The D-Link DI-614+ is an older model router, that may still be in use today, so it is important to understand how to secure the D-Link DI-614 wireless router. D-Link’s technical support doesn’t officially support this model, so if you happen to use this router, I’ll bridge the gap by providing instructions on how to secure the router.
As with all wireless routers, this one isn’t secured when it is first used. It is important, however, to secure the D-Link DI-614 wireless router before you start using it. The one interesting aspect, at least from what I can tell, is that there are two revisions of this router: one that only supports WEP, and a revision B that supports WEP and WPA. I’ll make note of these differences in the steps.
Google Analytics is probably the most popular free traffic statistics tools that is used by web site owners. It provides a wealth of information about visitors to a site, and can easily be used to help manage a site.
With all the information that is available by Google Analytics, it can be confusing as to find out where visitors from referring sites land on your page. A single referring site can send visitors to your site through several different pages, and it may help to know the pages that those visitors opened from the referring site. This post explains how you can easily do this with a few clicks of your mouse button.
If you manage a WordPress blog, there are many WordPress plugins to stop spam. Spam is an annoying part of blogging, and if it isn’t managed properly, can turn a good, respectable blog into a trashy-looking blog. People have used many approaches to controlling spam, from captcha images to requiring registration on their blog.
Update:
I have since moved to using one plugin to stop spam from appearing on my blog. I now use the GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin to help eliminate spam.
I have also been bombarded with spam at times. While I have thought about measures to combat spam, I wanted to find methods that wouldn’t impact my visitors. About a week and a half ago I believe I have completed my spam-fighting arsenal, and have reduced the number of spam comments I see to zero. I list the three WordPress plugins to stop spam that I use on this blog.
I recently was thinking about how to prevent some scripts from loading, and executing, each time I logged into WordPress. The scripts were traffic statistics scripts and I didn’t want them from counting the visits from myself. If the option was available from the statistics script owner, I would simply have told it to exclude my IP address. If I decided to view my blog from a different location that I normally don’t use; however, then the script would count my visit.
The solution, as it turns out, was a rather simple one, and can be used to prevent pretty much anything from loading for a logged in user – any logged in user.
I was looking at my all-time visitors stats for Technically Easy and noticed that I was approaching a milestone: 1,000,000 (1 million) visits. I enjoy looking at the visitor stats for my blog, mainly because I am a stats-junkie, but the stats provide a lot of information about who visits my blog.
Sometimes I also like to view my all-time stats – take a look at my visitor information since I started the blog (June 23, 2007). It was about two weeks ago that I noticed I was approaching this milestone. Since then, I decided to write a post about it, and look at some of the stats since I started this blog.
Ever since I started blogging, I have always been fascinated with blogging communities. The problem is that there are probably hundreds of them online, and many of them aren’t worth the trouble of joining. All require some sort of registration process, and then you need to verify your blog, and or display some image somewhere on you pages.
In order to avoid making my blog look like a mess of small little images, I simply dropped many of the blogging communities like a bad habit. Recently, however, I was reading Basic Blog Tips (if you are a new blogger, you should check it out), and noticed Ileane (the author) mentioned a blogging community called BloggerLuv. I decided to check it out.
I have written several posts in the past about how I use VueScan to scan in old printed photographs, but never talked about how to profile a scanner in VueScan. While it took some getting used to, I have managed to create a VueScan scanning workflow that works for me. While everyone will have their own different workflow, the important thing to remember is that regardless of your workflow, you should take the time to profile a scanner in VueScan.
Why is it important to profile your scanner? Simple. All scanners don’t reproduce the same colours the same way. Even scanners that are the same model may have a minor variation of a specific colour. Profiling your scanner allows VueScan to produce scans that are as true to life as possible. While profiling your scanner may sound complicated, it isn’t difficult and I’ll step you through the process in this article.
Scan Properly: Profile a Scanner in VueScan
Before you profile your scanner you will first need to buy a IT8 calibration target. They aren’t expensive, and can be used to profile any scanner. I purchased by calibration target from Wolf Faust for $10 USD plus $10 USD shipping. The target was packaged in a sturdy cardboard envelope, and within a second sturdy envelope inside the cardboard one. The target itself was inside a plastic sleeve to protect it from dust.
Steps Needed to Profile a Scanner in VueScan
Once you have your IT8 target, you can use the following steps to profile a scanner in scanner:
Place the IT8 target onto your flatbed scanner, as you would a photo. Turn on your scanner and then load VueScan.
Click the “Input” tab, and then select “Profile Scanner” from the “Task” dropdown option.
VueScan – Task – Profile Scanner (Click to enlarge)
Next, click the “Color” tab, and then click the “@” button next to “Scanner IT8 data” and select the IT8 description file.
VueScan – IT8 Scanner Data (Click to enlarge)
Note:
The IT8 calibration target that I received from Wolf Faust didn’t come with a description file. The description files are available from the website where I ordered the target. If you don’t have a description file, check to see if you can download one from the website where you ordered your target.
Click the “Preview” button to preview the IT8 target in your scanner.
After the preview is displayed, a cropping mask will be displayed over the image. This mask will need to be adjusted to line up with your target. You can simply drag the border of the cropping mask so it matches your target. This step is important if you wish to profile a scanner in VueScan properly.
VueScan – Copping Mask Not Aligned (Click to enlarge) VueScan – Copping Mask Aligned (Click to enlarge)
Once the cropping mask is aligned with your target, click “Profile->Profile Scanner” from the top menu.
VueScan – Profile Scanner (Click to enlarge)
A file called “scanner.icc” is created in the same folder as “vuescan.ini”.
When you want to scan a photo, you can specify the scanner ICC profile you created using the above steps. You specify the profile in the “Scanner ICC profile” option under the “Color” tab.
By using a profile, you can now scan photos with the correct colours with minimal adjustments needed. Getting the correct colours is one of the main reasons to understand how to profile a scanner in VueScan.
A popular post on Technically Easy is where I recommend disabling audio enhancements on Windows Vista to help reduce the CPU usage of the audiodg.exe process. Depending on the enhancements that were enabled, this can have a large effect or no effect on the CPU usage.
While the above post covered how to disabled the audio enhancements on Windows Vista, the same steps apply to Windows 7 as well, unless you have hidden the speaker icon from the system tray. If that is the case, you can use the steps outlined in this post to disable the audio enhancements from Windows 7.
To disable audio enhancements on Windows 7, you can use the following steps:
Click the Windows icon in the lower-left corner and then click “Control Panel”. The “Control Panel” window will open on the screen.
From the “Control Panel” window, click the “Hardware and Sound” link.
Windows 7 – Control Panel (Click to enlarge)
From the “Hardware and Sound” options, click the “Manage audio devices” link under the “Sound” section. The “Sounds” window will display on the screen.
Windows 7 – Manage Audio Devices (Click to enlarge)
Select the device you want to change the audio enhancements for, and then click the “Properties” button in the lower-right corner. The properties window will display on the screen.
Windows 7 – Sounds Window (Click to enlarge)
Click the “Enhancements” tab at the top, and then disable any audio enhancement you don’t want to enable by unchecking the enhancement and clicking “Apply”. You can disable all audio enhancements by checking the “Disable all enhancements” checkbox and then clicking apply.
Windows 7 – Disable All (Audio) Enhancements (Click to enlarge)
Click “OK” to close the properties window.
If you want to disable enhancements for other audio devices, repeat steps 4-6 for other devices.
Some people may notice a decrease in sound quality, while some may not notice a difference at all. Keep in mind that the enhancements enabled under the “Enhancments” tab are artificial software enhancements. If you prefer to use enhancements, you should choose to use any that are included with your sound card software instead as they are usually more advanced and provide more settings to adjust the sound quality. You can always enable any enhancements that you disable if you don’t like the sound quality.
