Posts Tagged ‘help’
Thursday, April 14th, 2016Reading Time: 4minutes
While browsing today and looking for software to clean up all the spy software from my corporate HP laptop, I've come across an interesting tool called Decrap which aims at removing Bloatware from a Windows PC / notebook (mirrored here because original software site was down)
So what is Bloatware ?
The term Bloatware (also called jokingly crapware) is term is the one that was coined to describe, the default pre-installed software that comes to you together with Windows pre-installed OS by the hardware manufacturer.
I'm sure anyone who bought brand new branded PC or laptop over the last 10 years have already suffered the unwanted and unnecessery
bunch of software that comes pre-installed freeware programs aiming to help you in your daily work but in reality just slowing down your PC
and showing annoying popups or at best keeping useless in Windows system apptray.
Let me give you an example:
Cleanup (Remove) common ASUS, HP, Dell default installed unneded (Bloatware) software
Many users may want to uninstall ASUS Crapware software such as ASUS Tutor, ASUS LifeFrame3, ASUS WebStorage and ASUSVibe.
Like Asus, HP computers often come preloaded with useless software from factory, example for this is HP Customer Service enhancements, HP Update, HP Total Care Setup and ProtectSmart.
If you buy Dell PC notebook soon you'll discover that there are several preloaded software (often unnecessery software) such as Dell Stage, Dell Digital Delivery and Dell DataSafe.
Toshiba computers and notebooks contain pre-loeaded "crapware" software from Toshiba.
Just to mention a few of those: Toshiba Disc Creator, Toshiba ReelTime, Service Station, Bulletin Board and Toshiba Assist.
Often there are fingerprint reader programs, Wi-Fi connection managers, Bluetooth managers, Audio Management sofware and other third party vendor software which tend to be not working as good as others softwares from third vendor, so Decrap is to help you to identify and remove these too in a easy GUI manner.
Non-experienced Computer users often leave the bloatware to hang around for even years and only if some relative that is an IT involved person / sysadmin / Even once you're aware that the Bloatware is on the system the ordinary user is hard to remove it as he is scared not to break the system.
Besides that fften this bloatware just soft comes so much integrated into Windows that removing it costs hours of tries and research online on
all the Bloatware components and even then could mislead you so you break the PC. programmer etc. comes home of such users finds out about the happily existing of the useless software on the notebook.
So here is DecrapMy Computer coming at place aiming to help to remove the unnecessery Hardware vendor software in few easy (Click, Click, Click Next ..) steps.
Then decrap does silently all the complex operations and suggestions to make the HP, Dell, Asus, Toshiba manufacturer prebundled software to be stopped and uninstalled.
Decrap My Computer is a freeware, lightweight and easy to use and lets you safely remove crapware and bloatware, or any software, from any Windows PC.
Even for Old computers, Decrap comes handy for the unexperienced avarage user who used his laptop with this useless default vendors programs silently killing the performance respectively user experience for years.
Using Decrap is quite intuitive PC is scanned for Bloatware and then after a backup Windows Restore Point is offered you're offered to review and Uninstall the unwanted softwares. There is also an automatic mode but those one still could be a bit dangerous, so use the automatic mode only on multiple machines with the same model / brand notebooks that comes prebundled with same sofware after testing and confirming the automatic mode on 1 initial machine will not break up some needed functionality.
Here is few screenshots of the tool in action:
Another good alternative (since decrap seems to be not maintained anymore) as I just leardned from Natasha Myles (thanks for pointing me about the broken link to decrap website) is SpeedUpPC more on speeding up old PC or laptop is her article
Tags: Asus, Asus Toshiba, break, clean up new bought pc from bundled software, cleanup new and old laptop from hardware vendor software, default, delete crap software from new bought pc, help, hp, Pc, remove default installed acer soft, remove default installed asus soft, remove default installed dell soft, remove default installed hp soft, software, system, tool, uninstall unecessery software on new laptop, Windows Restore Point, working
Posted in Everyday Life, Performance Tuning, Windows | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 14th, 2018Reading Time: 5minutes
Those interested in People Reading or holding a Management position position job inside some Small or Mid sized corporation could benefit greatly of a Book called
What Every Body is Saying
What Every Body is Saing is written by an ex-FBI Agent (JOE NAVANNO), probablythere are no actually ex-FBI agents, but that's a topic for another post.
The book is quick to read, especially if you follow the pictures of Body postures shown with their little description below.
Many of the Body Languages so commonly adopted by multitudes of people, thanks to the American of the Culture world-wide are being practiced
in some degree in mostly all people you might know (mostly unconsciously) …
What Every Body is Saying could be of a great help to people who want to make through in life and for Start-up company CEOs, Human Resource Managers, or anyone who want to better learn to communicate and Influence People.
Even in a normal family relations, being able to properly identify the Body Language of your Wife or kids would seriously benefit you and if you keep attention (focus) would reveal there short term-plans.
Adopting some of the suggested body languages in the book would definitely help you improve how people perceive you and practising some so called "Confident postures" could even boost your Confidence levels dramatically both when you're alone or when you are in a group of people or A Company Team Meeting.
Reading the Person Body language is of a great help also to understand the approximate Emotional / Spiritual state the person in front of you is and even if applied proparly could help you make the person or group of people be positively influenced to change from a negative to positive mindset
or when working on a project, could help you dramatically to make the people work more efficiently and boost their motivation / mood about the things, they have to someday do anyways.
The reader has to know of course that most of the mentioned body language cues are generalizations and in order to find out the exact messages being sent on non-verbal communication level depends on a multiple factors and many of the Body languages talked might be in a modified form and even some could be totally different from any of the described of the book.
However the observation practice (at least mine) shows that at least 60-70% of the described Body Language postures are adopted and used by mostly anyone out there.
To check the validity of the things described in the books just sit somewhere in a park or in a bar / caffeteria and watch carefully how people interact, you will be surprised how many things are being communicated non-verbally and how often the lack of one of the two, or two have severe communication issues, just because they couldn't synchronize their body language or lack the ability to read the other interlocutor's processed and communicated intentions.
The book when red at least for me was a wide eyes opener and even though as a Christian, I've always been doubting that any-generalization model trying to frame up people is very untrue and trying to influence people with your Body Language is bad sinful (kinda of satanic) practice, realizing that even Christians does communicate and do use body language (because they're conditioned by the society they lived in), that means that improving your Body Language to be more convincing in mostly anti-christian society we live can do you good favour to be adequate in society, or at least you can be aware of the existence of the Body Language and its meaning.
By the way, many of the models and gestures as translated described as a behaviour body interpretations are perhaps highly used nowadays by Agents across all the major Secret Services agencies such as CIA, MI6, KGB, Mussad etc.
This kind of things are learned in most business universities nowadays, but the way the Body Reading / Influencing knowledge is communicated in Business universities is a disaster, because it is usually compiled by Professors who alone are not expert or haven't been advanced enough in body language.
Thus even like that if you read the book, I'm sure you will benefit and perhaps reread it at least a couple of times in the coming years …
A summary of the book goes like this:
1. It starts with a short story on how the author get acquainted to the knowledge of body language and his personal life events
The author Joe Navarro was an emigrant from Cuba to US as the age of 8, because the author inability to speak English at all, his best way to understand what the other was saying or communicating in the first few years in US was to observe closely what the person in front was communicating non-verbally and makes guesses, what that could be.
His family and grandmother also played a key role to help him learn the craft of Body Language reaading.
Growing up and graduating college in the age of Baby Boomers, Joe Navarro was hired in FBI where he spend the following years as an agent specializing in Counter Intelligence
and behavior assessment.
2. It continues as the knowledge on Body interprations is being served in a very stuffed manner
The 3 key things to remember out of the book goes like that:
A. At least 60% of what you say is not coming out of your mouth.
B. There’s one more option next to fight or flight responce our brain does automatically
C. To become a master at reading body language, you have to develop situational awareness.
The book claims that people tend to be stuck into 3 main states (as a result of the evolutionary development of species (Creationists and Christian fundamentalists could argue seriously here 🙂 ) , whenever facing a difficult situation these are:
To sum up if you're looking for new ways to improve your current relationships with people and build a new ones, the book would definitely help you tremendously.
I've found the book in a PDF format with few simple searches online so those who can't afford it could also download it from the internet (at least as of time of writting this article).
A lot of the exampled Body confidence / influence postures described in the book you will find on mostly any Kids Cartoon and Internet top shows and in mostly everybody from TED Talks show and mostly all Youtube educational videos and podcasterers.
That's all Folks, Enjoy reading!
Tags: benefit, boost, coming, family, help, key role, make, People Reading, times, working
Posted in Business Management, Educational, Psychology, System Administration | No Comments »
Thursday, October 1st, 2015Reading Time: < 1minute
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Tags: data, google analytics, guidance, help, look, shopping, site, store, text, third party
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Friday, July 6th, 2012Reading Time: 4minutes
Saint George is one of the most venerated Orthodox Christian saints in the Eastern Orthodox Church. My interest in saint George is cause of the reason, I myself bear the name Georgi (the Bulgarian equivalent of George). Saint George is mostly venerated in the Slavonic Christian-dome.In almost all Church icons depicting st. George in Orthodox and Roman Catholic christiandome saint George is piercing killing a dragon.
One of the reasons, st. George is depicted piercing the dragon is a reference of st. George victory over satan, through his martyrdom.
The Beast (Dragon) on the iconi is a straight reference to the Holy Bible; Chapter Revelation also known under the name Apocalypse.
In revelation, we read humanity and our saviour Jesus Christ will finally once and for all will kill the "ancient beast" = (satan)
In same logic, as Saint Martyr George has been victorious over Satan by his unshakable confession of faith in Jesus Christ in early 5th century A.D. , we believe in the Orthodox Church he is given the crown of (eternal) life as a prize for bearing un-human tortures in the name of the of Christ.
To illustrate visually the victory of saint George over Satan through his immesurable faith confession with which he become, there is a an early tradition in iconography in the Church to depict st. George killing a dragon.
The other reason why saint George is depicted to kill a Dragon is due to a Lebanon / Palestinian ancient story saying; There was a huge Dragon living somewhere in nowdays Lebanon / Palestinian lands.
The beast created a huge havoc killing many people and systematically torturing people in the area.
As the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition continues …. the Dragon is said to have inhabited one of the caves near some village.
Interesting, the story tells these very same dragon was the last Dragon crawling the earth before the final disappearance of dragons.
Many brave local people tried to kill the beast but many died as the beast was unbeatable.
Being unable to beat-up the dragon with a physical (human) force the local population turnted to God for help – saying continously prayers to Saint George to help them defeat their dragon mischief.
Soon after, Saint George appeared on a white horse and pierced the "old dragon / snake". The dragon liberation miracle is said to be evidenced by local people and according to Orthodox monk books is one of the many great miracles occuring in past times.
The report of the miracle has quickly spread around all Lebanon / Palestinian lands and soon, being confirmed as real spread along all Russia as well as the rest of the Slavonic and Orthodox Christian world (Bulgaria, Serbia), Greece, Egypt (Alexandria) etc..
To illustrate saint George's appearance miracle, monastic iconographers started depicting saint George as we see him until this very day – Riding a horse and slaughtering a monstrous beast.
Below are seven 12-th century earlyicons of saint Saint Great-Martyr George killing the dragon;;
I've collected the icons from various website online. Hope this collection will be blessing for all Christ brother and sisters and generally anyone reading this post:
12-th century mosaic icon of st. George the Great Martyr Xenophontos Monastery
Orthodox Christian icon saint George dated to 1130 – 1150 A.D.
Saint Georgius the Dragon Slayer icon XII century orth icon
St. George Enamel icon Georgia 12th century
saint George Christian icon Yuriev Monastery Novgorod 12th century
st. George Staraya Ladoga Orthodox Christian icon
sv. Georgius 12th century Aios
Nowdays saint George Holy Relics particles are kept for veneration in many Orthodox Christian countries monasteries. Here in Bulgaria saint George Holy Relics are kept in a Monastery nearby the seacoast in Pomorie. Any Christian visiting Bulgaria have the opportunity to venerate the Holy in (Pomorie's Monastery – St. Great Martyr Georgi.
Tags: ancient beast, Auto, beast, bible chapter, Catholic, cause, christiandome, church icons, confession of faith, Draft, drago, dragon, eastern orthodox church, eternal life, faith confession, georgi, Georgius, havoc, help, holy bible, interest, jesus christ, kill, last, last dragon, Lebanon Palestinian, martyr george, martyrdom, miracles, Monastery, monk, nowdays, orthodox christian saints, orthodox christian tradition, palestinian lands, pomorie, quot, reading, reason, relics, report, revelation, Roman, Saint George, satan, saviour, saviour jesus christ, st george, story, tortures, victory, village
Posted in Christianity, Various | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015Reading Time: 5minutes
I
've been called urgently today by miss Jenia Pencheva who is the president of Christian Air Ticket Agency GoodFaithAir, her personal computer caused her quite a lot of headache, I've previously fixed it once and she was happy with that thus when she experienced problems she give me a call for remote IT support :).
She explahed her PC was unable to boot normally and in order to have some Windows she ended in Safe-Mode with Networkingstate. This problems caused her business losses as during PC in Safe mode the screen resolution even though with networking and she couldn't use the flight ticket ordering systems to purchase her customers new tickets. I've earlier installed TeamViewr on her PC so after Logging on the PC, I've immediately realized the Hard Disk was almost full (less than 1Giga free on C: Drive – where Windows install lived).
After a thorough investigation on which directory is occupying most of disk space (110GB) with a nice program called SpaceSniffer which is perfect for finding lost space on your hard disks, I've found System for ticket reservation Amadeus CRS (Computer Reservation System) was causing the disk full-full troubles.
I've found troubling directory was:
C:Users\goodfaithair\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
To solve it I first tried to Clean up Internet Explorer Cache (I've checked ticks Temporary Internet files, Cookies, History, Download History, Form Data, InPrivate Filtering Data).
Then I used Microsoft Windows embedded clean manager (cleanmgr.exe) to run disk clean up, however Desk Clean Up managed to clear up only about 1Giga and on the computer HDD which is 150Gb still on Windows installation drive C: only 1.5GB were free.
Besides that the system was having a second trouble as there were some failed updates (Computer was not shutdown properly but shutdown during Windows Update) and this was making the machine to enter Safe-Mode, I was fixing the system over TeamViewer session so after restart I had no way to see if Windows boots Normal or Safe-Mode after restart, thus to find out whether Windows was in Safe-Mode after another restart I've used below PowerShell one-liner script:
PS C:> gwmi win32_computersystem | select BootupState
BootupState
———–
Fail-safe with network boot
Note that possible return results from above command are:
Normal boot
Fail-safe boot
Fail-safe with network boot
I've been struggling for a while (had to restart it multiple times) until finally I managed to make it boot in normal mode. Because PC was failing to apply some Windows Update, thus dropping by in Safe-Mode each time. To solve that I had to go and Delete two of the last Applied updates (KB2979xxxx files).
Control Panel -> Program and Features -> View Installed Updates
I've restarted and since I couldn't see the screen on Windows boot-time, I don't know what really happened but the PC booted again in Safe-Mode, and I thought the classical way to fix PC booting in Safe-Mode with SFC command will help:
C:> sfc /scannow
but for my surprise this helped not as the system continuously booted in Safe-Mode, to fix the Windows PC always booting to Safe-Mode, I had to change it running msconfig and untickingSafe Mode field
C:> msconfig
Then I tried to delete Temporary Internet Files with below DEL cmd line
C:>del "C:UsersMyNameAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet Files*.*"
To finally succeeding in manually deletehuge Temporary Internet FilesContent.IE5 folder, I had to use good old RD (Remove Directory) command.
C:> RD "C:Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5" /Q /S
I used also following dels command to delete other common locations where Windows stores temporary files
For those who like to batch DeletingTemporary Internet Files and most common Temp locations to be cleaned on Windows boot I recommend you schedule a start of (clean-temporary-internet-files-content_ie5_folder.bat) on every PC boot.
To Clean-up other common Temporary file locations that could take you disk space the command line way run in new Administarator privileged command prompt:
cls
cleanmgr /sageset:99
del /F /S /Q "%systemroot%temp*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%systemroot%Prefetch*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and SettingsDefault UserLocal SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and SettingsDefault UserLocal SettingsTemp*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and SettingsDefault UserLocal SettingsHistory*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and Settings%UserName%Local SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and Settings%UserName%Local SettingsTemp*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and Settings%UserName%Local SettingsHistory*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and Settings%UserName%Local SettingsApplication DataTemp*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Documents and Settings%UserName%Local SettingsApplication DataTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5
*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsHistory*. *"
del /F /S /Q "C:AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet FilesLowContent.IE5*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet FilesTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet FilesTemporary Internet FilesLowContent.IE5*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Users%UserName%AppDataLocalTemp*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Temp*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:Users%UserName%AppDataLocalMicrosoftW indo wsTemporary Internet FilesLowContent.IE5*.*
del /F /S /Q "C:Users%UserName%AppDataLocalMicrosoftW indo wsHistory*.*
::Rem: No need to duplicate the following section for each registered User
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%Cookies*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%recent*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%Local Settingscookies*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%Local SettingsHistory*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%Local SettingsTemp*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%Local SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5*.*"
cleanmgr /sagerun:99
Note that in some cases running above commands might left you loose some sensitive data and in case where Internet is slow cleaning temporary files, might have impact on surfing also you will loose your history so be sure you know what you're doing as you might loose sensitive data.
Finally I've run MalwareBytes to clean up the PC slowness caused by Spyware and other left Malware I've run MalwareBytes, RogueKiller, AdwCleaner, RKill, TDSSKiller in order and I found and removed few Malwares as well.
That's all, hope you learned something new. Enjoy!
Tags: boot, command prompt, common, DEL, Delete, directory, help, How to, lot, Networking, Pc, resolution, speed, system, Temporary Internet Files Content, ticket, Windows
Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life, Remote System Administration, System Administration, Various, Windows | 1 Comment »
Saturday, May 15th, 2010Reading Time: 4minutes
I received a comment today from one of my blog readers. That he likes my blog content but he looks for a way to subscribe to my blog.
Though I had a subscription button configured in my wordpress template of choice. The button is located on place in the template that is absolutely unnoticable (at the bottom of the page). This is by the way I believe a default behaviour in case if the default wordpress plugin is used.
Thus I decided to set a clear RSS Subscription button on my blog.
Though at a first glimpse the task looked quite trivial it happened to be a way more complex!
I’ve tried a number of things before I can succeed in adding an RSS button.
The most simple though not really flexible way was through:
WordPress’s Widgets (Using the RSS Widget) .
This approach however has one major inconvenience.
Using the default wordpress RSS Widget you cannot configure the Widget to keep displaying 0 items of the feed.
In other words you cannot configure from the the sliding menu reading:
How many items would you like to display?0 in order to prevent completely showing up of any of the feed on the page.
If you leave it with one. The RSS icon of RSS widget would point directly to your blog instead to the RSS feed configured.
So in practice configuring it especially in my case rendered completely useless.
The appearing link from the default RSS widget for some weird reason doesn’t includes a link to where my feed is located https://pc-freak.net/blog/feed/
In the meantime I looked online to look for something that will facilitate me in completing the simple task to add an RSS Subscribe Feed to my Blog.
I asked for help in freenode’s irc network #wordpress channel. And a guy from there suggested that I go with wp-o-matic wordpress plugin
Anyways It took me a few minutes to realize this plugin is suitabile if you want to show other blogs feed to your blog instead of adding a RSS feed link to your own blog, this wasn’t my goal so I skipped next in looking for something to help me on.
In the meantime I found the interesting feedburner google feed service that is able to help in creating, publishing and distributing RSS & Atom feeds.
I recommend you check it if you still haven’t. It takes only a few clicks to register in order to use feedburner as a feed service.
Once you are set-up with Feedburner, you can activate all the cool functions, such as allowing your readers to subscribe via email, and also the Feedburner Flares.
Another nice thing about using feedburner is that it formats your fed content in a really pretty layout. By the way since the 2004 feedburner is owned by Google. So in a certain terms using feedburner instead of the default wordpress blog feed will probably attract more google visitors to your blog and is generally good for your blog placement in search engines.
For more of the advantages check feedburner’s google service website .
However there is one major disadvantage in using the feedburner’s feed service. Using the service rob you out of control of your feed, since all the feeds will be properly generated and formatted from feedburner.
The newly created service for feedburner by me is located on www.feeds.feedburner.com/WalkingInLightWithChrist-FaithComputingDiary
Now to be able to use the newly installed feedburner service with my blog I had to test a couple of plugins before I came to the ones that really worked.
I played with feedburner_feedsmith_plugin , feedburner-widget , feedlist.2.61 , wp-keiths-easy-rss , rss-atom-avatar but I couldn’t make any of them work properly with feedburner. Some of the up mentioned plugins were a real hell to configure so I completely abandondoned them seeing their inflexibility. Others were completely abondonede for more than 2 years from now, etc. etc. Fundamentally none of them worked for me.
I finally was able to bring up the feedburner service on my worpdress using The FD Feedburner plugin
All necessery to enable the plugin after you download into wordpress’s wp-content/plugins directory is to configure the plugin from:
Plugins -> FeedBurner Configuration Here is the screenshot on the FD Feedburner plugin configuration screen:
As you can see in the screenshot the plugin is really simple to configure. All you need to provide it with is the url provided to you by feedburner right after you register your blog for the service.
Now as you will have your http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog/feed/ be redirected to the feedburner’s website generated feed for your website by the FD FeedBurner WordPress Plugin all left to be done is to provide a link on your blog to your blog feed.
To accomplish this you will have to download the add-to-any-subscribe wordpress plugin.
Again installation of add-to-any-subscribe is a piece of cake, to install follow The install instructions here
Now hopefully your feedburner feed will be able to be distrubuted to your visitors via the AddtoAny subscription button on your blog.
Tags: Adding RSS Feed to Wordpress in conjunction with FeedBurner / Wordpress add-to-any-subscribe plugin, configured, conjunction, default behaviour, google, help, irc network, link, piece of cake, RSS, simple, wordpress blog, wordpress plugin, www
Posted in Everyday Life, System Administration, Various, Web and CMS, Wordpress | 12 Comments »
Monday, May 26th, 2014Reading Time: 4minutes
Out of a sudden today after running Malware Bytes – Free Anti-Malware & Internet Security Software, and after it found some Malware (Pup.Optional.Opencandy) and removed it it WI-FI internet on my work computer HP Elitebook 8470p mysteriously stopped working.
That's quite nasty because today I'm working from Home – well known among Hewlett Packard employees under WFH abbreviation. I couldn't connect normally to my home Access Point and tried pinging Google from command line just to get an error:
Transmit Failed: General Failure
and first I thought it is a wi-fi router related problem and restarted my WIFI Router – D-Link DI524. As I could normally connect to the WIFI and I see there is an internet IP assigned running:
ipconfig /all
...
Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 3C-A9-F4-4C-E7-98
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5d2f:97b8:9e1a:2b13%63(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.159(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : May 23, 2014 14:19:01 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : May 30, 2014 14:32:49 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 1094494708
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-19-CB-1A-5D-A4-5D-36-5A-EB-84
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 8.8.8.8
192.168.2.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled
As you see in above output I have notebook IP, default gateway and DNS IP assigned – i.e. all seems fine, so as I got General Failure from pinging the Internet in order to make sure my Linux router is not the bottleneck I tried pinging Default GW
C:UsersGeorgi> ping 192.168.2.1 Pinging 192.168.2.1 with 32 bytes of data:
PING: transmit failed. General failure.
PING: transmit failed. General failure.
PING: transmit failed. General failure.
PING: transmit failed. General failure.
Ping statistics for 192.168.2.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)
Just to realize I'm continually getting General Failure error …
I tried trying to renew IPs, to make sure there is no some kind of IP assignment conflict with my other WIFI connected devices,reflushing DNS and resetting WinSock stack, hoping this could help:
> ipconfig /renew
> ipconfig /flushdns
> netsh winsock reset
Then I tried restarting the PC a couple of times, but unfortunately none of those helped the shitty error:
PING: Transmit failed. General Failure
continued …
I was totally out of idea .. and red some people managed to fix the issue after booting Windows into Safe mode with Networking. I tried booting in Safe mode, but as Hard Drive data is encrypted with Bitlocker encryption I was asked about some kinf of Serial Key – which I don't have at hand – hence I couldn't boot into Safe mode …
Here is moment to say even loopback device was returning "General Failure"!
I tried even connecting the laptop directly into my homelan with UTP cable, but though everything got connected, there was no local network and internet. I tried even connecting via Vivacom's mobile network 3G modem and even there I got the "General Failure" error …
Running out of options, I decided it might be that Malware Bytes broke something during Malware removal hence I put out back Quarantined Malware files – but this didn't solve it either.
Finally I found this post and this thread talking that reason for "General Failure" might be firewall related. After checking my firewall settings in Windows Firewall and Advanced Security, surprisingly I realized everything related to firewall – e.g. Default Profile, Inbound, Outbound connections are Turned off!!!
I switched everything back and my Internet and local connection came back! THANKS GOD! Pfuu, now I can continue working. It seems HP work computers are patched with software / configured to not allow Internet connection in case if Firewall is Off. If you happen to be an HP Employee and you get the PING: Transmit failed. General Failure, be sure the first place to check is whether Windows Firewall is enabled? – if not enable it and this will solve your connectivity issues. Cheers ! 🙂
Tags: data, default gateway, General Failure, help, hp, Internet, ipconfig flushdns, Lease Obtained, Malware, Networking, Physical Address, ping, problem, Safe, solution, Windows, Wireless Network Connection, working
Posted in System Administration, Windows | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 12th, 2014Reading Time: 5minutes
I run into a funny case I went to see some friends in another City and used their Samsung Tablet for some Skype Chatting and few Skype Calls.
When logging in I forgot to untick the "Save password" tick and when I left the city and travelled to my home I saw on my wife's Skype (who has my username) logged in that still my Skype keeps logged in. In other words Skype shows I'm online even though I was not really connected.
I remembered I forgot to logoff Skype from the Tablet, so any time the tablet was connected to the internet or restarted Skype started I was automatically logged in Skype. This was pretty annoying because many people write me when I'm in fact offline and the messages end up in the tablet and I'm not answering making truly a bad impression (many friends and relatives, think I'm rude for not answering and even started being angry with me without me knowing why …)
To solve the situation, I had to use /remotelogout Skype Chat Windows command which is not visible as standard commands:
/remotelogout
This command logout all users logged in any device ( Android / iPhones Mobile Phones etc.) so afterwards, one can be sure you're logged in just from one device (the current one from where you execute the command)
To be absolutely sure, there are no other devices logged in with your credentials there is also /showplaces command:
/showplaces
You have 1 online endpoints:
{6934eadb-3eec-e001-4bc6-064e0552018f} 'WINDOWSVM' (Windows Skype)
The standard commadns shown in Skype help with /help typed in on any userchat opened Window are:
/help
Available commands:
/me [text]
/add [skypename+]
/alertson [text]
/alertsoff
/help
However there is another less known Complete list of supported Skype (Hidden) commands you can use to imitiate most of GUI Skype motions + a lot of info you can get only via those commands, here it is:
| Command | Description |
| /add [Skype Name] | Adds a contact to the chat. For instance:/add alex_cooper1 will add that member to the chat. |
| /alertson [text] | Allows you to specify what needs to appear in a chat for you to be notified. For example, /alertson London will only alert you when the word “London” appears in the chat. |
| /alertsoff | Disable message notifications. |
| /clearpassword | Removes the password security. |
| /find [text] | Finds specific text in a chat. For example,/find Charlie will return the first instance of the word “Charlie” in the chat. |
| /get allowlist | Details people with access to the chat. |
| /get banlist | Details people banned from the chat. |
| /get creator | Details the person who created the chat. |
| /get guidelines | See the current chat’s guidelines. |
| /get options | Details active options for current chat – see /set options below for a list of the options available. |
| /get password_hint | Get the password hint. |
| /get role | Details your role in the chat. |
| /get uri | Creates a URL link that other people can use to join the group chat. |
| /golive | Starts a group call with other participants of the chat. |
| /info | Details number of people in chat and maximum number available. |
| /kick [Skype Name] | Eject chat member. For instance,/kick alex_cooper1 will eject that member from the chat. |
| /kickban [Skype Name] | Ejects chat member and prevents them from rejoining chat. For instance,/kickban alex_cooper1 will eject that member from the chat and ban them from rejoining. |
| /leave | Leave current group chat. |
| /me [text] | Your name will appear followed by any text you write. For instance, /me working from home will cause the phrase “working from home” to appear next to your name in the chat. You can use this to send a message about your activities or status. |
| /remotelogout | Sign out all other instances except the current one. This will also stop push notifications on all other instances. |
| /set allowlist [[+|-]mask] .. | Sets the members allowed in the chat. For instance, /set allowlist +alex_cooper1 will allow that member to join the chat. |
| /set banlist [[+|-]mask] .. | Sets which members are banned from the chat. For instance, /set banlist +alex_cooper1 will ban that member from the chat. /set banlist -alex_cooper1will allow them to rejoin it. |
| /set guidelines [text] | Set a chat’s guidelines. For instance, /set guidelines No spoilers! These can be returned to be viewed in the chat by the command /get guidelines. |
| /set options [[+|-]flag] | Sets options for this chat. For example: /set options -JOINING_ENABLED switches off the JOINING_ENABLED option, while /set options +JOINERS_BECOME_APPLICANTS will switch on the JOINERS_BECOME_APPLICANTS option. |
| The available flags to commands are listed below: |
| | HISTORY_DISCLOSED –
Joiners can see the conversation that took place before they joined. The limit that they can see is either 400 messages or two weeks of time, depending on which is reached first. |
| | JOINERS_BECOME_APPLICANTS –
New users can join the chat, but cannot post or receive messages until authorized by a CREATOR or MASTER (see the table below for more information on roles).< |
| | JOINERS_BECOME_LISTENERS –
New users can receive messages but cannot post any until promoted to the USER role. |
| | JOINING_ENABLED –
New users can join the chat. |
| | TOPIC_AND_PIC_LOCKED_FOR_USERS –
Only a user with a CREATOR role will be able to change the topic text or accompanying picture for the chat. |
| | USERS_ARE_LISTENERS –
Users with a USER role will be unable to post messages. |
| /set password [text] | Create a password (no spaces allowed). |
| /set password_hint [text] | Create the chat’s password hint text. |
| /setpassword [password] [password hint] | Create a password and password hint for the chat. |
| /setrole [Skype Name] MASTER | HELPER | USER | LISTENER | Allows you to set a role to each chat member. A description of roles is given in the table below. |
| /showplaces | Lists other instances where this Skype name is currently signed in. |
| /topic [text] | Changes the chat topic. |
| /undoedit | Undo the last edit of your message. |
| /whois [Skype Name] | Provides details about a chat member such as current role. |
| /fa or / | Repeats the last search. |
| /history | Loads the complete chat history into the active chat window. |
| /htmlhistory | Generates a HTML file of the chats history and opens it in the browser. Skype 4: not iplemented in this version anymore. |
| /clear | Clears the chat window. |
| /goadmin | Enters the administration mode of the chat (only if creator) and adds a small text “Creator” to the user-icon in the chat. I didn’t find so far a way to leave this mode again. According to the Skype documentation the only effect is the “Creator” tag but I’m not so sure about that. |
| /dbghelp | Outputs a list of (debug?) commands but without description. |
| /showmembers | Lists all members of the chat with their currently assigned role. |
| /showstatus | Prints some infos about the current conversation. Conversation convoi id, Consumption horizon, History date and Message count. |
| /showname | Displays the name of the original conversation |
| /verify | Shows some text about missing messages on my computer. Maybe checks the message-database for validity. |
| /golive [token] | (since Skype4?) Opens a management window in a group conversation which allows to handle conference calls. The sense of the (optional) token is not yet clear to me but seems to give you a link which you can share to others and allow them to join the conference. |
| /fork [skypename/s] | (since Skype5?) Duplicates the current group chat leaving out the contacts which are added to this command. |
| /fork [skypename/s] | (since Skype5?) Duplicates the current group chat leaving out the contacts which are added to this command. |
| /showplaces | Displays a list of the currently online Skype instances using this Skype name (and have Skype version >=6 or recent mobile versions). |
| /remotelogout | Logs out all other currently online Skype instances which are using this Skype name (and have Skype version >=6 or recent mobile versions). |
| /get listeners | Shows the list of listeners set with previous command. |
| /golive [name] | this command starts a call with other participants of the chat. It’s your choice to indicate a call name or not. |
| /undoedit | undo a edit made to the chat |
Other thing you might not know is there are Skype hidden emoticons
For more see official skype help.chathelp.
Tags: chat history, command, conversation, creator, emoticons, help, hidden, instances, list, password, role, rsquo, see who uses your skype without you knowing, Skype, Skype Calls, skype hdiden command, skype hidden emoticons, skype logoff lenovo table, skype logoff remote devices, skype logoff remote logged in mobile phone, skype logoff remote loggedin user linux, skype remove remote login from unknown devices, text, WINDOWSVM
Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life, Skype on Linux, Various | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011Reading Time: 2minutes
I’m using access to the mysql servers via localhost with mysql cli on daily basis.
With time I’ve figured out that it’s pretty unahandy to always login with my root mysql password, I mean each time to enter it, e.g.:
root@mysql-server:~# mysql -u root
Enter password:
...
Thus to make my life a way easier I decided to store my mysql root password in order to allow my root admin user to be able to login to my mysql server without asking for password. This saves time and nerves, as I’m not supposed to look up for the password file I store my server mysql root pass.
To allow my mysql cli interface, to login passwordless to the SQL server I had to create the file /root/.my.cnf readable only for my root user and store my MySQL username and password there.
Here is a sample /root/.my.cnf file:
root@mysql-server:~# cat /root/.my.cnf
[client]
user="root"
pass="mysecretMySQLPasswordgoeshere"
Now next time I use the mysql console interface to access my mysql server I don’t have to supply the password, here is how easier is the mysql login afterwards:
root@mysql-server:~# mysql -u root
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or g.
Your MySQL connection id is 3520
Server version: 5.0.77 Source distribution
Type ‘help;’ or ‘h’ for help. Type ‘c’ to clear the buffer.
mysql>
The only downside of using .my.cnf to store permanently the mysql server root and password is from security standpoint.
If for instance somebody roots my servers, where I have stored my root user/pwds in .my.cnf , he will be able immediately to get access to the MySQL server.
Another possible security flaw with using the mysql passwordless login “trick” is if somebody forgets to set proper file permissions to, .my.cnf
Once again the file should possess the permissons of:
root@mysql-server:~# ls -al /root/.my.cnf
-rw------- 1 root root 90 Apr 2 00:05 /root/.my.cnf
Any other permissons might allow non-privileged users to read the file and gain unathorized admin access to the SQL server.
Tags: Auto, basis, buffer, cat, cli, client, cnf, connection id, daily basis, distribution type, downside, Draft, file, file permissions, help, life, localhost, mysql connection, mysql servers, order, password, password file, root, root admin, root password, root root, root user, security, security flaw, security standpoint, server mysql, server root, server version, source distribution, standpoint, time, type, username, version, way
Posted in FreeBSD, Linux, MySQL, System Administration | No Comments »
Sunday, July 24th, 2011Reading Time: 2minutes
My sister has forgotten the administrator account for her wordpress blog as she did not blogged for a while.
I decided to help her and reset the WORDPRESS blog password to another one.
The easiest way of course in normal circumstances is to use wordpress's Lost your password password reset via email.
However with this blog it seems I used an email address which I forgot so I couldn't really use this as a mean to reset the blog password.
Therefore as I'm addicted to command line 😉 I decided to do it straight via connecting to mysql server with mysql cli and change the encrypted password value directly there. Here is how I did it:
1. First I logged in to the mysql server with my root user/pass
pcfreak# mysql -u root -p
Enter password: Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 39263
Server version: 5.0.83-log FreeBSD port: mysql-server-5.0.83
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
2. Then I checked current set user and password for the wp-admin admin user
mysql> use wordpress1;
mysql> select * from wp_users where user_login like '%admin%';
+----+------------+--------------+---------------------+-------------+--------------+
| ID | user_login | user_pass | user_nicename | user_email | user_url | user_registered | user_activation_key | user_status | display_name |
+----+------------+------------------------------------+---------------+----------------+----------+---------------------+----
| 1 | admin | $P$BG9eMoysG8ztywLp25AOpJSkWlRZMu. | admin | invoke@emailaddress.com | | 2011-03-10 13:44:26 |
| 0 | admin | +----+------------+------------------------------------+---------------+----------------+----------+---------------------+---
1 row in set (0.25 sec)
3. Used a query to reset the current encrypted password you see below shown under the user_pass column
mysql> UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass= MD5('my_new_wordpress_password_to_reset') where ID = '1';
4. I've changed the email set for user_email to which mail is sent, in case of forgotten password again
I've done this to prevent my sister to bother me again, if she forgets her password once again 😉
mysql> UPDATE wp_users SET user_email='invoke_@abv.bg' where ID = '1';
One important note here is that in step 3
I've used the MD5(); mysql embedded function to generate the MD5 crypted password which is inserted in above's sql query, however the MD5 function is only available in MySQL servers version 5.x, therefore in older releases of MySQL e.g. ver 4.x, one will have to first generate the md5 password with let's say md5sum linux command or bsd's md5 cmd like so:
a. On Linux
hipo@noah:~$ echo 'my_new_wordpress_password_to_reset' | md5sum
f0ed1489e6d9e7eae8b363b1b5e4a864 -
b. On FreeBSD
pcfreak# echo 'my_new_wordpress_password_to_reset' | md5
f0ed1489e6d9e7eae8b363b1b5e4a864
Afterwards the SQL query that can be used with the above generated string to issue on the MySQL 4.x server or earlier versions would be:
mysql> UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass='f0ed1489e6d9e7eae8b363b1b5e4a864' where ID = '1';
That's all now the password is set to the newly generated my_new_wordpress_password_to_reset pass string.
Cheers 😉
Tags: administrator account, circumstances, cli, com, Commands, connection, connection id, course, Display, eae, email address, encrypted password, function, help, input statement, login, monitor, mysql connection, password, pcfreak, reset, root, root user, row, server version, status, update, url, value, wordpress blog, wp, ztywLp
Posted in FreeBSD, Linux, MySQL, System Administration, Wordpress | 7 Comments »
