Windows 7 no/missing wallpaper
20/06/2010 at 1:57 am | Posted in windows | Leave a commentYou are probably not using a legit Windows 7 and it nags too so you know it. This “Windows Genuine Advantage” working to deter you from not paying Microsoft. The way I see it, there is no real advantage is using Microsoft original. Using windows is already a disadvantage as compared to using Ubuntu or Mac but I’ll save that for another posting.
The solution is to look for “Windows 7 RemoveWAT by Hazar”. It came in several versions so get the latest one. At the point of this writing, its ver. 2.2.5. Run it and disable automatic update. There will be peace on earth.
Disclaimer. I don’t use Windows 7 a lot but I have it in my Mac bootcamp. I don’t like paying for what I don’t need but its sure is interesting to know what the hype is all about.
Delete or remove msdrive.exe ccdrive recycler virus trojan
20/04/2010 at 11:59 am | Posted in security, windows | Leave a commentI`m quite surprised that I got this virus on my XP. I’ve never use anti-virus software because so far, I am able to remove them by hand. Tried to google it but this seems like a rare one. Anyway… what this virus do is reside in your recycler bin and it will send out spam to vulnerable SMTPs. At a later stage, it will morph into ccdrive.exe and ????.exe where ? = random numbers.
Attempts to delete it from registry will fail because the virus will re-enter MSDRIVE.EXE into your registry again. To make matters worst, it will load the virus on USB drive if you set autorun to be on. It will download from the internet if it cannot find the files needed. In other words, it will continually rebuild itself unless you can prevent it from running.
Running the taskmanager, you will not see anything suspicious. MSDRIVE.EXE is not listed. This is because explorer.exe is running the virus on it’s behalf. So in order to delete MSDRIVE.EXE from the recycler bin, you have to terminate EXPLORER.EXE. Terminating EXPLORER.EXE will render windows unusable but that’s ok as long as you are able to delete the pesky virus. Once done, restart your XP.
Upon restart, you will find explorer working as per normal and msdrive.exe gone. Just to keep things neat, make sure there are no MSDRIVE.EXE in your registry. Mission accomplished.
Windows XP CD DVD-ROM drive missing
05/04/2010 at 2:54 am | Posted in windows | Leave a commentIs your CD-ROM or DVD drive missing for no apparent reason? It could be because of a new program installation or even a windows upgrade. First, check that the BIOS detects the drive and you can see the power is on and it is connected.
From my knowledge it also affect Vista and Windows 7 as well. Even virtual drives of Daemon tools or Magic ISO is affected. Don’t bother going to Microsoft for a fix because their fix doesn’t work. This one does for most of us however it does require some registry editing knowledge. Here are the steps to restore the drives.
- Run regedit
- Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class
- Key Name: {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
- Note : there the key also applies to other devices so choose only the one pertaining DVD drive
- Value Data: [Delete All Value Data from UpperFilters and LowerFilters]
- Exit Registry and Reboot
Remove or delete links from Mac Finder Places sidebar
24/03/2010 at 4:26 am | Posted in Mac | 1 CommentBeing a new user to Mac OSX, I tried creating shortcuts on the finder by dragging folders into the places sidebar. Problem is, a few months later, those folders don’t exist anymore. With other folders that is existing, I can right-click and choose “Remove from Sidebar” but not these non-existing ones.
After a few hours, I found the solution. The trick is to drag these links or shortcuts away from Finder and the link is gone with a smoke effect. poof!
exFAT vs Fat 32 vs NTFS vs HFS vs Ext2
22/03/2010 at 6:39 pm | Posted in Cloud, Mac, recommendation, systems harmony, windows | 1 CommentLets assume that Mac uses HFS, Linux uses Ext and Windows uses Fat32 & NTFS. In terms of compatibility, Fat32 ranks highest. That is why, most (if not all) USB thumb drive, CF cards, etc. are preformatted in fat32 so it is compatible to all OS.
However, if you format the USB drive in other formats (than fat32), you will not be able to see it except NTFS. If NTFS, you will be able to see it, but you can’t modify it.
Fat32 is not the best though. It is not secure. As such, Linux and MacOSX cannot create permissions on it and is not usable to run applications. For example, Apache websites cannot be hosted on a Fat32 disk.
It has a file size limitation of 4gb. However, some software like VMware is aware of this limitation and break their files into 2gbs. You are better off putting your VMs in fat32 because this enables you to run your VM on Macs, linux and PCs. Now that is really cool because it enables you to carry your OSs wherever you go.
Then again, Windows 2000 Professional and XP Professional cannot FORMAT a volume larger than 32 GB in size. So Windows 7 came out with exFAT.
Erm btw, don’t ever try the dynamic partition shit on XP. Windows 7 will not be able to read it.
For my thoughts on HFS, read here.
I initially tried using EXT-2 but realised, it doesn’t work well with windows and mac even with software support. So, it’s BEST that if you use windows then use NTFS, Mac then use HFS and linux, EXT-4 or whatever.
But if you absolutely MUST cross use, the best option is to use NTFS. As I said earlier, Mac can read NTFS but cannot write. With MacFuse and third party (paid) software like NTFS-3G from Tuxera, you can write to NTFS as well
M1 mobile sent Lawyer’s letter
18/03/2010 at 5:47 pm | Posted in recommendation | 5 CommentsI just got a lawyer letter from M1 Mobile Singapore. The letter which look like a very thin photocopy paper with dirty envelope says I owe M1 $400 despite many warnings. This is a disputed sum because the usage was not mine. The usage was for a Naruto contest which was supposedly made from my wife’s phone! Why would my wife do that? The M1′s filipino CSO told me to settle it with the service provider. The service provider (Ericson) is a scam.. the name itself a tell tale sign. After refusing to pay the disputed amount, M1 terminated my line.
I had used this number from M1 for 2 decades and suddenly my phone went dead. I had no choice but to go to another service provider but I can’t use my old number because M1 has put it in limbo. This has affected my business because my clients prefer to contact me by mobile. I am disappointed with M1 for causing me so much distress.
Sure… sending a lawyer’s letter to collect debts is nothing new in litigious Singapore… just make sure it is sent to someone who deserves it. Although, I must admit, I have never experienced this before from any service provider. There is no way I am going to pay $400. In fact, if this eventually end up in court, I will counter sue for all the distress that M1 has caused me. Wake up M1… you (and your lawyers) are nobody to scare me. I don’t need you to watch my soccer or use the phone.
As of now, M1 have resorted to use bill or debt collectors. Come to think of it, I doubt if the first one is really a law firm. It is just unprofessional. All debt collection letters, approximately 5 of them I have promptly placed them in the dustbin upon receipt. haha.
enom bad domain registrar. Refused to provide EPP.
24/02/2010 at 2:37 am | Posted in recommendation | 3 CommentsI was the owner of h_r_un.com. This is a domain I bought way back in Feb 01 from enom. It expired recently because I forgotten about the expiry date. The reminders to renew went to an old email address that has expired and now belongs to enom. Before the expiry, I have planned to transfer to namecheap.
So now that is has expired, I initiate a transfer in namecheap as I did before for my other domains. As usual an EPP key is required. I raised a ticket in enom to request for an EPP key. It took them 2 days to reply. When they did reply, they said the have sent the EPP key to the old email address I mentioned earlier. I requested that they resend the email to me on my current email address. 2 days later, they replied and say that they cannot do that. I must pay up the annual fee first.
Geez, in the end, I cancelled my transfer at namecheap. Initially I planned to wait till the domain is free and register it as new but enom has extended the expiry date to 2011-02-14. Well done! No way I am going to pay you enom. You can take keep that domain.
Moral of the story.
- Do not use enom to register your domains ever! use others like namecheap, godaddy etc.
- Always remember to update your email address on your domains
- remember the date of expiry for all of your domains
MacDrive HFS on Windows?
22/02/2010 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Mac, recommendation, software, systems harmony, windows | 1 CommentI was a user of MacDrive 7 and was not really happy with the experience. It does take some memory and not entirely bug free.
Now there is a newer version 8 and from looking at the specs, it isn’t much of a difference, just more compatible to Windows 7.
If you read my previous post you will realise the best way is to get an extra hardisk for your mac instead of trying to share them with windows or Linux. Hardisk are cheap and this hassle is not worth it.
If you insists on sharing, it is better that you format in NTFS than FAT32 because it allows you to store files bigger than 4gb each. The drawback is that it is read only whereas Fat32 allows you to write to it as well. Why can’t windows and mac just get along?
Mac Could not modify partition map USB Drive
31/12/2009 at 6:04 pm | Posted in Mac, windows | 2 CommentsI’ve been happily using a 1TB drive on my windows and then decide to use it as my Mac time machine backup drive. Despite the fact that I’ve got loads of space on my drive and many partitions to choose from but alas, for time machine to work, it requires that destination volumes be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). When you try to format a partition as Mac, you will get the error “Could not modify partition map”.
Despite all my attempts to Google for the solution, nobody seem to offer a solution. It is because there is none. The reason why it could not modify the partition map is because the partitions of the drive are created by windows but mac could not modify it! The short but painful solution is to
- backup the entire 1tb contents elsewhere
- repartition using Mac
That’s what I did using Master Boot Record (MBR) and it works. Although OS X supports MBR, there’s a catch: Mac OS Extended volumes can be no larger than 512GB on a drive partitioned with the MBR scheme. So if you have, say, a 750GB or 1TB drive, you must repartition it to use the GUID Partition Table (GPT) or Apple Partition Map (APM) scheme before it can work with Time Machine.
Backup Strategy
19/11/2009 at 4:35 pm | Posted in Cloud, security | Leave a commentAssuming you manage 20 websites in 2 servers for a living, you gotta have a backup strategy to avert disaster. Here are mine. Not the best but at least I got one.
#1 Redundency & Mirroring
Always keep 2 exact copies of a site. If you can afford 3, nobody is stopping you. Other than the 2 servers, I have another 2 servers which I do my development from. So if the main server goes down due to whatever reasons, typhoon earthquake etc… The development server can become a replacement within very short notice.
Try to put the production and mirror servers as far as possible. Lets say one in London and the other in China. Sometime you don’t need natural disaster to damage your data. You could be the one that could screw up your data and to be honest, it happened to me. I dropped the wrong table but lucky for me… I had my other server. phew. Just remember before doing something dangerous like dropping a table, please back your data up first.
However, you must be diligent in syncing the data so you have a mirror image.
#2 Virtual Machines
Keep copies of your VM whenever possible. With VM, everything is saved. It is not enough to backup your data, you got to also backup your operating system.
When you run vm, use the auto snapshot feature. Take a snapshot every hour. I didn’t do it and one day, my VM got corrupted and all I have was a copy of the VM I did a week ago. A week’s work is gone.
#3 Incremental Backup
I did contemplate on having a CVS or SVC or you know… to keep track of changes but I think a small outfit of webdesigners and 2 coders doesn’t need to go thru that hassle.
I opt for incremental backup. In Mac OS, we have time machine. In Windows we have tools like Acronis. In linux, I use Rsync. I used them all.
The good thing about this is that, the backup is regular and the size of backup is small. In some cases even smaller than the original data because it is compressed. You can go back and revert to 6 months ago if you want to. However, you must be diligent in following your backup schedule.
#4 Organisation
Making a copy or backup is one thing but finding it later is another. Hence there must be a system where you keep notes on where the backup files are kept.
Learn from your mistakes. Be diligent or you be sorry.
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