Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Recommended Addons for Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird !

Last Update on 13th Oct 2013

Why use Mozilla Open Source?


Mozilla is open source software which is highly recommended by many IT professionals. It is simplistic to use and considered to be better than most pay ware products. Their software is extremely customisable and if like me, you can even use themes to make it look like internet explorer so it won't take you long to adapt.

Mozilla FireFox (Open Source Web Browser) + Recommended Addons


Firstly you will need to download the FireFox browser.

Then I would recommend downloading and installing the following addons:
* Clicking on a link will allow you to learn more about the addon
  1. Adobe Flash Player
  2. Windows Media Plugin
  3. PDF Download Addon
  4. Dictionary
  5. X-Notifier for gmail, yahoo, hotmail, aol and more webmails
  6. Download Manager Tweak
  7. Prevent Tab Overflow
  8. InstantFox Quick Search
  9. Copy Plain Text 2
The above links are those that I highly recommend you install (I use these).
The below links are those that I have seen which you may want yourself:
  1. Autofill - auto fill form fields in
  2. Popup ALT Text display - hover over images to see the alt text displayed
  3. FoxTab - FoxTab brings innovative 3D functionality to your Firefox browser
  4. Private Tab - browse a web site or page without it being saved to your history
  5. Tab Badge - alerts you of (for example) new messages on Facebook etc
  6. Firesizer - great for web site designers
  7. Panic Button - quickly hide all browser windows with a click of a button
  8. Extended Status bar - a status bar with speed, percentage, time and loaded size (similar to Opera's one)
  9. Download Status bar - View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar - without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing
Extensions library contains many more addons which you can research yourself.

Themes (feel free to browse as there are a lot).

Mozilla Thunderbird (Open Source Email Client) + Recommended Addons


Firstly you will need to download the Thunderbird Email Client.
Then I would recommend downloading and installing the following addons:
* Clicking on a link will allow you to learn more about the addon
  1. StartupMaster - Excellent for Password Protecting
  2. Dictionary
  3. Minimise to Tray - Revived
  4. Duplicate Contact Manager
  5. Update Checker
  6. Copy Plain Text 2
  7. Contacts Sidebar
  8. Smilie Inserter Plus

    * Download and install the Skype Emotions. Once installed, simply link to the directory you installed them to.

  9. How to backup your emails (requires Mozbackup as explained in the article).
Just one thing, to make sure your outgoing mail is wrapped, make sure you set the following below. This basically stops the annoyance of recipients having to scroll left and right to read messages that you have sent them.
  1. Go to Tools > Options > Composition
  2. On the general tab set the default Wrap plain text messages at 72 characters
  3. Under HTML set the Font to one you prefer
  4. Then click on the button 'Send Options' (towards the bottom right)
  5. Select from the drop down menu "Send the message in HTML anyway"
Get your recipients to set their clients to do the same so you both don't have to scroll left and right:

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Cannot view old help files (.chm) on Windows 7 [solution]

Have you ever tried to view a .chm (old windows help file) to be told you cannot view it?

If so, Microsoft have developed updates for Windows 7 to solve this so that you can view these files. Follow the instructions found here:

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Adding your email address to your web site the safe way i.e. without getting SPAM !

Adding email to your web site can be a great way for your users to get in touch with you with issues they have which you can help them with. The problem is, as soon as you do that, it is likely your email address will attract a lot of spam bots obtaining your address to advertise things you really don't want to hear about.

So how do you get around this problem?

I recently discovered TinyMailto.com !

This is fantastic I will probably use it on my web sites in the future.

What does it do?

"TinyMailto.com lets you convert your e-mail address into a URL that is protected from spammers by a captcha test.

You can use a tinymailto URL to put it in public places like web pages, forum/e-mail signatures, etc. If someone wants to get your e-mail address, the person must pass a Captcha test in order to view and use your e-mail address.
This way, you can protect your e-mail address from spammers and web robots (web-bots).

A Captcha test is an image that can be interpreted only by a human being.

TinyMailto.com will work for you if you already put your e-mail address on the web sites."

Learn more by visiting the web site at http://tinymailto.com/

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

How to ping a specific port / How to test a connection between two computers on a WAN

With Windows XP it was possible to use the DirectX Diagnostic Tool, specifically Test DirectPlay to test a connection between two computers. It was mainly used as a gaming tool to establish which computer was blocking a connection.

However the best way to test specific ports is to use the telnet feature as you cannot "ping" a specific port. What telnet does is open a TCP connection on the port that you specify (if you don't specify one it defaults to 25). To do this is simple.

Firstly though if you are on Windows Vista / Windows 7 you need to enable the telnet feature (Windows XP users can skip this step). To do this; Click on Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Turn Windows features on or off. Scroll down to Telnet Client and tick the box. It will take several minutes to install.

Now open command prompt  (Win XP click on Run in start menu and type in "cmd" and press enter / Win Vista and; 7 users simply type "cmd" into your start menu's search box and press enter). Now use the telnet command in the same way as the ping command.

For example computer 1 has an IP of 127.5.45.55, and computer 2 (ip of 225.36.52.2) is trying to connect to port 6667 in order to play Generals but they cannot connect. Computer 1 would type into command prompt "telnet 225.36.52.2 6667". Computer 2 would type in "telnet 127.5.45.55 6667". As you can see it is extremely similar to the ping command. The results will be relayed back to the user.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

SOLUTION: Systray \ System Tray icons missing on taskbar in Windows XP?

Have you ever found that one of your system tray icons is missing when you boot up Windows XP?

The system tray (in short systray, also called taskbar notification area) is the icon strip located to the far right end of the task bar, next to the clock. Some Windows XP installations have a defect, in that some systray icons disappear or, rather, do not appear, when the system is booted when a user logs on. The problem is even more common on systems with autologon. The most frequently affected icons seem to be the speaker icon (sound volume) and the power / energy icon if on a laptop (notepad).

I had my sound icon missing for a while on my desktop but recently I found a very easy way to correct the problem. Very annoying as when ever I wanted to increase or decrease the volume I would have to go into Control Panel; Sounds and Audio Devices.

To fix this, simply download and run (on the affected computer) the installer below (after unzipping it using 7zip or what ever you use to unzip zip files):

http://nars.aloj.net/download/shell32patch.zip

Saturday, March 19, 2011

SOLUTION: Trouble finding firmware or drivers for hardware that is not listed within manufacturers archives?

I just spent 30 minutes trying to find an updated firmware for my relatively 'newish' Sony DVD-ROM (SONY DVD-ROM DDU1615S drive) and Sony DVD-RW DL (SONY DVD RW DRU-190S) drives.

For those who found this in a Google search and just need to download the firmware for either drives named above, below this paragraph are direct links just for you as I am too kind :)

SONY DVD-ROM DDU1615S | SONY DVD RW DRU-190S


Now of course the first place that I checked was the main manufacturers web site for Sony Optical Drives. Managed to find one drives firmware on there easily (the DVD-RW DL drive); but could not find the DVD-ROM drive within the archives. So as you do I did a Google search. Took me a while but there was a web site which really was the only place to find it:

Step 1) Go to the following web site and search for the hardware firmware (or driver)

Note: You may want to simply use the category link as that is useful as well, but personally I found it easier to simply search my hardware name 'SONY DVD-ROM DDU1615S' - selecting download and clicking on GO to find it listed in the results.

http://www.opendrivers.com/ (use the site search to the right hand side menu rather than the Google search at the top).

Step 2) From the results select your hardware which takes you to where you can download the driver (or firmware).

e.g. In my case download SONY DVD-ROM DDU1615S firmware result page :)

Step 3) Scroll down the page to find a heading ">> Driver Download >> "

Within this area you need to type in a validation code and click on the 'Download This Driver for Your Device from Open Drivers' button in order to get the download link (or several download links).

Step 4) Once this page has loaded you need to look carefully for the right download link as it can be confusing as to which link actually works (as in you do download the firmware or driver you need).

What I did was try the first link under "Official Driver Download" (which was a link back to the main manufacturers web site), but this was an outdated link and I had some other web site try and make me buy an application to scan my system and update drivers etc for me ... I don't want that!

So I went back to the page again and scanned around and found below the sponsored links a section called "Backup Download Server". Clicking the link here downloaded the right firmware for me. so I was happy.

Use the link under the "Backup Download Server " to download your firmware or driver if you find that the official links do not work.