Hijinks Inc.

Category: Microsoft

  • MS Paint + Notepad

    I mentioned in my last post that I’d designed a basic website using nothing but MS Paint and Notepad. To expand upon that, the site is PHP driven, the only reason for that is I wanted to make the entire thing modular, as such the site is broken down into the following files:

    1. header.php
    2. menu.php
    3. page.php
    4. footer.php

    Where page.php is actually index.php, photos.php, etc. depending on the page you’re accessing and it includes the call functions for header.php, menu.php, and footer.php (in that order). That way if I want to add a link to the menu I can just edit menu.php and have the entire site update automatically.

    The site currently uses 14 CSS classes, the main reasons it takes so many is the menu formatting and the additional classes for skinning the RSS feed from FeedBurner. If I end up using the template for longer than a few weeks I may try and cut down on the style sheet size just a bit.

    Oh, and the site is actually written in 100% valid XHTML!

  • Windows XP Won’t Recognize CD Drive

    Recently someone approached me with a question about their CD drive, basically Windows XP wasn’t recognizing it, it would only show up in the device manager with the following error message…

    The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device (Code 31).

    Uninstalling and reinstalling the drive yields the same result. I finally managed to track it down to a leftover registry value from when they’d removed some disc burning software.

    You might give the following steps a try if you’re having similar difficulties.

    Step 1:
    Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

    Step 2:
    In the Registry Editor, expand My Computer, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
    Expand SYSTEM, then expand CurrentControlSet.
    Expand Control, then expand Class.
    Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
    In the right hand pane, select UpperFilters.
    With the UpperFilters entry selected, press the delete button on your keyboard
    It will ask you “Are you sure you want to delete this value?”, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the registry entry.

    Step 3:
    In the right hand pane, select LowerFilters.
    With the LowerFilters entry selected, press the delete button on your keyboard
    It will ask you “Are you sure you want to delete this value?”, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the registry entry.

    Exit the Registry Editor and reboot.

    Following these steps may result in your current burning software no longer working, to fix this just reinstall it. If you use the built in Windows burning utility, just uninstall and reinstall the CD drive from the device manager.

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  • Spybot Pwns Your Windows Firewall

    Yes, I did just use the word “pwns” in the title of my post… blame it on the fact I’m typing this on my iPhone since Apple has my computer for the next week.

    So apparently Spybot has a nasty habit of taking away your ability to disable your Windows Firewall, go figure, so now when you go to disable it, the disable option is grayed out and cannot be selected.

    Here’s how to disable it manually:

    Click Start

    Hit Run

    Type services.msc

    Once it opens, find the entry marked “Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing [ICS]” and right-click on it and hit Stop.

    Now right-click on it again, and select Properties.

    On the General tab change the Startup Type to Disabled. Click Ok.

    And there you have it, no more Windows Firewall. Of course I would recommend installing another firewall solution after disabling the Windows Firewall, but that’s your call.

  • iTunes Error -9808

    A friend of mine suddenly couldn’t access the iTunes Store after upgrading to the latest version, every time he tried to purchase something he kept getting the following error:

    “We could not complete your iTunes store request,an unknown error occurred (-9808)”

    I couldn’t find anything online about it, so here’s how we fixed it under Windows XP. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Internet Options -> Advanced Tab, make sure that both the SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 options are checked. Then under Security make sure that the “Check for server certificate revocation (requires restart)” is unchecked. Then click ok, restart and fire up iTunes.

  • How I feel about Vista

    Windows Vista

    Sign the petition to save Windows XP!