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4/24/2012

Many of the area schools use QuestionMark's Secure Browser, but over time may forget where to get it. Here is a link that will help get you started:

http://questionmark.com/secure

Posted at 11:07 AM by David Henderson | Category: Software Distribution | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/17/2012

CSS Code makes IE9 Vertical Scroll Bars Disappear

I had an issue where the vertical scroll bars (only in IE9) disappeared on me.

It took forever to figure out the problem, but ultimately, it boiled down to this:

I had copied a portion of a Google Docs Spreadsheet into a page. Everything appeared normal. I don't usually use IE for much, so it wasn't until a couple days later that I realized the vertical bars were gone.

I tracked the problem down to a piece if CSS code:

{overflow:visible}

That little command freaked out IE9, evidently. By removing the code, the page loads normally in IE9 now.

Where was the code? It was in the pasted Google Spreadsheet.

So, if you are having scrollbar issues, check your code - ALL your code.

Posted at 1:29 PM by David Henderson | Category: Blog Basics; Google Apps (Email, Calendar, Contacts); Internet Explorer; Troubleshooting | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/1/2012

Force Moodle to show course descriptions

We ran into an issue where course descriptions were no longer displayed if the number of courses in any given category reached 10.

I tried playing with various settings, and nothing worked. Supposedly, this is an option in Moodle 2.2. As of this writing, we are running 2.1.2. My fix came from a post I found on the Moodle.org site, dated 2006! And, THIS worked perfectly:

Thanks for this link, as it has also helped us to 'force' the Course Description display.
In our system, increasing COURSE_MAX_SUMMARIES_PER_PAGE from 10 to 25 in /course/lib.php did the trick i.e.
//define('COURSE_MAX_SUMMARIES_PER_PAGE', 10); // courses
define('COURSE_MAX_SUMMARIES_PER_PAGE', 25); // courses
Cheers
Geoff (Rowland)

Moodle forum link: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=56358

Posted at 6:25 PM by David Henderson | Category: Moodle | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/23/2012

GMail set-up problems (iPhones)

One of our users could not add her GMail account to her iPhone. The system kept saying that the password or username was incorrect.

We logged into her account through the web and everything was fine. It just didn't work on the iPhone.

After some searching, I found a solution:

On a computer, log in to your GMail account.
Go to this link: https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha
Click "OK" to reset the captcha information
Bring up the Mail app on the iPhone and get your mail.

You only have 10 minutes from the time you click OK to reset CAPTCHA to the time you attempt to get your mail, so have your phone handy.

Posted at 11:09 AM by David Henderson | Category: iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad; Google Apps (Email, Calendar, Contacts) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/9/2012

Open .pages file in Windows or without Mac Pages!

I encountered a few .pages files that were created on a Mac.

I am using a PC and my MacBook doesn't have Pages on it, so I was a bit stumped as to what to do (short of asking the author to export them as PDF).

Instead, here is a solution:

change the extension to .ZIP and open the files with Winzip or whatever. Inside there, you will find a folder called "QuickLook." Inside Quicklook, you will find a PDF of the .pages document! Bingo! Copy and paste the content, and you should be good to go.

Posted at 1:04 PM by David Henderson | Category: Mac / OS X; Office 2007 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/5/2012

Decipher an unknown text file with Wintext

I had a user with a file that had a WPD extension. Normally, this would be a WordPerfect file that could easily be opened in Microsoft Office or Open Office or a myriad of other programs. Nothing worked. Instead, all we got was jibberish. I even tried zamzar.com to convert it to Word, and that produced garbage.

After searching the net, I found a program called "Wintext!" Wintext will take ANY file and extract any viable text from it. With that program, I was able to pull out the text the user needed.

The file can be had from here:

http://www.softoxi.com/download-wintext.html

Posted at 3:19 PM by David Henderson | Category: Office 2007; Troubleshooting; Windows (Any version/All versions) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/3/2012

Create expanded Announcements views WITHOUT Sharepoint Designer

I was having trouble with Announcements on one site: it kept cutting off the text. I searched for a "More..." solution where users could click "More..." to read the whole article, but came up empty. I know I have seen that somewhere, though.

In any case, I came up with another solution: Custom View.

First, go to the Announcements List you want to 'fix.'

Settings > List Settings > Create New View.
Name the view.
Choose items (Title with link to edit, body, created, etc).
Sort by Created.
Limit items to 5 or 6.
Save.

On the page with the webpart itself, modify the existing webpart then change the view to your new one. Viola!

Posted at 9:27 AM by David Henderson | Category: SharePoint - MOSS 2007 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/14/2011

Kill the "Error in SYSFADER.EXE" crash!

Sometimes, when visiting a web page, Internet Explorer will crash with some kind of "SYSFADER.EXE" error. Here are steps to prevent that from happening again:

First:

Open Task Manager (hold the CTRL+Shift+Delete)
Click Processes tab
Select Sysfader.exe process (if it is running)
Click End Process to kill Sysfader.exe (again, if it is running)

Second:

Open Internet Explorer
Click On Tools
Click Internet Options
Click the Advanced Tab
UNCHECK the box next to Enable Page Transitions
Click Apply
Click OK

Third:

Right-click On the Desktop
Select Properties
Click On Display Properties tab
Click the Appearance button.
Click On Effects
UNCHECK the box next to Page transition effects for menus (should be top-most item in list)
Click Apply
Click OK

Now you should be able to visit web pages without seeing that stupid SYSFADER.EXE error!

Posted at 11:32 AM by David Henderson | Category: Internet Explorer; Troubleshooting; Windows (Any version/All versions); Windows XP; Win7 or Vista | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/21/2011

Windows Moodle Email STARTTLS error - fixed!

The Windows Moodle package is a great, easy way to get Moodle up and running on a Windows machine. The downside? Setting up email is a pain in the rump. It didn't have to be.

The problem we had was one where the SMTP server would respond with "STARTTLS" errors. I spent a LOT of time editing my sendmail.ini file (and even installed the latest sendmail for Windows). Nothing would cure the problem.

I started poking around the Moodle forums, and while they are generally helpful for many things, the STARTTLS error is not one of them. However, *nix forums ARE helpful.. sorta.

In the Moodle directory on your Windows server, you need to edit the class.phpmailer.php file *in addition* to setting up sendmail as your mailer. Why? Who the heck knows. In any case, here is what is working for us, so I hope it helps you!

FIRST: MOODLE ADMIN

Site Administration > Plugins > Message Outputs > EMAIL
Type your SMTP host, username, password as needed (you NEED the SMTP host, the others may be optional based on YOUR mail handler/mail host. Google requires it)
Type noreply@yourdomain.com for the no-reply address. Substitute your REALY domain for the "yourdomain" part there!

SECOND: SENDMAIL

Download the latest SENDMAIL to your Moodle server and unzip it to X:\moodle\server\sendmail (substitute the actual driver letter for X there!)
On your server, go to your X:\moodle\server\sendmail folder
EDIT the sendmail.ini file:

smtp_port=25 (usually leave this as is)
smtp_ssl=auto (could specify TLS here)
auth_username=valid.user@yourdomain.com
auth_password=ValidUsersPa$$word
hostname=yourdomain.com

THIRD: PHPMAILER

Navigate to X:\moodle\server\moodle\lib\phpmailer on your server (again, substitue your actual location for X)
EDIT the class.phpmailer.php file (use WordPad)
SEARCH for TLS
A few lines down, edit the "SMTPSecure" line:

public $SMTPSecure = 'tls';

DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS FILE!!

FOURTH: PHP.INI

Navigate to X:\moodle\server\php
EDIT the php.ini file:

SMTP = yourmailserver.com
smtp_port = 25
sendmail_from = valid.user@yourdomain.com
sendmail_path = "X:\moodle\server\sendmail\sendmail.exe -t"

SAVE the file.

Once you have done these, you need to STOP MOODLE then START MOODLE in order for the system to take the changes.

Moodle email may not run by itself. You can use Task Scheduler in order to call the CRON.PHP page in your Moodle environment. Or you can use MoodleCron for Windows. Very easy to use!

NOTE: Use at your own risk. This worked for me. I hope it works for you, but I will not be held liable for anything that goes wrong with your server/environment/etc.

NOTE: The above steps may be a bit of overkill. Some steps may not be required in order to get email working in Moodle. I have not gone back to determine just which step(s) worked. Once it was fixed, I didn't break it again.

Posted at 11:08 AM by David Henderson | Category: Moodle | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/18/2011

RichCopy: Microsoft’s File Copy Gem

Microsoft had (or maybe still has) a command line utility called "RoboCopy" that would copy files and folders, retaining their permissions (within same domain/workgroup).

That has been replaced (some time ago actually) by a program called "RichCopy." It used to be an internal Microsoft program, but they released to the general public some time ago. I just came across it and thought I would share!

The program first needs to be put into Advanced Mode. Do this by clicking VIEW > ADVANCED.

After that, click the little gear to check out the settings:

The main area that most techie folks will want to explore is "File attributes, Error Handling" because that is where you can set the security/permissions settings. But, notice on this screen above, there is an option for "Directory Copy: 3." This indicates the number of threads that the program will use during the copying process! Yes, that's right, whatever number you specify in there, that's how many different files can be copied at the same time! Well, at least how many can be copying at the same time. For example, if you are copying 2,000 files and you specify "10" in the box, it will start to copy 10 files. If some of those files are large, then the program continues to copy those (using up a thread for each file) but will keep copying with any available threads! This beats the tar out of copying one file at a time! In my case, I had several 400MB files that started, all the while the program plugged away at the smaller files it was encountering. Theoretically, you could have 10 threads all running with a large file copying in each one. I ran into that on my own server. But, it did not take long to muscle through those and pick up copying smaller files at a flying pace.

The program is available from Microsoft: HERE!

Just run the EXE which will extract several files into a folder on your hard drive called "c:\HoffmanUtilitySpotlight" and in there, you run SETUP. Easy peasy.

I also turned off some of the errors that would stop the copying. If the program ran into a file that it couldn't copy, for example, I just wanted it to keep on truckin. I would deal with rogue files later.

Posted at 1:54 PM by David Henderson | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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