Tech Titbits

Drive showing “Open with” instead of opening

Soumik — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:30:17 +0000

Last night, I cleaned up a virus infection in one of my friends’ portable hard drive. After cleansing the drive of all malware, I found that I couldn’t open the drive by double-clicking on it, or even by right-clicking on it and selecting “Open” or “Explore”.

Here’s what to do if such a thing happens :
(We will assume that the drive which is malfunctioning is denoted by L:)

We need to delete the autorun.inf file(if any) in the root of the drive and replace it with an empty one.

To do this start command prompt by going to Start-> Run-> cmd.
Type in the lines of code one by one.

L: attrib -S -H -R autorun.inf del /F autorun.inf

We have now successfully deleted autorun.inf from the root of the drive.We now need to create an empty autorun.inf in the root.

copy con autorun.inf
Press “Ctrl+Z” and then “Enter” key.

Now try to open the drive. If this method doesn’t work, don’t worry, we have more where that came from.

We will now re-register the .DLL files in hopes of fixing this issue. Go to Start >Run. Type in regsvr32 /i shell32.dll. You should get a dialog box as shown below.

Now try to open the drive. If it opens, you are in luck. If it doesn’t, don’t fret. We have some more tricks up our sleeve.
Start the registry editor by going to Start >Run >regedit. When the registry editor opens, press Ctrl+F, and search for MountPoints2. Delete all MountPoints2 keys you find. After you are done, close the registry editor. Now your drives should open normally.

If you have any queries, or you know of another way to fix this issue, feel free to leave a comment.

Open the Start Menu faster

Soumik — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:10:36 +0000

The Start Menu in Windows seems to open fast using this trick.
Open the registry editor by going to Start ->Run ->regedit. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Desktop. Double-click on MenuShowDelay and set it to ‘0′.

Closing a number of applications at once in Windows

Soumik — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:22:13 +0000

To close many Windows at once in Windows 7/Vista/XP, keep the [Ctrl] key pressed and select all the windows you want to close in the taskbar. Then leave the [Ctrl] key, and right-click on the last selected taskbar entry. Select “Close group” from the context menu that appears.

How to change drive letters in Windows

Soumik — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:13:09 +0000

After plugging in external drives or after adding optical drives and hard drives, Windows automatically assigns a drive letter to them. Usually, the system drive is assigned the letter C: and other drives are assigned subsequent incremented letters.

It is possible to change this auto-assigned drive letter in Windows 7/ Vista/XP. Right-click on My Computer and select “Manage”. Under Computer Management, select “Disk Management”. The right pane will contain the list of drives with the “CD-ROM” drives listed at the bottom.

Now, right-click on the drive whose letter needs to be changed and select “Change drive letters and paths…”. Click on “Change”, select “Assign the following drive letter” and select the required drive letter.

Note that the system drive letter cannot be changed.

Turn on Topic Reply Notification by default in phpBB

Soumik — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:18:42 +0000

In phpBB3, topic reply notification is set to “Off” by default. Unlike vBulletin, where you are automatically subscribed to threads which you reply to, in phpBB, you have to manually check “Notify me when a reply is posted” from the “Post reply” page to subscribe.

However, there is an easy file edit that will keep “Notify me when a reply is posted” checked by default when posting a reply.

Open ‘includes/functions_user.php’:

Find :

      'user_notify'         => 0,

Replace with :

      'user_notify'         => 1,

After this edit, users will be automatically subscribed to threads while replying.

Changing the default command prompt directory

Enable display of older help files in Windows 7 and Vista

Soumik — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:44:25 +0000

Ever since Windows 3.1, Microsoft has included the Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) with new releases. Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft doesn’t bundle the Windows Help program used to view .HLP files meant for older Windows programs with the OS. Apparently, Microsoft made this decision because the program hasn’t had a major update for many years, and it did not meet their standards for new Microsoft programs. But for customers who still rely on 32 bit .HLP files, Microsoft offers this as a separate download.*

Download links :

After installing the program, Windows should be able to correctly display .HLP files.

Note: Sometimes, due to an error in the macro commands, a lock is activated on the application. To unlock it, navigate to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WinHelp’ and create a new DWORDValue. Enter the name as ‘AllowProgrammaticMacros’ and set the value to 1. The application will be unlocked.

* You need to undergo genuine Microsoft validation to download the files.

Essential custom BBCodes for phpBB

Soumik — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:55:21 +0000

phpBB comes with a multitude of BBCodes that perform various functions. While most of these are sufficient for day-to-day forum activity, power users who crave for mre functionality on their boards, need custom-made BBCodes to satisfy their needs. Here is a list of most commonly used bbcodes on phpBB boards.

Video sharing

YouTube

BBCode usage :

[youtube]http://{SIMPLETEXT1}.youtube.com/watch?v={SIMPLETEXT2}[/youtube]]

HTML replacement :

Help line :

Usage:[youtube]Video URL[/youtube]

Google Video

BBCode usage :

[googlevideo]{NUMBER}[/googlevideo]

HTML replacement :

Help line :

Enter the video ID number -- the video ID is a 18 digit number is after docid=- in the URL

Text Alignment

Left
BBCode usage :

[left]{TEXT}[/left]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Right
BBCode usage :

[right]{TEXT}[/right]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Center
BBCode usage :

[center]{TEXT}[/center]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Spoiler

The spoiler BBCode can be used to hide spoilers from unsuspecting users. There are many ways to go about it, using Javascript or otherwise.

Without Javascript :
This BBCode adds a black background color to the text between the tags, making it unreadable unless highlighted.
Example :
This is a spoiler.
BBCode usage :

[spoiler]{TEXT}[/spoiler]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Using Javascript :
This creates a “Show” button which expands to reveal the spoiler when clicked.
Example :

Spoiler:

This is a spoiler.

BBCode usage :

[spoiler2]{TEXT}[/spoiler2]

HTML replacement :

Spoiler: 
{TEXT}

Another version :

This creates a spoiler which reveals itself on mousever.
Example :

This is a spoiler.

BBCode usage :

[spoiler3]{TEXT}[/spoiler3]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Strikethrough

Creates strike-through text.
Example :

Strike-through text.

BBCode usage :

[strike]{TEXT}[/strike]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Specify font
Specifies the font to be used in the text.
Example :

This is written in Arial.

BBCode usage :

[font={SIMPLETEXT}]{TEXT}[/font]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Pre tag

Text enclosed by these tags will retain their formatting.

[pre]{TEXT}[/pre]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Background colour

Changes the background to the specified colour.
BBCode usage :

[bgcolor={COLOR}]{TEXT}[/bgcolor]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Horizontal line

Adds a horizontal line after text.

[hr][/hr]

HTML replacement :

Subscript

For writing subscripted text.
Example :

Oleum – H2S2O7

BBCode usage :

[sub]{TEXT}[/sub]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

Superscript

For writing superscripted text.
Example :

(a+b)2 = a2+b2+2ab

BBCode usage :

[super]{TEXT}[/super]

HTML replacement :

{TEXT}

No related posts.

Google Public DNS – An alternative to OpenDNS?

Soumik — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:01:34 +0000

Google has recently launched Google Public DNS, a public DNS resolver service with an aim to make web browsing faster and secure. OpenDNS, providing the same services and more, has been in the market since 2006. So, which one is better, and is it beneficial to switch from using OpenDNS to Google Public DNS? We will find out.

Features :

Performance – Both GPDNS and OpenDNS employ quite a number of tweaks to increase performance of the end users. Both load balance user traffic and implement “smart” caching techniques to speed up domain resolution.
While this does not directly affect performance, OpenDNS has a nifty tool called CacheCheck, which can be used to check the status of a domain in OpenDNS’s cache and optionally update the domain’s DNS records in the cache. This does score some brownie points for OpenDNS.
Security – Even though Google Public DNS has protection against cache-poisoning, DOS and amplification attacks, it blandly admits that it doesn’t provide any content-filtering/anti-phishing/anti-malware protection. Google says :

Google Public DNS is not a malware-blocking service. Google Public DNS does not perform blocking or filtering of any kind

However, OpenDNS delivers a lot in this sector. In addition to protection against cache-poisoning and other vulnerabilities, it offers web-content filtering, “PhishTank” anti-phishing, malware-protection and whitelisting/blacklisting of domains, all though a web-based dashboard. In addition to this, OpenDNS also features a community based domain tagging system, where users can tag domains into appropriate categories and check the status of an already-tagged domain.

Real-world Performance

I used Namebench to perform DNS benchmarks. The results are as follows:

Mean Response Duration

Fastest Individual Response Duration

The tests proved that Google Public DNS resolver is 5% faster than the OpenDNS resolver.

Conclusion

Even thoughthe real world test found Google Public DNS to be 5% faster than OpenDNS, it actually makes a very little difference in speed. Considering the advanced features like anti-phishing, anti-malware, content-filtering and custom-error pages, OpenDNS is recommended for both network administrators and end users.

Special Note :

Google says that it shows correct results for NXDOMAIN results, ie, due to mistyping or otherwise, if a non-existent domain is tried to be resolved, it will return an error message. OpenDNS, however, redirects such requests to it’s search page where it shows similar domains along with some sponsored links. I couldn’t decide whether this is a good or a bad move, so I didn’t include this in the evaluation process.

No related posts.

Enabling more then 6 simultaneous downloads in IE8

Soumik — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:20:07 +0000

Internet Explorer 8, as it may be known, doesn’t support more than 6 parallel downloads. While downloading a large number of big files from slow servers, bypassing this limit becomes a necessity. Like the previous versions, this limit is defined in the registry, but in a different location.

To change this limit, close all instances if Internet Explorer, open the registry editor by going to Start-> Run-> regedit. Navigate to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPER1_0SERVER’. In the right pane, find the DWORD value ‘iexplore.exe’ and change it to 15(or any other number you may want). If the DWORD entry doesn’t exist, create it by “Edit-> New-> DWORD value”, and put the name as ‘iexplore.exe’. Change the value to 15 and leave the base as Hexadecimal. Navigate to the adjacent key ‘FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPERSERVER’ and perform the same actions.

Internet Explorer should now allow more than 6 simultaneous downloads.

Add canonical links to phpBB

Soumik — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:21:12 +0000

It’s old news that Google and other major search engines have added support for the tag to help cut down on duplicate indexing of web pages. While plugins for Wordpress, Drupal and Magneto E-Commerce have been released, there has been none such modification for phpBB, where it is, arguably, most needed.

phpBB administrators have used various methods to cut down on this duplicate indexing issue, but adding a canonical URL seems to be the most subtly effective way. Google honours this tag very strongly, and upon finding it in a web page, it should only index the canonical page.

In the view of all this, I have put together a mod for phpBB3 to add the canonical links to phpBB board pages. The Canonical URL mod adds these lines to the phpBB pages :

In the index page :

In the forum pages :

In the topic pages :

For global threads* :

phpBB.com support thread :

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=1880545

Download modification :

Note :

Normally, global threads will have canonical URLs like this :

If you want the global threads to have canonical URLs with an “f=Y” query string, you just need to make a little change to the code. After installing the mod, open viewtopic.php.
Find :

   'U_CANONICAL'    => generate_board_url() . "/viewtopic.$phpEx?" . (($topic_data['topic_type'] == POST_GLOBAL) ? '' : "f=$forum_id&") . "t=$topic_id" . (($start) ? "&start=$start" : ''),

In-line Find :

? ''

Replace with :

? "f=Y&"

Replace ‘Y’ with the forum id of the forum you want your global threads to belong to.