Lightning Strike on Ethernet Cable

I look after a pal's PC kit he uses for his art publishing company. His company is run on the ground floor at the rear of next door's house and his home kit is in the attic of the other house.

His printing kit consists of two very large and expensive high quality printers that are connected to two PCs via a LAN switch, 8 ports of which 4 are used. One PC runs Windows 7 connected to this switch via on board Ethernet and there is a PCI Ethernet LAN card so that we can occasionally connect to web for maintenance. His other PC runs XP and is also connected to the LAN switch so it can also access printers and Windows 7 machine. This XP machine also has a LAN PCI card connected to a long ethernet cable that runs through both houses and all the way through the roof to his router in the attic which is connected to Virgin Cable ISP. This router has 4 ethernet ports, one connected to his home XP machine, others to various laptops and other PCs as required.

In Aug 2011 I received a call to say the Windows 7  and XP machine could not talk to each other, the Windows 7 could not connect to printers and the XP could not talk to internet!

We had a similar problem about a year ago that seemed to have been caused by large release of MS updates, which was resolved by new updates a few days later. However not so this time. Although obvious now it took some time to realise that the lightning storm that had happened overnight was the cause. Since the storm the following did not work.

1. 2 of the 8 ports on the down stairs ethernet switch.
2. On board Windows 7 Ethernet
3. Ethernet Lan Card on XP
4. 3 of the 4 connectors on the router
5. Home PC no power

On investigation an unusual phenomena had occurred and it was said that a lightning fireball had rolled across the sky to hit the roof of a house 2 fields away. I suspect this had induced a current in the long ethernet cable, a good length of which runs through the roof of this house, and this had caused the damage.

I bought two new Ethernet LAN PCI cards and a switch, replaced the one in the XP, added the second into a spare slot on the Windows 7, and all OK. The Home machine is off to PC repair shop as I do not carry any parts to try and fix a dead machine. Tomorrow I fit new router so that hopefully home users can also access Internet when business users are active, because at the moment only one surviving cable socket for all.

eBay "Please provide the correct information in the highlighted fields."

Just spent two evenings trying to add new ebay items only to keep getting above message every time. By chance discovered reason was because the gallery photo I used had blanks in the name. The name was correct, and when used embedded in description was fine, but when used as first free ebay photo which is then used for gallery it looked fine but caused the above error when I tried to complete process. By getting rid of the blanks, replaced them with hyphen, all was OK!

Online site to see output from HTML

In my exploration of iPad I have set myself the task of producing an eBay item using only the iPad. I will post my experiences later but one thing I wanted was a place to see output from HTML I wanted ultimately to post into eBay.

Several online places but in the browser I was using (Side by Side) did not appear to like Frames. Anyway the one that did the job was http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/explore/nigelspages/htmltry.htm

Cheap USB keyboard attached to ipad

I am typing this blog with a cheap £8 USB full sized keyboard which is attached to my ipad via the USB connector provided with the official Apple camera Connector Kit.

Now the on screen keyboard is very good, masses better than the small ipod touch I have but you can still type so much quicker with a real keyboard, probably 3 to 4 times as fast. Another advantage is the whole of the screen is available as the on screen keyboard is not shown.

Note when I plug keyboard into iPad as described above I do receive a couple of messages saying that the USB device is not supported, but I just hit the Dismiss button and all is OK.

Side by Side App for iPad.

This app let's you have up to four variable windows on your iPad. Each window can have either a web page, it uses a bespoke browser, or a notes page. Web pages can be downloaded and these can also be seen in the windows, main advantage is download files can be accessed off line, although I have problem with embedded images.

Take a look at introductory YouTube. On first use I like slick no nonsense interface.

iPad App: Side by Side

Quick blog to recommend this App. For 3 days no charge. It allows you to open up to 4 windows on Ipad simultaneously. Take a look at the Youtube introduction and give it a try.

Flickr photo sent via Blogger interface

IMG_1115 Home Made Toy People 07-01-2009 15-36-25
Originally uploaded by rodtuk

This time, hopefully, I have used my iPad to make this blogger entry direct from Flickr.

Trying to embed Flickr image in Blogger using iPad

Previous post I embedded Picasa and Photobucket images. This time I am trying to do the same with Flickr which is my main online photo repository.

iPad as a navigation tool

This is an amazing App you can use whilst walking or driving. Make sure you buy 3G iPad that includes GPS. App works with Cellular Data switched on in Settings but you do not. Have to be connected to Broadband so no ISP charges (free). Just make sure you download maps you need before you leave. Again maps are free.   

It will accurately show where you are, record where you have been, record track history with speeds and elevation. Compass very good, not sure how it works but it does.

Using iPad and Blogger plus adding image!

Trying to blog from iPad. This Blogger entry was prepared entirely with iPad.

Note For some reason a Compose does not work and you have use HTML and optionally Preview. I recommend that you save entry before using Preview.

Here I am attempting to put a link to a page I happened to have open. The link is here.

Note

In Preview the link did not work, but if you Publish and the View it is OK. Also just to try it I surrounded the note at the start of this paragraph with h2 tags.

Images

I had read it was not possible to insert images. However I added two images below, the first (cake) is from my Picasa album using the embed code provided by Picasa. The second (insect) is similarly added but this time from my PhoTobucket album.

However I will embed script from Picasa Web to see what happens.

From Food RoderickT

Firefox prints small (or large) fixed.

The other day I tried printing my own UK Postage Label from paypal. This happened to coincide with me having a quick go with Google Chrome. Printed OK at first but when I came to print another label for another parcel it refused to cooperate.

So quick switch back to Firefox (3.6.8) and worked fine first time, except it printed label quite a bit smaller than Chrome. So had a go in IE and this also worked fine, be it slow, and printed out label same size as Chrome.

So after a spot of googling discovered fix.

My Print Preview was set at 80%. Reset it to 100% and it printed out label at correct size. It appears from other Google hits that this size often gets adjusted at Firefox upgrades.

Windows Live Writer

Just seeing if this post, written with Windows Live Writer, appears in my Blogger system.

Sharing Printer between XP and Win 7

I have Windows 7 (Win7) system with Canon iP5200 printer attached via USB. Also on same network I have a XP system to which I can also plug the printer if needed. Of course much easier just to share printer between the two.

So I set up share options on Win 7 for printer and went to XP system and via Control Panel added new printer. I assumed that as this was a network printer I chose add network printer option, and after 2 hours of frustration and googling discovered that I should have used add Local printer, and add another printer port, into which I added network address of printer.

Following are screen shots.

Save Icon Positions in XP Desktop

Having just rebuilt my XP system I have again the old problem of he carefully laid out icons on my desktop occasionally re-arranging themselves.

If you have this problem a nice solution is available here Icon Restore

Multiple Desktops VirtuaWin for XP

On my Production XP system I have two screens, one of which I switch to my XP Test machine when needed. Having a single screen is so frustrating after you get use to two so I looked around for a multi desktop similar to those available in Linux systems.

There is one available from MS in their PCTools but I prefer this one.

Downloaded from http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/downloads.php and installed on Test XP OK. Needed to play around with hot keys but as long as I chose NAV option and not WIN option (not sure why) it worked fine.

Playing m4v videos in XP

Came across m4v video in Lightroom Help Forums, a video for renaming photos. I downloaded and clicked on it and it would not play. I think it is a portable format for ipods etc.

Drag and dropped it into VLC player and hey presto off it went.

Mailto: email on Firefox stopped working - solution

Mailto: email on Firefox stopped working - solution

I upgraded Firefox to 3.5 and a few days later I discovered that on web pages that had a clickable mailto email function, nothing happened. It worked on IE8 and Safari.

In looking for solution I came accross Gmail Notifier, that appeared to overcome the problem of choosing Gmail as default in such situations instead of Outlook, so I installed this. This worked fine in IE8 and Safari but again no joy with Firefox 3.5.

On googling problem I came across a solution that involved Fireox about: and making changes to Google Toolbar settings. I did not go there but this reminded me that I had uninstalled Google Toolbar and so I re-installed this and hey prest - fixed. You can supress Google Toolbar by deselecting in View menu, and it still works, just do not disable or un-install.

Not claiming this will fix your problem, just recording it fixed mine

File Renamer great free program

Renamer

Installed version 5.40 of this excellent program, can now add Exif Date to names. 

See http://www.den4b.com/screenshots.php?project=ReName

Manual and program download from http://www.den4b.com/downloads.php?project=ReNamer

Posts new Address

During 2008  I started using Google Docs to log my computing activities. These are visible at 

1. Maxdat Windows XP Log V3
   
2. HP Compaq MS XP Pro Test System
   
3. Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
   

Also I have built several websites using Google Sites, more complete examples are

1. Writing Web Pages
2. Maths

Finally I Serif offered me an upgrade to their WebPlus for just £22.00 including postage, so I have recently revisited this product and I am hoping to tie everything together with this at 

1. http://www.talboys.fsnet.co.uk/roderickts/index.html
   

Web Development Update

Just completed 1st part of my new learning project of building Math web pages to explain Pythagoras theorem. This is a test bed for further web pages.

I developed it in Google Page Creator which I am using as a prototype, before I repeat in native HTML and then with development tools such as Kompozer and/or Serif Web Plus.

Most of the time was spent in looking for tool for drawing Euclid diagrams. Preferably I wanted one that would work in both Linux and Windows environments. As a test I attempted to create a drawing used in proof of Euclid Parallelograms on Same Base theorem. The first diagram is of two parallelograms that share the same base and the diagonal of one is the side of the other. Very simple but quite tricky to draw with the following programs. All found it difficult to shade.

I looked at various free CAD applications, but these were dismissed as either to complex or they saved drawings in their own special format. I could have taken a 'snapshot' of screen with FastStone Viewer but did not want to go down this route.

I then used Google SketchUp which is great fun. Major lesson here is to switch it into 2d type mode. This is explained in the excellent video on YouTube . With SketchUp you can export image to jpg or png. Only works in Windows.

I also looked at Inkscape and this looks really good but needs learning and probably too sophisticated for my use. This will work in Linux as well.

I tried using Serif PagePlus, and downloaded free Serif DrawPlus 4, and paid extra £7.95 to upgrade to Serif DrawPlus 6. These would probably have been OK but they were no easier to use and are Windows based.

Finally I went back to Open Office Draw and this was as good as any. I could complete drawings but where I had to revert to using straight lines to construct figures I could find no way of shading the various parts. So if I wanted shading I had to save as png or jpg and open in PhotoShop Elements and use Paint Fill. Note Fill in OO Draw appears to work on shapes but not "line drawings."

Prototype in Google PageCreator is done and you can see this at rodtalboys.googlepages.com/mathematics

I like the immediacy of PageCreator which is great for prototype work. I have also discovered that when editing a page you can display HTML for each block you are working on and I hope to be able to cut and paste this into other tools. I want to check out whether I can access any CSS pages it may use.

One minor problem I have found that when looking at pages with Firefox it starts OK but after a time it stops showing the first diagram of every page which if you hit the browser refresh button it then revals. This seems to happen after I have been updating pages. I have not seen same problem with IE7 and I have had this working the same time as I have had Firefox working with the problem prevalent.