Gallery Fixed

Posted on November 30, 2011 by El Guru

It appears the Gallery had gone down on November 10th due to some issues with the gallery software. Users we’re seeing an HTTP 500: Internal Server error. We made some updates to the gallery platform (ZenPhoto) and were able to get the gallery restore on November 22nd. At this time there has been no new photos added since this past summer. I do have some photos on my Android that I still need to download and hope to get those posted in the coming weeks.

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How to Fix: Stuck in Maintenance Mode

Posted on October 20, 2011 by El Guru

While rare, there are occasions while updating a plugin or theme things  may not go smoothly. I was trying to update a theme on one of my (many) WordPress sites. The update was successful, however the server hiccuped  before maintenance mode was turned off. So the site was stuck in maintenance mode, which means you can not access the front end or even your dashboard. I do believe though there is a some type of safety timeout threshold in place so that your not permanently locked out of your dashboard. I had a similar issue while trying to do a WordPress core update and was able to get back in a after a few minutes. Nonetheless, you can get out Maintenance Mode immediately by connecting to the server through FTP or SSH and removing the file .maintenance from the root folder of your WordPress install. Once that file is gone you should be able to access your dashboard try the update again.

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The PC Turns 30

Posted on August 12, 2011 by El Guru

At the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City on August 12, 1981 IBM presented the  5150. At a price tag of  $1,565 ($3,704.77 today with inflation) this system included:

  • 5.25-inch floppy drives or a tape drive
  • 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 Processor
  • 16 KB of RAM (expandable to 256 KB)
  • PC-DOS 1.0

More at the Seattle PI

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Too Late For Microsoft?

Posted on August 11, 2011 by El Guru

In the phone market that is. Microsoft and Nokia have unveiled plans on how their partnership is going to keep both of them alive in the US mobile market. It will be interesting to watch, but I doubt Microsoft has a chance against Apple (which is now the most valuable company in the world) with their iPhone or the Android phones.

The only “selling point” I have seen is towards the end of the article:

As iPhones and Android devices pick up steam in the corporate world, BlackBerries are in less demand. Windows Phone 7, which comes with light Office apps, is likely in the best position to take advantage of this window.

Really, that is their big “selling point” light Office apps? I suppose in a corporate environment that may work, but the again the last corporate company I worked for did not use Microsoft Office or even Outlook (which looks like the Windows Phone 7 does integrate with Outlook).  Looking at the Nokia prototype design, I can’t really say I care for the Windows Phone 7 interface (which appears to be the idea behind the future ‘Windows 8′ interface).  I think former iPhone and Android users would have a hard time adapting to this interface. Further more, it will have a ‘virtual keyboard’, something that Steve Balmer balked at about the iPhone back in 2007.

I suppose it is better than the purposed ‘zunePhone’ from back in 2007…

 

Posted in Blogs, Computer/Internet, General, Microsoft, You Tube | 1 Comment

$500 For A Phone!

Posted on August 11, 2011 by El Guru

Famous words of Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer in a 2007 Interview with CNBC in response to Steve Jobs unveiling of the iPhone at Mac World in January that year.

By the end of 2007 with the iPhone only being on the market for six months apple sold nearly 1.4 million iPhones. That numbered jumped to 11.6 million, however 6.8 million of that was the newer iPhone 3G and also at that time Apple slashed the price to $399. [Full Sales History]

Posted in Computer/Internet, General, Microsoft, You Tube | 1 Comment

How to Remove avast! WebRep

Posted on July 5, 2011 by El Guru

While I was in Chrome over the weekend, I noticed avast! also install the WebRep add-on in this browser as well. Further, in Firefox I could only disabled the add-on, not remove. A quick Google search turned up this post in the avast! forums. To remove the Web Rep, right-click on the avast! icon in the taskbar and select Open avast! User Interface then click on the Additional Protection tab. From there select WebRep and click Uninstall next to the browsers you want to remove the plugin from within. You will need to restart the browser(s) for the plugin to be fully removed.

Posted in Blogs, Computer/Internet | 1 Comment

avast! Package is Broken Error

Posted on June 30, 2011 by El Guru

Once in a while I end up getting Package is Broken error when trying to do an update on either the definitions or the avast! application.  This latest incident was getting a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) after taking my computer out of Hibernation. After Windows restarted was when I started getting errors, either when Avast! attempted to update itself or I tried a manual update. Long story short, something got corrupted as result of the earlier BSOD.

No matter what you try to do, the best solution is just to download the latest version of avast! then run the installer. Don’t even bother trying the change option it is not going to fix the problem. Uninstall the application then reboot. After the reboot, run the installer again and should install fine. Once the install is completed it should immediately update the definitions. You will need to re-enter your registration key or if you are using the free version, just register again.

However, there is one thing I was not expecting avast! to do and that was install a Firefox extension behind my back. I noticed a new ‘rating’ icon next to my address bar. So I took a look in the add-ons manager and I found avast! WebRep (Web Reputation Plugin). It must have buried in the install options, but was not something it disclosed upfront. At least it didn’t install a toolbar.

Posted in Computer/Internet, General | 1 Comment

Oh Joy! Yet Another WordPress Update

Posted on June 29, 2011 by El Guru

While I really like working with WordPress, especially with the Weaver Theme engine, it gets to be a major PITA when there are updates to not only plugins, but the core WordPress as well. May not be so bad for someone who has a couple WordPress sites, but I have nearly a dozen:

  • Firefox Extension Guru (3) – Main Site, Blog, Wiki
  • The Email Mafia (3) – Main Site, Blog, Wiki
  • El Guru (2) – Main Site and Blog
  • 3 more misc sites

However, PITA or not it is important to keep WordPress updated, so I am off to update.

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Gallery Restored

Posted on June 27, 2011 by El Guru

I really not sure what I did to get this to work. I had done a fresh install  in another folder and had it working there, but a lot of the customizations were missing. I started poking around in the original folder trying to see if I could figure out what was wrong. Why was I getting a PHP White Screen of Death when attempting to access the gallery? Even looked at my servers error logs, which didn’t really tell me a whole lot. I somehow figured out that it seemed to be choking on the admin.php file. So I looked at the downloaded package on my local system and compared the admin.php files. The size was different. So after re-uploading the entire zp-core folder I was able to get back into the admin panel and it ran through the update successfully. I was able to login in to the admin where it confirms I am running the latest version. Was still getting some Internal Server Errors when trying to view the galleries but I was able to get that fixed by reverting back to a previous copy of the .htaccess file. So, it appears everything should be working fine now.

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Gallery Temporarily Unavailable

Posted on June 26, 2011 by El Guru

El Guru’s Gallery is currently offline. I am attempting to fix an issue that was caused by updating the core gallery software. The gallery should be working again sometime on Monday, June 27th. I will post an update once I have this fixed.

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