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34 Articles
10th May 2015
PeerblockSolutionsSteamTips and TricksToolsTroubleshootingWindows 7Windows 8

Steam is having trouble connecting to the Steam servers.

If you use Steam and  suddenly find yourself unable to connect receiving the error “Steam is having trouble connecting to the Steam servers.”, check and see if you have Peerblock installed and running. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out why the connections wouldn’t go through and finally went through apps running in the background one by one, until I closed Peerblock and discovered Steam suddenly started working. If you would like to continue to use Steam while Peerblock is open, follow these instructions for a workaround:

1. Start PeerBlock
2. Click List Manager
3. Click Add
4. Put something in the description like steam-allow
5. click add url and paste this: “http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=steam” (no quotes)
6. Choose type: allow
7. Click Ok then close the List Manager.

This will download a list that adds exceptions for Steam and should let you connect with no issues.

28th April 2015
JavaScriptProgramming

How to Get Browser Name and Version via JavaScript

Today I ran into a strange issue where Firefox version 28 and below rendered style widths different than Firefox 29 and above. Firefox 29 and above appear to have fixed the issue and render sizes to match Chrome/IE8+/Opera/Safari. Unfortunately, as old as Firefox 28 is, our client’s legal review team is stuck on that version as IT refuses to let them upgrade. As such, we needed to add a kludge fix to the site to add a style to fix the issue for those running older Firefox versions. JQuery removed the version support from version 1.9 so here’s a handy script that will allow you to detect the browser and version without any extra dependencies.

function get_browser_info(){
    var ua=navigator.userAgent,tem,M=ua.match(/(opera|chrome|safari|firefox|msie|trident(?=\/))\/?\s*(\d+)/i) || []; 
    if(/trident/i.test(M[1])){
        tem=/\brv[ :]+(\d+)/g.exec(ua) || []; 
        return {name:'IE ',version:(tem[1]||'')};
        }   
    if(M[1]==='Chrome'){
        tem=ua.match(/\bOPR\/(\d+)/)
        if(tem!=null)   {return {name:'Opera', version:tem[1]};}
        }   
    M=M[2]? [M[1], M[2]]: [navigator.appName, navigator.appVersion, '-?'];
    if((tem=ua.match(/version\/(\d+)/i))!=null) {M.splice(1,1,tem[1]);}
    return {
      name: M[0],
      version: M[1]
    };
 }

Usage is very simple:

var browser=get_browser_info();
console.log(browser.name);
console.log(browser.version);

BONUS: If you need to detect a specific version and add special classes, here’s a quick snippet that will allow you to add a class to the HTML tag  using plain old vanilla.js.

var browser=get_browser_info();
    if(browser.name == 'Firefox' && browser.version <= 28)
        {
            var root = document.documentElement;
            root.className += " firefox28";
        }

 

28th May 2014
AdministrationApplicationsMacOutlook 2011SolutionsTips and TricksTroubleshooting

Mac Outlook 2011 Reply All Includes My E-mail (with solution)

I’ve started a new job and was assigned a Macbook for my daily work. I’ve found equivalents for most of my applications. Personally, I find the native Mac apps are just extremely underpowered for my computing needs. I hate Mail especially, and even more so how all the apps are split out into separate apps. Luckily I have Office for Mac. Not so luckily, Outlook Mac 2011 is not as well designed as Outlook for Windows in so many ways.

One of the bugs I ran into was the “Reply All” bug where your e-mail is included in the CC field. It’s rather annoying having to choose from having to manually delete your address or having an extra e-mail to delete from your inbox.

The fix turned out to be rather simple for me. It turns out that Outlook for Mac isn’t very smart. It doesn’t seem to be able to tell which address you’re sending the e-mail from even though it’s doing the sending. When my account was initially setup, the company set it up with one of their subsidiary domains which was incorrect. Rather than creating a new inbox, they simply created an alias for the domain but never updated my configuration.

To fix the issue, do the following:

  1. Go to Tools -> Accounts.
  2. Ensure that your e-mail address field is set to match the address you are sending from.

My e-mail address had been set to the old one and still worked due to the aliasing. As soon as I updated the address to match the corrected domain, the reply all stopped including my e-mail address.

 

17th February 2013
AdministrationSoftwareSolutionsTips and TricksToolsTroubleshootingUtilitiesWindowsWindows 7

TrustedInstaller.EXE CPU Usage

Solution 1: Clear Problem History

The following fix is intended for situations where trustedinstaller.exe causes problems due to the Problem Reports and Solutions history maintained in Windows Vista.

  1. Go to Start and then select Control Panel.
  2. Turn on Classic View.
  3. Select Problem Reports and Solutions.
  4. Click Clear Solution and Problem History in the left panel.
  5. Confirm your decision.
  6. Exit the Problems Reports and Solutions Window and Control Panel.

You can also click Change in the Problems Reports and Solutions Window. And then change the configuration from Check for solutions automatically setting to Ask me to check if a problem occurs.

Solution 2: Change Microsoft Update Startup Settings to Manual

  1. Go to Start and then select Control Panel.
  2. Select Administrative Tools and then select Services.
  3. Scroll down to Microsoft Update, right-click on it and then select Stop.
  4. Right-click on Microsoft Update again and select Properties.
  5. On the General tab, set Startup type as Manual.
  6. Next, display the Recovery tab.
  7. Choose Take No Action and click OK for First Failure.
  8. Exit the properties dialog box.
  9. Bring up your Task Manager by pressing on Ctrl + Alt  + Del or Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
  10. On the Processes tab, look for and select trustedinstaller.exe.
  11. Click End process to kill trustedinstaller.exe.

Solution 3: Disable Automatic Update

  1. Go to Start and then select Control Panel.
  2. Go to System and Maintenance.
  3. Click Turn automatic update on or off option.
  4. Next, depending on your preference choose one of the following options:
    • Never check for updates (not recommended)
    • Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them
    • Download updates but let me choose whether to install them
  5. Click OK to save your changes and exit the dialog box.

Solution 4: Stop the Windows Module Installer That Runs Trustedinstaller.exe

  1. Click on Start, in the Start Search box, type msconfig and then press Enter.
  2. Click Continue when User Account Control prompt is displayed.
  3. In the System Configuration window that is displayed, open the Services tab.
  4. Locate and clear the Windows Module Installer check box.
  5. Click OK save your changes and exit the dialog box.
  6. Next, open Services window again and change the Startup type of Windows Module Installer to Manual.

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