Stefan Helander

Trillian can’t connect with ICQ, unknown code 27

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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.
Stefan Helander

PeToUSB can’t find USB stick in Vista

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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.

Stefan Helander

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

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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.

Stefan Helander

How to change timezone and synchronize time in Debian Linux

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To ensure that things are being logged with correct time stamps in your system logs, it is important that your system is configured for your particular timezone and that your system clock is being synchronized to a correct time source. Normally when you set up your Debian Linux system the correct time zone will be choosen. If the time zone is set wrong for some reason it needs to be adjusted.

To check your current time zone issue the command:

# date
Wed Jul 15 11:05:15 UTC 2009

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Stefan Helander

Horde Groupware Webmail alarms.php memory problem

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To enable alarms in Horde Groupware Webmail you must add the following to your crontab:

# Horde Alarms
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/horde/scripts/alarms.php

Depending on your system, the paths above might be different.

You may experience the following error message when the script is run by cron:

Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 147 bytes)

To resolve this, edit the file /etc/php4/cli/php.ini. Depending on your system it might be located somewere else on your particular system. Change the memory limit to 128 MB by changing the memory_limit parameter:

memory_limit = 128M

The above problem has occured with Horde Groupware Webmail version 1.2.3 but might occur in other versions as well.

Stefan Helander

Noteboek

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Just a notebook… or… ?

Stefan Helander

Mysterious new mail icon in system tray

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A new mail notification that occurs on the system tray looking like this:

Mysterious new mail icon in system tray

Nothing will happen when you hover the mouse over it or clicking on it. It is hard to understand which software this icon belongs to.

The answer is Vodafone Mobile Connect which is a software used to connect with 3G mobile networks as well as WLAN/Wifi networks using built in devices in your computer. It is being shipped with HP Compaq laptop computers for example.

The icon indicates that you have new unread SMS messages in your mobile device. To read the SMS click on the red Vodafone Mobile Connect icon in the system tray. You can see a bit of the red icon in the right edge of the picture above. Then choose “Show” and then “SMS” in the Vodafone Mobile Connect software.

Stefan Helander

Shutdown Windows Vista via Remote desktop

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When you connect to a host running Microsoft Vista remote via Remote Desktop, the Shut down button is replaced by Disconnect.

To shutdown the host remote click on Windows Security just above the normal place for the shutdown/logout/disconnect buttons. This will bring up the standard screeen for switching user, task manager etc. At the right a red button is visible and under this the Shut down option is accessible.

Stefan Helander

How does Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) work?

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By the introduction of Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) it is now possible to register domain names on the Internet, containing regional characters, like for example www.räksmörgås.se.This is possible for a number of the Top Level Domains (TLD), like .se and .nu.

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Stefan Helander

Mac-adress lookup tool

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When troubleshooting networks, when there is an IP-address conflict for example, it is sometimes useful to lookup the vendor of the mac-addresses. This way you can identify the brand of the conflicting host.

A tool for doing this is found here. It contains information about both ethernet and bluetooth manufacturers.