photographic business and now Sony continues the mantle, a sad end to one of camera manufacturing’s great innovators.
Returning to my digital-less dilemma, I suppose that I could get another digital for backup duty; I have to admit that a DSLR is a bulky contraption to be carrying in airline luggage. The camera that has made it onto my wish list is Ricoh’s GR Digital, a highly regarded offering that follows in the great tradition of its film forbears, the GR 1 and GR 21. Given that my first 35 mm camera was a Ricoh, and I have it still, this would be a case of returning to my roots. Of course, having it on a wish list is very different from having it on the to-do list and finances will certainly dictate if the purchase is made, though a finance deal offered by Warehouse Express does make it more accessible. Maybe some day…
The last time that I went out and bought a new camera was over two years ago and I am minded not to make another purchase for a while. Apart from damage to the battery cover arising from a fall, my Pentax K10D has survived so far without a problem and I admit to being satisfied with the photos that it makes. Following a professional sensor clean, my Canon EOS 10D has been pressed into service over the past few months too. In the meantime, 6 and 10 megapixel sensors generate nowhere near the attention that might have been case a few years back but that’s by the by. In fact, the megapixel race seems to have stalled with features like video being added to stills cameras over the last year and live screens coming to prominence also. Neither would make me rush out to buy a new DSLR anyway, perhaps because having things the old way suits me just fine and megapixel counts never ever moved me in the first place either.
That’s never to say that the likes of Pentax’s K-7 or Canon’s EOS 50D and 5D Mark II don’t capture my attention with their promises of better quality. However, with things the way that they are in the world, I am more likely to hold onto my cash or maybe invest in new photo processing software for making the most of what I already have. Ideas for photography projects creep into my head when I get to looking over my online photo gallery and realise that not have my tastes changed but my photographic eye has developed too. That seeing of things in a new light may mean that old subjects get revisited and I don’t need a new camera to do that.
High end compact cameras such as Canon’s G11 and Ricoh’s GR Digital III do detain attention for a while but a quick look at their prices proves that you really got to need the portability and I never can justify the outlay when a DSLR will do all that I want from it, and perhaps even for less money. While I admit to pondering the purchase of a GR Digital to cover for the EOS 10D while it was away for cleaning, the Pentax came to be acquired when I realised that the versatility of a DSLR was too much to lose, even for a while. Olympus’ E-P1 may have bridged the gap but the old question of going miniature for the price of a full sized article recurs.
All in all, I am going to stick with what I have right now. We are coming to a time of year when things appear more golden and that combination of lighting and colour are what really matters, not how many megapixels is in you camera sensor unless you are making large prints or supplying stock libraries. As long as my cameras continue to deliver pleasing results, I’ll stick with improving my skills and taking my time over that task, even with all the announcements of new cameras at various exhibitions and shows.
In Windows 10, the preferred place to look if you fancy prompting an update of the system is in the Update & Security section of the Settings application. At the top is the Windows Update and the process usually is as simple as pressing the Check for updates button. For most of the time, that has been my experience but it stopped working on my main Windows 10 virtual machine so I needed to resolve the problem.
Initially, going into the Advanced Options section and deselecting the tick box for Give me updates for other Microsoft products
when I update Windows helped but it seemed a non-ideal solution so I looked further. It was then that I found that manually resetting a system’s Windows Updates components helped others so I tried that and restarted the system.
The first part of the process was to right-click on the Start Menu button and select the Windows PowerShell (Admin) entry from the menu that appeared. This may be replaced by Command Prompt (Admin) on your system on your machine, but the next steps in the process are the same. In fact, you could include any commands you see below in a script file and execute that if you prefer. Here, I will run through each group in succession.
From either PowerShell or the Command Prompt, you need to stop the Windows Update, Cryptographic, BITS (or Background Intelligent Transfer Service) and MSI Installer services. To accomplish this, execute the following commands at a command prompt:
net stop wuauserv
net stop cryptSvc
net stop bits
net stop msiserver
With the services stopped, it is then possible to rename the SoftwareDistribution
and Catroot2 folders so you can refresh everything to remove them. To accomplish this, execute the following pair of commands using either PowerShell or the Command Prompt:
ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 Catroot2.old
Once you have the folders renamed, then you can start the Windows Update, Cryptographic, BITS and MSI Installer services by executing the following commands in either PowerShell or the Command Prompt:
net start wuauserv
net start cryptSvc
net start bits
net start msiserver
Once these have completed, you may close the PowerShell or Command Prompt window that you were using and restart the machine. Going into the Update & Security section of the Settings tool afterwards and pressing the Check for updates button now builds new versions of the folders that you renamed and this takes a little while longer than the usual update process. Otherwise, you could let your system rebuild things in its own time. As it happens, I opted for manual intervention and all has worked well since then.
While there are point and click tools for the job, being able to set up new user groups, attaching them to folders and assign uses to them using the command line has major advantages when there are a number to be set up and logs of execution can be retained too. In light of this, it seems a shame that terse documentation along with its being hard to rack down answers to any questions using Google, or whatever happens to be your search engine of choice, makes it less easy to discern what commands need to be run. This is where a book would help but the whole experience is in direct contrast to the community of information providers that is the Linux user community, with Ubuntu being a particular shining example. Saying that, the Windows help system is not so bad once you can track down what you need. For instance, knowing that you need commands like CACLS and NET LOCALGROUP, the ones that have been doing the back work for me, it offers useful information quickly enough. To illustrate the usefulness of the aforementioned commands, here are a few scenarios.
Creating a new group:
net localgroup [name of new group] /comment:”[more verbose description of new group]” /add
Add a group to a folder:
cacls [folder address] /t /e /p [name of group]
The /t switch gets cacls to apply changes to the ACL for the specified folder and all its subfolders, recursive action in other words, while the /e specifies ACL editing rather than its replacement and /p induces replacement of permissions for a given user or group. Using :n, :f, :c or :r directly after the name of a specified user or group assigns no, full, change (write) or read access, respectively. Replacing /p with /r revokes access and leaving off the :n/:f/:c/:r will remove the group or user from the folder.
Add a user to a group:
net localgroup [name of group] [user name (with domain name if on a network)] /add
In addition to NET LOCALGROUP, there is also NET GROUP for wider network operations, something that I don’t have cause to do. Casting the thinking net even wider, I suspect that VB scripting and its ability to tweak the Windows Management Interface might offer more functionality than what is above (PowerShell also comes to mind while we are on the subject) but I am sharing what has been helping me and it can be hard to find if you don’t know where to look.
The time to renew my .Net magazine came around and I decided to go for the digital option this time. The main attraction is that new issues come along without their cluttering up my house afterwards. After all, I do get to wondering how much space would be taken up by photos and music if those respective fields hadn’t gone down the digital route. Some may decry the non-printing of photos that reside on hard disks or equivalent electronic storage media but they certainly take up less physical space like that. Of course, ensuring that they are backed up in case of a calamity then becomes an important concern.
As well as the cost of a weekly magazine that I didn’t read as much as I should, it was concerns about space that drove me to go the electronic route with New Scientist a few years back. They were early days for digital magazine publishing and felt like it too. Eventually, I weened myself from NS and the move to digital helped. Maybe trying to view magazine articles on a 17″ screen wasn’t as good an experience as seeing them on the 24″ one that I possess these days.
That bigger screen has come in very handy for Zinio‘s Adobe AIR application for viewing issues of .Net and any other magazine that I happen to get from them. There’s quite a selection on there and it’s not limited to periodicals from Future Media either. Other titles include The Economist, Amateur Photographer, Countryfile, What Car and the aforementioned New Scientist also. That’s just a sample of eclectic selection that is on offer.
For some reason, Future seem to wait a few days for the paper versions of their magazines to arrive in shops before the digital ones become available. To me, this seems odd given that you’d expect the magazines to exist on computer systems before they come off the presses. Not only that but subscribers to the print editions get them before they reach the shops at all anyway. This is the sort of behaviour that makes you wonder if someone somewhere is attempting to preserve print media.
In contrast, Scientific American get this right by making PDF’s of their magazines available earlier than print editions. Given that it takes time for an American magazine to reach the U.K. and Eire, this is a very good thing. There was a time when I was a subscriber to this magazine and I found it infuriating to see the latest issues on newsagent shelves and I still waiting for mine to arrive in the post. It was enough to make me vow not to become a subscriber to anything that left me in this situation every month.
Some won’t pass on any savings with their digital editions. Haymarket Publishing come to mind here for What Car but they aren’t alone. Cicerone, Cumbrian publishers of excellent guidebooks for those seeking to enjoy the outdoors, do exactly the same with their wares so you really want to save on space and gain extra convenience when going digital with either of these. In this respect, the publishers of Amateur Photographer have got it right with a great deal for a year’s digital subscription. New Scientist did the same in those early days when I dabbled in digital magazines.
Of course, there are some who dislike reading things on a screen and digital publishing will need to lure those too if it is to succeed. Nevertheless, we now have tablet computers and eBook readers such as Amazon’s Kindle are taking hold too. Reading things on these should feel more natural than on a vertical desktop monitor or even a laptop screen.
Nevertheless, there are some magazines that even I would like to enjoy in print as opposed to on a screen. These also are the ones that I like to retain for future consultation too. Examples include Outdoor Photography and TGO and it is the content that drives my thinking here. The photographic reproduction in the former probably is best reserved for print while the latter is more interesting. TGO does do its own digital edition but the recounting of enjoyment of the outdoors surpassed presentation until a few months ago. It is the quality of the writing that makes me want to have them on a shelf as opposed to being stored on a computer disk.
The above thought makes me wonder why I’d go for digital magazines in preference to their print counterparts. Thinking about it now, I am so sure that there is a clear cut answer. Saving money and not having clutter does a have a lot to to with it but there is a sense that keeping copies .Net is less essential to me though I do enjoy seeing what is happening in the world of web design and am open to any new ideas too. Maybe the digital magazine scene is still an experiment for me.
During the past week, I rebooted my system only to find that a number of things no longer worked and my Pi-hole DNS server was among them. Having exhausted other possibilities by testing out things on another machine, I did a status check when I spotted a line like the following in my system logs and went investigating further:
cron[322]: (root) INSECURE MODE (mode 0600 expected) (crontabs/root)
It turned out to be more significant than I had expected because this was why every CRON job was failing and that included the network set up needed by Pi-hole; a script is executed using the @reboot directive to accomplish this and I got Pi-hole working again by manually executing it. The evening before, I did make some changes to file permissions under /var/www but I was not expecting it to affect other parts of /var though that may have something to do with some forgotten heavy-handedness. The cure was to issue a command like the following for execution in a terminal session:
sudo chmod -R 600 /var/spool/cron/crontabs/
Then, CRON itself needed starting since it had not not running at all and executing this command did the needful without restarting the system:
sudo systemctl start cron
That outcome was proved by executing the following command to issue some terminal output that include the welcome text “active (running)” highlighted in green:
sudo systemctl status cron
There was newly updated output from a frequently executing job that checked on web servers for me but this was added confirmation. It was a simple solution to a perplexing situation that led up all sorts of blind alleys before I alighted on the right solution to the problem.
I have been thinking of sharing my thoughts on using IDE‘s such as NetBeans, Eclipse and Komodo Edit from a web developer’s point of view for a while but it has still to come. In the meantime, Java Boutique have shared their thoughts on NetBeans 6.1 and I think that they are well worth a look. In fact, I downloaded a copy for my own use off the back of this. MySQL capabilities look especially intriguing.