Anthony Curreri: IT Solutions

Windows Media Player just doesn’t have the chops for this task. You’re going to have to install a better video player. Don’t worry, it’s free!

1. Install VLC Media Player: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
2. Open VLC
3. Load the video file by clicking on the Media drop down, the Open File
4. Click the Tools drop down, then Preferences
5. Click ‘Video’ on the left.
6. In the last box ‘Video Snapshots’ it lists the directory where captured images will go. Take note of this directory or change it to be whatever you wish.
7. Play the video.
8. At the moment you wish to capture an image, click the Video drop down, then click Snapshot.
9. Go to that directory we saw in preferences, and Robert’s your mother’s brother! Images!

When trying to play a Blu-ray in Cyberlink PowerDVD and you get the following error:

Warning

Cannot initialize secure display session – (Error Code = 0122) You may try the following resolution to solve the problem.

1. Incompatible graphics driver. Please make sure your graphics drivr meets the minimum requirement criteria. (More information can be found from Cyberlink FAQ Website)
2. Do not use dual-monitor to playback this movie (Clone Mode)

Please run the BD/HD Advisor tool for more information.

You probably have two outputs on your video card. One is HDMI, and the other is a VGA output, also known as the PC output. Right now, your video card is configured to display on both outputs.

If you have an NVIDIA display adapter and are running Windows Vista, here is how to turn off ‘Clone’.

1. Right click anywhere on the background
2. Click ‘NVIDIA Control panel’
3. Click ‘Set up multiple displays’ in the left column
4. Under 1. Choose the nView display mode to use, select ‘Only use one display (Single)’
5. Under 2. Select the display you would like to use, select the monitor that is connected to your HDMI output. In this case, I selected ‘Sony TV XV (2 of 2)’.
6. Click ‘Apply’.
7. The screen will blank out for a second, this is necessary because we are reconfiguring the screen.

Now play your Blu-ray movie!

First, create the tables in your new Postgres database. I used a program called Navicat. You should create the tables by hand because the field types are different in MySQL and Postgres.

Use the following command to get mysqldump to create a dump file of the database that you can upload. You can also use Navicat to run the script.

mysqldump databasename tablename -v --compatible=ansi,postgresql --complete-insert=TRUE --extended-insert=FALSE --compact --default-character-set=UTF8 -u username -p -r “c:\shares\postgres.sql”

As a regular user, or as root if you leave off the sudo bits:

sudo yum -y install postgresql postgresql-server php-pgsql
sudo /sbin/chkconfig postgresql on
sudo /sbin/service postgresql start

This is setting up the postgres user. Enter a password you’ll remember when prompted.

sudo passwd postgres

After this command, enter that password again. Now you’ll be logged in as the new postgres user.

su – postgres
psql
create user gpsdata;
create database gpsdata owner gpsdata;
control+d

The following makes it possible to access the database from another computer.

vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf
add the line:
listen_addresses=’*’

vi /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf
add the line:
host all all 192.168.3.0/24 trust

control+d
sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart

Now you’ve just got to open port 5432 on your firewall.

sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables
add the line:
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 5432 -j ACCEPT

sudo /etc/init.d/iptables restart

Normally, I just:

sudo yum check-update
sudo yum update
sudo reboot

Note: A reboot might not be necessary depending on what you are updating.

If yum is having problems resolving some dependencies, or you get the error: “[Errno -1] Metadata file does not match checksum”, try running the command below, then re-running the commands above.

sudo yum clean all

If a “yum clean all” doesn’t fix it, it might be that your satellite server just needs to re-sync with RedHat’s servers. Wait a day and try it again.

If the your system is having trouble communicating with the Red Hat server, you probably need to:

sudo /usr/sbin/rhnreg_ks --force --activationkey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

For University of Washington, XXX can be found here.

1. Select the data on the sheet. Note that I had to click the first, hold shift then click the last. Selecting the entire column didn’t work.
2. Right click, then click Copy.
3. Right click, click Paste Special, make sure Transpose is checked.

First, you have to download and install Windows Media Encoder. Then go into your Windows Firewall and check the box next to Media Encoder to allow people to connect to your computer as a media server.

Broadcasting Video using Windows Media Encoder

1. Open Windows Media Encoder on your PC: Click Start / All Programs / Media / Windows Media Encoder / Windows Media Encoder.
2. Double-click ‘Broadcast a live event’.
3. Hopefully the defaults are fine. You might need to change the audio and video drop downs to be your webcam or capture card. Click Next.
4. Make sure the ‘Pull from the encoder’ radio button is selected. Click Next.
5. Make sure ‘HTTP port’ is ‘8080’ Click Next. (you can choose another port, just substitute it in the link below)
6. Select the Bit Rate. If many parties are going to connect, or any parties have a slow connection use a lower bit rate. Click Next.
7. Set archive settings if you want to save a copy, otherwise click Next.
8. Make sure the ‘No, I want to encode…’ radio is selected. Click Next.
9. Click Next, then Finish.

Receiving the Broadcast on a client PC

1. Open Windows Media Player
2. Right click the Title Bar
3. Click File / Open URL
4. Enter: http://mediaserveripaddress:8080/ For example: http://192.168.1.20:8080/.

When trying to download a file that is auto-generated on the fly by a PHP script I wrote that sends excel headers, Internet Explorer users were getting the error:

Windows Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer cannot download [filename] from [website].
Internet Explorer was not able to open this Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later.

This is caused by doing a session_start(). If you don’t actually need a the session in your php file you can remove it, and IE users will be able to download whatever your PHP script is making. The problem is session_start() by default sends a cache control header including “no-store”. Internet Explorer has a bug with sending a cache header.

If you need the session, then before session_start(), add “session_cache_limiter(’none’);”

Problem solved!

I had a Windows XP computer with an HP 1020 printer that would suddenly not print. The Printers and Faxes window was empty. If you go into the Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services and right-click Print Spooler, you’ll see the option to start is available, because the service is stopped. When I started the service, the printers appeared again but the service would stop again before I could do anything else.

In the event viewer, you’ll see the following error message:

Event ID 7031 or 7034
The Print Spooler service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

OR

Event ID 1004
Faulting application spoolsv.exe, version 5.1.2600.5512, faulting module ZSR.DLL, version 6.20.1625.0, fault address 0×0001f979.

First, I installed the hotfix here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953546. This didn’t seem to work, but I can’t believe that what I did next was all that was required to solve the problem.

1. Unplug the USB connection to the local printer, in this case an HP Deskjet 1020.
2. Restart the computer
3. The printers now show up, because the Print Spooler has stopped terminating unexpectedly!
4. Two printers had jobs in the queue, the unplugged local printer and a network printer. Clear all the print queues.
5. Reconnect the USB connection.
6. Restart, print stuff, everything should be working normally!

Let me know via comment or the contact tab at the top if this doesn’t solve your problem.

Update: Problem did return. I did the unplug the HP 1020’s usb connection trick to make the printers show up, deleted the old driver, and installed a new driver from HP. Seems to be working now.

UPDATE 2: Problem did return, again! I have applied two changes, and now the printer has been working for some time. Probably you only need to do one of these two things, but I haven’t taken the time to test which is the actual fix. If you figure it out, please post a comment!

First thing to try: (the likely fix) Bypass the Print Spooler.

The crappy HP printer driver is causing the print spooler to crash, so don’t have that printer use the printer spooler. You will notice that the application that is printing will “hang” or display a print dialog longer than normal with this change. Not ideal, but better to have a working printer, right?

1. Click Start, Printers and Faxes.
2. Right-click the HP 1020 printer, click “Properties.”
3. Click the “Advanced” tab.
4. Click the “Print Processor” button.
5. Make sure “ZimfPrint” is highlighted on the left, and “RAW” is highlighted on the right.
6. Click OK.
7. Click the Radio button for “Print directly to the printer.”
8. Click OK.

You have completed the first thing to try. I did both of these things, though as I’ve said that may not be necessary…

Thing Two: Disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention)

1. Right-click “My Computer,” click “Properties.”
2. Click the “Advanced” tab.
3. Click the “Settings” button under Performance.
4. Click the “Data Execution Prevention” tab.
5. Click the radio button for: “Turn on DEP for all Programs Execept those I select:”
6. Select the HP Laserjet 1020 Series Status Application by clicking “Add…” and browsing for: “c:\windows\system32\ZSHP1020.exe.”
7. Also select the “Spooler SubSystem App.” If it is not already listed, click “Add…” and browse to “C:\Windows\System32\spoolsv.exe”
8. Also select the “Windows Explorer.” If it is not already listed, click “Add…” and browse to “C:\Windows\explorer.exe”
9. Click “OK” twice.

Done! Reboot the computer, make sure your printer is plugged in, and send things to print to the printer. Now, you should be print-problem free!