Category: Work/Technical

  • Stupid 123 Reg Web Forwarding FAIL

    We use 123 reg for our domains as we have so many and they are the cheapest UK based domain name registrar! However the saying “you get what you pay for” really comes into play as the control panel and general support you get from them is dogshit.

    I wrote a very popular post back in 2008 about their domain name auto renewal shambles – now, its the web forwarding that is gonna take a beating.

    I have a customer who has collected a few domains along their business life, and only one of them is active – so he wanted to (in a search engine friendly way) redirect all his spare domain names to his main site so they were not wasted. Initially, its quite confusing as the control panel will let you set the forwarder and appear like its all set up and working even if the nameservers of the domain are set externally – so the 123 reg forwarding isnt even being factored into the equasion at this point.

    After finally reading some instructions (im a man, i dont do instructions) i realised you needed to reset the nameservers to 123-reg’s nameservers, so that the local settings would take effect. I did this, and left it a few days so DNS could properly do its thing – checked them all this morning, and they are resolve to a 123reg page – none of them forward.

    Ok – now im starting to get pissed off.

    I re-checked all domains, all nameservers were reset and all were set to forward to the main website – so what was the problem?

    I figured the best thing to do would be to properly read the instructions (im a man, when forced to read instructions i skim read) and noticed a little line in it that had until now evaded my sight…

    Don't nobody read stuff that small...

    So wait…

    I have to reset nameservers, create the redirect, THEN edit the DNS and add in some IP address?

    Would you like to make things any more confusing? I mean im OK editing DNS I do it a lot, but if my mum wanted to forward a domain she would be up shit creek – not good, 123reg!

    I’ve since gone in and edited this IP address – but if you are having problems like I did, then make sure you actually read everything as, despite it being totally retarded – there are guides to help you through the shambles.

  • Android Tablet of Awesomeness

    For the last god knows how many months i have toyed with the idea of buying myself an android tablet. For those that don’t know, they are basically similar to an iPad, but with varying specs – and they are a lot cheaper! You don’t have to buy in to the iTunes hype – you are free to roam which is how it should be if you ask me 😉

    Anyway – i finally caved in and bought one the other day, it should be with me in a day or so – and i am stupidly excited! I haven’t been this excited for a long time! The one i have chosen is a 9″ tablet, as i have friends with 7″ and 10″ and they don’t feel right – so went about in the middle as i felt that would be about perfect.

    Spec wise its above average compared to a lot of andrid tablets – it comes with a 1.5ghz processor which is nearly 50% more than 90% of its counterparts – and 8gb internal memory, and 1gb ram – full multi touch capacitive screen etc etc – its the bees knees 🙂

    My only 3 fears are;

    1. The keyboard will be too small to type on
    2. The battery will be shit
    3. The WiFi range will be shit

    If all of the above 3 points are not the case when it arrives, and everything else about it is cool – ill be one happy monkey 😀

  • The “Hidden” Internet….

    This week in the news a couple of teenagers have been arrested due to carrying out some crazy phone hack on the US government – i started reading into it as I always find it hilarious when a couple of kids can take over something set up by a load of really clever .gov types!

    Anyway, I’m reading an article on the register about it and after I’d finished I noticed that the good fellows at #Anonymous had closed down what was described as a “hidden child abuse hub” in around Oct2011 – now I’m not into child abuse hubs, but this once again intrigued me as to what these articles meant by these “hidden” resources.. They cant simply mean passworded sites as the servers that hosted these sites would be located and shut down?

    So after a bit more digging I find another article talking about the “Hidden Wiki” and something called the Tor network. A few minutes later I had installed it, opened it, clicked a few links and ended on a directory that contained links to possibly some of the most disturbing things i have ever seen in my life – all on domain extensions that when trying to access on the normal Internet simply present you with a 404 page.

    The idea behind the Tor network is basically an entire anonymous Internet only accessible when you connect to their network, where the source of websites, and the identity of the people browsing them cant be traced – so you can basically talk about everything and anything and get away with it – and it doesn’t take you long to see who mostly inhabits this underworld – lowlifes, peado’s and no doubt terrorists and everything in-between…

    Like most normal people, until i started reading into it I didn’t know this world existed – and according to sources it is potentially 400/500 times BIGGER than the commonly defined world wide web. That is a worrying thought, is it not?

    To conclude, I’m all up for an open, free and anonymous Internet but nothing should ever be 100% unrestricted as it ends up being used by child abusers and the likes to fuel their sick desires – please, Tor Police – do something about the horrible stuff on there… That’s not why you set the Tor network up, is it?

    🙁

  • Windows 7 64bit on the Sony Vaio VGN AR88E

    I’ve had my laptop for about 3 years, and in those 3 years i’ve had a new keyboard, upgraded memory – and i have installed windows 7 twice on it, once was 7 Professional and the latest is 7 Ultimate.

    Windows 7 is the best windows OS to date – it goes on most systems with ease and as long as your system is supported by windows 7 you simply have to slam the files on and it tends to do the rest itsself.

    However – for some reason my beloved Sony Vaio VGN AR88E seems to be one of the few systems that has a few issues with windows 7, specifically the 64bit version. Actually that statement is wrong, its actually the NVIDIA 8400M GT grpahics card that has the issues but rest assured there is a workaround to get the NVIDIA 8400M GT working with windows 7 64bit – its not for the feint hearted but it works!

    NB: The out-the-box installation of windows 7 on this vaio WILL install some drivers that will make the PC seem like its working fine, but plug another monitor in (or two more in my case) and you wont get very far….

    Step 1 – Download the official, latest version of the drivers from the NVIDEA website: http://uk.geforce.com/drivers (i found i had to manually search for them)

    Step 2 – Run the downloaded file, it will extract a load of files to your C:\ – go to My Computer, double click on C:\ and then carry on until you are (roughly) in this directory;

    C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\296.10\WinVista_Win7_64\

    Step 3 – Find your graphics card ID by right clicking on “Computer” in your start menu, then clicking properties. When the window opens click on “Device Manager” on the left and then locate the “Display Adapters” option, double click to reveal what will probably be labelled as a “Standard VGA Controller” or something like that.

    Step 4 – Right click and click proiperties on the Display Adapter and then click on the “Details” tab, and in the dropdown menu find “Hardware ID” then click on it.

    Step 5 – Make a note of the top “Value”, it will look something like this;

    Step 6 – Find a file called NVMT.INF and open it – for me it was inside a zip file called additional_infs.zip.

    Step 7 – Search for your graphics card, mine is the GeForce 8400M GT and it was set out like this;

    NVIDIA_DEV.0426.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT”

    Step 8 – Search for [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1] and for [NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1]

    The first search will bring you to a list where you will see this;

    %NVIDIA_DEV.0426.01% = Section005, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0426&SUBSYS_55841991
    %NVIDIA_DEV.0426.02% = Section007, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0426&SUBSYS_88971033

    Step 9 – Copy the last line, and duplicate it;

    %NVIDIA_DEV.0426.01% = Section005, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0426&SUBSYS_55841991
    %NVIDIA_DEV.0426.02% = Section007, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0426&SUBSYS_88971033
    %NVIDIA_DEV.0426.02% = Section007, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0426&SUBSYS_88971033

    Step 10 –  Change the bold bits, the first to 03, the second to 11 (dont know why, the guide i read said to) and the 3rd bit to your hardware ID (so in my case 9016104D)

    Do the same for the second search above except put 12 instead of 11.

    Step 11 – Search for Strings and find your graphics card again in the list;

    NVIDIA_DEV.0426.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT”
    NVIDIA_DEV.0426.02 = “NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT ”

    Step 12 – Duplicate the last line as follows;

    NVIDIA_DEV.0426.01 = “NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT”
    NVIDIA_DEV.0426.02 = “NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT ”
    NVIDIA_DEV.0426.03 = “NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT (Sony Vaio) ”

    Save all the changes and you should now be able to install official drivers to your Sony Vaio.

    Things change and some systems may vary – if you follow these steps and it doesn’t work please don’t bitch and moan to me, try some other stuff and you will get there eventually.