Can't update Skype

What a pain

Control panel was useless so I dumped all of the files in the Skype directory, cleaned out the registry and it still didn't work.
Fortuneatly a very clever person wrote SRT.exe which came from here

Rowenta DG9040 vapour cord & power cable replacement

Disclaimer: This is not a step by step guide but it does highlight some of the tricky bits. If you're not competent to work on this kind of thing then don't.

The iron comes apart fairly easily, I used a thin table knife to prise the front off. Incidentally this shows how to use a cocktail stick to align the nozzle with the hole in the front plate during reassembly

I removed the hose which was a bit of a pain and I wouldn't do it again. Leave the hose on and remove the top bit as below. Ease out the black and yellow microswitch and rotate it between the blackbars on the right because it will be tugged backwards as you pull back the main trigger microswitch in a few lines time.

There's a gap which allows the top bit to be rotated and eased forward

Then the handle assembly can be removed from the soleplate

Undo the cable grip at the back end

Unclip the cable pivot

Pull on the brown and black leads to the microswitch under the main trigger and the microswitch will slide backwards. Be careful to guide the black and yellow front microswitch through the black bars mentioned earlier.

Remove all cabling and unclip the steam tube.

If this falls out

Not to worry, it fits back here

The steam generator uses T20 anti tamper screws. I only have a bit in that size so I cut a slot in it and used a plain screwdriver for the deep screws

Remove all cabling and unclip the steam tube.

The cable cores and tubing need trimming to match the old one at both ends. The white connector and the terminals for the iron end come with the kit although you need to reuse the neon and the short brown lead below

When you've connected the leads to the main trigger microswitch, push it forward until it clicks and twiddle the black and yellow front microswitch back into position. It fits both ways but will only work with the button as shown

Nothing was supplied for the steam generator end so I reused the old connector. Joints staggered, soldered

and finished off with insulating tape

Reassemble the cable like this.

Note the earth lead going off to the right.

It plugs into that blue box and the spade is larger than the others, both sizes are provided

The power cable had previously been damaged so this was a good time to replace it

There are three tabs in the centre of the drum, depress and separate drum parts.

I reused the 90° connectors in the centre of the drum and soldered them

This shows the slots that the aforementioned tabs fit into

I couldn't find any guidance as to the length of cable so I wound on as much as possible.

It took 2150 mm of 1.25 mm², note that the original is 1.0 mm² and it's 450 mm too long

If you reuse any spades make sure they're tight

A T20 anti tamper screwdriver is recommended

The terminals are best made off with a proper crimping tool although I used a mini Mole grip

Parts supplied in a couple of days by Belstar Electrics

Update

The cable failed here, more or less at the entry point to the generator casing

Greenalade

Following on from last year

Due to the shortage of Яuislip oranges in Seville I had to wing it

with 

a grapefruit

a lime

three Ippolito oranges

638g jam sugar

362g Demerara sugar

This time I put the peel into a vacuum flask, added 300ml boiling water and left it overnight. It still had a little too much bite so it went into a jug in the microwave, five minutes on full then left to cool before mixing everything together in a big pan for the final boil.

It was a bit too sweet so I added the juice of three lemons.

Sampled two days later, splendid, Mrs Cooper would've been chuffed

Photoshop script for continuous Facebook cover and profile images

Facebook cover images are 851 x 315 pixels.
Profile images are 180 x 180.

If you copy the Facebook page and measure the cover image it's 851 x 315 but the profile is 160 x 160. It's also 336 high to the bottom of the profile.

So, start with an image 851 *18/16 = 957  x  336*18/16 = 378

Crop out the profile 180 x 180
Restore the original
Resize to 851 width
Crop out top 851 x 315

or copy the script below into a text file called Rolands_FBtrick.jsx and save it with the Photoshop scripts
in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Presets\Scripts

Next time Photoshop is started it will be available to run

It's not quite perfect but unless you're aligning grooves on a gramophone record it'll probably be good enough.

This darkening gradient is added to the cover image by the Facebook system

I'm saving that for another day

To get the profile to match the cover, add this gradient as the top layer, scale so it covers the whole image and set blend mode to darken.

=======copy script after here=======

/*
CS2 Script to produce Cover & Profile images for Facebook from an original which must be 957 x 378 pixels or it will be resized. Output files default to the source folder and _Profile & _Cover are appended to the names. Jpeg quality is 60. Edit as required below
If you want to match the gradient on the profile image, set it as the top layer and select it before running the script.
*/
var NewW=957; NewH=378; FBW=851; FBH=315; //don't have to be global but they're easier to edit here

function SaveForWeb(Suffix) {
  if (stopflag){return false;}
  try {
      Piccy.path;
    }
  catch(err) {
      alert('Please save the image and try again');
      stopflag=true;
      return false;
  }
var JpegQuality = 60; // <<<<=========== edit jpeg quality between 0 & 100

if (Suffix=='Profile') {
      Destn=Folder(app.activeDocument.path).selectDlg("Choose folder to save the files and click OK. Default is the original folder\n\nJpeg quality is "+JpegQuality);
    }
if (Destn==null){
  stopflag=true;
  return false;
}

//-----------------Use 2nd line below if you always want to save to the original folder and avoid the dialog
Filename=File(Destn + "/" + Piccy.name.slice(0, Piccy.name.length-4) + "_" + Suffix + ".jpg");
//  Filename=File(Piccy.path + "/" + Piccy.name.slice(0, Piccy.name.length-4) + "_" + Suffix + ".jpg");
//-----------------
  if(Filename.exists){
    var Warning=Filename.toString();
    Warning= Warning.slice(3, Warning.length);
    if(!confirm(Warning + " already exists\n\nDo you want to replace it?")){
      stopflag=true;
      return false;
    }
    Filename.remove();
  }
  var sfwOptions = new ExportOptionsSaveForWeb();
    sfwOptions.format = SaveDocumentType.JPEG;
    sfwOptions.includeProfile = true;
    sfwOptions.interlaced = 0;
    sfwOptions.optimized = true;
    sfwOptions.quality = JpegQuality;
  Piccy.exportDocument(Filename, ExportType.SAVEFORWEB, sfwOptions);
}

function main(){
  if (documents.length==0){alert('No image open'); return false;}
  Piccy=app.activeDocument;
  var savedState = Piccy.activeHistoryState; //save original
  var userPrefUnits = app.preferences.rulerUnits; // in case units aren't pixels
  if (userPrefUnits !== Units.PIXELS){app.preferences.rulerUnits = Units.PIXELS;} //change to pixels & reinstate at the end
  if (Piccy.width !== NewW & Piccy.height !== NewH){Piccy.resizeImage(NewW,NewH,null,ResampleMethod.BICUBICSHARPER);}
// bounds are left, top, right, bottom -ScriptListener order is Top, Left, Btom, Rght
//var bounds = [23, 198, 203, 378]; // values from ScriptListener
  var bounds = [22, 199, 202, 379];
  Piccy.crop(bounds);
  SaveForWeb("Profile");
  Piccy.activeHistoryState = savedState;
  app.activeDocument.activeLayer.visible = false;
  Piccy.resizeImage(FBW,null,null,ResampleMethod.BICUBICSHARPER);
  bounds = [0, 0, 851, 315];
  Piccy.crop(bounds);
  SaveForWeb("Cover");
  if(userPrefUnits !== Units.PIXELS){app.preferences.rulerUnits = userPrefUnits;}
  Piccy.activeHistoryState = savedState;
}
var stopflag=false;
var Piccy;
var Destn;
main();

do us a favour

Remember this?

if you get this could you please reply?
this is a new email thingy that I have set up to use a contact form on Julias website but yahoo and gmail have sophisticated antispam precautions which rejects unauthorised emails. I have managed to become a "permitted sender"  which works for email to yahoo but it'd be nice to check others.
It's a right pita, I'm not yet approved for the contact form but softly, softly....
It's called NoReply cos if I ever get it to work the account will be reset to reject all incoming emails but at the moment it's a regular email address
ta

ps not to bother if it gets blocked ;-)
ps2 Julia thinks I'm nuts

Thanks to all who replied, these are the responses:

• AOL
  This is the Spam Firewall at host mail-gw.unlimitedwebhosting.co.uk.
  I'm sorry to inform you that the message below could not be delivered.
  When delivery was attempted, the following error was returned.
  <name@aol.com>: host mailin-04.mx.aol.com[64.12.88.131] said: 521 5.2.1 :
  AOL will not accept delivery of this message. (in reply to end of DATA command)
• outlook.com
  here's the reply mate.   No idea what you're talking about and Julia's right.   You're barking.
• google.com
  Yeah it worked.
  Yeah your nuts 😉
  Xx.
• westhaddon.net (via mout.kundenserver.de, blacklist checker I think)
  I thought it was spam - and you are nuts!  :0)
• homie.mail.dreamhost.com
  Landed OK in my inbox - sorry about the shoddy reply time!
• outlook.com
  Assuming you've not totally broken cPanel, maybe you'll get this?
• smtp2.cali.co.uk
  gottit.

So as a webmaster I'm not even a webapprentice

Part 2

The contact form is working now thanks to a very helpful chap at unlimitedwebhosting, hereinafter referred to as UWH, and it sends messages to me and back to the sender if requested, apart from to AOL. So I went onto AOL.com and found a link to click to apply to be able to send emails to them. Chrome’s hijacked the mailto thingy so I copied the link and sent it from blueyonder. Shortly afterwards I realised that I probably should’ve sent it from the address on UWH. Anyway, the reply arrived and guess what?

Yep, straight in the spam trap

So I sent another one from noreply, received the response and followed the instructions. You have to telnet in from the mail server which is a bit of an impossibility so I telneted in from here and the connection kept dropping out. Last bit to fill in was

Comments or Notes (Optional)

it's all too hard, the only losers will be AOL clients whilst you still have some

<telex>bi</telex>

Bitter or what?

I might continue this, on the other hand I might not, on the other hand as a metallurgist might've once said...........

I have a Ticket-ID:817640 from AOL which sort of implies that almost a million people have had some sort of problem over the years

btw, I have been using email since before the internet. Yep, the good ol' days of Compuserve which was bought by AOL.....

Then the internet arrived and you could get into it through Compuserve via the Spry Mosaic thingy, later known as a browser, if you had the patience and enough pennies for the 'phone call

to be continued, possibly but probably not

Just one last thing, AOL accepts emails directly from noreply but not those generated by the contact form

Game over

Windows Live Mail, POP3 > IMAP, transferring folders and other neuroses

In days of yore you'd set up your email program to send messages through an SMTP server and receive them from a POP3 server. Nowadays with mobile 'phones there is another (™©® A.R.T) protocol called IMAP which allows simultaneous connections and lots of clever stuff.
The POP3 system was good as it allowed for automatic deletion of messages from the server after you'd received them.
A while ago, virginmedia.com implemented the IMAP protocol and the automatic POP deletion no longer worked so it meant logging on through a web browser occasionally to delete the clutter; this was also the only way to check the spam trap, so I decided to setup IMAP access.
All well and good until I tried to move the forty odd folders from one account to another, err you can't.
Windows Live Mail, hereinafter referred to as WLM,  has a Folders tab where you can do ⁵/₈ of bugger all.

The thought of creating another 40 folders and moving all the files wasn't all that appealing and then I realised that I didn't want to do that at all.

So archive stuff needs to go under the Storage Folders and not in the same area as before or they'll all be copied to the email server. Anyway, you still can't move them unless you cheat.

Close WLM if it's running.

This week, WLM stores the messages here:

C:\Users\Roland\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\

so open that location in Windows Explorer and find your email account, in my case it's Blueyonder. d3a

Open that and copy the folders you cherish to a safe location, then copy them all from there to:

C:\Users\Roland\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Storage Folders

and here's a couple by way of an example.

Start WLM and have another look, you'll now see these two in the storage area

But there's more. Go back to Windows Explorer and you'll see this

Do all file copying with WLM dead or, better still, get a twelve year old to do it for you.

Time for a pint

Can Blogger handle PHP?

'; if (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'obile') !== FALSE) { echo 'It\'s a mobile
'; }else{echo 'It\'s a pc
';} ?>


I'll take that as a 'no' then