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  • Delayed Write Failure With External Hard Drive

    Delayed Write Failure With External Hard Drive

    I had recently bought myself a new external hard drive because I had out grown my 250GB western digital drive. My new drive is the 2TB Western Digital My Book. My new drive has three methods of connecting to the computer: USB 2.0, Firewire, or eSATA. Since I don’t have an eSATA connection, I used Firewire.

    While doing a simple file copy, I noticed that the copy speed was dreadfully slow. As a short term solution, I disconnected the Firewire, and connected the USB 2.0, at least until I determined why the Firewire was so slow. With the USB cable connected, I received much faster transfer rates, so I decided to backup my data from the drive to my online provider. During the transfer, I received an error message each time that basically stopped the backup procedure.

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  • Understanding Blogger Page Types

    Understanding Blogger Page Types

    Understanding the various Blogger page types is important if you plan to edit your own Blogger template. When you know this, then you can display certain HTML elements on specific pages by checking the page type.

    In my tutorials I, at times, mention creating conditional statements that check the type of page that is displayed. This is to ensure a particular code statement is executed only for a particular type of page. Let’s look at the different page types.

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  • Finding and Fixing 404 Errors on Your WordPress Blog

    Finding and Fixing 404 Errors on Your WordPress Blog

    It is important to find and fix 404 errors that can occur in your WordPress blog. This allows you to take corrective measures to ensure visitors to your blog are presented with your content and not an error page. Earlier this year I wrote a post that explained how you can remove broken links in your WordPress blog. The post talked about using a plugin to detect any broken links within the posts on your blog. This plugin proved very useful as it found many links that were no longer valid.

    I recently decided I wanted to see if I can detect links that were pointing to my blog, but weren’t valid. Such links would produce a 404 “not found” error on my blog, and may prevent some traffic from reaching a specific destination. To help with detecting 404 errors, I installed a plugin that will notify me when the errors occurred.

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  • System Cannot Open the Device of File Specified – Windows Installer Error

    System Cannot Open the Device of File Specified – Windows Installer Error

    I had been having a problem when installing software that consisted of a single MSI file and displayed the error “System cannot open the device of file specified.” Whenever I ran a MSI file I continuously received an error on the screen that prevented the application from being installed. I tried it on several installs, and they all produced the same error.

    Realizing it wasn’t the actual individual installations, I began to experiment with a few file settings. I had experienced other Windows Installer issues in the past so I began to debug this issue. After a few tests I determined the problem and was able to easily correct it so I could run installations again.

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  • Finding Your D-Link DI-524 Revision

    Finding Your D-Link DI-524 Revision

    I recently had an issue with one of my tutorial posts that outlines how to secure a D-Link DI-524 wireless G router. The issue was that the steps I provided didn’t exactly match the options that were available on some DI-524 routers. After a few readers reported this issue, I decided I should look into the cause.

    After doing some quick research on that particular router, I learned that there are actually three different revisions of that router. This caused the issue because two of the three revisions had different administrative screens that those I outlined in the post. If you would like to find the revision of your router, then read on.

    Finding Your DI-524 Revision

    As mentioned above, there are three revisions of the DI-524 wireless G router. While not obvious to most that use the router, there are minor differences between the administrative pages between the first two revisions and the final one. To find the revision that you are using, follow these steps:

    1. Login to your router.
    2. Click The “Status” tab at the top.
    3. The “Firmware Version” will indicate the router revision you are using, as this table
      shows:

      Revision Firmware
      A 1.xx
      C 3.xx
      D 4.xx

    Small Differences Between Revisions

    There are a small number of differences within the administration pages that can cause confusion when outlining steps to changing your router settings. A good example, as mentioned above, is the page where you set your wireless security settings. While the settings are similar between the three revisions, how they settings are actually set are different.

    Since I have learned about the three difference revisions, I have since updated my past post on securing the router.

  • Why are Some Files Coloured in Windows Explorer?

    Why are Some Files Coloured in Windows Explorer?

    Someone recently as me a question as to why some files appear in either a blue or green colour when they viewed their files in Window Explorer. They were wondering if there was a problem with those files and what should they do about it.

    I assured them that there was no problem with their files, and that it was perfectly normal to see some files in another colour other than black.

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  • How to Reset the Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Router

    How to Reset the Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Router

    Learning to reset the Linksys WRT160N wireless-N router is important if you currently change the settings within the administrative pages. The reason it is important is because one wrong setting change could make it difficult to access the Internet or the administrative pages of of the router.

    If you need to start over with your router, one solution is to reset your router back to its factory defaults. This means that you return all the settings on the router back to what they were when you first purchased and setup the router. This post will explain the two methods you can use to reset the Linksys WRT160N wireless-n router.

    Using the Reset Button

    Note:

    Resetting the router to the factory defaults will delete any changes you have made to the router, including any security settings. This should be used as a last resort.

    The first method involves using the reset button that is located at the back of the router. It isn’t hard to reset the router this way, but does require physically being in the same location as the router.

    To reset the router using the reset button, use these steps:

    1. Look for the red reset button at the back of the router.
    2. Press and hold the reset button for approximately 5 seconds.

    Reset the Router Through the Administrative Pages

    Note:

    If you don’t know the user ID and password to access your router’s administrative pages, then you will need to use the first method to reset your WRT160N router.

    The second method involves logging into the administrative pages of your router. This can be done from anywhere that you can connect to your router. While not complex, there are a few more steps than using the reset button.

    1. Log in to the router’s administrative pages.
    2. Click the “Administration” menu option.
    3. Next, click “Factory Defaults” from the sub-menu.
    4. Click the “Restore All Settings” button on the screen.

    Regardless of which method you use to reset your router, it is important to secure your router after it has been reset.

  • Display a Blog List as a Static Page in Blogger

    Display a Blog List as a Static Page in Blogger

    Blogger was created to provide an easy way for anyone to create a blog within a matter of minutes. You don’t need to know HTML or CSS to write and publish posts on a Blogger blog, since the user inteface, and templates, do it all for you. While you can edit the code, if you wish, for most people it is easier to simply add gadgets and move them around.

    With this ease of use comes some restrictions, such as not being able to create pages that execute code. I have managed to provide alternatives to getting around several restrictions, and today I will discuss another alternative – displaying a blog list as a static page. Doing something such as this was asked a little while ago in my comments, and while I provided a quick reply, I decided to provide a more thorough solution.

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