Trillian can’t connect with ICQ, unknown code 27

Sometime in mid July 2009 Trillian users started to experience problems in conneting to their ICQ accounts. Their ICQ account was in working order as they could use ICQ2Go to login. The error message displayed in Trillian is: Error logging into ICQ: Unknown code 27.

The problem is caused by ICQ removing an older ICQ protocol. Trillian have fixed this in their version 3.1.13.0. To upgrade to this version, follow these steps.

  1. Start Trillian.
  2. Pull down the Help menu and select Check for updates.
  3. Select Trillian and click Next.
  4. Follow the instructions to proceed with the update.

PeToUSB can’t find USB stick in Vista

When running PeToUSB under Microsoft Vista it might not be able to detect your USB memory stick. It displays “No USB Disks Found!”.

The solution is to right click PeToUSB.exe and select “Run as administrator”. If that don’t help, try rebooting your system making sure the USB memory stick is inserted while Microsoft Vista boots up.

Windows Vista cannot obtain IP-address from my Internet Service Provider

Under certain conditions a PC running Windows Vista is unable to obtain an IP-address via DHCP from the Internet Service Provider (ISP). The problem occurs if the ISP is running a non-Microsoft DHCP server. Among ISPs it is common to work with, for example, ISC DHCP-server which is the most common DHCP-server in the world.

The problem and a possible solution is described in the following Microsoft article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B928233&x=13&y=10

If you don’t want to edit your registry another simple solution is to buy a simple broadband router (internet sharing device) that does Network Address Translation (NAT). By doing this, the broadband router is obtaining the IP-address from the ISP, not the Windows Vista PC. In addition, you will be able to connect more than one PC to your Internet connection and those PCs will be protected by the firewall that most broadband routers have builtin.